Andy_Morgan_-_The_Last_Shred__Formerly_known_as_The_Diet_Coaching_and_Adjustments_Manual_.pdf

D ET COACHING ADJUSTMENTS MANUAL Evrythin� yo� n� t� succesfll� cu� t� shrd�

Purchased by Richie Han, [email protected] #6478326

1

Part 1 Why Successful People Don’t Just Make Random Cuts To Their Calorie Intake........................... Intake....................................... ........................ ............... ... 4 Part 2 Forget Your Calculations – Why We Need To Track & Make Adjustments As We Diet ....................................................7 Part 3 Expect Fluctuations, Identify Stalls, And Anticipate Whooshes ........................... ....................................... ........................ ........................ ....................10 ........10 Part 4 How I Recommend You You Track Track Your Your Progress ........... ....................... ........................ ................. ..... 14 Part 5 How Quickly Should I Cut? C ut? ........................ .................................... ........................ ........................ ...................... .......... 19 Part 6 The Role Of The Diet Break ........... ....................... ........................ ........................ ........................ ..................... ......... 24 Part 7 When & How To Make Adjustments To Your Calorie Intake .............................. .......................................... ........................ ........................ ....................... ........... 27 Part 8 Full Examples Of How I Coached The Clients You Voted On ................ ............................ ........................ ........................ ........................ ................... ....... 38 Part 9 Coming Back Up To Maintenance To Maximally Maintain Your Shreds ............ ........................ ........................ ........................ ................... ....... 48


2

Part 1 Why Successful People Don’t Just Make Random Cuts To Their Calorie Intake........................... Intake....................................... ........................ ............... ... 4 Part 2 Forget Your Calculations – Why We Need To Track & Make Adjustments As We Diet ....................................................7 Part 3 Expect Fluctuations, Identify Stalls, And Anticipate Whooshes ........................... ....................................... ........................ ........................ ....................10 ........10 Part 4 How I Recommend You You Track Track Your Your Progress ........... ....................... ........................ ................. ..... 14 Part 5 How Quickly Should I Cut? C ut? ........................ .................................... ........................ ........................ ...................... .......... 19 Part 6 The Role Of The Diet Break ........... ....................... ........................ ........................ ........................ ..................... ......... 24 Part 7 When & How To Make Adjustments To Your Calorie Intake .............................. .......................................... ........................ ........................ ....................... ........... 27 Part 8 Full Examples Of How I Coached The Clients You Voted On ................ ............................ ........................ ........................ ........................ ................... ....... 38 Part 9 Coming Back Up To Maintenance To Maximally Maintain Your Shreds ............ ........................ ........................ ........................ ................... ....... 48


2

This book is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of the guidelines herein is at the sole choice and risk of the reader. Copyright: © 2015 by Andrew Morgan. All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof, may not be reproduced or recorded in any form without permission, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information contact: [email protected]


1 t r a P

Why Successful People Don’t Just Make Random Cuts To Their Calorie Intake

One of the keys to successful dieting is to eat as much as possible while still progressing. The typical ‘bro’ way of doing things is to cut out nearly all carbs and fatty foods immediately as the diet commences, eating a daily menu such as white sh, spinach and rice crackers for lunch, chicken breast, broccoli and rice crackers for dinner, for months on end, until shredded. This can actually work fairly well if you’re pumped full of drugs that help to maintain your muscle mass, and keep your hormones in check, but for the rest of us it’s really not a good idea. Why is this not a good idea? •

If we slash calorie intake too much we risk losing muscle mass. – There are limits to how much fat we can lose each day, and the leaner we get, the less we can lose. More on this in part 5.

•

You’ll have less energy for your workouts, and without sucient training intensity your ability to maintain your muscle mass will be hampered.

•

You’ll run out of places to make cuts to your calorie intake to keep progressing.

•

You’ll end up eating less than you could have meaning that your hormones will be aected the most: •

your sex drive will tank,

•

hunger pangs and irritability will be high,

•

you’ll be so strung out by the time you reach your shredded condition (if you get there) that you’ll be primed for a binge and horrible rebound.

Part 1 Why Successful People Don’t Just Make Random Purchased by Richie Han, [email protected] #6478326 Cuts To Their Calorie Intake

4

Here’s a scenario that you’re probably familiar with– two friends having a bet with each other about who can lose the most weight in a given period. Here’s how a conservative approach plays out against an aggressive approach to dieting – the ‘bro’ way vs the smart way of doing things.

Diet Competition – Andy & Bob Consider two friends whose maintenance calories are 2500 kcal per day. They decide to go on a diet to see who can lose the most weight over the next 3 months. Andy starts with a daily decit of ~500 kcal. Bob doesn’t count, but he slashes his carb and fat intake, and his decit ends up being an aggressive one, ~1500 kcal. The rst week… •

Bob starts losing weight faster than Andy.

•

Bob is happier than Andy and considers the hunger worth it because of how quickly the results are coming.

•

Andy is a little jealous of Bob’s progress, but doesn’t really feel hungry or deprived.

6 weeks later… •

Andy is feeling good, progress has been steady but slowed a little recently, still doesn’t feel particularly deprived though, and gym sessions are going well – strength is being maintained.

•

Bob on the other hand is suering. This is both physical and mental. The initial huge water-weight dump set him up with inated expectations of the fat losses that could be achieved per week. In the second week losses were a lot less, but still ahead of Andy so he could put up with the hunger. From then on the losses have slowed considerably each week, strength is being lost in the gym, it’s getting really hard to keep saying no to drinks with friends, and he’s lost interest in sex with his girlfriend.

After 6 weeks of dieting both Andy and Bob now need to decrease their macros to continue progressing. •

Bob has lost more weight than Andy, but Bob has really suered for it.

•

Andy is pretty relaxed about making a decrease and progresses onward.

•

Bob is faced with eating even smaller meals, or adding cardio. Both are unappealing. It’s just a matter of time before he cracks.


5

It’s now the end of week 8… Andy and Bob are camping away with friends for the weekend at a music festival. They’ve had this planned for months. Everyone gets drunk on the Saturday night. With lowered inhibitions they both stumble over to the kebab stand at midnight. Andy has a kebab and stumbles o to the tent to call it a night. Bob, after weeks of heavy calorie restriction just can’t help himself and goes wild – he eats four, runs out of cash, steals a hotdog and wakes up in the car park surrounded by fast food wrappers. They both decide to declare Sunday a total day o. Monday morning Bob steps on the scales and nds he’s gained 8 lbs. He’s heartbroken, and a text message from Andy saying that he gained (just) 4 lbs pushes him over the edge. He quits the diet and concedes the challenge. Though neither of them realise it, part of the weight gained back in both cases was water weight – due to increased carb and salt intake – but Bob will have gained more fat because he’s hormonally primed for fat gain after weeks of heavy calorie restriction . With the challenge aborted, for Bob the fat gain continues over the next two weeks, despite not eating any more than he would have prior to the challenge, and soon Bob nds himself back to where he was 8 weeks ago.

*************

A Smarter Way Of Doing Things We want to make a macro/calorie intake reduction at every point that things stop progressing. To do that we need a tracking system, and we need to know how to interpret that data so that we can be as objective as possible when determining whether we need to make adjustments. This is not as simple as looking at either scale weight changes or body measurement changes. I'll go on to explain this in later sections. For now, I need to get something more fundamental out of the way – to explain why adjustments are necessary in the rst place. “Do these macros look right?” is the single most asked question I get the comments on the website. I would guess I’ve been asked this over 2000 times, but it is fundamentally the wrong question to be asking, “How are those macros working out for you? ” is the one that needs to be answered. A calculation cannot predict a diet’s progress accurately. Initial calculations of calorie and macro intake just provide a starting point from which to work. Here’s why…


6

2 t r a P

Forget Your Calculations – Why We Need To Track & Make Adjustments As We Diet

Let’s look at the reasons that our initial calculations won’t pan out to reality before then moving onto what we can do about it.

1. Initial Calculations Are Just An Estimation

→

•

The calculations that you made to come up with your energy needs when you set up your diet were based on averages – average metabolic rate for someone of your stature and age, or average for someone of your lean body mass. You could be either side of that range.

•

If you used the Katch-McArdle formula to calculate your energy needs, though this is potentially more accurate due to it being based on the amount of lean mass you carry, you may have misestimated your body-fat percentage. In fact, due to the diculty of accurately assessing body-fat percentage, you probably did.(More on this later.)

•

Your activity multiplier was an estimation.

Our initial calculations are likely to be o and will need to be adjusted based on how they work out to reality. FOR COACHES: You’ll get some people try to track their daily activity with a tness tracker, like a Fitbit wristband or the like. This can be a useful tool for showing us how lazy we are, and illustrating how little energy we burn through walking around on an hourly basis, but I feel that the usefulness of these devices stops there. They are generally horrible at estimating energy expenditure, and even if they were accurate, what is the person supposed to do? Adjust their meals each day in order to maintain their target caloric decit? It’s just not realistic in the long term, and trying to micro-manage a diet like this is unsustainable and a recipe for disaster.

Part 2 Forget Your Calculations – Why We Need To Track & Make Adjustments As We Diet Purchased by Richie Han, [email protected] #6478326

7

2. Our Energy Needs Change As We Diet The Lighter We Get the Fewer Calories We Burn There are three reasons for this: •

The energy required to be you is less, so your base metabolic rate (BMR) drops.

•

You’re eating less food, so the energy costs of digesting that food (known as TEF ) is lower.

•

And because you are lighter, any exercise you do (known as the thermic eect of exercise, or TEE ) burns fewer calories. BMR , TEF , TEE 

→

Because of these changes a single calculation made initially will not continue to work in the vast majority of cases. FOR COACHES: If the duration of the diet is short, and/or the decit was fairly aggressive initially (whether accidentally or on purpose), then one single calculation may be enough in a few cases to see people through to a shredded state.

NEAT Variance This is all energy expenditure that is not related to planned activity, (known as non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT ). We all feel more lethargic on diets right? Fidgeting, moving around, and our propensity to take stairs vs elevator etc., changes when we are in a caloric decit. The problem with NEAT is that there are vast inter-individual variances. Some people seem to respond minimally in this regard, some a great deal. →

No calculation can take into account these individual NEAT dierences.

Metabolic Adaptation This is the adaptive component of your BMR that is not predicted by weight loss. Basically it is caused by hormonal changes that happen when your body senses a caloric decit, and so starts doing what it can to decrease your daily energy needs in an attempt to stop you from starving to death. Modern dieting clearly isn’t a survival situation, but unfortunately our bodies can’t tell the dierence between prolonged caloric restriction and starvation, so it’s something we have to deal with.


