Disclaimer: That’s what I do. Obviously, you are responsible for yourself.

Part 1: Basic Theory

When people let themselves go, a.k.a. eat the way the modern world wants them to, they get skinny-fat.

Some are “more fat” than skinny while others are “more skinny” than fat.

Without Superman genetics (which 99% of people do not have), you will fall into one of the two categories unless you fight the urge to be “normal”.

Why does it happen?

Your body composition is a combination of 3 main things:

1. Overall health (illness destroys everything)
2. Nutritional intake (calories, macros, etc.)
3. Activity

Given that most people have average genetics, don’t train and eat a ton of empty calories with low protein content, it’s normal that they look like fatso swines with no muscle to speak of.

Some may look ok in clothes, but once those are off, you see the mess that a modern lifestyle produces.

What most noobs are surprised to learn is that many individuals who train extensively also exhibit a very uninspiring appearance.

This applies strongly to natural idiots who start bulking phases while being at a high BF percentage and counting on some trivial barbell exercises to fix everything from their hormonal profile to the nonsense macros reaching their bloodstream.

The programs are usually some low-count 3×5 or 5×5 barbell bullshido. However, the training itself is not the main issue, even though it incentivizes people to continue bulking (the heavier you are, the more you can lift overall).

When I was bulking like a mad man, and doing a squat & pray routine, I was actually eating a clean paleo diet.

And I went from skinny fat to slightly-less-skinny-and-a-lot-fatter.

That process told me some harsh truths that many natties refuse to learn, even though intuitively they kinda know it.

But as they say, it’s one of those lessons that you can only postpone but never avoid.

So, here’s the deal:

• You can’t build muscle and burn fat at the same time to the extent you want. If you are totally untrained (can’t do a push-up), you will absolutely gain muscle even in a deficit. But if you have a basic musculature and strength already, you can’t gain much muscle naturally while losing fat.

Think about it.

In what world would your body allow you to gain 5cm on your arms (5kg of lean body tissue overall) while also burning 5cm off your waist (5kg of fat loss)?

You realize how ridiculous that is?

You can make a muscle somewhat more resilient while in a caloric deficit, but augmenting its contractile tissue to a visible degree once you have your basic size?

Forget about it.

2. Muscle loss on a diet is overblown.

Technically, it’s easier for the body to metabolize muscle tissue than fat.

Why?

Never forget that your body couldn’t care less about your fitness goals and the number of witches you want to impress on Insta. It only cares about ensuring its longest lifespan.

Ultimately, muscle is a metabolically expensive tissue. It needs amino acids, activity, and hormones to be preserved.

In some cases, the body will break down muscle first. Muscle loss reduces energy needs (a survival adaptation).

Why not fat first?

Well, because life’s a bitch and then you die. Seriously.

It’s because fat is like a savings account, where extra muscle is like an employee. If your business goes bad, you are more likely to fire an employee than go through your savings account.

However, there’s a catch.

This only happens when the body is HIGHLY inactive (illness) and starving.

Also, the fatter you are, the less likely your body is to burn muscle.

Muscle loss becomes an issue only if you are somewhat lean and the deficit/lack of protein is insane.

The body is not retarded. It’s not going to burn your calf muscles when you are 40% body fat with a beer gut, Mark Rippetoe style.

When you get leaner, and your precious muscle mass becomes more in danger, keeping the protein sufficiently high and continuing resistance training is all you need to preserve that natty muscle.

The body has a reason to “keep the employee” /training/ and enough liquid assets (amino acids) to pay it.

That’s it. No need to obsess over it.

3. Mirror > Calipers and Scales

One of the biggest mistakes is to disregard bodyweight composition before going on a bulk.

This is the main reason why programs like SS produce fatso swines.

Rippetoe-brain-tards hear that you are 6’1″ and weigh 160lbs and conclude that you are super skinny.

In reality, you are probably 20% body fat with a large gut hanging around your low-abs and love handles the size of a small water bottle.

