Let me start with the mistake, because the mistake is the whole lesson.
Some years ago I decided to build muscle, and my method was simple: eat a lot. No app, no numbers, no tracking. Just more food, all the time.
It worked, in the sense that the scale moved. It moved by more than twelve kilos in about three months.
No app. No counting. Just eating. Most of what I gained was not muscle, and I spent a long time afterwards taking it back off.
Tracked every day. Protein fixed, fat capped, the rest filled in. Slower, cleaner, and I am not dreading the cut afterwards.
Here is the part that still makes me shake my head. Today I have the opposite problem — I struggle to get enough food in. Eating 4200 calories can feel like work. So how did I once eat enough to gain twelve kilos in a quarter without noticing?
Because I was not paying attention. That is the only explanation, and it is the entire point.
The difference between the disaster then and the slow bulk now is not willpower. It is that back then I was guessing, and now I measure. Guessing is how twelve kilos arrives before you have decided to let it.
The system now
It is not complicated. It is the same structure I use for everything to do with food: one number I chase, one I cap, and one that fills the gap.
- Protein around 200 grams. The number I actively hit every day.
- Fat kept down. Ideally under 100, capped at about 150. This is the quiet lever most people ignore — fat is calorie-dense, and letting it run is the easiest way to turn a bulk into a mess.
- Carbohydrate fills the rest up to the calorie target.
- 4200 calories is the number I arrived at by trial and error — it gives a gentle gain. On weeks of heavier physical work I nudge it to around 4500, because the job burns more.
That last point matters and it is unique to physical work. My maintenance is not a fixed number. A hard week on the shop floor moves it. If I did not adjust, a "gentle bulk" would quietly become maintenance, and the scale would sit still while I wondered why.
Why the app is non-negotiable for me
I have said it elsewhere and I will say it again here: the food app is not a discipline tool, it is an instrument. Twelve kilos happened because I had no instrument. I could not see what was going in, so I could not see it going wrong until my clothes told me — far too late.
Now, if the scale moves in a way I did not plan, I open the log and I can see exactly why. Guessing is what got me into trouble the first time. I am not going back to guessing.
The honest judge is your trousers
Everyone wants a clever way to know if a bulk is going well. Here is mine, and it costs nothing.
The mirror lies and the face can lie. The scale tells the trend and the trousers tell the truth. Judge by the two that do not flatter you.
Yes, I accept some fat. Here is why.
I am not going to pretend I stay lean while I build. I gain a little fat on a bulk, I accept it, and I want to explain the reasoning honestly, because it is the healthiest thing in this whole article.
To build muscle while gaining zero fat — genuinely clean, recomposition, the physique-competitor version — you basically have to be a professional. Someone whose entire life is arranged around exactly how they train, exactly what they eat, exactly what they supplement, with the time and the freedom to dial in every last detail.
That is not my life.
My actual life
I work a physical job on a rotating rota. I look after my kids on a regular basis. I go to the gym around all of it. Lately I am tired more often than I would like.
I do not have the room to optimise every variable to the last decimal. So I accept the trade: a little fat comes along with the muscle, and that is the price of building anything at all while living a normal life.
What I will not accept is too much fat. A little is the cost of doing business. A lot means the plan has slipped — and the trousers will tell me before the mirror does.
There is a freedom in that, honestly. Chasing the perfectly clean bulk while working shifts and raising kids is a recipe for feeling like a failure at something that was never realistic in the first place. Accepting a small amount of fat is not settling. It is matching the goal to the life.
It really is slower now — and that is not in your head
I am forty-nine. I turn fifty this year. I am not going to tell you the years make no difference, because they do, and you know they do.
When I was young, muscle and strength came almost by themselves. No supplements, nothing — I just trained and ate and grew. Now it is decidedly slower. The same effort produces less, and it produces it more gradually.
The gains come slower at nearly fifty than they did at twenty-five. That is simply true. But there is a case that what comes now is better quality — harder won, more deliberate, and built on a body that has learned what it can actually do.
I want to be careful here not to sell you a comforting story. I do not have a lab result proving my muscle is "better quality" now. What I have is the honest observation that it arrives slowly, it arrives when I am consistent, and it does not arrive when I chase it impatiently. That last part is the lesson the twelve kilos taught me.
What actually changed in my head
People assume that with age comes patience. I have to be honest: I still want it fast. I would still love a good physique and I would still love to get there quickly. That urge did not politely retire when I hit my forties.
What changed is not the wanting. What changed is the accepting.
I did not become patient. I became realistic. I accepted that it is harder now, that my conditions are tougher, that the work is heavier, and that I cannot progress the way I once did. The wanting is the same. The arguing with reality is what stopped.
That distinction matters, because "just be patient" is useless advice for a man who wants results. You do not have to stop wanting it fast. You have to stop acting as if wanting it fast will make it come fast — because acting on that is exactly how twelve unwanted kilos arrive.
The two mistakes I see other men make
I train in a normal commercial gym, alongside plenty of men my age who have decided to do something about it. I respect every one of them for turning up. But there are two mistakes I see constantly, especially in men carrying a bit of extra weight who train on their own.
1. Training with no plan and no progression
They arrive, and they train whatever they feel like that day. No structure, no plan for getting stronger over time. And crucially, they lift weights that are clearly too light — swinging the weight around, going through the motions, never actually challenging the muscle.
It is lovely that they are moving, and it beats sitting in front of the television. But if you have gone to the trouble of joining a gym, the point is to work. Not to be reckless, not to chase records at fifty — but to lift something heavy enough to actually tire you. Slightly heavier, done properly, is where the results hide.
2. Living on the treadmill
The other one: they spend most of their session on the treadmill, and they are not even running — they are walking. Walking is good for you. But you can walk outside, for free, in daylight.
If you have come all the way to a gym, full of things designed to make you stronger, spending the hour walking on a belt is a waste of the trip. Do the walking outdoors and use the gym for the thing you cannot do on a footpath: getting stronger.
Not medical or nutrition advice. These are my numbers and my choices, at my bodyweight, for my body, at nearly fifty. Calorie and protein needs vary enormously with size, health and goals. If you want targets that are right for you — especially if you have any health condition — talk to a doctor or a qualified dietitian.
If you take three things
- Measure, do not guess. Twelve kilos arrives while you are not looking. An app is not vanity, it is the instrument that lets you catch a bulk before it runs away.
- Judge by the scale trend and your trousers. Not the mirror, not the face. About two kilos a month, waistband still comfortable — that is a bulk going right.
- Match the goal to the life. If you work shifts and have kids, a little fat with your muscle is not failure — it is the honest price. Slower and sustainable beats fast and regretted.
I learned all three the hard way, one unwanted kilo at a time. You do not have to.
The bulk is only half of it
Eating enough is one problem; getting the sessions in around a rota that never repeats is the other. The free planner handles that half.
Open the Shift Training Planner