Getting Fit, Empirically
A 30-page guide to building muscle and losing weight (1-page summary included)
When I first started my fitness journey, I wished there was a guide that just told me exactly what to do. Having been on that journey for close to a year now, I now wish there was a guide that talked through how to get fit given people have jobs, partners, and existential dread. So this guide is my attempt at accomplishing both.
The insight here is that the question is not whether you should be focused on your eating + exercise habits - you already are. All of us think about what we should eat for a meal, whether we should work out, if we’re happy about our weight / muscle development, etc. The insight here is that you should be mindful of your approach and analyze it so even if you end up living your life in exactly the same way, you’ll know it’s by choice, rather than by habit.
The first section, “What to do to Get Fit”, is a 5 minute guide of the exact steps to take to get fit and the second section, “How to Get Fit”, is a 30 minute reflection on pragmatic approaches to working out and insight into how I’ve navigated my journey. Enjoy:
Part 0: Disclaimer
You may be someone who is leading a healthy life and is happy about it (or someone who lacks the motivation or discipline to do so), meaning you won’t need to make any meaningful changes as a result of reading this guide. However, it’s better to have introspected and analyzed yourself even if the outcome does not change so you can rest easy knowing you’re making the right choices for yourself.
Part I: What to do to Get Fit
Getting fit is accomplished by fulfilling two separate processes: losing weight and building muscle. The necessary steps to accomplish these two goals are well-researched and frankly, quite simple:
To lose weight:
Eat 250 - 750 fewer calories than you burn each day
Eat >= 0.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day to maintain muscle
(Optional): Do cardio 2 - 4 times per week to burn more calories
To build muscle
Eat 0 - 250 more calories than you burn each day
Eat 0.7 - 1 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day
Work out 3 - 6 times per week
To lose weight and build muscle simultaneously [possible if you have <=2 years of experience working out, otherwise cutting and bulking cycles are recommended]
Eat 0 - 250 fewer calories than you burn each day
Eat 0.7 - 1 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day
Work out 2 - 4 times per week
(Optional): Do cardio 0 - 2 times per week
Caveats
Lifestyle factors are all big contributing factors to your body’s ability to reduce fat, so prioritize getting 7 - 8 hours of sleep, drinking 6 - 8 bottles of water, and avoiding debilitating stress
Nutrition is important for health but indirectly impacts weight loss, so make sure to limit certain foods: up to: 2.3k mg of sodium, 35% of your daily calories from fat, 300g of cholesterol, 150g of sugar per day, and minimal number of artificially-processed foods
Don’t eat more than 1 serving of tuna per day (mercury)
Don’t eat red meat more than 3x per week
Use these fitness tools I created to get a customized recommendation for daily calorie intake and protein intake based on your fitness goals. Once you’ve completed this step, you have all the tools you need to embark on a successful fitness journey.
For those of you who can meaningfully change your lives after reading a 5 minute article (or a slide deck), here are the exact steps to follow:
Determine your fitness goal and by extension, the steps to take
Calculate your daily recommended calorie intake and protein intake
Take stock of where you’re starting from (weight, measurements, body fat %, take a photo)
(If you’re trying to build muscle): Do this mobility warm up then this exercise program 3-6 times a week (or pick a similar plan online)
(If you’re trying to lose weight): Eat mostly these foods
Track your daily calories consumed in MyFitnessPal
Update your measurements and goals every 3 months
As a disclaimer, if you’re answering these questions and find you’re happy with where you are now (or feel this way a few weeks or months into your plan ), then you don’t need to change your lifestyle at all as long as you’re leading a healthy and sustainable existence.
For the rest of us who want every detail of this process explained painstakingly, I’ll turn now to the more practical and infinitely more difficult question - how to get fit:
Part II: How to Get Fit
Learning what to do to get fit takes 5 minutes, but learning how to get fit takes a lifetime in that it’s a fully-customizable, ever-evolving process. For the purposes of this article however, 30 minutes of reading and reflecting will give you a clear path forward:
I will construct the rest of this article based on the following framework of how to get fit (getting fit is truly as simple as 6 steps, but the magic is in getting yourself to follow them in a sustainable way):
Start strong:
1. Determine your fitness goal(s)
2. Calculate your calorie intake and protein intake (recommended amount per day)
3. Take stock of where you’re starting from (optional: take a photo)
Make a plan, then improve it:
4. Create an eating plan
5. Create an exercise program
6. Track your progress and update your plans at a fixed cadence
For this article, the critical information is presented in boxes and the explanation behind why this information is important + insights from my personal journey is in the free text paragraphs.
Start Strong
Step 1: Determine your fitness goal
A fitness goal is how you will measure the success of your fitness journey. A general best practice is to follow the SMART framework: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound in establishing these goals. It’s also possible to have multiple goals at the same time as long as working towards one goal does not take away from the other goal.
Why people say they go the gym
Get bigger muscles
Feel more confident
Improve their health
Help with sports performance
Why people actually go to the gym
Want to get over an ex
(Speaking from experience on this one)
Wish they were taller
Want a bigger butt
This goal is actually achievable in the gym
Three time frames to consider for your fitness goals:
[Daily] Process goals: What are the steps you’re undertaking?
[Weekly] Performance goals: Are you progressing towards your goals?
[Monthly] Outcome goals: What are your desired result(s)?
To begin your fitness journey ask yourself what you would like to change as a result of your fitness journey and use that as a starting goal. Begin with an end result (outcome goal) in mind (creating a time frame will be determined mathematically at a later stage). Once you have that goal in place, then think about the weekly targets you would expect to achieve if you were making good progress towards that goal (performance goals). Lastly, break down your goal into a set of different daily behaviors you would follow (process goals).
