Basic Starting Plan For Bulking by Sporto

[Right Hook]

If yall dont know Sporto ya betta recognize! Basic but very good read from a freak naturally bodybuilder...

I'd like to share some things with the forum about "bulking" that I've picked up through my years of trial and error, loads of personal research, and bumping heads with some really smart people in the field. (FP, feel free to sticky). I want to start off by saying that this is a basic starting template for those trying to gain size/LBM. If you have any physiological problems, then things get a little trickier, but for the most part this will work for the majority of the population. This is also something that I personally use myself as a natural lifter, and if you've seen my pics (not conceited), then you can see that I know my stuff even though I don't have a bunch of letters following my name. So without further ado, let me get started.

1.) The first thing you MUST do before developing any kind of nutrition plan is to figure out your starting point. This is what we call MAINTENANCE CALORIE LEVEL. That is, the amount of calories, on average, that it takes your body to maintain weight. It's different for everybody. The best way to do this is to take an entire week (without changing eating habits), and track every single calorie you put into your body. Then, add up each day and track your bodyweight each day. It doesn't really matter what time of day, after what meal, etc that you weigh yourself, just be consistent. Then see what your weight does. If your weight has roughly stayed the same, then take the average of the 7 days, and use that as your MAINTENANCE CALORIE LEVEL.

Don't like tracking calories? Well, I'm sorry, but if you want the BEST results, then you must do this. No exceptions. Make the change and let it become part of your lifestyle. You will be amazed at how HUGE of a difference taking the extra 10 seconds to measure things out and tracking calories will have on your physique. It's those little things that separate the average from the above average. You've probably got a decent cell phone right? They all now have some sort of memo pad feature on them. Find out how to use it and put it to good use. When you are on the go, plug your numbers into your phone whenever you eat. I have done this for years and it is so simple and takes no extra time really. Do it and thank me later.

What if you don't want to do all of that? Well, I don't recommend this, but you can use a very generic, basic equation to give you a starting point, and then adjust your numbers depending on what your bodyweight does. It's quicker, but may take you longer to figure out what target calorie level you need. Take your total bodyweight in LBS. and multiply it by anywhere from 14-16 (which has seemed to be the rough average). That will at least give you a range to start plugging away. 14 is generally used for people who have an easy time gaining weight, and 16 for the hard gainers. So, let's say you are a mere 150lbs and have a hard time gaining weight. Just take the 150X16 and you get 2400 calories as a starting point. Again, not the way I recommend, but you get the idea.

2.) Now from there is where we start to calculate everything. I'll start anywhere from a 200-500 calorie surplus, again depending on if you have an easy or hard time gaining weight (200 for easy gainers and 500 for hard gainers obviously). So let's take our 150lb. hardgainer as an example again. I'd start him off at a 500 calorie surplus to begin, which gives him 2900cals/day to work with. That's the daily calorie need. That's the number we use to calculate our ratios. The goal here is to gain anywhere from 1-2lbs. a WEEK. So, after a week of eating roughly 2900cals a day, weigh yourself again. If you haven't gained weight, add another couple hundred calories. If you've gained 1-2 lbs., stay there. If you've gained more than 2lbs., drop the cals about a couple hundred. Weighing yourself once a week will be your guide on how to adjust you daily calories. When the adjustment is made, don't forget to recalculate you macronutrient ratios along with it using the same format that you end up using.

3.) Now we calculate our ratios. This is where you have freedom to do what you wish. The one thing you want to keep in mind, is that *for the most part* protein will be a constant 1g/lb of bodyweight. After that, you can adjust the rest of your calories for whether or not you want to do a high carb/low fat approach, or a low carb/higher fat approach. But make sure you get your protein in. I also see no need to go above 1g/lb while in a caloric surplus, and in fact, could probably go as low as .8g/lb and be just fine since protein requirements for growth will go down as calories go up. But we'll stick with 1g/lb. for now and make it easier for the calculations.

*Something to remember*

1g Fat = 9cals
1g Carbohydrate = 4cals
1g Protein = 4cals

So, let's take our 150lbs. hardgainer again. We have 2900 cals to work with. Protein is an obvious 150g, which equals 600cals. We now have 2300cals to work with. This is where you can adjust carbs/fat to how you see fit.

High Carb/Low Fat Approach

I recommend getting at least 20-25% of your calories from fat sources that are rich in poly/mono unsaturated fats. I will use 25% in the example, as that's what I would normally start someone off with. Keep in mind that dietary fat doesn't make you fat. It won't do you any good to drop fat way low to <15%, as it will actually do you a lot more harm than good (for reasons I won't get into because of all the biochemistry involved). So for now, just trust me. So in our example, 25% of 2900cals = 725cals from fat, which (dividing by 9) gives us 80g fat for our diet. Now, we've used 1325cals so far (600 for protein and 725 for fat). The rest, which is 1575cals, will come from carbohydrates...which is roughly 395g (I usually round to the nearest 5).

Now we have our bulking plan of attack:

Fat: 80g
Carbs: 395g
Protein: 150g
Calories: 2900cals


Low Carb/High Fat Approach

Just flip/flop the way you do this, as long as you get your protein in, you'll be fine. The amount of carbohydrates that an individual feels comfortable with on a daily basis, start by calculating that first, then the rest is fat. Very simple. For the IR folks, 20% of total calories is a good starting point for the low carb bulking approach. Typically, if you are a 150lbs. hardgainer, you ARE NOT insulin resistant, so this approach isn't necessary, but let's use him aas an example anyway. We've got 20% of 2900 = 580cals from carbs...which equals 145g/day. The rest of the calories (1720cals) will be from fat and will equal 190g or so. The high fat content is necessary to get the calories up high enough to put the weight on if you use this approach. I don't recommend this plan, but if you are extremely IR, it might be necessary to use this approach to not gain so much BF while bulking. Just try to keep the majority of those fats coming from good poly/mono sources and you'll be ok.

It goes without saying that ANY mix of Carbs/Fat will work just fine as long as you get your protein in and hit your calorie level. This is the individual part of the diet and will depend on what types of foods you like to eat, how carbs effect you and your mood, etc. Again, hit your protein and daily calorie level, and just remember that fat/carbs are inversely related. If you go high on one, keep the other one low.

Carb sources are variable as well. Your body is NOT a textbook. If you do better with HIGH GI and handle it well (I recommend for the hardgainers), then by all means. If you are more IR, typically gain weight easily (as well as BF), then low GI sources and controlling insulin may be the better approach. The point is to know your body and do what you can stick to! After all, the BEST diet is the one you can stick to!

That is all for now. I leave the thread open for discussion, debate, ideas, theories, and the like. I want to reiterate that this is a basic template. The advanced athletes, elite bodybuilders, diabetics, etc. may all need different approaches.

Sporto
__________________
*Tommy Jeffers*IFPA Pro*Mr Natural Indiana*Scivation Athlete*

[-Mr.EnginEEr-]

Good Post Bro...