[quote]paulieserafini wrote:
so ive been eating about 300-350 grams of protein a day for like a year and a half now. I want to drop this to 200grams a day i weigh 250-255ish and a guess for what my lbm is about 185-190ish at 5’8
does this sound like a bad idea?
this means i might drink a 50g protein shake once a day and the rest of my protein will come from whole foods, about 22oz of chicken a day(either about 2 10oz chicken breast or one chicken breast and 3 chicken thighs) 6 eggs 2.5oz of tuna and you know the little bits you get from things like rice and stuff.
and ill probably just eat 3 meals a day instead of the 8 meals/snacks every two hours.
do you think this will drastically affect my lifting? it’ll probably only drop my caloric intake by 400 calories
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So your going to hit a cut huh? I can actually help with this 
1 - member BONEZ217 is correct, don’t just “guess” how much your macros should be, you will set yourself up for failure or will rob yourself of your true potential. Sure, anyone can just cut down what they eat and lose weight, any successful jenny Craig member can tell you that. As a bodybuilder though, if you do it wrong you will NOT be happy with the outcome. There is nothing worse than having all your hard work “trumped” by a LARGE t-shirt, you want people to know you work out, right? Don’t be Jared from Subway
2 - Don’t do 3 meals. Okay, as far as science goes, yeah you will probably be fine. As far as someone who has not followed a diet what-so-ever for the last 3 YEARS goes (this is YOU) it will be waiting too long to eat and will be increasing your chances of a “F*CK IT!” bender, believe me, on a cut, they happen. I have done more cuts than I can count and I still have times now and then I just lose it. On a serious cut your are going to be watching the clock in between meals, especially if you are sitting doing nothing for long periods of time, the hunger will be far less if you don’t have to wait as long. I’m not saying you do 8 but around 5 is more realistic.
3 - Ditch the sugar monster drink, you are on a cut, you can use your calories better than this since that will do nothing for your hunger, get a diet one or if you are like me and don’t do sweeteners drink a black coffee
4 - Accept you will look a little worse before you look better…
Oh, in a perfect world the fat would just melt away from my lower stomach and stick around in my arms, legs and chest until the end but thats not how it works. The last place visable fat hangs on to is your lower stomach. That means on your quest for abs you will see your chest, arms, legs, etc shrink in size while your stomach stays fat. Don’t worry, if you are doing your cut correctly this is just fat you are losing but you will look a little smaller, you will be weaker due to the decrease in calories, your pumps will be less vascular (initially) and you will not have “good” abs for awhile. Just accept this and don’t let it freak you out too bad, in the end you will look better, there is just a phase on the road to it where you look a little worse and this is where MANY people quit.
5 - You are in the big leagues now, lol. I say this jokingly but it’s true. I’m not saying what you did to get this far did not take dedication, anybody who has done what you have to this point is a dedicated individual and you deserve some praise for that…but, I will say MOST people can’t cut, they just don’t have what it takes. You will really be testing your limits here, stay focused, keep the intensity high, remember there are usually big dudes and skinny dudes…the big dudes WITH abs are few and far between and are considered the elite in my opinion. I heard someone say abs on a skinny guy are like boobs on a fat chick, kind of true. A guy your size, if the cut is done properly, could look F’n insane!! Don’t be a quiter, see this thing through to the end.
6 - The final and possibly most important…get ready for negative “compliments”
You will initially lose a lot of water and have a positive response from people. The problem is, once you start turning down late night pizza with your friends and actually getting some GOOD results the negative compliments will start. Things like “Dude, you have lost a lot of weight but you look kind of sick, you should eat something” or “I think you have lost enough weight, you might have a disorder” will start to become frequent. In my current avatar picture I had my own mother tell me I look famished and might be seriously sick. I had my Wife say she likes me better “big” and had to deal with any number of people asking me why I am losing weight. If you are not a typical fat-ass, which you are not by any means, most people don’t understand why you are losing weight. People will also test your limits. I’m not sure if you have even been a smoker but anyone who has quit can agree with this…
Person out of smokes - “hey can I get a cig guys”
Friends - “no, go buy some”
Person QUITING smoking - “hey guys, I just quit smoking”
Same Friends - “Do you want a cig, here have a few”
Same rules for food, you will reciever MORE temptation than you ever imagined because other people want you to eat it with them, they will actually start getting mad at you for saying no. Don’t let them get you down, in the end you will look fantastic and everyone will ask how you did it. Of course, when you try to tell them they will just say your all wrong and will do it there own way and fail but it doesn’t really matter what other people do right? Hope that helps!