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Cutting Diets Explained: Macro Split, Meal Planning & Calorie Deficit | Myprotein
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Jan 30, 2025
Our expert nutritionist breaks down all the basics of what you need to know before you begin a cutting phase, including what a cutting diet is, what are calorie deficits, how to set one up, and what your macro split should be. So you want to start a ‘shred’ but don’t know where to begin? Nutritional consultant and PhD researcher, Richie Kirwan, is on hand with everything you need to know to nail your nutrition for a cutting phase. Losing fat can be a pretty daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Forget about all the fads and definitely steer clear of crash diets — check out Richie’s advice for a simple, sustainable, and successful weight loss phase. Still got questions? Let us know in the comments below. *** Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 00:41 - What is cutting? 01:02 - Why do a cutting phase? 01:37 - The secret of fat loss 02:30 - How much and what should I eat? 07:58 - What about carbs and fat? 10:20 - How much should I drop my calories by? 11:41 - Got any more questions? ***
View Video Transcript
0:00
Calories, macros, protein fats, carbs
0:02
How can you adjust these for a cutting phase and how do you do it without going crazy
0:07
In this video, I'm going to tell you exactly what you need to know about setting up your diet for a fat loss phase
0:16
Today, we're going to talk about the importance of calories, protein, fat and carbs and how to figure out the right amount to help you lose body fat while maintaining as much muscle as possible
0:26
Now, just to warn you, this video is longer than my usual. videos and that's because there's just so much to talk about on this topic. To be honest
0:34
I'm really only going to give you the bare bones information you need to start a cut. But I feel
0:38
it's a really good place to start. First off, what even is cutting? I promise we won't be cutting
0:44
anything from your body and we certainly won't be cutting out any foods. In reality, a cutting phase
0:49
is a period of dieting and training dedicated to reducing body fat while maintaining as much muscle
0:54
as possible. The end result is you look lean and cut. Get it? Neither do you. Either just
0:59
some stupid bro term. So why would you want to do a cutting phase? Well, it comes from bodybuilding
1:04
culture where it's common to spend some time trying to gain muscle by training hard and eating
1:09
more, known as a bulking or massing phase. And what happens is people often put on a little
1:13
or a lot, body fat. The idea is to cut, to reduce some of that extra body fat, either for a
1:19
competition so you can look as lean as possible, or just to keep body fat under control before getting
1:23
back into a muscle gain phase. So from a nutritional perspective, we have two main goals. Number one
1:30
is fat loss. Number two is muscle maintenance. Let's talk about how to achieve both. Firstly
1:36
I'm going to explain the secret of fat loss. You need to eat fewer calories than you burn
1:46
Bear with me on this. Every single diet that has helped people to lose body fat in the history
1:51
of humankind works on the exact same principle. By helping you eat fewer calories than you burn. This is what's
1:57
known as a calorie deficit. So even if the diet, diets seem very different, the principle is always the exact same. Keto, calorie deficit
2:06
Vegan, calorie deficit. Low fat, calorie deficit. Gluten free, calorie deficit. Carnivore
2:13
Metabolic magic. A calorie deficit. Do you see the pattern here? All these diets work because
2:20
they get people to cut out a lot of foods from their diet, which makes them automatically eat fewer
2:24
calories and lose weight. But you're better than that because you're watching this video. And now you
2:29
know the principle of fat loss and don't have to try some stupid diet to lose weight. You're welcome
2:35
Now, the principle of weight loss is very simple, but putting it into practice is not at all
2:39
especially when we live in a world where we can have pizza and chicken and donuts and ice cream
2:43
delivered to your house within 15 minutes of ordering, all without leaving the comfort of your armchair
2:47
But that's a conversation for another video. How do you figure out how much to eat to lose body fat
2:52
I going to mention two methods Firstly you can calculate your maintenance calories That how many calories you need to maintain your body weight using the national instance Institute of Health Body Weight Planner You can enter your details about your height weight age and gender and it calculate how many calories you need to maintain your current
3:07
weight, and can even help you figure out how many calories you need to lose weight. There are loads of
3:11
possible formulas you can use to calculate your calories, and they're pretty much all the same
3:16
The reason I use this website is because it's from a very reputable bunch of scientists. So once you
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know how many calories you burn to maintain weight, if you want to lose weight, you need to eat fewer calories than that
3:26
Now, the only way you can eat less is by knowing how much you're eating at the moment
3:31
You can do that in two ways. You can use a calorie or macro tracker app
3:34
literally any one of them is fine, and use that to eat fewer calories
3:39
Or you can just keep a rough food diary of what you eat daily
3:42
and reduce your portion sizes. The advantage of the calorie tracker is it gives you details on macronutrients
3:48
like protein, carbs, and fat, which we'll talk about in a moment. You'll also need to measure your progress
3:53
and the easiest way to do that is by weighing yourself daily. Without monitoring your progress
3:57
you have no idea if what you're doing with your diet is working. There are plenty of other ways to measure your progress
