Summer Cut – Training For Fat Loss Update

This week marks my eighth week into my summer cut (for fat loss) and believe it or not, it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. But don’t hold me to that.

At the beginning of the year, I decided that, after a winter of training for strength gain, I was no longer feeling comfortable in the skin I was in. I was bloated most of the time. My clothes began to feel uncomfortable and my IBS was playing up. Believe it or not, eating in a surplus just wasn’t enjoyable for me. So, at the beginning of March, I calculated my macros, said bye-bye to all the excess food and buckled up my belt ready for my summer cut.

My Macros for Steady Fat Loss

To kickstart my summer cut, working out my macronutrient split was essential for fat loss. I’ve tracked my macros before (read here), and although I have a love/hate relationship with macro counting, it really does help me keep on track towards my goals.

This time around, Doug directed me to this website to help me work out my macronutrient split. Based on my personal data (i.e, weight, activity levels, etc), my calculated macronutrient split worked out as the following:

Protein: 129g
Carbohydrates: 174g
Fat: 52g
Calories: 1,680

At first, I wasn’t too sure how easy it would be going from eating in a surplus to suddenly eating in a deficit, but to tell you the truth it wasn’t that hard. Sure, I felt a little bit hungry at times but it wasn’t uncontrollable. In fact, when it came to bloating and IBS symptoms, I saw a massive (positive) difference and because of this, I felt more positive about eating less. Turns out that eating in a surplus was the underlying problem to my excess bloating and IBS.

Coaching

A few weeks into my summer cut, and after I was contacted by Tom Philips (a personal trainer I have been following for a while on Instagram), I decided that this time around, a coach would be ideal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty up to date with what to eat, how to count my macros, etc, but when it comes to training and switching up my macros when (and if) a plateau hits, then the guessing game kicks in for me.

This week marks my eighth week with Tom and so far, so good. Each week we check in together where we go through my macros, my workouts from the week, how sore I am (if I am that is), my measurements, and then we discuss how to tackle the next week going forward.

Not much has changed over the past couple of weeks if I’m honest – apart from reducing my calories by 100 a few weeks ago and the volume from one of my leg day workouts (as my legs weren’t recovering quickly enough). It amazed me how reducing just one set made all the difference in the world to my progress.

This week however, Tom decided to change my diet up a little. You see, my progress seems to have slowed down a little and, seeing as it’s now only 4 weeks until my holiday (and 8 weeks until my first photoshoot), Tom decided to give my body a little break from dieting before we really go to town on the cut for fat loss.

At the beginning of the week (27th May), I was under strict instructions to increase my carbohydrates to 300g a day – bringing me to a total of 2,074 calories a day. Despite my questions, Tom assured me that because my training and nutrition has been pretty intact throughout the eight weeks, my body would *hopefully* respond well to a few extra carbs over the next three days to help replenish glycogen restores and to get some water back in my cells.

Once this week is over, my calories will be reduced again (as well as my carbs) for the final next 4-8 weeks. I’m guessing this is where it will get tough! Ekk.

Training

Training wise, nothing has really changed (apart from the mentioned reduced sets above). Tom coaches me to train 5 times a week with 2 rest days, however, over the last two weeks, I’ve tried to make my rest days as active as possible to really increase my movement activity as much as I can. My current training programme looks a little like this:

Mon – Upper + 20 minute stepper

Tue – Lower

Wed – Push + 20 minute stepper

Thur – Active rest day (swim 35-40 minutes)

Fri – Pull + 15 minute stepper, 10 minutes HIIT

Sat – Lower

Sun – Either a complete rest day or cardio and abs (1 hour in the gym altogether).

Strictly speaking, my rest days may fall on different days, but you get the idea. Overall, I aim for 10k+ steps a day and from this week onwards, I’ll be increasing my time on the stepper to 25 minutes. Although this may not sound much, it works out an extra 20 minutes per week (probably an extra 150 calories burnt) which can really add up altogeher.

Swimming

At the beginning of the year, I committed myself to a New Year’s resolution goal – which I don’t normally do. My goal was (and still is) to swim once a week and, touch wood, I’ve stayed on track.

During my childhood, I was heavily involved with my swimming club where I would have lessons once a week. Outside of that, my mum encouraged me to swim in the cold water sea when the weather was a little warmer. I loved it. I bloody loved it. Sadly though, when I hit my teens, I fell out of love with swimming and took up dancing instead. My one regret.

So at the beginning of the year, I had absolutley no idea what my swimming endurance would be like, and despite my childhood years of swimming whenever I could, it was pretty damn awful. To put things bluntly, I couldn’t swim 50m without stopping.

5 months on however, I’m hitting PB’s every week and feeling much stronger. For me, it’s not about the time I can swim in, it’s about how strong I feel in the water. Each stroke. Each breathe. Each length.

This week I managed to PB 27 minutes for 40 lengths (a 12-minute improvement) and continue to swim an extra 8 lengths without stopping. That may not be much for some people out there, but I’m pretty damn proud of myself because 1) I didn’t give up and 2) I’m smashing mini goals weekly.

I don’t need much to swim weekly. Just my goggles, swimsuit (see Fashion World’s amazing range here), Apple Watch and water bottle.

Diet

I’ve pretty much already covered my calories and macro split above, but in terms of what I eat, I try to keep it as healthy as possible. Although macro counting allows you to eat practically whatever you fancy (as long as it’s within your macros), I find that the healthier I eat, the better I feel for it – mentally and physically. Here’s what a typical day of eating looks like for me (not including this week’s 3-day carb increase and, please bare in mind this will probably change next week):

Breakfast – 60g oats, 200ml almond milk, 100g frozen berries

Lunch – 2 slices German rye bread, 1 cup spinach, 130g chicken breast, 2 fried eggs, cucumber and cherry tomatoes.

Snack 1 – 1 banana and 15g nut butter of choice.

Dinner – 55g cous cous, 30g of protein of choice, side of veg.

Snack 2 – KIN nutrition protein shake.

So there we go. A little bit of a summer cut update for y’all. I’m definitely excited to see where the next few weeks bring me. Now though, it’s time to knuckle down and make the most of my 300g carb limit until we reign in the numbers! Wish me luck and as always, follow my daily progress over on my Instagram.

PS, this post in sponsored by Fashion World x