What is bulking and how to build muscle healthily

How to bulk

This involves eating a controlled calorie surplus to help maximise muscle gains without packing on extra fat mass. Here's how to do it:

• Calories: aim to eat 10-20% more calories than your 'maintenance' allowance
• Protein: maintain a high intake of around 1.6-2g/kg body weight to help maintain muscle gains
• Carbohydrates: ensure a moderate-high intake (around 50-60% calories) to help maintain energy levels and replenish muscles after training

Bulk the healthy way

The bulking phase might sound like an opportunity to eat whatever you like to hit your calorie and carb goals, but eating an excess of processed foods high in sugar, salt and saturated fats comes with all the same health risks as usual, and can affect your training.

A 'clean bulk' is the sensible route to take – however it doesn’t need to be overly restrictive as this can make the process too challenging and dull! Here are 5 tips for a 'clean' bulking cycle:

1. Keep a diary

Use a food tracking app or physical diary to make sure you're sticking to your daily calorie, protein and carbs goals. You'll want to eat a surplus of calories, but ensure this is controlled within a certain limit (a 10-20% increase from your maintenance needs). Keep a close eye on your macro intake too, to ensure you’re eating enough protein for maximum muscle gains, and eating enough carbohydrates to keep your energy levels up.

2. Avoid bulking with junk food

While it's easy to opt for takeaways and convenience foods when you have more calories to play with, these foods are processed and can be full of saturated fat, salt and sugar. An excess of these nutrients isn’t good at any time, so try not to rely on these foods. Of course, you have a bit more flex to eat certain things slightly outside the healthy range at this time, but try to avoid relying on these sorts of foods entirely throughout your bulk. You can end up feeling sluggish, having poor sleep quality and feeling unmotivated, as well as potentially missing out on essential nutrients – all of which can affect your training progress.

Find out more about which processed foods to avoid.

3. Follow healthy eating guidelines

It’s vital during this time to nourish your body in the best way. This means following the usual healthy eating guidelines we should all try to keep to, which are:

• Eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day
• Choose wholegrain carbohydrates such as wholemeal bread, rice and pasta
• Opt for lean protein sources such as chicken, turkey, extra lean beef, fish, eggs, beans, pulses and tofu
• Eat low-fat dairy foods (milk, cheese, yogurt) with no added sugars, or calcium-fortified dairy-alternatives, while keeping the saturated fat levels down
• Choose 'good' unsaturated fats, found in things like olive oil, nuts, oily fish and avocado
• Limit your intake of foods high in saturated fat, added sugars and salt – such as confectionery, cakes, pastries and takeaways. These should be an occasional treat.

Continuing to eat a diet rich in nutritious foods ensures your body is receiving the nutrients it needs to stay healthy during heavy training, as well as helping to maintain energy levels. A few extra indulgences during this phase are fine, as you have more flex with calories, but ultimately your diet should still follow the 80:20 rule – nutritious foods 80% of the time, with more flexibility the other 20% of the time.

4. Don’t forget micronutrients

Training hard to gain muscle mass takes its toll on the body, so it's more important than ever that you’re getting a balance of nutrients in your diet. We often talk about macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fat), but micronutrients are vital too; these are the key vitamins and minerals that keep our body functioning at its best, and can play a role in energy metabolism, immunity, muscle growth, training recovery and bone health, to name a few.

Providing you're following a balanced diet you should be getting a good balance of micronutrients, such as B vitamins, vitamin C, zinc, calcium and iron. Aim to have plenty of plant-based foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, pulses and wholegrains to help with getting a variety of vitamins.

5. Keep hydrated

Hydration is crucial too for muscle growth and repair. The general recommendation is to drink around 6-8 glasses of fluid each day, which equates to around 1.5-2 litres – but when training, and depending on your body size, you may need a bit more. Aim to drink small amounts of water frequently throughout the day, and keep an eye on the colour of your urine to check personal hydration levels – a pale straw colour is what you're aiming for.

Read more about how to stay hydrated during exercise.

This article is produced in association with Nutracheck, the calorie- and nutrient-tracking app.

Read more

What is carb-loading?
Electrolytes: what are they and do I need to replenish them?
What to eat on rest and easy training days
How to fuel your body like an athlete

Emma White (ANutr, MSc Human Nutrition) is Senior Nutritionist for the calorie and nutrient tracking app Nutracheck. She is passionate about how food science applies to the human body, and how the nutrients in what we eat affect us and ultimately have an impact on our health.

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