So these are currently a rough estimate of my stats:

28
170
5'11"
12.5% bf

BMR = 1830ish

I'm currently eating around 1800 calories per day, I lift 5 days a week, cardio 3-4 (only 1 mile jog, nothing crazy) My daily meal plan is as follows:

5:40am - Preworkout (usually noxplode)
7:15am - Post workout shake (2 scoops protein + BCAA powder)
8:15am - 6 hard boiled egg whites
10am - 1/4 cup almonds + 150g of fruit (Raspberries or pineapple). I take multi vit and fish oil with this
12pm - 1 itallian sausage + 2oz chicken + 2oz (pre cooked, 4oz cooked) Barilla pasta
2pm - 6oz chicken
4pm - 1 scoop whey protein
6pm - 6oz of either ground beef or chicken w/ as much broccoli as I want to eat - I take more multi vit and fish oil

The above is pretty standard for me day in and day out and my main priority with that was to make sure I was hitting ~160 grams of protein or more. I want to start bulking come 9/29 and I was thinking to start off slow, but i still think my idea of "start off slow" is still too much of a caloric addition. I was going to add 1 banana + 1/4 (maybe 1/2 cup) oats + 2 tbsp peanut butter. I think that will add near 400ish calories daily. Is that too much of an increase?

why are you eating so little

It's not that i'm eating so little. The way i'm eating now, I feel like i'm maintaining my current weight. Before I started eating the way I am eating now (Started eating healthier and macro'd in June), I was eating like shit and didn't care about my diet. I was up to 186 pounds when I weighed in, in May. Started changing my diet slowly. Started macroing (sort of) my diet around June and from June to end of August I dropped down to 170. Through the month of September, I have maintained 168-172 pounds. So now i'm thinking i'm ready to start a bulk and going to try to increase my overall body size and lifts.

Eat more food
Drink less protein

or not..either way will work.

dumbass

400 kcal increase would be a pretty clean bulk the way you eat, go for it you can always increase if its to slow for you

You think that daily increase won't be too much? That's my main question in this thread haha. But thanks for the actual answer :-)

1800 -> 2200 isn't much of an increase from your starting point. You should be pretty solid

Alright. I was just concerned because 1800 is seeming to be maintenance right now. And i know if it was the other way around (Going from 1800 to 1600) I would lose weight RAPIDLY. I just don't want to gain wait too fast. I'll just have to test it out and see how things go for a few weeks, maybe dial it back if need be.

You really think 1800 cals is enough daily lifting 5 days a week + cardio 3-4 days a week for a 170 lbs guy?
I didn't mean to say it mattered from a macro perspective, I just meant he would get more cals if he ate food rather than just drinking protein shakes.

This post was edited by juicetoocool17 on Sep 25 2014 11:41am