Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2422: The 30-Day Protocol to Lose 8 lbs Pounds of PURE Fat (#1 Method)

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

The 30-Day Protocol to Lose 8 lbs. Pounds of PURE Fat (#1 Method) The nuance behind this statement. (1:03) The two things the guys want to accomplish in this episode. (5:53) The Steps to Lose 8 lbs. Pounds of PURE Fat In 30 Days #1 - Track your calories and steps for 1 week. (11:01) #2 - Go into a deficit of 750 calories. (13:24) #3 - Strength train 2-3 days a week. (15:06) #4 - Increase steps by 3000. (19:45) #5 - Hit your target body weight in protein. (22:15) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Vuori Clothing for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** No code to receive 20% off your first order. ** September Promotion: MAPS Starter | Starter Bundle 50% off! ** Code SEPTEMBER50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #2372: Five Steps to a Faster Metabolism Mind Pump #2160: Macro Counting Master Class Mind Pump’s 30 Days of Coaching Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

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Mind pump, with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews. In today's episode, learn the 30 day protocol to lose eight pounds of pure body fat. Now this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Viori, Viori clothing is the best at leisure where you'll find anywhere it's comfortable. It looks great, lasts a long time.

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and then use the code September50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show. If you follow the following steps, the ones we're gonna talk about in today's episode, you can lose eight pounds of pure body fat in just 30 days. Now I know a lot of people say you can lose a lot more than that, but when it comes to pure body fat, eight pounds in a month, that is significant. That's about as fast as you want to go. So that's what we're going to talk about. So this is great because this is one of those clickbaity type of titles to grab people's

attention and it tends to create controversy. Either people will one, believe these inflated type numbers that you'll see sometimes or you'll get the other side that will counter and say, oh, that's stupid. This isn't realistic, where I think that this is a possibility, but there's some nuance to it that I think is important that we kind of lay out first. And saying eight pounds is actually, I've done crazier numbers than that, much crazier than that.

But there's certain things that matter. And it's important that to see those types of results you're coming from a very healthy place metabolically. Otherwise, and this is why I think these things get a lot of backlash is because somebody sees a number like 10 or 15 pounds of fat in a week or I used to get these, I don't know if you guys still get this, but I used to get people DM me, is this even possible? This guy says, and this,

trainers use this a lot, right? This is like a trainer hustle, because again, I can, I'm about to do this right now. I'm about to track my journey of, I haven't been lifting for three months, I'm gonna start doing it. What I know is I'm gonna see unrealistic results for the average

person because I've for two decades built up my lean body mass to numbers well in the 200s of LBM and I'm sitting at like 150 which means my body it knows what it's like to carry around 50 more pounds of muscle that and I'm in a very Metabolically healthy place I can go up and down in calories I haven't yo-yo diet a crash diet things like that And so this all matters when you communicate a message like this About how much you can but you can swing crazy numbers But to the average person what you just said is a good healthy goal.

This is a it's an aggressive good healthy goal. This is about as aggressive as I'd want to get when I work with someone. Now again to be clear we're talking about fat loss not lean body mass loss or water. Water counts as lean body mass. Muscle right? Definitely not muscle loss. This is pure body fat so you're gonna lose eight pounds. Now this eight pounds of pure fat loss is visible in a 30-day period. Now could you go and lose more? Yes, you could. You could do this in a more aggressive way, but what often happens is you start to see lean body mass loss as a result. I'm not just talking about water, I'm talking about muscle,

actual lean tissue. So when you start to get more aggressive, is it worth losing more body fat if you're now starting to also lose muscle? And I'll always make the argument that no, that's not a good trade whatsoever because you're setting yourself up with a compromised metabolism in the sense that it's going to be slower. You've got lean body mass, and if, you know, just having lean body mass makes you mobile, makes you look different. It also makes you leaner, just because your percentage of body fat goes down as your lean body mass goes up.

