We're not losing weight. We're releasing it.

1. Eating similar meals every day

When starting any journey, it's best to limit the number of variables you bring into your process.

This means releasing your need for variety (and mouth entertainment) and having 5-7 meals you can rely on daily to fit your calories and macros.

If you have resources, you can get around this by ordering meal prep to get these meals into your possession on automatic.

2. Stop changing your workouts

Building muscle is your shield when it comes to getting lean. But if you keep on changing your exercises you're not giving yourself a fighting chance to make this happen.

Your body needs progressive overload to build muscle. The best way to do this is to get stronger, increase intensity, or do more volume (preferably all 3) in the exercises you're doing over a 6-16-week period.

This is why we don't have different workouts for each day in our Lean Body 90 program. It's about doing the same workouts and getting better at them.

So stop having workout ADHD and start getting gains by committing to getting strong using the same workouts every week.

3. Get stronger in these exercises

Exercise selection is the most important part of building muscle while getting lean. But which exercises should you choose?

Barring any disabilities, here are my top 10 exercises everyone should have in their workouts:

Squats

Trap bar deadlift

Dumbbell bench press

Farmers Carry

Pull-ups

Chest-supported dumbbell back rows

Seated dumbbell overhead presses

Lunges

Mobility drills

Hip thrusts

Focus on getting stronger in these every week, and you'll be surprised by how much progress you make.

4. Learn about your hormones

Most people think hormones affect how our bodies process fat burning, but it's not like that.

While calories dictate our body's ability to burn fat, our hormones affect our food behaviors.

Specifically, ghrelin dictates your hunger, and leptin dictates your appetite.

We must understand them and learn to balance these two as we lose weight. Otherwise, we'll keep messing up our diets without knowing what's causing the issues.

5. Eat a high-protein diet

When you're getting lean, you want to keep/build muscle while you're doing it.

If we don't prioritize protein as we lose weight, we slow our metabolism, causing us to eat less and less.

There's a lot of conflicting research about how much protein you should be taking in, but here's what I found that works with our clients:

Eat 1 gram per pound of bodyweight, if you're trying to lose the last 10 lbs and get into low levels of body fat (ie. 12% or lower)

Eat 8 grams per pound of bodyweight, if you've got a significant amount of weight to lose (20 lbs or above).

Btw protein helps you build muscle and it's also more satiating, making you feel fuller.

6. Don't avoid carbs. Time them.

If protein were a shield, carbs would be an axe.

Carbs are a fantastic tool to boost your performance in the gym, especially when you're in a "cut."

The best time to take in carbs is 1-1.5 hours before your workout and eating fast-acting carbs during your workouts.

Here's how I use carbs for performance:

I eat a meal containing a mix of carbs (40-50g), proteins, and fats 1-2 hours before my workout.

As I do the first few sets of my workout, I eat 50 grams of fast-acting carbs, like dried mangoes, to improve performance.

Don't be scared of carbs. Use them to your advantage.

7. Accurate tracking

When it comes to tracking, honesty is the best policy.

This means putting everything in, like the oils you use to cook and the snacks you have between your meals, and even taking it a step further by getting a scale and measuring your foods raw by the gram.

You'd be surprised at what falls through the cracks due to negligence and poor tracking.

8. Raise your floor

My biggest mistake when releasing weight was always trying to lose it and never giving time to build muscle.

Muscle helps us raise our metabolic floor.

Also, gaining muscle is NOT what most people think it is.

It's not about eating pizza and gaining 10 lbs every month. This is a formula to get fat again.

The best way to build muscle is slow and methodically. This means gaining 1-2.5 lbs per MONTH maximum.

When you hit your weight loss target, give yourself 6 to 12 months to raise your floor by building muscle. You won't regret it.

9. Stop focusing on goals. Start focusing on traits

When you set a goal, you want to do it in 3 parts:

What is the goal?

What is the process?

What are the traits?

The last part is the most important. We don't want to lose weight once only to bring it back.

We want to create an identity where staying fit is a part of who we are, which means focusing on traits that make up the healthier version of you.

Focusing less on the goal and more on traits makes the outcome inevitable and more sustainable.

10. It'll take longer than you think

The weirdest thing I see when coaching is clients trying to undo years of work in a 6-12-week time frame.

12 weeks is a great time frame to launch a body transformation and get excellent results, but it rarely creates long-term change.

The sobering reality is that you want to give yourself a longer time horizon instead.

Spend 4-6 months to drop the weight and another 6 months to a year to instill the identity traits we discussed above.

Otherwise, you might gain back the weight you released and have to start all over.

Key point: We're not losing. We're releasing.

When we think of the word "loss", it sets off a negative connotation in our brains.

No one likes losing, and the thought of loss is something we try to avoid.

Instead, we want to tell ourselves we're releasing the weight from our bodies.

This also means releasing any of the emotions, beliefs, and mindsets that caused us to get out of shape in the first place.

As the saying goes,

"A smart person learns from their mistakes and a wise person learns from the mistakes of others"

Here's to you skipping some of the common mistakes people made so you can get the results you deserve.