Perpetual cut

yondaime8

Hi all,
I have been on a weight loss journey for exactly a year now.
I lost ~66lbs (29kg) going from 95kg to 66kg currently at a 5'5" (167cm).
I reached my goal weight back in February and since then have turned into strength training and improving my physique. Totally fell in love with weightlifting and it matched my goals of getting a better looking body. However lately I started feeling frustrated at the pouch of fat in my belt.



Now I know as well as I should that there's absolutely no question about losing fat: CALORIC DEFICIT but I feel like I'm in this infinite cutting cycle that is no longer yielding any results.
Currently I eat slightly below my TDEE calories and do cardio at around ~300-400 calories per day that I don't eat back. My lifts are suffering and I'm struggling to keep my 1RM at the gym and I feel my performance is degrading. This got me to wonder whether I should keep at this or not, and this is where I turn to you my friends

TavistockToad

looks more like skin than fat to me.

yondaime8

TavistockToad wrote: »

looks more like skin than fat to me.

Hmm, yea there's load of skin excess there, but there's also some fat visible in the second picture especially. I'm really hesitant as to whether I should just go to maintenance already or even go on a bulk cycle or see this thing through

TavistockToad

yondaime8 wrote: »

TavistockToad wrote: »

looks more like skin than fat to me.

Hmm, yea there's load of skin excess there, but there's also some fat visible in the second picture especially. I'm really hesitant as to whether I should just go to maintenance already or even go on a bulk cycle or see this thing through

i would go maintenance for a while personally as you're not eating back exercise cals so you're in a fairly massive deficit.

yondaime8

TavistockToad wrote: »

yondaime8 wrote: »

TavistockToad wrote: »

looks more like skin than fat to me.

Hmm, yea there's load of skin excess there, but there's also some fat visible in the second picture especially. I'm really hesitant as to whether I should just go to maintenance already or even go on a bulk cycle or see this thing through

i would go maintenance for a while personally as you're not eating back exercise cals so you're in a fairly massive deficit.

Well thank you for your input !
I'll just go into maintenance and see how it goes.

livingleanlivingclean

I think it looks more like excess skin too.... Fingers crossed that it tightens up for you!

yondaime8

livingleanlivingclean wrote: »

I think it looks more like excess skin too.... Fingers crossed that it tightens up for you!

I surely hope so too, I'm doing everything I can to help my body but we'll just have to wait and see

PPumpItUp

Lyle McDonald suggests if people are worried about it they should keep cutting until they pinch their skin and it is paper thin. If at this point your skin is still loose and looks like wrinkled papyrus you might have to consider surgery. You lost a lot of weight pretty fast, 29kg in under 6 months correct?

donkey9512

I had the same saggy belly after loosing 20 lbs of fat. The skin sags like one of those wrinkly dogs.

It eventually shrank.

yondaime8

PPumpItUp wrote: »

Lyle McDonald suggests if people are worried about it they should keep cutting until they pinch their skin and it is paper thin. If at this point your skin is still loose and looks like wrinkled papyrus you might have to consider surgery. You lost a lot of weight pretty fast, 29kg in under 6 months correct?

Yes that is correct. So if I get this correctly, you think I should still keep on cutting till there's no thickness to that pouch right?

PPumpItUp

According to Lyle that takes care of the sagging skin in most cases.