Should You Ever Be Hungry While Bulking?
Are You Actually Gaining Weight While Bulking?
This question may seem a bit silly on its face. But a lot of people who believe themselves to be bulking are not actually gaining weight. Or not gaining enough for it to be significant in terms of muscle gain. Many people either:
- Don’t weigh themselves consistently
- Guess at how much they should be eating
- Are misled by numbers they received from a calorie counter online
You need to actually record your weight while bulking. I recommend recording your weight every 2-3 days. This is an aggressive pace and don’t expect to be gaining weight this often but at least you should make sure you aren’t losing weight.
If you are guessing at how much you should be eating that is fine but start taking a log of what you eat and recording your weight. If you aren’t gaining after two weeks on a certain caloric total up the calories by 300 or so. Wait a couple weeks and record again.
Sometimes people are misled by online calorie counters that incorrectly estimate the number of calories you need to gain weight. If you’re using one of these try ditching it and using the methods I mentioned of recording weight and slowly increasing calories.
2. Are You Eating Too Much Junk Food While Bulking?
If you are hungry while bulking all the time it may be because you are eating too much junk food. Junk food which contains empty calories in the form of sugar and unnecessary amounts of fat are not filling because they are not nutritious.
Try adding more nutritious foods into your diet. Fiber and protein have both been found to contribute to the feeling of fullness you should be getting from a meal. Some foods high in both fiber and protein are:
- Lentils
- Peas
- Quinoa
- Beans
- Chickpeas
- Oats
- Sprouted Grain Bread
- Broccoli
3. Are You Properly Timing Your Meals?
Let’s think about this logically. Let’s say you need to eat 4000 calories a day in order to gain weight. You could technically eat two big meals a day with 2000 calories in each meal. These meals could be spread 10 hours apart. And you could gain weight. But I reckon you would still get hungry at some point in between those 10 hours especially if a lot of those calories are coming from non-nutritious sources.
Monitor when you are eating. Are you getting enough peri-workout nutrition in? Pre during and post workout? Make sure you are spacing your meals out properly to avoid being hungry in between.