cardio or reduced calories for fat loss?

[killroy70]

I'm currently beginning the cutting phase of my CKD (I've had GREAT success bulking over the last couple months). Now, I haven't been doing any cardio, but only monitoring my diet and weight training 3-4 times per week (depending on the various programs I've been using). Now, I would like to retain as much muscle mass as I can while losing as much fat as I can. I'd really like to hit 6-8% body fat (currently about 12%). But one thing I'm concerned about in using cardio is how it will affect my strength in the weight room. Believe it or not, I've made some tremendous strength gains while bulking on my ckd and would like at the very least to maintain my strength levels while cutting.

With this information and these goals in mind, would I be better suited to:
1) diet + strength training + moderate intensity cardio?
2) diet + strength training?
3) diet + strength training + high intensity interval training?

If anyone has any insight into this, I'd love to hear it, thanks again

 

[gymtime]

The better your diet and training regimen, the less cardio you have to do. Cardio is catabolic to varying degrees even under the best circumstances.

If i were you, I'd just stick to the diet and training for now, and see how that goes. If you get frustrated because the fat isn't coming off, try some post-workout cardio, 20 minutes tops, three days a week and see how that goes.

 

[Mr.X]

I'm currently beginning the cutting phase of my CKD (I've had GREAT success bulking over the last couple months). Now, I haven't been doing any cardio, but only monitoring my diet and weight training 3-4 times per week (depending on the various programs I've been using). Now, I would like to retain as much muscle mass as I can while losing as much fat as I can. I'd really like to hit 6-8% body fat (currently about 12%). But one thing I'm concerned about in using cardio is how it will affect my strength in the weight room. Believe it or not, I've made some tremendous strength gains while bulking on my ckd and would like at the very least to maintain my strength levels while cutting.

With this information and these goals in mind, would I be better suited to:
1) diet + strength training + moderate intensity cardio?
2) diet + strength training?
3) diet + strength training + high intensity interval training?

If anyone has any insight into this, I'd love to hear it, thanks again

Less cardio is probably better in your case....
I would choose #2 for now, until you hit a plateu in fat-loss, then you can add low-intensity cardio.

Mr.X

 

[killroy70]

diet + strength training?

Thanks for the replies Mr. X and gymtiime. I think I'm going to try a couple weeks without cardio. I suppose once I nail down the correct number of calories I'll be ok. Besides during my 3x/week weight training, my job is physically demanding.

As an aside, I had posted numerous questions to this board a while back when I began my ckd bulking cycle. The replies I received were extremely helpful and helped me increase my weight from 194 to 215 in about 3 months. The majority of that weight gain was in the form of muscle, which was quite evident in my strength gains. The specific program I have been following is the Metabolic/Anabolic diet from Mauro DiPasquale.

Mr. X and others, I have dropped my calories from 4500-5000 in my bulking cycle to around 3000 calories per day right now while cutting. I'm planning on cutting for the next 8-12 weeks, and will probably bottom out at around 2000/day. What are anyone's thoughts on carb ups? While bulking, I carbed up on saturday and sunday and ate absolutey everything in sight. So far, in my few weeks of cutting, I've dropped that to one and a half days of cutting and are eating in a more "clean" manner, although the first few hours of my first carb up day are devoted to the higher glycemic cheat-carbs (pancakes, pizza, etc...). Should I drop to 1 carb up day per week? Should I try to consume lower GI carbs?

Again, any help would be appreciated!
thanks again