4:02
taking measurements around your hips and waist or taking progress photos, but the scale is probably the easiest
4:08
I say measure it daily because your scale weight can change a lot from day to day
4:12
So if you measure it daily, you get a weekly average, which is probably a much better measure of your progress
4:17
One thing to bear in mind when you're cutting is that your weight loss will eventually slow down and stop
4:22
even if you're still eating, what was a calorie deficit for you. This is totally normal and happens because when you lose weight
4:29
well, lighter bodies need less energy. And there's also some metabolic adaptation to dieting
4:34
That just means that your metabolism slows down little to compensate for the reduced calories
4:38
The only thing you can do at this point is to drop calories further and get back into a deficit again
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It sucks, but that's metabolism. So, we've mentioned calories. The next most important nutrients to talk about is protein
4:50
There are three reasons you may want to make sure you get enough protein while losing weight
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1. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient, meaning it helps keep you feeling fuller for longer than other nutrients like carbs or fats
5:03
2. Protein helps to maintain muscle. And if you're cutting, the whole goal should be to maintain as much muscle as possible while
5:09
losing fat. 3. Protein has a higher thermic effect of food, meaning it requires more energy to process it than carbs or fats
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While the effect is small, in the long term, a higher protein diet may be more beneficial
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for fat loss than equal amounts of calories from carbs or fats
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So how much do you need? Well, we have research to show that as little as 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight per day
5:31
is enough to spare muscle while losing weight as long as you're doing resistance exercise
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However, the research has shown benefits for body composition with doses as high as 3.4 grams
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or 4.4 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. I'm not saying you should eat that much at all, but you could
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Consider 1.2 grams per kilo to be an absolute. absolute minimum and feel free to eat more
5:53
Just don eat so much protein that you can get enough carbs and fats in your diet That would make your diet boring as and you be very unlikely to stick to it So for someone training regularly somewhere around 1 to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight per day it probably okay You see
6:08
I've recommended the amount of protein based on your body weight and not on percentage calories. That's
6:12
because basing protein on percentages like that is a bad idea. Why? Because when you're dieting
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you'll eat fewer calories, which means the amount of protein that you're eating will drop proportionally
6:21
and protein is probably even more important when you're in a calorie deficit
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That's why calculating protein based on your body weight is better, because if you're bigger with more muscle, you'll need a little bit more to maintain it
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Now, we're going to mention a lot of numbers, but don't worry. I'll explain how to apply them to yourself
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When I talk about body weight, I'm talking about people who don't have a large amount of extra body fat
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If you have a lot of body fat and you calculate your protein intake based on your weight, you may get a very high number
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So instead, you can just roughly calculate your healthy or lean body weight
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using your height and a healthy body mass index of 25. The reason I say healthy in air quotes is because your weight doesn't dictate your health
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but BMI is just a very common used metric and useful for this calculation
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So how do we calculate your lean weight? Simply multiply your height meter squared by 25
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So if you're 170 centimeters tall, that's 1.7 meters and your lean weight is 1.7 meters squared
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by 25, which is 72.25 kilos. This is what I use to calculate protein intake for all of my clients
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Well, if you weigh 70 kilos, just multiply your weight in kilos by 1.6, for example
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And that's how much you should eat. That works out at 112 grams of protein per day
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Hopefully spit up evenly over three or four meals. Great whole food protein sources include lean meat, eggs, fish, dairy products like yoghirts, cheeses, quark
7:38
The reduced fat versions may make it easier to control calories. And vegetarian sources like tofu, textured vegetable protein, or TVP, microprotein products, beans, peas, and lentils
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Protein powders may offer a cheap and convenient option if you're having trouble getting enough protein from your diet alone
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So now you know how many calories and how much protein you need. What about carbs and fat
