If you read my last post, you might be a couple weeks into cleaning things up. Maybe you stepped on the scale this morning and the number didn't move. Maybe it went up.
Before you panic and slash your calories in half, here are the things I actually look at to know whether what I'm doing is working. The scale is one of the worst day-to-day indicators of fat loss, especially in the first few weeks.
1. Your weekly average is trending down
This is different from checking the scale every morning and reacting to whatever it says. Your weight can swing 3 to 5 pounds in a single day based on water, sodium, sleep, stress, and whether you ate late the night before.
What actually matters is the trend over 7 days. Weigh yourself every morning under the same conditions. Add up the week and divide by seven. Compare that number to last week's average. If it's lower, even by half a pound, things are moving. If you're only looking at individual days, you're going to drive yourself crazy over fluctuations that mean nothing.
2. Your lifts aren't dropping
This is the one most people ignore and it's one of the most important. If you're cutting and your strength is holding steady, that's a strong sign you're losing fat and keeping muscle. That's the whole point.
Now most people aren't tracking their compound lifts in a spreadsheet and that's fine. But if you're running a similar program week to week, you should have a general feel for where your numbers sit. If your bench went from 225 for 8 to 225 for 5 over the course of two weeks, that's worth paying attention to.
One thing to keep in mind though. A lot of factors can mess with your numbers that have nothing to do with your cut. Lower carbs means less glycogen which means less water in the muscle which means you might feel weaker. Getting on or off creatine will do the same thing. Bad sleep for a few nights will tank your performance. So don't automatically assume one rough session means you're cutting too hard.
What you're looking for is a pattern. If over two or three weeks your main lifts are consistently dropping and you're not recovering between sessions, that's when you need to look at whether the deficit is too aggressive, protein is too low, or sleep needs to get fixed. Your training performance is real-time feedback on whether your cut is dialed in or if you're just starving yourself. Pay attention to it.
3. You're not starving 24/7
This sounds counterintuitive but hear me out. If you're in a moderate deficit and eating enough protein, you should be a little hungry at certain points in the day -not miserable all day long. Mild hunger before meals is normal and healthy. It means your body is tapping into stored energy between meals.
If you're constantly thinking about food, light-headed during sessions, or fantasizing about pizza at 10am, your deficit is probably too aggressive. Back off a little. A good cut should feel sustainable. You should be able to do it for 10 to 12 weeks without hating your life. If you can't make it through week two without breaking, the approach is wrong.
4. You have more energy, not less
In the first week or two of a cut, you might feel a little flat. That's normal, your body is adjusting. But after that initial period, most guys actually feel better with slightly less food. You're not as sluggish after meals. You wake up feeling lighter. Your sessions feel more focused because you're not training on a full stomach.
If you're three or four weeks in and you feel worse than when you started, more tired, more brain fog, worse recovery -that's not discipline, that's your body telling you something is off. Either the deficit is too steep, your protein is too low, or your sleep is suffering. Listen to it.
The takeaway
Fat loss is a slow process that doesn't show up on a linear timeline. Some weeks the scale drops, some weeks it doesn't. Some weeks you look leaner, some weeks you look the same. That's normal.
The guys who actually get lean are the ones who trust the process long enough for the process to work. Track your weekly averages. Pay attention to your strength. Check in with how you feel. If most of those boxes are checking out, keep doing what you're doing and give it more time.
- Zach