Long term weight management

Let’s say that somebody who is already pretty close to their ideal bodyweight wants to lose a little fat and gain some muscle, while leaning a bit more towards muscle gain. How would you plan out their weight changes over time? Should they just recomp and gain weight very very slowly, or try to gain a little during the hypertrophy program and later lose it?

If you need more specific info, I’m a 29 year old female at 57 kg and 168 cm (126 pounds, 5 feet 6). In the long term I’d like to lose about 3 kg of fat and gain 5 kg of muscle. I am willing to gain a little extra fat on the way there if it helps. And of course I’d like to get stronger too. I’ve been lifting for almost 6 months and I’m on the 6th week of the Bridge. Probably somewhat training resistant. I’m planning to do the 4 day hypertrophy and strength templates next, after which I will probably repeat them. I have very little muscle at this point and I suspect it’s limiting my strength gains.

Should I try to gain some weight during the hypertrophy template and lose most of it during the strength template? E.g. gain 2 kg and then lose 1.5 kg, or something similar. How does one synchronize these things with the templates?

Depends on a lot of different things such as how much they want to lose and gain, respectively, and also how much they’ve lost already, how they respond to training, how long they’ve been training for, etc.

[quote=“user789, post:1, topic:3414, username:user789”]
Should they just recomp and gain weight very very slowly, or try to gain a little during the hypertrophy program and later lose it?/QUOTE]

I don’t know that these two things are different.

user789;n21911:
If you need more specific info, I’m a 29 year old female at 57 kg and 168 cm (126 pounds, 5 feet 6). In the long term I’d like to lose about 3 kg of fat and gain 5 kg of muscle.

If accurate, that’s probably a year’s endeavor. I think that since you’ve been lifting for < 1 year I’d aim to go for gaining some muscle for the next 3 months and then reassess your results.

Thank you! I didn’t realize this is actually achievable in just a year. Is gaining only 1kg of weight per month during hypertrophy phases a bit too conservative then? You guys talk about bulking slowly, but I’m never sure what you mean by “slowly”.

Yea I don’t know if you can do it in a year and it is unlikely that gaining more than 1kg per month would produce significantly greater LBM gains for you. I think that’s a fine rate.

By the way, when you say that I should “go for gaining some muscle for the next 3 months”, do you mean that I should run the 7 week hypertrophy program twice, or that I should continue gaining during the first half of the 12 week strength template?