Kinds of outcome goals:
Aesthetic: I want 15 inch biceps / a six-pack / a 24-inch waist / to look like so and so
Result: I want a 5-minute mile / to bench 225 pounds / to lose 20 pounds of fat
Sensory: I want to my heart to be healthier / feel stronger
Athletic: I want to hit more home runs / throw a shot put farther
Caveats on goals
For aesthetic goals: be careful to emulate someone who is similar to you based on height / weight / genetics / steroid use / age / years of experience, otherwise you’re setting yourself up for a disappointing comparison. Remember, you can change body fat and muscle but you can’t change your bone structure so some of your features will persist regardless (but growing muscle in an area can make it appear more broad / losing fat in an area can make it appear more narrow)
For body weight goals: body weight can fluctuate by up to 5 pounds each day and muscle is heavier than fat, so focus on losing body fat and measure progress by appearance rather than overall body weight (pants waistband can be a good proxy for body recomposition). Remember the fastest ways to lose 10 pounds are (in order) cutting off a body part / autoimmune disease / a hunger strike, so focus on healthy sustainability instead
For body fat goals: you can’t reduce fat from a specific region, you can only reduce it overall and assume it will also apply to that region
For comparative goals: you should avoid goals that are based on other people, like “I want to lift more than my brother / friend / etc” as they’re moving goal posts and other-oriented
The myth of toning: everyone wants to lose fat and gain muscle, which is possible if you follow the above steps and are a beginner, but don’t fool yourself that eating normally and working out will get you those goals, nor will eating not enough and not exercising - it’s a far more delicate balance and toning does not exist, it’s simply the overlap of two separate processes: gaining muscle and losing weight
Long term focus: remember, it’s not about short term attainment, it’s a lifetime goal so focus on something you could do every year or you will set yourself up for a yo-yo
Involve your family and friends: there will be a much better chance of you sticking to your workout goals if your people are supporting you (I could write a whole article about how to talk to a partner about their workout goals, so tread carefully and be supportive)
If you’re incapable of finding even a single outcome goal, I would challenge you to dig deeper because if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there? You need a why to motivate yourself to become fit. If instead, you have many goals, I would challenge you to limit yourself to 3 goals, so you can maintain a clearer focus on how to achieve them.
Process goals are far and away the most important time frame as your daily actions will compound and performance + outcome goals are ultimately just the cumulative result of many days of process goals. To that end, measurable outcome goals are not strictly necessary because if you’re eating and exercising according to your plan, then you’ll see the results you want over time.
I began my journey (like most early 20’s males) wanting to be jacked with a six-pack. I looked into it and realized this would take a couple years of disciplined eating and working out, which was a lot to accept as a starting goal. So I shifted my approach to wanting to commit to working out at least 4 times a week to make sure I was at least trending in a positive direction muscle-wise. Additionally, I wanted to ensure my exercises felt like I was building to a specific goal, so I also wanted to get to a place where I could chest press 225 pounds. Over time, I was able to appreciate my incremental progress and saw myself get slightly more muscular over time to the point where I felt intrinsically motivated to work out each day and saw the positive benefits of exercise as a secondary motivation.
Once you have your outcome goal(s) in place, consider if you broadly fit into the category of lose weight, build muscle, or lose weight and build muscle (it’s ok if you’re not perfectly aligned, but it’s helpful to have a clear idea of where you’re at).
At this stage, you should have 1-2 outcome goals and a broad category of goals (lose weight / build muscle / both), from which we’ll create weekly and daily behaviors to achieve them.
Step 2: Calculate your calorie intake and protein intake (recommended amount per day)
Now that you have a clear outcome goal and a general category of what you’re trying to accomplish, you can calculate specific guidelines for how to eat. Follow the steps on the calculators for calorie intake and protein intake based on the category of your outcome goal and use these numbers as your dietary process goals so you know how many calories to eat relative to your maintenance (how many calories you naturally burn during a day)
Step 3: Take stock of where you’re starting from (optional: take a photo)
I would recommend writing down your current body weight, body measurements (shoulders, waist, biceps), and estimated body fat percentage (based on this guide), so you can track your progress over time. If you feel comfortable you can also take a photo so you have a visual reference (much progress will be made in how you look, even if it takes time for your body weight and measurements to reflect it).
One final disclaimer: there’s a famous jewish tradition where if a gentile wants to convert to Judaism, the rabbi will reject them three times, and if they still want to convert
Make a plan then improve it
Step 4: Create an eating plan
*Disclaimer: counting calories and being conscious of your eating habits can become unhealthy very quickly, so don’t do it if you’ve struggled with an eating disorder or feel yourself beginning to develop one
The math behind weight loss
The formula for losing weight is:
Calories consumed per day - calories burned per day
(colloquially referred to as calories in, calories out)
Calories consumed per day is:
Sum of the calories of all of the food you consumed during that day
Calories burned per day:
Calories burned from existing + calories burned from eating food + calories burned during exercise + calories burned from non-exercise activities (like walking)
Of these, calories burned during exercise and non-exercise activities are the only two you can meaningfully influence (this means you should exercise, and even on days you exercise you should still walk to make sure you’re not compensating for exercise by moving less as a result)
So mathematically, there are three ways to lose fat: eat less food, exercise more, and walk more. What’s beautiful about this is that you’re afforded a great deal of flexibility because each of these factors impact calories in the same way. For example, if I want to lose a pound of body fat each week, I’ll need to have a calorie deficit of 3500 calories per week, or 500 calories per day. From a body weight perspective, I can eat 500 fewer calories of food per day or burn an extra 500 calories per day and either of them would help me lose an equal amount of weight. To put that in real terms, you could run 4 miles, walk 5 miles, or eat one less plate of dinner and have exactly the same outcome. This means you can customize your weight loss approach to whatever form of exercise or eating strategy is easier for you. Remember, exercise is only a single hour out of a 24-hour day, so make sure you’re spending the other 23 hours in a way that is aligned with your goals in terms of eating and sleep.
