Helping 3 Strangers Lose Fat in 23 Min

Is alcohol the reason you're not losing body fat? Well, recently thousands of people applied to have their fitness plans reviewed by me on this channel, and a lot of them were making the same mistakes that were stalling out and sabotaging their fat loss progress. So in this video, I'm gonna go over 3 real submissions from people that are struggling and not losing the fat they want to lose. So that I can show you where they're going wrong, and more importantly, how to fix it to kickstart fat loss progress again. And just for credentials, I've coached over 25,000 people in the last eight and a half years with their fat loss progress, and I currently own a business where we coach thousands of people each month to help them lose fat faster than they would on their own. So this information I'm about to show you isn't just theory. Theory or what I think is gonna work. It's what I know is gonna work through coaching tens of thousands of transformations. So let's go ahead and dive in. And if you want me to review your plan for free, there will be a link in the description below that you can fill out your information and apply to have your plan reviewed by me for free. All right, we have our first submission, Francesca. Hope I said that correctly. Francesca is a 23-year-old female. She is currently weighing about 140 pounds. Wants to weigh about 120 pounds. She's only 5'2, so I know that 20 pounds can make a big difference. Currently getting 2,000 to 4,000 steps per day, tracking her calories pretty consistently. A big range here though, about a 400 range, and it looks like there's a pretty big range within her protein grams as well. So something we'll be looking at. She also mentioned in her day of eating, which you can see right here. She says most of the times she's ordering out from a restaurant. Looks like almost every single Monday through Friday she's ordering out from a restaurant. So maybe not 100% sure of what those calories are. She's trying to get some good high protein snacks, which is a great job. So kudos to you on that. She wants to lose fat and build muscle at the same time. She has trouble with her lunch and dinner because sometimes those aren't the easiest to track. Something I also want to Point out she is having over six alcoholic drinks per week. We will most certainly be coming back to that here in a second. And yes, she just looks like she's plateaued and not really sure what to do to kickstart her progress again. So I see a couple of mistakes that Francesca is making that we can hopefully fix for her. The first one has got to be the alcohol. Alcohol is purely empty calories. It disrupts your sleep. It increases your hunger and your cravings. It messes with your hormones. And especially with how much you're having per week, this is most certainly playing into some of the cravings, some of the snacking, and some of the binge eating that's potentially going on. On top of the fact that the alcohol calories are adding up into your calories for that day. And if you're trying to stick to 1,300, 1,400, 1,500, having 6+ drinks per week is taking away a lot of those calories you could be eating, which would help you have more protein, Have more energy, build more muscle, increase your metabolism. The second problem and the thing that's bad about guessing on those restaurant meals—it's again if you don't know how many calories you're consuming, you're not really tracking your calories; you're just guesstimating, which is better than nothing. But if you want to see better results and better progress, you have to make sure you are accurately tracking your calories, and we'll talk about how you can do that even if you eat out in a second. And number three slash. 4, because I'm just going to lump these into one. We want to increase that protein intake to at least 100 grams per day, and we got to increase these steps as well. It is going to be a hell of a hard time for you, Francesca, at 5'2. If you're only getting 2,000 to 4,000 per day, you're going to have to eat such few calories in order to create a calorie deficit, and there's just no way you're going to be able to do that. So you have to, have to, have to increase these steps. All right, so when we talk now about fixing these problems that we just kind of laid out for her, for the alcohol, at the very least, you got to cut back, like at the very least. And so I would go a 30-day period of time of having no more than 2 drinks per week. And I would almost encourage you to go a 30-day period of time with having no drinks. Now, a couple things here. Number one, if you can't go 30 days without alcohol, I wouldn't be worrying about your fat loss journey. I would be more worried about your relationship with alcohol. And I'm not saying this in a mean way or a sarcastic way. I'm saying this because if you can't cut this out for 30 days, there's a bigger problem beyond fat loss that you should probably look at. But at the very least, we should be cutting back. And what this is going to do is it's going to allow you to have more calories through food, which is also going to allow you to have less hunger and less cravings because now more of the calories that you're eating are going to fill you up, are going to be higher protein. are going to be, you know, good quality fiber. You're just going to be able to stick to your calories and stick to your plan a lot more. And the calories you're going to eat are going to work for you, whereas the calories from alcohol do nothing for you. Now, the