8

The harder you diet, the more your metabolism adapts. In the research, the largest decrease in BMR due to this adaptive component observed was in something called The Minnesota SemiStarvation study and was measured to be about 15%, once the change in total daily energy expenditure due to weight loss was taken into account. That would be 200-400 kcal depending on your body size – a signicant amount that could mean the dierence between extreme hunger and modest hunger if we could minimise it. →

It’s worth keeping away from excessively large calorie decits so that we minimise the severity of the metabolic adaptation and can eat more throughout our diets.

However, it’s important to note that this is what was observed during starvation conditions. Your diet will be less extreme, even if you decide to take what would be considered to be an extreme/ stupid approach (500 kcal/day for example) in the modern day. Thus, if you feel that you have an exceptionally low calorie intake and aren’t losing weight, barring legitimate medical issue, it’s likely that you are simply miscounting you calorie intake, or have some water retention masking the weight loss. FOR COACHES: Miscounting far more common than water retention. It’s worth getting a client that is completely new to dieting to put everything they put into their mouths into a calorie tracker for a week, as this will teach them a lot and help to rule out severe undercounting. As long as people aren’t wildly o of their targets I don’t think that miscounting has to be an issue. The key thing is that people are consistent with the way they count. I’ve got a good explanation of the system I use for counting here. If a client is worried that they are ‘metabolically damaged,’ it’s likely that they have read some nonsense online. Metabolic damage due to dieting too hard and long is something of a modern myth. So read that and educate them, or pass on the link so they can read it themselves.

Summary Recommendations Initial calculations of calorie and macro intake just provide a starting point from which to work. We can’t predict spontaneous physical activity (NEAT) changes, or metabolic slow-down, and it’s likely that our initial calculations of energy needs were a little o. The only practical way to proceed then is to adjust our intake when we don’t progress as planned. To do that of course, we require good tracking. ‘Good’ means tracking relevant data points so that we can make decisions as objectively as we can. Now the problem is that while fat loss happens linearly, the measurements we use to track it, usually do not respond linearly. We’ll cover why this is next, as it forms the basis of my recommendations on how we track things and it will stop you from panicking later on.


9

3 t r a P

Expect Fluctuations, Identify Stalls, And Anticipate Whooshes

Not realising that uctuations in weight and measurements will happen, being unable to identify stalls, and not knowing how to anticipate whooshes are the key reasons that people fail their diets. Don’t let this be you.

Part 3 Expect Fluctuations, Identify Stalls, And Anticipate Whooshes


10

We know from the discussion in the previous section that the further we progress with our diets, the slower the rate of progress we will get. This is represented by the curve in the yellow line. Compare that to how most people think fat loss will/can happen for a moment by looking at the green line. We can go faster at the start, slower at the end. Unfortunately, though fat loss is fairly linear, the way it manifests itself is not. The scale weight change is more likely to jump all over the place (the red line), which causes a lot of frustration. This happens due to uctuations in water weight, and unfortunately it is very dicult to consistently and accurately track the dierences between fat loss and water loss. However, we can look for signs in our tracking data to distinguish between the two. To do this we need to understand the reasons that these uctuations in water weight happen.

1. Why The Initial Change In Weight Is Probably Not Fat Loss A change in carbohydrate intake will bring with it a change in water balance in the body. This is because glycogen comes from the carbs we eat, and 1g of glycogen holds 3g of water and is stored in the muscles, waiting to be used as energy. Our muscles are made up of ~70-80% water. Some of the water comes under the skin, but most of it goes into the muscle. If you eat fewer carbs than normal, which you probably will when you start dieting, your body (the muscles mainly) will hold less water. The scale weight will plummet giving you the false impression that you’ve lost fat. It is possible in this way to drop weight without being in a caloric decit. (This is what boxers and MMA ghters do to ‘make weight’ before a ght.) → It

is prudent to ignore the rst week’s weight change when looking to establish your average rate of fat loss. Use data from the second week onwards.

2. Why The Sudden Weight Gain Is Probably Not Fat If you eat more carbs than normal, when you take a diet break for example, or go out, get drunk and wake up surrounded by pizza boxes that you swear aren’t yours, your body will hold more water giving you the impression that you’ve gained a lot of fat. This is just a temporary uctuation in water balance and will come down again when you resume your diet. A sudden gain in weight is likely to be water gain, not fat gain. One pound of fat takes 3000-3500 kcal to burn or store. If your maintenance calorie intake is 2500 kcal, even if we assume that any


11

excess over regular calorie maintenance is stored perfectly as body fat (it’s not), then that’s more than 5200 kcal you’d have to consume on a single day to gain a pound of body fat. Possible, yes, but not likely if you are eating sensibly, and even if you really eat a huge amount and wake up 5 lbs heavier, it’s almost certain that less than half of it will be fat. The way to tell the dierence between what is largely a water weight uctuation due to an increased carb intake and just fat gain, is that with the former the muscles will look a lot fuller and the stomach measurements will change only a little, despite the disproportionate rise in scale weight. (This is easiest to spot if we take body measurements on other sites than just the stomach.) Plus, after a couple of days resuming your diet, your weight will whoosh downwards again as it drops the water. If you cycle carbohydrate intake, your weight (and appearance/level of denition) will uctuate from day to day across the week. Furthermore, any change in salt intake can temporarily bring about a spike in water balance. However, it’s very hard to track salt intake so I don’t recommend you even attempt it, but it’s a good idea to remember this point when possibly looking for an explanation as to why you are suddenly bloated one day. →

It is best to weigh yourself each day and note down the average at the end of the week.

→

It’s best to track measurements all over the body, not just the stomach.

3. Why The Sudden Stall In Weight Loss Is Probably Nothing To Worry About Fat cells can ll up with water as they empty, masking fat losses. This was rst hypothesised by Lyle McDonald. This is especially annoying because the stomach measurements won't change, and signs of progress are hidden. I’ve seen this many, many times over the years with clients, and while I have seen it happen to people without reason, those with poor sleep habits and/or a high amount of stress in their lives tend to experience this more often. Remember – fat loss will not start or stop suddenly unless calorie balance has changed. The reduction in total daily energy needs when dieting is a gradual thing (NEAT , BMR, TEF). Metabolic adaptation is not a sudden switch. So, if you have been consistent with your diet, and weight loss has been at ~1 lb a week for a while (for example) and the scale suddenly stops moving, you have a good idea that there is some water retention going on. The best thing to do in this case is to remain patient, and if sleep quality is poor, or stress high, then work on improving those areas rst. – We’ll come back to this in the client examples section.


12

FOR COACHES: It’s not just about length of sleep, but quality of sleep. Does the client have a good mattress, a good pillow? Is the room too hot or cold? Is the room dark? Make sure that people get these basics sorted – they may sound obvious now but they aren’t always obvious to the client. →

It is a good idea to track qualitative measures of sleep quality and overall stress each week also .

4. Why A Sudden Whoosh In Weight Loss Is Not Something To Worry About It’ll be water. Either due to a sudden decrease in carbohydrate intake, salt intake, or is just a whoosh of water that has been building up in the fat cells and waiting to come out. →

It is best to look at the trends in measurement and weight data over multiple weeks, and ignore any big uctuations that can happen week to week.

Summary Recommendations We need to track progress based on more then just the scale weight. It is best to take body measurements, as well as track sleep and stress levels each week as the diet progresses, due to their ability to aect water retention. It should be expected that there will be stalls in progress, and we mustn’t panic when these things happen but embrace them as part of the process. Hopefully you will have already read the next section on how to track your progress from the site. I’m betting that it will make a lot more sense now. Here’s a heavily updated version


13

4 t r a P

How I Recommend You Track Your Progress

Here's what most people do that I suggest you don't... •

•

Don’t rely on the mirror. The lighting will uctuate, and your condition will change depending on the salt and carb content of the foods you have eaten. Trying to track your progress by checking yourself in the mirror is a recipe for disaster, as in the short term the mirror will just screw with your head. Don’t try to track by measuring your body-fat percentage – there are accuracy and consistently issues with all commercially available methods. (BIA, BodPod, underwater weighing, callipers and DXA scan all have their issues.)

Here's how I suggest you track things... 1. Take 9 Points Of Measurement Once A Week Consistency is key to accurate tracking. This means that measurements need to be taken at the same time of the day, under the same circumstances. Do it yourself, as you are the only person that will always be with you. The best time to measure is in the morning, after you wake, after going to the toilet. Once a week is ne. •

Measure in nine places as per the illustration.

•

Tense/ex your muscles for each measurement as this enables more consistent results.

Part 4 How I Recommend You Track Your Progress


14

•

To help you take the measurements in the same place each time, •

Use the widest part of your legs,

•

Measure at the nipple-line for the chest, being sure not to get the tape at an angle or twisted,

•

Curl your biceps in a pose like Arnold to take your arms at the widest point,

•

Two ngers above and below the navel is a good guideline instead of measuring 2 inches each time.

•

Consider getting yourself a Myotape/Orbitape (picture below) as it makes self-measuring more consistent and easier.

•

Take and note measurements to the nearest 0.1 cm.


15

FOR COACHES: Accept nothing less than a 0.1 cm degree of accuracy, regardless of what system they are used to. Not only is it exceptionally useful for noting small changes and trends in the data, it sets the client up with a mindset on precision – that they need to take the data seriously. Without the data, you are blind after all. I hammer this point home to clients at the outset – no data, no assessment point. People sometimes screw this up, so it’s worth checking that they have lled out the tracking sheet correctly in the rst week so that there can be no misunderstandings at the update point 2-4 weeks later where you have no data to look at, incomplete data, or data to the nearest 1 cm (or even more annoyingly, nearest half an inch).

2. Weigh Yourself Every Morning Here is a quick summary of all things that can cause uctuations in weight: •

Water & glycogen – due to an change in carb intake

•

Water – the stall-whoosh eect.

•

Water – due to hydration status.

•

Water – due to a change in salt intake.

•

Bowel content – some foods have a higher ‘gut residue’ (they stay in the gut for longer).

