“This is an old trick I used when I was just starting out.”
So you’ve got a caloric goal for the day, perhaps it’s 3,000. Can you hit that goal consistently? When I was a beginner at bulking, I struggled to hit that goal, only lasting a few days. Once I did hit it, I’d burn out, feel bloated and slow before falling into the slump once again.
It takes time, practice, and dedication to bulk effectively. I can’t give you these qualities, but I can share my best tips to save you time and stress.
Here are 9 tips to fit more calories into your day.
Front-load your calories
I used to go through a daily bulking time crunch. I would eat what I considered a lot of food, tracking everything meticulously. However, I’d always find myself desperately swallowing spoonfuls of peanut butter before bed to get as close as I could to my caloric goal.
Everyone’s schedule is different, of course, but I found that the few hours after getting off my 9-5 job were the hours when I wouldn’t eat. Eating at work was never an issue. In fact, I’d be fully satiated at the end of the shift. It was the “I’m finally off work” attitude that crushed my appetite. I associated eating with work.
And it is work, for many of us. But the trick I found to solve this vicious cycle was to front-load calories.
Eating before work. What do you usually have, can you have more? Many people report feeling nauseous when eating in the morning. I used to feel this way but it disappeared over time.
If you can push yourself to eat more in the morning, the rest of the day becomes drastically easier. The desperate push to meet your goal before bedtime disappears completely.
Understand what foods are satiating
Some foods make you feel full while others do not. Many different factors influence the satiety of certain foods. There are biological factors such as hormone response, and environmental factors such as the sensory experience of eating the food.
This is something that’s going to be slightly different for everyone. However, some foods that are commonly considered satiating are fruits, vegetables, rice, eggs, beans, and popcorn.
Some foods not so satiating are donuts, cake, cookies and most junk food.
Now, don’t drop the satiating category since you probably noticed they are fairly healthy. It’s important to strategize in order to hit your caloric goals.
Try starting the day off with satiating foods. Have some fruit with breakfast, veggies and rice at lunch. Your daily activities are going to help you digest and the hunger will return. When the evening comes around, you’ll be able to sneak in a few of the less satiating foods without struggling, and get a good calorie boost too.
Coconut oil
Coconut oil is an edible oil commonly used in many recipes. It’s affordable and if it’s refined, (most are) has very little flavour. This allows one to add a tablespoon to most meals for an immediate calorie boost.
Coconut oil is one of the very few plant fats that are solid at room temperature, since it is mostly made up of saturated fatty acids. During the summer months it will liquify in the heat. I actually like to throw a tablespoon into my protein shakes when it’s liquified enough. That’s an extra 130 calories that goes almost unnoticed.
And you can add this to anything!
Drink water, stay hydrated
An individual bulking for the first time may lean away from consuming a lot of water, for fear that it may “fill” them up and leave less room for food. Amazingly, the opposite is true.
Water is highly important and hydration is key to good health. Don’t skip it. But when you’re trying to bulk up or gain weight, water can actually be your best friend. Water aids digestion and if you’re hydrated, your whole body is going to operate more efficiently. Since your stomach secretes acid and enzymes that digest food, water can help this process along.
Competitive eaters use water to stretch out their stomachs before competing. Now, the truth is that your stomach does stretch to be quite large, but it doesn’t stay that way. It’s about 12 inches in length and 6 inches at its widest point when empty. A full stomach will hold about 1 litre, or 1 quart of food. Drinking lots of water can make you hungry since its digested so quickly, and the sodium/water balance of the body will be heavily on the water side, you will crave salty foods.
There are downsides to consuming too much water. The previously mentioned sodium/water balance of the body can be thrown off, and extra water tends to absorb nutrients that would otherwise be absorbed into the intestines. It is also possible that drinking an extraordinary amount of water can result in death.
Being hydrated can change your life if you weren’t a big water drinker before. The key take-away here is that you need to drink water. It’s going to help you gain weight and aid your body to build contractile tissue.
PB&J sandwiches
This is an old trick I used when I was just starting out.