So, you know. It's just easier to keep it off. Yeah, and what you don't wanna do is lose a bunch of weight, have a bunch of it be muscle. You're lighter, but you're the same body fat percentage because you lost muscle too. Because remember, what we're talking about here is body fat percentage I know we're talking about eight pounds, but I'd like to see that eight pounds come off with nothing else coming off So we see a significant drop in body fat percentage

But if your muscle mass goes down at the same time you could end up the same place you're at now just lighter So you're lighter less muscle same flabb flabbiness, same body fat percentage. So I think eight pounds of pure body fat's a good target. But what you're saying Adam about someone being in a good metabolic place, that's going to require that we cut calories. And if your metabolism is so slow that you're overweight and you're not eating that much, we don't have anywhere to go. Yeah. The only time this makes sense is if you have all those factors lined up perfectly. Yeah. Otherwise, yeah, it's there's,

you're going to be fighting yourself intrinsically. There's just other things your body needs in order to operate effectively and to really make any kind of headway. So to get yourself in a good metabolic place is step one, be healthy, already have some of these training habits established. And so you have like a routine and so now we can just kind of really Tighten those those small screws and make a big difference So when Sal sent over this title of the episode that we're gonna do there There's two things that I'd like to accomplish in this episode

The first thing is I obviously want to give people the steps to, okay, if we say about eight pounds of fat loss, pure fat loss in a month is doable, what are those actionable steps? That's the one. And then step two, the thing that I was kind of alluding to that I really want to address, because I've actually, we've never really talked extensively on the podcast about this, and I've for a long time gotten messages about these transformation photos that trainers do all the time. I think a lot of people think they're BS and they're actually not. Because I personally can do that. I'm about to go do it.

So you're going to get to watch me after this, do this journey. So it's important we communicate this. Oh yeah, no, I 100% see what you're saying. So muscle memory would play a huge role in someone's progress if they were at one point very muscular, lost that muscle, then decided to strength train, feed themself properly again, they'll gain that muscle back very quickly

in comparison to how long it would take to gain it in the first place. In other words, if you were to build- There's a formula there established. Yeah, once, and this is just physiologically, this is what happens. You build muscle, you increase satellite cells in the muscle fibers.

Even though you might lose that muscle by stopping your strength training, the mechanistic aspects, the cellular aspects of that muscle that allow it to rebuild are in place still from when you were more muscular. And then on the neuromuscular side too, neurologically. Yeah, so you lose, if you gain 10 pounds of muscle and it takes you a year, and then you lose it

in a couple months, you'll gain it back in a month. So what took you a year will take you a month the second time around. So what Adam's saying is essentially, if you're coming back from a place of where you were very fit, you a month the second time around. So what Adam's saying is essentially, if you're coming back from a place of where you were very fit, you could do this much faster. So and the reason why this is a strategy that fitness people do in social media now a lot,

because it would be like this journey I'm about to go do. Now I'm doing it to show people and I'm going to share the journey and the process going through it. I'm not using it as this, like I'm gonna send to my marketing team and go, hey, check this out, I just gained 15 pounds of muscle and I lost 10 pounds of fat in the first month of me training, let's use that as a marketing angle for Maps programs and tell people, you can, but that's a strategy.

This is a very popular, and now what people think, they're so blown away, that seems so unrealistic that they think either one, they're oblivious, then they think they can do that, or two, they think that person's lying. And they're not probably lying. Many times I get sent to these DMs, these messages for people who've done this, and they're like, this guy's lying, right? I'm like, well, no, he could have done that.

I mean, if he has a history of carrying a lot of lean mass on himself and he's allowed himself to get deconditioned for a period of time, very similar to what's going on with me right now, and then all of a sudden he flips the switch, he increases protein intake, starts to train again, gets his diet cleaned up, he absolutely can build a bunch of muscle and lose a bunch of body fat in a very short period of time that the average person wouldn't be able to do it. And so even though I would share and show people that I would do that, I would communicate still this message right here.

Every client I ever had, in fact, I would even say this, I tell my clients, listen, we could lose one to two pounds of fat per week healthy, the healthy way. But I want us to look at a pound a week, because I'd always want to over-deliver, right? So as a trainer, I always wanted to prepare my client that hey, our goal is about a pound of fat a week

is what we want to see, even though in the back of my head I'm shooting for two, because I know that's a good sweet spot for me, it's a healthy place for us to be losing body fat, but then I want to over-commit with my client. I don't want to sell them on, Hey, we could lose three to four pounds of fat every week, you know, at that rate. And we'd be down to here in a certain amount of time.

