Olympic athletes have every tiny detail of their nutrition and training routines mapped out.

Conversely, the life of a monk - in deep harmony with themselves and the surrounding world - follows a rigid daily schedule.

Finally, we have Mozart - a creative genius and incredibly talented composer...

Surely someone as purely creative as Mozart wasn't shackled down by the inconvenience of a daily schedule, right?

...Wrong. Mozart was actually incredibly calculated with his day, planning every minute of his day from 6 a.m. - 1 a.m.

One of the biggest things that struck me from Robert Greene's Mastery, was the fact that every historical figure who's made a significant impact on the world - from Darwin to Henry Ford - was very structured with their time.

Let's relate this back to the problems most of us experience...

We want more out of ourselves.

We want to be better significant others. We want to be more successful at work. We want to be leaner, stronger, and more confident.

But... we just can't seem to find the TIME to accomplish all of this.

And there lies the fundamental truth that most of us are missing.

Despite what we tell ourselves - we're not bad, lazy, worthless people because we can't seem to accomplish these things we want. We just suck at managing our time.

Typically, instead of being proactive with our time by doing something like planning out our days in Google Calendar...  we instead think of all the stuff we'll do in the future "when we have more time".

Reality check: there will always be something new filling your time - you'll likely never have more free time than you do right now.

The solution?

Get more organized. Get more out of the time you have available.

This train of thought is not only something I apply heavily to my own life, but to my online coaching practice as well.

One of the biggest things I do to help so many of my online clients achieve their leanest, strongest bodies ever, is simply help them get super organized with their training and nutrition.

With a bit of organization, structure, and planning applied to your week, you don't unexpectedly "run out of time" to work out. You have food prepped ahead for situations where you won't have time to cook a meal that aligns with your goals. And suddenly, get leaner and stronger is much easier than ever before.

It's not that you don't want it. It's that your lack of organization always has you running out of time to accomplish the things you want.

"Do what is meaningful, not what is expedient" is a quote I took from Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules For Life. I can't think of a better way to sum up the ideas I'm about to talk about than this.

It's really about happiness vs. fulfillment.

Every choice we make, we have the option to:

a.) Do what's pleasurable or easier in the short-term - (E.g. eating food that doesn't align with our goals or make us feel good, half-assing a training session, scrolling Instagram instead of writing that blog, etc.) Stuff that feels "better" in the moment than the alternative... but the pleasure is gone immediately after the act. Now you feel empty and disappointed in yourself.

Making a lot of decisions like this is always easier, but leaves you feeling unfulfilled and unaccomplished. It drains your confidence, as you seem to be the type of person who can't follow through or "put in the work".

b.) Do what's meaningful - This is the hard stuff you don't necessarily want to do (E.g. cooking a meal healthy meal, pushing hard in the gym when you're tired, going through the painstaking work of perfecting your client's new training program, etc.) This stuff isn't immediately gratifying - in fact it's usually very hard, painful, or boring in the short-term - but in the long game, it makes your life, your mental state, and your physical state much better.

Making a lot of choices like this seems to create a lot more fulfillment in your life. Choose this route often, and you'll have a constant sense of purpose. You'll be proud, knowing you've pushed yourself to accomplish what you're actually capable of. It builds your confidence. You know no matter what, you'll deliver - you don't let yourself down.

Essentially, every choice seems to be a trade-off between short-term happiness and long-term fulfillment.

We could talk about this concept for a long time. It applies to so many things:

Not skipping your cardio...

Being disciplined to journal every night - even when you're super tired...

Putting in the extra effort to educate your client more in that email, even though they wouldn't know if you didn't...

Going out of your way to hit your macros instead of settling for close enough...

Squeezing out that extra rep in the gym...

You get the idea.

Little choices where you feel like you're "letting yourself down" add up big time. They drain your confidence, and make you much less than the fulfilled, confident, successful person you're capable of being.

Nothing extraordinary comes without first being stupidly consistent at putting in the rep - usually for a really long time.

None of the things that we want comes from short bursts of insane effort - the overnight success, the natural creative genius, the 6-minute six-pack... none of that shit is real.

Most everything seems to come down to - whoever works at something the most consistently, for the longest, will eventually win.

Want to build a great body? Don't crash diet for two weeks like most do. Hit your macros every day, follow a smart training plan, and stay accountable for the next year, and then see where you're at.

Want to build a business off of your social media? Don't post for a few weeks, and then get frustrated with the lack of leads like most. Overwhelm your followers with free education and value for the next two years. You'll be the first person they think of when they need help.

There is truly no better investment than coaches, mentors, education courses, and books.

October 2018, I quit the gym I worked at full-time to go all in on my online business. I knew this was the route I had to take in order to impact millions of lives. This was the path to a bigger platform, and doing more of what I love - coaching others to becoming better, happier, more fulfilled versions of themselves.

So I quit the gym, hyped up at my potential, and what I would accomplish now....

...and my business dwindled. I was helping less people than before, and my credit card bill was climbing.

I was unorganized, I lacked accountability, and I was selling myself short on what I was genuinely capable of.

Something had to change - so I doubled down on my bet that I could make this happen, and I invested in myself.

