Calories - post bulk

joelacy11

Ive just finished a 6 month Bulk - in which I have gone from 72kg to 77kg. Have got some good gains but want to cut fat now for the summer. Just dont want to lose all the muscle I've managed to put on. I know some of it will go but want to keep as much as poss! Finished my cals at 4000 any suggestions on how much I should drop cals by to start?
All advice much appreciated

AgentFlex

Hopefully more people will chime in on this. I wouldn't recommend anything drastic to start. Since you've ended at 4,000 dropping by 500 should be relatively easy. Try that and see if there's any scale movement/body fat reduction. I personally have had better luck doing slow recomp eating at maintenance than trying to do a cut...because...lifting makes me hungry! Good luck!

Edit: I don't comment in the forums that often anymore...how the heck do I get my profile pic to show up!? I swear I'm not an MFP silhouette!

joelacy11

Cool, been there and done the drastic calorie drop and lost nearly all my gains. The only other thing to add is I want to get my fitness back - so this will involve cardio. So gonna drop by 500 cals to start and see how the scale goes. Aiming for 0.5-1 pound per week. Anything more I know it will be muscle thats being burned

AgentFlex

Yeah, don't lose all your hard work. I don't think there's really any need to cut drastically unless you're competing! I'm trying to work cardio back in myself...ugggghh haha

kwtilbury

Unless you're a professional athlete, 4,000 calories a day is about 1,000-1,500 above maintenance, given your body weight. I don't see how you only gained 5 kg/11 lb in six months with that much of a surplus.

You could easily cut 500 calories each week until you achieve the deficit needed to drop 0.5 pound a week.

joelacy11

Was following Kris Gethin plan. It involved high cals but the workouts used a lot of them up. as they have been intense.