What’s up guys? Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx.com. So, you’ve got some stubborn body fat,
especially right here around the mid-section and you want to get rid of it. Well, guess what, I’m
going to help you to do that in this very video and all you’re going to need is a mirror. Not
to look in and try to find where your body fat is, we know that that’s why you’re here. I want you to
look in the mirror because I want you to be able to answer the four questions that I’m going to ask
you honestly. Because if you can do that, I promise you you’re going to get the goal that
you’ve been trying to get to for the first time maybe ever. All right, so with that being said,
let’s start asking those tough questions and more importantly, giving me those honest answers.
All right, so the first thing we need to do here is talk about how we’re defining
“stubborn” all right, because a lot of us will say, “Look, I just can’t get rid of this” but
are you really trying? And I’m serious, because I’m not holding that against you, but there’s
a difference between calling this stubborn and maybe this guy that has a flat stomach,
but maybe has a little bit around the love handles is calling that stubborn body fat.
Because this right here is not stubborn. What this is, it’s a lack of doing the right things
often enough. And if you do the right things more often, you can go from here to here. And likewise,
if you did the right things really often, almost all the time, you could do this. But
I’ve talked about this before, this isn’t what everybody wants. And I’ll give you the real
honest answer why, because not a lot of people want to do everything it takes to get here.
In other words, they don’t want to have to have the level of consistency and
commitment and maybe foregoing some of the other things that are required to
get here. This might be good enough, and as a matter of fact, I’m okay with all of it,
it’s what your goals are that matter to you. But the good thing is you’re going to be tell
what you need to do to get to whatever level it is that you’re looking for.
All right, so it might surprise you that I’m going to talk right out of the gate
about Drinking. But here’s the reason why, drinking is one of those things that not a
lot of us want to give up entirely. And you may not have to. Again, it depends on where you are
in terms of where you’re starting and where your goal is. If you want the flat stomach,
drinking can be very much part of that equation. If you want to be extremely ripped it may have
to become a very minimal part of the equation and the reason for it is a couple of them.
Number one, drinking metabolically is handled by our body differently. When we have it in
our system our liver is going to preferentially want to metabolize it over fat for energy. So,
you’re interrupting your own process of trying to rid of body fat if you engage in drinking more
and more often. Besides that guys, I understand that drinking provides something much more than
a quenching of your thirst. There’s a social aspect to it, people like to reminisce about
old times and drink with friends or create new memories while they’re drinking with friends and
family. They don’t want to give it up entirely. It doesn’t mean that much to them and it’s not that
valuable to have a ripped six pack if they have to give up all drinking. But that’s why I have to
ask you the question, where do you sit right now because it is a factor and it’s a big one.
If your answer’s no, well then congratulations. This is not one of the issues that’s causing you
to have any remaining fat that you’re trying to get rid of. But if the answer is yes,
well then you’ve got to ask yourself a few more questions. And that is, how many times
per week are you drinking? Is it one to two times or is it more than two times? All right, then the
next question I ask is, how much each time? And be honest. Again, no one is listening to your answers
other than you and I talking here. But how much each time? Let’s say you to it one or two per week
and you have one to two glasses of wine or mixed drinks or maybe two to three beers at a sitting.
That’s about four to six beers in a week or maybe two to four glasses of wine in a week.
Now, is that okay or not okay? This is okay if you’re trying to get to that level of let’s say
a flat stomach. But if you want to get to that ultra-ripped condition, then that’s not going
to be okay. If it’s more than this then, again, it’s not okay even to get yourself down to that
flat stomach. If you’re doing it more than two times a week, well guess what has to happen? If
it’s more than two times a week, well then the consumption levels have to go down. It can’t be
up to two glasses or three beers, it’s got to go down to one glass of wine and maybe two beers at
most at a sitting. So, in total over the course of a week you are ingesting less alcohol.
Of course, if it’s more than above, then it’s not okay again. But the fact is here guys, let’s say
you’re at a given level of body fat right now and you are drinking. If you’re trying to go lower,
then go lower on your consumption of alcohol. There’s no instance where drinking here is going
to be beneficial to you in the long run if you’re trying to decrease your levels of body fat.
The next thing we have to focus on is actually very closely related to Drinking and it’s the
other stuff that we put in our bodies. We want to look for a Caloric Deficit because
we know that in order to lose body fat, we have to create a Caloric Deficit. However,
my first question would be to you is, are you or are you not creating one? If the answer is yes,
it’s not an instant congratulations because I have something listed over here and that is,
are you doing it responsibly or are you doing it irresponsibly? There’s a big difference guys.
Irresponsible is crash diets, it’s consuming a very low amount of calories, it’s excluding
certain macronutrients because you’ve heard they’re bad for you, i.e., carbohydrates.
