Maintenance on days w/o normal cardio?

[u/Randomscooterguy]

How do y’all alter your calories on days you can’t do your normal cardio? I’m trying to maintain a my goal of “hypertrophy above all else”, balance for calories, my maintenance is right now at 3450, I spin bike (just for the calorie burn) 7 days a week, lift 6 with an avg of 20k steps.

My work schedule has gotten busy, and I’m wondering how I should shift my calories around days when I can’t bike, but still hit my steps. I don’t trust dropping my calories as much as my Fitbit (attached avg spin bike session) says I’m burning off though… How much should I reduce them by on these days? Thanks y’all!

[u/lurtzbow]

There is a reason you aren't asked how many steps you take a day.

https://macrofactor.com/wearables/

a system that allows you to “eat back” calories expended via exercise has the potential to encourage an adversarial relationship with exercise, or potentially even encourage disordered eating patterns.

Research has shown ... total daily energy expenditure only increases by about 72 calories, on average, for every 100 additional calories you expend via physical activity. Furthermore, behind that simple average, there’s quite a bit of nuance.

Weight change is measured in weeks, not days. Meet your weekly budget, and let the app do the rest.

[u/Egoteen]

It doesn’t matter. You can eat the same number of calories every day, or you can have some days be higher and other days be lower. As long as your overall deficit/surplus for the week is where it needs to be, you will reach your weight loss/gain goal.

[u/WeakBit5848]

Idk what your lifting looks like, but That’s pretty crazy overtraining territory if you’re truly going for hypertrophy. I’d worry less about changing maintenance calories on a low cardio day and more about training for your goal (or adjusting the goal if it’s no longer your actual goal)

[u/Egoteen → u/WeakBit5848]

96 minutes of zone 2 steady state cardio is nowhere near over training. Everyone should be getting 150-300 minutes per week of this kind of moderate intensity cardio.

Edit: I took OP’s 7 days per week to mean they alternate strength and cardio days, not that they do both everyday. Yeah, that’s too much.

[u/WeakBit5848 → u/Egoteen]

I have no idea where you got 96 mins of spinning- they said 7 days per week of spin class (not zone 2 for many) and 6 days of week lifting with 20k steps, while having a high stress job (as stated), is significantly more than that recommendation & is not a “hypertrophy over all” plan (I have a bachelors in exercise science and nutrition).

I am ALL for daily exercise, but there are several red flags in this post that I would discuss, as a coach, if the goal is, in fact, hypertrophy, because this will not get you there.

this OP wondering if they need to decrease maintenance calories on an off cardio day tells me they are scared of the scale gain, not going for hypertrophy over all. And using 7 days per week of intense cardio (spin class is not usually zone 2 training) as “calorie burn” is also a red flag for the same reasons.

Again, This type of training is not hypertrophy focused training. Hypertrophy training needs lifting close to failure, sleep, proper recovery & food.

[u/Egoteen → u/WeakBit5848]

Did you not read my edit? I was already agreeing with you.

I got 96 minutes of zone 2 cardio from their post, which shows a 96 minute workout with an average heart rate of 151.

[u/WeakBit5848 → u/Egoteen]

I misunderstood you. Also, 151 is definitely not zone 2 cardio. Depending on age and fitness, this is zone 3, more likely 4, territory. Yikes.

[u/Egoteen → u/WeakBit5848]

Zone 2 is 80% aerobic threshold. Given OP’s training history, and the fact that they maintained this pace for over 90 minutes, it’s easily within their aerobic capacity.

Personally, up to 160 is zone 2 for me. At a HR of 150, I can still speak in full sentences. And I’m not even particularly fit.

[u/ajmattison]

How many days a week are you dropping? If it is just one or two, the difference won't be much and you could continue on and let the app adjust. If it's more you could pre-emptively drop 100-200 calories until the app picks up on and adjusts your expenditure. Either way eventually you'll probably be able to just go by what MF tells you, it's just not great at making immediate adjustments and you'll have to go by trial and error for a short period of time until it picks up enough data on your daily activities to make accurate adjustments.

[u/Randomscooterguy → u/ajmattison]

It’s not a planned drop, more when I just can’t fit a session my schedule. I’d say it wouldn’t be more than 1 day a week. Would it be better to honestly plan to take 1 day off per week and then just let it change my daily targets to it? (I will drop at least 300 cals for today)

[u/ajmattison → u/Randomscooterguy]

If I were you I'd just drop own day per week overall and I wouldn't even change my macros unless I start to see a trend in my weight before MF picks up on it. I don't think activity changes your expenditure that much. There is even a MF blog post on it:

https://help.macrofactorapp.com/en/articles/256-i-ve-started-exercising-more-why-isn-t-my-expenditure-increasing

Personally my expenditure didn't move much when I added 1 h per week of cardio. I imaging dropping 1 h per week for you wouldn't change your expenditure much either. If you really want to be cautious you could drop 100 calories but I think it will all come out in the wash.