Episode 42: What to Consider Before Bulking
Hey there! 👋 I'm Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains), personal trainer and host of the Coaching Corner podcast. In this episode, I talk about what to expect when you enter into a bulk phase in your fitness.
Bulk phases are periods of time when you focus on building muscle by eating a calorie surplus (i.e., more than their maintenance level of calories). In combination with an exercise plan focused on hypertrophy, bulk periods can maximize muscle growth within a relatively short period of time (as opposed to eating a maintenance or deficit amount of calories every day).
Many people, however, are reluctant to try doing a bulk phase out of fear that it will undo the progress that they’ve made in their fat loss journey. In this episode, I give some tips for bulking in a way that minimizes fat storage, allowing you to put as much of the extra energy you’re eating toward muscle gains as possible.
This discussion in this episode was recorded while I was live on my Twitch channel for my weekly fitness stream. Make sure to follow or subscribe to me at Twitch.tv/jaydigains so you can participate in future discussions!
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Jayd (00:00):
When we do a clean bulk, you really should only be eating about 20% above your maintenance level of calories. If you are eating 20% above your maintenance level of calories and your workouts are effective, you're following a consistent training routine. You're training towards muscle failure, getting really close to muscle failure. You're eating enough protein. If you stay at just 20% above your maintenance level of calories, that will ensure that the majority of the weight gain that you see is actually muscle gains versus fat storage. Hey there. Welcome to the Coaching Corner podcast. I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. I've created this podcast to share with you some of the tips and wisdom that I picked up along the way during my over 10 years as a personal trainer and fitness coach. In today's episode, I'm going to share with you a discussion that I had with my Twitch chat when I was live on my Twitch channel.
(01:01)
One of the chatters was asking whether she should consider going into a bulk phase. Now, I thought that this discussion was a really great follow-up to one of the previous episodes of the Coaching Quarter podcast where I talked about the signs that you should look for if your body is in a recomp. And in that episode, I do explain the difference between a recomp phase versus a bulking phase and a cutting phase. So in this episode, we're going to be talking about what to expect when you're in a bulking phase. Now bulking phase means that you're specifically focusing on building muscle, and in this episode I share some tips for how to go about doing a bulk eating a calorie surplus to prioritize building muscle while minimizing the amount of fat that your body gains while you're in this phase. So I hope that you enjoy this discussion and that you find it helpful for your own fitness journey.
(01:53)
Now, before we get into the episode, make sure that you subscribe to this channel if you're watching this episode on YouTube, and make sure to hit the button for the video. If you're listening to this podcast, make sure that you follow the show so that you get notified anytime I drop a new episode. If you would like some more information on me and the services that I offer, make sure to head over to my website. That's jaydigains.com, J-A-Y-D-I-G-S .com. I do have a membership site that you can sign up for to get training tips, nutrition tips, recipe collections, meal plans and training programs, and I drop new content in that every single week. You can also join my email list by going to my website. Now, without further ado, let's get into the episode and talk about what to expect when you're in a bulk phase and how to minimize fat gains while you're in your bulk.
(02:50)
You want to consider bulking your body weight to increase strength, but you're unsure if you should. As you're concerned, it'll undo the balance of your diet. Yes, things to think about. I think this is worth talking about because I did want to kind of do a little series of discussions on different phases of your diet, of different phases of your fitness to go through. A couple episodes ago on the Coaching Corner podcast, I talked about what to expect when your body is recomp, when you are in a recomp phase where your body's doing both building muscle and burning fat ways to measure your progress if you don't see the scale moving because that's super common and I do touch on in that episode like how many gym goers will separate out their fitness journey is into blocks or I should say phases where for an extended period of time for a couple of weeks to a couple of months, they'll alternate between bulking and cutting and bulking and cutting are kind of two opposite phases.
(03:57)
One is mainly focused on prioritizing building muscle, and the cutting phase is where you're prioritizing burning fat. The trick with doing either doing a bulk or a cut is to try not to lose the progress that you've made in the other phase. So when you alternate between bulking and cutting, usually you start with bulking. So you start by prioritizing building muscle, and there's a good way to do this and there's a bad way to do this. The good way to do this would be what people might call a clean bulk, which is just a responsible bulk where you're eating a calorie surplus to prioritize building muscle because building muscle is a very calorie expensive activity for your body. So eating a surplus helps your body to have all the energy that it needs to make gains faster versus if you are eating a deficit or if you're at maintenance, you may still build muscle, but it's extremely slow.
