When is the appropriate time for a more aggressive cut?

GetSoda

Just a quick question.

At a certain bodyfat%?

According to BF estimate thread, I'm around 19-22% bf. I weigh 246.

I want to be around 11-12%. Then I'll do the mini-bulk cycles mentioned by Lyle Macdonald.

I'm losing weight currently. REALLY SLOWLY.

I'm not losing weight for any kind of competitive or professional reason.

Just generally speaking, would you even do an aggressive cut if you didn't have other reasons to do so?

currently doing LP 3 nights a week, and boxing 1-3 nights a week.

SideSteel

Tagging, will reply as soon as I'm done listening to Layne's new vid...

ryry_

Tagging as I'm curious for the discussion.

SideSteel

So this will be one of these replies where I ramble and it may not lead you to anything conclusive but hopefully through this babble you can get some meaningful thoughts going and then maybe choose a direction or refine your process a bit.


I am now generally in favor of cutting more aggressively at the start of a cut phase for myself. It seems very logical to me. When beginning a cut, I'm not likely to have any metabolic slowdown of any sort from prolonged dieting, I have more body fat so it's less likely that I will be losing muscle, and I'm mentally ready because the beginning of a cut follows the end of a bulk where I've spent a long time eating lots of food. Gym performance is likely to be strong at this point since I'm coming off of a buttload of calories, so all these things combined tell me to just get moving and be a bit more aggressive in the beginning.

I would not be aggressive near the end of a cut, when I'm leanest, I may be sluggish, it's possible that my total energy expenditure is lower whether due to reduced activity or any potential adaptations that could occur from prolonged dieting. It's more difficult to maintain LBM, productivity in the gym may be at the point that things are stalling out, etc.

But that being said, I'm curious what pace you are currently losing at. You mention that your current weight loss is very slow. If that's the case, one could argue that you are currently not dieting aggressively at all, and you could certainly afford to pick up the pace as far as creating a larger energy deficit.

Based only on your stats, I don't think it's beyond reason to aim for 1.5-2.5lb/week provided that you have the metabolic capacity to sustain that energy deficit for a few weeks without bringing nutrients too low or making yourself feel downright awful.

So that's sort of a quick and dirty answer. If I were in your position and my weight loss wasn't in the above slot, I'd start to examine my intake (looking at accuracy first) and my expenditure and see what I can do to pick things up a bit.

SideSteel

Also just to add more ramblings, I'm much more open to the idea of people dieting a bit more aggressively in a context where they either have dieting experience (successful dieting experience) or they have proper guidance.

You hear all the time that aggressive diets lead to failure and I'm inclined to believe that in a population that doesn't have either of the above criteria or that lacks general knowledge on how to properly do it.

But I think there's some merit in the idea that fast weight (initially, certainly not long term) loss can do wonders for motivation.

Now I'm certainly not saying everyone should go on really low calories -- far from it. I'm just stating that I think this is another one of those "it depends" situations --- whereas in the past I would have been much more against the approach.

EDIT: To clarify -- I'm specifically referring to short term initial losses and not extended VLCDs.

GetSoda

Thanks. That is very helpful.


I'm at about 1lb/week weight loss currently. That's averaging around 2500 calories a day, more or less.
I was going to drop it to 2000 and see how it goes.

It's hard to say that it's a true 1lb/week loss. Boxing/lifting is currently causing a lot of inflammation/water retention for me too. So I might be losing faster. Maybe not. The calipers haven't moved (Measuring at superilliac skinfold, quick and dirty)

SideSteel

You might want to see what happens with about a 200 cal reduction first, give it a week or two, see where you land in terms of weight loss per week at that intake. Chop it further if that doesn't get you there.

And yes I know that sort of goes against the whole idea of being aggressive so hopefully that comment doesn't confuse you -- but I think you may end up right around where you want to be with that reduction.

ryry_

Very logical Sidesteel. So would you gradually taper to your smaller amount?

Say 2200 leads you to 2 lbs a week. You do that four say 4 weeks and then start increasing by a 100 a week till you get to your smaller 1/2 per week or whatever amount?

GetSoda

You might want to see what happens with about a 200 cal reduction first, give it a week or two, see where you land in terms of weight loss per week at that intake. Chop it further if that doesn't get you there.

And yes I know that sort of goes against the whole idea of being aggressive so hopefully that comment doesn't confuse you -- but I think you may end up right around where you want to be with that reduction.

Sounds good. I will do that. I was going to hit 2000 today ,but will adjust to 2200. That means I can drink some more delicious banana truetien.... Thanks for turning me onto that brand, BTW.

SideSteel

Very logical Sidesteel. So would you gradually taper to your smaller amount?

Say 2200 leads you to 2 lbs a week. You do that four say 4 weeks and then start increasing by a 100 a week till you get to your smaller 1/2 per week or whatever amount?

I think it depends on how things go, how lean you're getting/etc, how fast you're losing, etc.

In my own case I'd add calories slowly, observe the pace at which I'm losing, and repeat as needed.

For example I started my recent cut somewhere around 2000-2100 cals which is aggressive for me. I believe around 2 weeks in I bumped up 200 cals and I was able to ride that out until near the end of the cut at which point I reversed out around 100/week or slightly faster. The reverse went really well, ended up maintaining bodyweight and staying lean over 400g cho and around 3200 kcals which is very high for me. EDIT: Correction -- I dropped 3lbs on the reverse.

Doing it over again I probably would have stayed at the 2000-2100 range for slightly longer. I lost weight so fast I actually panicked and bumped cals as a knee jerk reaction. Sara LOL'd at me.

tomcornhole

Awesome thread. Nothing to add but a tag for later reference.

ryry_

Doing it over again I probably would have stayed at the 2000-2100 range for slightly longer. I lost weight so fast I actually panicked and bumped cals as a knee jerk reaction. Sara LOL'd at me.

You burned up all the musclez brah'

Sarauk2sf

Not only was there lol'ing, but there was some eye-rolling involved (of course, I have never reacted to anything in such a way to elicit eye-rolling from him )


With regard to a couple of the points:

- myself and SideSteel are of the same mind re aggressive cuts coming off a bulk in general, so I will not expand on that.

- one of the concerns with them however is that people try to 'milk' it for too long. You need to be pretty regimented and good at sticking to a plan imo, even if that plan is to slow your losses down. You also need to be good at sticking your macros.

- a good rule of thumb as to whether a cut is too aggressive is if you fall into an 'average' range re BF%, then a loss of 1% of body weight, as expressed as a deficit, each week is reasonable. When you start to get lean, then that should be scaled back to 0.5%. Lean in this case would be somewhere low/mid teens for guys and low 20's for women. (this is outside the initial aggressive cut period).

GetSoda

Great! Thank you! That would be 2.45 for now, then 1.2 later.

Sarauk2sf

Locking so we can track active threads better. If you have further questions, please PM me, and include a link to this thread and I will unlock so you can pose them.