Hey, been on the forum for a while but havnt really posted,

Ive been bulking for a while (abit too much haha) and plan to cut soon for say 2-3 months. I havent tracked calories as properly as I should, so i was planning to eat a little less then maintance for say a week and see what the scales say?

When/how should I start dropping calories? every week if i havnt made progress say drop the calories by like 50?

I plan to do 2-3 20-30 min sessions of light cardio a week, How often/intense should this be or should i save intense cardio till I plateau. The first time i lost weight i ended up losing too much too quick and having some loose skin. 

Any other tips to successfully cutting/not plataeu quick?

Cheers

So i am starting a cut but my electronic scale is telling me i am a higher body fat%, lower muscle% and loosing weight, but i am gaining strength in every major lift such as bench, squat, dead lift, weighted pull ups, dips and curls. I am gaining strength because i haven't been lifting super heavy recently until around the time i have started my cut. I am eating clean and getting at least 1g of protein per body weight and eating about 2,000 calories. I was 205 now i am about 201 so do you think that my scales is just messed up or am i missing some thing here i am also training each body part twice a week and resting on Sundays, i don't overdo the cardio either only about 20 minutes 3 days a week of boxing hitting the heavy bag. Also i do around the same amount of sets and reps each week too so again hoping you can tell me if i am missing something important or to just not worry about it and my scale is just messed up or my body is just doing something weird just for now, maybe it's just the glycogen in my muscles? also i am 25 about 6"2 and my scale says i'm about 16% body fat even though i look learner when i look in the mirror thanks.

So, if you're starting a cut I would suggest slashing 400 calories from your current bulking intake and lowering 200 every week that you don't lose enough weight (should be losing abt 1 lb/wk or so). I usually stop drinking juice and control my sugar intake.

You can do HIIT and stuff like that, but that might be overkill. After all it's calories in v. calories out and HIIT uses up some calories (and eating less will also affect that difference). Essentially, I would start with a slow diet cut (like I mentioned above) and add in HIIT sessions when I don't feel like slashing more calories off my diet

hope that helps!

Hey @jz321.

How are you going to know if you have lowered your calories by 50, if you haven't been tracking them? It's going to be hard for you to know how many you were having, or serving sizes, right?

What you should do is try to eat 'normally' for a day or two as you did on your bulk, and track your calories both days to get a rough estimate. Then it will be easier for you to lower your calories as desired.

You can also use the @mealplan page calculator to figure out a starting point for a cut as well. Ideally 250-500 calories below your maintenance number. If after two weeks you don't see any progress with weight/fat loss, then I would reduce your calories by a further 100 per day for a week and see if that helps.

As for your cardio.. Focus on HIIT, but you can do some LISS as well. Maybe do two 20 minute HIIT sessions (1 minute running, 1 minute jogging or walking repeated for 20 mins), and one 25 minute LISS session where you just go for a jog outside or something. Doesn't have to be running though, whatever floats your boat is fine.

If you stay at a smaller deficit (closer to 250-350 calories), then that may reduce the likelihood of you getting loose skin.

Post again if you need more help!

@Billybez I would eat at least 1.5g protein per pound of bodyweight when cutting to help you maintain as much muscle as possible. If you're getting stronger on your lifts, that's great! But the first bit of weight you lose is normally water, so that could change very soon.

Also, 2000 calories per day seems very low for a guy your size.. especially if you are doing cardio 3 times per week. Did you calculate your macros and calories on the @mealplan page?