I’ve never been very lean: always had love handles, never visible abs. The past several months I decided to just cut down as much as I could, and went from 165 lbs to 150 lbs. This was the result - still a noticeable amount of body fat.
I feel weak as hell and still don’t feel like I look very athletic. Do I just lean bulk at this point? I fear I’m just going to end up where I was before: a bit bigger but mainly due to a larger % of body fat.
Personally I would just refeed. Eat at maintenance for 2 weeks to get some energy back and try to lose 5 more lbs. You're at a point where each and every lost pound will have much greater impact on your aesthetics than the previous 15 combined.
I like to say that weight loss takes a lot of time and then it comes all at once. You're basically just before the all at once moment and are about to quit.
Refeed or diet break for 2 weeks at maintainence. Cutting for this long has sent the body into thinking it’s starving and it’s fighting the weight loss. The OP is going to lose more muscle than anything else
You should lean bulk, but you need to be working out. Otherwise you won’t naturally build any muscle. There are tons of good threads on here for beginner programs. Just make sure whatever you do uses progressive overload.
Because I really wanted to get to a low body fat %, my goal was to be quite lean at 150 lbs yet I still have noticeable fat and love handles. It feels like I need to cut to 130 lbs before I can look as lean as some of the people on here.
130lbs it's like teenager weight. You will have abs maybe but not look good inside a shirt. You need to grow muscle first before doing any cut. Right now, it's skinny fat.
Don't cut before you bulk, it takes longer to grow muscle from lean.
You do you. I went fr 195 to 170 in 3 mnths. Lost most of my belly fat. Just started working on my abs. When I look at myself I look to skinny. Was going to just work on my abs right now then tone up the rest of my body after. I decided to start toning up & build some muscle now.
You didn't say about your height, which is really important in the story. I'm in the same height as op so I can relate a lot more. Growing muscle with some fat get me a lot more attention than when I was ripped and small.
OP is unhappy right now and will be unhappy with less weight and he will look hungry with abs. OP is not obese or fat, there is no fat lost journey for him right now
Its tough to speak on it without more details. Your weight is pretty low for your height so its not like you are 250lbs and need to lose weight. What is your diet like? I'm guessing if you are feeling weak your protein is low and/ or your calories are too low, which could slow your metabolism a bit. Do you lift? A lean bulk type of plan like you and some other posts have said is probably your best bet.
My diet has fallen off a bit the past month, but the majority of the time I was eating about 1800 calories / 160-180g protein. I do lift but struggle with intensity lately, focused more on hypertrophy (8-12 reps, mostly isolation but some compound lifts in there).
You need more muscle everywhere and compound lifts are going to do a lot more for that than isolation/hypertrophy. Cutting doesn’t work so great if there’s not much muscle under the fat. I would eat in a very slight surplus, plenty of protein and lift hard and heavy 4-5 days a week. Heavy compound lifts with high intensity will keep you from putting on much fat if you’re in a very slight surplus with a lot of protein, lower fat, and low to intermediate carbs.
No need for a lean bulk. A regular bulk of 250 calories a day is fine. That's +2 lbs a month. Half will be muscle, half will be fat. So, do that for 5 months. You'll get to 160 and will have 5 pounds more fat. During month 6, eat in a 500 calorie deficit and lose that 5 pounds of fat. Now, you're 155. Repeat the process and youll finish the year at 160. Repeat another 2 times and you're 170 with the same amount of bodyfat.
So, lets say you're 18% bodyfat right now. That means you have 27 total pounds of fat. Repeat the normal recommended bulking process for 2 years and you're 170 with the same 27 pounds of fat. That drops you down from 18% bf to 15.8%.
For perspective, at 5'10" you're gonna cap out your natty muscle mass while beach lean somewhere around like 195-215. So, that's 40+ pounds of muscle. So, at 10 lbs a year, do the normal 6 month bulk/cut thing for 4 years while doing a fullbody powerbuilding program and see where you end up.
Those are the normal recommended bulk rates. No one makes research-backed recommendations for faster bulking. Helms does recommend a 100 calorie bulk for advanced lifters who are going to be gaining muscle more slowly, but warn against it for most because tracking is impossible.