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Let's start with fat. There are essential fatty acids, which mean you absolutely need to get them in your diet to stay healthy
8:03
On top of that, if your diet is too low in fat in general for an extended period of time
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it can have serious knock-on effects on hormone levels like testosterone, and you can end up feeling fatigued
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and you can even see a major drop in your sex drive. Not good
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all. So how much should you eat? We don't know what the lower level of fat intake should be
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but if we speak so much conservatively, starting with 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight is a decent
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place to start. So if you weigh 70 kilos, that works out at about 56 grams of fat per day. Great
8:34
sources include nuts and nut butters, seeds, grind them so you can actually get the fats
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out of them. Olive oil and oily fish, at least twice a week. If you don't like oily fish
8:43
then consider a fish oil or an algal oil supplement. Keep your saturated fat intake low. Again
8:48
Again, for health purposes, by reducing your intake of fatty red or processed meats, coconut
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oil butter and cream all the good stuff The one thing to be careful about with fats is that they have a lot of calories per gram They calorie dense So they can be very easy to overeat and don provide a lot of
9:04
satiety, which brings us onto carbs. Now, carbs have been given a pretty bad reputation by people
9:10
who clearly don't understand nutrition science and think that carbs make you fat. They don't. Excess
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calories do. You'll often hear that carbs aren't essential, so we don't need them. Well, houses aren't
9:22
really essential, but they do make life a lot better. Now, while they may not be essential for life
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carbs do offer a lot of benefits. They help improve training quality, they reduce fatigue in the
9:33
gym, and in general, whole food sources of carbs are much more filling than fats, and provide
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fiber, which is very beneficial for your long-term health. Carbs stored as glycogen in your
9:43
muscles can even help muscles grow and may help prevent muscle breakdown. Long story short
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carbs are awesome. Try and fit as many in as you can while still losing weight
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and the experience will be a lot easier and productive for you
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I really recommend getting the majority of your carbs from whole food sources like whole grains
10:01
like oats or whole wheat products, starchy vegetables like potatoes and sweet potatoes, fruit and vegetables
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and even beans, peas, and lentils. These will provide you with a lot of vitamins and minerals and phytonutrients to keep you healthy
10:12
and they'll also provide a lot of fiber to keep you feeling fuller for longer. So that's a very brief explanation of your cutting calories and macronutrients
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I haven't said how much you should drop your calories by, because that depends on how fast you want to cut
10:25
If you have a bigger calorie deficit, you'll lose weight faster. While some people like that, because you can keep them motivated
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personally, I think a slower rate of weight loss is better. One, it's easier to manage because you're not dropping your calories crazy low
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Two, for some people, sticking to a hard deficit can be really hard
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and make them much more likely to just give up and rob a bakery. Three, slower weight loss will help you maintain more muscle mass
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If you're a competitive athlete, a weight loss of 1% of 1% of, or less per week is probably a good rate. If you're an average gym gore, go slower. Now
10:58
here's the important thing. I'm pretty sure that 98% of the people watching this are not
11:02
bodybuilders and have no intention of ever stepping up on the stage and showing off their apps
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In fact, the closest many of you will get to that is taking your kit off at the gym to shower
11:12
down after your workout, which you should be doing, you dirty. Seriously, the reason I mentioned
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this isn't to discourage anyone from bodybuilding, but it's to help you set your priorities straight before
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or you set out on a fat loss phase. If you're not competing, do you really need to get as shredded as the people who do
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The answer is probably no, which means you shouldn't need to go to any diet extremes to do it either
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Just something worth bearing in mind with whatever goals you chase. And that concludes this week's episode of advice you didn't ask for with Uncle Richie
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So, what do you think? Do you think you know how to set up a cutting diet now
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As always, if you have any questions, let me know in the comments below. And remember to like and subscribe to the My Protein YouTube channel
11:49
for more great evidence-based nutrient. information
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