Fixing 3 Strangers Fat Loss Meal Plans

Could snacking be ruining your fat loss progress even when you feel like you're eating mostly healthy food? Recently, thousands of people applied to have their fat loss plans reviewed by me on this channel, and most of them are making the same mistakes that keep stalling their progress. So in this video, I'm gonna break down 3 plans of real viewers to show you exactly what they're doing wrong and how to fix it. And just so you know, you're learning from somebody who's been there. I've coached over 25,000 people in the last 8 years with their fat loss progress, so the information you're about to receive isn't fluff. It's real, practical, and backed by thousands of transformations. So let's dive in with the first submission. So Alyssa is our first submission, and she is a 28-year-old female currently weighing about 177 pounds, looking to get to 155 pounds. She gets 2,000 to 4,000 steps She's tracking her calories, about 1,300 to 1,400, eating a good amount of protein per day. You can see here a typical day's worth of eating for her. Again, pretty healthy. She lists out some of the snacks that she has throughout the day. One of her biggest challenges is grazing and nighttime hunger. And Alyssa is a little bit of a unique situation because she is 2 years out from having bariatric surgery. And this is essentially where your stomach is smaller and you can't eat as much food. food at once. She's already lost 100 pounds, which is incredible, but she is starting to plateau around the same 5 pounds between 175 and 180. Now before we get any further, I just want to remind you, if you want your plan reviewed by me for free on this channel, click the link in the description below and you can apply for a free review. So let's get into talking about why this might be bad for Alyssa and what we can start to do to fix it. She mentioned grazing throughout the day and having some nighttime hunger. And most people, when they hear grazing, or maybe you're having a few snacks throughout the day, you don't think it's that big of a deal, and you especially don't think it's that many calories. But here's the problem: when you grab 50 calories here, you grab 60 calories there, 80 calories here, whether that's throughout the day or at nighttime, all of these little things are adding up. And most people, what I've seen coaching thousands of people through their fat loss are eating somewhere in the ballpark of 300 to 800 extra calories through snacks and through grazing that they don't think is a big deal but adds up quick. And the other problem here that we're looking to fix is you shouldn't be having a ton of hunger at night. We should be setting up our day of eating to make it so that we— yeah, maybe you get a tad bit hungry if you're trying to lose some body fat, which is normal, but it shouldn't be to the point where you can't stick to your plan. So I want to implement a couple of fixes here for Alyssa. Number one, she mentioned she can't have big meals at a time, but that doesn't mean you can't eat structured meals throughout the day. Right now she's just kind of eating whenever she wants. You need to change that to have a set schedule for eating. And so for Alyssa right here, she might not be able to have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack during the day. Hers might have to look like meal Meal 1, meal 2, meal 3, meal 4, meal 5, meal 6. And again, that's just an example. But when you eat on a specific schedule, number one, you train your hunger hormones to be hungry at specific times, and you will feel more satisfied throughout the day rather than if you're just eating off of whims or eating because you have cravings. Well, then yeah, you're gonna graze, you're gonna have hunger at nighttime, you're not gonna be as satisfied throughout the day. So you got to get on an eating schedule, whatever that looks like for you. And you don't have to make it just breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. Don't even think of it as meals and snacks. Just think of it as like feeding times. It sounds like you're an animal, but truly that's kind of what I think of it as. Think of it as times of the day where you're going to eat something to fuel your body, no matter how many times it is for you. Once you get on the schedule, that will help. And the second part to that is If you know you're eating at 7 AM, 10 AM, 1 PM, 4 PM, 7 PM, and 10 PM, just as an example, when those cravings come up, you're going to say, no, I have to wait until this time. If I still want it at this time, okay, I will have it and I will work it into my calories for the day. But this will also help you be more mindful of the decisions that you are making and help fix some of that grazing and nighttime hunger. And the third thing I will say here too, which is kind of a side note from the nutrition piece of things, she is currently getting 2,000 to 4,000 steps per day. If you want an automatically easier way and faster way to lose fat without having to change your nutrition, it's going to be bumping those steps up to at least 6,000 per day, if not 8,000 to 10,000, because you'll automatically burn a couple hundred extra calories during your day and it won't increase your hunger or your cravings. And And it will automatically help you drop some more body fat. So some action steps for Alyssa and yourself, if you struggle with this as well, would be number one, you want to start to have a set routine, a set eating schedule throughout the day. You can fit it