Another important insight from how calories work is that just as a pound of feathers is equally as heavy as a pound of bricks, a 200 calorie snickers bar will make you gain as much weight as a 200 calorie cup of rice. So from a weight loss perspective, all food is just calories, and there’s no such thing as a food you can’t eat on an eating plan, only a quantity of a food you can’t eat. A huge caveat here is that food has other health implications, so high sugar foods, high fat foods, and artificially processed foods are foods you should limit, not necessarily from a calories perspective, but from a wellness perspective. There are 3 specific difficulties of hyperpalatable foods: they are calorically dense, they don’t make you full, and they make you want more of them making them really hard to support when you’re being mindful about food (but certainly possible). One piece of advice here is to avoid repeated sugars (don’t eat the treats in the office or you may start wanting to eat them every day). Sugar doesn’t make sense as a food, it’s the only thing where the more you eat it the more you want of it. It’s helpful to not think of processed things as not real food, even a separate category of food.
To be clear, losing weight is like saving money - it’s hard but simple and there are only 2 ways to do it, by making more money (exercising) or by spending less money (eating less). Given that your goal is to lose weight, build muscle, or accomplish both, we can narrow down what to focus on for our food.
There are really only 3 factors of food that are relevant for losing weight / building muscle / both:
Calorie density: calories per serving
Protein density: protein content relative to calorie content
Satiety Index: how full this food makes you feel
Worrying about consumption of sugar, fat, sodium, artificial foods, missing nutrients is not incorrect but is less relevant in the context of weight loss and muscle gain
This is separate from the size (volume) of the food and the caloric content, and will vary food by food
Each of these is equally important (prioritize based on your goal)
If building muscle is your #1 priority then make sure you always hit protein even if you exceed calories
If losing weight is your #1 priority then make sure you always don’t exceed calories even if you under-attain on protein
To put these 3 terms in clearer context, here’s a quick guide on how some common foods would rank across them:
On the topic of protein density, here’s a helpful reference I created to understand the highest protein density foods (these are the foods that maximize the amount of protein you receive relative to the amount of calories). Remember, it’s not about eating the most optimized foods, but it’s helpful to have an idea of what actually has the highest volume of protein per calorie rather than relying on what foods / products are marketed as high protein (the number of protein bars that only have 5-10g of total protein is disappointing):
You can even start to think of food in different broad categories as protein-dense, neutral, or counteractive to your plan and try to balance your time across these categories. And again, the specific food choice you make (known colloquially as “macros”, meaning the protein / fat / carb composition of your diet) are largely irrelevant outside of protein for building muscle. As proof, consider people on the extremes: vegans who eat 80% carbs, people on keto who eat 80% fats, or bodybuilders who eat 80% protein - in every case, these individuals are healthy so find what works for you.
As an aside, there are many vegetarians / vegans who struggle to even eat a minimum of foods high in protein. For this my recommendation is to leverage processed foods (protein bar / protein powder / protein chips) in addition to vegetables high in protein and non-meat protein sources to ensure protein goals are met.
When I started my journey I was unaware of how calories worked and relied on heuristics to understand what food was actually healthy. It’s a bit embarrassing to recount, but my initial approach was to think that I could eat whatever I wanted if I just only ate one meal a day - which led to me eating a single large meal from a restaurant each day (hopefully by this point of the article you understand why I wasn’t able to lose weight this way). Again, the definition of healthy should be applied to a daily / weekly diet plan, rather than specific foods, because it requires context with the rest of the food you eat.
From there, I tried to sustain a daily calorie intake of 1800 calories, eating just nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods. This was also not something I could sustain while working out the amount I was per week, especially as someone who was just starting out. What helped me transition to the current plan I have now was to map out exactly what I would eat per day to get the 2k calories + 200 grams of protein I was trying to eat. Also going through this exercise taught me how calories worked and allowed me to guesstimate calories when I ate food that was served to me without calorie counts. Additionally, though I was eating fewer calories I was also eating healthy, voluminous foods to ensure I was hitting my protein and calorie goals so I still felt good (this solves the paradox of how you can eat more while consuming fewer calories: eating calorie-light, voluminous foods, vegetables being the exemplar for this).
You’ll start to see your mind as an unreliable narrator - hunger doesn’t lie, and you should always listen to your stomach. But so much of the food we eat is to cure boredom / to reward ourselves / to mark occasions- it’s ultimately mindless and not based on hunger. In short, it’s irrelevant if you want food (you’ll want it a lot more than you realize) - listen to your stomach to understand when you’re hungry, which indicates when you need food.
