Should You Cut or Bulk First?

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Most people fail not because of a lack of desire but because of a lack of commitment.
––Vince Lombardi

Should you cut or bulk?
 
A dilemma we’ve all faced at least once.
 
You may be wondering, “Am I lean enough to bulk? Or should I cut first and bulk later?”
 
This indecision is holding you back from making any progress at all in either direction.
 
I’ve been there. Three years ago, I spent six months stagnating because I couldn’t commit to a bulk, but I also didn’t want to cut again because I’d just finished one such phase.
 
This article is going to spare you all of that and take you through a thought process to help you make the best decision to attain the physique you want.
 
This thought process includes the following assessments:
 

1. Which is going to improve your health the most: losing fat or gaining muscle?
2. Which phase can you commit to for at least three months in this stage of your life?

 
If you haven’t already, complete a Kickstart Phase first to prime yourself for either bulking or cutting, then come back to this post and dive in.

What role does each phase play in your long-term plan?
 
Most people can’t decide between a cut and a bulk because they’re focusing too much on the immediate results. They’re tempted to cut because they want to see more definition, but they also want to bulk to put on some serious mass.
 
However, you’ll need more than a single cut or bulk in order to achieve your ultimate physique, so you need to look beyond the short-term results of a single phase.
 
In the long term, these phases will affect your health by changing your ratio of body fat to muscle mass at the same bodyweight.
 
For example, you could be 80 kg now, with 50 kg of fat and 30 kg of muscle. In two to five years, after going through a series of successful fat loss and muscle-building phases, you could be 80 kg again, but with a meagre 30 kg of fat and a whopping 50 kg of muscle.
 
This can obviously have a profound effect on your appearance, but also – and most importantly – it can boost your future progress, because a healthier body responds better to any training and nutrition protocol than a less healthy body.
 
In particular, having overweight or obesity is associated with an increased risk of a number of dangerous health conditions and diseases. On the other end of the spectrum, having underweight also heightens the risks posed to your wellbeing.
 
Therefore I recommend starting your decision-making process with an assessment of your current body fat levels.
 
How much body fat are you carrying right now?
 
To evaluate your body fat levels, you can use two simple tools:
 

1. Body Mass Index (BMI)
2. Your waist circumference

 
Calculating your BMI is a good starting point because it’s cheap and quick. All you need is your height, your current weight, and a calculator like this to find out your BMI score.
 
In the UK, according to the National Health Service (NHS), if your BMI is:
 

• Below 18.5, you’re in the underweight range
• Between 18.5 and 24.9, you’re in the healthy weight range
• Between 25 and 29.9, you’re in the overweight range
• Between 30 and 39.9, you’re in the obesity range

 
However, the BMI doesn’t differentiate between muscle mass and fat mass. As a result, professional athletes, like bodybuilders or rugby players, may be classified as having overweight or even obesity because they carry a lot of muscle mass, but not a lot of body fat.
 
For most people like you and me, who aren’t professional athletes and don’t have so much muscle (sigh), the BMI is generally a good tool.
 
Nonetheless, you can take your assessment a step further by also measuring your waist circumference. The reason is that, if you take two people with the same BMI score, the person carrying more fat around their abdomen is usually at a higher health risk.
 
In fact, the NHS recommends weight loss “regardless of your height or BMI” if your waist circumference is:
 

• 94 cm or more for people assigned male at birth
• 80 cm or more for people assigned female at birth

 
To measure your waist circumference, find the narrowest point between your chest and your belly button:

​You can take the measurement with a tape that has an auto-lock mechanism, like this one:

As a general rule, if you:
 

• Have overweight or obesity, or
• Have a waist circumference that places you at a greater health risk (even if your BMI score is technically in the “healthy” weight range)

 
You may want to cut first.
 
On the other hand, if you:
 

• Have underweight, and
• Your waist circumference is below the threshold for greater risk

 
You may want to bulk first.
 
What are the pros and cons of cutting versus bulking? 
 
After assessing your body fat levels, the next step is to consider the impact that each of these phases can have on your current lifestyle. Each one has its own requirements, advantages, and disadvantages, so you need to run a cost-benefit analysis.
 
I’ve outlined the pros and cons of cutting and bulking for you in the following paragraphs. Which phase sounds more realistic for you to commit to right now and for at least the next three months?
 
The pros of cutting:
 

• If you have overweight or obesity, or if your waist circumference is above the recommended measurement, losing body fat will improve your health.

 

• A successful fat loss phase can also greatly enhance your mental wellbeing because you’ll feel more accomplished and confident in your abilities in all areas of life, not just fitness.

 

• Fat loss is faster than muscle gain. You tend to see fat loss results almost on a weekly basis, whereas it takes months to notice visible changes in your muscle mass. Faster results can be very motivating and help you stay consistent.

 

• Losing body fat will make your muscles look more defined. Who doesn’t like that chiselled look?

 
The cons of cutting:
 

• Nutrition is the most important tool for fat loss, so you’ll have to be more structured and strict with your diet than you can be at maintenance or in a surplus.

