Illustration of a guy reverse bulking to lose fat while keeping his muscle gains.

Reverse Bulking: How to Maintain Your Gains After Bulking

Reverse bulking is for people who are sick of eating so much food but want to maintain the gains they made while bulking. I haven’t seen this discussed anywhere else, which is strange, given how well it works. I’ve been using this method on myself and clients for over a decade now, but we never named it, and I don’t think we’ve ever mentioned it our articles.

The idea is simple: most skinny guys hate eating enormous amounts of food. When they finish bulking, they want to go back to eating like regular human men again. But they’re worried that if they do, they’ll lose all their hard-won gains. That’s where reverse bulking comes in.

Illustration of a weight lifter eating less food after he finishes bulking.

What’s Reverse Bulking?

I haven’t ever heard anyone talking about reverse bulking, perhaps because it’s a phenomenon unique to us naturally thin guys. If you’re familiar with the bodybuilding concept of reverse dieting, this has the same rejuvenating spirit, but it’s coming from the other direction.

  • Reverse Dieting: when you finish cutting and begin listening to your appetite again, regaining some of the weight you lost and climbing back up to a healthier body-fat percentage. For example, going from 8% to 12% body fat.
  • Reverse Bulking: when you finish bulking and begin listening to your appetite again, letting yourself lose a bit of weight, keeping your muscles, and reclaiming any leanness you lost.

Whether you’re reverse dieting or reverse bulking, the idea is to return to a more intuitive and enjoyable way of eating and living. It’s a method for maintaining your gains in a healthy and sustainable way.

However, reverse bulking won’t work for everyone. It hinges on a trait that’s somewhat unique to us naturally thin guys. Even then, it only works for about 60–90% of us. Let’s delve deeper into the nuance.

The Problem of the Adaptive Metabolism

In a landmark study by Levine and colleagues, researchers put men in a metabolic ward, giving them complete control over how many calories the participants ate and what activities they engaged in. The researchers began by determining how many calories these men ate and burned. Then they overfed them by 1,000 extra calories each day.

Study graph showing variance in weight gain with a 1000 calorie surplus.

As you’d expect, the extra food helped the guys gain weight. However, there was a huge variance in the amount of weight they gained. One guy gained a whopping 9.3 pounds. Another gained only 0.79 pounds (study). Said another way, even though all of these guys were being overfed by the same amount, and even though they were doing the amount of exercise, some guys gained 10x more weight than others.

The researchers discovered that some people have especially adaptive metabolisms. When you feed them more food, their metabolisms increase, burning away most of the extra calories. These guys were dubbed “hardgainers.” Their thinness was genetic. The same is true for many of us.

Understand, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for us to gain weight. If you’ve just finished a successful bulk, you’ve already found a way. But that way is often difficult.

If you’re like me, your metabolism increases as you delve deeper into a bulk. By the time you finish, you may need to shovel down entire mountain ranges of food to merely maintain your weight. It’s not sustainable. We need a way to calm our metabolisms back down.

Survey results showing that most naturally thin guys lose weight after bulking.

When we surveyed our readers, 60% said that after they finished bulking, they tended to lose weight. 58% said that after bulking, they were eager to go back to eating less food. I can definitely relate. I’m the same way. But if we back down from overeating, won’t we lose what we fought so hard to gain?

How to Maintain Your Gains After Bulking

If you keep lifting weights, eating well, and living a healthy lifestyle, your body will gladly hold onto the muscle you’ve built. It will get the missing energy from your body fat instead. And chances are, if you’ve just finished bulking, you’ve got some spare body fat you can feed into the furnace.

If you let your weight drift back down, you’ll lean back out, your metabolism will slow down, and you’ll get back on good terms with your appetite. Perhaps most importantly, you’ll keep all your muscle.

Maintenance Training

You don’t need to change your workout routine. In fact, if you have a bit of extra body fat, you may be able to use that body fat to fuel muscle and strength gains. Remember, guys at higher body fat percentages tend to have an easier time achieving body recomposition (full explanation). So keep trying to get stronger. Keep striving for progressive overload.

A study graph showing strength maintenance on a low-volume workout program.

