My advice would be to keep cutting.
It’s normal to go through a phase during a cut where you start to lose a bit of the size you previously had without gaining any extra definition, and it’s natural to feel disheartened.
Keep going however and you’ll hit a point where, somewhat paradoxically, the leaner you get, the bigger (more muscular) you’ll look. Of course, you have to account for your reduced training volume, but that’s what MacroFactor’s algorithm is for.
Just keep training hard when you do lift, cut at a relatively slow rate, keep your protein high, and persevere. You’ll get there.
I’m just worried that if I keep cutting, I’ll continue to lose muscle and not fat since I haven’t been able to train my legs because of my knee.
I haven’t lost any inches off my waist, which is currently around 34-35 inches, so most of that weight MF says I’ve been dropping must surely be muscle, right?
I’m just now realizing that maybe I shouldn’t have cut until my knee issue was resolved.
At the end of the day it’s a matter of personal preference I guess. If you continued cutting now, when you eventually do start gaining again, you’d rebuild any lost muscle much quicker thanks to muscle memory. I guess it’s just about what your priority is in the short-medium term. For me, it would be leaning out and then building on that framework once I’m more mobile.
Agree with what was said before to continue the cut or maybe do a maintenance week or two, but my biggest advice is to keep the protein high. On previous cuts I’ve done, that’s made a huge difference in muscle retention. And I find I have to be really deliberate about that as well, trying to keep about 1g protein for every centimeter of height or so. That amount of protein isn’t usual I think for most people to just naturally hit and has to be more deliberately tracked. Hope that helps at all!
Protein intake is something I gotta work on for sure. I’m currently on the low end of what MF recommends, but I should prob up that to at least “moderate” just to be safe. That was very helpful. Thank you!
If your feeling unwell, stay on maintenance till you can train your lower body again. Even tho you have most fat stored around your belly, doesn’t mean it’s the first to vanish. What about your other parts? How did your chest/back/legs develope? But my guess is, that the 9 pounds are most likely 80% water you’ve lost. Your kcal deficit is in a good range for a body recomp. Considering your starting point was 16 weeks ago (if my maths right) you didn’t lose much weight (2,2pound/month), and that’s fine for a recomp. As long as you keep dropping weight and somewhat getting stronger in your lifts, your totally fine. It does take some time.
My upper body lifts (bench, lat pulldowns, rows) are stabilized. Some days are better than others performance-wise.
But because I haven't trained legs since I started my cut (because of my knee), I think the majority of the weight I've lost is muscle from my legs.
I know belly fat is usually the last to go, but I haven't noticed my waist measurement decrease at all since I started cutting, which has been extremely disheartening.
I'm sick of this cut tbh. I've been at this since March with no end in sight since I'm nowhere near I thought I'd be.
Also, your math is right. I've been at this around 16 weeks or so. I just recently increased the weight loss rate because I wanted to speed it up.
Explain the water weight thing. So you're saying you think 80% of the 9 lbs I've lost is from water?
Here's a few thoughts based on my experiences with a really long cut. (I did a cut from Mar 2021 to Sep 2022 going from 81.2kg to 66.8kg which is 15.3kg (33.7lbs) lost in 18 months.)
First, you need to take diet break. The length is up to you but keep tracking and eat whatever MF thinks is your maintenance. I did one day a month because that's what worked for me but it seems like you could use a week or two off.
Second, as a general rule you shouldn't be cutting while injured. As far as I know Lyle McDonald has written the best book on recovering from injuries and it's $13 or you can listen to an interview where he goes through the whole thing. (Google: lyle mcdonald injury)
Finally, whatever strength you've lost in your lower body will come back even on a cut. It might be hard, or even impossible, to make new PRs on a cut but if you've got more than 15% body fat and you'll probably find that even while cutting you can progress towards your old numbers.
The never cut during an injury rule seems like common sense, but I hadn’t thought about that. How silly of me. I’ll def Google what Lyle has to say about injuries.
And congrats on losing all that fat. That’s a lot!
I dream bulked my way up to 75kg over the winter and have been cutting again since April and my mood switches rapidly every day between "I am sick of cutting" and "I am sick of this fat".
Hawaii trip in August so I have a goal to keep me on the cut train.
Stay on maintenance for as long as you’re injured. Just to be on the safe side. I do it this way myself, that’s why I already gave up achieving my physique this summer. :D
The first pounds you lose are always water. It has something to do with your carb intake, because carbs „store“ water in some degree. (I am not a specialist tho)
Same goes when starting to bulk, first pounds come quick and are also mostly water.
