The Question

Hi Casey,

Thank you so much for your column and newsletter. My question is pretty self-explanatory. During middle school, high school, and much of college I spent too much of my time dieting, counting calories, feeling terrible about myself, and obsessing about all those things that don't matter. Ten years later I have a way better relationship with food and my body, and weightlifting has only improved things further. Now I'm reaching a point where I'd like to get a bit leaner. Not crazy lean! Just a little bit leaner. Is it possible for me to do a cut without becoming unhappy, binging, or ruining the generally good vibes I've developed around eating?

Thank you! —Jane

I wish you’d talk more about your cutting process! I know why you are hesitant but I appreciate the perspective. —Instagram DM

The Answer

Okay—in writing this, I’m trusting you to handle this eminently personal-if-informed perspective responsibly. By that I mean, not as a blueprint for general-purpose “weight loss” or anything else; not as validation of disordered eating; not as endorsement for the idea that thinner is better, or that there are “good” and “bad” foods, or that anyone should feel guilty over what they eat, or even that cutting is necessary for everyone. It’s especially important that it’s clear this is in service of strength-building, meaning it’s not a lifestyle. My closely-guarded food norms are:

• there are no good/bad foods

• how I feel is the primary guiding force for what I eat

• building strength is often, but not always, the secondary guiding force for what I eat

• food is as much for joy/delight/social bonding/shared experiences/culinary interest as is it for “fuel”

I’m writing this because I find in my personal life, and want to believe generally, that it’s possible to do things like this with food and with one’s body to a functional end, and not only out of abstract self-hatred, imprisonment by diet culture, eating disorders, or anything else.

In getting stronger and building muscle, cutting body fat has been a genuinely useful tool for me. I’m not alone in that; many, many, many people who lift weights cut. I’m not here to litigate that, though you can read my previous piece that reconciles support for weight-cutting with extreme skepticism for “weight loss,” and explains why someone might cut even if it’s not to fit a particular aesthetic or even remain in a particular weight class. I’m gonna put my related numbers under a footnote.1

She's A Beast: A Swole Woman's Newsletter

So 'weight loss' is bad, but 'cutting body fat' is fine? Explain yourself immediately

The Questions Hi Swole Woman! I started lifting dumbbells almost a year ago and am enjoying the strength gains. I've noticed the appearance of new muscles on my arms and back, improvements in my posture, and a new ease in walking home with bags of groceries and hoisting boxes of cat litter. I haven't noticed any loss in fat since starting to lift, and while this is not a big concern, I wouldn't mind losing a bit of fat and seeing a bit more muscle definition, for aesthetic reasons…

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3 months ago · 52 likes · 11 comments · Casey Johnston

While I have learned to have a fine time with this even with my disordered eating background, it did take a lot of work (and therapy! and learning!) to get there. If you don’t feel okay about perceiving, even secondhand, any stripe of deliberate food management: Don’t read this! If it’s triggering for you to do: Don’t do it!

If you change your mind or get to a different place, this post will be here. If you don’t, that’s fine! You don’t ever have to engage with it. Dieting is not a necessary part of our existence, and cutting is not a necessary part of strength-building for everyone. Lots of people never cut. Lots of people build a little muscle and then maintain forever. Some people forever-bulk.

Some people change their relationships with this stuff over time; incidentally, Claire Zai of Barbell Medicine just did a very nice Instagram post about her recent lukewarm experience with cutting, and her decision to just go up a weight class. In a similar vein, last year, I started attempting a cut and then realized at that time I felt no particular draw to get stronger and felt eminently okay about where I was at, so I stopped. To this day, I feel great about that decision. Having now completed this cut, I feel great about the decision to do that, too. I am literally but also metaphorically large, and contain multitudes.

swolewoman

A post shared by Casey Johnston (@swolewoman)

If you’re interested in learning more about food intake management with respect to athletic stuff (cutting, bulking, AND maintaining!), my go-to rec is still the Renaissance Woman book, in addition to a sports-nutrition-oriented dietitian who knows you, your background, and your goals personally.

But anyway, here we go: The Cutting Recap. Here are all the things I forgot, or relearned, or found challenging for the first time ever.

Renegotiating my response to even the tiniest twinge of hunger was the hardest part

The start of a bulk is easy: I start going hard in the gym, it makes me ravenous and my body wants that extra fuel because I’ve been eating at maintenance or a deficit, and I just follow those cues.

But toward the end, I get sick of eating a lot, not just in sensation but in terms of logistics. At that point, eating to bulk takes on a mechanical dimension. I can only fulfill a bulk if I get used to eating a lot regularly even when not hungry, and used to capitalizing on even the most minor sensations of hunger.

But then when I start to cut, this situation is rudely reversed; I’m still working out and my body wants fuel, but now I have to work against the impulse I’ve built up to eat at every opportunity. This is a bit of a mindfuck!