Bulking Up Then Dieting Down: Good or Bad? Traditionally,
bodybuilding training and nutrition has been divided into bulking and
cutting phases. Both phases use extreme approaches, although the
strategy used is the opposite: when you're in a bulking phase the
objective is to get big without really concerning yourself with fat
gain. During that phase you eat as much food as you can
handle (some even recommend force-feeding yourself) and don't perform
any cardio or physical activity that might slow down your weight gain.
Success in that type of phase is normally measured by the increase in
scale weight, without much regard to appearance. The
reasoning is that you'll be able to diet off the fat afterward. Then
you start a cutting phase in which the objective is to shed as much fat
as possible. To do this, calories are drastically restricted and cardio
or other physical activity is increased to speed up the fat loss
process. During the bulking phase you gain a lot of weight
and (supposedly) muscle, while during the cutting phase you starve off
the fat and keep (again, supposedly) the muscle you gained. On paper it
looks great. However, there are several problems with that approach: Problem #1:
As I mentioned earlier, you can't force your body to add more muscle
simply by eating more. Once you reach a point where you're giving your
body as many nutrients as it can use to build muscle (the limit rate
permitted by its natural biological properties), simply adding more
food won't lead to more muscle growth. Instead it'll lead to an
increase in weight in the form of body fat. Problem #2: For
a natural trainee, it's virtually impossible to lose a significant
amount of fat while gaining muscle. That's one thing you can be sure
of: when you're cutting calories to lose fat, you won't add muscle. In
fact, in most cases you'll lose some muscle in the process. So the time
spent on shedding the fat you gained during your bulking season (an
amount of fat that's much larger than most people believe) is a period
of time where you won't be able to add muscle tissue. Now, we
know that your body can't build muscle faster than its biological
properties will allow. Since your body can't be forced into adding
muscle rapidly, the only way to add more muscle is to spend more time
in a positive muscle-building state. When you're severely restricting
calories you aren't in such a state. So if you bulk
for six months and cut for three months, three of those months won't be
muscle-growth months. If you want to gain more muscle you have to avoid
non-building months. If you don't gain a significant amount of fat
while you're gaining muscle, you won't need to spend a lot of time
dieting down, hence you'll have more muscle-growth months. Since
most people will add around 1.5 pounds of muscle per month under ideal
circumstances, and you can't increase that amount by force-feeding
yourself,
which one of the following situations is better? Situation A: Go on an
all-out bulking phase, gain 25 pounds over a period of six months.
Around
5-10 of these pounds will be muscle (12 at the most) and the rest will
be from glycogen storage (2-4 pounds) and fat (10-15 pounds). To shed
the excess fat, you have to go on a severe diet. If you never cheat and
are super strict, you can hope for one or two pounds of fat loss per
week without losing muscle. So in the best case scenario, it'll take
you anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks to lose the fat. However, fat
loss isn't linear. The body adapts to caloric restriction and ''falling
off the wagon'' will happen to most. So in "real life," losing the
gained fat (if you don't want to lose muscle) will actually require 12
to 20 weeks of dieting. So over a 9 to 11 month period you gained
around seven pounds of muscle (if you didn't lose anything while
dieting). That gives you an average of 0.6 to 0.75 pounds of muscle per
month. Reported over a year, it comes up to a total of seven to nine
pounds. Situation B: Ingest a
caloric excess, but just enough to give your body the required amount
of nutrients for optimal muscle growth. You can still manage a gain of
around 1.5 pounds of muscle per month, but the fat gain will be much
lower. So after the same initial six months, you also gained
5-10 pounds but only 3-5 pounds of fat. So you really have to diet only
for around a month to lose what you gained. So you gain around seven
pounds of muscle over a seven month period, or one pound per month for
a
total of around 12 pounds reported over 12 months. Some observations
regarding this example: A) In situation B, you're actually gaining more
muscle over a year even though you aren't gaining as much weight. B)
In situation A, you have to diet for 3-5 months out of the year to lose
the gained fat, versus 4-6 weeks for situation B. Very few people like
to eat a restricted diet. So having to diet for only one month versus
3-5 months is a big advantage if you ask me! C) Since you don't
have to diet as hard in situation B, the risk of muscle loss is much
lower than in situation A. In fact, because of the possibility of
losing a significant amount of muscle during the cutting phase, you
could very well end up with no muscle gain after a year of bulking and then cutting. Problem #3:
Another problem with bulking up is fat cell hyperplasia. You can add
size or volume to a structure either by making the existing components
bigger (hypertrophy) or by increasing the number of components
(hyperplasia). This holds true for fat cells.







