If want 5/3/1 try this below( full body set up tends to lean people out)…
Otherwise run through T Nation ‘recomp’ programs like this…
Diet: IMO gp back and forth between maintenance cals and very small deficit so as to keep intensity up in you workouts +build conditioning
It definitely helps, and it’s great to hear from someone who may have gone through the same emotions surrounding it as I am right now. Maybe as I get more muscle on me I’ll be more comfortable going more toward 10-12% or something but right now I’m thinking of getting down to around 15% and then slow bulking up toward 20% again very slowly. This may change depending on how i feel it’s going, maybe i’[ll be pleasantly surprised and want to go a little further, maybe i’ll feel I had nothing to cut to and a complete idiot lol. I think I’ll be very capable of the long slow bulk because it’s actually what I’ve been doing for quite a while, I feel like I was as fat as I was now even way back when I was 160-180lbs-ish. Even though I wasted some time bulking whilst not training, I still feel my composition is a bit better now and I’ve been weighing my food/counting calories for the entire time I’ve been going to the gym. I’m not sure what my actual body fat percentage is but I think they have one of those things where you grab the handles at the gym - maybe it’s super inaccurate but as long as it will give me a ballpark figure.
I’m tempted to get to the end of this cycle (2-3weeks) and hit a couple of PRs, have a deload week then despite my apprehensions, jump into the cut. I’m just about to look at the programs the poster below suggested.
#MeToo
Former 125lbs fully grown adult here also. That feeling of being small never really goes and cutting weight is always a mind fuck.
Haha, for sure. I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve spent where I’m short on my daily calories but absolutely stuffed and exhausted from eating so much. I’ve spent a couple of hours eating one meal to the point where it’s almost ice cold, had 10minute naps, woken up, had another fork full, and gone back to sleep. Countless tablespoons of peanut butter whilst still burping the meal up I had a couple of hours ago. I’ve even had times where I’ve added 20-30mls of olive oil to unflavoured protein shakes. All kinds of digestive troubles and figuring out what my body deals with better. Disgusting but seemingly required at the time.
But now, now I’m quite comfortable eating 3000+ calories and have gotten much better with little tips and tricks along the way to not need to be so drastic. In many ways eating has required 10x the training and discipline of just going to the gym, that was comparatively the easy part. And just as I find a bit of equilibrium, I have to go the other way?
As I was bulking I always thought cutting would be easy but I’m sat here quite hungry thinking about starting it and feeling a little sadness, but almost a tear of joy. I feel I could quite literally deadlift my old ~55kg self an unlimited amount of times and then finish by overhead pressing for a few reps before throwing to the ground and grabbing a sip of water to then say “okay, that’s the warmup done”.
…but somehow i still feel small.
I honestly don’t think those things are generally even in the ballpark. Just saying.
I don’t know what this means. Doesn’t that just mean you overate and got fatter? Bulking USUALLY implies eating excessively to make the most out of your workouts, and accepting that you’ll put on additional fat along with the muscle. I’ve never heard it in the context of ‘I ate a lot and didn’t workout. Called it a bulk.’ lol.
I was thinking about your situation this morning, and another option you have available to you is just eating maintenance level calories and working hard in the gym, to try to recomp at the weight you’re already at. That’s something I’ve done in the past, it can definitely work at your bodyfat level. So basically, you’d just eat enough so that you don’t gain or lose weight (a little fluctuation is fine, but preferably not by more than 5ish lbs up or down), you’d hit the gym regularly, and over time, your body would just recomp to something ‘better’. You’d get leaner while gaining muscle, and you’d never have to worry about being smaller, you’d stay the same size the whole time. And you’d progressively just become a better version of that size.
Apologies for the late reply, and thanks again for your input. It’s awesome that you were thinking about my situation away from the forum.
My no training “bulk” thing was just aimlessly adding bodyfat without so much as even a single push-up. After being so chronically underweight for such a long time I didn’t care at the time. If I slow bulked from the beginning I may have landed in a great position! I live and learn.
Many times I have considered a recomp eating at maintainance but unsure how well I could really do at it. I can’t begin to tell you how often i’ve reread articles or how many times I’ve gone down the “gain muscle whilst losing fat” rabbit hole - it seems like a very heated debate. When you say hitting it hard in the gym do you mean maintainance whilst also adding some stuff that will burn some extra calories? My bodyfat may be high enough for me to profit from it but how likely is it I spin my wheels?
I ate just 2600 calories yesterday instead of my usual 3200ish. I believe my maintainance is around 2800. I also took the dog for a -2-3mile walk. I mimicked last week’s workout and hit the same sets/reps for everything. I may stay closer to maintainance or I may drop a little lower, or maybe try not to be so meticulous about it?
One thing I will say though is I need to get rid of the sausages in the house. I just had 3 sausages, portion of rice and 50g cheese and it was a 1100 calorie meal. I’m already on 1400 and it’s only lunch time! Need to do a shop, get rid of all my full fat stuff (yogurt etc) and get some 5% lean beef. Gonna be tough for me to stay low today whilst getting enough protein in. Maybe I’ll have to go for a light jog or something later.
I don’t know why it’s a heated debate when there are so many people who have done it. I really do know more people than I can count, personally, who have done this. This shouldn’t even be a question anymore, it does work for a lot of people.
