Do you often find yourself wishing you could have the metabolism you had in high school?
Do you dream of losing that baby weight you’ve held on to for years?
Or, maybe you look at your body and just feel like it’s soft and shapeless?
Do you want to change but don’t know how?
Have you tried every method under the sun and failed?
If any of this sounds familiar, you are going to want to watch this video 👆!
We have a foolproof 3-STEP process that is guaranteed to help you lose fat.
Whether you have 100 pounds to lose or are struggling to drop those last 5 pounds of belly fat, this 3-step process is backed by science .. and works!
It’s a method our staff has personally followed for years and the formula we use with all of our clients. It has helped people just like you shed hundreds of pounds that they thought they would never lose. We are excited to share it with you today!
We will even be answering some of the biggest questions we receive when it comes to dieting.
- What diet is best for fat loss.
- How to determine YOUR individual calorie needs.
- How to calculate and count macros for weight-loss.
FOOLPROOF 3-STEP FAT BURNING PROTOCOL
STEP 1: Determine How Many Calories YOU Need
This first step is not only most important, it’s also the most controversial and confusing.
Diet is a frustrating word for most people because we live in an age of OVERLOAD.
While one doctor may preach a plant-based diet, another says that carbs and sugar are the enemies. Then a different highly credentialed expert says you can’t build fat-burning muscle without a ton of carbs. Another big diet trend we see is intermittent fasting, but then you have others that swear you have to eat every 3 hours starting the second you wake up.
Then you have your friends and family that have seen results by hopping on the latest diet fad like paleo, keto, or carnivore.. so you think that must be the answer.
Are any of these methods wrong? No!
Pretty much all of the diets we just mentioned have their own individual benefits to them.
But none of them are magic either!!
If appropriately done… ALL of these dieting methods share ONE THING. It is THE THING that is most important no matter what diet you follow.
And that is… CALORIES!
Your total daily calorie intake is what matters when it comes to losing fat!
Despite what you may believe, you can lose weight eating carbs!
You can lose weight by the eating foods you enjoy!
You can eat 3 times a day, or you can eat ten times a day, and still lose weight!
You just have to know how many calories your body needs before it starts storing them as fat.
INDIVIDUAL CALORIE NEEDS
This is probably going to sound complicated at first. We are going to break it down in the easiest way possible.
Be patient! Once you absorb this information, we promise that it’s pretty simple.
Don’t try to figure out your numbers as you read. We suggest you just read first and then come back later with pen, paper, and a calculator to crunch your calorie numbers.
And don’t worry, the next two fat loss steps we are going to give you after this one are much easier!
To understand how many calories you need, you first need to understand what a calorie is.
Calories are simply the amount of energy in anything we eat. They come from the three main macronutrients (or macros ), and those are carbohydrates, fat, and protein.
We are going to go over how many calories are in each macro and how to go about deciding how many of each you need here in just a second.
First, we want to drill into your head that it typically does not matter where your calories come from (carbs, protein, or fat) — when you consume more calories than you use, your body will store the excess as body fat.
Before you decide HOW you want to EAT your calories (more fat, less carbs. vegan, plant- based, keto, etc.) — you still have to START by determining how many calories YOU can consume each day without gaining weight!
This is what we will be referring to as your maintenance calories.
Determining your maintenance calorie number is where many people lose patience.
But remember, anything worth having takes a little work.
Plus, once you understand this, you will be able to use your calories however YOU want!
You will be able to go on whatever “diet “ you can sustain, and you will lose fat.
Unless you have a coach helping crunch these numbers for you, or unless you go get a body scan that will break down what your resting metabolic rate is — finding this number can take a little trial and error.
Calorie maintenance levels are different for everyone because we all have different daily calorie requirements.
This can be impacted by a long list of factors:
- Gender
- Height
- Age
- Activity level
- Metabolism
- Hormones
- Gut Health
Even if you are the same age, height, and weight as someone else.
Even if you have the exact same activity level … the number of calories YOU need to lose weight is most likely totally different!
So, how in the world do you know where to begin?!
