Who is on a cut?

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

4) maintenance - gain a pound + a week

I assume this means to stay in maintenance, I need to always be trying to lose a couple pounds? Also if I “accidentally” gain a couple of months, but I’m training hard and eating lots of protein - some of that has to be muscle, right?
Right?

This made me lol.

Super slow bulking is way harder than any form of cutting.

Really ? Super slow bulking is my natural, comfortable state. Cutting is something that is not comfortable in the slightest for me. I guess we all have different mechanisms that regulate food intake.

Weird. Maintenance is my natural state- I eat mostly healthy foods all day plus dessert after dinner. If I indulge in donuts at work (or whatever), then no dessert. Don't count macros, weight stays super consistent.

Cutting is SIMPLE, but not EASY. I consistently track macros and can only eat healthy foods (because a single indulgence leaves no calories left for the day).

For bulking, it seems like I slowly titrate calories up until a threshold is met and then I gain a pound per week and it's all in my midsection.

For my "natural state" super slow bulking (think 0.5 kgs a month), I eat almost all clean food: meat, fish, eggs, potatoes, noodles, rice, bread, fruits and vegetables. Very very few sweets and deserts and such (I ever buy any). I have a naturally huge appetite so I'm better off avoiding very calorie dense foods. I subscribe to the bro-theory that clean food will always give better results even when calories and macros are equated.

Cutting is indeed simple but not easy. I found the best results when doing the same as bulking and simply replace the breakfast by a protein shake. Hunger tends to ramp through the day for me. I used to be terrified because I though that without eating breakfast my training would suffer (I early train in the morning, usually for 2 hours), but I realized through trial and error that it is simply not the case. It's funny how the body works.

[Wilhelm]

Had bumped calories up to 2,300 for a while to help with the last part of the deadlift block.
193lbs this morning, and yesterday was the last day of the block.
I'm dropping down to 2,100 for a while now to see how much i can lose before February.
I think it will be a good idea to go to maintenance then for the final runup to the March 18th meet.
Maybe trim another pound off in that 6 weeks

[BostonRugger]

It's day 10 of the cut. I'm down 5lbs from 225 to 220. This is the lightest I've been for 8-10 years. I'm happy that I managed an actual maintenance phase after my last cut, with only 1-2 lbs of weight gain over a 6wk period. I'm doing 3 running sessions per week as well.

The plan is 10-12 weeks holding around 2600cals. Should up between 205 and 210.

[CaptainAwesome]

Started off the year with a cut, going great so far. Came in under 290 yesterday, started the cut off weighing 298 on the first. I've been trying to introduce small "refeeds" after workouts, because of something I read somewhere about post workout carbs being earmarked for glycogen replenishment. Seems to be working out well so far. Lot of weight lost in a short timespan, but my workouts aren't suffering (yet).

[Wilhelm]

Cut's over.

Hit 192lbs AM weight today.
Bench is feeling the deficit.


Been doing 2,250 to 2,300, and i'm going up to around 2,650- 2,700 now.
Middle maintenance range for 192
14-ish calories per lb

2,850 some days perhaps.

Edit - starting out with a week at 2,500
13 calories pe lb bw

Refed with 3k on Saturday.
First surplus in over 9 weeks

[allPrimes]

I guess I'm cutting. Aiming for about 2200 cals/day with P = 138, C = 275, and F = 60. This is the first time that I'm aiming for this many carbs; taking a playbook out of of Viada's Hybrid Athlete with the P and C ratios. So far so good, haven't really felt like I've not had a ton of strength, but for the last 1.5 months, I've mostly just been getting back into lifting heavy. (That said, I did hit a new back squat PR recently at 285.)

I'm aiming for fat loss not to hit a weight class for a competition but simply for health reasons. (And vanity.) I don't think I'm "unhealthy" given how well I eat and how active I am, but it would be nice to achieve and maintain about 205-210lbs general health reasons.

[EggMcMuffin]

I've been complaining about this for years at this point but I don't get why I seem to be stuck at a certain weight. I want to get down to 160ish (my body is weird, I just look fat past that weight IDK) but I literally cannot seem to budge from the 172lb - 175lb range. I remember when I managed to get down to this current weight I was walking and running a lot, so I'm going to try to do that. Like maybe my TDEE is just fucked up, I was consistently eating maybe like 1950 calories for like two months last year and all I managed was 3lbs of weight loss

It's fucking surreal that I used to weigh 125lbs in highschool, how the fuck was I that skinny!? I remember I ate like two times a day because my family didn't and doesn't really have much money to buy food beyond eggs and chocolate Costco muffins and I was a picky bastard and didn't eat eggs at the time

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

I've been complaining about this for years at this point but I don't get why I seem to be stuck at a certain weight. I want to get down to 160ish (my body is weird, I just look fat past that weight IDK) but I literally cannot seem to budge from the 172lb - 175lb range. I remember when I managed to get down to this current weight I was walking and running a lot, so I'm going to try to do that. Like maybe my TDEE is just fucked up, I was consistently eating maybe like 1950 calories for like two months last year and all I managed was 3lbs of weight loss

It's fucking surreal that I used to weigh 125lbs in highschool, how the fuck was I that skinny!? I remember I ate like two times a day because my family didn't and doesn't really have much money to buy food beyond eggs and chocolate Costco muffins and I was a picky bastard and didn't eat eggs at the time

My guess would be that you were 125 lbs because you had very little muscle and ate close to nothing.

