You may have come to this article looking for guidance on the exact way to reduce carbs, fats, and protein when your diet stalls.
But as someone whose job for the last decade has been coaching people online to get them shredded lean, I must tell you that making a reduction is the last thing I look to do, and I think that is the key reason why my clients are successful.
To explain, I need to first show you the bigger picture of what goes on when we diet. This guide has four sections:
- Why Adjustments Are Needed As We Diet
- Why Fluctuations In Weight and Appearance Happen
- How I Recommend You Track Progress
- When and How To Make Diet Adjustments
There is no denying that the level of conditioning you can get to and sustain has a genetic component about it, but this guide will give you the best shot at getting as lean as is possible for you.
(See here for my guide on how to bulk.)
Why Adjustments Are Needed as We Diet
We need to make adjustments to our calorie intake as we diet if we’re to be successful with our fat loss goals. This is because our initial calorie and macro calculations are estimations, and our energy needs change over time due to various compensatory mechanisms.
Weight fluctuations often mask fat loss, so it can be hard to know when to adjust. This is something most people are completely ignorant of, slashing calories when weight loss stalls and failing their diets because they can’t sustain it.
We want to remain eating as much as possible for as long as possible, and we want to make those cuts from the macros in the least compromising way.
To know when (and when not) to make adjustments, it’s essential to understand first why you need to make adjustments, why fluctuations in weight and appearance happen, and how to track your progress so that you have the right data to interpret.
The key from there is to give yourself a rule framework so that you don’t get impatient and do stupid shit.
Why Your Initial Calorie and Macro Calculations Are Only Estimations
“But the calorie and macro calculator says I should be losing weight!!”
Incorrect. The calorie and macro calculator, as with any calculator, is merely a tool to help you estimate what your intake should be for your goals. Additionally, our energy needs change over time due to various compensatory mechanisms.
There are three key parts of your calorie intake calculation. Your basal metabolic rate (BMR), an activity multiplier, and the adjustment to create the calorie deficit needed to lose weight at the rate you are targeting. The equation looks like this:
Target Daily Calorie Intake = BMR * Activity Multiplier – Calorie Deficit Needed
The BMR component of this is an estimate based on group averages. There are simple formulas and very sophisticated formulas, but they all give estimations based on group averages.
The activity multiplier is an estimate based on how active you are. There is a subjective component to this. No amount of explanations can help get around that; trying to rely on activity trackers to estimate, given their inaccuracies, is not the answer.
We have little choice but to use an initial calculation knowing that it may need to be adjusted, track our progress, and then adjust based on the outcome. This is what I do with all clients and you cannot deny that it works well.
Metabolic Adaptation — Why Our Energy Needs Decrease As We Diet
Calorie balance is what determines whether we lose or gain weight. The ‘problem’ is that energy intake affects energy expenditure. This is called metabolic adaptation.
There are particularly strong protective mechanisms designed to keep us alive during times of famine, which is why it’s easier to get fat than it is shredded lean.
It requires a 3500 kcal energy deficit to lose 1 lb of fat (7700 kcal for 1 kg). This ‘3500 calorie rule’ is often criticized because it is sometimes stated without acknowledging that our energy needs change as we diet. If this weren’t the case, all currently-weight-stable Thelma would need to do is cut out her morning frappushittino to end up skinny.
But we know it doesn’t work that way. What starts out as a calorie deficit, is eventually eroded away.
Let’s take a look at the components of Total daily energy expenditure (TDEE)
Source: Trexler et al, Metabolic adaptation to weight loss: implications for the athlete. J Int Soc Sports Nutr, 2014. 11(1): p. 7.
- Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is our resting energy expenditure (REE) and makes up the largest component of our total daily energy needs.
As we get smaller, our BMR drops because there is less of us to maintain. However, the BMR drops further than what the tissue losses alone would predict, due to a compensatory mechanism called adaptive thermogenesis. Thyroid hormone levels decrease and mitochondrial efficiency increases, reducing energy expenditure. - Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is a posh name for energy used during “non-exercise” movement such as fidgeting or normal daily activities. This also decreases when we diet. It happens more for some people than others.
