# Will cutting help slow down my metabolic rate ?



## ajp (Sep 27, 2016)

I have been bulking now for around 6-7 months or more, typically i'm a hard gainer with a very fast metabolism. i have been increasing my calories throughout my bulk when need, but i don't feel i can eat any more than what i am ( including supps ) im not gaining any weight but my physique has improved. Will going on a cut or even a mini cut help slow down my metabolic rate, so i can continue my bulk ? if yes how much of a deficit should i go into to do this ? ps im on 4000kcals a day currently


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## Bensif (Aug 28, 2011)

ajp said:


> I have been bulking now for around 6-7 months or more, typically i'm a hard gainer with a very fast metabolism. i have been increasing my calories throughout my bulk when need, but i don't feel i can eat any more than what i am ( including supps ) im not gaining any weight but my physique has improved. Will going on a cut or even a mini cut help slow down my metabolic rate, so i can continue my bulk ? if yes how much of a deficit should i go into to do this ? ps im on 4000kcals a day currently


 Not really no. This doesn't really occur until you have been losing body weight consistently for a long time without any variance and usually at quite low body fat or body weight (depending on LBM). Even then, it is an extreme reaction to an extreme circumstance.

Taking 2-3 weeks to perhaps lower carbs, add some cardio and alter training might give your body a chance to re-sensitize to food again and this could be beneficial.

The point at which you want to stop gaining weight, other than for competitive reasons / seasons, would be because you are now simply adding fat. If you are staying lean then I would keep pushing after a short diet break.


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## 2004mark (Oct 26, 2013)

ajp said:


> I have been bulking now for around 6-7 months or more, typically i'm a hard gainer with a very fast metabolism. i have been increasing my calories throughout my bulk when need, but *i don't feel i can eat any more* than what i am ( including supps ) im not gaining any weight but my physique has improved. Will going on a cut or even a mini cut help slow down my metabolic rate, so i can continue my bulk ? if yes how much of a deficit should i go into to do this ? ps im on 4000kcals a day currently


 If you've stopped gaining weight then it only takes 100/200 cals to get things moving again... this is literally a handful of cashews or a cream sauce on your chicken.

How heavy are you... if you've really got a fast metabolism then 4k cals will only be good until you're 200/210 lbs I'd imagine.


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

As above I'd be interested in how much you weight at the minute?

I'm hitting 4000 calories every day, I've tried to cut shakes out as much as possible and get more real food in and nada, not even half a pound gain over the last few weeks. I'm 170 lbs FFS!


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## Bensif (Aug 28, 2011)

chasinggains said:


> As above I'd be interested in how much you weight at the minute?
> 
> I'm hitting 4000 calories every day, I've tried to cut shakes out as much as possible and get more real food in and nada, not even half a pound gain over the last few weeks. I'm 170 lbs FFS!


 Is that 4000kcal every day even rest days?

How tall @ 170?

What do you look like physique wise? E.g. are you very developed?

What does training look like?

Are you actually eating 4000kcals?

Are you taking steroids and if so, what?


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

The short answer to the question is yes, cutting for a while would allow you to subsequently gain weight on fewer calories.


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

Bensif said:


> Is that 4000kcal every day even rest days?
> 
> How tall @ 170?
> 
> ...


 Yep every single day, everything is weighed out and counted properly. I thought I'd try and give it a few weeks at exactly 4000 calories so I can gauge any weight gain accurately, but there's been the odd day where it's been closer to 5000 calories. I'm 5"10, I look like I have a bit of muscle on me I suppose but you wouldn't look at me and think fu**ing hell he's big. I don't want to be any more "ripped", I'd be happy just being a bigger version of what I look like currently if that makes sense. No steroids, never have done. Training is PPL and I go through it depending how I feel (some weeks might be 4 sessions a week, some weeks 5) with a leisurely swim once a week too. I'm following this routine:

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/37ylk5

Macros usually work out at around 50% carbs, 30% fat and 20% protein although as long as overall calories and protein targets are met, I don't worry if they're slightly out.

I've been training a few years now and looking back the only time I've made any serious gains is when I was shovelling all sorts of s**t down me every day - McDonalds, crisps, cakes, sweets and so on. Put on a couple stone and was strong but looked like s**t at the end of it, still skinny just with a gut lol. Now I try and eat relatively "clean" with the odd treat thrown in to keep me sane.

Not sure what to do other than eat more but I don't get why my calorific needs are so high - I'm out of work at the moment so other than my weights and the weekly swim, there's no other exercise or even general movement taking place!

Sorry OP for the thread hijack!


