Cutting

[Pegesus]

Just curious I've never cut before. I've just gone through somewhat of a bulk cycle. I'm looking to cut off excessive fat in areas mostly the stomach. How should my calorie intake change. I have been around 4000 a day now. I'm 165 lbs now. Should I just keep the calorie intake somewhat the same and increase my cardio which over the past 12 weeks has been non existent. I am not really looking to lose weight but to just trim up to get those abs showing.

[xjohanx]

I'm looking to cut off excessive fat in areas mostly the stomach.

 

You can't choose where you will loose fat, sorry.

 

Should I just keep the calorie intake somewhat the same and increase my cardio which over the past 12 weeks has been non existent.

 

Your choice, it doesn't seem to matter for body composition at least. Cardio is healthy for other reasons though.

 

There is debate over the independent and combined effects of dieting and increased physical activity on improving metabolic risk factors (body composition and fat distribution).

 

Objective: Conduct a randomized controlled trial (CALERIE) to test the effect of a 25% energy deficit by diet alone or diet plus exercise for 6 months on body composition and fat distribution.

 

Design: Randomized controlled trial. Setting: Institutional Research Center. Participants. Thirty-five out of 36 overweight but otherwise healthy participants (16M/19F) completed the study.

 

Intervention: Participants were randomized to either control (healthy weight-maintenance diet, n=11), calorie restriction (CR: 25% reduction in energy intake, n=12) or caloric restriction+exercise (CR+EX: 12.5% reduction in energy intake+12.5% increase in exercise energy expenditure, n=12) for 6 months.

 

Main outcome measures: Changes in body composition by DXA and changes in abdominal fat distribution by multislice CT.

 

Results: The calculated energy deficit across the intervention was not different between CR and CR+EX. Participants lost approximately 10% of body weight (CR:-8.3+/-0.8, CR+EX:-8.1+/-0.8kg, p=1.00), approximately 24% of fat mass (CR:-5.8+/-0.6, CR+EX:-6.4+/-0.6kg, p=0.99), and 27% of abdominal visceral fat (CR:0.9+/-0.2, CR+EX:0.8+/-0.2kg, p=1.00). Both whole body and abdominal fat distribution were not altered by the intervention.

 

Conclusion: Exercise plays an equivalent role to CR in terms of energy balance; however it can also improve aerobic fitness which has other important cardiovascular and metabolic implications.

 

J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2007 Jan 2; Effect of calorie restriction with or without exercise on body composition and fat distribution.

 

I am not really looking to lose weight but to just trim up to get those abs showing.

It's kind of hard loosing fat without loosing weight. To get abs showing some people only need to go down to about 15% bf while some (like myself) never even seen all of mine and I've been down to around 5%.

 

There is plenty of other advice around the forum so use the search function if you want to know something more