- The thermic effect of food (TEF) is the energy used to ingest, absorb, metabolize, and store nutrients from food. As we eat less, this decreases also.
- Exercise activity thermogenesis (EAT) is a posh name for the energy used during exercise. The lighter we get, the less energy we expend.
Because there are differences from person to person, it’s not possible to calculate the level of metabolic adaptation we will have, we just have to track our progress and adjust things along the way.
Am I Metabolically Damaged?
In short, no. Hormonal issues requiring medication do exist, but it’s unlikely that you have dieted your way into one.
This is a concept born out of desperation for people to explain their lack of progress when dieting. But it can be explained by three things:
- People think a single calculation at the start of a diet can predict progress through to the desired result. But as I’ve just explained, this is not true.
- Underestimating calorie intake and overestimating energy expenditure. This is well documented in the scientific literature.
- Water retention and sudden whooshes masking fat loss. This is especially common during periods of high stress (and for women over their monthly cycle), and something people aren’t aware of. (More on this in the next section.)
There are two other important responses to a sustained caloric deficit worth highlighting: increases in ghrelin and decreases in leptin. These two hormones are, broadly speaking, responsible for hunger and satiety.
So whenever someone says, “Hey, I’m eating only 1200 kcal and I’m not losing weight! What am I doing wrong?!”
The chances are that they’re underestimating calorie intake, or they are losing fat but they have some water retention, or the way they are tracking progress is inadequate to conclude that progress isn’t happening. (I’ll come back to this later).
When you factor in that shorter people have lower energy needs in a world with large portion sizes, it’s natural for this misery to be compounded and life to not seem fair. (It isn’t.)
The reality is, we just have to eat less and less to keep progressing as we diet. And at the same time, hunger increases, satiety decreases, and this sucks. This is why we need to be smart about the adjustments we make and not slash calories needlessly.
Why Fluctuations In Weight And Appearance Happen
In my articles on how to set calorie intake and when to bulk vs cut, I presented the following sketches representing fat, muscle, and weight changes for cutting and recomp phases over several months:
But in reality, the body weight line will look more like this:
The short-term fluctuations rule out any possibility of gauging progress on a day to day basis, or even week to week. But attempting to do so is a mistake people often make.
Educating yourself on the reasons these fluctuations in weight happen will help you tease out real progress from noise.
The Reasons For Large Daily And Weekly Fluctuations In Weight
It is essential to understand that scale weight change captures more than just fat mass changes.
Weight is affected by hydration status, gut and bladder content, liver and muscle glycogen storage, and any muscle mass changes.
Fat mass changes are slow to happen; muscle mass changes happen even more slowly. So, any large weight fluctuations you experience in a short time frame (hours or days) will not be muscle or fat.
You’ll have no doubt noticed that your weight fluctuates during the day. This is because of some obvious reasons, like toilet visits, water, and food intake, but also some less obvious ones, like sweat, and water loss through respiration at night. (This is why you always weigh less in the morning and your pee is yellow for that first toilet visit — you’re dehydrated.)
Just as you know not to weigh yourself at different times of the day and conclude whether you gained or lost any fat, you shouldn’t try to gauge progress day-to-day either.
Even when calorie balance is unchanged:
- If you eat saltier foods, and you will retain more water for a few days.
- If you eat more carbs than normal, they will be stored with ~3 g of water as glycogen. (And if you eat fewer carbs than normal, then you’ll use this glycogen and retain less water than normal.)
If you take a couple of days off, unless you overeat by a lot, the majority of your weight gain will not be fat:
Additionally, water retention, though common when we’re stressed, can also happen seemingly at random and can mask fat loss also. These fluctuations all affect your weight and how you look.
What is important then is not the short-term fluctuations, but the long-term trend lines. This is why the way we track our progress can make or break a diet.
How I recommend you track progress (and The MethodS I suggest you avoid)
Tracking progress is as much about knowing what to track as what not to track. Taking too many data points can almost be as bad as taking too few because you will then struggle to read the signal through the noise.
