Now that we've covered bulking, it's time to look at the other side of the spectrum.

If losing that belly fat and fat everywhere else is your goal, would cutting be your best

option?

Well, all types of weight loss diets are essentially cutting programs.

The point of cutting is first and foremost reducing your overall bodyweight.

Of course, the goal is to have most, if not all of that weight to be body fat.

So there's no big trick here.

In order to lose weight, you're going to have to eat at an energy deficit up until you reach

your desired weight or body image.

Consider that your TDEE, short for total daily energy expenditure, hovers roughly around

2000 calories.

In order to lose weight, your energy consumption, or what you eat, has to stay below 2000.

In terms of weight, every 3500 calories is equal to one pound.

That means, in order to lose 1 pound per week on a TDEE of 2000 calories, you'll have to

cut down to 1500 calories per day.

Now if you're a healthy individual that has trained for quite a while now, perhaps 1 to

3 years, going on a cut will inevitably cause you to lose some muscle mass and strength

regardless of your consistent lifting.

This is mainly due to increased levels of catecholamines and cortisol, which will provide

you energy from the breakdown of nutrients such as fats and amino acids, and decreased

insulin, which means less protein is delivered to the muscle and muscle protein synthesis

rates go down.

The net effect of this process is known as catabolism.

And the longer you stay in a catabolic state, the more pronounced the effects of these hormones

will take place, which simply means the longer you cut, the more muscle you're risking to

lose.

Some experts suggest that having re-feed days, where you eat an excess of carbs, will help

reverse the effects of catabolism.

So perhaps the once-every-two-weeks cheat day might be beneficial to keeping your gains.

For beginners, however, it's still possible for you to lose weight while putting on a

great deal of mass with increased strength during a cut.

This is the reason why many of you know that one former overweight friend that has gotten

stronger and look more muscular while dropping body fat at the same time.

To expect that as a well-trained individual, however, would just lead to disappointment,

unless you do a method known as body recomposition.

As far as how fast you should cut, most health associations recommend roughly 10% of your

bodyweight per six months, or no more than 2 pounds per week if you're not too overweight

to begin with.

Most of those calories removed from your diet might be best to come from your carbs, since

typically carbs is the easiest macronutrient to adjust.

If hunger and appetite becomes a problem, consider adding more protein and fats into

your diet, since both macronutrients will help you stay more full.

But even before you determine your results from looking at the scale, looking at the

mirror might be a better option.

Somtimes the scale might not budge but the mirror will tell you the true story.

Either way, if you're concerned with losing too much muscle mass and have time to spare

on your cut, going on a slower diet of about 1 pound per week might help you preserve your

sweet sweet gains.

I wanted to give a thank you to Nick for his generous contribution of Patreon and supporting

me and PictureFit.

If you would like to support PictureFit as well, come check out my patreon at patreon.com/PictureFit

. Thanks for watching!