Determining Your Fitness Phase (To Bulk or to Cut?)
Most of us want to change something about our bodies. It never fails, everyone I work with has some aesthetic desire. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look physically more appealing. Whether it’s for the opposite sex, our own confidence, or to look younger or healthier for longer, it is perfectly normal to want to improve our physical appearance. Let’s face it, we live in an image driven world whether we like it or not. But, what’s behind the desire for a 6 pack, toned arms, and a more youthful appearance? When we are optimally healthy and fit we appear to others as optimally healthy. Health is the primary physical attractor to others, and looking healthy along with being healthy can take us far in life.
Many of us aren’t exactly sure where to start. We could rummage through countless clicks on a Google search and try to find the “secret”, but I suggest hiring a professional for the quickest and most successful way to the body of your desire. When it comes to mapping out your plan for success to that dream body, it helps to have some strategy. So where do we start?
The harsh truth is it is often difficult or even not possible to cut fat as we gain muscle. There are many exceptions, especially for beginners, but at some point the best strategy is to focus on a single phase at once. So it helps to ask yourself what is more important, losing fat or gaining muscle. The answer isn’t so simple and we may be tempted to pick the one our bodies are not best prepared for. This may lead to a long and frustrating process. For these reasons I suggest focusing on one at a time. If we gain a little muscle in a fat loss phase or lose a little fat in a gaining phase, then so be it. So what are our options here? In this blog I am going to break down when it is best to cut and when it is best to gain maximum results and minimum frustration.
Before we talk strategy let’s talk about why and when it is best to go one way or another. Generally speaking, I recommend cutting fat first if we are above a certain percentage of fat mass. The reasons are as we pack on fat mass our body becomes reluctant to put on muscle mass. Some reasons include our reduction in insulin sensitivity. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that helps us utilize nutrients. Insulin is released when we eat a meal and helps us shuttle calories into fat cells, the liver and muscle for glycogen storage, or remain in the blood stream for on demand energy. Have you ever noticed feeling sluggish after a big meal? The primary reasons are 2 fold. One being that blood is shuttled to the digestive system to help process food through digestion, therefore blood is being pulled away from active muscles. The other, more relative reason, is the release of large amounts of insulin can leave us sluggish, and if we’ve ever been overweight, we tend to feel sluggish more often even when not eating. This is because our blood sugar is high and as insulin is released to help utilize those nutrients, blood sugar is on a gradual descent.
If we are carrying an excess of fat mass our insulin sensitivity is lower. That means the body has to pump out more insulin to do its job. The body has become insensitive to this hormone. In many ways this is how type 2 diabetes develops. The body becomes so insensitive that the pancreas simply can’t produce enough insulin and the entire system can at some point shut down completely. As a result we see a much higher tendency toward type 2 diabetes with overweight individuals. The body becomes very inefficient with moving nutrients around for energy and as a result we remain sluggish. So for these reasons if we are carrying more fat mass it may be more important to decrease that fat mass and increase our bodies efficiency with the hormone. Insulin is also very instrumental in gaining muscle as well because it is needed to turn carbohydrates into glycogen and send them into muscle mass as it is an active energy source for muscles. Insulin is needed in the muscle building process for these and other reasons. Therefore if we are insulin insensitive, gaining muscle becomes very inefficient and more nutrients are likely to be further stored as fat. On the same token, if we have lots of muscle mass we have lots of storage for carbohydrate derived glycogen, so we are naturally more insulin sensitive, and losing weight with a muscular base will better set us for improved results. There are other mechanisms present as well, such as increased immune activity and metabolic stress when we overeat and are obese.
So where is a good metric to know when to cut first? As a general rule I typically cut fat from males over the 18% body fat mass mark. Doing so will increase the body's sensitivity to insulin and better prepare them to put on muscle when it is time to flip the switch and go the other direction. Females naturally hold more fat mass, particularly for survival and procreation reasons. Evolutionarily females are meant to hold more fat mass to have more reserves to bear and feed children. The mark I typically cut fat from females is typically around the 25% mark or above.
When it comes to gaining muscle, muscle is gained much more efficiently on a lean frame. The body utilizes insulin very well and energy is better utilized and put into muscle tissue. A good metric for adding muscle to an individual's frame is around 15% or below for men and 20% or below for women. This, of course, is only a baseline, and individuals genetics, history of exercise and lifestyle vary. But with these general guidelines we can usually have a good range to choose our phase and be successful.
So how do we know what our body fat percentage is exactly? There are very few accurate ways to know exactly. I recommend a DEXA scan or displacement test. These are among the most accurate. Multiple site caliper tests can be somewhat accurate as well. A water displacement test can measure your composition mass by measuring how much water you displace, determining your density. DEXA scans utilize x-rays which are absorbed differently by various body tissues to determine fat mass. A caliper test uses a measurement of pinched skin folds to estimate one’s fat mass. All of these tests are within reasonable accuracy. Less accurate methods include an electrical impedance test which measures how your body's various tissues transmit a very low frequency electrical current. The eyeball check is likely the most inaccurate and best left to the professionals.
If you don’t have access to some of these tests I recommend hiring a personal fitness coach well trained at visual assessments. A well trained coach, particularly a bodybuilding coach can estimate a body fat percentage within a few percentage points. This may be accurate enough to choose your phase.
Once a phase is determined it is time to get to work formulating a plan. In the coming blogs we will determine creating plans and timelines for your desired physique. These plans include a physical exercise program including weight training and usually one or more forms of cardiovascular exercise along with a regimented diet. The following blogs will walk you through the science and methods of executing these plans to get to your desired physique. So let’s get to work!
