My Plan to Get Lean in 2024
My fitness transformation is built on moving slowly
The secret to getting fit isn’t nutrition or exercise. It’s patience.
Patience means small changes. Sustainable changes. Lifestyle changes.
My plan to get lean is focused on making gradual changes and not rushing the process.
Part 1 is on nutrition (this piece) and part 2 will be on exercise (next week). Steal anything that resonates with your fitness goals, abilities, and preferences.
🏁 Starting Point
My motivation was sparked by getting my first DEXA scan— a tool that measures body fat percentage.
I also reflected on photos of myself in 2019 being decently ripped. Returning to that form would be empowering. I joke about vanity with friends but the truth is looking good makes me feel good!
Take note. I didn’t form my strategy and then start. I started and THEN formed my strategy. A perfect plan never started is worthless.
🎯 The Target Goal
The goal is to lose fat while retaining as much muscle as possible. Also, called a body recomposition. AKA getting lean.
My starting weight was 164-165 pounds with a 20.9% body fat.
My target goal is 155-157 pounds and 18% body fat.
I’ve broken my goal weight into three phases.
Phase 1: Drop 4 Pounds (S L O W L Y)
This first phase is getting things in order. Experimenting. Making small changes. Results will come slow but this is good; both for cultivating patience and retaining muscle. Minimizing disruptions to my diet and lifestyle is key to this phase.
Phase 2: Maintain Weight
This phase is a holding pattern before I stick the landing. If phase 1 was a brisk walk. Phase 3 will be an uphill climb. I am resting before the ascent.
Phase 3: Reach 155 pounds
A total of 8-10 pounds will be dropped by the end of phase 3. The number means nothing though.
Progress pics, another Dexa scan, and strength gains/losses at the gym will tell me if I hit my goal.
Timeline
Deadlines for body composition are never a good idea. You don’t get bonus abs for doing it in 4 months versus 8.
Instead of worrying about the goal, I am focused on being chill. Going slow also means easier.
That being said, you need a feedback loop. The feedback isn’t the rate of weight loss but directionality. The arrow is consistently pointing down.
With patience as the meta-skill to cultivate— we need to discuss lead and lag indicators.
Lead and Lag Indicators
Lag indicators are the results. Lead is the immediate effort.
Losing weight always trails changes in diet and exercise. Even radical changes don’t produce overnight results. There is always a delay, especially for changing your body.
On top of that, our brains have evolutionary software that runs scripts to prevent losing weight. It's kind of paranoid and assumes you are trying to kill yourself. The more weight you lose, the more it’s convinced you’ve gone crazy and will step on the brakes.
Taking things slow versus fast reduces all the paranoia.
My Nutrition Strategy
Eating a cookie takes 4-5 seconds and is 150 to 200 calories. Burning those calories with running will take 20 minutes!
I hate this fact but I don’t deny it. What you eat matters more than how much you move.
My goal isn’t weight loss but lean muscle mass, so resistance training is essential for my journey. Still, 60% of my effort is going towards nutrition and the rest to training and cardio. See this excellent Vox video below for more.
Eating is habitual, emotional, and social
The word diet is associated with weight loss and restriction. But everyone is on a diet. Diet means patterns in eating.
These patterns consist of 3 pillars. Our routines, our emotions, and our people.
The flawed approach is trying to disrupt all three, all at once. Don’t do this. It will backfire.
You can get results with dramatic change but most people gain the weight they lost within 12-24 months. Do you want to be lean now or stay lean forever?
Food Cheat Codes
Find what you like. Eat it often.
Eggs are my food cheat code. It's high in protein and it never gets boring. I use tortillas as my transport vehicle. Add some Avocado. Dab some Yellowbird habanero hot sauce. Amazing.
During this fitness journey, I discovered a new pantry staple. Quest BBQ chips. These are insane. 140 calories and 19g of protein.
Not your vibe? Good. Your cheat code differs from mine. Your task is to discover your unique code on your fitness journey. You’ve hit paydirt when you realize you'd eat this stuff even if you weren't trying to be healthy.
Eat Different, Not Less
Most changes I made to my diet so far (60 days in) haven’t been focused on eating less but differently.
I added more egg whites, and veggies to my breakfast, and focused on high-protein-filled dinners with lots of veggies.
I am eating fewer calories but not feeling hungry. This is because certain foods keep you full (potatoes) while other foods (croissants) keep you hungry.
