I only have a few questions really. I'm starting my first bulk and aiming for a 40/40/20 diet of around 2600-2800 calories. I have a Basal of 1700 or so, 5'8 29 years old, 164 pounds.

First the big question. Should I be still eating 2600 calories on days I DO NOT exercise or have gaps in between? I know that the body rebuilds during this time, but lets say I have two days off, should I be toning things down a bit on the second day off or should there never be any drop?

Second, besides cottage cheese, milk, protein powder, chicken breasts and such, what are cheap and easy ways to get protein into my diet for the extra calories?

I did my regular diet (non-cut) of special k with milk, cottage cheese for breakfast.

Milk and cottage cheese for snack,

Peanut butter sandwich (natural) for lunch and cottage cheese a bit with apple sauce (no frutose crap added)

Another special k with milk and cottage cheese.

Then a dinner of chicken breast, veggies, salad, and a little bit of rice.

I came up to about 2000 calories only. I'm looking for easy and clean ways to up my diet for a bulk and how.

Thanks for any answers to these specifics.

you can do the cals either way. if i was you i would just keep them the same everyday. your muscles are rebuilding for DAYS after a workout and the cals won't be lost. if you have problems and start gaining too much fat you can rethink that.

on a bulk don't be scared of carbs. just changing a "little" rice to a large helping will add quite a few cals.

red meat is an easy way to add good cals. ground beef is pretty cheap, especially if you buy in bulk. oftentimes its about 50 cents for 24 grams of protein. eggs are another good choice.

potatoes/oatmeal/fruit/whole wheat pasta/beans etc are all great clean ways to add much needed cals.

Thanks. The carbs aren't really a problem for finding clean health ones, but 40% protein is getting difficult to pull off.

Yeah, I do the same eating on my off days as I do my on.

A good bulking food is chili!

My recipe;

* 2 pounds lean ground beef(93/7)
* 1 (46 fluid ounce) can V8 vegetable juice
* 1 (29 ounce) can tomato sauce
* 2 chili packets (medium)
* 1 chopped onion
* 1.5 cup chopped celery
* 1 chopped green bell pepper
* 1 chopped red bell pepper
* 1/4 cup chili powder
* 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
* 1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
* 1 16oz Bush's Best Chili Beans Medium
* touch of tabasco

I let simmer for 3 hours then throw in the fridge overnight. Just made it last night. I make it every Sunday. Makes up one meal each day of the week.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/Dizmal/DSC02339.jpg

I believe I split it into 6 portions.

Ratio per portion-

Cals f/c/p
632 18.0 40.5 50.0

A good article on eating. Although Berardi's calculations come in a bit high. The principles are sound.

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/masseating_1.htm

The Secret is in the Surplus!

So at this point, the keen T-mag readers that aren't afraid of massive eating might ask the question, "Since this is technically just your maintenance level, how can you get bigger by eating this amount? Wouldn't you need more?" The answer is simple. Since I train only four days per week this diet would meet my needs on those four days. But on my three off days per week I'd be in positive calorie balance by about 1,000 calories per day! (That extra thousand calories isn't being used when training, in other words.) This adds up to a surplus of 3,000 calories per week. And this is where the growth happens!

I especially like this "staggered model" because rather than trying to stagger your calorie intake on a daily basis by eating different amounts of food on different days, I let my training cycle my calories for me. This way I can eat the same thing every day while preventing my body from adapting to that habitual level of intake. Just like we vary our training to prevent adaptation, prevention of dietary adaptation is one of the secrets to changing your body composition


Of course, the above will make more sense reading the whole article. He's speaking of eating maintenence calories of lifting days, 7 days/week. The calorie counting, if you chose to use his model, may be higher than you need.

Wow, Chili! Now that I think about it yeah that makes a lot of sense! However, I'd imagine calculating the calories and such is a bit difficult to do at first.

Now... I always wonder is corn bread a bad food? I love it with chili:(