I hired a mentor - someone I looked up to tremendously in the industry, to help me create more impact, to help more people, and to create the life I wanted.

With that scary investment in myself, a lot changed. The time since then has been the most uncomfortable, challenging, and rewarding period of growth I've ever experienced. I'm incredibly happy with the amount of people I've been able to empower to live better lives through education on nutrition and training - and how my on life has changed - since that decision.

Truly, this lesson has rung true over and over again in my life.

Every single time I've invested in myself, it's paid back tenfold.

Coaches, mentors, education courses, books - I can't recall a single one that I regret in the slightest. Each has helped me create more helpful content, impact more lives, and become a better coach.

So my advice here - if you're looking to grow, don't act out of scarcity. Investing in yourself increases your value.

On that note, I always want to provide you more free value and education. Consider this an open invitation to email me any nutrition or related questions you have at jeremiah@bairfit.com - I'll get back to you within 24 hours.

A large chunk of the women and men I coach online start online coaching because they realize something needs to change to finally beat skinny-fat.

If you're in this situation, it's highly likely you took one of two paths to get here:

1. You've always been skinny fat. Despite your best attempts with your nutrition and training, you can't seem to get the lean, strong body you want.

2. You've lost a lot of weight. You've likely lost 25lbs+. You expected to look lean and defined at this weight... but instead, you just look shapeless. (Been there.)

Regardless of where you're coming from, I've found that most people who get skinny-fat are usually following a very similar training and nutrition protocol.

Let's dive into the mistakes you're making, and how we'll change your nutrition and training strategies within coaching to help you create the leanest, strongest, and most confident version of yourself.

→ Protein is the building block of lean, defined muscle - Without adequate protein, what you do in the gym will burn calories, but you won't be able to actually build lean muscle until you increase protein intake.

While I think we're pretty much past the stigma that building lean muscle makes you look "bulky"... you have to realize that adding a bit of lean muscle is what makes you look defined and strong, instead of just skinny. While much of increasing lean muscle and strength will come from the periodized training program you'll be following during your time coaching, protein is just to important to neglect here.

→ Protein burns lots of calories during digestion - 20-35% of the calories you consume via protein are actually burned off during digestion (the thermic effect of food). This is much higher than the other macronutrients - meaning even if you keep calories the same, simply increasing the amount of those calories that come from protein equates to you burning more calories daily.

By shifting your macros to include more protein, we're increasing your metabolism - leading to a leaner body for you.

→ Protein is much harder for your body to store as fat - Remember a few years ago, when everyone was telling you the key to getting lean was eating a bunch of “negative calorie foods”?

“Just eat lots of celery - it’s a negative calorie food!”

Yeahhh... we're still waiting for the success stories from that diet.

So while eating a bit more celery probably isn’t going to transform your body, protein does seem to be the closest thing we have to a food you can eat an abnormal amount of without gaining fat.

→ Protein is the most filling macronutrient - Lean protein is the most filling food. Since escaping skinny fat requires both building muscle and losing fat, this also means you'll be dealing with some hunger (as losing fat requires a calorie deficit). Within your nutrition, our focus on driving up your protein will serve you well here. Not only does it help manage your hunger, but pushing up your protein actually keeps you full, and helps prevent any overeating that could lead to fat gain.

2. Lack Of Consistency With Nutrition

The second mistake you're probably making?

Lack of consistency with your nutrition.

Most new nutrition and training clients who've been struggling with skinny-fat have a vague idea of what their "diet structure" is. Something like:

"I eat healthy... for the most part. Sometimes I don't do so great on the weekends, with a cheat day or two. I can't say I have a specific macro or calorie goal."

The reality is, to get you specific results, we need to give you a specific prescription.

Especially when it comes to nutrition, doing things at random will never get you the results you want - which is exactly why having a nutrition coach is so invaluable.

You'll very likely be tracking macros in our time working together. Since you are chasing a very specific result here (losing body fat and building muscle simultaneously), we also need to get very specific with your nutrition - this makes macros the best fit here.

A macro goal also allows us to ensure that your calories align with your goals. While we focus on much more than just calories in-calories out within nutrition coaching, we can't ignore the laws of energy balance when it comes to shifting your body composition.

→ Fibrous carbs are the second most filling food - Next to lean protein, high-fiber carbs are the second most filling food. Similar to protein, prioritizing filling foods prevents overeating.

See now why a diet low on both protein and fibrous carbs would be a problem for your physique? You're missing the two most filling foods. This means you're much less full, and likely to overeat more often.

One of the biggest things I do as a nutrition coach is educate you on how to get more nutrients and satiety of your food choices. It's much more than telling you "Do ___ to achieve ___", it's actually educating you on how to change behaviors.

Educating you is key to creating results that you sustain for a lifetime.

→ No structure to training - Structure is always crazy important to building the body you want. Your training program is no exception.

This is exactly why following a well-structured training program with built-in progressions like my online clients get will make such a drastic difference in your physique.

Now, I'm not saying you need to stick to the exact same movements for years on end. Your body does adapt, and benefits from change from time to time. But the more technical a movement is, the less frequently we want to change it.

