Hey all, like the title says, I need help with a clean bulk. Here's some background on me:

Male
23
163lbs +/- 1
5'10

I finished a cut recently and am struggling to stop cutting. I'm not shredded by any means, but I'm a lot leaner than when I started and since I'm small I want to start gaining some muscle mass. I'm a fairly active guy. I work for my family business (shooting range) and so I'm doing all the outdoor work associated with owning a business. I also have been doing workout plans through Athlean X and enjoy them well enough. Right now I'm working out 6 days a week per my plan. I attend 1hr classes of Jiu-Jitsu with an additional 30mins rolling 4 days a week, a 1hr Muay Thai class once a week, another 30min Jiu Jitsu open mat, and then spar with my Fiance once a week for about 30mins as well.

My calories during my cut was 2200, give or take, with an average of 170 grams of protein a day. I'm currently eating 2400ish calories a day with the same protein intake and I'm still cutting, albeit very slowly. I'm brand new to all of this and it's easy to get confused.

TLDR: How can I find my maintenance calories to help me calculate my buking and cutting calories?

Thanks for any and all advice.

To find your maintinence calories just add a hundred calories to what you're already doing and if you're still losing weight after a week and another hundred until you stay at the same weight. Once you find your maintinence calories go over that by a couple hundred and have it be mostly protein if you want to bulk.

Putting on muscle mass with that much physical activity is going to be slow unless you're really genetically gifted or playing with chemicals.

I'm not either of the above and went down a similar road with lifting and mountain biking when I was just a bit older than you and it was a path to frustration.

Adding 300 calories a day will net close to 1 pound of weight added per week. I'd probably do that and try to recomp a bit while expecting the weight on the bar to stay about the same.

If you're primary goal is to bulk. You'll want to cut down the lifting days, and give yourself more recovery days.

Personally, I've had the best bulking results running a 3 day a week full body split.

Thanks for the responses so far guys!

I don't really care about my weight, if I stay 163ish that's fine. I'm more interested in actually building muscle and strength. I workout at work, we have a decent little home gym that grows a bit each month. So far, no cage or bar. But I have access to dumbbells and a pullup bar with adjustable bench. As for lifting less, I am planning to go back down to 3 lifting days and 2 conditioning days here once I finish this workout plan.

Honestly maintaining weight while getting stronger would be even better. Because then I'd have an edge if I compete in jiu jitsu later this year

EDIT: I'm also not gifted or messing with chemicals. I don't even take protein powder. Every brand I've tried has made me sick. Whether it's mixed with milk or water. One sip is all I can take. So none of that crap for me.

I would definitely add Creatine monohydrate powder as a supplement. There are a lot of studies on its positive benefits from increasing muscle size through water retention, to helping prevent CTE in MMA athletes, to helping you eke out those final few reps in a longer set.

But It was covered above. Gradually add calories until the scale starts to increase. I would personally try to consolidate your heavy lifting and hard rolling on the same days separated by a few hours. Make sure you have a few days off (1-2/week) and be very mindful if your sleep.

Run a bulk for 6-8 weeks so you don’t end up just packing on the fat, and only eat as much as it takes to gain a half pound to one pound a week.

As a 59 year old I hate you.

Seems like a bit of a contradiction to me. In order to build strength you need to add (build) muscle.  Adding muscle necessitates you add weight.

Sorry to be a bit blunt, but sleeping/resting and eating (surplus) is what actually does that directly. Your lifestyle sounds to be lacking in both. Workouts are just a stimulus to building muscle and strength.

You can lose fat and build muscle without changing your total body weight.
It's not uncommon for newb lifters skinny fat folks. Obviously if you're already pretty fit then progress will be slow.

I get that a lot actually

My bad, I'm horrible at explaining things. I'm trying to say that building muscle and strength is the most important goal. End weight, be it a little bit or a lot, or somehow even none at all, isn't really a concern. So long as I get stronger I'm happy.

Thanks everyone. I guess I'll just keep on adding the calories.

I sleep a whopping 8hrs a night, usually. At least 6 days a week. Rest days are few and far between however.

With all that activity I'd start you at 4k/day. 300gr protein/day.

At 5'9" with a physical job, I lose weight at 3000 calories a day until about 160 lbs.

Like was mentioned above, start at 4000 calories and see what happens.

It fucking sucks though, I've never been an eater and I hate feeling full all the time.

I'm similar in size, 5'9" 165 but probably 19% body fat. And in my 40s, so probably slower metabolism. I am maintaining and slightly leaning out at 2850cal/day, and all I do is lift 3 times per week and take an occasional 2-3 mile walk. You probably do need to eat more or roll less.

That's an insane amount of food. I'm not a breakfast guy, so I'm not even sure how you'd eat that much!



