MINI CUT DIET - LOSE FAT FAST
- josephplatt1979
- Sep 9, 2022
- 6 min read
Updated: May 11, 2023
WHAT IS A MINI CUT DIET
A mini-cut diet is a short-term, aggressive fat loss phase. They are an important tool in your muscle-building journey. A mini cut is an aggressive diet that reduces calories for a few weeks, usually around 4-6 weeks, any longer than 6 weeks and it is just a regular diet. The aim of a mini cut is for someone to maintain leanness with the main goal of putting on muscle over a longer period of time.
The primary goal of doing a mini cut is to lose some of the unwanted fat that one has accumulated during a gaining phase. Once your body has gone through this mini cut phase it will be primed to start putting on muscle optimally. A mini-cut is not a plan to get shredded or get into a contest shape. Instead, it is a diet that gets you lean enough to be in a good position to build muscle.
WHY DO A MINI CUT DIET?
During a mass gaining phase, you need a surplus of calories to gain weight. A good proportion of this weight will be muscle if you train and your diet is good. Unfortunately, it is inevitable that some of the weight you gain will be fat and this is normal. No one ever gains 100 % lean muscle when bulking. The purpose of a mini cut is to allow you to build more muscle and when executed in the right way, it will allow you to quickly get back to being in a surplus and gaining muscle mass.
There are many reason people choose do a mini cut and they can be as follows:
You may be going on a holiday and want to look your best
you are gaining an excessive amount of body fat than muscle
If you’re a bodybuilder and you want to stay near stage condition body fat levels
When you get a bit leaner will increase your insulin sensitivity and improve your Partitioning ratio (P-ratio) - making muscle gain more efficient
You may want to see what your body looks like when relatively lean. This can help identify muscle groups you’d like to improve.
WILL YOU LOSE MUSCLE ON A MINI CUT DIET?
If you were to go on a 4-6-week mini cut, you should expect to lose no muscle at all depending on how you train, how big your deficit is and the macronutrients you are consuming. Basically, you won’t lose muscle mass if you do things right.
The best way to prevent muscle loss during cutting is to keep the same lifting regimen you have when you’re bulking or maintaining. Don’t except to progress in building muscle or gaining strength. We want to train within our recovery ability, but we can raise volume for the purpose of holding muscle tissue during this deficit.
If you do cardio, then keep cardio at a low intensity. The goal of cardio is to create more energy expenditure with the least impact on your weight training and recovery. Low intensity options include the treadmill, elliptical, and stair master. It’s easy to add low intensity cardio without taking away from weight training sessions.
CALORIES AND MACROS ON A MINI CUT DIET
With mini cuts lasting no longer than 6 weeks, you can go very aggressive on lowering calories, but not too low. Keeping your daily calorie deficit to around 500-600 calories per day will see you lose around 1-2 pounds per week. If you drop your calories too low then you risk losing muscle or not giving you body enough fuel to function properly.
Macronutrients are the cornerstones of your diet and no diet will work if you eat the wrong foods. You will want to get the correct amount of protein, carbs and fats on your mini cut. You want to create a calorie deficit not a nutrient deficit
Protein - Protein is an important part of your mini cut for both preserving muscle and helping you combat hunger. Make sure you have at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. Stick to foods like fish, seafood, turkey, eggs, low fat yogurt and protein supplements
Fat - During a mini-cut fat intake needs to be high enough to support optimal hormonal function and should be around 0.3g per pound of bodyweight. Drop fat too low, and testosterone production may decrease, which isn't great for the gains. Healthy fat sources include Sunflower, sesame, Flaxseed, Fatty fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, trout, sardines) and fish oil. Soybean and safflower oil.
Carbs - After you've set protein and fat, the rest of your calories should be from carbohydrates. You will want healthy carbs like Quinoa, Oats, brown rice, Sweet potatoes, leafy greens and healthy fruits.
FAT LOSS RATE DURING A MINI CUT DIET
A mini cut is a short-term strategy with the risk of muscle loss being very low and loss of fat very high. How fast you lose fat during a mini-cut depends upon your body fat percentage. The more fat you have then the quicker the fat loss.
15% body fat or above – lose 1.5-2% of body weight per week
12-15% body fat – lose 1-1.5% of body weight per week
10-12% body fat – lose 0.5-1% of body weight per week
Anyone with less than 10% body fat does not really need to do a mini-cut.
COMING OUT OF A MINI CUT DIET
Since a mini cut is so short to impact the metabolism, there is no need to go on a slow, controlled reverse diet out of a mini cut. But you also don’t want to jump straight back to a large surplus and begin eating based purely on hunger right out of the gate.
It’s important that you return to your calorie surplus in a cautious and controlled manner. You will want to bring your caloric intake back up to a maintenance level for about a week. Then, add calories back up to your original surplus level within the next couple weeks or so.
CALCULATE YOUR CALORIC DEFICIT
Many studies have found that a pound of fat contains around 3,500 calories. To lose a pound of fat per week would require a daily deficit of 500 calories. (500 x 7 = 3,500).
To establish a target deficit, calculate your suggested weekly weight loss percentage.
To calculate a two percent loss, would require you to multiply your body weight by 0.02.
For 1.5%, multiply by 0.015. For a 1% loss, it would be 0.01, and so on.
After you calculate the weight you aim to lose, you will then multiply this by 500 to find your daily calorie deficit.
Here is an example: John is 170 pounds and has 15% body fat.
John aims to lose 2.55 pounds (1.5% of his weight) per week.
To achieve this, he needs a daily deficit of 1,275 calories.
This was calculated as follows:
170 x 0.015 = 2.55
2.55 x 500 = 1,275
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MINI CUT DIET SCHEDULE
The key benefit of a mini cut is its ability to extend the time you spend muscle building long-term. Gaining muscle is a slower process than losing fat and you need more time to create momentum and significant gains in muscle mass. Mini-cuts are not designed to get you ripped, they are designed to get you lean enough to be in a good position to return to mass gaining. They are like taking one step backward to jump forwards two or three.
This is an example of how I tend to set things up for them:
Building phase for 12 weeks – from 170lbs to 177.5lbs
Maintenance phase for 2 weeks – 177.5lbs
Mini Cut for 4 weeks down to 172lbs
Building phase 12 weeks from 172lbs – 182lbs
Maintenance phase for 2 weeks – 182lbs
Mini Cut for 4 weeks down to 177lbs
Building phase for 12 weeks from 177lbs – 187.5
Maintenance phase for 2 weeks – 187.5lbs
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BOTTOM LINE
A mini cut should be aggressive in terms of caloric deficit and should not last more than 6 weeks. Keep in mind that mini-cuts are exactly what their name implies. Mini.
They are not a long-term, sustainable solution. It's short and aggressive for a reason. Rather than the traditional approach of bulking for around 20 weeks and dieting for 12 weeks, mini-cuts to allow for a higher ratio of your training efforts to be spent building muscle. Keep cardio to a minimum and stick to your weightlifting regime to keep hold of the muscle you have built.
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