If you don’t know how fat loss works yet, read this. Apply that process, and you will get results. It works. That is all you need to know to get a six-pack. 

Having said that, there are ways of applying this process that can make it a hell of a lot more simple, fun and effortless than it might otherwise be. More than being a nice extra, this is actually key to success.

We know the process of leaning down takes time, so if my life has to suck for three months for me to get abs, I am quickly going to become uninterested in doing so. Wasn’t the point in the first place to make life better? On the other hand, if I can feel good and enjoy myself like normal whilst getting lean, the whole process suddenly becomes much easier. I simply have to stay the course (which requires almost no willpower, because there is no actual downside to doing so), time passes (as it always will), and before I know it, I will have reached my goal level of body fat. 

It really can be that easy, and I am telling you now that if you want results, it should be. Because if you can make the process of leaning down simple and enjoyable, success becomes almost inevitable.

I want to give you a means of approaching fat loss that doesn’t require giving up your social life, good food, or fun, and one in which you feel good the whole time. Apply it, enjoy yourself, make sure you’re hitting your one important metric (weekly weight loss target), and watch your body transform in front of you. 

Work In Weeks, Not Days

Despite the fact that I discuss calories in terms of daily numbers, in real life working in single days is not practical. When was the last time you consumed the same amount of food/drinks on Monday as the previous Saturday? Unless you enjoy having no fun, it makes no sense to restrict yourself to a suddenly more rigid way of living just because you’re now consuming slightly less energy in total. Again, the key to long-term success in fat loss is making the process fun. And that is hard when you’re limited to one beer on a Friday night because you feel you have to hit your arbitrary daily goal of 2100 calories. Let’s be honest, if you have to give up properly participating in fun social events the whole time you’re losing fat, you’re never going to get ripped.

Throw that mindset out now. Weekends don’t have to suck. 

The answer here is working with weekly calorie targets. Ultimately, a calorie deficit doesn’t need to be within a single day. As long as your net energy balance is correct over the period of time that you are cutting, then you will lose the weight – your body can’t produce energy from thin air. Obviously there are limits to how far you can stretch this (trying to eat nothing for the final week to make up for no deficit in the preceding 11 just won’t float), but if you can keep your total calorie target in check week-to-week, it will work beautifully.

Applying

Now that you know you can spread your calories across the week however you want, how you do so is up to you. This is simply a lifestyle choice, and the more you make it suit your own life, the better. 

To give you an example, here is how I choose to do this when I am running a fat-loss phase.

My daily calories for 0.5kg/week of fat loss: 2,100 calories

= weekly total of 14,700 calories (as long as I hit this, I know the fat loss will occur.)

So based on this, I set myself a realistic weekly spread according to my usual lifestyle:

Calorie target for Sunday-Thursday: 1900 calories

Calorie target for Friday & Saturday: 2600 calories (my normal maintenance)

= weekly total of 14700 calories (bang on target)

Now, this is my starting point based on my normal weekly behaviour (effectively I have just adjusted what I would already do naturally by the minimum amount possible in order to hit an overall 20% deficit, and systemised it to be dead easy to follow). But this is still not a rigid all-or-nothing structure that I must stick to. If I massively overeat on Saturday, I will simply add those extra calories to the following day. And if I end up over Sunday’s goal, then do the same thing again (adding any overdraft to Monday). Eventually I will balance things out to baseline (my carry-over from the previous day will be to zero), and I’ll be back on track as if nothing happened in the first place. No time lost.

The key is to not be angry at yourself for missing targets. We’re human, lives are random, and often it’s just socially beneficial to share food or drink that you hadn’t otherwise planned. Don’t give up those experiences for a “perfect cut”. It doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t even have to stop your progress. When those situations arise just enjoy it, account for it, and know that there’ll be plenty of time in the coming days where you can make up for any calories you ate that were over your daily plan. The point is to be flexible day-to-day while still hitting your goals week-to-week. 

Planning in weeks and using this flexible system will make you basically unstoppable in your fat loss efforts. When you plan for real life and then know that any “mistake” can simply be worked into the sum of the following days, you really can’t lose.

Don’t Cut For More Than 12 Weeks

Flexibly spreading your calories as described above will see you nail whatever calorie targets you set yourself. However, with this ability, you can in fact be too successful with hitting your calorie targets. 

As described in my article on how to cut, the first and most common pitfall here is setting a target that’s too low. Eating in a deficit that’s steeper than 20% can really start to kick your body into a hormonal mess, jack up your hunger and fatigue and generally make you feel like shit. So if this starts to happen, bump up your calories until you find the sweet spot and feel good again, while still making progress. 

The next issue though, even if you are nailing your weekly intake and losing fat at the perfect rate, is doing so for too long. Cutting for over 12 consecutive weeks can start to have the same impact on your body as going too quickly. So when you are planning a fat loss phase, keep it to 12 weeks or less.

Now, the only people that should ever need longer than 12 weeks per year in a calorie deficit are those beginning their fitness journey who have genuine excess fat on them. Once you are lean, 12 weeks total each year is the maximum you should need to cut in order to reset your body fat to the lower end of your acceptable range. We’re not in this for incessant calorie deficits, and even 9 months of normal living and strength progress shouldn’t see you gaining more than 6kg of fat mass (which is easily reversible within 12 weeks). 

On the other hand, if you are a beginner and not lean, 12 weeks may well be not enough time to reach your goal body fat. That is okay. The way to approach this is to simply break up your fat loss into multiple phases, separated by several weeks of maintenance calories (i.e., normal eating). Take a fortnight or more off and eat to appetite, keep training, and focus on making progress on your strength. Your hormones, hunger, and energy should reset, and by the end you will be pumped and ready to go for the next phase of fat loss. Then just continue the process as you were.

Summing Up

Combined with proper basics (strength training, protein intake, and the right pace of weight loss towards the right target weight), these two strategies really do make fat loss effortless. Use them to work with both your lifestyle and your body, and you will find that there is no need for getting lean to be difficult. All it takes is consistency in ensuring you are progressing week to week, and you will get there. Make the process as simple and easy as it can be, get away with as much fun as you want, and watch your physique slowly improve on autopilot. 

If you haven’t read the original fat loss guide, click here.