If It Fits Your Macros: In Real Life

If It Fits Your Macros: In Real Life ,It’s all very well and good telling you to eat all these calories and to eat loads of protein… but where can you find those things? How can you afford it? And how to you force it all down without wanting to throw up? In other words, you need to find ways to make this actually practical so that it will work with your routine. And to do that, you need to get strategic.

This is incredibly important and it’s the thing that people all-too-often forget. If you’re trying to bulk up, then you need to find a way to stick to your training and your diet. That means it needs to be realistic. It’s better to have very modest aims and actually stick to them, than it is to be incredibly ambitious and end up not doing any of the things you set out to do!

So let’s consider some tips that will help you out…

What to Eat

The majority of your results will come from your diet. Supplements are just that – supplements. They should be supplemental to a good diet and never viewed as a substitute for one. So then the question is, what kinds of foods can you eat that will satisfy all the criteria we’ve been looking at in the chapters so far?

What will help you keep your protein and calories high, while also being nutritionally dense and slow release? What leaner sources of protein are there for when you’re trying to lean bulk?

Here are some foods that will help you a great deal…

• Tuna – Tuna is one of the THE most convenient options when it comes to finding lean sources of protein. Canned tuna is very affordable while containing 20 grams or more of tuna in many cases. It’s lean, it’s versatile and it’s tasty too. PLUS it’s also good for the brain thanks to that omega 3 fatty acid content. The only downside? Consuming too much can risk a potential mercury overdose not good!
• Salmon – Salmon is not quite as low in calories as tuna (a good thing for bulking!) but it’s just as high in protein and omega 3 fatty acid. The better news? It doesn’t have the mercury problem. The downside? It’s much more expensive.
• Avocado – These are all the rage among the low-carb crowd at the moment, which is owing to their delicious taste, their healthy fats and their large range of other health benefits. They’re quite calorific but healthy at the same time, so they make a great way to add more calories and fat to pretty much any meal!
• Oil – Adding sunflower or vegetable oil to your food isn’t actually bad for you! But it does contain a LOT of calories, which is another really good way to sneak them in when you’re starting to feel full and struggle to keep eating more.
• Eggs – Eggs are high in protein as well as the healthy saturated fats AND choline (great for the brain). The best part about eggs though is that they are a ‘complete protein’. This means that they contain all of the essential amino acids that the human body needs to function. There are very few complete protein sources in the world, so this makes egg pretty special.
• Sweet Potatoes – A good source of carbs that’s also nutritious and high in slow-release complex carbs.
• Chicken – Chicken is another very lean protein source and this time it doesn’t come with any significant downsides. You can eat chickens until the cows come home.
• Beef – And cows until the chickens come home? Beef is also an excellent source of protein, which is partly due to some very interesting additional nutrients it contains. Specifically, beef is actually one of the only natural sources of CoEnzyme Q10 and of creatine – both of which give you more energy and drive during your workouts!
• Rice – If you’re looking for a carb that is fairly easy to eat in bulk, then rice is a good bet!
• Nuts – Nuts are also great. Not only do these provide fiber but they’re also a very good source of protein, calories and good fats. They also provide various micronutrients like zinc, selenium and magnesium.
• Milk – Milk is one of the very best things you can keep around the house if you’re bulking and especially full fat milk. Remember: milk is where whey protein comes from and when you drink milk, you’re still getting a lot of that whey in there. In fact, a glass of milk contains 3.4grams of protein, while full fat milk is widely considered one of the very best things you can drink if you want to give yourself more healthy fats.
• Butter – A good butter is another very useful tool for packing on more calories. Wish your food was a little more calorific? Then just butter it up! You can even try the ‘Bulletproof Coffee’ that everyone is talking about by dropping a stick of butter in your morning brew!
• Oats – Oats are great at adding more stodge and at giving you more slow-release energy. Add these to a shake and they’ll increase the calories while also helping you to have more energy for work, play and workouts!

Bulk Eating Tips

Try GOMAD

Have you tried absolutely everything to bulk up with no success? Not sure where to turn? It’s enough to make you go mad… or at least GOMAD! GOMAD stands for ‘Gallon Of Milk A Day’ and is considered a last chance saloon when all else has failed. As the name rather implies, this is a method of eating that has just ONE simple rule: you have to drink a whole gallon of milk every single day.

When you do this, you’ll find that it’s enough to help you pack on muscle thanks to the huge amounts of protein, calories AND saturated fat. It can greatly increase your testosterone and your growth hormone among other things and some reports suggest that it’s nearly as effective as a steroid cycle if you’re new!

Of course it also carries some health risks and it’s not a good idea to consume anything in massive quantities normally. So if you’re going to try this method, the key is to get in and out quickly.

Find a Salad Bar

One of the best things you can possibly do to improve your chances of bulking success is simply to find a convenient place where you can get lots of calories without spending too much or breaking from your usual routine. A salad bar is a great place to find this as they tend to be all you can eat while also serving up eggs, pasta and other good stuff for your bulking goals. They tend to be pretty cheap as well!

Stay Consistent

One of the single most useful things you can do to make tracking your calorie intake that bit easier is just to stay consistent. In other words, have a few meals that you eat regularly and that way you’ll know exactly the calories and macros you’re getting without having to do the math every time or input them anew. It might not be terribly exciting but this is a big help.

Use My Fitness Pal

You can of course log all of your calories in a diary or notebook but this is a lot of work and takes a lot of time. Instead then, consider logging your calories using the excellent app, ‘MyFitnessPal’. This will allow you to simply scan anything you eat to get its barcode and that will then automatically fill in all the details for you!