2975: How to Get Below 10% Body Fat as Fast as Possible (The Exact Formula)

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MindPump. MindPump. With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in history. This is MindPump. Today's episode, we talk about how to get below 10% body fat as fast as possible. This is not about getting lean. This is about getting shredded. It's very difficult. We break it down. Now, today's episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Seed. This is the world's best probiotic. Look, probiotics have been shown in studies to improve gut health. So, things like digestive issues, bloating, constipation. But did you know studies also show that good probiotics also help with skin health? They also help with mental performance, cognitive performance. They reduce anxiety. They can actually help improve athletic performance. Some studies show that you build muscle faster and lose muscle. More body fat. 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Go to MindMapsProgram.com. All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at MindPumpStore.com? I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to MindPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right, you've gotten lean on your own. It was tough, but now you want to get shredded. You want to get sub 10% body fat. Well, first off, it's really hard. However hard it was for you to get to 10%, it's even harder to get to 10%. But you can do it if you follow the following steps. We're going to break it down for you how to get shredded as fast as possible. Let's go. We got rid of the fat guy so we can talk about this. You have to say that, dude. Shout out to Justin. Justin's home with the flu. He's home with the flu right now, and he would hate this episode right now. That's why we did it. We did it for all of you that actually want to hear this type of conversation. We know our poor boy does not like talking about this stuff. It bores him. So I want to just kind of go back to something I said, right? It's hard to get lean, period, end of story. And we're using the number 10%. So for a man, 10% body fat is pretty darn lean. I would say the equivalent for a woman is probably around 15%, 16%, something like that. It's really hard to get to 10%. To get below 10% and the lower you get, it becomes exponentially more difficult. It just does. And there's something about that between, I'd say, 10% to 12% body fat range. Once you go below that, things start to get difficult and weird. So at this point, you're lean, so you understand deficits. You understand being mostly consistent. You're working out. You're doing all that stuff. And now you're like, I want to see if I can get veins in my abs. Can I get shredded? What does it take? Same thing I've been doing? Or is there something else? And so we're going to talk about that right now. Well, there's two main things that I think that stand out to me of why that is. One, because it's a body fat percentage, it's a percentage of total fat. When the number gets really low, like down to 10%, for example, if you took a 200-pound man, then you're only talking about 20 pounds. And so the difference of adding three more pounds of fat on your body could jump you. 3%. Yeah, could jump you a large percentage. And so it's really easy to swing that number because you're so lean. The other thing that I think is happening, which I think this is the one that makes it more tricky because I think people understand the first one I said, there seems to be this like, you're almost like you're fighting against what your body wants naturally. Your body is going, this is getting unhealthy, how low we're going. Yeah, your body doesn't want to go below 10%. And it doesn't want to do that. So maybe when you were 15%, 20% body fat and you were leaning out, there's a part of your body that's like, oh, this feels good and I want to lean out. We've got plenty of stored energy to use. And as that stored energy… Body fat starts to deplete to where it doesn't have a lot of reserves. It's like your body goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't get much leaner. We don't have a lot of stored energy here. And it almost fights you on your way down to say single digits. Great way to explain it. It gets very difficult. Your body doesn't want it to happen. The first thing that you really start to figure out if you're trying to get down to 8%, 7%, 6% body fat is you have to be in a deficit consistently. Consistent, consistent, consistent. You might have been able to get down to 10%, allowing yourself to come out of a deficit here and there. And you can do that, right? You can do that once a week. As long as the deficit's good, rest of the week type of deal. And I know the numbers add up that way. Someone might be like, well, the deficit's big enough. And then on Saturdays you do this and whatever. I know how that adds up. But I'm going to tell you right now in practice, you have to be pretty perfect with your diet all the time. You're not really going out to eat. You're not really playing that game. You're sitting down. You're super consistent all the time. Now, I know that sounds fanatical. And it is. You're trying to get down to single-digit body fat. So if you're listening to this, you're like, that sounds too crazy for me. Go listen to some of our other episodes about getting down to 15% body fat, which is a healthy place to maintain. Once you get to single-digit, consistency has to be dogmatic. It's got to be every single day, every single day to go from 10% to 9% to 8% to 7% type of deal. Yeah, I think it's important to note this because there obviously is going to be a percentage of people