Bulking is bulking. Tenacity asked what exactly is bulking and I explained it. THere's always the right way to do things, but i'm being realistic here. Also, I don't bulk clean and neither does everyone else, but I know for a fact that there are people that bulk dirty and ones that bulk clean. Clean bulk is obviously better, as the cutting portion of dieting will be shorter........ but I'd prefer to cut a week or 2 longer, then have to go through eating bland food all the time as I don't cook well.
But i bulk with piss poor food.....and my friend bulks with green's, mashed potatoes, grilled chicken, etc. I'm also a vegetarian so I would go crazy eating bland tofu and quinoa.
Also, benefits of eating like crap is........crap is sometimes cheaper, and it's doesn't take much prep time. The healthy side of bulking is often times more expensive, and you'll probably need to set aside hours of meal prep time and buy package material to store in your fridge.
What you and op are doing is great. Learn to lift first, build a foundation so you're not throwing around baby weights and can do the exercises properly. When you're ready to lift heavier and want to get BIGGER, that's when you bulk. Bulking will get you FAT. Bulking is eating large quantities of food in a short span of 3-6 months to gain a lot of weight (this can be 10lbs for a light person or 25lbs for a large person). You can also obviously gain the weight very slowly over the course of 2 years and burn the fat into muscle over time and not have to look FAT, but i'd rather suffer 3 months of looking fat and getting more mass on me then have to slowly do it over the span of 2 years to get to the look or strength I want.
Pro's of bulking are you get bigger and stronger faster, but cons are you need to suffer looking fat/chubby for a short period of time.
Eating healthy and slowly packing on weight will mean you don't get fat and get to the same goal, but you'll get to the goal alot slower, than bulking.
The part you don't understand Tenacity, seems to be the biology part. I'm not an expert but it's pretty much common sense that the more weight/mass you put on, it will be split into fat and muscle. Even if you do jack sh1t and eat pizza's all day everyday and get fat as h3ll, there will be weight/mass that is muscle. So naturally, the bigger you are, the stronger you are.
Bulking allows you to get extra muscle and size, making you stronger at that time. Then you force yourself to lift heavier weights, and due to muscle memory and after you start cutting some weight, and burning fat into muscle, your muscles will be accustomed to lifting heavier. You'll lose some muscle initially from the cutting and you'll potentially get lighter in the beginning, but at the same time, if you are lifting hard, you'll be burning the extra fat into extra muscle which should off set some of the weight you're losing. Your size will decrease but fat will turn into muscle which will off set the weight your cutting.
In the end, most people that bulk up to XYZ weight, after cutting properly, only lose a handful or two of pounds once done cutting, but they ultimately look totally different.
I started at 170lbs in college. I bulked to 188lbs, and cut to 180lbs. My standing weight is now 177lbs and i'm lifting the same weights I was when i was 190lbs basically.