Go purchase a loaf of bread, peanut butter, and jam. Prepare a dozen PB&J sandwiches and put them in the fridge. If you consider the way a mass gainer should be taken (on top of your regular diet, not as a meal replacement) then you’ll understand how to utilize the PB&J strategy.
Between meals, always be eating a PB&J. The reason this works so well is two-fold. It takes under 10 minutes to prepare a whole stack of sandwiches. Also, the peanut butter is savoury while the jam is sweet, so they are very palatable and usually easy to eat.
Another plus is that a jar of peanut butter and jam are both relatively cheap given how long they’ll last. Consider trying different types of bread, and lookout for a bread with higher protein content.
One of these sandwiches can be 500-600 calories!
Sauces
Put sauce on everything.
Some people already do this, and they’re those who are bigger than us. I’ve never been a sauce person, usually opting for “plain”. But once I learned to put sauce on my meals, I began to understand why the nation has an obesity problem.
One tablespoon of a standard barbeque sauce has ~30 calories in it, and most people squeeze that bottle like it owes them money. Let’s say one “squeeze” is two tablespoons, that’s at least 60 calories added to your hot dog, omelette, burger, fries, etc.
Meal prep
Here’s a big fitness buzzword, meal prep. What is meal prepping? It’s when you spend a few hours in the kitchen and prepare food for the whole week or even month in some cases.
The best part is you can make whatever you want. Take off Sunday afternoon and get to work. You can prepare a variety of meals, some you can freeze while others will simply go to the fridge. The huge advantage of this strategy is that you have meals ready to go all week long. Life happens, and sometimes we order pizza to deal with it. Or maybe you’re like me and you just make a bowl of ramen. Well, that doesn’t cut it.
Having meals ready to go can help you gain because you already know the macronutrients, and exactly how many calories you’re eating. You can stick to your schedule.
Common meal prep ideas are rice chicken and broccoli, salads, cut fruit and veggies with dip, sandwiches, soups or stews.
It doesn’t really matter what you choose to prep. The important part is that you put in the effort and prepare it.
Liquid calories
This tip is quite common but for a good reason. Liquid calories are the absolute key to gaining weight. Shakes, juices, and smoothies can help you down 600+ calories in just a minute.
I’ve covered mass gainers in another article, but there are other liquid options. Smoothies are a popular choice in the mornings. You can buy pre made smoothies at your grocery store or, if you own a blender, you can make your own.
Your body digests liquids faster. There’s no need to break down any solids, so you’ll be hungry again shortly after.
There is an old-school bodybuilding product called Waxy Maize. I wouldn’t recommend purchasing it (if it’s even still available) because all it was, was a tub of corn starch. The point I’m trying to make is that there are simple solutions to add an extra couple hundred calories to your water throughout the day. I used to purchase a few pounds of glucose powder in bulk and add a scoop to my water, adding 100 calories.
If you utilize liquid calories, you’re almost guaranteed to gain weight. Try a smoothie in the morning, a mass gainer after your workout, and a protein shake at the end of the day.
Learn to cook
Last but absolutely not least, learn to cook. This is a tip I don’t see elsewhere, and I discovered it through my own experience. Many if not most individuals in their twenties still haven’t learned to cook. Sure, you can grill a steak or make tacos, but actually gathering ingredients and following a recipe to create a great meal presentable to your in-laws is a whole other level.
A fantastic shortcut for this is to sign up for a food delivery service. In my area we have Hello Fresh, Blue Chef, Good Foods, and a few more. Yes, it’s a little expensive, but what people don’t consider is the cooking experience they gain along the way. These services drop off a box of raw ingredients with recipes. It’s like a DIY meal kit.
I used one of these services for a summer and I fondly recall that summer for the crazy amount of gains I made. Eating full and healthy meals everyday was a gigantic boost to my eating habits.
I eventually cancelled the service, but what remained was all the recipes I had accumulated and the experience of having cooked every single one myself. This transformed the way I ate, since I then had the skills to whip up real meals in under an hour.
Feeling motivated? I hope so. Check out my article, How To Start Hardgainer Bulking to learn more!