that hear this episode for the first time and have never heard us talk about health and fitness. And this is a bit abnormal of a conversation for us. We tend to promote a healthy, balanced lifestyle. We talk about a lot of people on social media that present themselves that single-digit body fat year-round is an unhealthy place to keep your body long periods of time. And or people are probably miserable and you don't see that other side. So just so. The audience that's never heard us talk before understands that this is not something that we promote. The same token, we've been there. We're currently dieting it right now. There's a lot of people that have questions around, what does that look like? Anytime I go on a journey like this where I start to really kick up the diet and intentionally get shredded, which will only be a short period of time. I won't live down in the 6%, 7% body fat range for a long time. I like to periodically do that. It's been a long time since I've done that. And so I'm going to do that. I'm highly motivated to do it, but it's not something that we promote as a healthy. I'm glad you said that. I prefer to live around 11, 12% for my genetics being fit, healthy. That's kind of where I am for other guys is 15, 16% single digit. I haven't gotten down to single digit body fat in a while, but I'll, I'll, I'll touch it. And then I'll stay there for a second and then come out. So I'm glad you said that. Yeah, but it does require real dogged consistency. It's not a place that you want to live. And so people who live in single digit body fat. So they're living a lifestyle that's, uh, um, it's a bit, uh, obsessive is what it looks like, but to get to single digit body fat, it's obsessive. And so that's, again, I'm saying that like you have to be ultra super consistent, uh, with your diet in order to get there. Um, now here's the second part, uh, or another part of this, which is the mental part. So the mental part is hard with all fat loss, uh, with all body composition change was all consistency with working out. The mental part is the most important thing to factor. And it's coaching. We're coaches and trainers. We know this. And so when we train people, when I'm giving advice to a client, the number one thing I'm considering is the, is the mental piece. Is this person going to be able to maintain this? Are they going to be able to be consistent? How are they, uh, how are, how are they responding to this, uh, psychologically, not just physically. And so I don't mind taking people away from their goal. In fact, I would prefer to take them away from their goal if I know it's going to help the psychological mental piece and it's going to contribute to consistency. Okay. So the mental piece is always super. But when you're getting down to single digit body fat, boy, does it get hard mentally. And one thing you can do, and I'll, I'll, I'll speak specifically to one part that makes it very difficult, which is this, you get below 10% body fat. You're the pumps you feel in the gym suffer. Uh, you don't get the same performance in the gym when you work out. Uh, there's a lot of times when you feel flat, it feels like you're losing a lot of muscle that can really mess with you, especially if you're somebody who worked really hard to build the muscle that you have. And so something you can do, and this is one of the reasons why bodybuilders do this, something you can do to help you with the mental part is do something called carb cycling. So carb cycling is where you'll go low calorie for a while with low carbohydrates. Carbohydrates just tend to be the easier macro to cut. You don't have to cut carbs to cut calories, but because carbohydrates are not essential, I'm not risking as much as I would with fat and definitely not like I would with protein. So I need to have a certain amount of fat. Otherwise my body will starve and I won't be able to do it. It won't be good. I need to have a certain amount of protein for the same reason, because proteins contain essential amino acids, got to eat them. Fats contain essential fatty acids, you got to eat them. Carbohydrates are not essential. So theoretically, I can go down to zero with carbs. And so it's an easier macro to play with, with less risk. And so what tends to happen as you start to get single digit body fat or closer to that is carbohydrates is one of the ones you cut the most, but makes you feel flat, makes you feel weak, you have terrible pumps. And so what you would do is, you know, here and there is you would have days where you bump your carbs, you can have great workouts and see your muscles again. And you don't feel so much like you're losing all kinds of muscle and gains through the process. I like this for a lot of reasons. One of the main ones, though, is just how easy it is. So if you have a rotation of meats that you like, you know, a steak, ground beef, fish, ground turkey, chicken, chicken thighs, like things like that. Yeah. Those are like all the staple meats. And then it's really like sweet potato, yams, rice, maybe quinoa, maybe oatmeal are like five of my big sources of carbohydrates. Those are the ones I stick to. It's really easy to play with your calories, raise them up, cut them back, manipulating carbohydrates. And then you get the benefits, like you said, and they're not essential. So it doesn't hurt you to take them. You cut out fats and you cut out proteins. And that can be really detrimental. You lose muscle. You mess up your hormones. You're just not good. Right. So you don't want to play with those. So using carbohydrates to be the main thing that you manipulate. And then it's really easy. It can look something like, oh, when I'm