Ok, so I am finishing my cut this week. I want to start growing some real muscle.
My question is this: I have been doing a Low carb diet for the past 3 months, I want to transition into a carb cycling diet where I can be eating above maintenance, gain muscle and size, but keep fat levels low.
How do I this?
Where EXACTLY should I be adding the calories and from where? Like should I add 500 calories of carbs on top of what I am eating right now and center them on breakfast and post workout?
Or should I slowly ease in more protein + carbs?
I would really love someone to help me out here. I posted a while back and got like 1 reply. I’m just really worried of gaining all the fat back.
A precise answer would be HIGHLY appreciated on how to go about this transition.
I would say that eating your carbs at breakfast and post work out is a good plan. Experiment with where to add calories after you’ve done maintenance for a while and see what works best for you.
Slowly increase your calories, something like 200kcal/day/week distributed something like 60%carb/20%prot/20%fat. Continue on this plan until the scale starts to consistently go in the right direction. Then, if you deem it necessary, you can add in carb cycling since you will be in a small surplus of calories by then. Personally, I wouldn’t carb cycle since I believe that limiting carbohydrate while in a hyper caloric state is less efficient than eating a more balanced macro diet.
If you don’t like my idea, check out Berardi’s “Get Unshredded” article.
For the first week I will be adding Surge 2 scoops after my workout. That is like 250 more calories for the first week, all carbs.
The next week I plan to add some oatmeal to breakfast like 100 calories or so.
Next week like another 100 calories of Oatmeal.
That should bring me up to maintenance.
What do I do about the protein/fat ratio though? Should I increase the protein to 2grams per lb and keep fats high. During maintenance what should my breakup look like?