The Fastest Way to Get Lean (FROM ANY BODY FAT LEVEL!)

What's up, guys? Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com. Can I ask you a question? An honest question. Would you rather lose weight and be lean fast or forever? And what if the forever way actually allowed you to be just a little bit slower than the fast you're thinking of right now? If you watch this video, I can show you a way to get from any of these bodies that you might be in right now to something up here on the top. Or even if you're already up on the top row, how to get to someone even further down in terms of body fat level. The fact is, guys, when you follow the right methods, this becomes a lot easier than it has to be. As a matter of fact, if you failed at some point along the way, you're not going to fail anymore. Let me show you the right way to do this so that you never have to do this again. So let's start at the top, shall we? We're going to start with someone in their high 30s in terms of their body fat percentage. Now, if you'll allow me to speak in some generalities here, because I don't know exactly who this person is, I know a lot about what they're doing. And it's actually a whole lot of nothing. You see, because this person is likely very inactive, they don't really exercise that much. And if they do, it's not often enough or really at any appreciable level of intensity that would actually deliver some kind of result. What they are doing a lot of is eating and sort of doing and eating whatever the hell they want, whenever they want. Now, look, if this is you, it's OK because I'm going to help you to get to that extreme level of body fat if that's what you desire. But we have to make one big change, and that is don't focus on the extreme just yet. Because if this is your goal, that should not be your immediate goal. That's going set you up for failure. You see, your real goal should be this guy right here. I know it's not necessarily the most desirable physique, but it's better than this. And it is the one that is sustainable and actually achievable for now, because nobody got from this guy here to this guy here without first going through all of these body types. And that's why we have to focus on the one that we actually could do something about. So how do we do this? With a series of followable, actionable steps that you can do, especially if you look like this right now. And the first thing you have to do is increase that activity level. And not a lot, not a huge demand here, because I understand that getting around it this way is probably a little bit challenging. But I'm looking for three 30 minute walks each week. We're talking about zone two cardio, meaning you can still carry on a conversation, but you're a little bit out of breath. Exercise at that intensity level for three times a week and you're going to be off and running. Now, the next thing you have to do is check yourself. What I mean by that is a lot of times people that are in this body type right now are there because they don't just eat a lot, but they also drink maybe quite a bit. You're going to have to cut that back because number one, not only is alcohol very easily ingested and calorie counts can kind of get out of control pretty quickly. But when you're at this size, it often takes a lot more alcohol to get the effects of the alcohol. In other words, you can drink a lot more. And along with the extra drinking, you're getting a lot more calories, which is going to what? Put on more weight. As you put on more weight, you're able to tolerate more alcohol and the vicious cycle begins. So I'm recommending is that you cut back in half what you're doing right now. So that means if each time you go out and drink, you're having four or six drinks, cut that back to two or three. And if you go out, let's say four times a week to drink, cut that back to two. Let's just start making an initial effort to cut back the amount of drinking that you're doing. The third thing you want to do is address the whenever part of eating whatever and whenever, because I want to put you on something called prescriptive eating. I'm not going to look to change whatever you're eating right now because I know sometimes I can be unsuccessful. All I'm looking to do is just change when you're eating it. So we have a clock that we're going to eat around. I have an entire video that I'll link for you here at the end of this video that you can check out on how to specifically do this. But you're going to start eating six times a day, every two and a half to three hours. Now, that might mean that you have to start shrinking down some of the meals that you're eating in order to be hungry each time those meal times come around. But that's a good thing because we're going to start to have an impact on portion control, which is oftentimes one of the biggest reasons why people find themselves at this size. If you do those things, guys, you're well off and running on your way to dropping down to that achievable goal of the low 30s. But then where do we go from there? Well, you guessed it, because there's no way to get down to the sub 10% body fat levels if you're in the low 30s without first going through the high 20s. And that means we have the establishment of a new body goal. Now, keep in mind, if you're trying to figure out where you're going to start and what you're going to do specifically, you don't just want to watch the one that pertains to your specific goal of where you're at right now to the next one in line. But also make sure you watch the one before this so you can see what type of habits you have to have to prevent going up any higher than where you are right now. Now, specifically here, the next action steps increase activity level further so you don't have to increase the frequency. I'm still OK with the three times a week of zone two cardio, but now increase the length of that, let's say 45 to 60 minutes per session. That increase is going to effectively double the amount that you're doing, which is going to have an additional caloric burn, which will help in the long run. The second thing now is we do start to focus on some of those specific foods that you're eating and we've got to make that first pass through, right? The obvious one, get rid of the shit, right? Take out some of those fried foods, take out the candies, the sweets, the cakes, or at least cut them significantly back because there's no way that you're even in this body type without indulging more than you should. So if we start to make some of those cuts, I also want you to focus once again on that alcohol. We made an initial half cut. Can we make another half cut? In other words, bring it down to a quarter of what you were taking in before. If you do, you'll be rewarded. The third thing I want you to do is start to implement some weight training because this is critical. This is sort of the decision point for you. Do you want to just lose weight and become sort of a skinnier version, but no less developed than you are right