What’s up, guys?
Sean Nalewanyj, www.SeanNal.com and I did a video a few weeks ago explaining how to
properly transition from cutting to bulking, I’ll link that in the description box if
you want to check that out.
But quite a few people ask how I’d recommend going the opposite route, which is how to
transition from bulking to cutting.
So I figured I would go over that today.
There’s really not a lot to this and I wouldn’t recommend overcomplicating it and following
some long drawn out transition phase because it’s really not necessary and it’s ultimately
just going to drag things on for longer than they need to and prolong the amount of time
it takes to reach your fat loss goal.
So my recommendation is to keep this pretty simple for the most part.
As long as you’re continuing to follow a properly structured weight training plan,
you’re eating enough total protein and you’re not drastically cutting your calories by a
huge margin and then performing a ton of cardio at the same time, muscle loss or strength
loss isn’t really going to be a concern here.
And the main reason why you would want to do that brief bulking to cutting transition
phase is more so just to keep your hunger levels under control and your overall energy
levels and your mental state in check rather than shocking your system by dropping straight
into a full on calorie deficit over night.
If you’ve been eating in a calorie surplus over a prolong period of time in order to
gain muscle, then your body will have gotten used to that higher food intake and your appetite
and your hunger signals will have adapted as well.
So let’s say you’re eating three thousand calories a day, and then you drop right from
three thousand calories down to twenty one hundred calories straight away, plus performing
additional cardio, it’s going to make those first few weeks a lot harder to follow because
you’ll probably find that you’re quite hungry and that you’re just not really feeling
good in general.
You’re just going to feel drained and that’s because your body has become accustomed to
higher calorie intake.
So your chance of actually sticking to it, are also going to be lower in comparison to
dropping your calories at a slightly slower pace.
So in order to offset some of those dieting side effects and make the process a bit smoother,
a brief phase where you taper your calories down from a surplus into a deficit.
That can help out.
Now, before I lay out the actual method I do want to point out that this transition
phase is not a hundred percent mandatory.
And if you do want to lose fat as quickly as possible for whatever reason, maybe you
want to be at a certain level of leanness for a certain event, or maybe you’re just
doing a brief mini cut rather than a full on fat loss phase, or maybe you just rather
save those extra couple of week for this is going to take and your okay with just sort
of toughing out that spike and hunger that you’re going to get, then you can optionally
just go straight from the surplus right into your normal deficit.
Again, muscle loss isn’t really the concern here as long as your cutting phase is properly
structured.
It’s more so just that you’re probably not going to feel great for the first few
weeks as your body adapt to those lower calories.
So whether or not you use a structured bulk to cut transition phase like I’m going to
explain here, or whether you just go right into a deficit is ultimately up to you and
it depends on your goals and preferences and how important minimizing hunger and feeling
physically better is to you versus just losing fat quicker.
So, with that out of the way my advice on this is pretty simple, and the way I would
go about it is to just take your current calorie intake for bulking and then the calorie intake
that you’ll be starting your cut at, calculate the difference between the two and then split
that up over a three week period and decrease your calories at an even pace from week to
week.
So for example, if you’re currently bulking on three thousand calories and you’ll be
starting your cut at twenty two hundred calories that means you’re going to be dropping by
eight hundred calories in total.
So what you would do is divide that by three, which is going to be roughly two hundred and
fifty, it doesn’t need to be perfect.
And so for week one if your bulking phase, sorry, your week one of your bulking to cutting
transition phase, you would drop to say, twenty seven hundred and fifty calories.
Week two drop to twenty five hundred calories, and then week three drop down to twenty two
hundred, and just start your cut from there.
So really the only difference with this approach in comparison to dropping straight into a
deficit is that you’re adding an extra two week phase where the calories are going to
be lowered at a slightly slower pace.
If hunger is a big issue for you, and you really want to minimize it then you could
divide that caloric difference by four and add in an extra transition week.
But I think for most people the method that I just gave is going to be fine.
Now, how many calories should you actually consumed for cutting?
Calorie deficit sizes can vary from person to person depending on how quickly or how
slowly they want to cut, but for most average dieters about five hundred calories below
maintenance is going to be a good guideline to shoot for.
That amount is going to be large enough to give you significant ongoing weekly fat loss
but it’s also going to be small enough that your appetite and energy levels and gym performance
are going to stay in check.
