ARCHIVED EPISODE FROM SEASON 1 (2023)
Big Girl Brain
#27 Bulking Season
Hello and welcome back to Big Girl Brain. I am your host, Fatimak Dupree. I hope you guys have had a great week so far and I hope you're excited to talk about bulking today. So you guys have heard of my history with my relationship with food and that is the main reason I have yet to do an episode on bulking or even discuss it in general because I haven't actually attempted a bulk yet. The first full year of me working out was me working out in a very unhealthy way and then the following year up until this point I have pretty much focused on maintenance calories and obviously trying to progress as much as possible but I've definitely held myself back and I am happy to say that I think I've hit a point where it's time to bulk. It is time to go further and take the next step. I'm at a much better place mentally with my body and I understand a lot of things that I really didn't understand about my fitness journey in the beginning so I feel capable and ready to talk about this today. I wanted to discuss the mindset shift I've had a little bit deeper before getting into all of the nitty gritty that goes into bulking and I want to talk about this because I know that I am not the only person that struggles with body image especially after starting a fitness journey and I I've been scared to bulk for a very long time not just because of obviously the effects that that would have on my body but what would happen to my identity? This can feel very heavy if you are someone who's struggled with food and you when you have an eating disorder it's kind of like something that ties itself to your identity and to your you you almost make it a part of your personality because I don't even know it's it's really hard to explain but basically the way my mind worked was everybody knew me as this person who was a twig literally no fat on my body whatsoever just extremely unhealthily lean and that's how everybody knew me and even though nobody was like yes Mac that's awesome we're so glad you're dying like nobody was saying anything like that but I had convinced myself in my own brain that that was far more impressive than if I were to go build muscle and get jacked in a healthy way and I completely disagree now I obviously see that I had a sick mindset back then but it can be really daunting to attempt to obviously undo that mindset but then also to attempt to go into a bulk after healing this relationship with food because even though yes you're comfortable with being healthy again and having that healthy amount of weight gain but going further you may be afraid that it's going to trigger something you may be afraid of a relapse and those are all very understandable things what I had to do was ask myself why I'm actually doing this and what is my goal because if my goal is the same as the original goal I had when I started going to the gym and working out which was to shrink then obviously this isn't something I should be doing anymore but as I've mentioned I am very very very very passionate about going into bodybuilding and in bodybuilding you have to bulk you have to grow you have multiple seasons where you go from probably the leanest you'll ever be in your life to then a couple months later you're on a bulk again you look completely different that's that's how it works that's how this game works and if I want to be a part of this if I want to tackle this sport head on and give it my all I can't be afraid to put on muscle I can't be afraid to put on some extra weight as I mentioned previously there was nobody sitting on my shoulder telling me that I had to stay anorexic the rest of my life to be loved it was my own self-talk and the thing about self-talk is that it becomes our reality the more we listen to it the more I built up this fear of gaining weight in my mind the more I actually struggled with it on the outside so even if I hadn't discussed it out loud or done anything differently through my actions those things would naturally happen out of my subconscious because all day every day morning and night I'm telling myself that I cannot gain weight I have to stay this small no one's gonna like me if I do I work so hard to get this small I can't go back like all these things and I've had moments of relapsing here and there with my eating disorder because of this reason and each time it's happened it's happened after a week of telling myself these narratives in my brain so self-talk makes a world of a difference especially if you're like me and you tend to spend a lot of time solo it is very important to be your own cheer leader and to not allow yourself to be your worst critic so with all that being said I am very much looking forward to this next chapter I'm a little nervous but it's okay it's gonna be great and I'm really looking forward to next year as well because now that I'm allowing myself to build properly I will probably progress a lot faster than I have this year so that's gonna be awesome so what is the definition of bulking bulking is a prolonged period of putting on muscle mass while at the same time mitigating in other words lessening any fat mass accumulation so I will be easing into my bulk pretty slowly I'm gonna keep you guys updated and let you know kind of what works for me and what doesn't and hopefully that can be of help to you as well so it's suggested that you start with a caloric surplus of 10% so that's what I'm gonna start on for example let's say your maintenance calories right now are it's like 1400 let's say you consume 1400 calories in a day if you're doing a 10% caloric surplus you'd want to consume an additional 140 calories throughout your day everything that has to do with cutting and bulking is very specific and personal to the person so I've never done a bulk before which is why I'm starting at just a 10% surplus but if this is something you've done before and if you want to do a bigger bulk that's something that you should definitely look into because obviously the more you progress in the gym the more it's gonna take to keep progressing if that makes sense okay so it's very important on a bulk to track your macros it's important to track your macros at all times on your fitness journey but people seem to think that dirty bulking and not tracking anything and just eating more food and whatever you want when you're on a bulk gets the job done but that will actually probably remove all progress you've had ever so to save you the time energy