What’s the best plan in your opinion?

[forgodsoloved]

So I plan to bulk up via meal plans and exercise routines. Primary targets being chest, biceps and abs. (Basically upper body in general).

Background info - 22 years old. Female. 5, 3”. 47/48kg. Vegetarian. I am suffering through depression which I’ve heard can cause lack of appetite and weight loss, which from what I can tell has been the case. My weights been slightly going up and slightly down all the time so I plan on meal prepping to help me out a bit.
For work I do a lot of carrying between 15-30kg on some days of the week for about 4 hours give or take and some work days I don’t. So I do want to take into account that at least once a week I’m already practically working out so I’d need to take that into consideration when planning my exercise routine.

Getting to the point.

I would like to do a weekly meal plan but I find it difficult when being vegetarian. I know it’s entirely possible. But I just can’t seem to find the right info online, websites are not close to being consistent with what’s needed with each other. One states one thing and the other states the opposite. But that’s google for you I guess.

I figured 100g protein and 2600kcals a day would help me bulk up but I’m not sure where to start. What breakfasts are good for meal prepping that contains a lot of protein and calories? But not too much fat. Fats are a source of energy so I know it’s needed but I don’t want to go overboard. Same for meals, any meals for prepping weekly?

Secondly, I exercise at home with barbells and dumbbells. Any suggested routines for upper body and how much exercising should I be doing a week to start the bulking process? I don’t want to under do it and consume too much calories and protein unnecessarily and I don’t want to over do it either.

I was looking at getting a vegetarian bulking book from Amazon but reviews on many of the books haven’t been that positive.

As soon as I have a schedule I know I can do this and I WILL. This will happen and I will be feeling much happier. My target will be to exercise 4-5 times a week.

Final note - I do take protein powder and pre workout powder before I lift at work. It definitely gives me more energy than the days I don’t take them. This also appears to have helped me bulk up slightly but I would like to push a bit harder.

 

[skleu5]

@forgodsoloved Hello, for meal planning and macros consumption, if you’re serious about registering your calorie intake, first you could ask a calorie calculator how much you need to start bulking and/or use some app like myfitnesspal to have your calories and macros registered for you. Then for meal planning, I’ve seen a lot of reel/tiktok tutorials for high protein/bulking meals, you could search for those and use the ones that fit your needs. For your routine, how many days are you planning on using to target your upper body?

 

[forgodsoloved]

@skleu5 Yeah I did that and each website is giving me different answers as to how much I need to bulk. I was hoping someone whose already bulking and has experience could shed the light on what’s true and what’s not true

 

[forgodsoloved]

@skleu5 I did search on TikTok already and it’s all vegan and not much vegetarian and half the time when I do find a vegetarian one they aren’t giving quantities of their ingredients. I’d assume I can’t just make a workout routine via google and make a meal plan based off TikTok. They are unrelated and thus aren’t compatible with eachother? I figured if you gain so much protein and calories and fat you’d need to do the right level of exercise to match up with it and not eating a bulk meal with a random workout routine that doesn’t match it. Also people on TikTok aren’t my age, height and weight to have an accurate meal plan for me