For example, in your training program, variation would probably look something like this:

Least variation: Squat and deadlift variations. These take the most skill to master. Constantly switching them up means we're always just trying to master the skill, instead of actually getting stronger at them. Weekly progressions are still built in here (e.g. drop two reps, increase load from last week), and rep ranges are altered monthly, but movements stay the same for several months on end.

Moderate variation: Presses, pulls, lunges, most hinges. These don't take as much skill to master and still get a solid training effect from. To keep your program fun and engaging, we'll often change these monthly. We're still focusing on movement patterns, but changing the variation (e.g. changing from a Barbell Romanian Deadlift to a Single Leg Romanian Deadlift).

Most variation: Isolation exercises. The reality is, something like a bicep curl doesn't take much skill - most everyone can feel their bicep working immediately. With isolation exercises, we have a lot more room for variation, and can change these up a lot if needed. That said, I still prefer to program these in four week blocks within your program to ensure you're focusing on overload.

And that's the strategy I'd take you through as a coaching client to escape skinny-fat once and for all.

It doesn't take tons of HIIT, or starvation diets.

It just takes consistency with a smart nutrition and training strategy, along with lots of education.

↑THAT is how we empower you to maintain a leaner, stronger, and more confident version of yourself long-term.

For five consecutive days, we have you in a calorie deficit. This is where we're creating fat loss within your diet.

This is followed by two consecutive days with calories at your maintenance intake (usually on the weekends).

Not only does this strategy give you more freedom to enjoy your life while simultaneously getting leaner, but studies have shown the 48 hours+ of increased carb intake can help prevent negative hormonal and metabolic adaptations to dieting.

Now, if we're talking from the perspective of preventing metabolic adaptation, the 5|2 isn't as effective as an 11/3 or Matador approach - but it is the most effective strategy I've found if you want to get leaner and stronger while also enjoying your weekends.

So, I assign you a calorie and protein goal (we have to account for these to create optimal body composition), and educate you on how to make filling, nutrient-dense food choices. From there, you let carbs and fats fall where they may within the scheme of your day.

I've used this approach with a lot of lifestyle-focused clients over the years to achieve great, sustainable results.

→ STRATEGY 5: The "Pre-Drinking" Meal

Ever been on a diet, firmly committed to only having three drinks (that's all that fits your macros)... only to end up at Taco Bell at 2am?

People struggle to sustain results when they don't receive education on how to change actual behaviors. Instead, we're typically presented with quick fixes.

I personally struggled with this for years.

I'd go on an intense diet, restricting myself severely.

As soon as I got the result I wanted, I'd stop doing everything that got me there - I hated the process that it took to get as lean as I wanted, and couldn't maintain it.

Luckily, I eventually found a better, much more sustainable way through years of trail and error with myself and working with hundreds of men and women in-person and online.

I call it The Lifestyle Diet.

A few paragraphs won't do it justice, which is exactly why I have a whole blog designed to educate you on exactly how to build more sustainability into your nutrition practices with The Lifestyle Diet. Read all about it here.

Plus, as your aerobic system develops, the parasympathetic nervous system response increases - basically, higher aerobic fitness allows you to get back into a "rest & digest" state more quickly after training, which will translate to better fat loss, quicker recovery, and more lean, defined muscle.

→ STRATEGY 10: Metric Trackers

I've talked endlessly about how important tracking metrics is for you to achieve the body and life that you want.

Client metric trackers are shared via Google Sheets. You track a lot of crucial information in here:

• You macros - So we know that you're compliant and consistent with your nutrition
  
• Your body stats - So we know that your nutrition and training strategy are changing your body.
• Your weights lifted in the gym - So we know that your program is effectively creating a stronger body for you, and that you're pushing yourself to the extent I know you're capable of.
  
• Your biofeedback - Things like sleep, hunger, training performance, digestion, and recovery ability. This is very individual to your specific goals and focuses, but the goal here is to educate you on how the  bigger picture of your life is affected by what you fuel your body with and how you train. This also allows me to account for any factors outside of just nutrition and training that could be affecting your results. Not many coaches account for biofeedback. I believe this is another factor that has allowed my clients to get such exceptional results.

Here's a sample of what my client's metric trackers look like ↴

→ STRATEGY 11: Collaborating With Clients Instead Of Prescribing

I hate being told what to do.

Your probably do to.

Same goes for all my clients.

Something that has helped all of my online client's results tremendously?

Instead of just prescribing or telling clients what to do, asking them: "What do YOU think is the easiest approach for you to stick to here?"

First and foremost, realize that this didn’t happen overnight.

This was a 6 month process (2/25 → 8/17).

Rachel acheived results that have her sustainably leaner, stronger, and more confident because she committed to the long-game. Like with every online client, we prioritized a smart approach to her training and proper nutritional periodization instead of chasing overnight, temporary results.

As always, my goal with this blog is to educate you on how to implement smart, sustainable nutrition and training strategies to create the body composition you want.

Nothing is more empowering than going through a transformation like Rachel did. It completely changes your body, obviously… but more importantly, it completely changes your confidence. The effect that education around nutrition and training has on empowering people to create better, more confident versions of themselves is exactly why I create blogs just like this - that’s what I want to give YOU today.

