chances are, you’re wondering how to diet to lose fat for good. Most people have been taught to use approaches that set themselves up for failure in the long run, by physiologically messing up their bodies with diets that leave them in a position where it’s now very hard to strip off that excess fat. But, in this video, with the help of Dr. Eric Trexler, pro body-builder and PhD researcher, I’m going to show you exactly how to diet properly so you can undo the damage you may have done from your previous dieting attempts (i.e. maintenance calories are too low) and break through your weight loss plateau. I’ll also show you how to keep the weight off so that once you strip off that excess fat, it’s gone forever.

The first thing we want to do here is something called a recovery phase, which helps with 3 goals: restore the lean muscle mass that you lost, restore any hormonal imbalances (related to cutting your maintenance calories too low), and to just get you in a better mindset. To accomplish this, all you’re going to do is simply bump up your calories to whatever your maintenance calories currently are or even slightly above this, while also cutting back on your cardio. As for how long you should stay in this recovery phase for, Eric recommends at least a couple months for most people.

When you’re ready though, phase 2 is where we can give dieting another shot – but this time we need to do it right. Which means that we need to set up our fat loss phase in a way that minimizes muscle loss AND minimizes the metabolic adaptation we typically experience throughout our diet. And as outlined in Eric’s research papers, there are a few ways to do this. First, you need to avoid using a very aggressive calorie deficit. This equates to roughly only a 15-25% calorie deficit, but just keep an eye on how your bodyweight progresses and adjust accordingly. Next, we want to use an approach called intermittent dieting. And lastly, you need to ensure that you’re eating a high protein diet (1.8-2.7 g/kg bodyweight) along with high volume, low calorie, filling foods. So basically, you apply these 3 steps until you’ve successfully pushed past your weight loss plateau.

Then, it’s time to transition to phase 3. What we want to do here is simply find a way that you can maintain your weight loss in a sustainable way. One option is a reverse diet. Although the effect this has does seem to vary individually, often times what happens is even though you’re adding more and more calories back into your diet, your body counteracts this by essentially gets out of that “dieting” mindset and tends to start burning more calories through subconscious increases in daily activity, or NEAT to slowly bump up your metabolism. Imaginably, this is the crucial step when it comes to how to keep the weight off after your diet. However, keep in mind that again this does vary individually as people respond to increases in calorie intake differently.

And then, from here, it really is up to you where to go next. You could either maintain your new physique with relative ease with new your higher calorie intake, or you could choose to now focus more on muscle growth. Now although this whole ‘how to diet to lose fat for good’ process may seem very complex and you may be feeling as if there’s no hope for you, that just simply isn’t true. I’m not going to lie it will take time, but by following these 4 phases, remaining patient, and combining this with a solid training and nutrition plan, then you can and will be able to strip off that fat for good. 

On that note though guys, for those who do need that extra bit of help when it comes to learning how to diet properly, my step-by-step programs have been designed to guide you through each of these phases in detail. It comes fully equipped with software that enables you to actually know exactly what your metabolism is at and how its changing week after week as you strip off fat, so that you can easily break through any plateau you encounter along the way and lean down in the most efficient way possible just like several of our Built With Science members have done with their programs. To get started today, simply take the analysis quiz below to discover which specific program is best for your body and where it’s currently at: