You might look at my client Klint’s before photo and think he’d be happy.
But the perennial human affliction is to desire what we haven’t quite attained.
So when Klint came to me, he was struggling and as frustrated as anyone else who applies for coaching. (This is the normal state of my coaching application inbox.)
“I have tried getting lean many times in my life and have never been able to get where I want. I pay too much attention to the scale and start feeling small. I get afraid that I am losing it all in order to get ripped.”
As a powerlifter with no competitions on the horizon, he decided to chase getting shredded-lean for the first time in earnest, without worrying if his lifting numbers went down.
We worked together for six months. This is his story.
How We Initially Set His Macros and Training, and What We Changed
Klint was used to a low-rep, powerlifting style of training. He said in the past that he had struggled with feeling too small. Part of that was seeing the scale weight go down.
Part may have been due to a misalignment of what to expect. Buy-in is crucial, so I decided to focus my efforts on that:
1. I set clear expectations on total scale weight loss. ~20 lbs in total, with 2–4 pounds returning in the first week when returning to maintenance.
2. We agreed on a more modest rate of fat loss than past attempts. Initially, ~1.25 pounds per week of fat loss (0.55 kg), which was ~0.75% of body weight. His diet was decent; we just needed to create the calorie deficit.
3. I shifted his program from powerlifting to a bodybuilding style. It was five days per week, similar to the Intermediate Bodybuilding Program. I explained that this would help us hang onto muscle better, and it also would stop him from being able to compare his performance directly, avoiding the panic should it dip.
4. I set clear expectations on the body measurement losses. People know their stomach measurements will go down, but losses in the arms, chest/back, and legs can take some people by surprise. This is normal, and it’s important to point it out. (We carry some fat in these places also, both under the skin and within muscle.)
5. I explained that he would probably lose strength. This would be due to the mechanical inefficiency of being leaner. Further, with experienced lifters, weight changes can lead to small changes in a technique they have spent years honing, which can throw them off. I warned him about this so he knew what to expect.
We agreed on the following initial calorie and macro targets:
👉 Training Day Calories and Macros: 1930 kcal, P:160 C:210 F:50 (5x per week)
👉 Rest Day Calories and Macros: 1665 kcal, P:160 C:110 F:65 (2x per week)
If these numbers seem low, I’d point out that Klint is not tall, is an office worker, and is relatively sedentary outside of the gym.
Due to Klint’s level of training advancement, I wasn’t expecting any muscle gain and could use weight loss as a reliable indicator of fat loss. (Excluding the initial dips of water, gut content, and glycogen.)
With everything set, the coaching would mainly come down to helping him find ways to adhere and making small, appropriate, and unemotional adjustments. — Once adherence is locked in, getting shredded lean is just a matter of time and patience if you approach it like an engineering problem.
The Adjustments We Made To Get Klint Shredded
With the fat loss goal, rate, calories, macros, and training program set, the next step is playing The Waiting Game.
Technically, you’re also playing a game of “get-on-with-it-and-trust-in-the-process” while you play The Waiting Game, but many people seem unable to do this and unnecessarily fiddle with things to their peril.
I will bang my favorite drum here again: You need to wait at least four weeks to have enough data to interpret it and know whether you need to make a change. Very often, the answer is, “It’s working. Don’t fuck with things.”
With Klint, the opening months were an excellent example of that.
In the first ten weeks, we lost 11.7 pounds (5.3 kg), which was right on target. You can see that weight loss from week to week was not linear, but the scale weight consistently trended down. The kind of fluctuations you see here are typical when adherence is on point, but this level of diet adherence was atypical.
Looking at the red-boxed data, you can see no sudden drop in weight at the start; Klint had been dieting previously, so carb intake, water, and gut content levels weren’t much different.
If you look at the blue-boxed data, you can see a drop in stomach measurements of ~1.5–2 cm from the start to the end of week one. This is something I regularly see and recommend you ignore. Though I used to think the primary explanation was gut content losses from eating less food, I’ve now seen it consistently enough to realize that people measure a little tighter after the start. — It’s human nature to want to see progress.
At the start of week 13, I suggested a modest macro adjustment (~160 kcal total) because weight loss appeared to be slowing (see purple-boxed data), and he was showing no signs of hunger or fatigue issues (see green-boxed data).
The macros changed as follows:
Training Day: 1930 kcal, P:160 C:210 F:50 →1765 kcal, P:160 C:180 F:45
Rest Day: 1665 kcal, P:160 C:110 F:65 →1520 kcal, P:160 C:85 F:60
You can see that progress was fairly linear once again until week 20 (see the blue-boxed data below), but then some crazy shit started to happen with the scale weight.
