Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How to Lose Weight Faster in 5 Simple Steps

Episode Date: March 8, 2018

Losing weight fast is really easy. Eat as little food and do as much cardio as you can for the next month or two, and you’ll lose weight fast. I promise. You might be disappointed in the end, though, even if you can suffer through it. Why? Because while the scale will proclaim a victory, the mirror will disagree. You may not look as fat as before, but you’re going to look more skinny fat, and that’s not the goal. You see, the standard “starve yourself skinny” approach to dieting burns fat, but it also burns muscle, and that’s no good for your body composition. That’s why your goal shouldn’t be to “lose weight,” but to “lose fat, and not muscle.” And that’s what you’re going to learn about in this episode. You’re going to learn how to lose weight fast, but also how to do it in a way that preserves your muscle (and sanity). It’s pretty easy, too. There are just five steps: 1. Use an aggressive (but not reckless) calorie deficit. 2. Eat a high-protein diet. 3. Do a lot of heavy compound weightlifting. 4. Use high-intensity interval training to burn fat faster. 5. Take fat loss supplements that actually work. Let’s go over each. Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

This episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my 100% natural fat loss supplement, Phoenix. It has sold over 100,000 bottles in the last several years, and it helps you lose fat faster in three ways. One, it increases your metabolic rate. Two, it amplifies the power of fat-burning chemicals produced by your body. And three, it increases the feeling of fullness from food. In short, it speeds up your metabolism,

it helps your body burn fat more efficiently, and it helps you control hunger and cravings and maintain high energy levels. Phoenix also contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And all that is why it has over 700 reviews on Amazon with a four-star average and another 250 reviews on Amazon with a four star average and another 250 reviews on my website with a four and a half star average. So if you want to burn more fat every day and have an easier time sticking to your diet without having to pump yourself full of harsh stimulants or potentially harmful chemicals, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Phoenix today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your

entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here. Head over to www.lesionathletics.com now, place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason, they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least.

Let's get to the show. Hey, this is Mike Matthews from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics. And in this video podcast, we are going to talk weight loss, specifically how to lose weight faster, and even more specifically, how to lose fat and not muscle faster, because that's really the goal, right? And I'm going to share with you five simple ways to speed up your fat loss while preserving muscle or possibly even gaining muscle depending on where you're at and what you're doing. And these five points are one, use an aggressive but not a reckless calorie deficit. Two, eat a high protein diet. Three, do a lot of heavy compound weightlifting. Four, use high intensity interval training to burn fat even faster. And five, take fat loss supplements that actually work. Okay, so let's start with the first one,

which is use an aggressive but not a reckless calorie deficit. Now, this is important, of course, because if you're going to lose fat, you have to be in a calorie deficit. If we're not on the same page, just click the link up here to read an article that I wrote about energy balance, which is the relationship between the amount of calories that you are eating and you are burning. So you understand why calories in versus calories out matters and will always matter. Now, once you understand that, the question is how many calories should you be eating? How large should your deficit be? Now, of course, the larger the deficit, the faster you lose weight and the faster you lose fat. But if you take it too far, you also start to lose muscle and you just feel like utter shit. And that's why starvation dieting

sucks, of course. And that's why I recommend that you use a calorie deficit of about 20 to 25%. And if you're very overweight, you could go as high as 30%. But for those of you who are lean, wanting to get really lean, I would say probably better to be around 20%. For those of you that are normal, wanting to get lean, 25%. Overweight or very overweight, wanting to get to the normal range, 30%. And so what that means then is you should be eating anywhere from 70% to 80% of your total daily energy expenditure. 80% being the more moderate deficit of 20% and 70% of that number being the more aggressive or the most aggressive that I recommend deficit of about 30%. Now, if you're not sure what any of that exactly means, total daily energy expenditure numbers, how does this all come together? Just click up here to

