Should I eat less on rest days?
Why you might want to rethink calorie cycling
βWhat should my macros be on rest days?β
This is a pretty frequent question we get asked by new clients, and our answer may surprise you.
There is no fancy magic formula for differentiating macros on rest days versus days you lift.
Unless you're an endurance athlete logging multiple hours per session, your day-to-day calorie burn isnβt swinging enough to require different macro targets.
But if you are in maintenance, fat loss, or a muscle building phase, here are the 4 reasons why we keep our targets the same day to day, regardless of whether you are lifting or not π
1. PSYCHOLOGY
Nutrition is confusing enough as it is. Layer on the human psyche? It can become overwhelming.
If you start trying to get nitpicky about changing your macros by 25g of carbs depending on whether you're working out or not, you're eventually going to run into the situation where you had planned to work out, and life be lifing, and you missed your workout for the day, yet you ate your "workout day macros."
Then what? Are you not going to eat tomorrow when you do lift? What do you do? Do you start pacing around your house like a crazed rat to start working off those carbs?
Absolutely not.
2. We donβt live in a vacuum
Another misconception is that strength training burns a significant amount of calories per hour, which is generally not the case if you're following a more typical hypertrophy program.
We don't live in a vacuum. So, what are you doing on your rest days? Errands and chores such as vacuuming the house or taking the dogs for a longer walk?
It's unlikely that there is a significant difference in calorie expenditure on your rest days compared to your strength training days.
And certainly not enough of a difference to warrant an adjustment to your calorie range.
3. leaves gains on the table
We know that Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS, a.k.a. the process by which we build muscle) can stay elevated for up to 48 hours after a workout.
This means that if we have two rest days after our last workout of the week and donβt eat sufficiently on those rest days, weβll be cutting our muscle gains short and blunting recovery resources.
Hint hint: this is also why in a calorie surplus we like to eat a little more every day of the week, to maximize our muscle gains.
4. creates weight flux
Undulating calories, especially carbs, can create unnecessary and/or confusing weight fluctuations.
Because each gram of carbohydrate can carry 3-4 grams of water in the body, just a 50g shift in carbohydrate intake from the day prior can create upwards of a 2 lb weight fluctuation on the scale when you go back to lifting and eating your normal range of calories again.
We, especially women, already have significant weight flux due to a variety of factors, and amplifying it by adding and subtracting carbs for your workouts and rest days will only hinder the ability to review data to identify tangible trends.
The Takeaway:
Unless you're in a performance maintenance phase, there's no reason to have different macro targets on different days of the week.
You're just creating unnecessary stress on the body and adding complexity where it's not needed.
When we layer calorie cycling on top of an already complex lifestyle, we create whatβs known in behavioral science as 'decision fatigue.' The more decisions you must make, the more likely you are to fall off plan.
At EPN, we believe progress is built on consistency, not complexity. Simple, repeatable actions beat complicated strategies every time.
