what happens when you eat at maintenence, whole training hard

[the_leprechaun]

so lets say your not specifically cutting or bulking, just eating around maintenence totally clean but training hard (both strength training and cardio), would this be like a slow transformation or body recomposition, or would this essentially be a series of mini cuts and bulks due to prob never truely eating at maintenence? (ie. going slightly over and under cal reqs)
this is just out of interest, i know picking one or the other is obviously better for achieveing specific goals.

 

[Gazhole]

Your maintenance level of calories is the amount of calories you should eat to keep the body composition you have now. If you're eating at maintenance you won't gain or lose anything...

If any progress occurs at all it will be very slow, or even unnoticeable, simply because you will only be eating a few calories more or less than you need.

 

[the_leprechaun]

yeah i thought this, but then if your training hard, surely this is going to alter your body in some way?? like if you take two identical people, one was eating clean foods at maintenence with weight training (exercise factored in for cals) vs. a person eating at maintenence with no exercise, surely over the space of a few months they would have drastically different bodies??

 

[kyoun1e]

Interesting question.

I think your average person in the gym has no clue about the idea of caloric surplus or deficit and just eats when they are hungry and works out.

Besides gains in strength, I'd think there must be other benefits to this approach.

KY

 

[Leviathan]

yeah i thought this, but then if your training hard, surely this is going to alter your body in some way?? like if you take two identical people, one was eating clean foods at maintenence with weight training (exercise factored in for cals) vs. a person eating at maintenence with no exercise, surely over the space of a few months they would have drastically different bodies??

Perhaps you might achieve some sort of boost in strength, but to condone muscle mass, you will need to literally /feed the muscle/

It is logical to believe that your first hypothetical person would gain some sort of physical advantage over the other, but not that much. Your body's muscles could become tighter,and may show better when flexing of any sort occurs.

 

[gtbmed]

Could be strength gains or losses depending on your training. Either you train correctly and the motor neurons get better at doing the movement, or you overtrain and you burn out your nervous system.

 

[T_man]

if you eat maintenance do u need to workout to maintain muscle mass?

 

[T_man]

yeah i thought this, but then if your training hard, surely this is going to alter your body in some way?? like if you take two identical people, one was eating clean foods at maintenence with weight training (exercise factored in for cals) vs. a person eating at maintenence with no exercise, surely over the space of a few months they would have drastically different bodies??

theres plenty of people in gyms lifting right but they just dont seem to get big. it must be down to calories maybe?

 

[powerlifter316]

It's nice to think that eating this way while training hard will allow you to lose fat AND gain muscle, thereby gradually improving your body composition, but you will probably just end up spinning your wheels. I tried to do this for a couple of years when I was scared of gaining back a little of the fat I had just lost, it did absolutely nothing for me. If you want more significantly more muscle than you have now, and you are not too worried about your body fat, just go ahead and gain. If you just can't stand the thought of gaining for many months or years while letting the fat you do have sit there, then there's your answer, as well. You really just need to figure out what's most important to your long term goals and satisfaction with your body, and go one way or the other.