The Two Tracking Methods To Avoid
Don’t try to track your progress by a body-fat percentage estimation tool. All methods have inaccuracies and inconsistencies. I’ve talked about this here, here, and interviewed one of the world’s foremost experts about it.
Do not try to use an activity tracker to estimate your calorie burn and adjust your diet each day to the numbers it gives. These devices are also notoriously inaccurate. The activity multiplier in your TDEE calculation took care of your activity levels. Yes, they will vary a little from day to day, but this is a small part of a much bigger picture so you don’t need to worry about it.
The 8 Ways I Suggest You Track Progress
Choose one morning each week where you set aside 10 minutes to do these things. I get clients to do this on a Saturday and they update me with this data every two weeks in a spreadsheet that looks like this:
1. Weigh yourself every morning. Do this upon waking, after the toilet, before drinking anything. Note the weekly average on Saturday morning.
2. Take body measurements in 9 places. At your navel and 3 finger-widths above and below, hips, chest, arms, and legs. Note each measurement to the nearest mm.
3. Take front and side photos once every four weeks. Use the same camera, angle, pose, and lighting. Don’t rely on anyone else to take them for you.
4. Note the adherence to your weekly calorie targets as a percentage. If you go 15% over your calorie targets, write 115%. If you go 10% under your target, write 90%.
5. Rate your training adherence as a percentage of the number of training sessions completed each week. This should nearly always be 100%. If you keep missing sessions, you need to reorganize your schedule or reorganize your training volume to put it across fewer training days. (My guide for that here.)
6. Note subjective feelings of sleep quality, stress, hunger, and fatigue/lethargy on a scale of 0–5. If you have zero issues, write 0. For extreme issues, write 5.
7. Keep summary notes on your key lifts. Choose 3-6 lifts and write either ‘Progressing, recovered’ / ‘Not progressing, recovered’ / ‘Not progressing, not recovered’ each week. This will give you a snapshot of where you are at.
8. Keep a detailed training log. Log all of your working sets, but don’t clutter it by adding your warm-ups.
You can download a spreadsheet to log your data the way I get clients to and see more detailed explanations about how to take each of these data points in my guide to tracking progress.
When and how to make diet adjustments — My decision-making framework
There are two types of adjustment when dieting. The first is correcting your initial calorie calculations (if necessary). The second concerns the ongoing assessments as to whether you need to make an adjustment to keep progressing.
How To Assess and Correct Your Initial Calorie and Macro Calculations
Wait four weeks! You’ve got to wait long enough for a trend line to develop, otherwise, you’re just guessing. The blue line is how you can expect your body weight data to look:
The large initial dip you see is common when people start dieting. Less food eaten means a lower average gut content. Your carb intake will be lower, which means your glycogen stores (and thus water levels) will be lower.
Your first week of data will be fairly useless then. Your second week of data onward starts to become useful, but it takes a few weeks to assess the trend.
Additionally, if you’re new to calorie and macro counting, you can expect to make some mistakes in the first week or two, which you’ll fix. This adds more noise to the data.
Women need to wait four weeks so they are comparing the same time of their monthly cycle.
Let’s say your weight data looks like this:
| Start | 160 lbs |
| Week 1 average | 155 lbs |
| Week 2 average | 153.9 lbs |
| Week 3 average | 153.2 lbs |
| Week 4 average | 150.0 lbs |
Looking from the end of week one to the end of week four, you’re averaging 1 lb per week. Sure, some weeks have a little more or less than others, but that’s just how things are in the dieting game. If 1 lb was your target, then there’s no adjustment to be made at this point. However, if you are losing weight slower or faster than targeted, you need to make an adjustment.
Here’s the formula you use to adjust your diet:
Daily calorie adjustment = (Target rate of weight loss – actual rate weight loss) x 500
- So, if 1 lb was your target rate but your actual rate is 0.5 lbs, you need to subtract 250 kcal daily.
- If 1lb was your target but your actual rate of weight loss is 1.4 lbs, you need to add 200 kcal daily.
