Cutting Cycle Diet Suggestions

[cjBeast]

Hey fellas, just finished a solid bulking cycle and PCT along with 4 weeks of maintenance and now looking to start cutting cycle for the summer. I'm going to run a simple AS cycle for 12 wks of TProp 100mg EOD and TrenA 100mg EOD then will likely tack on some winny for wks 9 and 10 and then anavar for wks 11 and 12.

What I'm looking for is some advise on diet for the cycle. Daily macro, number of meals, best cal/carb/protein/fat sourc, any good OTC supps to add in, etc.

Current stats: 27, 6'2", 210lbs, 15.8% bf (use omron bf tester). I put on 18 pounds on my 10 week bulk cycle and bf dropped 2.1%.

Goal: looking to get to 10% bf and of course try to maintain muscle, have maintained very well since bulk.

My maintenance level is about 2100 cal/day. I lift mon - fri and rest weekends but can switch up and lift sat if it's better. Workout consists of high rep, mod weight, low rest, full body workout each day alternating exercises at 2 moments per body part each day. I don't do AM cardio but I know I should and it will be the first thing I add in. Current supps are ephedrine hcl @ 24mg twice daily and a good multi high in zinc and magnesium. Also use EAS 100% whey as protein supp.

Again, looking for a good daily macro P/C/F, the best sources for each, number of meals and when, mods to workout, additional supps to add in, and any other good suggestions you have.

Let me know if I left something out and thanks for the advice fellas.

[POPS]

You need to put your own work here but here's the basics ( thanks to Damien!!! )



The following is info that you should know to reach and sustain your goals. Below the info is a sample diet, consult, and grocery list I sent to a female client with the goal of 30 lbs of fat loss in 12-weeks. Understand the sample diet is intended to be useful but ONLY as a guideline as it's based on that INDIVIDUAL's preferences and lifestyle.


Part 1 - The basics

If you burn more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. If you burn less, you will gain weight (via muscle, fat, or both depending on the food choices and planning). Period. There are 3500 stored calories in one pound of body fat. 3500 negative calories equals one pound of fat loss. So let’s break it down a little further, based on our individual statistics and goals.

Stats – BMR and TDEE are the two figures that can tell us a lot about how we should be eating based on our goals.

Let’s start with BMR. This is your Basal Metabolic Rate. AKA – how many calories you burn each day by just sitting on your ass. In order to figure out your BMR, you need to know what your lean body mass is. In turn, you need to know what your body fat percentage is.

If you don’t know your body fat percentage, remind me to test it for you before we proceed. If you’d rather not do a caliper test, just tell me and I’ll give you a pretty good visual estimate.

With your bf % in hand, here’s the formula:

BMR (men and women) = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)

Total weight x bf % in decimal form = total bf weight

Total weight - total bf weight = total lean body mass

For example:

I am 6'1 210 lbs at 10% body fat... so I would multiply 210 by .10 (converted from percent to decimal) = 21 lbs

210 – 21 = 189 lbs lean body weight

189 / 2.2 = 86.0 lean mass in kg

370 + (21.6 x 86) = 2227.6 BMR (this is high for the average person)

Now that we have a BMR figure, we can move on to TDEE. Total Daily Energy Expenditure. This is how many calories we actually use during the day via our BMR and activities such as work, exercise and various tasks. We can figure this number out with simple math but be honest because this figure is to be the cornerstone of your diet and healthy lifestyle. We need to determine your activity level. We’ll choose from a few levels:

1 If you are sedentary (little or no exercise): Calorie - Calculation = BMR x 1.2
2 If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week): Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
3 If you are moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week): Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
4 If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week): Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
5 If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training): Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9

For example:

I train with weights 5 days for 90 minutes per week. I play hockey three times per week
for 90 minutes. I do 60 minutes of cardio training 5 times per week as well. In addition to games, I also practice my sport 3 times per week for 90 minutes. Either via skating or puck/shooting drills. All are high-intensity. I am between very and extra active. Let’s say BMR x 1.8. My TDEE is 4010.

