The Nick Bare Podcast - 175: Setting Up Your Diet To Lean Out & Lose Fat

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

I’m breaking down the exact nutrition principles I use to lose fat, get leaner, and stay consistent without going all-or-nothing. This episode covers calories, protein, meal timing, cravings, late-night snacking, and the small adjustments that compound into long-term results. Build the plan. Execute daily.CHAPTERS:00:00 Intro01:24 Goal of This Conversation08:18 The Truth About Calories In, Calories Out15:29 Start by Finding Maintenance19:06 Adjust Calories With Patience24:28 Avoid the All-or-Nothing Trap27:26 Meal Timing, Fasting, and What Matters Most36:54 Build Consistent Meals You Can Repeat40:22 Using Calorie Undulation With Intention46:28 How to Set Macros for a Cut47:05 Protein First for Fullness and Retention54:30 Fat Intake, Digestion, and Gut Health59:11 Use Carbs to Support Performance01:01:11 How to Stop Late-Night Snacking01:07:57 Go-To Meals That Make Dieting Easier01:10:53 How to Eat Out Without Losing Progress01:14:51 Small Changes That Drive Real ResultsORDER MY BOOK HERE: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210FOLLOW:Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 25% off FOR LIFE ⁠https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/collections/performance-nutritionIG: ⁠instagram.com/nickbarefitness/⁠YT: ⁠youtube.com/@nickbarefitnessThis podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal [health or profession] advice. Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) is not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice.This podcast may not be republished without the written consent of Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN)

Before we dive into today's episode, I want to talk to you guys about one of the most recent products we launched here at BPN, and that is our grass-fed whey-protein isolate. Now, this powder comes from small family farms in Ireland, and it is certified, truly grass-fed. And what makes a way-protein isolate different from a way-protein concentrate is that a lot of the lactose has been removed from the product. So if you are someone who has traditionally struggled with weight protein concentrates, it hurts your stomach, you get an experience gas, bloating, or just GI distress, a weight protein isolate might be the solution for you. I can tell you, our weight protein isolate, our grass-fed weight protein isolate, it tastes absolutely amazing.

I will fully stand behind it. We have it in a fudge chocolate and vanilla flavor, and it digested. so well. So if you're looking for a leaner protein source that is grass fed and has reduced lactose, BPN's way protein isolate is the one for you. So check it out. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This one is all about how to set up your diet to lean out and lose fat. And a lot of what I'm going to share is what I have personally done in the past over the years. I do today when I'm trying to lean out. I've had a lot of experience with this for 14 years now. One of the ways that I started learning about manipulating body

composition and building muscle and losing fat was when I was in college. And this is before I knew really anything about diet and I knew a little bit about training. I was falling in love with the lifestyle. But when I first launched BPN in 2012, you know, we had a very small marketing budget. I called it a marketing budget. There was like pennies, like rubbing pennies together, literally. there wasn't much of a budget at all. And we had to get really resourceful when I say we, my brother and I, and creative.

So one of the things I decided to do alongside my brother is that we signed up for a bodybuilding competition. We were both in college. And we submerged ourselves in the information and learning about tracking macronutrients and calories and flexible dieting. and through a 16-week diet, we lost, you know, we each lost about 20 to 25 pounds, primarily fat, learned how to get lean, stage-ready. And that really kick-started a lot of my passion, my love, my interest for nutrition and performance and bodybuilding and strength training. But learning how to manipulate calories and even more specific.

specifically certain macronutrients to achieve a certain look, a certain leanness, a certain desired outcome. So a lot of what I'm talking about today has been through trial and error and experiences. I've done multiple cuts and diets throughout the years. I was just talking to told on the other day, over the last couple years, my body weight has actually fluctuated pretty significantly based on what I'm training for. I was bulking in 2023. I was trying to put on a lot of size. I got to 230 pounds. And then during my Iron Man prep this past year, I got down to 179 pounds. That's a 50 pound difference. That's crazy when you say that out loud.

50 pound difference based off of how I've been eating and approaching nutrition and training for a very specific goal, a performance outcome. And a lot of that's just been making changes to my diet, how much I'm consuming, how frequently, what I'm consuming. So what I'm sharing today is what I have done, what I do when it comes to, wanting to achieve a certain level of leanness and target body fat loss. Okay, so I want to share that before diving into it. And a lot of what I'm going to be focusing on today is around diet and nutrition, not specifically the training incorporated within a cut or a leaning out phase.

I prompted a question on Instagram this past week asking people, what do you want to know about how to get lean and lose body fat? And a lot of the questions were about nutrition, but simultaneously and similarly, a lot of questions were about how to incorporate running in a dieting phase or strength training in a dieting phase. And there's a lot of nuance to that. And I want to reserve that for a future episode.

But this one today is mainly focused around the food nutrition specifically, as opposed to layering on training, being resistance training or cardiovascular conditioning. And I want to say one more thing before we dive in. You can't have your cake and eat it too. I'm sure you've heard this in the context of a lot of different analogies and situations and explanations. But you have to be honest with yourself. Do you want to lose fat? Do you want to get leaner?

Do you want to lose weight? If so, then you have to do what it takes. You can't say you want to get lean, you want to lose body fat, you want to lose weight, but at the same time, eat all the other foods you've been consuming at those amounts that have kept you heavier, carrying more body fat, maybe out of shape.

