- So you're interested in getting shredded.
Awesome, you came to the right video
because in this video, I'm going to share
with you a couple of things that I would have done
differently if I was getting shredded for the first time,
the things that I now do differently with myself
and with my clients that really do improve those processes
and those systems to getting
to that low body fat percentage.
And by the way, none of these things are some
kinda quick fix that I can just give you
and that you're gonna listen to this video,
and tomorrow wake up with abs,
or just magically get shredded overnight.
That's really not how it works.
You need patience, you need consistency.
You need lots of hard work.
My hope is that these things that I share here with you
and my experiences will help you improve
your processes so you can do this
in the most effective way possible for you.
And by the way, if you're new here,
my name is Mario Tomic, you like to learn more
about exercise, nutrition, getting that ripped physique,
really making this a lifestyle,
consider subscribing below, and make sure
to enable the notifications by clicking the bell icon
so you know when the next video comes out.
And now, let's dive into it.
So the first thing that I would do differently
when it comes to getting shredded is
that I would have gotten a lot more precise
with my nutrition from day one.
So I made a mistake basically with procrastinating
on learning how to do calories, learning how to do macros,
learning how to do tracking, really doing it.
And instead, what I was doing was,
I was basically avoiding that, and I was doing
primarily some of the commonsense fat loss things.
I was trying to get away with just doing that,
which weren't unnecessarily bad things.
I mean, these things like eating more protein,
eating more veggies, not eating junk food,
not drinking sodas, drinking more water.
Those things are great, and that's a good foundation,
but I should have just gotten much more precise
from day one, because the lack of that precision was really
what got me a lot of frustrating plateaus,
even far from being shredded.
I mean, about 15% body fat, I was already hitting plateaus,
which shouldn't be really happening.
So if I was more precise from day one,
if I had those skills, I would have, first off,
known when to make changes, what changes to make.
I would've had data to understand what was going on,
and I wouldn't even hit those plateaus.
But then I would've had a lot more momentum
and more experience with these skills,
so I could actually get closer to my 10% body fat goal,
which was really the ultimate goal.
I wanted to be that guy with a six-pack.
I wanted to get shredded.
And because I was avoiding these skills,
that was really a problem because I didn't know
what to do, what to change,
and that's maybe a situation we're in right now.
You might be stuck far from your goal
without knowing what to change.
And that's a lack of data, right?
So you need to dive into this.
Don't postpone, don't procrastinate on learning these skills
because these skills will be critical
to get to that end goal, right?
They might not be critical to lose the first five pounds.
I mean, you can do that with some
of the commonsense things I mentioned.
But if we're talking about getting really, really shredded,
getting to that ultimate goal, you will need these skills.
So dive into it, let's get that precision.
Now, the second thing that I would have done differently
when it comes to getting shredded is
to not do as much cardio.
So what I did, basically, is from day one, week one,
I already had two cardio sessions
of about 45 minutes moderate intensity,
on top of five weight training sessions
and all the nutrition changes.
And two training sessions like that isn't a lot,
but what happened over time is,
as soon as I didn't see the scale move as fast as I wanted,
I would immediately go up in the cardio.
I would go from two sessions to three.
I would add another one, now up to four,
45 minutes turned into an hour.
Eventually, I ended up doing five cardio sessions
of about an hour on an empty stomach in the morning,
plus the five weight training sessions,
which was way too much for someone at my experience level.
And in general, that's a lot of workload for someone.
They need a really, really good recovery
to be able to even handle that,
to be able to even survive that,
especially when you're also looking to lose body fat.
I mean, that's just a lot.
And for a beginner like myself, basically,
the result was that I didn't build any muscle,
didn't get any strength on my cut,
and that cut was just not very effective.
The end result of that whole fat loss phase was just not
as good as it could've been, because I,
at that experience level, as a beginner about a year
into lifting, year and a half, I should have been able
to build some muscle, I should have been able
to gain a lot of strength on that fat loss phase.
But nothing happened because I was just overtrained.
Also, not just physically what was going on,
but mentally, I was absolutely exhausted all the time.
I just didn't want to do much.
I was not very motivated, I was very agitated.
