How strict is everyone about diet while cutting?

[Justatechdude]

Curious how hard everyone here actually commits to eating right in order to hit their targets?

My maintenance used to run 3600 calories and a normal day for me now sits at 2200. Sure, probably 2 days a week it can reach 2800 if a burger or a restaurant meal lands in there. So are the fast losers being super vigilant with diets, or is the quieted food noise simply doing the work?

My own loss has been running about 0.5lbs a week and my lifts have completely stalled (no shock there). True, the body is recomp-ing in the right direction and I look better than I have in decades. Still, all those reddit posts about being ripped in 6 months drove/drive me crazy. I dove straight into obsessive research, even looking at PEDs and risk management for running cycles. Reta and CJC/IP came quickly, then BPC and TB500 for the shoulder.

With fat loss sitting at 0.5lbs a week though - feels like the moment has arrived to settle in as a "casual peptide connoisseur" instead of a Bulk & Cut guy

---the numbers---

6 years under the bar (strong, though not elite or anything).

42 M

GLP1 and TRT for 3-4 months

SW 192

CW 178

DEXA put me at 26% Bodyfat (and I trust it)

The Withing scale calls it 22% bodyfat

calories typically 2200 though a burger or something stupid lands 1-2x a week

protein at a 160g minimum

lifting 4 days a week (Push Pull Legs + Light Full body Friday)

Steps at 8k (just bumped to 15k this week)

Tirz at 5mg (was trying to switch to Reta)

Reta at 2mg ( anything higher kills my sleep + the skin tingle issue)

TRT at 140/mg (Test now 1050 at Trough) - 3 months in - labwork and BP are great

cjc/IPA - IGF up 25% (though the total is still only +0.5 Z score)

Wolverine Blend for the injured shoulder

 

[Skidude]

I'm curious what others will say, but speaking for myself, when I combined tirz with trt, I found that I still felt like eating more, yet I could also put the brakes on without much trouble once I'd had enough.

I held off until I'd reached my goal before starting TRT, and in fact I put on a few pounds while on 15mg of Tirz.

During the phase when I was dropping weight, I aimed for a pretty large calorie deficit.

It sounds like your GLP1 dose is on the cautious side and your TRT hasn't been going long, so the two might be working against each other somewhat.

Without a baseline dexa scan, it's hard to know, but chances are your lifting and walking are giving you some re-comp advantages.

My guess is that if you keep following your plan, you'll notice additional payoff down the road.

As you move up in dose, the food noise should fade.

I'm far from an authority on body re-composition, but the way I understand it, muscle gets made at the gym and abs get made at the refrigerator.

If bigger gains are what you're after, you'll probably have to skip a few of those burgers

Best of luck!

 

[gusterbuster]

Justatechdude said:

Curious how hard everyone here actually commits to eating right in order to hit their targets?

My maintenance used to run 3600 calories and a normal day for me now sits at 2200. Sure, probably 2 days a week it can reach 2800 if a burger or a restaurant meal lands in there. So are the fast losers being super vigilant with diets, or is the quieted food noise simply doing the work?

My own loss has been running about 0.5lbs a week and my lifts have completely stalled (no shock there). True, the body is recomp-ing in the right direction and I look better than I have in decades. Still, all those reddit posts about being ripped in 6 months drove/drive me crazy. I dove straight into obsessive research, even looking at PEDs and risk management for running cycles. Reta and CJC/IP came quickly, then BPC and TB500 for the shoulder.

With fat loss sitting at 0.5lbs a week though - feels like the moment has arrived to settle in as a "casual peptide connoisseur" instead of a Bulk & Cut guy

---the numbers---

6 years under the bar (strong, though not elite or anything).

42 M

GLP1 and TRT for 3-4 months

SW 192

CW 178

DEXA put me at 26% Bodyfat (and I trust it)

The Withing scale calls it 22% bodyfat

calories typically 2200 though a burger or something stupid lands 1-2x a week

protein at a 160g minimum

lifting 4 days a week (Push Pull Legs + Light Full body Friday)

Steps at 8k (just bumped to 15k this week)

Tirz at 5mg (was trying to switch to Reta)

Reta at 2mg ( anything higher kills my sleep + the skin tingle issue)

TRT at 140/mg (Test now 1050 at Trough) - 3 months in - labwork and BP are great

cjc/IPA - IGF up 25% (though the total is still only +0.5 Z score)

Wolverine Blend for the injured shoulder

During a cut, I'm quite strict. On cardio days I'll take in 2400 calories, otherwise 2200, and I make sure to get at least 160 grams of protein, with everything prepped ahead and tracked in My Fitness Pal, aiming for roughly 1.5 lbs of loss each week. Once protein is handled, I don't stress over specific carb or fat numbers. My carbs and fats tend to end up about equal.

