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

Updated in October 2023.

Should you cut or bulk first?
 
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, overweight and obesity are conditions associated with an increased risk of a number of dangerous health conditions and diseases. On the other end of the spectrum, being 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 overweight or even obese 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 useful tool to evaluate your body mass relative to your height.
 
On the other hand, your waist circumference gives you an insight into how much body fat is currently stored around your abdomen, which is considered the highest-risk place to gain excessive amounts of adipose tissue. For instance, 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, according to the WHO:

• If your waist circumference is equal to or over 94 cm for people assigned male at birth (AMAB), and equal to or over 80 cm for people assigned female at birth (AFAB), your risk of metabolic complications is considered “increased”
• If your waist circumference is equal to or over 102 cm for AMAB people, and equal to or over 88 cm for AFAB people, your risk of metabolic complications is considered  “substantially increased”

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

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

As a general rule, if:
 

• You’re overweight or have obesity
• Your waist circumference 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’re underweight
• Your waist circumference is below the increased-risk threshold

 
You may want to bulk first.
 
What are the pros and cons of cutting versus bulking?
 
After assessing your body fat levels, consider the impact that 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.
 
The pros of cutting:
 

• If you’re overweight or have obesity, or if your waist circumference is above the recommended cut-off point, losing body fat will improve your health.

 

• A successful fat loss phase can 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:
 

• Eating in a caloric deficit requires more limitations and compromises around the amount and types of food you eat than a larger calorie budget, like maintenance calories or a surplus.

 

• You’ll likely be hungrier than usual.

 

• You’ll need to be less flexible on social occasions involving food and drink.

 

• If you’re no longer a training newbie, building muscle will become a slower process than at maintenance calories or in a surplus.

 

• At the end of your first ever fat loss phase, you’re unlikely to look as toned as you want to be, as you simply may not 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 we first started working together.

 
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 frequent or longer sessions 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 bests.

 

• Since you’ll be eating in a moderate 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’re 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 can be 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.

 
Last but not least
 
Whether you choose to cut or bulk first, 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), and at least three or four months to build a decent amount of muscle, although, since muscle gain is very slow, the longer you can keep bulking, 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 phase 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 phase and stick with it. Don’t go back and forth between the two every couple of weeks.

 
Thanks for reading. May you make the best gains.
 
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