So I’ve been bulking for the last 7ish months and have been gaining tons of muscle, and strength. It’s been great, I’ve been hitting PRs every workout, I look absolutely stacked in clothing, and I’ve been able to eat whatever the hell I want. But, all great things must come to an end, and I have simply gained an amount of body fat that I am not comfortable with.

I’m sure we’ve all been there. You look in the mirror one day, and you’re like shit maybe I should eat a salad or 2. Well, it’s too late to change the past now, for me I have no choice but to shed my winter fat, and to unveil what I’ve been working on for the last 7 months.

For you this could mean just trying to get those abs to pop, flatting out that stomach, or getting deathly lean for some festivals this summer. Whatever your goal, I can guarantee by the end of this article you will have a much better understanding of how to cut weight after a bulk, or how to cut weight in general.

With that enough rambling, let’s get into the low-cal meat and potatoes of the article, and let me teach you about the art of cutting.

How To Cut Weight After Bulking Properly (Or In General)

Ok so how do you cut weight after bulking? Do you have to do some crazy crash diet, run 10 marathons a day, and take every fat burner under the sun? No, unless you’re a holly wood actor or model with a strict deadline you probably won’t have to do anything too crazy.

You can still enjoy food(within reason), you don’t have to be in the gym 24/7, and you don’t really need any supplements to pull this off(although it doesn’t hurt to have some on hand). So how do you cut weight after bulking then?

Well, the key to losing weight, and lowering that body fat% is being in a caloric deficit. A caloric what now?

What Is A Caloric Deficet?

A caloric deficit basically means when you’re burning more calories than you’re eating. So for example, let’s say you need to eat 3000 calories to maintain your weight, if you only ate 2500 calories per day you would be in a 500-calorie deficit, and therefore would begin to lose weight.

It’s pretty simple on paper, less so in practice. Now a caloric deficit can be achieved by either diet or exercise/activity. Most people do a combination of the 2. For example, if you need to be in a 500-calorie deficit you can either cut 500 calories of food out of your diet, or you can cut out 300, and burn 200 extra calories throughout the day.

However you want to do it just make sure you can sustain it, and that you’re losing at a reasonable rate.

How Do I Calculate My Deficit?

Alright, now this will take a bit of trial, and error, and quite a bit of fine-tuning, but it shouldn’t take too long. Step 1 is to find out what your maintenance calories are(the amount you need to eat to maintain your weight). You can do this with an online calorie, or TDEE calculator.

*Quick Tip- The more info the calculator requires you to put in usually means more accurate results.

The numbers will not be entirely accurate, but they can definitely help point you in the right direction. After you get your estimated maintenance calories, you will then take away 250-500 calories to get your deficit. The amount you take away will depend on how much, and how fast you want to lose.

If this is your very first cut, I recommend starting with a light 250-calorie deficit, and building from there. However, if you’re a seasoned lifter, such as myself and are looking to lose quickly and efficiently feel free to start as deep as you can handle. Then once you have your estimated deficit you wait about a week or 2.

If you’ve lost weight well you’re in a deficit, good for you. If you haven’t lost any weight whatsoever lower your calories by 100, and wait another week, or 2. Repeat this process until you start losing weight. The lower by 100 method will also apply to those of you who have hit weight loss plateaus. 

How Long Can I Be In A Caloric Deficit For?

This will vary from person to person, however, a good rule of thumb is to keep your cuts in between 4-12 weeks, unless you have excessive amounts of fat to lose(25%+), and/or are obese where if that’s the case just cut until you are in a healthy body fat range. For the rest of us who are already in a healthy body fat range (19-10%) and are just cutting for vanity purposes 12 weeks should be your limit.

If you really want to push beyond 12 weeks take a 1-2 week diet break, where you eat at maintenance, and let your body refeed, and refuel. However, no matter how long, or how hard you cut, you will hit a point where the price to go further is just too much.

For most of you, 13-10% body fat will be the leanest you will ever have to get if you want that lean model look (For any ladies reading this add 10% to all of these body fat numbers). Going under 10% is just not nessacary for most of us. However, if you do want to get into the single digits whether it be for a photo shoot, a natty show, or just for bragging rights, just know that it’s a visit, not a lifestyle.

Unless you’re blasting PEDs, or have absolutely Godley genetics, you won’t be able to maintain that state without major hormone dips, muscle and strength loss, and starving yourself. I would say keep your visits to shredville between 1-2, maybe even 3 weeks, then come back up to the low-mid teens.

How To Cut Weight After Bulking: The Diet

Alright, so you know what a calorie deficit is, but how should you eat to achieve said deficit? Well I’m going to state the obvious here, but the best cutting diet is a micro nutrient-dense diet, that’s high in protein, well balanced, and consists of primarily whole foods. I mean that should be a diet model to strive for regardless of physique goals.

Now when cutting and trying to lose fat your main considerations when dieting should be the following:

• Am I eating in a caloric deficit?
• Do the foods I eat allow me to feel satiated?
• Am I hitting my protein goals?
• Are the foods I eat rich in nutrients?
• Do I enjoy the foods I eat?
• Do I perform well on this diet?
• Is this diet sustainable for the allotted time frame? 

