How to Cut: A Complete Guide to Losing Fat Without Losing Muscle

Cutting is the phase where you eat in a calorie deficit to lose fat while protecting the muscle you have worked so hard to build. If you do it right, you'll come out leaner and stronger looking with most of your gym progress intact. If done not so well, you'll spend weeks feeling exhausted and watching your strength take a nosedive. Worse, you'll lose precious muscle along with the fat. 

There's plenty to draw from in terms of the science and tried and true best practices, and it's not as hard or complex as a lot of cutting diets online would have you believe.

What Is a Cutting Diet?

A cutting diet is an eating plan built around a calorie deficit, where you take in fewer calories than your body burns to force fat loss. Typically, people run cuts after a bulking phase once they've built muscle and are ready to reveal it, or whenever they want to drop body fat to look and feel leaner.

Combining a calorie deficit with high protein intake and consistent resistance training is what sets a smart cut apart from your average weight loss diet that usually costs you muscle along with the fat.

How to Cut

A successful cut depends on four things:

• Deficit size: Aim for a 300 to 500 calorie deficit per day 

• Protein intake: 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day

• Training: Consistent resistance training; don't go overboard on cardio

• Rate of loss: Aim for 0.5 to 1% of body weight loss per week to preserve muscle

How to Set Up Your Calorie Deficit

Start with your maintenance calories, if you know them. If you don't, you can take a shortcut by multiplying your body weight in pounds by 14 to 16, going with the lower end if you're pretty sedentary, and the higher end if you train hard and move around a lot during the day. From there, subtract 300 to 500 calories to set your starting deficit. 

Track your weight a few times a week and use the average of your weigh-ins to smooth out inevitable weight fluctuations (the ladies especially know what we're talking about). If you're losing too slowly after a couple of weeks, drop another 100 to 200 calories. If your training crashes or your hunger battle gets out of control, bump your cals back up a bit. The best deficit will give you results without totally wrecking your energy, sleep, or workouts. 

Aggressive Cut vs Moderate Cut

An aggressive cut is one that pushes your deficit harder, usually 700 to 1,000 calories below maintenance with the goal of losing 1% or more of body weight per week. While this can work for shorter stretches of 3 to 6 weeks when you need fast visual changes or you are starting from a higher body fat percentage, there's a big trade off. Hunger, fatigue, sleep issues, and the risk of losing muscle are all much more likely, especially if you are already lean or well trained.

A moderate cut at 300 to 500 calories below maintenance is the better default for most people. Being patient and sticking with the slower process will help you keep training strong while losing fat at a good pace, then your diet can last 8 to 12 weeks without falling apart. Save the aggressive cut for short term emergencies, like an event or photo shoot, if you really need it, but understand you'll be more likely to rebound.

Cutting Diet Macros

Macros are super important during a cut, and protein is the star (even more so than during a bulk). When you drop calories, your body becomes more likely to break down muscle for fuel unless you give it enough protein to work with. Aim for the 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram range (or about 1 gram per pound) that research supports for preserving the most muscle during a deficit, and spread it across three to five meals each day.

Fat can be lower on a cut, but don't be tempted to cut it too drastically. About 0.3 to 0.5 grams per pound of body weight per day is enough to support hormonal health and absorbing nutrients from food. Fats are calorie dense at 9 calories per gram (compared to 4 cals for protein and carbs), so going much higher than this can crowd out the carbs you need for training. Once you've set your protein and fat targets, the rest of your calorie budget goes to carbs.

Carbs and Cutting

Carbs are another macro that people get tempted to slash too much during a cut, but this is a mistake. Carbs are crucial for fueling your training and mental energy, and if you don't eat enough, your workout performance and recovery will start to tank along with your sleep quality and mood. Keep carbs as high as you can, given your calorie target after hitting protein and fat, since they're the macro that's most tied to your training intensity. 

If you train hard, you'll want to lean toward the lower end of your fat range (0.3 grams per pound) so you can put the extra calories into carbs. You'll need the glycogen and energy to keep up your training quality, which is the single biggest factor in preserving muscle during a cut.

Best Food for Cutting

The best foods for cutting are the simple ones, like whole, nutrient dense foods that fill you up without being high calorie. Sticking to a cleaner diet during a cut makes it a lot easier to sustain because high-quality foods are more filling per calorie than highly processed foods are. You can eat much more volume and stay full while getting more nutrients and fiber for the calories this way.

Protein Foods for Cutting

• Lean meats: chicken breast, turkey, lean beef, white fish, pork tenderloin

• Lean dairy: Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and low-fat cheese

• Eggs

• Plant based proteins: tofu, tempeh, edamame, lentils, and high-quality vegan protein powders

• Whey protein: a scoop of Purist® Whey Protein gives you 25 grams in seconds, and Purist® High Protein Bars work well as on-the-go snacks

Carbs for Cutting

• Whole grains: oats, brown rice, quinoa, and whole-grain bread

• Fruits and veggies of all kinds

• Startchy foods: sweet potatoes and squash

Best Fats for Cutting

• Olive oil

• Avocados

• Nuts and nut butters

• Fatty fish like salmon

Meal prepping will make cutting a lot easier. Cook your proteins and grains in batches, prep and cut veggies for the week, and portion your meals up in containers. Decision fatigue is the ultimate enemy of a cutting diet, so having your meals ready to go will do away with that battle altogether.

How Long Should a Cut Last?

A standard cutting phase lasts 8 to 12 weeks, though how long you actually go depends on how much fat you need to lose and how well your body is responding. Watch for three biofeedback markers that'll tell you when to stop: training energy, sleep quality, and hunger. When you can't keep all three in check without dropping below a minimum acceptable rate of loss (around 0.5% of body weight per week), the cut is done.

Going longer than 12 to 16 weeks is usually counterproductive because diet fatigue builds up and your progress will slow. Switch to maintenance for two to four weeks so your body can recover, and you can run another cut later if you still want to lean out further.

Takeaway

If you want to cut without destroying your energy and losing precious muscle, keep your deficit at a smart level (300 to 500 cals usually) and be sure to hit your protein target. Don't slack on your training, either, since you need it to convince your muscle to stick around for the ride. Rushing through with an aggressive deficit will cost you more muscle than it saves time, so just be patient and track your progress, and of course, trust the process.

Rachel MacPherson is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer, Nutrition Coach, and health writer with over a decade of experience helping people build strength and confidence.

This article was reviewed by Rosie Borchert, NASM-CPT, for accuracy.