Last thing before we get into Rachel’s transformation - realize that nutrition coaching is a very individualized thing.

Following her macros to the letter won't give you the same results as her, because you’re NOT Rachel. Everyone is different, which is why individualized nutrition coaching is so important.

As a badass coach herself (check out her website and Instagram for some great content), Rachel had recently gone through a period of crazy stress throughout the process of publishing her book on nutrition. She lacked structure within her training, and was feeling burnout on all things fitness and nutrition. 

As a result of her crazy high life stress paired with the fact that she straight up just wasn’t having as much fun with training and nutrition, she was suddenly not liking what she saw in the mirror or how she felt.

Her goal - like most of us - was simply to feel lean, strong, and confident (the photoshoot came later).

This is her first progress picture, right after our initial strategy call:

NOTE: When it comes to changing your body composition, metrics are everything. All of my online nutrition and training clients take progress pictures monthly, body measurements weekly, weight at least three times per week, weight lifted, and biofeedback.

All of this gives us a MUCH better picture of your actual progress, and ensures that we know exactly when we need to adjust your nutrition to continue making progress (as you’ll see in this blog).

One of the biggest mistakes new online clients have been making in the past stalling their fat loss attempts is always failure to track metrics outside of weight.

This is what my client's body stats tracker looks like:

Rachel started following a 4x/week upper/lower split with a conjugate style of periodization. I programmed this for her because it allowed a solid blend of strength and hypertrophy work (she wanted to focus on building more lean muscle and strength simultaneously - a conjugate style of programming is generally what I use for online clients in situations like this).

She also had two shorter cardio days implementing the rowing machine, sleds, and the like.

Now, while I won’t give you her specific customized training program, you can download a free, periodized upper/lower split similar to what Rachel followed HERE.

→ The Initial Macro Prescription (Week 1)

Explanation:

To start out, we had Rachel following a 5|2 macro split. 

The idea here is, we want to create a calorie deficit 5x/week. Your calorie deficit is where fat loss occurs, so we have to set your nutrition up to where you’re spending a reasonable amount of time here if you ever want to get lean.

That said, with this strategy 2x/week, on back-to-back days, we're refeeding you with higher carbs. Studies have shown the 48 hours+ of increased carb intake (as shown) can help prevent negative hormonal and metabolic adaptations to dieting.

This is a strategy I use a lot within nutrition coaching. Women also seem to be more sensitive to the stress of dieting to men, which makes implementing strategies like this even more important.

For long-term metabolic and hormonal health, and sustainable results, using strategies like the 5|2 or 10-14 days in a deficit, followed by a 3 day diet break (calories at maintenance, coming from increased carbs) is smart.

You’ll also notice her carbs are relatively low 5 days per week. 

Rachel personally preferred to follow a lower carb diet - it fit her lifestyle and food preferences best.

The reality of drastically changing your body composition like this is, there is NO perfect plan - it’s all about finding the strategy that works best for YOU long-term. 

In Rachel’s case, we knew that a higher fat approach would yield the best adherence. This is where the art of coaching comes in - mixing proven strategies with we know will allow you to best stick to your diet.

To add another point to adherence and why the 5|2 split was a good fit in this case - Rachel also had a weekend tradition of trying different restaurants with friends around town. She mentioned this tradition as something that was very important to her. I knew that to make living as a leaner, stronger version of herself sustainable, we needed a diet structure that wouldn’t make the rest of her life suck, so the 5|2 split worked well here. Adherence is the MOST important part of changing anyone’s body composition.

All the above said, I intentionally set her calories right around her established maintenance intake (determined from the initial nutrition assessment I take all clients through), to take her through a Primer Phase. 

The length varies by the individual, but nutrition clients always go through a Primer Phase to:

1. Get used to any new diet structures.

2. Recover from past diets

3. Optimize metabolic capacity

Rachel started this process at 148.4 lbs, with a solid amount of muscle mass (key to looking lean and defined instead of skinny). As a coach herself, she already had a great idea of how to fuel her body. She hadn’t been dieting recently, and wasn’t doing much cardio when she started - so we knew she was in a good place hormonally and had a full metabolic gas tank.

What all this means is, the Primer Phase didn’t need to last long. In Rachel’s case, we kept her here for two weeks.

She ended the Primer Phase weighing… 148.4. Exactly where we started. Measurement shifts were also minimal. 

We were good with that, because we now knew she was 100% ready for a fat loss phase. Which leads us to…

→ Week 3 Adjustment

Explanation:

We dropped total weekly calories by approximately 7% here.

While this doesn’t seem like a lot, the goal is always to get you lean while eating as many calories as possible.

Dieting on higher calories allows for better training performance, healthier hormones, and a faster metabolism. 

Now, we do need a calorie deficit to create fat loss, and stricter timelines require larger deficits. That said, for clients looking for a reasonable rate of fat loss (.5-1% of body weight per week) and more body recomposition than rapid fat loss, simply adjusting calories by 5-10% will get you losing perfectly again. No need to slash calories a crazy amount.

This is what I would consider the start of Rachel's first fat loss phase - weight dropped this week to 147, and we also saw a solid decrease in body measurements.