eating normal or at maintenance, I'm eating a cup of rice with every single one of my meals. OK, well, out of my five or six meals. Well, when I want to lean out, all I have to do is go lower carb. I go half a cup of rice for all that. And then maybe if I go really low, I'll do half the meals with half a cup of rice. And the other ones are just meat and vegetables. And that's a real easy way for me to go low, low, and then back to a high or a normal day. So I find it's an easy way to where you don't feel like you have to measure a lot or change a lot. I think somebody who has to try and figure that out and be tracking, measuring, weighing everything, it can get a little complicated. Where using carbohydrates, using simple things like the carbs that I just listed off, it's literally the difference of you eating a full cup to a half a cup to no cup. And that is a great way to manipulate that. And then to your point, part of the mental part is just getting used to the feeling of being depleted, being weaker in your workouts, not looking filled out and good. Because one of the things you don't understand is even when we're trying to lose body fat, when your muscles are full of glycogen and water, they look better than when they're depleted all the way out. If you took a muscle off your body and dehydrated it. It would look like jerky. It would be very small. Yes. And so psychologically that can mess with somebody who is on this journey to getting down to single digit body fat is they have to get to that depleted state in order for their body to tap into fat as its primary source. But then you look at yourself and you're like, oh, I don't look good. And then all of a sudden you give yourself a good day of eating and you're like, oh, I look so much better. And so then you tell yourself, oh, I need to be eating all these calories. But in reality, the only way you're going to be able to get down to that low body fat is to your first point of being fat. Being consistent and consistently being that deficit. And so making peace with that, the psychological part you talk about where on day three or day four, I get to refeed my body with those carbohydrates. Then I go to work out and I kind of see the work that I've been doing. It's like, oh, okay. There I am. This is why I've been in that low deficit for two weeks. And oh, I actually am making progress. It didn't feel like it. It didn't look like it over the last two weeks. But then I fill those muscle bellies out. And then now I can kind of see the definition and I go, oh, I have made progress. This is encouraged. And then go back down to my deficit. So I like to use this 100% and I'll carb cycle, especially for workouts that I really want to enjoy. And I look forward to it. I look forward to, you know, at the moment. And I'm not really, I don't think I'm single digit yet. I might be close. But I like to do this on a Sunday for a couple of reasons. One, Sundays are when I'll have, you know, like family meals. So I don't want to be like cutting everything out when I'm having family meals. But two, Monday workouts after two days off of not eating. But in the gym, I like to go have a workout where I have a little bit more energy and I feel better. And the mental piece is super important because, look, I love working out. And working out is just not as fun when you're single digit body fat. Workouts are not as fun as when you're fueled up. And the carb cycling helps with that. Yeah, the one thing to be cautious of and the trap that this can lead to is you fill up, you look better, your workout feels better. Let me stay here. And then you end up staying there. And this is what used to get me pre. Competing days when I was just a young trainer who was trying to get in really good shape or get really fit. This is where I would always, I could never get past that kind of like 10% body fat. I'd get down there and then I would get really discouraged with the way I looked, the way I felt. And then I would fuel my body back up and I'd be like, but I look better with more calories. Maybe this is what I'm supposed, I need to have more. And then I could never get down to that really shredded look that I was looking for. 100%. All right, next is just one of the best ways to improve or increase, I should say. And I think this is the best way to improve or increase your body fat activity and calorie burn is to simply take more steps throughout the day. Now, people oftentimes when they're in a deficit, they're trying to get shredded. They think they need to work out more and work out more. But what you need to understand about workouts is there a stress on the body and so is being in a deficit and so is being single digit body fat. So number one, being in a calorie deficit is somewhat of a stress on the body because the body is not getting as many calories as it's burning. And so it's tapping into stored energy, right? Body fat. Another stress to get really lean. The leaner you get, the more, the less resilient your body is to stress. This is a fact, okay? If you get sick at 4% body fat, it wipes you out. And anybody who's ever done that knows exactly what that feels like. So it's another stress. Adding tons of other forms of exercise to burn more calories that are intense is just adding more stress to the body. And honestly, I'd like to save that stress, that workout stress for strength training. Yes. Let me just save, let me save my body's ability to deal with stress. When it comes to my workouts to the most important thing that preserves muscle while I'm in this, you know, calorie deficit and I'm trying to get single digit body fat to strength training, but I still need to, I want to improve or