If you want to actually get lean this year, the odds are stacked against you. More than 80% of people who try getting lean end up failing. But there are 3 simple, science-backed steps that have gotten me, and several others, leaner than they’ve ever been before. We'll cover a full fat loss meal plan, the best exercises for fat loss, how to lose stubborn belly fat, and more.

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Step 1 for how to get lean: your diet. First, you need to start forcing your body to burn fat for energy. This is done by creating a calorie deficit, where you're eating fewer calories than your body needs every day. You can do that by first fixing your food environment. Throw away your trigger foods and taking advantage of your laziness by placing your high-calorie snacks and treats in hard-to-reach places. This also applies to healthy snacks like nuts and granola.  Also, when you do eat, try to shut everything down and just be present. 

Next, eat more protein. Eating enough protein “protects” your muscles from being burned off for energy during a diet. As for how much to eat, research typically shows the greatest benefit when protein is increased to about 0.8 g per lb of your body weight per day. In addition to protein, try to eat more of those highly filling, nutritious foods 80% of the time. Then 20% of the time, allow yourself to eat treats and more processed foods that, although won’t fill you up as much, will help you avoid an overly restrictive mindset. Finally, track your calories to ensure you’re indeed in a calorie deficit.

Second step to getting lean: exercise. Combining diet with resistance training is more effective for fat loss than combining diet with just cardio. The reason lifting weights is great for fat loss is that it tells your body to prioritize burning more fat rather than muscle for energy. So, when it comes to how to get lean, you should use your diet to do the hard work of creating most of your calorie deficit, but also lift weights 3-5 times weekly to tell your body to keep your muscles and use fat for energy instead.

But as great as lifting weights is, this doesn’t mean you hit the gym and sloth around the rest of the day. In fact, one of the reasons why people fail to get lean during a diet is because they subconsciously get lazier and reduce the number of steps they take as they get leaner and leaner. To avoid this, start tracking your daily steps. Try to build up to at least 7,000 steps per day and keep that consistent throughout your diet.

So if you properly apply everything we went through so far, with the best exercises for fat loss (i.e., resistance training), for example, you should be able to lose about 1-2 lbs of fat per week. Repeat that for several weeks, and eventually, you’ll be at your goal body fat percentage. But we all know that’s much easier said than done. Step 3, staying consistent, is where most people fail. But there are 3 consistency hacks that I’ve found make people far more likely to stick it through and succeed.

The first of my "how to get lean consistency hacks" is what I like to call the Power of 60%. Instead of aiming for perfection, just aim to hit your goals at least 60% of the time. Second, make use of diet breaks every 8-12 weeks of dieting. It’s a week or two where you increase your calorie intake to around 500 calories more than when you were dieting. While it’s not a free pass to eat whatever you want, it will give you more flexibility with your food choices and can help you recharge both mentally and physically before your next dieting phase on a fat loss meal plan.

Finally, let's talk about how to lose belly fat. First off, don’t use your stubborn belly fat as a measure of progress. Usually, your body will start by losing fat around your chest, shoulders, arms, back, and even your face. Only once it’s lost enough fat from those areas will it make its way down to your upper stomach area and then finally your lower belly. Remember, you have a lot more fat to lose than you think. So until you get lean enough to notice your belly fat coming off, be proud of the fat loss progress you’ve made in your face, arms, chest, and shoulders. Don’t quit right before the going gets good!