(05:05)
It's a lot slower than it would be if you're eating calorie surplus. So when you're eating a calorie surplus, your body has the energy that it needs to actually build muscle as fast as it can. But the trick here is to not eat above so much of a surplus that you start putting on a lot of fat. And when you go into a cut face, when you're cutting calories and you're eating calorie deficit, the trick there is to eat enough of a deficit that your body burns fat but you don't lose muscle or you minimize the amount of muscle that you lose because when you're in a calorie deficit, your body, when your body is in a catabolic state, it's just breaking down tissue fat muscle, lean tissue and fat to get the energy that it needs. So that's the trick, right? And that's why a lot of people kind of opt for a recomp somewhere in the middle where your calories stay close to your maintenance level and you could still build muscle and burn fat while you're eating pretty close to your maintenance level of calories.
(06:13)
It's just really slow. So that's kind of the intro to what's the difference between these three types of diet phases. But let's take a look at the precise numbers that are recommended for these phases. For the baseline maintenance level of calories that you should eat for your body to just stay the same or to recomp where you're slowly making muscle gains, slowly making fat loss gains. Your maintenance level of calories is something you kind of have to figure out by trial and error, but you can get an estimate of what your maintenance level calories is by using an online calculator to see what your total daily energy expenditure is. TDEE, and you can do that by going to tde e.net. Oh, the one that I use is TDE calculator.net. Yeah, this is the one that I use. I don't use that other one. I don't know if it's that good.
(07:14)
This is the one that I use for my clients and for myself. So a total daily energy expenditure calculator gives you a rough estimate of how many calories, somebody of your height, your gender weight activity level should be able to eat without gaining or losing weight. Let's actually use, you want to use yourself in chat, Amanda, do you want me to use yours so we can kind of get an estimate of what your maintenance calories would be? Sure. Okay, so let's fill it out together. All right, so Ms. Amanda, oh yes. And be honest when you fill it out, Ms. Amanda, or I'm sorry, I'm assuming you're sex, I'm sorry. Most people who are named Amanda are female. Female or male, sorry, I'm sorry for assuming your gender. Just type it in. Chat. The gender, age, weight heights, and here are the activity level options.
(08:14)
Sedentary, like if you have an office job and then you come home and you watch Netflix or play video games, light exercises, one to two days a week of exercise. Maybe you go on a couple walks throughout the week, moderate exercises, exercising three to five days a week, nothing too crazy. Heavy exercise would be very active and you're working out really hard. Athletic or athlete would be you train two times a day. So female, give me age and weight as well. And height. Let's see. So you have an office job, but you gym four days and box two days. So I'm going to say that that's probably either moderate or heavy. We'll say moderate. Okay, and 27 a baby. And then weight and height two 10, wait, two 10 and height six and half, wait six and half inch. So like six one, we can estimate six one.
(09:18)
We don't necessarily need to put in body fat percentages as optional for the calculation. So let's hit calculate. Alright, so now keep in mind that this is just an estimated number. So someone of your size, your height, weight, gender, activity level should in general be able to eat 2,800 ish calories a day as your maintenance level of calories. Now does that mean that that's your body's actual maintenance level of calories? Can you actually eat 2,800 calories a day and not gain or lose weight? That is a different question entirely. In order to answer that, you have to test this number over the course of a week to a couple of weeks to figure out what your actual maintenance level of calories is. But this is kind of a good estimation. So you want to write down what the estimation is and kind of save that number.
(10:18)
So I put you down as moderate exercise here. If it was heavy exercise, that would mean that you're probably going to need more calories. So if it's heavy exercise meaning working out what was that five to six times a week and being pretty active, then it would be closer to about 3000 calories a day. Now to figure out your body, you got to test that number. You can use a calorie tracking app or a food journal, I don't know where mine is a food journal where you basically track what you eat every day and you aim to eat 2,800 calories and then see how your body responds. You weigh yourself at the beginning of the week, do that for a week and you can weigh yourself every day and see how your body weight trends. If your weight goes up, then that means that 2,800 is not actually your maintenance level of calories.
