Can someone explain to me what all bulking/cutting entails?

KaleiAlanaSmith

I see a lot of women and men talking about bulking and cutting. I'm interested in learning about it but don't know much about what it is, what exercises you do, when to do it, or what calories look like.

Anyone have a clear explanation??
Thank you

sardelsa

Bulk/cut cycles are a way to change your physique by adding muscle over time.

So bulking will be building muscle and gain size/mass.. this will be done by eating in a surplus. However along with muscle there will be some fat gains. So once the bulk cycle is done you want to lose the fat covering your muscles, so you would cut... basically eating in a deficit and maintaining the muscle you build (as best you can) while losing the bodyfat.

Exercises will be progressive lifting, food will be hitting your calorie goal first then placing importance on macros as well.

There is a lot more information in the gaining section if you want to have a read.

CeeBeeSlim

Hope this is helpful. When I was trying to learn more, I came across this:

http://fitnessbaddies.com/cutting-bulking-and-the-fear-of-gaining-weight-a-womans-perspective/

bambarby

If you eat at your maintenance calories, you weight will not change (1st law of thermodynamics)
Bulking means you eat more calories than your maintenance calories. You will gain weight.
Cutting means you eat less calories than your maintenance calories. You will lose weight.
3500 calories = 1 pound of fat (in theory).

Now if you lift weight while you bulk, the weight you gain will be muscle + fat (if you don't lift weight at all you'll just gain fat)
If you lift weight while you cut, the weight you lose will be fat + some muscle (if you don't lift at all you'll lose muscle a lot more)

So to look good, we lift weights, and bulk (to gain muscles) then we cut (to lose fat).

The key here is that building muscle is a very slow process, so when you bulk, you only need to eat a bit over your maintenance calories; that way you'll gain weight slowly and the weight you gain will be mostly muscle. For example, if your maintenance is 2000 cal/day, and you eat 2250 cal/day, that's 250 cal surplus per day = 250x7= 1750 cal surplus per week, which is half a pound of weight gain per week, or 2 pounds per month (remember, 3500 cal=1 pound). For a man that's a decent bulking speed. That's 24 pounds weight gain in a year, maybe 5-10 lbs of that will be muscle. For a woman, you will definitely gain less muscle than that. So women should bulk slower.

Losing fat is a little easier than building muscle and you can be more aggressive. You can lose 1-1.5% of bodyweight per week without running a risk of losing too much muscle. A 200-lb man wanting to lose 2 lbs/week (1% of his bodyweight), will need to lose 7000 cal/week, which is 1000 cal/day deficit. So if your maintenance is 3000 cal/day and you eat 2000 cal/day, you will lose 2 lbs/week (or eat 2500 cal/day + lose 500 more calories doing something else ADDITIONAL of your typical daily routine). And if you lift weight, most of the weight lose will be fat.

Important points:

• Lifting weights build muscles when you bulk, and help preserve muscles when you cut
• It's important to have adequate protein intake in your diet to help preserve muscles
• Muscle cells are good, they burn way more energy than fat cells, and they make you look good. The more muscles, the better you looks, and the more you can eat
• All these numbers are theoretical, real life is never straightforward. If you stuck a weight-lose plateau, just nudge things a bit, eat 50 cal less, add 1 more cardio session, you will start losing weight again

This is 80% of fitness already. Look up macronutrients (carb/protein/fat), micronutrients (vitamins/minerals), and weight lifting, and that would be it really.