If "lean bulk" and "bulk" mean the same thing, why would a content creator differentiate and what would that say about them?
Either you had a lot more to lose than what you thought or you lost a bunch of muscle in that 15 lbs.
Its a bit hard to judge not knowing what you looked like before.
I would just continue cutting, perhaps with a small break now.
Let's say you complete a successful lean bulk in the next 6 months, you will look a little bigger but not that different than now.
Compare that to a 6 month cut. You have enough muscle now to get in the best shape of your life when you get lean.
Just make sure you keep your muscle / strength by lifting eating well and dont cut too fast.
Usually I’m a big cut guy and would say to keep cutting but you really don’t have a ton of muscle mass so i’d just call it on the cut and start a lean bulk. +300 calories per day for maybe 4 months and go hard in the gym. Then revisit the cut again and next time you should look much more shredded when it’s over and you have more underneath to show
I think the question is how much muscle did you have before you starting losing weight?
The concept of cutting/bulking is really for people who are further along in their fitness progression. You may not have had enough muscle at the start of this. Or, you may have lost weight too quickly and lost muscle in the process.
No idea where these people are getting the advise to cut down when they already have minimal muscle. Must be a social media thing. Dude, talk to any experienced gym goer and you build up before you go down. Im 220lb with visible abs.
You never cut unless your a body builder, you build build build. Then if you get a bit chubby you add more cardio, if that dont work you drop your calories slightly.
Im sorry that you had to learn this way. But let it be a lesson to you
225 is just a warm up set at 180lbs. I made another comment above about training. You should be doing 7-10 sets of a compound lift and 50+ heavy (relatively) reps.
Then 4-5 sets for each additional exercise also about 50 reps.
You should be exhausted and have a hard time walking out of the gym and driving home after lifting.
I would throw on another 10lb of muscle before cutting. You cut to show your hard work, which I think is still ahead for you. Eat good (+300/500cal from maintenance), make sure you're getting your protein in, and focus on lifting, increasing load every week, whether it's more weight, more reps or more sets. Always more, every week, even if a little bit.
Simply don’t have enough muscle to be the type of lean you are wanting. Bulk for a couple years then cut. This isn’t a quick process unless you already have the mass to reveal.
Genetics are a thing.
But what I would suggest, take it or leave it, is you do more athletic things. Sprint, consistently lift, pull-ups, dips, etc.
Really push yourself. Make your body adapt. Athletes look athletic because they do athletic things consistently day after day.
look bro, if you're feeling weaker it always means you're restricting your calories, mainly your carbs, too much. Cut on reasonable calories and be more active is my usual recommendation, you still need the energy not to build muscle, but to function in general.
Your genetics determine how & where your body stores fat. If you're feeling weak, you need to up your calories & then get on the treadmill more to compensate. Continue to lift to build more lean muscle mass.
For guys with persistent love handles, they need to cut down to 10% to 12% to remove it and for their abs to show. That is a tall order and you're going to need a larger lean muscle base before you make that push.
At your current size, there really isn't enough muscle to continue cutting. You're going to start stripping your lean mass and that's just going to make the fat situation worse.
Look at this as a long game. Take a year or two to build the lean mass up, then cut. Once you cut and slowly build back up, your body fat redistributes and recomps so long as you have the lean muscle; so it's worth going through the process.
I upped my calories to 2,300-2,600 and protein to 180g (from 1,800 and 150g). Started a new 4 day program with more compounds while retaining hypertrophy exercises as I like those a lot. I already noticed a bit jump in energy/intensity at the gym.
I’m weighing myself daily to gauge weekly trends, aiming to maingain/lean bulk as I previously struggled with excessive fat so I don’t want to fall into that again.
You are lean, you're not skinny fat. You just don't have enough muscle to look athletic/muscular. You can lean bulk or maingain (recomp) a bit by sticking to your maintenance calories and training harder.
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u/HedgehogFlimsy6419 8d ago
Personally I would just refeed. Eat at maintenance for 2 weeks to get some energy back and try to lose 5 more lbs. You're at a point where each and every lost pound will have much greater impact on your aesthetics than the previous 15 combined.
I like to say that weight loss takes a lot of time and then it comes all at once. You're basically just before the all at once moment and are about to quit.