We want the conditions to be as consistent as possible when weighing ourselves, and the best thing for this is to weigh last thing at night, or rst thing in the morning. My preference is for the morning -scale uctuations can mess with people’s heads we don’t want sleep to be disturbed because of them stressing about this. Weigh yourself every morning upon waking, after the toilet (empty your bladder). Then at the end of the week calculate the average and note it. →


16

You can expect to lose 1-2% bodyweight over night through the moisture lost when breathing, so denitely do not weigh yourself in the morning one day, and then the evening the next. FOR COACHES: Scale Weight Obsessors – If you’ve noticed that your client is completely obsessed with the scale weight and won’t get it into their head that there will be uctuations as they progress, you probably want to limit them to weighing themselves once a week. – The stress from the uctuations can cause water retention and will only make them stress more. Weighing once a week is not ideal by any means as it leaves you open to random uctuations in weight happening and screwing up your analysis. The downsides of this needs to be weighed up with stress from daily weighing that happens with certain personality types. Education on the causes of weight uctuations is usually a cure in most cases, but not all. Gut Residue – This point is worth bearing in mind for a client that needs to drop weight for a weigh-in but is close to their target. You’ll get people dehydrating themselves in order to make a weigh-in, but it’s rarely a good idea to play with this as it aects performance – and when taken to the extreme people have died. Switching to foods that have a low gut residue (generally less bre, more liquids) can help the someone drop 1-2% bodyweight over the course of a couple of weeks without the need for calorie restriction. Then when you add in some mild carb restriction a week out to decrease glycogen and water balance, and possibly a lowering of salt intake a few days before (if it’s being counted), you can get a 3-5% drop in bodyweight fairly painlessly.

3. Take Photos Once Every Four Weeks Take two photos, front and side. Use the same lighting conditions, camera, camera angle, time of day, and pose. I’ve experimented with weekly and fortnightly photos with clients and I’m convinced that every four weeks is best, and taking them more often can be counter-productive as the changes are often too small to be motivational. FOR COACHES: If someone comes to you with an initial set of photos where they have their stomach forcibly sticking out, ask them to retake them. Tell them to tense their abs from the start – it’s important to be consistent. The goal with the photos is not to have the most striking before-after shots, but to have a reliable visual gauge of progress.

4. Track Strength Track your strength in the main compound lifts you perform. Some days you will feel stronger than others, so note the best set for the week. The conditions must be the same for you to be able to compare – rest times, form, etc.


17

FOR COACHES: I like to get clients to note the best session for each main compound lift that week, as it means I can look at all the data at a glance and I’m at less risk of missing anything. Of course, feel free to track the entire workout routine if you like, or the total volume performed for the week for a body part or exercise – when I coach clients through a bulk this is something I have been doing this last year. Total ‘hard sets‘ for an exercise or body part is another option of tracking training volume.

5. Track Diet & Training Adherence Rate your diet adherence as a percentage – If you get each macro target to within 10% either side, consider that to be perfect adherence (100%). The total percentage I’d suggest you write is the percentage of days you managed to achieve that. It’s also a good idea to list any instances where you feel you went well over the calorie balance for the day – that could be a big drinking session, wedding party, etc.. Note the date that you did this in your tracking spreadsheet (because otherwise you’ll forget) as you can expect a rise in the numbers that week. FOR COACHES: Some people are going to screw up their counting of things. Short of requesting a complete list of the client’s meals and their ingredients, (which I think may be overbearing, and possibly counterproductive because you get them stuck into a rigid meal planning mindset from the start) there is no real way to check for this, you just have to be aware of it. So, if someone isn’t losing weight as it seems they should for the macros you’ve given them, miscounting may be a factor. More on what you can do about this later. Rate your training adherence as a percentage. – This means the percentage of completed workouts, not how well you thought you performed. Fluctuations in performance are normal and to be expected.

6. Track Qualitative Factors Rate your sleep quality, stress level, and hunger on a 1-5 scale, each week. As you look back across your tracking data to see how you are progressing, if weight and measurements aren’t changing according to plan, check to see how your sleep or stress levels were for these weeks. – If they are high, then it is likely to be water retention rather than a lack of a caloric decit to blame. This is especially true if you have been nding yourself hungry at the same time. (Just note, hunger doesn’t always means you’re in a caloric decit, but it can be a good gauge that you are if other things point in that direction.)


18

5 t r a P

How Quickly Should I Cut?

Very generally speaking, the body fuels itself in the ratio that it has fuels available. Unfortunately, the amino acids that comprise our muscle tissue are one of these fuels, so a caloric decit puts our hard-earned muscle mass at risk. However, by doing resistance training we send a signal to our bodies to hang onto the muscle tissue instead of breaking it down, and by keeping protein intake high we give our bodies the ability to do so. The problem is this – leaner we get, the less body fat is available as a fuel source, and the more likely the body is to break down muscle into amino acids for fuel. And if our energy decit for the day is beyond the body’s capability to fuel itself from fat stores, we will lose muscle mass. I guess this is just a long winded way of saying that: →

Fatter people can lose fat quicker than leaner people, and,

→

We should taper our fat-loss rate as we get leaner.

Now, it is possible to calculate the theoretical limits to fat loss as they relate to body-fat percentage, however I don’t think this is a very good idea to base recommendations for weight loss o of because even though we can lose fat at a faster rate, doesn’t mean that we should. There are four principle reasons for this:

1. Smaller Decits Open Up The Possibility Of Muscle Gain It is possible (even for advanced trainees) to gain muscle while in a caloric decit. This has been shown in the research, anecdotally, researcher Brad Schoenfeld has said that he’s seen it

Part 5 How Quickly Should I Cut? Purchased by Richie Han, [email protected] #6478326

19

countless times during the course of his work, and I’ve noticed it in clients myself. Our ability to do this, •

Decreases as we advance with our training,

•

Decreases as we get leaner,

•

Decreases with higher caloric decits.

For completeness, I should note that this is also related to the skill of the program designer, and related to the quality of your gym environment. But these things can’t outweigh those rst three.

2. Smaller Decits Make Diet Control Easier And Reduce Rebound Risk Think back to the story of Bob and Andy in the opening section of this book. It doesn’t matter what you can achieve in the next month, what matters is that you can sustain things over the coming months, and that you don’t reach the end of your diet so miserable that you can’t control a careful change to maintenance to keep your denition.

3. You Don’t Run Into Skin Elasticity Issues If you start losing much more than the rates above over an extended period, skin elasticity can become an issue, meaning, you could be left looking like a deated balloon for a temporary period after your diet. This is because the rate at which your skin could come tight again was exceeded by the rate of fat loss. Skin elasticity decreases with age, and decreases with the number of times it is stretched and has to come tight again. This is why you will occasionally see ‘masters’ division (aged 40+, 50+, 60+ etc.) bodybuilders with loose skin on their lower abs.

4. There Are Potential Health Risks Large reductions in energy intake mean a reduced nutrient availability for the body. Cut your food intake in half and you cut that in half as well. This can have negative impacts on health, especially if the restriction is over an extended period. This brings us to an interesting point on restricting to create a decit vs working harder to make one: If you do the latter (increase activity for example) then you get to keep the same nutrient availability, but at the cost of sustainability. There is no single right way to do things here, but my preference tends to be to keep towards moderate dietary restriction rather than making increases in weekly exercise (unless the person is sedentary in the rst place).


20

How This Affects Our Targets It’s very hard to distinguish between fat loss and muscle gain – we aren’t able to trust bodyfat percentage measurement machines, and so we only have our weight and stomach measurement changes to give us clues about how fat loss is progressing. So, instead of setting fat-loss guidelines, it’s more practical, accurate and meaningful to set weight-loss guidelines that slightly lower than any maximal fat-loss rate as this will take into account the potential for muscle growth.

Weight-loss Guidelines

Body fat %

Loss /week

30%>

~2-2.5 lbs / 0.9-1.1 kg

20-30%

~1.5-2 lbs / 0.7-0.9 kg

15-20%

1-1.5 lbs / 0.45-0.7 kg

12-15%

0.75-1.25 lbs / 0.35-0.6 kg

9-12%

0.5-1 lbs / 0.2-0.45 kg

7-9%

~0.5 lbs / 0.2 kg

<7%

<0.5 lbs / 0.2 kg

Notes: •

For advanced trainees, the potential for muscle growth will also be a little lower, so the rate of fat loss can be slightly higher, hence the ranges.

•

These are just average guidelines – for shorter people it will be at the lower end of the ranges or less; for taller people at the upper end of the ranges or more.

Balancing Motivation and Sustainability Meta-analyses of the study evidence on slow vs fast weight loss show that faster rates of weight loss are associated with better long-term outcomes – people are able to stick to their diets longer, and they are more likely to sustain the weight loss. However, it’s important to note that these studies are done on overweight and obese people, not the leaner, experienced trainees that are typically looking to lose their winter u and take themselves to shreds. So the results are specic to that population, which makes sense when you think about it – if you have 80 lbs to lose, and I tell you that you need to lose 1 lb per


21

week, you may struggle mentally to sustain your diet knowing that you have to keep it up for 18 months. Essential then is this: Balancing the motivation that comes with seeing the scale weight tumble at a satisfying rate, vs losing weight too quickly and getting yourself into an unsustainable pattern of training and eating. People new to dieting have a tendency towards the latter, rather than taking things too slow. So, if you nd yourself losing weight at a speed that you nd unable to sustain – take things a little slower! Avoid an 'all or nothing' mindset.

If Muscle Is Lost, Don’t Panic! Lost muscle mass can be regained quickly in most cases after dieting. This is because though muscle protein is lost, the myonuclei that control how much muscle we can carry tend to stick around, which makes regaining muscle a lot easier. So, while I don’t recommend going quicker than the guidelines above, if it needs to be done (you have a deadline that needs to be met), and muscle loss the result, I don’t want you to stress about it. Just bear in mind that controlling your return to maintenance or adjusting your diet into a bulk after the cut will be harder this way, meaning you’re more likely to regain the fat you worked so hard to lose, which you’ll note is one of the reasons I don’t recommend losing weight too quickly. FOR COACHES: There are two general exceptions to the weight-loss guidelines I have above. 1. There is a deadline and we have no option to go slower. Imagine the situation where I get a call next April from my friend Okada who trains the Japanese judo team, and he tells me that he has a concern that one of his star athletes isn’t going to make their weight class in time for the summer Olympics and they need some help – you can be damn sure we’ll do all we can. The key dierences here from a regular client is that compliance is almost a given with the top level athlete in this situation (they will suer for their sport and country and do whatever needs to be done), and the potential rebound back to their previous weight after the event doesn’t matter. 2. To give an obese (30%+ body fat) individual a faster start to their diet. A short but rapid weight loss phase at the outset (then followed by a more controlled period) has been shown to have better long-term diet adherence rates. Before doing this, check that they haven’t been dieting immediately prior to coming to you for coaching, and make sure that their sleep is on point and stress levels low. I suggest you keep this period 4-6 weeks maximum. If a prospective client insists that they go at a higher rate of fat loss than you feel comfortable with, I’d suggest you think carefully about whether you want to take them on as a client.


22

Summary Recommendations In my opinion, smaller (than maximal) decits are best. There are limits to how much fat we can lose each day without losing muscle mass as well. There are various factors that aect this, but one of the most important when considering diet adjustments is the rate at which we lose weight. If we keep the rate of weight loss within certain ranges, we have a shot at gaining some muscle gain as we lean out. →

It’s in your interest to not exceed the target rates of fat loss in the table above.


