{"id":1033,"date":"2013-05-21T09:10:11","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T09:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2016-10-06T18:33:39","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T18:33:39","slug":"bulking-up-vs-gaining-muscle-and-losing-fat-at-the-same-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/bulking-up-vs-gaining-muscle-and-losing-fat-at-the-same-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulking up vs gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of people believe that the only way to get muscular is to bulk up and eat a LOT of food daily, and when they finally hit their weight goal, they can begin \u201ccutting phase\u201d and lose all that fat to look vascular and ripped. I suppose that came from watching professional bodybuilders, who have \u201coff-season\u201d periods when they are bulky and bloated, and contest periods, when they are shredded to the bone.<\/p>\n<p>But many don\u2019t understand that they do this because human body cannot physically stay at 3-4% body fat for long periods of time \u2013 you suffer from exhaustion, random head-aches, easy bruising, nosebleeds and dozens of other not so pleasant things (prone to disease being one of them). That\u2019s why those bodybuilders bulk up again and get &#8220;fat&#8221;. Only few bodybuilders actually stay lean all year round, gaining few percent of fat after contests, but still looking solid and ripped. Oh, and we can\u2019t really forget the drugs they use in abnormal quantities.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, you can gain muscles and lose weight at the same time. And you can stay lean all year round without straining yourself much (if we are talking about 7-9% body fat). Proper diet is the key to this. You must eat 6 well-balanced meals (with enough protein!) throughout the day and eat 10% less than your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). To calculate your nutritional needs, refer to one of our previous articles \u2013 &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/how-much-should-you-eat-as-a-bodybuilder\/960\">How much should you eat as a bodybuilder?<\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>So what are the benefits of bulking up in \u201ctraditional\u201d way?<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/lee_priest_off_season01.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1034 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/lee_priest_off_season01.jpg\" alt=\"lee_priest_off_season01\" width=\"600\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/lee_priest_off_season01.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/lee_priest_off_season01-300x110.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It\u2019s good for very skinny people, who are embarrassed by their current looks. You can gain several kilograms fast enough and re-gain your confidence. And then gradually (not drastically!) improve the diet, so you can continue to gain weight, but with less and less fat, and eventually start losing fat and gaining pure muscle.<\/li>\n<li>Perfect for weight-lifters who do not need to be lean at all, especially in the heaviest weight categories.\u00a0 Actually fat cells store more intra-cellular fluids which make you stronger. That explains why some of the strongest men on the planet are fat.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s quite easy and not very demanding, until you get to the cutting phase.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That\u2019s pretty much it.<\/p>\n<h2>But what are the benefits of gaining lean muscle and losing fat at the same time?<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Lee-Labrada_Hou-Gym.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1035 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Lee-Labrada_Hou-Gym.jpg\" alt=\"Lee Labrada_Hou Gym\" width=\"545\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Lee-Labrada_Hou-Gym.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Lee-Labrada_Hou-Gym-300x248.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 545px) 100vw, 545px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When you gained good amount of muscle, you will look <i>great<\/i> all year round. There are no ups and downs.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s far healthier and less stressful for your body to eat well all the time, compared to eating like a pig in \u201coff-season\u201d (which might be autumn-winter for non-competing bodybuilders) and then starving yourself when it\u2019s time to show off your results.<\/li>\n<li>You will have more confidence, because you are always at your peak and you continue to improve every month. So if someone asks to show your abs, you will gladly do that, without excuses like \u201cUgh, I\u2019m off season now\u201d (which means absolutely nothing for those who are not involved in bodybuilding, by the way).<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s perfect for those who are already overweight or slightly overweight (which is 2\/3 of America anyways). You will start to transform rapidly with this method.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And of course list of down sides will be bigger for bulking up and much smaller for gaining lean muscle and losing fat at the same time. But we will not discuss the downsides in this article.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully, by now you realized that bulking up method is not that good for normal people (not professional bodybuilders) and from now on you will choose a proper way and do everything right from the start.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of people believe that the only way to get muscular is to bulk up and eat a LOT of food daily, and when they finally hit their weight goal, they can begin \u201ccutting phase\u201d and lose all that fat to look vascular and ripped. I suppose that came from watching professional bodybuilders, who have \u201coff-season\u201d periods when they are bulky and bloated, and contest periods, when they are shredded to the bone. But many don\u2019t understand that they<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bulking up vs gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time. - Body Building and Fitness News Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/bulking-up-vs-gaining-muscle-and-losing-fat-at-the-same-time\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bulking up vs gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time. - Body Building and Fitness News Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A lot of people believe that the only way to get muscular is to bulk up and eat a LOT of food daily, and when they finally hit their weight goal, they can begin \u201ccutting phase\u201d and lose all that fat to look vascular and ripped. I suppose that came from watching professional bodybuilders, who have \u201coff-season\u201d periods when they are bulky and bloated, and contest periods, when they are shredded to the bone. But many don\u2019t understand that they\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/bulking-up-vs-gaining-muscle-and-losing-fat-at-the-same-time\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Body Building and Fitness News Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Real-Muscle-Forum\/384088914977991\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-21T09:10:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-10-06T18:33:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/workingout.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"298\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"297\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Real Muscle Guest\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@RealMuscleForum\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@RealMuscleForum\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Real Muscle Guest\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/bulking-up-vs-gaining-muscle-and-losing-fat-at-the-same-time\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.realmuscleforum.com\/content\/bulking-up-vs-gaining-muscle-and-losing-fat-at-the-same-time\/\",\"name\":\"Bulking up vs gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time. - 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