@te15 Although there is a lot of "
it depends" in the answer to op's question. I wouldn't say
"There is no such rule".
Feeling slow or sluggish is not a good indicator of when someone should bulk or cut, although bulking badly to get obese will give these symptoms. In general, sluggishness can be due to
low testosterone or hormone imbalance or due to a myriad of things, e.g. just lacking sleep, cns fatigue etc. Adding cardio is a vague statement. General cardio like running is gonna be counterproductive to fat loss. You ideally need brisk walking or slow jogging might work, but again medium intensity or too much HIT cardio is gonna slow your metabolism and cns fatigue.
In terms of diet, you are correct. People usually go off the rails and eat either way too much or just shitty processed food. Keeping to natural foods is always best and keeping fat and protein fixed and then just adding carbs(carb cycling) is very good to do lean bulk.
Last point in a bulk cardio is ok.
---------------------
For the rule, Mike Israetael has very good info on this. In general one should lean bulk to the point where they have a slight outline to their abs. Once you can't see your abs at all, it is time for a cut. Now this was the general answer.
Technically for optimal results, one should lean bulk upto 15-17% bf percentage max, this is where pretty much everyone loses their abs. From their one should cut down to 10-12% bf. The reason for this is at around 12% bf males have most optimal hormonal profile. E.g. if you get obese, generally you are gonna have high estrogens.
Now the
it depends part. Everyone is not in ideal circumstance, life happens. E.g. someone(male) who's done a crash diet with maintenance calories at 1800-2000 cals is in a stuffed up situation. Let's say that guy is at 15% bf -- no way on earth he
can or should do a cut phase. So in real life, one should lean bulk upto the point where they feel like "Heck I can't eat more", at that point they can easily cut down on calories and continue the cut upto the point where they go "man I am Hungary all the time". With a few years bulk/cut cycles they will put on some muscle mass and their maintenance call will be around 2500-2700 cals.
OP's situation. 82kg to 88kg in 3 months is very bad -- 2kg in a month!! Every month at max you could have put on half kg muscle. The problem is now you gotta run a hard cut phase, where you will lose some muscle. Now generally you should cut around 0.5% to 1% per week. So the first few weeks you should go for 1%, which for you is 1kg per week. But be careful, only first few weeks, because your body is primed for fat lose atm. After that go for half a kilo max, even better 1/4kg a week. Get back to 82kg again and then go maintenance for a month and then lean bulk around 0.5kg a month.
For your(OP's) knowledge, watch Mike Israetael, Jeff Nippard, Mind pump show or Sean Naelwanyj. Even Reddit has a lot of info already. There has been some research on P-ratio, which measure how much lean mass can you gain at a given bf percentage. In other words at what bf percentage one should bulk
