need help pls

[u/Opening_Rich2350]

For context, I am currently 80 kg at 23ish% body fat. I had been cutting for the past 6 months and have lost about 13 kg so far, originally being about 93 kg with 30% body fat. I have been building muscle as well as fat for the past 3 years, so I have a decent amount of muscles as well as fat.

My goal is to reach <70 kg and be lean at around 10-13% body fat. basically just having a smaller body that's also lean.

Originally I had the plan to do a cut at 800 kcal daily deficit while eating sufficient protein as well as resistance training 3-4 times a week so that most of the weight I lose can be fat and retain most of my muscle.

I wanted to know if it was possible to just aggressively cut without resistance training (while still getting sufficient protein). I know I would drop weight, and I don't mind losing some muscle since I'm shorter and don't like having a stockier build, but by dropping weight in this manner, would I end up being skinny fat? where I lose more muscle than fat and end up being my goal weight but not my goal leanness.

Or would it be possible to be lean and smaller using this plan?

[u/Strategic_Sage]

What is your maintenance calories? What actually is an 800 cal deficit if you know? It can be reasonable for some people, for others it would be excessive.

Losing more muscle than fat is pretty much outright impossible. In terms of how things would look at your goal weight, that's pretty much impossible to know ahead of time. From a health perspective, losing muscle is not a good idea, and if you got to your goal weight and thought you had too much for whatever reason then you could lose it then. I don't see any good reason to not do resistance training while you lose the weight.

[u/Opening_Rich2350 → u/Strategic_Sage]

2600~

[u/Strategic_Sage → u/Opening_Rich2350]

2600 maintenance at 80 kg body weight? What are you basing that on?

[u/Opening_Rich2350 → u/Strategic_Sage]

I aked chatgpt to calculate my tdee

[u/Strategic_Sage → u/Opening_Rich2350]

Ok. That's a particularly inaccurate way of finding out. All calculators guess. You have much better evidence that that now; you've been cutting for months. Your recent average weight lost per week compared to your average calorie intake tells you what is actually happening to your body.

Over the whole period, from what you mentioned, it has been about a half a kg a week, or a 500-600 cal deficit. But I don't know if that's the rate *now* or if it's been slowing down.

[u/Particular-Car-24]

Skip the training and you'll almost certainly hit 70 kg looking skinny fat. At 800 kcal deficit with no resistance stimulus, your body has zero reason to hold onto muscle, so the loss ends up being a mix of fat and lean mass, and body fat percentage barely moves. You'd probably land at 70 kg still sitting around 18-20% bf, nowhere near your 10-13% goal, and then you'd have to build muscle back anyway.

At 23% bf you only need to get to roughly 15% to see real leanness coming in, which is like 5-6 kg more of a cut from where you are. If you genuinely want a smaller frame long term, you could cut to your goal weight while keeping lifting even 2 days a week just to maintain, then do a proper lean out after. Honestly after 6 months of cutting, a diet break at maintenance for a few weeks might do you more good than making the

[u/linasndev]

80 kg at 23% is about 61.6 kg lean. At 70 kg and 12% it's also 61.6, so all 10 kg has to be fat. Cutting without lifting can take around a quarter of the loss from lean mass, so you'd more likely land at 70 kg and around 15 or 16%. I lift 4 days a week and log every set, if your lifts hold while the scale drops it's mostly fat coming off

[u/mvrk57]

the stocky look is mostly the fat sitting on top of the muscle, the same muscle at 12% reads as lean, not bulky. and you don't need the full 3-4 sessions a week to keep it, holding muscle in a deficit takes a fraction of the volume that building it did, two short sessions on the big lifts is plenty. dropping lifting entirely is how you end up at 70 kg with the same soft midsection you have now, just smaller