How long to go from that 30%, 25% body fat mark to 15%? In this video, I'm going to show you scientifically of how long it's going to take you to be able to get to your goal. I've undergone these transformations myself, and I've undergone multiple transformations going through my bulking phases, where I've accrued a lot of fat tissue, and going through cutting phases, where I've gotten composition lean, became a meds physique champion, and now a professional natural bodybuilder, and I am also a medical doctor.
I'm going to show you the easiest format to figure this out, but I'm also going to show you the most scientific format. And the way I know this so well is that over the last decade, I have coached men and women that you're seeing right now on your screen to be able to get in the shape of their lives. And it's crucial to be able to have a time estimate of how long this will be so that we can have a strategy in place, the level of adherence we want to follow, and also to correctly predict when we can be ready to step on stage or go on a holiday. This is me at roughly 30% body fat. Now, In the comments, I always get where people say, hey, Mike, you're not 30% here.
I hold a lot of fat tissue in my legs and in my glutes. And when I've done DEXA scans in the past, they've shown 30%. But I would love to hear your opinion in the comments below of what you truly think this body fat percentage is.
And I am going to show you how long it will take to go to 10%. And there's different things you can implement. I've gone under cutting phases where it's taken as long as seven months. And when you know what you're doing, as short as 90 days. And I'm going to show you examples of some of my clients as well.
The three clients I'm going to be utilizing to determine and showing you guys how long it'll take is Jasmine, the second client I'll be showing you is Gary, and then finally we're going to be using John. Now a lot of my clients have asked to be anonymous here and in this case we'll be using John for this example here but all the data will be right there. So the first question is what is the best way to accurately determine your starting point? That tool will be what is called a DEXA SCAD, Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry. Now this tool was initially utilized to be able to determine bone density, especially to see if women who are going through a menopausal period are going through osteoporosis, but we've also used it to be able to determine body fat.
Now, if you guys want to figure out how to do a DEXA scan, just go on Google and search DEXA scan near me, and you'll find this tool. Now, the issues with this tool is that it's very expensive to do compared to the other tests, but very, very useful data to have. So I'm always happy to invest in these, but it's the most accurate according to the science. This, in science, we consider the gold. standard.
Now, the more basic that has a lot more error is called a skinful thickness test. They use calipers to measure different points in your body and determining how much fat tissue you have at that point. And then they use a mathematical equation to determine your body fat percentage. This is me doing my DEXA scan.
And this was one day out from my show. And this is what a caliper looks like. But you can also use a more subjective tool. And we can go through an eye test.
And we can look at these photos here and try and determine which photo best represents where we currently are. For intents and purposes, we just want to have an estimate of where we are and an estimate of where we're going to be. No tool is 100% accurate.
They all have their degrees of inaccuracy. So the DEXA scan has the least plus minus 3% and skin fold and using the body impedance, those in-body scans used at the gym also have their pitfalls, but they're good to use. as a comparative tool from before and after to see how much change this tool has so they can be inconsistently consistent.
But for the purpose of this video, we're going to be using an eye test. First, let's determine Gary's. So here's Gary.
This is his before photos where we're starting. Now, comparing Gary's front photo, I would say Gary isn't as heavy as the guy at the 30% where you'll have some fat tissue around his nipples. Gary has good muscle density on his chest, but not as much fat tissue where the nipples are sagging, but he does have the belly. He does have the love handles. So I would say he's between the 25 and 30 for this video.
I am going to determine that Gary's at the 25%. Let me know in the comments if you agree and disagree. So 25% for Gary. For Jasmine, comparatively, I wouldn't say that Jasmine is at the 30% body fat mark. The legs here are a little bit thicker.
There's a lot more fat tissue and volume in the breast tissue. This is one of the main reasons why women have more fat than males is that their breast is predominantly fat. So I would say Jasmine's more at that 25%, right?
And again, we're going to determine how long it's going to take her and I'm going to show you the science here. So play along with me. So I would say she's at the 25%. And then finally, John. John has not as much muscle tissue as Gary.
And you can see that the belly's laying over here. And he doesn't have the... breast, all right, the pseudogynicomastia.
So I would say he's also roughly at this 25 body fat mark. Is he in between 25 and 30? Yes, I could say 20. But for this video, let's go 25. Now, the usual way we like using is the visual eye test. So take your photo and choose where you believe your starting point is.
And if you feel you're between 30 and 35, use 33 as the number in the middle. And same for women. Use this, compare and say, hey, where am I at roughly?
