Recomposition Yo-Yo?

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flrancho
flrancho Posts: 271 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
I'm working on body recomposition. On normal days where I don't go to the gym I eat at a slight deficit of 100 calories less than maintenance. On days where I am going to the gym I strive for around 300 calories over maintenence. I generally go to the gym three days a week. Other days I either don't exercise at all or do only cadio (which in that case depending on how much I burn I may eat half my calories lost back).

Anyway, I'm having an issue with being able to maintain my weight during recomp. I'm constantly yo-yoing. After recomping for a week or two I loose one to two pounds. I'm not sure if this is normal. Because of the weight decrease I've been adjusting the calories I'm eating to higher amounts, though keeping the calorie cycling in effect for work out and non-workout days. I'm not sure if this is what I should be doing or not. Within a few weeks of eating higher calories I'm usually back at my goal weight, but dip down again to below my goal weight again in another couple of weeks. Thus I repeat the cycle.

Your thoughts?

Replies

  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    weight fluctuates - especially when you're in maintenance.

    use a trend weight app to see if over 6-8 weeks you are actually losing. if you are bump up your cals by a couple of 100.
  • StealthHealth
    StealthHealth Posts: 2,417 Member
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    Your numbers don't add up.

    300 over maintenance x 3 = 900 surplus.
    100 under maintenance x 4 = 400 deficit

    Net = 500 surplus but should be 0.

    Also, If during that time you are losing a few lbs then your maintenance figure is out.

    Generally, to know your maintenance figure you need to be eating the same cals per day or week, and exercising as you would for the maintenance period, for a few weeks without loss or gain.
  • trigden1991
    trigden1991 Posts: 4,658 Member
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    As @StealthHealth pointed our, the numbers don't match what you think you are doing. Also re-comp is a long term process so track your weight on a trend app or in a spreadsheet and look at the trend rather than the weekly fluctuations.

    It makes sense that if you in a surplus and deficit on alternate days then your weigh would zig-zag.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    "I'm constantly yo-yoing" - yep totally normal, even more so if you are calorie cycling and/or changing your calorie limit - both of which you are doing.

    If you don't like it then don't calorie cycle, highly unlikely it's going to make a significant difference to your recomp. Recomp comes primarily from your training.

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