increase my activity. What's a real low stress or probably even a rejuvenating form of activity that is going to burn a little extra calories walking, walk, walk, walk. In fact, you know, one thing I used to love when Adam was coaching competitors, he wouldn't have them add any extra workouts until the very end. They all just managed steps. That's all they did. They'd go from 8,000 to 10,000 to 12,000 to 15,000 steps a day and they were burning extra calories, but they weren't really stressing their bodies. And again, in fact, it might've even been a little bit recuperative and it was so effective. I find this for myself to preserve muscle because the name of the game with getting lean is preserving muscle. The name of the game with getting to single digit body fat is definitely preserving muscle because as you start to get real lean, your body wants to lose muscle even more than it did before. And you can get from 10%. To 12% body fat because you lost muscle. You can actually be in a deficit and go up a body fat percentage because you lost muscle and just steps, just increasing steps, really low risk of doing that. Well, yeah. My theory is that you are, this gets, it gets easier for the body to want to pare down muscle when you're that lean and you're pushing and stressing it and you're that low calorie. I would think that it makes sense to me that if you are higher body. Fat percentage, higher calorie, and you push yourself to burn calories, uh, the, the likelihood that your body feels the need that it needs to pare down muscle is probably less egregious or urgent. Yep. Whereas if you've got all this muscle, you have very low body fat and you're pushing it and you're low calorie muscle becomes a very expensive tissue that is not in it. It's your body's best interest to keep in this mode that it's in, which is it's basically in survival mode. It's I'm underfed. I'm overstressed. I've got all this muscle. I have very little body fat to save us and to restore. Well, we let's get rid of some of this output. Yeah. Reduce some of this, uh, this tissue would be much better and safer for us. And so as that number gets down, I think this becomes more important. That's why it was a strategy that was so important to competitors than it was any other clientele that I ever coached was like, listen, I want, I want us to use just low level activity. So like we call lists, right? Uh, low intensity, steady state cardio, which is just moderate heart rate. Walking, uh, and movement throughout the day versus, you know, getting on the stair master and blasting away at it and pushing the body when we're already at this state of pretty lean, low calorie training like we are, it's like, and then to your other point, it's also recuperative if, uh, where, you know, sprints and hard, hard pushing the body or circuit training, that type of high intensity training is not recuperative. It's an, it's considered another stress adding to that stress. So, uh, I think that's, that's, that's a good point. I think that's a good point. Where I'm going for a leisurely walk, uh, I'm just going to help facilitate recovery. Yeah. And not to mention, you know, uh, when you're tracking steps, you tend to, the best way to do this is to spread those steps out throughout the rest of the day. Uh, now you're going to be taking a lot of steps, but what they, what we find in the data, it suggests that breaking it up throughout the day actually has a better fat burning effect than doing it all at once. And so when you're tracking your steps throughout the whole day, and let's say you're trying to hit 13,000. which is a decent amount. of steps, you're going to be doing that throughout the whole day versus I'm going to get on a treadmill and walk for two hours. So that's another reason why I like that. Here's another thing. As you start to get into single digit body fat, you have to get friendly with being hungry. Okay. So getting body fat percentage down, you feel anytime you're in a deficit, hunger kicks up. That's normal and natural. I don't care where your body fat is. As you cut, you'll start to feel more, more hunger, uh, which should happen. But the leaner you get, the stronger this happens, period, end of story. Like if I'm in a deficit at 15% body fat, I could feel some hunger when I'm in a deficit at 9% body fat, it's a stronger feeling. And you just got to get comfortable with it. And that's just sucks. It sucks to say, but it just is, you'll feel hungry a lot of the time. Um, by the way, if you're listening to this and you have struggled with eating disorders, please don't, don't hear what I'm saying. This is not for anybody. Who's had a dysfunctional relationship with food, who starves themselves, uh, and feels good about it. This is to people who are otherwise healthy, who are trying to get single digit, that hunger feeling you got deal with it. It's going to be there and it's going to be there until you got your body fat percentage up. I mean, evolutionary speaking, it's pretty obvious, right? That as you get leaner and you have less of this stored energy on your body, your body is going to get louder and louder with the signal of, Hey, with fuels running low, does it feel like for you? Cause it's like, for me, it is Adam, like the, the, every percent down I go after 9%, it's like 10% increase in that, in that. I mean, if I had to put a number on it, I think that's a pretty good number. Like getting below, like when I got getting down to 6% was hard. When I started to go below 6%, it, the, the hunger cues were wild. Yeah. What it, what it feels like to me. And I'm, I'm approaching that, that place right now, which again, another signal to me of that I'm, I'm