Bulk / Cut cycles

What he said although bulking doesn't have to last several months and can be done with very little to not fat gain, although slight fat gain clues you in to the fact that you are gaining as much muscle as you can.

For people who experiment with this venture, it is divided into 2 phases, the bulking phase and the cutting phase. The bulking phase involves eating and training at a calorie surplus basically by eating more calories than your body can expend in an effort to gain muscle mass. The objective is to calculate the quantity of calories that you need to take in to maintain your bodyweight, with all of the exercise and other physical activities that you do throughout the day and to eat slightly more than this. The cutting phase involves eating at a caloric deficit. By eating slightly fewer calories than your baseline amount. There is typically more cardio done in the cutting phase and it is generally recommended for the majority of it to be of the HIIT variety and for workouts to hit multiple muscle groups as opposed to 1 or 2 muscle groups per workout during bulking. Rest periods are shorter during cutting to induce more of an aerobic effect. There is no standard rep scheme to adhere to in an effort to burn fat so it is generally accepted practice to implement high rep (12 or more) sets with low rep (12 or fewer) sets to hit both type 1 and type 2a muscle fibers.

Train hard, rest, and eat a balanced diet. Be patient. Building muscle takes a long time.

How do I know what the calorie deficit is? I keep reading about eating at a deficit at the expense of your muscles.
How do I find that sweet spot? I would hate to undo all the work I have been putting in building my muscle base.

put basically, you could get a DEXA scan to work out how much of your weight is fat vs muscle, and it will give you calories estimates for weight loss and maintenance. then work on eating a high protein diet to spare the muscle loss, and little to no carbs to get your body to burn fat instead for energy. there are heaps of variations of these diets around, depends on how severe/fast you want to do this and how much stress you want to put on your body.

How do I know what the calorie deficit is? I keep reading about eating at a deficit at the expense of your muscles.
How do I find that sweet spot? I would hate to undo all the work I have been putting in building my muscle base.

put basically, you could get a DEXA scan to work out how much of your weight is fat vs muscle, and it will give you calories estimates for weight loss and maintenance. then work on eating a high protein diet to spare the muscle loss, and little to no carbs to get your body to burn fat instead for energy. there are heaps of variations of these diets around, depends on how severe/fast you want to do this and how much stress you want to put on your body.

What a load of crap.
Dont follow this advice at all.

oh. heaps of my competitive body builder friends do this for comps, i'll have to tell them theyre doing it wrong.

what should i tell them to do instead?

Find out your TDEE number with one of the many calculators online (this number is what you need to maintain) then also find out your BMR number never eat below that. It is usually suggested to cut no more than 20% from your TDEE number to lose fat but still keep muscle and not mess with your metabolism.

This. The TDEE you get will be an estimate. You can eat at -10-20% of it and see how fast or slow you are losing weight and adjust in small increments from there. The leaner you get, the slower you need to lose weight in order to preserve muscle. At the end you should not be losing no more than 1-1.5lbs per week. Also you need to eat enough protein and fat (1 gram per pound of your lean body mass minimum pro and .45g\lb of lbm fat) and do resistance training.

How do I know what the calorie deficit is? I keep reading about eating at a deficit at the expense of your muscles.
How do I find that sweet spot? I would hate to undo all the work I have been putting in building my muscle base.

put basically, you could get a DEXA scan to work out how much of your weight is fat vs muscle, and it will give you calories estimates for weight loss and maintenance. then work on eating a high protein diet to spare the muscle loss, and little to no carbs to get your body to burn fat instead for energy. there are heaps of variations of these diets around, depends on how severe/fast you want to do this and how much stress you want to put on your body.

What a load of crap.
Dont follow this advice at all.

oh. heaps of my competitive body builder friends do this for comps, i'll have to tell them theyre doing it wrong.

what should i tell them to do instead?

Closer to the contest yes, low carbing will dry you out better. But if you're more than 5 - 6 weeks out of the comp, there's no reason to go low low carb. Dieting should be like landing and airplane, nice and slow, if you try to land too fast you're going to crash and burn.

Learn how to eat.

Learn how to lift.

Learn how to sleep.

Rinse and repeat.