On the other hand, you don’t need to keep training as hard or as often. In a study by Bickel and colleagues, the participants followed a muscle-building workout routine for 16 weeks, then went into a low-volume maintenance phase (study). After those 32 weeks, the participants gained a little bit of strength. The older lifters (60–75) maintained their strength with 1/3 of their original training volume.

A good rule of thumb is to count each hard set as one unit of volume. If you were doing 15 sets per muscle group per week to build muscle, you can probably maintain your gains with as few as 2 sets per muscle group. This holds true even if you’re slowly losing weight (study).

Putting that into practice, you could do the big compound lifts once or twice per week. For example, you could squat, deadlift, press, and pull every Monday and Thursday, doing 2–4 sets per exercise per workout. If you get within a few reps of failure, that’s enough muscle stimulation to maintain your size and strength. It’s also enough to meet the minimum health recommendations for resistance training (studyHarvard).

These are the minimum volume recommendations. Feel free to do more. You can keep doing your favourite isolation lifts, keep trying to bring up lagging muscle groups, or work on getting stronger. Less is enough, but more can be better.

Fight to maintain at least 90% of your strength on the big compound lifts. If you start suffering from progressive underload, add some extra sets in.

Bonus: consider lifting in a higher rep range. When I’m bulking, I’ll do anywhere from 4–20 reps per set. When I’m reverse bulking, I do more like 12–30 reps per set. Here’s why:

  • High-rep sets cause cardiovascular adaptations in your muscles. This improves blood flow to your muscles, improving your ability to bulk them up in the future (study). These adaptations aren’t as dependent on a calorie surplus (article).
  • High-rep sets don’t need as many warm-up sets. The first 10 reps of a 20-rep set will help warm you up. If you’re limber, that may be all you need.

Maintenance Diet

When you finish your bulk, keep the healthy habits and drop the others. If you’ve been having a nutritious smoothie every morning, there’s no reason to stop now. That habit suits our body type whether we’re bulking or not. But if you’ve been chugging weight-gainer shakes, you may want to get back to eating whole foods.

  • Listen to your appetite. If you aren’t hungry, you don’t need to eat. If you are hungry, eat more.
  • Keep eating balanced meals that contain a nice mix of protein, carbs, fat, fibre, and micronutrients.
  • Keep prioritizing nutritious whole foods over processed foods.
  • Eat as many meals and snacks as you want. Find a rhythm that suits you. Keep your eating schedule relatively constant from day to day.
  • You can stop using muscle-building supplements (though you may want to continue taking creatine).
  • It’s okay if you start eating less protein, fat, or carbs. With that said, if you want to increase your likelihood of building muscle, you could keep trying to eat at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound bodyweight per day (study).
  • It’s okay to eat smaller meals.

Maintenance Lifestyle

Almost all of the lifestyle changes we make while bulking are good ones. Keep exercising, go to bed on time most nights, and don’t let vices derail your life. We all struggle to keep different vices at bay. I’m sure you know what yours are. Now isn’t the time to let them encroach into your lifestyle.

Also, as mentioned above, cardiovascular adaptations aren’t as dependent on a calorie surplus as muscle-building adaptations. If you want to improve your cardiovascular fitness, now’s a great time to work on those goals.

A barbarian lifting weights and eating a big bulking diet to build muscle.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the Difference Between Reverse Bulking & Cutting?

Reverse bulking and cutting are similar. You’re losing weight, burning fat, and keeping your muscles. Both methods involve lifting weights, eating a good diet, and gradually losing weight. But there’s a key difference.

  • Cutting is when you force your weight down, even when it’s uncomfortable. You aren’t listening to your appetite. You aren’t trying to settle into a comfortable body weight.
  • Reverse bulking is when you start listening to your appetite again. You let your calorie intake wander where it will, inevitably resulting in some weight loss. You aren’t forcing fat loss, you’re allowing fat loss.

What if You Lose 2–4 Pounds in a Single Week?

When you ease back on your bulking diet, you won’t have as much food winding its way through your digestive system. You won’t hold onto as much fluid. Your muscles won’t be as packed full of glycogen. It’s normal to flush out a few pounds, especially during the first week or two. Don’t panic. You aren’t losing muscle.

Is it Okay to Lose Strength?