in that range is that I'm pretty much hungry all day. And I'm pretty much looking at the clock going like, okay, I can get next meal. Yeah. When's my next meal going to be? Oh, okay. I could, I could wait another hour. So I can wait, I can wait another. And so I'm always, and I'm trying to create some time in there, uh, being able to be okay with it, which is also another great time to go take walks and do stuff. Right. So my I'm busy, my mind's busy, my feet are busy. Um, and then go, okay, then I'll take, then I'll have a meal, but I'm pretty much hungry. Uh, most part of the day now it's not starving. It's not, uh, definitely you have cravings cause the body, again, you have, you haven't, you're low calorie, but you, you do have to make peace with that. You do have to make peace with this idea that you're in a caloric deficit and you are a lower body fat percentage. And the body is kind of signaling to you that we need to eat, which again, also why I don't recommend you live here. Yeah. Right. Like what, I mean, what, what an unfun place to live unhealthy. Yeah. To where all day long, you're always fighting that. Like, yeah, no, that not a place I would want to live most of my life, most of my life. But Hey, when I decide that this is a goal and I'm going to do it, uh, to tell somebody that this isn't part of it, uh, it's misleading. A hundred percent. Yeah. This is absolutely a part of it. Um, and, and that doesn't mean like some, it's like, I remember I made this mistake as a young trainer telling people that you didn't, you shouldn't feel this way. It was like, oh, that means your deficits too big. You know, like, I mean, it could symbol signal that if somebody who's 30% body fat and they're trying to get lean and they go from eating four or 5,000 calories a day, all of a sudden they're eating 1500 calories and they're, and they're, and they're feel like they're starving all day. Like, yeah, you are. And that's way too big of a deficit. But when you have slowly leaned down and you're now getting close to single digit body fat territory, uh, and you've done that through dieting for probably weeks or maybe even months to get there, the idea that you're not going to be, you're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to be able to do that. You're going to be hungry. Uh, is just, it's, it's inevitable that it's going to happen. And so getting used to that. And so, so, uh, anticipate it and get friendly with it. Um, gum water. Those are great strategies. So I love, I love chewing on gum. I love this. Another reason why I liked the whole carrying a gallon of water, or at least have a big thing of water next to you to keep your mouth busy. Well, let's stay there for a second. Cause I had that later on, but let's talk about tricks for cravings. Cause that's a great, uh, that's a great segue, Adam. Um, I seltzer water was great for me. Yeah. Seltzer water with salt was also another good one for whatever reason I added salt to the rim of that. And I just taste that and it made a big difference in chewing gum. Those are the two things. I mean, I think too, like, uh, this is where I didn't have, um, element when we were, when I was competing, I wish I did because that having a high sodium drink that has flavor to it like that is really refreshing and does curb that kind of feeling for me. And so that's why I've bumped to two of those a day. Now, I know you told me to try even pushing to three, before a workout and stuff like that, which is something that I'll do now, but that helps, that helps a lot too. So just having, uh, flavored water, water like that, I think a lot of bodybuilders using things like crystal light, or they would be drinking on amino acid type stuff. Like, and even though like the, maybe the value to the amino acids isn't as high to them as, as, as what, or what they thought it was or how they were using it. But the, just the fact that you have flavored water and you're keeping your mouth busy, I think has a lot of value. And so that was always a strategy or I, again, I always like knowing that, okay, I'm supposed to eat, let's say in the next 45 minutes, I'm okay right now. And can I go for a walk? Like as I get close to when mealtime would be, can I go for a walk and extend that out a little bit? Yeah. Get busy and extend that out a little bit longer than I was telling you. Here's another one that, uh, that, um, I really learning more about now, which is, uh, you know, the more palatable and tasty you make your food, the more difficult it's going to be, uh, to stay in a deficit, which sounds crazy, right? Cause you're in a deficit, you're eating so little. The last thing you want to do is eat a boring dish of food, but I'm gonna tell you something rather the tastier it is, the harder it is going to be for you to stop. And so sometimes, and I, you know, I, I used to mess with this. If I had a boring meal and again, we're talking about getting to that single digit body. If I had like boiled chicken and plain rice and plain broccoli and I ate it, I was like, okay, I'm like, all right, I'm going to stay here when I would be tastier. I was like, Oh, I want to have more of it. And here's what we find in the data. When people keep their meals bland, they eat less. There's actually this study that came out of this show where people stick to the same four foods all the time because they don't have that novelty. Uh, and they've lowered palatability, uh, their calories drop significantly. It's like a weight loss diet. And there's actually people saying this is a great way to lose weight. I don't think it's a great sustainable way to lose weight. I don't think this is the way the average healthy person