Before discussing clean bulking vs dirty bulking we need to understand what bulking actually is. Bulking is a term used to describe the process of bulking up one's body with the aim of eventually building more muscle. It is achieved by putting your body into a caloric surplus, meaning that you are consuming more calories than you are using on a daily basis. This is of course the opposite of going into a caloric deficit to lose weight and so you should therefore expect to not only gain size, but to also gain fat. The amount of fat you gain and the speed at which you put on weight defines the difference between clean bulking vs dirty bulking.
Bulking then is not for everyone, and certainly not for people looking to lose weight.
Clean Bulking vs Dirty Bulking: The Choice
To begin bulking up you first need to take a look at your maintenance level of calories. This is how much you need to eat on a daily basis to maintain your current body weight and composition. To increase your weight you need to start absorbing a number of calories above this level on a consistent basis (the opposite is true if you want to lose weight).
What you are faced with then is a choice: how much of a caloric surplus to you want to create? Here’s the key point though: the greater the caloric surplus, the greater the potential gains you can make in muscle mass BUT the greater your fat gain will be.
If you want to push your calories higher but maintain a lower body fat percentage then you need to aim to increase your food consumption by a small amount which will be with highly nutritious foods. This would be a clean bulk.
If you are not concerned with your body fat percentage but instead want to increase your weight quickly with the further aim of making more significant muscle gains then you want to add a high number of calories per day. The problem here is having the time, the money and the appetite to consume such a vast amount of food. The easiest way around this is to eat food that would normally be considered unhealthy. This allows you to use the same time, money and stomach capacity to fill yourself with a higher number of calories. This would be a dirty bulk.
Precisely where a clean bulk becomes a dirty bulk is impossible to say. The method you decide on though will be determined more by your short term goals than anything else. Either way, long term, if you are consistently maintaining a caloric surplus you are going to increase your weight and if you are lifting at the same time you are going to build muscle. A dirty bulk will just give you faster results with the downside that you are also going to become fatter and run the risk of developing health-related issues.
Note that it is possible to push your caloric count extremely high while eating healthy foods. The problem, as I mentioned, is finding the time and money and appetite to buy, prepare and then eat several servings of chicken breast, brown rice and broccoli on a daily basis when a single pizza will give you a couple of thousand calories. When considering clean bulking vs dirty bulking there is also the question of food blandness. One of the problems faced by anyone on a diet is that the healthier food also tends to be the most boring to eat. Eating even more bland food may just be too demanding from a psychological point of view as it destroys your motivation to bulk up.
When discussing clean bulking vs dirty bulking then there is no clear answer as to which is best. Your personal tastes will determine the method. If you are happy with slower gains while maintaining a lower body fat percentage then a clean bulk will be more suitable. If you want quicker weight gains and are not concerned with your body fat percentage then go for a dirty bulk.
