Both include specific dietary recommendations to accelerate your results, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Before we answer that, a little background .
As you may or may not know, I’ve recently quit discussing “weight loss.”
Why?
It’s a junk term that causes nothing but frustration, and burns lots of money.
WHOA.
“That seems a little like ‘overkill’ there buddy.”
… You may be wondering.
And of course, you’re entitled to your opinion.
But let’s look at the facts:
Obesity is now a health epidemic in BOTH adults AND children - 73.6% of all Americans. (It’s about 50% for the world as a whole.)
Combine that with Big Pharma cashing in billions on “weight loss” drugs that have unpleasant effects like nausea, throwing up, and completely shutting down your digestive system (to name but some)...
And Big Weight loss hit an all-time high of $90 BILLION in 2023…
And yet people are getting fatter by the second.
For a point of reference, one of my customers sent me this pic (first picture)
It wasn’t far off from the last time I was at the beach in Florida.
Now look, I’m not judging nor embarrassing anyone.
I’m simply highlighting the problem and it’s this:
“WEIGHT LOSS DOESN’T WORK.”
Still don’t believe me?
Let’s answer our original question:
Which weighs more -
Muscle or fat?
Most people will say fat.
But look closely at the second picture.
They both weigh the SAME - 5 Pounds!
Where people get confused is that 5 pounds of muscle takes up about significantly less volume than 5 pounds of fat.
And this shows the broken state of the Weight Loss Industry.
When someone wants to shed 20 pounds, all he / she is concerned with is the number on the scale.
But someone who is 6 feet tall, weighs 200 pounds, and has 30% body fat looks a noticeably different than someone who is 6 feet tall, weighs 200 pounds, and has 15% body fat.
The first looks bulkier than the second.
So, if you set out to “lose 20 pounds” and “only” lost 10 - but you lost 15 pounds of fat and gained 5 pounds of muscle, would you be a “failure?”
Definitely not.
Why not?
Because BODY COMPOSITION is the “thing” we should be focusing on .
NOT “weight.”
I have been “banging this drum” since 1996.
And it used to freak people out .
They couldn’t understand why the scale didn’t move as much as they wanted, but their measurements did. Smaller waists, bigger arms - that sort of thing.
(Except the ladies - smaller waists, hips, thighs, and arms…)
Focus on muscle growth and burning off body fat (by improving your conditioning), NOT “losing weight.”
If you do the first - build muscle, you will almost always “lose weight” IF you don’t use “working out” and building muscle as a excuse to eat like a condemned man at his last meal.
I call this “Recomping”. (Recomposition training - training to change your body composition.)
HOW do you do that, exactly?
1- Train 3x a week :
If you have good recovery, or know how to structure your program, you can train 4x week .
Some even train 5x week .
Train a minimum of 20 minutes per session up to 45 minutes .
2- Use “big” lifts that use major muscle groups and require your body to burn a lot of energy:
Swings, Cleans, Presses, even TGUs come to mind.
Snatches more info are also awesome .
3- Work out for both power & power. Then conditioning :
When you do that, you’ll build “go” muscle instead of “show” muscle.
Both seem impressive. The first you can use.
4- If you’re going to “diet” -
[a] Focus on protein
It helps curb hunger.
It reduces cravings for both fatty and sugary foods.
[b] Clean the junk food out of your pantry and fridge so you’re not tempted to eat it.
Doing both [a] and [b] will significantly boost your results so you burn fat faster and see muscle definition sooner.
5- Sleep more:
Sleep is where you heal most.
No sleep. No recovery. No results.
It’s really that simple.
If you need some resources, I’ll leave a link to a 3-day a week and a 4-day a week Recomp Plan in the description below.
Hope you found this helpful .
Stay Powerful ,
Geoff Neupert.