Nobody stays 4% year round, that is nonsence, think about it.
And staying lean 8% year round defenatly gets easier the more muscle you have. You can eat more, eat som junk and still get away with because your metabolism stays high as long as those muscle needs energy. And btw as on a diet, in the offseason it's the total calorie count of the day that matters. I can drop bodyweigth and look harder on daily intake consisting of 3x1500 kcal mcdonalds meals in the offseason, ofcourse not very healthy though. When you know you can do stuff like that you can stay lean without feeling that you are on a diet, very plesant actually.
And btw, the more carbs, mostly fast/moderate you eat the higher your metabolism will get, keep the fat down and get 50-60g protein to each meal, and you can eat tons of food without adding fat. I guess my maintance is around 3500-4000 now, still im eating on a guess 400g prot and 6-700g carb and about 50-100g fat (I'm 240lbs btw) and that makes me gain very slowly allthouh Im more and endo than meso. The carb will help you flush the protein into your musclecells with all the insulin beeing present, and that is basically why you have to control the fat also. By eating these amounts your metabolism will sky rocket also and to be honest it lets me eat crap the whole weekend and come back and look harder and better than rest of the week. Basically thats because when you go over to eating crap, it becomes more fat, less carb and more sodium in your food. Glyc stores will get somewhat depleted (add some spirits on top of that on Saturday and you get more depleted), then with the hangover on Sunday you don't have much of a hunger and get even more depleted. Now on Monday you eat 6-700g carbs again - do you think you'll get a pump on Monday's afternon workout after this? - ow yh you do. Ppl will comeover and say you look more jacked than ever lol, and you will have a good laugh for yourself when they ask if you only eat tuna/ckicken and brown rice to look so lean and veiny...trust me. Ofcourse not saying this is the most healthy way of living, but it let's you live what many people could consider "average" nutrition wise. There is obvious other more healthy ways to get the same effect.
And btw it has been proven over and over that high carb diets builds more muscle and also works better in dieting for that matter. What is the reason for staying depleted for 12 weeks dieting and getting shit weak at the weigths when you could eat 3-400g carb, have a pump, look good, and loose weigth?
And when I'm at it, if you gain slowly on 6-700g carb in the off season, and you're about to diet down for a contest; Do you guess you will need to starv yourself and eat 1500kcals a day to get in shape? No you don't, you will get almost in ready shape by eating around 3k-3,5k kcals.
just my 2cents
guess not everyone in here will agree with me, but I'm talking out of experience and it's all very logical.
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