Bulking diets are performance-enhancing. They flood you with energy and pack your muscles full of glycogen. When you stop eating so abundantly, it’s normal for your performance to go down in the gym. You might lose some reps on your lifts. That’s okay. As a rule of thumb, try to maintain at least 90% of your strength.

During my most recent bulk, I worked up to benching 225 for 15 reps per set. When I switched to reverse bulking, that went down to 12 reps per set. That doesn’t worry me. As soon as I go back to eating more, that strength will return.

You may have the opposite experience. If you keep training hard, you might gain strength, burning fat while building muscle. This is more common in people with hearty appetites. I don’t have one of those.

Is it Normal to Get Smaller?

It’s normal to get a bit smaller when reverse bulking. You’re sort of losing muscle, but not really. You aren’t losing contractile tissue, just glycogen. Your muscles aren’t packed full of as much water and sugar. You’re like a Ferrari that weighs less because it has less fuel in the tank. That’s not exactly a good thing, but some boons are only available while bulking.

A barbarian wallowing in self despair after bulking up. Illustrated by Shane Duquette.

How Much Weight Will You Lose?

When you reverse bulk, it’s common to lose around 10 pounds before settling into a comfortable new body weight. You may lose more or less. It all depends on how much weight you gained and how big your appetite is.

During my first bulk, I went from 130 to 150 pounds, moving from underweight to normal weight. I maintained all my muscle mass by doing two quick bodyweight workouts every week while eating a decent diet. I was still quite thin. My body clutched desperately at what little I’d given it.

During my last bulk, I climbed from 185 up to 205 pounds, popping me temporarily into the overweight category. After a few months of reverse bulking, I settled at 190 pounds, which feels great. My shirts don’t fit as snuggly anymore, but I have little use for them anyway.

Remember, you aren’t losing muscle; you’re just losing fat, gut contents, and glycogen. Your weight is going down on the scale, but that’s fine. I know it can seem like you’re moving backwards, but bulking is about gaining weight to facilitate muscle growth. The point isn’t to gain weight, it’s to build muscle. If you lose weight while maintaining your muscle mass, that’s great.

The End is the Beginning

At a certain point, your weight will settle. You’ll be in better shape than ever, you’ll have dropped down to a more natural body-fat percentage, and you’ll be on good terms with your appetite again. At that point, you can easily maintain your gains, provided you keep living a healthy lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle involves resistance training, being active, eating a good diet, avoiding vices, and getting enough sleep. All good things.

Perhaps not so long from now, when you’re lean and hungry again, you’ll decide to build more muscle. Your next bulk will be there waiting for you with open arms and an eager belly.

Photo showing the Bony to Beastly Bulking Program for Skinny and Skinny-Fat Guys

Alright, that’s it for now. If you want to know all the ins and outs of building muscle, we have a free newsletterIf you want a full foundational bulking program, including a 5-month full-body workout routine, gain-easy diet guide, recipe book, and online coaching, check out our Bony to Beastly Bulking Program. Or, if you want a customizable intermediate bulking program, check out our Outlift Program.

Shane Duquette is the founder of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell, each with millions of readers. He's gained seventy pounds and has over a decade of experience helping more than ten thousand naturally thin people build muscle. He also has a degree in design, but those are inversely correlated with muscle growth.

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36 Comments

  1. Danny on May 11, 2023 at 3:19 pm

    Great article Shane! Definitely something us hardgainers struggle with.

    Regarding the dieting advice, you say to not worry so much about protein intake, but most of the literature and articles I’ve read have stated you should keep protein high around the level of 1g/lb of bodyweight to preserve muscle mass and ensure most of your weight loss will be fat. What do you recommend?

    Also, I see you advise weight training at least twice a week while reverse bulking, but do you have an overall weekly volume recommendation that is necessary to preserve muscle while you’re maintaining or losing a bit of weight? For example, if somebody finished a bulk at 20 sets per body part per week, should they continue training in that same range, or is it OK to cut back to 10 sets, 5 sets, etc. to maintain those gains?

    • Shane Duquette on May 11, 2023 at 10:17 pm

      Hey Danny, awesome photography! Made me smile looking at all the smiles.

