Yo yo,
Greetings again my friends. I hope you’ve all been trying your best in whatever you choose to take part in. I hope you’ve done something productive today. If you haven’t, get to it right now, or after this.
Sometimes it’s hard to hold yourself accountable, so I can hold you accountable when you fall short.
Alright, so cutting vs bulking. They’re quite interesting experiences when you compare the two, however it’s likely that you all will go through at least one of them.
Some influencers will tell you that you don’t need to do any of them to get to your goals, that you can ‘maingain’ your way to incredible muscle. I’m not telling you what to believe, but I am telling you what has worked for me and what can work for you. I won’t advocate for something I don’t believe in.
Some of you may be bulking right now, some of you may be cutting right now.
And maybe some of you are deciding what you should start with.
I’ve bulked twice and am currently on my second cut, so I believe I can provide you all with some value.
Today we’ll be going through and comparing both of these practices. We’ll define the goal, what the performance in the gym is like, exploring caloric intake, the mental differences and adjusting your expectations.
Let’s get into it
Goal
Cutting first
The goal of cutting, or a caloric deficit (also known as a fat loss phase), is to lose fat across the body. To get lean and mean.
Bulking.
The goal of bulking is to increase muscle mass and strength.
That’s all that you need to know regarding the goals. So before reading on, ask yourself what you want.
Do you want to build muscle and strength?
Or do you want to become lean, lose that fat and get those chiseled abs?
And here comes the question, “but can’t I lose fat AND build muscle AT the same time?”
From my experience, no.
I’m cutting right now, and my weight is dropping, but my strength is no longer progressing at the same pace (from when I was bulking). Additionally, I don’t see any muscular growth across my body.
“You’re just not cutting properly!”, keep telling yourself that.
When I was bulking, I definitely wasn’t losing fat, but my muscular and strength growth shot up. But we’ll explore this more later on, so keep reading.
Caloric Intake and Weight
When you’re bulking, you are going to be in a ‘caloric surplus’. A caloric surplus is when you are consuming more calories than your body needs to maintain its weight.
Let’s say your maintenance calories (the calories needed to maintain your body weight) are 2500 calories. By eating 3000 calories for example, you are in a caloric surplus of 500, as you are eating 500 more calories than your body needs to maintain it’s current weight.
But this brings the question, “How much should my surplus be?”. Well, I personally recommend eating in a surplus of 300-500 calories. I believe that it’s perfect.
Anything more from that range is highly likely to cause excess fat gain (some call this a “dirty bulk”). You need to provide your body with enough calories and protein to build muscle, anything more will just be stored as fat. Your body will use what it needs for muscle, and store the rest as fat.
More surplus does not mean more muscle, but it does mean more fat gain. Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself for 2 months.
Also, as your weight goes up, your caloric maintenance will go up and thus; your caloric surplus overall.
Just think about this from a common sense view. Do you think a person who is 60kg, will need to eat the same as someone who is 80kg to maintain their weight?
Exactly, there is no way.
Your body will need more calories to maintain it’s new muscle and weight.
Remember that your weight gain will not be perfectly linear.
Let’s switch to cutting.
(calories and weight as you go down)
Performance
As briefly mentioned before, when bulking, you’re performance in the gym will be much better. I actually miss bulking for this reason. Week after week, I was progressing in all of my lifts. I felt great, my muscles were growing.
This is because you are providing your body with extra carbs and calories.
If you’re eating more food (good whole foods), you’ll have more energy in the gym. It’ll be easy to progressively overload (one of the most important factors that contributes to building muscle) and you’ll just feel stronger in general.
Let’s switch to cutting now.
There is definitely a difference. Unfortunately, your performance will suffer slightly.
Since you are feeding your body less calories and carbs, you’ll have less energy to expend in the gym.
Now I want to emphasise that it is still possible to get stronger on a cut. I’m still able to get more reps and/or increase weight on my lifts.
However, it is not as linear as when I was bulking. There are times when I don’t progress at all. There are times where I actually get slightly less reps. BUT, it’s not like I lose a lot of strength.
