Avoid all fatty foods. It’s obvious: if you eat fat, you’ll get fat. In fact, just to be safe, you should probably not eat at all.

Go slow. Really slow. As all reverse dieters know, Newton’s fourth law of thermodynamics says that as long as you only add five calories a day, it’s physically impossible to gain any fat, ever. That’s approximately half a stick of celery or two blueberries. It’s all about being progressive, right?

Increase your cardio. Cardio burns fat, and eating more adds fat and muscle. So if you’re bulking, be sure to do at least an hour of high-intensity interval training every day, and you’ll only be left with lean, hard, muscle bone. #shreddedaf

As ridiculous as these tips sound, I’ll be the first to admit: I’ve tried them all at some time or another. I didn’t go to quite these extremes, of course, but for a long, long time, I struggled to gain any weight and made no progress in the gym because I put too much emphasis on body composition, and wasn’t willing to sacrifice being lean — even in the short term — for the sake of actually reaching my goals.

I think a lot of guys struggle with this, because most don’t to go full beefcake. They want to be big, strong, and lean, and they have this misguided idea that as long as they’re really, really careful about it, they can get there without making any mistakes or wasting any time. And in doing so, they end up… making a lot of mistakes and wasting a lot of time.

That’s an example of intensity without intent, and it’s not what I’m about (at least not any more). Next week, I’ll go more in-depth about my own offseason dieting strategy: getting huge but being smart about it.