 

[woundcarping]

My eating isn't strict; I lean toward protein when it's convenient, but I make sure carbs and fat are included too.

Burgers, steak, steak sandwiches, fajitas — I eat all of it. I also go through plenty of protein powder tubs, lean deli meat, Greek yoghurt, and similar items. Based on everything I've measured through DEXA, blood work, and the scale, I'm eating close enough to "right." If I actually tracked my macros, I'm sure purists would turn their noses up at them.

I'm 40. Over 216 days I've dropped 75lb and roughly 24% body fat (DEXA #5 is Monday), while on Reta/Sema and 150mg/TRT. For a couple of months I made certain I burned 500 calories daily through exercise beyond whatever else happened that day, but that was months back now… and I more or less quit counting calories around the same time. My weight gets checked almost every day, and I keep spreadsheets and graphs to confirm my rate of loss stays in range. The decline has been strikingly linear, with 25lb left to go.

Early on I had mild allodynia, but that was during lower dosing and it cleared up after maybe a few weeks. Essentially nothing negative is getting in the way of my Reta dose escalating pretty rapidly.

 

[Justatechdude]

I'm curious what others will say, but speaking for myself, when I combined tirz with trt, I found that I still felt like eating more, yet I could also put the brakes on without much trouble once I'd had enough.

I held off until I'd reached my goal before starting TRT, and in fact I put on a few pounds while on 15mg of Tirz.

During the phase when I was dropping weight, I aimed for a pretty large calorie deficit.

It sounds like your GLP1 dose is on the cautious side and your TRT hasn't been going long, so the two might be working against each other somewhat.

Without a baseline dexa scan, it's hard to know, but chances are your lifting and walking are giving you some re-comp advantages.

My guess is that if you keep following your plan, you'll notice additional payoff down the road.

As you move up in dose, the food noise should fade.

I'm far from an authority on body re-composition, but the way I understand it, muscle gets made at the gym and abs get made at the refrigerator.

If bigger gains are what you're after, you'll probably have to skip a few of those burgers

Best of luck!

That's surprising. I never really gave this any thought. Since I was pushing so hard to make the switch to Reta, I completely abandoned "sticking with the schedule." It hadn't clicked that my GLP1 start date was actually March, so that's 5 months on Tirz — meaning a much higher dose could be within reach.

I've also sort of fallen into "if it's working don't change it." My appetite sits somewhere very manageable. When hunger shows up I eat, and when it doesn't I skip it. Once I'm full I can put the fork down, though I usually clear my plate (no seconds, no sweets).

And no, I'm not willing to drop my usual daily calories, because doing that leaves me lethargic. I'm not convinced I can accept that removing the burgers and restaurant meals is what it would take to reach 1lb+ a week.

 

[woundcarping]

Justatechdude said:

I'm curious what others will say, but speaking for myself, when I combined tirz with trt, I found that I still felt like eating more, yet I could also put the brakes on without much trouble once I'd had enough.

I held off until I'd reached my goal before starting TRT, and in fact I put on a few pounds while on 15mg of Tirz.

During the phase when I was dropping weight, I aimed for a pretty large calorie deficit.

It sounds like your GLP1 dose is on the cautious side and your TRT hasn't been going long, so the two might be working against each other somewhat.

Without a baseline dexa scan, it's hard to know, but chances are your lifting and walking are giving you some re-comp advantages.

My guess is that if you keep following your plan, you'll notice additional payoff down the road.

As you move up in dose, the food noise should fade.

I'm far from an authority on body re-composition, but the way I understand it, muscle gets made at the gym and abs get made at the refrigerator.

If bigger gains are what you're after, you'll probably have to skip a few of those burgers

Best of luck!

That's surprising. I never really gave this any thought. Since I was pushing so hard to make the switch to Reta, I completely abandoned "sticking with the schedule." It hadn't clicked that my GLP1 start date was actually March, so that's 5 months on Tirz — meaning a much higher dose could be within reach.

I've also sort of fallen into "if it's working don't change it." My appetite sits somewhere very manageable. When hunger shows up I eat, and when it doesn't I skip it. Once I'm full I can put the fork down, though I usually clear my plate (no seconds, no sweets).

