"Bulking" refers to the practice of eating at a surplus intake level (i.e. above maintenance) with the express purpose of increasing muscle mass. In addition to surplus intake, a progressive heavy lifting program is employed with the goal of muscle hypertrophy (or gains) and strength gains. If you increase muscle mass, you will gain weight; that's kind of the point. And yes, it DOES take a long time to gain appreciable muscle mass, especially for women; this is why a good bulk can last several - 6 months or so.

If you eat at a surplus, you will gain weight. That's basic physics (it follows the same logic as: if you eat at a deficit you will lose weight). When you gain weight, some of it will be muscle and some will be fat. Fat gain can be minimized if the weight gain is slow (for women about 1-2 lbs/month), but there will be fat gain. Some people try to do a "lean bulk" or "recomp", which is basically eating AT maintenance with the goal of recomposition (fat loss and muscle gain), but this tends to take a ridiculously long time and frankly I don't think it's efficient or overly effective for women, who, as I said, have a hard time putting on muscle anyways - better to just suck up the fat gain and enjoy better muscle gain in a shorter period of time.

After you've reached your desired bulk weight (for most of us here it seems to be about 10 lbs added), then you start another "cut" or loss phase; by maintaining your lifting program during the cut you retain a good chunk of the muscle mass you put on, but drop the fat. Your end weight may be higher than when you started your bulk, but you'll have a greater % of lbm.

ETA: oh, and fat doesn't turn to muscle, you're right about that.

Ditto to all of the above!

I am still confused and hopefully someone here can straighten me out! I would like to bulk but I need to be clear about this before I commit to gaining fat back when I feel like I just got rid of it!

I get that we need to eat at a surplus to gain muscle mass (plus fat) and that we need to lift heavy, but how many times a week lifting eating at a surplus would be considered bulking?

Asking because I am currently doing the NROL4W program, in the middle of Stage 7, and am finding that I need at least 2 non-lifting days (recovery) between sessions, so that puts me at lifting twice a week. On non-lifting days I am either doing a spin class, or taking 45+ minute walks because I can't stand doing nothing. Maybe this slows my recovery, I don't know. I am eating at maintenance right now, hoping to recomp, but as others have noted here and elsewhere it is a S L O W process and I'm getting a little frustrated with lifting as heavy as possible and not gaining much muscle.

I am about 22% bf right now - very good, but I'd like to do better! Also, I'm 48 if that matters.

3 or 4 days a week of lifting should be plenty; you need time to recover/repair, that's part of the building process. There's nothing wrong with some cardio - you'll just have to make sure you eat enough to compensate for the burn. But yeah, body comp changes will be slow if you stay at maintenance. If you want more visible results more quickly then you'll need to up your intake.

I get the hesitation to gain, though, especially the fat bit. It's a bit of a mind trip. I was just saying this in a status update: it's freaking weird to look at your average weight for the week and say "oh good, I'm up half a pound!".

Thanks for the reply, cmeirun. I would probably be doing only 2 days a week lifting, though. I guess if I dropped spin class I could do three.
I am really wanting to enjoy all the foods of the fall winter seasons so I may just go for it!

This clarifies a lot for me, also...

I know it's going to be a hard thing for me to get my head around, especially after busting *kitten* to lose since January, LOL...but I'm going to do it.

So, when we DO bulk, it's surplus every day, right? Like when we want to lose it's deficit (most) every day, correct?

Yes...surplus everyday. Most of your muscle recovery/gain will happen on your rest days...not on your actual lift days.