Cutting

A cut is a temporary phase with one job: reduce body fat while keeping as much muscle as possible. Every decision below is judged against that second clause, because losing weight is easy and losing weight while keeping muscle is the part that requires a plan.

The four decisions that matter

A deficit of about 20 percent. Estimate maintenance with the TDEE calculator and subtract a fifth. On 2,800 calories that is about 560 a day. Bigger deficits lose more muscle and are harder to sustain; smaller ones work but take longer.

Protein at 2.2 g/kg. Higher than you would eat at maintenance. In a deficit protein does double duty — it preserves lean mass and it is the most filling macronutrient per calorie, which matters enormously when the hard part is compliance rather than arithmetic.

Keep lifting heavy. This is the strongest signal your body gets that the muscle is worth keeping. Reducing weights to “focus on toning” is how people finish a cut smaller rather than leaner.

Give it time. Fat loss is slow and the scale is noisy. A cut that keeps getting restarted never gets anywhere.

Half to one percent a week

Aim to lose 0.5 to 1 percent of body weight weekly.

Below that and you are barely in a deficit; the phase drags on and motivation goes. Above 1 percent and the proportion coming from lean mass rises sharply, particularly for people who are already fairly lean and have less fat available to fund the deficit.

Measure it as a weekly average, not a daily reading. Day-to-day weight swings by a kilogram or more on water and gut contents, which is larger than a week of genuine fat loss.

Training: cut volume, protect intensity

When calories drop, recovery capacity drops with them. Something usually has to give.

The order to give it up in: reduce total sets before you reduce load. Keeping heavy weights in the programme — even for fewer sets — is what tells your body to hold onto muscle. Dropping to light weights and high reps does the opposite while feeling productive.

Add cardio only when you need a wider deficit than food alone gives you, and start with walking. It costs almost nothing in recovery, which is why it is the first lever rather than the last.

Know when to stop

Cuts should end. Two conditions signal it.

You reached the target — in which case spend a few weeks eating at maintenance before deciding what to do next, rather than drifting straight into a bulk.

Or you have been in a deficit for twelve to sixteen weeks. At that point, regardless of progress, fatigue and hunger have usually accumulated to where adherence is fraying and training has flattened. A few weeks at maintenance restores both, and you will cut better afterwards than you would by grinding on.

The most common mistakes

Cutting protein along with everything else. It is the one macro that should go up, not down.

Doing cardio instead of lifting rather than alongside it. Cardio spends calories; lifting protects the tissue that spends them for you.

Reacting to daily weigh-ins. You will see three days of no movement and cut another 300 calories. Then water shifts and it looks like the change worked. Neither reading was real.

Never leaving the deficit. Fat loss phases work because they end. The people who look best year-round spend most of it at or near maintenance.