Does Bulking Hinder Muscle Growth?

*This is a guest post from Chad Howse, creator of The Man Diet.

Eight some-odd years ago I decided I was tired of being skinny and, like most skinny guys trying to gain muscle, I started “bulking”.

If you’re unaware of the practice known as “bulking”, it’s essentially eating a ton of carbs and proteins in an effort to “bulk up”. It’s also a “rule” of building muscle – especially for skinny guys.

I’m here to bring you some bad news, and some good news.

First, the bad:

Bulking can ruin your “lean gains” by inhibiting the most important hormone involved in your muscle building process.

Now, the good:

There’s a way you can eat to naturally enhance the right hormones, forcing your body to build more muscle and burn more fat in the process.

It’s this method that I’m going to show you in a bit. But first: how bulking ruins your gains…

I’ll remove the mystery; that all-important hormone I made reference to earlier is testosterone. And yes, you need optimal testosterone levels to build optimal amounts of muscle, and burn optimal amounts of fat.

Where Testosterone Comes From

Testosterone (T) is produced in your testes – hence, TESTosterone – when your body converts cholesterol to this powerful, anabolic, muscle-building hormone. Cholesterol is, then, a building block of hormone.

We get cholesterol from healthy fats like monounsaturated, saturated, and polyunsaturated fats (basically any fat that comes from an animal, fruit, or vegetable – the only “bad fat” is trans fats, which of course are man made).

To produce testosterone we need to be consuming a lot of fat. Where bulking protocol’s inhibit testosterone production is not only in the lack of fat in said diets, but the abundance of highly glycemic carbohydrates and carbohydrates in general.

NOTE: Testosterone isn’t just a “muscle-building hormone”, it’s a hormone that positively impacts the physical and mental health of men. To learn more about the “health benefits” of testosterone, along with the muscle-building benefits, check out this article: How Naturally Higher Testosterone Levels Will Improve Your Life.

As a side note: carbs aren’t the enemy. They’re great for us when we consume them at the right time (more on this later).

Insulin and testosterone don’t play well together. If your body in constantly releasing insulin because of the amount of carbs you’re consuming, you’re not going to be able to produce enough T to be considered at “optimal levels” for your age, or enough to build the body you want to build.

The other negative to a bulking protocol is that it makes you fatter. Now, we’re fine with adding a bit of fat in the name of even more muscle, but it doesn’t work like that.

As our body fat percentages increase, our testosterone levels decrease. As our testosterone levels decrease, we build less muscle. So while you’re bulking, you will be gaining some muscle, but you’ll be gaining less lean muscle mass than you would if you’d structured your meals properly, including enough fat in your diet, along with carbohydrates and proteins so you’re able to recover (build muscle) from the awesome workouts you’re most likely doing.

Muscle building or bulking diets have got it wrong for a long time, but so have fat loss diets. They preach “balance” in nutrition. But balance isn’t necessarily a good thing.

*You shouldn’t consume your fats with your carbohydrates. It’ll make you store more fat as body fat. But you do need both.*

The way you’re eating right now is likely contributing to your less than optimal T levels, which is hurting your lean gains and preventing your body from reaching its true potential.

Those of us (I used to be one of you) who have low T have muscle “resistant” bodies. That is, our hormones – or lack-there-of – prevent us from recovering and repairing the muscle tissue we’re breaking down during our workouts.

There is a solution. A solution that will show you how to eat to maximize your good hormones so you can finally build lean muscle.

The reason why you haven’t created your ideal body thus far isn’t because of your genetics, it’s because of your hormones. If you fix your hormones, you’ll fix your muscle-resistance.

It pains me to see guys constantly making the same mistakes, mistakes I made, preventing them from building their ideal body when I know there’s an easy, simple fix. And so, I created The Man Diet.

The Man Diet is the only meal guide and nutrition program around that shows men how to eat to naturally enhance their testosterone levels. It’s a unique program that you can customize completely to your routine to ensure you’re becoming an optimal man.

Here are the scary facts: Men are producing less testosterone than we used to. And much of the remedy can be found in changing the way we eat. That doesn’t mean removing tasty foods from our diets, it just means eating the right kinds of foods at the right time.

Discover how your diet right now is actually made for a woman, and how to finally eat like a man: The Man Diet.

-Chad Howse

photo, photo