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## 2004mark (Oct 26, 2013)

chasinggains said:


> Yep every single day, everything is weighed out and counted properly. I thought I'd try and give it a few weeks at *exactly 4000 calories* so I can gauge any weight gain accurately, *but there's been the odd day where it's been closer to 5000 calories*. I'm 5"10, I look like I have a bit of muscle on me I suppose but you wouldn't look at me and think fu**ing hell he's big. I don't want to be any more "ripped", I'd be happy just being a bigger version of what I look like currently if that makes sense. No steroids, never have done. Training is PPL and I go through it depending how I feel (some weeks might be 4 sessions a week, some weeks 5) with a leisurely swim once a week too. I'm following this routine:
> 
> __
> https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/37ylk5
> ...


 Contradictions like highlighted always make me wonder if you're actually being properly consistent.

23.5cal per lbs is a stupidly high intake. Naturally I'm as skinny as they come (9 stone @ almost 6 foot when I was 17) and I need no where near that.

My guess would be you're either not being consistent or you're mis calculating your cals... which ever it is though (even if you are on 4000+ cals) the answer is to simply eat more cals.


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

Can't see what you've highlighted but I'm presuming it's the 4000 calories with the odd day at 5000 calories. With this, I mean a usual day at 4000 calories but then I'll get 2 double cheeseburgers on my way home from somewhere for example as I'm still hungry.

Honestly mate, everything is recorded / logged accurately. Excel is my best friend lol, my Mrs thinks it's hilarious. I don't just use My Fitness Pal, I check everything for myself. Even checking the difference between say Tesco wholegrain rice, and Asda wholegrain rice if I end up somewhere different shopping. If I pick up a chicken kebab from the takeaway I'll weigh out the chicken then whack it back in the naan or whatever. It's fu**ing ridiculous but like you I thought I must be calculating wrongly somewhere but I'm not.

I weigh myself each morning after I've got up and been to the toilet and then take an average of the 7 days and compare that to the last weeks average, don't think I can get any more accurate there.

I agree on the stupidly high intake, even more so with the fact that I don't do anything physical aside from training. I've wondered if I've got something wrong with me but thyroid etc all comes back as fine.


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## Bensif (Aug 28, 2011)

chasinggains said:


> Can't see what you've highlighted but I'm presuming it's the 4000 calories with the odd day at 5000 calories. With this, I mean a usual day at 4000 calories but then I'll get 2 double cheeseburgers on my way home from somewhere for example as I'm still hungry.
> 
> Honestly mate, everything is recorded / logged accurately. Excel is my best friend lol, my Mrs thinks it's hilarious. I don't just use My Fitness Pal, I check everything for myself. Even checking the difference between say Tesco wholegrain rice, and Asda wholegrain rice if I end up somewhere different shopping. If I pick up a chicken kebab from the takeaway I'll weigh out the chicken then whack it back in the naan or whatever. It's fu**ing ridiculous but like you I thought I must be calculating wrongly somewhere but I'm not.
> 
> ...


 It does sound that you have a very good handle on this, however what I would say from my own experience, is that sometimes being this 'OCD' (for want of a better phrase) can actually end up being the one thing that holds us back.

I do pretty much what you do. But the times I have stopped and listened to people for a while, weighed in weekly, just eaten the food and checked the mirror weekly I have made better progress.

In terms of why you need so much food, who knows. Everyone is different. But I guess you just need more... or... you need to better time your intake. So perhaps try getting in the majority of your carbs around your workout perimeter as a start.

Get a heart rate monitor and look at your training. Look how hard you are training and what you output is. It might be that you need to cut down a day to allow an extra day for growth and recovery.

You might also be near your natural limit in terms of body weight and this can be hard to push beyond for a lot of people. How to do that... I don't personally know (without advocating steroids).

The alternative is get in touch with a good coach who can help you do this.


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

Appreciate the reply man. To be honest, I used to just eat when I felt like it not really taking into account calories and macros, but after having it hammered into me that it must be my diet that's holding me back I started recording things. Then when I wasn't gaining weight, I started the daily weigh ins. I don't mind the logging, it's a few minutes out of my day and it helps to see what's working and what isn't. I've found that anything less than around 3800 calories and the weight just drops off me. I had a few lazy months towards the back end of 2016 and went from 200 lbs down to 170 lbs in a couple of months without even trying.

I have a good dose of carbs before and after workouts, 80-100g at a time. I obviously have carbs throughout the day in smaller quantities but I don't sweat it and aim for precise measurements.

Looking back at old logs, it took eating around 4300 calories a day took me from 180 lbs to 200 lbs.

