Strategy for returning to previous best shape after long layoff

Hi,

Please read entirety to fully understand the situation.

I want to look like I did in my profile pic and most recent progress photos, which were taken 7-8 years ago.

At that point in time I weighed about 175 lbs, and had been training seriously for 3 years.

After this peak in approx 2015, I quit lifting until 2020.

In 2020 I did a year long cut from 210 down to 165, at a rate of 1lb lost per week, and found that my muscle mass was nowhere near what it was in my profile pic. There seemed to be no 'muscle memory' of the peak state.

This led to me 'giving up' (part due to serious depression) and during 2021, I didn't exercise at all and returned to my current weight.

Now I am 205 lbs and want to lose fat again, but without the tragic low muscle mass that killed my motivation last cut. I want to get my mass back to where it was in the 175 lb profile pic without ever having to dip below 175.

What should I do strategically to get to this goal? I notice that I am potentially in the ideal camp for a dramatic recomp.

Should I perhaps do a maintenance recomp here at 205lbs until my strength levels get close to the profile pic strength levels, and only afterwards cut?

Or should I cut again but much more slowly, like only a 100-200 calorie deficit this time?

Or do you think my only choice is to cut to well below 175, and only regain muscle once in a massing phase? My 2020 cut proved that on a 500 calorie deficit I was not able to come anywhere near regaining the muscle mass of the profile pic, so I am very fearful of repeating that.


Potential reasons my 2020 cut resulted in low muscle mass at the end:

1. I think I was getting closer to 0.7g protein per lb instead of a better number like 1g per lb.

2. I lost strength consistently throughout the cut perhaps because I switched philosophies from High Intensity + Low Volume (the philosophy of profile pic me) to a Lower Intensity + High Volume philosophy (more along the lines of Renaissance Periodization).

3. Depression and anxiety

4. The sheer overall length of the diet. Even though I took long maintenance periods to recover from diet fatigue throughout 2020, it ultimately was still a year straight of no caloric surplus, which did hell to my psychology.

Cheers everyone. Please help me get back to a respectable physique.


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