This is how many calories you can eat and still break even. To lose weight, we must eat below this number. To gain, we must eat above it. 1000 calories below your TDEE daily, will result in negative 7000 calories per week. Remember, 3500 calories is one pound of fat loss; so you’re losing two pounds per week. And that’s with just diet alone. Now, let’s factor in additional caloric deficit via cardio. Say, you also run for 45 minutes in the morning and burn 600 calories in the process. That puts you at negative 1600 calories per day. Now we’re talking four pounds per week. Imagine (and I don’t recommend this) if you ate 1500 below your TDEE and ran for 2 hours per day, burning 1600 calories in the process, putting you at negative 3200 calories daily. Now we’re talking about a pound per day. You could be at your goal weight in a matter of weeks. However, this would destroy your BMR and make you gain weight back quickly if you started eating normally again without a gradual increase in calories over several months. The most appropriate course of action with regard to sustainable results and metabolic health is to be as patient as possible and do more cardio while maintaining a minimal deficit to ensure your body is as nourished as possible while on a fat loss regiment.

Part 2 – Exercise.

I’ll keep this part short and sweet because we’ll do the real work in this area during our sessions in the gym. There are only two major types of exercise that will help you realize your goals.

1 Resistance training: AKA – lifting weights. In doing this, we shred our muscle tissue and force our body to rebuild it, bigger, stronger, and leaner than it was before. This is our body responding to the strain, becoming better prepared to handle it next time around. In rebuilding muscle tissue, our bodies require lots more nutrients and calories. For example, if you work out hard and feel sore the next day, your body is, at this point, a calorie burning machine. Some experts say we burn as much as 30% more calories in a sedentary state in the days following strong workouts. Basically add 30% to your BMR if you lift weights. Ya dig?


2 Cardiovascular training: There are many types and ways to employ this type of training. At a high body fat percentage; high intensity cardio is going to be most effective. This means keeping your heart rate highly elevated (about 80% of max) for more than 20 minutes at a time, usually via running. Our bodies burn calories at an incredible rate when doing this and unless we have tons of carbohydrates and stored glycogen in our body (we’ll get into carbs later) – will have no choice but to burn some fat for energy in this state as well. At a low body fat percentage when the goal is to preserve muscle and gradually shed that last bit of stubborn fat, I recommend low intensity cardio. This involves longer sessions at fewer heart beats per minute (65% of max heart rate). The calorie burn is not equivalent to interval or high intensity cardio but in this heart rate range; fat is targeted, while lean tissue and muscle glycogen are spared. Anyway, enough said, right? Do cardio, create a caloric deficit, burn body fat, lose water weight by sweating, which makes you feel thin. It’s huge.


Part 3 – Diet - Macronutrients:

I love analogies. Let’s use a good one. Think of your perfect body as a house that you must build. You’ve figured out your BMR and TDEE, so you know the exact specs of the property you have to work with. I’ve told you how exercise affects weight loss and how much of a caloric deficit we must create to lose said weight; so you know how to build - you understand architecture. You also know the pace you intend on losing weight at based on these other factors, so you know it will be harder to get your house built in weeks as opposed to months. The only thing left is the tools/building material you must use and because you don’t know how to eat, you still can’t build anything. At least, not well. Sure, you can starve yourself for a few months but you’ll just gain all the weight back in 2-nights of binge drinking – you’re house will fall down!

So, let’s talk tools baby. Let’s talk food. First off, there are only 3 types of foods/macronutrients. Protein. Carbohydrates. Fat. That’s it.

