It’s summertime, meaning many people want to display their best bodies, or their gym progress at the beach, at the pool, etc. But in order to reach your goals, you must implement an efficient fat-loss diet. How do you cut efficiently, and why is dieting efficiency important? We’ll start with the latter question as it’s the most important. With these tips, you will learn how to cut successfully

Why is cut efficiency important?

So, you decided to go on your first cut or dieting phase. However, your weight has not changed marginally in weeks. Why is this?

It’s because your diet is not consistent and therefore, not efficient. The key to a successful diet is consistency.

Let’s go to science class quickly. We have all heard that calories are the driver behind weight gain and weight loss. Caloric surplus equals weight gain. Caloric deficit equals weight loss. Sounds simple right? No.

Dieting is not as simple as that. Depending on your circumstances, you could be dieting despite a long day of work or of classes. Your body needs fuel to get you through the day with efficient energy. 

This is why diet efficiency is so important. You must prioritize your diet and build your day around it if you want to see success. 

Many people’s problem with dieting is that they have failed to find what works for them. Our bodies are different and have different metabolisms and hunger triggers. This is why we must use our bodily characteristics to our advantage during dieting phases.

For example, I eat very quickly. I can down an entire meal in less than 5 minutes if I put my mind to doing so. While this actually promotes overeating, I used it to benefit me.

I implemented an intermediate fasting diet to optimize my tendency to overeat. I wouldn’t eat until noon every day. During the day I would eat smaller meals — PB&Js, eggs, protein bars, and shakes, etc. 

However, at night I would use my quick eating to my advantage. At night I could consume almost 1500+ calories at once without questioning it. This allowed me to hit my daily calorie limit while also using my characteristics to my advantage.

For someone else, they might eat more slowly than I do. For them, more equal and spaced-out meals may work better for them. Again. This is to the dieter’s discretion.

No matter which type of dieting you choose, it’s important to learn how to diet efficiently, which we will cover in the next section.

How to cut successfully

Choose your type of diet.

This is the first step to a cut. Choose how you are going to diet and stick to it. For example, if you choose intermittent fasting, do not switch to another type of diet the next week. This will disrupt your hunger triggers and most likely cause you to overeat.

When you start, be strict with yourself. Use MyFitnessPal, or another nutrition app to track what you’re eating so you can discipline yourself while meeting your goals at the same time. 

Overeating is the main thing that prevents successful diets. Let’s go back to science class, if calories are the main driver in weight change, uncounted calories are an absolute nuisance to dieting. We need to know what’s coming into our body, so we can know what is burning out of our body, which in our case is unwanted body fat.

Choosing your type of diet holds you accountable.

Use weekly weight averages, not daily.

I recommend anyone trying to diet efficiently to disregard what the scale says daily. Weight fluctuates every day so tracking daily is inaccurate. 

For example, if yesterday you decided to fit in more sodium than usual, the excess sodium in your body will cause you to retain water to offset it. With more water in your body, your scale will say you’re much heavier than you are.

On the other hand, let’s say you had a good day of dieting, with good water intake and a good night’s rest. Your weight the next morning will likely be light as your body needs more fuel after properly absorbing everything you gave it.

Both these examples are extremes and will give you an inaccurate measurement of the progress of your diet. The best thing you could do is track your weight every day and take weekly averages to get the most accurate depiction of the success of your diet. 

Eat your favorites, but be careful,

A common misconception of dieting is that you must cut your favorite foods in order to have a successful diet. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

As long as you don’t exceed your daily calories, you can eat whatever you want. However, remember that we are more likely to overeat our favorite foods. 

On a personal level, my comfort food is candy. I have a sweet tooth and can easily overeat candy. Knowing this, I personally cut out candy for myself because I know it will be hard to limit my intake. 

While eating your favorite foods may help you with your diet, it’s best to be careful with them if they are not going to help you meet your goals.

Limit cheat days, or cut them out altogether.

Cheat days, cheat days, cheat days. A common buzzphrase in dieting. Cheat days are when a dieter abandons their strict diet for ideally a day to allow junk or snack foods in. Or a cheat day could be a dieter eating at a surplus to refeed themselves.

Whatever your definition of a cheat day, here is my one response: limit them or cancel them out altogether.

Regarding cheat days, some dieters are likely eating foods they have restricted themselves from eating, which can have a devastating impact on their diet. As in the previous sections, some foods trigger overeating in us, so we must limit our intake of them.

Some cheat days are okay. Going out to eat or for drinks for a friend’s birthday or a holiday is okay, but remember to be careful. Six days of a 500-calorie deficit will be offset by one day of a 2000-calorie surplus.

Cheat days are a good break on especially aggressive diets but they must be taken with discretion. 

Protein

Protein is important in anything related to working out, but it is especially important when going on a cut. 

While you intend to lose fat, if you do not consume enough protein in your diet, you will inevitably lose strength and muscle too. 

The recommended goal is .8-1 gram of protein per body weight per day. A little over this mark is okay but I would not suggest going under. 

Slow on the cardio.

When people think of the words cut or diet they automatically attach “cardio” to it. While cardio does help you burn more calories, you must not overdo it. 

Excessive or intensive cardio will cause you to burn more calories. However, if you burn too many calories, your body will react in weird ways.

If your body feels that you’ve burned too many calories in a short amount of time, it will use fewer calories during everyday activities. For example, you will burn less calories after an intensive cardio session because you will sit and lie down more often throughout the rest of the day.

Another way excessive cardio impacts you is by causing you to be more hungry afterward. This hunger can cause overeating which again, is not good for a diet. You can eat calories much more quickly than you can burn them. 

Cutting or dieting is a process. You will not see instant progress. In fact, you may not see a big difference physically. However, if you do so properly, the scale will show you the difference. 

Delayed gratification is the best part of a diet. We all have different bodies and metabolisms. While someone may burn fat quicker than you, you can still meet your goals.

During a cut, you will likely suffer from some body dysmorphia. This is completely normal. But remember. It is called dysmorphia for a reason, it’s all in our heads. Be patient with yourself.
How is your cut going? Let me know in the comments and read here for how to create your own gym program as a beginner.