      When you’re cutting, it helps to keep protein intake relatively high. Around a gram of protein per pound bodyweight per day is a good target, yeah. However, when weight loss isn’t as aggressive and forced, not as many details need to be perfect to ensure muscle maintenance. If you’re eating according to your appetite, losing weight at a pace you don’t even notice, never feeling hungry, there isn’t nearly as much risk of losing muscle. Plus, you aren’t dropping your body-fat percentage below what it’s comfortable at.

      A balanced meal includes a source of protein (along with carbs, fat, and fibre). If you keep eating balanced meals, you’ll do great. The carbs and fat will help maintain muscle, too. You could swap some of those out for protein, if you prefer, but you shouldn’t need to.

      With training volume, I think you’ve got the right idea. If you’ve just finished a successful bulk, you already know how to train for muscle growth. When you switch to reverse bulking, you can keep training with the same volume or you could slowly scale it back. I usually keep up the training volume for a few weeks as my weight is going through larger fluctuations, and then I start scaling it back, as the weight loss slows or stops. When you scale the volume back, do it gradually, and keep track of how much you’re lifting. If you notice a lift getting progressively weaker, you know you need to step it up. If a lift is holding steady, you could keep scaling the volume back.

      Right now, I do Romanian deadlifts once per week, and I only work up to one tough set of 12–18 reps. With squats, I try to do them more like twice per week, for around 2 sets each workout. For my presses and pulls, I do 2–4 sets of dips and chin-ups (because I don’t need to set anything up or warm up). I know my arms are stubborn, so I usually toss in some curls and extensions. My volume is low, but I make up for it by training hard.

    • Shane Duquette on May 12, 2023 at 11:01 am

      I wanted to get some exact numbers for you, so I rooted through the research again. It seems that after a phase of building muscle, people can maintain their gains with about 1/9th-to-1/3rd of the training volume. This seems to hold true while in a casual calorie deficit. So if you were doing 20 sets per muscle group per week, you could confidently drop that down to 6 sets, and perhaps as low as 2 sets. Again, you’d want to keep track of your strength and adjust as needed. Everyone is a bit different, and some muscle groups may require more volume than others.

      I added these details, along with references, to the training section of the article.

    • Shane Duquette on May 13, 2023 at 12:49 pm

      I dug deeper into your protein question, too. And I confirmed it with Eric Trexler, PhD, and Eric Helms, PhD. I think they’ve done the best job of critically digging through the protein research.

      If you’re aiming for a protein target, you’d aim to eat at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound bodyweight per day while reverse bulking. I added the citation to the article.

      And, as you mentioned, if you were cutting more aggressively, you’d want to stick closer to a full gram per pound.

      • Danny on May 15, 2023 at 1:55 pm

        Shane,

        Thanks for the comments about the website, I’m flattered by your words and that you actually went and dug around there a bit!

        Thanks even more for the in-depth research and digging into the questions. Your diligence in getting out accurate and thorough information is awesome and worthy of a hearty handshake and salute!

        The advice you left is super detailed and makes sense, I will take note of it and adjust my training and nutrition accordingly.

        One of the frustrating things I’ve dealt with over the last 12 years of training has been feeling like I’m yo-yoing after doing a lengthy and productive 6-8 month bulk where I put on 12-20 pounds, then a 6-8 week cut of 10-15 pounds to shave off the fat that inevitably gets added during that time, but feeling like a lot of the hard earned muscle goes along with it. It seems like I’m stuck in the 200-205lb range with the same physique each bulking/cutting season.

        I’m sure a lot of it is just being an average natural trainee that doesn’t have superior genetics or pharmaceutical assistance, and perhaps I’m nearing my genetic potential with my 6’2 slender frame that is very similar to yours, so I might just have to adjust expectations a bit. It’s no big deal, I’m just grateful and blessed to be able to train as a 39 year old dad of three, and I’m primarily in it for the health-preserving reasons (although I’d be lying if I said I don’t want to be and look like a strong dad instead of a dad-bod dad!).

        I’ll continue along the path, as it’s my goal to be doing this for the rest of my life and not just my 20s-40s.

        • Shane Duquette on May 15, 2023 at 4:20 pm

          My pleasure, man! You raised some really good questions, and I think the article is much more helpful now. It’s been a great help.

