How Many Calories to Drop in a Cut Before a Big Event

Nikkiey: What's up, you guys? Nikkiey here with WarriorBabe, and welcome back to another viewer Q&A, and happy Friday. I am excited to be here with you guys.

You guys know the drill by now. I'm going to take four questions that I have received from an earlier live Q&A that I do every single week at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday evenings at facebook.com/WarriorBabeNikkiey, and I'm going to bring them here right now. If you're as excited as I am to dive into this Q&A, smash that like button and be sure to subscribe to this channel, because every single week we're dropping this Q&A and bringing new questions to the table that may be able to help you on your own fitness journey.

All right, let's dive into this Q&A. Question number one, from our girl Tammy: "You said to eat carbs. I thought that was bad for you. LOL. What kind of carbs should I eat?"

Well, first, let me address this mindset around carbs, because Tammy's not the only one who has this mindset that carbohydrates are absolutely terrible. And you know what? It's not Tammy's fault that she has this type of mentality around carbs. It's the mainstream fitness space. It's the weight loss industry that deems that carbohydrates are absolutely terrible, that they're the enemy and that they're going to make you gain weight.

That is not the truth. If you want to lose weight, sure, go ahead, slash your carbs. You're going to see results. But let me tell you, it's not sustainable. It's not realistic, and you're going to become irritable. You're going to become unhappy. And in X amount of time that you're doing this to yourself, you're still not going to see the results that you want if you ultimately want to build muscle and change your body composition, because carbohydrates are extremely important when you have that type of goal for yourself.

Fix the mindset and understand that carbs do serve a purpose if that is your ultimate goal.

Now, what kind of carbs should I eat? There is no such thing as bad carbohydrates. Every carbohydrate is fine to eat. It's just that you want to have a percentage of your carbohydrates coming from complex carbs as opposed to simple carbs. I've explained the difference between the two in another video. But ultimately, complex carbohydrates have more nutritional backing to them than simple carbohydrates do.

Complex carbohydrates are things like oatmeal, whole wheat bread, anything that has a whole wheat makeup, brown rice, sweet potatoes, and sometimes fruits are complex carbohydrates. The majority of the foods that you eat daily should be coming from complex carbohydrates. If you want to have a cookie, if you want to have a piece of chocolate, if you want to have a piece of candy, have the freaking piece of candy, have the freaking cookie. Just don't make the majority of your day consist of those types of food options, because they're not going to give you the type of nutritional value that complex carbohydrates give you.

Question number two. Katie says, "I'm in a retrain because my metabolism and workout life was non-existent. How long do I stay in a retrain before going into a cut?"

Katie is a part of the WarriorBabe program. I can tell by the terminology that she's using. If you're unsure what WarriorBabe is or what our programs are all about, definitely check out the link in the description below.

Now, if you have no idea what a retrain is, I'm going to speak to that right now. Retraining your metabolism is ultimately for people who have been doing keto and have cut out macronutrients from their everyday nutritional routine. Or they are somebody who is eating 1200 calories when they should be eating way more. They're just not eating enough, or they're restricting themselves from eating the right amount of food. At this point, the people who have been living their lifestyle that way are probably experiencing a lack of results, because their metabolism is not working at the optimal speed it could if it were given enough food.

It's pretty much just stalled out. People need to make sure they get that metabolism back up to speed so that it can work for them and not against them. Retraining your metabolism is a nine-week phase. We gradually increase your calories over the span of those nine weeks to come up to your maintenance threshold. We do this at a steady pace so you don't gain too much weight too fast, and we also make sure that your body and your metabolism are adapting to this new caloric and macro intake.

Ultimately, when you get up to that maintenance level and you're eating around 2000 calories, not only may you experience some amazing results physically, but mentally you're going to be relieved of all the symptoms you were experiencing when you weren't eating enough or had cut out macronutrients. When you've done this the right way, those symptoms have been relieved, you're eating 2000 or more calories, and your metabolism is working, revving and adapting, that's a really good indicator that you're ready to go down into a cut.

But you really want to make sure you take nine weeks, or even more depending on how much your metabolism needs to be repaired, and do it the right way. Because that short amount of time is going to serve you for the longevity of the results that you want to accomplish.

