Thread: recomp?

looking to do the same thing....

Pretty sure you eat, more or less, at maintenance or just above (nothing that would move the scale week to week...or nothing too significant anyway) and lift hard as usual.
The usual meal splits but less cals than a full on bulk. Nothing too complex.

Originally Posted by Gordo

Pretty sure you eat, more or less, at maintenance or just above (nothing that would move the scale week to week...or nothing too significant anyway) and lift hard as usual.
The usual meal splits but less cals than a full on bulk. Nothing too complex.

ahh, I thought it had something to do with cycling cals... or carbs. I guess thats easy enough. I think ill eat at maintenace, or just above, add in a little cardio, and get more of my cals from fats and a little less from carbs.

If you eat really clean 5-10% above maintenance, train really hard its possible and even if you put on a little bit of fat you will more than likely put on proportionally more muscle resulting in a lowered bf %.

I've recomped myself .. I'm warning you now though it's painfully slow.
Now calories - basically what has already been said. Eat around maintenance level, maybe even slightly higher. If I were you I would certainly cycle calories / carbs. Have your lower calorie / carb days on your rest / cardio days, while have your average or higher calorie / carb days For you workouts. But that's basically common sense ..
If there's a specific bodyaprt that you'd like to add a bit more LBM or a bodypart that's lagging I'd recomend on the day you train said bodypart make it a higher Calorie / Carb day .. while recomping myself I was trying to add some LBM to my arms and lats. So The day I trained them I had a very high carb day with lowered fats (600G of carbs and 45G fat), then the next day (cardio) I'd have a higher Fat and lower carb day. I saw some pretty good results for doing that ..
But like I said it's really slow .. I mean really slow. And for sure I would cycle my calories and carbs .. results will more than likely be faster. You have to sorta plan everything right out to the tiniest detail with recomping..
Good Luck

thanks for the reply tom,

ive been thinking about it for a while, my maintenance is about 28-2900 cals. So i'd be shoot for an average of around 3000-3100 cals a week. With a low/mod/high carb intake days.

Something like this?

Moderate carb days 250p 300c 75f ~ 2875 cals (3 days)
Low carb days 250p 150c 100f ~ 2500 cals (2 days)
High carb days 250p 450c 50f ~ 3250 cals (2 days)

Average would be 2875 cals (maintenance) over the week.

I'd probably keep my intakes at each meal the same, so on 450g days i'd eat 70-80g carbs at each meal, on 300 days i'd eat 70-80g carbs each meal, but stop eating after my 4th meals, and on low carb days i'd just eat 70-80 at breakfast and 2nd meal or pwo.

Sound like a decent plan?

No problem
okay if your maintenace is around 28-2900 then on average i would aim for 2900 - 3000 cals a week. See what happens at that level.
Ok your plan might work ...
But can you list out your workout schedule and how the days correspond to it? Also list if theres any specific bodyparts that are lagging / you want special attention put too.
I'm not too sure how the two high carb days would go .. depending on your workout schedule I might be more opt to decreasing one of the high carb days and increasing your cals a bit more somewhere else (such as one of your low days) So you could have something like this if you wished ..

Moderate Carb days 250p 310c 80f ~ 2960 cals (3 days a week)
High Carb Day 250p 450c 50f ~ 3250 cals (1 day a week)
Low Carb day 250p 225c 100f ~ 2800 cals (2 days a week)
*Low Carb day 250p 150c 115f ~ 2635 cals (1 day a week done after high carb day)

Avg. 2909 cals per week

Or you could just leave that as a kind of 'shock' if the other way dosen't work at first.

Also as for spreading out your carbs throughout the day ..
For your High carb day I suggest eating them all throughout the day .. but not 70-80G , espically right before bed. No point. Focus the majority of them around Pre / Post / Post Post workout meals. Which means go higher than what is normall 'suggested'. On my High carb days I'm only 137lbs, but yet my PWO shake contained around 100G of carbs if not more.
Try to keep the carbs before bed under 20G or so.

For your med day .. that would be fine, (I'd probably eat a bit more around pre and post workout and then spread carbs out a little bit more up till my 4th or 5th meal

Low carb days ... I would eat around the same pre workout (maybe a little bit less, espically on *low day) then post workout, I wouldn't make it a shake. Just make sure you get a solid meal of carbs / protein within an hour after your cardio (if it's not a rest day) and then spread out the remaining carbs as far as you want ..

I'm no expert at this stuff , but at least it's some ideas ...
You just gotta make sure you correspond the days with your workouts well - and make sure you lift hard.
Emma would be alot better at giving ya more info.

great ideas...

Think im gonna go for it, I like the 1 high, and 1 extra low day idea as well.

Ill be switching my training from a 3 day routine to a 4 day next week. MON WED THU and SAT are my workout days, legs (high day) on Saturday. Tues and Friday are cardio days, (moderate intensity AM).

keep it simple, eat just above maintenance, and do extra cardio to burn the additional cals off, by keeping the cals slightly above maintenance you'll provide your body with adaquate nutrition to add LBM, and the cardio will keep your BMR revved up and possibly allow you to shed a bit of bodyfat, or even keep your fat mass roughly the same whilst you make small LBM gains, resulting in more muscle and a lower overall BF%, this is basically what i'm doing right now, i don't really believe in bulking anymore, from experience it just leaves you fat, bloated and feeling crap, recomps and mini-cuts are the way forward to a better phyisque