How to Clean Bulk Effectively in 6 Easy Steps

Individuals who are eager to build muscles try out different methods to achieve their desired body shape. In the fitness world, bulking is a common term that refers to the process of increasing your calorie intake to gain muscle mass. This process leads the fitness freaks to make a mistake in which they entirely focus on eating high-calorie junk foods without bothering much about the quality of calories being consumed. 

Undoubtedly, bulking can show you short-term benefits like weight increase and muscle growth. However, it leads you to face a higher body fat percentage and several health consequences.

Fortunately, it isn’t the ultimate option to achieve your muscle-building goals, as there is a healthier way to bulk by eating nutrient-dense foods known as clean bulking. If you are not so sure about this bulking method, then go through this blog till the end. We will let you know how clean bulking works and what steps can be taken to clean bulk effectively. So let’s dive into it without any further delay! 

What is Clean Bulking?

Clean bulking isn’t something you don’t know already; it’s a dieting method that focuses on reducing fat gain while increasing muscle growth. If you want to follow this dieting method, then you need to regulate your calorie intake and make sure the calories you consume mainly come from nutritious foods. Calculate calorie intake to achieve your desired results.

For a person who is looking forward to building muscles, a restrictive diet like clean bulking may seem impossible to execute. However, the right approach and mindset will never let you stop from achieving your goals. Below you can find the 6 steps that can be followed to clean bulk effectively.

6 Steps to Clean Bulk Effectively

1. Determine Your Daily Calorie Needs

How many calories is your body burning every day? You must keep track of it, as in clean bulking, you need to keep your caloric intake more than the amount of calories you’re burning. It may seem impossible to determine the actual number of calories being consumed by your body, but it’s very easy to calculate with a TDEE calculator. 

The total daily energy expenditure calculator allows you to figure out how many calories your body burns based on your age, gender, weight, height, and activity level. The calculation results help you to increase your daily calorie intake to gain weight and build muscles.

2. Choose Nutrient-Dense Foods

The next step in the clean bulking process is to include nutrient-dense foods in your diet. When it comes to clean bulking, the quality of the calories you consume is as important as their quantity. By focusing on consuming nutrient-dense foods, you can be sure of fueling your body with nutrients that are essential for muscle growth while avoiding excessive fat gain. You can include the following nutrient-dense foods in your clean bulking diet:

Complex Carbohydrates: You can opt for whole grains like brown rice and oats and fruits like bananas, apples, and berries.

Protein-rich Foods: Excellent sources of protein should be a part of your clean bulking diet, such as chicken, fish, turkey, lentils, beans, and eggs.

Healthy Fats: Avocados, nuts, olive oil, and seeds are natural sources of healthy fats, and including them in your diet can help you march towards your clean bulking goals.

Vegetables: In the clean bulking diet, you need to maintain your health and support its recovery through minerals, and for this reason, green vegetables provide an excellent source.

3. Create and Follow Plans for Meals

Just knowing what foods you need to eat for clean bulking isn’t enough. For effective results, it’s essential to create and follow proper meal plans. After calculating the required number of calories in a day to gain muscle, you will have an idea of how much you can eat in a day. Once it’s done, you can plan out your meals for a day and consume food that your body requires to reduce fat gain and improve muscle building.

4. Make Intelligent Cheat Meal Plans

You might think that cheat meal plans should be a part of the previous step, but it’s a different game in comparison to the regular meals you plan out. The major reason behind it is that you may think that cheating too often won’t do any bad to your clean bulking diet. But sadly, it will! Therefore, it’s essential to keep cheat meals away for as long as possible. 

The best way is to plan out your cheat meals intelligently. For instance, you can keep cheat meals for once a fortnight or a week (if you cannot wait for too long). In addition, you must make sure that you have saved enough calories in your bag to have a cheat meal. A cheat meal shouldn’t be taken as an add-on to your existing diet routine. To have a cheat meal, it will be essential to ditch your other meals in order to keep your daily calorie consumption the same.

5. Monitor Your Progress

While following a clean bulking diet routine, you must not forget to monitor your progress. If you do not know where you stand after following a clean bulk diet, all your efforts might go in vain. To make it possible, you should check your weight on a regular basis. 

Although weight isn’t the only measure to monitor your progress, it can still provide valuable info related to your body composition. If your weight isn’t improving the way you expected, then you must reconsider your food choices and recreate plans for your daily meals. In addition, you must also click your progress photos, as it can help you see the visual difference in your body composition.

6. Be Realistic

Lastly, you need to expect the right and viable outcomes while following a clean bulking diet. Muscle growth requires time; hence, you need to stay realistic and don’t expect to gain results in some days or weeks. You must know that dramatic changes in your body composition cannot be achieved through clean bulking or any other form of dieting. Staying realistic will allow you to stay motivated and keep hauling in the race of building muscles while minimizing fat gain.