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How to get lean? The process of getting lean and how to lose fat is actually very simple. It’s not easy, but getting a lean body is 100% something anyone can do. If you follow my 3-part plan on how to get lean — from my fat loss diet and fat loss training training, as well as the crucial steps I took to prevent fat regain — I guarantee you’ll get lean fast and, more importantly, maintain your ‘shredded body’ for good.
Click below for a step by step plan training plan that reveals all the best exercises you should do for each and every muscle group:
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But before we dive into the plan, there’s a key difference between ‘leaning out’ and ‘getting a shredded body’. The reality is your body naturally resists getting too lean. It’s why dropping below even just to 12-15% body fat can start making you feel terrible and why most people who get that lean struggle to stay there. You can avoid this by setting a realistic goal. If you are just starting out or don’t have much dieting experience, aim for around 15-20%. And if you’re more experienced or have less fat to lose, aim for 12-15%. Those levels of leanness are still impressive and look fantastic, especially if you’ve built muscle along the way.
A recent study found that a more aggressive approach early on in the diet led to better fat loss results. So, how exactly did I apply this to get lean? Well, typically, during a diet, I’d eat around 2,300 calories. This time, however, the very first week of my diet, I ate just 1,200 calories a day. Now I HIGHLY recommend against this. I did this for an article to see how much belly fat I could lose in just 1 week. But, for the next 4 weeks after that, I still went aggressive. Eating just 1,900 calories a day. Surprisingly, it was easier than expected. Until things started going downhill in the fifth week. But, because I had started with such a steep deficit in the beginning, I was able to increase my daily calories by 300 to continue slowly losing fat without ever feeling like my diet was becoming unsustainable
However, regardless of whether you start out more aggressive or not when it comes to how to get lean, you’re going to have to eat fewer calories, and continue doing so for several weeks. Here’s exactly what I did to make my diet easy and enjoyable.
Let’s start with the most important macronutrient. Protein. Eat enough protein every meal. As a simple guide, open your hand. The protein portion in each meal should be at least the size of your palm. But now, let’s talk about the big one when it comes to getting lean. Cutting calories. You don’t have to eliminate carbs or fats entirely. Instead, it’s about modifying how much of them you eat. Tip: here’s how I made weekends work for me: a science-backed strategy called planned hedonic deviation (a fancy term for “treat meal”). Every Saturday or Sunday, I’d boost my intake by 500 to 800 calories to enjoy a big meal guilt-free. Sure, it technically slowed my weekly progress by a day, but it made sticking to the diet way more doable.
But, of course, it’s not enough to just focus on your diet. Combining it with a proper training plan can not only help you get a lean body faster, but also plays a crucial role in keeping the fat off long-term. For strength training, the hardest muscles to grow also tend to be at the highest risk of loss during a diet. To counteract this, keep the volume high for those muscles. But you shouldn’t completely neglect any muscle groups. A new study released just this year found that muscles that aren’t trained will likely be burned off for energy.
But lifting weights doesn’t burn nearly as many calories as you might think. The fewer calories you burn every day, the more you’ll have to cut from your diet, which makes sticking to it and getting lean a lot harder. But focus less on “cardio workouts” and just set a daily step goal. While 10,000 steps a day is often the recommendation, even for me that’s tough to fit into my schedule. So I aim for a more achievable 8,000 steps per day as my minimum.
So, I dropped about 1.5 lbs a week during the first 4 weeks with the more aggressive approach. Then, as expected, my progress slowed to about 0.5-1 lb per week in the last 4 weeks to get me down to 11.6% body fat. The plan definitely works.
But it’s not just about getting lean, it’s also about how you can maintain your results. So, here are 3 mistakes to avoid. First, not accounting for your drop in metabolism. Second, not adjusting your lifestyle for the long haul. Third, not staying active post-weight-loss. That’s why, for me, those 8,000 steps a day didn’t just stop once I got lean. In fact, they became even more critical, especially with a slower metabolism. This is why setting a realistic step goal that you can stick to long-term is crucial.
