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Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I

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And possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in.

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Sometimes we have to go to extremes to actually create a lifestyle balance. Really, life is never balanced. It’s a constant balancing act and sometimes we do have to go one way, a little bit too much to correct from going another way too much. And I bring this up in regards to holidays, in regards to striking a lifestyle balance and seeing results snowball because often we do blame the holiday, the vacation, that one event when really it’s all the days around that we can control and adjust to see the results that we want. But with sometimes going one way, having a little bit more of that lifestyle balance on those holidays or vacations, we do need to go slightly to the other extreme to balance everything out. But over the weeks, months and years, this creates that balance even though it’s more of a balancing act between the two.

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And I think it’s really important that we recognize this because sometimes to get to enjoy things more, to let loose a little bit more, you do have to make more sacrifices at a different point and in weighing what sacrifices are worth it and what enjoyment is worth it. You could find that right balance for you, but you’ve got to find your balance because too often we only focus on the holiday. We stress over the holiday, we blame holidays and vacations for our weight gain. But really it is all the days around. I mean, even think about it, we’re going into the 4th of July, but it can be any holiday. Think about that holiday. Think about what usually happens, especially with this holiday being on Thursday. We on Thursday, let loose, go to the barbecue, have fun. All of a sudden it’s Friday. It’s like, well, it’s Friday.

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Why not just wait till Monday? And all of a sudden what was just Thursday becomes Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then on Monday, if we’re struggling to get on track at all of a sudden it could be weeks before we get really back into a groove. Instead, what we need to say is, Hey, I want to let loose on this day. How can I hold myself accountable around? And that might mean planning ahead and doing what I’m going to go over today, which is mini cuts ahead of time. But it might also mean just doing one right after. And the key with this is not making yourself feel guilty. So I do think a lot of times what happens is we have that unplanned day. We do go a little bit more off track. Thursday becomes Friday, Saturday, and then all of a sudden we’re like on Sunday, oh gosh, I have to overcorrect to get back on course we do too much.

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And all this does is sort of perpetuate that cycle of guilt, that cycle of restriction that makes us feel like we can’t let loose on the holidays, which makes us feel like then we have to make more sacrifices even on the days between, over striking that balance. So anything we do to go to another extreme and balance everything out has to be done with a calculated thought process behind it, a very clear cut plan so that we’re not making ourselves feel guilty. And when I talk about mini cuts, even though this is more of an extreme, there are more sacrifices. This isn’t fun. It isn’t about guilt, it’s about striking that balance. And when we put that into our head and we realize this is our choice to create that lifestyle balance over months and years, it’s a lot different than that overcorrection that we’re restricting cutting calories extra low because we know we overate one day.

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You don’t want to do that. It’s a bad cycle. So talking about holidays, the more you can plan ahead for the holiday and know your response, the better. That might mean going lower calorie before the event. It might mean going higher in protein if you’re going out on vacation, maybe it’s having a calorie cap and a protein minimum. Maybe it’s simply tracking when you’re on vacation to hold yourself accountable. You want to think about ways you can keep yourself in enough of a routine, doing enough things to move forward, that when you come back it’s easy to get back on track. However, sometimes we have let a little bit more loose on those things and we want to really make sure that we’re full steam ahead and that’s where mini cuts can come into play. So I like to use mini cuts whether or not someone needs that kickstart, whether or not someone is in a period where there’s more unplanned things that can get them off track and they’re in maintenance, even just trying to maintain because in maintenance it’s never standing still.

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There’s going to be times you’re looser and you gain a little bit and there’s times you’re a little bit stricter to lose and then you gain a little bit, right? There’s always an ebb and a flow. But with mini cuts, what you’re doing is it’s a very short-term fix, a very intensive thing to sort of kickstart progress or again, go to that extreme to compensate for the extreme the other way. So with mini cuts, what you’re doing is you’re setting a seven to 14 day period where you know that you are going to be in that extreme deficit and you’re going to push those macro ratios. This is not fun, but it is not a fad, and I want to make that very clear. When you learn about macros, you gain the power to adjust based on what you need at that time, whether it’s gaining muscle, whether or not it’s addressing sleep patterns, whether or not it’s fueling for performance, whether or not it’s reaching an aesthetic goal.

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But off of that foundation of macros, you can then tweak them to match your needs and goals. And so this is an intensive period. It is not meant to be fun. It is not meant to be easy. It is not meant to be a long-term thing. You are just building off of that solid foundation so that you have that exit strategy, but also that really clear cut reason why you’re using it. And it’s great after a vacation, after a holiday because a lot of times you’re eating higher calorie, your macros have been a little bit looser. So because of that spike in calorie intake, you have that deficit you can create. You don’t necessarily want to use a mini cut when you’re already in that deficit because there’s no more that you can really cut safely. So you want to know your maintenance calories or the calories it takes to maintain your weight.

