If you are a bodybuilder getting fat is dumb period. If you are a strength athlete extra fat tends to help keep strength gains high to a degree for most, but diminishes past a certain point. If you are a bodybuilder it is a lifestyle and bulking to a major degree is unhealthy when the major part of the bulk is fat. Not to mention you have to diet off all of that fat which means dieting longer and possibly losing muscle if you are not starting like 20+ weeks out to diet. However if you have a crazy metabolism and eat everything and gain little to no fat then do what you have to but clean food is the basis for gains a little junk is ok here and there off season but I have never seen anyone get great results strictly off garbage food and protein powder alone. Just my 2 cents on it.

Stay as healthy as possible. Might as well look like a bodybuilder all year round if you can too. Also to clarify, no matter what, to gain muscular bodyweight you will have to be 8 or above body fat but there is no need to go above 15 and most can maximize gains staying roughly around 12. However depending on your genetics and any gear you may take water will add a lot of excess. Reading other peoples comments I realize I should clarify this in my opinion and what I have witnessed first hand.

Also due to your bodies ability to rapidly change its BMR if you do approach the top end of that fat percentage or even 12 doing a mini diet for 1-4 weeks then pumping up your calories again can resort in a large amount of growth and help when muscular gain is slowing even on very high calorie intake. The rebound affect can be very very helpful.

I'm gonna chime in on this one from experience. About to hit 40 so things have changed and the changes are recovery and fatloss. It does take more effort to strip away excess fat mass from bulking BUT an effective offseason plan is the only way I know of how to build muscle. That off season plan is always to shoot for 30 lbs in 16-20 weeks, being mindful that about a 1/3 of that will be legit muscle gain. The other 1/3 is fat and the other 1/3 is water. When you start your cutting season you usually lose 5 lbs in the first week or so, that is WATER! and when you dry out at the end of your cut it's usually 3-5 lbs of water. There is your 1/3 of water.

What is effective for me is to keep my macro's in check to a point. I start my bulk @ 5000 cals and end up around 6-7000 by week 20. The first 5000 is a clean meal plan and I add more dense calorie foods as I go, to hit the higher #'s.

Training is always to progress the heavy lifts as well as the "sweet zone". Ex let's say you squat 405 for 4 and 355 for 8. The goal is to raise your "ceiling" which is your 405 so you can raise your "sweet zone"
So maybe you ended up at the end of your offseason squatting 495 for 4 and 405 for 8. The 405 for 8 with proper form and contraction is where you're going to make the most gains. You got stronger in more than 1 area. Catch my drift?

And yes when I was in my 20's I never did cardio but that is a thing of the past. Cardio must be applied as the metabolism is just not the same. So in the end no I don't eat everything in sight, only after I reach 5000 calories I may.

Looking at it from a competitive perspective, let's take a look at two ways of going about it.

Option 1 - bulk, eat everything of value you can force down your throat THEN carve it up for stage.
Option 2 - bulk "clean" and have less to do in ter,s of stage prep cutting.

Which do you think makes more progress in that year? Reality check, if you half heartedly bulk, (call it clean bulking if you will), you limit your mass built. You can kid yourself into thinking a bit less food won't make that much difference if you inject a boat load of steroids. You're wrong, and I say that with 100% certainty as I sit here eating a piece of salmon the size of Jaws as I'm typing ;)

I think a guy / girl with a very developed physique built over decades can operate this "lean bulk" technique with some success. After all, they've built their slab of meat, it's about refinement and conditioning. But bulking, REAL bulking is built on hard graft and food, food and more food. I'm not the guy to talk to about conditioning, I'm what you call a "one trick pony" in bodybuilding. There's one thing I excel at in this game, it's building mass and showing others how to do it too.

Lean buk is a pipedream. I tried it because I just didn't wanna get soft but its the nature of the beast. Bulk=fat...period. Funny part is that even bulking most of us look leaner then most..lol. I remember watching a BB documentary with my girl and she says "who the hell is that???" I said that's Branch Warren hun. Her response was "why is he so fat...lol?"....my response was "hes bulking....you don't think they always look like they do in the magazines do you?". So many people don't realize that these guys don't walk around stage ready all the time.....they get fat too..lol.

dirty bulker here.

eat what ever when ever.

the problem you get at is abs, if you go too far, it can get tricky, maintaining muscle whilst burning fat, never drop food, up your intensity.and delibratley engage core in daily movements/ excersize, especially if you hate that dirty cardio doggery shit lol.

Lean bulking is bullshit ...you gotta eat to grow you can spin your wheels with the fantasy of gaining slabs of beef with keeping ripped but in reality you have to consume copius amounts of food to grow and sustain that mass and that comess with adding a few pounds of fat pure and simple ..you either cut or bulk anything inbetween is a total waste of time and money