It is pretty much a given that to gain muscle you have to be in a calorie surplus. Some people take this to the extreme though and eat everything in site and as long as the scale is going in the right direction they are happy because they are gaining weight. But what is the point in gaining preferentially fat over muscle. Who the hell wants to gain fat, right? Great, you have gained your 30-40 lbs over the course of the last 5 months, but how much of that do you actually think is muscle. Success of a bulk isn't measured by scale weight it is measured by muscle mass gains. It does you no good to gain 5lbs of fat and 1 lbs of muscle and end up with 20+ percent bodyfat. So, now I will get into the meat of why dirty bulking is not the best way to go about gaining weight.

Reason 1. Wrecks your insulin sensitivity

Bulking up with an increase in body fat is going to decrease your insulin sensitivity and be a huge blockade to muscle growth. As you put on more bodyfat your sensitivity to insulin decreases so now your muscles won't use all that glucose and those amino acids as efficiently and since it's much more metabolically easier to store fat, your body will now convert more of your excess bulking calories into body fat. This is what sucks about wrecking your insulin sensitivity. The more fat you put on the less muscle you will build and quicker you will gain even more fat. Just keeps snowballing on you when you have trashed your insulin so don't trash your insulin.

Reason 2. Ectopic fat storage

Do you like hard or soft muscles? Dumb question but If you bulk up to quickly and put too much fat on your muscles will get softer due to ectopic fat storage. When you are flooding your body with copious amounts of food all those extra cals are being converted to fat and now being stored in your muscle tissue along with being stored in your adipose tissue. Ever notice how someone gaining to much fat to quickly gets a real soft appearance to there muscles, even when they diet back down, this is a big part of that. They have a build up of intramuscular fat. The term for it is intramuscular triglyceride storage. You are now storing fat in your adipose tissue along with your muscle tissue. Another whammy when this occurs, other than making you look fat and soft, is that it inhibits further muscle growth. Tripple whammy, we get soft, fat and blunt muscle synthesis. Obviously the opposite of what we are trying to do.

Reason 3. Adipogenesis - your making new fat cells

I touched on this topic in one of my other posts, so here is a rehash.
You probably know that fat cells are flexible and they will expand to a certain degree to store any excess fat as you are packing down the food in your calorie surplus. Now what happens when these fat cells become full since you have been overeating for an extended period time during your bulk? Your body will make MORE fat cells to provide storage for the extra fat that can no longer be put into your existing fat cells since they are full. Your body creates new fat cells to store the excess. Let me repeat that Your body creates new fat cells to store the excess. These new fat cells are now with you forever. Let me repeat that also These new fat cells are now with you forever. This is now going to make your body more efficient at storing fat and ALSO more PRONE to store fat. Now as you are cycling through your traditional bulk then cut cycles, it is going to be easier to gain fat during the bulk and harder to lose fat during the cut since you now have more fat cells in your body. Dieting is hard enough, why make it harder.

Well, if this isn't enough to convince you that dirty bulking is probably not in your best interest, I don't know what will, Oh-it is bad for your overall health as well.

Know when to stop your bulk

Hopefully I have convinced you that dirty bulking is not a good idea. Now once again, we need a calorie surplus to gain any appreciable muscle mass so fat gain is going to be inevitable during a bulk. But there is no need to take the fat gain to the extreme. Gaining 5lbs of fat for one pound of muscle is foolish. Flip that around the other way and that is smart and efficient. So when is enough finally enough and time to end your bulk. It really boils down to knowing your body. By monitoring your body composition there will be point where you will notice that the scale weight is revealing more fat gain over muscle gain. As your bodyfat hits a certain point the shift to fat gain over muscle will be fairly dramatic. You will probably also notice your muscles starting to look soft and your pumps may be fading in the gym. For me that cutoff is about 15% bodyfat. Time to end my bulk and do a mini-cut to reset insulin sensitive and get the gains going back in the right direction.

The Solution

So our goal here is to build quality mass so what is the best way to do it. Doesn't get any better than cyclic bulking which I have touched on before.

https://www.eroids.com/forum/general/general-talk/the-key-to-quality-mas...

This should go without saying, but you obviously don't want to start bulking until you have lowered your bodyfat to begin with or right off the bat you are sabotaging your muscle gains and helping your fat gains.

https://www.eroids.com/forum/general/general-talk/scientific-proof-lower...