Wavelength Guide to Cutting v2.0

[VDubb]

I figured this would be great to post since there have been so many questions on losing weight.......this is a guide created by a dude on BB.com, and has been refined and tweaked.........


Wavelength Guide to Cutting v2.0

The goal of a cutting diet is to improve body composition by losing fat while preserving as much muscle as possible.

Essential Rules

- Workout with weights 3 times a week.
- Drink about a gallon of water each day.
- Eat at least 1g protein / lb of lean body mass a day.
- Eat some fruit, veggies/salad, and some essential fatty acids (EFAs) every day.
- Above that eat whatever you want, preferably a wide variety of foods.
- Adjust your food intake so that the desired rate of weight change is maintained.
- The rate of weight change should not be above 3lbs/week, 1-2lbs/week is recommended.

IMO, any diet (resp. cutting method) that follows the above rules is optimal for cutting, any further details will not have significant effect on body composition. If you already have a meal plan, just check if these rules are followed and adjust if not.

Measuring Progress and Adjusting Food Intake

- Weigh yourself once a week, always at the same time (e.g. right after waking up).
- Don't panic if your weight stays the same or even goes up for one or two weeks.
- If your weight does not go down for more than three weeks, slightly reduce calories.
- If your rate of weight loss is above the recommended value, slightly increase calories.
- The change in daily calories from those adjustments should not exceed 500 cals.
- After adjustment, stay on the new value for at least three weeks before adjusting again.

If you have never done a cutting diet, it's always better to start with more calories and reduce slowly until the desired rate of weight change is maintained. If you stay patient, you will not have to adjust very often. With more experience, you will not have to count calories anymore, but as a beginner it is probably a good idea.


Unessential Factors

Since many questions revolve around further details of cutting diets, here is a list of factors that I believe to be of insignificant effect for body composition:

- Cardio and fat burners,
- Meal timing and meal frequency,
- Protein / Carb / Fat distribution throughout the day,
- carb / fat ratio,
- Sodium intake,
- Moderate alcohol intake,
- Use of supplements resp. meal replacements,
- "Clean" food vs. Junk food (sugar and saturated fat).

All these factors should be used as tools to make the diet as convenient as possible. Many people e.g. have an easier time dieting with eating more calories and doing cardio or taking fat burners. Some people like myself have an easier time without cardio and fat burners. In my experience, the end result (body composition improvement) is not significantly influenced. Another example is protein supplements. I e.g. use whey powder to meet my daily protein intake out of convenience. I could just as well get all my protein from other sources. A third example is meal frequency and timing. This tool should be used to reduce hunger as much as possible throughout the day. For some people that means eating 6 times a day, for others it means eating only once or twice a day.


Psychological Tips and Tricks

- It is possible that you will not "see" changes in the mirror until your bodyfat gets rather low. Don't panic, as long as the rules are followed, everything is right on track.

- If at all, only assess your physique right after a workout. At other times it's too dependent on water retention, and the mind will play tricks on you (telling you your progress sucks, etc.).

- Have a cheat day (pig-out day) once in a while, where you eat what you want. I had one every week on my last diet. Don't feel guilty about it, as long as the rules are still followed, everything is allright.

- Don't take the whole thing too serious. It's better to not care about it so much. See it more as being the coach of another person, rather than yourself.


Bulking

The goal of a bulking diet is to improve body composition by gaining muscle while keeping fat gains as small as possible. Although this is a cutting guide, for bulking, the only thing that changes is that the rate of weight change X is positive (body weight increases).

The critical factor is the value of X. Everyone has a different ability to gain weight with a certain ratio of muscle vs. fat gain. This ability is dependent on factors like genetics, age, training experience, etc. The ratio will decrease the higher X is, but not in a linear way. The trick is to find the optimal value for X, where the ratio is still close to optimum. Unfortunally, this is solely a matter of experience. My advise would be to increase calories by 500 over maintenance and check if weight goes up while fat gains are still tolerable. If no weight is gained, increase calories again. If fat gains are too high, decrease calories.


Frequently Asked Questions

This section tries to answer the most frequently asked questions of the "How to lose fat for Noobs" thread (see link section) on the bodybuilding.com "Losing Fat" forum as well as questions I recieved via PM or on other threads.