(11:13)
That means that that is actually above your maintenance calories because you're gaining weight with that number. So then you would adjust, adjust the amount of calories that you eat every day, bringing it down. So you go from 2,800 to aiming for 2,600 or 2,500, do that for a week or two weeks, weigh yourself before and after and then see how your weight trends. If it continues to go up, then that means that that's still too high, that's still higher than what your actual maintenance calories is. So you keep adjusting it to the point where your body weight kind of just stays the same or it comes back down and then it just plateaus where it plateaus. That's your maintenance level of calories. So you might have to adjust a couple of times and you might find that your actual maintenance calories is like 2200, 2300 or something like that.
(12:01)
If your weight goes down, if you eat 2,800 and your weight goes down, then that means that that's actually a calorie deficit, so you need to try to eat more calories. So you add a hundred to 250 calories, do that another week. If your weight continues to go down, keep adding more on a week by week basis until your weight stabilizes and at that point you'll know whatever you're eating at that point is your maintenance calories. So that's kind of like how you can find your maintenance calories if you're not already tracking but you're already tracking and you said that you're eating about 2,400 calories usually and you're maintaining between 2 0 5 and two 10 usually eating about 2,400. So how long have you been maintaining? So that's another question you want to think about. If in my mind maintaining is when that weight kind of stays fluctuating at about the same level for two, three weeks, at least three years, and you've been eating 2,400 for three years and it's been staying about that level. Your last bulk, you went from one 90 to 2 0 5 in 2021. I see.
(13:17)
So for three years, oh my god, 2021 was over three years ago. That's crazy to think about. Just a reminder of where we are. Happy 2025 everybody. Okay, cool. Alright, so let's go back to your original question. You want to consider bulking your body weight to increase your strength, but you're unsure if you should as you're concerned, it'll undo the balance of my diet plus I think I'm teetering on the high side. So we already know that you're maintaining, right? You're maintaining where you're at. My question would be how has your body fat percentage and the amount of muscle tissue that you have changed over the last three years, so you're gyming four days a week and you're boxing, are you seeing progressive gains in your lifts? Are you able to progressively add more reps and add more weight over time? Are you sticking to a consistent routine where you can see that progress or are you doing something different every time that you go to the gym or every week you are able to add more reps and more weight over time?
(14:27)
Yeah, like bench press. Yeah, so the thing is, it is a good idea, especially if you're considering bulking. If you're considering building muscle or changing your body composition in any way, it's a good idea to stick to a specific lifting routine for a couple of weeks at a time. Six to 12 weeks is generally what I recommend, and the reason for that is you do the same routine, you do the same four day routine every week. The reason for that is that that gives you some control points for data to know whether you're actually getting stronger. If you keep the routine the same on a week by week basis on your push day, say you do bench press and then you do chest flies and then you do tricep, kickbacks, et cetera, and you keep that order of exercises, you should every time you train, be able to do more reps or more weight on most of the exercises.
(15:29)
If you're seeing that happening, then that tells you that you're building muscle because you're getting stronger. If you're not tracking your actual body fat percentage, seeing your performance gains go up is a good way for you to know that even though your weight is maintaining more of your body is muscle versus fat and that's gains, right? So you went from being able to curl 12.5 kilos to 15 and went from benching 17.5 kilos to 20 kilos with a max of 22.5, but that's only barely eight reps. If I push it over what period of time? Because we want to get a little bit more scientific about between this date and that date right over the last eight weeks or over the last three months. If you're not on an actually blocked progressed program, that's the first thing that I would you think it took six months to reach that?
(16:26)
Okay. Okay, good. But that is one thing that I would say before you go on this next book, get on some kind of a progressed training schedule. That way you can make sure that as you see the scale either not change or go up, you're able to see measurably, oh, I'm able to do more weight or I'm able to do more reps on these exercises and stick to that routine for six to 12 weeks. That is a good way for you to judge the effect of your bulk as you change how you're eating. So that's a good way for you to make sure that you're not throwing everything out of whack and that you're not just building fat.
