Well, it does seem like the bodybuilding type training does indeed do a good job of keeping the muscle tissue intact during the cut. I actually lost close to 20 pounds, as the cut technically got its start on January 1st, where I weighed in at 298 in the morning. It's not listed here, but it's in my own record. I also think the bodybuilding type training does have the potential to actually eke out small gains on a cut, since it's designed to be able to progress so slowly. It does also seem to have skewed the weight loss toward fat. In the past a weight drop of this much didn't have much of a visible effect. This time it really did. A lot of this was stuff I got from watching Mike Israetel's videos, he has a lot of information on dieting and training, and strategies for keeping muscle on a cut. I am also finding even though the strength took a hit, it's coming back fast. I was able to add 10 pounds to both the press and bench today over monday's numbers. Tomorrow I get to see if I can add 20 to the earlier squat and deadlift numbers from this week. After that, I will probably slow it down a bit. I'm going to be doing maintenance for about 4 weeks, so I have time to try and get to old numbers (or at least close) at the new lighter bodyweight.
While lower reps on the big lifts took a hit, assistance work that I always did in higher rep ranges seems to be mostly the same as it was. I think having everything basically work higher in reps generally skewed the muscles to adapt to work at those reps. Again, this seems to be changing quickly back to being suited to lower rep work. Don't know if I'll recover all the end of December numbers I had, but today's session was encouraging.
One thing that was strange about this cut was that even though it wasn't as severe as others I've done (I've gone 30+ pounds of weight lost in the past), I started to encounter weird mood and energy issues worse than I have before. I think it might be because of how little dietary fat I was consuming. Israetel has a recommendation of .3 grams per pouind of bodyweight, and I was well below that. There were days I was probably only hitting 20-30 grams.