Q: How do I determine how much calories I should consume?
A: You can just go by what you currently eat and reduce from there as described in the guide. Alternativiely, use a calorie calculator like the Total Metabolism Forecaster, see link section.

Q: Is it important to get the same amount of calories resp. macros every day?
A: No, it's OK to eat a little less one day and more the next.

Q: I lose more than 3lbs a week, is that OK?
A: Some people get away with losing more, especially when at high bodyfat. As long as strength is OK and all other essential rules are followed, no problem.

Q: How do I determine my lean body mass for calculating my protein intake?
A: You have to take your total body weight and subtract your fat weight. If you e.g. weigh 200lbs and your bodyfat is 20% (=40lbs), your lean body mass is 200lbs - 40lbs = 160lbs. If you don't know your bodyfat, just take a guess. When in doubt, just eat a little more. However, if for some reason, you can't eat as much protein, just eat a little less, most people will still do fine.

Q: Does it matter where I get my protein from and what are good protein sources?
A: Generally, it does not matter. You can get your protein from meat, fish, eggs, cheese, protein powder, etc. Although there are differences in quality (regarding muscle sparing effect), they can easily be made up for with just a little more quantity.

Q: I work out less/more than 3 times a week, is that OK?
A: Yes, as long as all other essential rules are followed. Some people get away with less, some do better on more.

Q: I lost a lot of weight in the first few weeks but weight loss has slowed down, why?
A: The initial weight loss was probably mostly water loss. Stay at the current intake for at least another 3 weeks. If weight loss stalls, slightly reduce calories as described in the guide.

Q: Can I increase muscle mass while losing fat?
A: Yes, depending on your genetics, training experience, and age, it is possible. The only essential rule that changes in this case is total caloric intake resp. rate of weight loss. You will have to find the sweet spot where you still gain strength in the gym while leaning out. In this case, you can measure progress not by rate of weight loss but e.g. by measuring waist size. Or you can just try to maintain a smaller rate of weight loss and still go by weighing. Depending on what is more important to you at the time, you can adjust calories to lean more towards fat loss or muscle gaining. However, it's a lot easier to concentrate on either muscle gain (bulking) or fat loss (cutting).

Q: What about keto diets?
A: Principally, keto diets (very low carb diets), as long as they follow all rules, would be fine. IMO, some people have a problem preserving muscle mass on a keto diet. For other people it works great. I don't think keto diets provide a significant advantage other than maybe being more convenient for some people.

Q: What about post workout nutrition?
A: I would not intentionally starve myself of protein after a workout. A meal containing some protein or a shake is perfectly fine.

Q: Apart from body composition, what about health?
A: First of all, it is important to distinguish between the goal of optimal body composition and the goal of optimal health. For the former, the guide provides all essential rules. For the latter, opinions vary a lot between experts and over time (see e.g. saturated fat, GI, food processing, cholesterol, etc.). Therefore, IMO the best way to go is to eat a wide variety of foods.

Q: How can I lose fat in certain areas of my body?
A: Although there are theories that spot reduction is possible to a certain degree, generally IMO it's not feasible. You can only reduce overall bodyfat and wait for the problem areas to come in.

Q: What are the rules for weight training on a cut?
A: None other than on a bulk. For an easy workout routine, check link section.

Q: What exactly is your cutting diet?
A: My cutting diet is somewhat extreme since I only eat one big meal a day plus a 100g whey protein shake (see link section). That's just the most convenient way for me. However, every other diet that follows the essential rules is also perfectly OK.

Q: Should I eat differently on workout days than on off days?
A: That's not necessary, I would only eat a little more on workout days if you are very hungry (out of convenience).

Q: Does this guide also work for girls?
A: Of course!

Links

How to lose fat for Noobs: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=113693871
Simple Workout Routine: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpo...&postcount=285
Wavelength Cutting Diet: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpo...1&postcount=33
Total Metabolism Forecaster: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=114980801
Minimum Nutritional Requirements: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=113310851

Acknowledgements

Thanks to everyone helping out in the "How to lose fat for Noobs" thread, especially:
Djin, Robby99999, iDrive, th3pwn3r, HerveDuchemin, AntoineDufour, toiletmoose, b_white, mafiosoromano, ZidaneValor, Silleli, reaperchild, Vietgoboi, IzzyT, Marine man, FloridaGator, lmzerger, S1FU, chickeneater.

[Bad Faith]

Mostly mainly garbage brought to you from the dumbells at BB.com.