If you go on a bulk (especially a dirty one filled with carbs – no matter the source), that fat is getting LARGER REGARDLESS of how much your stupid squat increases.

No. It’s not your “abs getting thicker” as a result of the squat. It’s fat. It’s not water either.

Not only that, but your estrogen levels will rise too.

The fatter you are, the more aromatase your body produces. That’s an enzyme converting testosterone into estrogen. So you get extra fat, low testosterone, and high estrogen. Nice.

Estrogen in and of itself is not bad. If you have low estrogen, you would feel like jumping out of the window 24/7.

But extra estrogen makes it easier to store fat on your tits and abs. So seductive.

If your goal is to look good, you will have to lose weight, even if that means getting into a victim weight territory.

Cutting the extra body fat will do the following:

• Raise your test by lowering your aromatese (that happens after you reduce the deficit and return to maintenance)
• Improve your insulin sensitivity (the body will produce less insulin with each meal)
• Improve macro partitioning
• Better dietary habits
• Better looks

The downsides? You will appear thinner, and your barbell strength will decrease. However, your strength-to-weight ratio may improve.

Insulin

Insulin signals the body to store energy. There are two ways to do it: glycogen or fat.

Every food spikes insulin, obviously (including protein), but carbs (garbage or “the good kind) do that 5x.

Therefore, if you eat small, frequent meals consisting primarily of carbs, weight loss slows down as your insulin is constantly elevated.

And it’s really hard for the body to lose fat when the insulin levels are chronically high.

This is one of the reasons why: a calorie is not a calorie.

Calories In / Calories Out = Semi-bullshit

Here are the main rules:

1. Your overall caloric intake determines how much you weigh.

In that regard, it comes down to calories in vs. calories out.

But…

2. Your activity levels and your macros determine your body composition.

Let’s say you need 2k calories to weigh 75kg.

As long as you get 2k a day, you will remain 75kg.

However, if those 2k calories are 50%+ garbage (think processed carbs and evil fats), your body composition will reflect it – think skinny-fatso swine with massive love handles.

This will be the case even if you train. Obviously, the training will put some shape on you, and you will look better than someone who spends most of their evenings scrolling.

If, however, 90% or more of those 2k calories come from good sources and you train, you will have a lower body fat percentage and higher lean body mass.

Therefore, a calorie is not a calorie.

The Only Way To Burn Fat Naturally

The fat on your body that you don’t want is stored energy (it’s not just that, but for simplicity, we will treat it as such).

To lose it, you have to burn it.

To burn it. You have to be in a deficit.

If you are not in a deficit, why would your body burn your love handles that it worked so hard to “archive”?

No real stimulus to do it.

Therefore, if you start a bulk with massive love handles, you are finishing it with bigger love handles.

Everything else is a lie (unless tren).

THE NATTY OR NOT CUT PROGRAM

Start with a massive deficit

Many conventional dieting plans recommend this: cut your calories by 500 a day to lose a pound of fat a week.

I don’t do that.

I prefer to start with the most intensive deficit I can tolerate.

For me, that’s a 22-hour fast with a 2-hour eating window.

I eat 70% fat, 20% protein, and 10% cheat (garbage carbs) in a single meal and then fast again.

Usually, that puts me at around 900-1200kcal a day.

An example meal would be: 8 eggs, some yellow cheese, some lean meat if available, some butter, and a piece of bread (or a waffle).

I do that for about 20-40 days.

Why start with a massive deficit?

Many reasons:

By default, you are the fattest at the beginning of a cut. Thus, the body has a ton of reserves to tap into.

Second, and most importantly, your mental strength is at its highest when you start a diet. Therefore, it’s easy to maintain the deficit. Diet is 90% mental.

Third, I want to see results fast to remain motivated.

Fourth, if you start with a mini deficit, it’s easier to screw up your progress (e.g., a few cheat days).

Fifth, you get brutal mental clarity because you are in ketosis for most of the day.

