Not making progress on my cut...

[Germanauto]

Hello all,

I'm a 23 y/o male at 15% BF, my weight keeps fluctuating between 170-172 lbs. I was roughly 177 lbs a 2.5 months ago. On the surface, it sounds great to have lost 5-7 lbs in 2.5 months, however, my weight has been stagnant for the past 4-5 weeks. Additionally, my BF% hasn't really dropped at all. I eat very clean and often feel hungry several times/day, lift 5 times/week (early morning), and do Cardio after every workout for a solid 10 minutes (running at 7.5 mph, so it's not just walking or jogging). The Cardio is something I implemented roughly 1.5 weeks ago because my weight wasn't dropping. It doesn't seem to have helped...

Any suggestions for how I can get over whatever hump is impeding my progress and shed body fat? I can go into more details of my diet if requested.

[kprocivic]

cutting is about creating those deficits in calory intake. Try upping your cardio a little maybe and extra 5-10 mins a session.

[1MOREMOD]

What he said, longer cardio, less food. Just keep protein up.

[jgoens]

What's your height?

[1MOREMOD]

I lost 8-10 lbs in little over month just quiting drinking booze and soda. Did up cardio also.

[BSM n54iS]

Decrease sodium intake if you're trying to cut, to lose weight do 30 min cardio for those 2 off days on top and yes cut out alcohol especially more than 2 hours before bedtime

Oh yea..eat more greens

[antych]

Switch to keto. I lost 13lbs (9% of my body weight) in 4 months. No cardio. Weight lifting once a week. Never felt hungry.

You can't lose weight because you're probably eating carbs, keeping your insulin high, which puts you into fat storage mode. All this pointless exercise is making you eat more.

You can try to persevere, doing it old school, be hungry, miserable and waste time, or you can use your body chemistry to do all the work for you.

[Germanauto]

Thanks for the input everybody. Sorry I forgot to mention my height as that's very important; I am 5'10". I should also mention that my goal is to be ripped/lean. I have the muscle...been working on that part for a while, but there is little definition in my arms and chest for example. I'll fill up a t-shirt or Polo nicely but wouldn't look good in tank tops for example.

I think I'll up the Cardio a bit and focus less on lifting. I can't devote more than 1 hr per day at the gym or go too crazy with cutting carbs (already don't eat a lot of them) because I'm in a very demanding and lengthy graduate school program with high-stakes exams. I can't function or study without carbs, which is why I haven't cut them out completely. I do eat veggies every day but could probably increase my input of those as well. I haven't eaten junk food or drank soda in months, and alcohol is only once or twice per month after a big exam.

[csu87]

Fasted cardio in the mornings for an hour has always worked for me. Brisk walk at an incline on the treadmill. Nothing to strenuous.

Also eat very clean. Lots of greens and lean meat. And cut alcohol out. During some serious cutting i did, didn't drink for 3 months and managed to get into the single digits from 12/13ish %

If you are wanting more definition in your chest, arms and shoulders, and ate truly at 15% bf, cutting won't help you much there. You'll need to pack on some muscle.

Reference pic of bf %

[griz31]

Food - track it. If you don't know how many calories you're taking in you won't know what to cut out. Get a baseline - plenty of articles to determine a starting point for calories and work from there. Weigh yourself every morning and take the average weight per week (day to day fluctuations is too much). If you're not losing weight, drop calories. Do this slowly, don't just say damn I'm not losing weight and drop like 1500 calories. Once you get to a point where you simply can't drop any more calories add in more activity. I wouldn't recommend dropping the lifting over the cardio but to each their own.

Sure you can follow these fad diets and maybe have some success but it won't be sustainable. keto might work for you, but if your baseline is 3000 calories and you eat 5000 without any carbs, I'm sorry but no amount of science is gonna burn those extra calories. More vegtables will simply help with digestion, be a good micronutrient source, and fill you with minimal calories. Simply eating more vegtables will not help if everything else stays the same. For most people eating more vegtables means cutting something else out or filling you up so you dont eat other garbage - I would never discourage eating more vegtables as a helpful solution to manage the amount of calories you're eating.

