Nick – great question man I believe there is a lot of merit to that and it goes back to always having a goal. My goal will be as I go through this process to document and place pictures side by side. Theoretically every time I drop and come back up to a weight previously at my look should be better ideally creating more of an anabolic environment due to all variables involved. (Hormones, sleep, recovery, insulin sensitivity ect.) again this is all learning for me which is why I do it, if it goes wrong I will continue to keep it updated. In terms of an exact answer of holding a weight if I am stronger in 3 months at the same exact weight I am now then I believe I’ve “held” the quality tissue of that weight very well!
I too like you in winter of last year was pushing good so hard it was impacting my training for the worse so that’s when I regrouped. My goal was to hold 260 so bad and what it was taking to do that my body simply wasn’t ready for yet. My body wanted to hold about 248 and based off of how easy my dieting was the first 6 weeks I do believe I was effective in continuing to make that weight better!