I am four weeks into a six-day split resting only on Sundays, repeating push, pull, and legs. Nutrition has stayed loose despite more than thirty-five pounds still to drop. So far I have stayed in a deficit mostly with shakes and bars plus whatever junk I felt like. I want to clean that up. I take ten milligrams of Reta each week and keep cagri on hand for stronger appetite control, yet I have eased off strict limits because lifting requires extra fuel. Early on I am fine if the scale stays flat since I have recomp'd successfully before. After eight solid weeks of training I plan to tighten calories again and already have some meal-prep ideas, but any pointers would help. Breakfast is a one-forty-calorie shake with twenty grams of protein, a banana, and scrambled eggs.
Switching to weight training from weight loss
How should nutrition and calories be handled when moving from fat loss into a weight training phase while still carrying extra weight?
The original poster describes a 6-day PPL routine, ongoing use of Reta with optional cagri, loose eating so far, and plans to recomp for eight weeks before resuming a cut. Replies stress shifting toward whole foods, adding volume from vegetables, limiting supplemental shakes and bars, targeting roughly one gram of protein per ideal pound of body weight, and possibly cycling calories around training days. A smart scale is suggested by one user for tracking recomposition while another dismisses extra tools in favor of simply trusting the process.
What this discussion establishes- Treat protein shakes and bars as occasional supplements rather than daily staples
- Incorporate vegetables, fruits, and legumes for fiber, satiety, and nutrients
- Use roughly one gram of protein per ideal body-weight pound as a starting target
- Consider higher calories on training days and lower on rest days to avoid energy crashes
- Track body-composition changes instead of relying only on the scale
Whether a smart scale or other compounds provide useful feedback versus simply trusting the process without extra tools
Still openPrecise daily calorie targets or how long the recomp phase should last before cutting resumes
Nothing here is advice.
Keep shakes and bars to one serving of each daily and view them only as occasional aids. Whole foods fill you up more and offer better overall nutrition. I like adding spinach, seeds, and berries to shakes for extra volume. Skip any bar or shake that falls below ten grams of protein per hundred calories. One gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight works well as a target while fat remains. ChatGPT can generate a full week of meals once you give it your stats, protein goal, and desired weekly loss rate. Half to one pound per week keeps muscle loss low.
You still need to work in vegetables, fruit, and legumes. They supply fiber, water, and micronutrients that support training and recovery while keeping calories low and hunger in check.
A shake right after lifting is fine, but follow it an hour later with an actual meal such as chicken, broccoli, and potatoes or pasta. Breakfast can be three eggs on Dave's Killer Bread. Lunch works as a big salad topped with chicken. One of the bars makes a decent snack.
At your size and with six days of PPL the calories listed look quite low. Training that hard probably puts TDEE near twenty-eight hundred to three thousand, so a moderate deficit still leaves room for twenty-three to twenty-five hundred daily. Cycling intake higher on lift days and lower on rest days can help keep energy steady. Everyone else is right that more whole food, especially vegetables alongside chicken and rice, improves the setup.
A smart scale would let you watch fat drop and muscle rise so the scale weight does not discourage you. Visible mirror changes take time. Older lifters might look into HGH or SLU-PP-332 since both need months of steady use but deliver longer-term effects.
A magic eight-ball would be about as reliable and far cheaper. Trust the process instead. Everything else worth saying has already been covered: keep a modest deficit, emphasize high-volume low-calorie foods, and hit protein consistently.
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