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Essie
New member
Hi Bros! LOL!
Right, to the topic at hand. I have been battling to get time to fine tune my OWN diet because I am stuck with other people's diets ... and most of them are people who are REALLY sincere and also REALLY REALLY REALLY interested in learning how diets work and what a BMR is and how you calculate it and what a caloric deficit is for losing weight and why it works and how it works etc etc etc. Now I am not doing a write up on that, as it has been done here many a times. I have, however, just finished reasoning (kind of just about arguing, in fact) with a client who insists that dirty bulking is the way for him as he is a hard gainer, but the guy hardly consumes 1500 useable calories a day. He hardly eats any proteins worth mentioning as well. Anyway, I want to rant and warn on a decent level on here about the dangers of dirty bulking.
When you do a dirty bulk, it literally means that you are encouraged to eat any- and everything in sight or within arm's length. And though it might be true (very much so) that you will grow, the question is "How do you grow?". Firstly, you WILL get fatter, full stop. No arguing with me. No trying to reason it away. You WILL GET FATTER.
When you grow, you grow by one of 2 means ... hypertrophy or hyperplasia and everybody I have dealt with always have the idea that I only refer to muscle fibres when I use those terms, but actually, I don't. Hypertrophy and hyperplasia also take place relating to fat cells. Hypertrophy means, simply put, enlargement of the structure by enlarging the components making up the structure (so the actual muscle cell fibres get bigger), albeit muscle fibres or fat cells and Hyperplasia means, again simply put, enlargement of the structure by increasing the number of componentsmaking up the structure (the muscle cell fibres get more) again, albeit muscle fibres or fat cells.
Now picture this scenario with reference to the 2 terms explained above:
Your fat cells are like water baloons. Any water baloon can only hold so much fluid before it reaches it's maximum tension and cannot hold anymore. Now if you go an a binge and you force say 6000 dirty Calories into your body daily, your existing number of fat cells can only store so much of those Calories which could not be used and were converted into fat. Hypertrophy - the actual components got larger. Once they have reached the maximum tension, but the converted fat keeps on coming, your body will counter by ... ... ? Hyperplasia ... creating new fat cells and guess what? Once those fat cells have been created, they are there for life. Now you bulk up on a dirty bulk diet and calories get converted to fat and the existing fat cells are full to the max and new fat cells get created and they get filled up and so it goes on and on until you decide to cut. Great. But remember, those fat cells are there and the more fat cells your body has, the easier it is for it to store fat. You can lose weight and inches by depleting those fat cells of fat, but they will always remain there ... always ready to do what they are supposed to do ... store fat. So, in reality, you are only equipping your body with what it needs in order to store fat. If you never allowed your body to have to create extra fat cells, than you would have had a much easier time staying lean once you got lean. That is why lean people stay lean easier than when someone who was overweight got leaner and try to maintain it. The body has all those extra fat cells which it cannot wait to fill up.
Now this leads to my next point stated above that lean people stay lean easier. That is half of the point ... ... The other part is that it is SO MUCH easier for lean people to gain more muscle.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Lean does NOT mean skinny ... there is a difference. You can weigh 165lbs and be lean, or you can weigh 165lbs and be fat. For the same price, you can weigh 240lbs and be fat, or you can weigh 240lbs and be lean.
Getting back to the point I was making before I rudely interrupted myself ... when you are lean and your body is well exercised and trained and you eat right, train right and sleep enough, then your body gets SO MUCH better at nutrient partitioning. Nutrient partitioning, very simply put, refers to your body's ability to shuffle nutrients into the muscle cells rather than the fat cells. When you take in too many calories for maintenance at your specific weight, your body can either shuffle it into muscle cells or into fat cells e.g if you require 2400Cal/day to maintain your weight, but you want to gain weight, then you would look at roughly taking in 2700Cal/day ... so you are taking in 300Cal per day MORE than what your body requires to stay the same weight, forcing it to get heavier. The same goes for when you are in deficit, i.e you take in less calories than what your body requires to maintain its weight ... it can also take the required calories (which you are purposefully NOT taking in to place it in a deficit) from either muscle cells or fat cells. If you posess good partitioning and a high metabolic rate, you can easily take and use energy from the fat cells, and direct it into muscle cells.
Now on to another point. You can force your muscles to grow ... sure ... but only so much. No matter how much harder you train or more you eat, shit aint gonna budge. Again, if you go on a dirty bulk ... (and this is where I know many people usually chime in and ask the question) IRRESPECTIVE OF HOW MUCH OR HARD YOU TRAIN, YOUR MUSCLES CAN ONLY GROW SO MUCH AND YOU CAN ONLY UTILISE SO MANY CALORIES TO PROMOTE MUSCLE GROWTH. So if you dirty bulk and train like hell ... sure, you WILL grow, and if you REALLY train, then a lot of that growth will be muscle tissue, but ther is going to be fat, full stop.
All in all, I guess, the message I am trying to bring home is that it is not worth it to go on a dirty bulk. All the hard work just to get to a certain weight and then discover that 30% is fat and you need to lose 20% of that ... so now it is YET again another diet to burn it down and your chances of your body's fat cells having gone into Hyperplasia is good, so you are going to battle more for longer as long as you live etc etc etc. Rather bulk clean and take a year or so longer to get to 220lbs e.g, but you get there clean and run at 12% BF (Bodyfat) weighing 220lbs instead of 30% BF weighing 220lbs.
