This post is based on my podcast episode here: https://anchor.fm/shawn-buffington/episodes/Confusion-while-cutting-dealing-with-the-mental-side-of-dieting-down-epp5e7
In the midst of a diet it can be insanely challenging to keep mentally focussed especially amid the contradictory information that floods the industry.
One person will tell you that your training should be low volume to avoid excess cortisol buildup, then in another article tell you the virtues of metabolic resistance and high volume training.
That doesn’t even address the problem of what to be eating at any given moment of a cut.
So how do we deal with this confusion when it strikes in the middle of a cut?
It’s truly much worse than it sounds when it hits. While you are depleted and possibly even exhausted, getting mixed messages makes us second guess and causes all kinds of problems. We want to be doing the optimal things while “suffering” through a cut. Overcoming this is perhaps one of the greatest achievements towards accomplishing our physical goals.
It speaks to the importance of preplanning and sticking to the plan – especially of you don’t have a coach to get you through these lulls.
Have a plan – created while you’re not in a depleted state – and stick to it long enough to give it a fair shake, then change it when needed. At the very least don’t mess with your plan in the midst of it… Wait until your cheat/high calorie day to assess it.
The reason this came to my mind was because I’ve been questioning training volume. So wille I see some people suggesting doing high volume metabolic resistance type training, they then turn around and say that too much volume is detrimental to gains and even fat loss by raising cortisol too high.
This is the exact kind of confusion that gets in the way while trying to do the work while being depleted.
In this case I came to determine that lower volume is probably optimal for pure hypertrophy, whereas higher volume – with the added fat loss might have an edge when fat loss is a priority. But either one should be cycled and evaluated after 3-6 weeks.
I go much more into detail in the podcast and it’s quite fun to hear me sort my way through the confusion 🙂
shawnthebuffer 