So just find your calorie maintenance level, subtract five hundred and that’s the calorie
intake that you can start cutting at.
Now, if you’ve been bulking and you, sort of, lost track, and you don’t actually know
what your current calorie maintenance level is then there are a few ways that you can
estimate it.
First off, if your overall body weight has plateaued toward the end of your bulk and
you’ve been eating at a certain intake, and you haven’t gain any weight for about
one to two week period, then that means that your current intake is calorie maintenance
level.
So you can just use that.
On the other hand, if your body weight or your calorie intake has been fluctuating,
and you’re not quite sure where you’re at, there’s a couple things you can do.
The first is to just use a basic multiplier.
As long as your body fat levels are still within a normal healthy range, you can probably
estimate it pretty closely by just multiplying your body weight in pounds by fourteen to
sixteen.
So if you have a particularly high weekly activity level, then go a bit higher with
sixteen.
Or if your activity level is quite low, maybe just aside from your weight training sessions,
then go with fourteen.
And if you’re not sure and you think you have about an average activity level then
just go middle ground with fifteen.
And then two other more precise calculator than you can use are the Harris-Benedict formula
or the Katch-McArdle formula.
And those take into account other factors like your age, your height, your body fat
percentage, et cetera, and I will lay those out in the description box below as well for
you to check out.
Keep in mind that any of those formulas are just going to be estimates because all calorie
calculators are only estimates.
But it should close enough to give a good starting point to work from.
And you can just adjust from there once you see how your body weight responds to that
specific intake.
So if you aren’t losing at least a pound per week consistently then you would want
to decrease it, or if you losing weight too rapidly and you’re feeling excessively hungry
and just drain in general then you can increase it by a bit.
Now in terms of cardio, depending on how much cardio you’re planning on doing as part
of your cutting phase, and I wouldn’t recommend any more than three sessions per week to start,
two to three per week is usually good to begin with and only increasing it later on if it’s
becomes necessary.
But you can also just gradually introduce that extra cardio throughout the transition
phase as well depending on how much you were doing before.
So if you’re going to be doing, say an extra two sessions per week in comparison to what
you are doing during your bulk then just add in one extra session for the first week of
your transition, and then add the second session in on the second week.
Again, none of these needs to be perfect, but just increase the cardio at an even pace
from week to week depending on how much extra you’re going to be doing.
And then the other thing to keep in mind in terms of weight training is that there’s
really nothing you need to change as far as your actual training style goes whether you’re
bulking or you’re cutting.
So using a lighter weight for higher reps approach that has no effect on improving muscle
definition or muscle shape, which is a big mistake that a lot of lifters make.
And if you get rid of those basic, heavier, lower to moderate rep sets in favor of a light,
sort of, pump style routine, all you really doing is to weakening the overall training
stimulus on your muscles which will increase the chances of muscle loss during your cut.
Remember that the central purpose of weight training is to build and maintain muscle.
You can’t spot reduce from specific areas of your body by training them with resistance,
so just remember that weight training is for providing maximum stimulation to your muscles
and then cardio, and most important by far your diet, that’s what’s going to take
care of the actual fat loss.
So when you transition from bulking to cutting just keep your weight training plan the same
as it was before.
The only optional change being that you can reduce the total volume, if you find that
you aren’t properly recovering and that your strength is noticeably dropping.
And I get a previous post outlining five program modifications to make if you are losing strength
during a cut, and I’ll link that in the description box below as well if that does
become a concern for you.
So that’s really all there is to it, guys.
Just move at an even pace from your bulking to your cutting calories over a three week
period while at the same time gradually adding in whatever extra cardio you’ll be doing
at an even pace as well.
Keep your weight training the same and this process is going to give your body a chance
to gradually acclimate to your cutting phase rather than just abruptly moving into a full
deficit all at once.
So, I hope this was helpful.
If you do want to grab a complete step-by-step plan that shows you how to lay out a complete
cutting or bulking phase from A to Z.
The workouts, the meal plans, the supplement guides and one-on-one coaching then you can
check out my Body Transformation Blueprint by clicking here or by visiting www.BodyTransformationTruth.com
the link is in the description box.
Make sure to follow me on social media here, the links for that are also in the description.
The official website is www.SeanNal.com and if you did enjoy the video, make sure to hit
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Thanks for watching, guys.
And I’ll talk to you again soon.