So you guys can figure along with me using the science I'm about to share with you. Now, let's get straight into it. The easiest way to determine your body fat percentage.
is this tool here. So I'll show you how to use it and you can use it for yourself and you can take a screenshot. So at the top, we have our starting body fat percentage and at the bottom, it's going to show how long it's going to take. Now to determine for women, you go down and when you first hit the last red cell, that is going to be the women and how long it will take them to get to their six pack. And for men, you have to go to the last orange cell to tell when they'll get to their six pack.
Let's go through this and I'll show you a few examples. So again, Gary, we determined him to be roughly at that 25%. So if we take the 25% and we wait till we hit the yellow cell, the first yellow cell for Gary is at 32 weeks.
Well, we know how long it will take. This chart assumes that Gary is going to lose one pound per week. So if he's 25%, according to what we saw from our eye test, when he hits the yellow cell, like the instructions share here, That's 32 weeks. That's at the rate of one pound per week.
It'll take him 32 weeks, which is roughly eight months. Now, if he loses that two pounds per week, it can take him 16 weeks, right? To be able to get to that 10% body fat mark. Now for women, right?
When they start to see their apps, let's use this for Jasmine. And remember we said she was also at 25%. Now, remember I said all the way till you hit the orange cell and for Jasmine, it will take about 11 weeks for her to be able to see her apps.
For her to get to her desired goal, it will take 11 weeks and that's roughly at 20%. And then finally, let's use John. And again, we determined him to be at 25% and again, that will take him 16 weeks. If we're losing it at a rate of 2 pounds per week, at 1 pound per week, we'll take him 32 weeks.
But you may be asking, okay, Dr. Mike, cool, no problem. What about a more scientific method? So first of all, we need to determine what is a healthy rate.
Now, research has shown that the... adequate rate of weight loss should be 0.5 to 1% of your body weight per week. And I have to agree with this strongly. So if you're 200 pounds, 1% of 200 pounds is two pounds, you do not want to lose more than two pounds. And you may be asking, Dr. Mike, why?
When you go over that rate, you start to deal with the negative side effects of being too deep in a caloric deficit, low leptin, you never feel satisfied. and the likelihood that you binge is so much higher, you're a lot hungrier, you lose strength very quickly. If you decrease in strength, which means you'll also very likely lose a lot of muscle mass. Losing more than 1% has too many risks compared to being in that 0.5 to 1%, right? So again, if you're 200 pounds at the lower end, 0.5% of 200 pounds is one pound and 1% of 200 pounds is two pounds, right?
So if you're 150 pounds at the high end, you want to be losing 1.5. At the low end, you want to be losing 0.75 per week, right? Very, very easy.
And again, that's the second way to determine how long it'll take you. With this rule, if you're at 30% and you want to get to 15%, at the high end, it can take you 15 weeks. If you want to do it the slow way, it can take you double the time at 30 weeks. So that's the second way. Now I'm going to show you a more mathematical approach.
This is the most accurate way to determine how long it's going to take you. So step one. We need to determine your initial body composition. We need to determine what your fat mass is and what your lean mass is. And the best way I can describe it is that your body is the whole your weight mass, right?
But if I just want to determine, OK, if I could just take all the fat tissue off of your body and put it on a scale, how much is that? Which is very easy to determine. So let's assume you're 200 pounds.
And we then have to take to determine how much fat you are. You take the percentage of your fat multiplied by your total weight. 200. multiplied by 30%, 0.3 is 60 pounds, which means your body, if I just removed all fat, is equivalent to 140 pounds, right? So 200 minus the pounds that is just fat.
Okay, now we know how much total fat mass there is. So that 30% is that fully. Now we want to determine, okay, what is it for our target weight? So the lean mass remains approximately constant.
So to decide that this is the formula, it's your target weight equals your lean mass. divided by one minus your desired body fat percentage. So very, very easy. We go 140 pounds, which is your lean mass, divided by one minus your target body. fat percentage. So let's say you want to go to 15%.
So it's one minus 0.15. So you go 140 multiply divided by 0.85. So that's your target weight at 15%.
Let's say you want it to get to 10%. You take your lean mass divided by one minus 0.1. And you do 140 divided by 0.9, right?
That's just math. And you can just plug and play and figure out your own. So again, determine your lean mass. and then divide it by one minus your target weight. Let's say you're at 50% and your target weight is 9%, then this number here would be one minus 0.09.