Protein – 4 calories per gram - Building material. Bricks. You can’t gain energy from protein, you can only use it to build muscle/skin/hair/nails. It’s basically just amino acids and it’s what our bodies are made of. As such, we need lots of it. 1g of protein per body lb is a good number to shoot for. Go as high as 2g per body lb if you’re lifting weights and trying to build muscle. For example, I am 210 lbs and I eat between 300-400 grams per day. Conventional wisdom states that our bodies can only break down so much at one time, so we want to eat 20-40 grams ofprotein in every meal, several times per day. However, more and more literature to the contrary is being published every day and there is no hard evidence to support the 20-40g “max absorption” concept. Still, with regard to metabolic health and maintaining a balanced diet, splitting your daily protein intake up among many smaller meals is going to be most efficient. Protein, being building material only and not energy/labor – the body can rarely find a reason for it to be stored as fat. If you must over-eat – make it lean meat/fish.

Carbs – 4 calories per gram - Think of these as human labor for your house. Think of sugar as dudes you pick up out front of home depot and oatmeal as a skilled carpenter. Both are carbs, both serve very different purposes. Carbs do not build muscle; they are simply an energy source. As such, they should only be eaten/used when we need energy. Any carbs we ingest before bed or before watching a movie, or something sedentary are not used as energy, and as such, are stored in the body as glycogen (glucose/water in our muscles that we will use when doing high-intensity exercise). Once our glycogen reserves are full, they are stored as fat. Yes, they will make you fat. Carbs can be your best friend or your worst enemy. As such, I will teach you what carbs to eat and when.

Fats – 9 calories per gram - Like carbs, fats are an energy source, not a building material like protein. They provide nowhere near as much energy as carbs however and are not the body’s preferred source. With regard to our house, think of fats as the glue/cement. They provide much needed essential fatty acids, which are great for joint/organ health, metabolism, and increase our protein synthesis (body’s ability to make use of the protein we give it). Going back to our analogy, cement/glue increases the effectiveness of bricks! If we give our bodies the right fats, it will be able to burn stored body fat quickly as it won’t see any use in keeping it. Remember, like carbs – not all fat is good and ALL fat is high in calories so watch out. A tablespoon of peanut butter can be a good addition to a meal. Snack on 5-6 tablespoons means you’ve just eaten over your TDEE for the day.

Part 4 – Diet – What to Eat:
Acceptable proteins for your healthy lifestyle diet:
The goal is to eat lean protein. Meats/other sources low in fat/carbs.
Ground beef (93% lean or better)
Lean steak (Flank, flat iron, or top sirloin)
Bison sirloin (the highest quality red meat)
Chicken breas
Turkey breast
Tuna (canned or sushi grade)
Salmon
Tilapia (mostly all white fish)
All shellfish
Venison
Whey protein (post-workout recovery purposes only)
Casein/Cottage cheese (before bed only)

Black-List Protein sources. Do not eat these because they are high in fat. And not the
good kind we find in nuts and olive oil – I’m talking about cholesterol raising saturated
fat!
1 Bacon
2 Sausage
3 Expensive fat-marbled Steaks (Ribeye, Strip, Filet)
4 Pork and beef ribs
5 Pork/Lamb chops
6 Restaurant ground beef (80/20 fat – most burgers)
7 Duck
8 Chicken legs/thighs
9 Chicken skin
10 Cheese


Acceptable Carbs for your healthy lifestlyle:
Complex carbs are now your creed. These are slower-digesting, natural, low on the glycemic index carbohydrates that digest slowly and provide us with sustained energy. They do not drastically affect our blood sugar and do not cause insulin spikes. Thus our body sees no reason to store them as fat, it would rather burn them for energy. Simple carbs such as enriched white breads/pastas/rice/potatoes/sugars (including most fruit) cause insulin spikes and are high GI foods. They should not be eaten when on a strict diet. Fruit can be consumed early in the day or pre/post-workout because of it’s high nutritional value but should usually be avoided due to being a form of simple sugar. Remember, healthy, low-calorie foods aren’t always the correct foods and such is the case with fruit.
1 Oats/Oatmeal
2 Grits/Cornmeal
3 Unsalted/non-buttered popcorn (great, low-cal snack)
4 Sweet potato (the best choice)
5 Butternut squash
6 Whole wheat pasta (not enriched)
7 Organic whole wheat bread (not enriched wonder bread crap)
8 Brown rice
9 Ezekiel bread
10 Swedish grain bread
11 Gluten free bread
12 Wheat couscous
13 Corn
14 Quinoa
15 Lentils
16 Beans
17 Many more, look up the GI (glycemic index) for healthy choices