So you have to decide, what do you want? Do you want to be lean? Do you want to be healthier? Do you want to lose body fat? Or do you want to eat all the foods that have been contributing to potentially the way you look and feel right now? You can still consume those foods in moderation. but not at the same amounts you might be right now

that is holding you back from getting to where you want to be. So you've got to be honest with yourself. You have to be transparent, to be self-aware, and you have to be able to hold yourself accountable. And if you can't hold yourself accountable, you've got to find someone who can. And this is where coaches are very valuable

or a group of friends who are working towards a similar goal or just a buddy, a family member, who can hold you accountable in this process that you can go to when you mess up, when you fail, when you make a mistake. That can be there to be the honest truth alongside of you. So that's what I wanted to share before we dive into some of these

these methods, if you will. So at this point, it should be no surprise to many people that energy balance matters. This is calories in versus calories out. Now, I'm going to broad stroke over this because we can't talk about anything else without talking about energy balance. And that is the concept. the concept is that in order to lose weight, in order to lose body fat, you must be in a caloric deficit. But there are many different methods that you can incorporate to help you get there.

And I want to focus on the methods today. But the concept is that calories are king. At the end of the day, if you can maintain your current body weight on 20,000, 2,500 calories a day. As long as you consume 2,500 calories today and nothing else changes, meaning you don't increase your training, you don't increase your daily steps, you don't increase your cardiovascular conditioning, if nothing else changes and you keep eating 2,500 calories today, you will most likely maintain a pretty consistent weight day in and day out. if you consume less than 2,500 calories a day,

you are technically in a chloric deficit. You will lose weight. And you can create this cloric deficit through training, through movement, through chloric expenditure, or by just consuming less. And then on the flip side, if you want to gain weight, you want to put on size,

you want to get bigger, you want to get stronger potentially, being in a chloric surplus will help. So anything above, in this case, 2,500 calories. And I'm just using 2,500 calories as an example. Being in a chloric surplus will facilitate weight gain, potentially muscle gain based off the way that you're training. So you have a chloric surplus, which is anything more than your maintenance calories.

You have a chloric deficit, which is anything less than your daily maintenance calories. but in order to lose weight to lean out to burn body fat, we have to be in a caloric deficit. We know this. At the end of the day, calories are king. How do you know if you're in a caloric deficit? Well, the question is, do you have to track your nutrition to know? Yes and no. It's helpful for a lot of people who are new to dieting in new food.

nutrition and having a level of awareness around what they're consuming and how much of what they're consuming, it helps to track your nutrition. And there's a million different food and diet tracking apps out there online. Some are free, some are paid for, some are more robust and complex, and AI-driven, and some are pretty simple. I have just historically used my fitness pal over the years because I don't track that much. I'll track every once in a while based off of changes to my training or my body composition goals just to have an understanding of how much I'm consuming. But I haven't tracked consistently for over 10 years now.

Now, I used to track everything, every meal, every piece of food that I put into my mouth, every day for weeks and months and even. years. I did this for a long time, but you get to a point where you intuitively know and understand how much of what you're consuming, what you're consuming. And I think for a lot of people, myself included, most of my meals from day to day don't change much. But with that being said, if you are newer to this whole journey and process, I recommend, for at least a short period of time, tracking your nutrition. Purchasing the food scale and weighing, weighing, out your food. I still use a food scale every single day. And not necessarily to track my food,

but for portion control. And I use a food scale, like I use a measuring cup or a spoon at this point. It is just, it's both for me and my wife, Steph, we have three food scales at the house, we travel with a food scale. And again, it's not to log our food into a food tracking app. It's just for portion control. So I know for my lunches every day, when I'm doing my meal prep, I weigh out 300 grams of rice, cooked rice, which is about a cup and a half. And when I add my protein source or my meat, whether that's chicken or beef or turkey or bison or elk or whatever protein source I'm consuming is typically 8 ounces, which is about 50 grams of protein. And in the morning when I make my protein shake. I add 40 grams of oats. I weigh on the oats. I just use a scale.

And me and Steph both, we use a scale for portion control. And I will do this probably for the rest of my life. I get enjoyment out of it. It allows me to not overeat, overconsume, but also not under-eat, under-consume. And I'm primarily focused about protein. in that case. But how do you know if you're in a cork deficit? One, are you tracking your nutrition? And are you tracking your nutrition accurately? You know, there's a lot of times when people will track bits and pieces of the nutrition,

but not include the extra sauces or condiments and oils that are added. So if you're going to track and you want to track accurately, you got to track everything. to get a good picture of where you're at and if you're actually in a cloric deficit. And then another way to know if you're in a deficit, are you losing weight? Are you losing body fat? You know, you can use a scale

and weigh yourself every couple days to see if you're making progress over time. You can go get a Dexas scan, which, you know, you can find a Dexascan facility in your local area. It's fairly inexpensive. We have a spot here in Austin, Texas, where you can get a Dexas scan and it costs, I think, $60. And you get an analysis of your bone mineral content.

You get an analysis of your total body fat percentage. You get an analysis of where you're holding body fat and your lean muscle tissue. And you can watch trends over time. So those are some of the ways to know if you're in a deficit or not. And I've shared this story before, but I think this is super helpful. When I was in college, so I studied nutrition at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, I had a bunch of classes on nutrition for disease intervention, cardiovascular disease, diabetes. But then we also had food intervention labs in classes.

where we would work with individuals to help them build on a meal plan. And one of the things we would do with them that we had to do for ourselves and you can do for yourself as well or our family members and friends that are trying to lose weight, body fat, get leaner, so on and so forth, is do a food journal with them. So what I would have people do is write down as accurately as possible. Would they eat every day for seven days? and I would ask them to just eat as normal. Don't do anything crazy, anything different.

Don't try to under-eat because now you're having to write everything down and just don't do anything out of what you would normally do. Have a normal average seven-day eating window. But write down everything. Time you eat, what you ate, estimated serving sizes. I won't ask these people to weigh their food, but how big was the chicken breast you had? Was it the size of your fist? Okay, maybe I can estimate that that was probably like a five to six ounce chicken breast.