If you look at the red-boxed data, you’ll see there was a 2.1-pound loss in week 20, a 1.5-pound loss in week 21, a 0.5-pound increase in week 22, almost no loss in week 23, a drop of just 0.6 pounds in week 24, and then an inexplicable rise of 1.2 pounds in both weeks 25 and 26.
This is exceptionally uncommon, but I wasn’t worried, nor did I feel pressured to change anything.
Why?
Though I haven’t seen his birth certificate, I’m certain Klint’s middle name is “CaptainAdherence.” That is to say, I was confident Klint hadn’t suddenly started misreporting his calorie intake, and as his activity levels hadn’t changed, I knew this must be due to some weird water fluctuations.
We could have ended the cut at that point, as he was lean enough to bulk. However, Klint’s stomach measurements were slowly declining; he was seeing improvements visually, and most importantly, he was feeling good (note the low hunger and fatigue levels) and happy to press on.
By week 26, Klint was satisfied with his appearance, and we decided to end the cut there.
We didn’t have to change the training program at all. Contrary to what I had expected (and warned about), Klint gained strength.
“I wasn’t feeling my workout yesterday, so I broke the plan and hit maxes on everything. I weighed in at 137 and hit 395 on the squat, 295 on the bench, and 455 on the deadlift. Not my best numbers ever, but for dieting 25 weeks and not prepping for a meet, I was pretty happy.”
The Reveal & 3 Lessons Learned
1. Klint Looks Bigger, But He Got Smaller
Let’s say you looked like Klint in the photo below. How much fat would you say you had to lose?
5 pounds? 10?
In total, Klint lost 20.8 lbs (9.5 kg).
I wouldn’t be surprised if this surprised you. Everyone underestimates how much fat they have to lose when they cut for the first time.
It’s a painfully ubiquitous pattern of the goal/expectation-setting phase of the dance when I’m assessing fit before taking on a client. “This guy is an idiot. I don’t need to lose that much!” no matter how diplomatically I try to put it.
You are unlikely to be an exception to this rule.
Klint took 5.3” (13.6 cm) off his stomach. His arms lost 1.5 cm, his legs 4 cm, and his chest/back just 1.2 cm (less than I typically see). These kinds of small changes signify only fat loss, not muscle.
Objectively, Klint is a smaller person. But he doesn’t look it with his shirt off, does he?
👉 Don’t be surprised if you have more fat to lose than you thought.
👉 Don’t be surprised if your body measurements drop.
👉 Continue and push through the discomfort of feeling skinny until you lean enough to be happy or lean enough to begin a bulk. (Otherwise, you’ll stay in physique purgatory.)
2. We Changed Very Little
You’ll recall from the previous email that we had to change the calorie and macro intake only once after the initial setup.
Now, I’m damn good at that first part, and you’ll probably have to make the first diet adjustment to get things on course earlier than we did. But if you are in the habit of changing things more than once a month, you are overcomplicating things at the cost of being able to assess your progress objectively.
👉 Be patient. Don’t fix what ain’t broken. If things are working, don’t fiddle!
Here’s what Klint said about this:
“The most valuable lesson was about patience and consistency. Whenever I’ve tried cutting on my own, I make changes too quickly because I always try to lose weight too fast. I learned it takes time to get lean if you want to hang on to your muscle and strength. My bench stayed over 2x BW, and I was repping the deadlift with over 3x BW. I was surprised by that.“
3. Try To Find Someone To Be Accountable To
Klint knew what to do — he had read the guides on the site and was far from new to serious training — he just struggled to put it into practice.
“The accountability from having a coach was key to making more progress than ever. I was investing time and money into my goals. I wasn’t going to cheat on my diet or cheat on myself when I had to report back to you every two weeks. I gained confidence moving forward that I can keep up with cutting and bulking the right way. Also, having your site to use as a reference is great!”
If you can afford coaching and that interests you, that’s great. But another way would be to find an accountability partner you can check in with each week. You can up the ante by having financial penalties tied into not following through.
This may sound silly, but it can make all the difference.
- Information isn’t lacking; telling the right information from the bullshit can be the problem.
- When the right information is available, knowing how to prioritize and apply it is the problem.
- But when you know all these things and aren’t following through, it’s because the outcome isn’t worth the tradeoff to you, or you’re not making yourself accountable.
To succeed, you have to have a reason to pull through on the harder days. And that’s easier when someone is in your corner.
If coaching interests you, add your name to the January waiting list here.
I’ll reach out to see if we’re a good fit before then. Regardless of whether we are or not, I’ll give you detailed advice so you can start the new year in the right way.
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