Cutting log - 33 days out

So it’s 33 days before I go on holiday, at which point I hope to have visible abs for the first time in my life. If I reach this point, it will be the first time in my life I’ll feel comfortable and happy in my own body which will hopefully allow me to to topless without freaking out.

Having discussed Intermittent Fasting with @Stole_My_Sweetroll and also closely followed @jeffy89 's IF log, I’ll be implementing IF for the next 33 days experimentally using a 19/5 fasting schedule.

Fast will commence at 20:00 and end at 15:00 every day.

Not necessarily something for anyone else to follow or care about, but a lot will be handy to read back during my next cut… :smiley:

2 Likes

Day 1

Yesterday entailed a KFC 6 person family feast (minus the fries, bleugh), 3 cans of Koppaberg and12 VKs. Easily in excess of 5000 calories in total. Danced for 3 hours, so probably burnt around 500 back off again.

Weight: -

Workout: PPL Pull day. Rows, deads, chins, curls, face pulls.

Food consumption:

Pre-workout - Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard pre workout, 11g

Meal 1 (15:00) -

  • 190g chicken breast
  • 200g sweet potato fries
  • 6g olive oil

Meal 2 (16:30) -

  • 155g Huel
  • 30g Myprotein chocolate stevia whey
  • 5g creatine monohydrate

Meal 3 (19:00) -

  • 155g Huel
  • 30g Myprotein chocolate stevia whey

Ooh! Will be following your log with interest too now :smiley: All the best haha and hope IF works for you :slight_smile:
Are you aiming for a specific daily calorie target?

1 Like

Good luck! I tried to get visible abs too for my holiday in Ibiza next month, but have failed :frowning:

1 Like

Oops just noticed you posted a question, ever so sorry for my ignorance!

It’ll be a dynamic calorie target throughout the month I think, along these lines:

Week 1: 1950 kcal
Week 2: 1875 kcal
Week 3: 1750 kcal
Week 4: 1700 kcal

Then three days before I’ll step back up to maintenance at around 2500 to rebuild glycogen stores and give my muscles a more “full” look :slight_smile:

1 Like

And here I was thinking 16/8 was a bit extreme! :flushed:

I wish you all the best and will be watching this thread with interest.

Will you just have water until 15.00?

Haha cheers, will be interesting to see if IF achieves anything my regular cut hasn’t for the last couple of months. I’m sceptical to say the least but we’ll see.

Yup, just water. Some people drink diet soft drinks which I think is kind of dumb. It might be artificial but there’s still an insulin response.

Day 2:

Weight: 81.1kg

Workout: PPL Push day. Barbell Bench press, overhead press, dumbbell bench press, dumbbell shoulder press, incline barbell press, lateral raises, shoulder isolation cable pulls, cable flyes, tricep overhead extension, tricep rope pull downs.

Food consumption:

Meal 1 (14:00) -

  • 210g chicken breast
  • 200g sweet potato fries
  • 6g olive oil

Meal 2 (17:45) - Visit to my parents’ house, no caloric measurements or control unfortunately.

  • 3 butcher’s sausages, proper meaty rather than supermarket junk.
  • Large homemade Yorkshire pudding
  • 1 cup carrots
  • 1 cup mashed potato
  • 1 cup broccoli
  • Half cup gravy

Meal 3 (19:00) -

  • 0.76g Huel
  • 60g Myprotein chocolate stevia whey

Had to scrap post workout shake due to generous parents giving me a homemade brownie. Sacrificed 0.76g Huel for said brownie…

  • Noticing a big improvement in energy in the gym. Usual cutting set for bench press at this stage (750 calorie deficit) would be 5 x 75kg followed by burnout sets of 10 @ 60kg. Cranking 4 sets of 5 @ 80kg today, no problem. Perhaps more freely available energy?

Day 3:

Weight: 80.5kg

Workout: PPL Leg day. Back squats, sumo deadlifts, front squats, leg extensions, leg curls, calf raises, burnout on leg press.

Food consumption:

Meal 1 (14:00) -

  • 220g chicken breast
  • 200g sweet potato fries
  • 6g olive oil

Pre workout (17:00) - Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Pre workout - 11g

Meal 2 (19:15) -

  • 155g Huel
  • 30g MyProtein Chocolate Stevia whey
  • 5g creatine monohydrate
  • Orange Huel bar

Meal 3 (20:00) -

  • 76g Huel
  • 30g MyProtein Chocolate Stevia whey

Water consumption: 3 litres

Working overnight tonight, a solid 4 hour piece of work between midnight and 04:30. Not sure how I’ll cope with IF during this coming 12h, but soon find out.

Day 3:

Weight: 79.5kg

Workout: PPL Pull day with grip strength training challenge, followed by brisk 2km treadmill walk at 5% incline to burn off 100kcal of pre workout.

Food consumption:

Pre-workout: Myprotein Lemon&Lime MyPre

Meal 1 (15:00) -

  • 220g chicken breast
  • 200g sweet potato fries
  • 6g olive oil

Meal 2 (17:30) -

  • 155g Huel
  • 30g MyProtein Chocolate Stevia whey
  • 5g creatine monohydrate

Meal 3 (19:30) -

  • 155g Huel
  • 15g MyProtein Chocolate Stevia whey

Water consumption: 3 litres

Weight is dropping off - Still seeing glycogen losses due to KFC binge at the weekend + 3000 calorie night out. Losses should stabilise at 0.75kg per week starting tomorrow.

Will be scrapping Intermittent Fasting tomorrow, absolutely not for me unfortunately. Best way I can describe it is the below relatable Reddit comment:

"In others it triggers an eating disorder.

