I consciously decided that I was going to eat up and indulge more frequently while visiting family and friends in Vancouver over the summer as well as when I was in London for some of July and August!
I put on 12-13 pounds of essentially pure body fat over the course of 10 weeks, which is quite a bit, especially considering that I’m not a 200+ lb dude because fat gain (and loss) is relative meaning, 12 lbs for someone who is 100 lbs is a lot different than 12 lbs for someone is 200 lbs…it’s a much larger percentage of total body weight and/or fat for the 100 lb’er!
Post Vancouver and London I decided to head to Mexico and I knew it was going to be hot, wearing minimal clothing is a pretty good motivator to be and stay lean and also, I just didn’t feel as good with that extra weight on me…so once I booked my flight I figured let’s do it, let’s lose some fat and boost my well-being because…
My personal sweet spot body composition and lifestyle wise is in the 10ish % body fat range and after that 10 weeks of conscious indulgence (I think it’s important to double click on the fact that I did this with awareness, it was a choice) I was up in the 16-18% body fat range and I just don’t feel as good there. I don’t feel as athletic, as energetic, as healthy and I also much prefer the way that I look closer to 10%.
That’s not to say that you need to be as lean as me, everyone has different goals, preferences, priorities, where they feel their best body composition wise as well as what they like from a visual standpoint.
If you’re curious about where that ‘spot’ is for you and what your ideal weight is, listen to episode 118 of the podcast titled ‘How To Determine YOUR Ideal Body Weight’…it’s a really popular episode because it approaches ideal body weight in a unique and individually specific way.
Funny enough, I actually find doing these transformations and challenges SO FUN…watching my body change on a week to week basis is super cool and I always learn more about myself in the process, I just love it! I hear this quite often from my clients as well in the sense that the process is often a lot more enjoyable than they thought that it would be because they’re learning, they’re seeing results and they’re feeling better and better each and every day which…I mean, who doesn’t wanna feel better!?
So first off, how did I gain the weight? What did I do to put on 12+ lbs in only 10 weeks…
I started eating a lot more, shocking right!? You probably could have guessed that!
I was tracking my calorie intake about as precisely as you can during the fat gain phase, so while I was in Vancouver and London I was logging everything that I was eating and drinking. Eating meals at restaurants makes tracking accurately a little tougher, but I tracked to the best of my ability and I also logged all of the meals that I cooked myself, which was and always is the vast majority of them.
I was still favouring single ingredient whole foods however, I was eating a lot more of them and I was also mixing in a lot more treat foods than usual, for example…I found these Magnum brand (not the condoms) dairy-free ice cream bars and when I was London I was crushing them…they’re super delicious, they’re 250 calories a pop and they came in boxes of 3 and so that’s 750 calories right there!
750 calories is like half of a small females entire daily intake, stuff like this adds up quick!
I was also eating a TON of sushi, I’m always sure to get my sushi fix when I’m in Vancouver because the quality is just amazing. I also found this cool sushi spot called Itsu in London, which you would have seen a bunch of on my social media and it’s like a fast food sushi joint so…
They have fresh made sushi just ready to go all the time and I was probably at Itsu realistically 4x per week while I was in London! Now sushi can be a super healthful meal, for example you can order it to be single ingredient whole foods which I was doing, but again like anything, it all adds up!
Activity wise, I think that you’ll find this interesting…I worked out more than usual while I was in Vancouver and London…so I exercised more during the fat gain phase, I was hitting the gym 5-6x per week because I figured hey, mayyybe I can put on a little bit of muscle tissue and take advantage of all of the added calories I was consuming…more on that in a second.
I also moved more during the fat gain phase meaning, my step counts were higher, especially in London because it’s such a big city and I was exploring the whole thing on foot. I did take the metro here and there, but I was crushing 17-18,000 steps per day on average, not sporadically, consistently…my activity when you add up the workouts and the step counts was SUPER high!