→ Week 4 Adjustment

Explanation:

Rachel saw a solid drop from our previous change. That said, she had a beach trip coming up for Memorial Day, and was ready to get more aggressive with the fat loss for a short period of time. 

Now, since Rachel’s fat loss strategy implemented nutritional periodization, we knew that a more aggressive approach would be followed by a diet break, so we were good to push hard here.

Periodization was a strong theme through this entire photoshoot prep. We had periods of aggressive fat loss when circumstances were ideal, followed by diet breaks and periods of practicing maintenance when fat loss wasn’t realistic.

With this adjustment, a big chunk of her calorie drop came from implementing a protein-sparing modified fast: a day where the goal is to keep calories from fats & carbs minimal, while still hitting your protein goal.

Rachel was actually the first client I implemented this with. Coaching is always a collaborative effort, when I asked Rachel what method of creating a larger deficit would be easiest for her to adhere to, she brought up the PSMF day.

Now, realize that fasting does create additional stress on the body, so it’s very individual whether I’ll recommend it to you as a nutrition client or not. It’s very dependent on YOUR lifestyle and stressors. In Rachel’s case, she was well-versed in fasting and knew her body handled it well, so I felt comfortable prescribing this.

Since, I’ve used this with a lot of my more advanced clients and the coaches I coach. Most people seem to find one day of lower calories much easier to stick to than lower calories every day of the week. Again, it’s all comes down to creating a diet structure you can adhere to.

We rode out the above adjustment for the next few weeks, with Rachel’s weight dropping to 143-144, and much more importantly, body measurements dropping quickly.

NOTE: Generally, body measurements are a much better indicator of fat loss progress than weight. While weight generally should shift with fat loss, with a body recomposition (you’re losing fat and building muscle) case like this, often weight will stay stagnant, but measurements will decrease drastically.

This lead into a short diet break. Normally, we would push carbs higher and get more specific with macros on a diet break, but in this case, Rachel wanted a few days with friends on her trip without stressing the food too much. So we dialed her in on the most important factors (calories & protein) and gave her a bit of a psychological break here.

Coming back from a brief diet break, THIS is when Rachel decided she wanted to get super lean for a photoshoot.

With a crazy summer schedule of traveling and speaking at events, we knew to get her maximally lean over the next 4 months, we had to periodize her nutrition properly to help her capitalize on the times when she wasn’t traveling to maximize fat loss, and practice maintaining her new levels of leanness while on the road. 

→ Weeks 8 & 9 Adjustments

Added two LISS cardio sessions @30 mins ~120-130BPM (Incline treadmill)

Explanation:

Just like before, we dropped total calories by ~7%. Since we’d established that we had a relatively short timeline to get Rachel photoshoot lean (when considering all her trips coming up), it was time to get more aggressive.

Rather than dramatically dropping calories or drastically increasing movement, we went with a combination of both.

We were also experimenting with some different carb vs fat-timing strategies here.

Since Rachel is a coach, and loves nerding out over all of this stuff just as much as I do, I felt comfortable prescribing her something as complex as the above. But generally, simpler is better/easier to adhere to when it comes to nutrition.

We also dropped 1 refeed day. While there aren’t a lot of metabolic or hormonal benefits to a single refeed day (so 2-3 refeed days back to back is more ideal), the reality was we needed to create a larger deficit to get Rachel to her goals within our timeline. 

The remaining refeed day still allowed her to carry on her weekend dinner tradition (again, prioritizing adherence), and slightly increases training performance by refilling muscle glycogen stores.

Rachel worked her ass off, and hit the 140lb mark, and again saw super consistent measurement changes with the above prescription.

All of this was leading into a 2.5 week trip, where we knew the best strategy was to simply “practice maintenance” (a skill we emphasize with all online clients to make your results sustainable) of her leaner physique while on the road.

Our hard push over the last few weeks led up to a diet break on vacation.

→ Week 13 Diet Break

Explanation:

Again, with Rachel being on the road getting super specific with macros was going to be a significant source of stress. I prescribed this with the recommendation that she eat more carbs, but prioritize total calories and protein above all.

→ Week 15 Adjustment

Explanation:

Through the diet break & vacation, Rachel did an awesome job maintaining, weighing in at 140 and with reduced measurements going into this adjustment.

This adjustment actually wasn’t a decrease from her prescription previous to the diet break - she was losing perfectly on that intake, so I knew we could make more progress without slashing calories.

Here, we simply shifted macros to a higher carb/lower fat approach. This allowed more room for fibrous, filling carbs, which in turn allowed me to get into her food logs and help her shift her food choices to optimize satiety. 

The reality of getting ready for a photoshoot is, you’re going to have to get pretty hungry regardless. Hunger is the BIGGEST enemy you’re fighting when you’re working to get super lean. 

That said, there’s a lot you can do within your food choices to help make the amount of calories you’re eating much more filling. Personally, I love digging into client’s food logs and educating them on where they can make swaps to increase fullness and make the diet easier to stick to.

Rachel crushed it over the next few weeks, with weight dropping all the way down to 134. All of this lead into another 10 days of traveling where she essentially maintained.