Now, another thing to add is the other thing to add here is the more body fat you have, the more you can lose in a 30 day period versus someone who has less. So if you have, you know, if you just have 10 pounds to lose, uh, it'll be more difficult to lose eight pounds of pure body fat in a 30 day period than somebody who's, let's say, has 100 pounds to lose. So that's another factor. And I would even add to that point you're making, Sal, is somebody who has a ton of muscle could do that even faster. So someone like you, who's recently in the

last couple years really ramped up your metabolic rate and you're carrying more lean body mass than you probably ever had. If I told you shred 20 pounds as fast you could because your caloric intake is so high you could show radical change because of that. Yeah so when you're when you're if your metabolism is in a low place this will be very difficult. In fact I'd recommend you don't do this. If you're if you're eating very few calories right now and you're still overweight I'm overweight, I think you should definitely start strength training. Definitely try to speed up your metabolism, but I don't know if this 30-day

protocol is a good idea. This 30-day protocol is for someone whose metabolism is in a place where they could cut from and not put themselves in a position that's not sustainable. Which leads us to our very first step to this is step one is track for a week. Track your calories and track your steps. We'll get into steps for just a little later, but track your calories. Meaning for the next week, everything you eat, write it down and calculate the calories and the proteins, fats and the carbohydrates. Don't change your eating habits. We want to know what your average is, what your average always is.

Because what you eat over the next week, as long as you don't try to change it, or you're trying to make it look good, or you're trying to give yourself more room or whatever, as long as it's kind of what you've been eating, it'll give us a good, rough estimate of where your metabolism is, of where your metabolic rate is. So when you figure this out and you see,

okay, I'm averaging about 2,300 calories a day, but this includes what you drink as well. So when you figure this out and you see, okay, I'm averaging about 2300 calories a day, but this includes what you drink as well. So put anything that has calories in there and calculate. Once you know that number, now we have a place that we can come from. And then steps, and luckily today, these days most phones have an app or you can wear a watch that'll track your steps.

Track your steps as well because that's gonna come in handy as we move into this 30 day program. Well especially in an aggressive goal like this, yeah. Cause you just, you need those data points Track your steps as well because that's going to come in handy as we move into this 30 day program. Especially in an aggressive goal like this. Yeah. Because you need those data points in order to be able to move the needle any further. The guesswork itself can... Because you can get away with intuitively kind of manipulating your diet and manipulating your movement.

On some level, you're going to get some progress, but if you're going to really be dialed in, we need those numbers to be specific and to mimic the already established patterns that you do every day. And I'm also going to give a, this is a generic number, but a good probably rule of thumb for people after they track that week. And this is why this is step one is if you are eating less than 2,500 calories a day, this strategy is not a good strategy for you. This bottom line, cutting what we're gonna get to

and cutting calorie part, if you're eating 2,000 calories, this is not a healthy place to be to go into a cut to expect a eight pound loss in a week. So that's kind of, that's a, because obviously there's exceptions to the rule on your size, 2,500 calories for somebody who only weighs 103 pounds is a decent amount of calories.

But most people that are listening to this are trying to lose a significant amount of body fat and they just want to do as fast as possible. If you go and track your first week and you see you are grossly under eating 2,500 calories, then you're in a better place to follow one of our other episodes where we talk about reverse dieting before you try a strategy like this. Okay. So you track for a week, get your average, average it out. Okay, total calories divided by seven days, that's my average. Now you're gonna start your 30-day protocol.

And the first thing you do is you go into what's known as a calorie deficit, which means you go 750 calories below what your average was. That's the number we're gonna recommend. So if you were eating below what your average was. That's the number we're gonna recommend. So if you were eating 2750 on average, well now you're down to 2000, right? So you get the idea. Wherever you were at, cut 750 calories from that, that is now what you're gonna eat

on a regular consistent basis. And that'll put you in a deficit, meaning those calories are gonna come from somewhere. So if your body's used to eating 2750 calories, and now you're at 2000, and everything else is staying the same or increasing, which we're gonna talk about a little later, that means that your body now needs to make up the difference. Well before we were burning 2,750, now we're only taking in 2,000. We need 750 extra calories coming from

somewhere and that somewhere is your body. It's body fat. And we don't need to over complicate where does this 750 calories come from. Like, take it down from carbs and fat. Keep your protein where it's at. That's already something that's tough for people to hit consistently. We've done episode after episode about hitting your target weight in grams of protein.

So if your goal is to get down to 150 pounds, you wanna eat 150 grams of protein. So keep your protein intake hitting that, hitting that, that stays consistent. No matter if we're in a cut, bulk, maintenance, doesn't matter, hit that number. Then if we need to go into a deficit of 750, pull from carbs and fat.

It's a simple way to just do it. It's like- I don't like pulling from protein. Yeah, exactly. It makes no sense, because most people have a hard time hitting there. And we'll get to protein here too, which you kind of just said. So next, you to strength train about two to three days a week.