around what works best for your life, but you have to have that. That's number one. And number 2, with these meals and snacks or feeding opportunities, whatever you want to call it, typically I like to try to have More calories in meals and fewer calories in snacks. I know this kind of just goes against what I just said for Alyssa here. Alyssa's a little bit of a different story because of her background with bariatric surgery, but she can also benefit from this as well. When you eat bigger meals— and this doesn't have to mean just more food— but when you usually have more calories in a meal, you will feel the need to snack less throughout the day because you are more full and more satisfied. And so this could look like adding in some veggies at breakfast right here. This would give you more food volume because just 2 eggs and bacon is not a lot of food. Or if maybe you don't— you can't add more volume to your meals, maybe you go to 3 or 4 eggs at breakfast, or maybe you add in a little bit of mashed up avocado. Because that would get you some more dietary fat. It will help keep you fuller for a longer period of time. And if we go down here and, you know, go through some of her other things, okay, shrimp tacos, that's incredible. Again, maybe you add more lettuce, maybe you add more fruit to this meal, maybe you throw in a half a banana or an apple or some raspberries, strawberries, something to potentially get you some more food at the meals. You won't feel the need to snack as much throughout the day. And the last thing we already talked about is increasing those steps. And she did say she has a walking pad, so I would get on that walking pad if possible, or go outside and get some more steps. Whatever works best for you. Alyssa, congratulations! You've already done the hard part. You've lost 100 pounds, which is incredible. Now it's about tightening things up a tad bit more and getting you on a proper plan for this new stage in your journey. And now let's head over to submission 2. For submission 2, we have our guy Skip. He is a 35-year-old male currently weighing around 242 pounds Looking to get down to about 190. He's getting about 4,000 to 6,000 steps per day. Sometimes tracks his calories, and this is a pretty large calorie range that he's giving here. Doesn't order takeout, and you can see his normal day of eating looks like more or less some some healthy foods, like you know doing the no sugar popsicles, having some of those like snacks in there that he can have. Going through the rest of the list, you can see a couple of times, you know we're talking about some of these snacks, and and this is going to be a thing. That's coming up throughout this, but he is working in some of the salads and some of the protein, low-calorie, high-protein meals. He cooks a lot of his food, which is really good. Every now and then might get some pizza out. Who doesn't? I agree. He currently does not have a set eating schedule, and some of his challenges are French fries, snacking throughout the day, and only getting about 4 to 6 hours of sleep. So let's talk about why this needs to be fixed and then what we can do to fix it. So as we talked about with Alyssa, this whole snacking throughout the day dilemma can be bad for the reasons that we talked about in the previous submission. But also, especially if you're trying to like count your calories and be mindful of your food, I think there's a reason that he says he sometimes tracks his calories and There's a big range of the calories that he's eating. Because oftentimes if you snack a little bit here, snack a little bit there, munch on some things here, it's almost kind of like, how do you track that? How many calories was it? You sometimes legit just forget that you ate that, so you don't include it into your calories. So it also, also makes tracking your calories and sticking with your calorie count rather hard as well. And again, the fact that there's no structure to these days that he's having. Yes, he talks about what some of his lunches are, what some of his dinners are, but as he mentioned down lower, there's no real structure. There's no real set times of eating. Just eating whenever you want is a recipe to have snacks and cravings and hunger all throughout the day and leading into the nighttime. Not to mention the 4 to 6 hours of sleep. I get it, some people can't control that, and, and some people aren't able to improve upon that that much, but But that does make the cravings and the hunger that much worse and that much more intense. And so we're really going to have to do some things here to help Skip try to overcome these, try to get a better plan in place so that he can start being more consistent. And so Skip, you don't need to fix everything all at once. But what I would say is immediately start implementing a meal structure. What times of the day are you going to eat? And stick to those times. Because after about 2 to 4 weeks, your hunger hormones will relearn the times of the day that you're eating, and they will only get hungry throughout those— at those times throughout the day. For a couple of weeks, it is going to be challenging a bit because you're still going to want to graze, you're still going to want to snack. It's going to be 1 PM and you said you were going to eat at 3 PM, But you might be hungry for an hour or 2. That is a part of losing body fat. That is the name of the game. And once you stick with it for a couple of weeks, it will change, but you have to give it those couple of weeks. And