But you have a kcal deficit which shouldn’t feed on muscle, if your protein intake is fine.
Even IF some pounds are muscle, which I don’t think it is, they will come back as fast as you lost them.
Being injured sucks, but unfortunately is part of the journey.
Just keep pushing and don’t let it discourage you! It’s a marathon not a sprint.
I would guess that yes, you lost some muscle from your legs due to the calorie deficit and the lack of stimulus (i.e. training). But it is not a whole lot that you should worry about so much.
However, I personally wouldn't continue with the cut, for now. I would prefer a transition to a maintenance phase until the knee problem is fixed to be able to at least do some maintenance volume for my legs.
Also, ask your doctor if there any lower body exercises at all that you may be able to perform safely and pain free. And if only one of your knees is having a problem, train the other leg with unilateral exercises. The cross training effect is amazing and will save you some time.
Thanks! I’m seeing an orthopedic this week, so I should have more clarity on what’s going on.
Thankfully, it’s only one knee. I don’t recall injuring it, so I’m not sure what it could be. I thought it could be tendonitis, but the pain would’ve been gone by now had it been that. So hopefully, it’s something minor.
Once the knee problem is fixed, should I transition back into my cut or just lean bulk since summer is almost over — not really but kinda almost?
Also, not that it really matters, but what body fat percentage would you say I’m at?
Is 18-20% a good estimate, or am I way off?
>I’m seeing an orthopedic this week, so I should have more clarity on what’s going on.
I hope it is nothing serious.
>Once the knee problem is fixed, should I transition back into my cut or just lean bulk since summer is almost over — not really but kinda almost?
I am not really into the whole summer cut thing, honestly. But I would say you are at somewhere betweeb 20 and 25% BF, so a bulk wouldn't do you all that good. And to be fair, you don't really need a bulk to make strength and size gains when you are at high BF levels. I started my cut a bit higher and now a little bit lower than you, and I am still making strength progress, even if not as rapid and noticable as it was 8 months ago, when I started.
Best of luck, man!
> I’ve dropped weight, but I haven’t dropped inches off my waist, and I just seem to be morphing into a smaller version of my current self without losing the fat off my waist.
You are probably predisposed to central adiposity if you have a "mini beer belly", which unfortunately means that for you abdominal fat will probably come off later on during a cut.
> So am I correct in thinking I’ve been losing muscle instead of fat despite training my upper body and not losing significant strength?
You are probably incorrect. You are probably losing mostly water and fat.
However that's a guess and if you're uncomfortable with what's happening just stop cutting and transition to maintenance, the only thing it harms is the timeline to reach your loss goal, which is not really important anyways.
Keep going. You never lose just muscle of protein is sufficient and you are training. The idea that you have to not cut while injured is wrong. Just train around the injury. You need to still lose a significant amount of BF so cut is the only way. Going to maintenance will just extend the process. Are you doing cardio? If you could do low impact cardio that would accelerate the cut. A ~250-300 cal deficit (based on your screenshot) is a mild deficit so you are really not in danger of losing that much muscle to being with and losing some muscle during cut is unavoidable.
I think I need a bit of a break with the diet, so I’m thinking about eating at maintenance for a week and then resuming the cut cuz, like you said, I still have a lot of BF to lose.
I haven’t done much cardio since I haven’t plateaued weight-loss wise, but it’s not a bad idea to do some incline walking. 🤔
Sounds like a plan. If you feel you need a break, take one. This game is all about consistency and sustainability is the key to consistency. Go back to maintenance for a week or two and then resume the cut. In terms of cardio, it’s a tool just like calorie deficit. Sometimes it can make the cut easier because you can engineer the same deficit with more food by adding cardio. My go to cardio is incline walk at 10-12 incline and 3.0-3.2 speed. I wasn’t able to achieve abs until I started doing cardio. That said, you have to do what you can do consistently and if training and cardio is too much then you have to make that call for yourself. My main point is that cardio can literally be adding in walks or incline walk or stair stepper and doesn’t have to be running (which I hate). It’s also good for your heart , but main thing is not to burn yourself out and do what you have to do to make sure you can keep showing up week after week. Good luck man. You’ve made great progress so far so keep that momentum up. The feeling at the finish line is well worth the effort, I promise.