second part about not knowing what the calories are in your lunch and dinner, I'm going to push back a little bit on you here. And here's why. You said they don't have nutritional information. I can't ask the restaurant. I'm not being mean when I say this, but I want you to start looking at reasons why you can instead of just reasons why you can't. For example, what immediately came to mind for me is if you are more or less having the same thing for lunch and dinner and you're doing it pretty consistently, why don't one time you bring your food scale with you and you just weigh out what you're eating? So if you're having a cup of rice and sweet potatoes and chicken, You say you're not sure how many calories and protein, you don't have time to cook food. That's fine, but weigh it out. So if it's 8 ounces of cooked chicken, then you can just track 8 ounces of cooked chicken breast. If it is 100 grams of rice, then you just track 100 grams of rice. If it's 75 grams of sweet plantains, then you just track that. And if you just do it once, I'm not even asking you to do it forever, but if you just do it once, You will figure out the calories from that and then you'll be able to track that and know how many calories you're consuming. And number 3/4, we talked about increasing steps. This has to be a non-negotiable. You can take little mini 10-minute walks. You can get steps earlier in the day. You can go for a walk after dinner. You can go for a walk after you eat your meals. Whatever you have to do, you have to get more steps. That's a non-negotiable. And the 4th thing about increasing your protein and hitting at least 100 grams per day. I'm gonna say if you start tracking your lunch and dinner, you might find you're eating more protein than you realize because it looks like from your breakfast, your lunch, and your snacks, it looks like you're eating a lot of protein as it is. So I think you might actually be fine on protein, but start tracking that and then see where you land. And the reason this is going to work so well is because cutting out alcohol frees up some calories, it decreases cravings and hunger, it improves sleep, it improves recovery, and it's just going to make the journey so much easier. Number 2, weighing that food will show you exactly how many calories you are consuming. And remember, when you go to track your food, you can just type in 100 grams of cooked chicken breast, 100 grams of cooked rice. And one more little side note for you, when you eat out at restaurants, I would just go ahead and track 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of olive oil because most restaurants are cooking in olive oil, and that can be 60 to 120 calories that you're not accounting for as well. So I'd make sure to do that, but you'll know how many calories you're consuming. And when you increase the steps, you'll also burn more calories, which will help your calorie deficit be easier. And probably that alone would kickstart your progress again. So commit to no more than 2 drinks per week, weigh out lunch and dinner at least 1 time, increase the steps— I would try to get at least 6,000 per day— and hit that protein, and you'll be good to go. Now let's go on to our next submission. We got our guy Justin here. Justin is a 43-year-old male currently weighing about 172 pounds, wants to get down to 152. He's 5'6, already getting 8,000+ steps per day, which is pretty impressive. Roughly about 1,900 calories, 150 grams of protein. You can see his normal day of eating here, more or less pretty clean, pretty healthy foods. He's taking some good supplements. Um, he has a good grip on how many calories that he's consuming for each meal as well. The problem here with Justin is obviously he wants to lose some more body fat, but also he's constantly hungry to the point of distraction during work and waking up hungry at night. He is having 1 to 3 alcoholic drinks per week. He's strength training on a workout split, 4-day rotation, 7 days a week. So day 1 is this, day 2 is this, you can kind of see he's also doing cardio 3 to 4 days a week, 2 30 to 45 minute endurance work, and 1 to 2 HIIT sessions as well. He's already lost 50 pounds in 6 months, which is an insane amount of weight loss to lose in that period of time. So kudos to you. But he's been stuck around the 170 mark for 6 weeks. So a couple of things to unpack here. I would say the 2 biggest problems are constantly feeling hungry And just at the plateau. And the reason this is bad is because if you are hungry to the point of distraction during work, waking up at night, it means your deficit is too aggressive for where you are at and how much activity that you are doing. And usually what's going to happen is this hunger is going to cause you to either go off track, overeat, binge eat, you know, go off track on the weekends. And/or it's a possibility that your metabolism has adapted to this amount of calories and this amount of workouts, which is causing you to plateau. And coming back to the alcohol, the 1 to 3 drinks per week, especially with where Justin is at, this could be impacting his recovery. It could be impacting his progress, because if he's not recovering properly, he's gonna have more cravings. He's gonna have a harder time sticking to his diet, gonna have a harder time dropping body fat and building muscle. So What are we going to do to fix Justin's problems here? Well, the first thing is we have to fix his calorie deficit because right now it's too aggressive for the amount of exercise that he is doing. So