Was that chicken breast covered in any sauces or oils, if you know of? Was it 85, 15 ground beef or was it 937 ground beef? And I have them write down as accurately as possible, what they consume for seven days, and I would take that information. I'd plug it into, back then I used My Fitness Pal, my fitness pal, and I would get their daily caloric average of calories and macronutrients. And I would look at that seven-day window, and I would add up all those calories, divided by seven, and I'd get on average what they were consuming per day. And then we would weigh them at the beginning of those seven days and after those seven days. and if their weight generally stayed the same,

we could ballpark or estimate their maintenance calories. Now, if they gained significant weight in those seven days or lost significant weight in those seven days, we might have to do that experiment all over again for another seven days and just ask them to eat as normal. There's some calculations and calculators you can use online to try to find your estimated maintenance calories.

But I prefer having people consume food, find the average, reflect it based off of weight, loss, maintenance, or gain, and then try to find your maintenance calories that way. It's going to be trial and error or trial and effort, and there's going to be experimentation throughout this process. But as you start to go in a cloric deficit, and if you start losing weight, you know you're in a deficit. There's something I want to talk about and it's called titrating your nutrition. Now, what is titration?

Titration is the process of gradually adjusting the dose of a substrate, in this case food, up or down to achieve the desired result. So if you're working with a doctor, for example, and they put you on a medicine, and they start you on a dose, and you have negative side effects, it might titrate that medicine down to still ensure that it's helping you, but to reducing the risk of the consequences or the negative side effects you're experiencing. If a doctor puts you on a medicine and it's not helping to achieve the desire result, they might titrate that medicine up very gradually. That's the key behind titration, the process of gradually adjusting the dose. When it comes to your nutrition and your diet, this is how we want to approach it. It is titrating up or down your calories gradually. to achieve the desired result.

The minimum effective adjustment. The reason I share that is I've seen people want to achieve certain results way too fast. And there's consequences of getting too lean too fast or making too big of jumps or adjustments too quickly. So if you find that your maintenance calories are at 2,500, and you go, okay, I want to lose a lot of weight really fast. I'm going to start consuming 1,500 calories. That's a 1,000 calorie deficit. That's massive.

I would probably start out at a 250 calorie deficit. And if you're not losing weight there, titrate that adjustment. Maybe go to 350 calories. And if no changes, 450 calories. I have no adjustment to 500 calories. But we want to make this a sustainable, effective and healthy titration to your calories

so you can maintain these results long term. But if you go into a thousand calorie deficit right out of the gate, first off, yes, you're going to lose weight. You will. But there are consequences to getting too lean too fast. some of those consequences are you're probably incorporating unsustainable lifestyle interventions. You most likely are going to experience decreases in performance while training and while not training. Your energy is going to plummet.

You're going to have metabolic damage. You're going to have probably some sort of hormonal. endocrine system damage. Your central nervous system is probably going to be fried. It might affect your sleep, in your mood, and just your overall energy. So my approach to getting lean and losing body fat is to make it a sustainable process. This might mean that it's going to take longer to achieve the desire result, but it's done in a way that leaves you feeling better, healthier,

and it's more sustainable. But you'll see people all the time where they go into this huge chloric deficit right out of the gate, thousand plus calorie deficit. And they lose weight pretty quickly. In a matter of weeks, they're looking leaner. They've lost a lot of weight based off the scale. You might get a Dexas scan and see some positive results. But those people typically burn out.

They give up. they rebound back to where they first started pretty quickly because it is an unsustainable approach. You get to a point where like, man, I have no energy to get out of bed in the morning because I'm so fatigued and exhausted. Those first couple weeks, you might feel great. Dude, I have more energy than I've ever had before in my life. Yes, but give it a few more weeks or a few more months. And I can guarantee that energy is not going to last. it is going to plummet.

So we know we need to be in a chloric deficit. But the key is titrating those calories down over time. And we only make changes to our caloric intake or macronutrient ratios when weight loss or fat loss plateaus, it stops. That's when you make an adjustment. and we titrate those calories. We gradually adjust the dose of the substrate calories and or macronutrients up or down to achieve the desired result. The flip side of not being deliberate and taking a sustainable, slow approach to this,

I see it all the time. It's the all or nothing approach that leads people to failure. You know, it's like someone decides they want to lose weight, they want to lose body fat, and it's all or nothing. They change their lifestyle overnight. No more cheat meals. I have to do 10,000 steps a day. I have to drink a gallon of water. I have to hit my macronutrient spot on.

I have to do two workouts. I'm not consuming any alcohol. I'm not having any cheap meals. I'm not going to any social events. I'm locked in. I'm dialed in. Again, this might work for a period of time, but the all or nothing approach leads,

it's almost guaranteed to lead you to failure and rebound because it's unsustainable. So the goal with this is building healthy relationships with food, fitness, and just movement overall, healthier lifestyle interventions that are sustainable, they are healthy, they are going to drive results. And it requires sacrifice. Any big goal, any ambition requires some level of sacrifice.

But we get to decide how monumental those sacrifices are. And like, what are those sacrifices? If the sacrifices, this is just the way that I see it. if those sacrifices are that I don't get to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, that's probably a pretty good sacrifice. That's going to reinforce discipline and learning how to eat healthier, not just for myself, but potentially for my family, and teaching them how to eat healthier that's sustainable

and should be viewed as a good thing, fuel for the body, fuel for the mind. So yeah, you're going to have to make some sort of sacrifice, but sacrifices aren't bad. Sometimes we think of sacrifices as this negative bad thing. The sacrifice doesn't have to be massive unless you make it that. And that's typically the all or nothing approach. The bigger the sacrifice, generally, the harder it is to sustain. So take it low, take it slow, make it sustainable, make it enjoyable.

but we've got to focus on energy balance and there are consequences to getting too lean too fast. So here's some of the things that I do. Again, these are methods that I incorporate that help me make adjustments to my diet to be in a clerk deficit. We're going to talk about nutrition timing for starters. Now, when I'm trying to maintain my weight

or even put on size and gain weight, or even put on size and gain weight, it sometimes feels like I'm force feeding food. And this is just based off my metabolism. Generally, a lot of the foods that I consume are cleaner foods. I thoroughly enjoy lean meats and well-cooked vegetables and big salads and lots of fruits and clean carbs. and a lot of the foods that I am drawn towards and attracted to are lower in calories.

