How to bulk and cut?

dubh laoch

Hi all,


To make a long story short, I lost a couple of kilos a few years ago in pursuit of abs which I got. I pursued my goal in a misinformed way though and in the process lost a fair bit of muscle mass as well.

I am currently lifting weights 2-3 times a week and also have one or two cardio sessions a week as well. My arms are quite skinny in comparison to my torso due to my past weight loss. Although I am skinny I still have had no joy in getting a toned stomach.

My question is: how do you bulk and cut? I presume that I need to eat more to gain more weight to build up my arms and get bigger. How many extra calories should I take in per day?

Once I have hit a certain build how do I cut?

Also, over what time span should I go bulking and cutting for?

My current stats are: Male, Height: 5.9/5.10 ft Weight: 70/71kgs

Sample Diet:

Breakfast: Porridge with frozen fruit

Snack: Half a litre of low fat milk

Lunch: Tuna and veg, fillet of chicken and veg, other protein and veg

Snack: Half litre of low fat milk

Dinner: Protein and Veg

Also have a half bar or so of chocolate per day i.e. a dairy milk. I chew a lot of gum as well.

Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions!

newmug

Bump! I'd be interested in this aswell!

top madra

This is just a quick answer, I suggest you google Lyle McDonald or Alan Aragon and read up on nutrition..

This is me, you will be different so don't copy me but it will give you a idea..

Bulk 3300cals
maintenance 2800cals
cut 2300

If I'm bulking I eat 3300 cals a day until I reach my goal or if I'm starting to put on too much fat, eg. 16/17% bf..
I will cut back to 2300 cals a day until I reach my goal again (then rinse and repeat)

Its best IMO after your bulk to go to maintenance cals (2800) for 2weeks before cutting to give your body a chance to adapt or vice versa after cut..

If I'm happy with the results I try to eat 2800cals (maintenance) all year round

Hope this clears a few things up for you..

jugger0

Start eating eggs with your porridge and switch to full fat milk. I have never done a proper bulk/cut but have gained 15 kilos without having to cut by eating good clean food and training my ass off, dont do a dreamer bulk anyway... 500 calories over maintenance is more then enough for growth.

newmug

How do you figure out maintenance? I've been the same weight for the last two years, but some days I dont eat at all, other days I eat a lot. Also exercise wise, its hard to know how many calories you would use in a session.

marathonic

If you're looking to bulk and then cut, you have two options.

You can read the nutrition stickies (post 3 has a link to calculate your maintenance calories), work out your maintenance calories, add 500 to that daily and continue to lift weights.

Alternatively, you can eat what you currently eat, continue to lift weights and weigh yourself in two weeks. Then do the following:

• If you have lost weight, add 750 calories to your daily intake
• If you have maintained weight, add 500 calories to your daily intake
• If you have gained up to 2lbs in the fortnight, continue as you are doing
• If you have gained more than 2lbs, reduce 250 calories from your daily intake

Then repeat the above process fortnightly until you consistently fall into the third category. You'll probably need to track calories initially but, after a month or so, you'll have a good idea by just guessing. To track calories, you can use fitday.com or any of the associated smartphone apps.

Make sure you get sufficient protein and try to make your calories from good sources - for example, your carbs in the morning should be from porrige as opposed to from a scone or toast.

If you do the above, you could expect to be about 10lb heavier in three months -at a guess, this could be about 3lb fat and 7lb muscle.

At that point, continue to eat enough protein/lift weights and do the above process in reverse until you are losing 1-2lbs weekly. If you do this for a month, you should be able to maintain the muscle whilst losing the 3lb fat you gained and an additional 4lb of fat that you already have.

The above, if done right, would leave you weighing 3lbs heavier but with 4lbs less fat.

Of course, your results may vary depending on your genetics and, more importantly, how consistent you are with your training and diet.

That's the theory anyway - this is the year I'll be more consistent in putting that into practice.

ApeXaviour

To expand on some details:

When you're cutting the idea is to maintain, or even increase your protein intake. 2-3g per kilo of lean body mass (i.e if you're 75kg and 15% BF you'd be looking to get ~160g) of protein per day. This will strongly discourage muscle atrophy, and increase fat-loss as a proportion of weightloss.

Also when cutting it's usually preferable limit carbs more than fat and avoid sugar. This will keep your blood sugar steady and your insulin low, you don't need it, you're not looking to promote anabolism but rather the flow of free fatty acids. It'll also help reduce the strong hunger pangs that can occur some time after an insulin spike (think 2 hours after eating rice from the chinese).

When bulking you're can be much more loose with what you're eating, though avoiding fructose (it's 50% of table sugar) is again usually advised. Try to keep your carb sources glucose based. Starch (from bread/potatoes/rice etc) breaks down to glucose. Ovaltine and even beer have maltose (glucose-based) carbs. In terms of sweets/minerals, lucozade sport is glucose based and some jellys are mostly glucose syrup... though these high "GI" carbs are probably better left to just before or after some heavy lifting.

newmug wrote:

exercise wise, its hard to know how many calories you would use in a session.

Don't bother trying, you probably burn half the calories you use at the gym just by existing while there. Workout your BMR as a guide, then multiply by the factor depending on how active you are. This post will help you with that, but bear in mind it's just a starting point, there are too many factors at play to expect real accuracy. So adjust as you see the scales changing (averaged over the course of a week or two).

top madra wrote:

I suggest you google Lyle McDonald or Alan Aragon and read up on nutrition..

+1 on this. Martin Berkhan is pretty respectable in the field too, though he appears to have gone round the bend a bit of late... his website/blog is still a top notch reference.