Thread: Myths & Cutting - A beginners Guide

MYTHS

SPOT REDUCTION

NO SUCH THING!!! Doing a hundred crunches will strengthen the abs, but won't do anything to the fat. Only through hard work, cardio, and a healthy diet will you achieve this.

HIGHER REPS = MORE DEFINITION AND "TONENESS”

The truth is, higher reps will NOT tone your muscles or make them more defined. Once again, this is having a low body fat %. Higher reps will work on endurance though and is great for some athletes and marathon runners.

GAIN MUSCLE AND LOSE FAT

When we all start out lifting, we have this lucky gift of being able to lose fat yet get muscle at the same time. Over time, this completely goes away. I notice a lot of posts are "oh my goals are to lose the old gut while getting my chest bigger...". This isn't going to happen unless you are a beginner (a.k.a newbie) or on steroids. Think about it. How can you gain muscle on a calorie deficit and/or lose fat on a calorie surplus? Once you feel you gotten to the point where you can no longer do the above, then you have a choice of doing a cutting or bulking phase.

THE MORE THE BETTER (RIGHT?)

Ever hear the phase "muscle grow outside the gym". Well, this phase fits in right here. When people first start out lifting, they tend to think that more is better. This is definatly not the case. Your muscles and body needs time to recover. Also, around an hour or so (differs from everyone), cortical is released from the body which can actually kill off muscle tissue and cause muscle catabalism. This can be prevented if you train smart. Do no more then a 5 day split training each muscle once a week (smaller ones twice most) and working out no more then an hour. Now don't get me wrong, everybody is different and people respond to different methods, principals, techniques, etc. But this most likely all you need to do. Most people say "oh, I'm training each body part 2x a week and only have one rest day and getting good results" but what they don't realize is that they aren't giving their body (central nervous system) full time to recover as well as their muscles. Even though muscles only need 48-72 hours to recover, they still don't recover fully which is why it benefits you to take a week off every 2-3 months.

I DO CARDIO FOR MY LEG WORK..THAT'S ALL I NEED

The truth is, legs also need heavy anaerobic sets just like the upper body. Running is to aerobic to call it a leg "mass builder". Besides, the best exercise known to us bodybuilders is for legs (SQUATS!). By the way, chicken legs and a huge upper body will look very unproportianal and kind of weird.

I DIDN'T GET A PUMP OR WAS SORE THIS MORNING...

"Pumps" and soreness in your muscles doesn't mean too much (for hypertrophy [ muscle growth]). I could get a good pump from picking a weight and lifting it for 100x. This will porbably deal way more with endurance then hypertrophy. Samething goes with soreness. The real way you can tell if your workouts are good is over time.

CUTTING

Now lets say your goal is to look nice and thin and get rid of the old gut and get abs by the summer times Here you are going too need to start reducing your calories, increasing protein, decreasing saturated fats and carbs.

DIET
Some diets where people got good results from: Atkins diet, keto diet

Here are some estimations to help you figure out your calories and protein needs:

Calories: bodyweight x 11-13 ie: 180 malelb = 1980-2340kcals
Protein: bodyweight x 1.2-1.4 ie: 180lb male = 216 - 252g

The key here is too keep saturated fats in moderation. Don't totally eliminate them from your diet. You still need some. Also, don't go overboard with decreasing the carbs (unless you are on keto which requires you too). Depending on your metabolism, try to split this into 4-6 smaller meals over the course of the day.

CARDIO

You are also going to have to start doing or increase your cardio. Start out with one short cardio session. By starting out with a lot of cardio days, you are only hurting yourself and looking for an injury. Each week, start increasing it until you get around 20-45 minutes. You might also want to look into HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) cardio. Don't let the time (12-15 minutes) of these cardio sessions fool you. The sessions are very intense.

WEIGHT TRIANING

Training splits should stay the same. Like I said before, reps shouldn't go higher. I prefer a 3 day split while cutting because it is easier to fit in cardio and easier to recover while under a calorie deficit.

SUPPLEMENTS

Some good supplements too look for: whey protein, multi vitamins, glutamine, and Thermogenic fat burners (WARNING: only take a fat burner if you are in good cardiovascular condition and have good blood pressure with no history of bad cardiovascular health). If you suffer with any of the above you can use a lipotropic fat burner (CLA or Choline/inositol) quite safely

TIPS

A way you can minimize muscle loss is not decreasing the calories all over night. Don't just decrease your calories all in a day. Your body has to get used to what it has. Slowly decrease your calories by 200-300 each week until you get to your desired calories, carbs, and saturated fats.

Any suggestion on what kind of carb and saturates to go for daily? Im weighin 183 at the mo after a rather lazy & undulgent christmas!!! so ive decided to go for about 1900-2100 calories a day and 220-230g of protein a day, does that sound about right? and should i adjust this depending on training and non training days?

*Come to think of it is this diet ok for martial arts trainin as well as weights? I am going to be getting stuck back into the weights anyway as of next month! Just so i know whether Im gonna need this kind of protein intake after martial arts.

By saturates do you mean which fats? saturates are a type of fat, you want to avoid the saturated where possible and try to get the mono unsaturated, and omega fats 3 & 9 preferably.

The best form of carbs i find help for fat loss would be low Gi carbs (carbs that dont convert to a lot of sugar)
Oats
Wholemeal/brown bread
wholemeal/brown pasta
wholemeal/brown rice
basmati rice
sweet potatoes
vegetables etc..

Good fats

Fish (mackerel, salmon, Tuna, sardines etc...)
Beef - lean cuts are a good source of fat & Creatine!
Nuts - Go for the low salt unroasted ones (brazils's, almonds, cashews etc)
Seeds - Feels like your eating bird food, but whack a load in your cereal and you forget their there

A good time to have high Gi carbs like sugary drinks, white potatoes, baked potatoes etc.. is immediatly after a workout, your glycogen levels (muscle energy) are depleted at this point and need to be restored asap, fast acting carbs help this to happen quicker than low gi carbs, so its a bit like..ive had a workout i can eat a bit of crap now to reward myself lol.

If your looking to lose a bit of bodyfat and your going to increase your training, i wouldnt worry too much about calories obviously if your gulping down 6000 a day and doing bugger all you'll turn into a fatty, but dont get too stressed counting them, something like this would be a good diet

9am: Eggs 2 whites 2 whole either in an omellete or scrambled, bowl of oats

11.30am: meal replacement shake

1.30pm chicken breast/Tuna steak rice & veg

3pm: Baked potato/Tuna/chilli beef or Tuna pasta (preworkout meal)

TRAIN

5.30pm: Post workout carb drink (high5 is good) or lucozade (something with sugar and 40g of whey protein

8pm: Beef/pork steak veg and potatoes

11pm: Eggs on toast/Eggs & oats


A diet like that should see some pounds fall off you, its only a rough outline of a diet, you can include some other foods, and swop meals round etc..but you get the idea

brilliant cheers for that marc, give me summat to think about. Would fruit make any difference to that kind of diet cos ive got no idea what fruit is like for carbs/protein and i eat a shit load of fruit!!! try an get at least 5 a day down me

yeh i didnt put any fruit in that diet did i...new i forgot something Fruit is a good source of fructose a fast acting sugar, but very healthy, virtually zero protein so snack on it in between meals with a small portion of protein like some nuts or a protein drink/bar

sound nice one again marc