should lose weight. But when you're getting down to a single digit and your appetite and cravings making your meals more boring, as crazy as it sounds, we'll actually make it easier for you to eat less. Well, I've ever, I don't know if you remember me talking about this. I talked about this when, uh, I did that experiment where I did a whole show prep one time where I allowed unlimited, uh, bars and shakes and whatever I wanted in the diet. And then I did another one that was purely off of whole foods, both same macros and same macros, everything diet diet is pretty much exactly the same. The only difference is I'm allowing these, you know, tasty processed foods in there, the, uh, bars and shakes versus I'm going to do, I'm going to eat whole. In other words, when I had, you know, three, 400 extra calories I could eat instead of grabbing my favorite, you know, chocolate chip cookie dough protein bar, uh, right then I would go make four ounces of chicken and a half a cup of rice and some vegetables. And that was the meal or whatever. And one of the biggest takeaways I had from that I've speculated on, I felt like my physique did look a little bit different. I don't know if that's to account for the 20% that, you know, FDA allows bars and things like in shakes and things like that to be off. Not sure. But what I definitely noticed was that, I mean, man, I'd eat one of those bars and I'd want two or three or four. And I was thinking about them constantly afterwards. Cause they were so good. Uh, like you said, you know, having my four ounces of chicken vegetables and rice. Yeah. It was like, it satisfied the craving that I had because I was so hungry and I was over it and I was on to the next thing. It's crazy because even bodybuilders talk about this, about having boring meals and eating them. And I was like, well, I'm going to eat them. I'm going to eat them. I'm going to the same meals every day. And I think that without them realizing it's part of the strategy, it's actually part of their ability to eat so little is that it's not palatable. Well, this is also why I never liked the cheat meal strategy. Oh, that would kick up hunger. And I tried it. Trust me. I played around with all these different strategies and, and, you know, bro tips and bodybuilder things that they did. And a very popular one is, you know, diet, diet, diet, diet. And then, you know, once a week or bi-weekly you have this, this Friday where there's no rule, you just cheat meal and eat cheat day. You know, you can just eat a calorie surplus back to the point we talked about refueling the body, feeding it up. And that was the thought process. Now, why I never liked doing that when I did do that, uh, was boy, just then this rush of the flavors and the palatability. And then, then I felt like all I would think about was that day again for the next week, I'm thinking about, God, I can't wait. Is it all that you're reminded of all that versus just eating more of the same foods to, to refill up. So I get the, the look and what the bodybuilders were trying to do, which is refeed and fuel. Like we talked about the carb loading, uh, earlier, uh, without introducing all these hyper palatable foods because doing that made it the next week more difficult versus just sticking to the diet. Yeah. There's something to that. All right. So let's talk about supplements. Uh, are there supplements that can help with maintenance of muscle, which is the name of the game. Anytime you're trying to lose body fat, but definitely when you're getting to single digit body fat, you're going to lose body fat. So you're going to lose body fat. And yes, essential amino acids can actually make a difference. Now, essential amino acids, do they have calories? People often ask that they do have a little bit of calories, uh, but it's not as many as a complete protein. So essential amino acids taken throughout the day, even if your protein is high in a calorie deficit has been shown to preserve more muscle. And you want to make sure that the leucine content is really high. Uh, I've been doing this and I noticed a difference. I noticed a big difference from doing this. And it literally just looks like you take seven capsules two or three times a day, or you add it to your water. Uh, but it makes a difference. Creatine, of course, uh, creatine is up there as well, but creatine and essential amino acids, those two things, uh, are more important to be consistent in this kind of a deficit than otherwise. I actually used to only use creatine in a deficit and I talked about this. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I, so there was more of a dramatic increase in water in the, in the muscle cells. And so that was like a strategy that I always use. So those, and those would be the same too. The only thing I would add to that group is, um, is pure whey, uh, just because it's so low calorie, so high protein. Uh, those types of shakes, uh, were really valuable to me. So being able to get 28 to 40 grams of protein with mostly protein and very little carbs. So not like your normal meal replacement protein shake. No, just protein. Yeah. Just pure, but which is only, I want to say it's like 130 calories. So it's a very low calorie, high protein. And I used to do things like blend that on a big old thing of ice. So it would make it like very more volume. Oh yeah. It'd be this big giant slushy drink that was 140 calories and 30 grams of protein. And that I could sit there and kind of sip on, I'm getting flavor, I'm getting high protein. It's not a lot of calorie. Uh, this really helped, especially at nighttime. Cause I have a lot of that. Everyone's heard me talk many times about my ice cream