          I hear you, man. In my latest bulk, I went from 185 pounds up to 205 pounds, and then after a few months of reverse bulking, I’m back at 190 pounds. It feels crazy that so much of the extra weight I gained was fat, fluid, gut contents, and extra glycogen. But then, looking at it another way, I managed to gain a good 5 pounds. I’m in a noticeable better position than I was this time last year, and that’s pretty cool.

          But it’s not like it used to be! My days of putting on huge amounts of muscle in relatively short periods of time seem to be behind me. You’re a similar size as me, and it sounds like you’re in a similar ship, fighting against a similar current.

          I’m really curious to see if this reverse bulking method helps you avoid the yo-yoing. If you can maintain your size and strength while reverse bulking, you won’t be starting from a deficit when you begin your next bulk. Maybe that will help you get and stay ahead.

          You could also add an extra step. You could bulk, then attempt a recomp, then do a reverse bulk. So you’d gain 15 pounds over 7 months, then spend 3 months attempting to gain muscle and strength while maintaining your body weight, then ease into a reverse bulk, letting your weight settle at a comfortable place again. The idea is that after bulking, your body-fat percentage is a bit higher, unlocking the potential to build muscle while losing fat.

          This post-bulk recomp is becoming popular with natural lifters pushing against their genetic potential. I’ve heard Jeff Nippard talk about it. I think Alex Leonidas and Geoffrey Verity Schofield have as well. I’ve been experimenting with it myself, too, though it’s hard to tell if it’s helping. I can’t promise anything. It’s easy to tell if it’s working, though. Just keep track of your strength. If you’re able to gain even a little bit of strength without gaining weight, keep going. (By gaining strength, I mean being able to lift more weight for the same number of reps OR being able to get more reps with the same amount of weight.)

          Another thing to try is bulking with slightly different methods. You can’t completely abandon hypertrophy training principles, but if you’ve been lifting heavy (4–12 reps) you could try bulking in a higher rep range (12–20 reps). If you’ve been favouring compound lifts, try favouring isolation lifts. If you’ve been getting stronger at certain exercises, try different ones. You could also try focusing on areas you haven’t ever focused on, such as your neck, calves, serratus, and forearms. Or specialising on certain areas, spending 4 months bulking up your arms, then another 4 months bulking up your torso, then 4 months on your legs. That way you’re able to train certain areas with much higher volume and effort than you’re used to. The idea isn’t to confuse your muscles, it’s just to develop different aspects of them, train different fibres, bulk up different areas.

          • Danny on May 30, 2023 at 3:33 pm

            We do sound like a similar size, in a similar ship, fighting against a similar current! The strategies for growth and variety going forward sound logical and reasonable, I’ll have to give em a whirl!



          • Shane Duquette on May 30, 2023 at 5:27 pm

            Ah, I see your videos! Props for that 450 deadlift! Looks sweet!



  2. Ezera Kebede on June 14, 2023 at 8:59 pm

    If I gained 10 pounds, how long does reverse bulking take before I have a comfortable appetite? Oh, and I already got rid of the water weight.

    • Shane Duquette on June 16, 2023 at 3:57 pm

      Hey Ezera, congrats on gaining those 10 pounds! That’s awesome.

      You can go back to listening to your appetite right away. Just keep lifting weights, keep eating a good diet, and keep living a good lifestyle. If you lose weight, you’ll lose fluid and fat. You don’t need to worry about it. Your muscle is yours to keep.

      • Mikias wondwosen on July 13, 2023 at 1:51 am

        Hey man. I want to know if this really works. I searched it up but found nothing about reverse bulking. I gained around 15 pounds from being skinny after 6 months. I don’t want to lose it, even though I suffer from eating. I just want to know if I should risk it or not.

        • Shane Duquette on July 13, 2023 at 8:02 am

          Hey Mikias,

          You can’t search for Reverse Bulking because, as far as I know, it’s a term we invented. I’ve asked a few hypertrophy researchers about it. They hadn’t heard of the concept either. I’m sure we aren’t the first people to think of it, but I don’t think it’s widely practiced.

          Reverse Bulking seems to work for 60–90% of naturally thinner people. As in, when we start listening to our appetites again, most of us naturally lose weight. If we keep resistance training, eating a balanced diet, and living a good lifestyle, we maintain our muscle mass while losing fat. If you can do those 3 things, there isn’t a risk of losing muscle.

