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if you click this video you've most
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likely set the goal of trying to lose
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some fat this year this is my goal for
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the new year as well I'm trying to get
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under 10 body fat for the first time in
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a few years however if you follow
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Fitness content at all you've probably
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also heard that most diets fail over the
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long term this is true just take a look
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at this study on The Biggest Loser
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contest which followed up on the
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participants from the 2009 show six
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years after the show was over out of the
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14 people who participated in the study
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only one person had kept their weight
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off after six years five of the 14
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subjects had regained all of their
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weight back and two of the 14 ended up
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weighing more than they did before the
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show even started so fully half the
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subjects had at least gained all their
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weight back similarly this 2020
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systematic review on the challenge of
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keeping it off will the results have
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eight separate weight loss studies and
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found that while all the studies were
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able to induce weight loss during the
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dieting period they also all saw average
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weight regain after the diet was over
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with a few studies showing overshoot
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beyond the original starting weight now
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I think a large part of why this trend
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is so common is that people often don't
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realize that getting lean for a
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temporary time frame like a fitness
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event or a wedding or a photo shoot is a
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different goal with a different set of
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strategies than getting lean and staying
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lean over the long term now before we
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get into those strategies to get
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everyone on the same page give me one
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minute to explain how fat loss actually
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works fat loss occurs because of a
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caloric deficit this means that you're
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consuming less calories than you're
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burning you consume calories by eating
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food and you burn calories in four ways
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there's your resting energy expenditure
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which is the number of calories your
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body Burns just sitting there so to keep
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your heart beating and so on there's
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your exercise activity thermogenesis
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this is the number of calories you burn
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from exercising there's your non-line
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exercise activity thermogenesis or neat
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this is any activity that isn't exercise
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so stuff like getting up sitting down
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typing and tapping your fingers and then
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there's the thermic effect of food which
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is the small number of calories your
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body Burns digesting the foods you eat
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so let's say we add all that up and it
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comes out to 2000 500 calories burned
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over the course of a day and then we
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tally up everything you ate that day and
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it was 3 000 calories that would mean
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you ran a 500 calorie Surplus for that
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day but if instead of 3 000 calories you
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only ate 2 000 calories now that would
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mean you ran a 500 calorie deficit for
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the day and if you sustained that 500
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calorie deficit over time you'd lose
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about one pound per week which is
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actually a reasonable Target for most
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people to aim for so that's all pretty
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simple but there's a very important part
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that many people Miss it's important to
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realize that as you lose weight the
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number of calories you burn will
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decrease this is called metabolic
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adaptation as you lose weight you won't
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burn as many calories through resting
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energy expenditure because your body is
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getting smaller you won't burn as many
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calories per unit of exercise because
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your body is becoming more energetically
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efficient you won't burn as many
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calories through meat because your body
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is becoming less hyperactive in fidgety
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and you won't burn as many calories
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through the thermic effect of food
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because you're eating less food so keep
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in mind that the 500 calorie deficit you
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started out with probably won't be a 500
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calorie deficit after a few weeks or
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months of dieting and that's because
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when you decrease the number of calories
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you're eating you also indirectly