If you’re lazy (like me), you just want someone to tell you what kind of foods to steer towards. So I put together a simple breakdown of what to focus on for each of the following food groups. What’s great about just eating healthy foods is that you’re much less likely to eat past your daily calorie goal because the food isn’t that psychologically rewarding (if you try to overeat healthy foods, you’re likely to feel physically sick before you end up in a meaningful calorie surplus, which is the opposite of what happens when you eat calorie-dense artificial foods). To be clear, you can absolutely have a successful eating plan eating things I recommend against on the list, this is just a heuristic of what foods you should prioritize to have an easier time:
Food “Hacks” (replacements for hyperpalatable, high calorie foods)
Flavorings: There are dry rub seasonings that mimic the taste of butter / cheese / ranch that have 0-5 calories per serving instead of the 100+ calories you would get in a normal serving
Drinks: Diet or 0 calorie sodas
Dessert: Greek yogurt tastes like ice cream with a third of the calories. Protein bars are like candy bars but they help you hit your goal. Fruit tastes like pure sugar, but is ok sugar
Vegetables: Vegetables are the only food group you can basically have as much as you want (raw) without gaining weight making them so pleasant for people trying to reduce calories
Oil / butter: Nonstick spray coats your pan for 0 calories compared to 100 for oil
Now that you have a clear idea of what food you should focus on, I would now encourage you to make a specific plan for yourself. A plan is the same as a diet except it doesn’t have an end date and isn’t based on removing foods, so it’s designed to be sustainable for years to come (so make it realistic). There are a handful of approaches to creating a specific plan depending on how prescriptive you want to be for yourself. Remember, your goal is an end of day calorie intake figure, so everything that happens during the day is up to you. To that end, you should begin your approach by understanding how you want to measure and control what you eat each day (colloquially known as ‘calorie counting’). Ultimately, the best dieting approach is a little bit of every method in a customized manner with constant minimal diligence so it’s as easy as possible.
A note on diets: there seems to be a never ending cycle of fad diets based on not eating certain foods Keto (removing carbs), Paleo (removing modern foods), Vegan (removing meat), Carnivore (removing everything that isn’t meat), Intermittent fasting (only eating during certain hours of the day) - all of these could work in that they’ll help you lose weight, but you’re needlessly missing out on certain nutrients from the removed food group. A more mature approach is to optimize for calories per day while also making sure your diet is otherwise healthy. Dramatic daily calorie reduction (crash dieting) works for a short period of time, so it’s a valuable tool if you’re doing a bodybuilding show, but is otherwise not worth doing considering the psychological toll. Remember, it’s healthy to be excited to eat your meal, what’s less healthy is having specific foods you’re excited to eat that you only allow yourself to eat at certain times. The simpler your plan is, the easier it will be to follow as well. There are other alternatives to calorie counting as well, like intuitive eating, focusing on the plate ratios you should maintain, etc so find what works for you and is truly sustainable.
Recommended approach to calorie counting
For Week 1, write down what you eat each day (don’t change worry about what you’re eating or the amount)
For Week 2, type out what you eat each day and the quantity - I recommend using the MyFitnessPal app to track what you eat
At this point, you have a baseline of your daily consumption - compare this number to your daily maintenance calories and see where you’re at
Also consider if your numbers spikes on certain days of the week (like the weekend) and how you would mitigate those excess calories going forward
For Week 3, try to eat 200 calories fewer each day to ease into your plan, while continuing to track everything you eat
For Week 4, using your daily calorie goal from earlier in the article, start to eat to that number of calories each day and continue to track everything you eat
It’s ok to not eat exactly that amount of calories, what’s more important is that you’re honest with yourself about your consumption and diligent about entering it into your tracking tool
Remember this process takes months, so it’s ok to go over one day and make up for it another day, what you’re really optimizing is your weekly or even monthly calorie deficit (tracking it daily makes it easier to follow)
For Week 5 and onwards, continue to track your daily calorie consumption (you can stop tracking if you eat the same foods everyday, but I would recommend counting diligently for at least 2 months to really get a sense of how to estimate calories)
When to pause:
Physical signs: if you feel weak, have trouble sleeping, notice a decreased sex drive, feel lethargic, or have trouble concentrating
Psychological signs: if you start to feel yourself seeing food as a burden, feeling bad about what you’ve eaten, feeling the urge to purge what you’ve eaten or wanting to exercise dramatically to compensate for what you’ve eaten
Keep in mind:
It’s totally ok to have a day or week where you eat outside of your plan, make sure you don’t resent yourself for taking mindful breaks and remember it’s not sustainable to think you’ll eat on a specific plan every day for the rest of your life
Variables that you can control to affect calorie consumption
Calorie density of the foods you eat
Quantity of your serving size
# times you eat per day
Length of your meals
Incorporation of ‘treat’ meals (also known as cheat meals)
I think of conscious eating as like trying to drive without crashing. Being mindful about eating is like driving on surface streets, you’re going 20 miles an hour but it’s safe and controlled. Treat meals are like weaving in and out of traffic in the carpool lane at 80 mph - you can do both, but doing the latter is way more likely to make you end up in an crash
Sample approaches to take to limit eating:
Only eating low calorie density foods so you can have large servings
Incorporating small amount of high calorie dense foods each day
Not eating after 8 pm
Only eating two meals per day, but making them large
Having a weekly treat meal
Taking breaks in the middle of your meals to avoid overeating
Spreading meals out during the day to have the sensation of fullness
Don’t think of eating as eating less food, thinking of it as eating the right amount of food then consuming the rest of the calories from the fat on your body
Eat healthy food first to get full
Pay attention to how much food / dessert / drinks other people are having, when I ate mindlessly I assumed others did the same, but I realized that was my perception but not reality
Eat the filling low calorie food first then eat the other stuff (order matters since it affects fullness)
Frame it as saying yes to more healthy food rather than saying more no’s to unhealthy food
Ask yourself if you are eating because of hunger (your body telling you to consume food for nutrients) or appetite (your mind wanting to eat), and avoid the latter when possible
Take single bites or half servings of desirable foods and imagine that you’re sharing with the future partner that you’ll have once you lose weight
Notice if you’re eating tasty foods the way you would eat foods you don’t like (taking a long time to eat them over multiple rounds, forcing down more than you want to eat) and avoid buying such foods