Black List:
1 White pasta
2 White bread
3 Baguette
4 Bagels
5 Cookies, cake, muffins, cupcakes, all sweets basically.
6 White couscous
7 White rice
8 You get the idea…


Don’t get discouraged upon reading this list. I still make desserts all the time with whole
grain flour and splenda. I buy bagels and baguettes at the health food store that use
complex carbs as a base. If you’re dedicated, you don’t have to miss out 100%


Acceptable fats for your healthy lifestyle:
We look for fat sources that are high in omega-3, 6, and 9 fatty acids. Also, many are high in protein. We do not want saturated fats such as butter, cream, meat fat. We don’t want test tube fats like trans (the worst). We want mono/polyunsaturated fats that our body can use for something other than calories. Remember, even good fats are high in calories.
1 Natural peanut butter (no sugar added, just roasted peanuts)
2 Natural almond butter
3 Cashews
4 Almonds
5 Peanuts
6 Flax seeds
7 Flax seed oil
8 Salmon and Trout (great fatty proteins)
9 Fish oil
10 Extra virgin olive oil (should be used on all veggies/salads)
11 Chia seeds
12 Grapeseed oil
13 Macadamia nut oil

Acceptable miscellaneous foods:

These foods don’t provide much as far as macronutrients but are great for adding vitamins/minerals and taste. Notice some of these other foods are dairy. Dairy is another animal’s milk. We lack the enzymes to digest it as they do and it’s high in fat/sugar. It should only be eaten early in the day for nutrient purposes with the exception of whey and casein (cottage cheese).
1 Skim milk (Hood brand is only 45 calories and 3g of sugar per cup)
2 Greek yogurt (no sugar added)
3 Berries (all berries are much lower in sugar than other fruits and packed with fiber/nutrients – eat berries)
4 Green Vegetables. These are technically carbs but they are packed with fiber (a type of carb that isn’t used as energy or stored). In bodybuilding/nutrition – we refer to most vegetables as fibrous carbohydrates. While a serving of Broccoli may have 6g of carbs, 5 are from fiber. Meaning that it contains only 1g of storable carbohydrates. In addition, green vegetables are a calorie neutral/negative food (our body uses more calories to digest them than they contain – think celery). Veggies should be eaten with every meal. Every day. If you do this, you can become almost impervious to getting sick. Some vegetables are better than others for healthy diets.
5 Many non-green vegetables. Most are fine – just check labels, some have a good bit of sugar and should be eaten in moderation only (carrots)

[cjBeast]

Thanks POPS (and Damien). Amazing info about the actual food (I've been eating Rf peanut butter, that stops now). Any suggestions for the actual macro I should be shooting for? BMR 2060, TDEE 2940, shooting for 1850 cal per day, 60P/30C/10F so 275g protein / 130g carbs / 20g fat. How does that sound?

Gonna work in 30 minutes of AM fasted cardio 4 - 5 days a week.

Just thought of this, is there any impact to the time of day to use AS? Morning before card, before bed? Any impact? Also any impact to stacking the prop and tren in same dose or staggering them on opposite days?

Where should I put the nutrients in my day? P/c/f pwo? How many meals? That's my main question, when should I eat what? For example, here's a brief summary of my day, perhaps someone could just quote and fill in the blanks.

