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Been trying to slow bulk for the past 2 months. Thought I was doing alright, occasionally weighing myself here and there and seeing +2-3 lbs gained so far. Week ago finally decided to weigh myself on fully empty stomach - +3.2oz net gain. Upped my daily intake from 2.5k calories to 2.7k now and it's been hell. 2.5k was already tough, but manageable, and 2.7k is hell. I pretty much eat something every other hour from 11am til 8pm and still often fall 50-75 cals short. Don't know if I can keep this going without succumbing to mass gainers. I've already started eating more dirty - ice cream daily, welch's 'fruit' snacks daily, but it's still difficult. The times when I was cutting and only eating 2k calories a day were so much easier, I just had to have a light breakfast, 1 heavy meal and 1 snack and all my needs were taken care of, I miss it.
There's infinity protein formulas and of course simple instantized whey. You don't have to slam 1000 kcal of mass gainer if you don't want to. Is there a reason you want to avoid this?
~200 calories in 2 tablespoons (32g) of peanut butter in a bowl of cereal. It's nothing. With whole milk that's a "light" 500 calorie breakfast. Protein fortified yogurt slop or skyr a couple hours later? Bam, another 150. Eating perfectly lean is too hard. I say don't go crazy, but CICO. Work it out later.
3 meals a day, 2 snacks could come out to 500 breakfast/150 yogurt/700 lunch/350 shake pre-gym/1000 dinner rice chicken avocado extravaganza. 7am/10am/12pm/4pm/7pm.
Full Disclosure: messed up bulk big time and got fat(ter than I wanted) by stuffing my miserable not hungry face all day. Not particularly dirty, just bad at arithmetic and studiously monitoring the scale. Still got stronger, didn't care. I cared.
No specific reason, just trying to eat healthy whole foods as principle.
That's roughly my routine now, it's annoying. I go to the gym early midday, I try to not stuff my face before then, so breakfast is only 500-600 cals. Quick carb snack right before gym 100-200 cals. Then a quick carb snack right after gym 100-200 cals. Then late lunch at around 3-4pm 800-1000 cals. Then dinner 800-1000 cals at 6-7pm. And finally, if there's any leftover macros to hit, quick snack at 8:30pm latest. I pretty much get like 30-90 minutes in between food breaks, it's not ideal. Comparing it to when I was at 2k cals: medium breakfast before gym, 1 huge late lunch/early dinner, evening snack. That's it, all needs covered. Food was an afterthought, now it's a big part of my day.
I don't think I'll have that problem - I naturally don't eat enough if I don't count my calories unless I'm abusing uber eats.
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