How to cut while minimizing muscle loss

[pmichel]

Hey this is gonna sound kinda elementary but I’m kinda confused:

How do I cut without losing muscle?

Just wanted to know what’s working / worked for y’all in the past.

Further, what’s the most effective way to cut in the shortest amount of time?

I’ve heard a lot about intermittent fasting…

 

[swanny]

@pmichel Take it slow. Train heavy. Eat plenty of protein

 

[me11162543]

@swanny Train heavy as in HIT as opposed to 3 sets 8-12 reps?

 

[davida50]

@me11162543 train heavy as in go to muscle failure

 

[lanae]

@pmichel Caloric deficit while maintaining high protein intake. Lean protein is the only way.

 

[mpowell8089]

@lanae Lean protein is definitely the whey.

 

[hisloveinart]

@mpowell8089 hard

 

[singingriverdancer]

@mpowell8089 Wheymen.

 

[justincann]

@pmichel The most important element in maintaining a muscle in a cut (aside from keep training and hitting protein macros obviously) is pace and time: you are more likely to minimize muscle loss under a 500 calorie deficit for less than 8-10 weeks. If you need to lose more than that amount, take a 2 week maintenance break and the another 8-10 week cut.

Next element is how you gain your deficit. If you add activity as an element of your weight loss, it’s usually better to do low impact cardio or simply increasing your daily activity expenditure (aka your daily step count). In general, I’ve had excellent results simply eating at maintenance and increasing my steps to burn an extra 250 calories and other 250 from cardio. This equates to a 30 minute brisk dog walk in the morning and 30 minutes east low impact cardio later (row, bike or treadmill walk with the incline at 15% and speed at 4mph)

 

[bastion]

@justincann I dropped from 240lbs to 190lbs in about 5 months without really losing any muscle mass just doing a 20-30 min walk 2x a day (once after breakfast and once after dinner), maintaining 2800 calories daily, doing some basic free weight workouts, hitting 150g of protein daily, and cutting unnecessarily fatty/sweet obvious candy foods from my diet.

 

[taketime]

@justincann How long should i be on the treadmill?

 

[ngooden55]

@taketime treadmills usually tell you how many calories you've spent based on speed x time

 

[dawn16]

@pmichel It’s pretty easy. It doesn’t take much to maintain muscle. To really put your mind at ease, it’s actually possible to gain muscle on a cut if you’re dedicated enough.

https://mennohenselmans.com/gain-muscle-and-lose-fat-at-the-same-time

If DEXA is to be trusted, I was able to do it as a 36 year old natural with 18 years training under my belt already.

Intermittent fasting is a helpful strategy for cutting calories, that is it. There is no magic to it and I believe there is research that it is counterproductive to muscle growth/retention while on a cut.

 

[pmichel]

@dawn16 Thank you friend

 

[marfees]

@dawn16 Don't you really have to cram your protein in very few meals if you do IF ?

 

[dawn16]

@marfees Yes- although you could basically take in solely lean protein throughout the day and then eat your carbs and fat at the end of the day.

 

[mpowell8089]

@pmichel

• Continue to train hard. Don't drastically reduce weight or effort (proximity to failure). You don't need to do really high reps either. The best way to hold onto muscle is to continue to train like you're trying to build it. Training won't change much. What might change, depending on how lean you get (leaner usually results in more fatigue), is the exercises you do. For example, if you're getting very lean and heavy barbell rows are incredibly taxing, maybe you switch to something seated that is similar, like a seated overhand cable row. Your volume might decrease a bit too. I would maintain your current training volume for as long as you can. If you can recover from it, keep doing it. If you find it difficult to recover from, try taking away a set from an exercise or two from your most taxing workouts.
• Eating 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of goal body weight. High protein intakes are safe if your kidneys are healthy. The only potential downside of very high protein intakes that I can think of is that it limits your carb intake, and carbs help fuel your training. We often feel better (and sleep better) in general too when our carbs aren't very low. Even better if you can choose leaner sources of protein since you'll get more food, but for less calories compared to higher fat sources of protein.
• Don't lose weigh too fast. About 0.5-1% of your current body weight each week. The more fat you have to lose, the faster rate of weight loss you can get away with without losing muscle. The leaner you get, the greater the risk. It seems that slowing your rate of weight loss is beneficial the leaner you get to reduce the risk of muscle loss.
• Sleep well, recover well. This includes not training more than you can recover from, and not doing more cardio than you can handle.
• Consistency, time, patience, managing expectations

 

[pmichel]

@mpowell8089 Thank you !

 

[onlyonetruth]

@mpowell8089 Would you incorporate any cardio into your training as well as lifting?

 

[mpowell8089]

@onlyonetruth Yes, I didn’t mention that, but I should have. But it doesn’t even have to be traditional cardio that we think of like the treadmill, bike, stairs, etc. Staying active in any way is great. I rarely do actual cardio, but I walk a lot. I walk my dog, I park my car further from entrances of buildings to walk more, and I walk for 10 minutes before each workout, and anywhere from 30-50 minutes after. I usually get about 10-14k steps a day. If you’re doing cardio for more than fat loss purposes and want to get more of the cardiovascular benefits, you can include cardio that gets your heart rate up. When the goal is holding onto as much muscle as possible, I prefer low-intensity, low-impact cardio. It’s very sustainable, and very unlikely to interfere with lifting performance or recovery. Thanks for bringing that up though. It is a key part in my opinion. I’m currently the leanest I’ve ever been while eating as much as I am, and I mainly attribute that to consistently keeping my step count higher than I ever have before.