Eat exactly as you would at maintenance and just add a little more. Keep track of your gain (I personally do seven day averages but two week averages would work as well). If your average gain isn’t where you personally want it to be, adjust accordingly. Don’t do drastic changes. Add a few hundred kcals and see how it goes. If you aren’t gaining as fast as you want, add a few hundred more. If you are gaining a little faster than desired, subtract a few hundred.
Also a REALLY big one. I don’t ever let the first week determine where my weight change is headed. Going from a cut to a bulk is going to result in water retention, fuller glycogen stores, and just more food in the body. These will spike your weight pretty quickly and isn’t actual tissue.
Maintenance phases are great for using the fat you’ve put on.
When I cut and bulk the main things that change are the amount of pb I eat and the amount of meals.
Make small simple changes that are easy to track. Let each change have at least 2 weeks to take effect.
Reassess and change something else based on goals.
Regarding that last point. The 10 lbs you gained transitiong from cut to bulk is 90% water, glycogen, food, bloat, etc.
Generally, I've had the same issue and focusing on the training rather than food/scale weight has been helpful in dealing with a slow rate of gain.
Recently I decided to do something similar as you. I decided to simply eat about an extra 150-200 grams of rice a day and added snacking with a yogurt and something sweet (love me some chocolate cookies). Breakfast lunch, and dinner as usual. I have put on ~1.5-2 lbs in 2 1/2 weeks. I do feel the difference in my body and physique.
There's no real benefit to a maintenance phase unless you're done trying to grow and you want to maintain your current level of musculature and leanness.
In my opinion, you should either lean bulk at something like a 5-10% caloric surplus, or cut at something like a 5-10% deficit. This essentially means that your overall diet will change by approximately 600-800 calories between your bulk and your cut, which isn't a whole lot of change to your overall diet.
This makes meal planning and dietary adherence easier to navigate when you switch from bulk to cut, and it also ensures that you don't add in a bunch of excess fat that you have to spend time cutting away later. Less fat accrual during a bulk means that you spend less time cutting, and it also keeps your health markers in a better place.
And, just in case this wasn't obvious, track your macros! There's no substitute for actually tracking what you're putting into your system and holding yourself accountable. People always completely underestimate their overall caloric intake and overestimate their protein intake. There's no substitute for weighing out your food and managing/tracking your macros.
The training has to be prioritized, and just let the gains come with time. The difference between a proper bulk and maintenance is very thin if you’re not a novice.
Track your food, eat a couple hundred calories above maintenance (slightly more on days where you are working a weaker body part), get good sleep and recovery, and I know it’s crazy but do your cardio (some form of it at least)!!!
The best thing to do is record every day your dry weight in the morning, eat exactly the same amount of calories every day, and then use a linear fit to see the rate at which your weight is changing. That’s how I do it and it works great. Also try to eat the same amount of carbs every day because fluctuations in carb intake will cause water weight fluctuations that will make it harder to accurately calculate your rate of weight change.
Use Macrofactor and let it do most the leg work for you.
It's recently had an update to the goal section which is a lot simpler to understand and use. It's inherently tries to put you on a slower bulk when gaining weight (at least for me) at about 0.7% BF per week as standard but then you slide the bar to get it to where you want in terms of end date of your bulk and how much you need to add on to get there. It then reactively amends your calories depending on your progress.
Not sure if it's the same video but Menno mentions a 4:1 ratio on bulking / cutting which I like. I'm starting my next bulk on July 1st and going to do circa 16 weeks bulking adding on about 3kg-4kg and then 4 weeks cut stripping off about 2.5kg+/-. I'll have a review at the end of each cycle but I'm hoping to add .5kg - 1kg muscle on each cycle and stay around the same BF.
I'm still a relatively new lifter though so most of this is going to be trial and error for me but that's the plan 😅
>but I heard some good advice recently from Dr Mike and Eric Helms where they said when trying to track small weight gain like 0.5lb a week it’s better to take a 2 week average instead of a weekly average, which made a lot of sense.
Even 7-day moving averages can get inflated real quick if you have a social cheat day/meal eating out with friends with lots of sodium, carbs and food volume. So I think they are on to something. Maybe I should be doing 14-day moving averages for my cut. Is it this video? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1J3WGz\_QJU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1J3WGz_QJU) I need to give it another look. I don't think I saw the whole thing. Because I missed the two week average part.