          If you want to investigate that claim, you can look at studies investigating what happens to lifters during periods of modest calorie restriction. Most research shows they gain or maintain muscle while losing fat. This is the principle behind “cutting.”

          When Reverse Bulking doesn’t work, it’s because people don’t naturally eat in a calorie deficit, and so they fail to lose weight, failing to lose fat. You wouldn’t lose muscle, you’d just maintain your results instead of getting leaner and lighter.

          It sounds like you’re sick of overeating and would prefer to eat less. That means Reverse Bulking will probably work for you. Just keep lifting and living well as you do it.

  3. Killian Whatteker on July 19, 2023 at 1:45 pm

    how much time does spare body fat last with exercising so i know when to bulk again to gain another one?

    • Shane Duquette on July 22, 2023 at 9:10 am

      Hey Killian, I’m not quite understanding your question. Are you asking how long you need to reverse bulk until the fat melts away and you can bulk again? It depends how much fat you have and when your weight loss plateaus. It will be different for everyone. It usually takes 3–4 months for me.

  4. Killian Whatteker on July 19, 2023 at 1:47 pm

    how much time did it last for you?

  5. Ephrem on July 27, 2023 at 3:45 pm

    will you both lose muscle size and density of muscle when you stop working out, that if i was really skinny and gained around 20 pounds if i stop working out will i go back to really skinny again or just lose strength and definition and not lose size when i search it up it only mentions when they stop working out they will be fat and everything.

    • Shane Duquette on July 28, 2023 at 10:20 am

      Hey Ephrem, I had that same way of thinking.

      I wanted to build muscle for a few months, and then go back to leading my old lifestyle. By the time I finished gaining those 20 pounds, though, I’d gotten into the habit of regular exercise. I’d gotten used to eating a better diet. I was looking and feeling better. I didn’t want to go back to my old sedentary lifestyle.

      If you gain 20 pounds and then stop exercising, you’ll be in a better position than if you never lifted weights at all, but you’ll gradually lose the muscle you gained, and then you’ll continue losing more muscle, winding up skinnier than when you started. However, the weight training will have bought you some time. It will take you longer to reach that point of decrepitude. Such is life. If we age without exercise, we gradually lose muscle, getting weaker with every decade, and eventually becoming physically infirm in old age.

      Most people accumulate fat if they age without exercise. That’s not true of everyone, though. Many guys with our naturally skinny body type remain skinny as they age. Some, though, become skinny fat. Again, if you go through a period of exercising and resistance training, it well delay that natural decline. It will take longer for that to happen to you.

      Muscle doesn’t turn into fat. In fact, it wards off fat. Physical inactivity and overeating is what causes fat gain. That’s why people who stop working out start gaining fat. The muscle they gained helps, but not enough.

      Ideally, you’d gain those 20 pounds by training rigorously, and then you’d ease back into a more comfortable exercise routine that allows you to maintain your muscle, fitness, and health. If you can do that, you can expect to keep your muscle size, density, and strength well into your seventies.

      Note that lifting weights isn’t the only form of exercise that can keep you muscular, fit, lean, and strong. If you’re talking about bulking up with weights, then going back to a lifestyle of running and calisthenics, that’s a whole different thing. You can maintain your physique very easily with that.

  6. David Cunnigham on August 1, 2023 at 7:52 pm

    Hey, how much time after using reverse bulking can you expect to lose muscle?

    • Shane Duquette on August 12, 2023 at 11:04 am

      Hey David, I wouldn’t expect to lose muscle while reverse bulking. As long as you keep lifting weights, eating well, and living a good lifestyle, you should maintain your muscle just fine indefinitely.

  7. David Cunnigham on August 2, 2023 at 3:31 pm

    Or is it permanent?

    • Shane Duquette on August 12, 2023 at 11:05 am

      It isn’t quite permanent. The worms and beetles will eventually eat it.

  8. David.c on August 15, 2023 at 10:44 pm

    What do you mean on the last one? Thanks.