And no, I'm not willing to drop my usual daily calories, because doing that leaves me lethargic. I'm not convinced I can accept that removing the burgers and restaurant meals is what it would take to reach 1lb+ a week.

My impression was that you deliberately kept the dose steady due to side effects.

Increasing tirzepatide by itself won't lead to additional fat reduction unless it also results in fewer calories being consumed.

Looking at how much lean mass I've lost relative to total weight lost over time, my typical deficit works out to roughly 1100 calories per day.

 

[gusterbuster]

Justatechdude said:

I'm curious what others will say, but speaking for myself, when I combined tirz with trt, I found that I still felt like eating more, yet I could also put the brakes on without much trouble once I'd had enough.

I held off until I'd reached my goal before starting TRT, and in fact I put on a few pounds while on 15mg of Tirz.

During the phase when I was dropping weight, I aimed for a pretty large calorie deficit.

It sounds like your GLP1 dose is on the cautious side and your TRT hasn't been going long, so the two might be working against each other somewhat.

Without a baseline dexa scan, it's hard to know, but chances are your lifting and walking are giving you some re-comp advantages.

My guess is that if you keep following your plan, you'll notice additional payoff down the road.

As you move up in dose, the food noise should fade.

I'm far from an authority on body re-composition, but the way I understand it, muscle gets made at the gym and abs get made at the refrigerator.

If bigger gains are what you're after, you'll probably have to skip a few of those burgers

Best of luck!

That's surprising. I never really gave this any thought. Since I was pushing so hard to make the switch to Reta, I completely abandoned "sticking with the schedule." It hadn't clicked that my GLP1 start date was actually March, so that's 5 months on Tirz — meaning a much higher dose could be within reach.

I've also sort of fallen into "if it's working don't change it." My appetite sits somewhere very manageable. When hunger shows up I eat, and when it doesn't I skip it. Once I'm full I can put the fork down, though I usually clear my plate (no seconds, no sweets).

And no, I'm not willing to drop my usual daily calories, because doing that leaves me lethargic. I'm not convinced I can accept that removing the burgers and restaurant meals is what it would take to reach 1lb+ a week.

Strictly speaking, that 1400 calorie surplus works out to roughly .5lb, which would push you toward 1lbs weekly. Still, it's a good move for your headspace over the long term, and raising calories is usually viewed as a plus for metabolism down the road. Perhaps increase your GLP by another mg or two while holding daily intake at 2000 cal, and your 2x weekly at 2600cal?

Alternatively, simply continue with your current approach. Consistent loss alongside preserved strength and what looks like a sustainable long-term routine outperforms chasing perfection.

 

[Justatechdude]

woundcarping said:

Justatechdude said:

I'm curious what others will say, but speaking for myself, when I combined tirz with trt, I found that I still felt like eating more, yet I could also put the brakes on without much trouble once I'd had enough.

I held off until I'd reached my goal before starting TRT, and in fact I put on a few pounds while on 15mg of Tirz.

During the phase when I was dropping weight, I aimed for a pretty large calorie deficit.

It sounds like your GLP1 dose is on the cautious side and your TRT hasn't been going long, so the two might be working against each other somewhat.

Without a baseline dexa scan, it's hard to know, but chances are your lifting and walking are giving you some re-comp advantages.

My guess is that if you keep following your plan, you'll notice additional payoff down the road.

As you move up in dose, the food noise should fade.

I'm far from an authority on body re-composition, but the way I understand it, muscle gets made at the gym and abs get made at the refrigerator.

If bigger gains are what you're after, you'll probably have to skip a few of those burgers

Best of luck!

That's surprising. I never really gave this any thought. Since I was pushing so hard to make the switch to Reta, I completely abandoned "sticking with the schedule." It hadn't clicked that my GLP1 start date was actually March, so that's 5 months on Tirz — meaning a much higher dose could be within reach.

I've also sort of fallen into "if it's working don't change it." My appetite sits somewhere very manageable. When hunger shows up I eat, and when it doesn't I skip it. Once I'm full I can put the fork down, though I usually clear my plate (no seconds, no sweets).

And no, I'm not willing to drop my usual daily calories, because doing that leaves me lethargic. I'm not convinced I can accept that removing the burgers and restaurant meals is what it would take to reach 1lb+ a week.

My impression was that you deliberately kept the dose steady due to side effects.