Regarding rest days, I tend to listen to my body and if I feel like I need a day off, or I wouldn't gain much from the workout then I take it and don't feel guilty. One of the joys of the PPL routines I find, you can follow the sessions on as and when you feel like it without feeling pressured to fit XYZ in the space of 7 days etc.

I'm still enjoying it so that's the main thing I guess, I'll go the rest of this week at 4000 cals and see if there's any gains and if not, perhaps bump it up to 4500 on training days. The coaching is probably out the question due to monies and lack of it lol, but I've seen you can pick up heart rate monitors fairly cheap so might be worth giving one of those a try.


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

Continued with the 4000 calories a day. Was 169.1lbs 7 days ago and weighed in today at 169.1 lol.

Will try 4200 calories a day this week and see how I get on.


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

Ok so I seem to maintain on 4000 a day, yet a week of 4200 sees me gain 1.4 pounds. f**ks sake!

Try 4100 for a couple of weeks?


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

chasinggains said:


> Ok so I seem to maintain on 4000 a day, yet a week of 4200 sees me gain 1.4 pounds. f**ks sake!
> 
> Try 4100 for a couple of weeks?


 Most will probably say I'm overly cautious but FWIW I tend to only increase calories in 50 kcal increments, because as you've just found it seems to take surpisingly little to make a difference.


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

Yeah I think I'll play on the side of caution and go with 4050, the thing is I seem to be hungry all the time despite adequate protein and a 30% of calories coming from fat. Almost feels like I'm cutting haha.


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

chasinggains said:


> Yeah I think I'll play on the side of caution and go with 4050, the thing is I seem to be hungry all the time despite adequate protein and a 30% of calories coming from fat. Almost feels like I'm cutting haha.


 What's your diet like? More fibre may help reduce hunger. That said you may actually benefit from more food - are you gaining body fat?

Are you natural or assisted? It's pretty unusual for someone natural to feel hungry all the time when focusing on gaining I think. I certainly don't.


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

It's not "clean" to the point of chicken and rice every meal but I have a fair amount of fruit and veg, and wholegrain rice, pasta, nuts etc so I'd have thought there'd be sufficient amounts of fibre.

I'm natural. I haven't been gaining anything, not even 0.1 of a pound on the 4000 calories for the last few weeks hence me trying a week at 4200. This was the first week I've seen an increase on the scales which worked out at around 1.4 lbs, obviously some of that will made up of water etc but I'd have thought it'd be mostly fat.

It's weird, lifts go up on a weekly or biweekly basis yet I never actually get bigger. Then I start focusing on eating more and I just gain fat, even at a very small calorie excess.

I'm ~170 lbs at 5"10, I'd say around 13% BF so I'm wondering if I actually have much more to gain naturally? The calculators where you input wrist / ankle measurements etc along with training routine say my natural limit is 177 lbs (at 13% BF) which kind of ties in with the above?


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

chasinggains said:


> It's not "clean" to the point of chicken and rice every meal but I have a fair amount of fruit and veg, and wholegrain rice, pasta, nuts etc so I'd have thought there'd be sufficient amounts of fibre.


 You're probably right. How do you plan/track your food intake? Apps like Myfitnesspal will give you daily fibre totals.



chasinggains said:


> It's weird, lifts go up on a weekly or biweekly basis yet I never actually get bigger.


 That's good. What's your training like? It could be an issue of focusing on strength over volume...

How are you estimating your body fat percentage? It is incredibly hard to get an accurate figure for this.


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

I don't bother with MyFitness as the few times I have used it, I've found things to be inaccurate. Look at the packets of food and record them in an Excel spreadsheet, don't find it that much of a ballache as once it's in I can always copy and paste the next time I eat it. I've only ever recorded calories, carbs, proteins and fats though.

Training is PPL, one or two major exercises at 5x5 (aiming to switch to 3x5 when I can no longer progress at that) and then a few isolation exercises. 3-4 minutes between the heavy strength sets and 2 minutes for everything else.


__
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/37ylk5

It's rare that I fit in 6 sessions a week, more like 4 or 5 as I like to fit a swim in once a week and maybe a bike ride or hike another day. Again, this isn't every week.

Bodyfat is estimated via Google Images so probably underestimated. Not ripped but can make out abs OK.


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

chasinggains said:


> I don't bother with MyFitness as the few times I have used it, I've found things to be inaccurate. Look at the packets of food and record them in an Excel spreadsheet, don't find it that much of a ballache as once it's in I can always copy and paste the next time I eat it. I've only ever recorded calories, carbs, proteins and fats though.


