If you’ve ever dabbled in strength training, you must have heard of the terms “cutting” and “bulking”. In gym speak, during a cut you go on a moderate caloric deficit (usually 10-20% of your maintenance intake) to induce fat loss. During a bulk, on the other hand, you go on a slight caloric surplus to stimulate muscle growth. Putting on muscle comes at the inevitable cost of some fat gain, so one would usually alternate the two phases throughout the year, bulking and then cutting to shed fat and bring out their new gains.
 
In this three-part mini-series, I’m going to cover nutrition and exercise during my cutting phase, which lasted from mid-June to late October 2018. I’m going to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly: the research I did, the strategies I implemented, the mistakes I made, and the results I got. In today’s introduction, I’ll talk you through my reasons to cut and my mental and physical state before and after the experience.

We all know what a fad diet is. It promises quick results for [insert health benefit of choice, usually weight loss], but it proves impractical for any human being to follow in the long-term. We try it, we crash and burn, we give up. That’s why you’ll never hear anyone say, “This cabbage soup diet is ace, innit?”

In recent years, experts have conducted more and more research studies to prove that fad diets don’t work. Many fitness professionals today look back in horror at their early years, when they were obsessed with the likes of Paleo or the Atkins diet.

What we don’t hear about as often is a less obvious craze, which affects our lives just as much. I call this phenomenon “fad fitness”.