Now, can you do more? Yes, but most people two to three days a week a good full body routine is appropriate meaning it's perfect. It's a perfect routine. Now, why strength training? Why not other forms of exercise? Because we're trying to we're trying to lose pure body fat. We're not trying to lose muscle. We need to send a competing signal to the body that tells the body to maintain its metabolic rate or maintain its muscle mass. Okay, competing because one signal you're sending your body when you cut your calories, when you eat less calories than you're burning,

the signal your body gets is, we need to figure out how to burn this new low calorie. We can't continue burning what we used to burn. We conserve energy. We have to learn how to conserve energy. The way that it does it, one way that it does it, there's a lot of different ways it affects your behavior, sleep, hormones, but one way it does it very effectively is it starts to reduce your muscle mass.

It'll start to get rid of muscle mass so that you burn less calories. The way you keep that muscle mass, among other things, is to strength train. That sends a signal to the body, so there's a competing signal. We're taking less calories, gotta burn less calories. We should get rid of muscle. Wait a minute, here comes this other signal. We need this muscle. We need the strength. Has to still be in high demand. That's right. So this is the tip of all the tips that we have on here that most people are going to

screw up. And the part they're going to screw up on this is thinking more is better. So I think it's super important that you follow this two to three times a week, no more. More strength training in a caloric deficit where you're probably coming from is not going to be more beneficial for you. Overwhelming the system. Yes, and if anything is going to stall out this process, right, if everything, let's say you tried to calories, okay, I was at 3200 calories on average, okay, I dropped down my 750, okay, we're figuring out that, okay, now we're going to start the deficit,

oh, now I'm going to start strength training, oh, you know what, they said two or three times, I could do four to five, that'll get me faster. No, it's not gonna get you faster The body is already getting a signal to build muscle which is competing with the calorie deficit You doing more strength training that is not gonna make this happen any faster It'll reduce it'll reduce your body's ability to recover which is already a bit hampered from the reduction in calories It's not a good idea. I mean the truth truth is, look, a good three day a week strength training routine is appropriate for most people, including people who've been working out for a long time.

There's a lot you can do within that. It's appropriate long term. There's a lot you can do within that. So a typical two or three day a week full body routine looks something like this. One exercise per body part, three sets per exercise, put a focus on compound lifts or gross motor movements, things like squats and deadlifts and bench presses,

overhead presses, rows, like exercises like that. Emphasize those and you're good. So you're looking at probably five, six exercises, three sets each or so. That's a good full body routine. Now intensity, you need to train hard but don't train to failure. So if you're doing your strength training,

you wanna stop a few reps before you think you're not gonna be able to complete another good rep with good form. And that's about it. That's gonna be the perfect routine for most people, especially in a calorie deficit. And the strength training is extremely important for what we're talking about.

Without the strength training, even if your diet is perfect, without the strength training is extremely important for what we're talking about. Without the strength training, even if your diet is perfect, without the strength training, you can count on and depend on the fact that your body will get rid of lean body mass. It will lose muscle if you cut your calories, even if you do everything perfect, if you don't strength train. If you don't send that competing signal, it will reduce muscle 100% of the time. Uh, it'll do that. And the data on this is very, very clear. There's very rare exceptions to this rule, but the average person, you just

cut your calories, you'll lose muscle. And so without going into major detail, because we've actually already done this for you and I'm sure Doug and the, and the team could actually attach this to this episode, but we've already laid out a 30 day strength training protocol for free on YouTube. So that protocol is perfect. So if you don't have a routine, you don't have another MAPS program,

you're not following something of ours already and you're just now hearing this episode for the first time. That one includes mobility too I think. Yeah, it's perfect. It's literally perfect. Like that 30 day for- You're doing something every day, but for strength training.

30 days is all like detailed. That's right. It's 30 day, what's it strength training. 30 days is all like. That's right. It's 30 day. What's it called, Doug? I think it's maps30day.com. Yeah. Okay. So there you go.

So you can follow that absolutely for free lays it out. The, the amount of volume and intensity that we're applying to this, this avatar, this person that's trying to reduce body fair is perfect. So if you don't have something already followed out, this is perfect. Now, next is you want to increase your activity. And the best way to do this is to simply track your steps and increase your steps. And if you increase your steps by about 3,000 a day,

that's probably best for most people. Now, if you're taking almost zero steps a day, 3,000 is gonna be a lot to add. But most people are probably around 4,000, 5,000 if they're sedentary. Add another 3,000, that'll give you some additional activity, it'll help you burn some extra calories, it helps with active recovery,

and it does make the fat loss process a little bit easier. It's not a huge fat burner, but it will help us with the deficit that we're creating. It adds up. If you've done a good job of tracking the calories, like we said, then all of a sudden you go into a 750 calorie deficit nutritionally and then you simultaneously increase steps, this is what will make this go fast.

