What does it mean to eat for performance vs just cutting/bulking?

Nutrition
1

I was re-reading TB I book (about strength) and I stumbled upon an excerpt that confused me — as I’m relatively new to training:

If you’re trying to figure out whether to cut or bulk, or mulling over how to bring up your lagging calf muscles, you’re reading the wrong book. We’ve found over the years, that things like aesthetics, fat loss, and all the rest take care of themselves if you focus on improving your performance. A body that can generate double or triple amount of force it used to is going to go through some dramatic physical changes. In other words, as long as you have your nutrition and conditioning somewhat in check, you’ll be more than satisfied with your “look“.

What does performance even mean here? Does eating for performance mean just eating at maintenance? Also, how does a person go with the fat loss phase without cutting but by solely focusing on performance?

I fell in love with the Tactical Barbell and its performance-first philosophy, but this particular excerpt confuses me.

Thanks for reading and have a blessed day!

2

Eat clean and workout to get stronger. IMO, never “bulk” as a goal. Your goal should be to get stronger. Then with a clean diet (and reasonably good genetics) your body composition should be tuned to gain more muscle without additional fat.

I used three metrics and feedback analysis. Strength, scale, and the mirror. The fixed nutrients are sufficient protein and fat. I adjusted carbohydrates based on those three metrics. Now get strong while keeping a beach ready physique.

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3

Tagging @T3hPwnisher.

He’s the guy you want to listen to.

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4

ohh yeah!!! love him!

5

but doesn’t getting strong at least imply that you have to be at maintenance or bulk?

6

Performance is individual for your goals. If I want to run a 5k in 20 minutes and bench 300, maybe I’m knocking that run out in 16 but only benching 250: I need to eat a bit more and make sure those strength workouts are going well. Conversely, if I’m benching 4 plates, but vomiting on the track, I’m too fat and I need to slim down.

The point is to free you from having to look in a mirror and decide what your nutrition goals should be: you use your athletic goals to determine how you’ll eat.

@T3hPwnisher will give a better explanation anyway.

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