Teens trying to cut/lose weight- why you shouldn't (Story Time)

[Jamal123]

i highly doubt this had anything to do with you cutting. You were probably just born with low test levels and finally after taking a bloodtest your doc told you that you have low test. Probably been suffering with it for a while without knowing man.

[Malik116]

Pretty good thread bro, gives us guys a head ups from a guy who's experienced all this. Should be stickied.

[Arkadij947]

you just posted the story of my life bro.

I've always been this tall, shy, skinny who was always ignored or picked on by the others. Every day I would spend most of my time sitting on the couch, gaming, drinking liters of coke and eating whichever junk food I could get my hands on. No idea how I managed to stay lean, guess I was propably luckier than most in that regard.

Anyways, after finishing high school, I wanted to change my self image, so I started to train at home everyday and running outside three times a week for around 10 miles. No rest whatsoever. No matter, what I had to squeeze some sort of physical activity every day, even if it meant to do push up at 3 AM or running under the rain for 2 hours. I would also skip the bus and just walk home on foot for 50 minutes sometimes. Yet I didn't change my eating habits as I was still oblivious about bodybuilding and nutrition.

then I turned 21, found out Scooby1961 while browsing some exercise videos on youtube, learned the wrong way about macros and nutrition, and started what turned out to be my crash diet. I completely eliminated carbs from my diet, except for vegetables, fruit and 10g of oats for breakfast. I would eat a plate of rice or pasta for lunch when I went back to my parents' house every weekend, knowing that not even 2 hours later I would be running my 10 miles, burning off those extra "sinful" calories. No fats where allowed, everytime i saw my mother pour oil on a pan I would scream at her like no tomorrow. So basically I was just eating chicken breast or any other kind of lean protein, fruit and ton of veggies.

to top it off, instead of calculating my BMR, I just randomly decided to consume less than 2000 calories per day, sometimes going as low as 1500. I went from 78kg to 61 in a few months, no muscle and no six pack abs to show, but at least I was feeling fine. Then started the side effects, many times during the day my mouth would just suddenly dry, I felt like I couldn't swallow or breath, and my vision would blacken for a few seconds.

Many times I thought I was just about to suffocate to death. Then my sleeping time decreased, first to 5 hours, then 4,3 till I was barely sleeping 2 hours a day. I didn't feel tired or anything, I just couldn't sleep. Unfortunately my body couldn't handle it for too long, I couldn't read, watch a movie or stare at a screen without having my eyes immediately shutting down, as result my grades in college collapsed, and by 9 pm my system would just shut off. Every night I took 10-15 naps just to wake up again and again, till I totalized around 2hrs, then the tiredness went away and I would find myself at 1/2 AM waiting for the next day to start.

[Arkadij947]

long story short, july of last year I went to a nutritionist, an airhead who probably just graduated from college, who put me on a diet to gain lean mass. I introduced carbs and fats back into my diet and managed to put on around 11kg in a year. But I was still unsatisfied with my physique.

I joined my local gym last february and managed to make some gains, but I still felt weak and failed most of my sets. Furthermore, my fear to eat "dirty" foods that I developed earlier was still strong as ever, and I would turn down any social activity that involved eating to stick with my "clean" food diet.

After months of spinning my wheels, I said **** it and starting october I decided to go on a bulk to try to leave my old seld behind once and for all. I also slowly added back some of that "bad" food, not much out of desire, more to convince myself that there's no clean or bad food, just excess of self-indulgence.

Now, I don't any of those episodes of suffocation luckily, but I still can't sleep normally. A doctor prescibed me some sleep aid medication that help somehow, but every night it's still a 2-3hrs nap, awake, repeat. No one ever brought up low testosterone level as a cause, but after reading your story I'm gonna have my blood checked and see if that's the case.

thanks again for posting your story, it's good to see that you're not alone and there's others out there that share your problems.

[gbullock32]

i highly doubt this had anything to do with you cutting. You were probably just born with low test levels and finally after taking a bloodtest your doc told you that you have low test. Probably been suffering with it for a while without knowing man.

