The "Proper" Way to cut. Questions.

[ma70]

So throughout my entire time of working out I've mixed between recomping and bulking. I could never do an extended cut without feeling like total garbage. Here's my original thought process:

1) Take maintenance calories, subtract 500 and aim for this every day.
2) Fats at around 0.4g per lb bodyweight, protein at 1g per lb bodyweight, then I fill the rest in with carbs.

Without stims/fat burners, by the 4th/5th day, I feel pretty unfocused when working out, etc.. Is it because 500 is too many calories to cut right off the bat? Or could it just be that I've been calculating my maintenance calories wrong this entire time? I pretty much only lift heavy while cutting, and I don't do cardio. Is there a different way that you guys end up cutting? Something like.... -200 calories every week? etc.

 

[heybeavis1]

You can cycle your calorie intake.
By carbs, would be carb cycling (heavy days more carbs, low/moderate days less carbs)
If you feel like chit, maybe you can do a refeed more often.. ? Just my 2 cents

 

[LeanEngineer]

I slowly start lowering my calories and upping my cardio when cutting and then i will throw in a thermo and a few other supps around 4 weeks out.

 

[The Solution]

Start here.


http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/exercise-and-weightfat-loss-part-1.html
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/exercise-and-weightfat-loss-part-2.html

I highly suggest you read here regarding your diet:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-fundamentals-of-fat-loss-diets-part-1.html
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-fundamentals-of-fat-loss-diets-part-2.html

Cutting is about taking things as slow as possible.
Leave all varibales possible for when roadblocks/stalls happen meaning start with calories as high as possible while still losing and keeping cardio to a minimum. This way when you stall you can cut calories and add cardio

if you drop kcals too fast you will notice
- decrease in energy, mood, focus, and you will see yourself stalling more than seeing progress
Leave the burners/thermo's and all other supplements till the end when you are lean enough to notice a benefit from them and when you really need to turn it up a notch and have made several caloric adjustments and added in a decent amount of cardio.

Aim for around .5-1lb a week and keep it slow and steady to help preserve as much LBM/Muscle as possible. Faster is not always better.