The fact that your strength is down at all, while still carrying as much bodyfat as you are, is kind of concerning to me. BUT it could be just a lack of carbs in your diet that are temporarily making gym sessions a bit rougher. Keep tabs on this, if your strength dips too much, you’re doing something wrong. I train for strongman, so numbers are everything in my sport, and I know LOTS of guys who cut fat for competitions without losing any strength. Just something to be aware of.
I also agree with your training partner, you’re probably just not used to seeing what a cut looks like on you. In my experience, you’ll likely feel like a smaller version of yourself as this goes along, but eventually you’ll actually look bigger than you ever did at 240 lbs.
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I have never attempted a cut so it is all new to me. The strength might be a mental deal as I am really just subjectively saying/feeling it is. Those are awful pics too, I will try to get some better ones. I am not used to not eating in the morning and my carbs are down for sure. I’m curious what that number (weight) is going to be. I am not sure I could mentally handle being below 215. I know that probably sounds stupid but I was a runt growing up, picked on, and dealt with a lot of stuff in my early years. I know that’s a very long time ago but I’m started to feel very strange, all mental.
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I train each muscle group once per week. In this order - Chest, Biceps, Shoulders, Triceps, Back, and Legs. I try to keep my chest and triceps and back and biceps spread apart. Saturday is my chest day here is exactly what I did-
Warm up-
Machine fly press
Low weight - 20 reps
Low weight - 20 reps
Flat bench
135 X 30
135 X 30
Start moving weight up
Flat bench
225 X 25 reps
275 X 20 reps
315 X 15 reps
365 X 12 reps
405 X 6 reps
455 X 3 reps
Incline
225 X 20 reps
275 X 12 reps
315 X 8 reps
365 X 6 reps
Decline
315 X 15 reps
365 X 8 reps
225 X 35 reps
Incline dumb bell press
100lbs dumb Bells 3 sets of 10
Fly press machine
4 sets of 12 with heavier weight than our warmup
The pace is pretty good. Rest time is less than 2 minutes in between sets.
A couple of different angles.
Ok, no more pics 
Here was my Bicep day yesterday-
Warm-up
Standing Preacher curl
55lbs (15lb on each side) 3 sets of 20
Single-arm dumbbell preacher curl (I use a bench and set it to an incline)
35lbs 15 reps
45lbs 12 reps
50lbs 10 reps
60lbs 8 reps
70lbs 6 reps
80lbs 4 reps
Hammer curls using dumbbells (weight is for each hand)
50lbs 15 reps
60lbs 12 reps
70lbs 10 reps
80lbs 8 reps
Switch to rope on the machine for hammer curls
120lbs 25 reps
140lbs 15 reps
Standing alternating dumbbell curls
3 set of 15 using 40lb dumbbells
Seated single-arm concentration curls
40lb dumbbell 4 sets of 10 for each arm
On the lighter weight, I have very little rest time…
195 lbs, at your height, can look pretty goddamn good, lol. I’m also 5’11, and my profile pic is definitely under 200 lbs. It’s probably closer to 190 if I remember correctly. I totally understand the mental hurdles, and ‘feeling small’, but you might surprise yourself by how much you end up liking the look. Or, you may not, haha. It’s all subjective anyway. But I would say a lot of people have an unnecessary hangup about weighing under 200 lbs. They don’t realize how ‘big’ a very lean 200 really is.
That’s why I prefer to track gym numbers. It’s very easy to let your feelings dictate your actions if you don’t have concrete numbers to go by. You don’t want to do that. When you’re dieting down, you have to a) trust the process, and b) have metrics to refer to so you know when that process needs to be adjusted. The gym numbers you’re posting still look pretty strong.
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Man, you look great in that profile pic. I would never guess you at below 200 in that pic! What was your body fat%?
And you are right on the mental hang-ups and the subjective feelings. The mental game is half the battle…
that’s my point! hahaha.
I don’t have a clue what my actual bodyfat % would have been there. I don’t really fuck around with trying to guess a number. At the end of the day, it’s kind of a useless number to track. If I was going to diet down for a show, all that matters is what I look like, and I would stop when I looked ‘right’. I would assume below 10% though. My strength stays very good at that leanness, so I have to assume I’m not way below that number.
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