Fat Loss Obsession
Fat Loss Obsession & Quick Results Pandemic
It’s usually assumed there s nothing a new fitness coach can add when there s plenty others, more jacked and better looking. Yes, the market is saturated.
But what I ve found that rules any business realm is trends, and we re now facing a leanness-focused one. This is because most news and content you see related to fitness are fat-centric. The bulk or cut approach is a proof of this. Yes, bulking and cutting is the best approach, that is, assuming a side (your priority should be either to lose fat or build muscle).
But what this approach usually fails to deliver clients is the conceptual starting point.
You don’t need to be 9-10% to start building mass. The REAL 9-10% body fat level (not the ones given on regular scales, nutritionists or gyms) is usually even leaner than what you think. It was when I started discussing with clients on my elite coaching programs to start with a DEXA scan that I gained an actual sense of what body fat levels are actually like.
Insert Pic of Fitness Gurus’ Body Fat Parameters
For you to reach these kind of levels in a healthy sustainable way… you need muscle. Unless you re the perfect case of an ectomorph, and u always tend to store low levels of fat, you re not getting to the chiseled look without adding a couple of extra pounds of muscle mass. By the end of a “bulk” (I don’t like using these terms with my clients, but lets consider this an extensive period of time, 6 months at least, that u re eating more in order to gain mass) you ll have more metabolized mass that will alow you to diet down to lower levels of body fat. Might not be 10, but a real 14% is also enough to turn heads.
Hell, I thought I was around 16-18% (below insert my picture) and was actually 22.4%.
Carrying muscle in your body requires more energy expenditure. Usually we say “a 200lbs version of you would have to eat 2 more plates of rice and an extra dessert, while your actual 155lbs frame gets to eat 4 meals and does not have a visible 4-pack abdomen”.
You might be asking why is this so important?
Well, this permacut mindset in which fitness consulting has been relying on inserts you on an frustration snowball of subscriptions, you cut you cut and you’re never satisfied so you wonder whats wrong with you… you just don’t understand why you cant stick to those last 10lbs of fat you should be losing so that you can finally start building mass. I ve seen this many times. Its chaotic.
One of my requirements for clients to absorb is… we re changing lives, not moments. There isn’t any 2 weeks or 1 month before and after. That’s the first mistake to fall into the trap of permacutting and not pursuing things to the end: getting amazed with “short profits” and those 2 week belly improvements. Fast results usually indicate big caloric deficits where u re setting yourself to lose mass in general, in the beginning feels great but your overall body composition will be terrible (your body fat isn’t dropping as much as your much as ur muscle mass), your metabolism crashes and is begging for the previous layers of energy u had (that is to say, FAT).
Don’t Blame me, it was a Precious Lesson after years of meeting with clients.
In all programs, whether u re signing for my workouts and courses, bodyweight bootcamp or any kind of mentoring and coaching… we will be focusing on the body net “dividends” – your fat is what we want to decrease, muscle is what you want to increase. Yes, it is harder to do both simultaneously (not impossible, far from it) but if you re first decreasing your fat while maintaining most muscle, and then gaining more muscle than fat = guess what? You ll have more muscle and less fat overall from where you started. Its normal to want to sculpt a bit when you start (hell, you re starting off in the gym you wanna collect some aesthetic gains, totally fine), but your long search trend will be ambitious, personalized for your body and engaging, in a way that you wont even consider going back to the same habits u had: