How to get back to maintenance calories then when to lean bulk?

[manveer1234]

Hi all, I am 28 years old and 6 foot 1. February 1st I weighed 13 stone 8 lbs (190lbs), then after following Jeremy Ethier's (YouTuber) cutting food plan I am now 12 stone 2lbs (170lbs) and managed to maintain most but not all muscle.

It was initially a 2,500 calories a day plan for 2 months (180g protein, 280g carbs and 55g fat) , then last 2 weeks it it has been a 2,100 calories per day food plan. I am not on any kind of cycle.

1)What will be my maintenance calories now?
2)How many days or weeks shall I go back to my maintenance calories for before I start my lean bulk?
3)With the above info in mind how many calories per day should I do my lean bulk? Would I need a similar protein carbs fat ratio as mine above? I want to get back to 13 stone (182 lbs) but adding on just purely lean muscle.

Thank you!!!!

[xsquid99]

You have to figure out how much weight you were losing on the calorie level you were eating, then you can kind of deduce your maintenance from that. Example: If you're losing a pound a week on 2500 calories then you're in about a 500 calorie a day deficit (1 lb being 3500 calories), so your maintenance would be about 3000 calories.

I don't ever bother going back to maintenance, I just put myself in a small calorie surplus straight out of my cut (Some people may do it differently but that's how I do it). Usually just about 250-300 calorie a day surplus until I'm gaining about 2 lbs a month.

Remember you will never get purely lean muscle gains, even if you're doing things right the best you'll probably see is a 1:1 muscle/fat gain ratio. So if you put on 10 lbs in 5 months you can figure that half of that might be fat.

[Luclin999]

As xsquid99 said, your maintenance will be roughly based upon 500cal/day versus each pound of weekly fat loss you are currently seeing.

Personally, I would go to my estimated maintenance for a few weeks more to just insure that I was correct in what the accurate maintenance calories were before going into any kind of a surplus. I mean if your estimate of your maintenance level calories is off by even a couple of hundred calories a day then it could screw up a lean bulk by causing you to overestimate your calories (and thus cause you to basically get nowhere in your bulk) or to underestimate your surplus and thus put on a lot more fat than you planned.

Getting a "lean" bulk right is tricky at best so IMO, waiting an extra 3-4 weeks insuring that you are starting with a good understanding of what your true maintenance level is a small price to pay for the greater accuracy you'll likely have moving forward.