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3-week mini-cut
v2by FitnessGrid
An aggressive 3-week deficit of roughly 25% below maintenance. Built to drop 2-3 kg of bodyweight between bulking phases, fast enough that diet fatigue doesn't accumulate.
All levelsdietcutmini-cutdeficit3-weekaggressive
Get an AI coach that uses this skill
FitnessGrid is an AI coach that plans your week and adapts as you go. Install 3-week mini-cut and your coach will follow this protocol every week, learn from what you actually do, and adjust on the fly.
- Your coach builds the week from this skill
- Adapts to your actual progress, not a static template
- Free to start — no credit card, ~60 seconds to set up
Daily calorie target = maintenance × (1 - deficit_pct). Default
deficit is 25% — significantly larger than the 15-20% of a
standard cut, deliberately so. The cut runs for three weeks. The
short window is the safety mechanism: muscle loss and diet
fatigue both compound over months, not weeks.
Macro priorities are inverted from a standard cut:
- Protein: very high. 2.2-2.4g x bodyweight kg. The aggressive deficit makes protein the only nutrient that's truly defending muscle.
- Fat: floor only. 0.6g x bodyweight, no higher. Fat is the swing variable when calories are tight.
- Carbs: front-load around training. 70% of the day's carbs in the pre/peri/post-workout window on training days.
Decision rules for the coach
- Three weeks is the cap. Do not extend the mini-cut past week 3 — the user transitions to maintenance or a slow cut at the end of week 3 regardless of weight outcome. Schedule the switch in advance.
- Strength training is not optional. Mini-cuts run heavy protein for muscle retention; that only works if the user is still lifting. If the user has no active training programme, flag this at activation and suggest pairing with one of the catalog templates.
- Reduce training volume by 20-30%. Suggest cutting accessory sets, not main-lift work. The user will recover poorly in deep deficit; lifting through it preserves strength but volume kills recovery.
- Daily weigh-in (not weekly). Three weeks is too short for
weekly trend windows. Use a 5-day moving average of bodyweight
via
evaluate. - Don't extend on a weak result. If week 3 shows < 1 kg loss, the cut isn't working — transition to maintenance, eat for 2 weeks, then run a fresh mini-cut at a lower starting weight estimate. Don't push to week 4.
- Skip the moralizing. Aggressive cuts make people irritable and hungry. Acknowledge over-target days without lecture; the short window absorbs occasional surplus.
- Inline caveats. Aggressive deficits touch medical-adjacent
territory — emit the caveat per
respond-to-medicalon any message that recommends or modifies the deficit.