 Your right that there are loads of errors in the MFP database but I just correct them when I first enter a food. What you're doing is obviously fine but FWIW I'd bet you'd save time in the long run using MFP, or an alternative.



> Training is PPL, one or two major exercises at 5x5 (aiming to switch to 3x5 when I can no longer progress at that) and then a few isolation exercises. 3-4 minutes between the heavy strength sets and 2 minutes for everything else.
> 
> 
> __
> ...


 When you say you're progressing weights at least every fortnight, is that on all lifts or just the initial 5 rep ones?



> Bodyfat is estimated via Google Images so probably underestimated. Not ripped but can make out abs OK.


 What this probably means is that you aren't as close to your genetic limit as you fear.


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

Progression in terms of weight with the main exercises definitely, I find I can't increase the weight on the isolation exercises every week but will at least bump up the reps.

EG Lat Pulldown - week 1 might be 8 / 8 / 8, week 2 might be 10 / 10 / 10, week 3 might be 12 / 12 / 12 and then I'll add 2kg the next session aiming for 3 sets of 8 or above.



Ultrasonic said:


> What this probably means is that you aren't as close to your genetic limit as you fear.


 Good to hear! Do you think I should just keep on doing what I'm doing then, with a slightly less aggressive increase of calories?


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

chasinggains said:


> Good to hear! Do you think I should just keep on doing what I'm doing then, with a slightly less aggressive increase of calories?


 Sorry, I missed this reply yesterday.

To be honest with your good gym progress you simply must be gaining muscle so it doesn't sound like you need to do much at all.

One thought I do have is to suggest you start weighing yourself daily rather than weekly, and then seeing how the weekly average changes. This is better for tracking slow weight gain since it stops the likely larger day-to-day variations hiding this. (Weight fluctuates day-to-day due to differences in hydration and the amount of food passing through your body.)


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

Yep that's exactly how I do it mate. Aiming for 4100 calories this week so will see how I get on. Appreciate the replies.


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## MedicLifts (Jan 28, 2017)

chasinggains said:


> Yep that's exactly how I do it mate. Aiming for 4100 calories this week so will see how I get on. Appreciate the replies.


 At ~4k calories per day you're over 1k calories above your TDEE (under your given values for weight and height, I assumed your age to be 25, do correct me!). You really should be putting on a noticeable amount of weight, whether it be fat or muscle.

Would definitely recommend trying MyFitnessPal.
If you really are consuming 4k, there could be a chance you're eating foods that your body's struggling to digest. Although I'd doubt it having a massive effect unless you've got a real gastrointestinal problem.

Noticed any problems shitting?


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

MedicLifts said:


> At ~4k calories per day you're over 1k calories above your TDEE


 You cannot accurately make statements like that about someone else. If someone genuinely eats 4000 kcal per day and is maintaining their body weight then their TDEE is 4000 kcal.

Bear in mind that variations in activity level have a huge effect on TDEE. Also note that the body adapts to overfeeding just as it does to underfeeding, which is one reason people have to gradually increase calories over a long 'bulk'.


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## MedicLifts (Jan 28, 2017)

Ultrasonic said:


> You cannot accurately make statements like that about someone else. If someone genuinely eats 4000 kcal per day and is maintaining their body weight then their TDEE is 4000 kcal.
> 
> Bear in mind that variations in activity level have a huge effect on TDEE. Also note that the body adapts to overfeeding just as it does to underfeeding, which is one reason people have to gradually increase calories over a long 'bulk'.


 I apologise for not stating I was making a very rough estimation.

Perhaps I should have just mentioned my point about digestive problems lowering effective caloric intake without making the generalisation.

Also thanks for the note on physiological adaptations in response to over/underfeeding. I was aware of it, but I do need to do some searches to improve my understanding on it. Please do refer me to any text if you know of any off the top of your head!


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## Ultrasonic (Jul 13, 2004)

MedicLifts said:


> Also thanks for the note on physiological adaptations in response to over/underfeeding. I was aware of it, but I do need to do some searches to improve my understanding on it. Please do refer me to any text if you know of any off the top of your head!


 Off the top of my head what most springs to mind is this:

https://sigmanutrition.com/episode65/


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## chasinggains (Sep 16, 2016)

Definitely consuming 4k calories a day. No digestion issues that I'm aware of, 1 or 2 clean shits a day haha.

Looking at my records, strangely 4000 a calories a day for weeks didn't see any gains, yet a week at 4060 calories a day saw a 2.2 lb increase.

In 5 weeks Iv'e gained 4.4 lbs, feel like the majority of this is fat though so obviously need to cut back, always feel hungry though!

Lifts are still going up so that's something I suppose.


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