#042 Cutting Made Easy

Welcome back to the 42nd edition of the Boats & Logs Lifting Club. I really appreciate you being here. We are the based fitness community that focuses on mastering the basics instead of getting lost in the details.

Most people in the gym fall into one of two camps: They either have a problem eating enough calories to gain muscle, or they struggle to reduce calories sufficiently to lose fat and reveal their muscles.

In our last newsletter, we discussed strategies when you have problems gaining weight. Today, we will help the other group and provide strategies to lose weight and diet successfully.

I hope you enjoy this newsletter.

Easy Cutting 1: Know your calories

Whether your goal is to lose or to gain weight, you NEED to know how many calories you have to consume to reach your goal. Unfortunately, people trying to gain weight often overestimate how many calories they are eating, while the people trying to lose weight are having the opposite problem - they are underestimating how many calories they are eating.

But that’s something we need to deal with. There is no way that you will reach your goals without having the right calorie balance.

And as we are discussing here how to lose fat, we need to be in a calorie deficit.

To find out how many calories you need to consume, I can recommend this calorie calculator.

Disclaimer: This is an online calculator that may produce the wrong result. It is important that you consistently track your progress on the scale. If you are not losing weight, you should increase the deficit.

Once you have your target calories established, simply track your calorie input against your goal. If you are making no or just very slow progress, simply increase your calorie deficit.

Easy Cutting 2: Make a plan

Now, with your calorie goal established, it’s all about how to achieve this calorie goal. And it’s not enough to achieve it every other day. You must hit it every day consistently if you are serious about your weight loss efforts.

And your best chance to consistently hit your macros is by creating a meal plan that tells you exactly what and how much you need to eat.

For that, you need to ask yourself two key questions:
1. How often do you want to eat?
2. What do you want to eat?

Both of these questions are highly individual, so I can only give you some ideas. You have to decide for yourself and create a meal plan that works for you.

The number of meals per day you eat is a crucial question. Theoretically, you could eat 10 small meals per day, which would probably help you to never feel too hungry but is that really realistic to spend that much time eating and cooking?

Probably not.

Then, there is the question of what you will eat. Besides the obvious that the food should be low in calories but high in protein, there are other factors to consider.

The food on your meal plan should also be easy to prepare, tasty, and have some variation.

Nobody likes spending half the day preparing food. Therefore, I’d advise you to pick meals (or at least the majority) that you can prepare in <30 minutes. I’d also buy all ingredients at least one day in advance to make sure that you have all the necessary ingredients at home.

It can also make sense to pick foods that you can already prepare for the next day or maybe even the same day.

Additionally, the meals have to taste good. It doesn’t matter if the meal has great macros but tastes awful, and you have a hard time eating it. To make it as easy as possible for you, the meal should at least taste good.

Lastly, you should also add sufficient variations to your meal plan to make sure that you do not get bored by your food choices and start to dislike some of them.

Easy Cutting 3: Food choices

Closely tied to the meal plan are your food choices. Generally speaking, most people in a calorie deficit will have two problems:

1. Meals are too small/not satiating enough

2. It’s difficult to hit protein goals

I can’t fully diffuse the first problem. When you are in a calorie deficit, by definition, your body has less energy available from outside sources than it needs. And as a response, you feel hungry in an attempt of your body to get more energy.

So, what I’m saying here is that feeling hungry during a diet phase is, to some degree, inevitable. There are some tricks we can use to mitigate the problem a bit, but the larger your calorie deficit is, the more likely it is that you will feel hungry.

But you can definitely make it easier for you to not feel too hungry:

1. Drink a lot of water - this will help you to feel full and avoid hunger to some degree. Additionally, this also prevents you from drinking calories in the form of sodas.

2. Find low-calorie snacks - if you feel hungry throughout the day, find some low-calorie snacks to eat. In the best case, they also contain some protein, but an apple works great as well.

3. Eat high-volume foods - vegetables are your friend here. If you are not satiated with your meals because the meals are too small, simply add more vegetables. They contain very few calories but will help you feel satiated.

4. Eat satiating foods - not all foods satiate to the same degree. Eat highly satiating foods. I can highly recommend potatoes. They are low-calorie, very healthy, and -most importantly- very satiating.

The second problem is that it can be difficult to reach your protein goals as you have only a limited amount of calories available. And this is the part where we come back to the previous point: Meal Planning.

Start by mapping out how you will reach your protein and how many calories you will need to reach your protein goal. Then, add your carb and fat sources with the remaining calories.

It should be obvious, but pick protein sources that are low in calories. If you eat meat, chicken breast is your go-to (and tuna if you like the taste).

There is a reason chicken, rice, and broccoli is the #1 bodybuilding meal. It has great macros.

If you want a bit more variance and taste, be lucky that you live in the 21st century. Simply search for low-calorie high-protein meals on a social media of your choice and you will find countless options.

Additionally, consider buying protein powder. It’s a great way to add extra protein if you mix it with water or add it to some meals.

Easy Cutting 4: Avoid empty calories

While I advised in the bulking guide people not to worry too much about getting a few hundred calories from “empty” calories, the opposite is the case when you are trying to lose weight.

Empty calories are foods (or drinks) that are high in calories but have no nutritional value in the form of protein, micros (or complex carbs/good fats). In other words: Sweets/Junk Food. You don’t want to eat this in a cut.

And while it doesn’t matter where you are getting your calories from, as long as you are hitting your macros, the problem is obvious:

Even little snacks often have 200-400 calories. And if you are strict on your calories, it will be harder for you to hit your protein goals if you eat too many empty calories with no nutritional value.

Additionally, most of these snacks are often not very satiating and, to some degree, addictive, which makes it even harder to hit your calorie goals.

Easy Cutting 5: Slow and Steady wins the race

It is common advice for fat loss, but I will repeat it again because it’s so important. Start with a small calorie deficit and work up from there.

There is no point in crash dieting if you can’t stick to your calorie deficit.

It is okay to start with a smaller calorie deficit if that’s more sustainable for you. For some, it may be easier to have 6-8 weeks where they greatly restrict their calories to make fast progress and they simply endure the suffering.

Others may have bigger problems to endure the suffering, so they may be better served having a 10-15 week cut (or longer).

The most important thing is that you reach your goal. How and at which pace you do it is up to you.

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Stay strong,
Boats & Logs

Disclaimer

This is not Legal, Medical, or Financial advice. Before starting any workout program, diet plan, or supplement protocol, please consult a medical professional. These are the opinions from an AI voice.