I have been bulking up for a long time now and am ready to get my definition back. I am 6'2 210 lbs with ~16% body fat and do not do any cardio. This is my first cutting phase and I am excited to see how my body responds. My goal is to reach 10% body fat without losing muscle.
I have been eating 3500 calories a day and am guessing this is slightly above maintenence for me. Im ready to start cutting anytime but I want to make sure I have a solid gameplan.
1.Should I start carb cycling right off the bat or wait until the later stages?
2. Im planning on starting hIIt style cardio right away. Do you think I should Drop my calories by 500 and start cardio simultaniously, or just keep my calories at maintenance for the first few weeks of cardio.
3. I am guessing my daily maintenance caloric intake is around 3200. I am eating 3500 right now. should I start my diet at 3000 and gradually lower it to 2500 over the three months?
I just want to make sure I don't loose muscle by dropping too many calories at once or something on my first cut attempt. .. . Any advise would be greatly appreciated as I am all ears.
Posted by: atherjen
gradually lower your caloires. not all 500 at once. 200 each time when needed until in a 500 calorie deficiet ... thats if you choose to go that way and just follow a calorie reduce diet. carb cycling is a bit different. check the stickies. and yes you could start this right away.
Id reccomend starting with only 2days of HIIT at first. let diet do its jobs and add cardio when needed.
Posted by: seabee
6'2" 210 is exactly where I was in January. Took me this long to get to 9% BF. I did HIT 2 days and lifted 3-4 days to get here. About 3K calories too.
Dead stop in fat loss now for 2 weeks. Extreme measures needed to hit 5%. Good luck.
"Blest" should also reply to this...he appears to be identical to us in size, etc. and he looks to be right where you probably want to be (I do anyway as a tall ecto). How about it, Blest?
Posted by: Cletis2000
seabee what was your starting body fat%?
Did you carb cycle? Im thinking of cutting the first month on a 1 g carb/lb bodyweight diet with a refeed every five days. If that doesnt work Ill try the carb cycle diet. Im not really in a hurry to get super lean as I want to retain all muscle.
Posted by: seabee
About 15%. I took in around 3000 cals. Ratios: 50/40/10. No major diet changes except less cheat days. It was the HIT x2-3 days and I added a second leg day per week, plus an extra high rep/light weight set to every lift (burn out set). I normally only lift heavy.
Good luck. I'm not much help in the diet department. I'm in the process of getting emergency help from this board on dieting to break through this wall I've hit.
Posted by: Vieope
Remember, you donīt have a competion in few months.
Take it slow Very ssllllooowww.
Very ssllllooowww.