and disappointment we're gonna go through macros so these macros that I've written down are strictly for a female who is trying to bulk because this is big girl brain and I'm talking and I'm a female and I'm trying to bulk so that's what we're talking about today these macros are not going to be the same for maintenance or for cutting so just keep that in mind we're going to use an example of a female who is 150 pounds so the goal here for protein carbs and fats is to eat a certain amount depending on your body weight so protein a female who is trying to bulk should eat 0.8 to 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day so for this female that would be anywhere from 120 grams of protein to 180 grams of protein per day for carbs for this female she would want to consume two to two and a half grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day so for her that would look like anywhere from 300 to 375 grams of carbs per day last for fats she would want 0.5 to 1 gram of fat per kilogram of body weight per day so this is different than pounds so for her this would be equivalent to about 34 to 68 grams of fat per day because 150 pounds is 68 kilograms i really want to stress the importance of eating whole foods and eating clean while you're doing a bulk i would say especially while you're doing a bulk because the trap of a dirty bulk is so hard it is very devastating to you know tell yourself you're going on this bulk and then to not track the types of foods that you're eating and what you're putting in your body because you're not actually building muscle if you're not recovering from your workout by fueling your body with the proper foods getting your protein and getting your carbs and your fats in making sure your body's working properly and recovered keeping your metabolism going those things are so crucial to building muscle not just to burning fat to building muscle and i think a lot of people look over that and think just masses mass but it's not because in order to gain weight you can gain weight pretty easily but in order to gain healthy weight and build muscle that takes some strategy that takes some planning and consistency i would 100 suggests that you make sure to eat every two and a half to three hours especially in your bulking phase as well because you want to keep your metabolism moving especially because you're taking in a lot more calories and i also want to talk about the importance of your post-workout meal if you want to maximize muscle growth and recovery you need to consume protein and fast acting carbohydrates immediately after your workout so if you're going to use this is what i suggest if you're going to use protein powders or protein shakes or kind of substitutions for whole foods and whole sources of protein this is the best time to do it because it's super super fast so like this could be a great time to um add in your scoop of like pre-atene pre-atene pre-atene for the day which we'll talk about that as well but basically as fast as you can you want to get protein into your system and carbs into your system to help build that muscle and recover all of the damage that you just did at the gym and that is the time when your muscles your body is reacting the quickest right now your muscles are i was going to say explosive not explosive um inflamed is that the word anyway this is the time where though that food is going to go straight to your muscles as fast as possible like this is the fastest time of day that your food is going to go to your muscles after your workout because it needs it the most it needs the recovery it needs the fuel so that is why it's so important to not only make sure you eat food after your workout but make sure you're eating the right foods after your workout i wanted to talk a little bit about pre-atene as well because i discussed this in probably four episodes maybe more i don't know a couple episodes back i talked about pre-atene and how i think it's great i just have never personally used it and that was mainly because i was afraid of it back when i wanted to be itty bitty i did not want to gain water retention i did not want my muscles looking swollen but i do now so i i think i'm going to actually start taking pre-atene soon which i mean it's not like a freaking steroid i don't know i'm acting like it's such a big deal but hey maybe it will be maybe this is something that i should have been doing all along you know pre-atene is a substance found naturally in our bodies it creates water retention surrounding the muscle so it not only preserves the muscle during your cutting phase but it also provides that immediate muscle recovery in order to continue intense workouts so individuals who take pre-atene may gain an extra two to four pounds of muscle mass during four to twelve weeks of regular exercise more than people who don't take pre-atene i think at the end of the day the water retention and the possible bloating or whatever from pre-atene is going to be far less significant than the amount of muscle i could build in four to 12 weeks compared to how i'm doing it now because it's going well but it could be going a lot better and a lot quicker last two things i want to say about pre-atene is that it's suggested to consume at least five grams per day so if that's something you plan on doing shoot for five grams a day also like i said after your workout is the best time to take it and then the last thing to keep in mind is to look for pre-atene monohydrate because this is the purest form of creatine and it's the most frequent frequently researched so to be safe and to get the best results that's what i would suggest another misconception around bulking is that you need to alter your training style from strength training to hypertrophy training and that is not true in fact it is much more beneficial to do hypertrophy training while you're trying to build muscle mass and i will explain why so bulking is not just about putting on mass it is about gaining muscle mass while mitigating fat accumulation so in order to do that in order to train in a way where you are building as much muscle as much muscle as possible but also lessening the amount of fat accumulation you'd obviously want to keep your intensity up right hypertrophy training you not only put your muscles under a bunch of stress but you are also constantly keeping that energy and intensity up the entire exercise this is how you should line up all of your hypertrophy training your exercise should include