Justin's either going to have to do one of two things. Number one, he's going to have to slightly decrease his activity. And the way I would probably do this is I would probably get rid of the 1 to 2 HIIT workouts per week because you're already doing 4 days of strength training, it looks like. So I don't think you need the extra HIIT sessions. I think it's just adding more stress and more cravings to your body because when you're doing high-intensity cardio, you're adding stress and you're adding cravings and it's harder to recover from. So I would probably get rid of those and/or if you want to keep your workout routine, I would go ahead and increase your calories by roughly 150 per day. So let's just take this for here and say maybe you start eating at least 2,000 calories per day versus trying to stick to 1,875. One of those 2 things will help Justin recover better. He will have less cravings, less hunger. He'll be able to recover better and stay on track. Now the second thing, what I would do for right now— Justin, I'm sorry, but again, I would go ahead and go 30 days without Alcohol, because what's going to happen here is you're going to recover better from your workouts. You're going to have less stress. You're going to have less empty calories. Your sleep is going to be better. And I know it's only 1 to 3 drinks per week, which doesn't sound like a ton. But Justin, you're already at 19% body fat and you've already gotten down 50 pounds. If you want to get to that 15%, 12% body fat, It's going to be harder. And this goes for anybody. The more lean you get, the lower body fat percentage you get, it's going to be harder to get lower and lower and lower. And so I do think this alcohol is potentially hindering recovery and stopping you from seeing the progress you want to see. So I would go 30 days without it. And number 3, I would try to work in some higher volume, lower calorie foods into your meals because it looks like even at lunch right here for For example, okay, cool, you're having veggies with the meal, that's fine, but could we potentially input some higher fiber foods? On the tuna sandwich, could we potentially do bread that is higher in fiber? For the chicken breast and veggies, could we potentially throw in some cauliflower rice, or could we add a side of watermelon or a side of strawberries? Because those are low calorie foods. That you can eat a lot of. And if you do that, you'll fill your stomach up more and you will allow yourself to be able to, you know, be a bit more full and not be so fucking hungry. The other thing I think you can start doing here, Justin, and this is— yeah, I think this will probably help you a ton. I don't think you're eating enough dietary fat. And the reason I say this is because dietary fat is, number one, helps your hormones. And when you're in a calorie deficit, your hormones can get a little bit out of whack. So that would probably be the reason you're so hungry. And number 2, dietary fat is very satiating. It keeps you full for a long period of time. In going through your meals, I don't see a ton of dietary fat in here. Like all of this right here, basically no fat. All of this, no fat. All of this, no fat. Apple, no fat. Going down here, maybe there's some fat in your meat, but like, for example, you're doing 99/1 turkey, you're doing sirloin chicken. Like, I would start to throw in some more dietary fat. I don't think you're eating enough of that per day. How you know how much dietary fat to eat, you take your body weight times 0.3 to 0.4. So if Justin is currently 172 pounds, 172 times 0.35, we'll go right in the middle. That's 60 grams of dietary fat per day. At least. So something else to look at as well there, Justin. Okay. So a couple of key takeaways for Justin here. That was a good one. I like that one. Increase your calories or decrease your activity. Either one. Number 2, add higher volume foods and add higher dietary fat foods. And number 3, cut back on the alcohol for a 30-day period of time. By the way, if you want me to go through your plan for free, just like I'm doing with Justin right here, Click the link in the description below. You can apply to have your plan reviewed by me on this channel. Now let's go on to the next submission. All right, we have Faith here. Faith is a 32-year-old female. She's currently weighing 140, wants to get to 130. She's 5'7, pretty tall for a female. She is running— well, she's walking at least 8,000 steps per day. She is running, so we'll talk a bit more about that in a second. 1,900 calories, 160 60 grams of protein. She only weighs 140. Holy shit, Faith. Um, her— you can see her meals are pretty dialed in. She's having a lot of protein, obviously. She's having a lot of clean, healthy foods. The problem is she's struggling with binge eating. She's seeing food as just calories she has to drink, has to eat. She is drinking a couple of times, a couple of drinks throughout the week. She also talks about, you know, she's strength training 3 to 4 times and running 1,000 miles this year. Why people want to do this, I have no clue. Kudos to you. She's eating 1,900 to 2,000 calories again, but then binge episodes happen. It takes a week or two to break out of the cycle. The last thing she says here is she looks puffy despite the exercise and eating well most of the time. So there's a couple of problems here for Faith. The first one being is, yeah, she can stick to her calories, but not for a prolonged period of time. And this is actually going back to what we said about Justin. It