Folks eating a 1 gram of protein for lb of bodyweight is patently insane. No doctor or nutritionist will endorse that much protein unless that individual is an elite athlete training 3 to 4 hours daily.

[wcoastsoftball]

Should be 1g per kg.

[dafox]

Originally Posted by Bad Faith

Mostly mainly garbage brought to you from the dumbells at BB.com.

Folks eating a 1 gram of protein for lb of bodyweight is patently insane. No doctor or nutritionist will endorse that much protein unless that individual is an elite athlete training 3 to 4 hours daily.

It said 1g per lb of lean body mass ---need to subtract BF%

[Untraceable]

spoken like some true guru's huh? anything more than 1g per kg is insane? ead, guess we should go back to more fat and sugar huh

[wcoastsoftball]

Originally Posted by Untraceable

spoken like some true guru's huh? anything more than 1g per kg is insane? ead, guess we should go back to more fat and sugar huh

You are a good guy, but don't tell me to ead. You want to reply to what I say, do it respectfully as I normally do to you.

[Untraceable]

Yeah I was getting out of hand. my LBM is somewhere between 220-250 depending on what setting I use on the body comp. That would put me roughly 100-125kg, or 100-125kg of protein or 400-500 calories a day from protein. currently Im shooting for 2500-3000 calories. If Im trying to keep my carbs around 75-125 most low carb days, that would be 300-500cals from a carb source. error on the plus side I would still need 1500+ calories to come from fat. so roughly 170g+ of fats a day all from quality sources would be br00tal. Id be taking olive oil shooters.

now the majority of doctors have a very limited nutrition background or certainly not much different from your average joe with a bachelors in a sports/exercise field. Most nutritionists work with the general population where getting their clients off of McDonalds is the primary concern. Sports nutritionists are where its at. They get to focus on performance enhancing with their clients and with each client they get to see the results of their work. Much like a S&C coach gets to see how their athletes react to programing, the Sports nutritionist gets the same. In human performance nutrition can be more important than the training itself. I cant say how many hours Ive spent training in the last 18 years and if I just took a little more time to realize that the body is like computer programing. Garbage in, Garbage out.

[wcoastsoftball]

We have had this discussion many times before. IMO, and in my calculations for my clients, the numbers generally come out to 1 g per kg bw. This can actually vary anywhere from 0.8 to 1.5 g per kgbw. Depends on the goal of my clients. I do not have much experinece with powerlifters and "mass" builders, so 3k-4k diets for those purposes are not common. 3-4K diets for my clients that are atheltes and more movement based will require more carbs, so that will adjust the cals in that direction.

Regardless, I am still not sure that 1g per #/bw is the right thing for the pwerlifting and mass building crowd, but hey, whatever.

As you can see, if I do happen to reach the 1.5g per kg, I am pretty close to the 1g per #, but the other issue is there is no standard for the calculation. Muscle and fiction uses #'s, journals use kgs, I feel kgs should be used for the simple reason that you have some young kid from America who is used to calculations in #'s, they see 2g per kg/bw, misread and think it is 2 g per #, then we have issues, since the medical standard is in kgs, we should use that.

[VDubb]

Originally Posted by Bad Faith

Mostly mainly garbage brought to you from the dumbells at BB.com.

Folks eating a 1 gram of protein for lb of bodyweight is patently insane. No doctor or nutritionist will endorse that much protein unless that individual is an elite athlete training 3 to 4 hours daily.

lol @ "mostly mainly" and "dumbell".....strong education!

Go ahead, pick it apart.......tell me what's wrong with it........I'll ignore the fact that you aren't able to read, and figure out basic math.......lbm=lean body mass.......

[wcoastsoftball]

I feel it is pretty good, standard info. SOunds like a combo of Berardi and others. The only things I owuld pick apart which have been discussed are the kg/lb thing and the other is no more than 3 lbs per week, which I feel is ok to lose more than that per week initially, i.e. first two to three months depending on starting weight and composition.

[Bad Faith]

Originally Posted by VDubb

lol @ "mostly mainly" and "dumbell".....strong education!

Go ahead, pick it apart.......tell me what's wrong with it........I'll ignore the fact that you aren't able to read, and figure out basic math.......lbm=lean body mass.......