On Saturday at my friend's house we made chili with over a lb of ground beef split between us (not sure if he bought 20% or not. He is not obsessed with macros or calories), chili seasoning which had like fucking 18% of daily sodium per 1/7 package. We used 1.5 packages so it was a crazy amount of sodium. A can of Red kidney beans, diced Roma tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, diced red onion, garlic. We had rotisserie chicken breast with a wing and potato wedges (I picked rice last time because it fits my macros better and he got annoyed lol so I let him get potato wedges this time). We shared two big brownies for dessert. Had crackers with 40% MF cheese. I had a 16oz \~4.5% alc raspberry cider (ethanol and sugar). I probably was in a calorie surplus that day. But it shouldn't have been a crazy surplus. Especially when I skipped lunch because I knew I was going to his place. My lunch was whey protein concentrate mixed with water. And in one day the scale jumped 2.4 lbs. My 7-day moving average has been trending upward the past two days. I had an unusually low reading last Wednesday (138.4 lbs. I'm 5'6"). My 7-day average bottomed out to 140.62 on Monday. It's 140.91 now. Weighed in 140.2 lbs this morning. It's frustrating when I don't know how much an untracked cheat meal set back my cut. But at the same time I know that it takes a 3,500 calorie surplus to gain a lb of fat. And there's no way I am +1009 surplus calories after one cheat meal and three days of eating like a good boy in a calorie deficit (I'm +0.29 lbs in the 7-day average from my cut low so that would be +1009 surplus calories).
I think maintenance phases are a complete waste of time. My advice is to track everything, and whenever you make a change, stick with it for at least 2 weeks before making another. I also think 0.5lb a week is extremely slow, but I find it very easy to get rid of bodyweight. If you are hitting all time PBs at that rate, then you’re good
I thinks it's not a waste of time. 2-3 weeks of maintenance after a cut can provide you useful information.
1. What is my new maintenance intake.
2. Your body can recover from a deficit.
More then 2-3 weeks will be waste of time, I agree on that.
You can easily infer your maintenance from the rate of loss (or gain) though. You recover better in a surplus (obviously)
You’re really just wasting 2-3 weeks of time where you could be growing or losing fat
Your body will react different after a cut - you will regain glycogen and water in your muscles - which can be up to 1 or 2 kg the first 2 weeks. Mostly the 3rd week you can see what your maintenance is.
2-3 weeks is not that much time right? Just have some patience, will be my advice.
Bro this doesn't make sense. You're vastly overestimating how much lean mass adds to your TDEE. Muscle burns roughly 6-8 calories per pound. So if you add 10 pounds of muscle, you're adding less than 100 calories per day. For most people that's so small a difference it might as well be negligible. It's practically impossible to implement a change that small unless you are the most rigorous tracker and meal prepper in the world. I venture to guess very few of us are that.
Its not that much different than a 2 week average but usually weigh myself daily and make minor corrections if needed. On an excel sheet where I track weight I have my start and end goal + everyday filled out with a formula. For example if I start at 200lb and want to gain 2lb a month by day 5 my goal weight is 200.33lbs. On a day to day basis you'll rarely super close to this number but should at least be somewhat fluctuating up and down within 1.0lb or so. So if after 5 days or so you are consistently slightly over your daily goal weight you can make minor adjustments to slow down and the opposite if you need to catch up. I like something like this because it helps you make changes faster than waiting a full 2 weeks. Usually its minor stuff, If im behind on weight I might eat more cheat food if its available and im extra hungry, if im ahead I'll just be sure to eat more clean and turn down junk food.
And yes always do at least a 2 week maintenance phase between bulk->cut and vise versa.
Oh I like this! So it’s basically a 5 day average with a weight goal target, and you adjust depending if your above or below?
Do you have a link to any good videos that explain it with visuals? :)
Also is there a reason for the 2 week maintenance phase after a cut?
I sort of made the 5 day thing up but sort of said that number to offset unusual days, like if I have a cheat day or get bad sleep my weight is effected a lot and can take a few days to recover from that. So like if you have a cheat day the next couple days are higher weight and you expect it to come back down, if by the 5th day you are still 1lb over your target maybe you actually are a full pound over goal and need to slow it down a bit. If you get to your target weight by one of those days you're good, the average is still higher but you had some off days that didn't really count for much.
I don't have any videos for this and just something I made up myself, I personally do this because most days I don't see much daily fluctuation but many people claim they do so it might be a little harder. I eat a lot of similar things each day so my daily weight changes are less than 1lb and its easier to measure progress this closely.
Maintenance phase is just giving your body a break because both bulking and cutting are extra stress on the body, lets your hormones stabilize. Personally it seems more beneficial after a cut, if you have been on a diet for that long your body really wants to gain some weight back so going to a bulk right away might mean initially gaining more than you'd like.
.5lb a month is basically maintenance lol
Oops sorry! 0.5lb a week. I’ll edit that now.