I personally don't crave, and we'll get to this point because I know a lot of people do crave highly satisfying, highly processed foods, especially in the evenings, but I don't really have those cravings that I'm fighting. So when I'm trying to maintain or put on size based off the foods that I'm drawn towards in my metabolism and just the amount of training that I'm doing, whether I'm trying to get leaner or I'm maintaining or I'm building, I'm always incorporating resistance training and cardiovascular conditioning. If I'm in a big marathon or endurance training block, I'm running,

more. I'd be cycling and swimming if I'm in a triathlon. But right now I'm just trying to maintain. I'm actually trying to get a little leaner right now going into the summer and I'm running 20 to 25 miles a week. I'm strength training about five days out of the week. And one of the things that I will do because in order to maintain and gain size, I have to eat a lot of food. It feels like I'm I'm force feeding sometimes. So going into a leaning out phase, I actually enjoy because I feel like it does my digestive system good. But when I'm maintaining or bulking and building,

I will consume four big meals a day in one snack. And when I'm leaning out, we're trying to lean out like right now, I'll have three meals per day in one snack. So when I'm eating four meals a day and one snack, I have to make sure that that first meal is consumed pretty early. As soon as I'm done with my morning run, I'm getting a meal in me that is comprised of foods and calories and macronutrients that looks different from when I'm trying to lean out.

And the reason I try to consume that first meal as early as possible when I'm maintaining or building is because I know a few hours later, I'm going to have to have another big meal. A few hours later, I'm going to have another big meal. And a few hours later, we're going to have dinner, which is another big meal. And then before I go to bed, I'll have my snack.

That's when I always have my snack is about an hour before bed. But four meals and a snack, five meals per day, or five eating times on the day. It's a lot. You know, I personally don't like these big bowls of meals at once. I would prefer smaller meals spread down the day. It just makes

me feel better, energy-wise, and digestive system-wise. But when I'm leaning out, I will pull one meal away. So three meals per day and one snack, that's what I'm consuming right now. And what I have found helps is time-restricted eating or intermittent fasting. Now, you can take intermittent fasting to different extremes. You can do the eight-hour feeding window. You can do the four-hour feeding window. And if you do a four-hour feeding window, then you're fasting for 20 hours. If you're doing an eight-hour feeding window, then you're fasting for 16 hours.

If you're doing an eight-hour feeding window, you know, just to put some context behind it, your first meal might be at 10 a.m. And then your last meal would be at 6 p.m. Which isn't actually that crazy. But that is technically considered time restricted eating and or intermittent fasting. You have these different feeding windows. You can even do it 12 and 12. First meal at 6 a.m.

Your last meal is at 6 p.m. is at 6 p.m. That is a form of time restricted eating. The question is, how restricted do you want to get within that window of feeding? So I share that to say that if you are going into a leaning out phase, a fat loss phase,

this is something that I'll do. I will incorporate, not every day, but some days, time restricted feeding or intermittent fat. where I'll push back that first meal as late as possible. And I'll wait until I'm really hungry. When I'm maintaining or bulking, I rarely eat when I'm hungry.

I eat based off time and when I know I have to get calories in. That's why it feels like I'm force feeding. But when I'm in a dieting phase and I'm leaning out and trying to lose body fat, I will push back that first meal until I am truly. hungry and ready for it. That might be 9 a.m. That might be 11 a.m. in some cases. I would rather go the morning without food and feeding,

as opposed to having to wrap up my diet at 5 or 6 p.m. And go throughout the back half of the evening or the night, hungry. and the reason is if I try to fall asleep hungry, I will wake up in the middle of the night. I will have trouble falling asleep. I won't sleep as good. Now, this is definitely a personal decision. Like some people sleep better on an empty stomach.

But not me. I know that if I'm laying in bed and I have the slightest ounce of hunger, I will not sleep good that night. I just know that about myself. I've tried it before. I've tried it many times. I'll wake up at 2 a.m.

I'll wake up at 3 a.m. I'll wake up at 4 a.m. There's been times where I fall in asleep a little hungry. I'll wake up in the middle of night. And I'm like, I know I'm not going to be able to fall asleep until I go eat. And I'll go in the kitchen and I'll eat the go bar

or I'll cut a piece of Steph's freshly baked sourdough and I'll throw some carry gold butter and sea salt in there. And I'll sit on the couch in our living room and just eat this snack to go to bed. So I know I can fall back to sleep. So that's just my personal preference. I would rather go the morning, wait until I'm truly hungry to eat, as opposed to being hungry in the evening and that affecting my sleep. I've also found that with time restricted eating or intermittent fasting, it just makes it easier to stay within a caloric deficit when that feeding window is smaller.

When that feeding window is very spread out, you have more time in between meals. It's easier to get hungry and you find yourself waiting for the next meal as soon as you finish the previous meal. depending on how big of a chloric deficit you are in. I've also found with time-restricted feeding or intermittent fasting, it just helps with digestion. You know, when you have a smaller feeding window and you have more time when you're fasting, I have found that my stomach feels better.

Digestion is more optimized and better. My bowel movements are even better. my energy in the morning is improved, right fast in the morning, and I push back that first meal, even by a few hours. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, a few hours. I'll still consume my coffee in the morning, in my water, and my electrolytes, but my mental clarity is very strong. My energy is very strong in the mornings where I do that.

And when it comes to nutrition timing, I do think it's important to create predictable and consistent meal timing patterns and behaviors. If you are someone who just eats based off of feel, hunger, what's convenient, this isn't applicable to everyone. But generally, people who follow random eating patterns often have increased cravings. and they experience impulsive eating. So whether I'm trying to lose body fat, maintain, or build in bulk, I have predictable and consistent meal timing.