Fat
cells (adipocytes) are like little bags. The more fat you put in the
bags, the bigger they get. However, the bags can only hold so much fat.
But lucky for us (or not) our body is a fantastic storage machine built
for survival. As a result, it can also increase fat storage by adding
more fat cells. The more fat cells you have, the easier it is for your
body to store fat. This is where the problem comes in. When
overeating for a significant period of time, your body increases its
number of fat cells. While you can make the existing fat cells
"smaller" by emptying their fat content (fat loss), it's impossible to
remove fat cells without surgery. So your body can add fat
cells, but it can't remove them. This is a big problem: the more fat
cells you have, the easier it is for your body to store fat. So by
adding new fat cells to your body you're actually making it better at
gaining body fat as well as worse at losing it! By following an all-out
bulking approach, you can stimulate adipocyte hyperplasia, which will
make it harder to lose fat and easier to gain it over time. So to recap: A)
Bulking up won't lead to any more muscle growth than ingesting an ideal
amount of nutrients. You can't force your body to grow muscle by
feeding it more and more. B) By bulking up you're actually
reducing the amount of time per year where you can add muscle because
you
have to diet for a longer period of time to remove the gained fat. C)
Bulking up will, over time, improve your body's capacity to store fat
and reduce its capacity to lose it. Of
course, some people don't care about having a good looking physique;
all they want is to take up more space and look big in clothes. That's
fine if that's what you want. And for these people, bulking up is okay
since they don't care about being lean. However, I cringe
when I see these people recommending the same approach to an individual
(often a young kid) who wants to look muscular and lean. That's just
irresponsible.



So Why Do We Bulk Up? If a true bulk is so bad, why is it recommended by so many people? 1.

Because it's part of bodybuilding's tradition. Ever since the 60s,

bodybuilders included bulking and cutting phases. However, even while

bulking they wouldn't gain that much fat because the amount of junk

food available was much lower than today. Bodybuilders

from the 60s and 70s relied on steak, whole milk, and eggs when bulking

up. They ate a ton of it, but it was still good, nutrient-dense food.

Nowadays, bodybuilders focus on fast food, pizza, donuts, pastries,

etc. when bulking up. So while in both cases the amount of food

consumed is large, the quality of the food was much different. 2.

The "bulking then cutting" approach is mostly a bodybuilding thing.

However, keep in mind that competitive bodybuilders, those who are

truly competition-minded, only want to look their best for a certain

period of time: they want to hit their peak at a big show. Getting into

stage shape demands so many sacrifices for so long that it's only

normal to allow yourself some culinary pleasures after a show. However,

the average trainee wants to look good all year long. What if you meet

a girl while you're bulked up? "Not with the lights on, honey. I'm

bulking." The average gym rat also doesn't want or need to

get into stage shape (2-4% body fat); being lean and defined is enough.

For most men, we're talking about a body fat percentage of around 8%,

which is attainable by everyone if proper efforts and strategies are

used. And once you reach 8% body fat, it isn't all that painful to

maintain that level, certainly not to a point where you become so

deprived that you gotta go on a all-you-can-eat eating spree for three

months out of the year! 3. Competitive bodybuilders who use the

bulking-cutting approach use performance-enhancing drugs which change

their body chemistry. (Shocker!) Anabolic substances such as steroids,

insulin, IGF-1, and hGH can bypass the body's natural biological state.

Remember,

I told you a natural athlete is limited in the amount of nutrients he

can use to build muscle by his own body chemistry? Well, this doesn't

apply to the drug-using bodybuilder. By artificially enhancing his body

chemistry he can bypass his natural muscle growth limit. So in that

regard, eating a ton of food will work for the enhanced athlete even

though it doesn't for the natural one. 4. Performance-enhancing

drugs can also drastically speed up the fat loss process. Substances

like thyroid hormones, clenbuterol, DNP, hGH, etc. can make your body

lose fat at a much faster rate. So enhanced bodybuilders can afford to

gain 20-30 pounds of fat in the off-season because the fat-loss drugs

will allow them to quickly lose it. Plus, the use of steroids

can prevent muscle loss while dieting, so it's possible to restrict

calories even more (thus losing fat faster) without risking losing

muscle mass — a luxury that a natural trainee doesn't have. 5.

Many people use the bulking up excuse to justify eating a ton of crappy

food. "I can eat this tub of ice cream and this pizza, I'm bulking!''

The fact is that most people don't have the discipline and

determination to make the lifestyle changes necessary to build an

aesthetic, lean, and muscular physique. But instead of saying that

they're too weak-minded to drop the junk out of their diets, they

decide to make it acceptable to eat a bad diet by using bulking-up as

an excuse. If these people had both a strong sense of

self-discipline and a desire to "bulk up," they'd jack up their caloric

intake but only eat bodybuilding-friendly food. However, since this

would mean not eating ice cream, fast food, and cookies, not many

people actually bulk up that way. This is yet another indication that

bulking up, for most, is just an excuse to not eat properly.

