Nutrition

Most people eat the same way year-round regardless of what phase they're training in. That is like driving in first gear on the highway—technically moving, but leaving a lot on the table.

 means matching your food intake to your training phase. Not bulking and cutting in the crude sense—aligning substrate availability with physiological demand.

 Moderate surplus (250–500 kcal above maintenance).

* Hypertrophy training (high volume, 8–15 reps) runs on glycogen. High carb intake keeps glycogen stores full, which is anabolic (cell swelling) and muscle-sparing.

* Acute insulin elevation post-training drives nutrients into the cell. Chronic elevation is problematic; the post-workout spike is useful.

 Maximize the SRA curve. Recovery is energetically expensive. You cannot build without raw materials.

Volume drops, intensity rises. The metabolic demand per session decreases.

* Reduce carbohydrates slightly as volume decreases.

* Increase fats slightly to support hormonal health.

* Keep protein high (2g per kg bodyweight) to support repair.

 Neural efficiency doesn't require as much building material as tissue growth, but you still need energy for high-intensity output.

3. Peaking Phase: Leverage Management (Racing)

4–6 weeks out from competition. The game changes.

 Maintenance or slight deficit (to make weight if needed).

* A hydrated cell is a strong cell. Water retention in the joints improves leverage and provides cushioning.

* cut sodium. Salt your food. Drink 4–6 liters of water daily. Being "bloated" is good for pressing mechanics.

 Essential for the ATP-PC system used in maximal singles. Make sure stores are saturated.

 Maintain leverage, not create a new physique.

Most people eat for hypertrophy when they're peaking (gaining unnecessary fat) or eat for peaking when they're building (staying small and dehydrated).

Macros: High carb (400g), moderate protein (180g), low/moderate fat (50g).

Food: Rice, oats, potatoes, chicken, lean beef.

Macros: Moderate carb (300g), moderate protein (180g), moderate fat (70g).

Macros: Lower carb (200g, timed around training), high protein (200g), moderate fat.

Water/salt: Consistently high. No fluctuations.

Nutritional Periodization

How do I lose weight? We’ve all heard the answer a million times, “do more! Eat less!”. It’s simple physics, humans are in a simple sense meat batteries. Our weight, or what we care about, how large a part of it that is fat mass, is determined by energy in/energy out. But as with most things that sound simple, there is more to the story. That is, losing weight is simple, but doing it is hard. In this article, we will talk about the basics of nutrition and how to lose weight.

Focus on nutrition and sleep, to lose weight easier

When the goal is to lose weight, one thing matters. How many calories do you consume, and how many do you expend? However, most people's goal isn't actually to lose weight. Their goal is to lose fat mass. For this to happen, a few things are going to be important. First, we want to eat fewer calories than expended. Second, we want to do this while feeling as little hunger as possible. Thirdly, we want as little of the weight we lose as possible to be other things than fat. (muscle tissue etc.)

What do we need to accomplish these things? The first thing is a high protein intake. To our best knowledge 1 g/lbs or for the chubby 1 g/cm of their height is recommended. The main reason for this high protein intake is to skew weight loss towards fat instead of muscle mass when in a caloric deficit [1]. The second is that protein itself is very satiating [2] and thus reduces total calorie intake.

The next thing we need to talk about is fiber, everyone's favorite food enemy. It can be hard to get enough fiber, but high fiber intake does carry loads of health benefits like protection from certain cancers and in the context of this article it promotes satiety [3]. It is recommended to get around 30 grams of fiber a day.

Last but not least we need to talk about sleep. Sleep is the single most health-promoting thing people can get more of in their daily lives. It carries too many positive benefits to mention here. How much and how well we sleep is in general very important to our general feeling of well-being, but it also controls how hungry we feel [4] and how motivated we are. Between 7 and 9 hours of sleep, daily is recommended, and most people can benefit from sleeping more than they already do.

In this section, we have given a lot of numbers that we recommend people follow. It might be a daunting task to track these, and it is not necessarily the recommended strategy to do this stringently. While some might easily be able to do so others might not. Instead, we recommend taking one or two of the parameters and focusing on improving them over time. If one of these parameters is increased over long periods most people are going to get closer to their goals or at the very least improve their health outcomes.

Now we have the nitty-gritty down around how we should eat to be less hungry. This will allow us to stay in a caloric deficit without too much pain, and the protein will help keep muscle mass and lose fat. The next question is, how fast should we lose weight? The general gym bro's advice is to be in a 500 calories deficit, which is about 0.5 kg or 1 lb a week. However, more general advice would be to lose no more than 1% of body weight a week.

Losing more than 1% might feel great on paper, but it will increase the feeling of hunger and maybe even hurt sleep and is thus not sustainable. Remember the goal is not only to lose weight but also to keep it off. So the most important thing is that our strategy needs to be sustainable.

The next question is for how long should I lose weight? Most people probably believe they should start now and end when they are satisfied with their weight. This is a bad idea. Since prolonged dieting will increase hunger and reduce activity. It is thus recommended not to diet for much more than 8-12 weeks at a time. Where 8 weeks seems to be the sweet spot for most people. After a dieting phase, one should take a break, where weight is maintained, for at least 2/3 of the duration spent dieting. This is to give the body time to adjust to the new body weight, and for it to once again increase its NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) or activity not from exercise.

This process can then be repeated until one is happy with one's weight. It is important to remember that body weight is not something static and that it will fluctuate over time.

Protein intake and lean body mass preservation during energy intake restriction in overweight older adults

Dietary protein - its role in satiety, energetics, weight loss, and health

The effect of fiber on satiety and food intake: a systematic review

Metabolic mechanism of wakefulness (and hunger) and sleep (and satiety): Role of adenosine triphosphate and hypocretin and other peptides

Nutrition

Nutritional Periodization

Basic nutrition, how to lose weight and build muscle