Is it going on a cut the right call? How much weight loss per week is desirable?

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello BBM team,

I’m a 30 (soon 31) year old male. I started strength training 7 months ago, firstly with SS, switched after a month to the beginner template and currently doing Hypertrophy 1. My goal is to gain some muscle mass with focus on strength. I’m 182cm tall and weight 72.5kg and ~18.5% body fat (measured with a xiaomi scale, I would assume some error…).

I haven’t focused too much on my diet until recently. I’ve started logging my meals in Myfitnesspall and got an idea on my maintenance calories (one week measure). Then I decided to go into weight loss calories to reduce body fat to the 10-15% range before switching to weight gain calories so my body fat doesn’t get out of control. I’m not a competitive powerlifter so maximizing size gain is not worth it if I’m gonna “get fat”.

  1. Is this the right approach or am I doing something stupid?
  2. If so, how much weight-loss per week should I target? With current calorie intake I’ve lost 0.4kg in one week.
  3. Which template is right for me in this situation? I was thinking power-building I but now I’m considering to run the beginner template phase 2 & 3 again before it to align power building with weight gain time.

Many thanks for your answers,

2

Wenceslado,

Thanks for the post. A few thoughts here:

  1. I think if your goal is to gain muscle mass while focusing on strength then running the second 2 phases of the Beginner Template, then either the strength I or PB I templates would be better suited for you given your training history. That said, if you’re enjoying hypertrophy I, carry on.

  2. I find it extremely unlikely that you need to lose weight with a BMI of ~22. I don’t think this is likely to help your goals of gaining muscle and strength.

  3. I would likely maintain your weight for the next month on one of the templates mentioned above, then consider a slow weight increase if you want.

-Jordan

3

I just don’t think starting to gain weight right now is going to do anything positive for you until you’re a few more weeks into the program. A few kg a month is about the upper limit I would advise for a rate.