Nah, blood tests from before were all normal; due to the medical plan I was on every time I got blood work done it was a full spectrum of tests every 6 months to a year.

[gbullock32]

I'm gonna have my blood checked and see if that's the case.

It could also be Thyroid, or just over-exercise and low calories that are causing the poor sleep, a full blood panel would tell.

Also increasing calories/fat intake along with less exercise can help sleep, recovery, and even reverse hormonal damage to an extent if it is not too bad. The body is amazing in its ability to recover... I just went too far too hard for mine to ever bounce back.

[Sokras789]

There's nothing wrong with cutting as a teen,u make it look like a dangerous thing...You did it the wrong way,good post so people can see and not make this mistake...u can cut but until one point,after that it's bad,to look more shredded and lean u need more muscle mass,not less fat...So cut "properly" and i say properly cuz many people go like...ill just eat once a day and ill be fine...umm no u won't xD So Cut properly and do your workouts,feed your muscles and you will see results...Im 120Kg now down from 152 i've lost 32 Kg and im keep going. Good luck in the future man and to every single person out there working on their physique!!

[Psychobolic]

Good thread. I used to weigh 260 before I started dieting. My 14 year old rationale was that the only reason the people didn't eat ~500 calories to lose fat quickly was because they lacked the willpower. So I did it for a little under two weeks.

I had lost around 15 pounds and felt like death. I couldn't do it any longer (I guess my will had caved, too.) and ate like a regular person again. I put all the weight back on. I did these short crash diets several times, and luckily I was able to recover. Eventually, I went on a sustainable diet and was in it for the long term. Still no exercise to speak of, and I eventually balanced out at 220lbs with almost no muscle mass to speak of. I was skinny fat with an emphasis on fat.

Then, back in June, I incorporated lifting and dieting, but was still eating far less than I should have been. (~1700 cal) I dropped to 183 and realized I still had no muscle. I finally educated myself on proper nutrition and the importance of it, and started bulking. 2 months later, I'm sitting at 192, gaining around 3lbs a month.

I'm just glad I didn't do any permanent damage to my body from all the idiotic things I've done to it. Thanks for sharing your story man, and I hope people can learn from it and not make the same mistakes. I wish I would've seen this thread back then. Good luck man.

[urga2]

TLDR: You did it wrong.
Nothing wrong with cutting as a teen.

[gbullock32]

TLDR: You did it wrong.
Nothing wrong with cutting as a teen.

I see why you're red...

[Edgardian89]

Are you sure sleeping 1-2 hours a day didn't have something to do with it? I forgot if you were doing that before you started the cut or if it was a result of it. You also may have taken it too far going for 1000 calories AND doing tons of cardio.

[Muscleboyz21]

I agree with this 100%

Back in last year 2014 i started a one year journey.
I cutted 60lbs of my frame since august until July 2015. Now im facing many problems that hurt me. I missed a whole year of growing and completely. While i was extremely cutting i was also lifting weights. now that im bulking i find it almost impossible to lift heavier. ive plateued on everything.

[gbullock32]

Are you sure sleeping 1-2 hours a day didn't have something to do with it? I forgot if you were doing that before you started the cut or if it was a result of it. You also may have taken it too far going for 1000 calories AND doing tons of cardio.

The lack of sleep was a symptom not a cause.

[gbullock32]

Bringing this up.

[Edgardian89]

This should be a sticky.

[gbullock32]

Bump.

[Kanvus]

You and I were the same once, when I was 14 I was obese 190 pounds at 5"9 I was all good and calm but when we moved to a new house,I saw kids at my age with a ripped body and abs, I got real jealous and wanted to do the same, I cut down from 190 to 120 in 7 months which was bad because I was barely eating 1000cal a day and doing some heavy exercise, Now the kids told me that I was too skinny and I should lift some weights now this is where I changed basically I studied bodybuilding so hard that I knew that no matter how low your bf % is your muscles wont show if they are not there and in order to build muscles you need to eat like a beast, and I'm 15 years old now at 137 pound at 15% body fat and been lifting for 2 months. btw if you cut at a young age your body won't develop. TLDR all you need is a little knowledge.

