Okay.
New here, and love the site!
I’ve been making some good gains, but I want to cut now.
I’m 5’8" 180lbs and around 15%bf.
What are some programs you would all reccomend to get cut up and can you send them to me or point me in the right direction?
Thanks;
Dustin
Let me be the first to say this nicely… NO ONE is going to recommend you cut at that weight.
But in any event its your body and I will try to help you out. There are a few things you must remember!
1 - Do NOT Just start cutting tomorrow. Take a month or so to ease into it, dropping 200-300 calories a week… Otherwise you will notice a HUGE drop in body weight (usually that muscle you just packed on)
2 - If you know your maintenence cals, try not to go more than 1,000 below those. The consessun is that if you lose more than 2 pounds per week you lose muscle more than fat.
If you thrive on low carb diets…The T-Dawg 2.0 sounds pretty good, and fairly tolerble considering it allows a FULL cheat DAY, you don’t have to take it however. The Velocity diet by Chris Shugart has also been tried,tested, and approved by your fellow T-Men.
Look to the left of the screen and click on Articles, then click Diet programs.
I’ll check it out! Thanks.
I really just want to get to like 8-10%bf so I can get some more definition and see a little more of my abs that I know exist under that little layer of flab!
EXACTLY!! I know exactly how you feel man. I’ve been a chubs my whole life and I am just now starting to get some muscle going. I went on a little cut cycle a while back because I just wanted to have a freakin 6-pack for once in my f’n life.
If your diet is in order though, speaking as someone going through the same stuff, I would recommend putting on another 10-15 pounds (hopefully most of it muscle) that way when you diet in 3 months or so… more to show!
I think that I may do that, put on some lbs and then cut. Also since Halloween, Thanksgiving, XMas, New Years is right around the corner, may be a little easier to put on some mass and then cut after the new year.
Any programs you reccomend?
I’ve been thinking of doing the same- continuing with my present bulking and then cut after new years. I was thinking of just eating extremely clean, and gradually lowering my calories.
I also want to do a cycle of German Body Comp. I’ve heard good things about it, and want to find out for myself. There’s a slightly modified version of it on T-Nation, just search for “Bowl Full of Jelly”.
Hey Dustin,
I will just tell you what I did and you can deceide what to do.I used to weigh about 180 at 15% at 6’1.I wanted to lose badyfat and get bigger and I did,going up to 225 usind 4-AD.But it sucked because even though I put on about 20 puonds of muscle,I also added about 20 pounds of fat.I looked fater because my new muscles were poking out my old newly added fat.
Weight is not important,if I would’ve done my homework on this site,I would have seen it is recommended to lose the fat first then start bulking,if you already have a higher bf%,a bulking diet will add 4 pounds of fat to every pound of muscle.I did get back down to 194 going on the T-Dawg diet using the calorie recommdations of the Velocity Diet,all fat loss,in 8 weeks.
That is what I recommend to you,the Velocity or T-Dawg.With HOT-ROX and Methoxy-7,you have the best of both worlds,you can lose massive amounts of BF and still retain or even gain a few pounds of muscle.I hope this helps.
P.S. I used Metohxy-7, HOT-ROX, Surge, Alpha Male and Low-Carb Grow! and I belive I would of lost a tremedous amount of muscle if I hadn’t.Also probably help me lose an extra 6-10 pounds of fat using HOT-ROX.
Whatever you do…DO NOT just jump into the diet off the bulking cycle. I did that stupidly and lost like 8 pounds in a week, you can take a guess at how much of that was actually fat.
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Whatever you do…DO NOT just jump into the diet off the bulking cycle. I did that stupidly and lost like 8 pounds in a week, you can take a guess at how much of that was actually fat.[/quote]
I will take a guess, and say 1lbs. The rest was carbs and water. Is is not THAT easy to lose muscle.
I disagree with you purple tellitubby man. After a bulking phase you want to at LEAST go into a maintanence phase for several weeks to let your body adjust to the new overall weight. Then you very slowly begin lowering calories. I too have experienced going from bulk to straight cutting and now will never repeat it.
Just my opinion
Good luck
Dezz
I always cringe when I see a thread that has the phrase, “I wanna get cut” in it. But that is the nature of the beast I suppose.
I think alot of people (particularily newbies) tend to over-complicate things to the point where they do more harm than good when it comes to their training and nutrition. Worrying about minutia like getting down to a specific body fat % when one isn’t even competing or what type of training routine to follow is just going to mess with your head more than anything.
Keep it simple.
What does this entail?
Your priority should be making certain that you are getting enough protein. 1.0-1.25 grams per lb of BW is sufficient.
Also, a HUGE mistake that I see many people make is not getting in enough EFA’s. Numerous studies have shown that increases EFA’s in the diet lead to improved insulin sensitivity and an improved metabolic rate.
Carbs of course should be kept to the times when you “will use them and not wear them”…PWO time being optimal.
Again, clean it up and you will be surprised as to how your body will respond.
As for training, I would stick to heavy, low-rep training emphasizing compound lifts. What builds muscle, maintains muscle: this should be your mantra. It takes more muscle to complete a set of 5 reps than it does 20. And when dieting, your body will only keep what muscle it needs. So if you’re consistently performing high rep sets thinking that that is what is most efficient at burning fat (or building more muscle), you’re going to be pretty disappointed. The focus when dieting should be shedding fat, NOT building muscle.
Just some food for thought.
I would say that it was “carbs and water weight” if i didnt know the fact that I was eating plenty of carbs and didnt gain any water weight back. I seriously dropped from like 4,000 a day to around 2,000…not a good decision.
[quote]georgeb wrote:
I’ve been thinking of doing the same- continuing with my present bulking and then cut after new years. I was thinking of just eating extremely clean, and gradually lowering my calories.
I also want to do a cycle of German Body Comp. I’ve heard good things about it, and want to find out for myself. There’s a slightly modified version of it on T-Nation, just search for “Bowl Full of Jelly”.[/quote]
Where is this article “Bowl Full of Jelly”? I did a couple of searches, looked in TC’s articles (I think one of the search results said he wrote it)
[quote]UserRamma wrote:
I also want to do a cycle of German Body Comp. I’ve heard good things about it, and want to find out for myself. There’s a slightly modified version of it on T-Nation, just search for “Bowl Full of Jelly”.
Where is this article “Bowl Full of Jelly”? I did a couple of searches, looked in TC’s articles (I think one of the search results said he wrote it)
[/quote]
http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=34jelly
Good luck, and let me know how it goes. I agree with Tony G - just clean up your eating and you should see results with just that.
I’ve decided to go ahead and just bulk, and then after the 1st of the year, I will cut (Not competition style cutting) just become lean, probably 9-12%bf
My question is what supps would you reccomend for my bulking phase.
Ha…I love it. Wants to know how to cut then decides to bulk FOR A YEAR.Welcome to the nation, my friend.
I know I know…I was laughing myself…but NO I’m not bulking for a year…I couldn’t do it that long.
I’m going to bulk for the rest of the year and then after the 1st of the year start to cut…I guess one of those New Years Resolution things!
Thanks for the advice!
Maybe you and I could keep track of each other as that is my plan too! I was looking around at some pictures and there are some REALLY great looking physiques at under 180 pounds (shredded to pieces of course)
Tom Venuto is the look i’m going for, check him out.