Just came across this thread again, well I did come close to my goal, got down to about 13% body fat. However since then I have let myself go and some how got fatter even with doing cardio and eating well. I am now back upto a 38 inch waist & 18% body fat and weighing close to 98kg but I am also overall larger.
Think I need another slap into the cutting world as I want to start a bulk for 16 weeks but with the fat on me I'm a bit nervous that I'll just look a tub of lard. Even if I do some HIIT in the morning and follow LeanGains timings to eating. But I am also worried that if I did cut up first I'd just look a bit skinny fat.. :/
What do you guys recon?
Bulk now, cut in 16 weeks.. or cut now to a 34 inch waist and then bulk for 16 weeks?
Cut now. I'd recommend the approach of dropping slower, almost starvation diets will grant you your skinny fat look.
Won't go into full detail as takes to long but general for you since your coming across to me as someone who likes eating crap regardless of what your goal is which is fine but we just work around that issue.
Eating clean all the time IMO just makes you flat, all this low low carb nonsense constantly you just end up flat as a pancake and muscle glycogen depleted to hell, not a good look....
I suggest you throw in more weight training, I personally train 6 days per week but the option is yours, hard and heavy, fairly short sessions but keep the weight heavy and hard, none of this toning nonsense.
I personally do zero cardio and when going from 16% down to 8% I did no cardio either... with little to no muscle loss. But for the sakes of it you can add it in using an appropriate amount.
Cheat 1ce per week, alough you could refeed which could be more beneficial ONLY if you can keep off the crap during the week? aim for lowish carbs during the week but none of this zero carbs nonsense, a good starting point is carbs morning and post workout works well for me.
If you can sustain from eating garbage during the week and eat clean all week , come say sat or sunday have a refeed, works very well. All about carb timings really, but just mix the carbs up aim for a suitable amount, judging from your weight I'd say anything up to 1,000g is fine. A mix of simples and complex, oats, pastas, rice etc and throw in some harribo's... Idea is to drive the carb into the muscle and fill yourself back out via muscle glycogen attaining a pumped vascular look, alough the vascular look works better under water timing, imo cutting water fairly soon on the day say 2-3pm (aim for 3-4l up till then) and after that cut it out, if you have to drink throw in some diet coke or caffeine related drink good for dehydrating yourself, further more advanced examples but dont think u will need it atm.
So stick to something like that, alternativly throw in some nice big cheat meals, either or works v well for putting metabolism thru the roof. Faster the metabolism the more effective your body will be at building muscle, burning fat yada yada....
All this silly dieting and low cals all the time IMO just leads to the metabolism slowing right down which is a MASSIVE problem in terms of bodybuilding...
!
Each calorie really does make a difference.