There are a lot of calorie calculators out there. None of them are going to be 100% accurate. But then again, those body fat scans aren’t either because they also can’t determine ALL of the factors we just mentioned.
The numbers these calculators and scans provide are a starting point.
Look at them as an accurate estimate.
We are going to give you a simple calorie calculator formula that you can use to determine both your maintenance calories and weight loss calories.
HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR MAINTENANCE CALORIES
Here is a general calorie calculation you can use. It is super easy to follow on your own to determine your maintenance calories (the calories you can eat every day and not gain or lose weight.)
You are going to take your current body weight in pounds and multiply that number by both 14 and 17.
Somewhere in between those 2 amounts will typically be your daily maintenance calories.
Let’s use 200 pounds just for an example.
- 200 times 14 .. is 2,800.
- 200 times 17 .. is 3,400.
If you are female, a little older, or are less active .. then start off by using the lower end of that estimate.
If you are male, younger, more active, or feel you have a “fast metabolism” .. go with the higher end of the estimate.
If you’re unsure, just pick a number somewhere in the middle.
That is your ESTIMATED number of calories per day you will need to eat to stay at your current weight.
We know .. you are trying to LOSE weight. We are going to get to that calculation in a second.
But you have to know your maintenance calories first. So let’s go back to that for a second.
You will take what you believe is your maintenance calories and eat that number of calories every day for a couple of weeks.
Monitor what your weight does and how your body looks. If your weight stays the same, great, you’ve probably found your maintenance calories!
If it goes up or down, then you will need to slightly adjust your calorie intake in small increments (maybe 100 to 200 calories in whatever direction needed) – then wait another week or two and see what your weight does.
When your weight stays consistent … then you’ll know you’ve found your daily calorie maintenance number.
Also, you’ll probably need to use a food tracking app to log everything you eat – even little snacks here and there. Those add up! You must account for everything when trying to figure out your maintenance number.
Another thing that helps is weighing yourself daily. You must do this at the same time, under the same circumstances. Never weigh yourself in different clothes, at different times of day, or on different scales.
The reason you should weigh yourself daily is that weight fluctuations are a normal part of life and happen to everyone. Don’t let them discourage you!
If you only weigh yourself once or twice during this trial, you may weigh in on a “high” fluctuation day. You are weighing yourself daily so you can figure out your weight average.
Once you think you know what your maintenance calories are, then you need to do a little more math to create a calorie deficit .. so that you can lose fat.
HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR DEFICIT CALORIES
Let’s say you are hoping to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week — which is a rate that experts consider safe.
Anything more, unless you are drastically overweight, isn’t a good idea. You could end up losing muscle instead of fat .. which is NOT the goal!
To get that deficit number, all you will need to do is calculate a 20% per day deficit below your maintenance calories.
Here is how you do that,
You will take the maintenance calorie number you came up with and multiply it by 0.20.
So, let’s say you determined your maintenance calories are 3000.
- 3000 x 0.20 .. which equals 600.
That means you need to eat 600 calories less a day .. to lose weight.
Using this 3000 calorie example ..
- 3000 – 600 = 2400 calories a day. That is your deficit number!
Next, you will do what you did when determining your maintenance calories. You will track your food using the new number you think will put you in a deficit. Do this for 2-4 weeks and see what happens.
If you are losing MORE than 2 pounds a week, or if you constantly feel like you’re starving, you are probably being a tad bit too aggressive.
Unless you have 100 or more pounds to lose, or you just simply feel fine losing weight at that rate, try adding in 100 to 200 more calories a day and see what happens.
If you aren’t losing with that number, you can either give it a couple more weeks in case you are a slow responder (which is very common), or try dropping that number down by another couple-hundred calories.
Once you find your deficit number, you will want to stay there for a while .. even if you stop losing.
This is important! Because some weeks you may lose a lot and some you may gain.
Stay consistent for a little while before making further calorie cuts.
We know that sounds complicated, but it really isn’t.
You just have to be patient and think LONG term if you want to lose fat, keep it off, and stop falling into the yo-yo diet trap of losing, only to gain double back.
Knowing how many calories you should eat to reach your goals is a crucial first step.
