Thread: Cutting for the Six Pack

If you say you burn around 2,800 calories with no workout= your maintenance calories. In order to get your "6-pack" you must consume less calories than you burn.

My suggestion would be to first, make sure your diet is nice and clean- lean proteins, healthy fats, and complex proteins. Then, track your daily intake on fitday.com and post the website on here so we can all take a look at your macros (total calories, proteins, fats carbs)- it does all the math for you- all you need to do is measure your food and input it on the fitday account.

Do that, then come back post and ask away.

Originally Posted by erf777

Hi i know i have really strong abs, i think stronger than most. Somehow i manage to have fairly visible abs even though i have love handles, and was wondering if i could have help with a cutting diet like one that body builders use before competitions to lose the rest of my excess fat. When i workout i burn around 3200 calories a day (i eat 3700 calories to build usually), when i don't work out i burn around 2800, so i was wondering mainly
how many calories,
how much protein,
how much carbs,
how much fats,
any training advice.

Willpower is not a problem for me, so intensity of the diet and workouts isn't a problem, i will push myself to do anything. Thanks for any help i can get

calories is going to be around 2700 for now after a few weeks if your not losing about a pound a week you will need to adjust accordingly

protein and fat we will need to know your body weight and approximate Bf%

and as for training keep the weight on the bar , heavy weight low reps and relatively low volume to , you simply wont have the calories to repair to much muscle while cutting so you will not be able to train as hard as you do while on a bulk

Its all about calories. cut 20-25% below your maintenance and track your macs. Shoot for about 2100 or so cals. Adjust carbs and fats as you need in order to feel happy and watch the scale. Keep the protein up at a minimum of 1 gram per lb of weight, and keep the weight on the bar and lower overall intensity less you run the risk of burnin' more muscle than necessary. minimal cardio

If you do ANY cardio, just do a little after you lift, and you can consider a few minutes of sprint intervals followed by a 15-minute walk to cool down.

Speaking of cut..

I am 4 pounds away from my cut goal, but I notice every time i bend over...like to shit, my stomach still looks like shit. I can grab a handful of skin actually.

This also happens during planks and bent over row varieties.

This normal?

You will want a diet high in protein, medium in essential fats and somewhat low in well-timed carbs.

Quick example for a guy who weighs 200 and needs to get to about 180 for a nice 6-pack:

proteins: 270-290 g
carbs: 65-110 g (depending if training or off day)
added EFA's: 28-35 g (these are over and above fats that naturally occur in chicken, lean meats, fish, etc)

The carbs can certainly go higher than that on training days if calories allow, and the fats, indeed, make sure you get in at least 10g of fish oil daily, to provide 3g combined EPA/DHA.

Avoid flax. It just won't convert.

Akira, yes.

Hi all could i ask a question..i'm just starting to see some muscle def around my abs.. now without going into the sience of it all ...
i'm prsently on a hi protien low carb diet...so if i was to just slightly reduce my carb intake.. what part of the day should i reduce on..i've heard that after lunch or 12.00pm is agood time for less carbs ...what do you experanced people think...

Originally Posted by iceman816

Hi all could i ask a question..i'm just starting to see some muscle def around my abs.. now without going into the sience of it all ...
i'm prsently on a hi protien low carb diet...so if i was to just slightly reduce my carb intake.. what part of the day should i reduce on..i've heard that after lunch or 12.00pm is agood time for less carbs ...what do you experanced people think...

The best time of day to cut out calories is when you're comfortable doing it. It's just that simple. For example, I get very hungry late at night and will actually wake up starving if I don't stuff myself a bit before going to bed but really don't get that hungry during the day. That in mind, I purposefully often eat upwards of 1/3 my days calories within 1-2 hours of sleep and sometimes as little as 400-600 calories during normal work hours. Just something to keep in mind.

Thanks danzik17 ...i understand what you mean..i'm the same late at night so...i might reduce my normal work hours intake a bit
Cheers

It is SO MUCH EASIER to diet when you don't have to go to bed hungry.

Originally Posted by Built

The carbs can certainly go higher than that on training days if calories allow, and the fats, indeed, make sure you get in at least 10g of fish oil daily, to provide 3g combined EPA/DHA.

Avoid flax. It just won't convert.

Honestly haven't done too much research into it myself, but do you know of other O3 sources that are better than flax that aren't fish based then? Can't take fish oil due to that nasty reaction I get from it, so I'm currently stuck taking flax oil.

Non-animal sources just won't convert. I wouldn't use flax, personally.

