Too Much Cutting?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Last year, I decided to sacrifice my definition for my first full-out “bulk”. I am up to 250 from 210. As I use the mirror test, I’m not sure of exact BF percentages, but I’d estimate I started at about 10-12 and am now 15-17.

I’m enjoying the extra size and am proud of getting here. I’ll have to lose some, but I’d like to stay as close to 250 as possible while getting the BF back down where I like it. Who doesn’t like being ripped, right?

So, here’s the plan. Two HIIT sessions (running)/week. Gradually drop cals (I don’t count per se, but its enough that I’m holding steady at 250) each week for a month, then start HRX. This is along with my usual 4 times/week upper/lower split. You guys think this is too much given my goal of maintaining all the mass that I can? Think I could get away with staying where I am calorie-wise and just adding the HIIT and HRX?

Of course I could just experiment and find out, just thought I’d get some opinions and try to get it right from the jump. By the way, I’m 26 and have been lifting since middle school. Diet is maybe 75% clean. I’ll shoot for 95% clean when I start cutting.

Wife note: I wish I could have done the before/after pic thing, but the wife has broken THREE digital cameras in the last 12 months. I’ve since refused to buy her another one.

2

[quote]snewland22 wrote:
Last year, I decided to sacrifice my definition for my first full-out “bulk”. I am up to 250 from 210. As I use the mirror test, I’m not sure of exact BF percentages, but I’d estimate I started at about 10-12 and am now 15-17.

I’m enjoying the extra size and am proud of getting here. I’ll have to lose some, but I’d like to stay as close to 250 as possible while getting the BF back down where I like it. Who doesn’t like being ripped, right?

So, here’s the plan. Two HIIT sessions (running)/week. Gradually drop cals (I don’t count per se, but its enough that I’m holding steady at 250) each week for a month, then start HRX. This is along with my usual 4 times/week upper/lower split. You guys think this is too much given my goal of maintaining all the mass that I can? Think I could get away with staying where I am calorie-wise and just adding the HIIT and HRX?

Of course I could just experiment and find out, just thought I’d get some opinions and try to get it right from the jump. By the way, I’m 26 and have been lifting since middle school. Diet is maybe 75% clean. I’ll shoot for 95% clean when I start cutting.

Wife note: I wish I could have done the before/after pic thing, but the wife has broken THREE digital cameras in the last 12 months. I’ve since refused to buy her another one.[/quote]

First how the hell do you break 3 digi cams? You know that ahit has a warranty right?

Any how, the one key I’ve found to lose fat and maintain muscle is to do it slow. 2 sessions sounds good. Also just gradually lower cals (usually carb cals) by like 100 a week or so. keep the protein up and make sure fats (esp fishoil) are still high. And keeping your diet at 90% compliance is likely a good idea. And you’re huge as tits so you obv have a metabolic base.

Also for some fun cash; tally up your “naughty” meals that you eat now and put the cash you would spend on those per week in a jar. This always seems to cover the cost for shit like hot Roxx etc.

-chris

3

Don’t lower cals yet. maybe wait after two weeks then start lowering them. The HIIT enough should start to lower it, then when your body adapts, lower calories. Then I suggest adding HOT-ROX maybe like a week or two later. Keeping muscle mass is your number one priority and you got a couple of months till summer so don’t rush it.

4

[quote]realpeanutbutter wrote:
snewland22 wrote:
Last year, I decided to sacrifice my definition for my first full-out “bulk”. I am up to 250 from 210. As I use the mirror test, I’m not sure of exact BF percentages, but I’d estimate I started at about 10-12 and am now 15-17.

I’m enjoying the extra size and am proud of getting here. I’ll have to lose some, but I’d like to stay as close to 250 as possible while getting the BF back down where I like it. Who doesn’t like being ripped, right?

So, here’s the plan. Two HIIT sessions (running)/week. Gradually drop cals (I don’t count per se, but its enough that I’m holding steady at 250) each week for a month, then start HRX. This is along with my usual 4 times/week upper/lower split. You guys think this is too much given my goal of maintaining all the mass that I can? Think I could get away with staying where I am calorie-wise and just adding the HIIT and HRX?

Of course I could just experiment and find out, just thought I’d get some opinions and try to get it right from the jump. By the way, I’m 26 and have been lifting since middle school. Diet is maybe 75% clean. I’ll shoot for 95% clean when I start cutting.

