If you feel like you’re ready to drop a few pounds, it might be time to start a cut. Cutting helps you shed fat while preserving your muscle mass. Your diet is going to be the biggest tool you’ve got while cutting. Learning how to create and follow a meal peal will make sure your cuts always go well.
What Is Cutting Weight?
Cutting began as a way for professional bodybuilders to say they were losing weight. Today, anyone looking to tone up uses the term when they’re trying to slim down. Ideally, you’ll incorporate a full-body workout regimen into your cut. Regular workouts help to stimulate the body, so they’ll preserve muscle tissue.
One risk you may encounter while cutting is a loss of muscle mass. When you cut, typically, you’ve got to maintain a caloric deficit. Maintaining deficits forces your body to release stored energy to power its metabolism. Most of the time, it’ll look to your fat cells to find that energy. But, occasionally, it may use some of the protein from your muscles.
How Does Your Diet Affect Cutting?
Eating enough protein while you’re cutting can help you reduce muscle loss. To cut successfully, you’ll need to eat fewer calories than you’re burning. Caloric deficits are the only real cause of weight loss.
When the body is in a deficit, it will burn fat to make up the difference. What we eat determines how easy it is to remain in a deficit. Some foods have a lot of calories, and they’re not very filling. Eating them tends to make us just want to eat even more.
Foods with lots of fiber don’t have that same effect. They’re able to suppress hunger longer than processed sugars. A high-sugar diet may even be inflammatory to our gut. Spikes of high inflammation can make it feel like you’re coming down with a stomach illness.
Eating a clean, whole-food diet will limit inflammation of the gut. Plus, it’ll feel easier to make it to the end of the day without getting too hungry.
Creating a Quality Weight Cutting Diet
We believe diets should focus more on what’s on the list rather than what’s not. Instead of giving you a huge list of foods to avoid, let’s talk about the ones you can eat.
Our diet needs to have enough protein to sustain muscles without too many calories. That means we should look for protein-dense foods that aren’t loaded with calories.
Your best bet is going to be sticking with a simple, whole-food diet plan. Eating a lot of fruits, legumes vegetables has always been a good base. Add in some wild-caught fish a few times each week to increase your protein intake.
You can also use protein powder to supplement your protein intake. It’s not always easy to get all your protein without going over your calorie limit. Using a protein isolate powder makes it possible to add nearly pure protein into your shakes. It doesn’t have a ton of carbs like other protein powders.
How to Calculate Your Nutritional Intake
Meal Prep Sacramento recommends everyone calculate their daily nutritional intake. Look at the labels on all your foods. For vegetables, you can look up their averages online.
Using a scale while you’re cooking lets you track exactly how much you’re eating during each meal. Use that data to determine your nutritional intake in an average day. It will take a little time when you’re first learning how to do this process, but it pays off. Eventually, you’ll be able to do most of this by memory.
Determining Your Daily Net Calories
You can put your age and weight into a calculator to see how many calories you’re burning daily. It’s not always going to be completely accurate, but it’s good enough for cutting.
Personal trainer meals won’t exceed your daily burn. That’s how they’re able to guarantee you’ll lose weight during your cut. You can use a calorimeter to calculate exactly how much you’re burning during the day. Then, we’d be able to help you create meals that were under your daily burn, putting you in a deficit.
Tips to Make It Through a Cut
Making it through your first cut feels like you’ve summited a tall mountain. You might even feel prideful and accomplished. It’s not always easy on the way up, but the view seems worthwhile once you’re there. Getting through a cut should be easier if you follow these tips.
Measuring Your Progress
Don’t weigh yourself too often. Getting through a cut is going to take time, no matter your approach. Surviving will be a lot easier if you’re not staring at the scale each day, riddled with anxiety.
Try looking at your weight once a week on the same day. Take a notebook with you when you’re measuring your weight and note what you see. As long as your weight is trending down, you’re making progress.
How Long Should Your Cut Last?
The best way to determine when a cut should end is by setting clear goals when you’re first setting it up. Going into a cut with clear goals means you’ll have an endpoint in view, even from the beginning.
Sometimes, you’ve got to diet a little harder to hit your goals. But, usually, giving it a little more time is all you’ll need to get there.
Affordable Cutting Foods
Another benefit of cutting is that you can save a lot of money on food. Since you’ll be eating less, you won’t have to buy as much money. You can amplify savings by filling your diet with foods that aren’t too expensive.
Whole Foods
Don’t buy anything that comes out of a box when you’re at the grocery store. Try shopping around the perimeter of the stores. That’s where you’ll find all the produce, dairy, and meat. Stick with them and you’ll have an easy time maintaining your cut.
Plant-Based Foods
Plants have more fiber than most foods. Eating a high-fiber diet promotes satiety, making it easier to lose weight. Adding more plants to your diet is a low-cost way to make it more filling. Plus, you’ll get a lot of phytonutrients whenever you’re eating them.
Sacramento Meal Prep can help you design your own meal plan for the next time you cut.