Knowing this number will give you FOOD FREEDOM to pick the diet YOU want to follow.
Which is actually what we want to teach you next!
HOW TO TRACK MACROS
Now that you know how many calories you need to eat to lose weight .. you get to CHOOSE how you want to eat those calories!
As we mentioned earlier, calories come from the three main macronutrients:
- Carbohydrates = 4 calories per gram.
- Fat = 9 calories per gram.
- Protein = 4 calories per gram.
What we always recommend is setting your protein number first. This is because protein is satiating, necessary for muscle growth, and is considered to be a thermogenic food, meaning it takes more calories to digest.
Here is the general suggestion for protein:
- Women – Anywhere from 0.8 to 1.2 grams per pound of bodyweight.
- Men – 1 to 1.5 grams per pound of bodyweight.
We suggest staying somewhere in the middle .. at around 1.25 grams.
Let’s say you weigh 200 pounds ..Multiply 200 x 1 (or 1.25 or 1.5) – which means you will eat anywhere from 200 to 300 grams of protein a day.
Let’s go with that middle number.
- 200 x 1.25 = 250
So let’s say your daily calories are 3,000. Knowing each gram of protein has 4 calories, that means at least 1000 of your 3000 daily calories should come from protein.
Once you know how much protein you need to eat in a day, you get to choose how you want to spend the rest of your calorie budget.
For this example .. you would have 2000 calories left.
Want more fat … go for it.
Prefer carbs .. that is totally fine .. eat that way.
Just remember that each gram of fat has 9 calories per gram and carbs have 4 calories per gram.
While it is your choice, a good general recommendation for optimal hormone and brain health is not dropping your fats any lower than 20-30% of your daily calories.
The only other thing you need to keep in mind when picking your foods is that you do need to follow the 80/20 rule.
80% of the time focus on whole foods that will provide enough vitamins, minerals, and fiber!
We generally suggest no-one eats less than 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day.
RECAP…
We know that was a lot of information, but we hope it helped you understand that ultimately
it doesn’t matter what diet you pick!!
As long as you are consistent and hit those calorie/macro targets that put you in a caloric deficit .. you should lose fat.
If, after attempting to calculate your calories/macros, you are still totally confused .. we have coaches that can do all this work for you within our Custom Plan Programs.
All you do is fill out a short questionnaire explaining your body metrics, your food preferences, and your goals. They crunch all the numbers for you and provide you with the exact grocery list and meals you should be eating every day.
They also make adjustments along the way, so you continually get results. If you wanna check it out, CLICK HERE!
Okay!! The hard part is over! Steps 2 and 3 are not as complicated (shew, thank goodness.)
In fact, step 3 will only take you about 30 seconds a day! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s dive into step two!
STEP 2: Exercise
No surprise here, but like diet, exercise does play an important role in losing fat.
Notice we didn’t say that it has an important role in losing weight.
This is something you will need to keep in mind once you start weight-training.
But eventually, you will want to rely more on pictures, measurements, and how your clothes fit instead of what the scale says.
The most effective way to burn fat .. is to build muscle.
Cardio is great, which we will touch on in a second, but you should ALWAYS prioritize resistance training over cardio!
Lifting weights is the only way to build muscle. Muscle is the only way you can change the SHAPE of your body.
Nobody wants to just be a soft and skinnier version of their old self. The goal is to firm up your body and change its SHAPE. Weight training is the only way you can do that.
Also, having more muscle speeds up your metabolic rate. This means that even when you aren’t training .. when you are doing nothing and even when you are sleeping .. your body is burning MORE FAT! Simply because you have more muscle that requires energy in the form of calories consumed!
So, again, always prioritize weight lifting over cardio and all those boot camps and zumba classes.
When it comes to cardio, the most effective method for blasting fat is no doubt using high intensity intervals .. or HIIT.
This style of cardio is when you go all out with short bursts of any movement that will sky-rocket your heart rate for anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds, followed by a recovery period of anywhere between 20 seconds to several minutes.
These sessions, in total, are usually only 10 to 20 minutes and never longer than 30 minutes.
Time is one reason most people prefer this method. HIIT is much less time consuming and much less boring.
