“To Bulk, Or Not To Bulk?”

4 Things You Need To Know Before Considering Bulk Diets

This winter, I tried my first and last ever bulk. 

After a bout of food poisoning in December cost me my appetite and subsequently also my strength and motivation, I decided to resort to desperate measures and briefly switch to eating highly palatable foods. I knew the cost of this would be a heavier body and a ‘bigger’ look but at that point I just wanted my strength back and that I indeed did achieve. 

Problems arose when I tried switching back to my usual high protein and veg diet. I was shocked at the discomfort I experienced – it’s as if my years of healthy eating habits had been wiped from my memory. 

I was suddenly struggling to find joy in eating vegetables and even found chewing on protein tedious – all I could think of was how I wanted the meal time to be over and how I’d rather have a quick carbohydrate snack and be done with it. 

I have also struggled with a negative self image/body dysmorphia a whole lot more since then. It took me months to rebuild my usual eating habits and it proved to me what I already knew – bulking just doesn’t work. 

So, What Exactly Is Bulking? Why Do People Do It?

For some of you, this might be the first time you’re hearing of such a protocol, so you might be wondering, what is the appeal of bulking? Well, it is seen as the ‘get out of jail FREE’ card in Monopoly although it isn’t. 

Here’s what happens: alongside a daily training regime, for 3-6 months, the individual switches to a high carb diet for ‘maximum gains’. ‘Bro science’, as we call it, believes that when you feed your muscles ‘full’ until energy spills over in the form of increased bodyfat %, there is no chance of missing even an ounce of ‘gains’ and therefore reaping maximum benefits from the intense training period.

After this surplus phase, the person ‘diets down’ by drastically lowering carbs and the ‘new’ physique is revealed. As a side note, a decade ago, in my very first gym in London, I witnessed a few individuals attempt this every winter. I dare say that their physiques changed marginally and probably not much more from what they would have achieved on a carb controlled diet. 

There are several important points to make when it comes to self induced binge-restrict eating patterns and I will present to you researched, science-backed statements on what is optimal for our bodies.

1. Yes, carbs can be good for performance, however, pro athletes never eat to excess and always stay close to competition shape for optimal performance. 

We need far fewer carbs to replenish our glycogen stores in muscles post-training than one might think. 

Training only reduces muscle glycogen by 33% and these stores are fully replenished within 24 hours on a normal diet. This also means that our limitations during training are more likely caused by our adaptations to said type of training and not because we didn’t ‘carb up’ enough.

It is also important to mention that even during exercise, there are limits to how much energy can be consumed safely. Our bodies cannot process more than 1g of glycogen per minute and quantities greater than that can make us feel sick as the glycogen accumulates in the gut. 

2. Eating an excessive amount of carbs will never result in muscle gain simply because lean muscle is built by protein.

Instead, the size one might pack on is, in fact, from water weight, which is then later lost again as the carbs are depleted from the muscle. 

Muscle protein synthesis (MPS) takes place the moment we start to break muscle down by training. MPS levels are at their highest up to 2-6 hours post training, so how much protein do we need to consume? Studies show that as little as 30g protein post endurance training provides a near maximal stimulation of muscle protein synthesis, which is later topped up by other meals containing 30-50g protein each. 

Although we do want to consume some carbs (CHO) to avoid blood sugars dropping to an unpleasant low, it’s not the CHO that builds muscle. Carbohydrate intake after training and post-protein is what creates the ‘full’ look of the muscle as our bodies store 3g water for every 1g of glycogen stored. This full look is referred to as being ‘swole’ and is the desired ‘pumped’ look amongst bodybuilders. 

3, Heavy fluctuations in one’s eating habits and food choices can do a lot of harm for one’s health and long term relationship with food. 

Here we face several issues: 

1) loss of sensory specific satiety (SSS = feeling easily satiated from eating the same foods regularly), which will result in us needing more food to feel full. 

2) Changes to our palate – our taste buds regenerate every 10-24 days, which means that a period of reckless food choices, results in a need for stronger flavours (highly palatable foods). 

3) Fewer calories being burned from processed food. The thermic effect differs greatly between the three macronutrients, from being as high as 33% from protein to 5-15% from fats and carbs. 

4) Studies also prove that we are far more easily convinced into eating foods high in sugar and fat due to their addictive nature. This could be one of the reasons why ‘bulking’ is tempting for many as the foods this allows access to, tend to be seen as more socially acceptable and ‘fun’. But hedonism never built a strong, durable body. 

4. Working on losing bodyfat is simple if you know what to do but you can risk losing lean muscle tissue if you’re not fuelling your body optimally during periods of fat loss. 

Resistance training and a high daily protein intake allow an individual to lose bodyfat and preserve lean muscle even in a deficit. The average individual, who is also more likely to engage in increased levels of endurance exercise such as running and cycling, consumes around 1,2g of protein per kg of bodyweight a day.

Bodybuilders, for example, consume around 1,7-2,2g/kg/d. During a 6 month study where participants trained 3 times a week and stayed in a 500-700kcal deficit, the endurance athletes lost 2,7kg of lean mass whereas athletes who were using resistance training, only lost 1kg. And remember – the higher your lean muscle mass, the faster your metabolism, so it definitely pays to eat more protein!

That’s it for now, more in the next blog post!

I hope you found dissecting bulking and binge-restrict eating habits interesting and that I was able to offer helpful insight to what we should be doing instead to ensure long term success. 

Of course there is so much more to cover and I will dive deeper into thermogenesis and essential macronutrients in future posts. In the meantime, please do join in on the discussion and ask me any questions you might have. 

Happy training!