Anyways this is all just my opinion, having spent years researching this and losing over 100lbs myself - you eventually just gotta try stuff out and see what works for you. Good luck

Edit: Adding my transformation. A lot of people say a lot of things on the internet that isnt always true - but this worked for me.

[gthal]

Track what you eat so you can be sure you are in a calorie deficit. Don't overestimate the energy consumption of exercise.

If you aren't losing weight, that means your energy balance (calories in/calories out) isn't in a deficit. Either because you are eating more than you think or you are overestimating the calorie level you need to be at. Fancy diets, fads, etc are way less important than energy balance and exercise. Also, as you cut, your metabolism will adjust and you will either need to exercise more or eat less to continue the progress.

I've gone from 29% BF to 8% with heaving lifting and managing intake carefully. I've maintained it for many months with ease but mainly because I'm committed to training (heavy weights) and track everything going in my mouth. I've also played with my macros to get it right... measuring BF and weight and comparing it to my intake and adjust until I found MY actual maintenance level (cutting/bulking from there). I've found that I cut well around 2,100 - 2,200 calories and maintain well around 2,650 - 2700 calories per day. I'm also 5'10 and around 172 lbs.

[antych]

Cutting some carbs can be like flying to Hawai on half a tank of fuel. You either go all the way into ketosis, or you should eat enough carbs to function properly. If you don't fancy keto, you can try intermittent fasting, it can really help you reduce your calorie intake.

[csu87]

intermittent fasting tends to lead the body to more storage. Its not something that is recommended for a cutting cycle. You will end up losing more muscle mass and keeping fat.

Theres a difference between skinny and cut. What works to get "Skinny" doesnt work to get cut. Hence the term "Skinny Fat"

[overcoil]

Originally Posted by csu87

intermittent fasting tends to lead the body to more storage. Its not something that is recommended for a cutting cycle. You will end up losing more muscle mass and keeping fat.

Theres a difference between skinny and cut. What works to get "Skinny" doesnt work to get cut. Hence the term "Skinny Fat"

What's your definition of 'intermittent fasting'?
Skipping a meal or two once in a while? Or only drinking water for 2 days ?

[kprocivic]

Originally Posted by ScottSinger

What's your definition of 'intermittent fasting'?
Skipping a meal or two once in a while? Or only drinking water for 2 days ?

Not eating anything from 7-8pm to sometimes breakfast times or lunch. Doing cardio on an empty tank will burn a little more.

[csu87]

Originally Posted by ScottSinger

What's your definition of 'intermittent fasting'?
Skipping a meal or two once in a while? Or only drinking water for 2 days ?

When i see intermittent fasting,usually it is someone recommending not eating for a day or 2.

Originally Posted by kprocivic

Not eating anything from 7-8pm to sometimes breakfast times or lunch. Doing cardio on an empty tank will burn a little more.

Even this i wouldnt recommend. You tend to overeat after fasting all day

[overcoil]

Originally Posted by csu87

When i see intermittent fasting,usually it is someone recommending not eating for a day or 2.



Even this i wouldnt recommend. You tend to overeat after fasting all day

Thanks for the reply.

[antych]

Originally Posted by ScottSinger

What's your definition of 'intermittent fasting'?
Skipping a meal or two once in a while? Or only drinking water for 2 days ?

There are few different methods. You're referring to 5:2. You could also have a window, like an evening, when you eat, but fast through rest of the day. A really good one and easy to implement is eating less (up to ~600kcal) every other day, and not counting calories on off days. Studies show it gives you benefits of longer fasts with much less effort. People doing it tend do over eat less on off days, than they cut on fast days, reducing overall calorie intake. The good thing about IF is that you can do it the way you want, adjusting to your lifestyle.