“But from what macros should I adjust these calorie amounts from?“
I’m glad you asked…
How To Adjust Macros
We want to choose the least compromising way to reduce calories from your diet. Recall from my nutrition setup guidelines the broad function of the three macronutrients:
- Protein is important for satiety and muscle mass retention.
- Carb intake is important for maintaining training quality.
- Fat intake is important for hormonal function and for keeping your diet from being boring as hell.
Protein is arguably the most important of the three. Unless you’ve set your protein intake higher than I have suggested, I’d recommend that you keep protein as is, and reduce calories from a mix of carb and fat intake.
If you’re following my macro guidelines, you’ll almost always have a little more room to reduce carbs than fats. Therefore, I’d recommend your calorie reductions come from somewhere between a 1:1 and 2:1 ratio of carb and fat calories, respectively.
Bearing in mind that 1 g of carbs is 4 kcal, and 1 g of fats is 9 kcal, here’s a quick reference table of how to make reductions of different calorie amounts:
| Calorie change | Even(ish) split (Recommended) | More carbs (Recommended) | Fat only | Carbs only |
| ~100 kcal | C: 15 g, F :5 g | – | 10 g | 25 g |
| ~150 kcal | C: 15 g, F: 10 g | C: 25 g, F: 5 g | 15 g | 40 g |
| ~200 kcal | C: 25 g, F: 10 g | C: 40 g, F: 5 g | 20 g | 50 g |
| ~250 kcal | C: 30 g, F: 15 g | C: 40 g, F: 10 g | 30 g | 80 g |
| ~300 kcal | C: 40 g, F: 15 g | C: 50 g, F: 10 g | 35 g | 75 g |
| ~350 kcal | C: 40 g, F: 20 g | C: 55 g, F: 15 g | 40 g | 90 g |
So, if you need to reduce your calorie intake by ~250 kcal, I recommend you achieve this by either reducing 30 g of carbs and 15 g of fats, or 40 g of carbs and 10 g of fats daily.
If you need to increase your calorie intake by ~200 kcal, I recommend you either add 25 g of carbs and 10 g of fats, or 40 g of carbs and 5 g of fats daily.
How To Assess Your Progress and Make An AdjustmenT If Needed
When I coach people I don’t have a formal checklist or decision tree that I go through. (I’ve been doing this so long that it’s all in my head.) However, this is how I tend to think about things:
Some Important Notes on the Adjustments Flowchart
- You’ll notice that a calorie reduction is the last thing to consider. Recall from the start of this guide that we want to remain eating as much as possible for as long as possible because it’ll give us the highest chance of succeeding.
- You’ll notice that “adding cardio” is not given as an option. It’s not something I even think about because it’s so exceptionally rare that I recommend it to a client. Dietary control should be the primary driver of calorie balance, cardio should be used sparingly, if at all.
- Sharp readers will also see that we’re using bodyweight at the primary guide and not panicking if the body measurements don’t change much for a certain period. This is because the measurements don’t always pick up the changes.
- One key assumption here is that you’re losing weight at a sensible rate and so maintaining sufficient training stimulus to not lose muscle mass won’t be an issue. I’ve addressed the topic of training when cutting in another article.
- Here are links to my guides relating to the points I made on managing your food environment, motivation, stress issues, sleep issues, and how to implement a diet break.
If you’ve determined that you need to make a macro reduction, just repeat the same calculation we used before.
Simple.
Now go crush it. 💪🏻
Thank you for reading. Questions welcomed in the comments. 🙏🏻❤️
– Andy
How To Adjust Macros FAQ
If your rate of weight change is not on target, you may need to adjust your macros. However, your weight will fluctuate within each day and across the week, so make sure you weigh yourself each morning, note the weekly averages, and compare across weeks.
1. If your diet adherence has been poor, you can’t fairly judge the efficacy of your current macros, so make sure you fix that first.
2. If your sleep quality is poor or you are under a lot of stress, for those issues first as they can cause water retention, masking fat loss.
Refer to the detailed checklist:
To adjust your macros to lose weight, for every 0.5 lbs, you are short of your weekly weight loss target, subtract 250 calories from your daily food intake. Reduce carbs by 40 g, fat by 10 g — more examples of this in the table.
