When you venture into the gym/fitness world, you will hear a lot of different terms used to define different goals. The main goals for many people are often to lose fat and gain muscle volume…which is also known as cutting and bulking.
There are people who may be able to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, such as people who are overweight or those who have done very little exercise, those who are recovering from an injury or former athletes who abandoned training for a while. For the majority of us, it is normal to divide the bulking and cutting stages and a lot of people only want to focus on one of these stages at a time.
So what exactly do we mean by these two terms…let’s take a deeper dive!
Bulking
When we enter the volume or bulking stage, there is a need for a caloric surplus. We will have to eat more calories than necessary but in a healthy way. For example, if to maintain your normal weight you need 1900 calories, in this phase, the idea is that you consume 10-15% more, about 2090-2185 calories.
We have to be aware of the foods we consume when the number of calories goes up. It is not about uploading them while we swell to an industrial bakery, for example. This phase should not be approached as a stage to eat junk food, under the pretext of ” I will burn it in the definition phase “. Always maintain a healthy diet, but without being strict.
Ideally, 20% of calories are given by proteins, 30-35% of fats and 45-50% of carbohydrates.
When is the perfect time for bulking?
There is no right time, everything depends on the person. If you think your body fat level is relatively low, if you think you have to gain weight or if you are in cold weather and want to be defined for summer, it may be your time.
You have to keep in mind that all the fat you gain, you will have to lose it later. So understand that the volume phase is a cycle to gain muscle, not fat. Don’t overdo it with calories!
Cutting
We enter fully into the stage contrary to that of volume. Our goal is to lose body fat to mark our muscles. Do not believe that it is an easy cycle since we can lose muscle easily.
Now we must take a diet in which there is a caloric deficit. We will have to eat fewer calories than we would need to maintain our weight. As we said before if to maintain my weight I needed 1900 calories, in the cutting phase we will have to reduce 15% of calories ingested. So we would have to consume 1615 calories.
Protein intake should be raised to 30% of the total so that we feel full. We will take fat in 30-35% of total calories and carbohydrates in 35-40 %.
If you are looking at bulking or cutting, a great exercise for both of these stages is boxing and kickboxing. We have reviewed the best freestanding punching bags, that can help you reach your bulking or cutting goals!