Wife note: I wish I could have done the before/after pic thing, but the wife has broken THREE digital cameras in the last 12 months. I’ve since refused to buy her another one.

First how the hell do you break 3 digi cams? You know that ahit has a warranty right?

Any how, the one key I’ve found to lose fat and maintain muscle is to do it slow. 2 sessions sounds good. Also just gradually lower cals (usually carb cals) by like 100 a week or so. keep the protein up and make sure fats (esp fishoil) are still high. And keeping your diet at 90% compliance is likely a good idea. And you’re huge as tits so you obv have a metabolic base.

Also for some fun cash; tally up your “naughty” meals that you eat now and put the cash you would spend on those per week in a jar. This always seems to cover the cost for shit like hot Roxx etc.

-chris[/quote]

She dropped one (older so no warranty), spilled water on another (this was her dad’s), and one just “stopped working”.
Good call on doing it slow. If I cut cals at all, it won’t be more than 100/week. I will keep the fats up with peanuts, cashews before bed, etc. I haven’t bought into the fishoil craze yet. How much do you think it helps you? Thanks for the thoughts.

5

[quote]That One Guy wrote:
Don’t lower cals yet. maybe wait after two weeks then start lowering them. The HIIT enough should start to lower it, then when your body adapts, lower calories. Then I suggest adding HOT-ROX maybe like a week or two later. Keeping muscle mass is your number one priority and you got a couple of months till summer so don’t rush it.[/quote]

I think I agree with you. I will leave cals where they are to start and see what happens. I also like the idea of waiting a little while on the HRX. Probably a good idea to let the fat burning get going first before introducing the supplement. This will be my first HRX experience so I’m interested to see the results, or lack thereof.

6

[quote]snewland22 wrote:
I haven’t bought into the fishoil craze yet. How much do you think it helps you? Thanks for the thoughts. [/quote]

As I’ve gotten older (30s now) my joints get inflamed and hurt more often than when I was in my 20s. Fish oil eases or eliminates my pains. If I don’t take it for a period of time, inflammation and pain start up again. I can’t speak for what it does for others, but I don’t take breaks from it anymore.

7

for what it’s worth, every time I run out of Flameout (or any fish oil for that matter) within a day or two I notice my back pain and shin splints more than usual. Could be a coincidence but it’s happened at least 3 or 4 times now so I’m starting to think there might be more to it than that.

8

I’d like to apologize to myself for hijacking my own thread with the fish oil stuff. I’m now thinking about swimming one day instead of HIIT. So my week would look like this:
Mon: Upper
Tue: Abs/HIIT (running)
Wed: Lower
Thu: Abs/Swimming
Fri: Upper
Sat: Lower
I’ve used swimming before for cardio and liked it but I think it might be too hard to progress each week with the HIIT if I’m only doing it once a week. I could just swim on Sunday but that would leave me without a day off. So, any strong feelings for or against swapping swimming for HIIT one day?
By the way, if you’re in the ATL area and want to watch me swim for comedy’s sake, just let me know. While I enjoy it, I’m not very good at swimming. While I’m certainly no giant, I haven’t seen many 250 pound guys perform graceful acts in the water.

9

1 day off a week? your setting your cortisol up to sky rocket.

You might try working out 4 days a week, 2 on 1 off, and do your hit in the morning or evening of your workouts still giving you 3 days off a week.

10

[quote]Kill’Em All wrote:
1 day off a week? your setting your cortisol up to sky rocket.

You might try working out 4 days a week, 2 on 1 off, and do your hit in the morning or evening of your workouts still giving you 3 days off a week.
[/quote]
Why would cortisol sky rocket from frequent activity?

11

[quote]dhuge67 wrote:
Kill’Em All wrote:
1 day off a week? your setting your cortisol up to sky rocket.

You might try working out 4 days a week, 2 on 1 off, and do your hit in the morning or evening of your workouts still giving you 3 days off a week.

Why would cortisol sky rocket from frequent activity?
[/quote]

yeah i believe it is after prolonged activity like more than an hour training that it is believed for cortisol to shoot up. You would think it would go back down from day to day.

12

[quote]snewland22 wrote:
I’m now thinking about swimming one day instead of HIIT.[/quote]
This could be B.S., but I remember reading that swimming tilts the body to hold on to sub-q fat, something about exposure to low water temp…You might want to research that…

13

[quote]Blacksnake wrote:
snewland22 wrote:
I’m now thinking about swimming one day instead of HIIT.
This could be B.S., but I remember reading that swimming tilts the body to hold on to sub-q fat, something about exposure to low water temp…You might want to research that…
[/quote]

Man, I’ll tell you that swimming is harder without being fat or skinny-fat. Last summer was my first time swimming (not just wading) since before weightlifting.

