I’ll try to keep this short, I can maintain my weight on 3000-3200 calories and need to lose 25lb which will get me looking pretty damn lean, I am also an advanced trainee with a 640kg total on the big three.
I am considering dropping my calories to 2000 instead of a modest 2500-2700 to try and get it over with soon as I don’t really have urges to indulge like ever and I am not even that hungry for most of my diets. This would be the first time attempting it in such away as opposed to 300kcal drops each time weight loss stalls. Considering adherence would be perfect, are thjere any downsides regarding the weight loss rate, amount of muscle lost etc?
You’ll probably lose a bit more muscle and strength may be more variable than it otherwise would, but I suspect this will be slight. I would pick the energy target you think you can adhere best to and go with it.
Just to chime in, I believe how aggressive you want the calorie deficit can be determined by how lean you are to begin with. If you’re like 15% body fat and want to get to 10% I don’t see a reason to be so aggressive with the calorie deficit, maybe starting between a 10-20% deficit. Wheres if you are obese at say 35-40% body fat I don’t see much of an issue with being more aggressive with a big calorie deficit. The obese person will lose more fat preferentially compared to if you’re already lean in a steep deficit, the body will be like why don’t we take some of this guy’s bicep? Anecdotally a guy who was pretty jacked and lean at my gym claimed to have done a protein-sparing modified fast for a whole month, along with minimalist training and a manual labor job. He told me yeah I’m not doing that again and it definitely looks like he lost a lot of muscle & size, as well as apparently getting pancreatitis. I was surprised because he looked quite lean & jacked before doing this PSMF diet, he lost like 30lbs he said. I don’t know why he carried on with an extreme deficit for a whole month when he probably could’ve chilled on a slower diet.
I don’t think I would agree with most of this, but it’s okay that we have differing opinions.
Well I am sitting at 96kg with visible abs but also fluffy, wanna get down to 85-87 as I was last year with less muscle than now which allowed me to have a pretty lean physique with back striations, so basically from fluffy-ish to lean. I have lost almost 2kg since the post (Not fluid flush as that had already happened) and my lifts are maintaining or improving, hoping to have this finished by September.
The 2kg you lost in 7 days is almost certainly fluid and I would not expect your lifts to suffer in the short term from an energy deficit. Long term is more complicated in that regard, but I see little benefit to rushing this process.