(17:11)
That is the concern. When you're in a calorie surplus, a certain amount of it is likely going to go to fat storage. It's hard to avoid a little bit of fat gains, but when we do a clean bulk or a bulk the right way, you really should only be eating about 20% above your maintenance level of calories. If you are eating 20% above your maintenance level of calories and your workouts are effective, you're following a consistent training routine. You're training towards muscle failure, getting really close to muscle failure, you're eating enough protein. If you stay at just 20% above your maintenance level of calories, that will ensure that the majority of the weight gain that you see is actually muscle gains versus fat storage. So it sounds like 2,400 is probably your maintenance level of calories. So you could do a gradual increase up to what is 120% of 2400 0 2800, the number that we calculated, 28 80 would be a clean bulk level for you at 20% above your maintenance level of calories.
(18:27)
So you could try that. Is my weight so far fine for my height as in healthy? I don't put a lot of emphasis on weight to height ratio. Here's the thing, BMI, that comparison of your height to your weight is not a good indicator of health. The only thing that it is helpful for if you have a lot of body fat as you lose that body fat, then as BMI gets lower, then yeah, that can be a good indicator of improved health. If your body fat is also correlated with other actual good markers of health. So if the concern is health, right? If the concern is health, I would not necessarily use body weight as the number one indicator of am I a healthy, am I healthy or not I healthy or not is much better answered by looking at your heart rate like your resting heart rate levels is your resting heart rate level at a healthy level for normal healthy resting heart rate that's between 60 and a hundred beats per minute.
(19:41)
What are your cholesterol levels? Are your cholesterol levels healthy? Are your blood pressure levels healthy? If we're thinking about body fat rather than BMI, I'm more interested in the waist to hip ratio, like how much belly fat you have a waist to hip ratio for a woman, it's better to have 0.85 or less If you divide your waist by your hip circumference. Those are much better indicators of health than body weight because as you build muscle, as you become more and more of a muscle, mommy, your BMI is going to go up and it may even go to the point where it says you're overweight or you're obese. Even one of my good buddies Uber cruiser, I don't know if he's here in the chat right now, he is humongous. It's all muscle. It's all muscle. He is strong as fuck. He is an ex competitive MMA fighter.
(20:46)
Now he does power lifting and he's a big, very strong dude, very healthy body fat percentage as well. But BMI has categorized him as obese, so that's why I don't really give a fuck much about body weight. It's more how much of your body weight is muscle versus fat. And then in terms of health, what are your other body measurements? What are the actual indicators of health, blood sugar levels or insulin levels, you know what I mean? Your waist to hip ratio is 0.75. Girl, you're fine. You are more than fine, you're good, you're Gucci, you don't have to worry, you're fine. Don't worry about BMI. BMI is not for muscle mommies. BMI does not apply. If you're a muscle mommy, your body is going to have more muscle and you may even look like you shouldn't weigh what you weigh because, because because muscle's so dense, right?
(21:44)
Muscle is heavy but dense so it takes up less space than fat. So I wouldn't worry about your weight. Now if you want to be more muscular in order to build strength, building muscle is going to allow you to have more strength because more muscle means that you have more horsepower to work with. So you could bulk and I wouldn't worry about it making you unhealthy as long as you keep it healthy at the healthy levels, right? 20% above your maintenance level of calories do that. You could do that for as long as you want. You're going to see less negative impact by doing a lean bulk for a long period of time than you will see if you are in a calorie deficit for a long period of time. Our bodies do not like to be at calorie deficits. People do. People do not do well when they're cutting for a really long time, but bulking you can do forever really as long as you are keeping your protein high, you're working hard in the gym.
(22:47)
As hard as you need to build muscle and your sleep is okay and as long as your other health indicators are good, you're Gucci. I want to worry about it. Go for it. Cholesterol and blood's fine. Blood sugar isn't high. Yeah, you're good. I wouldn't worry about it. Your waist to hip ratio is good. Yeah, I think shoot for the stars, I think you're going to be fine. I wouldn't worry about gaining a bunch of fat and fucking up losing any fat loss progress that you've made after having the babies. Especially if you are staying pretty. Oh, your body fat is already super low. Yeah, your body fat is incredibly low for a woman, we don't really like to go below 15%. Yeah, so you definitely post-pregnancy is at 20. Yeah, that's normal. That's normal. So is the worry here that you're going to bulk and you're going to lose that fat loss progress?
