The Fastest Way to Go from 30% Body Fat to 10% in 5 Simple Steps

Hi, my name is Dr. Michael Diamonds, the founder of Scope by Science in 2015. It was the first time I went from 30% body fat to 10% body fat, and it was the hardest and longest journey I’ve ever been on. The truth is, once I finally figured out the science, I still had knowledge gaps that slowed down my journey. Two years later, with more knowledge and motivation, I joined a 90-day transformation competition.

These were my results. I’ve used this technique with multiple clients like GL, who at 36 years old, started at 251 pounds and was a new dad. I used these techniques to help him drop 53 pounds in 16 weeks. These five simple steps require a lot of attention to detail, and I’ll show you exactly how to execute them.

Before I even started with these five steps, the first thing I did was take a long, hard look at myself and ask whether going from 30% body fat to 10% body fat was worth pursuing, focusing on, and spending my time on, and if it was realistic.

From my previous experience, I knew that getting to 10% body fat required a huge amount of sacrifice. The average body fat percentage for men I speak to is around 25% to 30%, and for women, it’s around 30% to 36%. Note that women are supposed to have a higher body fat percentage than men. This means that the average man and woman would need to reduce their body fat percentage by more than half to see their abs. If you weigh roughly 200 pounds and have 25% body fat, then this is 50 pounds of fat tissue on your body.

You would need to lose 30 pounds of that fat to reach 10% body fat. This represents 105,000 calories burned. It’s important to set yourself up with a contract and understand the requirements. You could have an incredibly successful diet and exercise program. You could transform your life forever and add 10 years to your life expectancy.

But before we dive in, a lot of research and editing goes into making a video like this. Just do me one favor: if you wouldn’t mind, gently hit the like button; it’d be greatly appreciated. And if you enjoy this kind of content, subscribe and hit the notification bell if you’re new. Let’s kick it off.

This bag is a representation of your 30% body fat, and more specifically, your midsection. You can feel all the fat tissue around it, which is represented by the water, and the red in the middle is the rectus abdominis. You have a sensation if you press deep enough that there’s something in there because everyone is born with it. This is step one, and when we establish that, although, as you can visually see, we are losing fat tissue, you can’t really tell the difference. A month will pass, two months will pass. However, to speed up the process, we’ll implement step two, and we can see that it’s accelerating the amount of water coming up.

Then we’ll implement step three, and finally, we’ll implement step four. The only question is a question of time, and eventually, after time has passed with these five simple steps, you will be able to see your six-pack clearly and maintain these habits for the rest of your life. You’ll still be losing fat tissue, as you can see. The water represents that, and eventually, you’ll reach your goal. But let’s dive into step number one: the perfect deficit to go from 30% to 10%.

Step 1: The Perfect Deficit

The first rule: you need to be in a caloric deficit. This is where the total calories burned each day through exercise, non-exercise activity, and your metabolic rate outweigh the calories you consume from the foods and drinks you have. The larger the deficit, the more fat will be burned. But creating too big of a deficit can be detrimental, and the diet can be too hard to follow. If you’re very overweight, start with a 500-calorie deficit as a good target. If you’re close to getting abs and need to adjust your weight, like me, a smaller target of 200 to 300 calories is probably a good idea.

There are three main ways to create a caloric deficit:

1. Reduce your caloric intake (the diet) and increase your caloric output (the exercise).
2. Reduce your caloric intake (the diet) and increase your caloric output through exercise.

The third option makes the most sense, as you can create a bigger deficit without having to diet or exercise too intensively. If you want to create a 500-calorie deficit, for example, then you could perform 200 calories worth of exercise and reduce 300 calories from your diet, or 150 calories from exercise and 350 calories from your diet. Find a ratio that suits your lifestyle. If you maintain a 500-calorie per day deficit, that’s 3,500 calories per week, which is roughly one pound of body fat. If you need to lose 12 pounds of fat to reach visible abs, then you’re 12 weeks away from achieving your goal.