The only rule is that there are no rules, so bring food home to work even if they serve work, pay extra for protein rich foods, and do whatever else it takes
How to handle restaurants (from less to more indulgent):
Don’t go to restaurants
Eat before (would recommend getting extra protein at home) and don’t order anything when you go
Eat a meal first and only order a salad / appetizer
Share a meal with another person
Order a full-sized healthy meal
Order an unhealthy meal but make 1 healthy substitution
Order an unhealthy meal but only eat half of it and get the rest to go
Order an unhealthy meal and eat a portion of it that will keep you in your daily calorie range for that day
Order an unhealthy meal and eat all of it
Important: whatever you decide, make sure you enjoy it and don’t regret it
My take: once you’re committed to your plan, you’ll start to see restaurant food as paying $20 for a small portion with no protein and a lot of calories and this annoyance is a great mentality to carry to ensure you stick to your plan
Tips on how to control daily calorie consumption:
Calories and protein per recommended serving size are irrelevant if you eat many servings, so be conscious of total amounts
Eat slowly, with breaks in between to allow for digestion - remember, not eating will make you feel fuller so take time
Put high calorie dense foods on a high shelf / out of sight (or don’t even buy them)
Keep addictive foods out of your house or make them harder to reach (like by putting them in bags in the fridge)
Have a big selection of low-calorie spices and sauces to use
Create artificially scarcity in your fridge so you control your quantities
Spend time heating up your food and slicing it into small pieces so you get the full sensory experience of eating
Eat more vegetables so you feel fuller but consume fewer calories
Don’t eat until a certain hour and only eat vegetables after a certain hour
Have an approach to restaurant meals / treat days so they’re controlled and part of your plan
Eat without a screen to increase mindfulness
Prioritize single ingredient foods (apple, potato, etc)
Remember the amount of time you spend doing things right is irrelevant, what matters is the outcome of your eating which is why you should think in weekly increments
I don’t believe in hard and fast food rules, but you really should not have more than 500 calories of dessert per day if you eat under 3k calories - this applies to a tiny subset of desserts (and you can always divide them up into increments of under 500 calories), but consider that calories are calories even if you only have a little bit extra every day
If you’re wondering what food you should eat, I would recommend any food listed on the EBT plan
In chess there is an idea that you don’t lose a game from the first mistake you make, you lose it from the second mistake you make - for conscious eating, you’re not gonna blow your calorie count out of the water if you make one mistake, but if you adopt the mentality of well I already made one mistake I may as well keep going, that’s where the breakdown occurs
A dessert is not just a dessert, you need to focus on calorie counts (a slice of cheesecake can be 1k calories from the cheesecake factories)
The goal is 80% as good, half the calories (like the cheesecake factory’s skinny menu)
In mindfulness, there is the idea that you can tell how your mental state is from how you feel about food (this is an oversimplification, but it illustrates the idea that there is a relationships between mental health and controlled eating):
If you can have two bites of ice cream and put it away, you’re in flow
If you open ice cream and eat the entire container, then you’re stressed
If you don’t even want ice cream, then you’re shut down
It’s cheaper to eat un-healthier (the calorie to dollar value of candy, chocolate, junk food) is super high so don’t use price (or even quantity) as a proxy for health
Calories are not everything - think about jaundice and cavities and lethargy that comes from eating only junk food or missing food groups, so have some degree of baseline nutritional standards are important as well
The best rules are the ones you don’t follow (if you try to follow a rule 100% then as soon as you slip up a single time it’s over), it’s actually better to strive for 95% compliance and understand that you’ll always have the power / choice to have it anyway so you don’t feel trapped
Start your plan the first day you think of it (not tomorrow or the weekend or the next first of the month) - if you can’t do it on the first day how will you do it in a few months when it gets hard?
Bring a lunchbox with you and pack lunch / dinner / snacks so you always have healthy, protein-rich food on hand when you need it
Do cardio to discourage yourself from eating unhealthy foods since it would undo your efforts
For reference, here is a food plan I made myself which details the foods I focused on eating for work and non-work days. I also included a blurb on foods I liked to add in as I experimented with new healthy foods and a section on foods I learned to avoid (sometimes you learn things the hard way haha). An important call out here is that I didn’t feel locked into this exact system (so I still allowed myself to go out to eat or occasionally have something not on my list), so if your eating plan starts to feel restrictive that’s a good indication it’s time for an update. I had fun planning out what to eat each day and discovering healthy snacks and foods I had trouble not overeating, but if this approach does not suit you, you’re welcome to be less prescriptive or eat more intuitively.
If you’re truly struggling to follow these steps or have not ever been able to get your food habits under control, I recommend using a behavioral science app (like Noom) or seeing a nutritionist, or even seeking out a support group or a therapist. External support is truly beneficial towards your goals and can help you address the root causes of your behaviors.
A note on how you get food: I recommend having a weekly cadence of how you get food (whether it’s from amazon fresh / grocery shopping) so you get the same foods at the same time each week and it becomes a routine. I also work in an office with free food (much of which is not healthy) available 24/7, so it helps to have a standardized approach so I’m eating based on my plan and am not tempted by the omnipresent treats. Additionally, I use a weekly service that delivers pounds of pre-cooked meats to my door so I minimize the time it takes for me to have high-protein meals and I’ve found this approach to be convenient. Essentially, the easier you make it to eat the way you’re supposed to based on your plan, the easier it will be to avoid the siren’s call of restaurant food.
Step 5: Create an exercise program
One thing to call out with exercising (particularly weight training) is that you want to have specific goals and checkpoints to work towards - whether it’s to lift a specific weight or to achieve something in a separate domain (like a sport). So be sure to introduce checkpoints and achievable targets based on your overall fitness goals to remain motivated. I like to say that you’re motivated to work out when you don’t want to work out, but still do but you’re passionate when you can’t work out but you still want to.
I began my exercise plan by following a full-body workout that I found online 3 days a week. After several months of following this plan, I re-tooled my goals and wanted to customize the exercises I did to match them. So I spent 10-20 hours watching videos on recommended exercises and cobbling together my own exercise plan, following a push / pull / legs (+ full body) split, which you can find here.
