Well, maybe you don’t know your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) or caloric needs, so here is link to figure it out:

https://tdeecalculator.net/

When you are trying to put on some quality muscle it is a pretty well known fact that you have to eat a surplus of calories. Eat more calories than your TDEE and you WILL gain weight. They key to this is gaining the maximum amount of muscle and minimum amount of fat. So the traditional way to do this is typically eat 500+ cals above your TDEE and boom!! Weight gain. The problem with doing it this way is if you are continually eating the same amount of calories above your TDEE you are either going to gain too much unwanted fat or hit a plateau and stop gaining. The reason you may be hitting a plateau is that after a while of eating like this (it may take a few weeks or a few months) your metabolism is going to adjust and you will just be burning all the calories you consume with none left over to grow.

This is the best way that I have found so far to keep the excess fat off and avoid plateaus while gaining muscle at a steady rate. The whole idea behind this is to cycle your calories on a weekly progression. By slowly cycling and increasing your calories each week, you are supplying your body with the surplus of calories it needs to grow but you are not overloading it so much that you start to gain unwanted fat. Here is how it works using my TDEE as an example (adjust accordingly for your TDEE):

My TDEE is 2500cal/day. At the start of every month I consume my TDEE for the first week. The following week I up the calories by 250/day. The third week my calories will be 500 above TDEE and the final week of the month my calories will be 750 above my TDEE. Then at the start of the second month I will readjust my calories to my new lean body mass and start the same progression over again at my new TDEE. So it looks like this:

Week 1 TDEE (2500 cal)
Week 2 2500 + 250 = 2750 cal/day
Week 3 2500 + 500 = 3000 cal/day
Week 4 2500 + 750 = 3250 cal/day
Week 5 recalculate TDEE
week 6 New TDEE + 250 cal/day
Week 7 New TDEE + 500/day
etc.......

If you are not happy with how much weight you gained after the first month cycle (not gaining fast enough), add an EXTRA 250 calories on top of your new TDEE for the following month and continue with the progression. This should really pile the weight on. If you are getting close to the weight you would like to be or if you noticed you gained more fat than you wanted, just go back to the normal progression. You are supplying your body with the surplus of calories it needs to gain mass with this protocol but not too much so you don't gain any unnecessary fat. The real key to this is dropping your calories back to down to your new TDEE for the start of the new month. This helps to shock your metabolism and keep it revved up.

Where this type of diet cycling really shines is if you are also following a weekly progressive overload training routine. As your weekly training demands are increasing, you are also increasing your calories to match your increased training level and subsequent demand for additional calories.

Ironically, this diet cycling can also be used to lose weight even though for most of it you are consuming above your TDEE. By feeding your body more calories than it needs, you are preventing your metabolism from shutting down and keeping it in high gear. Here is how you do it. On the start of your second month, drop your calories to 250 BELOW your new TDEE and then continue with the progression. The 1,000 calorie drop from week 4 to the next week is where you will see the fat melt away.

Whether bulking or cutting I recommend that protein should be a minimum of 1.5 grams/lb. My macro split is usually around 45/35/20 Protein/carbs/Fat

I have been following this cycle diet for the last 2 months and I have gained 6lbs of lean mass and dropped my body fat from 12.5% to 11.3%. All of this has been without the use of any AAS or fat burners. Hopefully you guys (and girls) can give this a shot and give some feedback on your results too.