How To Get Lean & STAY Lean Forever (Using Science)

if you click this video you've most

likely set the goal of trying to lose

some fat this year this is my goal for

the new year as well I'm trying to get

under 10 body fat for the first time in

a few years however if you follow

Fitness content at all you've probably

also heard that most diets fail over the

long term this is true just take a look

at this study on The Biggest Loser

contest which followed up on the

participants from the 2009 show six

years after the show was over out of the

14 people who participated in the study

only one person had kept their weight

off after six years five of the 14

subjects had regained all of their

weight back and two of the 14 ended up

weighing more than they did before the

show even started so fully half the

subjects had at least gained all their

weight back similarly this 2020

systematic review on the challenge of

keeping it off will the results have

eight separate weight loss studies and

found that while all the studies were

able to induce weight loss during the

dieting period they also all saw average

weight regain after the diet was over

with a few studies showing overshoot

beyond the original starting weight now

I think a large part of why this trend

is so common is that people often don't

realize that getting lean for a

temporary time frame like a fitness

event or a wedding or a photo shoot is a

different goal with a different set of

strategies than getting lean and staying

lean over the long term now before we

get into those strategies to get

everyone on the same page give me one

minute to explain how fat loss actually

works fat loss occurs because of a

caloric deficit this means that you're

consuming less calories than you're

burning you consume calories by eating

food and you burn calories in four ways

there's your resting energy expenditure

which is the number of calories your

body Burns just sitting there so to keep

your heart beating and so on there's

your exercise activity thermogenesis

this is the number of calories you burn

from exercising there's your non-line

exercise activity thermogenesis or neat

this is any activity that isn't exercise

so stuff like getting up sitting down

typing and tapping your fingers and then

there's the thermic effect of food which

is the small number of calories your

body Burns digesting the foods you eat

so let's say we add all that up and it

comes out to 2000 500 calories burned

over the course of a day and then we

tally up everything you ate that day and

it was 3 000 calories that would mean

you ran a 500 calorie Surplus for that

day but if instead of 3 000 calories you

only ate 2 000 calories now that would

mean you ran a 500 calorie deficit for

the day and if you sustained that 500

calorie deficit over time you'd lose

about one pound per week which is

actually a reasonable Target for most

people to aim for so that's all pretty

simple but there's a very important part

that many people Miss it's important to

realize that as you lose weight the

number of calories you burn will

decrease this is called metabolic

adaptation as you lose weight you won't

burn as many calories through resting

energy expenditure because your body is

getting smaller you won't burn as many

calories per unit of exercise because

your body is becoming more energetically

efficient you won't burn as many

calories through meat because your body

is becoming less hyperactive in fidgety

and you won't burn as many calories

through the thermic effect of food

because you're eating less food so keep

in mind that the 500 calorie deficit you

started out with probably won't be a 500

calorie deficit after a few weeks or

months of dieting and that's because

when you decrease the number of calories

you're eating you also indirectly

decrease the number of calories you're

burning and sometimes these adaptations

can happen very quickly even within days

so to account for metabolic adaptation

which will occur you may need to lower

calories a bit further to keep up with

your desired rate of weight loss or you

can simply accept the fact that your

weight loss may take a bit longer than

expected alright so in order for any fat

loss diet to work it needs to have three

crucial things a sustained caloric

deficit to cause fat loss weight

training to support muscle mass and

enough protein to support muscle mass

usually 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per

kilogram of body weight or 0.7 to 1 gram

per pound is a good Target to aim for

and pretty much everything else

including the number of meals you eat

the timing of those meals and what

specific Foods you focus on can be

largely dictated by your own individual

preferences so those are the basics for

how you lose fat now from here most

people turn to short-term strategies to

try to get that fat off as quickly as

possible but this is a mistake yes all

the most popular fad diets will cause

fat loss in the short term that's what

actually caused them to become so

popular in the first place but low

calorie crash diets tend to result in

more muscle loss and eventual weight

regain and yes isolating yourself from

social events and avoiding restaurants

may help you fend off tempting foods for

some time but can also deteriorate your

relationships and eventually make the

diet feel unsustainable and yes cutting

out entire food groups may help you

avoid overeating for a while but can

eventually lead to nutrient deficiencies

and uncontrollable Cravings that make

weight regain inevitable so if you want

to not just get lean but stay lean you

need to take a better approach so next

let's dig into three specific strategies

that'll help you not only lose the fat

but keep it off over the long term the

third strategy on my list is the most

frequently neglected in my experience

but also probably the most important

alright the first long-term strategy is

to diet more slowly so that it barely

even feels like you're dieting at all

now the general science-based cutting

rule is that you should aim to lose

around 0.5 to 1 percent of your body

