Hey guys, it’s my first post on the forums, and I have a question about my post-diet.
So I did a 3 months diet. During this period I lost 15.5 lbs and reached a bodyfat of 13-14 % (was at 20% before it). Now I’m done with my diet, and I want to gain muscles.
But, can I start a over caloric diet immediately, or do I need first to stabilize my weight before it ?
I don’t find any reliable informations about this, and I really don’t want to gain again all the fat I lost.
Thanks for the answer, and excuse me if I did some english mistakes, it’s not my mother tongue.
I’ll assume you are lifting to gain strength/mass. Most guys can use their waist size to gauge fat gain while on a calorie excess. If you are gaining weight and strength and your waist is staying the same or decreasing, you are on the right track. If it is increasing, scale back on the calories a bit. I don’t believe in the concept of weight having to stabilize before changes to the diet can be made. Lift hard while slowly increasing your calories and gauge your progress weekly.
I am also coming to the end of a cut. From what a lot of folks on here have said, you do need to stabilize after a cut or a bulk. However, your cut wasn’t very aggressive, so you can probably wait a lot less (4-6 weeks, to pull something completely out of my arse), whereas somebody that lost a lot more may need to hold the weight for 4-6 months.
Also, the general advice is to ease into it, reintroducing fats and carbs together, giving your body a chance to adjust before increasing the calories more. This makes sense, as when you’re cutting, you don’t all of a sudden cut calories by 1000, cardio 5x week, and lift 6x week… you don’t do any more than is needed, and this is just kind of that in reverse.
I will not put 1000 kcal like that, that is for sure. I plan to add 150-200 kcal to gain maximum 0.5 lbs/week. The big part of my carbs will be from fruits (bananas, kiwis, depends of the season) and vegetables (Sweet potato especially). If needed, I will eat some brown rice.
Anybody got something reliable about the post-diet management, maybe not personnal experiences but scientifics articles ?