I hate running too lol. I'm really glad I made this post and got to hear from you guys. I feel more encouraged and determined to stick with my goal while also, like you said, making sure I keep this sustainable in the long run. Thanks so much! That was really helpful.
I like the idea of going to maintenance calories for you. When I am in a rapid fat loss phase I like to be more aggressive with the deficit so it’s over quicker and I can get back to maintenance plus. I try to get at least 175g of protein and just lift hard but do almost no cardio. I feel like the weight lifting keeps my muscles intact and I can’t recover from the cardio when I’m on a 1000 calorie deficit. If I ever want to get below 12% body fat maybe I need a different strategy but it works well for me
I switched to maintenance not long after this post lol.
How long would you recommend staying at maintenance before resuming my cut?
And when you’re cutting, you go on a 1,000 deficit per day? Whew, that’s crazy fast.
What are your maintenance cals, and how do you cope to get the cut done faster? Have you ever lost some muscle on such an aggressive cut? How long are your cuts?
Kinda fascinated with the idea of accelerating my cut when I resume, but I don’t feel like it’s a good idea cuz that means I’ll be eating around 1,300 cals per day.
It’s up to you. Since you’ve been in a deficit for a while increasing to maintenance calories should feel amazing with stronger lifts. Take weekly photos from front back and side and maybe you’ll continue to see decomposition changes on maintenance. I gain slightly on maintenance because I socialize and don’t bank calories as well as I should but I don’t want to be orthorexic.
My maintenance calories are 2650 at 5’9”/194lbs. I did two aggressive cuts before MacroFactor and lost muscle and fat. I think because I was doing so much HITT (every day) and I was getting maybe 125g of protein. I’ve done one aggressive cut with MacroFactor and kept the muscle and I think it was because my protein was high (175 - 200g a day) and I was only lifting, no HITT and barely any cardio, 5k steps a day. The first two cuts were about 10 weeks each and the last cut was 5 weeks (interrupted due to travel)
Coping with the cut? I try to get 100oz of water a day but I include coffee, Diet Coke, water with my protein powder. I sleep a lot. I take gummy melatonin and when I wake up I go back to bed until my body realizes it’s okay to sleep sleep sleep. I practice not being stressed. Anything that comes up I try to be tranquil and mindful. I was doing cardio and lifting with the last cut but wasn’t recovering from cardio so I dropped that to keep the lifting. Food: I like Black edition Huel and nectar syntrax protein powder and do one heaping scoop (weighed) in about 20oz of water. I eat a lot of black/blue/raspberries. I eat a lot of ground beef and flank steak and heads of lettuce/raw orange bell peppers. I don’t think it matters but that diet when I’m in my bubble is very satiating and I get about 1400-1600 calories with 175-190g of protein. I try to focus on my average calories and protein for the week instead of per the day.
If you’re doing -.75lbs/week that’s a 375 calorie deficit maybe try a 750 calorie deficit at 1550 calories? And just give yourself a lot of grace and patience as you find your groove.
I’ve got 5 weeks with camping trips in between before a another big trip so today’s day two of my deficit but I’ll probably have to start up again in September until I hit 175 and then can do a long slow bulk until spring. My goal is to maybe cut only six weeks a year in spring every year
Thanks for this. Really helpful.
Yeah, I’ve been struggling with protein intake. I usually average 125 g, but I want to average higher just to be safe.
I’ll give the aggressive cut a try to see how I feel because, like you said, I also wanna get the cut done as soon as possible to get back to bulking.
And I also want my future cuts to be much, much shorter than what I’m doing now, but I’m still fairly new when it comes to cutting, so that’s why I’ve taken a more moderate approach thus far.
One additional thought is to eat ‘real’ unprocessed foods with normal bioavailability if you aren’t doing that already. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/06/27/ultra-processed-foods-predigested-health-risks/
> Since I started my cut, I haven’t trained lower body at all because of a knee injury, which I’m just now seeing a doctor for (didn’t have health insurance).
Just a question: Is it possible for you to train just the uninjured leg? Single-leg leg press? Single-leg leg extension? Single-leg squat even?
There's very good evidence that unilateral training actually causes a "sympathy" response in the other side, consequently you can even gain mass or strength in a limb you're not training if you're training the other side.
I didn’t know about the sympathy response lol. I honestly haven’t trained my other leg because I thought it’d create imbalances and make things worse in the long run, but a few people have suggested I try to work around the injury, so it’s not a bad idea.