three or more sets as far as rep ranges you should be doing eight to twelve reps and you will want to be lifting 75 to 85 percent of your one rep max and your rest time should not exceed one minute so as you can see because of the intensity of these exercises because of the amount of weight you're lifting 75 to 85 percent of your one rep max is pretty heavy and on top of that obviously your sets and rep ranges are higher but you're also only resting for a minute or less that really keeps your heart rate going and that will 100 percent mitigate fat accumulation the first thing that i would suggest if you are about to write your workout split you're about to start your bulk the first thing you need to do is figure out your one rep max in pretty much everything you plan on training because it is such a pain in the butt trying to go around and start each workout and guess what 75 to 85 percent of your one rep max is and if you're guessing you could be very much holding yourself back i mean what if you could be doing 10 12 pounds heavier and you just don't know because you haven't really tested it yet you're holding yourself back so first things first test your one rep max for squat bench deadlift whatever it is and get those numbers taken care of figure out that math so then you can really start progressing during your bulking phase you're going to love your compound movements your squat your bench your deadlift but it is very important to also do isolated and single single side exercises and the reason for this is because often time we will actually all of us one side of our body is stronger than the other it's just how it is and for me my upper body is stronger on one side and then the opposite is stronger for my lower body if that makes sense but anyway the point is when you're doing these compound movements when you're using your entire body or even exercises where you're using both legs rather than just one leg you're still using more of one side than the other and it might even switch like you know certain reps might be more on your left side whatever so doing these isolated single side exercises allows you to make sure that each side of your body all of your muscles are getting worked the exact same amount i shouldn't say exact same because they will never look exactly the same but i'm someone who stands in the mirror at the gym staring at my lats because i can see how uneven they are like my right lat is so much bigger than my left and it oh really makes me mad but that's because for probably a year i didn't do like a single oh no i did one yeah i literally did one single side back exercise every time i would do back it was all or nothing i would never do just single arm anything so that's on me i've learned but now i get to even out my back during this book so that's exciting the last thing i wanted to discuss about bulking is cardio if you are someone who loves their cardio like me this is the time to hold back a little bit because too much cardio will prohibit muscle growth and the goal here is to build muscle so as badly as you want to do your elliptical you might have to cut it short you might have to cut a couple days whatever it may be a good rule to follow is do not do cardio more than three or four times a week while you're on your bulk and also keep the time to a minimum so if you're doing high intensity cardio don't go over 20 minutes and if you're doing low intensity cardio don't go over 45 minutes okay i lied one more thing i did want to mention a couple episodes back i talked about over training and how i've been at a five-day split for a while now that's been great and i really wanted to talk about that during this bulking episode because contrary to popular belief muscle building occurs when your body is at rest not when you're training so i highly suggest taking at least two rest days a week while you're in this bulking phase to allow your body to have that much to have that recovery time so that your muscles can actually grow and that you can continue to train hard every time you go to the gym okay i know i just spewed a lot of information at you guys but i do have one more thing one more thing i want to say and that is to stay consistent whatever you decide to do stay consistent with it i have stopped and started and stopped and started and stopped started trying to eat more trying to gain muscle all these things over and over and over again but i've just held myself back so much because of that at the end of the day i've had that fear of growing i've had that fear of pushing myself past this comfort zone that i'd been in for two years rather than going from a very small frame to you know eventually growing and building this muscle and looking jacked i just would go back and forth from small to kind of muscular to small to kind of muscular small and it was just sad and unmotivating so if you're anything like me and you have struggled with wanting to be a muscle mommy one week and then the next week wanting to look like kendo jennor i totally understand that and in the world we live in it's pretty expected to feel like that but if you want to take your fitness journey seriously and if you have these goals and these dreams and if those things require you to build muscle and to work on your physique just go for it you have to tune out the noise you have to remove the distractions and the temptations because there will always be little struggles here and there with body image with insecurity things like that that's just life those are things we have to deal with but if you know your goals and you know where you're headed and you can remind yourself of that every day that's going to be your biggest superpower because staying consistent is the hardest part it's the hardest part of all of it in the kitchen in the gym in your head consistency is a challenge but because it's a challenge that's why it promotes the best results okay so i am very excited for this next chapter of my fitness journey and i am beyond excited to keep you guys updated as well and you should keep me updated about your fitness journeys as well because every now and then i'll get a cute little message saying mac i listened to your fitness episode this week and it really helped me and those messages make my month day year weekend life better so thank you i really appreciate it i appreciate you listening to this episode and i hope you learn something valuable i love you guys so much i hope you have a great weekend and i will see you next friday