Increasing tirzepatide by itself won't lead to additional fat reduction unless it also results in fewer calories being consumed.

Looking at how much lean mass I've lost relative to total weight lost over time, my typical deficit works out to roughly 1100 calories per day.

yeah, more tirz might just make it easier to turn down those 200 extra calories.

yeah, I've not been able to go up on Reta because of the sides, and that was my #1 priority. Tirz hasn't been on my radar mainly because I want to be on Reta to keep my current digestion speed. Early on Tirz really killed my hunger, and had me bloated at times.

Conflicting priorities...

 

[woundcarping]

Justatechdude said:

woundcarping said:

Justatechdude said:

I'm curious what others will say, but speaking for myself, when I combined tirz with trt, I found that I still felt like eating more, yet I could also put the brakes on without much trouble once I'd had enough.

I held off until I'd reached my goal before starting TRT, and in fact I put on a few pounds while on 15mg of Tirz.

During the phase when I was dropping weight, I aimed for a pretty large calorie deficit.

It sounds like your GLP1 dose is on the cautious side and your TRT hasn't been going long, so the two might be working against each other somewhat.

Without a baseline dexa scan, it's hard to know, but chances are your lifting and walking are giving you some re-comp advantages.

My guess is that if you keep following your plan, you'll notice additional payoff down the road.

As you move up in dose, the food noise should fade.

I'm far from an authority on body re-composition, but the way I understand it, muscle gets made at the gym and abs get made at the refrigerator.

If bigger gains are what you're after, you'll probably have to skip a few of those burgers

Best of luck!

That's surprising. I never really gave this any thought. Since I was pushing so hard to make the switch to Reta, I completely abandoned "sticking with the schedule." It hadn't clicked that my GLP1 start date was actually March, so that's 5 months on Tirz — meaning a much higher dose could be within reach.

I've also sort of fallen into "if it's working don't change it." My appetite sits somewhere very manageable. When hunger shows up I eat, and when it doesn't I skip it. Once I'm full I can put the fork down, though I usually clear my plate (no seconds, no sweets).

And no, I'm not willing to drop my usual daily calories, because doing that leaves me lethargic. I'm not convinced I can accept that removing the burgers and restaurant meals is what it would take to reach 1lb+ a week.

My impression was that you deliberately kept the dose steady due to side effects.

Increasing tirzepatide by itself won't lead to additional fat reduction unless it also results in fewer calories being consumed.

Looking at how much lean mass I've lost relative to total weight lost over time, my typical deficit works out to roughly 1100 calories per day.

yeah, more tirz might just make it easier to turn down those 200 extra calories.

yeah, I've not been able to go up on Reta because of the sides, and that was my #1 priority. Tirz hasn't been on my radar mainly because I want to be on Reta to keep my current digestion speed. Early on Tirz really killed my hunger, and had me bloated at times.

Conflicting priorities...

It's normal to have a mix of motivations and aims. For me, visible abs are the target right now, so I'm in a cutting phase, but I'm also watching my other numbers (lean mass) so that if I chase something different once the abs are there, I won't have been too narrow-minded about it.

My start was Tirz for 4 weeks, then I switched over to Reta. These days it's 9mg 2x/week plus .125mg 2x/week of Sema. Sema got added to the stack in June.

There have been a couple stretches where sleep was rough, though as far as I can tell it has mostly settled on its own. My Oura Ring and my own read on sleep/sleep debt don't line up, so a couple weeks back I chose to stop putting weight on what it says about my sleep score/sleep debt. I'll just let it log the data and judge it myself. Usually I can feel when I'm short on sleep — for example last night I went to bed at 1230 and got woken at 430 by something, I had an email waiting for a reply, so I got up and began the day... today I'll be dragging and will need a few better nights to get back to even.

I used to stress over hitting minimum calories, minimum protein, and so on. Protein does matter, I won't argue that, but for me the whole thing has been far more pleasant once I stopped agonizing over every variable (being super vigilant, as the thread title puts it). I'm confident my protein averages well under 1g/lb of body weight or lean mass. My DEXA scans show a single digit percentage of lean mass lost, which I find very acceptable, measured from my first DEXA 49 days after starting Tirz (bad planning on when I scheduled that DEXA).

If the total ends up being 100lb lost across roughly 11 months, about 80lb of that since my first DEXA, with under 10lb of lean mass gone (and most lean mass isn't actual muscle fiber), I'll be more than happy. Weight loss has been an emotional rollercoaster at points, but on the whole I've enjoyed the ride.

