MUSCLE and Bulking

 Importance of Building Muscle

So if you all read my 2013 plan, then you know that I'm doing a mini-ish 5 week bulk! 
I feel I've gained quite a bit of fat over the past few months from my not so strict diet :/ eek sorry! Now I'm determined to turn that fat into STRONG MUSCLE. 
Why do I want muscle? What are the benefits?

• better athletic performance: power, strength, energy, stamina
• can inhibit sarcopenia, the age related loss of muscle
• muscle burns more calories than fat - more muscle = more fat burn
• increases metabolism, even at rest! 
• when building muscle, it increases oxygen flow to the body - which means healthier heart and lungs!
• muscles protect the joints and bones
• better posture
• the same weight of muscle takes up less space than fat. even if the scale says you weigh the same, you'll look tighter, more firm, and toned    

 Having muscle is a prettyyyyy good thing to have don't you think?? Now  
how exactly am I changing my diets and workouts for this bulk?
 Specifically during these next few weeks I'll be:

• increasing CARBS!!! YESSSSS :D
• I'll be having them in my breakfast, immediate post workout with my protein shake, and then in my post workout meal for the first 2 weeks, and the 3 weeks after I'll cut it to just post workout shake and post workout meal. 
• GOOD carbs though! Complex carbs like oats, brown rice, sweet potato, brown rice cakes. Why?
• carbs will give me energy to build my muscles! The carbs will get stored in my muscles [glycogen] and that's where they'll be getting their energy! This means more intense workouts, heavier weights, more reps = building that muscle! If I don't get enough carbs, it may try to get energy by breaking down protein, which is NOT what I want! I want to keep my muscles, not break them down
• help muscle recovery! This is especiallyyy important to build up those muscles! Carbs get the protein we eat to go to our muscles! This is especially important POST workout because our muscles are primed to absorb what we eat! So we include carbs to shuttle the nutrients to our muscles to repair and build the muscle  

• doing only short low intensity cardio either in the morning or post workout. I don't want tooo much cardio at this time so that I can build my muscles! About 20 minutes or so of cardio!  
• speed walk, incline walk, light jog
• Check out that 2013 plan to see what my actual workout days will be looking like!
• increase of calories - your body won't grow if you're in a deficit of calories! So I'll be aiming to have around 1800-2000 or so calories a day, except for rest days where it'll probably be around 1400-1500
• PROTEIN PROTEIN PROTEIN! Protein's made up of amino acids, which are the building blocks of muscle! You should have AT LEAST 1 gram per pound of weight
• HEAVIER weights, shorter reps! I want to give my muscles that nice pump! I'll probably be doing 4 sets of 6-8 reps! So that means lets say I'll do 6-8 squats heavy, then a brief rest, and repeat that for 4 times total! I really want to build my GLUTES, so I'll be incorporating 2 leg days in my plan!

So that's my mini-bulk plan! Now obviously it's not going to build TOO much muscle, some people take MONTHS to build the amount they want, but I'm not competing, so I'm just doing this little mini 5 week plan to just build a little more, and then start shedding the fat off! Now if I do this wrong, have TOO many cals or TOO much carbs, I may put on fat! But that's ok for now, because my next phases will be dedicated to leaning out! I'll do another post during that time to give you an overview of how I plan on doing that!