23

6 t r a P

The Role Of The Diet Break

Remember, the goal is to stay eating as much as possible, for as long as possible, so that you can get leaner than you ever have, in the most comfortable way you ever have, so that you are able to sustain it. This is not only about making diet adjustments at the right time, but knowing when to take diet breaks also.

What Is A ‘Diet Break’? When I say ‘diet break’ I am referring to a complete break from counting or attempting to monitor food intake. A short period of regular eating has the potential to reverse some of the metabolic adaptations to a caloric decit, giving the hormones time to recover to normal levels. This means that you’ll be less hungry and pissed o all the time, have more energy, fewer cravings, and potentially you’ll be able to eat more than you otherwise would have and still progress with your diet. Physiological reasons aside, taking periodical diet breaks is a good idea for the psychological benets also. However they are an underused tool in the dieters arsenal, aren’t sexy to talk about, and the people that would likely benet from them the most (the type A ‘stress heads’) are usually the least willing to take them.

What To Do •

Eat to your hunger and don’t count macros.

•

Keep your regular meal times.

Part 6 The Role Of The Diet Break Purchased by Richie Han, [email protected] #6478326

24

•

Keep on training or take a break. Make a choice. If you choose to continue training then you may well make some strength gains. Enjoy it.

If these instructions seem too easy, you’re probably just over thinking the diet break. Don’t worry though, that’s very common and I have a detailed diet break FAQ on the site here.

Length & Frequency •

10-14 days, two weeks recommended. Unfortunately some hormones simply take longer to recover to normal levels than others, so there is no cutting a diet break short.

•

Frequency depends primarily on our level of leanness. – The leaner we get, the more our bodies hate us (the harsher the metabolic adaptations become), so the more frequently they should be taken. Body fat %(men)

Diet Break Frequency

<10%

every 4-6 weeks

10-15%

every 6-8 weeks

15-25%

every 10-12 weeks

25%+

every 12-16 weeks

Women add ~7%.

Above are my own recommendations on diet break frequency, adapted from Lyle McDonald's original recommendations after gaining experience. This is just a general guide and psychological factors will come into play as well. I base frequency of diet breaks on how a client is doing well mentally (mood, cravings, stress), as well as physically (energy, sleep, recovery). With a slower rates of fat loss diet breaks can be less frequent. In my coaching experience I’ve personally found that I’ve only had to recommend diet breaks as frequent as every 8 weeks, even with those taking it to what I’d consider ‘shredded‘.

Expectations •

You can expect a rise in the scale weight due to the increase in carb intake.

•

You may feel fatter, but you’ll note that the weight that you gain here (7-10 lbs isn’t uncommon) doesn’t correlate with the same level of increase in stomach measurements that you saw yourself lose over the last few weeks when you lost that same amount of weight. This is because most of the gain in weight will be your muscles lling with water/glycogen – so you’ll feel bigger and fuller, and for the leaner folks, more vascular.


25

•

Some water will be gained under the skin, and there will be a little fat gain, but nothing extreme (unless you purposefully binge eat the entire diet break – which is a very rare exception if everything else has been set up well thus far).

FOR COACHES: Talk to your prospective client about the subject of diet breaks before taking the client on. You don’t have to go into exceptional detail, but just mentioning it will give you less resistance down the line when you make the decision that it would be best to take one. Also, before taking a client on remember to check about their diet history – they may need to take a diet break before you begin working together.


26

7 t r a P

When & How To Make Adjustments To Your Calorie Intake

I categorise the adjustments that need to be made into one of two types: 1) A renement of the calculation that was made at the start of the diet, 2) Adjustments thereafter to keep things progressing. These need to be handled in slightly dierent ways so I have sections for both. This is by far the most detailed section of the book. I’ve written it as kind of a manual for making adjustments and I have done my best to make decision trees to help you. They are certainly not awless and common sense should override anything you read here. Let me know in the feedback form whether this is the kind of level of detail you like to see, whether you’d like less, or even more, and I’ll bear that in mind for future revisions and editions.

1. The Refinement Of Your Initial Calculations We know that our initial calculations were made using formulae that were developed based on averages. Thus, though you may have gotten lucky, it’s likely that you may need to adjust things to get back in line with your target rate of fat loss. My rule: Do NOT make any adjustments until the four week point. I would strongly advise that you wait until the four week point before making any adjustments. Why? Because we need to have a consistent run of data from which to draw conclusions about rates of progress. Before this point the chance are too high that we will have a random uctuation in the data that will screw up our analysis of it.

Part 7 When & How To Make Adjustments To Your Calorie Intake


27

Take a look at your data. Is there a jump from the rst week to the second that isn’t in line with the rest? Yes? Ok throw that week of data out and don’t consider it for the analysis. This will be an initial jump in weight due to the change in carb intake. Ask yourself: What is the average rate of weight loss per week over the last 3-4 weeks? •

Were you on target? If so, don’t change anything.

•

Were you above your target? You should probably make an adjustment to slow things down. The math for this is the same as in the next point, just reversed. FOR COACHES: If the decit works out to be higher than you originally calculated (the rate of fat loss will be higher), it can be ne in some cases to keep the calorie/macro intake as it is. The key things to look out for are that the client’s mood, strength, sleep and stress levels are all in check. Also, be prepared to make calorie increases to slow down the rate of fat loss if any of these things take a turn for the worse in the proceeding weeks.

•

Were you below your target average weight loss per week? Then you want to reduce your calorie intake. What follows are the instructions for that.

How To Make The Reduction We know that a 3500 calorie weekly decit is needed to produce around one pounds of fat loss. This is a decit of 500 calories per day. So, if your average rate of weight loss is short of your target by 0.5 lbs for example, then you want to reduce your calorie intake by 250 kcal per day. Protein can be kept the same – it’s the macronutrient that gives the most satiety, and is also muscle sparing. Reduce energy intake via your fat and carb macros – 50/50 respectively will work ne, though there is scope for personal preference here as long as you… Don’t go below 0.4 g* of fat per pound of lean body mass – from that point just adjust your carb intake. When you calculate your fat requirement beware of the tendency to overestimate lean body mass, as this will leave your minimal fat intake threshold higher than necessary. (*I f you cycle your fat intake with your training and non-training days, use the average per day.) Applying these rules to create an additional 250 kcal decit: •

If your diet is iso-caloric(same calories each day) and you have the same macros every day: make a 25-30 g reduction in carb intake, a 10-15 g reduction to your fat intake.

•

If your cycle your calorie and carb intake: On your training days reduce carbs by 50 g, fats by 5 g, and on rest days reduce carbs by 25 g, fats by 15 g. (1g Carbohydrate = 4 kcal, 1g Fat = 9 kcal)


28

Things To Look Out For At This Stage •

If you are new to training, or have just re-started training after some time o, general increases in limb measurements due to the ‘initial pump’ are to be expected in the rst couple of weeks.

•

If you see unusually large jumps in the chest/back measurements (and often the leg measurements) this is usually due to measurement inconsistencies or error. The chest/back measurement takes some getting used to before people can nd a pose/position they can get consistent measurements with, and it’s not uncommon for people to get the tape twisted behind their backs without them realising it. With the legs, people just tend to need practice to get the same measurement site each time.

•

It's likely that you will see the stomach measurements come down more in some places than others. That’s perfectly normal and is the reason we take measurements at multiple measurement sites. More on this in the next section.

2. Adjustments Mid-diet I am rather arbitrarily distinguishing this as being any time past the 5th week point and onwards. As we made an initial adjustment at the 4 week point this is of no relation to the accuracy of our initial calculations, but is due to the reduction of energy needs as the diet has progressed. (In honesty, those of you that found you had to make decreases at the four week update point, part of that will have been due to these reductions already though.) You are best to make this assessment at the 6 week point or later, so that you have time to gauge how the last adjustment (if you made one) aected things. I’d suggest you then assess your progress at 2 week intervals from there on. Ask yourself: What is the average weight loss over the last 4 weeks? ( Meaning weeks 3-6. ) •

Were you on target? If so, continue as you were. Even if the stomach measurements don’t change – don’t worry about it. This just means the fat loss happened in places that we didn’t measure.

•

Were you above your target? If so, consider increasing your calorie intake. (Instructions as before.)

•

Were you below your target? Here’s where things get interesting…

I’ve already explained that we need to be careful of making cuts to our diet prematurely, and also that we need to be aware of the ‘stall and whoosh’ phenomenon that can happen sometimes. This usually follows one of two patterns. – The scale weight suddenly stops changing and sits


29

there for a few weeks, or the rate of scale weight change starts gradually decreasing. Here are some checklists to help you decide whether or not a reduction in calorie intake is needed.

Weight & Measurement Checklist – Section 1 Did the scale weight suddenly stop changing? No. → Skip to section 2. Yes. 

Have the stomach measurements continued to decline at the same average rate as previously? Yes. → Don’t worry about the scale weight not changing for now. It is probably just due to a random change in glycogen/water balance, with the possibility of some muscle growth. Reassess in two weeks. No. 

Have you been consistent with your diet? No. → Get more consistent with your diet. Come back and reassess in two weeks. Binges on the weekend, or “cheat meals” can easily wipe out an entire week’s caloric decit. Yes. 

Are you under an unusual period of stress, and/or have you been sleeping poorly? No.

→ Though

unusual, this is likely to be water retention, so keep things as they are for a couple of weeks and if no change then consider making a reduction. (See following section, “How To Make A Reduction.“) Yes. 

Is the stressful situation likely to continue? No. → If you feel you are ok to continue then carry on as you are. It’s likely that you just have water retention and need to wait for it to pass. You will probably wake up one morning in the next couple of weeks a few pounds lighter. If you don’t feel ok to continue then consider taking a diet break for a week, possibly two. Then come back to this and see how you feel. Yes. 


30

Take a diet break, two weeks minimum. During your break do your best to mitigate whatever is stressing you out. Consider 10 minutes of meditation in the mornings. (I use a phone app. called 'Headspace.') Sleep more if you can. Consider cutting back on training volume, but keep the loading the same. (i.e. reduce the number of sets performed, but keep the total weight on the bar if you can.) Come back to this and see how you feel after your break. If you feel ne to continue then do so. If you still feel stressed then consider taking a longer break from dieting for now. FOR COACHES: Stress not only causes water retention, but negatively aects diet progress, recovery and training adaptations. Make sure that clients know about this and be thorough when vetting clients before taking them on. Sometimes the right decision is to tell the client to pause the diet, which isn’t going to be a popular decision if they have paid you and they weren’t aware of these things. You have to be tough, and put the health of the client rst over them liking you. You don’t want to add a caloric decit (a stressor) into the mix when someone is already stressed. This gets more important/relevant the leaner someone gets. Related: "Why can’t you work with people with a lot of life stress?" "Stress: In The Gym, Out of The Gym, and How it Aects Your Program and Progress"

Weight & Measurement Checklist – Section 2 (Skip this unless you were instructed to read it in the checklist section 1.) Has the rate of scale weight change been gradually decreasing? No. → Re-read from the start of this section, you probably missed the relevant part. Yes. 