So this is really illuminating…despite all of this calorie burning activity, I still managed to put on 12 lbs of fat in 10 weeks and it’s not like I was eating out for every single meal because I wasn’t, but I was clearly eating a lot more than I was burning otherwise I wouldn’t have gained any body fat, I would have just maintained.
Did I gain some muscle…? Perhaps a VERY small amount but it’s unlikely because 10 weeks just isn’t enough time to put on any appreciable amount of muscle tissue when you’re natural aka not using performance enhancing drugs, which I am not.
If you’re a complete beginner to weight training, then you can put on muscle in 10 weeks, but I’m not, I’ve been training since I was 14 and I’m 35 now so…no noobie gains for this guy!
As I transitioned into the fat loss phase, I tracked my calorie intake in My Fitness Pal for the first 2 weeks and then I decided to go by feel/mindfully eat for the remaining 8 weeks. This is sort of backwards right!? Most folks would just eat whatever and not track while they’re indulging and then they’d track when fat loss is their goal because they’d want to know what they’re taking in…however, big caveat here…
Going by ‘feel’ or mindfully eating without formally tracking is a very advanced fat loss tactic. I have years of tracking macros and calories under my belt and I literally do this nutrition stuff all day long and have for over a decade…
Also, even though I didn’t formally track my intake, I still had a very good idea of what and how much I was eating because it’s simply second nature for me at this point. I’ve had so much practice and experience with nutrition that me not formally tracking is sort of like a professional golfer going out on the course and not writing down their score…they still have a really good idea of how they played!
They’re basically subconsciously tracking birdies, pars and bogeys, how many good, neutral and bad shots their hitting and I mention this because…
I just want to be sure that you’re not comparing yourself to me and thinking well, ‘I’ve got fat loss goals and Marcus goes by feel so I can too,’ but it’s not apples to apples…don’t compare yourself to me and I say this from love because I want you to set yourself up for fat loss success and for 99% of people, that is via tracking in one way or another. For example…
A super experienced carpenter can probably frame a house essentially by feel at a certain point…they look at the blueprint and they’re like, ‘okay I got this’ more or less…that’s where I am at this point in my career…nutrition, fat loss and lifestyle is my life, I do it 24/7 and so I’m really emphasizing this point because I want you to get results and tracking in one way or another is almost certainly the way for you to do that!
I’m also referring to fitness professionals by the way, I’ve helped A LOT of personal trainers and fitness professionals with their personal nutrition and fat loss goals, reason being is, just because someone is in the fitness industry doesn’t mean that they know what’s up nutrition wise…trust me! Working out is one thing, diet is another animal and it is massively more complex and nuanced, which makes sense because working out takes what…an hour a day? Nutrition and lifestyle is the other 23!
I’m not sh*tting on other fitness professionals or personal trainers, I used to be an in-person personal trainer for 7 years…my point is that the level of expertise that it takes to guide someone through a workout vs. the level of refinement that it takes to have people reach their fat loss goals consistently are 2 entirely different things, meaning…
Even if you’re reading this and you’re in the fitness industry, don’t fall for the ‘I’ve got this I’m a pro’ trap…I’d still recommend tracking your nutritional intake!
You don’t have to use an app like My Fitness Pal or something like Cronometer, there are quite a few ways to account for your food intake, for example…you could use a food diary and write down everything that you eat and adjust it as need be or, if you tend to like to eat a lot of same foods every day, that essentially standardizes your intake and you can tweak things that way.
The vast majority of my clients don’t actually track their own macros and calories, however I do it for them. Their specific portions are built into their programs and so they’ve got literally thousands of meal options and combinations to choose from, but they’re not pulling out an app or really logging anything…but, they’re weighing and measuring their food based on what their individualized program says…so, we’re absolutely tracking!
There are lots of different systems or approaches that you can use to account for what and how much you’re eating…using an app isn’t the only way, but if you’re doing this on your own it’s a pretty darn good way for a lot of folks.
