My understanding is that competition level of leanness with striated glutes is closer to 4% bodyfat rather than 7-8%. I've not aspired for the former but I do dip into the latter. Things that have worked for me:

- Lots of fibrous fruits and veggies. They help you feel full at each meal.

- Sipping ice cold water in between meals helps stave off cravings.

- A bowl of cottage cheese with fresh cherries is my goto snack an hour or two before bed to help me fall asleep without hunger.

- If you are not in a rush with a timeline, consider week long diet breaks eating at maintenance. A cadence of something like three weeks on and one week off really helped me get to the home stretch without obsessing about certain foods and feeling like I couldn't wait to binge.

- Staying away from alcohol. It wrecks my gym performance once I start hitting around 10%, even at moderate levels. But also a 52 year old oldcel and that doesn't help.

You look awesome and would be beast at 7-8%. I say go for it at least once. Do the diet breaks if you have to. Feeling really lean is pretty amazing.

The best advice I can give anyone for wanting to lose weight is to eat as many calories as possible when starting out with minimal cardio

if you're able to lose weight on say 3500 cals, there is no need to start off lower than that

Years ago I would start my cuts with low cals high cardio and while i got lean fast I would always plateau

But when I started high cals and dropped it every 2 weeks then added cardio in last - damn I was shredded

I see miscers here post how they are eating like 1300 cals and i just shake my head

Tbh with your body you could be eating 300 protein 300 carbs 50 fat and still be lean

ECA or Clen plus more cardio.

I'm trying to cut a bit myself atm and running cardarine on top of test to help with cardio. I'm just hitting the bike as hard as possible for 15 mins after every lifting session.

Your upper body looks good but considering you juice those legs are not up to par IMO.

So it's either genetic or you're not smashing them strong enough - I know that my arms are genetically weak, so I can relate if that's the case

i could look like that lifting on addy

Pick a lift where you are 100% sure its a 10 RPE for the set, using reps of 5+ is better. Use that set as a weekly or 2x/week metric of strength. Push the cut until that lift is no longer achievable 2 weeks in a row and let that be your canary in the coal mine for pushing too hard. You should be able to get to single digit BF without giving up strength, especially on some TRT. Talking 9% here, not 5%.

I feel as though keeping calories as high as possible is the key to prolonged deficits. The biggest cutting failures I see are people who do minimal cardio and eat 1600 cals, yeah good luck with that. It allows you to continuously increase work capacity until something breaks in the recovery process. You'll know you are pushing it too hard when tendinitis, soreness, over use injuries begin. The past 3 years I've been lifting heavy 5x/week and running a 5k 5x week while fasting. You have be just as involved in stretching and recovery as lifting, but your work capacity always has room to grow and IMO is easier to increase than a decrease in calories.

Use fasting to cheat the system. Something something thermo dynamics something something laws of nature, yeah whatever, if you are perfect with your fasting running a 18/6 with a 20/24 on the weekends you seem to beat the system in terms of weight loss. Been running this for 3 years with daily weigh ins like a scientific study considering all things such as cardio, intensity in gym and calories and I can 100% tell you that fasting helps with losing weight even if you spill over in calories slightly. Its your safety net in case of previous days failure. You went 300 cals over and dont want to do cardio? Extend that fasted window another 2 hours and bam, you are back on track.

I've been maintaining 10%ish Bodyfat for several years now verified years ago by bod pod and I've been using those visual ques from back then to gauge where Im at now. Ie. glute definition, tear drop striations, vascularity, ect.

TLDR: increase cardio before you decrease cals and consider fasting.