 

• Eating in a caloric deficit requires some limitations on the amount and types of food you eat.

 

• You’ll likely be hungrier than usual.

 

• You’ll need to be less flexible on social occasions.

 

• If you’re no longer a training newbie, building muscle will become a slower process in a caloric deficit.

 

• At the end of your first ever fat loss phase, you’re unlikely to look as toned as you want to be; you just don’t have enough muscle yet. That’s why many of my clients commit to a dedicated muscle-building phase after losing the fat they wanted to lose when they started working with me.

 
The pros of bulking:
 

• Training is going to be the most important tool to build as much muscle as possible. For some, this can be a negative, as it may demand more or longer gym visits than you can currently fit into your schedule, and better training skills than those you have right now.

 

• You can build a visible amount of muscle mass over the course of several months. Need I say more?

 

• You’ll feel stronger in the gym than during a cut, and likely set some new personal records.

 

• Since you’ll be eating in a slight caloric surplus, having a nutritious diet will be easier because you’ll have more calories to “spend” on macro- and micronutrients.

 

• You can be more flexible on social occasions.

 

• If you have underweight, you can achieve a healthier bodyweight and build muscle in the process. How cool is that?

 
The cons of bulking:
 

• Some amount of body fat gain is inevitable.

 

• As you gain weight, your physique will look less and less defined, and your scale weight will go up gradually. It can be difficult to accept that, in order to improve your physique, you need to spend a period of time feeling a bit uncomfortable about your appearance.

 

• Our society celebrates weight loss and fears weight gain, so trying to accomplish the latter is a mental challenge. That’s why many find a coach’s support and guidance paramount to maintaining their commitment to a bulk, sometimes even more so than to a cut.

 

• Muscle gain is a lot slower than fat loss. Moreover, since you’ll be gaining some body fat, you may not be able to see the true extent of your progress until you lose this extra body fat with a future cut.

 

• Some people can experience feelings of excessive fullness and gastrointestinal distress, and find it hard to eat the amount of food required to gain weight.

 
What’s my clients’ most common (and successful) experience?
 
After a Kickstart Phase, the majority of my clients start with a fat loss phase for the following reasons:
 

• Most of them feel self-conscious about their extra body fat, particularly around their abdomen, when they start.

 

• Many of them have overweight or obesity, or they’re new to training – or both – so they can build an appreciable amount of muscle even in a caloric deficit, and don’t need a dedicated muscle-building phase just yet.

 

• Even when their BMI classification is in the healthy weight range, their waist circumference places them in a higher-risk category as they carry more body fat than muscle at a lower bodyweight, making them feel “skinny fat”.

 

• Many of them don’t yet know how to train effectively in order to build the most amount of muscle possible to them. In this situation, a bulk could result in more fat gain than necessary and less muscle gain than desired. Fat loss, on the other hand, relies more on nutrition, so a cut can be a great phase to achieve more definition whilst enhancing their lifting skills in preparation for a future bulk.

 

• The success they achieve during their cut, builds their self-confidence, their self-esteem, and their understanding that this is a long-term process involving years of hard work, not a single six-week “Summer Shred” program.

 

• Throughout the cut, I can educate them on the importance of building more muscle to take their physique to the next level, so that they’ll be ready to commit to a dedicated muscle-building phase in the future.

 
Troubleshooting
 
What if, after going through this thought process, you realise that you can’t commit to the phase that’ll benefit you the most, but the other phase would actually steer you in the opposite direction to your long-term goals?
 
For instance, you may want to lose fat, but you’re moving house, getting married, and adopting a dog in the next three weeks. Clearly, this isn’t a good time to focus on your diet, but you also decide that you carry a bit too much body fat to make the most of a bulk.
 
In any situation like this, don’t forget that you have a third phase at your disposal: maintenance.
 
Keep your calories around maintenance levels, so that you don’t gain or lose weight; eat enough protein to support muscle-building; and be consistent with a well-structured training program.
 
Over time, training and nutrition will help you change your ratio of body fat to muscle mass, though this tends to happen over a longer timeframe when you’re at maintenance than if you were to alternate dedicated fat loss and muscle-building phases.
 
However, if you have other priorities in life right now, then a cut or a bulk is likely to be unsuccessful and frustrating. On the other hand, maintenance may yield slower results, but that’s a lot better than no results.
 
Last but not least
 
Whether you choose to cut, bulk, or maintain, commit to that decision.
 
You need at least eight weeks to lose a decent amount of fat (unless you’re trying to lose it really fast).
 
You need at least three or four months to build a decent amount of muscle, though the longer, the better.
 
So don’t cut for three weeks, then bulk for three weeks, or some such nonsense. This isn’t enough time to see any kind of results.
 
Commit to one process and stick with it for as long as necessary.
 
Practical takeaways
 

1. Use your BMI and waist circumference to make an objective assessment of your current health status.
2. Consider the pros and cons of cutting versus bulking at this stage in your life.
3. Commit to one process and stick with it. Don’t go back and forth between the two.

 
Thanks for reading. May you make the best gains.
 
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