weight per week on a fat loss phase so

if you weigh 200 pounds right now you

should try to lose one to two pounds per

week or in other words if you want to

cut 20 pounds it should take you 10 to

20 weeks to get there this is what I

typically recommend as well however

there may be some benefits to going even

slower in fact on my own current weight

loss Journey I've lost 24 pounds or 11

kilos and that Journey has taken me 40

weeks or just about nine months I

started my cut at 187 pounds or 85 kilos

and now I'm down to 163 pounds or 74

kilos that evens out to an average

weight loss of just over half a pound

per week and because I've taken my sweet

time with it the weight loss itself has

felt incredibly easy ridiculously easy

I've been eating out at restaurants

going out with friends eating pizza and

Sushi and the slower pace of things has

helped me be very chill about my diet

now you can see a few times here where

my weight spiked noticeably the first

bike was in the middle of August when

some friends came to visit Stephanie in

Toronto we were eating out almost every

night I gained two or three pounds that

week but when I back it's really just a

tiny blip in the overall trend this

other Spike lasted for most of November

I gained four pounds that month but I

was visiting stuff in New Orleans it was

during Thanksgiving and again it's not a

big deal at all when you zoom out and

look at the overall trend and I think

this mindset is not only okay but

actually smarter because it'll help you

not only be chill throughout the diet

process it'll help you stay chill once

you get to your goal weight by going

slow you won't feel deprived or eager to

get off the diet because you won't feel

like you've been dieting very hard all

along this will help you maintain the

leanness you eventually reach much more

easily and I think it'll be worth that

extra bit of time it takes for you to

get there so to make sure you're losing

around that ideal rate of 0.5 to 1

percent of body weight per week I'd

recommend a caloric deficit around 20

percent below your current maintenance

to do this simply take the calories you

need to maintain your weight right now

and slash 20 from it if you don't know

how to find your maintenance calories

I'll put two methods up here on the

screen that you can pause and read and

of course if you don't want to track

calories at all you can instead focus on

tracking your body weight while making

intuitive Common Sense lower calorie

food choice choices most of the time for

some people those simple Common Sense

choices will be enough to get things

moving for others a tool like

intermittent fasting can be very helpful

or if you're like me to relieve tracking

stress you can just Loosely track

calories and protein without worrying

about the carbon fat numbers so for

example if I'm eating something that's

harder to find the exact macros for like

a specialty sushi roll I can just

eyeball it as five or six hundred

calories and call it a day this way it

only takes me a total of maybe five

minutes a day to track what I eat I

should also mention that in addition to

giving yourself plenty of time to get

lean you also need to give yourself a

realistic end Target no matter how slow

you go you simply can't expect to

maintain six percent body fat all year

round at a certain point your sleep

libido energy and mood will all plummet

and all you'll ever be able to think

about is food so even if you could do it

this isn't a state of existence worth

maintaining anyway generally speaking

most men can expect to maintain

something between 10 and 20 body fat

which looks something like this granted

I do think that your starting place can

impact where you end up for example if

you've been sitting at a 40 body fat for

10 years it might be harder for you to

maintain 20 body fat than it is for

someone who's genetically leaner to

maintain eight percent body fat but you

just need to find an end point that's

realistic for you and realize that

everyone is unique in terms of how low

they can comfortably go someone else's

eight percent might be your 18 and

that's okay for women the realistic

range tends to be between 18 and 28 body

fat which looks something like this and

once again the bottom line is that if

you're trying to maintain a physique

that's leaner than your genetic body fat

set range it'll be very hard for you to

sustain even if you do everything else

right okay the second long-term strategy

is to leverage habits to make the diet

feel as easy as possible regardless of

how motivated you feel right now as you

watch this video eventually your

motivation will dip back down when that

happens and it will happen if you

haven't built the right habits you'll

most likely start veering off track

however if you can operate on autopilot

you've got nothing to worry about when

this happens so I want to share a couple

of my favorite science-based habit

building techniques that you can use to

make your life a whole lot easier in

those later stages when most people slip

up the first habit building technique is

called Temptation bundling this is when

you pair an activity that you already

want to do with an activity that

supports your weight loss goal for

example I really enjoy watching true

crime video essays on YouTube this

Behavior comes naturally for me but I

don't love doing cardio and I'm often

tempted to skip it however if I link the

more enjoyable activity of watching

crime videos with the less enjoyable

activity of doing cardio a much less

tempted to skip the cardio some of my

bodybuilder friends do this by playing

video games while hitting their cardio

at home as another example if you're

trying to build the habit of meal

prepping on Sundays try saving your

favorite podcast for when it's time to

do your meal prep that way you'll make

that new Behavior more gratifying in the

moment my other habit building technique

is to align your everyday environment

with your goals for example if there's a

particular food that you consistently

overeat maybe leave it on the Shelf next

time you're grocery shopping or if