also remember 2 more things to this meal timing and set schedule. Number one, you can have different schedules for different days if you need to, because some people are like, well, Eric, the weekends are much different than the weekdays, or like, I work overnights, or whatever you have. Don't look for excuses why you can't. Look for reasons why you can. But you can have different schedules on different days, and if you stick with that consistently, your body will learn that too. So now you get to be in control of what you eat and what times you eat, and it'll automatically make you more mindful. I also have a feeling it's going to help you with your calorie count as well because you're not just eating anything throughout the day. And now the second fix I want to talk about, which I haven't said yet, so I'm excited to mention this— let's look at his breakfast. This right Understood, like some fruit, that's great. No protein. This right here, oatmeal's good, fruit is good, no protein. This right here, grits and baked fish, protein there for sure, but that's only on the weekends. It's only 2 days a week. You need to get more protein in your breakfast. It's no wonder why you're snacking throughout the day when you have a low protein, high carb breakfast, what's going to happen is you'll get some energy, your blood sugar will spike up a bit, but then 1, 2 hours later it's gonna crash and you are gonna get hungry. You're gonna have cravings, you're gonna feel the need to get something because your blood sugar is dropping. You're not sat— you're not satiated, you're not satisfied. So you need to immediately start working in more protein into your breakfast. And this is something that a lot of people struggle with And trust me when I say this, it can make a massive difference if you start to implement it. And by the way, if you need to know how much protein you should be eating per day and calories, there'll be a link for a free calorie deficit calculator in the description below as well. And really, the last fix for Skip here is trying to work on that sleep. I know you have sleep apnea, you're using the machine there, just trying to prioritize sleep as much as you can, whether it's on the weekends catching up on sleep, whether it's getting off your phone earlier at night, getting blackout curtains, setting the room to a cool temperature, not eating 2 to 3 hours before bed. Most people don't know this as well. If you are eating within 1 to 2 hours before bed, that can also mess up your sleep. So I try to have people, if they're struggling with sleep, stop eating 3 hours before you want to go to bed. That will make sure your digestion is where it should be and that will not disrupt your sleep. So some action items for Skip here: set an eating schedule like we talked about, increase protein especially at breakfast— that's massive— and trying to improve upon sleep as best as we can. And one last bonus I want to throw in here: he did mention he's starting to drive trucks for a living, and that'll impact his steps totally, but you're gonna have to make it a priority. We have coached clients in the past who are truck drivers, and yes, it makes it more challenging, but you can still prioritize it. You can still get your steps. You're going to have to get creative. You can also look at it on a weekly schedule. So instead of just looking at a daily step goal, you might be able to look at a weekly step goal. So maybe if on, you know, Saturday, Sunday, Thursday, if you drive less that day, you might be able to stack up more steps and hit your weekly step goal. So something to keep in mind as well. Now onto submission 3, we have Jasmine here. Jasmine is a 24-year-old female. She's weighing 56 kg. So for those in the US here, she's not weighing 56 pounds. 56 kg, wants to get down to about 50 kg. 8,000+ steps a day, which is incredible. 1,300 calories, 85 grams of protein. Again, more or less eats relatively clean. Looks like she's only eating 2 real meals a day, and then she's having 2 kind of snacks and, and one, uh, you know, dessert here throughout the day. So it's lose fat and build muscle at the same time. The protein goal and the fiber goal is difficult for her, so we can potentially talk about what that looks like. She is also not eating on a schedule. She eats whenever she wants, although roughly she did say some, some general times here, but no set schedule. So that's interesting. We're getting the steps. Strength training is done at home, and this is her current workout split. That she's running right here. So we're gonna dive into that as well, but we've got a couple things I want to hit on here for Jasmine. So when we talk about her goals are to lose fat and build muscle at the same time, protein and fiber goals are massive for that. Yes, you have to hit your overall calorie goal, but especially the more lean you get— Jasmine here only has 6 kilograms she's looking to lose— this is where things like your macronutrients become that much more important, and especially protein and fiber. If you don't hit your protein goal, you can't build muscle. If you don't hit your fiber goal, you're not going to be able to stay full for a long period of time. So doing that without getting protein powder, because she doesn't use it, which, fair, it does make it a hell of a lot easier, but if you don't want to use it, that's okay. And her home workouts are interesting to me. Twice a week she's doing upper body with the amount of sets and reps that we can see right here. Then twice a