Protein should be set by body weight. 1 g per pound of bodyweight is a good target for most, but obese people are best to set protein intake by 1 g per centimeter of height.
I recommend 15–25% of your calorie intake come from fats when cutting, 20–30% when at maintenance or bulking. The rest should come from carbs. This means roughly 2/3 of your remaining calorie intake after accounting for protein, should be split toward carbs, with the rest to fats. More on the reasoning for this here: How To Set Your Macros for Fat Loss and Muscle Growth.
People who prefer more fat in their diet can take that higher, but I typically recommend no higher than 25% of calorie intake come from fat when dieting (30% when at maintenance or bulking), as this seems to be the sweet spot.
Though it is not my default recommendation, a few people seem to do well on higher-fat diets than this. See my article: How To Systematically Test If Keto Is Right For You.
Please keep questions on topic, write clearly, concisely, and don't post diet calculations.
Privacy policy.
Hi Andy,
When cutting, you say aim to lose 0.5-0.75 of your total body weight each week. After 4 weeks should you then adjust your calories if you weigh less now to keep losing weight, or is it best to refer to the Diet-Macro-Adjustments-Decision-Tree and figure it out from there?
Peter
Hi Peter,
The difference is too small to make it worth calculating for over such a short time frame. Consider it after many months.
For example, let’s say you are 200 lbs. If you aim to lose 0.75 % per week for four weeks, this is 6 lbs, 1.5 lbs per week. If you were to recalculate at 194 lbs of body weight, this would give you a weekly target of 1.455 lbs per week, which is just a 0.045 lb difference. Regardless, it would be impossible to know if this difference in your weight is part of the noise of just the typical weight fluctuation (from water, glycogen, and gut content).
Got it, Andy thanks for your reply.
Most welcome, Peter.
Hey Andy, in the Daily calorie adjustment formula, the 500 is used for lb and 1100 is used for kg or should I use 500 for kg too?
I’m almost sure I saw this (lb=500, kg=1100) in another article but I can’t find it and there’s no mention of it in here.
In this article I’ve written it as a weekly number:
It requires a 3500 kcal energy deficit to lose 1 lb of fat (7700 kcal for 1 kg). This ‘3500 calorie rule’ is often criticized because it is sometimes stated without acknowledging that our energy needs change as we diet.
1100 is for kg.
Hi Andy,
I want to reinforce how amazing your work is! I do, however, have one major doubt on how to approach this new stage of dieting.
Up until now, I have found success in losing 1% of bodyweight per week as an average, some weeks were better than others, but the trend was always there.
But now, as I am in the last week, I have actually gained weight.
Week 1: 67.46 kg – start of new adjustment 0.7kg per week ~ 1% BW
Week 2: 66.31 kg
Week 3: 65.74 kg
Week 4: 65.2 kg
Week 5: 65.31 kg
It was clearly working until this week. As a whole, I am entering now in Week 12, so maybe it is time for a diet break? Is it just water retention? New adjustment? Been consistent with food.
Thanks!
Hi Felipe,
Any sudden stall in weight loss, without a change in activity levels or food intake, will be due to water retention. This happens all the time. Don’t adjust anything.
Hi Andy,
I´ve made my calculations of the macros I need to intake daily and Protein macro resulted that I have to intake 200g daily. I can´t imagine how I can intake that ammount of protein daily. Could yo help me with this issue?
Hi Peter, thank you for the question. This is something I’ve answered in my biweekly newsletter, so I’ll copy and paste that for you:
I sometimes get questions from readers asking, “How can I possibly get in this amount of protein?!”
It shouldn’t be that hard. Here is a personal example…
I’m 6ft2 (188 cm) and weigh around 195 lbs (88 kg). I shoot for around 200 g of protein each day. This is how I eat most days of the week:
~6:30 am: 50 g protein shake early in the morning, then train. (I could split this into two, 25 g shakes, with the second one round 9 am, but I prefer the simplicity of this.)
~12 pm: ~250 g of chicken breast (this is a large breast) for lunch in a salad.
