Hey Barbell Medicine crew,
When transitioning from cutting to maintenance do I jump right up to maintenance or do I have to add calories back slowly over the course of a couple weeks? Thanks!
Depends what you’re trying to maintain. If you’re trying to maintain your current LOWER body weight, you will not be increasing calories, you know?
I don’t fully understand. I am in a calorie deficit eating about 1800 calories a day. I have gone down from a 43" waist to a 37" waist but I am still not “shredded” aka you can’t really see my abs. I was thinking that going into maintenance would be a good way of taking a metabolic break while I do the 12 week strength building program and then finishing my cut after. Are you saying I should stay at 1800 calories? I’m confused because wouldn’t that keep me in a deficit aka dieting and not in maintenance?
I see- this additional information was much needed so thank you for providing it.
If you continue to lose weight on 1800kCal/day at some point you will stop losing weight and at that point, you will be at maintenance. If you’re still losing weight on 1800kCal/day and would like to stop, you can add a few hundred calories and start there to see if you stop losing weight.
1 Like
Got it. Thanks Jordan!
Please pardon me if I am hi-jacking this thread but a specific question I have relates to what’s being discussed. As of this morning, I have hit my all-time weight loss goal (285 to 200) that I’ve been busting my ass on since last summer. I’ve been using MyFitnessPal exclusively for tracking (w/ great success), but when I entered my new weight (200lbs) the target calories went from 1,500 (which I’ve been on for the last couple of weeks), to a maintenance of 2,500. This really surprised me as it seems really high. Am I being paranoid here? Or is that jump correct?
Nice job on the cut.
I wouldn’t use MyFitnessPal’s target anything for any reason other than a punchline.
1 Like