The Illusion of "Big?" Body


fat can really be an odd thing. When someone carries a significant


amount of muscle mass, adding a layer of fat can actually make him look


much bigger when wearing clothes. That's because his muscle mass gives


him a solid foundation, so the fat added over the muscle (up to a


certain point) will make his body occupy more space while keeping a


certain amount of shape, at least when wearing clothes. Plus,


as I mentioned earlier, there's a certain range of fatness where the


body doesn't look visually different when it comes to definition and


muscularity. When going from 13 to 16% body fat, you'll basically look


to be at the same degree of fatness. In fact, some people who store


body fat evenly might even look just as lean at 18% as 13%. So if


someone goes from 220 pounds at 13% to 230 pounds at 16%, he'll


basically have the same amount of muscle and ten pounds more fat, but


he'll actually look bigger and more muscular because his degree of


leanness will appear to be the same (while he occupies more space.) So


we could say if you aren't lean, adding body fat, up to a point, will


make you look more muscular even if you aren't gaining muscle mass.


This can make people underestimate the amount of fat they carry and put


them in a situation where, over time, they can accumulate a lot of


excess fat. Something like that happened to me when I was


young. At 17 years of age I was 180 pounds with a 32'' waist and around


13-14% body fat. To play football I decided to gain size and went on


the ''see food diet.'' I was consuming at least 10,000 calories per day


(7200 of which where from weight gainer shakes). In six months I went


up to 225 pounds. I really believed it was all muscle. I was


getting stronger and looked much bigger in clothes. My mother kept


telling me that I was getting fat, but I thought it was because she was


trying to discourage me from training. The sad thing is that my waist


ballooned up to 40 inches, but I never really noticed because at the


time my mother was buying my pants. They weren't tighter (because she


was
buying larger ones) so I felt like I was just as lean. Long story
short, when I saw pictures of myself shirtless I went into shock. I was
fat! It took me a whole year


to drop back down to a size 32. The sad thing is that when I got back


down to that size, I was down to 172 pounds. I actually lost eight


pounds of muscle! I basically wasted 18 months of my life trying to


gain muscle. On the other end, losing body fat, at first, will


make you look and feel smaller and less muscular. As I said several


times, there isn't much visual difference between 13 and 16%. So the


first 6-10 pounds of fat you lose won't make you look more defined.


You'll look the same (definition wise) but your clothes will be looser


and you'll feel smaller because your muscles will be flat from a lack


of glycogen. So you'll look and feel smaller without actually looking


more defined. Not very encouraging! In the past, I stopped


several diets because of that fact. I'd diet for four weeks or so, feel


small and look like crap, so I'd think ''the heck with it'' and go back


to my bulking habits. Let me tell you this: a diet won't make


you look good until you drop down to at least 10% body fat. That's the


point where you start to actually look bigger even though you're


becoming smaller (because of the fat you're losing). As you go down to


8% or so, people will actually believe that you're gaining size as your


weight goes down! Simply put, when you aren't lean, adding


some fat will make you look larger and losing just a bit of fat will


make you look smaller. But past a certain point (10%), you'll look


larger by the day as you're losing fat. It's all an illusion. Here


are some examples of this. First is Sebastien Cossette (a.k.a. Da


Freak), a young bodybuilder I trained for his first competition. In the


''before'' pics he actually weighs more than in the ''after'' pictures


(around 210 vs. 190-195) yet he looks much bigger and more impressive


in the latter. The


second example is Christiane Lamy (my girlfriend), who's a natural


female bodybuilder as well as a trainer and nutritionist. In the


''before'' pics she's around ten pounds heavier than in the ''after''


pics; however, I think it's easy to see in which ones she's the most


impressive! Finally,


two last examples: Allen Cress and Mike Hanley who have been dieting


and training hard. They show how definition can make you look much


bigger, yet in both cases they were around 20 pounds heavier in the


"before" pics. Here's Alan: And here's Mike:





Don't Bulk! There are several good reasons not to bulk up, at least not in the traditional manner. Here are a few: 1.