I never had trouble sticking to calorie limits but I tried IF anyways. Suddenly I was starving all the time, and my eating window never left me feeling anywhere near satisfied. I eventually had to move to maintenance for 6 months just to keep myself in check. I was able to start cutting regularly again, but IF triggered cravings and binging in me. I managed to not fall into a cycle, but others may not be so lucky.

I wish I had never tried IF. It opened Pandora’s Box, and from now on I’ve got to watch myself carefully. I never ran into this issue just counting calories with spaced out meals."

1 Like

Day 3:

Weight: 79.2kg

Workout: PPL Push day with day 2 of grip strength training challenge.

Food consumption:

Meal 1 (06:00) -

  • 155g Huel
  • 30g MyProtein Chocolate Stevia whey
  • 5g creatine monohydrate

Meal 2 (12:00) -

  • 220g chicken breast
  • 200g sweet potato fries
  • 6g olive oil

Meal 3 (19:30) -

  • 155g Huel

  • 15g MyProtein Chocolate Stevia whey

  • One pint Pravha

Kcal: 2200

Water consumption: 3 litres

I did 5:2 IF for around 9 months a few years ago. I lost a lot of weight and it felt doable at the time, but I was constantly hungry, both when fasting and on other days. Since then I’ve tried to get into 16:8 a few times. I can do it but it just makes me miserable. It’s not for everyone, and can certainly increase food preoccupation and anxiety.

1 Like

Yep…

IF isn’t necessary for weight loss at all nor is it necessarily beneficial, but I was curious about whether it’d benefit my insatiable appetite.

No luck, just made me watch the clock obsessively for when it was time to eat. I was so hungry at that point that I was blasting through my three meals within 2 hours. Just not sustainable.

Day 4:

Weight: 79.3kg

Workout: 20 mile bike ride

Food consumption:

Meal 1 (07:00) -

  • Huel Orange Bar
  • 2 sugared almonds

Meal 2 (12:00) -

  • Visiting parents, so BBQ
  • Large beef burger
  • Medium white bap
  • One fried egg

Meal 3 (17:00) -

  • Session commenced
  • Estrella Damm 3 pints
  • Bud Light 2 pints
  • Strongbow cloudy 4 pints
  • Pork Fillet 200g
  • Chicken thighs x 3
  • Jacket potato
  • Sevila gin x 25ml
  • Second burger at friend’s BBQ before going out
  • Double gin & tonic while out

Kcal: 3500+… Bollocks…

Water consumption: 3 litres raw, + several from alcohol.

1 Like

Day 5:

Weight: 78.9kg, likely due to dehydration from last night’s shenanigans.

Workout: 18 mile bike ride

Food consumption:

Meal 1 (14:00) -

  • 3 skinless chicken thighs
  • 8oz cod fillet
  • 120g tenderstem brocolli
  • 90g grilled asparagus
  • 220g jacket potato
  • 9g butter

Meal 2 (18:00) -

  • 114g Huel
  • 8g Cacao

Kcal: 1810

Water consumption: 2 litres.

How the heck have you gone for a 18 mile bike ride after all that the night before? :joy:

It’s this very reason (fitness) that I stopped drinking altogether. Haven’t drunk for 4 ish years.

1 Like

Was pretty savage, but I just about scraped through. Promised my dad I’d come with him last night as he absolutely loves the quality time together.

Popped two MyThermo, had a cup of tea, then literally rode that caffeine high hahaha.

I normally only drink once a month when I see all of my mates, that pure fun and social time is something I couldn’t ever give up, even for fitness!

Day 6:

Weight: 79. 3kg - 78.5kg is in the tank by Sunday. 77kg target definitely achievable by 30th.

Workout: PPL Pull day + Grip training program day 3

Food consumption:

Pre workout (05:45) - Myprotein MyPre

Meal 1 (08:45) -

  • 155g Huel
  • 9g cacao
  • 5g creatine monohydrate

Meal 2 (12:00) -

  • 76g Huel
  • 8g Cacao
  • 200g grilled chicken breast
  • 400ml Semi Skimmed milk

Meal 3 (17:30)

  • 155g Huel
  • 9g cacao

Meal 4 (23:39):

  • Emergency situation meant I was offered takeaway with best mate’s family. Lots of food was consumed… Starting again from the ground up today. Bugger.

Kcal: 3500+

Whey has now been cut and replaced with a daily chicken breast for protein topup. On the home straight now.

Water consumption: 2 litres.

Pity IF didn’t work for you! But well, never hurts to experiment to see what’s the ideal method that’s usually pretty individual!

IMO I think it really depends on where your starting point is: you’ve already had a pretty consistent weight loss method and routine which worked for you so IF was unlikely to have been an improvement.

Coming from a starting point of binging from the moment I awoke to the moment I slept, restricting my eating time frame was definitely an improvement (when you hit rock bottom you don’t really have anywhere to go but up! :stuck_out_tongue: )…and also it fits my holiday lifestyle and gave me more room for snacks since I’ve never been the hugest breakfast fan (I just ate it because apparently breakfast is “good for you”).

But yeah, glad you’re attuned to your body and your needs, and great job on the weight lost so far! :smiley:

2 Likes

Day 7:

Weight: 80.6kg - Serious glycogen top up after last night’s Indian takeaway. Would take helping a friend over weight loss 100 x over so no harm done. Damage control today, macros to reflect.

Workout: PPL Push day + Grip training program day 3

Food consumption:

Pre workout (17:00) - Myprotein MyPre

Meal 1 (06:00) -

  • 250g grilled chicken breast
  • 200ml semi skimmed milk
  • 5g creatine monohydrate
  • Multivitamin

Meal 2 (12:00) -

  • 568ml skimmed milk
  • 30g Myprotein Salted Caramel whey

Meal 3 (17:30)

  • 250g grilled chicken breast

kcal: 976

Water consumption: 2 litres.