All right, let's dive into question number three. Tara: "I'm about 16 to 17% body fat and want to shred for a big event in eight weeks. Is it detrimental to my muscle to slowly decrease my calories to 1300 calories over the next eight weeks, then reverse diet afterwards? I'm currently eating 2100 calories a day."

As a coach, as a professional in this space, I would never, ever, ever slash somebody's calories by 800 just because they have an event in eight weeks and want to see a huge transformation. Look, you're just setting yourself up to be placed into a metabolism retrain, and basically thrashing your metabolism, if you do an 800-calorie drop after eating 2100 calories for a long duration of time.

You can still accomplish what you want to accomplish in an eight-week span, but you can do it in a way that doesn't thrash your metabolism, in slow, small increments over the eight weeks. If your body has been at 2100 calories for a long duration of time, that means your metabolism is already doing a great job sitting up that high. So you can drop it by 200 or 250 calories with a proper macro breakdown. And I guarantee you, if you apply that consistently for a week or two, you're putting yourself in a little bit of a deficit from what your body is used to.

So you're bound to start seeing the results that you want to see. As you consistently stay at those calories and macros for two weeks and your body starts to adapt, then it's like, okay, I'm ready to make another calorie and macro adjustment. You can do 250 at that point. You're already down 500 calories in a four-week span, and you still have four more weeks to go. Ultimately, you can still get to where you want to be without thrashing your metabolism, just by being a little bit smarter about the way you approach it and making smaller calorie and macro decreases over time.

That's going to put you in a caloric deficit, and it's going to get you to the results that you want to see. And if you have an event coming up, don't start training for it at eight weeks. If you want to see more results and do it at a slower, steady pace, start training at 12 weeks or at 16 weeks. Open up the window of time you're giving yourself to see the results you want to see.

All right. Question number four: "What are good things to eat after heavy weightlifting? I work out five times a week."

My recommendation, and what I've been using for years now, is to always have a protein and a carbohydrate in your post-workout meal. My go-to is two First Form products: their Vegan Power Pro protein powder (say that 10 times fast) and their Ignition fast-acting carbohydrate, which I use as my carbohydrate source. It's so easy. They're both powders, so I mix them together with water before I even go to the gym, and my post-workout is ready to rock and roll after I'm done with my lifting session.

That's what I would recommend for everybody. If you want to check out those two products, the links are in the description below this video.

Post-workout and pre-workout are really good done consistently on a daily basis. But let me remind you that you're not building muscle in the gym. You're breaking it down. That post-workout meal is going to start the building process and the recovery process of the muscle. But ultimately, what's going to truly build the muscle is the way your nutrition looks for the next 24 to 48 hours after that specific lifting session.

As well as what your sleep looks like, what your hydration looks like, and what the stressors in your life look like. All of those things come into play when you want to build muscle. Post-workout is really important, but please keep the bigger picture in mind when you're looking to change your body composition. It's the way your nutrition plays out for the next 24 to 48 hours after that training session.

And that wraps up our Q&A for today. I had tons of fun providing you guys those answers. I hope that you found value, clarity and some understanding, if one of these questions pertains to you and your own fitness journey.

Maybe you need to fix your mindset around carbohydrates and understand that they are really good if your ultimate goal is to build muscle and change your body composition. Or you're somebody who needs to retrain your metabolism so that it can work for you instead of against you. Or you need to understand how to go about a cut the right way, not slashing your calories by 800 in one go. Or you just wanted to understand more about your post-workout, and how the 24 to 48 hours after your lifting session matter most for the bigger picture of building muscle.

Be sure to subscribe to this channel, because every single week we're dropping Q&As like this. And who knows, next week one of those four questions could be something you specifically need to hear that's going to help you on your own fitness journey.

If you want to learn more nutritional information for your own individual needs, or get some workout guidance for your own body type and understand what's going to help you get the results you want, head over to warriorbabe.com. There are tons of free resources in the categories of mindset, macros and workouts that can help you on your current fitness journey and help you get results that last forever.

All right, you guys, I'll see you in next week's video.