One size fits all programs are a waste of time. Each person is different with a specific level of fitness, wellness, metabolic rate and more importantly must deal with food sensitivities. That alone makes a clear difference.

Something which is not even considered in bodybuilding.

[SMAC]

Originally Posted by Untraceable

now the majority of doctors have a very limited nutrition background or certainly not much different from your average joe with a bachelors in a sports/exercise field. Most nutritionists work with the general population where getting their clients off of McDonalds is the primary concern. Sports nutritionists are where its at. They get to focus on performance enhancing with their clients and with each client they get to see the results of their work. Much like a S&C coach gets to see how their athletes react to programing, the Sports nutritionist gets the same. In human performance nutrition can be more important than the training itself. I cant say how many hours Ive spent training in the last 18 years and if I just took a little more time to realize that the body is like computer programing. Garbage in, Garbage out.

Your right, most general practicioners have limited knowledge about diet. Much of it because they are taught out dated theories based on flawed studies done over 50 years ago.

.

[VDubb]

Originally Posted by Bad Faith

One size fits all programs are a waste of time. Each person is different with a specific level of fitness, wellness, metabolic rate and more importantly must deal with food sensitivities. That alone makes a clear difference.

"All these factors should be used as tools to make the diet as convenient as possible. Many people e.g. have an easier time dieting with eating more calories and doing cardio or taking fat burners. Some people like myself have an easier time without cardio and fat burners. In my experience, the end result (body composition improvement) is not significantly influenced. Another example is protein supplements. I e.g. use whey powder to meet my daily protein intake out of convenience. I could just as well get all my protein from other sources. A third example is meal frequency and timing. This tool should be used to reduce hunger as much as possible throughout the day. For some people that means eating 6 times a day, for others it means eating only once or twice a day."

^Interesting, seems like there's plenty of flexibility from person to person.........not really "one size fits all." Care to clarify?

Food sensitivities?

"Above that eat whatever you want, preferably a wide variety of foods."

Did you read the same thing I did?

Originally Posted by Bad Faith

Something which is not even considered in bodybuilding.

Haha.....what don't they consider? You're not even making sense.......

I think you're just mad you actually agree with <gasp!> bodybuilders, and their advanced knowledge of nutrition. Sorry pal, science > you.

[Ddubb9965]

Originally Posted by Bad Faith

Mostly mainly garbage brought to you from the dumbells at BB.com.

Folks eating a 1 gram of protein for lb of bodyweight is patently insane. No doctor or nutritionist will endorse that much protein unless that individual is an elite athlete training 3 to 4 hours daily.

Sorry sir, but if you are carrying any kind of appreciable muscle you would need more than that so maintain.

(however it did say 1g per lb of lbm)

[Bad Faith]

Originally Posted by VDubb

"All these factors should be used as tools to make the diet as convenient as possible. Many people e.g. have an easier time dieting with eating more calories and doing cardio or taking fat burners. Some people like myself have an easier time without cardio and fat burners. In my experience, the end result (body composition improvement) is not significantly influenced. Another example is protein supplements. I e.g. use whey powder to meet my daily protein intake out of convenience. I could just as well get all my protein from other sources. A third example is meal frequency and timing. This tool should be used to reduce hunger as much as possible throughout the day. For some people that means eating 6 times a day, for others it means eating only once or twice a day."

^Interesting, seems like there's plenty of flexibility from person to person.........not really "one size fits all." Care to clarify?

Food sensitivities?

"Above that eat whatever you want, preferably a wide variety of foods."

Did you read the same thing I did?




Haha.....what don't they consider? You're not even making sense.......

I think you're just mad you actually agree with <gasp!> bodybuilders, and their advanced knowledge of nutrition. Sorry pal, science > you.

Protein from what sources.

Too much soy has been linked to endocrine imbalances specifically hyperthyroidism.

Animal protein especially farmed raised is full of antibiotics and growth hormones. But even free range organic animal protein has a high amount of sodium which for hypertensive people is going to exacerbate an existing condition. Not to mention direct links to CHF, cancer and arteriosclerosis.

Whey which is a by product of the dairy industry (milk isolate) comes from cows fed rGBH.

Good luck with that crap running around in your system.

Fat burners are problematic and unregulated. Caffeine is linked to hypertension and insomnia and in some cases indirectly linked to heart disease. Its also habit forming.

The only thing even remotely of substance is 6 smaller meals a day which is common knowledge.