now? That's okay, but it's not the best route because what I want you to do is start ingraining the habit of strength training. Start lifting weights two times per week in a total body fashion. And you can find a great example of how to do this specifically with our AB workouts that appear in our perfect beginner workout. If you haven't already checked it out, I will also show you what it looks like here and link it in the description below when this video is over. Make sure that you start to incorporate the strength training with the conditioning work to get that amplified effect. And then finally, in terms of the diet, you have to do two things for me. Increase the amount of fiber that you're eating right now, which would come most easily through vegetables, and also make sure you have protein at every single meal. Protein is not as easy as you might think it is to come by, especially not in low fat versions. I'm talking about making some smart choices. This is where protein powders and supplementation might start to become very helpful for you, especially as you're trying to meet that five to six times a day eating frequency. Speaking of protein, if you're looking for the highest quality protein, I recommend none other than Pro30G because it's the one I put my name on. An industry leading 30 grams of protein per serving with 28 servings per bag, bringing it to a cost effective six and a half cents per gram. Guys, we know we have to support our body transformation efforts with high quality nutrition. For me, there's none higher than Pro30G. The combination of the protein and the fiber together is going to also act as a satiety aid. In other words, furthering that first step that we already took with portion control via the prescriptive eating. Well, this is going to help to actually make you feel more full at every meal, further decreasing the likelihood that you're going to overeat. And remember again, it's little steps at a time because the little steps feel doable and not overwhelming and will lead to your success long term. And that's where the real fun begins because it's at this point where we go from the high 20s to the low 20s that the changes become very noticeable and they become sort of self-motivating because you can start to see some things happening here. And the first thing we're going to have to do to make this transition is we're going to have to increase the amount of weight training that you're doing. Because again, we want to not just get thinner and lose weight, but we want to start to sculpt that out and build more muscle so that it starts to take on a different look. And that means we're going to go to three times a week of strength training and working out with weights. And again, you can follow that perfect beginner workout as written now because that third additional workout is already scripted in for you to follow step by step. The next thing we're going to do though, is make a compensation in terms of the amount of conditioning that we're doing. Because I don't want to start to just pile on demands and make you work out six and seven days a week. We can just cut back one of those days of the long distance conditioning work, that zone two cardio, but we're going to require that you at least have the 60 minute session. Now, as far as how you eat, the first thing I want you to do now is make some additional refinements. And the good thing is the refinements will come, as I said before, almost in a self-motivating way, because as you start to make additional small changes, you start to see the results and become inspired by them. So it's a lot easier to continue to make them. And I'm talking about, again, sort of little things like the choice of condiments that you put on your food, right? Like whether it's barbecue sauce, which is loaded in sugar and calories, or Worcestershire sauce, for example, which has a lot fewer calories. You've got to make the right choices. When we come to salads, what type of dressing you're putting on there? Can you make wiser choices there? How are you cooking or preparing your foods? For example, if you've been eating chicken, maybe you've already made the move away from frying your chicken to grilling your chicken. Or maybe now's the perfect time to finally make the break from chicken parmesan to a Cajun chicken. Just be conscious of how you're preparing your foods because that small change is going to add up to big amounts of calories, which will further your deficit and get you down on this path. Now, the last thing I would tell you here is we introduced the plate division method really effectively at this point. And this is the point where a lot of guys hang out. This high 20s area is a very popular body fat, unfortunately, for most men. So what's the plate division method? It's just a requirement of how you split up your plate, requiring that you start with one third of that plate being filled with a lean protein. And then from here, now you take two thirds of the remainder of that plate and you put fibrous carbohydrates, the ones we already talked about. And then you can have those starchy carbohydrates because those are the ones that will help you to keep your sanity. They're also the ones that oftentimes taste the best, but you can sort of minimize their contribution there because they're also the types of foods that you most easily overeat on. So if we can start to control the portions additionally to the division of how you put your food on your plate, that will have a big impact on making this a lot easier transition to get down here. Once again, I made a whole video on how to do this plate division method specifically, and I'll link that for you in the description as well. So you can make sure that you get it right with no guesswork. And the next step on the journey is where a lot of guys will find themselves right now. And that is in those low 20s trying to get into those teens. In other words, they want to lose the two and finally get into those teen percentages of body fat. Well, it could be done, but your commitment is going to have to increase here, specifically your commitment to weight training. You're going to have to increase this to five times a week. And again, it's because I know that long term, the key to the effectiveness of your pursuit of lower body fat levels is going to be the additional muscle mass that you're building through your efforts in the gym. And not only will they help you metabolically to continue your pursuit down to lower levels of body fat, but they're going to make it look a hell of a lot better, too, because it's not the skinny fat body type that I'm looking to help you achieve here. Not just about losing weight, but actually sculpting a more muscular physique. So with those four to five days a week, you're going to have a lot more choices. And that is you can follow a lot of different training splits. I'll put another video for you down in the description that will help you to decide which split will work best for you as I lay