Cutting

Cutting is an advanced version of dieting, which is why very few people can execute it properly. Not that a simple diet works for the masses. When cutting, you constantly have to push the limits to achieve the best results. If you upset this balance, or even worse, mess it all up due to your incompetence, then you'll find yourself with a lot of wasted time and energy invested, and there's nothing worse than thinking you look good at the beach, while everyone else thinks you're the corn seller. Lots of these jerks wander around the beaches in summer with smug looks on their faces, even though they really look ridiculous. The muscles are neither defined nor sculpted, and in most cases, the body is developed disproportionately, yet when creating a lean body, everyone has one goal in mind: to look really good, and for the result to be spectacularly impressive.

Cutting, as I mentioned, is a very delicate process that requires great discipline and can easily be messed up. It's like picking up girls, where you have to pick up and bed the girl in such a way that the less deserving part of the female gender doesn't want a relationship afterwards. Of course, not everyone can do this; it requires a certain routine, just like cutting does. To spectacularly sculpt the body, everyone will need a few things, and unfortunately, most of these cannot be acquired, meaning not everyone can execute cutting. You'll need some sports background, mastering the correct execution of exercises, an appropriate training plan, existing muscle mass is also a plus, and of course, the Holy Grail that overrides everything: a correctly structured, calorie-calculated diet, because if cutting is a religion, then the name of God there is diet.

I'm warning you, it's going to be damn hard, especially since most people can't even manage a normal bench press, even though every beginner starts there and struggles with it for years. There are a few idiots who say body type doesn't matter, only hard work, which I personally don't understand, because we're talking about completely different body compositions, metabolic rates, and cellular reactions, where a given exercise and number of sets will yield completely different results for the three different body types. That's why body type simply cannot be ignored when it comes to cutting, just as it matters whether there's a big black guy behind you when you drop the soap, or a 160 cm Japanese dick.

So, before anyone here starts a major cutting phase, clarify whether you are even suitable for the task and if you have the proper background knowledge, because it's pointless to think about naming children before the first date has even happened. I'll translate this for the mentally challenged to understand. It won't work if you don't understand the basics, if you don't consider your body type, if you can't count calories, if you can't react properly to your body's changes during your program, if your training plan isn't appropriate, and if you're a little jerk, it won't work either. Cutting is not about losing weight. Any idiot can lose weight, but very few can build muscle and then cut it down. Of course, every miserable person thinks they know something after 3-4 months of gymming, but there's usually a huge difference between reality and what we believe about ourselves. If you don't believe me, look at the girls. It doesn't matter which one, all of them have been wandering in a dream world since birth.

During the first 2 weeks of the cutting period, while maintaining a proper diet, we can achieve a radical weight loss, but this is not fat, but the release of excess water stored in our body. Once this process has taken place, generally a weight loss of 0.5 kg per week is ideal. With a loss of 0.7 kg, it might still be possible to maintain muscle mass, but everything needs to be optimal for this. Workouts and diet, of course. Here, I must note that you should feel free to punch those idiots in the face who, after hearing that you lost 6 kilos in 2 weeks, start lecturing you about how unhealthy that is because half a kilo a week is ideal, but by then you will know that water release is part of the process, and this is responsible for the initial significant weight loss, so feel free to humble them with this information and refer to LifeT!lt.

At this point, we have arrived at the most important part of the post, which is how long a cutting program should last, how much protein, carbohydrates, and fat intake there should be, when to reload the body, that is, everything about cutting, specifically the nutrition part, broken down by body types.

Duration of the cutting program

Ectomorphs: 10-12 weeks. Endomorphs: 18-20 weeks. Mesomorphs: 14-16 weeks.

Calories + Cardio

80% of weight loss should come from nutrition, and 20% from cardio, but the amount of cardio workouts also depends heavily on body type. Ectomorphs should run less, or preferably not at all, while endomorphs should run a little more than what they might think I'm suggesting.

To lose half a kilogram of fat per week, you need to achieve a deficit of approximately 600 kcal per day. To determine your calorie intake, apply the following equation to yourself to find your calorie baseline.

