Eating to match what you're training for

Calories decide the direction

Eat more than you burn and your body has the raw material to grow, in muscle and often a bit of fat too. Eat less and it has to dip into stored fat, and sometimes a little muscle, to make up the gap. Eat about the same and your weight holds roughly steady. None of this needs to be exact. A phase, bulk, cut or maintain, just tells you which direction you're pointing your calories in.

Protein does the building work

Protein gives your muscles the material to repair and grow after a workout. A review of the research on protein and exercise puts a solid daily target at 0.25 g of high quality protein per kg of body weight per meal, or 20 to 40 grams, spread across the day rather than crammed into one sitting. Across a full day, a review that pooled data from thousands of lifters found that protein intakes above about 1.6 grams per kilogram a day didn't add extra muscle gain on top of resistance training. That's a useful ceiling to aim near, not a number to chase past.

Bulking, cutting, maintaining and recomping

A bulk means eating in a surplus so you have fuel and material to add muscle, usually alongside some fat gain. A cut means eating in a deficit to lose fat while trying to hold on to the muscle you've built. Maintenance keeps calories close to what you burn. Recomping tries to lose a little fat and gain a little muscle at the same time, usually a slower and less predictable process than a dedicated bulk or cut. Protein matters more, not less, when you're cutting. A systematic review of lean, resistance-trained people found that protein needs during calorie restriction likely run from about 2.3 to 3.1 grams per kilogram of lean body mass, higher the harder the cut. One trial pushed this further, splitting resistance-trained people into a normal group and a high protein group eating around 4.4 grams per kilogram a day to see what extra protein does at the very top end. If eating patterns feel out of your control, or food and weight are causing real distress, that's worth talking through with a qualified professional rather than solving with numbers alone.

The scale wobbles every day. The trend line is what tells you the truth.

Meal timing and hydration, the small stuff

Total protein and calories across the day matter far more than exact timing. Spreading protein across three or four meals rather than one large one seems to make it easier to hit your target and keep muscle-building running through the day, but eating close to a workout isn't a make-or-break decision. Water is much the same story. Being properly hydrated helps you train harder and feel less wrecked afterwards, so drinking through the day, not just during your session, is the simple habit worth keeping.

Reading your bodyweight trend

1. 1

   Weigh at a similar time First thing in the morning, before food or water, is the easiest way to keep readings comparable.

2. 2

   Expect daily noise Water, salt, digestion and sleep can swing the number by a kilogram or more overnight, and that's normal.

3. 3

   Look at the trend, not the day A smoothed line across a couple of weeks tells you far more than any single morning's number.

4. 4

   Judge the phase by the slope A bulk should trend gently up, a cut gently down, and maintenance roughly flat, over weeks rather than days.

• A surplus builds, a deficit strips, maintenance holds, roughly and imperfectly
• Protein spread across the day, not just after training, does the heavy lifting
• Higher protein matters more while cutting, not less
• One weigh-in means little, a trend over weeks means a lot