Long-term that’s not going to work and long-term it’s going to do more irreversible damage and
more for setting your mind in a wrong place in terms of how you look at food in an unhealthy
way that’s going to cause you to not succeed. So there’s no instance where I believe that
irresponsible decreasing of your caloric intake is a good idea, so in that case that is not okay.
If it’s Responsible, meaning 200 or 300 up to 500 calorie deficit per day through your intake
of food, then I would say that’s okay and you’re doing the right thing in your pursuit of a flatter
stomach or a more ripped condition. If the answer is no, I have three follow-up questions. The first
one is, are you eating clean? And any trainer out there who’s ever had to ask this question has
probably heard the answer many, many times before and that is, “Yes, of course I’m eating “clean”?
Then my next question would be, “Well, really?” And then the answer is, “Yes, of course I’m eating
clean.” Then my next then my answer would be like, “No, but seriously we’re friends, you can tell me
if you’re eating clean or not.” See, because we don’t define “clean” eating if you’re actually
eating clean, I say that all the time. Those that call it “clean” are likely not eating clean.
Eating clean is actually healthy and eating healthy is something that you do on a regular
basis, it’s not something that you’re doing temporarily or that you even put a name or a label
on it. You just do it and you eat more healthily and you understand what foods comprise a healthy
diet. So, when we’re there then you’ve got to talk about portion control. Because if you are eating
really healthily and you’re eating the right foods and you’re not excluding micronutrients like we
talked about before, then it does come down to the next question and that’s Portion Control.
How big are your portions? And you know how big they are, are they bad or are they
good? Right? If they’re bad you’ve got to fix it. You’ve got to stop eating two plates of
everything. You’ve got to look at how you can divide your place responsibly. I put a whole
video together on how to divide your plate so that you can know that you’re getting it right
every single time. I’ll actually link that video for you. This is what it looks like,
I’ll make sure I link it for you at the end of this one so you can get a grasp on how you can
divide your plate and get this right every single time. It’s actually very, very easy to do.
Let’s say you’re doing that right. Well then it comes down to consistency because if you’re
eating healthy and your portion control is good, but you still have body fat, then it’s got to be
coming down to this last element and that is your consistency levels. And this is where I
think things tend to fall apart. But you have to be willing to answer the question and define
for yourself how low you want to go, where do you want to ultimately be? So, I say, “What’s
consistency?” Consistency means how often are you straying from your healthy eating plan?
If it comes down to having a cheat meal, I’d say you’re okay, you’re certainly okay
to get yourself down from that belly to that flat stomach. Absolutely okay to do that. Can
you have a cheat meal every single week and get down to that ultra-ripped condition? Sometimes,
if you’re doing everything else right, and that’s a big if. The thing is, you’re more
likely to get to that ultra-ripped condition if you’re taking those cheat meals down to let’s say
every other week or certainly once a month. Now, if it’s a cheat day can you get down to
that flat stomach? I have an issue here, I don’t think that you really can get down to that flat
stomach consistently by doing that, by having a cheat day every single week. You could do a
lot of damage in a single cheat day that can undo a hell of a lot of good that you’ve been
accumulating over the course of the rest of that week. And finally, if you’re having a cheat year,
my question would be are you Jesse? I mean, do you ever eat right? Because honestly
guys if you’re never willing to have consistency here, then we already know what the issue is.
All right, so the third question up here has to do with your Training,
and I guess it could be as classic as do you even lift? Well, not that, I mean do you do anything.
Are you doing anything besides nutrition? And I get it, I’ve talked about how important nutrition
is to your pursuit of dropping your body fat levels. It’s most important when it comes to
dropping body fat levels. However, you’re never going to maximize the results that you see there
and be doing everything you can possibly be doing if you’re not supplementing your training
along with your nutritional improvements. So, we’ve got to train, and we can do three
different types of training here. The first thing I’m going to start with is your cardio
and conditioning. Because a lot of people will do this, they get a little bit less food that they’re
taking in, they’re creating the caloric deficit and then they’re jumping on an elliptical and
they’re trying to burn a few extra calories. Why is that never the most successful way to do this?
Because you’re not building muscle doing that. And building muscle is going to be your absolute
best friend when it comes to creating an easier job for your body to get to lower levels of body
fat and most importantly to maintaining them. Muscle being much more active tissue is going to
metabolically help you, even at rest, to get to that lower body fat level and maintain it
and even go beyond what it is you thought you were capable of. Cardio and conditioning while
important for your heart, isn’t necessarily the best option. However, if the answer is,
“No, I don’t do anything” or even “Yes, I do cardio and conditioning” my next
question always becomes, what’s your body fat level? Because your body fat level is going
to give me the best recommendation from there. If you’re less than 15% for men or less than 25%
for women, then I would actually say to you, if you want to make some additional drops in body fat
levels, increase your cardio and conditioning to two to four times per week. However,
if you’re above 50% for men or maybe even 20% for men and you’re above 25% or 30% for women, I’m not
necessarily recommending that you focus here. I’m not saying don’t do this, I’m just saying
this is not going to have the biggest impact for the two reasons I just said. Number one,
nutrition is always going to be your bigger play here and number two, you should be doing this,
prioritizing nutrition and weight training. Okay? Because weight training should always
come as your focus when you’re at higher body fat levels and you’re trying to get it down.
