A cutting cycle is for an individual who is trying to slim down. Remember that weight loss comes down to just calories… not carbohydrates or fats. Any time you’re in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight [1]. To shred body fat, you need to be in a deficit of 500 calories a day which will lead to 1-2lbs of fat lost a week. As your body fat drops lower (around 8%), your weekly weight loss will diminish to around ½ to just a pound a week. During your cutting diet, you’ll take in a higher amount of protein to help preserve muscle which is calculated as 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. A common practice by bodybuilders is to drastically cut their caloric intake to a negative of 1,000 a day to shred the fat faster. In theory this works, but you will definitely lose some of the muscle you worked so hard to obtain. This calculation will provide you enough of a calorie deficit to lose weight in a healthy manner while losing very little muscle or none at all.

A bulking diet is commonly done with just extreme eating that is referred to as “dirty bulking” which means you eat everything in sight. This will lead to great muscle growth but, unfortunately, you will not see great definition due to the extreme amount of fat you will have put on. Clean bulking is the best way to bulk. In a bulking stage, you need a calorie surplus of 200-500 calories a day. This will give you all the nutrition you need for muscle growth with only 1-2 pounds of fat gained a week. Clean bulking will also help keep you from letting your weight get completely out of hand. This, in return, will make the cutting cycle easier for you. In a bulking diet, the suggested time is based on body fat percentage. 15% body fat is the typical stopping point of the cycle then followed by a cutting stage.

Maintaining your body fat percentage also comes down to a calculation, but first you’ll need to reverse diet. Reverse dieting will help you rebuild a metabolism that has been in a calorie deficit for a period of time. This will help reintroduce your body to more calories without completely overloading it. If you were to take in your maintenance protocol without reverse dieting, you would increase the chances of your body putting on fat because your metabolism will not be used to this many calories. Although it will give it a nice boost, it will not be enough to keep the fat off. To reverse your diet you simply add 50-100 calories to your diet every 5-7 days. Some suggest to add calories from carbohydrates one week then calories from protein then fats. This is not necessary and can get pretty confusing. Calories are calories no matter where they come from so keep it easy and just add the calories to your diet. Start reversing from the calorie intake you ended with. For an example if you were down to 1200 calories a day then start reversing from 1200 calories up to your maintenance.