And that will give you what your target weight is. And if you wanted to know, okay, how much fat do I have at 15%, again, you take 165, your target weight at 15%, and that's 24.75 pounds. So that's how much fat you're going to have on your body.
when you go to 15%. So you go literally from 60 and you bring it down to 24. To calculate how long or to calculate how much fat you have to lose, you take your current fat mass minus your target fat mass, right? So again, this is your target.
We take your current, we figure out your target. So we take 60 minus 24.75. And again, you can just plug and play here and do the exact same thing. But I'm going to show you one.
even easier way. So watch till the end of the video because I'm going to show you the common mistakes that make it two times, three times longer and how to avoid those and actually how to speed up your fat loss because we have dialed this to a T at Scope by Science. Now that you know how much fat you need to lose, you need to determine if you want to be within this 0.5 to 1% range. When I coach my clients, I just try and stay within that range and I can do things to make it go faster or make it glow slower.
So you'll always see that I'm always within that range. If a person's 200 pounds, you want to lose one to two pounds, like I mentioned earlier. So how much time is it going to take, right?
If you want to lose a pound per week, you take the total fat that you need to lose divided by one, and it's going to be 35 weeks. And if you want to lose two pounds per week, you take all the weight you need to lose divided by two, and that's going to give you 17.625 weeks. So in summary, it can take you 35 weeks, about eight months losing a pound, or you can cut that in half.
and losing 18 weeks at two pounds, right? Very, very easy mathematics. And there's also something we need to take into consideration, which not enough people do. Going through a rigorous plan, you can always gain muscle along the way.
So there's a lot of things that can actually fluctuate what your actual number is at the end. So remember, these are all estimations and just gives you a ballpark of where you are. So you know what you're headed towards, right?
And this research paper, a systemic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression of the effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength in healthy adults. Right? It shows that dietary protein supplementation augmented an increase in your fat-free mass by 0.3. So it just shows you can gain muscle as you go through a deficit. And the rate really varies.
This is some rough estimate. When you're a beginner, it's much easier to... build new lean muscle tissue because this training stimulus is new. Just like anything in life, there is a diminishing return. So you get this asymptote, right?
And the more mathematical terms, I don't remember the last time I used the word asymptote, but you get a place where it drops off, right? You get diminished returns. When you get to becoming an advanced lifter, the person who's advanced, I consider four years and above.
Beginner is first between zero and one year. Intermediate is two to four and then advanced is four and above. That's the amount of muscle tissue you can gain a week.
And again, this is very rough estimates. Genetics, age, how long you've been training. If you're a new time lifter or a detrained athlete, all these variables can play a role.
This can also be something that derails a lot of people. You may be losing a pound of fat, hypothetically. Or let's say you're losing half a pound of fat and you gained half a pound of muscle, especially if you're a beginner and you don't see your weight scale decrease.
A lot of people get discouraged. So... The point I also want to put out is that use photos and tape measurements to a higher degree with confidence compared to a weight scale, because weight scales factor in so many more things.
Like, did you go to the toilet that day? Did you sweat the same amount? Did you drink the same amount of liquids, foods? There's a lot of varying variables when it comes to reading a weight scale, like your water weight, how consistent you are, when you're weighing it. All these things play a role.
So. Let me show you, let's calculate and actually put all the stuff I just showed you into practice, right? So remember, for Gary, that chart showed 32 weeks at one pound per week.
Let's see what results he got. So Gary started at 196.7 pounds, and he was at 25% body. fat and his final result was actually this and tell me guys again do you think this is 10% I would say this Christmas tree in the back he has no fat tissue on the lower abs maybe just a little bit but I would consider this you're seeing this full six pack in all its glory and again this is a subjective analysis that he's at 10% could it be a little different but anyway his final weight at 172.3 pounds in 16 weeks you Gary lost 24.4 pounds with us, which is a rate of 1.525 pounds per week. And he dropped 0.89% per week. So he was at that upper limit, right?
Remember 0.85 to 1%? He was at that upper limit. So it's just to show you guys, and this is at week 16. So this took him 16 weeks.
So this is to show you guys that it took Gary exactly 16 weeks to kind of get to this goal. did he potentially build some muscle tissue during this time? You guys let me know. I would like to believe yes, his shoulders look a lot more defined, his biceps look a lot bigger.
And I would love to say that he added some muscle tissue onto his back. Again, I might be subjective here because I'm his coach, but that was his rate, right? So this is another way, the super simple, easy way.
