So, I read this article on chaos&pain:
http://chaosandpain.blogspot.com/201...r-fault-4.html
Quote:
For those of you who've never heard of the term, a body fat set point is really nothing more than the percentage of total body mass in fat that your body considers normal. Establishment of this fat set point happens over fairly long periods of time, is an extremely important factor in weight maintenance, and is governed by a complex mechanism science does not fully understand (Harris). As a former chubby kid, I found it pretty difficult to get and stay lean, initially. What I found, though, is that the longer I stayed at a given body fat, the more dietary lenience I could have and maintain my physique. From my perspective, bod fat set points are ****ing awesome, because having maintained single digit body fat for the last 7 years means that I can eat pizza, chicken fingers, cheesecake, and Baked Ruffles all day for weeks at a time and not notice an appreciable difference in my abdominal vascularity, which is more important to me than the lives of 99% of the people currently populating the Earth. Having reduced my body fat set point to 6-8%, my body is basically little more than an anabolic dynamo devoted to converting all available calories to power my big, gorgeous brain and build more muscle.
Jamie Lewis seems to pride himself on writing well researched articles or at least not spewing random stuff that isn't backed up. I have heard of a fat set point in the past but recently since I don't think it's gotten much play on H&F, assumed it was not a real thing.
So....is it? This seems like it would be another, possibly most important reason for someone whose main long-term goal is strength & aesthetics to cut down to whatever long-term bf % they want and then do smaller cycles so that they already have a few years under their belt of their body being at a good bf % once they have the physique they want. At that point it should be easier to maintain than staying at a medium/high bf % while trying to get strong and then cutting down, yes?