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decrease the number of calories you're
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burning and sometimes these adaptations
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can happen very quickly even within days
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so to account for metabolic adaptation
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which will occur you may need to lower
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calories a bit further to keep up with
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your desired rate of weight loss or you
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can simply accept the fact that your
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weight loss may take a bit longer than
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expected alright so in order for any fat
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loss diet to work it needs to have three
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crucial things a sustained caloric
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deficit to cause fat loss weight
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training to support muscle mass and
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enough protein to support muscle mass
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usually 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per
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kilogram of body weight or 0.7 to 1 gram
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per pound is a good Target to aim for
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and pretty much everything else
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including the number of meals you eat
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the timing of those meals and what
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specific Foods you focus on can be
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largely dictated by your own individual
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preferences so those are the basics for
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how you lose fat now from here most
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people turn to short-term strategies to
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try to get that fat off as quickly as
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possible but this is a mistake yes all
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the most popular fad diets will cause
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fat loss in the short term that's what
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actually caused them to become so
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popular in the first place but low
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calorie crash diets tend to result in
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more muscle loss and eventual weight
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regain and yes isolating yourself from
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social events and avoiding restaurants
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may help you fend off tempting foods for
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some time but can also deteriorate your
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relationships and eventually make the
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diet feel unsustainable and yes cutting
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out entire food groups may help you
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avoid overeating for a while but can
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eventually lead to nutrient deficiencies
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and uncontrollable Cravings that make
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weight regain inevitable so if you want
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to not just get lean but stay lean you
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need to take a better approach so next
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let's dig into three specific strategies
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that'll help you not only lose the fat
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but keep it off over the long term the
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third strategy on my list is the most
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frequently neglected in my experience
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but also probably the most important
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alright the first long-term strategy is
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to diet more slowly so that it barely
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even feels like you're dieting at all
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now the general science-based cutting
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rule is that you should aim to lose
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around 0.5 to 1 percent of your body
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weight per week on a fat loss phase so
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if you weigh 200 pounds right now you
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should try to lose one to two pounds per
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week or in other words if you want to
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cut 20 pounds it should take you 10 to
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20 weeks to get there this is what I
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typically recommend as well however
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there may be some benefits to going even
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slower in fact on my own current weight
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loss Journey I've lost 24 pounds or 11
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kilos and that Journey has taken me 40
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weeks or just about nine months I
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started my cut at 187 pounds or 85 kilos
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and now I'm down to 163 pounds or 74
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kilos that evens out to an average
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weight loss of just over half a pound
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per week and because I've taken my sweet
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time with it the weight loss itself has
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felt incredibly easy ridiculously easy
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I've been eating out at restaurants
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going out with friends eating pizza and
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Sushi and the slower pace of things has
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helped me be very chill about my diet
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now you can see a few times here where
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my weight spiked noticeably the first
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bike was in the middle of August when
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some friends came to visit Stephanie in
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Toronto we were eating out almost every
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night I gained two or three pounds that
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week but when I back it's really just a
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tiny blip in the overall trend this
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other Spike lasted for most of November
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I gained four pounds that month but I
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was visiting stuff in New Orleans it was
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during Thanksgiving and again it's not a
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big deal at all when you zoom out and
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look at the overall trend and I think
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this mindset is not only okay but
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actually smarter because it'll help you