How about seal? Or algae?

Originally Posted by Built

Non-animal sources just won't convert. I wouldn't use flax, personally.

How about seal? Or algae?

Will check out algae omega 3 tomorrow since it's getting late. It looks expensive at first glance, but each pill seems to give 250mg DHA so I would only need 4 pills as compared to 6-10 from flax/fish oil.

As for seal oil, is it legal in the US? Every site I have gone to refuses to ship to the US in their ToS. I haven't done any in-depth searching obviously (I'm not THAT fast) but that would suggest to me that there is some kind of law or import restriction that I'm not aware of. That's a shame too since seal oil seems very comparable in price.

In either case I have time. The earliest I will be trying new sources of O3 is June 5th...the accutane will be out of my system by that point.

Maybe try the prescription stuff - omacor?

Omacor - splash

Yup. Bit of searching brought up the "Marine Mammal Protection Act" which makes that illegal among other things.

I'd need a doctor on board for that prescription stuff, and there's no a chance my current doctor would do it. Although my uncle is a doctor, I don't think he'd be very comfortable with me asking for random prescriptions (or in him giving them out).

Originally Posted by gopro

You will want a diet high in protein, medium in essential fats and somewhat low in well-timed carbs.

Quick example for a guy who weighs 200 and needs to get to about 180 for a nice 6-pack:

proteins: 270-290 g
carbs: 65-110 g (depending if training or off day)
added EFA's: 28-35 g (these are over and above fats that naturally occur in chicken, lean meats, fish, etc)

Repeating this just in case Built wants to contradict me again.

Originally Posted by Built

It is SO MUCH EASIER to diet when you don't have to go to bed hungry.

I agree, couse when I hungry I can't sleep

Gopro, I backed up your assertion for EFA, and offered only that there was flexibility in the amount of carbs on high days if calories allow.

How does this contradict you?

Originally Posted by Built

Gopro, I backed up your assertion for EFA, and offered only that there was flexibility in the amount of carbs on high days if calories allow.

How does this contradict you?

I was really only playing...just since I have been back here you have in some way disagreed with most of my posts. Please don't take that seriously.

However, I would actually say that on training days he should go higher on either fats or proteins and NOT add to the carbs unless he is the rare person that processes carbs exceptionally well.

I weigh 240 and diet on less than 1/2 my bodyweight in carbs most of the time.

Process, in what way?

Originally Posted by Built

Process, in what way?

Most of us are somewhat insulin resistant and tend to convert ingested carbs to fat.

I understand that lol - but why is this a problem while running a caloric deficit? We store and retrieve fat all day.

Originally Posted by Built

I understand that lol - but why is this a problem while running a caloric deficit? We store and retrieve fat all day.

You bodyfat losses will be greater with a lower carb intake even at a caloric deficit. You only need enough carbs to support muscle reglycogenation and no more. Most people will lose fat even on "caloric maintenance" if they replace 25% of their carb calories with protein calories. This is because fat loss is more than a calorie in/out equation.

Originally Posted by gopro

You bodyfat losses will be greater with a lower carb intake even at a caloric deficit. You only need enough carbs to support muscle reglycogenation and no more. Most people will lose fat even on "caloric maintenance" if they replace 25% of their carb calories with protein calories. This is because fat loss is more than a calorie in/out equation.

agreed.

Originally Posted by gopro

You bodyfat losses will be greater with a lower carb intake even at a caloric deficit. You only need enough carbs to support muscle reglycogenation and no more. Most people will lose fat even on "caloric maintenance" if they replace 25% of their carb calories with protein calories. This is because fat loss is more than a calorie in/out equation.

gopro, before we get off on the wrong foot here, you are talking to someone who was insulin resistant enough to be on Metformin by age 38. I lost most of the weight-loss I've maintained on the Atkins diet, and moderate a board where many of us were low-carb dieters who had finally dropped weight and who were now weight-lifting - we needed support that was specific to low-carb former fatty bodybuilder wannabes LOL - in short, you don't need to convince me of how much or how little carb we all need.

Okay, disclaimer out of the way, I have been unable to find evidence that there is a metabolic advantage to dieting on low carbs (given protein is sufficient; EFAs, not overtraining blah blah blah...) in fact, Taubes and Atkins have been widely criticized for making this claim.

Are you suggesting that given sufficient protein and fat, and caloric deficit - in other words, all things being otherwise equal - the person on a lower-carb (but equal-calorie) diet will lose more fat?

What about Krill oil?