Recall that as we get leaner if we wish to retain muscle mass the rate that we should target fat loss needs to be reduced. By your best estimation of your drop in body fat, is the new, lower rate of weight change consistent with the recommended range of fat loss for the new, lower body-fat percentage that you are at? Yes. → Good. Stay as you are then. No. 

Have the measurements continued to decline at the same rate? Yes. → No problem then. You’re denitely losing fat, and are probably just experiencing some muscle growth at the same time. Reassess in two weeks and see where you are then.


31

No. 

Have you been consistent with your diet? No → See section 1. Yes. 

Are you under an unusual period of stress? Yes. → See section 1. No. 

Are you due a diet break? Yes. → Take one. Resume your diet for two weeks afterwards and see if your weight starts to drop. No. 

It’s probably time to make a reduction then.

How To Make The Reduction Option 1: Find the dierence between the rate of weight loss that you’re at and your target, and calculate the calorie reduction needed as per the guidelines in the previous section (“The renement of your initial calculation“). Honestly though, that is a bit overly precise and I usually just go with option two, which is: Option 2: Decrease overall energy intake by around 5-8%. For most men this is a 100-200 kcal reduction, which can be as simple as making a 25-50 g reduction of carbs on the training days, and reducing carb intake by 25 g and/or fat intake by 10 g on the rest days.

Points To Note When Assessing Stomach Measurements There is a trend to the way fat loss tends to happen on the stomach as we get leaner. Here is


32

what you’ll likely notice in your stomach measurements: • In the 10-20% body-fat range, fat loss tends to happen from the upper abs rst and works it’s way down. At the higher end of the range you can therefore expect to see more movement in the upper stomach measurements than the lower. As you lean out, you’ll see more reduction from the mid-stomach measurement (@the navel) and lower. • At 10% body fat and below you will see minimal change in the mid and upper stomach measurements. The lower stomach measurement and waist measurement will have the biggest change, this is because the fat on your very lower abs and back is coming o at this point. For this reason, visual changes will be very small looking front on, especially when getting leaner than 8% body fat, when the fat on the abs is pretty much gone entirely. •

Above 20% body fat there does’t seem to be any pattern. I assume it’s because a large part of the fat loss is visceral (the stu around your organs) rather than the fat under your skin (subcutaneous fat).

Limb Measurements – What You’ll Notice Losses in arm, leg and chest/back measurement girth are to be expected and should not be assumed to be mass losses. This is because you will lose fat on these places also. Reach your right arm around under your left armpit and grab the fat on your back at chest level. Do the same with your tricep and now your thigh. – As you get leaner all of this fat will be burned o and you can expect these measurements to decrease. There is also a pattern to the way this happens. Generally fat happens from the top down, with little fat being stored in the legs in the rst place, except for those that are obese. •

The arm measurements typically come down by the smallest amount, which makes sense when you consider their small size relative to your chest and legs. Once you get past the 15% body-fat level the reduction in the arm measurement is typically small (~1.5-2 cm), as you’ll have lost most of your fat from this area already.

•

The legs, typically, make proportionately the least losses as they carry the least fat. (We’re talking about men remember.) The exception is obese individuals who carry signicantly more fat on their legs.

•

The chest/back measurements will likely change the most, gradually less and less as you get leaner with minimal change once you get lower than 10% body fat.

Signs Of Muscle Growth Recall that our ability to gain muscle when in a decit is: •

Inversely related to the level of training experience,


33

•

Inversely related to how lean you are,

•

Inversely related to the severity of the caloric decit,

•

Related to the skill of the program designer (however this cannot trump the rst four factors)

•

Related to the quality of your gym environment. More regarding what you can achieve in my Goal Setting Series.

Muscle growth will hide some of the total fat loss gure when looking at the change in scale weight, thus, measurements are important for telling us what is going on. Also, it stands to reason that any muscle growth will aect the rates of change in the measurements you see. Here are some important points to note when assessing: • With novice or early-intermediate trainees especially it’s not uncommon for the legs to grow (because they are forced to nally train them properly). For those over 25% body fat, the rate of body fat loss will almost certainly outpace the rate of muscle growth and you can expect a measurement decrease overall. For leaner individuals the overall size of the legs may increase however. • For skinny novice trainees, the stomach measurements can show little change despite there being simultaneous fat loss and muscle growth. This is due to the thickening of the abs, obliques, and lower back muscles, which osets some of the measurable fat loss reductions. This eect is more pronounced on the mid and lower stomach measurements. • Muscle is more dense than fat. Therefore, if you lose the same amount of fat as you gain muscle on any particular body part, you can expect that to measure smaller overall. However, you’ll usually look more jacked despite your actual size being smaller – shredded natural bodybuilders tend to be heavier than they look in regular clothes, but lighter than they look on stage.

Training & Muscle Mass Preservation As long as you don’t slash your calories too hard, have a really low protein intake, or completely inappropriate training volume, then you should be ok for maintaining your muscle mass while dieting. As a check, we can use how we’re getting on with our training to gauge whether this is being achieved.

•

Training progression correlates well to muscle gain. – If you have progressed with your training, you have probably gained some muscle mass even if you fail to measure it. (The exception is this case of rank beginners who can expect mainly neurological adaptations before muscle growth during the initial phase of their training careers.)


34

•

Training regression can indicate muscle loss, but doesn’t always.

•

Maintenance of the load you can lift in your heaviest sets is a rough indicator of muscle mass retention, even if training volume is reduced signicantly, up to 2/3rds I believe. (I could caveat the hell out of this but I’ll leave that for the next revision perhaps if people seem to want that level of detail.)

At each update the most important question to ask yourself is therefore whether your strength has been maintained at the minimum. However these two next checklists go a little deeper.

Training Checklist – Section 1 Has your strength been maintained at the minimum? Yes. → Good. Skip to section 2. No. 

If it was just a single bad workout, ignore it. These happen at random. If not, Were poor sleep, stress, or poor quality of diet possibly to blame? Yes. → Alright, that is more than likely the reason. Consider taking a diet break or upping the calorie intake if this situation continues. No. 

Has the reduction in your lifts been small and gradual? Yes. → This could just be due to the mechanical ineciency of getting leaner. Anthropometrics (relative limb lengths) dier from person to person and this will aect dierent lifts in dierent ways, so it is hard to put numbers on what is normal here. However, losing ~1% on your lifting total, per 1% of body fat you drop, doesn’t seem like a bad rule of thumb. No. 

1) Residual fatigue may be masking tness (strength). 2) It could be that you are coming down with the u but just haven’t shown any of the obvious symptoms yet. (This is going to happen once a year on average.)

Reduce training volume for a week by 1/3. (This is a deload.) Continue with training as normal the following week. Reassess two weeks from now. (If it was the u, then stay out of the gym and rest.)


35

Did this x the issue? Yes. → Good, continue with your diet. No. 

Try reducing training volume by ~20%. Did this x the issue? Yes. → Good, continue with your diet. No. 

Try increasing calorie intake 5-10%. If this didn’t x the issue, try a break from training combined with a diet break. If that doesn’t work then it’s probably something entirely unrelated to dieting. Consider seeing a doctor. **********

Training Checklist – Section 2 (Skip this unless you were instructed to read it in the checklist section 1.) Were you reasonably expecting to progress with your training? No. → Fine then. Continue as you have been. Yes. 

Have you been sleeping well? Is stress low at the moment? Have you been eating well recently? No (to any). → That’s likely the issue. Work to x these things as you continue onwards. If in doubt, take a diet break. Yes. 

Do you feel well recovered? Yes. → Try increasing overall training volume. You may need more training stimulus to keep progressing. No. 

Residual fatigue might be masking tness (strength). Reduce training volume for a week by 1/3. See how you feel the next week. Reassess two weeks from now.


36

Did this x the issue? (i.e. Are you now progressing again?) Yes. → Good. Keep onwards good soldier! No. 

Possibility 1: You may have reached the end of your capacity to make muscle gains while at your current caloric decit. Either, increase calorie intake and accept a slower rate of fat loss, or accept that you are no longer going to make gains. If the latter, just focus on maintaining your strength for the rest of the cut and look forward to the sweet gains you will make when you come to bulk later. Possibility 2: There is something wrong with the strength training programming. This is far beyond the scope of this book though.

On Getting Exceptionally Lean “But how do I get lower than 10% body fat? I always seem to struggle at that point.” There are no tricks or gimmicks to getting exceptionally lean, it just appears to most people that there are, or we want to believe that there must be because it seems like such a struggle. Here’s why: The leaner we get the more our bodies hates us (causing irritability, hunger and lethargy). People have often dieted down too hard and fast to get to this point, and haven’t had any diet breaks, which exacerbates these things.

•

At the same time the rate that we can lose fat is much lower – so the changes each week are far less visually rewarding (if noticeable at all). This is especially true when getting to the 8-9% body-fat point, where nearly all the fat has gone from the abs. – People don’t see the lower-back fat coming o in the mirror each day, so they think nothing is happening.

•

Furthermore, people usually forget to measure at multiple places on the stomach, just measuring at the navel. This reinforces in their minds that nothing is happening, when in fact if they had measured two inches below the navel, they’d see changes in the data each week as the lower-back fat came o. This would have kept them motivated, because they are unlikely to notice the changes in the mirror week to week.

•

The combination of these things drives people nuts (the stress from which can, funnily enough, cause water retention), and makes it seem that getting lean requires some special tricks. - It doesn’t. Really, it’s just a matter of time and patience. If you have followed all the advice in this guide so far, you’ll probably be ne. However if you nd yourself struggling just take another diet break before continuing. You can try switching to more satiating foods perhaps – like potatoes instead of rice or pasta, or adding in more green vegetables if your intake is currently lacking.


37

8 t r a P

Full Examples Of How I Coached The Clients You Voted On

Alright, so technically nobody voted on these. What I did was take the top 10 most clicked photos from the results page, e-mailed those clients, told them about this book project, and asked their permission to share their information as part of it. These are the guys that kindly consented, plus one addition that I wanted to include as it was an interesting example of water retention masking progress. If there is one thing I want you to take away from this section, it’s that things really can be very simple. However, when things don’t go to plan, that’s when you can refer to the rule framework above. Important note: I get clients to use a simplied macro counting framework as I believe that leads to better adherence. This is a form of purposeful undercounting, the degree to which will vary depending on the client and their interpretation of the rules. What this means is that the macros you see in the spreadsheet will be around 5-15% lower than what they were actually eating in most cases. All clients in the examples below trained three days a week and ate twice a day, unless otherwise noted.