~7:30 pm: ~250 g of pork loin done as a stir fry with vegetables for dinner, along with some bread and soup. (I love bread and soup in the winter.)
The chicken and pork alone is 125 g of protein. (100 g uncooked ~=25g of protein. 5*25 = 125)
Add that to the protein shake and I’m at 175 g.
The small amounts of trace protein from the other foods will add up to a little past 200 g for the day, which is roughly what I need for my size.
I don’t find this hard. But if you’re not cooking at home, I can see how it might be if restaurants in your area are limiting. I’d recommend you cook at home. (Or see if there are any quality salad buffet places around where you are free to choose your quantities of protein. This is what I do each day for lunch.)
Hi Andy,
First of all, thank you for all the valuable information you provide. Your website is a gem I’m fortunate to have found ever since I have started lifting.
I have 2 odder questions:
1) I always gain weight during my first week of cutting. Why do you think this happens? I’m sure I’m eating in deficit. I’m very meticulous when it comes to counting calories, not to mention the hunger and cold feet (sigh).
2) Based on your experience is it easier to cut during warmer seasons? I’ve only cut during spring/summer but am tempted to do try to cut later this year, during winter. I’m afraid it’s gonna be harder, due to feeling too cold.
Hi Andrew,
1. You’re eating more fibrous food, which increases your gut content.
2. I don’t see any physiological reason why there should be a difference in success rates between summer/winter and haven’t noticed any differences in clients. That said, if the motivation to cut is tied to looking good for a beach holiday, that can obviously help.
I’ve heard of people reporting that their hands and feet feel cold during their morning fast after cutting for a while, but nothing extreme and certainly nothing that would prevent someone from cutting. Consider losing rate at a slower rate or don’t skip breakfast if it’s a bother. Otherwise, I don’t know what/why that could be.
Thanks for replying!
Regarding the first question, when I cut I keep my diet unchanged and only reduce the size of the meal. Anyway, I know that after the first week, my weight finally starts to decrease.
As for the second question, thermogenesis is what I actually had in mind. I’ve noticed that even a small caloric deficit(/surplus) makes me feel very cold(/hot). I’ve looked around and it seems other people, though very few, have this problem as well. I guess that’s just how my body works
Most welcome. Two further thoughts:
1. If your meals are truly the same, then there is no connection. Your weight fluctuated by chance on the occasions you started dieting. This happens.
2. Perhaps. Just be aware that if you look around hard enough and you’ll find a small group of people to confirm absolutely anything, right or wrong. And as the mind has a powerful effect over the body, if you convince yourself this is a problem you risk exacerbating it.
Hello, Andy!
Thank You for all the knowledge You have shared!
For the first tine i understudt how to manage my bodyweight.
This question is about my wife.
She was a sport addict for a couple of years ( mainly Criss training and trail running). About two years ago She was diagnosed with several disc herniations. She could not keep the same training rythm.
Since then She is on an ascending trend with the bodyweight (about 4 kg in two years, now She is 60 kg).
She is eating about 800 calories a day ( checked and doublececked).
Please help us by giving the major guidelines, we are stucked!
What diet and training should She adopt to lose the surplus weight?
Hi George, I have you covered here: How To Adjust Macros As You Diet To Keep Progressing
Hello Andy.
Can some modified version of this formula works for weight gain?
Daily calorie adjustment = (Target rate of weight loss – actual rate weight loss) x 500 .
Would be: Daily calorie adjustment = (Target rate of weight gain – actual rate weight gain) x 500 ???
Hi Sebastian, I’ve got the calculations for gaining weight here: how to bulk
I don’t want to lose weight but fat, do I still need to be on a calorie deficit?
Hi Gaudy, thanks for the question.
No. In this case, you’ll want to bulk: How to Bulk Without Getting Fat
Thank you! I will read this.
Most welcome.
Hello Andy I am on my fifth week of cutting. My weekly average weightturned out to be the same as last week , but I had days where I weighed 1lb less, should I write down the average or the lowest weight in this case.
Hi Fernando. Always the average.
