Bulking for the first time(girl)

Amandainyaface

Hi guys!

I'm a 5"7 girl who weighs around 125 pounds, and I've been playing around with the thought of bulking up around 10 lbs. The reason for this is that even though I'm getting a lot stronger from lifting heavy with fewer reps in each set (currently 6 reps in each set) I don't physically see the change as much as i would like to. I was thinking that it might help me achieve my goals to look more toned if I gained around 10 lbs - but what do you guys think? My maintenance calories is 2000, maybe even a little bit more than that.

Do you have any advice for a first-time bulker?
Like how much should I eat every day and how much of a gain should I aim for each week?
Also should I still aim for around 1-1.5 g of protein/1lbs, and just up my carb and fat intake?


I stay away from processed foods 90% of the time so it's not gonna be a problem to gain the healthy way.

If any of the lovely ladies on this community are bulking feel free to add me so I can see how you're doing it!

cmeiron

There's a group here for women who are bulking that you might want to check out : http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/16930-women-who-bulk

Women have a harder time gaining muscle and an easier time gaining fat, unfortunately. Bulking can be a bit of a slower process for us as a result. The 1 lb/week recommendation usually thrown out applies more to men - the more common recommendation for women is to aim for 0.25-0.5 lb/week, and to only go about 200-300 calories about TDEE. Depending on how well trained you are, you'll probably gain more than 1 lb of muscle over the course of several months (I have, but this is my first bulk).

Have you been eating at maintenance for a while? If not, I suggest you slowly work your way up to it (about 100 cals/week increase) - reverse dieting, in other words. Your weight may do an initial jump then stabilize; you want to find that sweet spot. Then go ahead and start to increase the calories until you find a good intake to get the weight increase you're looking for. Personally, I also crept my intake up about 100 calories about every two weeks until I was happy with the results, but others just jump right in and add 200-300 (or more) right off the bat.

Depending on how much you're eating now and how much you end up needing to eat to bulk effectively you may find it more difficult to eat "clean" all the time. Most of us in the group are struggling to pack the calories in (much to our surprise) and most of us are enjoying not-so-"clean" food to help us reach the calorie goal. Protein is important: at least 1g/lb body weight. Most of the calorie increase is going to come from carbs.

As for the workouts, as long as you're using a good program with progressive loading, you should be fine. ETA: you'll want to make sure your reps are in the hypertrophy range: a bit higher than strength (common recommendations run between 6-12 reps).

pandorakick

There's a group here for women who are bulking that you might want to check out : http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/16930-women-who-bulk

Women have a harder time gaining muscle and an easier time gaining fat, unfortunately. Bulking can be a bit of a slower process for us as a result. The 1 lb/week recommendation usually thrown out applies more to men - the more common recommendation for women is to aim for 0.25-0.5 lb/week, and to only go about 200-300 calories about TDEE. Depending on how well trained you are, you'll probably gain more than 1 lb of muscle over the course of several months (I have, but this is my first bulk).

Have you been eating at maintenance for a while? If not, I suggest you slowly work your way up to it (about 100 cals/week increase) - reverse dieting, in other words. Your weight may do an initial jump then stabilize; you want to find that sweet spot. Then go ahead and start to increase the calories until you find a good intake to get the weight increase you're looking for. Personally, I also crept my intake up about 100 calories about every two weeks until I was happy with the results, but others just jump right in and add 200-300 (or more) right off the bat.

Depending on how much you're eating now and how much you end up needing to eat to bulk effectively you may find it more difficult to eat "clean" all the time. Most of us in the group are struggling to pack the calories in (much to our surprise) and most of us are enjoying not-so-"clean" food to help us reach the calorie goal. Protein is important: at least 1g/lb body weight. Most of the calorie increase is going to come from carbs.

As for the workouts, as long as you're using a good program with progressive loading, you should be fine. ETA: you'll want to make sure your reps are in the hypertrophy range: a bit higher than strength (common recommendations run between 6-12 reps).

