The Pre-Bali Cut – Week 1

Basically it’s my 30th birthday in November and I’m heading off to Bali as a birthday treat to myself, so with that in mind I thought I’d do a little cut to trim up a bit.

The plan is to keep this updated, supplemented with VLOGs detailing my routine, eating, supplementation and progress.

My main aim with this cut is to cut as much body fat as possible whilst retaining or gaining as much strength as possible.

Starting stats:
Weight: 156.1lbs

Starting macros:
Calories: 2000
Protein: 165g
Carbs: 100g
Fats: 100g

Going the high fat route this time. I’ll also be Intermittent Fasting from the get-go, which means I’ll be training fasted and having my first meal at about 12, with my last meal being at 8ish. This means I’ll get two large meals and a “snack” meal in between.

Day 1
First weight session yesterday was Shoulders. I’m not really concerned with my strength in any of these exercises, so I’m starting the session with Smith Machine Presses to concentrate on creating some good stimulation and to take my lower back out of the equation. I followed this with some HIIT which made me want to vomit.

Day 2
Despite an impromptu evening of drinks (great start ey?), I managed to drag my ass out of bed this morning for Back and Biceps, starting with Deadlifts. I really want to maintain my strength on these and, if everything goes to plan, even gain strength. These are followed by weighted chins, another one I want to keep or gain strength in.
Deadlift starting weight: 160kg x 4
Chins starting weight: Bodyweight +20kg x 6

Day 3 – Rest Day
Usually won’t be anything to report on these days until I start putting in more cardio, but it was National Burger Day and I ended up having an Honest Burger with fries. Thought I’d be 100% truthful, including when I fuck up a bit.

Day 4
Chest and Tris this morning. Carrying straight on from my strength training I went for 77.5kg on the decline bench and managed 6 reps, so I’m happy with that as it gives me a good starting point to gauge my strength throughout this thing.

The rest of the routine was higher volume “muscle feel” type stuff. The difficulty with lower total volume is actually the holding back. If you have a good day (especially after an accidental carb-up) you tend to feel like you could’ve done more. But the point is not to knacker myself out and instead be sensible, play the long game. I know it’s going to get tougher as the weeks roll on so for now I’m just going to enjoy it.

Also, I weighed myself last night AND this morning and I’m 157.4lbs apparently, so I think I actually lost a bit of weight over the weekend in Paris. Probably just lower total calories, so I’m counting my beginning weight as 157.4.

Day 5
Today was legs day. Pretty good session, and I’ve decided to throw in some kettlebell swings at the end to help with my posture, activating my glutes and just to give myself a bit of extra volume for my posterior chain.

Squat starting weight was 77.5kg for 8 reps.

THE WEEKEND
Ok, so I’ll admit, I fell off the wagon a bit this weekend. I won’t go into details but alcohol was consumed, and a my diet wasn’t exactly “on point”, but damn was it enjoyable.

My weigh in after 1 week was 3lbs down, and then the following food and alcohol-fest gained me 2lbs, making a total of 1lb down so far.

I’m not fretting though, because I’m still on track, it was my first week and one thing I wanted to do was make this cut not only bearable but enjoyable. If that means being a bit less lean by the end of it then so be it.

Day 8
Back to Day 1 of the routine this morning, Shoulders. Managed to increase every exercise by at least 1 rep so no issues there. Followed the workout with a 20 minute HIIT session.

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