Hello again, resolute reader! I want to answer a question I received today.

It reads:

“Hello, Ryan. How’re you doing? I was wondering if you could give me some effective diet tips. I do 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups, and run 3 miles each day, but I can’t seem to get a diet to work. I’ve done my own research, but I’d really appreciate your recommendations.” 

I’m super excited about this question, and I’d love to answer it to the benefit of everyone. But, we must understand that the question was sent in by a male. And so, I’ll be including increasing testosterone, which is mostly irrelevant to females, as part of my answer. 

The two main points that can’t be overemphasized are: increasing testosterone naturally and sticking to a caloric deficit.

Increasing Testosterone for Fat Loss:

Your body will begin to burn fat like crazy when you increase testosterone and quit consuming an estrogen-filled diet! You’ll be building muscle a lot faster this way, while also dealing with a key contributor to fat gain, especially around your mid-section.

Milk, cheese, yogurt and processed sugars (found in 80% of our common foods), are all chief sources of estrogen. Soybeans, which are widely known as a major source of estrogen, top that list. And there are several others. There’ll be another blog post discussing all the common foods containing estrogen and how to increase testosterone through your training style, mealtimes, bedtime, and diet.

Caloric Deficit for Fat Loss:

I believe strongly in the effectiveness of caloric deficits. You should follow a caloric deficit, whatever the diet you choose. It doesn’t matter if you are doing intermittent fasting, the ketogenic diet, or both, you’ll have to maintain a certain amount of calories per day or per week. 

Please click this link for info on the keto diet: https://ryankamanu.com/keto-diet-for-fat-loss/. 

Intermittent fasting simply entails skipping breakfast and eating dinner before 8pm. These 14-16 hour fasting periods are super beneficial in terms of increasing testosterone, boosting growth hormones, and losing inches of belly fat.

The key is to do your diet WHILE counting your calories, for better results, and to prevent putting on more weight than you can burn. The best way to establish a caloric deficit is to use this simple online TDEE calculator to get exactly how many calories you burn per day. 

Click this link: https://tdeecalculator.net/ for the online TDEE calculator.

You must consume 500 to 1000 calories less than the figure you get.For example, my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is 3323 calories. Next, I round this figure up or down to the nearest hundred, which would be 3300. Then, I subtract 800 calories from that to give me 2500. (-800 works great for me, but it’s not the same for everybody.) And so, I simply consume 2500 calories for about 8 weeks, while heavy lifting and doing my HIIT. 

Note that if you do 1500 calories, or more, below your TDEE, your body will actually begin to think it’s being starved. As a result, your metabolism will slow down in an effort to compensate for the reduced caloric intake. Now, you’ll be burning less calories, which means you’ll have to eat less food. And so, the maximum amount of calories I recommend to stay below your TDEE and still get effective fat loss is 1000. Any more than that and will be counterproductive.

I also consume 1g of protein per point of my lean body weight. Youcan calculate your lean body weight by subtracting the weight of just your fat from your entire body weight in pounds (mine is 190 lbs) and from it. 

For example, I have about 16% body fat. This gives: 190 x .16 = 30.4. 

Then, 190 – 30.4 = 159.6 grams of (protein I must consume each day to maintain my lean muscle mass while shedding body fat).

You can also create what I like to call “The Extreme Deficit.” This means burning more calories than you are consuming. This, however, is only for highly advanced and devoted individuals, and should be done while taking major precautions. You should consult your doctor about it. It entails following a 1000 caloric deficit while doing extreme weight training and cardio.

For example, if my TDEE is 3000 calories, subtracting 1000 restricts my daily caloric consumption to 2000 calories. I then do major heavy lifting combined with cardio on the ARC machine (a machine that burns high amounts of calories in a high knee motion) for a couple of hours. I normally burn about 1000 calories each hour I spend on the ARC machine, so two hours would be 2000 calories. This means that after two hours, I’ve done the equivalent of eating nothing at all for the entire day, because I’ve burned it all away. If I raise it a notch and do a third hour, I’ll be in the negative (-1000 calories). Just imagine how much weight you could lose with this method!

I trust that you found this in-depth article insightful, and that it can help you or someone you know get that diet to work and achieve those physique goals.