What’s up guys and gals its been two weeks since the start of my cut and I am very excited to share with you the progress. The results are pretty good, I am happy with what I have accomplished so far but I still have a long way to go towards my goal of getting to 180 pounds which should mean about 10% body fat according to my estimations.
Let me start by reminding you my starting point “parameters”:
- Weight: 201 pounds
- Waist: 39 inches
- Body fat: 20 %
And here are the stats at the end the second week:
- Weight: 195 pounds
- Waist: 37.5 inches
- Body fat: about 18-19 %
As you can see the caloric deficit and the weight training I’ve been doing has worked. I am down 6 pounds already and I can actually see a slight difference in the mirror, not just on the scale. Some of the weight I lost probably was just water weight because the first 2 pounds went down very fast in the first couple of days, but the rest must pure fat tissue.
I didn’t see any decrease in strength, I fact I have even added more weight to the bar in the gym, so I am quite sure I am not losing any of my muscle mass so far.
In regards to the body fat, if you are wondering how I estimated by BF percentage here’s some more information on this. As you may know already it is quite tricky to determine body fat unless you get tested on some fancy and expensive machine, but here is how I do it.
About what year ago, when I was a big fat blockhead, I was lucky enough to get tested for free at my gym – there was some kind of campaign going on and they used this bioelectrical impedance machine on almost everybody in the gym. This is not very accurate either and it can read different body fat levels depending on your hydration, on what you had to eat before and other shit. Unfortunately I don’t have the logs that I received after the measurement but I remember it said I was about 30 something % body fat, 228 pounds and that I had about 150 pounds of lean mass.
A few months ago I got a fat caliper or a skin caliper which is very inexpensive to get and easy to use. This is also not extremly accurate but at least you can get an estimation and you can see if you are losing or gaining fat. This is the primary tool that I use right now for my measurements.
So, based on the readings I got with the fat calipers, on my starting lean mass of 150 pounds and on my current weight and waist measurement I think I have a decent estimation of my body fat percentage right now. Oh, and let’s not forget the visual inspection which you can use as well in order to roughly estimate your BF. Just look in the mirror and estimate.
Long story short, this is how I got to the 18-19 % body fat result. According to my weight and body fat evolution from one year ago to now, it results that I gained around 10 pounds of muscle in the last year, which is realistic considering that I was in a deficit most of this period and the maximum amount of muscle that you can build in the first year of training is 18-20 pounds.
Diet in the first two weeks
Diet is the most important aspect you need to look at when cutting and this is what I did. I tracked my calories and macros each and every day and tried and made sure I am staying in an aggressive caloric deficit but also make sure I get at least 30-40 % of my calories out of proteins.
My deficit was quite aggressive because most of the days I was 800 kcal below my maintenance level, but guys I am telling you, I wasn’t feeling very hungry and this was not a struggle for me at all. I think it was because I constantly skipped breakfast and did intermittent fasting throughout my cut so far.
I had a 16 hours fasting window and a 8 hour eating window – my first meal was at 12 PM, second meal (this was most of the times just a snack in fact) at 3-4 PM and my last meal of the day at 7-8 PM (this was the largest meal).
I am being completely transparent with you guys so I am going to share the exact information from my diet. These are the daily averages for the first two weeks:
- Calories: 1546 kcal
- Protein: 128 g
- Carb: 147 g
- Fat: 50 g
I had one cheat meal (not one cheat day) per week but the calories and macros for those were also taken into account and are included in the numbers above. On my cheat meal days I was around my maintenance level in terms of caloric intake so it wasn’t anything too crazy.
Training in the first two weeks
Training was spot on throughout the time. Never skipped a training day.
My training consists of a push, pull, leg type of routine. I train 5 days a week, in a row from Monday to Friday and then I rest on the weekend. For those interested here is my training routine for chest and here is the one for legs.
I hit each body part twice a week, except my legs which get hit just once a week. I also do 4 cardio sessions per week, at the end of my push and pull days. I don’t do cardio on leg days because those are quite intense as they are. Literally, I walk funny when I go out of the gym after a leg day.
As far as volume, on average I do about 15 to 18 sets per training session and I hit 2 or 3 body parts. I keep the rep range on the lower side, I use heavier weights and on the last couple of sets I go to failure. So, I would say the intensity is moderate to high.
So far I think I am doing OK, I lost 6 pound in the first two weeks, I can see a difference in the numbers but I definitely have a lot of fat to lose. Looking forward to see how how the end result will be. Right now there is not such a big visual difference, but hopefully at the end of week number 8 it will be, so I can share some up to date pictures with you.
Over and out,
Chris
