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when most people lose fat they also lose
a lot of muscle which is a huge problem
because the dream outcome for most
people isn't necessarily to just lose
weight or burn fat it's actually to
improve their body composition which
essentially boils down to reducing body
fat while also increasing muscle mass
and if you lose muscle every time you
try to cut away some fat you're just
going to stay stuck in a cyclical
process where you take one step back for
every step you move forward so to
actually ensure progress i want to give
you guys nine rules that you should
follow whenever you're trying to reduce
your love handles your belly fat or any
kind of fat without wasting precious
muscle mass in the process and the first
thing is to make sure that you base your
caloric intake on your current body fat
percentage to maximize fat loss while
minimizing muscle loss this is so
important because the less body fat you
carry the more prone you are to muscle
loss on the other hand if you have a
high body fat percentage you can diet
much more aggressively without risking
muscle loss this is because there's more
stored energy available for your body to
tap into and use as fuel when you're
overweight or when you have a high body
fat percentage so your body doesn't need
to break down precious muscle tissue to
get that fuel so based on the scientific
data here's how i would set up your
caloric deficit as a function of your
body fat percentage as you can see on
the table on the screen it shows us that
if you happen to be a man with an
average body fat percentage of 15 to 21
you can reduce your calories by 20 to 30
percent from maintenance without risking
too much muscle loss on the other hand
if you're a man with a body fat
percentage that's greater than 26
percent you can literally reduce your
calories by 40 to 50 percent without
risking excessive muscle loss the
easiest way to figure out approximately
what level your body fat percentage is
right now would be by looking on the
screen and choosing the range that looks
most similar to your current body and to
easily figure out your maintenance
calories you can just google a macro
calculator or you can click the link in
the description below just keep in mind
that it's totally fine to diet less
aggressively than the numbers that you
see on these tables but to avoid muscle
loss i highly recommend not exceeding
the calorie deficit ranges that you see
for each category also since no macro
calculator is perfect you may want to
keep track of how much weight you lose
every week if you lose more weight than
the numbers in the maximum weekly weight
loss column indicate then that could be
a sign that you're dieting too
aggressively the next super important
rule to follow is to maintain your
training intensity as you cut down from
the training side of things this is by
far the best thing you can do
unfortunately when you're in a calorie
deficit it can become harder to recover
from your workouts because the calorie
deficit itself triggers physiological
changes that impair recovery for example
you'll experience a reduction in
testosterone and igf-1 production along
with a simultaneous increase in cortisol
all of these changes are far from ideal
for muscle growth and recovery so most
people will adjust their workout to make
up for their reduced energy levels and
their reduced recovery capacity the big
problem is that usually people do this
by reducing their training intensity in
other words by reducing the amount of
weight that they lift and that's a huge
mistake because there is a very close
correlation between strength and muscle
mass which means your ability to
maintain muscle while you cut is very
closely related to your ability to
maintain your strength levels while you
cut so even though you will most likely
lose at least some strength each week as
you diet you shouldn't just willingly
reduce your weight load every week
because you have less energy you should
fight to maintain that same intensity
throughout your entire cut almost in the
same way that you would train if you
were trying to gain strength you should
only reduce the weight when you
physically can't lift the weight for the
intended rep range that you're going for
while still maintaining good form of
course instead of reducing intensity to
match your lower energy levels it's a
better idea to reduce your rep and set
volume during a cut so for example
before your cut you might have been able
to do 225 for 10 reps but during your
cut you can't do more than six reps i'd
rather you keep the weight at 225 and
fight for those six reps of course if
you keep dieting and your rep range
drops to two or three reps then you will
have to drop the weight but only drop
the minimum amount of weight that you
need to get your reps back above your
target rep range which in this example
would be six to ten another eating
strategy that you should use is calorie
cycling which is basically eating more
calories in some days and fewer calories
than others so let's say that to lose
fat you need to stay under an average of
2 300 calories per day instead of
maintaining the same deficit every
single day you could have two really low
calorie days of let's say 1400 calories
and that would allow you to have 2660
calories on the other days while
creating the same total calorie deficit
at the end of the week research shows
that cycling like this improves diet
adherence diet satisfaction and weight
loss compared to continuous calorie
restriction on top of that calorie
cycling may help you maintain muscle
mass as you're burning fat this is
because when you lift weights you
stimulate something within your muscles
known as protein synthesis and that
leads to muscle recovery and growth so
it's been shown that muscle protein
synthesis is elevated by 50 percent four
hours after heavy weight training and
109 after 24 hours however after longer
time lengths like 36 hours we find that
protein synthesis rates drop to only
about a 14 percent increase above
baseline
what this all means is that your muscles
are in an optimal muscle building state
for about 24 hours after your workout
but after that protein synthesis drops
significantly so you can take advantage
of this with calorie cycling by eating
more calories on workout days and fewer
calories on the days that you rest
you'll also want to make sure that your
diet contains enough fat a lot of people
make the mistake of going on a low fat
diet or they just arbitrarily try to
avoid fats since fats make you fat right
well not exactly it turns out that fats
can not only be good for fat loss but
they're also essential for optimal
hormone production specifically
testosterone is very negatively affected
when your intake of fat falls below 20
percent of your total daily caloric
intake in a systematic review and
meta-analysis men were first put on a
high-fat diet with 40 of the calories
coming from fat and then they were later
transitioned to a low-fat diet where 20
of the calories were coming from fat and
researchers found that the low-fat diet
decreased testosterone levels 10 to 15
percent on average specifically
vegetarians that were on low fat diets