[antych]

Originally Posted by csu87

intermittent fasting tends to lead the body to more storage. Its not something that is recommended for a cutting cycle. You will end up losing more muscle mass and keeping fat.

It doesn't. It might if you end up overeating, but you can do that on any diet, fasting or not.

Theres a difference between skinny and cut. What works to get "Skinny" doesnt work to get cut. Hence the term "Skinny Fat"

That doesn't mean what you think it does. "skinny fat" is someone with small amount of subcutaneous fat (under skin, harmless), and large amount of visceral fat (around your organs, the one that kills you). Up to a certain point, visceral fat is not that visible, before it becomes a "beer belly", so you may look skinny, while suffering from metabolic syndrome at the same time. It has nothing to do with cutting.

[csu87]

Originally Posted by antych

It doesn't. It might if you end up overeating, but you can do that on any diet, fasting or not.



That doesn't mean what you think it does. "skinny fat" is someone with small amount of subcutaneous fat (under skin, harmless), and large amount of visceral fat (around your organs, the one that kills you). Up to a certain point, visceral fat is not that visible, before it becomes a "beer belly", so you may look skinny, while suffering from metabolic syndrome at the same time. It has nothing to do with cutting.

skinny fat, as I used it and many in the fitness world use it, is someone who is "skinny" but doesnt have a high amount of muscle mass. This leads to a lower % of lean body mass, which in turns creates a higher % of body fat. They may be skinny, but they would lack definition and muscle mass. IE, they look good in clothes, but not without.

as far as cutting goes, in relation to what this thread is about, if this guy is wanting to get "Cut", or show more muscle definition, he will have to both lose fat and gain, or at the very least maintain, muscle. You cant do that just by dieting. You can get skinny by dieting, but not cut. Muscles are one of those "If you dont use it, you lose it" types of things that need to be regularly exercised.

OP, if you are truly wanting that "cut" or "ripped" look, dont sacrifice weight training for cardio. Add cardio to your routine and/or compensate through diet. Any cutting cycle you inevitable end up losing some muscle mass, but if done right, you can then build that back w/o the fat once you hit your target BF%.

There are tons of resources for cutting cycles throughout the web. Just keep trying different techniques until you find one that works. It took me a few years to find a good cutting cycle plan that worked for me, and I end up switching up my methods every couple years. Been going through bulking/cutting cycles for 10-15 years, and its a process to get it right.

[Germanauto]

Wow I'm overwhelmed by the amount of replies here! I appreciate all of the input. I will definitely take some of the suggestions into consideration and change things up a bit. For starters, I'll play around with my diet a little bit and change up the Cardio regimen a bit to be more intense and longer. HIIT is the way to go. Sleeping a little more would be beneficial too.

I have an exam coming up so I'm in "no f**ks" mode regarding my body and will just continue doing what I'm doing right now, but right after I'll get on it.

[antych]

Originally Posted by csu87

skinny fat, as I used it and many in the fitness world use it, is someone who is "skinny" but doesnt have a high amount of muscle mass. This leads to a lower % of lean body mass, which in turns creates a higher % of body fat. They may be skinny, but they would lack definition and muscle mass. IE, they look good in clothes, but not without.

That's just being "skinny". What does low amount of muscle have to do with being fat? This term is specifically used for people with visceral (hidden) fat. It's to highlight the fact that some seemingly skinny people suffer from metabolic syndrome, while an obese person with mostly subcutaneous fat can remain healthy.

as far as cutting goes, in relation to what this thread is about, if this guy is wanting to get "Cut", or show more muscle definition, he will have to both lose fat and gain, or at the very least maintain, muscle. You cant do that just by dieting. You can get skinny by dieting, but not cut. Muscles are one of those "If you dont use it, you lose it" types of things that need to be regularly exercised.

Yes, but no one is telling him to stop lifting. There are just better ways to cut than being hungry and doing cardio. If you have to do cardio because you eat too much, the obvious conclusion is to eat less, even children would comprehend that.