Cutting Phase

[Yll Krasniqi]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your previous help on my “Diet Calculator vs SETTING UP/ADJUSTING YOUR DIET Video Discrepancy?” post. Before I made the post and heard your response, I had actually been using the formula on your video rather than the site to calculate my Maintenance Calories. After now almost a month of following my diet with those macros, I feel I have gotten my Maintenance Calories to a T as I’ve remained at exactly 170 lbs (which was my goal to maintain).

Now that I’ve got a confident baseline for my Maintenance Calories, my plan is to now enter into a cutting phase. My reality is a few years back I used to be addicted to the gym. Was 165lbs and around 10% BF lifting better than I had ever done in my life. Been a few years now (2-3 years) and now finally getting back into the gym. I’m now 170lbs and closer to 25% BF. I’d like to cut back down to 10% BF, and then once I get to that point begin a lean bulk phase. My plan is to then clean bulk up to around 13% and use that as a “ceiling” on my BF. This is the advice you had given on someone else’s post titled “Bodyfat levels”, which I truly did like. However, I know I have to tackle one goal at a time, so my priority over the next few months is to lose body fat.

My questions now revolve around the cutting phase.

1) I workout at night, around 9pm. I follow your old split (Lower, Off, Push, Pull, Off, Delts, Arms) and was considering doing a form of HIIT cardio (say Insanity/p90X/etc.) each morning. These would be 30 minutes sessions of HIIT to burn fat, and then do my regular workouts at night. My worry was that the HIIT training might affect my load at the gym. Would you recommend doing cardio in the AM and lifting in the PM or just stick to trying to lift as heavy as possible to minimize muscle loss during the cutting phase?

2) Basically all my fat comes from Olive Oil. I use my daily required Olive Oil to cook (example: if my carb source for that meal is whole wheat pasta and my fat source is olive oil, I cook the pasta in the olive oil). However, in your nutrition videos, I noticed that in the fats section next to olive oil you had put “(don’t cook with)”. Does this mean I have to just take the olive oil in a spoon and drink it (for lack of better words)? Or is cooking with it allowed? I just want to make sure that cooking with my daily fats doesn’t mean I’m actually getting less than I am supposed to.

3) Lastly, I saw in your nutrition videos you start your day with 24oz of water, lime, and apple cider vinegar. Is there a specific amount of apple cider vinegar? I have plenty of friends who use apple cider vinegar and claim it to help in burning fat so was wondering if this would be good to incorporate at the beginning of the day and was wondering what your rationale behind having apple cider vinegar was.

Sorry for the long post and really do appreciate the help. I am new to the site (just about 2 weeks now) so trying to digest as much info as I can! I hope I laid the post out in a friendly manner for you to answer and again do appreciate the time and help.

Thanks Joe!

[Joe]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your previous help on my “Diet Calculator vs SETTING UP/ADJUSTING YOUR DIET Video Discrepancy?” post. Before I made the post and heard your response, I had actually been using the formula on your video rather than the site to calculate my Maintenance Calories. After now almost a month of following my diet with those macros, I feel I have gotten my Maintenance Calories to a T as I’ve remained at exactly 170 lbs (which was my goal to maintain).

Now that I’ve got a confident baseline for my Maintenance Calories, my plan is to now enter into a cutting phase. My reality is a few years back I used to be addicted to the gym. Was 165lbs and around 10% BF lifting better than I had ever done in my life. Been a few years now (2-3 years) and now finally getting back into the gym. I’m now 170lbs and closer to 25% BF. I’d like to cut back down to 10% BF, and then once I get to that point begin a lean bulk phase. My plan is to then clean bulk up to around 13% and use that as a “ceiling” on my BF. This is the advice you had given on someone else’s post titled “Bodyfat levels”, which I truly did like. However, I know I have to tackle one goal at a , so my priority over the next few months is to lose body fat.

My questions now revolve around the cutting phase.

1) I workout at night, around 9pm. I follow your old split (Lower, Off, Push, Pull, Off, Delts, Arms) and was considering doing a form of HIIT cardio (say Insanity/p90X/etc.) each morning. These would be 30 minutes sessions of HIIT to burn fat, and then do my regular workouts at night. My worry was that the HIIT training might affect my load at the gym. Would you recommend doing cardio in the AM and lifting in the PM or just stick to trying to lift as heavy as possible to minimize muscle loss during the cutting phase?

2) Basically all my fat comes from Olive Oil. I use my daily required Olive Oil to cook (example: if my carb source for that meal is whole wheat pasta and my fat source is olive oil, I cook the pasta in the olive oil). However, in your nutrition videos, I noticed that in the fats section next to olive oil you had put “(don’t cook with)”. Does this mean I have to just take the olive oil in a spoon and drink it (for lack of better words)? Or is cooking with it allowed? I just want to make sure that cooking with my daily fats doesn’t mean I’m actually getting less than I am supposed to.

3) Lastly, I saw in your nutrition videos you start your day with 24oz of water, lime, and apple cider vinegar. Is there a specific amount of apple cider vinegar? I have plenty of friends who use apple cider vinegar and claim it to help in burning fat so was wondering if this would be good to incorporate at the beginning of the day and was wondering what your rationale behind having apple cider vinegar was.

Sorry for the long post and really do appreciate the help. I am new to the site (just about 2 weeks now) so trying to digest as much info as I can! I hope I laid the post out in a friendly manner for you to answer and again do appreciate the and help.

Thanks Joe!

[Author]

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