Winter has come, and it’s time to bulk. If it’s your first year trying to gain clean muscle mass, then boy, you’re in for quite a ride. Although bulking sounds as easy as just eating more, it’s much more complicated than that. You’ll need the hile you’re probably already familiar with the latter, finding and sticking to a perfectly balanced weight gain diet is the more difficult part.

First and foremost, you need to increase the number of calories you consume. You’ll have a hard time gaining weight and muscle if you’re on a calorie deficit. A good estimate of how many calories you should consume is to multiply your body weight by 32. So for instance, if you weigh 80kg, you’ll need to consume about 2500 calories. If you don’t see any gains after a few weeks, increase the number of calories by 200 per day until you start noticing gains.

However, you can’t just eat junk food and expect muscle growth. You need a well-balanced diet to gain weight for men, which is typically a 40/30/30 – protein/carb/fat ratio. While this may seem difficult, there are ways to do it, namely ready meal delivery services, which can prepare all of your meals and deliver them straight to your doorstep – all you’ll have to do is eat! Not everyone is a skilled cook and has the money to eat clean food in restaurants, which makes ready meal delivery services a very helpful method for those looking to gain weight.

Next, make sure you don’t overdo it in the gym. While yes, you should work out about 4 times a week, you need rest days to give your body the time to recuperate. This includes getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night, as throughout the night is when your body releases the highest amount of growth hormones, which are essential for building lean muscle. Further, this is when your body repairs its muscles and turns off your sympathetic nervous system (the fight-or-flight response) to help you manage stress.

And lastly, before you start bulking, make sure you’re at the right starting point. If you have around 10% body fat, then your body can optimally distribute nutrients between fat and muscle to neutralize fat gains. However, if you’re skinny fat, you’ll have a disadvantage due to insulin sensitivity gaining muscle vs. fat. That being said, get the necessary leanness level first, then clean bulk.