    • Shane Duquette on August 16, 2023 at 9:43 am

      I was just saying nothing is permanent. The muscle we build is fairly durable, though. As long as you keep exercising it and eating a good diet, your body will be happy to maintain your muscle mass into your 60s and 70s. From there, the decline tends to be slow.

  9. Lee.E on August 19, 2023 at 10:58 pm

    So from what you said does it mean i dont have to worry about calories at all?

    • Shane Duquette on August 28, 2023 at 10:31 am

      It means you can return to listening to your appetite, letting it guide you towards a sustainable calorie intake.

  10. Lee.E on August 20, 2023 at 3:24 pm

    Sorry about this, but does reverse bulking only work if you gain weight excessive because in the article you mention “chances are you already have if you’ve just finished bulking, you’ve got some spare body fat you can feed into the furnace.” and all i have to do is just keep exercising right.

    • Shane Duquette on August 28, 2023 at 10:34 am

      Most people gain a little bit of fat while bulking. Not always enough to notice, but usually at least a little. That isn’t true for everyone, though.

      Reverse bulking doesn’t work for everyone. It’s best for people who have just finished bulking and are sick of needing to eat so much.

      I recommend continuing to eat a nutritious balanced diet, just in the amounts your appetite tells you to eat, stopping when full. And, yeah, continuing to train. Not just haphazardly, but fairly rigorously, at least while your weight and calorie intake are levelling out. That will give you a better shot at maintaining all your muscle mass as you find a new equilibrium.

  11. Jacob lashana on February 5, 2024 at 10:12 am

    Does reverse diet work after dirty bulking? Cause you said it will burn the fat and glycogen.

    • Shane Duquette on February 5, 2024 at 11:45 am

      Hey Jacob. Yep! Reverse bulking works great after dirty bulking. The more calories you were eating while bulking, and the more fat you gained, the more you can benefit from reverse bulking.

  12. Estifanos on March 16, 2024 at 1:38 pm

    Am i able to maintain my body weight by 0.8 per Kilogram

    • Shane Duquette on March 16, 2024 at 1:42 pm

      Hey Estifanos, I’m not quite sure what you mean. Can you rephrase?

  13. Estifanos on March 16, 2024 at 3:36 pm

    Am I able to maintain my bodyweight by eating 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram.

    • Shane Duquette on March 16, 2024 at 4:15 pm

      Ah! Sorry, I understand now.

      0.8 grams of protein per kilo per day is the minimum amount needed to support a sedentary lifestyle. It’s about half of what you need to maximize your rate of muscle growth. To maintain your muscle while lifting weights and being active, you need something between those two numbers. I bet that’s closer to 1.2g/kg/day.

      There’s another way to find out, though. Keep lifting weights, keep being active, keep eating well, keep getting enough sleep, and try eating 0.8g/kg of protein for a few weeks. You’ll know you’re doing well if you can maintain your strength on your lifts. If you can’t, try eating a little more protein.

      The other thing to watch out for is that if you’re in a calorie deficit (losing weight), that can also make it harder to maintain muscle, especially if you aren’t eating much protein. So if you find yourself losing strength, check to see how much weight you’re losing, too.

      If it were me, I’d do a reverse bulk while eating closer to 1.6g/kg, wait for my weight to stabilize, and THEN experiment with a lower protein intake. That way, calories won’t be a issue. Mind you, I’m not particularly diligent with my protein intake unless I’m bulking. I suspect I eat too little protein fairly regularly while reverse bulking. It hasn’t ever ruined my life.

  14. Ryan Greene on March 26, 2024 at 1:28 pm

    This is an outstanding and encouraging article Shane! Thank you so much! I am right in the category that you have described. I have just concluded a four year bulk and am at the perfect body fat percentage to relax and maintain a new equilibrium. I will still do my protein-based mass gain shake with healthy ingredients for a while as I still eat good food. I will focus more on whole unprocessed foods though and at the right time not have to drink my shake as often. My training in the gym will remain the same. Thank you so much for the assurance that this article has provided me. God bless you!

    • Shane Duquette on March 26, 2024 at 3:15 pm

      A four YEAR bulk?! Whoa! Nice job, man!

      Good luck with the Reverse Bulk! I hope it’s a nice break from overeating for so long.

      • Ryan Greene on March 26, 2024 at 3:58 pm

        Thank you!!!

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