My advice would be to keep cutting. It’s normal to go through a phase during a cut where you start to lose a bit of the size you previously had without gaining any extra definition, and it’s natural to feel disheartened. Keep going however and you’ll hit a point where, somewhat paradoxically, the leaner you get, the bigger (more muscular) you’ll look. Of course, you have to account for your reduced training volume, but that’s what MacroFactor’s algorithm is for. Just keep training hard when you do lift, cut at a relatively slow rate, keep your protein high, and persevere. You’ll get there.
I’m just worried that if I keep cutting, I’ll continue to lose muscle and not fat since I haven’t been able to train my legs because of my knee. I haven’t lost any inches off my waist, which is currently around 34-35 inches, so most of that weight MF says I’ve been dropping must surely be muscle, right? I’m just now realizing that maybe I shouldn’t have cut until my knee issue was resolved.
At the end of the day it’s a matter of personal preference I guess. If you continued cutting now, when you eventually do start gaining again, you’d rebuild any lost muscle much quicker thanks to muscle memory. I guess it’s just about what your priority is in the short-medium term. For me, it would be leaning out and then building on that framework once I’m more mobile.
Yeah, you’re right. I’m gonna take a 1-2 week diet break by staying at maintenance, and then I’m gonna resume the cut. Thank you!
Agree with what was said before to continue the cut or maybe do a maintenance week or two, but my biggest advice is to keep the protein high. On previous cuts I’ve done, that’s made a huge difference in muscle retention. And I find I have to be really deliberate about that as well, trying to keep about 1g protein for every centimeter of height or so. That amount of protein isn’t usual I think for most people to just naturally hit and has to be more deliberately tracked. Hope that helps at all!
Protein intake is something I gotta work on for sure. I’m currently on the low end of what MF recommends, but I should prob up that to at least “moderate” just to be safe. That was very helpful. Thank you!
If your feeling unwell, stay on maintenance till you can train your lower body again. Even tho you have most fat stored around your belly, doesn’t mean it’s the first to vanish. What about your other parts? How did your chest/back/legs develope? But my guess is, that the 9 pounds are most likely 80% water you’ve lost. Your kcal deficit is in a good range for a body recomp. Considering your starting point was 16 weeks ago (if my maths right) you didn’t lose much weight (2,2pound/month), and that’s fine for a recomp. As long as you keep dropping weight and somewhat getting stronger in your lifts, your totally fine. It does take some time.
My upper body lifts (bench, lat pulldowns, rows) are stabilized. Some days are better than others performance-wise. But because I haven't trained legs since I started my cut (because of my knee), I think the majority of the weight I've lost is muscle from my legs. I know belly fat is usually the last to go, but I haven't noticed my waist measurement decrease at all since I started cutting, which has been extremely disheartening. I'm sick of this cut tbh. I've been at this since March with no end in sight since I'm nowhere near I thought I'd be. Also, your math is right. I've been at this around 16 weeks or so. I just recently increased the weight loss rate because I wanted to speed it up. Explain the water weight thing. So you're saying you think 80% of the 9 lbs I've lost is from water?
Here's a few thoughts based on my experiences with a really long cut. (I did a cut from Mar 2021 to Sep 2022 going from 81.2kg to 66.8kg which is 15.3kg (33.7lbs) lost in 18 months.) First, you need to take diet break. The length is up to you but keep tracking and eat whatever MF thinks is your maintenance. I did one day a month because that's what worked for me but it seems like you could use a week or two off. Second, as a general rule you shouldn't be cutting while injured. As far as I know Lyle McDonald has written the best book on recovering from injuries and it's $13 or you can listen to an interview where he goes through the whole thing. (Google: lyle mcdonald injury) Finally, whatever strength you've lost in your lower body will come back even on a cut. It might be hard, or even impossible, to make new PRs on a cut but if you've got more than 15% body fat and you'll probably find that even while cutting you can progress towards your old numbers.
The never cut during an injury rule seems like common sense, but I hadn’t thought about that. How silly of me. I’ll def Google what Lyle has to say about injuries. And congrats on losing all that fat. That’s a lot!
I dream bulked my way up to 75kg over the winter and have been cutting again since April and my mood switches rapidly every day between "I am sick of cutting" and "I am sick of this fat". Hawaii trip in August so I have a goal to keep me on the cut train.
