The Best Way to Get Lean (FROM ANY BODY FAT LEVEL!)

0:00 If you have a hard time getting lean, then I'm going to help you to start making a transformation that looks even as dramatic as this because once you know what to do, then the actual getting lean part becomes almost simple. Now, this is coming from somebody that has been quite lean for a long period of time. So, it's not just about getting lean, but it's about staying lean. And we start by defining realistic expectations. Cuz though you may want to look like this guy right here, if you're starting out anything like this guy, then having this guy as your goal is going to likely set you up for failure or disappointment. Because what you really need to do is start looking more towards these guys, right? Because these are the guys that are within reach. And I can tell you right now, if you went

0:45 from looking like this in let's say 3 months time to looking like that, you would be quite happy. And you'd also be most importantly on the right track to permanent weight loss to being able to get lean and stay lean cuz that's really what this is all about. I'm not looking to give you guys a temporary solution. And when you get here, something starts to happen, right? The discipline kicks in, the habit kicks in, you start to actually enjoy what you see in the mirror, and it becomes almost a sort of self-propelling process where you are now making these gains. And they're a lot easier to make than when we first started. Now, where you are when you're starting your journey is going to require some slightly different steps and expectations. And that's why we can get from one step to the next more easily. Because I'm not looking for

1:30 perfection when you're at this body weight and body fat right now. You don't need it. As a matter of fact, you could just make a few mild changes to your daily habits that are going to allow you to get to this next bracket quite easily. You see, if you just started to do a walk four to five times a week, 30 minutes at a time, you're going to find that you're going to start to drop weight calorically. If you take one pass through your diet, you're likely going to find certain things that you know don't belong. Like that chocolate cake that you like to have for dessert every day doesn't belong when you're trying to lose body fat. I'm not saying completely cut it out forever. That would be perfection. Again, I'm just saying maybe cut it out a few times a week or maybe the alcohol that you're drinking right

2:17 now, right? Liquid calories are so easy to overlook. What you need to do is start mindfully cutting back just a little bit. Again, not perfection. And when you make just these mild changes, these big results start to happen. In other words, visually, you start to see those types of changes that we're showing you right here. But what will happen is as you start to drop down further and further, something is going to change. And this is number two. You have to at some point not just walk and not just rely on whatever small alterations you're making to your diet plan. You need now at this point to focus on lifting weights. Lifting weights is one of those non-negotiable parts of this process. If you want to get to these ultimate levels of leanness, right? To get down to something that looks like this, you're

3:04 going to have to lift weights because it's not just the leanness that's sticking out to you here. It's the muscularity. And there's a world where you can lose weight and not wind up looking like this, but rather like this. And this is likely not what you're looking for. And the main difference between these two is simply the act of lifting weights. So, what do I need you to do? I need you to start lifting weights three times a week. That's it. Three total body workouts a week is enough to start getting you to start adding muscle. And again, it could be as simple as just picking the basic exercises in adding weight as able. And if that doesn't work for you and you don't like total body workouts, there's a lot of other options. You could do an upper lower split. Two days in a row, Monday and Tuesday, upper lower, take a day off, and then two days in a row, Thursday and Friday, upper lower. And

3:50 it's really, really simple. But what's most important is what's happening that's making your process of getting lean much easier. And that is you're increasing your body's tolerance to even the very foods that you're eating right now. And you're increasing the storage capacity of even the carbohydrates that you maybe don't want to give up because I realize it's not just about getting lean and giving up everything you like in the process. Not for me. I think you need to be able to continue to enjoy the foods that you eat if you want to make this sustainable. And carbohydrates tend to be the foods that are a little bit more difficult to completely eradicate from your diet and be able to stick to long term. I'm not saying that some people haven't had success with approaches that do that. I'm saying for the majority of people who prefer to

4:35 have some carbohydrates, it gives your body the chance to store more of them with the more muscle that you have. Think about muscle as like a storage shed, right? You got a storage shed on your property somewhere. You got all the tools in there, the garden equipment. You got all the the kids don't play with anymore. Well, what happens when you build more muscle is essentially you add sheds to your property or you just start looking for other places where you can store things like your basement and your attic and closets. You've got more room. Now, when we look at our bodies physiologically, the difference between those people that are much leaner and those that are not is the amount of muscle they carry. that's providing this extra storage space because the liver glycogen that we have is pretty much the same from individual to individual. It varies from let's say 80 to 120 g of

5:22 storage. But the capacity for storage when we look at different types of physiques in terms of the muscle that they carry can range anywhere from 300 g to 600 g of carbohydrates that can be stored and not stored as body fat but as potential energy. Now think about that. If you were an electric car, one that drives 600 miles before needing a charge versus one that drives, let's say, 100 miles before needing a charge, that car that can go a lot further is going to be a lot more easy to drive without having to worry about where you're going to need to fuel up next. The building of muscle provides that extra storage that controls that spillover that ultimately leads to the body fat that you're trying to get rid of right now. And it's the very reason why you probably know people who eat things that you're eating that

6:08 seem to be able to tolerate them. It's that added muscle that's the difference maker. And you need to start making sure that your exercise focuses on shifting just from that cardio kind of calorie burning focus to a real muscle building focus. Now in the process of doing that you need to support your training. And the area that I don't think people support their training enough leads to number three. Number three is going to be your protein intake. You need to focus on increasing your protein intake. Again, largely because if you haven't been weight training and you haven't been trying to build muscle, you're going to need to do more and eat more simply to support that process. But again, most of us aren't eating enough of it. And you'll hear all different kinds of numbers. There's actually a lot of controversy about how much is

