The Angry Typist

I had oral surgery and was not allowed to lift weights for 3 -7 days and I couldn’t eat hard solid food for the first 48 hours. These restrictions negatively impacted me in every way. I just felt ‘off’ and found it difficult to concentrate but I was more afraid of dry socket, infections, and popping stitches to not comply. As I am considering wrapping up this nutrition journey, I asked a lot of questions and hope these are helpful.

Q&A WITH NUTRTION COACH

QUESTION: What happens if I cut longer than 16 weeks?

ANSWER: Nutrition Cycles: Think of nutrition as the different seasons. Similar to different season in a year, nutition also have different ‘seasons.’

1. Maintenance – Fueling enough to support performance, recovery, and stable body comp.
2. Cut (Deficit) – Eating below maintenance to lose fat while maintaining muscle.
3. Reverse Diet – Gradually increasing calories after a cut to return to maintenance without regaining fat.
4. Bulk (Optional) – Eating above maintenance to intentionally build muscle.
5. How long to stay in a cut: Typically 8–16 weeks, depending on progress, recovery, and stress levels. We don’t have to go all the way to a specific weight in one cut.  We look at the bigger picture: strength, body comp, hunger, mood, and energy.
6. When a cut stops working: Fat loss stalls despite consistency, energy crashes, poor sleep, increased soreness, and declining performance…some of which you’ve been feeling lately.
7. Post-cut: Yes, we’ll rerun your numbers and reverse you to maintenance. Spend some time in maintenance and then decide if you want to enter another season of a cut. 
8. Long-term: We cycle from maintenance to a cut, reverse out of the cut and back into maintenance. We want to spend MOST of the year in maintenance! With planned cuts sprinkled in once or twice a year. 
9. Concern with staying in Cut too long: The main concern with staying in a deficit for too long is fatigue, hormonal stress, and metabolic adaptation. Over time, your body can down-regulate energy and recovery, which makes fat loss harder and life feel heavier. That’s why we treat 8–16 weeks as a healthy window. After that, the risk/benefit ratio shifts.

QUESTION: Why do I not see any improvements in my As Many Reps As Possible (AMRAP) in Metcon with the addition of 1-mile run a day but the 1-mile a day seem to be getting easier (not really faster)?

ANSWER: Endurance in lifting vs. running uses different energy systems and muscle recruitment patterns. Lifting for reps (AMRAP style) keeps muscles under tension for longer and taxes both strength and stamina. Running is repetitive, low-load, and cyclical. They support each other for overall fitness but aren’t interchangeable. Your cardio surprise: Strength training does improve overall work capacity, which is why you weren’t totally gassed. You’ve built a bigger “engine” to pull from.