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If you don’t know that, and if you know that you can subtract 500 off of that, that’s the most extreme you want to go. You can use a general calculation of 10 times goal body weight for the mini cut to get that calorie intake, but these are going to be low calorie. It is going to be intensive. Someone when someone’s like, wow, that’s really low. Yeah, it is, but it’s meant as that short-term fix. It’s meant to kickstart progress. It’s not going to put you at risk for losing muscle because of how high protein we’re going to go with the ratios. With these ratios, you need to be above 40% protein, even 45, 50% is going to be really key. And then you can vary carbs and fat based on your activity level and such. But you’ll even want to think about doing the macro ratio for only one week and alternating two different ratios because you’re going to do it no longer than two weeks.

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Two weeks max. Seven to 14 days is what you’re using the mini cut for. And when you’re doing this, guys, if you’ve been on vacation, you’ve seen that vacation blow. It’s about getting rid of that and about kick-starting that progress so that you can then see fat loss. It’s not yet that you’re magically losing a ton more fat faster, but it’s using that deficit strategically to then rebuild out of, to not put your muscle mass at risk while depleting those glycogen stores a little bit to utilize and mobilize more fatty acids. So you’re using this to kickstart things or again, to get off that vacation bloat. After that, you do have to have that exit strategy and you have to know that when you’re coming out of any sort of deficit. It’s why we gain weight on vacations. It’s why we gain weight when we transition to maintenance.

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It’s why you gain a little bit back when you come out of the mini cut is because you’re going from extremely depleted, nothing’s being stored to having some stuff stored again. So as you come out of that mini cut, you’re going to want to come back out a hundred calories at a time to get back to either the deficit you were in or even go back to maintenance for a period. But you’re going to want to think about adding a hundred calories to your current daily intake with the mini cut, and you’re going to maintain that for at least a week, if not two weeks, and then go up from there. But you also need to reverse out of it. You can’t just stay in that deficit. You can keep those macro ratios even as you come out, but you need to come out of it.

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The whole point of this though, again, is this little kickstart and it can be great in the summer, great around the holidays where you sort of need that balance because there is a little bit more unplanned eating of things where you’re not hitting your macros as much to create that overall balance. Again, we have to remember that life is a constant balancing act and that these ebbs and these flows, these willingness to go to ext extremes, make more sacrifices, but then also the willingness to have more of that lifestyle balance have to be balanced out. And it’s not just days and weeks, but months and years that we have to consider. So that being said, if you are looking to strike that balance, consider a little mini cut to keep you on track and moving forward and even maintaining those results as you might have more vacations, holidays, things that you, you’re doing even times where maybe you do want to go into a little muscle building phase but you’re not fully ready to cut, or you’re also seeing maybe your weight loss has slowed because if you’ve been in a longer deficit, if you’ve been dieting for a longer time, you might need that dining break.

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But then right after that dieting break where you’ve increased your calories, gone to more maintenance, a mini cut could be a great way to kickstart progress and then get back into that sustained deficit that’s not as extreme off of this, I wanted to check the Facebook group to see if there are any questions, comments, or concerns about mini cuts or even to hear how you guys are all handling the fourth because I think the more we plan ahead for holidays because there’s certain holiday patterns, vacation patterns that we always repeat, the more we plan ahead, the more we can go in with the game plan and the game plan doesn’t always have to be, Hey, I’m going to restrict myself and make myself miserable on this holiday. Sometimes it is, Hey, no, I’m going to fully enjoy, but I have this plan to get right back into this mini cut or this other program right after.

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But too often we just try and deprive on the holidays thinking that holidays are what sabotage us when really it’s the fact that one holiday becomes six or seven days often. So let’s see. Comment about or question, let’s see, coming out of a bulk, do you recommend a mini cut or something different? It depends on your goals. If you’ve been trying to gain muscle and you haven’t put on that much fat with it and you’re happy with the composition of your body, you might just go to maintenance. If you’re like, I was doing a little bit dirty over a bulk than I intended and I gained a little bit more fat than I wanted, I think a mini cut is a great time because you don’t necessarily want that extreme deficit. You just want to get off a little bit of the fluff before going back to maintaining. So that can be a really good time to use a mini cut. What if I tend to undereat during the holidays? What would be the best? I lost the comment. Hang on, sorry. Let’s see if I can pull this up.

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Best way to deal with that. So if you find that you’re undereating plan ahead to make sure that you’re eating more protein earlier in the day so that you’re not undereating just because you’re afraid with the party. And then think about maybe maintenance around it. If you’ve been in a deficit, you still want to lose weight and that’s where you’re really focusing is in that calorie deficit for fat loss and weight loss. Then think about doing maintenance around the holidays knowing that those are going to be lower calorie days or even think about a easier macro breakdown around those times to find that balance. But you don’t want to put yourself into too extreme a deficit with that. So again, going higher protein maybe on those days before you go to the event can be really key to help you keep your calories higher, but give you wiggle room.