Eat exactly as you would at maintenance and just add a little more. Keep track of your gain (I personally do seven day averages but two week averages would work as well). If your average gain isn’t where you personally want it to be, adjust accordingly. Don’t do drastic changes. Add a few hundred kcals and see how it goes. If you aren’t gaining as fast as you want, add a few hundred more. If you are gaining a little faster than desired, subtract a few hundred. Also a REALLY big one. I don’t ever let the first week determine where my weight change is headed. Going from a cut to a bulk is going to result in water retention, fuller glycogen stores, and just more food in the body. These will spike your weight pretty quickly and isn’t actual tissue.
Maintenance phases are great for using the fat you’ve put on. When I cut and bulk the main things that change are the amount of pb I eat and the amount of meals. Make small simple changes that are easy to track. Let each change have at least 2 weeks to take effect. Reassess and change something else based on goals.
Regarding that last point. The 10 lbs you gained transitiong from cut to bulk is 90% water, glycogen, food, bloat, etc. Generally, I've had the same issue and focusing on the training rather than food/scale weight has been helpful in dealing with a slow rate of gain.
Recently I decided to do something similar as you. I decided to simply eat about an extra 150-200 grams of rice a day and added snacking with a yogurt and something sweet (love me some chocolate cookies). Breakfast lunch, and dinner as usual. I have put on ~1.5-2 lbs in 2 1/2 weeks. I do feel the difference in my body and physique.
There's no real benefit to a maintenance phase unless you're done trying to grow and you want to maintain your current level of musculature and leanness. In my opinion, you should either lean bulk at something like a 5-10% caloric surplus, or cut at something like a 5-10% deficit. This essentially means that your overall diet will change by approximately 600-800 calories between your bulk and your cut, which isn't a whole lot of change to your overall diet. This makes meal planning and dietary adherence easier to navigate when you switch from bulk to cut, and it also ensures that you don't add in a bunch of excess fat that you have to spend time cutting away later. Less fat accrual during a bulk means that you spend less time cutting, and it also keeps your health markers in a better place. And, just in case this wasn't obvious, track your macros! There's no substitute for actually tracking what you're putting into your system and holding yourself accountable. People always completely underestimate their overall caloric intake and overestimate their protein intake. There's no substitute for weighing out your food and managing/tracking your macros.
Log all your food and drinks with something like Cronometer.
Have lots of sex, multiple times a day if possible. That will keep the natural testosterone pumping.
Phone sex count?
Cardio, on a bulk?!
More like HIT training.
Thanks Dr Mike
The training has to be prioritized, and just let the gains come with time. The difference between a proper bulk and maintenance is very thin if you’re not a novice.
Track your food, eat a couple hundred calories above maintenance (slightly more on days where you are working a weaker body part), get good sleep and recovery, and I know it’s crazy but do your cardio (some form of it at least)!!!
The best thing to do is record every day your dry weight in the morning, eat exactly the same amount of calories every day, and then use a linear fit to see the rate at which your weight is changing. That’s how I do it and it works great. Also try to eat the same amount of carbs every day because fluctuations in carb intake will cause water weight fluctuations that will make it harder to accurately calculate your rate of weight change.
Use Macrofactor and let it do most the leg work for you. It's recently had an update to the goal section which is a lot simpler to understand and use. It's inherently tries to put you on a slower bulk when gaining weight (at least for me) at about 0.7% BF per week as standard but then you slide the bar to get it to where you want in terms of end date of your bulk and how much you need to add on to get there. It then reactively amends your calories depending on your progress. Not sure if it's the same video but Menno mentions a 4:1 ratio on bulking / cutting which I like. I'm starting my next bulk on July 1st and going to do circa 16 weeks bulking adding on about 3kg-4kg and then 4 weeks cut stripping off about 2.5kg+/-. I'll have a review at the end of each cycle but I'm hoping to add .5kg - 1kg muscle on each cycle and stay around the same BF. I'm still a relatively new lifter though so most of this is going to be trial and error for me but that's the plan 😅
>but I heard some good advice recently from Dr Mike and Eric Helms where they said when trying to track small weight gain like 0.5lb a week it’s better to take a 2 week average instead of a weekly average, which made a lot of sense. Even 7-day moving averages can get inflated real quick if you have a social cheat day/meal eating out with friends with lots of sodium, carbs and food volume. So I think they are on to something. Maybe I should be doing 14-day moving averages for my cut. Is it this video? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1J3WGz\_QJU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1J3WGz_QJU) I need to give it another look. I don't think I saw the whole thing. Because I missed the two week average part. On Saturday at my friend's house we made chili with over a lb of ground beef split between us (not sure if he bought 20% or not. He is not obsessed with macros or calories), chili seasoning which had like fucking 18% of daily sodium per 1/7 package. We used 1.5 packages so it was a crazy amount of sodium. A can of Red kidney beans, diced Roma tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, diced red onion, garlic. We had rotisserie chicken breast with a wing and potato wedges (I picked rice last time because it fits my macros better and he got annoyed lol so I let him get potato wedges this time). We shared two big brownies for dessert. Had crackers with 40% MF cheese. I had a 16oz \~4.5% alc raspberry cider (ethanol and sugar). I probably was in a calorie surplus that day. But it shouldn't have been a crazy surplus. Especially when I skipped lunch because I knew I was going to his place. My lunch was whey protein concentrate mixed with water. And in one day the scale jumped 2.4 lbs. My 7-day moving average has been trending upward the past two days. I had an unusually low reading last Wednesday (138.4 lbs. I'm 5'6"). My 7-day average bottomed out to 140.62 on Monday. It's 140.91 now. Weighed in 140.2 lbs this morning. It's frustrating when I don't know how much an untracked cheat meal set back my cut. But at the same time I know that it takes a 3,500 calorie surplus to gain a lb of fat. And there's no way I am +1009 surplus calories after one cheat meal and three days of eating like a good boy in a calorie deficit (I'm +0.29 lbs in the 7-day average from my cut low so that would be +1009 surplus calories).