→ Week 21 Adjustment

Coming back from her trip and exactly a month out from the photoshoot, it was time to capitalize on the last month and PUSH the fat loss. 

Again, I asked Rachel what she thought would be easiest for her specifically to adhere to. A sizeable increase in cardio paired with a moderate calorie drop was her answer. 

We had her doing cardio 6x/week here, which is not what I would consider sustainable, but was a must to hit her goal. That said, we kept intensity for the cardio low over the last few months leading up to the photoshoot.

When you’re in a large calorie deficit like this, you have very limited “recovery resources” a.k.a. calories. If we push the limits of your recovery too much, you’ll regress.

Rachel saw consistent strength gains through this entire process (which is hard to doing while also losing as much as she did). That’s a huge testament to how hard she worked and how we structured her plan. 

See, knowing the her recovery resources were limited, we knew that we wanted as many of those resources as possible to go to maintaining and building lean muscle. Thus, it wouldn’t make sense to have her working in lots of high-intensity cardio (which would steal a big chunk of her recovery resources), when we could have her focus more on low-intensity cardio which actually promotes recovery, while also helping fat loss.

→ Week 22 Adjustment

Added two more LISS cardio sessions @30 mins ~120-130BPM (Incline treadmill)

This is where Rachel was sitting this week.

I expected a big drop with her last adjustment, as measurements and weight had essentially plateaued the previous few weeks on the road. The expected drop didn't happen.

Now, normally I would wait it out another week. But in this case, we had to get more aggressive again to meet Rachel's deadline.

We also ramped protein up to help keep her full in this period of lower calories (lean protein is the most filling macro).

Following this adjustment, we saw a solid rate of loss with both weight and measurements over the course of the next four weeks. This brought Rachel in to photoshoot week weighing 129-130, and looking pretty damn lean.

Here's how Rachel's weight shifted over the last 6 months. (This is actually an excerpt from an awesome blog series that Rachel wrote about this transformation. Check out here blogs on the transformation HERE.)

Photo Shoot Week (Week 25):

This was Rachel’s “peak week” - similar to what you’d do for a bodybuilding show. 

Now, while I’m not going to give you her specific prescription because it does vary a lot, I can tell you we:

→ Dropped calories a bit more to maximize fat loss (within what she could adhere to) over the next week.

→ Limited food choices & created a lot of structure around meal-timing to remove anything that could create bloat or water retention, as well as optimize digestion.

→ Increased carbs the day before the shoot, to have her muscles looking full during the shoot.

→ Didn’t mess with water or salt - we simply focused on keeping these similar to previous weeks to prevent any drastic changes in muscle fullness.

Rachel started coaching with the goal of feeling leaner, stronger, and more confident.

She worked her ass off.

She committed to the long-game (remember, this took 6 whole months).

The results speak for themselves.

Throughout the process, she was consistently getting stronger, despite weighing in whole 20lbs lighter the morning of the photoshoot.

The best part of this - her results will be sustainable. 

That’s the beauty of following a periodized nutrition & training strategy. Instead of crash dieting her for a quicky result, followed by a rebound, we took our time with lots of refeeds, deloads, and diet breaks along the way. As a result she’s much leaner AND stronger than when she started the process 6 months ago.

Most importantly though, she’s a more confident, (even more) badass version of herself. That’s why education centered around nutrition and training is so important. When you change your body, your mind follows.

Rachel still had a life during this time-frame. She traveled a TON. She had a social life.

A few lessons here:

1. Everyone benefits from having a coach. Even badass coaches like Rachel need coaches.

2. You don’t have to be perfect to achieve the leanest, strongest, most confident version of yourself. You just have to be consistent, and committed to playing the long-game.

Want to transform your body AND your confidence like Rachel? CLICK HERE to apply for a strategy call.

Shoulder pain.

The mysterious enemy of many men and women on a mission to build a leaner, stronger version of themselves.

It can seemingly appear out of nowhere, and has sabotaged countless people's attempts to achieve better body composition and a more confident version of themselves.

While the gym used to be your sanctuary, now it's a place of frustration. You get shooting shoulder pain any time you try to train your upper body.

Needless to say, you’re desperate for a solution to your shoulder woes. 

Not to worry. There’s still hope.

I say this, because I’ve been there.

After a grade 3 AC joint separation (my left shoulder joint was detached from my clavicle), I was in your shoes -  frantically searching through the T-Nation forums, looking for a solution for my shoulder pain and and rapidly declining body composition.  

It was crazy frustrating. Pain shot through my shoulders every time I trained upper body, and any type of pressing was out of the question entirely.

But, through lots of trail-and-error, as well as reading hundreds of articles from the likes of Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, and Mike Boyle, I was able to escape the shoulder troubles.

It's really been a blessing in disguise - I've been able to use my knowledge to help dozens upon dozens of online clients work through similar issues and achieve their best body composition ever.

Before we dive in, be aware that the
information provided is not intended to be a substitute for professional
medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Consult with a doctor before applying any of this information to your own training.

From my anecdotal experience with myself and tons of clients, improving your shoulder issues in our time working together so we can help you achieve your best body ever comesdown to establishing a clear list of priorities.

The single biggest reason most new online clients report having trashed shoulders since their mid-twenties?