You have to strike a balance of sustainability and effectiveness. A good rule to follow is the 80/20 rule. 80% of the foods you eat should be clean, nutritious, single-ingredient whole foods, while the other 20% can just be foods that you enjoy eating. Doing this while staying within your calorie limit, and hitting your protein goals will usually produce some pretty good results.

Now speaking of protein goals, how many grams of protein should you be eating per day? Well, the recommended protein intake is 0.8-1.5 grams per pound of body weight. Or you can try 1 gram per cm of height. Try leaning towards the higher end of the spectrum if you struggle with satiety while cutting.

Speaking of satiety that brings me to my next point.

How To Stay Full While Cutting

Your biggest hurdle while cutting will probably be hunger. If you don’t manage your calories, and food choices properly this is going to be a rough ride.

Try to eat low-moderate calorie, high-satiety foods such as:

• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Chicken
• Brown rice
• Eggs
• Fat-Free Greek Yogurt
• Oats
• Potatoes
• Fish

Basically, anything that can keep you full without breaking the bank on calories. High protein foods are great for this as they aren’t very calorically dense yet they are extremely filling. You should avoid simple carbs and foods that are high in fat.

Fats aren’t bad, and you should still be getting an adequate amount of it through your diet for hormonal purposes, however, if you’ve been struggling with hunger and food cravings you may want to lower your fat intake for a bit as they are the most calorically dense macronutrient gram for gram.

Also, try to be more strategic with your meals. If you do this right you should never feel like you’re starving, unless you’re trying to get excessively lean. It should be uncomfortable, but it should never be unbearable. The first week or 2 may be rough as you adjust to your diet, however, after the adjustment phase is over you should feel pretty settled.

Supplement Recommendations

Now supplements aren’t nessacary but they can sure help. These upcoming supplements that I’m about to talk about aren’t exclusive to cutting or weight loss, but they can make the process much more manageable.

Here’s my current natty cutting stack:

-Creatine Monohydrate

Creatine helps me maintain my strength, stamina, and overall energy levels while training. It also has the added benefit of increasing muscle fullness and size by making it so that your muscle bellies hold onto more water. I get my creatine from the company Myprotein as they have some of the best creatine prices on the internet. You can get over half a year’s supply for just $92.

-Study: Creatine when taken on a regular basis, and when combined with regular resistance training, has been shown to improve physical performance, increase fat-free mass(muscle), and help with muscle morphology.

-Pre-Workout

Now, this next supplement may be slightly controversial but I love having a pre-workout on hand especially when cutting. You never know when you’re going to have “one of those days”, where energy and motivation are at an all-time low, and hunger is at an all-time high.

You feel like shit and are just dreading your workout. That is when you can use a good pre-workout to help even the odds and turn the tide. Personally, I like to use Ryse pre-workout as it has some of the strongest focus and energy-enhancing effects on the market. It’s not for everyone, but if you have a fairly high stimulant tolerance like myself, I would recommend getting yourself a canister or 2.

-Study: The consumption of pre-workout prior to exercise can significantly increase anaerobic performance.

Learn More About RYSE

-Protein Powder

Now I use protein powder for no other reason other than convenience. It makes hitting my daily protein intake easier, and one serving is only 160 calories. I use Vega sport protein powder because they have a really good calorie-to-protein ratio, and the plant-based powder mixes a lot easier than standard whey.

-Study: There is a significant amount of evidence that indicates that consuming protein pre and/or post-workout can cause a spike in muscle protein synthesis.

-Melatonin

Melatonin is really nice to have if you struggle with getting to sleep or night time cravings. I try not to rely on it too heavily but for those nights when I just can’t get to sleep I pop a couple of these bad boys and I’m out cold until the next morning. I like to buy from Nature’s Truth as you can get a couple of months’ supply for pretty cheap.

-Study: In this study, melatonin was shown to help with the promotion of sleep onset, maintenance of sleep, and phase shifting of circadian rhythms.

-Ashwagandha

Ashwagandha helps you manage stress better while cutting, as it lowers cortisol, and is a great source of antioxidants. Now if you’re only in a light-moderate deficit, stress management isn’t too important, however, if you’re in a deeper deficit(500+), and plan to remain in one for a while you may want to consider trying a stress management supplement like Ashwagandha.

Since starting it I have felt more clear-headed, and have had higher levels of energy, and drive. I’m currently using Ashwagandha made by this company Himalaya. It’s high quality, organic, and is also very affordable, only costing you $20 for 2 months’ supply.

-Study: This study found that a high dose of full-spectrum Ashwagandha root extract greatly improved the subject’s resilience to stress.

Learn More About Ashwagandha

How To Cut Weight After Bulking: The Training

Alright, I’m pretty sure you have a basic understanding of how to diet while cutting, so now let’s talk about the training side of things. You’re going to be doing 2 main forms of training while cutting, weight training, and cardio.