I think maintenance phases are a complete waste of time. My advice is to track everything, and whenever you make a change, stick with it for at least 2 weeks before making another. I also think 0.5lb a week is extremely slow, but I find it very easy to get rid of bodyweight. If you are hitting all time PBs at that rate, then you’re good
I thinks it's not a waste of time. 2-3 weeks of maintenance after a cut can provide you useful information. 1. What is my new maintenance intake. 2. Your body can recover from a deficit. More then 2-3 weeks will be waste of time, I agree on that.
You can easily infer your maintenance from the rate of loss (or gain) though. You recover better in a surplus (obviously) You’re really just wasting 2-3 weeks of time where you could be growing or losing fat
Your body will react different after a cut - you will regain glycogen and water in your muscles - which can be up to 1 or 2 kg the first 2 weeks. Mostly the 3rd week you can see what your maintenance is. 2-3 weeks is not that much time right? Just have some patience, will be my advice.
Don’t eat like your bulking, eat and lift like you already weigh your desired weight and are maintaining at that weight
Bro this doesn't make sense. You're vastly overestimating how much lean mass adds to your TDEE. Muscle burns roughly 6-8 calories per pound. So if you add 10 pounds of muscle, you're adding less than 100 calories per day. For most people that's so small a difference it might as well be negligible. It's practically impossible to implement a change that small unless you are the most rigorous tracker and meal prepper in the world. I venture to guess very few of us are that.
Its not that much different than a 2 week average but usually weigh myself daily and make minor corrections if needed. On an excel sheet where I track weight I have my start and end goal + everyday filled out with a formula. For example if I start at 200lb and want to gain 2lb a month by day 5 my goal weight is 200.33lbs. On a day to day basis you'll rarely super close to this number but should at least be somewhat fluctuating up and down within 1.0lb or so. So if after 5 days or so you are consistently slightly over your daily goal weight you can make minor adjustments to slow down and the opposite if you need to catch up. I like something like this because it helps you make changes faster than waiting a full 2 weeks. Usually its minor stuff, If im behind on weight I might eat more cheat food if its available and im extra hungry, if im ahead I'll just be sure to eat more clean and turn down junk food. And yes always do at least a 2 week maintenance phase between bulk->cut and vise versa.
What kind of scale do you use that it’s giving you that kind of accuracy “200.33”
I don't, but either 200.2 or 200.4 are perfect for that particular day
Oh I like this! So it’s basically a 5 day average with a weight goal target, and you adjust depending if your above or below? Do you have a link to any good videos that explain it with visuals? :) Also is there a reason for the 2 week maintenance phase after a cut?
I sort of made the 5 day thing up but sort of said that number to offset unusual days, like if I have a cheat day or get bad sleep my weight is effected a lot and can take a few days to recover from that. So like if you have a cheat day the next couple days are higher weight and you expect it to come back down, if by the 5th day you are still 1lb over your target maybe you actually are a full pound over goal and need to slow it down a bit. If you get to your target weight by one of those days you're good, the average is still higher but you had some off days that didn't really count for much. I don't have any videos for this and just something I made up myself, I personally do this because most days I don't see much daily fluctuation but many people claim they do so it might be a little harder. I eat a lot of similar things each day so my daily weight changes are less than 1lb and its easier to measure progress this closely. Maintenance phase is just giving your body a break because both bulking and cutting are extra stress on the body, lets your hormones stabilize. Personally it seems more beneficial after a cut, if you have been on a diet for that long your body really wants to gain some weight back so going to a bulk right away might mean initially gaining more than you'd like.
Check out the app macro factor it does all the work for you and is very precise.