check out an article that I wrote on how to calculate how many calories you should be eating. It also has a calculator built into it, which makes it really easy. Okay. Point number two, eat a high protein diet. This one is very important because when we're talking body composition, protein is by far the most important macronutrient. And protein is the primary reason as far as body composition goes as to why a calorie is not a calorie. So not all calories are the same when we're talking losing fat and not muscle. Now, if all we cared about was weight and we didn't care whether that weight were fat or muscle, then we wouldn't have to worry about macronutrients,

protein, carbs, fat. All we'd have to worry about is our calories. But as we don't want to wind up skinny fat, we do have to care about body composition, which means we have to care about macronutrients, protein, carbs, and fat. And out of those three, protein intake is the most important. For example, studies show that eating adequate protein helps us recover faster from our workouts. It helps us gain muscle and lose fat faster. It helps us retain more muscle while we are restricting our calories for fat loss. And it also helps us feel more satiated. It helps us feel fuller from our meals, which of course makes it easier to stick to our diets. The bottom line is really a high protein diet beats a low protein diet in just about every way. And especially when we are dieting. Now, how much protein should you be eating? The long story short

is somewhere between 0.8 and 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. I want to unpack that real quickly and say that if you are normal or overweight wanting to get lean, then you can be closer to the 0.8 grams per pound per day. And if you're very overweight and that comes out to a very large amount of protein, then just set your protein intake to about 40% of your daily calories. Now, if you are lean wanting to get really lean, especially if you also are an experienced weightlifter and you have a fair amount of lean mass, then I recommend a higher protein intake to maximize muscle retention. Specifically, I recommend one to 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. And I'll link an article up here that breaks down these recommendations in more detail, share some science and so forth.

But for the purposes of this video, I'm just going to keep it short and simple. Those are the numbers that I recommend. Okay, the next tip here, which is do a lot of heavy compound weightlifting. Now, of course, there are many ways that you can train your muscles, but when the goal is gaining strength and size as quickly as possible, then nothing beats heavy compound weightlifting. Now, what do I mean by that? By heavy, I mean lifting weights that are anywhere from, let's say, 75 to 85% of your one rep max or higher if you are a very experienced weightlifter. And by compound exercises, I mean doing exercises that involve multiple joints and multiple major muscle groups like the squat, deadlift, bench press, and overhead press. muscle groups like the squat, deadlift, bench press, and overhead press. The long story short is that approach to weightlifting, doing a lot of heavy compound weightlifting is simply the best

way to progressively overload your muscles. And you'll want to be doing that when you're cutting. If you're new to weightlifting, you're going to be able to gain muscle while losing fat. You're going to be able to recomp, which is of course awesome. And if you can't recomp because you have too much weightlifting experience under your belt, you've already built too much muscle. Then of course the goal is to retain as much muscle as possible. And the best way to do that when you are cutting is to retain as much strength as possible. And the best way to do that is to push yourself, harden your workouts. You should actually push yourself to make progress. You should be trying to gain reps and maybe even add weight to the bar while you're cutting. And you'll find that you probably can. For example, I find whenever I cut that I can usually continue gaining reps,

which can turn into putting weight on the bar, depending on where I'm at, for probably the first four to six weeks of cutting. And then for the next four to five weeks, I tend to just plateau. So my numbers are just stuck, which is fine. And then if I'm cutting longer, if I keep going, I'll start to see a slight decrease in my strength. I'll usually lose a few reps on my bigger lifts. Now, if you're not sure how to create a weightlifting routine that revolves around heavy compound weightlifting, just click the link up here and you'll be taken to an article I wrote on a split that I really like called the push pull legs split. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount

of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life fitness, Twitter at muscle for life and Facebook at muscle for life fitness. Okay. The next tip here is to use high intensity interval training or hit H I I T to lose fat faster. And the reason why I'm a fan of HIT is it is the best type of cardio you can do for maximizing fat loss, period. For the time that goes into it, you get the most fat burning out of it. And in case you're not familiar with what HIT is, it's simply a type of cardio that involves short maximum effort sprints followed by short periods of