(23:44)
Honestly, I don't think you should worry about that because especially after being at 2,400 calories, you can maintain at 2,400 calories. You've done that for three years, you know can do that. So I don't think that you should worry about losing all of your progress by going into a slight surplus because especially if you're keeping it at no more than 20% above your calories, that most of that is going to go to muscle anyway. Now, if you wanted to keep it super, super lean, if you wanted to be super, super lean, it will be super, super slow, but you could keep it at 10% of a surplus. The closer you stay to maintenance, the slower your gains are going to be, but you're a lot less likely to put on fat. So if you think it's going to fuck with your head, seeing your body fat increase, which the higher you go, there's more likelihood that some of that gain is going to be fat and that's just something you kind of have to make peace with that you're going to look a little fluffier than you did a couple months ago, but most people are able who are successful and successfully bulking and then doing a shortcut to kind of get their body fat percentage down and really improve their physique.
(25:00)
The ones who are most successful are the ones who are able to stick it out in that uncomfortable place where you're like, I'm looking a little thick and juicy right now. You kind of have to prepare yourself mentally that you're not going to be as lean as you are now. You're going to see less muscle definition as you build muscle because some of that body fat is going to come up. It's kind of inevitable.
(25:31)
It's hard to not put any fat on when you bulk and you have to be okay with that. You have to make peace with that. If you can stick it out and you can be like, it's okay, I'm a little fluffy now, but I'm going to trim off that fat later when I transition into a cut, then you are going to see a massive transformation if you can stick it out, right? You are maintaining with this five to six hours of sleep, so I hope I'll get more sleep as I'm breaking up with my boyfriend who is sort of adding stress. Let's go fucking gains across the board, girl. Yeah, I love this idea. Can you have 16% body fat while also being 2 25? I don't know. I don't know. Because the thing is I don't know how fast your body is going to build muscle, so as you go up in muscle, it's not going to be linear progress.
(26:27)
Just like fat loss isn't a linear process either. So the main thing to look for is am I progressing? Is my performance progressing? Am I doing more reps? Am I doing more weight over time? That tells you that you are building muscle and then are you seeing the scale either maintain like you're not gaining any weight or it's just gaining very gradually? We don't want to see any huge jumps because the faster that you gain weight, the more likely that some of that weight gain is going to be fat. So nice and slow, slow and steady, but again, 10 to 20% above your maintenance calories should be just right, especially if you're sleeping well and you're training like you need to in the gym. Don't worry so much about the weight, it's more, well, what you want to do. Your primary goal of bulking, right is to get stronger, is to be able to lift more and be stronger.
(27:31)
So I wouldn't get so hung up and focused on what exactly your body weight needs to be. The goal is to gain X amount of muscle, X amount of pounds so that you can lift more so that you can get heavier lifts. Oh, your core is visible at this weight. You wouldn't want that to go. That's going to be hard because it's another thing you have to prepare yourself for because you will lose belly definition and it is hard to watch that go. It is hard to watch that go, but if you do the 10% bulk where you're just eating what, 2,400 cal, I'm sorry, you're at 2,400 calories, so if you go at a smaller bulk and you eat 2,600 calories, I mean you might be able to hold on to some of that muscle definition. It's just you have to decide in your mind what's more important.
(28:27)
Is it more important to get more gains faster so that you can get stronger faster? Is that worth losing temporarily losing some core definition, some definition of your abs or is it more important to you to maintain your body fat percentage while you very, very slowly gain muscle and get stronger? So what do you want more immediately? I think if it were me, if I were your trainer and I'm not your trainer, but if I were your trainer and I was pacing you, I'd say let's just do a 10% increase. Let's go super, super slow and then let's do that for just four weeks. Okay, let's work for four weeks at 10% above your maintenance level and then we'll reassess. That will give you time to see some gains and also assess how much it is worth for you to lose some core definition because you might even at 10%, you still might lose some maybe, but it might give you some time to kind of unlatch from that idea.
