Can I lift and still effectively cut?

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  • charlesmauch
    charlesmauch Posts: 58 Member
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    I train in the AM, and eat very lightly on all days with the exception of the night before a training session. I noticed a long time ago when I would "cheat" / chow down on pizza / hamburgers the evening before lifting, my performance would skyrocket the next morning.

    So I recently started doing that intentionally (sort of). I eat a bunch of carbs right before I go to sleep when I'm training the next day. Typically at least a cup (weighed dry) of oatmeal with protein powder and 2 or 3 cups (again weighed dry) of rice. In the morning I usually feel awesome (if a bit bloated) and I'm ready to just kill it in the gym. Then it's back to eating lightly again for the rest of the day and the day after.

    I'm sure that there is a better protocol for this, but I seem to respond well to this kind of eating and the fat is melting off without loosing a lot of strength. I do zero "cardio" other than a lot of daily walking (2 to 3 miles on lifting days, 4 to 5 miles on recovery days). I used to do a lot of hard conditioning (sprints/ropework) but I got tired of it interfering with recovery so I dropped it. Figure out what works for you.

    At your age I wouldn't worry too much about loose skin. There is nothing you can do about it other than wait for it to bounce back (or surgery) anyway.
  • IsaackGMOON
    IsaackGMOON Posts: 3,358 Member
    edited June 2015
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    sarabrunning wrote: »
    Definitely lift, follow a clean diet, incorporate some cardio and be consistent. Building muscle will help you lose fat faster. Do the math for your BMR, figure out the daily caloric intake for your goal, calculate your macros for the body fat composition you want and stick to it. Great job so far!

    Sigh...He's in a deficit, he's not going to build a huge amount of muscle which will help him burn fat.

    OP, create a caloric deficit. Eat foods which meet your micro/macros and eat the foods which you enjoy so you don't go insane.

    Whether you do cardio or strength training is up to you. But I'd recommend a mix of both, cardio will allow you to eat that bit extra from burning off the calories and strength training you can increase your strength and preserve as much muscle as possible.
    Karen_libert wrote: »
    I am cutting at the moment and lift 3 times a week. Cutting simply means eating at a deficit in order to reduce your body fat percentage. When you eat at a deficit your body will choose the easiest place to take your stores from and that is muscle (from what I understand). Lifting weight and eating a decent amount of protein will reduce the loss of muscle and encourage your body to use up fat stores first but there will always be some muscle loss with weight loss.

    She explained it better than I did ;)
  • colors_fade
    colors_fade Posts: 464 Member
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    ncahill77 wrote: »
    Interesting, I haven't seen that yet. I can see the validity but I can't do much work on 800-1000 cals, so I load up on squat and deadlift days.

    I try and keep my calorie deficit the same every day, but lifting days I simply try and get a few more carbs in before/after workouts. They are the fuel...

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