6:30 - 30 min fasted card
7:00 - breakfast, __p/__c/__f
9:00 - snack, __p/__c/__f
11:00 - pre workout meal, __p/__c/__f
1:00 - post workout meal, __p/__c/__f
3:00 - snack, __p/__c/__f
6:00 - dinner, __p/__c/__f

Also, when is the best and worst times for protein shakes? I use whey and I mix with water and egg whites intl for about 60g per shake.

Thanks again fellas

[gbrice75]

see bold

Thanks POPS (and Damien). Amazing info about the actual food (I've been eating Rf peanut butter, that stops now). Any suggestions for the actual macro I should be shooting for? BMR 2060, TDEE 2940, shooting for 1850 cal per day, 60P/30C/10F so 275g protein / 130g carbs / 20g fat. How does that sound?

It sounds awful! You want to run a diet with an 1100 calorie deficit? You'll slow your metabolism to a crawl, and will torch your LBM. It's a bad idea, honestly. I wouldn't recommend going lower then 500 calories below maintenance However, based on your stats, I have your TDEE worked out to be closer to 2700, so I would go NO lower then 2200 and rely on cardio to create a bigger deficit. What I actually recommend is eating closer to maintenance or even AT maintenance and rely completely on cardio. When you throw maintaining LBM into the mix vs. just losing bodyfat, you can't have a huge deficit AND do a bunch of cardio (and it's important to do cardio, so the deficit has to change).

I'd suggest starting with a 40/40/20 split and 2500 calories, that equates to 250g protein, 250g carbs, and 55g of fat. I know you're first reaction is going to be "carbs are too high!!" Realize that 250g carbs isn't that much, and it's all relative to total caloric intake. Having said that, once you have your base split of 40/40/20, you can play with the numbers a bit - i.e. raise protein to 275g, raise fats to 65g, and drop carbs to 200g, just as an example. Don't go too crazy with it though.

Gonna work in 30 minutes of AM fasted cardio 4 - 5 days a week.

Nice! Make it 45 mins if you can. Keep intensity relatively low/steady state on the empty stomach.

Just thought of this, is there any impact to the time of day to use AS? Morning before card, before bed? Any impact? Also any impact to stacking the prop and tren in same dose or staggering them on opposite days?

To be honest I don't think you should be cycling at all based on your diet plan. You would never make or keep any gains eating sub 2000 calories/day. But I know you're not here for that. To answer your question, i'd stack both and don't really feel time of day makes any difference.

Where should I put the nutrients in my day? P/c/f pwo? how many meals? That's my main question, when should I eat what? For example, here's a brief summary of my day, perhaps someone could just quote and fill in the blanks.

based on 2500 calories and the modification I made to 40/40/20:

6:30 - 30 min fasted card
7:00 - breakfast, _50_p/_50_c/_5_f
9:00 - snack (meal, not snack) _30_p/_10_c/_5_f
11:00 - pre workout meal, _50_p/_50_c/_5_f
1:00 - post workout meal, _50_p/_50_c/_5_f
3:00 - snack (meal, not snack) _30_p/_25_c/_10_f
6:00 - dinner, _30_p/_10_c/_15_f
9:00 - bedtime, _30_p/_10_c/_15_f

What time do you go to bed? Unlikely that it's at 7pm, so why did your meals stop? eat right up until you go to bed, with your last meal before you hit the pillow. Every 2.5 - 3 hours max. I added a 9pm meal just based on assumption that you will in fact fit in another meal somehow

The above is just an example, nothing written in stone. It basically separates carbs and fats, biggest carb meals 1st meal of the day and around the workout window, higher fat meals during your sedentary meals.

Also, when is the best and worst times for protein shakes? I use whey and I mix with water and egg whites intl for about 60g per shake.

1st thing in the morning (even pre cardio) and PWO are best for WPI. Casein before bed if you can't eat real food.

Thanks again fellas

[gbrice75]

^ ^ ^ i'm glad I spent my time doing this! Where's the OP?