CUBA HOLIDAY DIET!

I agree with @StealthHealth , thats like 3.86 lb/week, nearly 4 pounds a week, which is very very high. My weight fluctuates up to 8 lb's depending on the day, so I would assume most of the "loss" is water weight, once you reduced your carb intake.

There are no fat specific shred diets, only hard work, weight-lifting combined with a reasonable deficit. We have no idea about your current weight or your goal so hard to give a suggestion but if you are close to your goal, I would definitely consider a lower loss per week such as 1lb/week or so, combined with heavy lifts.

Small deficit combined with lifts is your best bet to keep the muscle loss to a minimum while cutting, and even this depends on your current muscle situation. Newbies tend to keep their muscles easier during cuts, even gain some, compared to advanced lifters.

Also, make sure you are getting adequate amount of protein in you. I usually go with 0.8 grams of protein per lb of body weight, and works well for my body.

Is that bike/row/run your gym session or are your gym sessions weights and the cardio is extra to that?

It's my opinion that, because of your rapid weight loss, the predominantly cardio work outs, and an active day job that your weight loss so far (and in the future if you carry on) consists of mainly lean body mass.

I may be guilty of being overly cautious here but I would strongly recommend that you:

• Drop much of the cardio and use calorie intake to hit a loss rate of about 1lb per week
• Make your gym sessions primarily strength work using an established, progressive weightlifting program

I think that continuing as you are, sooner or later two things are going to happen:

• Your performance on the rugby pitch will decline
• You will find that although you weigh less the fat is still there

Re: lifting, check out this thread for some links to well respected lifting programs: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you#latest

HIIT can be useful, I see it as a way of packing an intense amount of exercise into a small time limit, nothing more or less than that really - I certainly don't think it has any special powers other than your burning a lot of cals in a short time.

In your situation - Where sport is important and you have a beach holiday coming up I'd be placing all my focus on lifting to preserve (maybe even build a little) muscle whilst using a slight calorific deficit to slooooowwwwllly shed some fat.

Believe me, for sports performance and aesthetics, you want to retain muscle as much as possible because it is much, much harder to build muscle than it is to shed fat and in some respects the more muscle you have the easier it is to drop that fat.

With a decent lifting program, Rugby x 3 per week and an active job your going to be eating north of 2500 cals per day - probably much more. This is a good thing

Looks OK to me - some would say that your high on protein but unless you have a medical condition, excess protein is not a health prob and can be a good (albeit expensive) insurance policy against muscle loss when dieting.

If you can make meals you enjoy on those macros then that is a good enough reason to stick with it.

I was anticipating something about the water and explosive end results and rapid weight loss...

OP, you have gotten some great suggestions here.

Enjoy your vacation. I haven't been to Cuba, but it's on my list.

If you're following a decent lifting program you won't want to to put a cycle ride in before your lifting session and you will be incapable of it afterwards!

I can sense your keenness to retain the cardio, and others may disagree with me on this, but for your goals and lifestyle cardio is a 3rd level priority (where slight calorific deficit and a program of lifting are 1st and 2nd priority in that order). If you must do some, make it something that you add on or fit in with your other gym work - make it the side order not the steak.