Is this true?

Samm471
Samm471 Posts: 432 Member
edited November 22 in Goal: Maintaining Weight
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?

Replies

  • mitchelsimps
    mitchelsimps Posts: 151 Member
    On my training plan I am told to decrease my carbs and fat by 10% in a rest day
  • Samm471
    Samm471 Posts: 432 Member
    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
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    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
    Samm471 Posts: 432 Member
    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
    bioklutz Posts: 1,365 Member
    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
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    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
    Samm471 Posts: 432 Member
    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
    mattyc772014 Posts: 3,543 Member
    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
    bioklutz Posts: 1,365 Member
    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
    mbeis04 Posts: 2 Member
    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
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