Bulking and Cutting Diet

"Setting Up a Bulking or Cutting Diet"

By adding extra calories to your maintenance calories in your bulking cutting diet, you are now undertaking the bulking portion of this food plan.  "Bulking up" is a term frequently used by the weight training community.

By adding in an extra 250-500 calories per day above your maintenance calories, you will be feeding your body with the extra calories it needs for building muscle.

I like to take the average of the two ((250+500)/2 = 375 calories) and add this to the maintenance calories:

2881 + 375 = 3256

Approximately 3250 calories per day might be a good bulk diet starting point for our 165lb test individual from Part 1. (Note: You can review how determine maintenance calories here.)

Eat your calculated amount every day and monitor your gains for a couple of weeks. 

If all looks good, continue on with the same calories in your weight lifting diet.

If you are gaining too much fat, cut the calories back some and re-monitor.  Again, trial and error is the best approach to learn what your body needs.
 

Lose Weight - Cutting Diet

I think that is probably safe to assume that bodybuilders who are interested in losing weight are mostly interested in losing fat.

I don't think many are interested in losing muscle; I know for sure I haven't met any.

With that being said, I believe it is important to lose fat slowly in order to preserve as much muscle as possible.

By reducing the calories you eat by 250-500 calories per day below your maintenance level, you will force your body to become a little more dependant on using your fat stores as energy.

I would opt for a 250 caloric reduction per day to minimize muscle loss.
 

Let's use the maintenance calories from the individual above as an example:

2881 - 250 = 2631

Therefore, 2630 calories per day would be a good starting point for a cutting diet for our example trainee above.

Trial and error will rule here as well.  Try this caloric decrease for two weeks and track your progress.  Losing weight fast?  Too fast?  Then add a hundred calories in a re-track.  Keep tweaking until you find what works for you.

Weight Lifting Diet - Advanced Calculation
Option B - Katch McArdle Equation

The Katch McArdle Formula is a non-gender based formula that is considered by many to be the most accurate calculation for a weight lifting diet.

>This equation takes into consideration one's LBM (lean body mass).

If you know your body fat percentage (if not, take your best guess at it), this is the best formula to use.

Using our test subject above who is 165 lbs., let's also assume he is 17% body fat.
 

Step 1 - Find out your LBM (lean body mass)

LBM = 165 - (165 x 17%) = 136.95 lbs
 

Step 2 - Determine your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate)

BMR = 370 + (9.82 x 136.95) = 1714.8 calories per day
 

Step 3 - Determine your activity level factor

Revisit how to determine your activity level factor, then return back here.
 

Again, we will use the activity factor of 1.55 as previously determined in the example above.

Maintenance calories = 1714.8 x 1.55 = 2657.94 daily calories
 

Again, as stated in Option A here, add or subtract (bulk diet or cut diet) 250 to 500 calories to your maintenance calories in order to arrive at your optimal daily caloric starting point.

Monitor and tweak as necessary from there.
 

Food for Building Muscle

Since we have figured out how much food we should be eating, it is now time to look at the variety of foods that you should eat in in your bulking and cutting diet.  Weight lifting diets shouldn't have to taste bad :)
 

Heck, I'm just going to send you over to the food for building muscle page since I want to devote an entire page to this important and yummy topic.

And be sure to check out the free muscle building recipes page as well.
 

Other Weight Lifting Diet Considerations

Other factors that may affect your weight lifting diet setup:

• Body type diet

• Food allergies and food preferences

• Building muscle goals
   

Always remember:

• You should also always consult your physician about any diet or training program before undertaking either.

• Any of these weight lifting diet formulas should only be used as a general starting point.

• You need to find what works best for you by trial and error.
   

Interested in getting shredded for a contest? Work with the best!

Be sure to check out some free ab workout programs here.

If you found this weight lifting diet page helpful, please pay it forward to a friend.

Back from Bulking and Cutting Diet, to Building Muscle Now