And I generally know going into a day of what I'm going to consume. Dinner is the one meal where we incorporate a lot of variation. But when you create predictable and consistent meal timing from day to day, it reduces inconsistent food cravings and impulsive eating. And it just allows you to like, okay, I'm going to sit down and have this meal. And then the next meal, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to have this meal. And the next meal I'm going to sit down and have this meal. As opposed to, I'm going to grab like a protein shake here and then 10 minutes later,

I'm a little bit hungry. I'm going to grab some fruit. And then, you know, 10 minutes later after that, I'm going to grab a sandwich and I'm going to put some extra stuff on it. and maybe grab a bag of chips. And before you know it, your lunch just turned into 1,500 calories. I'm going to grab some trail mix here. That trail mix given 500 calories.

So creating predictable and consistent meal timing in options is really important alongside nutrition timing to maintain appropriate results when you're in a leaning phase. You know, for years I've talked about all of our, regulating your training. But you can also auto-regulate your calories. So when I talk about auto-regulation when it comes to working out, say for example, I wake up and it's a Tuesday morning and I have a five-mile run that I planned on doing in the morning and then training

lower body in the afternoon. But if I wake up Tuesday morning and the previous day, it was a really stressful day. I didn't sleep well. The kids were up. The kids were sick. You wake up Tuesday morning and you just do a quick assessment of your body. Okay, I didn't sleep good. My body feels like trash. I underconsumed food yesterday. But I know I have a five mile run this morning and I'm training lower body legs this afternoon. Yikes. That's where auto regulation comes into play. You make a smart decision. Okay, I'm not going to do the run this morning and maybe I'll do a 60-minute high rocks circuit in the gym this afternoon, just to get the body moving, a little bit of cardiovascular conditioning, a little bit of strength. You make adjustments based off a

self-assessment and analysis of how you're feeling to be able to perform at the level that your body is prepared to. You can do the same thing with calories. And I was listening to a podcast. It was a mind pump media podcast. I love those guys over there. And they used a term that I'm going to give them credit for. It's called undulating your calories.

And this is essentially being able to adjust your caloric intake based off of your life. your lifestyle events, anything really. So some examples. If you're going to ungulate your calories, let's say you're in a cloric deficit. And your clorke deficit, calorie goal daily is 2,000, 2,000 calories. Yes, you could consume 2,000 calories seven days a week

and be very consistent with that. Or if you wanted to, you could undulate your calories. Some methods. If you struggle with the weekends, and you know that on weekends, you and your family always go out for dinner, you always overeat a little bit. You want some more freedom on the weekend. Well, what you could do is lower your calories even more during the week

to allow for you to eat at maintenance or maybe even a slight surplus on the weekends. based off of more flexibility. So maybe during the week, if your maintenance or your goal calories for your deficit are 2000, like I said, maybe during the week, Monday through Friday, you consume 1,800 calories a day. So then on the weekends, you have some more flexibility in room to consume more calories. That's one method you could approach. or we even get more granular with this.

If you know like me, you get hunger in the evenings and you're not as hungry in the morning or throughout the day, you can keep your calories intentionally lower, make different food choice options in the morning and the early afternoon and save most of your calories for the evening. That's one approach. If you know you are someone who is tempted by food late at night, get ready to go to bed,

you have a sweet tooth, you have cravings, you just want to munch on something, set yourself up for success. Do lower calories throughout the morning and throughout the early afternoon, so that the bulk of your calories are at dinner and then after dinner. That way you're still within your caloric goal for the day, but you are not struggling in starving yourself. in the evening or afternoon. And then this is something that the guys at Mind Pump brought up that I thought was a really

just a valuable drive home reminder. Myself included, I find myself eating base off of the clock a lot of the times as opposed to when I'm hungry. I think it's important to listen to your body. if your body is telling you I am hungry eat but if your body is telling you not telling you

you're hungry and you're just eating based off of patterns and routine and structure feel the openness the ability to just eat when you are hungry I know that sounds like common sense

but for me, I know a lot of people in the fitness industry who live this lifestyle, we eat based off of routine, we eat based off structure, we eat based off of the clock. I know my first meal I have at 7 a.m., my second meal I have at 11 a.m. And then I have dinner at 5 p.m. and I have my late-night snack at 8.30 p.m. That's how I typically eat. But it can be powerful. just allow your appetite to regulate when you consume that food. So another way to undulate your calories,

if there's a day where you're really hungry, eat more. And the example these guys used in the podcast I was listening to after a big lower body strength day. Typically for a lot of people, the following day, appetite is increased. Your body is trying to return. from the big effort you did.

You probably broke down some muscle. Your appetite is stimulated. It's trying to recover. We'll allow yourself to eat more on those days. But maybe, you know, a random Wednesday where you're not running, you have an easy biceps and triceps workout. Just for an example, you're not putting forth mass. massive energy or effort, you're not burning a lot of calories.

There might not be a lot of movement that day. Your appetite might not be as stimulated. It's okay to eat less on those days and reserve those calories for a day that's much more needed. So we can auto-regulate or in mind-pump, medias terms, undulate your calories day to day, based off your appetite, based off the effort, based off when you know you have cravings or you're hungrier, even within a day. That is a powerful option and method to incorporate to make sure that this journey, these results, this process is sustainable. Okay, let's talk about how I like to make changes to my macronutrients when I'm in a dieting phase.

We've already said calories are king. Calories in, first calories out, and being in a cloric deficit is what is going to facilitate weight loss, fat loss, getting leaner. But some of the nuances of that, how do we approach the specific macronutrients being proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. This is a way that I approach it. So protein, I always prioritize protein, whether I'm dieting, whether I'm maintaining,

whether I'm balking and building. At a minimum, for me, one gram of protein per pound of body weight. Right now I weigh 200 pounds. I'm consuming at least 200 grams of protein per day. Protein is four calories per gram of protein. Fat is the most chlorically dense, nine calories per gram of fat.