craving stuff. It gave me that kind of cold ice cream, sweet flavor. And, uh, and it was just literally a whey protein. And if you can't have protein powders, but I like that way is so high, so high protein, so low calorie that I could do that. So casein is another type of protein. Casein has a slower digestion and it tends to produce more satiety and it's thicker. Um, and you can also get pure casein protein, uh, that's low calorie as well. Blend it up. Like you said, and it tends to be thicker. Some people say they get more appetite suppressant from it than whey. Now, when it comes to lifting, the game is to play defense. So typically when you're lift, you're like, I'm building up my weight. I'm building up chasing and pushing. You're in a deficit. You're already lean. You're trying to get leaner. You want to lift as much as required to keep muscle and not a, not a bit more. Uh, your body's already under stress. It's already recovering, not as fast or as easily as it was when you were in a surplus. And so again, when you're lifting, go in there, lift and do the little, as little as you need to do to keep the muscle. And this will actually do a better job at keeping muscle than you chasing gains while you're in this deficit, while you're trying to get down to single digit body fat. This is my favorite tip of all the tips that you wrote down. In my opinion, I think maybe one of the most valuable just because it's one of the least talked about. Um, I found it really interesting when I was competing that I saw this amongst my peers that as they would get shredded for a show and get closer to stage time, uh, which I know that at that time, everybody is ramping up cardio. They're eating, they're eating less and less food. I would also notice that their training intensity and volume was increasing. And there's this, and it's, it's hard not to, because you have this date coming up and you're competing and you, you know, you only have two more weeks to bring the best part in there. And there's this part of you subconsciously that feels like I've got to work my way there. And that's not the name of the game at this point. Um, and I used to always, my competitors that I coached would tell them like, all, all the body that we're going to bring to stage, you already built it before we go into our cut. We're getting ready to go in an eight week, 10 week cut to get ready for a show or whatever. And I would tell them that that body that we're going to present on stage, you already have it. All we're doing now is revealing that. And so, and all we can do is screw this up from here. Like you have it, like we just now got to carve the body fat away. And so if we're in the muscle preserving game, and I, that's why one of my favorite studies you, you quote on the show, is the amount of volume required to maintain muscle versus what it took to build that. And it's like somewhere around one seventh. And to put that in perspective, if you had the same workout every day for seven days a week is how you train to get the body you have. You would only need to do one of those days a week to maintain that. That is a ridiculously low amount of volume in comparison to what that person was doing. So in other words, you could take whatever, whatever you were doing before you went into this dot deficit and diet to get shredded and cut your volume in half. And it, you're covering more than the basis. I think ideally that's about it. About half, half the volume, half the, and just go in and you'll actually feel better. You will. Yeah. I used to almost always over-train getting into a really crazy deficit because I wouldn't change my training. I just wouldn't. I don't, I don't think anybody does. Cause it's not it. And it now with you, it still is something that I have to have this, this constant reminder of, of, so it's my own advice I'm giving. And yet here, I still have to tell my, like, what am I doing? I can, I can take off the next three days and not train. And I, and I share this because I, I noticed that as I do certain things, like I shared on the podcast recently that I did two and a half hours of pickleball and I just, my, I don't play pickleball consistently. And so my body was just beat up. And I'd also had some, a really good training day just prior to that. And I got a deep tissue massage. And so my body was just like, that was a lot. And it was still trying to recover two days later after all that. Yet I'm in this perfect zone of like eating perfect and training good. And I don't want to take the day off, but I can tell that my body's feeling, I feel it everywhere. And so I've got to remind myself that I've like, man, I could totally take another day or two. I'm not going to lose. Muscle from that. So what I, but what I can do is go for a walk and go for a walk and do something more recuperative, do some red light stuff, maybe do the sauna, maybe take a cold plunge, do some things more along those lines, but hammering the weights after I just, my body is still recovering like that is not going to serve me in the muscle preservation game. And that's the game that we're in right now. We're not building, you're not going to in a calorie deficit like that for the extended period of time in single digit body, you ain't building no muscle. No. In fact, personally, I went from four days of strength train down to three, uh, as I'm, you know, going through this and I feel so much better from doing that. Uh, next thing is that, you know, sleep is super important, super important for recovery, super important for adaptation. It's even more important when your body's vulnerable because of the deficit that you're in and because you're getting to