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The High Performance Journal - August 27th, 2024

For the past 20+ years, I've been a part of the fitness industry.

I've transformed my body along with thousands of others but also made many mistakes along the way.

In today's article, I want to compile a few things I wish I had known sooner for faster and easier weight loss.

Starting with...

10 Things I Wish I Knew For Faster, Easier Weight Loss

1. Eating Similar Meals Every Day

When starting a weight loss journey, it's best to limit the number of variables you bring into your process.

This means releasing your need for variety (and mouth entertainment) and having 5-7 meals you can rely on daily to fit your calories and macros.

If you have resources, you can get around this by ordering meal prep to get these meals into your possession on automatic.

2. Stop Changing Your Workouts

Building muscle is your shield when it comes to getting lean. But if you keep on changing your exercises you're not giving yourself a fighting chance to make this happen.

Your body needs progressive overload​ to build muscle. The best way to do this is to get stronger in the exercises you're doing over a 6-16-week period.

This is a reason why we don't have different workouts for each day in our ​Lean Body 90 program​. It's about doing the same workouts and getting better at them.

So stop having workout ADHD and start getting gains by committing to getting strong using the same workouts every week.

3. Get Stronger In These Exercises

Exercise selection is the most important part of building muscle while getting lean. But which exercises should you choose?

Barring any disabilities, here are my top 10 exercises everyone should have in their workouts:

1. Squats
2. Trap bar deadlift
3. Dumbbell bench press
4. Farmers Carries
5. Pull-ups
6. Chest-supported dumbbell back rows
7. Seated dumbbell overhead presses
8. Lunges
9. Mobility drills
10. Hip thrusts

Focus on getting stronger in these every week and you'll be surprised at how much progress you make.

4. Learn About Your Hormones

Most people think hormones affect how our bodies process fat burning, but it's not like that.

While calories dictate our body's ability to burn fat, our hormones affect our food behaviors.

Specifically, ghrelin dictates your hunger and leptin dictates your appetite.

We must understand them and learn to balance these two as we lose weight. Otherwise, we'll keep messing up our diets without knowing what's causing the issues.

If you want to learn more, I did a section on these hormones in this article​.

5. Eat A High-Protein Diet

When you're getting lean, you want to keep/build muscle while you're doing it.

If we don't prioritize protein as we lose weight​, we slow our metabolism, causing us to eat less and less.

There's a lot of conflicting research about how much protein you should be taking in, but here's what I found that works with our clients:

1. Eat 1 gram per pound of body weight, if you're trying to lose the last 10 lbs and get into low levels of body fat (ie. 12% or lower)
2. Eat .8 grams per pound of body weight, if you've got a significant amount of weight to lose (20 lbs or above).

Btw protein helps you build muscle and it's also more satiating, making you feel fuller.

6. Don't Avoid Carbs. Time Them

If protein were a shield, carbs would be a sword.

Carbs are a fantastic tool to boost your performance in the gym, especially when you're in a "cut".

The best time to take in carbs is 1-1.5 hours before your workout and eating fast-acting carbs during your workouts.

Here's how I use carbs for performance:

1. I eat a meal containing a mix of carbs (40-50g), proteins, and fats 1-2 hours before my workout.
2. As I do the first few sets of my workout, I eat 50 grams of fast-acting carbs, like dried mangoes, to improve performance.

Don't be scared of carbs. Use them to your advantage.

7. Accurate Tracking

When it comes to tracking, honesty is the best policy.

This means putting everything in like the oils you use to cook, and the snacks you have between your meals, and even taking it a step further by getting a scale and measuring your foods by the gram.

You'd be surprised at what falls through the cracks due to negligence and poor tracking.

8. Raise Your Floor

My biggest mistake when losing weight was always trying to lose and never giving time to build muscle​.

Muscle helps us raise our metabolic floor.

Also, gaining muscle is NOT what most people think it is.

It's not about eating pizza and gaining 10 lbs every month. This is a formula to get fat again.

The best way to build muscle is slow and methodically. This means gaining 1-2.5 lbs per MONTH maximum.

When you hit your weight loss target, give yourself at least 6 to 12 months to raise your floor by building muscle. You won't regret it.

9. Stop Focusing On Goals. Start Focusing On Traits

When you set a goal for yourself you want to do it in 3 parts:

1. What is the goal?
2. What is the process?
3. What are the traits?

The last part is the most important. We don't want to lose weight once only to bring it back.

We want to create an identity where staying fit is a part of who we are, which means focusing on traits that make up the healthier version of you.

Focusing less on the goal and more on traits makes the outcome inevitable and more sustainable.

10. It'll Take Longer Than You Think

The weirdest thing I see when coaching is clients trying to undo years of work in a 6-12-week time frame.

12 weeks is a great time frame to launch a body transformation and get amazing results but it won't create long-term change.

The sobering reality is that you want to do is give yourself a longer time horizon instead.

Spend 4-6 months to drop the weight and another 6 months to a year to instill the identity traits we talked about above.

Otherwise, we'll end up on the yo-yo weight loss train all over again.

Key Point: We're Not Losing. We're Releasing.

When we think of loss, it sets off a negative connotation in our brains.

No one likes losing, and the thought of loss is something we try to avoid.

Instead, we want to tell ourselves we're releasing the weight from our bodies.

This also means releasing any of the emotions, beliefs, and mindsets that caused us to get out of shape in the first place.

As the saying goes,

"A smart person learns from their mistakes and a wise person learns from the mistakes of others"

Here's to you skipping some of the mistakes I made so you can get the results you deserve.

Onwards and upwards 🚀

- Dan

When you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help:

1. The Lean Body 90 System: When you’re ready to get in great shape, Lean Body 90 is the obvious choice. You can get in great shape and reach your fitness goals in just 90 minutes a week. Lose weight and build muscle even without hours in the gym or highly restrictive diets. Join 1000+ students here.

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