Carbohydrates, the same as protein, four calories per gram of carbohydrate. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient, meaning that it is going to keep you fuller. It's going to fill you up. the fastest and keep you full for the longest. Here's an example. You give someone a bag of chips, they will eat the entire bag and then they might go open up a second bag and finish that one off. For me, my like one struggle food, I'd say is purely Elizabeth Granola. There aren't many foods

that do this to me. But purely Elizabeth granola, especially the cookie granola, oh my gosh. That stuff is addicting. There's not many things I can say are addicting for me feedwise. Purely Elizabeth cookie granola is dangerous. And if you ever weigh down a serving of granola, it's pathetic. It's like truly depressing. You look at the bag, there's seven servings of, I know, I know all of this, trust me. Seven servings of granola in these bags. And I could easily eat two bags in one sitting. That's not an exaggeration.

That's the one food where I don't even keep in the house anymore because of this, but we used to, Steph and I did. I make a bowl at night. I put some purely Elizabeth granola in a bowl with some milk and I'd eat it like cereal. And it was so good. And when it was over, I was so sad. So I'd go back and I make a second bowl and sometimes a third bowl. That is the one food that I can't stop with.

It is so addicting and so good. For some people, it's chips. It's the combination of savory and sweet and it's processed and it's dangerous. But you give someone a boatload of chicken breast. they're going to eat until they're full in content and then they're going to be done. Like there are times when someone puts a massive steak in front of me and I'll eat it until I'm full. I'm like, I just don't want any more steak.

I'm like, I'm stuffed. I'm satiated. You ever go for barbecue? You ever go for barbecue joint down here in Texas? Our eyes are always bigger than our stomachs. I'll take half a pound of brisket I'll take. half a pound of pulled pork. I'll take four of those ribs.

I'll take a few of the jalapeno cheddar sausages. I'll get a few sides. You sit down, you take a few bites. You don't even put a dent in that barbecue sometimes. That's how it is whenever we go for barbecue. We order way too much, we eat way too little. Protein is satiating. It's the most satiating macronutrient.

Protein is also muscle sparing. So when you're in a dieting phase or a chloric deficit, making sure you consume enough protein is going to help reduce the risk of muscle being catabolic, breaking down and burning up. So we want increased protein, or at least prioritized protein more in a leaning out phase. and I tend to prefer leaner protein sources when I'm dieting. When I'm not dieting, I might go for the ribbi and the 80-20 ground beef and just fattier options. They taste better. I'm not going to lie than these leaner protein sources. But when we're prioritizing protein, we don't necessarily want all the extra fat that comes along with it.

Yes, fat is essential for our body, but there's a point of diminishing your return. More fat does not necessarily mean more health or better. It means more calories. So some of my go-to lean protein sources that I'm consuming at this moment and when I'm trying to lean out a little bit, at night before bed, like my go-to snack incorporates Greek yogurt and cottage cheese. and it's even full fat cottage cheese. But if you do like full fat cottage cheese per serving, it's about four grams of fat. It's not significant.

And full fat cottage cheese is so much better than reduced fat cottage cheese. So Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, chicken, chicken breast, but also chicken thighs. Instead of like some fattier ground beef, I'll do leaner ground beef, 937 as opposed to 8020. I'll do more bison, elk, turkey. A lot of the ground meat that I'll buy is from Force of Nature. And Force of Nature has a great selection of leaner options, elk, bison. Like I said, they have a ground chicken, which is good.

I'll do egg whites, more egg whites and whole eggs, certain fish. You know, we still incorporate salmon, do our diet weekly, which is a fattier fish. I'll do sardines. Sardines are, I'd say mildly lean. You can of sardines and it's about 18 grams of protein and maybe eight grams of fat, but you're getting really good omega-3 fatty acids there. But there's some really lean fish out there. Whiter fish is lean.

And then protein powder. Protein powder is not the most satiating, but it's a great way to get more protein in your diet. I do two scoops of protein every single day. It's part of my breakfast right now, which I'll share here in a little bit what my diet looks like, or at least some of the meals that I'm consuming. But protein powder is lean. You can get 25 grams of protein with a few grams of fat. With our icelet, no, it's about one gram of fat. So it's a lean option of protein.

So I'm always prioritizing protein, whether I'm dieting, maintaining, or building and balking, but especially when I'm dieting. Prioritizing protein is so important, and I'll opt for leaner options. When I'm dieting, I will reduce dietary fat. Like I said, fat is the most chlorically dense macronutrient, nine calories per gram of fat. I like to pull back on fat just because it saves a lot of calories.

Now, like I mentioned, fat is essential for hormone optimization, for brain function for just a lot of bodily processes. Healthy fat. I get a good mixture of saturated fats and monopoly unsaturated fats, omega-3 fatty acids I'm always prioritizing. when you're bulking or building or even maintaining, having a more fat, dense diet helps because you don't have to get a lot of volume in. It's easy to add some oils and butter

or peanut butter to your meals when you're maintaining or building and bulking to get some more fat in. But I like to reduce my dietary fat pretty significantly. when I'm in a dieting phase, it saves a lot of calories. Something else that I've recently learned. So by working with my doctor, we did a GI map test,

which is a stool sample test. You essentially put this basket over your toilet and you go to the bathroom in this basket. And then you have these tools and you, you know, it's, you're up close and personal. You're kind of taking this tool and putting your stool in this tube and then you shake it up and you put in this bag and you ship it back to this testing facility. It's a wild process. I've done this multiple times in my life.

And if you haven't done a GI map or stool test before, I recommend it because you get some really good data back from it. And recently I did one. This was after Ironman prep and got the results back a few weeks later and went over the results with my doctor. And what we found is, you know, you can identify how much of what bacteria, good and bad you have in within your gut, your intestines. You know, you want bacteria. You want good bacteria in your gut.