General guidelines on cardio:
No cardio is required to lose weight if your calorie deficit (how many fewer calories you’re eating relative to how many you burn per day) is sufficient
A caveat on cardio: steady state (like walking) is recommended over high intensity (like sprinting) because it’s less taxing on the joints, and won’t take away from your muscle gains
Cardio is undertaken specifically to burn as many calories as possible (and for heart health as an added benefit) so optimize for total calorie burn, not calorie burn per hour (sprinting 20 minutes and biking 2 hours takes the same amount of energy, but biking will burn way more calories)
You can do cardio on the same day as working out (do it after working out if building muscle is your primary goal), but take it easy to avoid exhaustion
What to do before you work out:
Before your workout, do a mobility warmup or light cardio (like walking) to warm yourself up
What to do after you work out:
After your workout, do some full-body stretching to minimize soreness (walking as a cool down is also recommended)
How to organize your workout:
There are several splits (ways of organizing your exercises across work out days), the most common being (in order of difficulty):
Full body: doing the whole body each time
Upper / Lower: dividing one’s workout into upper and lower body
Push / Pull / Legs: dividing one’s workout into push muscles (chest, triceps), pull muscles (back, biceps), leg muscles (quads, hamstrings)
Once you have a few months of experience you can pick custom exercises from this list (or find your own)
For beginners, I recommend starting out with 3 days of full body exercises per week, which you can scale all the way up to 6 days over a period of months.
Hierarchy of importance
Outsized importance
# times you exercise per week
Sets x ranges
Time under tension
Range of motion
Amount of protein and calories
Amount of sleep
Avoiding injury
Marginal improvements
Timing of protein / calories
Exact exercise selection
Exact food choices
Macros
Reps, Set, and Rep Ranges:
Typically, you’ll do 3-4 sets of 10-12 reps for each exercise (for a total of 36 reps), and 4-6 exercises per workout day, though this will vary for individual exercises (start with 4 then increase it over time)
For rep ranges (how many repetitions of a movement to do at a time), 0-6 is ideal for building strength, 7-12 is ideal for hypertrophy (building muscle), 13+ is ideal for endurance (this makes the least sense since cardio is a more effective fat burning approach than endurance exercises)
Generally, you’ll want to do up to 2 exercises per muscle group per workout, up to twice a week (no more than 4 exercises per muscle per week)
For each exercise, do a warm-up set at 50-75% of your normal weight with the normal amount of reps to get the technique down (don’t count this as one of your normal working sets)
Try to rest 1 - 2 minutes between sets and keep your overall workouts to 1 - 1.5 hours total
Don’t try to workout twice in one day - muscle is built at rest (not on days when you work out) when you eat sufficient protein, so you would not be doing yourself any favors (you can include cardio or a sport on the same day as a workout, but pace yourself)
For beginners I recommend doing sets of the same exercise until completion, or alternating sets of 2 different exercises with breaks in the middle, if you’re more advanced you can explore:
Supersetting / circuits: alternating 2+ exercises with no break in between
Drop sets: doing the same exercise with slightly lower weight, till failure each time
Technical failure: when you can’t do another rep with good form
Total failure: when you can’t even attempt another rep
Go to technical failure strategically, avoid total failure
Start with exercises for larger muscle groups (squat, bench, deadlift first) so you don’t tire out your accessory muscles early
Going to failure (increasing weight or reps until you can no longer perform the exercise with proper form) is a valuable tool, but should be used sparingly, as this is when you’re most likely to get injured
Increase your weights slightly each set to push yourself (go past your target weight then go back to it and you’ll be able to do more reps, but be careful with this approach)
Each workout you do is you occurring fatigue on the muscles you’re working and your body overall - your rest days are a chance for you to recharge and will allow you to work harder going forward, so rest as hard as you work out
Time your sets to understand how fast you go and slow down
Reps are just a proxy for maximizing time under tension and weight is just a proxy for difficulty, but remember that muscles don’t have eyes and you should be maximizing time under tension using a full range of motion. Sweat is also just a proxy, you can have a great workout without sweating (remember, muscles don’t sweat).
