Is it safe to be on a restricted calorie diet during a lifting off week? I recently took a week off from lifting and started a cutting diet at the same time. I kept protein intake high but am wondering if I could have hurt my gains in any way by not lifting.
I used the search function but didn’t find an answer to my particular question. If I’ve overlooked it, please point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
Casey…
Obviously it will depend on your goals. When cutting, you should lower your cals on off days. However, when I’m not dieting, and I take a week off, I usually bump my numbers up a bit to allow adequate recovery and hopefully prevent any muscle loss.
S
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Obviously it will depend on your goals. When cutting, you should lower your cals on off days. However, when I’m not dieting, and I take a week off, I usually bump my numbers up a bit to allow adequate recovery and hopefully prevent any muscle loss.
S[/quote]
x 2
If recovery is your number one goal, up the nutrient intake on your off week.
That makes sense. Thank you guys for the input.
Casey…
I think you’d be fine without carbs in your off week, but a better strategy if going for mass would be (as has been said) to increase your calories (or keep cals the same, but generally improve the quality of your food choices to keep blood sugar more constant), but why take an “off” week? For deloading or travel/time crunch? If the former, then don’t skip the gym completely, just reduce volume. If the latter, I’m sure there are still ways to find time. You’d only need 15-30 minutes. It could be all pushups and pullups, every day even.
Also, if your goal is to cut, then just reduce cals in general and cut out all junk, and increase veggies as much as possible.