Right, to the topic at hand. I have been battling to get time to fine tune my OWN diet because I am stuck with other people's diets ... and most of them are people who are REALLY sincere and also REALLY REALLY REALLY interested in learning how diets work and what a BMR is and how you calculate it and what a caloric deficit is for losing weight and why it works and how it works etc etc etc. Now I am not doing a write up on that, as it has been done here many a times. I have, however, just finished reasoning (kind of just about arguing, in fact) with a client who insists that dirty bulking is the way for him as he is a hard gainer, but the guy hardly consumes 1500 useable calories a day. He hardly eats any proteins worth mentioning as well. Anyway, I want to rant and warn on a decent level on here about the dangers of dirty bulking.
When you do a dirty bulk, it literally means that you are encouraged to eat any- and everything in sight or within arm's length. And though it might be true (very much so) that you will grow, the question is "How do you grow?". Firstly, you WILL get fatter, full stop. No arguing with me. No trying to reason it away. You WILL GET FATTER.
When you grow, you grow by one of 2 means ... hypertrophy or hyperplasia and everybody I have dealt with always have the idea that I only refer to muscle fibres when I use those terms, but actually, I don't. Hypertrophy and hyperplasia also take place relating to fat cells. Hypertrophy means, simply put, enlargement of the structure by enlarging the components making up the structure (so the actual muscle cell fibres get bigger), albeit muscle fibres or fat cells and Hyperplasia means, again simply put, enlargement of the structure by increasing the number of componentsmaking up the structure (the muscle cell fibres get more) again, albeit muscle fibres or fat cells.
Now picture this scenario with reference to the 2 terms explained above:
Your fat cells are like water baloons. Any water baloon can only hold so much fluid before it reaches it's maximum tension and cannot hold anymore. Now if you go an a binge and you force say 6000 dirty Calories into your body daily, your existing number of fat cells can only store so much of those Calories which could not be used and were converted into fat. Hypertrophy - the actual components got larger. Once they have reached the maximum tension, but the converted fat keeps on coming, your body will counter by ... ... ? Hyperplasia ... creating new fat cells and guess what? Once those fat cells have been created, they are there for life. Now you bulk up on a dirty bulk diet and calories get converted to fat and the existing fat cells are full to the max and new fat cells get created and they get filled up and so it goes on and on until you decide to cut. Great. But remember, those fat cells are there and the more fat cells your body has, the easier it is for it to store fat. You can lose weight and inches by depleting those fat cells of fat, but they will always remain there ... always ready to do what they are supposed to do ... store fat. So, in reality, you are only equipping your body with what it needs in order to store fat. If you never allowed your body to have to create extra fat cells, than you would have had a much easier time staying lean once you got lean. That is why lean people stay lean easier than when someone who was overweight got leaner and try to maintain it. The body has all those extra fat cells which it cannot wait to fill up.
Now this leads to my next point stated above that lean people stay lean easier. That is half of the point ... ... The other part is that it is SO MUCH easier for lean people to gain more muscle.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Lean does NOT mean skinny ... there is a difference. You can weigh 165lbs and be lean, or you can weigh 165lbs and be fat. For the same price, you can weigh 240lbs and be fat, or you can weigh 240lbs and be lean.
Getting back to the point I was making before I rudely interrupted myself ... when you are lean and your body is well exercised and trained and you eat right, train right and sleep enough, then your body gets SO MUCH better at nutrient partitioning. Nutrient partitioning, very simply put, refers to your body's ability to shuffle nutrients into the muscle cells rather than the fat cells. When you take in too many calories for maintenance at your specific weight, your body can either shuffle it into muscle cells or into fat cells e.g if you require 2400Cal/day to maintain your weight, but you want to gain weight, then you would look at roughly taking in 2700Cal/day ... so you are taking in 300Cal per day MORE than what your body requires to stay the same weight, forcing it to get heavier. The same goes for when you are in deficit, i.e you take in less calories than what your body requires to maintain its weight ... it can also take the required calories (which you are purposefully NOT taking in to place it in a deficit) from either muscle cells or fat cells. If you posess good partitioning and a high metabolic rate, you can easily take and use energy from the fat cells, and direct it into muscle cells.
Now on to another point. You can force your muscles to grow ... sure ... but only so much. No matter how much harder you train or more you eat, shit aint gonna budge. Again, if you go on a dirty bulk ... (and this is where I know many people usually chime in and ask the question) IRRESPECTIVE OF HOW MUCH OR HARD YOU TRAIN, YOUR MUSCLES CAN ONLY GROW SO MUCH AND YOU CAN ONLY UTILISE SO MANY CALORIES TO PROMOTE MUSCLE GROWTH. So if you dirty bulk and train like hell ... sure, you WILL grow, and if you REALLY train, then a lot of that growth will be muscle tissue, but ther is going to be fat, full stop.
All in all, I guess, the message I am trying to bring home is that it is not worth it to go on a dirty bulk. All the hard work just to get to a certain weight and then discover that 30% is fat and you need to lose 20% of that ... so now it is YET again another diet to burn it down and your chances of your body's fat cells having gone into Hyperplasia is good, so you are going to battle more for longer as long as you live etc etc etc. Rather bulk clean and take a year or so longer to get to 220lbs e.g, but you get there clean and run at 12% BF (Bodyfat) weighing 220lbs instead of 30% BF weighing 220lbs.
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I am talking about the 'Bro-Science' dirty bulk ... the diet where you drink as much beer and soda as you can, eat Mcd's and KFC by the buckets, visit the Italian Stallion and have his biggest pizza followed by an Alfredo tagliatelle with extra cream in the sauce and melted cheese on top ... you know ... a dirty-filthy-whoring-bulking-diet, the one the lazy people follow who do not feel like spending 25 min in the kitchen to rather put something together which contains all the required nutrients, is healthy and tastes good.