Something that I was tracking the whole time was my weight and it was interesting to watch it climb up over the first 10 weeks and then trend down during the fat loss phase. If your goal is to lose fat and your weight isn’t trending down, fat loss ain’t happening, simple as that and the most common rebuttal to this that I get is…but what about muscle, am I gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time and is that why the scale isn’t moving? Are they offsetting one another?
I touched on this a little bit before…muscle gain is a VERY slow process, in comparison, fat loss is like 50 – 100x faster, maybe more, there’s just no way (outside of being a complete noobie to training and nutrition and dialing it in perfectly off the bat, which nobody does, or using performance enhancing drugs) that you’re going to build an equal amount of muscle while simultaneously losing that amount of fat, so…if the scale isn’t trending down, you’re not losing fat.
One hypothetical caveat to that would be if you’re just losing fat at such a slow rate that it’s actually comparable to the amount of muscle that you’re putting on…but practically speaking, that would be so slow that you wouldn’t even be able to track it and/or you’d most likely quit because you’d be like ‘this isn’t working, I’m not making progress.’
I definitely don’t say that to discourage, I say that because you’re here for the truth and you’re reading this and so you clearly want results…and you’re not getting em’ if the scale isn’t moving down.
I also used the mirror to assess my progress and you can totally implement this as well, however like going by feel nutrition wise or mindfully eating for fat loss, it’s also much more of an advanced tactic.
Personally, I assess my clients progress photos every week and I can see changes on a 7 day basis, but there are three key reasons for that…
One, it’s much easier to be objective with someone else meaning, it’s harder to assess your own progress accurately because you are you.
Two, you see yourself on a 24/7 basis and so you’re experiencing changes in real time vs. like I am with my clients on a seven-day basis. You can sidestep this by taking progress photos of yourself, but again it can be quite difficult to be truly objective with yourself.
And three, I do this all day long, I’ve looked at tens of thousands of progress photos, so…I’d recommend favouring the scale, the scale is your top tool in regards to assessing your fat loss progress, especially if you’re coaching yourself.
So, what did I change nutrition wise to yield the fat loss results that I got…
First of all I reduced the amount of treats that I was eating and I indulged far less frequently, however I did still have 2-3 treat meals per week during the fat loss phase and 3-4 full treat days over the 10 weeks where I just ate whatever I felt like eating that day.
I would have progressed A LOT faster if I opted out of the treat days especially, but I was in no rush and I just felt like doing it. It’s also worth mentioning that I’d typically compensate for the treat days somewhat just because the following day my hunger would be reduced and so a treat day would be followed by a much lighter day calorie wise simply because my appetite was down…I didn’t compensate enough to offset the treat days, however there was some compensation taking place.
I don’t recommend treat days to my clients or folks that want to lose fat in general for a number of reasons, but we’ll likely cover that in a future article.
If I had to speculate, I’d say that if I chose to skip the treat meals and treat days and just power straight through, I probably could have achieved the results that I got in half the time, maybe even less, but again I wasn’t in any rush and I just chose not to go to that extreme.
As far as my clients go, I include a weekly treat meal in their programs and it’s not that their bodies need a physical calorie bump (just like I didn’t), it’s just a psychological break where maybe they go on a date night with their partner or head out with some friends for a nice dinner.
Sometimes my clients will opt out of their treat meal if they’re not feeling it or they want to progress faster, but most of my clients do have their treat meal each week and quite often it does end up being closer to 2ish sometimes even 3 treat meals just because…life!
As far as nutrition specifics go, I ate the foods that my clients eat and that I recommend you eat…single ingredient whole foods that are both super healthy and super satiating because the name of the game when it comes to fat loss is essentially mitigating hunger…we’ve gotta be in a calorie deficit in order to lose fat and so we want to make that calorie deficit feel as effortless as possible and by far the best way to do that is via eating single ingredient whole foods!
I never once felt genuine hunger over the course of the 10 week fat loss phase, unless it was meal time and I was ready to eat. This is the sign of a properly designed nutrition for fat loss protocol…if you’re hungry all the time, you’re doing it wrong, something is off!