Poor scapular stability OR movability means that your shoulder joint is often positioned incorrectly throughout your training and day-to-day life. 

Lower Trap Training

Cues:

The focus here is depressing the shoulder blades - one of the primary functions of the lower traps.  Start using the lat pulldown machine, before advancing to a pull-up bar as you strengthen your lower traps.

Cues:

This is a great one for activating and strengthening the lower traps - but also often butchered. 

Rhomboid Training

This is an underutilized movement I stumbled across in an article by the legend himself, Dan John.

These are another little known row variation that will light up your rhomboids (and rear delts, obviously). 

Now that you have scapular movement mastered, it’s time to build your upper back in a major way.

The horizontal press is typically easier to perform pain-free than the vertical press. Although chest dominant, training this movement pattern will also build your delts, so it makes sense to start here to get the most bang for your buck.

Do You REALLY Need To Keep Flat Benching?

Priming For Vertical Pressing

Just like with horizontal presses, your upper back plays a key role in stabilizing your shoulders and allowing you to press pain-free here.

Facepulls and band pull-aparts work great as priming movements here.

That said, my all time favorite primer to program for online clients before pressing is the Forearm Banded Wall Slide:

Actively avoid shrugging, and keep constant outward tension on the band.

Vertical Pressing

Now, it’s pretty likely that pressing overhead is the current hardest thing for you to do pain-free. We want to ease into your overhead presses, starting with pain-free variations that will increase stability and shoulder health.

→ 1/2 Kneeling KB Bottoms Up Press

→ ½ Kneeling Landmine Press

The kneeling + unilateral aspects of the press make it a great core stability/anti-movement exercise. The arc of the bar path makes it easier for those who have poor shoulder mobility/stability.

→ Z-Presses

To quote Dr. Joel Seedman: “Many lifters have tendency to over-arch their lumbar spine when performing overhead presses simply because they lack the ability to extend their t-spine and engage their core.  With the Z press it literally forces the lifter to do both of these (t-spine extension and anterior core activation) as anything less will result in repeated failed attempts.” (1)

→ Trap bar Overhead Presses

→ Now, definitely ease your way into overhead work. Start with once per week. You can eventually ease your way into twice a week as your shoulders get healthier - but BE CAREFUL. Too much overhead work can beat your shoulders up quickly.

→ I would recommend training no more than 6-8 sets overhead per week. From there, I help online clients ramp up the volume and build better shoulders by adding volume and frequency through delt fly variations. These are much more joint-friendly, and can be done up to 4-5x/week for most without pain or recovery issues.

If your shoulders are beat up, know that hope isn't lost.

You can still achieve the lean, strong body you want.

Change your approach, and you (and your shoulders) will thank me later.

Length Of The Fat Loss Phase(s):

With the above recommendations, we can conclude...

→ If you have 10-25 lbs to lose, this usually equates to 3-6 months in a fat loss phase.

→ If you have 25 lbs+ to lose, this obviously varies by total weight to lose, but will usually require at least 4 months in a fat loss phase.

→ If you have less than 10 lbs to lose, we can likely accomplish it in a 3-8 week mini-cut. (This is an approach I use with clients much more often in a building phase than a fat loss phase.)

Caloric Periodization Within The Fat Loss Phase

"...Periodization within periodization?! Seriously?"

I know I know. But I promise this is important.

There are a few tools I implement within an online client's fat loss phase to get them to the end of the phase in a much better place muscularly, psychologically, and hormonally - namely refeeds and diet breaks.

→ Refeeds - When you diet, your muscle glycogen stores become depleted. This is an important fuel source for your training sessions - so a decrease can hurt your training performance, in turn impacting muscle growth or maintenance.

Several hormones that have a big impact on your metabolism - primarily leptin and thyroid - are very responsive to carb overfeeding. (2)

• To implement a refeed, increase you calories to maintenance levels for 1-3 days, with the increase coming primarily from carbs. Refeeds can really be taken at your discretion, anywhere from every 7-14 days.
• A 1 day refeed is mostly just an adherence tool - it allows nutrition clients to work in more foods that they want, and can increase training performance.
• 2-3 day refeeds have more impact hormonally, as you seem to need 48 hours+ to see hormonal increases from carb overfeeding.
  

→ Diet Breaks - A diet break is 4 days or more with calories at maintenance intake, again with the increase coming primarily from carbs. Diet breaks have a much greater effect on your hormone levels and metabolism than refeeds, due to the increase time frame (most client's diet breaks last 1-2 weeks).

• Studies have shown more positive results for weight loss with intermittent diet breaks, as opposed to linear dieting. (4)
• Depending on the length of you fat loss phase (more on this below), implementing diet breaks can have a beneficial effect on the down-regulation of hormones and slowed metabolic rate that come with fat loss.
  
• Diet breaks are also a good physical and mental break from the chronic stress of dieting.
  

(Read What To Do When Fat Loss Stalls (6 Proven Nutrition Strategies) to learn more methods of caloric periodization nutrition clients use within the fat loss phase to optimize training, body composition, and adherence.)

Post-diet maintenance phases are a huge piece that most are missing from their nutrition protocol.