Step 2: The Cardio Accelerator

Researchers have shown that both fat and carbohydrates are burned, and the proportions vary with the intensity of the exercise. It also shows that as exercise intensity increases, so does the reliance upon muscle glycogen for energy over your fat stores. As the exercise gets more intense, so does the proportion of energy coming from glycogen compared to fat. This is why very low-intensity activity like walking taps more into fat stores, whereas high-intensity sprints pull much more heavily on your glycogen source or your carbohydrate source. Both moderate-intensity and high-intensity interval training are effective for fat loss, but it depends on which you prefer.

When you exercise, our body uses three stores of fuel: fats, carbs, and protein. Being that the goal is fat loss, using fat as a fuel would be ideal. High-intensity interval training pulls much more heavily from your carbohydrate source.

Consider this example from the American Council on Exercise: Assume you just burned 200 calories from a 30-minute low-intensity run. Approximately 120 calories come from fat. Now assume you burn 400 calories from exercising at a high intensity for the same amount of time. Of the 400 calories, roughly 140 calories come from fat. Of course, this example assumes your exercise sessions are equal in duration. If your HIIT workout is shorter than your slow cardio session, you may end up burning more fat with slow cardio. This is exactly what I did, and this is exactly what JL did.

Let me run you through this cardio protocol. In week one to week four, I did moderate-intensity cardio (MISS) for two sessions at 30 minutes. The speed on the treadmill was six kilometers per hour or 3.2 miles, and I used it at max incline while getting 10,000 steps. From week four to six, I did four sessions at 30 minutes and then 12,000 steps. From week eight to ten, I was still doing MISS but five sessions at 60 minutes, getting 15,000 steps. From week ten to thirteen, I did low-intensity steady-state (LISS) cardio six sessions at 70 minutes, getting 20,000 steps.

Watch till the end of this video, and I’ll share with you what I did week to week with my nutrition in the 90 days. How did I find the time to get all these steps? Number one: I woke up early. It allowed me to get an hour alone to manage to hit 6,000 steps. I also walked to the gym and back, which got me roughly 2,000 steps, and walking in the gym between my sets got me another 2,000 steps. We know that if you’re between 160 pounds to 200 pounds, you burn roughly 500 calories per day from 10,000 steps. If you walk 10,000 steps for seven days, that’s equivalent to 3,500 calories burnt in a week, which is exactly one extra pound of fat. One pound of fat is 3,500 calories, and that’d be just through walking alone.

As the weeks pass, I would burn more fat the more I walked. Look at my client Nicholas. This is the amazing transformation he completed using the exact same tactic. If you want the same results, don’t forget to fill out your application in the description of this video.

Step 3: Intermittent Fasting

At its core, intermittent fasting is simply a style of dieting that concerns itself most with when, instead of what, you eat. The general goal is to spend more time every day and/or week in a post-absorptive low insulin state than a postprandial high insulin state. With a normal type of diet, you eat food every few hours from, let’s say, 8 AM till 9 PM. That is, every day you eat food intermittently for 13 hours and eat nothing for 11 hours. Due to the time it takes to process the food and depending on the size and composition of your final meal of the day, this means that the majority of the time your body spends in a post-absorptive state is when it’s asleep, so six to seven hours is probably the average. With intermittent fasting, you flip this around: you eat food intermittently for, let’s say, 8 hours and eat nothing for 16 hours.

What I personally did was follow the 16/8 intermittent fasting method. Although it’s not a magic pill, because I was so busy in medical school, I wouldn’t be hyper-focused during the day with a tremendous amount of mental clarity, which is one of the benefits of intermittent fasting. During my fast, I would drink one to two cups of black coffee, which has been shown to have a fat-burning effect. My general rule: no coffee after midday. Once I got home from medical school, I could eat anything that really fits my diet and macros because this was the most enjoyable for me.

It made it even more consistent and allowed me to lose more fat because I was adhering to a diet that I enjoyed. I had zero cheat meals in these 90 days because the diet felt like it was already cheating. This is what I do with all my clients when we start working together. I ask them to tell me what foods they enjoy eating, even those they consider unhealthy, like pizzas, burgers, burritos, and ice cream. When I design a plan and put it together with their favorite foods in consideration, I know they’ll be able to do it for the rest of their life.

