Thread: Should I add more food on the day I do cardio?

I would actually keep calories at 2800 for the cardio days, and then just add more on your actual lifting days (and yes in the form of mostly carbs.)
This way your sort of implementing carb/calorie cycling into your bulk and you may find this helps slow down fat gain.

I'm currently at 327 g of carbs, if I up that to say 360ish (healthy carb sources) for those days, that shouldn't be a problem right?

Hmm .. that is a bit high..
But could you post your current weight, estimate on BF%, how frequently you workout, if your active throughout the day and the amount of Fats and Protein you'd also be having?

current height is 5'8", weight is 150, BF is around 12ish, I workout 3 times a week, I'm a full-time college student and I work part time so I live a active lifestyle, my ratios look like this:


Total: 2857
Fat: 79 715 26%
Sat: 14 128 5%
Poly: 14 122 4%
Mono: 29 258 9%
Carbs: 327 1121 41%
Fiber: 47 0 0%
Protein: 224 896 33%
Alcohol: 0 0 0%

K looks good.
If I were you I would have the 360G of carbs on workout days, and then on cardio days drop carbs to 250G or so (replace calories with extra fats).

hmm, that might put it at around 90-100 g of fat on those days, but I'm guessing for a bulk thats okay?

Yup it's fine.
I'm 5'9 and only 140lbs, with my maintenance at 2800 calories. On my low carb days, My fat intake has to increase to almost 130G

your maintenance is 2800 @ 140??

Mine is like 2300 @ 190

Monitor yourself. If you are finding that on cardio days you are hungry or if you aren't gaining like you want, increase it a bit.

lol yup 2800 at 140 .. I guess I'm just one of the luckier people. I eat tons. But 2300 for someone 190lbs seems a bit low.. too low ... have you recently been crash dieting by any chance or have just lost a huge amount of weight?

Just to add on to what Jodi said, for sure monitor yourself, and if your not gaining I would personally increase calories by 10% on BOTH days .. so for example if you were doing this -

Weights: 3000 calories a day
Cardio: 2800 calories a day

And you weren't gaining .. I would do -

Weights: 3300 calories a day
Cardio: 3000 calories a day.

And so forth.

Originally Posted by Tom_B

lol yup 2800 at 140 .. I guess I'm just one of the luckier people. I eat tons. But 2300 for someone 190lbs seems a bit low.. too low ... have you recently been crash dieting by any chance or have just lost a huge amount of weight?

Just to add on to what Jodi said, for sure monitor yourself, and if your not gaining I would personally increase calories by 10% on BOTH days .. so for example if you were doing this -

Weights: 3000 calories a day
Cardio: 2800 calories a day

And you weren't gaining .. I would do -

Weights: 3300 calories a day
Cardio: 3000 calories a day.

And so forth.

I seriously doubt that your maintenance is where you think it is.

we are talking about MAINTENANCE here. BMR? Not including workouts.

I know that on days of just normal work days with no workout (like today) I burned 2400 already and it's 10pm so I'll be at around 2600 by midnight...24 hours..2600 cals burned.

I don't see how you, unless very active all day, not including workouts could burn 2800 cals as a maintenance level.

I have been in a deficit for a long time but my BMR has gone UP over that time. I used to burn around 1.1 cals/min at rest now 1.6 cals/m

I suppose you are just in such good shape that your BMR is even HIGHER, but Idk. I have 165 lbs LBM, more than you weigh.

I just think you are off.

You do realize that Maintenance, is just that right, your maintenance? The amount of calories it takes to maintain your current bodyweight, including things such as BMR, and daily activities.
Your BMR is just that .. your BMR. The amount of calories you would burn if you just sat in bed all day and did absolutely nothing.

So yes, including my workouts, daily activities, and BMR my MAINTENANCE is 2800 calories.