I am getting close to my weight loss goal and wouldn’t mind gaining some muscle and strength afterward. How fast is it recommended to increase calories? I know from experience I don’t want to try to add something like a 1000 calories overnight which I might need to do to go back to maintenance. My body doesn’t respond well and it is just hard to adjust that quickly unless you are adding some less than healthy foods. I think I have my calories estimated for the next phase. Just curious to how to add say 1200 calories to my diet without dealing with the side effects of doing it too quickly. Would adding 500 calories a day for the first week, and another 500 the next week be too fast or should I take it slower when the time comes. I have had bad experiences in the past trying to do too much too fast. It is no fun forcing yourself to eat and hating food until your body adjusts. Although my bad experiences were probably trying to add a lot more than that based on old bro advice in the 90’s/2000’s.
The other reason I want to do it slowly is frankly my calorie expenditure due to activity might just be inaccurate and a guess at best. I have read my polar heart rate monitor overestimates calories burned so I am kind of guessing at my real deficit. So I don’t want to overdo it and base the increase on results.