sounds like we are either eating too few calories or we're doing too much exercise, because clearly your body is telling you this is not enough for you to be consistent. And I think it's coinciding with the fact that you're seeing food as just calories you have to eat. I also think what one of the problems is, you're eating too much protein. And this is for 2 reasons. Number one, psychologically, you're like, I have to eat 160 grams of protein per day. That's more than what you even weigh. I would feel like all I'm doing is eating calories just to eat calories. But also, number 2, because of the exercise that you are doing, strength training and running are both high-intensity modalities of exercise. So you're probably not eating enough carbs to fuel your workouts, to fuel your recovery, and that's probably making you have higher cravings, have higher hunger. You're not recovering properly. So both from a mental and a physical perspective, I think you're eating too much protein. And I also think because you're going through periods of time of you're on track, but then you kind of binge, you're on track and you kind of binge, I think this like puffy feeling or this puffy look is coming from a lack of recovery. So your stress levels, your cortisol levels are very high. And then number 2, you'll have a week or 2 where you binge and overeat that causes bloating, it causes digestion issues. And so when that maybe comes down, by the time it comes down, you're probably binging again, overeating again. And again, both those 2 things combined are probably why you're feeling like that. So how do we fix it? Well, number one, we have to fix your calories. And again, what I would say, just like Justin, you either have to decrease your activity or you have to increase your calories. It sounds like you don't want to run less, although I— it says you feel guilty when you don't. To me, that's a red flag. You have an unhealthy relationship with exercise. You have an unhealthy relationship with running, because you should never feel guilty. You shouldn't feel anxious or guilty for not doing something. So if I were you, I would take this from both perspectives. I would probably increase your calories by about 150 to 250 per day. So if let's just say for easy math, you're roughly doing 2,000 calories per day, I would go up to like 2,150, 2,250, and I would slightly pull back on The running. I might not run one day out of the week. Now I know you have this goal of 1,000 miles this year, and that's a different story. But if it's me and you were our client, this is what I would tell you to do. And I think that would fix a lot of your binge eating. I think it would fix a lot of your under-recovering, puffy feeling. So that would be number one. Number 2, we would decrease your protein. You don't need to be eating more than 130 grams of protein per day. It's just overkill. And I know It seems like it's only a 30-gram difference, but when you can not have to focus so much on protein, and quite frankly, if you ate 110, 120 grams of protein per day, you would still be fine. So you could decrease that protein by 30 to 50 grams per day, put that more towards your carbohydrates, and I think that would also allow you to fuel your workouts better and recover from your workouts better and mentally. I think you can just be better off as well because you're not feeling like it's just calories at that point. Like, eat some fucking things that you enjoy, for God's sakes here, Faith. So that would be number 2. And number 3, like I've been telling everybody, I would probably cut this out for right now. I'd cut out your alcohol for right now. It's going to improve your recovery. And with as much exercise that you are doing, you need to be able to recover. If this alcohol is taking up empty calories, it's disrupting sleep, it's disrupting hormones, disrupting recovery, increasing cravings and hunger, probably one of the reasons why you're making it hard. And I think probably one of the reasons why you look puffy, because alcohol, like I mentioned earlier, doesn't do anything for you. It doesn't fuel workouts, it doesn't help you build muscle, it just sits in your stomach and does nothing. So when you're drinking this alcohol and you're stressed, your cortisol is higher, you're under-recovered, your inflammation is higher, you're not sleeping well, that's probably the reason why you're feeling like this. So For all those things, Faith. Number 1, we're gonna either increase calories or decrease the running. I think you should probably do both if you want to continue running and hit that goal. Number 2, you're gonna decrease your protein intake and increase your carbohydrate intake. And number 3, we're gonna cut back on the alcohol. I would go a 30-day period of time of no drinking. I hope these plan reviews help you. And again, you can apply for a free plan review below, but I will say I get thousands of these submissions every time I do these videos. So if you want to ensure you can work with a coach on my team one-on-one to help you fix your plan, help build you a new plan, help take out the guesswork, and help you see fat loss progress faster than you would on your own, click the link in the description to apply for our one-on-one online coaching. This will ensure you're gonna work with someone on my team to help build you a plan and get you the results you wanna see. So do that below. In the meantime, you can check out this video here for my top 29 fat loss cheat codes to make losing fat easier than ever before.