Ditto to all of the above!

89nunu

There's a group here for women who are bulking that you might want to check out : http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/16930-women-who-bulk

Women have a harder time gaining muscle and an easier time gaining fat, unfortunately. Bulking can be a bit of a slower process for us as a result. The 1 lb/week recommendation usually thrown out applies more to men - the more common recommendation for women is to aim for 0.25-0.5 lb/week, and to only go about 200-300 calories about TDEE. Depending on how well trained you are, you'll probably gain more than 1 lb of muscle over the course of several months (I have, but this is my first bulk).

Have you been eating at maintenance for a while? If not, I suggest you slowly work your way up to it (about 100 cals/week increase) - reverse dieting, in other words. Your weight may do an initial jump then stabilize; you want to find that sweet spot. Then go ahead and start to increase the calories until you find a good intake to get the weight increase you're looking for. Personally, I also crept my intake up about 100 calories about every two weeks until I was happy with the results, but others just jump right in and add 200-300 (or more) right off the bat.

Depending on how much you're eating now and how much you end up needing to eat to bulk effectively you may find it more difficult to eat "clean" all the time. Most of us in the group are struggling to pack the calories in (much to our surprise) and most of us are enjoying not-so-"clean" food to help us reach the calorie goal. Protein is important: at least 1g/lb body weight. Most of the calorie increase is going to come from carbs.

As for the workouts, as long as you're using a good program with progressive loading, you should be fine. ETA: you'll want to make sure your reps are in the hypertrophy range: a bit higher than strength (common recommendations run between 6-12 reps).

/thread

well said and solid info

Amandainyaface

Thanks a lot!

HMVOL7409

There's a group here for women who are bulking that you might want to check out : http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/16930-women-who-bulk

Women have a harder time gaining muscle and an easier time gaining fat, unfortunately. Bulking can be a bit of a slower process for us as a result. The 1 lb/week recommendation usually thrown out applies more to men - the more common recommendation for women is to aim for 0.25-0.5 lb/week, and to only go about 200-300 calories about TDEE. Depending on how well trained you are, you'll probably gain more than 1 lb of muscle over the course of several months (I have, but this is my first bulk).

Have you been eating at maintenance for a while? If not, I suggest you slowly work your way up to it (about 100 cals/week increase) - reverse dieting, in other words. Your weight may do an initial jump then stabilize; you want to find that sweet spot. Then go ahead and start to increase the calories until you find a good intake to get the weight increase you're looking for. Personally, I also crept my intake up about 100 calories about every two weeks until I was happy with the results, but others just jump right in and add 200-300 (or more) right off the bat.

Depending on how much you're eating now and how much you end up needing to eat to bulk effectively you may find it more difficult to eat "clean" all the time. Most of us in the group are struggling to pack the calories in (much to our surprise) and most of us are enjoying not-so-"clean" food to help us reach the calorie goal. Protein is important: at least 1g/lb body weight. Most of the calorie increase is going to come from carbs.

As for the workouts, as long as you're using a good program with progressive loading, you should be fine. ETA: you'll want to make sure your reps are in the hypertrophy range: a bit higher than strength (common recommendations run between 6-12 reps).

/thread

well said and solid info

Haha! We run in a pack! This.

cmeiron

Haha! We run in a pack! This.

lol women bulkers of mfp unite! :drinker:

cmeiron

I'm curious why the recommendation is less weight gain for women?

And, how much fat/muscle do they gain compared to men?

I know that is hard to answer I guess I assume that women put on a lot more fat than muscle, so are the cut periods longer?

Doing everything right, and comparably to a man, a woman can expect to put on about 1/2 the amount of muscle in the same amount of time. You guys have the benefit of testosterone. Same as for a guy, if you gain weight too quickly, a greater proportion of it is going to be fat, so we need to put weight on more slowly (again, because the potential for muscle gain is smaller).