You're not pushing the body hard intensely on cardio, sending an endurance signal to the body. You're just moving more, requiring more energy. That is going to create a better, even if you were a sedentary person who's under say 2000 steps and I'm asking you to do three, what that looks, even if you were a sedentary person who's under say 2,000 steps and I'm asking you to do three, what that looks like is if you were at 2,000 steps a day, which is a very very sedentary person, and then the first week you go to 5,000 and you keep every day at 5,000, the next week you add 3,000 again. So it's basically increasing your steps per day every week up 3,000.

So the very first week, whatever your, so you know the first week you track for seven days, whatever that number is, that's your baseline. First week of starting this, when you start your strength training, you add 3,000. To whatever that was. To whatever that was. And you keep it there for that first week. The next week, you bump it up another 3,000. Keep it that way for an entire week. Next week after that, bump it up 3,000. That. Until it becomes unmanageable, because it might be for some people, right? Well, so if it does, this is what I would recommend, because this is the exact formula that I would use even getting someone ready for a show, competing.

I would avoid scheduling cardio. What I would say to them is, let's just keep adding steps. Now, when you come back to me and you start getting to like 12,000 steps or more in a day, because you could get there relatively quick, depending on where you started. I, my clients would go, Adam, it's like, I'm just not, I'm doing all the walks there, here, here, after I eat and I'm still, I'm having a hard time. Okay.

Well now schedule a half hour on the treadmill where you just walk, just walk on the treadmill. So if you need to schedule that time to get the steps, then you can, but the goal is to just integrate it into your lifestyle until you get to a point where it's tough to hit that number without scheduling a half hour, hour of time of walking. Yes, yes.

And then lastly, hit your target body weight in protein. So this is almost as important, and some people might even argue, as important as strength training in keeping muscle. I'd say it's not as important but it's up there. If you hit your target body weight and protein, the odds that you'll lose muscle through a calorie deficit drop significantly. In fact, in some cases, this alone actually helps people build muscle. I've actually seen this with clients where we go into a deficit but with the deficit we actually bump their protein because it was so

low. We do a little strength training, they lose body fat and build muscle at the same time. I wouldn't expect that result but it's possible and but it's not it's almost impossible if you don't hit your target body weight. Listen there's two ways people are gonna screw this up. One, over training thinking more strength training training are gonna be better for them. Two, not consistently hitting their protein intake every day. If you fail at this following this kind of 30 day plan, the two ways that most people will fail is thinking that more days of training is

going to be better for you and, and or, and both combination of both is really going to hurt you. That's going to really hurt you. You add too to really hurt you. You add too many days of training and you miss protein take, that's a pure recipe. You're actually sending a single loose muscle. Where's all your building blocks? Yes. So I can't stress this enough to the listener, if this is, these are the two things that

really drive home here. Be consistent with the two to three days of strain training and be unbelievably consistent with hitting that protein goal. Do those two things because that's, if there's an area that people will slack off on or miss or think that doing more. Those are the two that are just keeping that anabolic signal alive at all. That's right. So you have to consider that if it's pure fat loss that's your goal, we got to maintain that muscle mass by all means necessary. And this is always important, right? In any

journey in the gym and whatever goal your goal is it's always important but it becomes paramount when you are in a caloric deficit like 750 calories a day you're increasing activity with steps it's so important that you hit that protein intake paired with a good strength training program and we got the strength training program taking care of you the rest is up to you stick to it for 30 days watch what happens. Now after this, right, you do this for 30 days. Could you maintain this for another month? You could, but after that I would suggest you bump your calories back up.

You do a phase of maintenance, meaning you eat the amount of calories that will prevent you. Just work on getting strong for a while. Yes, and then focus on building strength. A huge mistake that I'm afraid people will make is they'll follow these steps. They'll come into it metabolically, relatively healthy. They'll follow the steps. They'll lose eight pounds of body fat like

oh my god it totally worked. Let me keep going. They'll lose some more body fat and they won't get out of this place. They'll never reverse out of it. They'll never go into maintenance or focus on getting stronger and building muscle. If you stick to a deficit for too long, you'll lose muscle. Regardless of strength training, regardless of hitting your protein, you'll start to go into a negative place when it comes to that. So after this, it's a good idea to do at least maintenance for a little while before trying to cut again or maybe even reversing and focusing on building muscle. Go through a season of building muscle. That's the best way to follow it up. Look, if you love

the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump Justin, I'm at Mind Pump DeStefano, and Adam is at Mind Pump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own

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