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Get your target calories, protein, fat, and carbs for a fat loss phase. Pick a deficit level from Gentle (15%) to Very Aggressive (40%) based on your timeline.
Recommended (25%) is the default. Smaller deficits suit lean starting points; larger suit higher body fat.
Enter your details above to see your cutting macros.
Cutting is a structured phase of eating below maintenance calories to reduce body fat. It is not a diet or a cleanse. It is a temporary period, usually 8 to 16 weeks, with a clear start and end. The goal is to lose fat while holding onto the muscle you built during a bulk or maintenance phase.
Three things make a cut work: a calorie deficit, high protein intake, and resistance training. Skip any of the three and you lose muscle instead of just fat. Get all three right and you come out lighter, leaner, and stronger relative to your body weight.
Andrew Menechian's framework offers six deficit levels. The right pick depends on starting body fat, timeline, and how much intensity you can sustain. Recommended (25%) is the default for most lifters.
Gentle (15%)
Slow and easy to sustain. Best if you are already lean (under 15% for men, 22% for women), new to dieting, or want minimal hunger and fatigue. Expect about 0.5 to 0.8 lbs per week at a 180 lb starting weight.
Easy (20%)
A solid starting point for most users. Balances fat loss and adherence. Expect roughly 0.8 to 1.2 lbs per week.
Recommended (25%): default
The sweet spot for steady fat loss while preserving muscle. Andrew's default for most lifters. Expect 1 to 1.5 lbs per week at 180 to 220 lbs.
Hard (30%)
Faster results but requires strict adherence to protein and resistance training. Use it for shorter cuts with a clear timeline. Expect 1.3 to 1.8 lbs per week.
Very Hard (35%)
Aggressive deficit for short-term goals or higher body fat starting points. Hunger and fatigue are real. Manage carefully or transition to a smaller deficit when needed.
Very Aggressive (40%)
Extreme deficit. Only suitable for individuals with meaningful body fat to lose, ideally under professional supervision. Not sustainable long term.
Fat loss is the goal. Muscle loss is the failure mode. Most people lose 25 to 30% of their weight as muscle on a cut. Do these four things and you can push that below 10%.
End the cut when one of these is true: you hit your goal body fat, you are pushing 16 weeks, your training has tanked for more than 2 weeks, or life stress is breaking adherence.
Do not jump straight to high calories the day the cut ends. Spend 1 to 2 weeks at maintenance to let hormones recover, then decide whether to start a lean bulk, stay at maintenance, or plan the next cut cycle. The post-cut transition matters as much as the cut itself.
A cutting phase is a period of eating in a calorie deficit to lose body fat while keeping as much muscle as possible. It runs on three levers: calories below maintenance, high protein to preserve muscle, and resistance training to signal the body to hold onto lean mass. Most cuts last 8 to 16 weeks.
This calculator uses Andrew Menechian's framework: protein scales with deficit size, from 2.3g per kg of lean body mass at a Gentle (15%) deficit to 3.1g per kg at Very Aggressive (40%). At a 25% Recommended deficit, that's 2.6g per kg lean mass. Lean mass is more relevant than total body weight because two people at 200 lbs with different body fat have very different protein needs. Cutting calories is fine. Cutting protein is not.
Andrew Menechian's framework offers six deficit levels: 15% Gentle, 20% Easy, 25% Recommended (default), 30% Hard, 35% Very Hard, 40% Very Aggressive. Most lifters do best at 25%. Go smaller if you're already lean or want a long sustainable cut. Go larger only if you have body fat to lose and can handle the intensity. Never drop below 1,500 calories for men or 1,200 for women.
Diet drives fat loss. Cardio is a tool to widen the deficit when food alone is not enough, but you cannot out-train a bad diet. Hit your calorie and protein target first. Add cardio when weight loss stalls or when you want to eat more food at the same deficit. Resistance training matters more than cardio for keeping muscle.
Most cuts run 8 to 16 weeks. Any longer and adherence drops, sleep suffers, and training performance tanks. If you still have fat to lose after 16 weeks, take a 2 to 4 week diet break at maintenance calories, then resume. Short aggressive cuts and long gentle cuts both work. The failure mode is running an Easy or Recommended cut indefinitely without a diet break.
Eating 800 to 1,000 calories a day causes rapid muscle loss, metabolic adaptation, hormonal disruption, and rebound weight gain. You lose weight fast, but most of it is water, glycogen, and lean mass. When you return to normal eating your body stores more fat than before. Crash diets are the reason most people regain everything within a year.
First, track for 2 weeks. Most plateaus are inaccurate logging or weekend drift. If intake is truly on target: drop calories by another 100 to 150 per day, add 1 to 2 cardio sessions per week, or take a 1 week diet break at maintenance to reset hunger hormones. Do not drop calories more than 150 at a time. Drastic cuts backfire.
FitCommit calculates your cutting macros from AI body composition analysis, then tracks them with camera-based food scanning. Free 1-month trial.
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