You need it. but sometimes you can have an overgrowth of certain bacteria which can cause constipation or diarrhea or gas and bloating. There's something called CBO, S-I-B-O, small intestinal bacteria overgrowth. This is when certain bacteria in intestines in the gut grow at a significant rate that produces

these unwanted effects and just uncomfortable feelings. But with all that being said, one of the things that my doctor and I identified in my most recent GI map test is that my body and my gut doesn't digest high amounts of fat very well, either in one sitting, one ballast,

or throughout the day. So something I experimented with, which made it pretty convenient going into this, you know, leaning out phase that I'm in right now. Pull back on dietary fat a lot. I stopped eating eggs in the morning, actually. Change my breakfast up. Chose leaner protein sources.

Stopped eating all the avocados. I was eating at night before going to bed. I was eating a bunch of avocados and nuts before going to bed. And by reducing my dietary fat intake significantly, after talking to my doctor, my stomach and my digestive system felt so much better. So much better.

I didn't have as much gas or bloating or stomach discomfort. So that was a win that also helped with this lean-out phase. But that's one change I'll make to my diet is reducing dietary fat significantly. Not too much, but significantly, while in a dieting phase.

And when it comes to carbohydrates, I like to incorporate my carbohydrates while in a dieting phase trying to lose body fat around my training when I'm going to need it. So instead of consuming 150 grams of carbs for breakfast like I was during Iron Man prep,

I will do a lower carb approach in the morning sometimes and then I will put all my carbs or most of my carbs around my workouts. So if I know I'm training at 2 p.m. And I have my lunch at 11 a.m. I will do a lot of carbs in that pre-workout meal. I might do some carbs with my pre-workout solution that I mix up. I'll do pre-workout, pump enhancer, and maybe a scoop of G&M sport to get 20 grams of carbs to fuel that training session.

And then post-workout, I'll incorporate carbs to replenish what was lost and to promote recovery along with protein. So, you know, if you're dieting, you're in a cork deficit, you're prioritizing protein, you're pulling back fat a little bit, you're pulling back carbs a little bit. I'd rather pull back fat more and keep carbs higher just for the energy that it provides and the performance outcomes you get from just having carbs around training sessions. but I will make sure that those carbohydrates I'm consuming throughout the day are around my training just to have the best workouts possible. You know, the deeper you get into a cut, the deeper you get into a deficit,

you will maybe, depending on the person, experience some fatigue, reduced energy. But if you still want to have solid training sessions, keep those carbohydrates a around the training session. Okay, so when I prompted the question on Instagram earlier this week, where people struggle with weight loss, fat loss, dieting, one of the most common questions I saw pop up was around late night snacking. And it seems that a lot of people struggle with binging in the evening, late night snacking. And it goes back to, you know, I think this is,

one of the reasons that it's important to have structured, consistent, predictable meals and having a plan throughout the day. If you go into the evening and it's like, I'm just going to eat a little bit here, eat a little bit there. That's where you end up binging or overeating. You know, where you're passing the pantry, I'm going to grab a handful of trill mix. And then you go to do something, you pass the fridge. I'm going to grab a handful of leftover of leftover were potatoes from dinner. You go around the house, do some stuff. I'm now going to open this bag of chips.

And before you know it, your 2,000 calories in before you go to bed just within that late night snack. So what I like to do is have a plan, have a structure. All right, I'm hungry. I'm now going to go make what I'm going to eat. It's all going to go in this one bowl. And this is what I'm eating. And it's going to fill me up.

And that's it. as opposed to have a little bit here, have a little bit there. As I kind of prefaced earlier, my go-to late-night snack right now is one serving of cottage cheese, one serving of Greek yogurt, some cacao nibs sprinkled over top, and a bunch of berries,

blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, strawberries. I get my protein. I get some quality, fiber and antioxidants from the berries and some good antioxidants from the cacao nibs. And it's tasty. It's a little sweet. And it satisfies me.

I'm full. That is my go-to late-night meal and or snack right now. But I'll be honest. Some of you guys who struggle with late-night snacking and binging, you might just need a little bit more discipline and willpower and self-accountability. There's some things you can do methods-wise, like I just shared, not grabbing snacks here and there throughout the night for the last two hours before you lay down and go to sleep. But making that snack, making that meal, putting it all in one bowl, this is what I get to eat. This is what I'm going to consume within my daily chloric range. And I'm good.

That's it. But you might just need some discipline, some will. willpower and accountability. And discipline, willpower, and accountability, self-accountability, those are muscles that you have to flex and they become stronger the more that you train them. The truth, the reality. You know, many people can start off a day strong, but fewer people can finish the day strong. Why? This is the reality.

Willpower and decision-making energy is depleted throughout the day. And I believe this is probably why most people struggle with late night snacking and binging. think about it, you go to the whole day making decisions. Some hard decisions, some easier decisions, but a lot of decisions throughout the day. From the time you wake up, to the time you go to work, to the time you come home, all of your life and family responsibilities, and by the time you might put the kids down and you have an hour to yourself, willpower, and decision-making energy, energy is depleted.

That's why a lot of people are tempted by food and falling off the plan and willpower is gone, discipline's gone, self-accountability is gone. You've got to build in structure and routine consistency and just work really hard to maintain that willpower. Go into that decision of what you're going to eat and consume before bed. very intentional. It's a muscle, like I said, that has to be flexed. Alongside dieting and training, which we haven't talked much about, but sleep.

You know, sleep actually does play a critical rule in some of these decisions we make throughout the day and especially at night. Poor sleep increases hunger hormones. So if you aren't sleeping well, you're not sleeping a lot. You're continuously getting poor sleep. What happens is Grellin, which is the hunger hormone, it rises. And leptin, which is the satiety hormone, telling you you're full, you're satisfied, it drops. So poor sleep leads to disruptions in your hunger and satiety hormones, which leads to bad choices, which leads to binging, which leads to weight gain, which leads to and results in little to no progress of losing weight, losing body fat.

