Q: Hi Mike

I am on the verge of completing my cut and i was wondering how much
protein, carbs and fat i should consume post cut to allow for lean muscle
gaining. Also should I still do some cardio?

I plan on lean gaining for at least the next 6-10 months, I am estimating
to weigh around 60kg at the end of my cut and my height is 167cm. I feel i am carb sensitive

Please advise
Cheers

A: The easiest way to transition from a cut diet to a bulk diet is to simply up your daily calories by about 500-700 most (or even al) of which should come from carbs with the rest split about evenly between protein and fats. After that you'd simply keep track of your weight and stay on track to gain about 1 kilo per month. Just ignore the first few days of new diet during which you'll probably gain a couple of pounds of water weight due to new calories and start keeping track after that happens. You'll almost certainly have to keep increasing calories (again, mostly in the form of carbs) every month or two months to keep gaining weight and muscle mass

If you don't have any strict diet now that you could use as a baseline to increase calories from, you could use http://www.mikesfitness.com/content/fitnessguide to get a starting point. But again, it will be up to you to monitor your weight and increase calories if you don't gain any weight in a period of 3-4 weeks. Similarly, if by chance you notice that you are gaining weight too quickly, you'll want to reduce the calories slightly. Weigh yourself every few days (best time is in the mornings, after using the restroom and before eating or drinking anything) but don't make calorie adjustments too often -- your weight will naturally fluctuate up and down from day to day, but after 3-4 weeks the pattern should be obvious.

You mentioned you are carb sensitive... A lot of people who have never bulked up before (and especially those who lost a lot of weight and are now worried about gaining it back) feel that way, but the truth is that without generous amount of carbs it will be very hard to impossible to gain much muscle. The key is to keep your diet extra clean. Everyone is sensitive to dirty carbs, but if you eat clean, work out hard, and keep your weight gain nice and slow (1 kilo per month) then all those new carbs will just translate into new muscle mass and not fat. Make sure to read http://www.mikesfitness.com/content/nutrition if you are not sure what foods are considered "clean".

Finally, as far as cardio... Traditional endurance cardio (i.e. running at a steady pace for 30 minutes) is actually counterproductive on a bulk, but not terribly so. So many people just choose to eat more calories and keep cardio for general health reasons. Alternatively you could stick to HIIT cardio (search for it on my site if you are not familiar with it -- the search box is in upper right) which actually aligns well with building muscle mass.