I do the fasting primarily to regulate my insulin. When I am not on a diet, I can easily overeat sweets (that’s my weakness). So I know that I have some sort of insulin resistance (overproduction of insulin).

In a fasted state, the pancreas does not produce insulin (at least not in high quantities) and thus, it’s easier for the body to reach into the fat deposits.

I am not saying you can’t lose weight without the fasting part, but it intensifies it a gear up.

Continue with a Slightly Higher Deficit

During the next part of the diet, you simply add another small meal and turn the fast into 18/6.

You fast for 18 hours (don’t forget that this includes sleep) and you eat for 6 – two meals.

You up the protein, the fats, and keep the carbos the same. Usually, that would bring an average man to about 1200-1500 calories.

That’s it.

You keep maintaining for as long as you want/can.

Why low carb?

People will lie to you that carbs don’t make you fat, but obesity is largely due to sugar.

Of course, there are “good carbs”, but even they are easy to overeat and don’t offer much in terms of nutrients other than energy.

That said, it would be a lie to tell you that high carb + high protein + low fat would not work. It does work.

However, it also has a downside – namely that your insulin levels will be higher.

Ketosis (a.k.a. getting most of your energy from fat) keeps your mood somewhat stable. You are never down or euphoric. And even when you are tired, the crash is controlled rather than scary and sudden.

That said, it’s not the end of the world, and I will not try to convert anyone to keto.

Maintaining The Weight

Losing fat is hard, but once you start, momentum helps a lot, and so does the feedback in the mirror.

Keeping it?

Well…

First, it must be STRESSED that:

Whatever you were doing before the diet wasn’t working for you. In other words, if you return to your previous eating habits, your previous shape will come back too.

Most people realize that and yet, instinctively or not, return to the old school. I’ve done it myself.

Ultimately, your maintenance plan has to include the same foods/macros just in slightly larger quantities.

Hence, the importance of selecting foods that you can eat forever without complaining all that much.

For me – that’s eggs, yellow cheese, bread, butter, and nuts. I would also eat tuna, but it’s expensive.

And don’t forget that as you lose weight, the calories that you need to maintain your new body are lower because there’s less tissue.

On Hunger

A lot of first-worlders haven’t felt real physical hunger in their life.

Calm down. You are not gonna die. It’s good to experience some controlled hunger once in a while. It allows the body to clean itself by burning the residual garbage in it.

Some hours of the day will feel lethargic, but it’s ok.

You weren’t happy anyway, were you?

On Cardio

Cardio is bullshit for fat loss. No one gets fat because they don’t run. It burns very few calories to begin with.

You went for a majestic 40-minute run? Good. You burned 200 calories more than me while typing this.

Why? Because we burn calories at rest, too. And your run didn’t increase your energy expenditure all that much.

Cardio is good for your heart and potentially soul (if you like the type you are doing).

You can also use it for mental clarity and a reason to get away from the screens and life in general.

But as far as losing fat? It doesn’t matter. If anything, it increases your appetite because the body is sensing deprivation and is telling you to fuel it with a louder voice.

What do you think is more powerful? The 1000-calorie deficit that comes from the diet or the 200 calories you burn by running?

On Training

Mass moves mass.

Meaning – your lifts will go down. How much? I don’t know. But the top-end strength will be lost.

It’s unvoidable.

Hence why permabulkers remain permabulkers.

But if you are training primarily with bodyweight (bar-bro), your numbers will go up as you will be lifting less weight.

For that reason, you will find the vast majority of lean naturals on those playgrounds. The activity encourages leanness while also showcasing strength, even when your absolute strength is down.

In other words, when you diet down, your bench press drops, but the number of dips you can do increases, and you can pretend that you are stronger.

On “signaling”

Some people say that bodyweight exercises “signal” to your body to get leaner as a way to adapt to the stimulus.

That’s total nonsense. No exercise signals anything like that. The real signaling comes from the food. Period.

You don’t have to switch to bodyweight to get lean. (But you do have to mentally prepare yourself that your lifts will drop.)

