Cutting sucks

S

stevejones

Member
Cutting sucks

Couldn't help it.  I had to succumb to running and cross country skiing, the two best exercises for burning fat AND, unfortunately, muscle.  I've been working on cutting for almost 6 weeks, and my waistline has been bouncing between 34.5" and 36 inches for the entire period.  Everytime I think I've lost fat, my next measurement will be greater or the same.  Same way with the weight scale.  I only measure myself once per week and weigh myself once per week. I've been very strict with my calories, using the Berardi caloric scale--- BMR = 66 + (13.7 x weight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) - (6.8 x age) multiplied by 1.6 (activity level).

That works out to----
my maintenance with my activity level @ 260 lbs is: 3625 cals
Minus a 20% cut in cals because I'm cutting is:  2900cals
I keep my cals between 2800 and 2900 cals every day.  

When I cut in the past, I did very well (much better than I'm doing now), and I think the main difference is that back then I was running and doing a nordic trak cross country ski machine. So, I just started doing those again instead of  incredibly boring long 60 minute walks @ 3.4 mph on the treadmill and 30 minutes on elliptical machine.  The higher heart rate with running & nordic trak burns more calories, so I hope this works without sacrificing too much muscle (as it did in the past).  

Does anyone think that this caloric scale is crap and shouldn't be used ?  Does 2900 calories sound like a lot for someone who is cutting @ 260 lbs ? If you're strongly opinionated about it and think it sucks, then what do you use ? I'm not keeping track of fats and carbs, I only keep track of protein and calories, making sure I get at least 1 gram per lb of bodyweight while I cut. My body is very stubborn below 36" waist.
 
The following scale has always proven to be a good starting point for me and most people I've given advice to:

10 - 12 times bodyweight for cutting
about 15 times bodyweight for maintaining
18 - 20 times bodyweight for bulking

Berardi's estimations for maintenance tend to be a little high for most people.
 
After about 45-60mins of moderate exercise your carb stores get depleted, and your body switches over to fat/amino acids/muscle. For walking you should still be burning mostly fat, but if you're fairly lean already and then hitting the elipical, you probably burning a lot of muscle. What BF% are you at the mo?

Also when carbs become depleted your body starts producing cortisol, glucagon and other catabolic hormones, which are great for fat burning, but bad for muscle retention. Cortisol (the stress hormone) is very bad for muscles... Shorter, higher intensity exercise will be better than an hour and a half of exercise with no food. Alternatively you can eat something very light after about 45mins, like maybe a few bread-rolls or a bit of rice, that will help as well.
 
Thanks

I think I'll just lower calories by a couple hundred down to 2700 and give up the long walks on the treadmill.  I don't think that long term low intensity cardio agrees with my body much.  Going back to shorter & higher intensity exercise.  

I didn't mean to imply that I'm walking 60 minutes and then immediately doing elliptical.  I meant that I was alternating between the two.  60 min walking on workout days, 30 minutes @ 140bpm on elliptical on off days.
 
Yeah that long cardio was probably chewing through the muscle, what Body Fat % are you at the moment anyway? What's your goal?
 
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(Peak_Power @ Sep. 18 2006,17:28)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Yeah that long cardio was probably chewing through the muscle, what Body Fat % are you at the moment anyway? What's your goal?</div>
I'm not sure what my bf is. It's probably around 11%. Once my waist gets down to 34&quot; I'll have it measured in a bodpod. My current goals are to get down to 8% while having a total of 1800+ on the big three lifts without wearing any gear like a bench shirt. I also want to destroy all the numbers on that 'bodypart calculator' that's being referred to alot in the forum, which won't be problem.
 
Yeah...cutting sucks. The past few weeks I have no energy and since my body thinks it is starving, it is releasing weird hormones and in general my mood sucks.
The worst part is the deathly slow rate that inches come off. I am going for a 33&quot; waist and although I only have to lose about two inches, each day cutting seems an eternity....doing some HIIT or other exercise helps eliminate the lethargy and bad mood, but not for long.
I hate cutting so much, that once I get to my target leaness, I am going to make sure I never get flabby again. I guess all my days of bulking on pizza, steak and ice cream are over!
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