(29:42)
That's a ramp up, right? You got four weeks to eat a very small surplus and prepare yourself emotionally for getting another 10% to your surplus and just be prepared that some of that definition is going to go away and do that for four weeks. The second four weeks would be that, that 20% above maintenance, do that for four weeks and then reassess. If you hate it and you're like, I can't see my ass anymore, I fucking hate this shit, it's not worth it. I know that I'm getting stronger and my lifts are going up and I feel amazing in the gym, but I want to see my abs dammit. Then cut back down to 10%. Again, you can go very slow with this very gradually change what you're doing and it will not take away your gains. You're not going to immediately lose your ab definition and you're not immediately going to, you know what I mean?
(30:36)
So why don't you give yourself sort of a ramp up like a little baby bulk, give yourself a little baby bulk period and then if you like the pace that you're gaining, if you like the pace at which you're able to add more reps and add more weight and you are also happy with your body fat percentage, then you could just keep going with that for a while, but nothing is going to change overnight. You got plenty of time to adjust mentally. I think in terms of body fat percentage right now you're doing, you're really low, you're really, really low would in terms of health, you have a lot of body fat that you could gain and still be healthy and still be fit and athletic. If I'm maxing at one 20 pounds, is there any point increasing strength while compromising core visibility? Well, the compromising core visibility would be a temporary thing, and that's something you have to know going into your bulk as well.
(31:35)
It's temporary because what most people do is in the short term sacrifice muscle definition in order to get strong faster and maximize muscle gains. And then once they have reached a certain amount of gains, either a certain amount of weight that they wanted to gain in muscle or they've reached a point where they're lifting as much as they want to lift, then they will transition back towards maintenance and then into a cut phase. And a lot of times if they're really trying for strength, that will be a very, very, very small deficit of 20% below maintenance and at 20% below maintenance athletes are able to still build muscle and burn fat at the same time. And you're more on the athletic side too with where you are in terms of your performance and in terms of your activity levels. So that would be a point where you kind of are putting it for the future if you can be like, this is a temporary thing and I will trim that fat off in the future, but most people do not stay super, super chiseled all the time.
(32:44)
Most people, when you're super ripped, that is a small portion of the year because if you stay like that, you really are kind of capping yourself at how much you can gain in terms of your strength. When you stay super, super lean, it's just really hard to gain muscle when you're eating a super low level of calories. If you want to make a dramatic change to your body, then you'll have to kind of make more dramatic changes to your diet. The muscle definition will come back once you go into your cut phase and you trim off. The goal of your cut phase would be to maintain as much of the weight that you've gained in muscle and not lose the muscle, but just trim the fat, but you will be heavier because your body will just be more dense. Your body fat percentage at that point is the thing that you want to look at in the future, you will be heavier but also have that definition come back and at that point you'll be able to lift more and you'll be stronger.
(33:49)
The body fat percentage is a percentage of the weight, so regardless of whether you are 120 pounds or you are 220 pounds, what matters is how much of that weight is body fat and how much of that weight is muscle. So if you gain 15 pounds of muscle and your body fat percentage stays the same, you'll still have the same muscle definition that you like, it's you'll see more muscle, there will be more muscle there. Yeah, so no, you can get the muscle definition. Again, it's just that if you are bulking at 20% or if you're doing a dirty bulk, which is the other kind of bulk that a lot of people will do, a dirty bulk is when you're just YOLO and you just eat whatever you want. Maybe not even necessarily tracking calories, but you're definitely eating a surplus. It's just that you're not being careful, you're not tracking your calories, you're just eating whatever.
(34:44)
If you yolo bulk or dirty bulk, then it is more likely that you'll gain weight and a higher percentage of the weight that you gain will be fat. If you clean bulk or lean bulk, keeping it between 10 and 20% above your maintenance level of calories, then that's how you can make sure that the majority of the weight that you are taking on is muscle so that you can keep as much of that muscle definition and you can see your abs more versus just gaining a bunch of weight, so dirty bulk to 300 pounds, then no, don't do that because that will fuck up your diet. That will fuck up your progress. Don't do that. And also like to get there. I dirty bulking also, a lot of times people will be eating food that's just really bad for them, lots of saturated fat and so when people dirty bulk, they also end up having issues with their blood pressure or their cholesterol levels or their insulin levels, you know what I mean?