out the comparisons between them. But really, what's most important is that you choose one and you follow it to a T, continuing to exert the high levels of effort and intensity in your training to build the muscle that we're trying to build. The second thing you're going to do, though, is start to make a transition in the types of conditioning that you're doing. So not always the low intensity steady state cardio that we've kind of advocated to this point, but starting to opt for the high intensity interval training, the zone five cardio that stresses you at a much higher level that you can only really do for a maximum of about 20 minutes in a session. But that will pay off because it's muscle preserving and it's also, in some ways, muscle building, especially if you start to introduce sprinting type activities into what you're doing. The key is that you actually introduce the HIIT training and you only have to do it about two times per week. Choose any two of the five workouts and do it at the end of that session so you're not having to add in additional days. As far as that low intensity steady state, you can still continue that once a week, making sure that the duration is that hour long length. Now, as far as the nutrition at this point, again, you're going to have to make some additional refinements. But I find that they're very easy to start doing because you're so encouraged by what you see. Making additional changes is something you know you can do. You've done it before, you've seen the results. Why can't you keep refining? And that's the point where I'm talking about when you make that protein selection in terms of your plate division, you're making smarter, leaner choices. When you're looking for your starchy carbohydrates, you're making good whole food choices, like for me would be sweet potatoes. And when you're making those fibrous carbohydrate selections, it's not something you're just forcing yourself to do. You're actually developing a taste for those and enjoy them being on the plate in such abundance. And as has been the case the whole time here, guys, the steps that I'm laying out for you are designed to be doable and followable. They're not overreaching and setting you up for failure. And by doing so, we actually have the ability to take this journey even further, not just from the high to the mid-teens, but even further from the teens to the low double. And this is how we do it. You see, no high teen to low teen transition is ever going to occur without an increased focus on nutrition at this point. In other words, you could become stuck here if you don't really, really focus on what you're eating. Now, of course, your training is going to continue. And at this point, you might even decide to change the workout split you're doing to keep your excitement levels up for the workouts you're doing. The fact is, the real changes are going to have to occur in the kitchen. And what I'm talking about is more refinement of how you're eating. Your dialogue might even change. The word cheat meal will start to introduce itself because it's a diversion from how you're eating regularly now. And as a matter of fact, cheat meals are going to probably change from here to here to become cheat foods. In other words, the entirety of the whole meal may not be a cheat meal, just portions of it. And those should be limited really to about three to four times per week if you want to start getting into these low level teen body fat levels. Supplementally, you're going to start to probably introduce some other options here. Again, to support your hard training, you might become interested in pre-workouts or you might have, all importantly, muscle recovery as part of the equation. But protein powder by this point is really not an option. It's really a part of what most people do in terms of supplementing the hard efforts in the gym and for you making sure you meet the requirements that you're going to need to support your new muscle growth. Nutrition is the key to breaking through that mid-teen barrier to finally get you into these lower levels of body fat that may have been sort of a block for you up to this point. And so now if you find yourself on the doorstep of single digit body fat and you're wondering exactly what to do to get there, well, I'm going to make it really easy for you because the difference between this guy and this guy is always going to be, once again, about one thing. And that is not what he does in the one hour he's in the gym, but what he does in the other 23 hours away from the gym. How you eat determines whether you look like this or you don't. And I can speak from personal experience. It's not even the amount of conditioning that you do. It's how you eat 24-7 and consistency becomes the key determining factor between this guy and this guy. Because some people can sort of eat their way this way for a very short period of time, but very few can keep themselves that way unless they've done this the right way. And that is step by step, as I've showed you so far, because the differences between what they eat and he eats is not all that different. It's just the fact that he can do it a lot more consistently. You guys know all about my lack of cheap meals or even cheap foods in my diet. I don't do that because I'm depriving myself or it's because it's painful for me to do. It's actually second nature and very easy because I've made this transition over many, many, many, many years. You can do the same thing and it's set up right here, but you have to take it step by step by step. Because if we look at this journey again, in order to get here, this guy's probably having one to two cheap foods a week at max, maybe not even that many. Depends on how low the body fat levels get sub 10. But you can do it, guys. You just have to focus on taking this journey and being okay with that because you can't jump from here all the way to there. If you do, you set yourself up for failure. You may identify this as the goal, but if you think you're going to get there with this as your starting point, you're going to get there anytime fast, you're setting yourself up for disaster, guys. I plead for you to follow these steps and not to overreach in terms of what you're trying to achieve. You will get there, I promise, every single time if you set realistic, attainable physique goals. I just mapped out a way for you to do that. Now the power's in your hands. If you're looking for a complete way to do this, guys, that's what ATHLEANX is all about. I've laid out step-by-step workout and meal plans that take you on this journey in a really practical, easy to follow way. Not to mention, we do it safely. And also, if you're looking for supplementation, high quality protein, pre-workouts, muscle recovery, we have it all over at ATHLEANX.com. Guys, I wish you luck on your journey here. I know you can achieve this. Now you've just got to go do the work. All right, guys, I'll be back here again in just a few days with another video. See you soon.