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not only be chill throughout the diet
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process it'll help you stay chill once
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you get to your goal weight by going
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slow you won't feel deprived or eager to
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get off the diet because you won't feel
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like you've been dieting very hard all
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along this will help you maintain the
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leanness you eventually reach much more
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easily and I think it'll be worth that
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extra bit of time it takes for you to
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get there so to make sure you're losing
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around that ideal rate of 0.5 to 1
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percent of body weight per week I'd
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recommend a caloric deficit around 20
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percent below your current maintenance
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to do this simply take the calories you
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need to maintain your weight right now
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and slash 20 from it if you don't know
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how to find your maintenance calories
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I'll put two methods up here on the
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screen that you can pause and read and
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of course if you don't want to track
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calories at all you can instead focus on
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tracking your body weight while making
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intuitive Common Sense lower calorie
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food choice choices most of the time for
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some people those simple Common Sense
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choices will be enough to get things
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moving for others a tool like
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intermittent fasting can be very helpful
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or if you're like me to relieve tracking
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stress you can just Loosely track
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calories and protein without worrying
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about the carbon fat numbers so for
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example if I'm eating something that's
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harder to find the exact macros for like
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a specialty sushi roll I can just
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eyeball it as five or six hundred
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calories and call it a day this way it
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only takes me a total of maybe five
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minutes a day to track what I eat I
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should also mention that in addition to
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giving yourself plenty of time to get
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lean you also need to give yourself a
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realistic end Target no matter how slow
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you go you simply can't expect to
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maintain six percent body fat all year
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round at a certain point your sleep
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libido energy and mood will all plummet
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and all you'll ever be able to think
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about is food so even if you could do it
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this isn't a state of existence worth
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maintaining anyway generally speaking
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most men can expect to maintain
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something between 10 and 20 body fat
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which looks something like this granted
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I do think that your starting place can
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impact where you end up for example if
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you've been sitting at a 40 body fat for
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10 years it might be harder for you to
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maintain 20 body fat than it is for
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someone who's genetically leaner to
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maintain eight percent body fat but you
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just need to find an end point that's
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realistic for you and realize that
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everyone is unique in terms of how low
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they can comfortably go someone else's
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eight percent might be your 18 and
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that's okay for women the realistic
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range tends to be between 18 and 28 body
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fat which looks something like this and
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once again the bottom line is that if
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you're trying to maintain a physique
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that's leaner than your genetic body fat
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set range it'll be very hard for you to
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sustain even if you do everything else
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right okay the second long-term strategy
00:08:38
is to leverage habits to make the diet
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feel as easy as possible regardless of
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how motivated you feel right now as you
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watch this video eventually your
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motivation will dip back down when that
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happens and it will happen if you
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haven't built the right habits you'll
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most likely start veering off track
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however if you can operate on autopilot
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you've got nothing to worry about when
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this happens so I want to share a couple
00:09:01
of my favorite science-based habit
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building techniques that you can use to
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make your life a whole lot easier in
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those later stages when most people slip
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up the first habit building technique is
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called Temptation bundling this is when
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you pair an activity that you already
00:09:13
want to do with an activity that
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supports your weight loss goal for
00:09:16
example I really enjoy watching true
00:09:18
crime video essays on YouTube this
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Behavior comes naturally for me but I
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don't love doing cardio and I'm often