(35:43)
So I do not recommend dirty bulking when I administer bulks with my clients. I keep it to 20% above maintenance level of calories no more. And then we have our treat days. We do factor in vacations and treat days where it's like you go a little bit higher or yolo, go on vacation, enjoy it. Your body's going to reflect what you do most of the time. At what weight should you stop bulking completely. That is a personal question that's for you to answer, but I will say most people have a limit to how much muscle they can build naturally, and we call that genetic potential. So everybody has a genetic potential limit of how much muscle you can build without having to go on steroids. And when you reach that point where no matter what you do, you've changed your workouts, you're trading towards muscle failure, you're eating as much as you need to eat and the scale isn't moving and you're also just struggling to add more weight, add more reps, that would be the natural stopping point.
(36:59)
Most people never, ever reach their potential. I don't recommend steroids. It'll fuck you up. It'll fuck you up. Don't even think about steroids. I do not recommend it. I have friends who do it. It will fuck you up. That's my recommendation. I do not recommend steroids, so I don't think you even have to worry about a stopping point. I will say though, the way that a lot of people kind of approach their bulk in terms of when are they going to stop, there's a couple of different approaches. One is you can bulk indefinitely until you reach your genetic potential and then you're like, I've done it. I am the ultimate muscle mommy. I'm an Amazon warrior princess, and just enjoy it. So that be, that will take years, decades to reach that point. Another way that some people approach it, like my friend Krista and her husband Joey, were terrible.
(37:54)
She stops her bulk when she feels like, okay, now I'm just a little lot fluffier than what I can handle mentally. I need to start trimming off some fat. It is getting to the point where I really, really hate. I really hate what I see in the mirror. This is way too fluffy. I don't like this. Let's do a shortcut phase. And then some people will set a limit in terms of how many pounds or kilograms they want, and then they'll stop their bulk once they reach that amount of weight. You could do either of those options, any of those options, but again, just know that your body is not going to change overnight. You're not going to see any huge drastic change. So if you are hating what's happening or if you feel like you're not making enough progress or if you feel like you're losing more definition than you want to live with, then you can always switch gears, switch tacks, and kind of take it down a notch.
(38:51)
You can't bulk more than 15 pounds at a time. Okay? If you know that about yourself, then that's your goal, then that's your goal. Just bulk up to 15 pounds. Do it in a really controlled way, very careful and slowly. And then once you get to that 15 pounds, I would recommend planning to transition out of your bulk to a period of maintenance where you're eating your maintenance level of calories. Keep in mind that as you build muscle though, your maintenance level of calories is also probably going to go up. You're probably going to need to eat more than 2,400 calories once you reach your bulk goal. Also, as you are trying to get to 15 pounds, you may reach a point where because you've built more muscle, you may need to increase the amount of calories that you're eating in order to continue building towards 15 pounds.
(39:45)
So you may have to adjust your calories six, seven weeks in because your maintenance level of calories goes up, your maintenance level of calories goes up and down according to how much muscle you have. So keep that in mind. If you are seeing your bulk is slowing down and you're sticking to your calories, but you're not seeing gains like you were initially, it's likely because now your body is spending more calories, so you need to bump up your calories again. When you go to find your maintenance level of calories at the end of your bulk, just gradually reduce 100 to 250 calories at a time for one week and see how your body weight responds and just do that until your body weight stays the same. But I say, go for it. If you were my client, I'd say, yeah, go for it. I think you got this. But just make sure that you get on a program and keep the consistent routine for six to 12 weeks or however long it is that you are in your bulk, because that will tell you as your weight goes up, whether that weight is muscle and strength. As you can see, you're able to do more reps and more weight over time.
(40:59)
Thank you so much for watching or listening to this episode of the Coaching Corner podcast. I hope that you found this episode's discussion to be helpful in thinking about how you are going to go about the next phase in your personal fitness journey, whether you're going to be bulking cutting, or if you're aiming for a recomp or maintenance phase. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can also sign up for my membership site and leave your questions and comments in the posts. You can also ask your questions live when I'm live on my Twitch channel on Tuesdays and other times throughout the week. As I have time, just go to Twitch.tv/jaydigains to give me a follow or a subscribe if you'd like to support the channel. And that's it for today's episode. I hope that you have a good rest of your day. I'll see you in the next one. Take care.
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