No, not really. I mean, I do believe in doing conditioning work, but that’s for everyone, not just people trying to lose fat. Which actually leads us to debunking another myth, which is ‘cardio will make me lose my gainzzz’. This is literally the stupidest, and quite frankly the most unhealthy, myth that’s been propagated in the lifting world. Doing conditioning work will keep your heart healthier, your lungs, and it will increase your work capacity in the gym, which means you’ll be able to train harder with weights. Conditioning work HELPS you get strong, not the opposite. We wouldn’t have these massive, incredibly strong NFL players if conditioning didn’t help. So if that’s a myth you’ve bought into… don’t.
This is good. Walk everyday if you can. Great for metabolism.
2 things on this: 1. You’ll figure out what your maintenance is over time, but if you’ve been tracking it closely, you probably have a pretty good idea of where it’s currently at. 2. It will change over time as your body composition changes. So just be aware of that. And be flexible with diet. If you THINK your maintenance level is X, and over a couple weeks, the scale tells you you were wrong, then adjust! I personally don’t track calories, I just make sure to ‘eat more than I was eating’ when my weight is lower than I want it to be, and eat less when it’s high. Not everyone can do it intuitively, but the basic concept is to not worry about whatever that calorie number is. If you think 2800 SHOULD be maintenance, and evidence tells you it’s not, you have to accept that evidence and proceed accordingly.
I believe a moderate to high level of healthy fats is the best way for most athletes to drop weight/lose bodyfat. Fats do a whole lot of good things for cellular health and overall metabolism. Carbs are generally where I’ll advise people to go lower. I personally drink whole milk, and would never switch to a low fat product. Low fat almost always means higher sugar, which is not what you want.
But all of this needs to be taken in with a full context of what you generally eat, so I can’t say that for YOU I’m necessarily right. I’m just probably right 
What do your carbs usually look like? Do you eat much sugar?
Maybe the reason it’s a heated debate is that most of these articles etc that people absorb are done by people much further along in their lifting lives, closer to genetic potential. It for obvious reasons gets harder and harder. You often hear them say it’s fine for beginners but that imagined switch probably happens far later than most realize, especially if they are carrying some extra timber they can afford to get rid of.
I was actually having the same discussion about Rugby players a few days ago, I believe the main takeaway is as long as you’re eating enough to fuel it then it’s no bother. Yeah they are opposing goals and it’s gonna be tough to become elite whilst chasing them both but how many people are really even close enough for that to be even a slight concern? I am way off with my conditioning so this is an opportunity to become a little fitter.
I’m actually really good on the sugar front. I eat little to no sugar at all. I have some digestive issues that I can’t quite figure out and sugar is the only 100% trigger I can find. I even pretty much avoid fruit altogether but make up for it with plenty of vegetables. Despite my issues, i seek the positive/silver lining so I see such low sugar as a good thing.
My average bulking diet was:
Wake-up/pre-workout
1 scoop whey isolate
4 oatcakes with 15g of butter shared between them.
~400 calories
GYM
Lunch
Rice with some sort of lean protein and vegetables
~600 calories
Mid afternoon snack
50g Sunflower seeds
Packets of crisps (chips if you’re American)
~400-500
Dinner
Could be anything, the missus cooks, always a carb, veg, and protein though
~700-1000 calories
Late evening snack
Peanut butter on oat cakes, adjust the amount of peanut butter according to where i am in my calorie count
300-600
Before bed
A scoop or 2 of whey protein, sometimes in lactose-free whole milk, sometimes not
100-300
yeah doing both over 30yo is not going to happen. But you can absolutely lean out/focus on conditioning for a few months while holding muscle and strength/possibly even improve on couple of lifts even
Stuff like this is fine, like you said it junk and sugar that you need to be wary of and that not a problem in your case
Yeah you sound like you are overthinking a bit. Use the knowledge on this site and put the work in, in the gym, and you will get in shape
I also agree with what Flip is alluding to -you need to do some proper conditioning work at least one day a week, -hill sprints, 45 mins HIIT session on bike, ketttlebell/farmers walk finisher etc etc
I’m about 8 days into my cut and so far it’s been pretty easy! I’m down from ~204lbs to ~198lbs, I understand a lot of that may be water weight from fewer carbs amongst other things but happy so far! Not sure how far I plan to go and will revaluate once a month has gone.
My bulking calories were around 3200 and I’ve been eating around 2200 on this cut. All lifts have stayed the same so far but OHP was really hard today so i did have to back off a little (took 1kg off and did a set less - well I swapped the last set for one 5kg lighter for a rep or two more than my working sets so psychologically I don’t feel I’ve lost anything).
I’m actually getting more protein than I did on my bulk! Filling calories with lean meats instead of seeds/peanut butter/oats etc have done me the world of good for protein intake.
I’ve been for a couple of jogs, nothing too intense as my conditioning is terrible but I’m also doing 2-3 mile walks with the dog every few days. Not just that but I’m helping coach an under 11s girls football (soccer) team which also gets me moving a bit.
Will probably start a training log on here once I’ve finished with my cut. After reading Practical Programming I think I’m going to go on a Texas method type routine to see if I have any linear gains left (my squat is only 95kg 5x5 at the moment despite me deadlifting 180kg conventional before moving over to the trap bar (~200kg max), and my OHP isn’t great either). Then i’ll jump into 5/3/1 for probably an infinite amount of time. Look forward to it.
I wouldn’t wait until then. Deficits make a person dumber.
You already posted in the training log that I made as I was just about a week into my cut Voxel… I will go update it now.
Oops, hard to keep track of everyone 
Sorry.