+ 43 Structuring cutting diet for continual fat loss
On the surface, dieting to lose fat sounds pretty simple and for the most part it is….burn up more calories than you consume and you will lose weight. The tricky part of dieting comes in to keep the fat loss occurring after a prolonged period time, especially when you are getting into the lower bodyfat ranges. Let’s look at a 16 or 20 week prep for example.
Now, there are many dieting principles that you can employ when starting your diet. I am not going to get into the specifics of how to do these diets, but what I want to touch on is when to employ the various principles to sustain fat loss and maximize retention of lean body mass. So, essentially the most popular dieting principles that I use would be:
- Decrease cals by eliminating carbs as plateaus are reached . For example: https://www.eroids.com/forums/newbie-corner/diet/your-first-cutting-diet
- Keep a calorie deficit and cycle carbs (i.e. high carb day a low carb days)
Here is how I would be employing these techniques for my 20wk prep.
Detox first
Usually when I start my cut I am going straight from a bulk into my cut/prep. I often times feel bloated, my insulin sensitivity is decreased and I have a lot of free radicals floating around and some inflammation from all of the food and various carbs I have been eating in excess. So clean your system out and reboot so you are starting with a clean slate for your cut. There are lots of detox programs out there, but you can PM me if you want to know what I use.
Starting My Cut
When I start my cut, I knock off 500 calories from my TDEE. Weight will drop off pretty fast for the first month or so. Once the weight starts to slow down, then I will slowly add in cardio. Usually 3-4 spin bike sessions a week is enough to keep the weight dropping by 1.5-2lbs/wk. Once that slows, I add in more cardio. Now I may be up to 5-6 sessions/wk. Once it slows again, now add in more cardio. By now I am up to 7+ cardio sessions/wk. Once the weight loss slows again, I will then start cutting cals. Remember these cuts in the calories come from drops in the amount of carbs being consumed. Now I have to make a decision. Can I safely drop more cals(carbs) without dipping too far below my BMR and burning up muscle? Many times I can’t so I am now at the minimum cals (carbs) that my body needs to sustain my current output without burning up a lot of muscle mass. Some people can just keep cutting carbs until they are super low and they are fine with that. I can only cut my carbs so much though, before it becomes really hard for me to even function so after a couple of drops in the carbs I move on to carb cycling to keep the fat loss rolling. Ride your carb drops as far as you can take them though.
Time to cycle carbs
Once my carbs get low enough that it becomes hard for me to function I move on to carb cycling. I am now at the minimum cals I need to maintain my current workload (weight training and cardio) and carbs to even function so carb cycling becomes important at this point. I don’t go crazy with the carb cycling to begin with. I bump my carbs back up to the point where they were when I first started dropping them. That level is what I call my high carb day. This may be about 3x the amount of carbs I was previously consuming after all of my carb drops (yes, my calories will be a little higher on these days because of the additional carbs but they are still below my TDEE. These extra cals are a good thing though to help rev up the metabolism). My low carb days will be the amount of carbs I was consuming after all of my previous carb drops. (For me this works out to be about 150g for high days and 50 for low days). I’ll start out with like 1 high carb day followed by 2 low days and do it like that for as long as I am dropping fat. You’ll notice that throwing that high carb day in there will fire up the metabolism and this is what is spurring on the fat loss now. Once I start hitting a plateau, now I’ll go 3 days low and 1 high and then 4 days low and 1 high and so on to keep the fat loss going. 5 low days in a row is the most I would take it before getting in your high carb day. Just a little tip here, try to focus your weak body part or legs on your high carb day.
By the time 20wks are up, I should now be below 5% BF and ready for peak week preparation.
To sum it up
Hopefully I got my point across with that jumble of words above, but here is the general process:
- Start in a cal deficit
- Implement cardio and bump up cardio sessions as plateaus occurs
- Once cardio sessions are maxed out, start cutting carbs/cals until they can’t be lowered any more
- Implement Carb cycling
- Bookmark
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CloUSMCThank you for this. Very good knowledge. Do you have a cheat day usually?
I usually don't have a planned cheat day. I have enough accidental cheat days that I don't need to plan it. Walking by that box of Lucky Charms every morning or the bag of doritos sitting on the counter breaks me sometimes and I just pig out on it. I call them refeed days, sounds better than cheat day
I hope this is not to vague, as I've seen just how hyper-specific guys get on some subjects I these forums. My lack of specificity or details is directly correlated to my experience level, if that helps. I'll firm up the part about my diet here now. I eat a small bfast at around 7am every day of mostly shitty carbs, but only about 400 cals worth....I then eat a large bowl of raw fresh veggies, like broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, cabbage, Bella mushrooms and baby carrots. This takes me a couple of hours to accomplish and I do it while driving my installer routes for work. At about 12:30pm I then eat a large 6oz tuna sandwich with mayo, pickle, 21 whole grain bread, two small thin sliced swiss or mozzarella cheese and mustard for meal number 3 and 4... I do another identical sandwich at about 4:30pm which is meal 4... each sandwich contains about 550-600 cals going strictly by what the labels say. At about 6:50pm I take a full dose of creatine HCl (concrete brand, so two tiny scoops worth) I then start a superset workout at 7pm after work which entails using resistance bands, 3 or 4 different exercises and 5 to 7 minutes of stairs in-between super sets, repeat that 4 or 5 times for a total of about 1 hour to 1:15. I also do 25 minutes of core work and 35 minutes of stairs starting at 5:30am, prior to my morning meal and going to work. Immediately after finishing my 7pm one hour routine I drink a protein shake made with isolate protein powder and 6ozs of 2% milk and 14ozs of water, well shaken...the shake and milk is approximately 350 cals. I occasionally double up on the shake if I'm really hungry, this happens usually about 2x per week. That's it for caloric intake. It amounts to an average of about 2400 cals per day and about 150 -to- 175 grams of protein daily. Carb to protein intake is almost one for one with about 15% fats...I think it's all fairly good fats and carbs as I've been thoroughly indoctrinated I to the whole glycemic index thing and know the perils of sugars, highly or ultra processed carbs, the problems associated with chemical and other unnatural food additives, as I follow the blood type diet regimen pretty close. In short, I'm doing alot and I'm getting results but I want to super charge it all....I think anyway. This is why I need support and guidance from someone else who has been through this that is like me or similar to me.
