When you’re bulking, you want to be eating enough energy to support your body trying to gain new muscle. The problem is that some foods are easier to eat than others. Some foods that are often recommended for bulking are often inflammatory and not “clean” food. Let’s take a look.
What makes a type of food easy or hard to eat?
Basically, if a food is filling, it’s hard to eat a lot of it. If a food is not filling, it’s easier to eat more.
There are a few things to pay attention to:
- Amount of fibre
- Viscosity of foods (Apples >> Apple Sauce >> Apple Juice)
- How much water is in the food
- How much chewing you need to do
- How much protein is in the food
So to make it easier to eat more food, you want a low-fibre food, with low viscosity, less water, and less chewing.
Satiety Index
This is illustrated in the Satiety Index of Foods. You’ll see that high water foods like potatoes are extremely filling while processed foods that are pre-chewed/blended are easiest to eat.
You don’t want an overly processed food because it will add to your fat. You’re trying to give your body nutritious food to build new muscle with, not just junk food that will get stored as inflammatory fat. So while a weight gainer might make sense if calories were all that mattered, we know that it won’t compare at all to getting those calories from potatoes or rice.
The Best High-Calorie Bulking Snacks
- Mixed Nuts (make sure nuts aren’t inflammatory for you, pay attention to if you get itchy or get dandruff)
- 1.5oz shot of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (drink it like a shot, 360 calories)
- High-energy fruit
- bananas
- avocados
- mangoes, etc.
- Dried fruits (removes the water)
- raisins
- prunes
- dates
- figs
- mangoes, etc.
- Toasted coconut chips
- Dark chocolate (darker than 78% is ideal)
- Homemade JELLO—raw fruit juice and grass-fed beef gelatin
- Homemade cookies (oats, whole wheat flour, eggs, grass-fed butter, unrefined whole cane sugar or coconut sugar, etc.)
- Oatmeal with dark chocolate sweetened with real maple syrup
- Scottish Oat Cakes (Tallow/Oats)
- Raw unpasteurized juice (orange juice, apple juice, etc.)
Why is cheese/milk/yogurt/cereal not recommended?
In my experience, I found that cutting out pasteurized dairy helped to burn the lower fat on my belly and improve my cardiovascular numbers, leading to better sprinting, etc. which helps me to stay lean. Many of my clients I’ve worked with have said the same thing.
(I think raw dairy is still good as it seems like cooking removes folate, glutathione, vitamin C, and all probiotics like lactobacillus needed to digest lactose. But raw milk is illegal where I live so I can’t confirm if it’s inflammatory of not.)
What about you? What do you find the best snacks are to eat while bulking?
