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Does the 500+ calorie each day (even off days) apply if you only lift twice a week? As of right now, I lift three times a week, but am switching over to twice a week, so I can focus more on the cardio I need for my training on the other days. I've been eating an extra 500 calories on top of my diet each day in hopes of gaining some muscle. Now that I'll be dropping to two days a week, how should I modify my calorie intake?

Also, is the 500+ calorie rule based on the average 180lb male or if not, what weight was 500 calories originally based on?

That post is almost completely indecipherable. I get the 500 calorie part. I have no idea what you are trying to say on the rest of it though. So I will just answer for all possibilities.

You eat 500 calories over maintenance to gain weight and 500 under to lose. You do this every day. This is just an extremely general guideline though. It is not based on weight or anything like that. It's just what you try first. Then you adjust from there depending on the results you get. Generally your calorie addition and subtraction should mostly be carbs.

Now your maintenance level is based on weight, but not the 500 thing. You eat 500 over or under everyday, at least until you are done bulking or cutting.

Personally, I think you should pick either one or the other too focus on. You really shouldn't try and build muscle and work on extra cardio at the same time because most people will just burn themselves out. You could still do cardio while trying to build muscle (although I'm sure some on here would disagree), but adding extra cardio will make it pretty hard to do so. Perhaps maintaining the current level of muscle or going at a slower level of bulking might be a more reasonable goal if you plan on doing massive cardio.

But if you do still try to bulk and add more cardio, by all means, eat a lot more.

What are you training for?

Don't worry yourself too much about the calories, just eat when hungry then throw a couple of reasonably high calorie drinks or snacks in - I personally use a protein shake with double cream or random portions of cheese.

But it depends *shrug* if you are 5 years in and training for jousting at the local medieval faire things get different...

Would agree with the cardio part too - I'd limit it to 20 minutes if for some reason I was bulking and maintaining cardio (which I wouldn't, but my goals don't involve cardio endurance so...)

So I'll make this clear. I guess I was organizing my thoughts and made it difficult to understand what I was trying to explain.

I originally trained days a week (3x3hrs cardio and 3x3hrs weights), now I want to switch to 5 days a week (3x3hrs cardio and 2x1.5hrs weights). I would always add 500 calories a day for lifting, 500 calories on my off and an additional 500 to whatever I burned on cardio days. Now that I'm taking an additional day off is it better to eat more on the 5 days I list and just do maintenance calories on off days or eat a set amount of the same calories each day or...?

I'm wondering how the 500 calories came to a conclusion. What weight is it based on? What I said earlier was I was guessing it was based on the average 180lb male. If I know this then I can work out the calories for my weight from there.

Overall, I want to stay lean. If I gain muscle very slowly, I'm ok with that. I train martial arts, so I want to be somewhat skinny so I I'm quick, but I don't want to be pushed around either.

The 500 calories is just something to try first and see how it works out for you. You tune it from there. I guess it depends on why you are doing the cardio. If you are doing it to maintain weight, you really don't have to do all that. Now if you do the cardio for fun, or your sport, then you should eat more. If you are doing a zig-zag type thing you might want to have a bigger calorie difference. There are a few different methods that will work. It kind of depends on what you want to do. Like eating more to make up for an activity you do for example.