Hi Andy, I wanted to ask about your idea of not using cardio at all. For the benefit of all the health related effects of cardiovascular improvements it should be considered on a case by case basis. Probably not factored into their daily calories but none the less the pros out weight the cons.
Hi Ryan, absolutely. My comment is in regard to adding in cardio to address calorie balance.
Hi Andy
could you guide me how to get ride of the water retention from my body which i mean the excess water
waiting for your answer
Hi Husham, it’s just a case of waiting.
big thanks for reply,in meanwhile , should i avoid Creatine in cut – phase because it is cause water retention as i heard , is that rights?
I’d recommend you still take it. The water is retained mostly in your muscle. It’s not something that’s will stop you from getting shredded. The client results page is evidence of that.
Hi Andy, do you have any studies on metabolism?
Calum
Hi Calum, it’s an exceptionally broad and deep topic. If there’s something specific you’re looking for I may be able to point you in the right direction.
If it’s metabolism in general you’d like to learn about, Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism was good. I have the 5th edition, it’s now on the 7th. For some reason, it’s now 1/3 of the price, too! 🙂
Andy any forecast for the launch of the last shred ebook in spanish or portuguese??
No plans for either right now, but thank you for asking.
Hi Andy, great article as everyone! Just one doubt, in your article about Diet Breaks you recommend a lower frequency recommendation for Diet Breaks (e.g. 8-12 weeks for the 10-15% BF range), but in this one you quote Lyle McDonald frequency recommendation which is higher. So, should I follow the one in your Diet Break article? (considering that is based in your experience)
Thanks for your really helpful advice and keep on writinh excellent articles! 😉
Hi Arturo, well spotted. The recommendations in my diet break article are most current. I updated that Saturday, I’ll be updating this next.
Hello Andy! I wanted to reach out because the training pyramids, your macro guide but especially your adjustments guide and a ton of other articles were key in my education and ability to finally crack weight loss and help others do so. I enjoy your articles, humor and get back to the basics attitude! Along those lines I am trying myself to help others in the same way and I wanted to know what were some of the first tools or pieces of content or actions you took that helped you help more people and if you had to do it all again what would be the first few things you would do? I hope this is an appropriate place to post this and I can contact you in another way if needed.
Hi Juan, thank you. I don’t think I would do anything differently other than start an email list earlier. I focused on putting out really detailed and helpful writing on a niche topic (Leangains, back then), and I just trusted that if it was good, people would come.
That worked for me, but it’s not for me to say what might work for you. But I know that personal stories can be helpful and this podcast I did covers my journey: The Online Fitness Business Podcast: Andy Morgan on Online Coaching, Email Marketing, and more
Thank you for your advice! Keep doing great things!
Most welcome and thank you, Juan! 🙂
Hi Andy
if I gained 0,1 kg how do I find the calories I am in surplus? if it was on pounds 0,2 I would 3500×0,2 =700 cal but how to use kg? im not strong in math 🙂
Hi Michael,
~6600 kcal is needed to gain ~ 1kg (assuming a mix 50-50 mix of muscle and fat). The reasoning and math are in my guide to setting calorie intake.
However, only if this increases by this amount consistently over time would I treat it as a surplus.
For such a small amount of weight gain, I’d assume this to be a natural weight fluctuation from gut content, water, or muscle glycogen.
If you’d like to see this in action, weigh yourself tomorrow first thing in the morning, then after the bathroom, then before lunch, after lunch, before dinner, after dinner, and then in the morning again. You’ll see it fluctuates throughout the day, which is why I suggest people weigh the once in the morning each day, then take the averages of each day for the week, and then compare weekly averages. (This smooths out the short-term fluctuations.)
Hi again Andy,
Looks like I’ve got back-to-back questions here. Any practical advice about what to look for in one’s weight measurements after 4 weeks to know if another calorie adjustment is needed? The basis of the question is if one aims to lose 1.5 lbs/week, your weight could easily fluctuate that much from one day to the next due to constipation, more salt intake, etc. as you point out elsewhere. Hence, one’s scale weight could appear largely the same over seven days and not much different after a couple weeks. ISo, I think I’ve been having trouble teasing out signal from noise. Hope this question makes sense.