Part 8 Full Examples Of How I Coached The Clients You Voted On


38

Scott


39

Points to note: Scott was one of my rst clients. If Scott were a client now, I’d have set his fat intake higher, probably to around 50g and 90g on the training and rest days respectively, just because fat intake is important for hormonal regulation and function. It didn’t seem to matter in his case though as you can see, he thrived - his strength improved and size in the arms and chest came up as well. This was a pretty simple case of a nice cut to shreds. • Training was RPT, 3 days a week. Pretty much the same as you see on the site here. • The initial bicep measurements in week 1 were clearly taken in error – people do not put 4 cm on their arms in a single week. • Scott tweaked his back deadlifting around week 8. He got checked out and it was nothing serious, so we dropped the weight ~15% and took it more cautiously from there on. – This was probably just a case of being a little greedy – making jumps in weight too quickly. I should have pointed that out, but I wasn’t very experienced at that point. Click for Scott's Data Analysis and Coaching Decision Video Password: coachingmanual ********

John


40

I worked with John on and o for 18 months. This is despite consistently telling him that he didn’t need to rehire me as I’d already told him exactly what we would do together if he did. However, he insisted that he wanted to do it together rather than on his own as he felt that it was worth it for the accountability, which I can certainly relate to. Above you’ll see the rst 12 weeks of data. You’ll see the initial whoosh of water in the rst week due to the lower carbohydrate intake overall. The reason for the macro adjustment in week 5 is because John kept saying that he was feeling quite full, and as his mood, energy, sleep and stress were all on point I made a small adjustment downwards to calorie intake. It’s a shame he strained his back in the fth week, but it wasn’t anything serious and he was cleared by a doctor to keep lifting, he just did so at a lighter weight. Points of note: • He ate three meals a day – one at 1pm, a snack after his afternoon training, and then a big meal for dinner around 9pm. • Diet breaks were taken: at the 12 week point, at the 30th week point (delayed for a vacation), 40th week point and then every 12 weeks thereafter. • We made only three adjustments to the macros, one of which you see in the spreadsheet above in week 5. The second one was made at the 24 week point, which involved a simple reduction of 50g to his carbohydrate intake on training days, 25g from his rest days. The third was made on the 38th week where I felt that we needed to make a small increase to the macros because John felt lethargic on his training days. I didn’t feel that it mattered much


41

where the change came from (fats or carbs) so I asked John his preference, and we added 15g of fats and 10g of carbs to the training days. There were no other changes needed during the whole period. • For those that are interested, I’ve uploaded the rest of John’s data sheets to the site here: 2, 3, 4. Data is only available up until week 59 as I didn’t coach him past that point. You’ll see that there were weeks of little change, followed by weeks of faster progress. This is fairly standard for people who diet for a long time and is just part of the dieting game. • John got a deadlift PR of 375×5 in the 42nd week. • He switched to an early morning fasted training schedule in the 50th week as it t his schedule better. Meal frequency changed to twice daily – lunch and dinner. (The afternoon snack post training was no longer needed.) There were no noticeable dierences in fat loss rate or strength from this period. The training time and meal frequency alteration had no meaningful eect on progress (other than to make his life easier, which is of course important). I really can’t say I have noticed any dierence in general rates of fat loss between fasted or fed training client groups in these years – what people can adhere to and prefer is key. Click for John's Data Analysis and Coaching Decision Video Password: coachingmanual ********

Pep


42

I worked with Pep for 12 weeks so the photos show that time frame. However, Pep decided to continue cutting for another 6 weeks after working with me and so you see a full 18 week data set above. I decided not to include the 18 week photo because the lighting/pose was too dierent to be a fair comparison. The data is interesting though. Points of note: • Pep’s strength came up gradually throughout the rst 14 weeks. Training was three days a week, using some no-frills 5×5 programming. I think this happened partially due to the reduction in volume to his training that we made initially, and partially due to simply having a better mindset and belief in himself. (In hindsight, I’d say that’s why Scott made gains while he was cutting also.) I can’t explain the drop in his squat and bench at the 14 week point as we weren’t working together at that time and I didn’t notice it to ask when I requested this data afterwards. It didn't appear to have aected his muscle mass retention though as you can see from the lack of change in chest/back, arm and leg measurements. – I would guess this was a correction in form he was making. • Notice that from weeks 8-13 the scale weight hardly moved at all, and yet the stomach measurements continued to decline. It just happens like this sometimes. The cut to the macros at the 11 week point arguably wasn’t necessary, however strength was doing well, hunger and cravings were ne, sleep and stress all good, and as Pep was keen to get the cut over and done with I conceded to his request to make a small reduction. Click for Pep's Data Analysis and Coaching Decision Video Password: coachingmanual ********


43

Tom

Tom trained at either 10am or 4:30pm depending on his schedule. For the former we just ate a big lunch and dinner. For the latter we included a snack after his workout.


44

Points of note: • There was no need to make any adjustments to the macros for the entire 12 week period. This is the exception rather than the norm, but I’m happy to include this example as it does happen sometimes. • Note also that there was very little change in the scale weight from weeks 3-6, and then weeks 8-12. If I hadn’t had the measurement data (which showed a downward trend in the stomach measurements) then I would have had a hard time persuading Tom that we didn’t need to make an adjustment. (Remember, we can’t rely on the mirror to gauge progress. Some days he will have felt leaner, some days he would have felt fatter.) • Note that there was an approximate 3 cm reduction in the chest/back measurements, ~1 cm o the legs and arms. This is fairly standard and are the kind of expected changes due to fat loss that I was talking about earlier in the guide. Click for Tom's Data Analysis and Coaching Decision Video Password: coachingmanual ********

YouseF


45

I worked with Yousef for 12 weeks. The pictures taken above represent a 26 week time frame, as he continued by himself after working with me. We have the data for the rst 17 weeks. Points of note: •

Yousef was not new to training, but he was fairly new to the barbell lifts, hence the low starting weight but good progression. Given his level of muscle mass I suspect he would have made a lot better progression had he been in a better gym environment.

Just one change was needed to the macros, which was at the 6 week point. Thoug h his weight stayed the same the measurements dropped fairly steadily until week 4, hence why I didn’t make a reduction at that point. However, things started to slow down so I made the adjustment at week 6. Fat intake was put higher on the training days, through Yousef’s request, as this would make diet adherence easier given his eating habits/cultural environment,

•

•

•

Looking at the chest/back measurement in particular, it seems there was a good amount of muscle growth for the rst half of the cut. The reduction in the latter half is just what we’d expect with fat loss and muscle maintenance. No other changes were necessary for Yousef to take himself to shreds. He had one diet break during weeks 11 and 12. Click for Yousef's Data Analysis and Coaching Decision Video Password: coachingmanual ********


46

C. – An example Of An Extreme ‘Stall’ & ‘Whoosh’ This client wished to remain anonymous, hence the lack of photos.

This is one of the most interesting cases of a stall and whoosh. Points of Note: •

•

•

•

There was a lack of scale weight change for nearly 8 weeks from weeks 1 to 9. I decided not to make any adjustment because I was just absolutely convinced based on his feedback – a little stress at work, his notes on hunger – that we were in a caloric decit and this was just water hiding the fat losses. He wasn’t happy about this, but I explained in detail how this can happen and he trusted my decision. I think if I hadn’t clearly had a good amount of experience as a coach he would probably have quit, thinking that I was talking nonsense. However, he stuck with it and it turned out to be the right one and you can quickly see the weight and stomach measurements start coming down from week 9. He was very happy with how things turned out in the end. The decrease in the lifts in the initial weeks and then return to strength I put down to some new stress at work, the heat at the tail end of Summer in New York, and the adjustment to the caloric decit. Notice the huge change in stomach measurements in the rst week. I’m guessing that he stuck his stomach out in the rst week, but realised his error and tensed his stomach for the measurements thereafter. Interestingly (you’ll have to take my word on this), though total change to the stomach measurements was only around 3.5 cm, the way he shredded up makes it look like a lot more than that. I don’t have a concrete explanation why, but occasionally photos are more useful than data.

Click for C's Data Analysis and Coaching Decision Video Password: coachingmanual ********


47

9 t r a P

Coming Back Back Up To To Maintenance To Maximal Maxi mall ly Maint Maintain Your Shreds

The end of a diet is something to be rejoiced, but people screw up the transition to maintenance after dieting generally in one of two ways: 1) by dieting blindly without ever thinking how they were going to maintain it afterwards, 2) by dieting for too hard for too long and then simply not being able to maintain it. By the time you get to this point you won’t have made those mistakes. When you are done dieting you have one of two choices: start a bulk, or seek to maintain your condition. (For former I have exceptionally detailed guidelines here: How To Adjust Your Diet To Successfully Bulk.) Bulk.)

Some reasons you might want to come up to maintenance instead of bulking: •

•

•

You’re happy/satised with your physique at the current time. You’re a model, actor, physique or weight-class competitor that has a job/competition coming up and need to stay exceptionally lean. You’re a bodybuilder who has just competed but has another show later in competition season (a month or two for example) and doesn’t have enough time to start a bulk.

•

You’re coming up to a stressful period in life or work.

•

You simply want to take a break for a while.

This guide is for you.

Part 9 Coming Back Up To Maintenance To Maximally Maintain Your Shreds Purchased by Richie Han, [email protected] #6478326

48

Why We Can Eat More Here are the reasons that we can eat more after dieting – in roughly their decreasing order of importance: 1. We no longer need to be in a caloric decit, 2. Our metabolisms come back to a normal level, 3. We dget more, and exercise more without thinking about it (NEAT), 4. We can (and often do) train harder, 5. There is an increased food intake and costs of digestion (TEF), 6. We get bigger and so the energy costs of movement are higher. This all makes sense, right? Ok good. Now there is an important point I’d like to make as it relates to the practicalities of nding maintenance. Maintenance calorie intake is the level of calorie intake where we have enough energy to maintain weight and regular hormonal function. function. However, maintenance of weight in the shortterm does not always mean that we are actually at maintenance. You already know that this might be because of water retention, but we’re not really talking about that here. – We’re talking about someone who has nished their diet and is looking to nd the level of food intake where they can eat the most without starting to gain fat. It’s possible to increase calorie intake enough to maintain weight, but not enough to return yourself to normal hormonal function. Have a look at my whiteboard scribble below:

DCM – diet condition maintenance, NCM – normal condition maintenance.