[gbullock32]

Daily bump.

[chri126y]

Will my **** be f'd up if i was in a 500-1500 calorie deficit for a half a year or so? i did this ealier this year cause i was tired of being fat, did not know you could lose too much fat so i just went all out, i felt normal all doing this time and still had energy, for school, sports and overall life?

[Kanvus]

Yeah from my experience as long as it did not last very long you should be fine

[gbullock32]

Will my **** be f'd up if i was in a 500-1500 calorie deficit for a half a year or so? i did this ealier this year cause i was tired of being fat, did not know you could lose too much fat so i just went all out, i felt normal all doing this time and still had energy, for school, sports and overall life?

Get back to normal eating and you should be fine, not too extreme of a deficit nor that long of a time. Takes some hardcore work to genuinely mess yourself up like I did.

[gbullock32]

Bumping it up.

[DGMan99]

Bumping it up.

I've already given you my 2 cents about this thread but I thought I'd bump in again and give my 4 cents. (Lol, see what I did there?)

It's not so much about teenage cutting, than it is about dieting too extreme- not providing your body with the nutrients it needed and doing far too much exercise without letting your body properly recover. That is what led to all of the consequences you mentioned in your OP. If you ate normally your whole life and started doing this at age 25 (imagine you're older now) you'd probably get the same results due to the lack of nutrients and over exercise as stated above.

That's not to say teenagers could cut though. But the real reason hasn't been looked at much in here - we're currently in the best stage of our lives to gain muscle and get stronger, as we are constantly growing, hitting puberty and our hormones are raging, therefore we should be taking advantage of this time in our lives.

Once again great thread, it shows what can happen when one becomes too overly concerned with dieting/their body image. And why it's completely unnecessary /dangerous to do so.

Edit: I can't rep you back because I haven't "spread out enough rep power" yet. -_-

[Ironface]

Very insightful post, but curious about this statement.

As a teen you can easily recomp, unless obese to the extent it is a medical issue than there just is no need to cut at all.

Why is it that a teen would be able to recomp while noone else really can if they want results? What separates them from, say, a young adult who is skinnyfat and looking to burn fat while building muscle?

Genuinely curious.

[passionofchrist]

holy chit, this hit me hard as a 15 year old. i guess i'm just gonna go on a 5 year lean bulk now :-) who cares if i dont have abs, i just need that asschest

[gbullock32]

Very insightful post, but curious about this statement.Why is it that a teen would be able to recomp while noone else really can if they want results? What separates them from, say, a young adult who is skinnyfat and looking to burn fat while building muscle?

Genuinely curious.

Naturally peaking testosterone and growth hormones, gives a bit of an edge; a young adult could too without doubt, but a teen just has a lot more going for them.

[SwoleRTibbs]

I'm just not sure why people think that fat burners and all the other supplements will magically give them abs. Just do abs 3 days a week if you're than worried and make it happen with a good diet.

[DGMan99]

I'm just not sure why people think that fat burners and all the other supplements will magically give them abs. Just do abs 3 days a week if you're than worried and make it happen with a good diet.

Training abs doesn't give you abs.
That second part is correct, however, you can never do a direct abdominal exercise in your life and still have great abs- as you said, "make it happen with a good diet."

[gbullock32]

Training abs doesn't give you abs.
That second part is correct, however, you can never do a direct abdominal exercise in your life and still have great abs- as you said, "make it happen with a good diet."

Training them does build the muscle up same as any other though, which means they will be better defined even at higher body fat percentages. Direct ab work can be beneficial, but I would not base a routine around it, 1 or 2 exercises would be more than enough thrown in at the end of your routine 2x a week or so.

[Colin188]

Naturally peaking testosterone and growth hormones, gives a bit of an edge; a young adult could too without doubt, but a teen just has a lot more going for them.

what does it mean to "recomp"?