The biggest thing to be aware of with HIIT is that you have to go ALL OUT during the work periods .. or it WILL NOT be effective.
Most experts agree, when done correctly, HIIT cardio is better than steady state, which is any cardio where you keep a constant slower to moderate pace over a longer period.
A lot of studies have been done comparing these two methods..
In one trial, researchers had 10 men and 10 women train 3 times per week. One group performed HIIT, doing 4 to 6 30-second treadmill sprints with 4 to 6 minutes of rest in between each. The other group did 30 to 60 minutes of steady-state cardio- running on the treadmill in the “fat loss zone.”
After 6 weeks, researchers found that the HIIT group’s fat mass decreased by 12.4%, but the fat mass of the steady-state group only decreased by 5.8%. That is almost DOUBLE the amount of fat loss in the HIIT group!
The exact reason HIIT seems to be superior is still sort of a mystery, but scientists have a few conclusions.
They believe that HIIT can keep your metabolism ramped up for as much as 24 hours following the session. This means that you don’t only burn calories WHILE doing the cardio, you keep burning calories for hours or even days after.
They also found that HIIT helped improve insulin sensitivity in the muscles. You want to have a good insulin response. This will allow your muscle cells to be able to use all the food you are eating as fuel instead of storing them as fat.
Researchers also believe HIIT can cause spikes in growth hormone, which also aids in fat loss.
Now, all this is not to say steady state is bad.
Those longer sessions, like running.. incline walking.. or step mill .. do burn calories and provide cardiovascular benefits.
Also, steady state may be the best option for beginners.
Because again, for HIIT to be effective, you need to get your heart rate spiking into that 80-90% max range during the work periods. This may be too much if you are just getting started.
Ease your way into HIIT if you need to.
But if your goal is to burn as much fat in as little time as possible, then HIIT is eventually the way to go.
We have TONS of free HIIT workouts on our YouTube Channel if you need a little bit of direction. Check out our YouTube channel HERE!!
We’ve covered steps one and two .. a calorie deficit using any diet that you can sustain and exercise with a focus on resistance training and HIIT.
Those are the most important steps in fat loss. Nothing can substitute those two things.
You can’t just skip over these steps .. and expect this 3rd step to work.
It’s a process.
But once you do take care of those, this last step could be what puts your body into overdrive! It could be what helps you finally get rid of the fat in your stubborn spots or push past a plateau.
Step 3: Supplement With Science-Backed Thermogenics
They also contain compounds that can increase body temperature, enhance energy production, and stimulate your central nervous system (which can help suppress your appetite and help banish all those abnormal cravings that lead to cheating on your diet)
Thermogenics are usually labeled as FAT BURNERS, but you have to be careful!!
Many of these products claim to burn fat, but they don’t. They just help you shed a little water weight, or give you a jolt of energy.
There are very few ingredients that researchers have deemed to be effective at helping enhance the efforts of diet and training.
Finding a good thermogenic that actually works is tough, that’s why we created BURN EVOLVED. Our reformulated thermogenic fat burner, BURN EVOLVED provides support to help force your body to torch stubborn body fat from the inside-out. BURN EVOLVED is filled with ingredients to that are scientifically show to help you burn fat!
BOTTOM LINE…
First, it doesn’t matter if you are eating only plants, eating no carbs, eating 6 meals or only 2 meals … you have to determine how many calories you need to eat in a day to lose weight.
Next, you need to prioritize resistance training above all other exercise and incorporate some HIIT cardio if you are able.
And last, if you want to enhance those efforts and tap into your body’s natural ability to burn even MORE fat and send your metabolism into overdrive … then start taking very specific thermogenics.
SOURCES
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20473222/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21113312/
https://www.capsimax.com/capsimax-difference (Capsaicin)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23308394/ grains of paradise
http://www.paradoxine.com/science.php Paradoxine
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/87/3/778/4633440#111217122 (8b) green tea
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15438620600987106 (9b) Yo
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0014299981901230?via%3Dihub (10b) yo
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987701914598?via%3Dihub (11b) yo
https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/increasing-fiber-intake
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5577766/