Getting into bodybuilding and fitness requires you to know at least the basics of good nutrition. What this means is knowing how to count your daily calorie needs and calculating the percentages of macronutrients that will make up the same calorie needs. Now, bodybuilders usually go through bulking and cutting phases during the off-season and before a competition, respectively. The phase we all dread is the cutting phase, and knowing your nutrition rules doesn’t help the cut phase get any easier.
There’s not a thing about it that isn’t hard, both mentally and physically. Your strength drops immensely, you have less energy and, the worst part, you actually look a lot smaller. All that with the ultimate goal of getting shredded. It must be a huge reward if the majority of people go through the agony to achieve it. And most of the time, it is.
But the number one obstacle to their progress, that all people who go through the cut phase encounter is actually our body’s natural response to the condition you’re putting it through, and that is hunger. Varying the products that you eat might help you get a diverse set of minerals and vitamins in, however they won’t be of much use if a number of calories you are ingesting daily is too low, or you’ve set such a low amount that you can’t eat anything other except for bland chicken breast and broccoli.
However, there is a way around this. There are some foods you can eat that aren’t exactly one would call “clean” foods, but can actually be the excellent antidote to the hunger you experience while dieting and that is satiety.
What follows is a list of the five foods that will help you go through your cut phase a lot easier:
1. White Potatoes
This might come as a shock since it’s always been parroted in the fitness world that sweet potatoes have a lot more macros and fiber, but that is simply not true. The truth is that white potatoes can satiate you a lot faster and for a longer duration than a lot of other foods, most people will tell you they’re good for you, for example:
- Nuts
- Beans
- Sweet potatoes
- Lentils
- Brown rice
It’s actually the way in which potatoes are usually cooked that makes them have a lot more calories than they naturally have, like frying them in oil or covering them in sour cream. That’s why you should make sure to prepare them with as less additional fat as possible and you won’t have to worry too much.
2. Apples
Apples are absolutely the best choice for a fruit when on a cut. There are numerous reasons for that. First, they have the highest satiety index per calorie of all fruits. Besides this awesome fact, they have a high content of antioxidants that can aid in the recovery from the heavy workouts you’ll be doing during the cut.
They have a lot of fructose in them and the fructose will help you replenish the glycogen reserves in the liver, which in turn will prevent hunger from creeping in while you are on a diet. There is a substance called pectin that is found in apples which can have a limiting effect to how much fat the adipose cells can absorb.
3. Berries
Who doesn’t like berries, plus all types are excellent for cutting. The only downside is that sometimes they get a bit expensive, so if you opt for a cheaper alternative and want to get the same benefits, you should buy them frozen. What do they contain that makes them so great for cutting?
First of all, berries contain certain compounds in them that decrease your insulin levels. This, in turn, prevents your body from storing the sugar ingested in the form of fat. Low insulin levels also decrease your appetite, since having high levels of insulin is what triggers the brain to give the signal to the body that energy is needed and food need to be brought into your stomach.
Second, they tend to provide a lot of volume in your daily nutrition and enable you to feel as if you are consuming large amounts of food even though your calorie intake may be pretty low.
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