How To Bulk Up Without Getting Fat: The Definitive Guide

This article outlines how to bulk up efficiently by maintaining a caloric surplus on weight training days and an even caloric intake on non-weight training days to minimize the amount of fat you’ll gain.

Besides the high of breaking through plateaus, bulking up is the best thing about working out. It means you get to eat more than you need and if you cheat a little bit on your diet it’s ok. With that said the downside is that when you put on muscle you also put on fat (unless you’re on steroids).

How To Bulk

What You Need

  • What gets measured gets managed so to bulk up effectively you need to count calories
  • The next thing you need to do is find your daily caloric requirement
  • To get your daily caloric requirement plug your stats into the calculator here
  • Find your strength training ranking here
  • Understand that a pound of weight is 3500 calories
  • Once you have your daily caloric requirement and your strength training ranking, plug them into the corresponding formula below

Formulas

  • Formulas assume you lift twice a week and are divided by rank because a novice lifter will gain muscle much faster than an elite lifter so they should eat accordingly
  • Formulas assume that on off days you’re eating your maintenance level of calories, if you’re doing cardio, then up your caloric intake accordingly

Novice

  • On Days: (Daily Caloric Requirement) + 750 calories = Total Caloric Intake Per Day
  • Off Days: (Daily Caloric Requirement) = Total Caloric Intake Per Day
  • Approximate Weight Gain Per Month: 1.71 lbs. (6000 cals)

Intermediate

  • On Days: (Daily Caloric Requirement) + 500 calories  = Total Caloric Intake Per Day
  • Off Days: (Daily Caloric Requirement) = Total Caloric Intake Per Day
  • Approximate Weight Gain Per Month: 1.14 lbs. (4000 cals)

Advanced/Elite

  • On Days: (Daily Caloric Requirement) + 218.75 calories  = Total Caloric Intake Per Day
  • Off Days: (Daily Caloric Requirement) = Total Caloric Intake Per Day
  • Approximate Weight Gain Per Month:  .5 lbs. (1750 cals)

Diet

  • I like this method because I just follow my standard diet (or try to) and add a cheat meal on top of my lifting days
  • You can follow any diet you want as long as you get the right amount of calories, it’s simple and it works