Oh, and lethargy is real... it hits me now and then, yet I can still head to the river and have a great time, play with my daughter, and do all the ordinary things that living involves. With a 1100 calorie deficit running for months, dopamine shifts from Reta, uneven sleep, work, life, and age, I accept that some days all I'll want is to sit in my chair and nap. That isn't a lifestyle, it isn't depression, and to me it's a small trade-off for the future I'm building while still having cake when I feel like it.

 

[jaguar]

Putting my own experience down here for reference, since some of the same questions run through my head. Example: if I quit obsessing over and tracking every single macro like a crazy woman, would the quieted food noise carry me anyway? Or is the progress so far entirely down to lifestyle changes?

Some context: female, 33, with a LOT of weight still to lose (which may well be shaping what I describe below).

Tirz has been in my routine for 20 weeks (about 4.5 months) and I hit the ground running from day one. Working out was already part of my life, just not as consistently as it should have been. With Tirz on board, heavy weights 3–4 times a week became the norm, alongside roughly 6,000–10,000 steps at least 3 times a week on top of the lifting (mostly on rest days, sometimes stacked together), plus tracking every damn thing that went into my body. That is not to say there have been no restaurant meals where I ordered whatever, or a few beers now and then (both are rarer occurrences).

A very strict calorie deficit has been my default--honestly, too strict on some days, right up to the point where I know muscle loss is a fine line I am walking (and may still be). Part of that was never deliberate, because undereating comes easily to me, but going over my daily calories also frightens me...so other days amount to an aggressive cut too!

A tiny stall hit me a couple of weeks back (yes, I know 2.5 weeks is not a real stall). Roughly two weeks, maybe two and a half, with the scale refusing to move, and after steady 2.5-3 pound weeks I sort of crashed out. Chasing that high means nothing under 2 lbs a week satisfies me now... Eventually I put the scale away and told myself, "Fuck it. Two weeks without weighing. I am just going to live like a normal person & stop obsessing." Tracking every meal stopped, I ate what I wanted when I wanted (within reason), and 14 days later the scale showed me... 6 pounds down. Which makes me wonder whether the scale would have moved anyway, given the appetite suppression from Tirz. Or whether my body simply needed more fuel.

To date that is 54 pounds gone in 4.5 months on Tirz, though I have also worked my ass off the whole way. Lifting, walking and holding a calorie deficit add up to real work and I know it. About 15.87% of my body weight has already come off, and from what I have read, plenty of people on Tirz drop around 15-25% across ONE YEAR.

That is what leaves me asking what actually drives this bus. Is a very strict deficit plus fairly regular exercise the reason? Or is the quieted food noise carrying the load, simply because overeating barely happens anymore?

Part of me wants to shelve the food scale, drop the macro counting, keep training and simply eat sensibly without weighing every gram..just to see whether the same trajectory holds. Yet the drive to lose as much as safely possible, as fast as possible, means letting go of the reins genuinely scares me. For all I know the quieted food noise has been driving this bus the entire time while I sit here stressing over kcals like a crackhead.

So no, the "ripped in 6 months" Reddit train is not where I live, but the results so far have been really good, and by the 6 month mark I am confident I will be well past 70lbs down...who knows, either way the obsession means I have no plans to slow down. A few other peps have been cycled on and off over this short journey

Other less healthy strands have crept in now.. Appetite grew slightly when mots-c went in, though I suspect the workouts were burning so much energy that my body was simply hungry...and that appetite scared me enough to add Cagri, which really ought to be a total last resort. Anyway I pinned it for 2 weeks and could not eat for shit, not even 1,200 kcal a day, which I know is terrible for my BMR. I suspect undereating is what caused the earlier stall (who knows whether that was really it, or just my body adjusting?) The plan was to stop Cagri...but I think one more week...

Welp, that was a very vulnerable dump. No judging, please.

 

[BNLFL]

I stuck with it — so much so that I blew past goal number 2. Now I'm dialing down my Reta and working on eating more, carbs included. Seeing where I settle with this maintenance phase ought to be quite a ride. This stuff and I are in it for good.

 

[woundcarping]

jaguar said:

Putting my own experience down here for reference, since some of the same questions run through my head. Example: if I quit obsessing over and tracking every single macro like a crazy woman, would the quieted food noise carry me anyway? Or is the progress so far entirely down to lifestyle changes?

