Newbie needing advice!!

[Girlygains]

I have recently lost 2 stone and my weight loss has come to a stop. I count my macros. My tdee is 2080 - work out 4 days a week for 60 minutes. Weights and 10 -15 mins cardio. My weight and measurements have stayed the same now for a month and I think it's time to start feeding my body and build some muscle. Could I bulk for a month, cut for the next and repeat or should a bulk for a couple of months? Any advice appreciated!!

[adriannec]

Welcome! If you're looking to bulk, then you need to eat at a slight surplus along with following an effective lifting program to take advantage of the extra calories. You don't need a huge surplus but aim to gain about 1-2 lbs per month. That works out to be about 150-200 calories or so over maintenance so again, not a lot extra.

To get the most out of your bulk, you want to go for longer than a month. Usually 6-9 months or longer if you can stand it. Why? Females under ideal circumstances can put on about 1 lb of muscle per month so if you bulk for a month and then cut, 1) you won't have put on enough muscle to make a visual difference and 2) not have put on enough fat to warrant a cut. So you want to go for long enough to make your efforts worth it, and a month isn't long enough.

[Girlygains]

Ah that is so helpful thank you! I think I will put my plan together to do this in the new year then 😊 this will give me time to put a training plan together! Thank you so much!

[ostrovska18]

Chronic dieting will stall your weight loss and you need to reverse diet where you maintain your weight by slowly increasing your calories back to normal. You can mass immediately after cutting as excess in calories will yield to weight gain in lean body mass and some body fat gain. Because women gain muscle so slowly, and massing is difficult to track, what is done best that can be tracked is aiming for a weight gain of about one pound per week. This way you can know how to adjust your calories if need be. It can be assumed as an average lifter that for every lb per week you gain, about a 1/4 of it will be lean tissue. Because muscle gain is a slow progress, it's best to spend about three months massing for best results. Less and you won't see much of an LBM gain and longer you may gain too much unwanted fat that may take more cutting cycles to lose.

[Sammitasch]

I LOVE MACROCYLCING! Keeps the body guessing. Basically say you eat the same macros everyday, instead, pull carbs from one day, add it to another. And on the day you added those extra carbs, take away the fats you would normally eat and put it on that day you pulled the carbs from. Check out Lyle McDonald or Shelby Starnes. They both have talked about Macrocycling!