Clean Bulking But Still Fat
So you’re clean bulking hey? So why are you fat? 🤷🏽♂️.
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So the premise of a dirty bulk is that you eat calorie dense foods (basically whatever you want), gain weight rapidly in a hope to gain muscle along with it. Very old school method, well and truly out dated.
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These days the more common used method is a clean bulk (eating in a surplus using highly nutritious foods), and people tend to wear that like a badge of honour. “I’m going to stay lean and do a clean bulk, take it slow”...lol yeah right 😂. Yet we still see the same outcome as the dirty bulk, people just getting fat.
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The issue doesn’t lie in your choice of food, your issue lies in the quantity. If you eat an extra 2000 calories at Maccas or you eat an extra 2000 calories from butter, chicken, rice and veggies it’s still a 2000 calories surplus. Yes one will provide a lot more nutrients, but from a fat gain perspective it is still a unnecessary surplus.
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You want to first of all be lean first and then secondly you want to bulk on as little food as possible. When setting someone’s calories for a bulk I will generally range from a 5-10% surplus above maintenance depending on the person and how they respond. The biggest thing for me is time. Give yourself adequate time to bulk, to many people try rush a bulk, thinking they can rush muscle growth and in the end just rush fat gain.
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Then they’ve gotta put themselves through hell to get the fat off. Which isn’t the biggest issue if again you’ve got ample time up your sleeve. But I often see people try do this by a deadline or in between shows trying to drastically change their bodies. All they end up doing is rapidly gaining fat, and then to meet their deadline they have to aggressively diet down losing a good chunk of the muscle they just tried to put on, begging the question what was the point in the bulk in the first place or what is the point in competing again so soon? 🤔 .
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