Part Four: Bulking

I never anticipated “bulking” as a part of my fitness journey or part of bodybuilding…Did I forget to tell you that I am a body builder now?? LOL. Just so you have the correct verbiage, when you are a bodybuilder, gaining weight to add muscle is “bulking” and losing weight to show off your muscles is “cutting”. We are going into the emotions of bulking.

I took to “cutting” like it was 2nd nature. DK didn’t need to see my logs because I never hit a plateau. Just so you know, my logs consist of writing down what time I eat, what I eat and the macros (protein, carbohydrates and fats grams) in each food. My logs also included my workouts and how much water I drank. Logging down this information is a great resource if the intended results are not achieved and is great for accountability. The weigh just came off. I was disciplined and enjoyed going from 196 to 128, size XXL to size 4 in only 6 months. During this process I found my BLISS and DK suggested that I go a step further…Competing. A step further in the fitness world is doing a bodybuilding competition. I always saw myself on stage, so I made the commitment. Before I knew it, DK had told everyone from others at the gym to the guys at our supplement store, Wholesale Nutrition. Before I knew it, I was accountable to do a competition. This accountability is everything!! Now I could not back down.

I was “allowed” to enjoy being 128 for a month and then DK says, “It is time to start bulking, so I want you to gain 12 pounds. What, what!! (At this point I had no idea what bulking was). He said, you need to gain muscle for a few months and then before the competition you need to cut…so the newbuilt muscle will show. That is the circle of bodybuilding, but thinking of gaining weight was extremely hard for me. I am very stubborn and tried to resist the bulking process. Now after working my butt off to get to 128 and be a size 4 I need to gain weight???? That did not make me happy!! On top of it, I need to gain the weight by eating clean. So, way more chicken and turkey, way more sweet potatoes and brown rice and I was allowed butter-only because it was a natural product. Nobody overeats or craves to overeat these foods.

I was NOT emotionally ready for this challenge. I loved being size 4 and getting comments that I was too skinny!! (What woman doesn’t want to hear that?). I loved being able to wear whatever I wanted and feeling thin. I resisted this until I talked to a woman at the gym, Elizabeth, who is a seasoned bikini competitor and she said, “Don’t be afraid of gaining weight” I thought about that and turned to Youtube and watched many videos and learned my training was spot on. I needed to gain “clean” weight to give me enough energy to lift extra heavy weights. This process builds muscle. Then after “the cut” I would have more muscle and look more defined in my bikini…..makes sense.

Finally in March, 2022, which was 6 months after reaching my goal I weighed 143. Bulking by eating clean is challenging and to eat all my macros I need to eat about every 1 ½ to 2 hours. (Macros are the grams in each protein, carbohydrate and fat. For example, when I was cutting, I would have 120 grams of protein, 35 grams of carbohydrate and 20 grams of fat. During a bulk, I need to eat 250 grams of protein, 185 grams of carbohydrate and 83.3 grams of fat). It is a ton of food and can be boring!!! Thank God for the Protein Donutz I get at Wholesale Nutrition. So basically, I can eat whatever I want that is clean. Sounds fun….but it is not!! On the good side, my arms came in nicely and look fantastic. I still need to work on glutes and abs. On the down side, my clothes are tight and watching the scale go up is unsettling.

One of the most frustrating parts of this is that as soon as I got up to 140, DK said, “I want you up to 150.” On my last weigh in on 4.21.22 I weighed 151, and of course he said, “I want you up to 160,” Oh my!!!! Anyway, after months of bulking I finally accepted it. DK told me to think of it as getting DENSE, not getting FAT. I will admit, weight gained due to large amounts of clean foods and heavy lifting feels different than gaining fat. And, I know I will be able to take off the weight during the “cut” and have a stronger and more aesthetically pleasing body. It took a long time (September – April) to get emotionally ready for bulking. It is part of the process of bodybuilding and next year I will be better at it because I will be emotionally prepared. My resistance and stubbornness set me back and I will pay for it on the stage. By pay for it I mean that I will not be as filled out with muscle as I could have been if I did not resist the bulk and followed DK’s instructions. This emotional resistance was all part of the process and adventure.

Also, part of the process and adventure is going through changes. Did I mention that DK and I have no place to train because our gym changed hands??? Bulking threw me off, but interrupting my sessions with DK really rocked my world.