Hi! Im doing my first time cutting to around 10% after a 6 month bulk. I used the UD 2.0 to get from 191 lbs to 178 to get to the 10% mark i think ill need another 15-20 lbs of fat and ive got 4 months to do it (wanna see my abs for the first time this summer :)).
So now i cant decide what to do, i feel like my progress is slowing down and i think ill need to reset my metabolism (im at week 7 out of 8 now). My insulin sensitivity is pretty bad so i always preferred low carb diets.
So i have a few options ;
a) continue with a keto diet (maybe increase calories so my metabolism gets a bit faster).
b) Do a normal metabolism reset (2 week carb cycling with a few hunder cals under maintenance).
or
c) continue with anotherr type of diet for maximal fat loss and then do a metabolism reset
After the reset I was thinking of doing another 8 weeks of UD then another reset and then a V-Diet cycle.
I think you’ve got the right idea already. Do the 2 week reset and then go back to what worked before. A slight tweak may be to limit the diet to 6 weeks, then do just 1 week at maint calories to reset, then repeat.
If you’re into nutrition, read John Berardi’s Precision Nutrition which is excellent, particularly the stuff about G-flux.
In the end, everyone’s different and what worked for one guy may not work so well for you. You’ve had success so far so why change anything? You have 16-17 weeks to lose 15-20lbs. That’s very acheivable. Good luck.
I think im at around 15% now, what which info do you need Maximilian?
Btw how much fat can i expect to put back on in the 2 weeks of resetting? I was thinking of maybe doing 2600 kcals first week without exercise (need a bit of rest after 2 months), carbs only in the morning - like 120 g or so.
The 2nd week I would get back to the gym, add pwm and bump calories to around 2800 with around 200 g of carbs on training days and 150 on non training days.
If you’re at 178, then 2600 cals sounds a little high. I use a bwx10 calculation when cutting. So at 178 you’d be eating 1780 cals a day, on both training and non-training days. Also, I’d reduce the carbs right down. The macro split I use for cutting is 50% protein, 30% fat & 20% carbs. Some do 40/40/20.
Again, you have to experiment and see what works for you. What most people will agree with (I hope) is that carbs need to be lower for cutting. I suppose it depends on how well your body handles them.
While resetting, don’t go mad. Up the cals by 250-500(max) a day & monitor. If you’re going to lay off the workouts then maybe stick to the lower end of that range. Personally I wouldn’t do 2 weeks, although I understand the need for a break (mentally).
Yeah I think the extra week will help me more in the long run than a week of dieting.
The UD diet is a cycling diet, you eat around 1300 cals a day for 3 and a half days, then take a refeed day for around 5000 kcals and then have 2 days with maintenance or 10-20% lower (depending on your goal).
Im using 2600 kcals for resetting because its the quantity I used in those 2 days, im gonna have my cals at 2600 for the next two days so if i start getting fat back ill reduce it to around 2300.
I disagree with your possible scenarios and with all the posts.
If at 178lbs you feel you need to lose another 20lbs of fat to see your abs it aint worth it. I would attack this on the lean mass side.
How hot do you think a 160lber with a gaunt face and a caved chest will look like with those abs showing. Trust me, no one will notice the abs. It wasn’t the abs we noticed from the Auschwitz survivors!
Find a gut check workout and bust it. I would look into a cycle type diet, but mostly eating still at least 2100-2500 cals. You could drop carbs a bit, but not much. Your body will demand the nutrition
I understand what youre thinking but im pretty wide shoulder and waist-wise, I look like im still 190 with clothes (endomorph.
Im gonna try to get to 10% I just have to see my abs finally + my foundation for the next bulk will be better ( after this I dont plan going to more than 12-13% bf and lean bulks)
I think the BW X 10 for Cals when cutting is just about the surest way to lose muscle that I’ve ever seen. Even the ‘ballpark’ estimates suggest to use 16 x BW for the more metabolically challenged trainers. Once you know what you NEED, allow yourself no more than a 500 cal defecit.
If you lose muscle while cutting, not only will you be unhappy with the results, but your metabolism will slow down even more, forcing you to cut more cals, which whill repeat the cycle… end rsult? You’ll be small, with no muscle.
I also wouldn’t bother trying to guess how many lbs you need to lose to get to a certain bf %. Just go by the mirror.
Curious what you’re height is, simply because I’m pretty far into a cut myself, and we’re a couple of lbs apart weightwise. Take a look at my current avatar pic… I’m 5’9, and I would guess probably into high single digit bodyfat by this point… but what I really want you to notice, is the amount of muscle. I normally weigh OVER 200 lbs. the muscle allows me to diet on more calories. I ate 3000 a day to get down to 190, then dropped it a couple hundred more each day to keep it going. Now, I maintain an average intake of 2700, with an occassional high day (3200), and low day (2400) - usually when I have Cardio scheduled.
Thats pretty nice, you definetively have more muscle and I cant say Im really near your definition. Ive decided to just continue cutting and when i start looking bad (face etc) Ill stop. Im 6’0 btw
