Help! I forgot how to eat at maintenanceđŸ˜…

serpentegena
serpentegena Posts: 42 Member
edited March 2023 in Food and Nutrition
I've been on a cut for about 1.5 months, and noticed a plateau in my weight workouts and my fat loss (my 5k run is the same). I figured it's time to go on a maintenance plan, but I've gotten so used to my small portions that I just don't have the sense of what a regular portion is, anymore! What do you think I should do?
A) Increase carbs with rice or starchy vegetables (almost 100% of my carb sources are veggies rn)
B ) Eat larger portions overall, keep the existing macro split
C) Keep existing portion size, but add a meal a day

Replies

  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,810 Member
    edited March 2023
    What are your goals? Well, if your eating as little as you say you are and your weight routine has stalled it's probably safe to say your looking to lose weight and the stall was written. Anyway, pick whatever way you feel is easier and more compliant is my advice. If your goal is to build muscle then you hopefully know you need to eat over maintenance for optimal results and yes you can muck around in a deficit or around maintenance but if I want to build muscle then I'd rather poke myself in the eye before I'd do that. If your goal is to lose weight and build muscle I generally eat just over maintenance and crank up the load in my weight routine that puts me into deficit range, basically a recomp routine, it's the anti diet where eating more is the goal, lol, that works for me. Cheers
  • serpentegena
    serpentegena Posts: 42 Member
    What are your goals? Well, if your eating as little as you say you are and your weight routine has stalled it's probably safe to say your looking to lose weight and the stall was written. Anyway, pick whatever way you feel is easier and more compliant is my advice. If your goal is to build muscle then you hopefully know you need to eat over maintenance for optimal results and yes you can muck around in a deficit or around maintenance but if I want to build muscle then I'd rather poke myself in the eye before I'd do that. If your goal is to lose weight and build muscle I generally eat just over maintenance and crank up the load in my weight routine that puts me into deficit range, basically a recomp routine, it's the anti diet where eating more is the goal, lol, that works for me. Cheers

    A cut is a nutrition and training plan to lose fat specifically.
    So essentially in the past 1.5 months, I've been eating at a slight deficit, and training at ~65% of capacity to maintain muscle mass while shedding fat. I normally compensate on training days by eating more. But I might have missed a few days.
    I am also slowly increasing my weights in resistance training, because regardless of phenomena and cycles elsewhere in the body, muscle builds resistance over time, and what I lifted last week should theoretically be easier to lift this week. But I can no longer increase the weight because I tire out after ~6 reps/set (as opposed to 8-10 reps in January). So maybe I don't have the energy because I am not replenishing my glycogen reserves by eating enough carbs (hence option A).
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,810 Member
    edited March 2023
    Have you been removing your existing carbs before your working out and now you think you should replace them to replenish your glycogen, is that why your picking option A, not sure what you mean by increasing your glycogen. Yeah, I think your just not fueling enough overall in calories and carbs or not shouldn't make much difference in short term exercise performance unless your looking at extreme anaerobic exercise. I'm low carb and when I stall and especially if it's been a while and it looks like your comparing to January's reps, so that enough time to basically make the call that your under feeding your routine. imo. Good luck moving forward. Cheers

    Here's Layne Norton talk about a study comparing low and high carb isocaloric diets on performance.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=LQDcTPhGQWY&t=186s
  • serpentegena
    serpentegena Posts: 42 Member
    Hey that's a cool video, it helps to answer my question. Thank you!