Starting to feel beat up while leaning out. What to change?

[mkkn]

For the past 3 months I've been trying to lean out. Made good progress, down from 89kg to 83kg. Initially everything felt good, but for the past 2 or 3 weeks, I've been feeling a bit beat up. Warming up feels fine, but then in the work set with every rep it feels more and more exhausting. Mostly with squatting and deadlifting. 3 weeks ago squatting 7 reps with 140kg was totally possible, today 5 reps with 140kg felt really exhausting, couldn't do more.

I'm not cutting calories too hard. About 600 calories deficit per day 6 days a week. One day a week, I do a refeed with a surplus of 500 calories and more carbs. My diet is mostly paleo with some dairy and potatoes. At least 200g protein, 125g carbs, 60g fat. Right now I'm probably around 19% bf, so I'm assuming it's not an issue of losing lots of muscle mass, rather of under-recovering. I also haven't been sleeping too well, I get 8 hours a night, but wake up here and there. Then again, I also had issues with that sometime when everything was going well.

My program right now looks like:

Monday
3 sets of 5 reps bench or press
2 sets of 5 reps front squat. 2nd set 90% of first one
3 sets max pull ups or max dips
5 sets max hanging leg raises or weighted sit ups
Practicing cleans with only bar for 15 mins

Wednesday
3 sets of 5 reps bench or press
1 sets of 5 reps deadlift
3 sets max pull ups or max dips
5 sets max hanging leg raises or weighted sit ups
Practicing jump rope for 10 mins

Friday
3 sets of 5 reps bench or press
2 sets of 5 reps squat. 2nd set 90% of first one
3 sets max pull ups or max dips
5 sets max hanging leg raises or weighted sit ups

Otherwise, my stats: 34 years, male. 5RMs (as of 3 weeks ago) Squat 150kg, Bench 82.5kg, Deadlift 190kg, Press 57.5kg.

What would you change to fix the issue? Reduce workouts to only bench, press, squat and deadlift, no assistance work? Take a week off? Last time I've done that was when I was sick for a week 2 months ago. Before that I took a week off around new years.

Thanks!

[krazyduck]

If I was in your position I would take some time off. Not a week though, I'd start with just one session, probably Friday and see how you feel on Monday. I wouldn't take it off and do nothing though, I would probably just do something different for less time. Eg, If you usually take a hour in the gym, I would do yoga or mobility or whatever for like a half hour, and then spend 20 min or so doing something fun, preferably without a barbell. Go for a swim or drag a sled or jump on a bosu ball. Nothing too intense.

The pattern seems to be that your being forced to take some time off every 2-3 months. Preempt that.

I'm sure a lot of people on here would disagree so stay tuned.

[Christopher John]

More experienced members of the board please feel free to correct me, but I'd guess, even trying to lean out, you're a little low with the macros - particularly carbs. How tall are you? Unless you're around 5ft flat, I think you could start gradually bumping up your carbs to at least 200g, probably up the protein a bit, too. Kinda depends on what your goal weight is, as well.

I'd guess that Jordan would tell you something similar in the nutrition section.

[idlehands]

I would up the calories and add in hiit on tues / Thursday but that's just me. Are you adding weight to the bar or just maintaining ? Recomp Always seems to include the the prowler.

[Mugaaz]

I wouldn't change programming. I'd just eat at maintenance for 4-7 days then go back to dieting. You can do the HIIT stuff too as recommended, but I see no reason to change sets/reps.

[Grinder]

I don't have a lot of knowledge in this area, but I do know that you need to bump up your protein considerably.

[Leah Lutz]

I can't give specific advice, but I can tell you that you're not eating much more than I am. The only difference is protein, I'm at 165 and I'm a woman. So I agree that you might need more.

I can also tell you that training while losing weight often really, really sucks. It's just tough and you slog through it sometimes. Other times you feel great!

[Kyle Schuant]

Unless you're obese, you can't push the weights heavier while you're in a decent enough deficit to lean out. Or rather, you can it for 3-8 weeks, then start feeling "beat up."

If you're in the healthy bodyfat range, which if you're 19% you are, then you get stronger quickly, or you can lean out, not both at once.

If you just want to lean out, I'd turn the 5 reps x 3 sets into 5x2 or 3x3 and keep the weights about the same. If you want to get stronger, I'd start eating more.

Poor sleep won't help, either. Think of it this way: pushing the weights is a stress on the system. Caloric deficit is a stress on the system. Poor sleep is a stress on the system. (Troubles at work, a slight virus, angling for promotion etc, will also be stresses.) I find that if people have just one stress they thrive, get better at what they're doing; if they have two they tread water, but three or more and they start falling apart. So you can probably handle any two of leaning out, pushing the weights, or poor sleep, but not all three. Ideally you'd do just one.

[mkkn]

Thanks, guys!

As for the carbs, Justin Lascek in Paleo for Lifters writes that 100g is a minimum and that if you are just lifting and not doing any conditioning, you don't need THAT much. 125-150 is a suggested range, if I remember correctly. So I just went with that that recommendation. Will see if upping them a bit might help.

Also keep in mind that the numbers I mentioned are absolute lower end. Most days I get around 220-240g protein for example.

Obviously I could increase the amount I eat and increase the macros. But most likely I would only have a tiny caloric deficit and make barely any progress in terms of leaning out. Recomping also never worked for me. Was just spinning wheels.

I could add more activity and/or HIIT. But that might buy me very few additional calories and have a negative effect on recovery. Heard that from several people as well.

Kyle, as for my goals. Right now I'm just focusing on leaning out. With pressing, benching and pull ups I notice that I got a bit stronger, very very slowly though, so that's alright. With squatting and deadlifting it's tough, so I just focus on maintaining the strength there.

Regarding the reps and sets scheme. You basically suggest lowering volume? I'm already only doing 2 sets with squatting. But Maybe I should do the same with pressing and benching.

[Larry T]

I'm 57 and have lost a little over 90 lbs in the last year and a half. I've been running ~1,000 daily deficit and pretty low carbs. What has made a big difference for me is:

1. Getting my carbs for the day around the timing of my workouts. (25g to 30g) right before the workout. It's not much, but it gets me through the workout.
2. Dropping from 3 work sets to 2 but keeping the intensity as high as possible.
3. Switching to an upper / lower split (rather than full-body). Going from 2 hard full-body workouts per week to 3 split workouts per week gets me more frequent exercise exposure without wiping me out.
4. Accepting that there's only so much I can do while losing a truckload of fat.