Remember when I said, hey, these are the formulas, you could always go into any AI calculator. This is chat GPT. And all I say, I type into chat is, hey, chat, I am 200 pounds at 25 percent.
How long will it take for me to get to 10 percent and calculate this the easiest way? And it calculates the exact same formula I just showed you guys. And he actually had 32 pounds to lose. So it was predicting for Gary to be at 163.33 pounds at 10 percent. And he came out to be about nine pounds heavier than that prediction.
What could. play a role here is a Gary gained muscle B he's not really a 10% and he's maybe slightly higher like 13 or 14 and C is that both of them both of those things actually apply so that's a good way of kind of seeing how far the math can be but this agreed really well with the charts and losing two pounds per week right it took him 16 weeks to lose 172 pounds so this was closer to the charts this is the result he got in 16 weeks compared to this mathematical equation. And it also said that according to this data, it would take him, if he lost two pounds per week, it would take him 16.34 weeks. So it goes to show you that the science can really be accurate, right? It's really a good estimate.
It's a good guesstimate, right? So at a rate of two pounds per week, Gary lost 16, it takes him out roughly 16.34 weeks. And if he lost one pound per week, it would take him 33 weeks, which is also.
So let's use example. number two, right? Jasmine at 145 pounds. Now, again, she could arguably not be at 25. Maybe she's leaner than that and being at 20. But I'm going to say she is at 25. And this was her final results.
Jasmine got to 133.2 pounds and a body fat percentage of 17%. She lost 11.8 pounds, but she did this in 12 weeks and she lost 0.98 pounds per week, right? almost at that one pound per week and her rate was at 0.75. So again, at the higher end of that one pound, more so 75% to that one pound per week. And did that agree?
If you guys remember, it actually showed that it would take her 11 weeks losing one pound per week according to that chart. So again, right on it. That chart is actually a really good chart to use.
So the results she gets is very accurate to what that chart shows. And we use that chart to be able to determine and tell our clients, honestly, how long will it take them? And then to calculate the weight of a woman needs to lose to go from 25 to 17 percent.
And the resulting weight will use the same method as before. And it determined that she needed to lose 13.98 pounds. And she lost about 12 pounds, which isn't off, right?
A difference of about one pound and some change. And it determined that at one pound per week rated would take her 14 weeks. So two weeks off.
from the result that she got and was fantastic right they determined for her to be at 17 body fat it would be 131 and here she got a 133 so i would say maybe the reason gary didn't hit that number maybe gary's not 10 so we didn't do a dexa scad and i need to as a scientist account for that error in my own eye test but again bigger picture guys the idea here is to give you an estimate so you know where the bullseye is right it's a gps this is what we're trying to do is trying to be as approximate as we can as with our gps so if you really want to be super accurate my recommendation is do a dexascan before starting a routine and then doing the dexascan And as you can see, that's the mathematics. And then finally, let's use John, right? So John, 147 pounds, a 25% body fat. These were his final results.
131 pounds. I would say he's at 10%, right? You can see his full six pack.
His obliques are showing, no love handles, shredded in the back. Our focus now with John is we're building muscle, but he could never get rid of this belly. Never, never, never. And I remember when he was, when John decided if he wanted to work with us, he told me, he's like, Mike.
I've tried everything and I could never lose my belly fat. And we got rid of it. And he lost it sustainably. And it took him 16 weeks.
And he lost a total of 15.2 pounds. Now, what I do want to add here is I feel strongly that John didn't add as much muscle tissue compared to Gary here. And that could play a role. But what did the mathematics say?
So the mathematics said that he had 25 pounds to lose, 24.45. And it determined... For his final weight to be at 122.5 pounds, and he came to 131. And again, this could be my own error that I'm maybe being too gracious. But he was losing at that 0.95, so a 0.72 rate per week. And it determined that it would take him about 25 to 12 weeks.
So it took him 16 weeks to get to this result. Did he see better results? There's a lot to be said there, but I'd love to hear your input. But I would say that he was, again, very close, much closer to that chart that I showed earlier.
And that's his mathematics. So, again, you guys may be asking, OK, cool, Mike, I know how long it'll take. So how how did you do this with all the clients without any fluff or bullshit? Every diet out there is all about energy balance, right?
Like if we use science, this is balance and. If you're this way, you're going to lose fat. If you're this way, you're going to gain fat.
And if you're this, you're going to be balanced. Like science is all about in and out, right? Like law of thermodynamics.