Also, for your current situation, how accurate is your calorie counting ? Are you weighting everything and such ?

[DCR]

I am, as of this past Monday evening. By “cut,” I mean that I am (mostly) eating clean food that I purchased at a supermarket and brought home, as opposed to continuing to be a clown person who eats three (or more) meals out as I’d been doing for years, and who orders dessert like a child half the time. Lost 5 lbs. this week. I get that it wasn’t “real” weight but rather the effects of not having a giant lump of carbs sitting in my gut, and not holding water as I usually do due to insane salt intake, but fuck off. Scale don’t lie. A week ago I was putting 208 against the barbell and today I put 203 against it. Is what it is. Onward.

I set a goal of 20 lbs in the month that I’m home. I know that’s ridiculous but “losing weight slowly” didn’t do shit for me in the past decade. I’m taking Dan John’s approach.

[Wilhelm]

87.3kg / 192.5lb morning weight today
Still chipping away it it slowly.

[dw]

Day 1. Thinking I may try reducing my workouts to more like deload levels this time.

[alek]

I'm stopping the cut as of today. Went

Bodyweight
193.6 -> 186.7

Umbilicus
36 -> 34.64

for my 7-day averages from 11/6 to 1/23. There was a 3 week lull in the middle due to the flu.

[Wilhelm]

191.5 this morning

[CaptainAwesome]

Anyone get mood issues on cuts before? I don't know why, but this one's really been fucking with my head.

[dw]

Anyone get mood issues on cuts before? I don't know why, but this one's really been fucking with my head.

Yes if it's long and severe enough. Irritability is a well known symptom of hunger (hence 'hangry'). And for really extreme diets like to sub 10% levels there are mood effects from depressed testosterone and other things I'm sure.

Unrelated note, looking over my bulk-cut data I have a theory that I could bulk 1/8th pound per week (so 62.5 calories per day per my assumptions) without changing by bf%.

Seems believable to me but of course not practical. But even if you could pull off a microsurplus it would have the undesirable effect of flattening your gains curve so much that you would no longer be able to make inferences from short term trends. (E.g. a lift stalling for a week or even two.)

[CaptainAwesome]

Yes if it's long and severe enough. Irritability is a well known symptom of hunger (hence 'hangry'). And for really extreme diets like to sub 10% levels there are mood effects from depressed testosterone and other things I'm sure.

Unrelated note, looking over my bulk-cut data I have a theory that I could bulk 1/8th pound per week (so 62.5 calories per day per my assumptions) without changing by bf%.

Seems believable to me but of course not practical. But even if you could pull off a microsurplus it would have the undesirable effect of flattening your gains curve so much that you would no longer be able to make inferences from short term trends. (E.g. a lift stalling for a week or even two.)

For me shooting for small surpluses always seems to get derailed by differing day to day activities. One day you can take a long walk, one day you might not. It's hard to plan around that stuff. As for long or severe, I've only been at it since the first of the month. But I've been getting weird bouts of lethargy and depression here and there. I don't know if it's the diet or the weather finally starting to ACTUALLY get cold. I'm down about 12 pounds since the beginning of the month, but I think this time I've managed to make sure it's mostly fat that's gone. The belly pudge is getting very small and the outsides of the upper abs are starting to show definition. I usually haven't changed as much visually from this much weight lost in the past.

[Allentown]

Probably going to do another cut this year. Summer bod. Last year started the cut at ~216, this year I'll probably stop bulking at 210ish.

[dw]

Got a new scale which consistently puts me .8-1kg lighter than the old one. (Both digital.)

Rather irked by not even having accurate bodyweight figures.

[alek]

Got a new scale which consistently puts me .8-1kg lighter than the old one. (Both digital.)

Rather irked by not even having accurate bodyweight figures.

@broseph was recently pimping an inexpensive scale from Amazon that is essentially the same one used to do weigh-ins at powerlifting meets.

[CaptainAwesome]

Got a new scale which consistently puts me .8-1kg lighter than the old one. (Both digital.)

Rather irked by not even having accurate bodyweight figures.

I hate how temperamental scales can be. Shit can vary 1-2 pounds just based on how you stand on the thing.