Culking: The Art of the Clean Bulking Diet

So you want to learn more about clean bulking, cutting, embracing vigor and virility with your diet, being a man when it comes to how to lift, look and live. Yeah that sounds good. That’s why you’re here. You, my friend, are a prime candidate to pick up and master The Art of Culking. Let’s start by defining the term “culking.” Culking is generally referred to as a portmanteau of either “clean bulking” or “cutting & bulking,” depending on your personal tastes of course. It’s easier to think of it as both since the ultimate goal of culking is to simultaneously add lean muscle and burn body fat. In a sense, culking embodies effective body recomposition: more muscle, less fat. And who doesn’t want both of the aforementioned? Ok ok, I’m interested, but how do I do it and what’s the catch? Read on, young padawan…

The 3 Tiers of Culking

In an effort to further personalize the term culking, I’ve decided to break it down into three tiers-

1. Level 1: Shredded Culking: Here the emphasis is on burning fat as fast as humanly possible while gaining or maintaining strength and lean mass levels.
2. Level 2: Split Culking: Here the emphasis is split between gaining lean mass and burning body fat. Both goals are desired in equal amounts so it’s fair to say that Level 2 Culkers are looking for general body recomposition.
3. Level 3: Mass Culking: Here the emphasis is on gaining as much lean mass as humanly possible without the addition of any body fat.

What do all three levels have in common? Regardless of which level of culking you are working under, each aims to produce an appearance of more muscle and less fat by the end of the culking period. Level 1 is simply focusing on burning more fat, so the diet will be stricter. Level 3 gives you a little more flex room with the diet, but the workouts should be just as hard. In fact, regardless of each level your workouts should be exactly the same. The only variable should be diet. Think about it, whether you’re trying to get leaner or bigger, you should always be working out by putting in 110% effort. The same workouts that get you lean can also get you big, you just need to optimize the foods you eat the time the nutrients correctly.

For example:

Starting stats- 175 pounds, 15% body fat. This equates to 26.25 pounds of fat and 148.75 of fat free mass. Now let’s say you do level 3 culking and in 8 weeks end up at 185 pounds, but still have 26.25 pounds of fat. Even though you didn’t lose any fat, your body fat percentage is now 14.2%, and you have gained 10 additional pounds of lean mass. Trust me, you’ll look a lot bigger, leaner and more defined, without losing a single pound of body fat!

The Clean Bulking Diet

Culking diet is actually quite simple. Just follow these clean bulking key diet principles:

• Don’t eat crap: ‘Cmon, just be smart. If it takes significant brain power to determine if it’s healthy, it’s not.
• Avoid all processed foods: You don’t get big and lean eating man-made food. Exceptions include bodybuilding supplements, protein powders and whole food nutrition bars.
• Don’t drink calories: Your liquids should come from water and unsweetened drinks like green tea and black coffe. Exceptions include freshly squeezed vegetable and fruit juice blends and whole fruit smoothies. If you’re a level 2 or level 3 culker, go ahead and have milk. Level 1’s need to be ultra-strict with their diet. Level 3’ers should also be ultra-strict with their diet, but have a little more freedom to get the nutrients they need during post-workout  meals.
• Eat foods you can pick, harvest, hunt or fish: This should be pretty self-explanatory. If your grandma didn’t have access to it in her youth, then you probably shouldn’t be eating it.
• Shop around the perimeter of the grocery store: All the processed crap is found down grocery store aisles. When shopping stick to the outside perimeter of the grocery store. There you’ll find meats, cheeses, fish, milk, vegetables, fruits and other healthy foods. Hey, stay away from the bakery section and cake display, sorry but they don’t count.
• KEY PRINCIPLE: Eat A LOT of clean calories: Now, when you’re eating extra lean, you get to eat more calories. Some people call this G-fluxing. G-fluxing means eating as much clean calories as you can to keep up with your high energy expenditures (work out a lot, eat a lot, rest a lot). G-fluxing speeds up your metabolism and gives you the extra calories to build lean mass while negating the opportunity for your body to store it as body fat. Think about it, if you eat a 1,200 calorie giant bowl of organic brown rice and two whole chicken breasts with asparagus after a hard squat and bench workout, do you really think you’re going to store any of that as body fat? I’d be hard pressed to find that you could. Your body is going to be ultra insulin sensitive and slam those nutrients right into your muscles, replenish glycogen and speed up your metabolism to handle the excess. Add a little bit of creatine and a protein shake and you’re golden. Experiment to see for yourself, guaranteed you’ll just keep getting bigger, leaner and stronger. The key is to earn those extra calories, so workout harder than you ever have before. Muscle doesn’t come easy, but when you want it bad enough it’ll happen. Train to the point of nausea, take some risks, go heavy, do those extra sets, get a gym partner to spot you, turn into an absolute training beast.

Follow these principles during your bulking and cutting phase and no more will you have to add a ton of fat to gain the lean muscle you want. What’s the point of putting on all that lean mass if you can’t see and appreciate it? Plus, life is better lean because you’re healthier, stronger and sexier of course. I mean, who doesn’t want to look good naked? Culk to stay lean 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Clean Bulking :: Best Culking Supplements:

• Whey Protein: Post workout recovery.
• Creatine Monohydrate: Post workout recovery. Aids in muscular water retention, strength and size.
• Blood Sugar Control: Take with big meals to optimize insulin function and nutrient absorption.
• Alpha Lipoic Acid: Insulin control. take 1-2 hours before workouts.
• Coenzyme Q10: Optimizes fast twitch muscle fibers. Take 100mg with each meal throughout the day so you should get 300-600mg a day. Boo ya!
• Citrulline Malate + BCAAs: Use the BCAAs during your workout and add extra citrulline malate to the mix. You’ll have the best pumps of your life, I promise. The BCAAs really really help, I can’t stress enough how much these help with recovery and the rate at which they allow you to pack on lean mass always surprises me. I’ve added a half inch onto my arms in two weeks using 20g BCAAs + 5g citrulline malate 3x a week during my workouts.
• Alpha GPC: Shown to potentiate the nervous system and increase the percentage of muscle fiber recruitment from neuro-muscular signaling. In other words, you’re able to lift more weight because your brain is able to recruit more muscle fibers for each movement. Take this 60-90 mins before your workout.
• High Potency Strong Man Multivitamin: Fills in the gaps and provides extra b-vitamins so you can keep raging with workouts all week long.
• Body Fit – Natural Fat Burner: Use a pre HIIT or cardio supplement. Burns extra fat and helps prime the muscles for a hearty post workout meal.

The Clean Bulking Workouts

Next blog post we will discuss the key clean bulking “culking” workouts necessary to activate your slow twitch muscle fibers and how to turn them into fast twitch robot fibers. These workouts will also revolve around stoking your metabolism to help utilize the extra clean calories you will be using. Here is a quick preview of what we’ll cover:

• Specialized Workouts
• Nutrient Timing
• Greasing the Groove: Microtraining Principles
• Lifting Tips & Tricks
• Specialized Lifting Equipment
• Outdoor Training Principles