So as much as you need willpower, as much as you need discipline, as much as you need self-accountability, it's important to also prioritize sleep so that we're setting ourselves up for success, setting the conditions to be able to succeed. One of the things that has helped me with late night snacking, Like I talked about earlier, the purely Elizabeth granola. That used to be a struggle for me. But it was also when I was in a season of heavy endurance training so I could get away with it. I know that if I have purely Elizabeth granola in the house right now,

I have enough willpower to not consume it. Because I know as soon as I pour one bowl, that's probably going to lead to two bowls, which might lead to three bowls. So I don't even pour a bowl of it. anymore because I know how good it is and what that leads to. So have your go-to dieting meals. Some of my go-to dieting meals. Like how my breakfast has changed. My breakfast used to be multiple eggs, some egg whites, sourdough, curry-gold butter, maybe some dried figs and some berries. It was a chlorically dense and higher fat breakfast. Now as I'm in a leaning out phase, my breakfast is a

protein shake. I do one and a half frozen bananas. I do 40 grams, which is one serving of oats, and I weigh those oats out on a scale. And I do two scoops of our chocolate weight protein isolate with almond milk. So I'll put it in a blender. I'll blend it up after I get back from my run, and then I put it in the freezer until I'm ready to eat it. So when I take it, it out of the freezer, it's a little frosted over, it's very cold, it almost tastes like a milkshake. I don't drink my shakes ever. I make them so thick that I can eat it with a spoon. That's the way that I prefer to drink or eat my shakes. Delicious. I look forward to that every day. It's high in protein, it's moderate carb because it's typically after my morning run, but it's low in fat.

So it's lower in calories compared to my maintaining or building breakfast. I've already shared how lunches kind of changed. I lean towards or opt for leaner protein sources, either a 937 ground beef, bison, elk, or turkey, or even chicken, as opposed to, say, an 80, 20 ground beef, like I'll normally consume a fattier meat. How dinner has changed in a dieting phase for me, I do less carbohydrates, more veggies.

along with a leaner protein. So we do a lot of bowls or just big plates. Like Steph will do a bowl, but I'll do a big plate because I want more surface volume of the food that I can put on that plate. And instead of making the base, say, a carb where it's pasta or rice or quinoa or potatoes, I will make that base when I'm in a lean-y-out phase, salad or a bunch of veggies, leaner protein. Still a lot of food.

I won't add as much additional fat. But when I'm in a dieting phase, I'm definitely adding in more vegetables, more volume. Keeps me full. It's great sources of fiber, which is going to help with digestion. And then fiber is also very satiating.

You know, it hits those Those feelings of keeping you full, not wanting and needing more. And then when we go to dinner, because we still go to dinner often as a family. And when I go into a leaning out phase or a dieting phase, it doesn't take over my life. Now, I'm not dieting to step on stage and for a body building show. If I'm dieting or leaning out right now at this phase of my life, it's just, just to be a little less bulky, get a little leaner, feel a little lighter and faster, but it's not to be five or six percent body fat. So I'm making these easy changes to my lifestyle

without it disrupting my life and my family's lives. So we still go to dinner, frequently out to dinner, and I'll make more intentional choices and decisions. Some examples here. We go to Hopdottie, which is a burger spot here in Austin. They have multiple locations, and they've expanded outside of Austin now. So you might have a hop toddy close to you. Really good burgers, really good shakes, really good fries. Their parm truffle fries and their sweet potato fries are so good and you get a massive bowl. If you get a massive bowl of the fries, the fries alone are probably 1,200 calories. But what we'll do when we go to hop thuddy now, I both do this is we'll make our burgers into a bowl. So they'll take this massive bowl

and they'll put the lettuce and tomato and onion and all the veggies in there. And then I get two bison patties, some bacon, and then ketchup, mustard, a little bit of their house mayo, mix it all up. And it's very filling. It's very delicious. And it's a healthier, leaner option. So I'll turn my burgers into bowls where we go. Not all the time, but occasionally.

If we're going to a restaurant that's not hot dotty, I'll typically just opt for a leaner cut of meat, whether that's a steak or chicken. and then maybe I'll get a side plain baked potato. In my opinion, when you go to a steakhouse and you just get a plain baked potato, the way they cook it, I'm sure they roll it in oil and they have that big, thick salt crust on the outside, but it's just cooked perfectly, a little crisp. I'll get a plain baked potato and a lean steak, and that's a delicious meal for me.

instead of getting something that's glued with calories and sauces and just something that's a little bit out of control at restaurants. You can make modifications and substitutions at almost any restaurant you go to to make any meal healthier. So I would encourage you to. Yes, there's a time and place to have whatever you want. but we go to dinner frequently at the family and every time we go to dinner, I don't view it as a treat. It is a convenient way for the family to get out of the house and share a meal together. And it doesn't mean I have to have dessert with every meal. Doesn't mean I have to have a drink with every meal.

Doesn't mean I have to have a burger and fries at every meal. Every meal we go out for does not have to be viewed as a treat. It is a meal. And you can make healthy options. substitutions at any restaurant you go to. And I have found that your server and the cooks really don't mind. It's not a huge burden or doesn't have to be a big burden. So those are some of the things that I do while in a dieting phase.

To lose body fat, to get leaner. I hope that it is applicable to some of the things that you do or are planning to do if you are trying to lose body fat and get leaner. But it's the small things that add up and make a difference. It doesn't have to be the all or nothing. You don't have to make these massive sacrifices to every aspect of your life. It's the small incremental changes that you incorporate that pay off in big wins in the long term. So, thank you guys for tuning in.

Appreciate you. I love you. And we'll see you in the next episode.