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tempted to skip it however if I link the
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more enjoyable activity of watching
00:09:27
crime videos with the less enjoyable
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activity of doing cardio a much less
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tempted to skip the cardio some of my
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bodybuilder friends do this by playing
00:09:34
video games while hitting their cardio
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at home as another example if you're
00:09:37
trying to build the habit of meal
00:09:39
prepping on Sundays try saving your
00:09:40
favorite podcast for when it's time to
00:09:42
do your meal prep that way you'll make
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that new Behavior more gratifying in the
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moment my other habit building technique
00:09:48
is to align your everyday environment
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with your goals for example if there's a
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particular food that you consistently
00:09:53
overeat maybe leave it on the Shelf next
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time you're grocery shopping or if
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you're regularly stress eating at night
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keep alternative stress relievers like
00:10:00
video games books and puzzles close by
00:10:02
so you can use them for stress relief
00:10:04
instead if you're missing gym time in
00:10:06
the morning because you scroll on your
00:10:07
phone before getting out of bed try
00:10:08
leaving your phone in a different room
00:10:10
or picking up an old school alarm clock
00:10:12
to get you up faster now if you do
00:10:14
everything that I've said in this video
00:10:15
so far or even most of what I've said
00:10:17
you will reach your goal you absolutely
00:10:20
will however that's not the end once
00:10:22
you've reached your goal you need a plan
00:10:24
for what to do next and this is the part
00:10:26
that almost everyone neglects so my
00:10:28
third and final strategy is to have a
00:10:30
smart post diet plan now there are two
00:10:33
very common mistakes that I see people
00:10:34
make after reaching their fat loss goal
00:10:36
the first and probably most common
00:10:38
mistake is when people just don't have
00:10:40
any post diet plan at all in this case
00:10:42
as motivation decreases they revert back
00:10:44
to their old eating habits and gradually
00:10:46
creep up up in wait until eventually
00:10:48
they're back to square one the solution
00:10:50
here is pretty simple you just need a
00:10:52
post diet plan we'll get to that in a
00:10:54
minute the second mistake which is more
00:10:55
common amongst the more sciencey Fitness
00:10:57
crowd is meticulous reverse dieting this
00:11:00
can be just as bad as the first mistake
00:11:01
if it drags out the diet unnecessarily
00:11:03
keeps you hungry for longer than you
00:11:05
need to be and leads to an eventual
00:11:06
breakdown of willpower now I'm planning
00:11:08
to cover reverse dieting in detail in a
00:11:10
future video but for now reverse dieting
00:11:12
is when you gradually increase your
00:11:13
calories from your deficit intake up to
00:11:16
your maintenance intake over the course
00:11:17
of several weeks or months and even
00:11:19
though it's quite popular I don't
00:11:21
actually recommend it as part of a post
00:11:22
diet plan instead I recommend going to
00:11:24
your new maintenance calories right away
00:11:26
if you no longer have the goal of losing
00:11:28
weight why be in a caloric deficit if
00:11:30
you're not cutting anymore you should
00:11:32
get to maintenance and get on with your
00:11:34
new goal of maintaining now finding your
00:11:36
new maintenance calories at the end of a
00:11:37
diet can take a bit of trial and error
00:11:39
but for the most part should be
00:11:40
something around 200 to 600 calories
00:11:42
above what you were eating at the end of
00:11:45
your cut so let's say you're eating 2000
00:11:46
calories by the end of your diet the
00:11:49
very next day you should boost your
00:11:50
calories up to 2 200 to 2 600 calories
00:11:53
probably closer to 2600 if you didn't
00:11:55
crash diet from there you should aim to
00:11:57
more gradually increase your calories
00:11:59
until you get them as high as possible
00:12:01
while still maintaining your body weight
00:12:03
on average so let's say your cut is over
00:12:05
and you go ahead and bump your calories
00:12:06
up to your new maintenance intake of
00:12:08
2600 calories that's a great start but
00:12:10
it doesn't mean that 2600 calories is
00:12:12
now a fixed maintenance for you you
00:12:14
should instead think of your maintenance
00:12:15
as a dynamic range meaning you might be
00:12:17
able to maintain your weight by eating
00:12:19
anything from 2600 to 3 000 calories so
00:12:22
over time you should try to increase
00:12:23
your calories toward the top end of your
00:12:26
maintenance calorie range this process
00:12:28
doesn't need to be long and dragged out
00:12:30
either simply monitor your average
00:12:31
weight trend from week to week and if
00:12:33
you're still more or less maintaining it
00:12:35
may be time to add some calories and the
00:12:37
reason this is a good idea isn't because
00:12:38
it's a special trick for boosting your
00:12:40
metabolism but rather because if you can
00:12:42
eat more food you'll feel less
00:12:44
restricted which will make it easier for
00:12:46
you to maintain your
00:12:47
more food also improves training
00:12:49
performance which is always a good thing
00:12:50
especially if you're looking to enter a
00:12:52
lean gaining phase after your cut of
00:12:54
course if you don't like to track
00:12:55
calories you should still continue to
00:12:57
track your body weight once your cut is
00:12:58
over regular weighing has been
00:13:00
associated with better long-term weight
00:13:01
maintenance in the scientific literature
00:13:03
and that behavior alone will help keep
00:13:05
you accountable to your new goal of
00:13:07
maintaining of course this doesn't mean
00:13:08
you need to weigh yourself every single
00:13:10
day but I usually do recommend weighing
00:13:11
yourself at least two or three days a
00:13:13
week during a maintenance phase as long
00:13:15
as doing so doesn't give you any
00:13:16
emotional stress now before we wrap it
00:13:18
up I'd like to take a minute to
00:13:19
recommend the macro Factor app is yet
00:13:21
another tool that you can use to help
00:13:22
you reach your fat loss goals I'm a part
00:13:24
owner of the app and I've been involved
00:13:26
in the app's development since day one
00:13:28
and I truly believe it's the best
00:13:29
nutrition app on the market first of all
00:13:31
unlike most diet apps it isn't just a
00:13:33
food logger it's quite literally a
00:13:35
nutrition coach that uses science-based
00:13:37
algorithms to detect changes in your
00:13:39
metabolism and make adjustments to your
00:13:41
food intake based on your individual
00:13:42
weekly check-ins this is insanely
00:13:45
helpful for accountability also unlike
00:13:47
most apps macro Factor was designed with
00:13:49
both weight loss and weight maintenance
00:13:51
in mind in fact after you've reached
00:13:53
your weight loss goal there's something
00:13:54
called Dynamic maintenance mode that'll
00:13:56
help you keep your weight within plus or
00:13:58
minus two pounds of your end weight this
00:14:00
is a huge feature that I haven't seen
00:14:02
any other diet apps use it also has the
00:14:04
fastest food logger in existence which
00:14:06
means tracking really shouldn't feel
00:14:07
like a chore once you give it a few days
00:14:09
to get the hang of it and then unlike
00:14:11
any other app I'm aware of it also
00:14:12
doesn't punish you if you miss a day
00:14:14
here and there so you can be more chill
00:14:16
about your diet overall so if this
00:14:18
sounds like something you'd like to try
00:14:18
out for yourself you can get a free
00:14:20
two-week trial of macrofactor at the
00:14:22
first link in the description box below
00:14:23
there's also a very active Facebook
00:14:24
group and subreddit that I keep an eye
00:14:26
on where you can ask questions or post
00:14:28
updates I find these communities are
00:14:29
really helpful for accountability so if
00:14:31
you do sign up make sure you get in
00:14:32
there as well alright that's it for this
00:14:33
one guys thank you so much for watching
00:14:34
don't forget to leave me a thumbs up if
00:14:36
you enjoyed the video subscribe if you
00:14:37
haven't already and I'll see you guys
00:14:39
all here in the next one
