According to Alan Aragon, co-author of The Lean Muscle Diet, “the fastest way to look like you’ve packed on 20 pounds of muscle is to lose 10 pounds of fat.”
It’s basically common sense: Get rid of the fat that’s hiding your six-pack abs, and your muscles will become more defined. The result is that you’ll end up looking as buff as Zach Efron.
Of course, this is easier said than done. Actually losing those 10 pounds of flab is a lot more difficult than it sounds. They don’t just fall off, and when you think you might be getting somewhere because you’ve lost 2 pounds, you – somehow – pile them back on within an hour.
After 4 hours you’ve put on another 2 pounds.
Fuck.
Life can get really frustrating, but not to worry because we’ve extracted the best bits from Aragon’s The Lean Muscle Diet to give you a quick lowdown on how you can trim the lard and get defined.
Measure Your Calories
If you’ve got a target body weight, why not eat for it? If you weigh 240 pounds at present, but want to weigh 200 pounds, then it’s pretty simple: You’ve gotta adopt the calorie intake that a 200 pound man would.
Know Your Numbers
There are three key nutrients: Protein, Fat and Carbs.
Protein:
To help you scrape off your belly fat, you should aim to eat 1 gram of protein for every lb of your desired body weight.
Fat:
Everyone used to hate fats (except fatties), and we were told they were evil. But they aren’t; calories are evil, whilst fats help you to feel full for longer, thus preventing you from reaching for the cookie jar during the commercial breaks. If you eat half a gram of fat for each pound of your desired body weight, you’ll be doing just grand.
Carbs:
Carbs are great because they taste great. They’re also packed with vitamins and minerals. They win at life and to incorporate them into your belly-trimming diet, you should combine together the calories from your protein and fat before subtracting the total from your assigned daily intake. The total number that is leftover is the amour of calories you can ingest from carbs.
Be Strict With Your Menu
Your diet really should centre itself around the foods you’ll find in nature – whole foods, we call them. These include meats, dairy, fruits, nuts, veggies, eggs and so on. Get rid of the junk food, and replace candy treats with blueberries and olives.