Some context: female, 33, with a LOT of weight still to lose (which may well be shaping what I describe below).

Tirz has been in my routine for 20 weeks (about 4.5 months) and I hit the ground running from day one. Working out was already part of my life, just not as consistently as it should have been. With Tirz on board, heavy weights 3–4 times a week became the norm, alongside roughly 6,000–10,000 steps at least 3 times a week on top of the lifting (mostly on rest days, sometimes stacked together), plus tracking every damn thing that went into my body. That is not to say there have been no restaurant meals where I ordered whatever, or a few beers now and then (both are rarer occurrences).

A very strict calorie deficit has been my default--honestly, too strict on some days, right up to the point where I know muscle loss is a fine line I am walking (and may still be). Part of that was never deliberate, because undereating comes easily to me, but going over my daily calories also frightens me...so other days amount to an aggressive cut too!

A tiny stall hit me a couple of weeks back (yes, I know 2.5 weeks is not a real stall). Roughly two weeks, maybe two and a half, with the scale refusing to move, and after steady 2.5-3 pound weeks I sort of crashed out. Chasing that high means nothing under 2 lbs a week satisfies me now... Eventually I put the scale away and told myself, "Fuck it. Two weeks without weighing. I am just going to live like a normal person & stop obsessing." Tracking every meal stopped, I ate what I wanted when I wanted (within reason), and 14 days later the scale showed me... 6 pounds down. Which makes me wonder whether the scale would have moved anyway, given the appetite suppression from Tirz. Or whether my body simply needed more fuel.

To date that is 54 pounds gone in 4.5 months on Tirz, though I have also worked my ass off the whole way. Lifting, walking and holding a calorie deficit add up to real work and I know it. About 15.87% of my body weight has already come off, and from what I have read, plenty of people on Tirz drop around 15-25% across ONE YEAR.

That is what leaves me asking what actually drives this bus. Is a very strict deficit plus fairly regular exercise the reason? Or is the quieted food noise carrying the load, simply because overeating barely happens anymore?

Part of me wants to shelve the food scale, drop the macro counting, keep training and simply eat sensibly without weighing every gram..just to see whether the same trajectory holds. Yet the drive to lose as much as safely possible, as fast as possible, means letting go of the reins genuinely scares me. For all I know the quieted food noise has been driving this bus the entire time while I sit here stressing over kcals like a crackhead.

So no, the "ripped in 6 months" Reddit train is not where I live, but the results so far have been really good, and by the 6 month mark I am confident I will be well past 70lbs down...who knows, either way the obsession means I have no plans to slow down. A few other peps have been cycled on and off over this short journey

Other less healthy strands have crept in now.. Appetite grew slightly when mots-c went in, though I suspect the workouts were burning so much energy that my body was simply hungry...and that appetite scared me enough to add Cagri, which really ought to be a total last resort. Anyway I pinned it for 2 weeks and could not eat for shit, not even 1,200 kcal a day, which I know is terrible for my BMR. I suspect undereating is what caused the earlier stall (who knows whether that was really it, or just my body adjusting?) The plan was to stop Cagri...but I think one more week...

Welp, that was a very vulnerable dump. No judging, please.

Here's my short version… I began logging macros and making sure I burned no less than 500 calories per day through exercise (using an inclined treadmill, since that lets me estimate calorie burn fairly reliably)… but keeping that up forever was never realistic for me. Then I took a trip and dropped all of it.

Looking at this weight chart, can you spot the point where I quit tracking and quit hitting the gym daily? What I can point to is the moment life got simpler and a lot more fun.

What works for me may not work for you.

 

[LunaFitHome]

Justatechdude said:

Curious how hard everyone here actually commits to eating right in order to hit their targets?

My maintenance used to run 3600 calories and a normal day for me now sits at 2200. Sure, probably 2 days a week it can reach 2800 if a burger or a restaurant meal lands in there. So are the fast losers being super vigilant with diets, or is the quieted food noise simply doing the work?

My own loss has been running about 0.5lbs a week and my lifts have completely stalled (no shock there). True, the body is recomp-ing in the right direction and I look better than I have in decades. Still, all those reddit posts about being ripped in 6 months drove/drive me crazy. I dove straight into obsessive research, even looking at PEDs and risk management for running cycles. Reta and CJC/IP came quickly, then BPC and TB500 for the shoulder.

With fat loss sitting at 0.5lbs a week though - feels like the moment has arrived to settle in as a "casual peptide connoisseur" instead of a Bulk & Cut guy

---the numbers---

6 years under the bar (strong, though not elite or anything).

