Is this true?

Samm471

okay so I hear that on recomp you can cycle your calories. On weightlifting days to increase maintenance calories by .15% and on rest days decrease maintenance calories by .10%. Increase them on lifting days to build muscle. Anyone else heard of this or know wether it's effective?

mitchelsimps

On my training plan I am told to decrease my carbs and fat by 10% in a rest day

Samm471

mitchelsimps wrote: »

On my training plan I am told to decrease my carbs and fat by 10% in a rest day

Yeah that's what I had also heard. Does it work for you?

sijomial

You can calorie cycle when doing a recomp but don't have to.

I tend to have one very low calorie day a week and six days at a very small surplus.

Very hard to quantify the benefits in terms of hypertrophy of calorie cycling without having an identical twin doing the opposite!
I vary calories more because it suits me for adherence to a weekly calorie goal.

Remember if you follow the MFP "eat back exercise calories method" you have a variable gross calorie goal anyway.

Samm471

sijomial wrote: »

You can calorie cycle when doing a recomp but don't have to.

I tend to have one very low calorie day a week and six days at a very small surplus.

Very hard to quantify the benefits in terms of hypertrophy of calorie cycling without having an identical twin doing the opposite!
I vary calories more because it suits me for adherence to a weekly calorie goal.

Remember if you follow the MFP "eat back exercise calories method" you have a variable gross calorie goal anyway.

I'm still trying to figure out my maintenance calories. Well saying that I'm going to start recomp process next week so I still have to figure calories out at maintenance etc .. I don't eat back my exercise calories

bioklutz

I was initially cycling calories. I just found it annoying to fit into my life. I work on my feet all day. I lift 3 days a week. On non lifting days I do 30 minutes of cardio. I was trying to figure out calories for strength days, cardio days, no workout days. Then I was still slowly dropping weight and trying to adjust for all of these different scenarios. I decided to keep it simple and went with TDEE.

I am a little over 6 months into recomp. Not cycling calories has not hurt me. I can't say if my body composition would be different if I did cycle. Changes are slow anyway and I am not in a rush.

You are going to want to eat your exercise calories back for recomp. The idea is to maintain your weight while following a progressive lifting program.

Francl27

I heard that. And I heard that your muscles actually do the most work on your rest days... so eating less those days would seem to defeat the purpose.

Samm471

bioklutz wrote: »

I was initially cycling calories. I just found it annoying to fit into my life. I work on my feet all day. I lift 3 days a week. On non lifting days I do 30 minutes of cardio. I was trying to figure out calories for strength days, cardio days, no workout days. Then I was still slowly dropping weight and trying to adjust for all of these different scenarios. I decided to keep it simple and went with TDEE.

I am a little over 6 months into recomp. Not cycling calories has not hurt me. I can't say if my body composition would be different if I did cycle. Changes are slow anyway and I am not in a rush.

You are going to want to eat your exercise calories back for recomp. The idea is to maintain your weight while following a progressive lifting program.

So I should be eating back my exercise calories then? So for example if my TDEE was 1800 calories and I burned say 200 through exercise then I should be eating 2000 that day?

mattyc772014

I am currently doing this. You can look at my diary. You posted in the recomp thread and I gave you a really good calculator online you can use. Did you try the calculator? I found it helpful because it averages out all the different methods. Basically you eat 500 less maintenance on non weight training days and 500 over on weight training days.

bioklutz

Samm471 wrote: »

bioklutz wrote: »

I was initially cycling calories. I just found it annoying to fit into my life. I work on my feet all day. I lift 3 days a week. On non lifting days I do 30 minutes of cardio. I was trying to figure out calories for strength days, cardio days, no workout days. Then I was still slowly dropping weight and trying to adjust for all of these different scenarios. I decided to keep it simple and went with TDEE.

I am a little over 6 months into recomp. Not cycling calories has not hurt me. I can't say if my body composition would be different if I did cycle. Changes are slow anyway and I am not in a rush.

You are going to want to eat your exercise calories back for recomp. The idea is to maintain your weight while following a progressive lifting program.

So I should be eating back my exercise calories then? So for example if my TDEE was 1800 calories and I burned say 200 through exercise then I should be eating 2000 that day?

If you are using MFP calculator you eat back your exercise calories. If you use a TDEE calculator your exercise calories are calculated in your daily goal so you would not eat them back.

mbeis04

I just eat the same amount of calories daily, no need to complicate things. Just make sure you're getting your fat and protein requirements each day