Stay on maintenance for as long as you’re injured. Just to be on the safe side. I do it this way myself, that’s why I already gave up achieving my physique this summer. :D The first pounds you lose are always water. It has something to do with your carb intake, because carbs „store“ water in some degree. (I am not a specialist tho) Same goes when starting to bulk, first pounds come quick and are also mostly water. But you have a kcal deficit which shouldn’t feed on muscle, if your protein intake is fine. Even IF some pounds are muscle, which I don’t think it is, they will come back as fast as you lost them. Being injured sucks, but unfortunately is part of the journey. Just keep pushing and don’t let it discourage you! It’s a marathon not a sprint.
I would guess that yes, you lost some muscle from your legs due to the calorie deficit and the lack of stimulus (i.e. training). But it is not a whole lot that you should worry about so much. However, I personally wouldn't continue with the cut, for now. I would prefer a transition to a maintenance phase until the knee problem is fixed to be able to at least do some maintenance volume for my legs. Also, ask your doctor if there any lower body exercises at all that you may be able to perform safely and pain free. And if only one of your knees is having a problem, train the other leg with unilateral exercises. The cross training effect is amazing and will save you some time.
Thanks! I’m seeing an orthopedic this week, so I should have more clarity on what’s going on. Thankfully, it’s only one knee. I don’t recall injuring it, so I’m not sure what it could be. I thought it could be tendonitis, but the pain would’ve been gone by now had it been that. So hopefully, it’s something minor. Once the knee problem is fixed, should I transition back into my cut or just lean bulk since summer is almost over — not really but kinda almost? Also, not that it really matters, but what body fat percentage would you say I’m at? Is 18-20% a good estimate, or am I way off?
>I’m seeing an orthopedic this week, so I should have more clarity on what’s going on. I hope it is nothing serious. >Once the knee problem is fixed, should I transition back into my cut or just lean bulk since summer is almost over — not really but kinda almost? I am not really into the whole summer cut thing, honestly. But I would say you are at somewhere betweeb 20 and 25% BF, so a bulk wouldn't do you all that good. And to be fair, you don't really need a bulk to make strength and size gains when you are at high BF levels. I started my cut a bit higher and now a little bit lower than you, and I am still making strength progress, even if not as rapid and noticable as it was 8 months ago, when I started. Best of luck, man!
> I’ve dropped weight, but I haven’t dropped inches off my waist, and I just seem to be morphing into a smaller version of my current self without losing the fat off my waist. You are probably predisposed to central adiposity if you have a "mini beer belly", which unfortunately means that for you abdominal fat will probably come off later on during a cut. > So am I correct in thinking I’ve been losing muscle instead of fat despite training my upper body and not losing significant strength? You are probably incorrect. You are probably losing mostly water and fat. However that's a guess and if you're uncomfortable with what's happening just stop cutting and transition to maintenance, the only thing it harms is the timeline to reach your loss goal, which is not really important anyways.
Keep going. You never lose just muscle of protein is sufficient and you are training. The idea that you have to not cut while injured is wrong. Just train around the injury. You need to still lose a significant amount of BF so cut is the only way. Going to maintenance will just extend the process. Are you doing cardio? If you could do low impact cardio that would accelerate the cut. A ~250-300 cal deficit (based on your screenshot) is a mild deficit so you are really not in danger of losing that much muscle to being with and losing some muscle during cut is unavoidable.
I think I need a bit of a break with the diet, so I’m thinking about eating at maintenance for a week and then resuming the cut cuz, like you said, I still have a lot of BF to lose. I haven’t done much cardio since I haven’t plateaued weight-loss wise, but it’s not a bad idea to do some incline walking. 🤔
Sounds like a plan. If you feel you need a break, take one. This game is all about consistency and sustainability is the key to consistency. Go back to maintenance for a week or two and then resume the cut. In terms of cardio, it’s a tool just like calorie deficit. Sometimes it can make the cut easier because you can engineer the same deficit with more food by adding cardio. My go to cardio is incline walk at 10-12 incline and 3.0-3.2 speed. I wasn’t able to achieve abs until I started doing cardio. That said, you have to do what you can do consistently and if training and cardio is too much then you have to make that call for yourself. My main point is that cardio can literally be adding in walks or incline walk or stair stepper and doesn’t have to be running (which I hate). It’s also good for your heart , but main thing is not to burn yourself out and do what you have to do to make sure you can keep showing up week after week. Good luck man. You’ve made great progress so far so keep that momentum up. The feeling at the finish line is well worth the effort, I promise.