Roll less sounds terrible! I would never want to do that lol I'll amp it up a little bit more and see what happens.

Thanks again everyone.

You either want it or you don't.

Absolutely this!

I'm also a little dude 47 years old.  165 lbs so about the same as you, but I'm only 5'7".  I'm below 10% body fat and ripped.  Diet discipline and sleep are the key.  Plenty of people work hard and are super active that don't achieve the results I have let alone at my age.  

Eggs.  Eat lots of them every single day.  Oatmeal.  Every single day.  Rice.  Every single day.  You should be eating plenty of beef, chicken, and fish also but you need lots of carbs also from low glycemic sources.  

Sounds like you are getting enough sleep as long as quality deep sleep.

You say your primary goal is to get stronger and adding weight isn't really a concern or even beneficial for your MMA stuff.  This means ditch the athlean fake weight guy's routines and do a power lifting routine.  Heavy weights low reps with compound movements and even olympic lifts would be beneficial to you.  Low reps with heavier weights builds strength, but isn't as good for hypertrophy.  Lower weights with higher rep ranges isn't the best for your goals as it doesn't build as much strength, but is better for building muscle size.

I can eat 4000+ clean calories a day or cut calories to insanely low levels if needed depending on my goals at the time with great discipline.  You need diet discipline.  You will need to prep your meals in advance so you can have them ready between your various different activities.  No protein powder is fine and actually better if you can meet your macro's with real food you are likely to get more micro nutrients as well.  

This is where supplementation comes into play.  In a perfect world you'd get all your calories/nutrients from whole food.  That's not always possible.  Sometimes you need to add protein supplements into the mix.  Find a good whey protein powder you like and use that to add however many calories you need to build muscle.  Sometimes even that isn't enough.  If that's the case you can blend it up with milk and eggs.  Slam one of those right after working out and another right before bed in addition to your normal meals and see what happens.

You just eat all the time, and like I said, it sucks.

Figure 1000 calories per meal and try to get some calorie heavy snacks in.

Bulking is the fun part.  Eating over 4000 calories a day is easy for me and I’m a little dude.  Not only that but energy levels and strength gains are much better and easier during a bulk.  

If you don’t eat breakfast force yourself too.  After a couple weeks it becomes second nature and gets easy.  6 whole eggs, bowl of oatmeal, 6 pieces of bacon, and a glass of milk or oj is my normal breakfast even during a cut.

I'm the same as OP, I dislike breakfast. I dont like going to work feeling full.

Nothing like pulling a screed board at 6am while burping up a full breakfast the whole time.

After 6 whole eggs, oatmeal, bacon, and a glass of milk I don’t even feel that full lol.  

This was the first of 2 plates I ate last night.  As soon as I washed down the last bite I started my workout.  My workout was:

Deadlift 1 x 5
Bent over dumbbell rows 3 x 12
Dumbbell shrugs 3 x 12
Bent over barbell rows 3 x 12
Curls 3 sets to failure.

I pack away a lot of food for a little dude.  I don’t leave for work until 4 am and have a 15 minute drive so I have time to spare for my 4:30 am start time. I get up at 2:30 am so I have plenty of time to make breakfast, eat, and clean up.  If you want it bad enough you’ll find a way.

That's just it. I care more about business than lifting now.

I want to sell big jobs more than I want big shoulders at this stage in my life.

No point in feeling uncomfortable too.

That is understandable.  I've had periods of time where my other goals in life took precedence.  My motivation towards body building has been at the highest level in my life over the last year.  I'm still working overtime and working on my drag racing hobby, but I'm totally focused on doing what ever is needed to achieve my body building goals at this time.  That means getting up early to prepare breakfast and meals for my day at work.  That means making sure I always eat on time and hit my diet goals.  That means never missing a workout.  Sacrifices are made and that's what is needed to hit any of our goals whether it be business related, workout related, or otherwise.  

I think the OP at his age is totally into MMA and if he wants to get stronger his diet and weight training need to be on point all the time.  He needs better diet discipline.  Plenty of people work very hard, but to separate yourself from the pack you need talent, genetics, and diet discipline.  Control what you can control which is how hard you work, how smart you work, and your discipline.  If he wants it bad enough he will get his diet discipline in order.  

Eating enough to gain weight while doing as much training as the OP is difficult, but can be done.  You have to be smart about it, prepare meals, and be disciplined.  At first eating enough will be hard, but you have to force yourself to do it and timing matters.  Clean easy digesting foods will be necessary.  Obviously eating two large plate fulls of spaghetti then immediately doing high intensity cardio and rolling at the bjj gym isn't ideal.  That is where oatmeal and rice come in along with beef and chicken broccoli etc.  You can get the calories in if you eat like a body builder clean food that digests easily and doesn't leave you bloated.

