Best Plan to Retain Muscle While Cutting?

I am wrapping up a two year bulk and want to minimise the muscle loss while dropping fat. What is the best option?

Best = results vs safety avoiding long term damage to my body.

I am 6ft and 110kg (242lbs) and wear 34” jeans. I expect I am around 25% bf. I don’t want to get insanely lean as I have mild loose skin, 12% bf would be an awesome result if i can hold onto all the muscle I have.

Clean seems to be out due to increasing the size of the heart.

Albuterol seems to have questionable results based on several threads I have read.

Thank you

All beta 2 agonists have the potential to do this, this isn’t a property uniquely found among clen, anabolic steroids have the potential to cause heart enlargement too, combine the two and it increases the risk further. You shouldn’t be using PED’s of any type until you get you’re BF down to a reasonable percentage (increased BF = shittier insulin sensitivity = less gainz). I mean a 34 in waist is pretty good for 25 percent BF at 6’3, you must have great genes with regard to where you hold onto fat (my waist size is like 29-30 but I’m only 160lbs… And super short)

Cut slowly to minimise loss of lean tissue (there’s two thoughts, one is to cut the fat as fast as possible the other is to cut slowly), I believe the first school of thought is best, I can find clinical data somewhere in which participants undergoing a slow cutting phase actually gained something like 1lb of LBM, will find the data tommorow.

Anyway good luck with the journey :slight_smile:

Agreed with the genes for the jeans. I also have pretty good genes for waist size, during my bulks I sit around 32" and on my cut I have actually been able to fit into 26", however my legs were not comfortable.

SB

Thanks @Singhbuilder and @unreal24278, I put quite a lot of fat in my legs belly and ass.

My belly sits above my jeans so doesn’t impact my jeans waist size.

After two years of dieting from 288lbs to 178lbs at 6ft (before starting my 2 year bulk) I was 29/30” jeans with lose skin and not enough muscle on my frame.

This time I want to have meat on my bones and be strong when somewhat lean. I really don’t want my bench and other lifts to go down while cutting.

Would you rather be lean or have your ego remain the same? Because you’ll lose some strength while cutting. That’s the nature of putting your body in deficit. You’re asking your body to keep going hard while simultaneously not providing it with the necessary fuel to do so. So either you cut very slowly and maintain most of your strength or you go nuts and cut hard but the ego takes a big hit. Or you just run tren and don’t have to worry about it because something something something magic. (Do not actually do this; this is a joke)

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I’m just finishing a cycle with HGH and in my opinion, its the magic bullet. I’ve lost about 15 pounds since Oct 1 without any changes to my diet. 4 inches off my waist, some loss in other areas but not as significant as my waist.

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@iron_yuppie I don’t mind a small hit to my ego. In my last cut I lost around 1lbs a week. By the end of the lengthy cut (2 years), my strength and muscles were almost totally destroyed. I ate at least 200g of quality protein per day and 1700 calories per day. I did no cardio except for walking here and there, just calorie deficit and lifting weights.

I don’t know if my thinking is correct but if I am 110kg (242lbs) now at around 25%bf then I should be approx 100kg (220lbs) at around 15% bf.

How quickly can I drop this weight without experiencing big impacts to my muscle?

Is there nothing out there that can help save muscle during this process? Anadrol?

I currently eat approx 2,900 calories per day. I also have one big chest meal once we week pushing the days intake to around 4500.

My cardio will be BJJ 4 to 5 times a week and I will be doing compound lifts (bench, squat deadlift) 2 times per week with some accessory stuff (dips, chins, rows, skull crushers) mixed in. I currently lift 3 times per week.

I mean, you can retain size and strength with a halfway competent cycle. It gets done all the time. I just don’t love the idea of a first cycle being a cut. I especially don’t love the idea of a first cycle being run when your bf is high. I’m not judging btw. My bf went up to 24% on a long bulk, same as you. And I can tell you that my trt protocol had to adjust a little to deal with the higher e2 that I experienced from just being fatter. It’s a juggling act and if you can avoid it then that’s probably long term better.

I would look into peptides. As Stud said, GH is quite remarkable. But it’s cost prohibitive for most guys and peptides are a good way to get some of the same effects without the huge costs. That would be something to investigate.

What was your HGH dose and how did you shoot it? Subq?

Have you read BBBs protocol on HGH? He suggested an irregular dosing schedule to mimic the natural pulsatile release of GH.

SB

5 IU/day. Pinned subQ at night before bed

No, I’m not familiar with him.

I suffer pretty badly from sleep apnea and we know that can impact natural GH production. Its my theory that my own natural production was in basement so when I added it at night, I got what is called a “compensatory gain” meaning I was in a long term deficit and my body responded accordingly.

@iron_yuppie thanks for your thoughts. Cost isn’t an issue.

Then get some good quality GH and you won’t be disappointed. I have yet to meet anyone—either online or irl—who doesn’t love GH.

It does have some water retention issues in the beginning and if you have carpal tunnel issues it will exacerbate the hell out of them.

Thanks @iron_yuppie

I have some more reading to do on HGH but I have read quite a bit after your recommendation.

I can see the recommended dosage has quite a large range (4iu to 10iu). Assuming one is getting it direct from the pharmacy and isn’t willing to do iv or im, what is the recommended dosage and how long does one take it for? I can throw a few thousand at this but would like to avoid some of the major side effects.

Bad side effects at the recommended dosages?

I only found a few thread on HGH only cycles and see most people add it in as part of a T cycle. Is it very effective on its own?

Is HGH like T where almost all gains are lost when one goes off?

I did 5 IU/day and had good results. I wouldn’t suggest too much more. Like I said previously, it will add a ton of water in the beginning before you see results. So 100 IU (a typical package of 10 vials with 10 IU each) will last you 20 days. For $2000 you could get some high quality HGH at about $250/100 IU. About 800 IU which would last a little over 5 months. Plenty of time to see some really good results.

I’m so close to doing it, Stud. You’re making me want to pull the trigger but I’m just too deep into the dollar cost-benefit analysis. But man that sounds tempting.

I know how you feel. Its expensive but I got great results from the less expensive HGH, more like $170/100 IU. Even 2 months at 5 IU/day would show pretty significant results. So that would be 300 IU x $170 = $510.

Did you see my blast thread? I lost 4 inches on my waist and kept almost all my gains.

Fucking beast.

@iron_yuppie My email is on my profile if you ever want to talk offline.

How’d you know what my wife calls me? :joy:

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