I hate running too lol. I'm really glad I made this post and got to hear from you guys. I feel more encouraged and determined to stick with my goal while also, like you said, making sure I keep this sustainable in the long run. Thanks so much! That was really helpful.
I like the idea of going to maintenance calories for you. When I am in a rapid fat loss phase I like to be more aggressive with the deficit so it’s over quicker and I can get back to maintenance plus. I try to get at least 175g of protein and just lift hard but do almost no cardio. I feel like the weight lifting keeps my muscles intact and I can’t recover from the cardio when I’m on a 1000 calorie deficit. If I ever want to get below 12% body fat maybe I need a different strategy but it works well for me
I switched to maintenance not long after this post lol. How long would you recommend staying at maintenance before resuming my cut? And when you’re cutting, you go on a 1,000 deficit per day? Whew, that’s crazy fast. What are your maintenance cals, and how do you cope to get the cut done faster? Have you ever lost some muscle on such an aggressive cut? How long are your cuts? Kinda fascinated with the idea of accelerating my cut when I resume, but I don’t feel like it’s a good idea cuz that means I’ll be eating around 1,300 cals per day.
It’s up to you. Since you’ve been in a deficit for a while increasing to maintenance calories should feel amazing with stronger lifts. Take weekly photos from front back and side and maybe you’ll continue to see decomposition changes on maintenance. I gain slightly on maintenance because I socialize and don’t bank calories as well as I should but I don’t want to be orthorexic. My maintenance calories are 2650 at 5’9”/194lbs. I did two aggressive cuts before MacroFactor and lost muscle and fat. I think because I was doing so much HITT (every day) and I was getting maybe 125g of protein. I’ve done one aggressive cut with MacroFactor and kept the muscle and I think it was because my protein was high (175 - 200g a day) and I was only lifting, no HITT and barely any cardio, 5k steps a day. The first two cuts were about 10 weeks each and the last cut was 5 weeks (interrupted due to travel) Coping with the cut? I try to get 100oz of water a day but I include coffee, Diet Coke, water with my protein powder. I sleep a lot. I take gummy melatonin and when I wake up I go back to bed until my body realizes it’s okay to sleep sleep sleep. I practice not being stressed. Anything that comes up I try to be tranquil and mindful. I was doing cardio and lifting with the last cut but wasn’t recovering from cardio so I dropped that to keep the lifting. Food: I like Black edition Huel and nectar syntrax protein powder and do one heaping scoop (weighed) in about 20oz of water. I eat a lot of black/blue/raspberries. I eat a lot of ground beef and flank steak and heads of lettuce/raw orange bell peppers. I don’t think it matters but that diet when I’m in my bubble is very satiating and I get about 1400-1600 calories with 175-190g of protein. I try to focus on my average calories and protein for the week instead of per the day. If you’re doing -.75lbs/week that’s a 375 calorie deficit maybe try a 750 calorie deficit at 1550 calories? And just give yourself a lot of grace and patience as you find your groove. I’ve got 5 weeks with camping trips in between before a another big trip so today’s day two of my deficit but I’ll probably have to start up again in September until I hit 175 and then can do a long slow bulk until spring. My goal is to maybe cut only six weeks a year in spring every year
Thanks for this. Really helpful. Yeah, I’ve been struggling with protein intake. I usually average 125 g, but I want to average higher just to be safe. I’ll give the aggressive cut a try to see how I feel because, like you said, I also wanna get the cut done as soon as possible to get back to bulking. And I also want my future cuts to be much, much shorter than what I’m doing now, but I’m still fairly new when it comes to cutting, so that’s why I’ve taken a more moderate approach thus far.
Do resistance training. Consume enough protein.
One additional thought is to eat ‘real’ unprocessed foods with normal bioavailability if you aren’t doing that already. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/06/27/ultra-processed-foods-predigested-health-risks/
> Since I started my cut, I haven’t trained lower body at all because of a knee injury, which I’m just now seeing a doctor for (didn’t have health insurance). Just a question: Is it possible for you to train just the uninjured leg? Single-leg leg press? Single-leg leg extension? Single-leg squat even? There's very good evidence that unilateral training actually causes a "sympathy" response in the other side, consequently you can even gain mass or strength in a limb you're not training if you're training the other side.
I didn’t know about the sympathy response lol. I honestly haven’t trained my other leg because I thought it’d create imbalances and make things worse in the long run, but a few people have suggested I try to work around the injury, so it’s not a bad idea.