Input equals output. So you need to be in a caloric deficit. The best way to do this is download an app, Macrofactor, and you can get that for two weeks for free and it will calculate your calories. And just make sure you're in a caloric deficit. Track paleo, keto, intermittent fasting, every single diet.
follow science, the law of thermodynamics. So you need to be in a caloric deficit, getting to your TDEE, your total daily energy expenditure, and then making sure you're eating less than that, being in a caloric deficit and eating one gram per pound of body weight, 25% of your total calories, making sure you're doing resistance training, and also making sure that you're doing adequate cardio. My quotes for cardio is going to be steps and making sure you're consistent.
Too many people go Monday to Friday. have a party all over the weekend and then reset. If you're making mistakes and you're not seeing results, then try and tighten your ship a little bit to get the results you desire.
Make sure you're sleeping enough, drinking enough water, avoid the fad diets. There's always a correlation. People I see who are like too impatient and too desperate do very risky things compared to the people who are very patient and are not desperate. They take a stepwise intelligent manner. That's the approach you should take.
And that's going to give you more sustainable results, right? and monitor your progress. Take photos, weigh in every day. If that bothers you, weigh in once a week, take measurements and then have someone hold you accountable like a coach. If you're a busy professional, you've invested in yourself before and you want a guaranteed way to be able to lose the weight, improve your energy and also maybe there's something going on with your health that you're unsure of, you can apply to work with us at Sculled by Science.
We just brought on two more medical professionals. However, we are a premium product so you can... Do the apps first, like try all the other stuff first.
But if you definitely need help, then apply with us. The first link in the description. But we do all of this stuff for you. But these are the common mistakes that I see takes longer for people.
So those examples I showed you guys, that is considering you have a perfect 16 weeks. All the information I showed you and in my experience, many things happen. Weddings, binging, and this happens, right?
You could be emotionally stressed. You could get sick. So when I started this company during the C-19 era, very, very common.
So all those things can increase your duration and also how strict you want to be with yourself, right? And what is more better for your lifestyle? Do you want to be more social?
Do you want to go out? All these factors take a role. But I would say to whatever calculation you came up with, add four weeks as a buffer. four months 16 weeks you could make mistakes that can prolong things by a week so give yourself an extra four weeks of mistakes but um if not you know you overshoot and you do great so these are the common mistakes i see all the time not tracking your food with an app alex hermosi says this very very popular figure in the business if you're not tracking you don't care it's the truth if you're not checking how much money you have in your bank account you don't care you're not going to go to the grocery store knowing you don't have money because it's embarrassing when you're at the till so it's the same concept like why wouldn't you just track how much food you're putting in your body like why not so if you're not tracking that's a big no-no like you're not going to get to your goal because you don't know where you are you're driving with a blindfold If you're eyeballing your quantity, then very likely you're going to make a lot more mistakes. You need some sort of consistent measurement.
The weight scale of food scale is always going to be the best and most accurate. And I tell people all the time, right? The less accurate you're going to be, the longer it's going to take you. Just be accurate and get it done with. Just do it properly or don't do it at all.
That's a good philosophy to have. Drinking your calories. This is an alcohol, coffee and like frappuccinos and just dumb things.
And then not being consistent. Yes. It's unfortunate, but if you keep on messing up on the weekends, don't expect to see great results, right? And really one day can mess it all up for you.
That is just the truth. Also, what I see a lot of people do is they cut out their favorite food. So it makes it very unsustainable or cutting out food groups makes it very unsustainable because I've done keto. I was actually on keto a month ago just to improve my insulin sensitivity, but I missed the bread and I missed the foods and you can't live that way your whole life.
And it's not healthy. When you're not tracking or using any of these apps, you technically start to eat back your calories, doing crazy amounts of cardio. Cardio is a tool. When you do too much of it, you actually get much hungrier than you normally do. And the likelihood that you eat it back is so much higher.
The other mistake I see a lot of people make is that they are under eating their protein. So you're basically leaving a lot of money on the table, right? So if you're supposed to eat 200 and you're going to get the most amount of muscle.
If you're just eating 100, you're leading half of your gains on the table. Why do that? Make sure you get a good return on your investment.
You trained, you did sleep, you know, hard stuff. Just make sure you eat enough. Assuming your foods are healthy.
So look at the calorie packets and you're estimating. You're going to get so-so results. So this is my quote. The more detail you put in your diet, the more detail you'll see in your body.
I'll leave the video here. Love you lots. If you want to know about how to eat, calories and how to calculate it and what diet to build, watch this video here.
This is an amazing video and I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.