This is scientifically proven but also varies across people. During my journey, I realized oatmeal doesn’t keep me as full as eggs. Even though the oatmeal I prepare is 200 calories higher than my eggs!
Nutrition is a puzzle to solve. Move the pieces before you start discarding them.
Speed Dating Diets
When it comes to the type of diet, I am agnostic. Different lifestyles. Different hormones.
I have two friends who wake up and are starving. They probably shouldn’t practice intermittent fasting. My Indian culture mandates I eat rice and naan. Mandates. Low carb would be soul-sucking to me.
The diet we pick is like our friends. Good friends let you be your true self. Your diet shouldn’t turn you into someone else.
My Dietary Approach - If It Fits My Macros
Intermittent Fasting. Whole30. Keto.
These diets have strict rules. They have ideologies.
My approach isn’t based on rules or dogma but on data. It’s called If It Fits My Macros.
It’s like financial budgeting. You get x number of calories every week. Stay below that number and you will see change. Simple. Not complicated. And a direct approach to weight loss.
The benefits are the following:
Tracking gives you a deep understanding of what keeps you full and what doesn’t.
There are no bad foods or banned foods. Just consequences. You make wiser choices by knowing the numbers.
Tracking protein is essential for retaining muscle. For me, this is 160g of protein every day.
The con with tracking calories and macros is a chore. A few suggestions to make it tolerable and sustainable.
Tip 1: Only track 4-5 times a week.
Ideally, weekdays when you have control over what you eat versus weekends, when you are likely to be eating out. This doesn’t mean eating more or eating anything you want.
Tip 2: Get a good tracking app & a food scale
These apps keep getting better. My recommendation is Macrofactor. It’s a food tracker and pseudo-diet coach. It can detect small changes to give you a feedback loop. It also has a maintenance mode to stay at your current weight. A free alternative is MyFitnessPal.
The other tool is a food scale. This lives on my kitchen counter. It’s my favorite all-purpose kitchen tool. From cooking to baking.
Emotional Eating
Eating is more than hunger.
I am an ambitious eater. An overeater. A fast eater.
Maybe you snack while watching TV? Crave dessert after dinner? Stress eat?
Like cheat codes, everyone has emotional food scripts. These scripts were written when we were kids and run as adults.
I trace eating fast back to my mom saying “The food will get cold if you don’t eat it fast” or “Eat it before I give it to your brother”.
Whatever it is you need to rewrite your food scripts. These things don’t serve you.
Tracking calories is a solution that helps me with mine. Let me tell you a little story about mini ice cream cookies.
I buy them from Aldi. They are cute. Mint chocolate chip ice cream wedged between two soft Oreos. I could easily plow through 4 to 5. But logging somehow shortcircuits my impulses in a good way. I feel content.
Hunger and Discomfort
Whatever approach you take in your fitness journey, it will get uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable makes us strong though.
There is a passage in the book, The Comfort Crisis, that reasoned with me on healthy hunger.
Kashey taught me that hunger can be deceptive. I learned I often just had a psychological need to eat. He taught me that it's okay to be hungry. My response was 'WHAT???' He told me to embrace the suck.' Now, yeah, I'm hungry sometimes. It is what it is. I'm OK with being uncomfortable now. I remind myself that I'm safe, have food, and will eat when it's time to eat.”
Sometimes discomfort is not hunger but emotions. Fitness coach Dan Go has a practical method to know.
To figure out true hunger, Drink a glass of water and go for a walk. If you are still hunger, then eat something.
Pro Tip. Don’t discount sleep. I notice feeling more hungry when I don’t get enough. There are hunger hormones (ghrelin/leptin) that signal us to eat more or less. This is why there is a strong correlation between sleep and obesity.
What I’ve Learned in the First 60 Days
At 60 days into my journey, I have lost 3.5 pounds as I type this sentence in late December.
My protein intake is hovering at 145g and I am making gains in the gym. I am walking slowly but heading in the right direction.
What have I learned? Patience is fucking hard.
James Clear says “If you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you'll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you're done”
But we are wired to want better. 1 percent doesn’t compute.
I am reconsidering patience. It’s not binary. It’s a spectrum. Don’t let your impatience to the point of quitting. Stay the course. Be chill. Good things take time.
I’ll keep you updated on how it’s going!
Hit reply with your suggestions/questions.
Happy New Year!
Irfan
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