Let’s get back to 3 years earlier when I was bulking

I used to consume huge loads of calories and that’s what you do during a dirty bulk

My diet was as follows

(10 am) 1st meal – protein shake made of 0.5L milk, 2 tbsp peanut butter, 40g oats and 1 ripped banana
(Noon) 2nd meal – 100 soy chunks boiled with some seasoning
(2 pm) 3rd meal – 6 egg whites bhurji with 2 or 3 chapati
(4 pm) 4th meal – Morning shake again
5:45 to 7:15 workout
(8 pm) 5th meal – 6 egg whites bhurji with 2-3 chapati

This is what I ate every day for 8 months

The reason, why I stopped consuming this diet, was digestion problems

But why am I sharing this with you this bulking diet?

Well for the people who don’t know me, I’m from India

At that point, I was an unemployed 19-year-old boy with a dream of achieving a lean muscular physique

I had no money to my name and protein was very costly, I’m not talking about supplements but a high-protein diet

So I did some internet research and started looking for the cheapest sources of protein available in the market

I found a bunch of sources like double-toned milk, soya, peanut butter, oats, lentils, beans and some other

So I used them as my main sources to hit my protein goal, which was 130g at the time

As you can see most of these sources were amongst my bulking diet
but
What happened then, right?
What was the issue?
Why did I stop consuming these things?

Well 1st issue was the obvious one

I wasn’t not seeing any progress in my strength or my muscle size

The only thing that went up was my weight and fat

But why was this happening?
I was consuming an adequate amount of protein, right?

The issue was the quality of protein and the bioavailability of protein

At the same time, I was using an app named myfitnesspal to check my protein intake

I had to insert all the food that I ate in a day, and it checked the protein in every food

Now that the app did its job, it did count the protein intake in every food item but not the bioavailability in them

So I thought I was doing the right thing by consuming extra protein according to the app

Because it calculated protein in bananas, rotis and even white rice

Now obviously I didn’t consider these as a good protein source but I did consider oats, peanut butter and lentils as good protein sources, which was a huge mistake

I didn’t know that they were not as effective as eggs and lean meat

But to be honest was willfully ignorant because of the financial aspect

That’s why I even posted a video on Instagram about “Cheapest sources of protein” where my main point was to tell youngsters to get a job

Because I know for a fact that if had better protein options to choose from I would have chosen them

But I was avoiding reality, which is, sooner or later you’ll have to work anyway, so why not start today

The only difference between that day and the current day is that now I have much better options to choose from for my protein consumption

Not just better but the ones that WORK

Just for context
Better protein options are lean meat, dairy products, eggs and whey protein