If you’re a busy professional and you finally want to get your health back, your business or your career has stopped you from being at peak performance in terms of your energy levels. When you get home to your family, like in your teens or in college, this is what I do. Let me help you finally see your abs and improve the quality of your life. Just fill out the application in the description below, and once you’ve joined, we’ll have the same conversation and get you to 10%.

Step 4: High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

High-intensity interval training, also known as HIIT or sprint interval training, is a form of interval training. It’s a cardiovascular exercise strategy alternating short periods of intense anaerobic exercise (basically going as hard as you can go) with less intense recovery periods where you catch your breath until you’re too exhausted to continue. High-intensity interval training is not the big secret to fat loss. However, it can be a powerful weight loss tool when you know how to use it. As I mentioned earlier, research has shown that both fat and carbs are burned, and the proportions vary according to the exercise intensity. With high-intensity interval training, multiple studies have shown that those conducted by Laval University, East Tennessee State University, Baylor College of Medicine, and the University of New South Wales showed otherwise that high-intensity interval training can be more beneficial.

The research specifically shows that the results reinforce the notion that at a given level of energy expenditure, vigorous exercise favors negative energy and lipid balance to a greater extent compared to lower moderate intensity. This is how I did my high-intensity interval training. I like using the air runner. I would sprint for 30 seconds and then walk for a minute and 30 seconds, repeating for a total of 30 minutes. This strategy was only implemented in the eighth week of my training. If you’re too heavy or if it’s a bit too intense for you, it may be damaging to your knees, and you may want to drop at least 10% body fat before you start implementing this. But it is more so once you feel like you’re ready and your body is adapted.

Step 5: Supplements

Supplements play a small portion in allowing you to finally see the results that you want. The supplements that I highly recommend are whey protein. We know that having an adequate amount of protein in your diet is extremely beneficial. Protein is very satiating; you’ll feel full. Having a shake here and there when necessary is helpful. We also know that protein increases the thermic effect of food, which is a fancy way of saying your body will burn more calories digesting the protein. Finally, protein is what we need to build muscle. Also, in my own experience through this entire journey, the most beneficial supplement I’ve ever had is one that contains caffeine, like black coffee or a pre-workout.

Personally, I give this to my clients and call it my secret weapon. I utilize Pride, which has a formula called Penta caffeine, avoiding the crash and keeping me energized throughout the entire day. I noticed that I get a lot more steps, my cardio sessions are a lot more intense, and the same goes with my training without feeling the jitters. So if you want to pick up anything from EHP Labs, I highly recommend their whey protein and Pride as a pre-workout that will speed up your fat loss.

Those five things I did consistently allowed me to drop all that weight in 90 days. I’ve done this with my clients as well. Now again, I highly recommend you utilize a combination of all of the tips I’ve given you or just a few of these. Let me know in the comment section down below. I know I promised you guys I was going to take you through the entire nutrition of this video, but I want to make a detailed video of what I did week by week in terms of nutrition, the training I was using, and the cardio. I’ll show you exactly what I did step by step, going from 30% body fat to 10% body fat.

If you want that, let me know in the comment section down below. Hey Mike, make your detailed video of how you went from 30% body fat, and I’ll give you guys the macro breakdown and my thought process of why I changed the cardio and the training. Comment down below and let me know, “Mike, make the how you lost the 30% body fat to 10% video,” and I’ll gladly do that. But let me know. Drop the video a thumbs up if you want that video, and I’ll look at the comments and see how many people said they wanted it, and I’ll make that happen.

But I’ll leave it here. Leave the video a gentle thumbs up, subscribe if you’re new, and again, if you want me to help you with your transformation, if you want me to help you go from 30% body fat down to 10%, fill out the application in the description down below, and I’ll see you in the next one. Cheers!

Read More: How to Create a Sustainable Weight Loss Plan