Bulking is not fun. I gave up trying to break 220lbs with 5500 calories.

Eta. Now that I'm older Im 220 because I'm not doing manual labor everyday.

Some guys just aren't eaters.

I just had my first food of the day about 15 minutes ago, and now I have to shovel thousands of calories in before bed time.

...and this is why none of us are professional power lifters or body builders.

If we wanted it bad enough we wouldn't complain about how much we have to eat.

My point is if the OP wants it bad enough he'll eat enough to accomplish his goals.  

Genetics are a big factor we can only gain muscle so fast.  I can eat a lot of clean food every day, but when I can only gain 5 pounds of muscle per year I'm going to gain a lot of fat no matter how clean I eat if I'm eating 5000 calories a day.  I like to eat that much, but it doesn't actually benefit me.

Well, I tried getting a pile of calories in this morning as an experiment.

I made a shake up that was about 50 g of protein and 600 calories.

The result, I felt like I was going to puke for the first hour of work, then felt great all day, haven't eaten again since. My wife is cooking supper now, and I'm ready for it, but I would rather just skip breakfast and eat a good lunch.

Do both

Can't, I felt like I was going to puke enough on my own at 1030 this morning.

I had a concrete truck scheduled for 11am at a site, got on the highway and we hit a traffic jam and were at a stand still, truck was loaded an on the way and I was sitting in the middle of the highway.

So I rolled up at 5 minutes to 11 and still had to brace up sono tubes (rained last night so I didn't want to put them in yet) and lay out anchor bolts.

I need to go back to being an employee or something, I understand why all the business owners I'm friends with just seem over it all the time.

5/3/1 sounds like it might help you out. Not that hard and it doesn't take that long to do. You will get strength gains from it. That being said, you have to eat right and get your sleep. I would most certainly take some creatine, good quality stuff also. Make sure you put it in warm water so it will dissolve in the water and not bloat you up like crazy and give you the craps. Make sure you work dead lifts into anything you can do, it will make a huge diff in strength gains without a doubt. Also, if you are doing bjj several times a week, there is prob no way you are gonna gain much weight, strength yes. I do bjj some and we do 10 round tuesdays and nobody in class is gaining weight, they are losing it. There are definitely trade offs, if you want to gain weight, lift hvy, eat right and get your sleep but you can't go out and burn up 4k calories a day and expect to gain weight. You can gain strength and weight but you are not gonna gain weight and strength and burn 4k calories a day unless you are eating a metric crap ton of food and taking supplements.

One day isn't an experiment it's a deviation from the norm.

Usually doing something different throws us off and takes time to adapt.  If you really want to experiment you need to have a good breakfast not a shake, but real food every morning for a few months.  At first you will have the issues you felt this day, but after time you will actually be hungry in the morning and feel better.  You will need to force yourself to eat your next meal on time for a while as well, but after a month or two it will become easier.  

I've always ate fairly well and got my protein in, but most of my life I never took diet as seriously as I have over the last year or so.  In the last year I also saw the greatest single year improvements that I've ever had since probably my first year as a newb starting on starting strength for the first time.  

We all work hard, but working consistently hard with good programming and consistent diet discipline is what will bring the best results.  Diet is way more important than I even imagined after putting much more focus on it the past year.  

I didn't always eat breakfast and when I first started forcing myself to I felt much like you did and couldn't hit my next meal on time because I wasn't hungry.  Over time it became normal and I'm very hungry within a half hour of waking up.  About the only time I use protein shakes any more is at work and I will put protein powder along with peanut butter in my oatmeal some times.

Nah, I did that for years, just got sick of it.

Like I said, I hate eating in the morning.

I used to wake up each morning and make breakfast and a shake, I had an hour drive so I would drink the shake on the way to the jobsite, then usually be fine until lunch, stuff my face at lunch, then make another shake when I got home, then eat supper.

I hated it, every day, but I needed to put weight on. Counted calories by weight for months until I had a plan in place, then stuck with that for a long time.

Figured I would try it again for old time's sake....still hate it. I prefer to not eat until 10-11am, I just feel way better that way. My goals are different now, and not feeling full and bloated all day long goes along well with them.

I got to sleep in till 5:30 am Saturday.  At 6 am I had this pre workout before leg day.


Post workout at 8 am I had this.


Then I push mowed my yard.  Small area takes about 45 minutes.

After mowing I had a bowel of oatmeal with peanut butter and a scoop of chocolate protein powder in it.

Two hours later I had another oatmeal peanut butter protein powder meal.

Then I laid on the garage floor changing the fuel filter and wideband on my hot rod.

Dinner was this with nothing else except a glass of water.