How to do body recomposition, step by step

Maintenance is the number of calories that holds your current weight steady, and it is the anchor every other step is measured against, so estimate it before touching any deficit. This whole protocol is one chapter of the wider body recomposition guide.

There are two ways to get it. A bodyweight-and-height formula gives you a starting estimate instantly, or a guess-and-check method tracks two weeks of intake and weight change to back-calculate it from your real response. A formula gives you a number today but is generic; guess-and-check is tuned to your body but takes about two weeks. Either is fine as long as you end up with a believable maintenance figure.

Maintenance is a moving target, not a fixed number. It shifts with changing body composition, daily movement, and metabolic factors, which is why you re-check it instead of trusting the first estimate forever. Get your maintenance estimate from the TDEE calculator, then carry that number into Step 2 as the baseline you subtract from.

Set intake at 5 to 15 percent below maintenance. This is the recomposition window: deep enough to drive fat loss, shallow enough that you keep the energy and recovery to build muscle. A small deficit is deliberate. Large cuts force the body to pull from lean tissue and tank training performance, which sabotages the muscle side of recomposition.

Percent-of-maintenance beats a flat 500-calorie cut. The old 3,500-calories-per-pound rule overestimates real-world loss because metabolism adapts as you diet, so a fixed number drifts off target. Higher-body-fat or skinny-fat people can sit toward the upper end of the window and prioritize fat loss first, because a large fat reserve still fuels muscle growth in a deficit.

Lean, already-trained lifters are the exception: a deficit blunts their already-slow muscle gain, so they are usually better served by a dedicated cut or a lean bulk than by recomposition. Let the recomposition calculator turn your maintenance number and starting body fat into the exact deficit target for your case.

Hold protein at 1.6 to 2.2 g per kg of bodyweight per day. This is the non-negotiable floor that lets you lose fat while keeping and building muscle in a deficit. Protein does triple duty for recomposition: it supplies the amino acids that build muscle, it is the most filling macro so a deficit feels easier, and it costs the most energy to digest.

Prioritize complete protein sources that carry all nine essential amino acids. Animal sources pack the most muscle-building punch per gram; vegans can hit the same target by pairing sources or using a rice-and-pea blend. The amino acid leucine is the trigger for muscle protein synthesis, and the per-meal threshold to maximize that response runs around 0.045 g of leucine per kg of bodyweight.

Set your daily gram target with the protein calculator, then carry that number into the macro split in Step 4.

Protein is locked from Step 3. The remaining calories in your deficit target get divided between carbohydrate and fat, which is what a macro split does. Carbohydrate is the priority of the two leftovers because it fuels training performance, and harder training is what actually drives the muscle growth side of recomposition.

Do not strip fat to zero. Dietary fat is needed to support natural anabolic hormone levels, including testosterone, and very low-fat intakes can suppress them and hinder progress. Spread your daily protein across 4 to 6 meals roughly 3 to 5 hours apart so each feeding triggers muscle protein synthesis, rather than skewing it all into one or two large meals.

Build the full daily split, protein plus carbs plus fat, with the macro calculator so the numbers add up to your Step 2 calorie target.

Recomposition shows up as a roughly flat scale while shape changes, so a single daily weigh-in lies. Watch the weekly bodyweight trend instead, plus the mirror, strength in the gym, and tape measurements. Because the scale stays near flat, body fat percentage, lean mass, and waist measurements are your real progress signals. Read change the scale hides with the body fat calculator and a waist-to-height ratio check.

Expect the first visible change around 8 to 12 weeks, a clear before-and-after near 6 months, and substantial change over 6 to 12 months. This is a slow build by design, not a quick cut.

Adjust off the trend, not off one bad day. If the weekly trend and measurements stall in the wrong direction, nudge calories by re-running Step 1 and Step 2, since maintenance drifts as your body changes. Hold the protein floor steady through every adjustment. You change calories by moving carbs and fat, not by cutting the protein that protects your muscle.