Fasted cut possible without shredding muscle

[LeanLifts]

What is the fastest you can cut without losing tons of muscle? I commonly hear that 1 lb/week is a normal cut and that 2 lbs/week is a fast cut as well as the fastest that you should cut if you value your muscles. Is there any truth to this or is it some broscience that has been passed around for so long that it is considered law? Why would something like the velocity diet (eating purely protein at a ~2000 calorie deficit) be bad for cutting?

[mgil]

What is the fastest you can cut without losing tons of muscle?

This is going to depend on the individual. Age, sex, body composition, genetics, training history, etc. all play a hand here.

I commonly hear that 1 lb/week is a normal cut and that 2 lbs/week is a fast cut as well as the fastest that you should cut if you value your muscles. Is there any truth to this or is it some broscience that has been passed around for so long that it is considered law?

When you see arbitrary amounts thrown about, like 1g per 1lbs bodyweight of protein per day, then it's usually broscience. That doesn't mean it's wrong, but rather an estimate based on some loose observations of data. The RPS peeps think that 0.5lbs per week is a better cut, iirc.

Why would something like the velocity diet (eating purely protein at a ~2000 calorie deficit) be bad for cutting?

This sounds like a bad idea in general.

[Tommy1507]

I am also interested in this number. I came across different numbers from different authorities (Nuckol, Isratel, McDonald). In a more aggressive cut it's maybe only possible to minimize the muscle loss but can't avoid it completly.

[brkriete]

Is a 2000 calorie deficit an actual number that gets tossed around? Is that per day? I would be miserable and starving if I tried that.

[Cellist]

It’s easy to confuse terms. Shredded is an extremely lean and dehydrated state (5-7%bf) where the striations of the gluteus Maximus resemble the appearance of Kellogg’s shredded wheat, so getting shredded is working to get extremely lean. The verb shed is about loss, ie. to shed muscle is to lose muscle. Any significant energy deficit will eventually result in shedding some lean body mass along with fat, but lbm includes organs, bone, undigested food, muscle tissue and water or in other words everything except stored fat tissue. You won’t shed organ muscle or bone, but surely a lot of water, which fluctuates under different conditions. So we can’t prevent the loss of lbm on a cut, but the goal is to avoid the body burning skeletal muscle since lean means less fat, not just lighter.

The recommendations for lbs/wk mostly have to do with sustainablility. The larger the deficit, the harder it is to maintain over a long period. Also, it will be more difficult to recover from when the diet is over and go back to a healthy diet without gaining the weight back.

Most important for hanging on to skeletal muscle during a cut are adequate protein intake and a sufficient amount of resistance training. For most, a 2000 cal/ day deficit will make it difficult to satisfy these requirements. Half that for a 200 lb man is not a problem and he can lift, go to work and get enough nutrition to be okay for a few weeks or months to get to 185 lbs and maintain that for years after.

[Cellist]

Is a 2000 calorie deficit an actual number that gets tossed around? Is that per day? I would be miserable and starving if I tried that.

Me too, since my maintenance is less than 2500, or even less when I work a lot don’t train and sit at my desk. A certain amount of protein is good to preserve muscle and avoid hunger and some calories need to go towards a minimum level of dietary fat. It’s possible to adjust to having very low carbs, but after a while a big deficit wears you down. That just provides all the conditions to fail sooner or later.

[Wilhelm]

PSMF?

[mettkeks]

What is the fastest you can cut without losing tons of muscle? I commonly hear that 1 lb/week is a normal cut and that 2 lbs/week is a fast cut as well as the fastest that you should cut if you value your muscles. Is there any truth to this or is it some broscience that has been passed around for so long that it is considered law? Why would something like the velocity diet (eating purely protein at a ~2000 calorie deficit) be bad for cutting?

Losing 1% of bodweight (ca. 2lb/week) when you're at 20% BF is easy and will not impact training too much. It gets harder as you get closer to 10% BF though. I notice no muscle loss at this rate.

2% of BW per week is closer to the 2000cal deficit. Unless you burn 4000cal. per day as maintenance or you're 50%-ish BF, that's rough. Really rough. I've done it for three months and lost 30kg. That was just before I started training. There is no way to get any productive training in past the second week. You get up to eat almost nothing, then go to work, come home, eat almost nothing again and go to bed. And all that precious and expensive protein will be converted to carbs anyways.

You get super hungry, super tired, you'll sleep a lot, your energy expenditure drops because you go into starvation mode (mainly less movement throughout the day) your performance in training drops significantly and you're sore all the time, and that's why you'll lose muscle fast.

In the end you're losing the same amount of fat just much more lean mass.

You can try it of course, but it's dumb.