Your cardio then comes in second to this. But again, weight training, yes. How often? How
many times per week? Less than three times? Up it, up it more. Three to five is where I want to see
you be, everybody. It’s just the prioritization of where this needs to be. Again, you can supplement
with your conditioning on top of that, but this is where I want you to be. If the answer is no,
of course start three to five times per week. Then we go over here. This is kind of the Holy
Grail here where we kind of get the chance to mix the two and that is Complexes. Are you doing
Complexes? Yes. Great. Are you doing Complexes? No. Start two to three times per week. So, the
Complexes are where we combine compound movements into one flow so that we can do like a Barbell Row
into a Hang Clean, into an Overhead Press, into a Front Rack Reverse Lunge. Things like that
where we can actually move a lot of muscles in one coordinated movement flow. You’re going to build
muscle here and you’re going to burn calories and it fits into this realm of weight training and it
fits in nicely inside of this three to five time a week training. So, even if you’re doing standard
weight training and strength training you can fit your complexes into those workouts too.
Which brings me to my fourth and final question here and that is about your Ab Training. You see
because it’s not just regular training here, but it’s our abs that are in focus and I like to look
at them as a separate area of focus because I know how impactful it can be if you actually
ad this to your current training. If you do this guys, again, if you’re first is answer is, “No,
I don’t do any of it” then my answer would be, hey, start now. And it’s not just that,
not just your rectus abdominis, your six pack, but it’s your entire core that I want you to work,
which I’ll get into in a second. If the answer is, “Yes, I do it” then my
next question would be, how many times per week do you do it? And if you say three or less,
then my recommendation is going to be to do more than three. You see I believe in even up to daily
ab training for no more than ten minutes at a time is incredibly impactful when it comes to
losing body fat. You’re probably thinking, “Wait a second, Jeff, have you lost your mind?” No,
I’m not talking about spot reduction of body fat, I’m talking about the visual impact and the side
effect that training these muscles will have on your overall outlook as you attempt to get closer
to that goal of yours, whatever it might have been, the flat stomach or incredibly ripped.
You see, at even higher levels of body fat, when you train the muscles underneath you will
actually see them. And you can see the upper abs, you can start to see the upper obliques,
but you’re not going to see anything if you haven’t taken the time to be dedicated to training
those muscles. So, I want to see an increase in consistency here because not only that,
I found a second effect from doing this. When you can commit to just a five-minute routine
or seven-minute routine, we’ve got plenty of them up on YouTube here, that sometimes is the impetus
to get you going. You’re like, “You know what I can do this for seven minutes. I’ve done it now
10 days in a row. I’ve done it 20 days in a row. I’ve done it for a month straight. I like to see
the results I’m actually seeing here; I’m getting encouraged by this. And that in and of itself
provides additional motivation to allow you to get the other components here right. You’re starting
to eat well more consistently, you’re starting to increase your training, you’re starting to do
all those thing right. You’re decreasing your drinking; everything starts to fall in place.
Do not neglect the importance of separate ab training when it comes to the overall approach
to get into those lower levels of body fat. So guys, remember, when it comes to dropping body
fat levels, the most important thing you can do is look in the mirror. Like I said,
not to identify where you’re having a problem we probably already know that. I’m talking about to
answer these questions honestly. Because it’s only then that you can start to make progress.
We all have areas that we need to work on guys, me included. The thing is though, you’ve got to get
honest with yourself about where it is that you’re falling short right now because when you do,
and you can start to address those areas that’s when you start to make some big progress. That’s
when you start to go from here to here and that’s when you can go from there to here.
It’s all a matter of the levels of sacrifice that you’re willing to make and the level of
consistency you’re able to do that in. If you’re looking for a program guys that
makes this a lot easier to follow than you think, we include meal plans and step by step workouts,
you can get them all over Athleanx.com. If you’re looking for a program that will help
you with the core training aspect of it, we have our Core for Abs program. Again,
that’s available at Athleanx.com. The fact is guys, I’m just looking for you to become more
consistent in what you’re doing right now to get to a better place than you are right now.
If you found the video helpful, leave your comments and thumbs up below. Let
me know what else I could do for you in the days and weeks ahead and I’ll make sure I do
those. And if you haven’t already guys, click Subscribe and turn on your notifications so
you never miss a new video when we put one out. All right guys, see you soon.