So much more difficult when more dense.

14

[quote]Blacksnake wrote:
snewland22 wrote:
I’m now thinking about swimming one day instead of HIIT.
This could be B.S., but I remember reading that swimming tilts the body to hold on to sub-q fat, something about exposure to low water temp…You might want to research that…
[/quote]

i thought it wan’t has good for fat-loss becuase of the higely increased hunger after swimming due to lower body core temp… thats all.

burns a shit of load of kcals though

15

[quote]That One Guy wrote:
dhuge67 wrote:
Kill’Em All wrote:
1 day off a week? your setting your cortisol up to sky rocket.

You might try working out 4 days a week, 2 on 1 off, and do your hit in the morning or evening of your workouts still giving you 3 days off a week.

Why would cortisol sky rocket from frequent activity?

yeah i believe it is after prolonged activity like more than an hour training that it is believed for cortisol to shoot up. You would think it would go back down from day to day.[/quote]

My understanding is that one experiences elevated cortisol levels for only about 2 hours after training. Furthermore, you can further guard against increased cortisol levels by keeping carbs up during your workout. Being carb depleted during a workout causes cortisol levels to increase more than normal, if I’m not mistaken. Having said all that, I don’t think this is a big issue for those who have their workouts, diet, and supplementation in order.

16

[quote]GNorm wrote:
Blacksnake wrote:
snewland22 wrote:
I’m now thinking about swimming one day instead of HIIT.
This could be B.S., but I remember reading that swimming tilts the body to hold on to sub-q fat, something about exposure to low water temp…You might want to research that…

i thought it wan’t has good for fat-loss becuase of the higely increased hunger after swimming due to lower body core temp… thats all.

burns a shit of load of kcals though[/quote]

Yeah, this rings a bell with me too. I think I read this a while back. It was in a sports medicine journal or something like that. Seems like swimming would be fine as long as you have the discipline to stick to your diet. Anyway, I’ve got a couple weeks to think about it before I start cutting. I’ll try to get a pic of me before I start and we’ll see how I progress.

17

[quote]That One Guy wrote:
dhuge67 wrote:
Kill’Em All wrote:
1 day off a week? your setting your cortisol up to sky rocket.

You might try working out 4 days a week, 2 on 1 off, and do your hit in the morning or evening of your workouts still giving you 3 days off a week.

Why would cortisol sky rocket from frequent activity?

yeah i believe it is after prolonged activity like more than an hour training that it is believed for cortisol to shoot up. You would think it would go back down from day to day.[/quote]

My understanding is that one experiences elevated cortisol levels for only about 2 hours after training. Furthermore, you can further guard against increased cortisol levels by keeping carbs up during your workout. Being carb depleted during a workout causes cortisol levels to increase more than normal, if I’m not mistaken. Having said all that, I don’t think this is a big issue for those who have their workouts, diet, and supplementation in order.

18

WRONG, that is the most lowest common denomonator as it comes to cortisol.

The only way to tell is have an adrenal saliva stress index done, taken over 4 points in the day.

Poliquin is A BIG advocate of doing adrenal stress indexs/ You would be very surprised to see how cortiosl can be elevated, and people start running off basically adrenaline.

THE only lifters how can train Daily and not get affected by cortissol, are those on the juice.

19

http://www.ppcchicago.com/articles/adrenal_stress.php

http://www.qfac.com/articles/adrenal_stress_test.html

20

[quote]snewland22 wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
dhuge67 wrote:
Kill’Em All wrote:
1 day off a week? your setting your cortisol up to sky rocket.

You might try working out 4 days a week, 2 on 1 off, and do your hit in the morning or evening of your workouts still giving you 3 days off a week.

Why would cortisol sky rocket from frequent activity?

yeah i believe it is after prolonged activity like more than an hour training that it is believed for cortisol to shoot up. You would think it would go back down from day to day.

My understanding is that one experiences elevated cortisol levels for only about 2 hours after training. Furthermore, you can further guard against increased cortisol levels by keeping carbs up during your workout. Being carb depleted during a workout causes cortisol levels to increase more than normal, if I’m not mistaken. Having said all that, I don’t think this is a big issue for those who have their workouts, diet, and supplementation in order. [/quote]

I disagree