Cutting Guide 101 – Achieve Your Dream Physique

Ever wonder how the guys in the magazine get so absolutely shredded? You know, in some cases, a lot of these people are on some pretty wild supplements and even anabolic steroids – and it is important to draw the line in the sand and say we will not be discussing steroids in this guide.

At Healthy Choice we always aim to provide the most actionable and safe methods possible. That’s why in this guide we are going to walk you through the most effective methods for cutting weight without losing muscle mass.

This will be a huge effort on your part. It will require you to take a good look at your nutrient consumption, balance all your foods, limit any processed foods, exercise intensively and supplement as needed.

The road to shredded is not a road that is easy – but if you stick to the plan there is no reason why you would not succeed.

For the purpose of this cutting guide, we’ll be breaking this down into three main aspects of achieving your shredded look.

Step 1: Your Exercise Plan

The way you exercise determines the way your body will respond to various food and supplements. Unless you train hard and with high intensity there will be no need to set up the diet we want for optimal fat loss. This is why your workout program should always come first in overall importance.

Strength and Cardio

When it comes to building a body that you have been dreaming of you will need to combine the best of both strength training and cardiovascular conditioning. In other words, you should be lifting and running for optimal body composition.

We would suggest setting up a schedule at which you lift weights 3-4x a week and run 1-2x a week. This is the most basic workout schedule but it is the bread and butter of developing the body you are after.

Use Low-moderate Rep Ranges

When it comes to the actual training you are involved in, you should always try to stay with low-moderate rep ranges. This means sets where you have 3-8 reps per set. With this in mind, you should be lifting a weight that is also relatively heavy – but this does not mean you should sacrifice any form.

The idea here is to stimulate muscle hypertrophy without entering into injury territory.

Low-Impact Cardio

Although you will find many different opinions online, decades of science will show that low-impact cardio like walking, running, biking etc. are great ways to improve your conditioning and assist in weight loss.

The goal of any cardio workout should be to gently burn as many calories as possible – without making your body too sore. Remember – the majority of the work you will be doing to grow stronger will be strength training – this is almost supplemental to your results so take it slow and easy.

Step 2: Whole-food, Balanced Diet

This is an approach that you should take to your diet no matter what – but some people find it is very difficult to avoid the common food choices in North America. I mean, with a fast food joint on every corner selling a burger for a dollar it can be difficult to make the choice for the $3 bundle of Kale, but trust us – your diet is the real game changer.

Eat Whole Foods

The first step to cutting is to remove all foods from your diet that are processed. This means no bread, cereals or other products that have been made with the use of processed methods. Instead, only eat foods that are in their natural form.

Fruit, vegetables, beans, nuts, leans meats, fish – this is your new dietary intake. It will take a couple days for your body to adapt to the shortage of sugar and salt in your diet but you will soon feel satisfied on whole – foods and your body will begin to burn more calories and you’ll have way more energy for your training sessions.

Structure Meal Timing Around Workouts

Meal timing is essential to your success – even more so when you are trying to lose weight. In general, the biggest meal of the day should be almost immediately following a workout, your second biggest meal should be before your workout and your smallest meal should be in the evening.

In this way, you will begin to notice that your body will utilize the food you eat as fuel – and this will better help your body to handle the calories.

Maintaining A Deficit

Ensuring your body is always in a slight caloric deficit is nearly essential to your success in fat loss. We’d recommend shooting for a 10-20% deficit to start and as you get used to it you can increase this deficit and alter your workout program as necessary.

Step 3: Supplement Intentionally

The step many people would consider to be the most important – supplementing with complete attention to details means using products or ingredients that help to recover the muscle, boost metabolism and even enable better testosterone levels.

Try A BlackWolf Stack

One of the best bang for your buck will come with a BlackWolf stack. Especially for people who are cutting and looking for a great supplement for their workouts – BlackWolf has you covered. They offer a stack that includes a pre/intra/post workout shake to balance your body and enable the best possible results.

Glutamine and Carnitine

We discussed the importance of these two in one of our recent blogs – best ingredients for stacking, and you should remember that these two work together to create the perfect environment for losing weight.

While glutamine works to limit muscle wasting, carnitine can be a very effective supplement for boosting fat oxidation – perfect for anyone who is looking to burn more fat during a workout. These two should be supplemented together prior to a workout.

Test Booster Cutting Stacks

This one might turn some heads, but if you are really serious about your fat loss and the above methods have not been working for you it could be time to look into a testosterone booster cutting stack from CrazyBulk. These stacks come packed with steroid alternatives that are bundled together in order to ensure you have the best possible rates of success.

You can find more information about CrazyBulk stacks here.

Bottom Line: Cutting 101

Cutting weight will take time. The bottom line is that the quest you are going down is not one that is easy – but the reward is well worth the struggle.

Take time to create a workout plan that is balanced and works through your strengths to remove weakness. Use a balanced diet to ensure you are always having complete calories and limiting your intake of fatty, high sugar processed foods and at the end of the day, make sure you supplement when needed.

For most beginners, we’d suggest going down the route with BlackWolf as they do much of the thinking for you in terms of creating a balanced product for your improved body composition.

Related: Turn your body into an anabolic machine with the power of nutrition!

Gabriello Ianniruberto

Gabriello is a writer and strength expert best known for his science-based and practical approach to Exercise Physiology, Nutrition and Strength. After serving in a directors position for The Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology Gabriello moved towards writing to help more people understand the importance of living a healthy life. Gabriello’s writings have been published in several languages on some of the largest health and fitness websites helping people learn, grow and understand the complex components of optimizing human performance in a simplistic way.

Gabriello also takes on specialized, high-performance athletes who are in need of strength, mobility and conditioning programming to optimize their fitness through his Earned Fitness program.

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