The carbs arent keeping you from losing fat, YOU are keeping you from losing fat.
Also competitive bodybuilding is a totally different beast.
Are you going to tell OP to not drink water for 24 hours leading up to her weigh in?

You have no clue what you are talking about so dont dish out a bunch of garbage then point the finger at your friends.

Yeah sorta what he said. It isn't that the super low carb method won't work, it's just that it isn't needed and like you said, they do it for contest prep as a means to get the really shredded look. Avg joe\jane working on general fat loss and muscle retention\gain don't need to go that far. If they eat the minimums in protein and fat I mentioned in my previous post, they can fill ALL of their remaining calories with carbs if they want to.

Now I want Americone Dream.

Learn how to eat.

Learn how to lift.

Learn how to sleep.

Rinse and repeat.


The carbs arent keeping you from losing fat, YOU are keeping you from losing fat.
Also competitive bodybuilding is a totally different beast.
Are you going to tell OP to not drink water for 24 hours leading up to her weigh in?

You have no clue what you are talking about so dont dish out a bunch of garbage then point the finger at your friends.

im not pointing the finger at anyone, i have seen variations of the same process WORK.

funny that a DEXA scan will give you points 2 & 3 of your essential roadmap numbers, but will do it more accurately.
funny that you quote lyle mcdonald (an advocate of the high protein, low/no carb diet for cutting) on multiple occasions, yet rubbish the very notion of it. does he know his stuff, or doesnt he?

yes, the OP is not looking to enter a comp so i wouldnt recommend water loading or any variation, in fact, i didnt.
yes, the OP (an "average joe") doesnt need to look super shredded, which is why i gave a basic outline with the note there were heaps of variations, depending on what the OP wants to do.

looks like the OP has diet/sleep/training sorted, my post was specifically in regards to the topic - cutting.

yes, but that might be where your definitions of "cutting" vs "dieting" and "high" vs "low" carbs come in lol

I cut eating 300-400 g carbs/day.

Low carbing is only needed to get super lean (contest lean), something that very few have any interest in doing.

There's no better way to kill your ability to work out at high intensity than low carb dieting. Fat can't power high intensity exercise.

Rarely will you ever see a performance athlete do the low carb thing, athletes bulk/cut too.

I cut eating 300-400 g carbs/day.

Low carbing is only needed to get super lean (contest lean), something that very few have any interest in doing.

There's no better way to kill your ability to work out at high intensity than low carb dieting. Fat can't power high intensity exercise.

Rarely will you ever see a performance athlete do the low carb thing, athletes bulk/cut too.

To add, low carbing is about drying out, not losing fat. Big difference. As long as you are burning more calories than you consume at a resonable level (not enough to kill metabolism), you are going to lose fat. all the way down to unhealthy if you keep at it long enough.

Learn how to eat.

Learn how to lift.

Learn how to sleep.

Rinse and repeat.


The carbs arent keeping you from losing fat, YOU are keeping you from losing fat.
Also competitive bodybuilding is a totally different beast.
Are you going to tell OP to not drink water for 24 hours leading up to her weigh in?

You have no clue what you are talking about so dont dish out a bunch of garbage then point the finger at your friends.

im not pointing the finger at anyone, i have seen variations of the same process WORK.

funny that a DEXA scan will give you points 2 & 3 of your essential roadmap numbers, but will do it more accurately.
funny that you quote lyle mcdonald (an advocate of the high protein, low/no carb diet for cutting) on multiple occasions, yet rubbish the very notion of it. does he know his stuff, or doesnt he?

yes, the OP is not looking to enter a comp so i wouldnt recommend water loading or any variation, in fact, i didnt.
yes, the OP (an "average joe") doesnt need to look super shredded, which is why i gave a basic outline with the note there were heaps of variations, depending on what the OP wants to do.

looks like the OP has diet/sleep/training sorted, my post was specifically in regards to the topic - cutting.

Lyle also states the UD2 and Stubborn Fat solution arent for everyone.
Both diets are used to get "Super Lean".
My point with IPOARM was to show most people that eating that one cookie wont blow their day.
Or in our case Americone Dream.

90% of the people following IPOARM eat about 40% of their calories as carbs and are cutting down just fine.
Keep coming back!
;D