49

You can see in the diagram that I’ve singled out two points where people’s weight can remain stable (at least temporarily) – something I’m calling post calling post diet maintenance, maintenance, and normal condition maintenance levels maintenance levels of intake. However, how we perform, feel and function will be vastly dierent between the two. We want to nd the latter, and the dierence in feeling between the two will be like you got worked over by those Mercedes AMG engineers – bigger engine, wider stickier tyres, naughty exhaust note, and a bi-turbo.

Finding Maintenance Step 1: Adjust For The Current Caloric Decit 1. Calculate your average weekly weight loss over the last four weeks. 2. Calculate the amount of calories that you need to add back into your diet to make up for the decit that allowed you to lose this weight. 3. Add it back in. Recall that for every 1 lb we’re losing, that’s an approximate 3500 kcal weekly caloric decit, which is around 500kcal daily. Thus, if you were losing 0.5 lbs per week on average, add in 250 kcal to each day. Make this increase from fat and carb intake, as per your personal preference. As we’ll have a higher carb intake this will bring with it an increase in glycogen storage and water. You may look more vascular, your muscles will certainly look more fuller, and some water may nd its way under the skin causing a slight blurring of denition on the abs. This can happen almost immediately after making the initial increase to carb intake in step one. – Don’t confuse this with fat gain. Remember, this is going to bring us to something I’m calling diet condition maintenance, maintenance , not normal metabolic condition maintenance calorie intake, as it will not account for factors 2-6 in our list above. We need to keep adding calories in if we are to eat the maximum we can and still maintain our shreds. Step 2: Make Incremental Increases To Account For The Incalculable Factors We can’t calculate can’t calculate factors factors 2-6 above so our best bet is to just to make xed incremental increases to calorie intake every couple of weeks and see how the body responds. We want to push this as far as we can without gaining fat and then dial back slightly. I’d recommend xed increases of 5-10% of calorie intake each time you make an adjustment. It can be left up to taste preference whether you make increases from carbs, fats or both.


50

Your weight will slowly rise due to the increase in water balance and carb intake, however you probably won’t experience much more water under the skin when compared with the change that you experienced with the initial adjustment. Continue to make increases to your intake for as long as possible but stop when fat gain starts to occur. This can be determined visually, but is ideally best left to something more objective like body fat callipers (one of the only times I recommend their use). When fat gain occurs, dial back calorie intake slightly. Your weight will stay stable at this point. Done. Boom.

Adrian

Adrian, ~9 lbs heavier post diet, after a 12 week lean-bulk. Looking at the obliques and abs, lifting progress, rates of theoretical muscle gain potential given his training experience, and the fact that there is little fat gain, I estimate that ~50-60% of this weight increase is muscle. The rest will be from glycogen/water increases. When water balance increases, most happens in the muscle/body but some under the skin. In Adrian’s case the slight smoothing eect of the abs is due to either this, a little fat gain, or a combination of both. You can expect this slight smoothing eect when you come back up to maintenance. Thus, if your goal is to maintain your level of shreds, I’d suggest you get slightly leaner than your target rst even if that is a little smaller in size then you’d like ideally.


51

Click for Adrian's Data Analysis and Coaching Decision Video Password: coachingmanual

Maintaining Your Condition Continuing To Train Feel free to take a week or two o if you would like of course, but don’t slack o permanently. The clearest correlational factor that separates people that are successful in keeping the weight o long term vs those that aren’t is the continuance of exercise after dieting. Admittedly, this isn’t likely relevant to many of you reading this book as you’re probably as addicted to lifting as I am. However for those of you that coach, and I mean the novices in particular that aren’t addicted to hitting the weights yet, be sure to strongly suggest to your clients that they continue to train. The gym will probably have become an ingrained habit for them at this point so it shouldn’t be hard to do this. To keep things interesting for them it’s probably best that you suggest some strength goals for their key lifts based on bodyweight – achieving their rst 1x bodyweight squat for example, etc. This way they’ll likely get a recomp eect while around their calorie maintenance. Loosening o of counting As long as people bring the right attitude to the table, I believe that it is possible for the majority of us to maintain (or stay very close to) our shredded condition after dieting without needing to count macros each day.


52

The discipline from the period of counting for the diet seems to have a positive carry eect on any non-counting maintenance period, and after time most people will get to a point where they can semi-autoregulate their diet and maintain their condition. – If you nd your waist line increasing, by just making a conscious decision to eat a little less, you should be able to bring things back in line. This is not to say that everyone will be able to do this immediately after nishing their diet – most people will need have a transitional period from counting to non-counting. Generally speaking, those that have lost the most weight will need to have a longer transition period than others, and your body will ght you the hardest (ramping up hunger) to try to get you back up to your previous weight. •

•

For anyone that has a history of weight regain or obesity, I’d suggest that you make this period 3-6 months, easing yourself into it, while your body adjusts to your new a set/settling point. This also applies to those that lost weight too fast initially (above my recommended fat loss guidelines), even if the total weight loss wasn’t very large, they will have a harder time maintaining things and will need to have a more gradual transition period.

What Is The Maximum Level Of Leanness That I Can Reasonably Expect To Maintain Long-term? There are genetic, environmental and willpower components to this. Nobody is able to walk around at a stage shredded body fat levels (3-5%) all the time. The body (fearing survival – impending war or famine) ghts us too hard, ramping up hunger and making it impossible to maintain. Though it will vary from individual to individual, I would say a body-fat percentage somewhere between 7-12% is maintainable for the average individual. (For reference here, I’d consider Scott be around 8%, John 10%, Pep 8%, Tom 9%, and Yousef 8% at the end of their diets. I’d say Adrian is around 9% before starting his return to maintenance/lean-bulk, and possibly a percentage point higher on the right.) Yes, there are exceptions to this rule – excellent genetics, sport, or otherwise (drugs), but I’m talking about regular people with regular lives. So of the factors that we can control, what does ‘maintainable leanness’ depend on? In a sentence – the balance of happiness between the satisfaction you derive from your low body-fat percentage, with the drawback of having to control your urges in restaurants, bars and social occasions.


53

You may think that being lean is going to make you happy. It might. But it’s more likely just going to be a sense of satisfaction of having scratched that itch of being shredded lean rather than happiness that you feel. Many people tie up their self esteem in their physical appearance. If this is you, I understand, I have been there. At some point, probably through circumstance rather than design, you’ll realise that whether you walk around at 7% or 9%, 8% or 12%, there isn’t a damn bit of dierence in how people treat you, and you will uncouple this association. You’ll be a bit looser in accepting restaurant invites, you’ll drink a few extra beers without worrying, and the enjoyment you’ll derive from that will outweigh any sense of unhappiness about that 2-4% extra body fat percentage you carry. Furthermore, by having gotten shredded lean the once and without suering, you know you can do it again at any time. That’s a very powerful thing and will help you be happier with yourself even if you know you’re not in your absolute prime condition.


54

Bonus: Coaching Notes – For Coaches And Prospective Coaches Broadly speaking, your role as a coach is to put their data in perspective, to be the objective voice of reason, to stop people making rash decisions, getting wound up by a water weight uctuations, bad workouts, or something else. That's what the pervious sections were about. This section has nothing to do with how to successfully diet, at all. It is for all the stu that wouldn’t neatly t into the sections above. As the name suggests, it’s for coaches and prospective coaches – things that I’ve had to think about deeply over the last four years. It mainly concerns coaching as a business and other advice that I’d like to talk about. •

Work Ethic

•

The Value In Detailed Writing

•

Openness & Trust

•

Morals

•

On Client Intake & Filtering

•

Choosing How To Communicate

•

Developing Buy-In

•

Reviews – To Be Valued, Not Feared

I’m writing this with the guys that have asked me to teach them how to coach in mind. These are my own additional notes and thoughts. Unlike the content above that is largely based in science, what you’re about to read are just my opinions and way.

Work Ethic It seems that everyone and their mother wants to be an online coach nowadays. I can understand why – location freedom is a wonderful thing. However, as many nd out quickly, it’s not the quick road to riches that people think it is, and (as with everything) you won’t be successful if you don’t have passion for it. Passion. Seriously now. If you do not love what you do, and I mean truly love it, then nd a new career. If you don’t feel a tingle of excitement in your balls when you read a new article (or study) by one of the people you respect in this eld then it may be a sign that you need to do


55

something else. (Then again, perhaps I’m a bit weird.) I’ve put a lot of eort into making the site look good and read well. There’s hardly a day that’s gone by in the last four years where I haven’t made an edit to it in some form or other. I do this because I’m addicted to making the edits and I’m conscious that I need to be careful to not put out any incorrect or unbiased information. Also I’m a rm believer that it’s good for business, that this level of care and attention to detail shines through, leads people to trust me, and to apply for coaching, which is ultimately what puts food and craft beer on the table. Be prepared to work long hours or you’re screwed from the start.

The Value In Detailed Writing I’m going to share a document that I wrote for my friend around this time last year when we were talking about building a credible and lasting coaching business. It’s been a pleasure to see him take what I call my 'full guide' concept and running away with it to storming success this last year. Forgive the bad language, I wanted to leave this unedited as it captures the emotion well. Why Is RippedBody.jp Successful? What I have written here may sound very clever, but that is only in hindsight. This was all pretty much accident rather than plan. Looking back now when I analyse things, here is what I’ve deduced: You’ve seen for yourself how the site brings people back to read the articles again and again. It’s like that with a lot of the articles on the site. That’s what I want. People don’t hire someone after reading one thing, they need repeat exposure. So the question is then, how to get that repeat exposure. The solution to that I gured a while back was instead of just writing articles as individual, stand alone pieces of advice, I’d tie them in to a greater “full guide” concept. When people come onto the site on any article they see a reference to that concept in each one, so that they feel they are just scratching the surface. You sew the seed in their minds that to not click or bookmark this would be to be missing out. They then click through and keep reading, giving them repeat exposure. The repeat exposure builds up trust, and that leads to a very small fraction of people inquiring. I make the barrier to entry high, by stating clearly my needs/requirements of customers on the application page, but oer something free that few others explicitly state: that I’ll tell it to them straight what I think they need to do without buttering up my words, and tell them what I think we can achieve if we work together, before they decide whether they want to hire me. Implicitly, I say I’m not going to bullshit them because: 1) I don’t want them to be moaning at me in the e-mail for a full 12 weeks, 2) I don’t need their money in order to get by this month, I do perfectly ne. The market that this hits is very small. It’s generally gym going dudes, 25-45, that are fed up


56

of seeing 20 dierent ways of doing things, and just want “one f****ing answer!” that actually works, from a trustable source. I’ve created the trust kind of by accident. Basically, I’ve worn my heart on my sleeve in many places – the podcast, and a few posts – talking about my Grandma dying, mum getting really sick again, injuries, getting attacked in the street as a kid leading me to Karate & training, then Japan, and then seeing everyone get ripped o here drove me f***ing nuts so I set up a Japanese site trying to help the 99% of the people that can’t read any Engl ish to nd out the truth from the bullshit. Essentially, I wrote the site for people like me as a guide. ~99.9% of readers use the guides on the site and don’t hire me, the other 0.1% are busy and just want to get me to show them how to do it cause it isn’t worth their time guring it out, or they want me to do it objectively for them.