6:54 actually enough or how much is actually needed. Some will try to say that you can get away with having as little as.7 g per pound of body weight, but I don't believe that your goal should be trying to get away with anything. And again, they're not talking about building the type of muscle that you see here. They're talking about building, you know, a physique that's lean. But again, this isn't going to cut it for me. I think to be capable and strong, you're going to need to be able to have a lot more muscle. And that's where you're going to need to support your efforts with something as high as, let's say, one gram per pound of body weight. Somebody would even suggest having 1.2 gram per pound of body weight. But what's interesting about protein is when we digest protein, 30% of the calories you took in are needed just to break it down. When we look at carbohydrates, 10%

7:42 of the calories that we intake in the form of carbohydrates are needed to break them down and metabolize them. For fats, just 3% of the calories you take in are needed to actually process them or break them down and ultimately store them. So what does that mean? That means that protein actually works for you when you eat it. And again, don't forget the fact that fat grams are much more calorie dense. Every gram of fat comes at a cost of 9 calories, whereas every gram of carbohydrates or protein is just four. So, a lot of times people will veer towards healthy fats, which is a good food source, but they overlook the fact that it's contributing to them getting heavier. The other thing that protein does, it actually acts as your

8:29 body's own natural hunger control hormones, right? It helps to stimulate those GLP1s. The same drugs like Wgo and Ompic that people are reaching for in abundance right now to help control their appetites, protein will do that. It has a satiation effect when you eat it. It will also help to control ghrein which is that hungerpromoting hormone. So just by nature of eating more proteins, we're actually having this hormonal control aspect that helps us to lose weight too. Thirdly, it has a muscle preservation effect. So when you are dropping weight cuz you're going to have to be in a hypoc caloric state, meaning taking in fewer calories than you're burning in a day. In that state, there's often the situation where your body starts to burn muscle or consume

9:15 muscle for energy, too. So, in the process of losing fat, you lose muscle. But when you're increasing your protein intake, you're going to see a muscle sparing effect. You're going to lose less of that weight in the form of muscle. And what does that do? It maintains those reserves. It keeps that that battery high, the capacity high, right? We just talked about that storage space high. So holding on to muscle with all you've got is going to be a major major driver what you do and supporting those hard workouts now with higher protein intake is going to be important. The fourth thing people just don't know enough about what makes up a good nutrition plan. From a food choice standpoint, chicken parmesan is not grilled chicken. They're very different

10:02 calorically. And just because you heard the word chicken doesn't make it a clean eating option. And that's another thing. People who always talk about eating clean are usually the first people that when you actually dive down and look at everything that they eat, it's not very clean at all. There's a few cleaner food options sprinkled in. And as far as the volume, take something as simple as olive oil, one of those healthy fats I just talked about. A good source of nutrition. However, how much are you using? I saw this on Instagram and I wanted to make sure that I shared it here with you. You could use cooking spray at 10 calories or a teaspoon at 40 calories or a tablespoon of olive oil at maybe 120 calories or a gug. And this is honestly the first time I've ever heard of the term glug, but you probably

10:47 recognize it cuz it's likely what you and many of us use when we're putting it on our salad. A lot more than just a tablespoon. But look at the calorie increase. 250 plus calories. Maybe 300 or 400 by the time you're done. And you don't even realize it. It's not filling you up. It's part of the process of making your salad. So, that clean salad just became calorically heavy simply by not being aware of the portion sizes. The last thing I want to comment on here is let's say you get down here, you get to this point, you get down here. Some will try to deter you from wanting to be here because they'll say it's unhealthy. You can't sustain that. Now, again, I mentioned in the beginning of the video, I've been at this level of body fat for a long period of time. There are some that will say that you'll experience decreased levels of energy,

11:33 that you'll experience low testosterone, that you'll have no libido. That's not going to happen by getting lean the right way and by maintaining your leanness the right way. It's a very sustainable thing that does not come at any of those cost. As a matter of fact, if you looked at the research, what leads to a decrease in testosterone is not being lean, but being fat. Carrying around excessive, especially abdominal fat is going to lead almost always with multiple clinical trials showing a decrease in testosterone. Now, getting lean does the opposite. It actually increases your testosterone level. The confusion often comes from the things that you're doing in the process of trying to get lean too quickly. Again, go back to the beginning here. temper those expectations. When

12:20 you have tempered expectations and realistic expectations, you don't try to do this too aggressively to the point where you cut out those dietary fats. That can actually cause testosterone to drop or where you start to excessively train or stress over how often you should be training. That could cause an increase in cortisol that can cause a decrease in testosterone. These are the things that you avoid. You do this the right way, I promise you, you'll be able to make a similar transformation. It will take time, but you'll do it the right way. And you'll wind up being leaner and not this lean, but this lean. And this is the one that actually is the sustainable version because of all those benefits we talked about before in terms of what this does with this type of physique metabolically to assist you in maintaining and staying on that path

13:05 forever. If you're looking for a step-by-step program that includes a meal plan, we have supplements. We have protein powders. Again, you don't have to buy mine if you don't want, but you need to start taking protein. You can find it all over at athletics.com. Guys, I hope this video is helpful to you. Again, step by step, this is the stuff you have to focus on, and when you do, it works. If you haven't done so, guys, make sure you click subscribe, turn your notifications so you never miss a video when we put one out. All right, guys. Good luck. See you soon.