Body Fat % Cut

[jarhead54]

Hey guys been a long time since my last cut I currently sit at 205 23% bf. Is it a reasonable goal to get back down to 15% in 3 months? I'm very disciplined on my cuts and usually shoot for 2 lbs a week the first month and 1 a week the following 2 months. I keep protein high and monitor my lifts. Thoughts?? Reps.

[juggernaut74ia]

Hey guys been a long time since my last cut I currently sit at 205 23% bf. Is it a reasonable goal to get back down to 15% in 3 months? I'm very disciplined on my cuts and usually shoot for 2 lbs a week the first month and 1 a week the following 2 months. I keep protein high and monitor my lifts. Thoughts?? Reps.

Crunch the numbers and see.

ASSUMING all your numbers are accurate...205 and 23%BF means you carry 47 lbs of fat and 158 lean.

ASSUMING you can lose all fat and no lean, you would need to cut down to 186 to get to 15% BF (same 158 lean and 28 fat)

205-186 = 19 lbs lost

That would mean you'd have to average about 1.5 lbs per week of 100% fat loss. Possible, but probably slightly aggressive.

[dipatel13]

Any reason why you're limiting yourself to only 3 months?

[Luclin999]

Any reason why you're limiting yourself to only 3 months?

Fit into a Halloween costume, maybe?

[jarhead54]

Yea I did that math too but even if I cut as slow as humanly possible wouldnt it be extremely hard to have all 19 of those lost lbs be pure body fat? Granted 23% as a starting point isn't lean but I still feel like I wouldn't be able to lose 19 straight of just fat.

[juggernaut74ia]

Yea I did that math too but even if I cut as slow as humanly possible wouldnt it be extremely hard to have all 19 of those lost lbs be pure body fat? Granted 23% as a starting point isn't lean but I still feel like I wouldn't be able to lose 19 straight of just fat.

With sufficient protein intake and proper lifting regimen, you could probably lose 20-ish pounds and have most of them be fat. But yeah, it's probably unreasonable to expect 100% fat loss, which is why I said your plan was probably slightly aggressive.

[Luclin999]

Yea I did that math too but even if I cut as slow as humanly possible wouldnt it be extremely hard to have all 19 of those lost lbs be pure body fat? Granted 23% as a starting point isn't lean but I still feel like I wouldn't be able to lose 19 straight of just fat.

Just because you might lose say, 1-2 pounds of lean mass by cutting the fat over a five month period, doesn't mean that it's worth losing 4-5 pounds of lean mass by trying to lose the same amount of fat in just 12 weeks.

And keep in mind, if your end goal is a BF percentage of 15%, then if you factor in the lean mass lost to the speedier cut you will actually have to drop an addition five pounds of total weight in that same period in order to account for the change to your lean mass.

205# @ 23% = 158# lean mass / 47# fat

186# @ 15% = 158# Lean mass / 28# of fat (basically if you lost nothing but fat and retained all of your original lean mass)

181# @ 15% = 154# Lean Mass /27# of fat (What would be the more likely process if you tried to get from where you are down to 15% in just 12 weeks.)

[JackMan017]

Hey guys been a long time since my last cut I currently sit at 205 23% bf. Is it a reasonable goal to get back down to 15% in 3 months? I'm very disciplined on my cuts and usually shoot for 2 lbs a week the first month and 1 a week the following 2 months. I keep protein high and monitor my lifts. Thoughts?? Reps.

Read this article. It'll tell you (allow you to calculate) the maximum fat you can lose say in a given week based on your deficit. Anything else (i.e. extreme caloric deficit) is likely to include lean body mass.
http://mindandmuscle.net/articles/de...-for-fat-loss/

[jarhead54]

31 cals X Fat Mass in Lbs...that seems extremely high. That would allow me a deficit of 1400 a day at 47 lbs of body fat. I have read that before but that seems incredibly high.

[Luclin999]

31 cals X Fat Mass in Lbs...that seems extremely high. That would allow me a deficit of 1400 a day at 47 lbs of body fat. I have read that before but that seems incredibly high.

It is... and it isn't.

Depending on the person in question, their hormone levels, amount of exercise, Etc. it is possible that 31c/pound of fat could be too much or it could be too little. As is stands, it is just an number based off of a single study which followed subjects undergoing a "starvation" protocol with little to no exercise as part of their daily routines.

Another thing to consider is that the number given is for the total amount of calories potentially released over a 24 hour period and not all at once, meaning that it could be possible to still be in a "safe" daily deficit and still push too hard over a period of say 2-3 hours of intense exercise and force your system to rely upon protein synthesis (IE, Lean mass loss) to fuel itself.

Example: say that the numbers for you are absolutely correct (they aren't but humor me) and you have 47 pounds of fat and thus a maximum daily deficit of 1457 calories per day. That translates into an average of 60.7 calories per hour.

Now assuming a potential variance of up to 300% that your body can compensate for relatively short periods of time, that would mean that you might be able to conceivably draw on up to 240 calories in an hour's time. Enough calories provided by your fat stores to support moderate activity like housework or shopping but not enough to handle the energy requirements for more intense physical activities like weight lifting or HIIT.

So if you were to perform such activities while in a fasted state (forcing all of your energy to be drawn from fat stores) your body would likely have to resort to burning some of your lean mass in order to keep up with the demand.

My point being, that it is all numbers but ones which can give you a loose guideline as to just how far you may be able to push yourself while minimizing the amount of lean mass that you may lose over the course of the diet.