How Fast Can I Lose Weight By Cutting Carbs

Okay, maybe there are some other elements in there, too. But no one works as hard as bodybuilders to build muscle and lose fat.

In this guide, you’ll learn whether you should even consider a cutting diet, and if so, 8 tips you can follow to lose fat and preserve muscle on a compressed schedule, plus a sample bodybuilding cutting diet plan.

Here’s the catch. The stakes are high, and if you don’t do it correctly, you could crash your metabolism, lose lean muscle mass, or experience rebound weight gain.

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Maybe you enjoy building strength and muscle as a hobby, and now you’ve decided to lose a few pounds of fat for a better-defined physique.

If you’ve been living a health and fitness lifestyle for at least a year, and you have 20 pounds or less to lose, cutting is worth a try (but it’s certainly not mandatory).

Otherwise, use a more sustainable fat loss method first. Even bodybuilders with more than 20 pounds of fat to lose should start off slow.

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As you plan your cutting diet, your timeline and the amount of weight you intend to lose are the two main variables to consider.

Sure, rapid fat loss will occur on a cutting diet, but you don’t want to run out of time without hitting your goal.

Beyond that, you need to take a few hours to plan every aspect of your cutting approach, week-by-week, as well as prepare for the unexpected.

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Gather your supplies. Get your head in the game. Visualize the results you want. Plan for things to go wrong, and how you’ll fix them.

Lastly, take steps to minimize your stress levels and any unnecessary obligations for the entire cutting phase, so you can focus to the greatest extent possible on cutting.

Weigh in once every 5-7 days. Pick a weigh-in schedule and stick to it — daily weigh-ins are a distraction and don’t give you useful information.

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The progress photos should be done in consistent lighting, with an easy pose or no pose. Don’t do multiple takes or add filters.

You can also measure muscular areas, like shoulder circumference or thigh circumference, to track how your cutting diet affects your muscle mass.

Ideally, you’ll see your body weight and waist circumference decreasing each week, with less or no reduction in shoulder and thigh circumference.

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Your initial daily calorie intake while cutting should average to approximately a factor of 10 to 12, multiplied by your body weight in pounds.

For example, if you weigh 200 pounds and are cutting for 6 weeks, you’d multiply 200 x 10 = 2000 calories (kcal) per day on average as a starting point.

The best way to dial your calories, though, is on a weekly basis. Therefore, continuing the above example, you’d multiply 2000 x 7 = 14, 000 calories (kcal) per week total.

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As discussed in the previous section, you may need to adjust your calories downward if you hit a plateau. If that happens, adjust weekly calories downward by 10% at a time.

When you eat the same number of calories daily on a cutting diet, your body is constantly in a mild catabolic state. That means muscle loss is likely.

You’re at a higher risk of losing muscle during an aggressive cut, which is why you need to take your weight training very seriously[*].

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Train your muscle groups using proven exercises, but don’t go overboard on sets and reps. Excessive volume makes recovery difficult when you’re eating a caloric deficit.

Above all else, you need to continue getting stronger and increasing your performance in the gym. Loss of strength is a red flag that often occurs before the loss of lean mass.

At Levels, we recommend you eat 1-2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight on weight training days when cutting, and on days you don’t lift, consume 30-35% or more of your calories from protein.

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Along with quantity, protein quality matters, too. Whey protein powder is the most thoroughly studied, highest-quality protein supplement[*]. Evidence suggests it supports fat loss and helps build lean muscle[*].

You can mix in high-intensity interval training (HIIT) too, but some research suggests it’s not actually much more time-efficient for burning fat, and it undoubtedly taxes your recovery more[*].

The reason is because fasting puts your body into a short-term catabolic state, and prolonged or frequent fasting may increase the risk of muscle loss[*]. Fasting may also reduce athletic performance[*].

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But there’s another style of fasting that works better for cutting. Instead of fasting every day, you can fast a few days a week, on days you aren’t lifting weights.

If you notice your strength is tanking or you’re losing muscle mass, you should back off from fasting until you solve the problem.

For an individual who weighs 200 pounds, initial calories will average out to 2000 kcal per day, but will drop on a weekly basis.

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This hypothetical bodybuilder will be lifting every other day though, so he’ll eat more calories on weight training days: starting with 2500 kcal on lifting days and 1500 kcal on non-lifting days.

Lifting day macros: 225-250 grams of protein (36-40% of calories), 45-55 grams of fat (16-20% of calories), 275 grams of carbs (44% of calories) loaded pre-workout only.

He’ll do an hour of fasted cardio every single morning, with limited fast periods of 4-6 hours (counted from time of waking up) only on days he doesn’t lift.

Diet & Weight Loss

And if he loses strength in the gym due to the brutal nature of the cut, he’ll bump calories up on weight training days to 2750 or 3000 kcal, either keeping macros the same or adding more pre-workout carbs.

Build your cutting meal plan around the same foods you would use for clean bulking, taking the appropriate calories and macros into account.

You can still learn lessons from cutting diets, but unless you’re operating on a tight schedule, the smarter move may be to give yourself more time and take a less extreme weight loss approach.

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