you're regularly stress eating at night

keep alternative stress relievers like

video games books and puzzles close by

so you can use them for stress relief

instead if you're missing gym time in

the morning because you scroll on your

phone before getting out of bed try

leaving your phone in a different room

or picking up an old school alarm clock

to get you up faster now if you do

everything that I've said in this video

so far or even most of what I've said

you will reach your goal you absolutely

will however that's not the end once

you've reached your goal you need a plan

for what to do next and this is the part

that almost everyone neglects so my

third and final strategy is to have a

smart post diet plan now there are two

very common mistakes that I see people

make after reaching their fat loss goal

the first and probably most common

mistake is when people just don't have

any post diet plan at all in this case

as motivation decreases they revert back

to their old eating habits and gradually

creep up up in wait until eventually

they're back to square one the solution

here is pretty simple you just need a

post diet plan we'll get to that in a

minute the second mistake which is more

common amongst the more sciencey Fitness

crowd is meticulous reverse dieting this

can be just as bad as the first mistake

if it drags out the diet unnecessarily

keeps you hungry for longer than you

need to be and leads to an eventual

breakdown of willpower now I'm planning

to cover reverse dieting in detail in a

future video but for now reverse dieting

is when you gradually increase your

calories from your deficit intake up to

your maintenance intake over the course

of several weeks or months and even

though it's quite popular I don't

actually recommend it as part of a post

diet plan instead I recommend going to

your new maintenance calories right away

if you no longer have the goal of losing

weight why be in a caloric deficit if

you're not cutting anymore you should

get to maintenance and get on with your

new goal of maintaining now finding your

new maintenance calories at the end of a

diet can take a bit of trial and error

but for the most part should be

something around 200 to 600 calories

above what you were eating at the end of

your cut so let's say you're eating 2000

calories by the end of your diet the

very next day you should boost your

calories up to 2 200 to 2 600 calories

probably closer to 2600 if you didn't

crash diet from there you should aim to

more gradually increase your calories

until you get them as high as possible

while still maintaining your body weight

on average so let's say your cut is over

and you go ahead and bump your calories

up to your new maintenance intake of

2600 calories that's a great start but

it doesn't mean that 2600 calories is

now a fixed maintenance for you you

should instead think of your maintenance

as a dynamic range meaning you might be

able to maintain your weight by eating

anything from 2600 to 3 000 calories so

over time you should try to increase

your calories toward the top end of your

maintenance calorie range this process

doesn't need to be long and dragged out

either simply monitor your average

weight trend from week to week and if

you're still more or less maintaining it

may be time to add some calories and the

reason this is a good idea isn't because

it's a special trick for boosting your

metabolism but rather because if you can

eat more food you'll feel less

restricted which will make it easier for

you to maintain your

more food also improves training

performance which is always a good thing

especially if you're looking to enter a

lean gaining phase after your cut of

course if you don't like to track

calories you should still continue to

track your body weight once your cut is

over regular weighing has been

associated with better long-term weight

maintenance in the scientific literature

and that behavior alone will help keep

you accountable to your new goal of

maintaining of course this doesn't mean

you need to weigh yourself every single

day but I usually do recommend weighing

yourself at least two or three days a

week during a maintenance phase as long

as doing so doesn't give you any

emotional stress now before we wrap it

up I'd like to take a minute to

recommend the macro Factor app is yet

another tool that you can use to help

you reach your fat loss goals I'm a part

owner of the app and I've been involved

in the app's development since day one

and I truly believe it's the best

nutrition app on the market first of all

unlike most diet apps it isn't just a

food logger it's quite literally a

nutrition coach that uses science-based

algorithms to detect changes in your

metabolism and make adjustments to your

food intake based on your individual

weekly check-ins this is insanely

helpful for accountability also unlike

most apps macro Factor was designed with

both weight loss and weight maintenance

in mind in fact after you've reached

your weight loss goal there's something

called Dynamic maintenance mode that'll

help you keep your weight within plus or

minus two pounds of your end weight this

is a huge feature that I haven't seen

any other diet apps use it also has the

fastest food logger in existence which

means tracking really shouldn't feel

like a chore once you give it a few days

to get the hang of it and then unlike

any other app I'm aware of it also

doesn't punish you if you miss a day

here and there so you can be more chill

about your diet overall so if this

sounds like something you'd like to try

out for yourself you can get a free

two-week trial of macrofactor at the

first link in the description box below

there's also a very active Facebook

group and subreddit that I keep an eye

on where you can ask questions or post

updates I find these communities are

really helpful for accountability so if

you do sign up make sure you get in

there as well alright that's it for this

one guys thank you so much for watching

don't forget to leave me a thumbs up if

you enjoyed the video subscribe if you

haven't already and I'll see you guys

all here in the next one