Reverse diet or straight to maintenance after cut : r/leangains

I know what calories I need to maintain certain weight. Should I reverse +100cals/day every week or go like +500cals/day instantly and then reach my maintenance or go straight to my maintenance, which at this point is +1000cals/day?

how long was the cut, how accurately do you track, how likely are you to binge, are you going to change training/cardio/activity, how active are you in general, how tough was your diet, etc. These are all things to be considered – but generally, the advice is to get to maintenance as quickly and accurately as you can safely (without binging/mental problems that comes with bloat/extra glycogen/etc.)

All reverse dieting is, is a way of slowly creeping up to maintenance so bodybuilding competitors don’t fall into binge behavior, gain 30lbs and ruin their rebound. 500 cals a day is just a faster form of reverse dieting. There’s no magic in it

I think that reverse dieting is mostly a myth. Simply go back to maintenance, you’ll be fine.

This article gives a pretty good step by step tutorial on how to go back to your new maintenance:

If you know what your maintenance is then go straight to maintenance. There’s no point in still being in a deficit if you don’t want to lose weight anymore.

I disagree a bit, depending on how severe a jump you make from cut to maintenance, you’ll likely end up retaining a lot of sodium and water and end up being bloated for a week. I’d rather do like a 100 calorie increase every 3-4 days, and take two weeks to get up to maintenance.