Is this an opportune time for my first cut?

[kanahan]

If you're trying to go from fat to lean, it's going to sound weird, but there is a phase where you feel like you actually look worse. Keep at it, you'll be fine.

Lol that's exactly what they said when they told me to GOMAD... When is this stuff going to return some physique gainz? I feel like I gained a shitload of fat during my bulk and the little muscle I gained is now going away during the cut and the fat is staying. Fml

[Mahendra]

If you're trying to go from fat to lean, it's going to sound weird, but there is a phase where you feel like you actually look worse. Keep at it, you'll be fine.

+1. It took about 3 months for me to actually "feel" like I lost weight and looked different, even though I was consistently losing weight the entire time.

[BenM]

Lol that's exactly what they said when they told me to GOMAD... When is this stuff going to return some physique gainz? I feel like I gained a shitload of fat during my bulk and the little muscle I gained is now going away during the cut and the fat is staying. Fml

It does feel that way (as someone who is cutting myself).

A couple of things though.....

Studies have shown that if you do actually lose size/strength it is much easier to get it back than gain it in the first place. At least I'm sure that's what I've read.

Secondly yes you will look less big when you are dieting and your muscles are glycogen depleted because every gram of glycogen in your muscles holds 3 grams of water. So some of that muscle size will return straight away as soon as you start eating at maintenance and top up glycogen in your muscles again.

Just gotta trust the process... that's what I keep telling myself anyway. And don't get impatient and cut cals too early. It's annoying, I've already been cutting longer than I planned but it takes as long as it takes - you want to do it as comfortably (huger wise) and while keeping as much muscle mass/strength as possible.

[kanahan]

So quick question. I have been cutting for about 5 weeks and lost about 4kg (9 pounds ish). However, my waist has barely budged. I think it shortened by a couple cm in the first week, but since then it's stuck at about 97cm. Any idea what's going on there?

I woke up today and my waist is suddenly 3-4cm shorter. This literrally happened in days with little change in weight.

[DieselBro]

I was 6'4" 275 lbs, down to about 260 just using LP and cleaning up diet a little, over about 3 months. But now the rubber is starting to meet the road, failed 3 times at bench with 190, deloaded to 170. Everything else seems to be moving up albeit slowly. Weight gain was not really an option until I get below 20 percent with the diabeetus... reading some Lyle McDonald articles, it seems like you want to keep intensity up but reduce volume. The pathways that signal muscle gain need to be kept firing.. i.e. more weight on the bar, even if it is just a tiny bit, if you lower the weight, you catabolize muscle..

Once I get below 20% I am going to look at a sensible surplus to drive gains again.

In fact, that’s exactly what I recommended in The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook: 2-3 short heavy weight workouts per week (to maintain muscle mass) while allowing the big caloric deficit of the diet generate fat loss. And it works.
Alternately, you could combine 2-3 short heavy weight workouts with cardio and use a smaller dietary deficit. And that works too. What won’t work (for anyone not using drugs) is to remove the heavy tension stimulus completely and move to nothing but higher reps and lighter weights.
Well, not unless you define ‘work’ as losing muscle mass.

But, you say, why does it have to be one type of training or the other? And clearly, it doesn’t. There’s no fundamental reason why both kinds of training can’t be done while dieting. More accurately, there’s no reason that metabolic type work can’t be added in some fashion to properly performed heavy weight training. This can give the pros of each while eliminating the cons of each at the same time.

So how do you do this, how do you combine the two types of training? That’s in Part 2.

Weight Training for Fat Loss Part 1 : Bodyrecomposition

[kanahan]

Dropped another cm or so.

I think there's a lesson to learn here: when you are no happy about something, complain and whine on an internet forum and the universe shall deliver.