I plan to lose a small amount of weight at the beginning of the year, 10 pounds at most. It will involve eliminating all carbs and going on a caloric deficit for probably a month. I train for strength, not mass. Is it safe to continue pushing PRs and lifting heavy weights while on a caloric deficit?
IMO, if you are not adapted to training on very low carbs, you are likely to get weaker for the first month, at least, maybe longer. I experienced too much loss of strength on low carbs, and going forward always kept carbs in my contest diet.
A sufficiently trained person will have a difficult time maintaining strength while losing weight.
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yes.
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If your PR’s aren’t increasing, and especially if they are decreasing, it might be discouraging.
Or you could use your PR’s as a metric to know when your strength is dropping too quickly.
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You can def push heavy weight while in a deficit but eliminating carbs and trying to progress with strength is a tall order.
Why not eat high protien and keep carbs in the 200-250g range so you can maintain performance?
If you eliminate them completely you will put a ton of weight back on when you add them in. It is not sustainable.
@RT_Nomad has you covered.
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I’d have asked something similar. I, personally, actually even lose better with higher carbs; much easier for me to control than higher fats. That’s not the path for everyone, but why do you want to eliminate carbs?
Also, shameless plug: (Un)Official 2025 T-ransformation Challenge
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I’ve done it before to great effect, and will do it again. Facepalm all you want.
The plan was to go high in protein and fats. The last time I eliminated carbs I lost weight fast and kept it off for four years. I avoided all grains and added sugars, but I did eat an apple or banana once a day, and ate cheese.
No doubt this works but there is a cost to strength. I see you are looking to diet for around a month? IMO you will need more time. The first 2-3 weeks of dropping carbs you are just dropping water/glycogen. Not much actual fat loss during this period.
4 months is prob a better timeframe if you wanna actually lose a bunch of fat but you will def take a big hit on your lifts. Obviously it will all come back once you bring up cals/carbs again.
What is your current diet like? You would be much better served optimizing diet based on goals then going extreme and rebounding. Just my 2c.
Either way log this.
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To clarify: are you saying the FAT will all come back, or the weight?
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The weight will def come back just due to the water/glycogen from the carbs.
The fat will depend on how he eats once he is done.
Most people that i have seen(that are not fitness minded) use low/no carb to lose weight typically go carb crazy when done dieting and look the same as before they started.
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Ah, I feel like that’s honestly the case of most dieters in general, irrespective of methodology employed. It’s this mindset that “the diet” is just a tool to get across a finish line, and once that’s done they can “go back to normal”, not understanding that “normal” is what got them where they were in the first place. Lotta folks don’t seem to understand that this is a lifestyle intervention.
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100%
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How are you training now?
How will you training in the deficit?
Theoretically, with no carbs you could use low rep, high set, non failure methods like EMOMs or Clusters that don’t rely on glycogen or “carbs” for fuel. And that might Feel “easier” than grinding out heavy sets to failure.
And Maybe, Maybe if you spent the next few weeks strengthening your abs and “core” the added stability will make up for the trunk mass you’ll lose in the cut.
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I have let myself go when it comes to diet. For years I avoided all sugary drinks and rarely ate sugary foods. I have lost discipline with both in this past year, which is why I started to gain weight. My hope for 2025 was to go on a diet for a month and get back to my old eating habits.
I lost 16 pounds in a month 4 years ago and remained at that weight until this year. Like others have said, maintaining the diet is the most important thing. You don’t need to cut out carbs permanently, but staying away from high-sugar foods and drinks is non-negotiable.
I just started a strength program, so I’ll hold off on the diet for now. I’ll just reform my eating habits after Christmas and drop the weight when I meet my strength goals.
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If you’re eating a bunch of garbage now, just cleaning that up will give you a lot of mileage. I wouldn’t pull out the strict stuff when there’s still easy buttons.
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I’ll go against the grain here and say, as a fellow extremist/abstainer, I totally get and vouch for the approach of going extreme from the start and finding moderation later. It’s much easier for me to just make a big etch-e-sketch style change than to try to build something a brick at a time.
Mark Bell’s “War on Carbs” worked in a similar manner.
With this sort of approach though, I’d try to stay on top of electrolytes, because those are going to really be crucial for training.
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Most definitely!
Don’t place any muscle cells in jeopardy when a simple clean diet rectifies the blood sugar swings of a poor diet. Here is a step toward improved insulin management, which is the largest body composition leverage that can be simply done.
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Why wait until after Christmas? Start to build the good habits now and then reassess what you need to do when it’s time to diet.