When you're finished bulking

cmeiron

So, I'm only about 3.5 weeks away from the planned end of my bulk. :drinker: I'm going to stick with that date because it'll have been a solid 5 months and I'm happy with my weight gain. The question that's been on my mind lately is: "how do I un-bulk?"

What's the best process for ending and coming down from one? My longer-term goal is to cut back down to around 18-20% bf and then sit right at maintenance for the summer/early fall (hopefully with a little recomp), then start another bulk.

Here's my thoughts: I'm thinking about adding an hour or so of cardio a week for the first couple of weeks, then starting to decreasing my intake (just the carbs, pretty much) by about 100-150/week until I get to maintenance, sit there for a couple of weeks, then reduce intake further by 100-150/week until I reach my intended loss rate. A -0.5 lbs loss per week is probably reasonable without risking too much lbm loss, I think? Cut on that intake (adjust as needed as I start to run more when the weather gets nice), and then gradually raise back to maintenance when goal bf% is met.

Does this seem reasonable? Would you do the gradual reduction of intake, the sitting at maintenance, or just jump right to a cut? Gradual changes to intake has always been my approach so far, but if there's a "better" way of doing it (not faster, but better - I have no real time goals) then I'm all ears. Also, does -0.5 lbs/week seem ok? I'd hate to lose very much of this hard-earned moosle.

Input/advice/suggestions?

TriLifter

Reverse diet. Yeah, my plan is pretty much what you're going to do. Tghe end of my bulk will coincide with the beginning of race season, so I'm going to keep lifting and add running. Honestly, I haven't fluffed up much, but I'm giving myself another 10-12 weeks to do so....maybe it'll be different by then. I'll be cutting carbs, because I'm most comfortable with them around 50-80g/day. Definitely the intake drop will be slow.

HMVOL7409

That's what I plan to do; slowly add in cardio. Maybe 1-2 sessions of HIIT at 20 mins for 2-3 wks, eat at maintenance then adjust cals very slow down. It's not a race to cut to for me so I rather go very slow and steady and preserve as much muscle as possible.

JoRocka

cut.

slowly ramp down the calories- knocking off 1-200 at a time (per week- every two weeks whatever is comfortable)- I would definitely re-evaluate maintenance and do that for a month. When I switched from my cut to my bulk- I put in one month of maintenance- and I am VERY glad I did- excellent for the mental state side of things.

start adding in your steady state cardio.

If you don't have a specific dead line goal- then it's more- "as you feel"

you can do it via diet a lone- but cardio really helps.

I'm with Primal- when I started my bulk- I upped my carbs to 30% and when I was cutting it was only 20. I might push for 15 this time. Seemed to work for me.

pandorakick

Plan for my end of bulk is to drop down to maintenance, stay there for about 2-3 weeks and then drop another 250 kcal in my daily intake. This is somewhat in line with what Lyle MacDonald recommends. Dropping the intake more slowly only drags out the time needed to cut down again in my opinion. I rather have it over sooner and spent some more time on reverse dieting afterwards.

The rest of my plan is rather similar to Cmeirun's: do the summer and spring in maintenance, then bulk again come fall.

Oh and I will also start running again in the spring when the weather permits it. Ease back into it with the zombies run! C25k app and then just nice 5k runs over the summer.

HMVOL7409

Plan for my end of bulk is to drop down to maintenance, stay there for about 2-3 weeks and then drop another 250 kcal in my daily intake. This is somewhat in line with what Lyle MacDonald recommends. Dropping the intake more slowly only drags out the time needed to cut down again in my opinion. I rather have it over sooner and spent some more time on reverse

Books and articles are great to use as a guide; but experience and knowledge of your body determines what's best for YOU just as well. 250 cals is actually a drastic cut for me and I would drop LBM on top of fat, quickly which is not what is in my goals.

pandorakick

Plan for my end of bulk is to drop down to maintenance, stay there for about 2-3 weeks and then drop another 250 kcal in my daily intake. This is somewhat in line with what Lyle MacDonald recommends. Dropping the intake more slowly only drags out the time needed to cut down again in my opinion. I rather have it over sooner and spent some more time on reverse

Books and articles are great to use as a guide; but experience and knowledge of your body determines what's best for YOU just as well. 250 cals is actually a drastic cut for me and I would drop LBM on top of fat, quickly which is not what is in my goals.

This is my first time doing the bulking thing so I guess I'll see whether this works for me :flowerforyou:

Springfield1970

I stopped my bulk and went to maintenance after 6 weeks. Didn't add many inches but everything became more defined, and I like the balance, not too big,too defined easy to maintain. Strength better. Added a couple pounds of fat but it's sitting ok so may leave it, maybe knock 100 cals off a day towards tri season to get the speeds up.

I'm amazed to finally being able to maintain. Looking forward to doing a longer bulk next winter as I'm bound to lose LBM over the spring/summer with the tri training.