First off I’d like to thank Jordan and the rest of Barbell Medicine for all the help and information they’ve given me over the past months.
I started off in February coming back from yrs out of the gym. My starting stats were Male, Age - 38, H - 5’8, BW - 234lb, Waist - 45 in, BF% (Navy) - 32.3%. Fast forward to today and my current stats are still Male, Age - 39, H - 5’8, BW - 199lb, Waist - 36 in, BF% (Navy) - 17.3%.
I ran the Beginners Template and Hypertrophy I. My starting calories were 2200, with 200 calorie drops down to 1600. 1600 is where gym performance and NEAT started to take a nose dive. I’m walking up my calories, 200 calories increments, to find my new maintenance and to wash off any accumulated stress, diet fatigue, and metabolism. I also incorporated more walking as my main form of cardio towards the end when calories were already pretty low.
My question is do you think that with my current stats I’d be able to see any recomp benefits or just run my maintenance for 8 wks (or longer?) and then diet down again? My goal is to get to a healthy BF% to add mass and not have to diet down as long as I have.
BTW strength did go up while running a caloric deficit in the Beginners Program as well as Hypertrophy I.
Thanks again Jordan and Barbell Medicine
Aura636zx,
Thanks for the post and the kind words. Congratulations on your progress thus far as well, that’s impressive!!
In your situation, I’d plan on aiming for ~2500 Calories/day and maintaining that for the next 4 to 6 weeks. I suspect you’re likely to gain a small amount of muscle mass and lose a small amount of body fat (and possibly weight) during that time. However, it’s fairly short in duration and I wouldn’t expect any big changes to occur. After that maintenance period, I could make a case for reducing weight further by a few lbs, if you’re up for it.
-Jordan
Hey Jordan thanks for the response! I gotta give credit where credit is due - I don’t think I would made as much progress as I did, not over think things, or been as compliant w the program and diet as I was without BBM.
I was aiming in the 2300 - 2500 calorie range so thats good to know 2500 is your recommended set point. I read that a 2% - 5% weight increase in maintenance phase is normal, mainly because of glycogen stores being replenished and water being pulled back into the muscle bellies. would you argee with these percentages?
I didnt want to fall into the traps of the past and abandon cardio completely. Im assuming your recommendation would be to continue cardio as prescribed in hypertrophy I? Would a minimum of 5k - 6k steps on off days be too much?
Do you have any recommendations for a program to run in maintenance and into a cut? Goals would would be size and strength? PB I? or just rewind it back and run Hypertrophy I again?
For my next cut phase I’d like to get to atleast a 33 in waist, but wouldn’t mind getting lower. Is that a good baseline where i can start a massing phase. I currently feel like a skinny fat kid. It could just be in my head but i figured id ask.
Thank you again and I hope all of you enjoy you holiday weekend.
Thanks for the reply.
So, glycogen stores are not depleted during weight loss phases outside of the acute water loss seen at the beginning of low carb diets and thus, I would not agree that 2 to 5% increase in BW during maintenance phase is normal or desirable.
As far as conditioning, I would aim to meet or exceed the current physical activity guidelines. I don’t think you are likely to do too much conditioning.
Have a great weekend!
-Jordan
thanks for clearing that up on the glycogen. enjoy your weekend.