Keep up the great work! Much appreciated!
Hi Jim. With four weeks of data, you should be able to draw a trend line in your mind. If one week seems randomly high, ignore it.
Great website, Andy! I’m assuming the 5-8% reduction in calories applies to an intake already below maintenance (in other words a cut is already underway). What reduction from maintenance do you recommend to start a cut? And sorry if I missed the answer to this question in this article or elsewhere on the site. Thank you very much!
Hi Jim, thanks for the question.
Yes, check out the macro calculator. It’ll do it for you. See the notes below it also. 🙂
How do you know if you have gone “too low” with calories. Do you have any guidelines or set standard that you refuse to go under a certain % deficit?
Hi Ed, thank you for the question.
Too low will be where the essential nutritional needs are no longer being met — which isn’t about how many calories, but what calories.
Now, of course, there’s a difference between 1) surviving, 2) suffering to a bearable amount during a dieting phase, 3) dieting with just mild discomfort (hunger and lethargy), and 4) not dieting.
When dieting, you want to be at 3 ideally, but 2 may be necessary past a certain point of leanness.
There isn’t a way to calculate what “too low” is because 1) BMR and daily energy need calculations are estimations, and 2) metabolic adaptation hits some more than others, as does fatigue and lethargy.
So, you just have to play it by ear.
Now, if someone has been chronically restricting food intake, REDS may be something to consider: Metabolic Damage Isn’t Real (But Relative Energy Deficiency Syndrome Is). This is something more common with chicks than dudes, and when I say “chronically restricting food intake” I’m not talking about people who are always on a diet but screw it up at the weekends. (This is seemingly 70% of the population.)
Hi Andy I have been bulking and increased my cal to 3200 since I did not put on weight. I however stopped loosing weight when I was on 2500 and I then have very slowly increased by 100. so I guess it my metabolic rate that has adapted. I have been on 3200 for 3 weeks without any weight change. I weigh my self everyday and then take the average at the end of the week, but now on the 4th week im up around 1 kg.
Hi Michael. Fluctuations like this happen. See what happens over the next couple of weeks and adjust. (I like to look at at least 5 weeks of data when analyzing a bulk as the rate of changes targeted are slower than when cutting so the noise in the data is harder to see.)
Thanks.
So if I find that the rate of gain is according to the 1-1,5% and I then after some month, 4:1 take a mini cut for 4 weeks. Should I continue the bulk at the same cal I was on when I started the mini cut?
Hi Michael,
1. Cut for as long as if necessary to cut to get the leanness desired before bulking again, don’t fix it at four weeks. Four weeks isn’t likely to do anything meaningful.
2. Energy needs change as a diet progresses and as a bulk progresses. Therefore, when you return to bulking, though the caloric intake you were on prior to starting the cut will likely be the correct amount needed eventually, it’ll probably be too high to start with and if you jump to that number immediately, you risk gaining an unnecessary amount of fat. This is because your metabolism will have adapted again during the cutting phase. So, repeat the steps I have outlined for moving into a bulking phase in my bulking guide once more if you care about minimizing fat gain.
Thanks
Im not trying to get lean this year though. I will gain as much muscle as possible and then cut, but I don’t have stage plans, so I will properly never get under 12%. I will try mini cuts as described in the book to keep fat at bay.
“Mini Cuts: With a ratio of no more than 4:1 should time be spent
in a surplus relative to a deficit (i.e., don’t diet more frequently
than this, but less is fine). Thus, every four months of offseason
could be interspersed with a one-month mini cut. These cuts use
the upper end of the target rate of weight loss (~1%/week), and
some tracking (body weight, calories, and protein) should occur
to assist in achieving this body fat “clean up’ phase.”
Ahh right I see, I didn’t realize you were asking about guidelines in the book there rather than the article above.
Please feel free to try that. I think for the non-stage-competitor (with iron discipline and generally a need to keep body fat lower year-round overall), a 4-week mini cut can often just serve as a distraction.
What I typically find works well is 5+ month bulking phases with ~8 weeks cutting between phases.