Three Simple Steps to Get Lean This Year

If you want to actually get lean this year, the odds are stacked against you. More than 80% of people who try end up failing. However, there are three simple, science-backed steps that have helped me and several others beat the odds and get leaner than ever before.

Step 1: Your Diet

Your diet is without a doubt what’s going to drive most of your results. It does this by forcing your body to use fat for energy, but this can only be done by creating a calorie deficit where you’re eating fewer calories than your body needs every day.

To find the right calorie deficit for your body, you can use the calculator we’ve made over at BuiltWithScience, which I’ll also link below. But to actually hit this target, you need to first fix your food environment.

For example, I personally just would not be able to walk past cookies at home every day and not end up eventually eating them. So, set yourself up for success by throwing away your trigger foods and taking advantage of your laziness by placing your high-calorie snacks and treats in hard-to-reach places. This also applies to healthy snacks like nuts and granola; anything you can easily overeat should be out of sight or hard to access.

Also, pay attention to what you’re doing when you eat. Some research has shown that one of the strongest predictors of being overweight was eating meals in front of the TV. So when you do eat, try to shut everything down and just be present.

What Foods to Include in Your Diet

After fixing your food environment, what food should you actually include in your diet? Let’s start with what seems to be the most powerful food for fat loss: protein. By providing your body with enough protein, you’re protecting your muscles from being burned off for energy during the diet. This forces your body to burn off more of your fat instead.

As for how much protein to eat, research typically shows the greatest benefit when protein is increased to about 0.8 grams per pound of your body weight per day. So, if you weigh 180 lbs, you’d aim to eat around 140 grams of protein per day. Here’s what 30 grams of protein actually looks like from high-quality sources. Pick one of these to have with each of your meals, and you should be able to hit your daily target.

In addition to protein, there’s a handful of other foods that can have a powerful effect on your fat loss. Back in 1995, a team of researchers ranked 38 different foods based on how well they kept people full after a meal. Potatoes, oats, whole grains, lean proteins, apples, and oranges all ranked extremely well, whereas higher processed foods like white rice, cereal, chips, candies, and pastries all ranked poorly.

So, what I’d suggest is 80% of the time, try to eat more of these highly filling, nutritious foods. Eat plenty of vegetables as well, since they’ll fill you up for fewer calories. Then, 20% of the time, allow yourself to eat treats and more processed foods that, although won’t fill you up as much, will help you avoid an overly restrictive mindset.

If you’re wondering what this looks like as a full day of eating, it could be something like protein pancakes for breakfast, salmon and potatoes for lunch, chicken and veggies for dinner, and Greek yogurt with fruit for dessert. All of this comes up to just 2100 calories.

Incorporating what we’ve talked about so far should increase the odds that you’re eating in a calorie deficit, but many people still end up eating too many calories despite following a healthy diet. So, as a final note for your diet, I’d highly recommend actually tracking your calories and seeing if you’re on target. Even if it’s just for a week, it’ll help you at least be aware of whether you need to adjust anything.

Step 2: Exercise

We’ve got your diet covered, but what are the best Exercises to help you get leaner? Luckily for us, a recent meta-analysis ranked several different fat loss protocols from most to least effective. A calorie deficit plus lifting weights was the most effective method.

The reason lifting weights is great for fat loss is similar to why eating more protein helps with fat loss. Lifting weights tells your body to keep your muscle and burn fat for energy instead. So, use your diet to do the hard work of creating most of your calorie deficit, but lift weights three to five times per week to make sure you’re losing fat, not muscle.

But this doesn’t mean you hit the gym and then sloth around the rest of the day. One of the reasons why people fail to get lean during a diet is because they subconsciously get lazier and reduce the number of steps they take as they get leaner and leaner. To avoid this, start tracking your daily steps. Try to build up to at least 7,000 steps per day and keep that consistent throughout your diet.

Apply everything we went through so far, and you should be able to lose about 1 to 2 pounds of fat per week. Repeat that for several weeks, and eventually, you’ll be at your goal body fat percentage.

Step 3: Consistency Hacks

We all know that’s much easier said than done. Eating healthy, tracking your calories, doing your workouts, and getting enough steps every single day can get overwhelming. But there are three Consistency Hacks that I found make people far more likely to stick it through and succeed.

The Power of 60%

One study compared those who track their calories at least 60% of the time, those who track less than 30% of the time, and those who track inconsistently (e.g., 60% on some weeks but less than 30% on other weeks). Can you guess which group lost the most fat? Yes, the 60% group. So instead of aiming for perfection, just aim to hit your goals at least 60% of the time. If you look at this on a weekly basis, that’s just 4-5 days out of the week. Only once that becomes easy should you then aim for more.

Diet Breaks

Let’s say you were going on a road trip across the country. What would happen if you tried to do the drive all in one go? While you might start off strong, eventually, you’d burn out and run out of gas. The same is true with dieting. As much as we want to get to the end destination as quickly as possible, we need to take breaks every now and then to recharge. In the fitness world, this is known as Diet Breaks. It’s a week or two where you increase your calorie intake to around 500 calories more than when you were dieting. While it’s not a free pass to eat whatever you want, it will give you more flexibility with your food choices and can help you recharge both mentally and physically before your next dieting phase. Typically, after every 8 to 12 weeks of consistent dieting is when I highly recommend considering one.

Patience with Belly Fat

Most people, if after 6 weeks of dieting they see no change in their belly, assume it’s not working and quit. But your body saves the best for last. Usually, your body will start by losing fat around your chest, shoulders, arms, back, and even your face. Only once it’s lost enough fat from those areas will it start to make its way down to your upper stomach area and then finally your lower belly fat. Unfortunately, there’s no way to specifically target these areas. The real secret is just sticking it out for longer.

Here’s an example from one of our Built With Science members, Jesse, who stuck to his plan for a year. Notice how there’s not much difference in his belly in the first 3 months. Month 8, however, is when you can really start to see some big changes in his belly. Now, this wasn’t from him changing anything; it was from him simply trusting the process and sticking to the plan.

Here’s another example from Archie, who ran our program for 10 months. His face, chest, and shoulders were all the first areas to improve. But just imagine if he quit after month four because he wasn’t seeing much progress in his belly fat. Here’s another one from Tamara after just 8 months of simply sticking to the plan. Remember, you have a lot more fat to lose than you think, so until you get lean enough to notice your belly fat coming off, be proud of the fat loss progress you’ve made in your face, arms, chest, and shoulders. Just don’t quit right before the going gets good.

If you want a science-based, step-by-step plan that guides you every single week, just like we did with Jesse, Archie, Tamara, and Dylan, just head over to BuiltWithScience.com and take our quiz to find the best plan for you and your body.

I hope you enjoyed this one. You can give this video a watch next for a daily walking routine to help with your fat loss or give this one a watch for a full fat loss meal plan. Thank you so much for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

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