Note that building muscle mass is harder than losing fat especially if we are talking about delayed lagging muscles which you may spend months or years building it. In order not to lose your gains, a Balanced weight cut is more recommended if you had spent long time building your muscles. It is important to think carefully and decide what type of weight cut you really need before starting.
We will discuss two ways of weight cut :
Fast cut | focusing on losing fat as soon as possible without compromising your health
Balanced cut | focusing on maintaining muscles while losing fat gradually.
Fast cut
Although fast cut routine results in losing muscles, it is still desired for many of us to get rid of body fat as quickly as possible for different reasons. However, resistance training and maintaining the same weights you used to lift is great tool to prevent or minimize losing muscles while doing fast weight cut.How to cut weight fast ? Can I build muscles with a fast cut?
There are several factors that decides how optimum your results can be. Follow these steps in the same order :
- Combine early morning workouts with delaying breakfast for more fat loss. This will deplete your glycogen stores and your body will be forced to depend on fat to get energy.
- Structure your workouts to include 50% of resistance training and 50% of cardiovascular exercises together with HIIT training.
- Start with 10-15 minutes of HIIT training before resistance exercises. This will raise your adrenaline, improve nervous system, and eventually burn more fat during and after you finish your workout.
- Consider doing cardiovascular (low-medium intensity) at the end of your workout. This will speed up utilizing fat as energy especially if you have already depleted glycogen.
- Consider fasting for 2-5 hours after you finish your workout. This will enhance fat oxidation (utilization) as a result of glycogen depletion after a workout.
- Avoid dehydration. Drinking water while fasting after a workout is essential.
- First meal (breaking your fast): a small meal of healthy fatty, high protein foods like walnuts and almonds along with slow absorbed carbs like berries, broccoli, etc..
- Second Meal (after 4-6 hours of workout): Make sure to focus on protein intake with a an overall balanced diet. slow absorbed carbs are essential.
- Last Meal: If you have already reached your protein needs and you still feel hungry at the end of the day, then follow these important points in the same order:
- Make sure you are not dehydrated. If you still hungry after drinking enough water, then check the next point.
- Consume enough amount of high quality carbohydrates (Only In the last meal before going to bed). Do not worry about overeating, since this is the last meal, any excess or surplus in calories will be used in the next workout. This is why I recommend to workout early in the morning. On the other hand, carbohydrates will improve your sleep quality. Slow digested carbs like barley and oats are preferred over the fast ones like bananas. However, it is totally fine to add some fast carbs especially if you are too hungry.
Balanced cut
A balanced cut routine is similar to recomp in terms of nutrition but focuses more on losing fat quicker through adding more cardiovascular training. However, resistance training is mandatory for a balanced cut in order to maintain the size of muscles.