week she's doing lower body with the amount of sets and reps that we can see right here. So I got a couple things I think that can help Jasmine, and it might help you as well if you're listening to this. I want to start with the workout side of things. To me, everybody's different, but to me this looks like we need to get on a better workout routine. Number one, I think just 3 sets of 15, 3 sets of 12 reps across the board is limiting and possibly hindering your muscle building performance. Most people who are doing this many sets and this many reps in their workouts are not lifting heavy enough and they're not pushing themselves close enough to failure to actually build muscle. And so right now you're probably just feeling like you're working out, but you don't really look like you work out, if any, if you have that issue. This is kind of why. And so I would immediately start to switch things up to lower reps, heavier weight. The same thing goes for lower body. 4 sets of hip thrust, 4 sets of Bulgarian split squats, 4 sets of 12 reps on RDLs. Personally, I just think that's a bit too much. I think you'd see better results doing 2 to 3 sets of hip thrust for maybe 5 to 8 reps. 2 to 3 sets of Bulgarian split squats for 6 to 8 reps but lifting heavier. 2 to 3 sets of RDLs for maybe 6 to 8 reps and lifting heavier. Now I know you work out from home, and I'm just going to tell you this: at some point you're gonna either need to A, invest in heavier weight, or B, go to the gym. That's just the bottom line if you want to build more muscle. If you do not want to build more muscle, then By all means, continue to do what you've been doing. But at some point, just doing more reps with the same weight— what are you going to do, like 50 reps with like your bicep curls? At some point, it just becomes too light and it turns into a cardio workout. So you either got to get heavier weight for your home. And we have a lot of clients who work with us who work out from home, and they do end up buying heavier weight because they keep getting stronger. It's a great problem to have. So looking at heavier weights or looking into the gym, that's number one. And number 2, just getting a better workout program. Like, I don't, you know, this is a different topic for a different day. If you'd like, we do have some very low-cost one-off workout programs that you can check out, link in the description for that below. But get on a new workout program and that'll be important. So that's number one. And the second thing I want to hit on as well as hitting this protein and fiber goal, I think going back to something we've been saying earlier, I think we should get on a set eating schedule, and I think you should add one more meal into your day. Now, I know you're eating breakfast at noon and dinner at 7 o'clock. There's a reason it's probably hard to hit that protein and fiber goal, because really you're only eating 3 times per day. I'm not going to count this dessert. If you want to keep eating your dessert, that's fine. Not going to be high in protein, not going to be high in fiber. You're only really eating 3 times a day, and you're only having protein 2 times of those 3 times. Yes, it's very hard to get 100+ grams of protein only eating protein twice per day. So either add in a meal around, let's say, maybe 3:00 PM, or you can add in an early breakfast, 9:00, 10:00 AM. And that could just be a protein shake, that could just be some extra eggs, that could just be some Greek yogurt. Doesn't have to be a lot and doesn't have to be heavy, but the more opportunities you give yourself to eat protein, the higher your protein is usually going to be. As an example, if you're already eating 85 grams of protein, let's just say right here you included 200 grams of Greek yogurt, you would already have Let's say an extra, an extra 15 to 25 grams of protein depending on what brand of Greek yogurt you buy, and that would automatically get you above that 100-gram of protein mark. And if you make the fruit— raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, kiwis, apples, bananas— all of those fruits are high in fiber. So you, you might be able to knock out some, like, your fiber and protein goal Just by slightly tweaking the snack you're already doing or potentially adding in something else earlier in the day. But you got to find a way to eat— either switch the snack up or add in something else, because otherwise it's just going to be too hard to hit. You're going to have to have too much stuff in your meals, and most people just aren't going to do that. So that's what I recommend for the protein and the fiber goal. All right, so we got action steps for Jasmine. Number 1, we're going to start lifting heavier, lower reps, Get heavier weight and/or invest time into the gym. Number 2, we're either going to add in a 3rd meal or we're going to switch up this snack to include more protein. And number 3, we're going to get on a set eating schedule, kind of right in line with what we just talked about up here. If you found this helpful and you're tired of trying to figure it all out on your own, you can click the link in the description below to apply for our one-on-one online coaching program where you'll get built a custom plan fully tailored for you to lose fat and build muscle at the same time and have accountability and check-ins along the way to help you stick with it, or if you'd like to know a bit more about how to set up your workouts to make the fastest progress possible, watch this video right here.