single digit body fat, like you got to have good as consistent as your diet needs to be. I said that earlier in the, in the, in this episode, you need to be super dogged consistent. You also need to be super consistent with your body. There's a few reasons for one, uh, poor sleep. Even one night is a stress on the body. You're already stressed, right? You're already really lean. You're trying to get even leaner. You're in a deficit. You're trying to balance out stress with adaptation. So that's number one. But number two, if you really want to make it impossible to stick to any kind of diet, if you're already struggling with hunger, cause you're lean, go ahead and have a bad night of sleep. Watch how you feel the next day. Cravings go through the roof. The data supports this, but I think you know this. If you're listening right now, you've experienced this yourself. A really bad night of sleep. It is so much more difficult to eat consistently the next day because the crave, your body wants that comfort from those dopamine producing foods that you, uh, have been avoiding for so long makes it very difficult. Quickest way to get sick too. This is, uh, two different times I had to back out of shows because I was of just a couple of weeks out from showtime and got deathly sick right before. And I know that is because I was sleep deprived, over-trained and obviously underfed. And so like paying attention to how well and your sleep is and how recovered you are. It's always important in the game of building muscle and burning body fat. It becomes exponentially more important as you go on this journey of trying to get to single digit body fat and be consistently in a deficit. You really have to pull back and you just have to keep reminding yourself of that study of, I only need to do one seventh of the volume in order to maintain this muscle. I've already had a good lift this week or like that. It's totally okay. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. It's totally okay. If I scale way back on the volume and intensity or take the day off completely and just stay on the diet, you're far better off than trying to push during that time of you having a poor night's rest and your low, low calorie and your single digit body fat. Totally. And then lastly, okay. So, uh, you've heard us talk about steps and diet and what about cardio? Isn't cardio, can I use cardio for fat loss? You can, but there's a right way to use it and a right time to use it. Um, and you know, Adam talked about, you talked about this a long time ago and I really liked your approach, uh, which is, this is like your, your one last trick and you hold it to the very end and you don't overdo it because it's an easy thing that your body adapts to. And that's like at the last bit for the last few weeks, throw a little bit of cardio and get that extra couple percent body fat off. And again, we're not speaking to somebody who's trying to be a fit to have tons of stamina and endurance. This is for people who are trying to get really, really lean. It's all about body composition. Uh, it isn't necessary, but if you save it to the end, it can become a nice little turbo charge. Yeah, no, I think this, and this was always again, how I used to coach our competitor, my competitors. was the goal is for us to not use that. How long can we do this prep and cut and do it through diet, do it through steps and managing everything else before we use that? And can we save it to the end? I mean, there's clients I've had that we rolled all the way in. I mean, Melissa was someone who did this. So when I coached Melissa, we went and we won, walked away our first time competing with three trophies. Never once had to do cardio. It was all managed through steps. And so the goal is, can I do it with no cardio at all? Can we do this through diet and dial all the way through there? But if I have to, it's that last week or two weeks, do we rent it up? And part of the theory or the logic behind why I wanted to do that is because I know once I push the body like that, I'm probably going to lose a little bit of muscle too. But the thought is, if I still have got too much body fat on going into that final week or two, at that point, I'll sacrifice a pound of muscle for two pounds of fat along that way, right? And that's not an ideal. And I definitely don't want to do that at weeks, six, eight weeks out. I don't want to be sacrificing any muscle. In fact, I'm trying to hold every bit of muscle I possibly can, doing it the way we're talking about. Now I'm coming in the final week or two weeks, and we still got a few more pounds of body fat that are being stubborn. We're not losing it. Okay, let's ramp this up. Probably going to lose maybe a little bit of muscle on the way too, but that's okay. This is what's going to take the stretch. We're going to get rid of that last bit of body fat. And so I'm willing to make that trade-off or sacrifice at the very end. I don't want to do that for a long time. And the fact that we haven't used it as a tool, it's novel to the body. The body will respond. It's been stubborn because we've already increased activity. We've already been in this deficit for a long period of time. It's not budging anymore. Oh, here we're going to shock it with this higher intensity cardio that it hasn't seen. It absolutely will respond from that. And our goal is hopefully more of that is body fat than it is muscle, knowing I probably will even sacrifice a little bit of muscle. Perfect. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's mindpumpmedia. We'll see you there. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. 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