→ As we lose weight, our fat cells shrink - Smaller fat cells produce less leptin, which leads to an increased appetite (as leptin decreases, ghrelin - the hunger hormone - increases) and drastically decreased energy expenditure.

The above, paired with a few other changes to your shrinking body and fat cells creates an environment that promotes fat storage.

→ Post-weight loss, your body wants to restore it's previous weight - You experience this "want" as excessive hunger signals and low energy. This combo makes eating excess calories hard to avoid - IF you enter the post-diet phase without a plan. The weight regained is preferentially stored as body fat.

→ Body Fat Overshooting - It’s also thought
that you can INCREASE the number of fat cells you have by gaining weight
too quickly, this is called body fat overshooting. This increases the odds that you’ll regain more fat than
you lost.

Plus, the negative changes that come with shrinking fat cells -
increased hunger, less energy expenditure, etc. - will be amplified
next time you try to lose, due to having more fat cells.

Basically, all of the hormonal and metabolic adaptations, your decreased body mass, and your body being so far from it's previous set point add up to you being really damn hungry, and your body preferentially storing excess calories as fat.

This creates rapid weight regain (a big part of the 95% regain statistic I cited at the beginning of this article), and in some cases, body fat overshooting.

Practicing Maintenance:

As implied by the name, a maintenance phase is simply a time where focus on maintaining your new leaner body post-diet.

Here's what we'll do:

→ Increase calorie intake to your NEW maintenance intake - You have a new body. It's smaller, and different hormonally and metabolically than it was at the start of your fat loss phase. You likely won't be able to maintain your new body composition on as many calories as you could eat to maintain your old, heavier body. So...

→ To find your new maintenance intake - We know that 1 lb of fat loss require a deficit of ~3,500 calories. Thus, if you've been losing an average of 1 lb per week, we know you're in a weekly deficit of ~3,500 calories, or a daily deficit of 500 calories (3,500/7=500).

We'll apply this logic to find your specific maintenance, and increase your macros to match that.

From here, as your hormones and metabolism start to normalize, you'll start burning more calories.

My goal as a coach is to help you maintain during this time period - losing weight would be counterproductive in a maintenance phase. So the fact that you'll start burning more means I'll also likely have to give you frequent macro (but relatively small) macro increases to keep you maintaining.

The next step is the hardest.

You're not going to do anything.

No immediate transition to a gaining phase.

No trying to push the fat loss further.

→ You're just going to chill at maintenance - I push most of my clients who have gone through a lengthy weight loss to spend 1-2 months in a maintenance phase, at least.

Some key changes happen during the maintenance phase that make your results more sustainable:

• Hormones like thyroid, leptin, and testosterone increase.
• Your energy levels, and the energy you burn through non-exercise activity thermogenesis increase.
  
• Hunger decreases.
• The chronic stress on your system dissipates.
  

Basically, your system normalizes, and your body gets used to this new weight. Everything starts to feel normal again over time, and your body stops fighting you so hard to regain the weight you lost.

Your body really doesn't like change. It wants to return to it's old normal as quickly as possible. The maintenance phase is a must to allow you to cement a new normal for your body.

This is also a very important time for you to create new habits. Again, the lifestyle that you lived before got you the body composition you had before.

Periods of practicing maintenance allow you to learn new habits and behaviors around your food choices, training, daily movement, dietary flexibility, and what your entire lifestyle will need to look like to maintain this new body.

→ For nutrition clients with large weight loss goals - A maintenance phase can actually serve as a substitute or longer version of a diet break. Clients looking to lose 50+ lbs often need a longer break from the grind of dieting. This allows them time to let their bodies normalize, and practice maintaining their weight loss.

The maintenance phase is a key part of what we do in our work together to make sure that you can sustain this new leaner version of yourself long-term.

(2) Wilson C., Fitschen P., (2019). Bodybuilding: The Complete Contest Prep Handbook

(3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28770669

(4) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7eb2/f2177a56705379065088b3480ce75329fd8e.pdf

(5) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28925405

(6) https://www.strongerbyscience.com/metabolic-adaptation

→ Train these 1-2x/week

→ Choose 1-3 variations to train weekly.

→ Most of these moves are best suited to the 6-10 rep range, as going too high in reps will create a lot of lower back fatigue.

→ Push sets to 1-3 reps shy of failure.

→ Your total sets here should be somewhere between 6-12 weekly sets.

→ It’s tough to train heavy
hip hinge movements too often, as the hamstrings experience a ton of
soreness, due to being stretched so much while loaded. Lower back
fatigue also typically becomes a limiting factor when hinging
often.⠀Training hammies twice a week is ideal for most.

Your back is the foundation for the rest of the upper body - without a strong back to build on, the rest of your upper body will be mediocre at best.

They
have no concept of how to feel/activate any of the muscles of the upper
back, outside of the upper traps - any time they try to row, their
upper traps take over. This makes the upper trap dominance issue even
worse.

Scap pulls are a GREAT the remedy in this situation. They teach you how to activate the muscles of the lower traps. You can in turn take this to all your rowing movements - simply focus on initiating the movement with the muscles of the lower traps that you felt while doing scap pulls.