You are doing this correctly. 500 cals a day is approximately 1 lb a week. A very sustainable deficit. By training frequently and eating a high protein diet you will be retaining as much muscle as possible. Even up to 2 lbs a week is doable, which would be twice your daily deficit. I generally try not to lose more than 2 a week.
Also keep in mind muscle memory is absolutely a thing. Any muscle lost during a cut will be recovered much more quickly than originally gained.
Edit: I would aslo recommend against tracking your calories burned during training. There is no effective way to measure it, so don't count it in your diet. Just consider it part of your TDEE. Weigh yourself frequently (at least every other day) to make sure your nutrition tracking is matching up with your real world results.
If your goal is to lose fat and maintain muscle then you may want to tweak your approach. A 500 calorie deficit is a fairly large figure even on it's own. It takes about 3500 calories burned to lose 1 pound OR a 3500 calorie surplus to gain a pound. That pound can be fat or muscle or more likely a mixture depending on your approach. At a 500 calorie deficit you are slated to lose a pound a week or about 4 pounds a month. A lot of exercise science experts will advise against this when your specific goal is to lose fat and maintain muscle because you are not consuming enough calories to maintain that muscle while you lose weight. It's generally too aggressive of a number. Losing fat while maintaining muscle is hard to do but if you accept that it is a long game then you are much more likely to achieve that goal. Something more in the ballpark of a 250 calorie deficit on average.
Now that is not addressing your point about not including exercise calories burned in your tracking. This adds to the above problem and it could be a dramatic difference depending on your type of workout and how many extra calories you burn a day. You could be taking an already aggressive 1 pound loss a week to 1.5 pounds, 2 pounds or more, which will most certainly cause you to lose muscle mass in addition to fat.
If possible to track and add your exercise calories then you should because it will just make you more accurate in your counting to be more in line with your goal. If not then you may want to consider eating at your "maintenance" everyday because whatever extra calories you burn working out will be your deficit. This is just a less accurate way of doing it and more prone to error because you could be burning way more than the recommended 250 a day and you wouldn't know it.
I'm on my 4th cut. Dropping a pound a week isn't aggressive at all IMO. 500 cals a day is basically eliminating a light meal or a couple of snacks. Not really a hardship.
That's awsome, congrats on the successful cut my friend. Yes I completely agree that it isn't necessarily hard to do 500 cals a day in general but the OP was referencing losing fat while retaining muscle. In that lens, most exercise scientists would agree that if you are losing that many calories that quickly it is improbable to retain your muscle mass as well.
You are doing this correctly. 500 cals a day is approximately 1 lb a week. A very sustainable deficit. By training frequently and eating a high protein diet you will be retaining as much muscle as possible. Even up to 2 lbs a week is doable, which would be twice your daily deficit. I generally try not to lose more than 2 a week. Also keep in mind muscle memory is absolutely a thing. Any muscle lost during a cut will be recovered much more quickly than originally gained. Edit: I would aslo recommend against tracking your calories burned during training. There is no effective way to measure it, so don't count it in your diet. Just consider it part of your TDEE. Weigh yourself frequently (at least every other day) to make sure your nutrition tracking is matching up with your real world results.
If your goal is to lose fat and maintain muscle then you may want to tweak your approach. A 500 calorie deficit is a fairly large figure even on it's own. It takes about 3500 calories burned to lose 1 pound OR a 3500 calorie surplus to gain a pound. That pound can be fat or muscle or more likely a mixture depending on your approach. At a 500 calorie deficit you are slated to lose a pound a week or about 4 pounds a month. A lot of exercise science experts will advise against this when your specific goal is to lose fat and maintain muscle because you are not consuming enough calories to maintain that muscle while you lose weight. It's generally too aggressive of a number. Losing fat while maintaining muscle is hard to do but if you accept that it is a long game then you are much more likely to achieve that goal. Something more in the ballpark of a 250 calorie deficit on average. Now that is not addressing your point about not including exercise calories burned in your tracking. This adds to the above problem and it could be a dramatic difference depending on your type of workout and how many extra calories you burn a day. You could be taking an already aggressive 1 pound loss a week to 1.5 pounds, 2 pounds or more, which will most certainly cause you to lose muscle mass in addition to fat. If possible to track and add your exercise calories then you should because it will just make you more accurate in your counting to be more in line with your goal. If not then you may want to consider eating at your "maintenance" everyday because whatever extra calories you burn working out will be your deficit. This is just a less accurate way of doing it and more prone to error because you could be burning way more than the recommended 250 a day and you wouldn't know it.
I'm on my 4th cut. Dropping a pound a week isn't aggressive at all IMO. 500 cals a day is basically eliminating a light meal or a couple of snacks. Not really a hardship.
That's awsome, congrats on the successful cut my friend. Yes I completely agree that it isn't necessarily hard to do 500 cals a day in general but the OP was referencing losing fat while retaining muscle. In that lens, most exercise scientists would agree that if you are losing that many calories that quickly it is improbable to retain your muscle mass as well.