42 M

GLP1 and TRT for 3-4 months

SW 192

CW 178

DEXA put me at 26% Bodyfat (and I trust it)

The Withing scale calls it 22% bodyfat

calories typically 2200 though a burger or something stupid lands 1-2x a week

protein at a 160g minimum

lifting 4 days a week (Push Pull Legs + Light Full body Friday)

Steps at 8k (just bumped to 15k this week)

Tirz at 5mg (was trying to switch to Reta)

Reta at 2mg ( anything higher kills my sleep + the skin tingle issue)

TRT at 140/mg (Test now 1050 at Trough) - 3 months in - labwork and BP are great

cjc/IPA - IGF up 25% (though the total is still only +0.5 Z score)

Wolverine Blend for the injured shoulder

My target used to be 1000 calories per day, which is what helped me shed pounds fast in the past. These days, though, sticking to that number is simply beyond me…

 

[Justatechdude]

jaguar said:

Putting my own experience down here for reference, since some of the same questions run through my head. Example: if I quit obsessing over and tracking every single macro like a crazy woman, would the quieted food noise carry me anyway? Or is the progress so far entirely down to lifestyle changes?

Some context: female, 33, with a LOT of weight still to lose (which may well be shaping what I describe below).

Tirz has been in my routine for 20 weeks (about 4.5 months) and I hit the ground running from day one. Working out was already part of my life, just not as consistently as it should have been. With Tirz on board, heavy weights 3–4 times a week became the norm, alongside roughly 6,000–10,000 steps at least 3 times a week on top of the lifting (mostly on rest days, sometimes stacked together), plus tracking every damn thing that went into my body. That is not to say there have been no restaurant meals where I ordered whatever, or a few beers now and then (both are rarer occurrences).

A very strict calorie deficit has been my default--honestly, too strict on some days, right up to the point where I know muscle loss is a fine line I am walking (and may still be). Part of that was never deliberate, because undereating comes easily to me, but going over my daily calories also frightens me...so other days amount to an aggressive cut too!

A tiny stall hit me a couple of weeks back (yes, I know 2.5 weeks is not a real stall). Roughly two weeks, maybe two and a half, with the scale refusing to move, and after steady 2.5-3 pound weeks I sort of crashed out. Chasing that high means nothing under 2 lbs a week satisfies me now... Eventually I put the scale away and told myself, "Fuck it. Two weeks without weighing. I am just going to live like a normal person & stop obsessing." Tracking every meal stopped, I ate what I wanted when I wanted (within reason), and 14 days later the scale showed me... 6 pounds down. Which makes me wonder whether the scale would have moved anyway, given the appetite suppression from Tirz. Or whether my body simply needed more fuel.

To date that is 54 pounds gone in 4.5 months on Tirz, though I have also worked my ass off the whole way. Lifting, walking and holding a calorie deficit add up to real work and I know it. About 15.87% of my body weight has already come off, and from what I have read, plenty of people on Tirz drop around 15-25% across ONE YEAR.

That is what leaves me asking what actually drives this bus. Is a very strict deficit plus fairly regular exercise the reason? Or is the quieted food noise carrying the load, simply because overeating barely happens anymore?

Part of me wants to shelve the food scale, drop the macro counting, keep training and simply eat sensibly without weighing every gram..just to see whether the same trajectory holds. Yet the drive to lose as much as safely possible, as fast as possible, means letting go of the reins genuinely scares me. For all I know the quieted food noise has been driving this bus the entire time while I sit here stressing over kcals like a crackhead.

So no, the "ripped in 6 months" Reddit train is not where I live, but the results so far have been really good, and by the 6 month mark I am confident I will be well past 70lbs down...who knows, either way the obsession means I have no plans to slow down. A few other peps have been cycled on and off over this short journey

Other less healthy strands have crept in now.. Appetite grew slightly when mots-c went in, though I suspect the workouts were burning so much energy that my body was simply hungry...and that appetite scared me enough to add Cagri, which really ought to be a total last resort. Anyway I pinned it for 2 weeks and could not eat for shit, not even 1,200 kcal a day, which I know is terrible for my BMR. I suspect undereating is what caused the earlier stall (who knows whether that was really it, or just my body adjusting?) The plan was to stop Cagri...but I think one more week...

Welp, that was a very vulnerable dump. No judging, please.

lol. The sheer madness of it. Still, I'm right there beside you through this whole wild journey.

