Learn how to set your diet up after a training break and get back to your fitness level.
What you are about to read is heavily based on a video uploaded by Jeff Nippard.
Jeff Nippard is a natural professional bodybuilder who shares tips and training programs on his YouTube channel. His video tries to showcase how to set your diet up after a training break.
How To Set Your Diet Up After A Training Break
According to Nippard, before you set up your nutrition plan, you need to determine which change in your physique best applies to you during the training break:
- Anti-recomposition – lost muscle and gained fat
- Pure muscle loss – lost muscle and maintained fat
- Pure fat gain – maintained muscle and gained fat
Anti-Recomposition
Some people wonder if it is better to lose weight and then gain muscle, or go the other way and bulk up to then cut off the unwanted fat. Nippard says the best is to do both at the same time, known as body recomposition. When it comes to training, this is when you can make use of muscle memory.
When dieting, you want to make sure you are eating enough calories to maintain your body weight to stay in a caloric balance.
Also, you want to prioritise protein intake to a higher-than-normal amount, which some studies suggest is the best approach to body recomposition. Somewhere between 2.4 and 3.3 grams of protein per kilo of body weight (1.3 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight) to recomp as fast as possible.
Keep a low intake of fat (less than 20 per cent of your total calories) and fill in the rest of your calories with carbs.
Pure Muscle Loss
How to set your diet up after a training break if you simply lost muscle without gaining weight? In this case, you would want to do an aggressive short-term bulk until muscle size is regained.
In terms of dieting, you want to do something similar to the anti-recomposition group but bump your carb intake even higher.
A 20 to 30 per cent of caloric surplus to gain 1 per cent of weight gain per week. “You may gain fat initially, but once you reach your old weight again, then you can put yourself back closer to maintenance calories and aim for body recomposition or lean gains from there.”
Pure Fat Gain
If you kept your muscle mass but gained fat, there is one strategy that Nippard suggests: a mini-cut.
Put yourself in a 20 to 25 per cent caloric deficit and aim to lose about 1 per cent of your body weight per week for 4 to 6 weeks.
Once you get leaner, go back to maintenance caloric balance and aim for lean gain or body recomp from there.
“This way you will improve your aesthetics much faster and you will be able to see your muscle gains as it happens without that extra layer of body fat covering up.”
How To Set Your Diet Up After A Training Break – VIDEO
Read More: How to Shed Fat and Completely Transform your Body
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