Mesomorph: body weight × 26 kcal

Ectomorph: body weight × 32-36 kcal

Endomorph: body weight × 19-21 kcal

For calorie counting, look for a calorie chart online or use the tilt test. Print this out, put it on your fridge, or wherever you want, but you need to learn these numbers and especially the calorie content of healthy foods + alcohol, of course, that's a damn big basis.

Eating frequency

Mesomorph: eat every 3 hours

Ectomorph: every 2-3 hours

Endomorph: every 3.5–5 hours

Protein intake

Mesomorph: body weight × 2-2.5 grams

Ectomorph: body weight × 2.8-3.5 grams

Endomorph: body weight × 2.5-3 grams

Fat intake

Mesomorph: 15-20% of total calorie intake

Ectomorph: 25-28% of total calorie intake

Endomorph: 23-28% of total calorie intake. Fat intake should be increased as much as possible so that carbohydrate intake is as low as possible. You could still tinker with protein intake, but you can't just mindlessly raise it to the ceiling, and then omega fats are better than carbohydrates.

Carbohydrate intake

We already have the basic numbers, i.e., how many calories to consume, and besides that, we already have protein and fat intake. After this, there's not much left to calculate, because carbohydrate intake will come from the remaining calories. That is, remaining calories divided by 4, which gives us how many grams of carbohydrates we need to force into ourselves. I'm unable to explain this more simply, but anyone who decides to cut for periods of 15-20 weeks is strong-minded and informed enough not to need a better explanation than this.

Refeeding

Reloading periods and days must be included in diet plans. These help to "revive" a hormone called leptin, which is the mother of all fat-burning hormones. During a diet, this nasty leptin starts to decrease to prevent the body from losing too much fat, meaning the body starts to store it. This is a simple survival instinct. Occasional refeeding, however, helps to compensate for this and maintain an optimal fat-burning rate. Someone who is leaner needs to reload more often than someone with a higher body fat percentage, meaning fat people shouldn't be reloading, because they don't have the right to.

Below 10% body fat: 2 refeed days per week.

Between 10-15%: 6–12 days is optimal for a refeed day.

Above 15-20%: 10–14 days is worth refeeding.

Above 20%: 1 refeed day every 20–25 days.

I don't want to elaborate on the fact that a refeed day does not mean a wedding feast, nor an all-you-can-eat option at Trófea, but I've written about this before, and if anyone is interested in what they should eat then, read this post.

Reloading strategy

Reload on days when you train your weakest body part, as this not only raises leptin levels but also provides an anabolic stimulus. Don't worry about what these terms mean, just ignore them and do what I tell you. Many jerks like to throw around technical terms because it makes them seem more expert, but the main thing is to reload when you're training your weakest body part. That's all you need to know.

A few good tips for refeeding periods.

On refeed days, keep fat intake as low as possible, as carbohydrates' elevated insulin increases fat transport to adipose tissue.

Reduce protein intake by 30% per kilogram of body weight.

Ingest as little fructose as possible, meaning you should pretty much exclude fruits.

Increase calorie intake to maintenance level or above if you are an ectomorph, and within that, increase carbohydrates by 50–100% above your normal diet level.

I'm almost certain that at this point, most of the group has lost the thread, and if I were to ask you now how many carbohydrates you should consume during a refeeding period, you would just stare like fish, and this is just the theory. Translating this information into practice is somewhat more difficult, and you would also have to adhere to it to achieve results. So I would advise everyone not to force this whole cutting thing until they understand the basics, until they can count calories, and generally not if they have trouble sticking to a diet for 70 days. There are certain levels in body shaping that cannot be skipped, or at least it's not advisable, because body shaping is just like that: the bluffs of life don't work here, you can't fool or bribe your body, it will look exactly like the amount of energy you put into it.

This concludes the first part; the continuation will discuss nutrient timing, the importance of the quality of carbohydrates consumed, cortisol, glycogens, and all those things that no one understands, but I will try to explain them clearly.

Source: Layne Norton