I was actually very hungry, as well.
Even my sleep starting to, my sleep quality just went down.
I was sleeping only about six to seven hours
because I just couldn't handle all the workload.
I just constantly felt stressed out,
and I was just doing way too much
for someone at my experience level.
Now, if I was doing things differently, I mean,
cardio, there's nothing bad with it.
I mean, you can add a couple sessions here or there.
But that's definitely something to use strategically
as a tool if your goal is to have an amazing,
muscular physique at the end of your fat loss phase.
It's not something just to go full-on YOLO
and go very aggressive like I did
with just adding a bunch of cardio without any kind
of limitations or considerations for the fatigue.
And also, at that time I was going into the forums.
I was reading what people were talking about.
Everybody was talking about how
it's supposed to be miserable,
how you're supposed to suffer, how it is painful,
how you're supposed to be fatigued.
I kinda bought into that and I thought
that what was happening to me was normal,
and I was just, kept going, you know,
just keep going and just, let's go to the end.
And now, I know differently, and now,
I'm telling you as well that
that's not supposed to be happening.
You're not supposed to be completely trashed
every single day after your morning session.
I was doing, basically, morning fasted sessions.
I mean, now we even know the science on fasted cardio says
that there's not any difference between fasted or fed.
Back in the day I was like, oh let's do it fasted,
it has to be fasted, so I was really pushing myself so much.
It was negatively affecting all areas of my life,
and I think that's actually one of the biggest mistakes
I ever made in terms of my fitness journey.
I think this one mistake of just doing way too much cardio,
and that's definitely what held me back a lot on my journey.
This is definitely something you want
to pay attention to if your goal ultimately is
to get to that shredded physique.
Now, the third thing that I would've done differently
when it comes to getting shredded is
to have a lot more progress metrics.
My issue was that I was only relying on the weight scale.
That's how I made all my decisions,
whether to do less food, more food,
more cardio, less cardio training.
All these changes were, basically,
made based on the weight scale.
We know the weight scale can fluctuate quite a lot,
and luckily, I soon moved into weight averages.
I wasn't just looking at the daily weighings,
because that really makes you crazy.
If you look at weight averages,
that's a little bit more accurate, but it's not enough.
I wish I did weekly progress photos.
I wish I did weekly caliber measurements,
where you take an inch to the right of your belly button
and just take a vertical pinch there,
and you just have that metric, you have that raw data.
You can make more accurate decisions.
You make more educated decisions.
With the progress photos, the thing is,
when we're looking at ourselves in the mirror,
we're always looking at the abs.
Is the fat melting from the abs?
The thing is that that's the last place it's gonna go
off from, and you often lose a lot of fat
from your back that you don't even see.
If you're just looking at the middle,
you're just looking at your stomach,
nothing is happening, and it can be very frustrating.
Instead, when you take progress photos
from a couple of different angles, you can see changes.
And also, with those progress photos,
you can actually compare.
When you do the next fat loss phase, you can look back.
You can see how the changes have been made.
You can see how much muscle you put on.
You can see a lot, you have a lot more accurate insights
into what's going on with your body.
That was my mistake, I made a lot of bad choices
because I was just relying on that scale.
I would lower my food intake, add cardio,
do all kinds of stuff, and I would've probably made
a lot more progress if I just stuck with it.
Maybe I was doing something right
and I didn't even know that I was doing it right.
So having more metrics to measure your progress is critical,
and I highly recommend that you implement
as many as possible so you have the data
to make the good decisions.
That's really what's gonna make a difference,
because you're no longer just guessing.
Now you're actually making decisions based
on something real, on something that's actually going on.
Don't get me wrong, the scale is great,
but it cannot be the only tool you use
that will give you the decisions.
You need to use other tools
if you want more accurate decisions.
When we're talking about getting shredded,
we're talking about maximum accuracy,
which is really going to help you.
By the way, I'm going to leave a video here at the end
that's also gonna help you on your goal
and your journey to getting shredded.
Also, if you're interested in working with me,
I'm gonna leave a link in the description below
where you can check out that link
and all the details will be there.
Other than that, I will see you in that next video.
(chill electronic music)