Try timing your sets to realize how little of your workout time is spent under tension and work to maximize that amount of time
Exercise selection is an art, so try the basics and focus on compound movements then explore different variations to find what works best for you (try to optimize the ratio between muscle stimulation and fatigue without increasing the risk of injury)
A famous quote is that the only thing that comes quickly in the gym are injuries
If you think of every workout as being worth 1 point, then re-aggravating an injury before you’re ready could be worth at a minimum -1 points if not more like -10 or -15 (depending on how many workouts the re-aggravation of the injury would cause you to skip), so it always makes sense to respec the injury and take time off
There is no such thing as perfect exercises for everyone, however some exercises are better than others based on your goals (remember that the most intense / most hypertrophic exercises are not necessarily the best choices based on your stamina, existing conditions, motivation, etc)
Pick the exercises you enjoy doing that help you feel your muscles without straining them or becoming very sore
For weight selection, start with a light weight and work up over time (a static article can’t tell you how much to lift so listen to your body and push yourself without straining using progressive overload)
One mental technique for tough exercises is to imagine that you’ve already time-travelled to the future and you already completed the exercise, but now you just need to catch up in realtime
Avoiding Injury
Go for your absolute heaviest one rep max very rarely (or never), and do so with spotters
Do mobility stretches, warm up sets, and post-workout stretches every workout
Have at least 1-3 rest days per week
Eat and sleep in a way to support your workout lifestyle
Drink a ton of water, especially when you work out
Don’t push yourself and don’t exercise if you feel pain beyond moderate soreness
Your mind will be ready for heavy weights before your body will so take it slow and consider that people have injured themselves grievously or even died while exercising in the gym, so caution is warranted
Take care of yourself: do yoga, get massages, take rest days, go to a physical therapist, go to a chiropractor
My experience with injuries 1 year in
Minor
5-10 times I stopped a set or entire workout early because I felt a tweak in one of my muscles
Medium
Left a weighted vest on while I did a lying dumbbell row (this was a stupid mistake - only use weighted vests for weighted vest exercises), tweaking my neck, had pain for a few days and didn’t workout for 1.5 weeks
Tweaked my shoulder when going a bit too heavy on a shoulder press, didn’t workout for 1 week
Tweaked my lower spine when I went below parallel on a squat and my feet and knees slipped inwards, didn’t workout for 4 months
These were all individually avoidable, but didn’t affect my ability to workout as normal after a healthy period of rest
Recommended approach to exercising
For Week 1, take note of your current physical activity each day (including walking)
For Week 2, try 1-2 days of 20 minutes of yoga / stretching / light exercise (following a beginner’s full-body workout online, I recommend Jeff Nippard’s: mobility warmup then this exercise program
Consider how you plan to integrate working out into your life (before or after work, weekends vs workdays, when to add in rest days)
For Week 3, do 1-2 full body workout days with 1-2 days between each workout day, doing a different set of exercises each time (and making sure to stretch)
For Week 4, do 2-3 full body workout days with 1-2 days between each workout day, doing a different set of exercises each time (and making sure to stretch)
For Weeks 5 - 8, Cycle through each of the full body exercises and pay attention to which muscle groups feel the most sore and which ones you want to get bigger.
For Week 9 and onwards, continue to workout at least 3 times a week (you can experiment with adding an extra workout day for a week, but I recommend introducing them slowly to give your body time to adjust). Once you’ve worked out for several months, you can test out a push / pull / legs split or even start customizing your workouts to focus on certain muscle groups (see here for some good exercises to choose from).
When to pause:
Physical signs: if you feel immense soreness, feel pain while you’re working out, have trouble sleeping, or have trouble concentrating, if you get a cold, if you get injured
Soreness is when a muscle feels tired when you use it after a workout, pain is when it hurts without use or feels sharply sore to the point where it’s distracting
Soreness happens the most when you’re new to working out (or new to exercises for that specific muscle) and is not always an effective proxy for a successful workout
Psychological signs: if you start to resent yourself on days you don’t exercise
When you’re done!
This is the most important and most overlooked step - what are you going to do once you’ve lost weight? This is where you should have a plan for what your maintenance diet will be and what next steps will be
Keep in mind:
This isn’t a single month long crash diet, so it’s totally ok to take conscious breaks for days or weeks at a time, and if your plan isn’t something you’re excited to do every week to get stronger then take time to re-evaluate it
Exercise best practices:
The best way to develop strength is progressive overload, where you go a little bit harder each time you exercise (with more reps, slower reps, or more weight)
The best way to benefit from your exercises is by prioritizing a full range of motion so you’re hitting the right body parts and time under tension to make sure you’re doing it for as long as possible
Drink water during your workout (I aim for 1.5 water bottles per hour)
Injuries are the biggest risk to working out (and can take you out for weeks or months at a time), so prioritize having good form and not overdoing the weight of your exercises to maximize longevity
Minimize the friction of going to the gym, so prepare your gym clothes the night before and schedule the gym as an activity that’s part of your day
Going to failure is the most effective way to build muscle, but also the most dangerous in terms of energy so use it sparingly
Use spots when you are testing maximum weights
Working out with another person is good for motivation, but will take longer
If you have injuries in quick succession (2 within a roughly 3 month period, then take a full month off and seriously rest)
You can’t cram working out - a little every day is far better than over grinding on specific day / weeks / months
10 things I wish I knew when I started my fitness journey:
Muscles don’t have eyes - the value of an exercise in terms of its ability to build muscle is based much more of maximizing time under tension and engaging in a full range of motion than it is on the weight
Failure is inevitable - you will have days when you don’t eat what you’re supposed to or fail to exercise unexpectedly, so plan for treat days and treat yourself with compassion
Genetics are a big factor - some people will look better than you before they even step foot in the gym and some people will never look as good as you, so focus on yourself
People aren’t watching you in the gym - 99% of the time people don’t care about you in the gym and in the 1% of cases that’s their problem, so focus on your workout
Body recomposition takes time - you’ll look better and feel better long before your scale weight reflects a meaningful difference, so allow for 1-2 months to ramp up in your fitness journey
Willpower has a different return on investment in different contexts - it requires an equal amount of willpower to avoid an extra piece of fruit at the end of a meal vs not having an extra side at Panda Express, yet the latter saves 400 additional calories so be optimize how you channel willpower
Ask people for help - your fit friends, gym employees, and even other gym goers can all be sources of motivation and advice, everyone was where you are now at one point in their journey
The internet is omniscient - anything you can think to ask about fitness has already been answered by someone on youtube or on a forum so Google your questions (try to find at least 2+ disparate sources that come to the same conclusion to avoid misinformation)
Bulking and cutting is not mandatory - the idea that you need to gain muscle and fat at the same time then prioritize losing fat while also losing a bit of muscle is true for experienced lifters, but not beginners
If your process is good then success is inevitable - if you build a plan with solid daily process goals, then you will eventually reach your outcome goals, and you’re in full control of your intensity so you can adjust your plan and timelines based on your current situation
Step 6: Track your progress and update your plans at a fixed cadence
Sample Plan walkthrough (from my fitness journey):
1. Determine your fitness goal(s)
I want to bench 225
I want to lose 20 pounds
I want to build muscle
2. Calculate your calorie intake and protein intake (recommended amount per day)
Recommended calories: 2000g
Based on a goal of .5% of body weight lost per week
Recommended protein: 187g - 220g
3. Take stock of where you’re starting from (optional: take a photo)
Starting weight: 220 lbs
Body fat % estimate: 25%
Waistline: 35
4. Create an eating plan
Jonathan’s Food Plan (developed over several months of testing)
I want to limit calories
I want to hit my protein goals
I want to be able to eat the food served at my work
I want to be able to vary what I eat each day
I want a high volume of food, so I prioritize meats and low-calorie vegetables
I want to eat 3 meals per day
I want to feel like I’m eating dessert, so I prioritize fruit
5. Create an exercise program
Jonathan’s Exercise Plan (developed over several months of testing)
I want to improve at the bench press
I want to develop functional overall strength
I want to have time to rest specific muscle groups
I don’t care to emphasize core or glutes
I want to maximize hypertrophy, so I have rep ranges of 6 - 12
6. Track your progress and update your plans at a fixed cadence
2 months in I recalculated my maintenance calories based on my new level of activity
3 months in I hit my weight loss goal, so I created a new, even smaller goal
4 months in I switched from a full-body workout to a push / pull / legs split
6 months in I upgraded my bench 225 goal to a bench 225 for 6 reps goal
Disclaimer: my approach is customized for me, so I’m not claiming this is the right way to do things - find what works for your schedule / budget / gym accommodations / etc and iterate on your plan over time so it can grow as you do.