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But also think about being in maintenance. Taking that dieting break around that time could be really key. Just like you could use the mini cuts, diet breaks are a great thing if you are finding that there are periods where because of travel, because of whatever else, your calories are a little bit lower, is the goal of a mini cut fat loss or muscle gains fat loss. If you want to gain muscle, you don’t want to do a mini cut because you don’t want to be in that extreme deficit. It makes it much harder. So the reason for the high protein ratios and the extreme calorie deficit in the short term is that you’re putting yourself at less risk for losing muscle. You’re not going to have any metabolic adaptations from that. It’s a very short-term thing, but it really can accelerate fat loss. You would not be using that if your focus is on gaining muscle.

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That’s where you might take that diet and break around the holidays or even going to a slight calorie surplus while using those macro ratios to really help you avoid gaining unwanted fat. Barbecues are great for grilling all the proteins. They really are. A lot of summer holidays can be a great way to still stay on track, but enjoy and not feel like that person always on a diet. As long as you’re planning ahead and if you go higher protein even earlier in the day, a little bit lower calorie, that gives you a lot of freedom at any event to not feel like you’re sabotaging yourself. Guys, we also have to think about 1% improvements over the same time of year last year. I bring that up because I think a lot of times we’ll have different habits in July in the summer than we do in January, and we’re comparing our July habits to January and make yourself feel guilty because we’re not doing the same thing we did in January when in reality we need to compare it to the July before, maybe the July before we went on all these vacations, we didn’t track at all.

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We weren’t hitting our macros at all, and this July we’re at least tracking that’s a 1% improvement. And if you keep making 1% improvements, then the next summer you’re hitting your macros a little bit more. You have a pretty minimum, all of a sudden your results are going to snowball. So you have to think about what you’ve done at that time of year in the past and try and make an improvement off of that over just forcing the same habits all year because that’s not how it works. There are going to be ebbs and flows. It’s why sometimes embracing going to extremes, extremes of lifestyle balance, extremes of making more sacrifices to drive towards a performance or aesthetic goal is really key. Because over using these extremes and embracing ways to come out of these extremes, we can find that overall balance over the year to see better results.

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But there are times where you go too much on one way or off course, and so you have to do a little bit more to get back on course. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just not doing a quick fix that has no fundamentals to it or no exit strategy or no plan in place to show you how it’s addressing the extremes on both sides. This is so valuable today after a long weekend here in Canada, you guys already had your fourth when I did not eat the way I plan and now feeling frustrated with myself, this has helped my plan and mindset. Awesome. And I will tell you the worst thing we can do for ourselves is make ourselves feel guilty. And I’m going to bring up actually this new study. The recent study showed that our perceptions of the food that we eat had a huge impact on our actual body response to it.

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Now, I’m not telling you that you can convince yourself that a milkshake is healthy and your body’s going to respond as if it’s healthy. However, when people thought that the milkshake was worse for them, their body responded in a way that it was worse for them and did not respond as well. Versus when someone thought the milkshake was healthier, there was a better body response and there was no guilt associated with it. So I will tell you, the less we make ourselves feel guilty, the more we realize that foods don’t have to be off the limits. There can be a balance. And while that might not mean including them all the time for ourselves, and yes, maybe there are days where we’re like, okay, I don’t really like how I fully handled that. I’m going to do something different. It’s a learning experience to improve, but it’s also something where you’re like, Hey, I’m going to have this plan to now do this cut, and it’s not because I’m restricting or feel guilty about this day, it’s just to maintain my results overall or to help myself kickstart progress.

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It’s embracing that the extremes are your choice to also use to find a balance. And the more we do that over saying, I’m overcorrecting, I’m feeling guilty, this was bad of me. That just creates a negative mindset and makes us even not want to get back to the healthy habits more versus this other one. It’s just, Hey, I’m finding my balance so I’m enjoying my vacation, and then I’m going to be a little bit more strict in terms of making sure I’m paying these macro ratios, going more attentive with these things, really being on my workout plan, embracing more sacrifices to find that balance. So hopefully this helped on mini cuts. Hopefully you’re planning ahead for the holiday weekend and remembering that with the summer we don’t have to see that summer slide. We can make 1% improvements. And again, embracing that what our summer habits are, what our holiday habits are, might look different than what our habits during January when we’re super motivated are. And that’s not a bad thing, but we need to focus on those 1% improvements to really see changes comparing to where we were at that same time last year.

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Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hacks podcast. Again, this is the place where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating, review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and it would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone.

*Please Note: this transcript is auto-generated and there may be some errors in the transcript