I’m not talking about cravings where you’re just like ‘oh pizza would taste good,’ that’s not hunger, that’s simply wanting to eat…I’m talking about legitimately feeling hungry as in a neck down physical sensation that doesn’t discriminate, meaning…
If you think that you’re hungry and someone is like ‘oh you’re hungry, here’s a beautiful piece of grilled salmon with some rice and veggies, enjoy’ and you’re like ‘no thanks’…that’s not hunger! If you’re genuinely hungry, you’re not turning down delicious single ingredient whole food like that.
Cravings on the other hand are specific and they are very often for things like chocolate, chips, candy, ice cream, pizza etc.
Hunger doesn’t discriminate, hunger will eat single ingredient whole foods and here’s a practical little takeaway for ya…what’s your favourite protein source? Mine is filet, filet mignon with a nice char on it and a bunch of salt is my absolute fav, think about yours…
Now, whenever you think ‘I’m hungry’ just ask yourself, would you eat your favourite protein source right now? If the answer is no, you’re not hungry, ya just wanna eat and that’s fine, but your body isn’t needing anything, you just want the sensation of taste and texture, so…
A properly structured fat loss program shouldn’t have you feeling hungry, unless it’s actually meal time.
As far as alcohol goes during the fat gain phase vs. the fat loss phase, I drank a little bit more during the fat gain phase however, it really wasn’t enough to move the needle all that much in either direction…booze just doesn’t play a big role in my life anymore, which you know first hand because you’ve been following along and I’ve shared a bunch about my relationship with alcohol and how it has shifted.
Did I notice any changes as far as my energy levels, mental clarity, sleep, libido, digestion, skin, joints etc?
My energy levels were definitely better during the fat loss phase as well as my mental clarity, digestion and skin, which all makes perfect sense. Not that my skin was bad by any means during the fat gain phase, but it was just that much better during the fat loss phase.
I’ve also noticed that I’m emotionally more stable when I’m leaner and that makes perfect sense too because of blood sugar levels and digestive quality.
There wasn’t any difference in my libido, sleep or joint health…those things were equal across the board.
Something that I’ll mention is that what I like to call the ‘transition period’ is always difficult no matter who you are meaning, when you go from indulging more frequently to indulging less frequently, it’s very apparent that the treat foods have a certain ‘pull’ or addictive-like quality to them and there’s a withdrawal period that everyone has to go through so…
The first 10 days when I decided that I was going to get lean, I noticed that I wanted the treats that I had been indulging in over the previous 10 weeks quite a bit because the brain is like…’where’d all that delicious over the top hyper palatable calorie dense food go’ because those food options are an evolutionary jackpot right!?
No one is immune to the ‘transition period,’ it’s easier for some vs. others and that depends on a number of factors, but I felt it and it can be uncomfortable…fortunately, I knew that it would fade and get easier and easier day by day, but like I said no one is immune to the transition…it’s always at least a little bit uncomfortable no matter who you are.
So this little experiment was fun, I enjoyed it and if it wasn’t clear to ya before it’s gotta be now that nutrition is the answer to your fat loss goals. I worked out and moved more via step counts during the fat gain phase than I did during the fat loss phase meaning, diet is the key to body composition improvements.
These results were 100% nutrition based in nature, actually they’re more like 120% because like I just mentioned I burned even fewer calories during the fat loss phase via activity so my diet had to ‘pick up that slack.’
Another key takeaway is that once you learn how to get in shape and you have that experience, consciously putting on some body fat can be completely stress-free because you know that you know exactly how to take it off…you’ve done it before right!?
So once you have these tools…if you go on vacation or you indulge more over the course of a summer or the holidays come up and things start to slip or you just decide that your body composition and health isn’t a priority for some period of time because other things are of more importance…it’s chill, no worries, you can reel things in whenever you want to!
So, investing in learning exactly how to get the body that you want is going to pay off for the rest of your life because once you have the experience, that tool is now in your tool kit forever!
You might need some touch ups here and there and/or some additional accountability, but big picture it’s a gift that just keeps on giving!