Every 3-6 months, you should check in with yourself and evaluate how you’re doing relative to your goal, and if you want to make edits to your plan. In addition, you should be making changes to your eating plan on a week to week basis (or as soon as you discover a new food to add or one to take away).
And remember, the fitness journey is a life-long one, so don’t be afraid to move the goalposts on yourself depending on a change in your life circumstance or rate of progress. The key is to make sure your long-term goals align with your daily practices and that you’re excited to get up each day to go through your routine.
Don’t be afraid to pause your eating + exercise plans for special occasions or if you need to have a mental reset day (you should not feel locked into following these specific plans every single day, because that mentality is not sustainable). Having compassion for yourself is critical to building a better self-image and ensuring that you stick to your plan and are happy while you do so. A common phrase is that “discipline beats motivation” which is to say that sustainable progress comes from one’s ethos not a momentary surge of excitement.
Additionally, it doesn’t matter if you feel positive about your progress, if you’re optimistic, if you’re having a good day - what’s really important is that you’re following your plan and the rest will follow (or come in time), so be forgiving and keep your head up.
A note on the philosophy of working out: a beautiful thing about working out is not just the physical and mental growth you will notice, but the learning - the learning that when you apply rigor to an area of your life, you can be successful. This same rigor can be applied to finding a partner, getting a job, or even a hobby, meaning working out can be a gateway to a truly improved life.
I’ll end with a quote from Socrates that encapsulates the spirit of why you should embark on a fitness journey: “It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”
About the author
By day, I’m a sales strategy and operations analyst at Google, if you couldn’t tell from my approach to fitness in this article. By night, I’m a fitness and workout enthusiast. You can find out more about me on my LinkedIn (currently resisting the urge to create a fitness-centric Instagram). Always happy to answer questions or chat, and you can shoot me an email by clicking here.
Appendix
Videos to learn more:
The Smartest Way To Get Lean (Shredding Science Explained) (my favorite)
Why You're Losing Weight But Don't Look Leaner
Joe Rogan - How To Workout Smarter
How To Build Muscle (Explained In 5 Levels)
Training W/ 7X Mr. Olympia Phil Heath
Getting Motivated to Lose Fat Through Dieting
Comparing 3 Popular Hypertrophy Splits
Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Hypertrophy Training Differences
Series to learn more:
Training Basics & Theory | Chapter 1: The Fundamentals Series Calories Don't Matter | Nutrition Myths #1
Standardizing Your Caloric Intake | Fat Loss Dieting Made Simple #1
Choosing Exercises for Muscle Growth | Hypertrophy Made Simple #1
Article(s) to learn more:
https://leangains.com/fuckarounditis/
Youtubers I recommend following for fitness content
Entertaining:
Scientific:
Comprehensive list of exercises (for custom plans)
Detailed Cuing (what to think about and focus on during an exercise)
Mental cues (global): Breath with the exercise, go slow - be controlled, full range of motion, mind muscle connection - be intentional, full effort
Physical cues (global): Lift sternum, pull with elbow, push out with ankles, squeeze across the bar, squeeze butt, hide hands to hip hinge, squeeze grip, control the eccentric, tighten your core, go slow
Push ups: Un-shrug shoulders, shoulder blades, glutes, body path like bench, lock out fully, pause at bottom
Pull ups: Shoulder width, straight legs, point toes down, squeeze core, look up, squeeze pinky, lock out fully, don't relax shoulders, full bar grip
Bench press: Bar even with eyeline, bar path forward, push with feet under knees, round and squeeze core, rack as separate motion
Squat: Vertical bar path, bar aligned to center of foot, move hips and chest together from the hole, keep back and shins parallel
Deadlift: Side to side sumo stretch, dry run movement to warm up, see laces under bar, chest out, hips down, push legs off ground to knee / strong hump, transition at knee
Sample Mobility Warm Up
6 Side Planks (10 sec hold each side)
Average Data points for reference:
The average person can sustainably lose 1-2 pounds (of fat) per week
The average beginner / intermediate can sustainably build 1 pound of muscle per month
Weightlifting burns 250 calories per hour
Walking burns 300 calories per hour (100 calories per mile)
Running burns 625 calories per hour (125 calories per mile)
A pound of body fat is equivalent to 3500 calories per week
