How to Make it Easier to Stick to a Bulking Diet

Sticking to a bulking diet can be a lot of hard work and especially if you’re someone who is aiming for a ‘lean bulk’ and doesn’t want to add fat at the same time.

This is going to mean eating considerably over your regular calorie intake, it will mean seeking out large amounts of protein and it will mean trying to eat with more frequency. How can you do all that while still sticking with your diet and not giving up on it right away?

Here are some tips that will help a great deal…

Be Flexible

My friend recently came to me with a diet plan that he paid a trainer a lot of money to write for him.

And it was absolutely terrible.

That is not to say the advice was bad. The meals being recommended took into account the right number of calories and macros and were all packed with dense micronutrients.

The problem is that they were also incredibly inflexible. He had set meals to eat at set times on set days and these would be elaborate things like ‘super veggie wrap’ or some elaborate stew involving lots of different ingredients.

This friend is a pilot and so his chances of being able to eat those things on those days is about nil. He needs much more flexibility in his diet and the likelihood is, so do you!

Be Boring

That said, another thing you can do to improve your chances of sticking with a diet is just to be a little boring. In other words, try not to worry so much about getting varied meals and eating different things every day.

If you stick with the same few meals that you know, then you’ll find it much easier to log your calories and macros and won’t have to think about it. What’s more, is that you’ll find you can much more easily prepare the food, stock up, etc.

Now, this doesn’t mean you should take all the joy out of eating. The problem with eating the same thing every day is that it’s not flexible, it’s not social and it’s not fun.

So what do you do instead? Simple: be boring and eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch (when you’ll be in a hurry/eating alone anyway) and then eat something more interesting and elaborate for dinner!

Track and Snack

Tracking and snacking is your secret weapon when it comes to building muscle through your diet. You can easily track what you eat with something like MyFitness Pal and then simply scan in your foods to log the macronutrients. This is important because now you’re going to know precisely how much protein you’ve eaten at any point during your day and therefore how much more you need to eat to reach your macros and calories.

From here, it’s handy to have a few snacks to hand – be that a lean protein shake or a piece of chicken. That way, you can simply add to your total throughout the day with no need to prepare food!