Now.....here is what I wrote on the beginners forum but got no response....it's what I want....
jrs.switzr02d ago
I'm looking for advice on how to get started with the right products that will best help me achieve the results I'm looking for. I'm 56, 6'3", 198lbs, about 15% body fat. I have lost 40lbs over the past 18mos. I've gained a fair amount of muscle over this time frame as I've toned up and the effects of my diet (mostly) and my consistent work out routine are very noticeable as I've already lost about 4 inches off my waist to a 34.5" waist while maintaining a chest measurement of about 45 inches. I get alot of compliments from people regarding the way I look and that's encouraging but I'm not where I want to be.
They still are saying that I look really good for my age and to me I'm not really at the point where I am happy until it's just them telling me that I look great, not just for my age.
I'm shooting for optimum shape....I'm shooting for lower body fat, better muscularity and definition and the best possible "ratios" possible for my frame. I have a pretty decent understanding of nutrition and can stick to a diet that is setup correctly for the amount of activity I undergo in a day, which is a lot. I currently workout 1 hour I the early morning, 25 minutes of core work and 35 minutes of cardio, then again at night I mix super sets of resistance band push and pull exercises with interval stair running for an hour or a little more than an hour. I don't suffer from lack of will power, energy or drive. I need directions on how to use test and HGH in order to get the results I'm looking for and I want to do it at an affordable price. Please offer the advice you feel I need. I'm open to anything.
Please offer me some kind of advice in the form of direction or step by step, or just a referral to where I can find what I'm looking for....or, best case scenario, you help me with actual real live instructions on what to order, from where, how much to use, when and guidance as to all other elements of a "program" that will get me looking good, physically very healthy and yet both affordable and manageable for someone such as myself who has been athletic most of my life and involved with weight training, nutrition and such, but is now trying to take it up a couple of notches....but not willing to make stupid mistakes. This forum came highly recommended by someone who I trust and whose own results show that what he did worked. I'm not trying to be a competition bodybuilding guy, but I want to get ripped and lower bodyfat and feel good, strong and just overall healthy.
Please help
Perfect
This is brilliant , so much useful info on here. Will definitely be making use of this.
Respect Makwa, great info.
hi,
Once I went to a nutritionist to lose weight but after a while I started to feel exhausted,
Is there a supplementary food/drink to assist body during diet and exercise time.
Just what I was looking for thank you
AnonThank you for referring this article/ link to me in my recent thread, this was an incredibly helpful read. I have two questions though. On non-training days for the first half of the diet (before implementing carb cycling), how would you run your cals on non-training days? Would you cut anything or just keep caliriesnthe sane as they were on training days? Also I’m assuming you run the same macro split of 45/35/20 protein/carb/fat for this diet as well?
Thank you Sir.
Give them a vote if you find it helpful.PermalinkI really don't change my eating on non-training days. Everything is pretty much the same. When I am balls deep into it though, there really are no non-training days. I am either weight training or doing cardio, so in the gym all the time.
You want to start with your carbs as high as practical and the ratio will change as you hit plateaus because you will be taking out carbs and replacing with protein and fat.
I’m working with a new diet plan structured around keto. Running basically a VLCD with with 30g of carbs a day. 5meals a day between 200-300 cals a day. Zero cardio and 60min of weights 4 days a week. 14 days in and down 22lbs. Amazing what diet alone can do.
This was extremely informative thank you makwa.
basskiller89Solid advice
I'm starting a carb cycle to try and lose 4lbs over the next 6 weeks
BUMP!!!!!
AWESOME information
Great post.
PowahDaveThe premise of making 1 small change to bump past a plateau when the body adapts is great. You can physically feel the difference when you get the body going once more when losing fat like that
Very good post
WOW this is fantastic man. I totally understand what your saying as I actually feel what you are doing currently. thanks so much bro!
Great stuff as usual mak +1
Very well written as always Makwa!
I have learned so much from reading your posts, you my man definitely deserve a Guru tag.
Fuck yes, so much great info. Will be implementing this on my cut, as I am just beginning at week 19. I started out doing 6 sessions of 300 Cals a week for cardio but maybe I should tone it down that way I can add it for later when it's really needed. Since I'm so early into the cut. Thank you makwa!
I often jump the gun on my cardio a little bit sometimes also. Always thinking I need to lose that fat NOW. But, I think you can damage your metabolism by implementing too much cardio right away just like you can damage it if you cut your cals to drastically right away. Throw all your cardio at once into the ring and you have nothing left to throw in the ring when you hit a plateau. That is one of the reasons I like to do a 20wk prep. Cals can be gradually decreased and cardio can be gradually increased. Seems to spare alot more lean body mass that way.
I appreciate your guidance, and steering me away from risking my health... Going to follow your advice 100%. Looking forward to seeing how proper diet makes me look and feel. Dude, can't thank y'all enough
Yes I totally agree. do you mind if I send you a FR I have a few questions.
No problem
Another great post. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience
Very informative ,i read alot of your articles ,thank you for your contrubution brother ,
RustyhookerWell written !!