Openness & Trust Be open in your writing and write in your own voice. People will respond better to you and you’ll get more applicants, have more open communication, and better outcomes as a result. Never forget this fact – when people rst come across our websites or Facebook pages we are just some guy sitting on the end of a computer that they don’t know – yet ultimately you want to take them from that state of mind to asking them to hand over hundreds of dollars – why should they trust you? Be there for people. Someone thinking of hiring me can look back through the comments for the last four years, see that I’ve almost never missed a single day in answering someone, see that I’ve been helpful each time, and though I’m still just some dude at the end of a keyboard, they know that the chances that I’m going to run o with their money are slim to none. There is an extraordinary amount of appreciation and trust built up through these public online interactions. I often see the same people commenting multiple times across the site as they plot their path through the guides. This kind of makes people feel that they owe me something. I’ve had some people say they want to donate money, or hire me just to support me, yet I couldn’t recall ever communicating with them in the comments. Just how powerful are these comment answers? I think it may be key.

Morals “It’s easy to have morals when you’re in a position where your nancial stability is certain.” I have developed a very thorough client intake process. The purpose is to help me determine


57

whether or not I should take an applicant on as a client, which depends on compatibility of communication styles, and most importantly, whether I feel that the chances of me being able to help this person are high enough. This is important because reputation is a valuable thing and in the internet age, shitty coaches have no place to hide in the long term. The good part about this is that the cream will rise to the top. – You can be this cream if you want to be, but you will have to make short-term sacrices for it and this means earning less than you could have, turning people down when it was the right thing to do. I am guilty of boasting about my morals in the past regarding being very thorough before taking people on, but my friend that I quoted above made a good point – if I hadn’t been in a nancially stable position, would I still have done the same? I would like to think so but I really don’t know the answer. What is certain is that selective intake of clients is what lead to good reviews and successes at the outset, which is what lead to a cascade of trust and has allowed me to still be sitting here doing this today. I put that down to some very good advice from an old teaching colleague Mr Kato. – I was about to quit my high school job and throw myself into this business – sink or swim – but he told me to wait for a year, get the business started, and try doing it on the side rst. I’m very glad I did cause it took the pressure o, and though I worked all hours of the day during that year it allowed me to make smarter decisions at the outset, knowing that I had a fallback plan.

On Client Intake & Filtering I mentioned in the previous section the importance of developing a very thorough applicant vetting process for reasons of reputation. I’d like to talk a little more about this. Those that don’t take the process seriously are the least likely to be successful, and yet the most likely to blame their lack of progress on you. This is unfair, but that’s just how some people are. It’s essential to do your best to lter out these people, and I aim to do that as quickly as possible. – The application page does not read like a sales page, it’s written in my own voice, as that is how I e-mail people. – I let people know that the application process is fairly involved. This pretty much eliminates non-serious enquiries as they won’t be bothered to go through it. – I have a list of requirements so that I don’t get people apply outside of the area that I coach or am able to. Also, by having multiple e-mails back and forth before any money changes hands, the client can get to know whether your style is a good match for them – whether your e-mail response times are acceptable to them, whether they are they happy about your predictions and suggestions on what you think that you can achieve together. If they aren’t then they just won’t mail you back. Don’t take it personally and never chase down a sale.


58

Equally important is nding out whether they appear to focus and concentrate when they read e-mails. Cause if they aren’t doing this from the outset, it doesn’t bode well for later on when things get more detailed. By implementing a ‘no-smartphone rule’ two years back I’ve been able to produce better results for clients, and my life has been made a lot easier – win-win. More about this in the next section.

Choosing How To Communicate I choose to communicate with clients exclusively via e-mail as I’ve found this to be the most eective way of doing things. I tried Skype and it simply wasn’t for me. People would forget things that were said and they would have to be repeated in the e-mail anyway, I always have to be tied to a strong internet connection (which can bring about it’s own stresses), I needed to have a lot of meetings in my calendar (which I personally don’t like), people are late, and the chances of me screwing up are high. E-mail allows for a consistent customer experience, and as consistency is tied into satisfaction, this is a big win for e-mail. I read and respond to e-mails only once a day. This encourages people to think things through before e-mailing, and ties into my idea of creating independence in clients as I coach them over the 12 weeks. E-mails also form a valuable written record (for both you and the client) later on. I want them to refer to the information I send so they can learn to answer their own questions and gradually become independent, and it’s important to have a record of all the commutation when reading back and making decisions. What that of course means is that people need to focus when reading and responding to emails, which brings around it’s own bunch of painful hilarity in this smartphone age – people just can’t put in the necessary degree of focus on a detailed e-mail (or series of e-mails) when they are on their smartphones – this is partly down to the tiny screen, and partly down to the distractions around them. The biggest problem is that people miss things, and this means I have to send an e-mail to ask for more information, which causes an additional day’s delay (cause I only answer e-mail once a day) and that leads to frustration and unhappiness on the client end. The only answer has been to ban people from reading or responding to my e-mails from their smartphones. Since doing that everything has become a lot easier, I’ve had happier clients and better results. Of course, saying, “please don’t mail me from your smartphone” is not going to be eective unless you enforce the rule, and this is not at all easy because we are trying to break people’s habits. This means I have had to be strict. Here’s what I do: • I state very clearly in the requirements on the application page that I don’t allow communication from smartphones.


59

• I have a checkbox when they apply: “Are you ok with my no-smartphone rule.” – Yes/No. • I remind them of this rule in my rst e-mail to them. This e-mail contains a questionnaire, and it will be dicult to ll out the level of detail necessary on a smartphone. So this reenforces the rule. By this point it’s fairly certain that people will have seen this rule – even if they were on their smartphone for all of it, they are not likely to missed all three warnings (this is the reason I have to say it three times). Whether they choose to respect that rule works as it’s own little test of their respect for me - which is important because as we've seen, there may be times where you need to make decisions that the client doesn't agree with but simply has to trust your judgement on. • If any applicant then mails me from their smartphone at any point before they become a client, this shows me that they aren’t the kind of person that can read and respond to carefully written e-mails, and that the coaching won’t work. There is no choice in my mind but to decline their application. I send them a one sentence reply thanking them for their application but declining to take it any further. I do not make any exceptions from then on, no matter what they write back as I want a reputation as someone that keeps their word. • If a current client e-mails me from their smartphone (happens occasionally, and I really don’t mind that as mistakes do happen) they receive the following autoresponder reminder: This is an automated responder, a lter Andy has set up to move any mails sent from an smartphone automatically to the trash box when he logs into his mail account. He did this because he got fed up of feeling like a teacher scolding a child requesting people to not mail him from their smartphones each day. So, he gured this is a good way of avoiding that awkwardness on both sides – Andy will never know, and people receiving this won’t take it personally. Please wait till you can get to a computer and then mail him again, in a reply to the original mail (not this one). Thank you. ************* Now, it is clear that this kind of coaching is not going to be for some people. Some people will want to work through Skype, and some people will want more frequent communication. That’s ne. You can choose to do that if you wish. I don’t, and it’s not a problem for people because I don’t pretend to oer anything otherwise at the outset.


60

Developing Buy-in One of the most eective forms of buy-in is the simplest – making people pay for your service. Dieting isn’t easy, and when things get tough you want them to have a reason to push through. In a bid to compete with other coaches and seem more attractive to potential clients I see people oering a money back guarantee. I think this is a huge mistake. For the client, you immediately take this commitment tool away from them, and I struggle to think of anything more destructive to someone’s chances of success than this. For yourself as a coach also it’s important to realise that though you can lay the plans carefully for someone and do your best to coach people through things, you cannot make someone do the work. You still deserve to be paid for your work though. Again, be up front about this with people. I have my terms and conditions publicly on the site, and in an e-mail before we agree to work together. – People will respect this openness rather than be put o by it.

Reviews – To Be Valued, Never Feared As coaches, sometimes we have to advise people to do something that they don’t want to do but which is best for them at the time. Some people are not going to react well to this, regardless of how carefully we explain it. You need to be strong and hold your ground – your job is not there to pander to the client – they are hiring you to make the tough decisions and you need to make them. Two common examples of this that can cause friction: •

•

Insisting that someone go to a doctor to nd out what the issue is with their shoulder rather than “working around it.” Deciding that it would be best for the client to take a diet and/or training break.

Now, if making these decisions that are absolutely right for the client leads to them getting angry and threatening to write a bad review about you somewhere, then so be it. – You can do your best to try and lter out the hot-heads in your client intake procedure, but this is going to happen from time to time and you can’t allow yourself to be held ransom to the threat of them. I would actually go as far as to say that if you haven’t had one on an internet forum somewhere then you probably aren’t doing your job right (read: in a responsible manner ), or simply haven’t worked with enough people yet. There is nothing that you can do directly about this, there is plenty that you can do about it indirectly though:


61

•

•

•

Have your clients write testimonials about your service on the coaching application page on your website. Don’t edit them, just leave them as they are. People like to read things from someone like themselves. You want people to sound natural. So instead of asking, “Can you write me a testimonial?” just ask people in an email before you part ways a few questions on the service. Then when they write back, ask if you can use what they have written as a testimonial. Even better is to make a results page with photos, if you receive the client’s permission of course. Just be sure to have the lighting and posing conditions the same so you can’t be accused of cheating – everyone’s seen dodgy before/after pictures, the results page is one of the rst places that people will click on your site and you don’t want to be mistaken for one of the many scammers out there before people have gotten to know you. Be very careful of exaggeration. Cast away the rest of the industry’s seeming need for pretentiousness or you’ll attract people that are attracted to such hyperbole. Be straightforward, down to earth and honest in your writing and all your dealings with people, and you will attract such people.

By way of example, if people come across a bad review of me somewhere, they have to weigh that against the 100+ customer before/after photos, the 400+ testimonials, and the 15,000+ comment answers I’ve given over the last four years. By doing this I’ve made it exceptionally hard for anyone to conclude that I am a man that doesn’t care about people or know what he is talking about. Do the same and these will build up over time and people will come to their own conclusions about you. Everyone understands that there are unreasonable people in the world because we have to deal with them every day at work – people will recognise this so don’t worry about it. **************


62

Andy_Morgan_-_The_Last_Shred__Formerly_known_as_The_Diet_Coaching_and_Adjustments_Manual_.pdf

Recommend Documents