On “water weight.”

Dude, it’s not water weight. It’s fat.

Many people naively lie to themselves that the jiggling tissue under their skin is water, but it’s not.

If you are truly lean, WATER WEIGHT is NEVER an issue (unless you are preparing for a thоng-show).

Never.

Math Does Not Lie = FAT Loss Is Actually Slow

Rippetoe and similar muscle-scholars often present fat loss as something simple – that could be done in like a month.

Well, bros. Consider the following:

1. Most people underestimate their BF% by as much as 10%.
2. Fat contains a TON of calories.
3. Diets are mentally draining.
4. Diets require lifestyle restructuring to work. If that doesn’t happen, you are like an alcoholic who plans to skip bars for 3 months and return later to just drink water.

Let’s do some math.

The average bro needs to lose at least 10kg of pure fat to become lean.

1kg of fat contains 7700 calories.

10kg of fat = 77 000 calories

• With a 300 kcal per day deficit, it would take about 257 days to burn 10 kg of body fat (8-9 months).
• With a 500 kcal per day deficit, it would take about 154 days to burn 10 kg of body fat (around 5 months).
• With a 1,000 kcal per day deficit, it would take about 77 days to burn 10 kg of body fat (about 2.5 months).

However, the math above is sterile. Real life doesn’t work this way.

First, your body will slow down its metabolism. Second, your maintenance calories will be getting lower as you lose weight.

This tells you that the dude who “needs to lose a bit of weight” is probably looking at 14 weeks of dieting with a fairly large deficit. And if the deficit is modest, the simple cut extends to 6-8 months of restriction.

The truly fat guy (think 7-month pregnant dude) is looking at a year of intense dieting.

Brutal Lies Told By Lean People

Lean dudes will tell you stuff like “I eat junk food all the time.” “I don’t count calories.” “Just do that exercise…”

All lies.

You will never meet a lean natural who doesn’t control his diet.

Never. It’s all lies.

The leanest people I know track their calories (think measuring their food on a scale) and put in some online journals.

It’s similar to how the best students in the class pretend they don’t study when, in fact, that’s all they do.

The brutal reality is that getting lean takes effort. Maintaining it takes even more effort.

Is it worth it? You decide.

But don’t fall for the fairy tales. If you see some dude shredded as a cock, in 99% of the cases, he is obsessed with his body.

You don’t get in that condition “accidentally”, certainly not in the modern era when processed carbs are everywhere.

On “Why do it”?

That’s a very important question. Because at the end of the day, everything is a trade-off.

The benefits of being lean are mainly:

• Better looks
• More mobility
• Better health

Sounds awesome, but there are nuances to it. And if you are not that fat to begin with, the above doesn’t apply to the greatest degree.

And most of the time, your lean abs will be hidden. Back in the day, people would say, “A woman has decided to have sex with you, long before she’d seen your abs.”

It was somewhat true, but obviously, today, you can upload a picture of your abs for everyone to see without even meeting you. But there is still some truth to that statement.

Therefore, don’t expect some chick-magnet-pulling if you are already in an acceptable body fat range.

Ditto for the other two.

Going from “some lower belly fat” to visible lower abs will not improve your mobility and health all that much.

But to achieve it, you will have to go on a regimen and stay there. No other way around it. If you want that look, that’s the route. No exceptions.

So, ultimately, it’s up to you.

On Body Fat Percentages

The mirror is the best body fat measuring device. Does it really matter if some caliper or dexa scan says that you are 12% body fat when you have visible love handles?

It’s all nonsense.

Don’t waste time with those toys.

In my opinion, a natural cut should end when you have flat lower abs. That’s it. Going any further is annoying and close to pointless.

How much bodyfat is that?

I don’t know. It depends on how your body stores fat. Some people store more in their legs and will get those clean lower abs at a higher body fat percentage, while others will get leaner legs before that point.

But one thing is certain, getting to true 5% is close to impossible for most people…and also not worth it.