Now you should be doing these 2 things regardless of what your physique goals are, but that’s beside the point. Let’s talk about weight training first, as it is the most important out of the 2.

Weight/Resistance Training

Ok, so why do I deem weight training more important than cardio? Well, weight training helps you retain muscle. There’s no point in cutting if you’re just going to lose all of your gains, is there? So how should you go about your weight training? What changes to your training should you make while cutting?

Well, first off you’re going to have to start watching your fatigue more closely if you weren’t already. Your recovery while cutting is going to be pretty tits. Certain exercises, mainly big heavy compound movements may have to be swapped out for less fatiguing variations. For example, you may have to swap out the deadlift for either an RDL or a good morning while cutting.

You should also consider lowering the weight used and increasing reps while cutting. This does 2 things, it helps you avoid the fatigue produced when chasing low-rep strength PRs, and it’s also easier to train this way while cutting as your muscles become more slow twitch dominate while in a deficit.

What does that mean? Well having the fibres in your muscles become more slow twitch means they will perform better when doing endurance-heavy activities(like lifting in higher rep ranges), but they will become worse at fast twitch activities like fast explosive movements(like lifting heavy).

This rep increase doesn’t have to be anything crazy either. adding 2-5 reps to an exercise can make a world of a difference in terms of fatigue. You’re going to have to lower the weight quite a bit to achieve the new desired rep counts, however, any strength lost while cutting can be gained back fairly quickly once you start bulking again.

Cardio

Alright, let’s talk about cardio. Although it isn’t as important for cutting as weight training is, we cannot underplay its important role while trying to lose fat. Cardio is another way to get yourself into a caloric deficit. If used right, you can definitely increase the amount of food you are allowed to eat while cutting.

Remember though, weight lifting is number one, as we want to try and keep as much muscle as possible. Don’t go overkill on the cardio as it will start to screw with your already diminished recovery. Try to keep a 1:2 ratio between cardio and weight lifting.

The amount of cardio you do in a week should always be 50% less than the amount of weight training you do. For example, if you lift 4 times per week, with each session lasting an hour and a half(6 hours), the maximum amount of cardio you would be allowed to do that week would be 3 hours.

Now, this isn’t gospel, feel free to use your own judgment here, and a little bit of critical thinking to determine how much cardio you can realistically do without hampering your recovery. For most of you, it will be a little over or a little under the 50% threshold, so using it as a guideline at the start of your cut may not be a bad idea.

So you now have an idea of how much to do, but what type of cardio is the best for fat loss? Long-distance running, a sport, HIIT, martial arts, which one should you do?

My answer, do whatever you enjoy. Do the one that doesn’t feel like cardio. As for me, I like to play sports, bike long distances and do kickboxing for my cardio. Anything that tricks me into feeling like I’m not doing cardio basically. Now if you want to go for pure efficiency, and/or are a masochist you can get on the treadmill, or bike, put on a sauna suit, and set a 45-minute timer.

But for the rest of us humans, just do whatever doesn’t suck.

My 3 Tips For How To Properly Cut Weight After Bulking

Alright, I now want to share my 3 best fat-loss tips to use while cutting.

Tip #1 Count Your Calories

This tip is very useful for those of you who tend to have larger appetites. A lot of you who quote on quote “can’t lose weight” just suck at gauging your own caloric intake, counting your calories will nullify this, and then some. You’ll have almost total control over your diet, and you’ll get a better understanding of what you’re actually eating.

I would recommend downloading under amours my fitness pal app on your phone as it’s by far the best calorie-counting app out there. Best part is, it’s free! Although you can get premium for more features. Although it can be tedious at times, I would highly recommend counting your calories, if you struggle with weight loss.

Tip #2 Intermittent Fasting

This is a great tip for those of you who like to have big, filling meals, such as myself. Combine this with tip #1 and you’ll be able to eat like royalty while being as lean as a malnourished farmer. Now fasting comes in many forms. Right now we’ll be mainly talking about intermittent fasting, although all forms of fasting can be used effectively while cutting.

Intermittent fasting is when you limit yourself to only eating during a certain time window of the day. The most common form is the 16/8 method where you fast for 16 hours and are allowed to eat for 8. Feel free to play around with the hours and numbers, and do whatever helps you stay in that deficit.

Tip #3 Don’t Rush It

Fat loss isn’t a quick and easy process. It takes time, patience and consistency to make real changes. You’ll probably hit a few plateaus, you’ll probably have to reduce your calories lower than you think, and you’ll probably have to lose a lot more weight than you think to reach your body fat goal.

It’s a long painful but necessary process that we must all undergo in order to look our best. So be prepared to endure, and just tough it out.

Concluding Thoughts

Alright, hopefully, you have achieved the physique of your dreams by now. And if not, well it’s time to hop back on the bulk, you probably need to add more muscle. I’m about halfway through my cut right now, it’s been pretty smooth, other than a handful of days where I was a total zombie.

Anyways guys, thanks for reading. Feel free to comment any thoughts or suggestions about weight loss down below. With that, I’ll catch you in the next one, peace.