If my body composition is changing in a good way(putting size on chest, shoulders, calves, and getting leaner), should I still decide to cut cals since my goal is being really lean or should I just ride out the body comp change until it stops? My abs are coming in slowly but my waist measurements vary due to bloat, water weight, or indigestion.
If it’s working… don’t fix it.
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^That one.
When it stops, recognize it, calibrate to your new goal, and continue onwards.
Im carb cycling using High/Med/Low/High/Med/Low/Med
If the recomp stops, should i decrease calories and keep the carb days the same?
Should I add in Low carb days in place of the medium days?
Or should i start adding in cardio during the week?
When the recomp stops, reduce overall calories (except protein). However that plays out with your carb cycling is up to you… any diet will work so long as you are in a caloric deficit. Sorry for the vague answer on carb cycling, I’m familiar with the concept but not educated/experienced with it.
When you have reduced caloric intake to the maximum you can bear, only then would I recommend adding in cardio. Otherwise you’ll wind up on the treadmill for an hour everyday when it could have been like 20 mins.
Okay cool. That seems easier than changing up carb days. Thanks.
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I know this thread is mostly about recomp vs cutting but im curious about something else. Ive been cutting for months and have been slowly recomping for almost two months now. Should i take a maintenance break any time soon or keep recomping? I read about catabolic hormones ramping up the longer im in a deficit for.
Which hormones, specifically? asking for my own understanding.
Many would recommend taking a maintenance break once you’ve lost 10% of your total starting weight. Renaissance Diet 2.0 would recommend a 1:1 cut to maintenance duration when 10% total bodyweight has been lost. That being said, certain individuals lose too much steam during that maintenance break and can’t get going again… so i guess it depends on how well you know yourself and how much weight you’ve got to lose (i suspect you don’t need to lose much more than 10% total BW).
Keep in mind that 10%BW lost during cutting is 10% lower bodyfat%.
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I already went from 220 to 200 then had a maintenance break. From then on ive been slowly cutting from 200 to 195 over the course of a couple months. I think the hormone that ramps up is cortisol. It increases even more so than the amount of cortisol that builds from working out.
If everything is moving in the right direction, don’t stop it because an arbitrary amount of time has passed. You’ve lost 5 lbs over the course of a few months and you’re currently building muscle while in a deficit. A deload or maintenance phase wouldn’t even be on my radar if I were you.
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Re: carb cycling, I always prefer keeping one “high” day as high as possible for as long as possible, even if that means dropping the other days lower than I’d otherwise have to. This may be personal preference or purely psychological but it always felt better to me than just dropping carbs evenly across all days
I’m with the others: seems like everything is going in a great direction, which is difficult to achieve, so I’d stick with it.
The only thing that would change my mind is if you have some specific deadline by which you need to be a certain weight or really lean?
Not really. Ive just been at this for months now and i would really like to have abs and a chiseled jaw line already. I also wanted to start putting on some size and strength but i guess i dont need to be in a rush.
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I hear you, but it sounds like you are already adding some size to your upper body from your first post? Although that could certainly be more of an illusion from getting leaner. What’s happening with your lifts? Muscle growth is slow; if you’re already progressing, trying to speed it up will usually just net you some more fat.
On the flip side, I love a good crash diet as much as anyone!
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Compound lifts are stable. My isolation lifts are getting a little stronger. I know my chest and shoulder measurements grew .5" in this last month. Calves grew .25". Everything else is stuck. My weight fluctuates around 195 to 198. I think i have about 10lbs left to lose at most since my abs are visible in the morning. Im hoping i have more weight to lose because if im 190 10% bf by the time im done cutting, im already close to my genetic potential. Im not ready for gear yet.
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you gotta see it through my boy, see it through.
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Sounds like you’re growing, my good man!
From here, the only advice I think I could give that would be any help at all would be to forget the phrase “genetic potential.” If you didn’t have that concept, I think you’d be free to be ecstatic with your current progress.
I’m not picking a side in the debate over whether it’s real or if any of us are likely to reach it; I’m just saying I think the thought of its possibility is robbing you of satisfaction with your progress/ achievements (not just you, any of us).
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