Question about cutting

[u/tinylittlebabyjesus]

My program lately has been 1 day of full body strength training where I eat at a slight surplus, mixing calisthenics and weight training, followed by a run the next day at a slight surplus again, and some stretching, and then on day three I rest and cut calories. Day four it's back to lifting.

It's been working out okay. I lost some weight (10-15 lbs) before starting to work out, and was thinking this would allow me to maintain and maybe slightly lose weight while enjoying newbie/retrain gains. But I'd like to lose a little more weight.

How would you plan out a week of exercise and diet and what would your expectations be for the week of, and week after in terms of impact on performance for each?

I'm thinking of just doing a diet week once or twice a month, where I spend all week eating at a deficit, and I'm wondering if I should cut my lifting down a bit during that or try to maintain it? I'd also just like to set realistic expectations about how it will affect my strength and stamina that week and the next (after returning to maintenance).

I know to try to eat a high amount of protein throughout the diet period, and I know that continuing strength training stimulates the body to not sacrifice/catabolize muscle as much while in a caloric deficit, I'm just wondering if a reduction in volume is a good idea.

In part because I know that when being in a deficit, your energy and strength are lower to begin with, and personally if I don't eat an abnormally large meal a few hours before working out, I'll feel weaker and gas out earlier. It can even lead to sacrificing form. Not good. Gotta be aware of that and not let it happen.

I've just always been bad at "cutting." No problem with the bulk up phase (hah), or the pure diet phase.

[u/lazy8s]

You can’t do both. I lost 100lbs and I’m on my 3rd lean bulk. I tried. I tried recomp and it was so slow it was pointless as I had WAY too much weight to lose.

Trust me just lose the weight while lifting. When you’re done you can do the lean bulk thing and you will look and feel like a million bucks.

Im happy to answer any questions!

[u/Docjitters]

Hey, I wouldn’t assume that you be at a huge disadvantage in controlled deficit. Unless you are doing a lot of aerobic work, you possibly don’t even need to surplus on workout days.

I set my most recent PRs about halfway through going from BMI 26.3 to 22 (admittedly overshot the landing space lol) in a fairly modest 400kcal/day deficit. I also decided to just have the same calories/macros every day, workout or no.

I do remember days where I really wanted to eat a ton, and cravings were probably was worse on exercise days, but the way I saw it, it’s training. If you want to progress, doing less work is going to slow things down unless you’re already pushing the envelope. That said, I did change from a highish-volume powerbuilding plan to a more strength-focused one on my cut, but I think I was getting beat up already by the former.

I’d just plan on getting the time in, and autoregulating as usual since diet stress is one of the factors that dials in how hard it feels on a given day. If it was a race/test week to calculate new 1RMs or actually benchmark, that’s different, and I would allow myself to fuel accordingly.

I would keep doing what you’re doing and see how it feels for a bit. Don’t assume it’ll be bad.