5' 7", 139lbs, 16.2% BF. Should I do a slow cut?

How was your body fat determined?
How old are you?

Steelpit202 wrote: »

I'm 25.

My BF was measured with a device where you stick your arms out. I think it's a BIA device.

Those are highly inaccurate. You could be 10% or you could be 20%. Maybe if you post a picture people can get an accurate idea of where you are at for body fat and lean mass then offer better suggestions.

It's simple. Cut

Here's why. If your method of BF% puts you in the 15% range, then it's close enough. Let's pretend it's either 13 all the way to 19. Either one of those and you'll still do better to cut. The basic idea is that at more than 15% BF, the body (males) tends to favour fat over muscle for storage. You still gain muscle but it's not very efficient if you are then going to turn around and cut again to look good. If you bulk, you'll have a long way to go to get down to 12%, because you'll be starting from 20% or so, and you might want to do that in two cuts instead of one because a long cut (more than 4-6 months or so) has a higher chance of losing muscle.

If you want to have muscle and be cut, spend most of your time between 12 and 15% BF, begin to bulk at 12 and begin to cut at 15. It's a very rough guide, but that's a nice sweet spot for efficiency. Lyle McDonald recommends this range as a nice place to start.

When you cut, you want to keep muscle. You need two things on a deficit to keep the muscle you have. Protein around 1g/lb body fat (slightly less is ok, it's just a nice round number and does the trick for fat loss), and you need to maintain lifting at or above around 60% of your 1RM. Your volume doesn't have to be high, you don't have to be making progress in the gym, you just have to maintain your muscles, and it takes very little work to maintain your muscles for a few months while you cut 5%. Try to keep with your lifting program "as is", and you should be ok. Don't try to make gains, you could end up (very slight chance) losing muscle by going too hard. If you just cut your volume by 25% you should be ok, that kind of thing.

Try for a 10-25% calorie deficit from TDEE. Have the calorie deficit you can sustain, and no more.

BTW I'm your height and got down to 130 at 12.5%, so you don't have that far to go. Not saying we're the same, just giving you some goal posts. 10 lbs might do it, then bulk.

ninerbuff wrote: »

I'm the same height and if I was 139lbs (I'm currently 197lbs) I'd look pretty gangly. Why do you want cut at such a low weight already?

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Same height and 180. Agree with ya. He needs to just focusing on lifting right now. Forget the cut.

Just keep training with your PT and eat in a slight calorie deficit, you're likely more like 18-22% bf. the number itself doesn't matter much. If you're consistently using the BIA and measuring consistently, it should trend downwards for you if you're doing things correctly.

Yes IMO you do look skinny fat. You don't have enough muscle mass on your frame. Eat at or near TDEE (higher even on tough days) and lift heavy. I wouldn't be cutting if I were you. It's just my personal opinion. If you want to keep cutting all the good to you. But I feel like at some point you will be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Without enough muscle mass you will have to work in reverse.

Steelpit202 wrote: »

richardgavel wrote: »

Steelpit202 wrote: »

Rusty740 wrote: »

Steelpit202 wrote: »

Given the advice I'm giving, it looks like I could continue in a cut. However, with that being said so I could still gain strength, should I go with a slow cut (10% deficit or so), do a standard cut, or could I try recomping?

I'm thinking maybe 0.5 lbs per week. It's decent, but slow enough to keep a bit of workout strength, if you can do 1 lb per week for the first 3-4 weeks that would be good, but it will get much harder so you might end up only losing 0.25 lb per week by the end anyhow. I'm guessing maybe 12-16 weeks. You could stop at 135 and maintain for a month, or you could try for 1 lb per month for 10 weeks or so, but it's just going to come down to how you feel.

I'm thinking I'll go with the slow cut route (continue 250-300 cals or so below maintenance). This allows for some leeway on lifting days or days where I'm more active to where if I burn extra, I'd lose a little more or if I eat back exercise calories, I could still be on track. This also allows me to possibly still make progress with weights.

That's similar to what I do. I eat at net maintenance on lifting days and a net deficit only on cardio days. Be forewarned you're going to have a lot of water weight spikes because you keep topping off your gylcogen stores at maintenance and then reducing them with the deficit.

In that case, I think I will try and eat back any exercise calories. Also, the only cardio I really do is as a warmup before I lift. I have been thinking maybe I could do a little HIIT as cardio.

Also, I have actually maybe thought of calorie/carb cycling for a recomp. I haven't tried it, but could that be another viable option as a beginner?

Do what works. Of course carb cycling could increase your total weekly calories, maybe that's good or bad depending on what you are going for. It can also serve as a "once per week" break from a cut. Like a re-feed.

If I were you, getting started, I'd try to keep it simple first, then add different techniques as you need to.

For cut, less calories
For bulk, more
For recomp, maintenance (if it works)

donkey9512 wrote: »

rybo wrote: »

You have very little muscle, I'd bulk.

If he bulks, he will just add more fat and instead of skinny fat, he will be plain old fat. Cut first then lean bulk.

But it is obvious that you still need to at least maintain the muscle you have. Therefore you need to only do weight training and limited cardio. You need a very slight calorie deficit. This should be a very slow cut. Then after 8 weeks, post pictures and maybe we can go into bulk mode.

Not if he doesn't go overboard on his surplus. He's not even 140lbs. that's small and while yes a higher fat % than usual, he's in a no man's land. A cut is going to be too tedious trying to avoid losing what little muscle mass is there. There's a case either way, my opinion is definitely a bulk, easier to slow bulk than slow cut in his situation.

I'm in favour of OP doing what gets him the fastest into a place where he can bulk and cut with reasonable speed. If he bulks, he will have a long cut ahead of him at some point, if he cuts for a couple months he could be down at 13% and then bulk for a few, then cut to 12, and be in a good place for medium length bulls and shorter cuts. That's the placed I'd like the be in personally, but OP, if you go for muscle first, that's cool too.

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