Most people will say that they want to lose weight to look good on the beach or sitting by the pool.  But they’re wrong.  They want to lose body fat, not weight.  Losing weight is easy.  Fighters drop upwards of thirty pounds in just a few days leading up to weigh-ins for a fight.  Then they proceed to put it right back in mere hours.

Shredding fat and retaining muscle takes a little more attention to detail.  There’s a lot we don’t know about regarding diets but we still have enough basic principles to apply that definitely work.  In the spirit of enticing headlines I was able to come up with ten things you should do if you want to lose body fat and keep it off.  If you hate success please hit the x in the upper right corner and stick with your military diet bullshit.

1. Slow Down

I get it, you can handle a strict calorie reduction right off the bat.  But we already established that we want to lose weight in the right places in the right ways.  General rule is; if you are losing more than 1-2% of body weight per week then you are risking losing lean body mass in the process.  Like we said, we want to lose body fat not muscle.  Start with a small calorie reduction, somewhere in the 200-500 range depending on how high your calorie maintenance is.

2. Keep Protein High

We stress over low carb, high carb, low fat, high fat, but protein is actually the most important macronutrient on any diet.  Protein is the only macronutrient that can build and maintain tissue.  Carbs and fats cannot do that.  1-1.5 grams per pound of lean body mass is the standard.  There are tons of studies showing improvements in lean body mass on high protein diets.  In fact, there are studies showing improvements in fat mass and fat free mass in individuals who were overfed protein.  That’s right, in diets where they ate above their calorie maintenance they still improved their physique.  This is in both trained and sedentary populations.

3. Track EVERYTHING

First things first, you should be tracking in general.  Don’t leave anything to chance, know what and how much you’re putting in your body.  Don’t estimate.  Buy a food scale, take the extra ten friggin seconds to weigh your food and know with certainty how much you’re eating.  Don’t get lazy either, track everything.  Condiments, salad dressings, and cooking oils can pack on calories.

4. Identify Your Trigger Foods

Some people follow a flexible dieting protocol, where no foods are off limits.  The freedom is nice, but it may not be the best formula for success.  Many foods are hard to eat in moderation.  Some are obvious, some are not.  For me, it’s hard to eat a serving of peanuts and not feel hungry afterwards.  Peanuts!  A low glycemic, low insulin index food.  On paper it seems like a good thing to have, but it doesn’t work for me.  Start becoming aware of the foods you can’t eat ‘just a little bit’ of and keep them out of your house.

5. Food Volume

What are the biggest barriers to success with a diet?  Hunger and cravings.  When you start tracking your food intake you begin to realize what foods take up a big chunk of your calories.  That little ass granola bar is 200 calories?!  Find foods that are high in volume and low in calories.  You know, the boring stuff: vegetables, certain fruits, lean meats, etc.

6. Water

Yeah drink water, no shit Sean.  Let’s go beyond the obvious.  Water is important, it makes up most of our body, it fills us up.  Remember, foods contain water too.  Watermelon, celery, strawberries, cucumbers, eggplant, cauliflower, and lettuce all have high water content.  This goes hand in hand with the food volume strategy, try to consume foods high in water.

7. Plan

This is true for every aspect of our lives isn’t it?  If you plan ahead you’re more likely to achieve success.  When you go to bed, don’t be clueless about what you’re doing the next day.  Prepare your meals in advance.  If you’re on the road a lot, don’t lie to yourself and say that there’s only fast food available.  That’s nonsense.  It’s 2018.  Every town has a grocery store.  Hell, every fast food place has grilled chicken sandwiches and side salads.

8. Keep Training Hard and Heavy

I don’t know how this notion came about where people start doing light weight, high repetition workouts when they diet.  It doesn’t burn more calories, in most cases it probably burns less since you underestimate how much weight you can handle for high rep sets.  You need to keep the intensity high and create that stimulus for muscle building and fat burning.  Keep the weight heavy, do dropsets, do supersets.

9. Don’t Change For The Sake of Changing

I’m going to cut my calories and then cut them again in two weeks.  Why?  What if you were still losing weight at the original calorie drop?  The key is to maximize the results in a certain situation before moving on.  This goes hand in hand with #1, don’t be in a rush. You want to lose as much body fat eating as much as possible.  This gives you more room to maneuver when you hit a plateau.  If you cut a ton of calories right off the bat then this isn’t possible without dropping to dangerously low levels.

10. A Simple Question

Keto, Paleo, Vegan, Flexible Dieting, IIFYM, Pescetarian, whatever you choose… can you do it long term?  That’s all that matters.  95% of all diets fail.  The people who diet regain their weight within three years.  67% of those people regain their weight and more!  That’s right, they were better off not dieting in the first place.  Whatever you choose, make sure you can do it long term.