were most vulnerable to testosterone
losses some experiencing up to a 26
reduction in test levels so make sure at
least 20 to 35 percent of your diet is
made up of fats an easy way to check if
you're getting enough is by multiplying
your body weight times 0.2 if you're
under that amount in grams of fat per
day you may want to consider upping your
fat intake out of all the fats you want
to try to get more omega-3s in your diet
because research shows that consuming
more omega-3s improves exercise
performance muscle growth and lean body
mass next let's talk about cardio you'll
want to avoid doing excessive amounts of
cardio because that can make maintaining
muscle much more difficult during a cut
i already mentioned that maintaining
your strength levels throughout a cut is
one of the best things that you can do
to maintain muscle mass if you're
already in an energy deficit and then
you're also overdoing it with cardio
it's going to make it even harder to be
fully recovered for each of your
strength training workouts this is
actually something known as the
interference effect and it's been shown
in a meta-analysis to reduce muscle
growth effect size by up to 39 percent
that's why many times it's better to
perform low intensity cardio when you're
cutting down like brisk walking instead
of running the walking most likely won't
interfere with your weight training as
much as the running it's also a known
fact that cardio decreases mtor which is
essential for muscle growth and it
increases ampk which is catabolic
meaning it's bad for muscle growth so
when trying to burn extra calories it's
almost always better to look closer at
your diet rather than doing more and
more cardio the next important tip is to
either limit the amount of alcohol you
drink or avoid it altogether this is
because alcohol impairs fat loss and
also leads to muscle wasting for example
research shows that as acetate enters
your blood fat burning is highly
suppressed which causes most of the
fatty acids in your blood to be stored
as fat combine that with the fact that
you're more likely to eat high fat
processed foods after a few drinks also
if acetate isn't used for energy soon
after you drink it can be converted into
fat which is another reason why alcohol
has such a high potential to make you
gain fat from a muscle maintenance
perspective alcohol is detrimental
because it impairs protein synthesis one
study found that nine servings of
alcohol post-workout decreased protein
synthesis rates by 24
the scientists mentioned that alcohol
suppresses the anabolic or muscle
building response in skeletal muscle and
that could make recovery and adaptation
to training much more difficult next
make sure that you get enough fiber and
protein because doing so will help you
burn fat and preserve muscle both
protein and fiber help increase the
feelings of fullness and without eating
enough protein during a cut you will
absolutely lose muscle mass so make sure
that you're getting at least .8 grams of
protein per pound of body weight fiber
is not only good for your health and
body composition but it's also highly
satiating research shows that for every
14 extra grams of fiber that people
consume food intake tends to reduce by
around 10 percent this is because fiber
has the unique ability of prolonging
fullness by slowing down digestion and
once the food enters the large intestine
fiber begins to ferment leading to the
production of short chain fatty acids
which is a type of fat that enhances
fullness so assuming you don't have any
digestive issues it seems to be ideal to
aim for at least 30 to 38 grams of fiber
per day as a man and 21 to 25 grams of
fiber as a woman while that might sound
like a lot it's actually not that much
compared to the amount of fiber that
humans have evolved to eat for example
scientists estimate australian
aboriginals ate between 40 to 80 grams
of fiber per day and other hunter and
gatherer groups in northern parts of
mexico would consume up to 225 grams of
fiber per day so it's definitely doable
to get at least 38 grams of fiber per
day especially if you're eating lots of
vegetables now since protein is so
important a super easy tip is to eat a
high protein breakfast like eggs every
day and when i say breakfast if you're
intermittent fasting your breakfast
would literally be whenever it is that
you break your fast the evidence shows
that eggs are excellent for burning fat
while preventing muscle loss one egg
contains about six grams of protein and
that protein is of high quality since it
contains all nine of the essential amino
acids making it a complete protein
source on top of that it's one of the
world's best sources of leucine which is
the most important amino acid for muscle
growth because it activates mtor which
like we talked about is the primary
muscle building pathway in the body
aside from benefiting muscle mass the
high protein content makes the egg also
amazing for losing weight especially
when eaten for breakfast for example
research links the regular consumption
of an egg-based breakfast to increase
weight loss over time that's most likely
because having eggs for breakfast raises
levels of peptide yy and glucagon-like
peptide one these are two hormones that
regulate appetite and promote the
feelings of fullness
finally last but not least it's a good
idea to try to maintain a consistent
eating schedule to burn fat while
retaining muscle research shows that
being inconsistent with your eating
schedule increases hunger and cortisol
while impairing insulin sensitivity and
the thermic effect of food all of which
can slow down fat loss an increase in
cortisol tends to have a negative effect
on your belly fat which partially
explains why people with chronically
elevated cortisol levels are categorized
by abdominal obesity so don't eat six
meals today three meals tomorrow and one
the day after that keep it consistent
and do your best to spread your protein
intake more evenly throughout the day
for example even if you fast for longer
than 16 hours and you only have two
meals a day during your feeding window
research shows that a more even
distribution of protein in each meal is
better than skewing the protein intake
and having one very high protein meal
along with another very low protein meal
so just like with your workouts
consistency with your diet can really
help so that about wraps it up guys one
last thing that i will say is to have
realistic expectations i know on
instagram it looks like everyone but you
is maintaining a shredded six percent
body fat with full looking muscles year
round all naturally but this isn't
realistic when you cut and you do
everything right you will still lose
some muscle especially as a natural the
point is to lose the least amount
possible and these tips will definitely
help if you enjoyed this video subscribe
to the channel and if you want any extra
help with your diet or workout plan i
have everything from courses to recipe
books to one-on-one coaching all you
have to do is click the link in the
description below or you can visit my
website directly at
gravitytransformation.com
see you guys soon
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