diet for bulking

[Nicholas Berman]

I'm a bulking process I do not trust supplement companies, so I don't take anything over the counter, what type of diet would be the ideal to bulk up without taking protein or creatine? I want to run a 100% natural bulking process, thank you.

 

[bblifer]

Proper diet is a pretty big subject! I'll do my best to give a brief overview of how I would do things.

First, read the "Stickied" post in the diet section about calories and macros. You need to figure out your maintnence calories, which is how many calories it takes you to stay the same weight. For example, my maintnence calories are 2800. To bulk I want to eat 300 to 500 over maintnence, so lets say 3200.
I like to do 1.5g protein per lb of bodyweight and I'm 200lb, so that's 300g protein. I like to keep my fats low, about 70g. so thats 1830 cals total, leaving me about 1400 for carbs, which is 350 carbs
So for me at 200lb and 2800 cals maintnence, i'd eat 250g protein, 350g carbs, and 70g fats.

For food choices, I would do something like this. Pick 2-3 proteins, 2-3 carbs, and 2-3 fats, and only eat those foods to start off, the simpler the diet the easier it is to stick to.

Protein: chicken, egg whites, protein powder, turkey.
Carbs: brown rice, steel cut oats, white bagels(post workout only)
Fats: olive oil, fish oils, avocado

Then I split my calories into 5-6 meals. I workout after meal 2, so I take 1/3 of my carbs in meal one, 1/3 of carbs in meal 2, and then 1/3 of carbs post workout in meal 3. This is ideal because you get a lot of your carbs pre workout, a good amount post workout, and you stop eating carbs around early afternoon (Depending when you start meal one, because each meal is 2-3 hours apart), and its good to have your carbs cut off at a certain time if possible to allow the body to use more fat for fuel. Not a big deal, and you can spread out your carbs over the whole day and be totally fine, but I prefer it this way. I don't mix fats and carbs, it's either a carb protein meal, or a fat protein meal!

For example, my meal plan would be this for our example guy of 200lb

meal 1: 50P / 100C / 5F
meal 2: 50P / 125C / 5F (pre workout)
meal 3: 50P / 125C / 5F (post workout)
meal 4: 50P / 0C / 15F
meal 5: 50P / 0C / 15F
meal 6: 50P / 0C / 25F

I would just use the protein, carb, and fat sources above as I choose to make the meals. You don't have to use the foods I listed, but I Find it is easier if you pick 2=4 of each type of food and stick with those, makes grocery shopping simple and makes it easier to eat clean.

DO NOT copy this diet, but rather copy the LOGIC behind it... Figure out YOUR OWN maintnence calories with a "Calorie calculator" they are easy to find on google! Once you have your maintnence, eat like 400 calories over maintnence, and use a "macro calculator", also easy to find on google, to help you figure out your macros! Then make a diet in the same way I just did in the example! Very simple stuff buddy!

*NOTE* I did not include vegetables in the diet, because 95% of vegetables I do not count as calories and eat freely and eat as much of them as I desire! You are NOT going to put on fat from eating your greens, thats for sure! The reason we don't count many veggies is because lots of them take more calories to digest then they actually give you, so you are losing cals by eating them!