Very few people will ever set foot on a bodybuilding stage. Those who


have no aspiration to compete train mostly to look good. Is looking


good two months out of the year what you're really after? Of course


not. Most want to look good all year long! I don't mean be


stage-ready 365 days a year, but being at a body fat percentage where


you look lean and muscular. In my opinion, someone who's training for


aesthetic purposes should never go above 10% body fat. Trust me, 10% is


actually not that lean! But it's a point where muscle definition and


muscularity are sufficient to make you look very good. It also leaves


you within four weeks or so of being in superb, super-lean condition. So


what if you're at 13% body fat and don't have that much muscle? Should


you bulk up? No! You should go down to 10% then gradually increase your


nutritional intake until you reach a point where you're gaining 1.5 to


2 pounds per month. This will allow you to gain muscle at your optimal


rate while staying at 10%. 2. The leaner you are, the better


your body becomes at nutrient partitioning. This means that lean


individuals are more effective at storing the ingested nutrients in the


muscle (as muscle tissue or glycogen) or in the liver (glycogen), and


less effective at storing them as body fat. Simply put, leaner


individuals can eat more nutrients without gaining fat. 3. The


fatter you let yourself become, the more fat cells you're adding to


your body. As we saw earlier, this will make it easier to gain fat and


harder to lose it in the future, not to mention that the fatter you


are, the less insulin sensitive you become. This is one of the reasons


why fatter individuals are more effective at storing nutrients in the


form of body fat than their leaner counterparts. 4. Building a


good looking body isn't something that happens overnight. Many people


have this distorted idea that within a year of training it's possible


to look like a competitive bodybuilder. Not the case! Building


a great body is a 24 hour a day job. It isn't limited to the hour you


spend at the gym; it's about the lifestyle. By eating good all year


long, you aren't using a fad approach but rather changing your habits.


It's much easier to lose fat when you're already used to eating well


90% of the time.





So Should I Eat Like a Bird? Don't


get me wrong, I'm not saying that you should eat a low calorie diet


year 'round. I'm not against eating large amounts of food. In fact, to


build muscle you must ingest more calories than you expend every day.


However, the message is to use the correct amount of food to allow your


body to build muscle at an optimum rate. You shouldn't stuff yourself


trying to force-feed muscle onto your body. The following


table gives you an estimate of what your caloric intake should be set


at depending on your lean body weight (total body weight minus fat


weight. For example, someone who's 210 at 12% body fat has a fat mass


of 25 pounds and a lean mass of 185 pounds.)


Caloric intake relative to lean body weight to support optimal growth (considering a normal activity level)


Lean Body Weight (total weight — fat weight)


Caloric Intake to Support Optimal Growth


120lbs


2455kcals


130lbs


2634kcals


140lbs


2813kcals


150lbs


3037kcals


160lbs


3260kcals


170lbs


3440kcals


180lbs


3663kcals


190lbs


3885kcals


200lbs


4064kcals


210lbs


4244kcals


220lbs


4467kcals


230lbs


4646kcals


240lbs


4868kcals


250lbs


5091kcals


260lbs


5270kcals


270lbs


5494kcals This


caloric intake should allow you to gain around two to three pounds per


month. If you aren't gaining that amount, slowly increase your caloric


intake until you reach that rate of growth (add 250kcals at a time). If


you're gaining more than three pounds per month, you might be adding


fat. If you're gaining a lot more than three pounds (like 5-7 per


month), reduce the caloric intake.





Take Home Messages

•
Don't get fat. In my opinion, no man needs to be above 10% body fat,
and getting there isn't that hard. It can take time if you carry a lot
of fat, but every man can get there and maintain this level.
• You can't bully your body into adding more muscle simply by overeating.
•
You can limit your rate of gain by not ingesting enough nutrients. So
adding good food if you're lacking in that department will help you
gain muscle faster, but past a certain point, continuing to jack up
calories will only make you fatter.
• Have
realistic expectations. You won't gain 20 pounds of muscle in three
months, not even in six months. Gaining 1.5 to 2 pounds of muscle per
month is the most you can expect. And for most, gaining more than ten
pounds of solid muscle per year (once they're past the beginner stage)
will be very rare. However, gain 5-7 pounds per year for ten years
straight and you'll be one huge beast!
•
Being lean makes it easier to stay lean and to gain muscle through
better nutrient partitioning. Getting fatter makes it easier to gain
more fat and harder to lose it.
• Trying to
gain muscle mass should never be a justification for eating crap. If
you want to eat a junk diet, at least have the decency to admit it's
because you like your food too much to give it up. Don't try to pass it
off as a "bulking diet." Pizzas, Big Macs, and donuts don't have higher
anabolic properties than clean food!

Conclusion Somebody


had to say it and it was me. I'm tired of seeing young kids with good


potential, who are lean and have nice shapes to start with, ruin their


bodies by following the bulking advice from self-proclaimed Internet


"gurus" who advise them to eat as much food as they can, even junk food


if it can help them jack up their calories. All this will accomplish is


helping them add heaps of fat to their lean bodies. I agree


that a lot of young lifters don't eat enough to support maximum muscle


growth, but eating junk or super-excessive calories isn't the way to


go. The basic message is good: if you aren't gaining muscle, you're


probably not eating enough. However, that doesn't mean you should eat


too much and it doesn't mean you should eat crap! Think about it.


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