recovery. Now, as far as specifics go, I myself don't do, and I don't recommend more than two to four, 20 to 25 minute HIIT workouts per week. And yes, you heard that correctly. Just two to four cardio workouts per week when you're cutting is enough to significantly move the needle. Now, as far as types of cardio go, I particularly like biking, either recumbent or upright. These days, I'm doing an upright. I have an upright bike down in my basement, so I'm doing upright. When I do HIIT cardio previously, I would do the recumbent. Either way is fine, but I like it because it's low impact, so it doesn't impact your recovery as much as, let's say, sprinting. If you try to go run sprints, forget about it. You're

going to be wasted. I tried that in the past and you basically forget about squatting and deadlifting if you're going to be running sprints two to four times per week. Biking, however, does not beat you up like sprinting. There's no comparison actually if you're just on an upright or recumbent bike. It's so much so that you really probably won't even notice the after effects of the biking, whereas the sprinting is going to leave you incapacitated probably. And another reason why I like biking is research shows that it can help minimize the interference effect, which is the fact that at a cellular level, the adaptations that are caused by cardio are kind of at odds with the adaptations that are caused by weightlifting. So the more cardio you do while weightlifting, the less effective the weightlifting

is going to be in terms of muscle and strength gain. And I know it's not a big concern when we're cutting, we're trying to just lose fat as quickly as possible, but hey, less interference effect is better. And cycling is particularly good in this regard. Rowing is also good in this regard, but is a little less practical. It's much easier just to get a cheap upright bike, put it in the garage. Good to go. Now, if you want to know more about how to create good HIIT workouts, just click this link up here and you will be taken to an article that I wrote on HIIT that explains everything I've just gone over in more detail. And again, links to a lot of research

and also teaches you how to put together a good HIIT workout routine. Okay. So the last tip here is to take fat loss supplements that actually work. Now I saved this for last because it is the least important. Unfortunately, no amount of pills or powders are going to melt fat off your body and give you the physique that you really want. Now, that said, there are a few natural supplements that have been proven to accelerate fat burning and to do it safely with little to no side effects for most people under most circumstances. And so if you have the budget and the inclination, why not include them in your regimen? Now, my three favorite natural fat loss supplements are caffeine,

sinephrine, and yohimbine. And if you want to learn more about them, I'll put some links up here because I have long form articles that I've written on each that explain what they are, how they work, how to get the most out of them and so forth. But the long story short is if you combine those supplements and if you use them correctly, along with a couple others that you can also read about over at legionathletics.com, you can speed up your fat loss by anywhere from 30 to 50%. And I'm not just plucking those numbers out of thin air either. Those are based one on scientific research on these individual ingredients and two on anecdotal evidence that I have, not just with my own body, but working with thousands of people.

So I'm very comfortable saying that with the right fat loss stack, so to speak, you can accelerate fat loss by 30 to 50%. So if with no supplements, you could lose a pound of fat per week, which you can, you could turn that into 1.3 to 1.5 pounds per week through supplementation. And if you did and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss

out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my 100% natural fat loss supplement Phoenix. It has sold over a hundred thousand bottles in the last several years, and it helps you lose fat faster in three ways. One, it increases your metabolic rate. Two, it amplifies the power of

fat burning chemicals produced by your body. And 3. It increases the feeling of fullness from food In short, it speeds up your metabolism, it helps your body burn fat more efficiently, and it helps you control hunger and cravings and maintain high energy levels. Phoenix also contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And all that is why it has over 700 reviews on Amazon with a four star average and another 250 reviews on my website with a four and a half star average. So if you want to burn more fat every day and have an easier time sticking to your diet without having to pump yourself full of harsh stimulants or potentially harmful chemicals, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Phoenix today. And just to show

how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here. Head over to www.legionathletics.com now, place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason, they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot.