Today is Monday, April 29th, 2024 and it is day 1 of my cut.
The body composition scanner reads me at 14.9% body fat, but I know body fat percentages enough to know that's wrong. I'd say I'm actually somewhere in the 18-19% range, maybe even creeping up on 20%. I'd be looking like a shreddy Betty if I was 211 pounds and sub-15% body fat.
But those are just numbers anyway. They're good measuring sticks, but progress photos and waist measurements are probably a bit more reliable.
I do enjoy that it says my bio age is 3 years younger than my actual age, but I sure would enjoy it more if it said my bio age was 23. Maybe after the cut is over it'll spoil my ego.
The goal will be to cut, sustainably, for 8-12 weeks, starting with just about a 500 calorie deficit, and then I'll likely begin a 6 month, or so, slooooow bulk (again) in July or August.
I'll allow progress and how I feel to determine if I continue the cut longer than 12 weeks.
I'm suitably, "thick" now, and there is certainly a healthy amount of body fat to lose before I'm "shredded." However, in the past, I've cut too aggressively, psychologically wore myself out and lost more muscle than I wanted along the way.
The corrections I'll make this time will be:
1. Eat more frequent meals. This makes it easier for me to keep a high protein intake. In the past, I've had a relatively easy time eating in a deficit by limiting meal frequency – often using intermittent fasting – and that's all fine and dandy. But, while my protein intake WOULD still be 0.7 grams/pound of bodyweight or a little higher (which is supposedly optimal), it seems to be beneficial to eat higher amounts of protein when cutting. Usually I get around 1-1.1 grams per pound of bodyweight when bulking or maintaining and I will prioritize maintaining that protein intake during this cut. So I'll aim for around 220 grams of protein per day.
2. Sleep more. This one is pretty common sense. I usually get around 6-7 hours of sleep. Mostly 7. But sometimes a little less than 7. And while I operate pretty well on that, I'd look and operate better with 8-9 hours of sleep per night.
3. My training won't change at all. 4-6 days per week of 3-4 exercises per session, 2-3 sets per exercise, 2-3 minutes of rest between sets, taking each set close to failure. I like training frequently but briefly. It works for me and it works for my schedule. Training clients 30-40 hours per week, running an online coaching business, daily email list, blog, ebooks, and owning/maintaining/updating 2 houses is time consuming stuff.
4. I don't do a lot of specific cardio, but I walk between 12,000-15,000 steps per day and stay quite busy around the houses, yards, and gym where I work, so there won't be many changes there. Honestly, managing my energy and stress will be of greater importance for me.
I spent most of the past year in a slight surplus. Some months I was in a greater surplus than others, and there were a few months where I ate around maintenance, and, actually lost some weight when doing that (so maybe I was actually in a slight deficit, or it was just water weight lost).
My goal during this cut is to create a smaller deficit, slowly increasing the deficit over time, but not exceeding 750 calories per day below maintenance. I'd like to stick around 500 calories below my maintenance for the majority of the cut.
I use macro factor to track my calories and macros – which is a great app – and it has my goal around 2,300-2,400 calories at the moment, and my total energy expenditure estimated to be around 2,900-3,000 calories. We will start there and adjust as needed. The bot will guide me.
In the spirit of prioritizing protein, I'll eat lots of whey protein powder, Greek yogurt, tuna, eggs, ground turkey, lean ground beef, and 1 percent fat milk.
Again, my training will NOT change at all. I will continue to try to add reps and weight to my lifts as regularly as possible. I will continue to train mostly in the 6-12 rep range, while keeping slightly higher rep ranges on things like leg isolations.
Let's get after it!
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