Since I dropped a big chunk of weight last year, I don't have as far left to travel. Even so, I hear exactly what you mean. Usually I'm locked in on calories to the point where nothing else gets my attention. Other times I eat while completely

ignoring my health.

These days, thanks to the GLP1s, I've discovered I can eat yet somehow still "not eat."

All that said, I'm grateful you posted this, because reaching the level of results you're getting clearly demands every bit of effort you're putting in.

 

[Justatechdude]

woundcarping said:

jaguar said:

Putting my own experience down here for reference, since some of the same questions run through my head. Example: if I quit obsessing over and tracking every single macro like a crazy woman, would the quieted food noise carry me anyway? Or is the progress so far entirely down to lifestyle changes?

Some context: female, 33, with a LOT of weight still to lose (which may well be shaping what I describe below).

Tirz has been in my routine for 20 weeks (about 4.5 months) and I hit the ground running from day one. Working out was already part of my life, just not as consistently as it should have been. With Tirz on board, heavy weights 3–4 times a week became the norm, alongside roughly 6,000–10,000 steps at least 3 times a week on top of the lifting (mostly on rest days, sometimes stacked together), plus tracking every damn thing that went into my body. That is not to say there have been no restaurant meals where I ordered whatever, or a few beers now and then (both are rarer occurrences).

A very strict calorie deficit has been my default--honestly, too strict on some days, right up to the point where I know muscle loss is a fine line I am walking (and may still be). Part of that was never deliberate, because undereating comes easily to me, but going over my daily calories also frightens me...so other days amount to an aggressive cut too!

A tiny stall hit me a couple of weeks back (yes, I know 2.5 weeks is not a real stall). Roughly two weeks, maybe two and a half, with the scale refusing to move, and after steady 2.5-3 pound weeks I sort of crashed out. Chasing that high means nothing under 2 lbs a week satisfies me now... Eventually I put the scale away and told myself, "Fuck it. Two weeks without weighing. I am just going to live like a normal person & stop obsessing." Tracking every meal stopped, I ate what I wanted when I wanted (within reason), and 14 days later the scale showed me... 6 pounds down. Which makes me wonder whether the scale would have moved anyway, given the appetite suppression from Tirz. Or whether my body simply needed more fuel.

To date that is 54 pounds gone in 4.5 months on Tirz, though I have also worked my ass off the whole way. Lifting, walking and holding a calorie deficit add up to real work and I know it. About 15.87% of my body weight has already come off, and from what I have read, plenty of people on Tirz drop around 15-25% across ONE YEAR.

That is what leaves me asking what actually drives this bus. Is a very strict deficit plus fairly regular exercise the reason? Or is the quieted food noise carrying the load, simply because overeating barely happens anymore?

Part of me wants to shelve the food scale, drop the macro counting, keep training and simply eat sensibly without weighing every gram..just to see whether the same trajectory holds. Yet the drive to lose as much as safely possible, as fast as possible, means letting go of the reins genuinely scares me. For all I know the quieted food noise has been driving this bus the entire time while I sit here stressing over kcals like a crackhead.

So no, the "ripped in 6 months" Reddit train is not where I live, but the results so far have been really good, and by the 6 month mark I am confident I will be well past 70lbs down...who knows, either way the obsession means I have no plans to slow down. A few other peps have been cycled on and off over this short journey

Other less healthy strands have crept in now.. Appetite grew slightly when mots-c went in, though I suspect the workouts were burning so much energy that my body was simply hungry...and that appetite scared me enough to add Cagri, which really ought to be a total last resort. Anyway I pinned it for 2 weeks and could not eat for shit, not even 1,200 kcal a day, which I know is terrible for my BMR. I suspect undereating is what caused the earlier stall (who knows whether that was really it, or just my body adjusting?) The plan was to stop Cagri...but I think one more week...

Welp, that was a very vulnerable dump. No judging, please.

Here's my short version… I began logging macros and making sure I burned no less than 500 calories per day through exercise (using an inclined treadmill, since that lets me estimate calorie burn fairly reliably)… but keeping that up forever was never realistic for me. Then I took a trip and dropped all of it.

Looking at this weight chart, can you spot the point where I quit tracking and quit hitting the gym daily? What I can point to is the moment life got simpler and a lot more fun.





View attachment 10072

What works for me may not work for you.

Honestly, no. Not even slightly. That's crazy, and I love it.