For example, one week I’m able to do 4 sets of bench press. In those sets, I complete 6,6,6 and 5.
The next week, I only do 6,6,4 and 5.
You see how it’s not a massive decrease. Sure, I hate not progressing, but it’s not too much strength loss. You need to brace yourself for this, it’s just the result of the caloric deficit.
Mental Differences
I want to discuss two mental differences that your likely to experience, as I am currently experiencing them.
Towards the gym.
You may find yourself struggling to get through workouts when you’re cutting. The weight may feel heavier, you might find yourself struggling to push yourself.
This is normal, but it shouldn’t stop you from going and pushing yourself. Sometimes when I go to the gym (I’m currently cutting), there is a sense of nervousness. This does not happen all the time, but it can happen.
I wonder “am I going to be able to maintain my strength? Will I be able to progress? Is this gonna be a long workout?”
So many thoughts plaguing my mind, but at the end of the day, you’ve just got to go and do it. You have to get rid of those thoughts, they’re not doing me or you any good.
The weight does not care about how you’re feeling, and neither should you when you’re training.
Just because you are feeling slightly weaker on a cut does not mean that you should let these thoughts ruin your training. You have to remember why you’re doing this.
However, when you’re bulking, it’s likely that you are going to feel excited. Well, more excited than usual.
You have energy, you know that you’re building muscle. Every rep is contributing to muscle growth.
You have energy, so this is bound to happen.
Towards food
When cutting, you might start to view some foods as bad and negative.
Your relationship with food might change. However, this is not what we should go through.
Whether you are cutting or bulking, you should view food as an asset to your goals. Fat loss? Muscle building? Does not matter, foods are assets to those goals.
You may eat something that you’re not supposed to. Alright, get back on track, don’t hate yourself, and then move on.
When you’re bulking, you might feel over-eager to eat, to get in those calories and maintain the surplus.
You might unrestrict yourself too much and you should be conscious of this. Just because you’re in a surplus does not mean that you should simply eat everything in sight.
You have to bear in mind that you need to eat enough food to maintain a necessary surplus. Do not become completely unhinged and eat anything in sight.
Maintain a good outlook on food and don’t let your excitement to bulking cause unnecessary consumption
Adjusting Expectations
You must adjust your expectations.
When you’re bulking, be prepared for some fat gain.
Your abs will fade (however some people have excellent genetics and store fat elsewhere). The veins may go.
This is normal. Excessive fat gain is not normal, but some fat gain is.
You might need to go on multiple bulks. You might not see muscle progress fast enough, you might feel that you’re just putting on fat.
If you are eating correctly, sleeping correctly, are training correctly, then all you need to do is be patient.
Not all of the weight you put on will be muscle after all.
I recently ended my bulk and I went from 55kg to 85kg. This was from May 2021 to June 2023.
That’s 30kg of weight gain in 2 years and a month (this was my second bulk).
Not all of it was muscle however. I’ve lost about 5kg (at the time of writing) and I think my desired body fat will be acquired after I lose 5kg more.
I might need to lose more, but if I am correct, this means that I gained 20kg of muscle and 10kg of fat.
I am very satisfied with this, because it means that I gained mostly muscle.
When you bulk over a long period of time, I believe that the goal outcome is for 60% of what you gain is muscle. This is a realistic expectation.
Let’s switch over to cutting now.
When you cut, do not expect for fat to just drop instantly. When you initially start seeing the scale go down, it’s primarily going to be water that was stored into your muscles.
After that quick drop, that is when the fat (or muscle if you’re not cutting correctly) will start to come off.
Again, you must trust the process. I know you’re eager to see the abs and veins, but patience is key here. Eat in an appropriate deficit and don’t compare yourself to social media influencers.
You might lose some muscle and strength, but that is okay.
You hear me, it’s okay.
Wrapping up
Patience my friends.
Assuming you’re natural, you have to be patient with these processes.
It’s definitely worth it in the end, so don’t rush and stick to your plan.
I hope this helped you my friends. Happy cutting and bulking and train as hard as you can. Put your body through intense training. It’ll be worth it.
See you next time
Now stop procrastinating and go do what you need to do.
