What’s your experience eating far below calories for a small period of time?

[austinsugden]

5’10” 32yrs 16%bf
I’ve seen a lot of natural bodybuilders on YouTube claiming to eat as low as 800-1200 calories for 4-8 weeks near the end of a cut, keeping protein high and exercising.

These body builders have anywhere between 5’8”-6’0”+ and 160-200lbs.

Is this common practice among natural bodybuilders nearing the end of a cut for a show or beach/personal reasons?

 

[jcreigns]

@austinsugden For a show maybe, probably still on the low end. For the beach? Defenitly not.

 

[hollan]

@austinsugden Cut too much and the muscle loss to fat loss ratio will become bad. There's just so much fat one can lose in a week and being too agressive will cause more muscle loss rather than more fat loss. It'll also be bad for recovery and you'll have a higher chance of injuries.

 

[austinsugden]

@hollan I e gone from 2000 to 1600 in the last 6 weeks with minimal muscle loss, if any. In fact I look bigger and stronger, but my lower belly fat is stubborn and not budging. The scale is staying the same although my composition has improved, so I’m wondering if I can afford to go. Little lower without drastically losing muscle

 

[hollan]

@austinsugden It could work for a while and the best way to know is to try it out. You won't develop health problem from doing it and you'll know yourself better. Having a deficit of about 1000 calories per day should be okay at 16% BF and depending on what you burn in a day, it could very well make a diet under 1600 calories acceptable. You could also try to cycle the deficit, being much more extreme on some days and a bit easier on yourself on other days. Over the week you'd lose more calories than keeping yourself at 1600 and it will likely be easier to sustain.

 

[austinsugden]

@hollan Thanks, I was thinking of doing a calorie cycle too or fasting once a week instead of eating so few calories. I’ll play around with it!

 

[kvolm]

@austinsugden No, this is not common or advisable for most people in most cases. Where are you seeing this?

The only time I can imagine this would be even close to necessary is at the very tail end of a contest prep when getting lean needs to be prioritized over health and performance.

Outside of that, this is not a good idea.

 

[ianc]

@austinsugden Dont do it.

I went about 500 calories a day for 3 weeks cause I was lazy as hell and wanted to just cut and get it over with. It worked, I lost 20 lbs over the 3 weeks (though not all of it couldve been fat of course). However, I lost a pretty substantial amount of strength and it ruined my appetite. I felt fine over the course of it but Im resilient when it comes to hunger, I can shrug it off. It wasnt worth it at all though, lost progress and the only thing I gained was learning that I should never do that again.

This is on top of just being generally less healthy sibce you wont be getting in as many nutritents and youll be way more tired. Id gas out in workouts extremely fast.

Do things right the first time and you wont have to worry about them screwing you over in the long run.

 

[pif15]

@austinsugden Lowest iv ever gone is 1600 abd that was pretty rough for me energy wise

 

[austinsugden]

@pif15 Yeah I’m at 1600 cals now but I see more and more YouTube natural bodybuilders claiming they go down to 1200 and I know they’re leaner than me and pushing harder in the gym so I was wondering if it’s something I could consider for the next 4 weeks or if there was more to it.

 

[pif15]

@austinsugden My man I would suggest you just try it and see how you get on, everyone’s different iv got one mate whole doesn’t eat for 2 days a week when cutting and only eats one meal every other day but he’s in amazing shape, so experiment and see what works for you

 

[austinsugden]

@pif15 That’s pretty interesting, I was considering fasting twice a week on rest days but I’ve also seen that rest days are when you should eat more. I’m not bodybuilder but I am trying to get to 11-12% by July but not trying to go backwards with my training

 

[frustratedhusband]

@austinsugden Have you heard about something called drugs?

 

[ladycherise63]

@austinsugden Bad idea. Most people struggle enough losing 1.5-2 lbs. per week. You will feel terrible and not want to do anything. Honestly, what’s the rush?Expect a sharp rebound too. You’ll end up bingeing unless you’re a psychopath. Can’t even imagine the brain fog..

 

[dairymilkchocolate23]

@austinsugden I just finished a 6 week mini-cut where I deficited my Caloric intake by about 35% from maintenance (the recommendation is usually 30% and that's considered aggressive).

It was challenging for the first few days until I got into the groove but then it was fine. I didn't lose any muscle mass (measurements aside from my waist maintained and strength remained same). Energy levels obviously DO take a hit though I got through every 5 AM Gym session fasted along the way. They definitely felt more taxing though.

So yes, in my experience an agressive but realistic deficit can work but with two caveats:

for short term use only (2 to 6 weeks not months)

and with special attention paid to diet (macro and micronutrient needs) and recovery (rest and maximum quality sleep).

Edit: two more quick comments after reading your post again.

800 to 1200 Cals total intake is likely WAY too low for your body size (use the 30% of maintenance deficit guideline instead) and don't do this at the end of a cut. From everything I read before hand an agressive mini cut should be done after a maintenance or bulking phase not when the body is already stressed from a traditional cut.

 

[jefftucker]

@austinsugden I did a major cut down 45 pounds and at the end it got kinda bad how low I had to get to keep losing weight.

I finally stalled out at 185 and had to drop to 1400 calories to lose a half pound.

It’s def possible to go super low. Is it safe or good? Maybe not.

This was just my experience though, back in maintenance now and maintaining around 12%.

 

[acts13]

@austinsugden Why not just add in cardio?

 

[carson]

@austinsugden They are lying

 

[anarchist1944]

@austinsugden I’m actually currently doing this eating about 1100 calories a day and losing close to 3 pounds a week at what I would guess is about 10-11% bodyfat currently. Overall I feel fine, still have sex drive, dont think about food too terribly much, and gym progress has regressed very slightly (like losing a rep every 2-3 weeks on some exercises while maintaining or even increasing on others). BUT its important to consider 1. I’m naturally very skinny and lean I started the gym at about 120 pounds (I’m about 5’9”) and 9-10% bodyfat, I was skinny as hell but had a smidge of muscle from playing sports in highschool so I had abs, veins, etc. 2. I am only about 139 pounds currently so even after 3.5 years of training I’m still not big by any means just shredded with good proportions 3. I started at about 165 pounds and lost 25 here in the past 8 weeks but I was near 17% bodyfat when I started so I had a lot of excess fat to burn since my body just naturally likes to sit around 10% 4. I’ve always had a very low appetite (I was 120 pounds at 5’9” for godsake) so cravings are very minimal for me. With all that being said unless you have very similar genetics to me where your body just likes to sit at a low bodyfat naturally I would not recommend this approach but at the end of the day you do you, I just wanted to give my own experience with aggressive cutting and remind people that there is lots of variation in genetics and what might work for me may not work for you!

 

[criko]

@austinsugden Currently at 1700 cals everyday without a real hit to training. I’ve been on prep for almost 14 weeks ?

I’ve seen people eat at 1200-1300, but I would consider anything under the 1500 range to be extreme, unless it’s a very monitored short term mini cut. In my opinion, the hit on hormonal health and metabolic health just wouldn’t be worth it. I’d add more cardio to further the deficit rather than cut down to that extreme.