In this video, I'm going to show you how men over 40 can lose fat so fast it feels illegal. I'm Rio and I've helped dozens of busy men over 40 strip off fat so quickly and so easily it almost feels illegal. And I've done the same over the last decade to take my body from this to this. So, if you're overweight, low on energy, and hate taking your shirt off at the beach, I'm going to break down 11 simple steps anyone over 40 can follow to get lean with ease. Step one, ask yourself this question. What's the most enjoyable way for me to eat in a calorie deficit every single day? This is the most important question you can ask yourself when it comes to fat loss because it is all that matters when it comes to fat loss. Fat loss is not about cutting out carbs or cutting out sugar or following keto or following paleo or eliminating your favorite foods. It has nothing to do with any of that Fat loss is fundamentally created through you putting yourself in an energy deficit so that you force your body to tap into its fat stores for energy. That's all that matters when it comes to fat loss. So all you have to figure out is what's the most enjoyable, simplest, most sustainable way for me to eat in a calorie deficit every single day. If you're currently struggling to lose weight, it is because you have not found that for yourself yet. The reason why most people fail is because they follow diet plans that they can't enjoy. They cannot sustain. It is incredibly important that you can see yourself following your current diet plan for the rest of your life. If you can't do it for life, don't do it for a day. So if your current diet plan you you don't enjoy it, it's unsustainable, you need to drop it and find something else. Because fundamentally, whatever you do to get in good shape is what you must continue doing for as long as you want to stay in good shape. So it doesn't matter if you can apply willpower for 3 months to a diet plan that sucks in order to lose the weight. Because as soon as you go back to your old habits, you will just rebound back to to where you were before. So, whatever you're doing right now, you have to ask yourself, am I am I going to see do I see myself doing this for life? Can I sustain this for life? Is this enjoyable? Because if not, you are better off dropping that and finding something else. Step two, hit the right calorie deficit. So, when most people are trying to lose fat, they go way too low in calories. They put themselves in these really extreme, really aggressive calorie deficits because they believe that going in a bigger calorie deficit is going to help them lose weight quicker. And to a degree that is true. However, putting yourself in a really extreme calorie deficit comes with a cascade of problems. And so when I first got into weight loss, I fell for this same myth. And I put myself in these really aggressive calorie deficits. And it was a huge mistake. And I'll explain to you what I realized upon doing that. The first thing was that I was hungry all the time. And as a result, this caused me to screw up my diet way more often. Because when you're putting yourself in a really big calorie deficit, your body is going to resist that because you're like you're fundamentally starving it. And so you are way more likely to screw up your diet. And this is what happened to me. I'm I was able to get through maybe Monday to Friday. And then once the weekend hit, I was so hungry that I just I gave in and I caved and I ended up binge eating. And this is actually what caused me to have binge eating problems for a very long time. I put myself in these really big deficits cause me to be really hungry and then I would always, you know, end up taking a step forward and then two steps back. And it's it's one of the most frustrating positions that you can be in when it comes to to fat loss and trying to lose weight. The next thing you'll notice if you put yourself in too big of a deficit is that you're going to lose serious muscle and strength because a calorie deficit is an energy deficit and muscle needs energy in order to sustain. And so you have to understand that your body can only tap into so much fat each day before it starts also tapping into your muscle mass for energy. And so if you put yourself in a really big deficit, it is really difficult to hold on to muscle and strength. And so you might lose 20 pounds because you're in a really big deficit, but half of that might actually end up being muscle and you'll look significantly worse than if you just lost a little bit less weight, but had it be pure body fat. The next thing you'll notice is that if you're able to sustain this this crazy big calorie deficit for maybe a couple months and you lose all the weight, you are almost guaranteed to rebound to where you were before. And so this is something that happened to me because I was so driven towards losing weight that I was actually able to a lot of times muster up the willpower to push through two to three months of of of very aggressive dieting. And I would lose a lot of weight. But what would happen is that as soon as I started getting as soon as I started eating a little bit more and my brain kind of started to understand, okay, is he starting to feed us a little bit more now? It just went crazy. And I would just end up rebounding and eating so much food and I I would blow up like a like a puffer fish. And the best example of this is is to look at bodybuilders cuz bodybuilders, what they do is that they they they basically starve themselves down to a really low body fat percentage in order to get ready for a bodybuilding competition, a show, right? And then what happens is that as soon as the show is over, they they usually just blow up. They usually just eat a ton of food and then they kind of blow up like puffer fish. And so the reason being is because like the you can't you can't force your body down to a low body fat percentage. You can't starve it down to that point. You have to coax it there. You have to slowly slowly coax it down to that low body fat percentage. You cannot force yourself through these crazy big calorie deficits because you will always end up rebounding, right? And so if you put yourself in a smaller calorie deficit, you will screw up your diet way less because the hunger will be much more manageable because you're not starving yourself. You'll maintain way more muscle and strength and actually end up looking good once you lose the body fat because half of it wasn't muscle tissue. Then thirdly, you'll be far more likely to actually sustain the fat loss results once you are done dieting. And so one of the biggest lessons I've learned when it comes to fat loss is that the long road is the fastest. Take it slow. Try and just lose about a pound a week. And that's like that's that's the best way to do it. You may you may think that putting yourself in a really big deficit is going to help you lose weight quicker. But it comes with so many negative side effects. And so the only caveat to this is that if you are obese and you have so much weight to lose, you can go a little bit more aggressive with your calorie deficit just because you have more fat reserves to tap into and you won't experience these negative side effects. By the way, guys, if any of this is clicking for you and you want my help implementing it for yourself, there's a short video linked in my description where I break down exactly how I help men over 40 get lean fast and maintain it for life. Give it a watch if you're ready to take this stuff seriously. Anyways, back to the video. Step three, hit the right protein intake. So, protein is obviously crucial for building and maintaining muscle mass, but you really don't need that much protein in order to build muscle. The supplement industry, the the bodybuilding industry has massively exaggerated how much protein you actually need. It is not very much. But where protein really shines is for satiety. And so, out of the three macronutrients, carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, protein is actually the most satiating of those macronutrients. And so if you are someone who struggles with staying full while being in a calorie deficit, keeping your protein a little bit higher can be an absolute gamecher. I'm someone who has a massive appetite. And that's the reason why, you know, I grew up overweight and why I've always had a tricky time staying lean and losing fat because I have a really hard time staying full in a calorie deficit. Like I could easily eat like 5,000 calories a day. My appetite is off the charts. And one of the main things I found that has really helped me to keep my appetite in check while also being in a calorie deficit is keeping my protein intake a little bit higher. So again, you don't need much for muscle growth, but if you are someone who struggles with staying full, keep your protein intake a little bit higher. It's going to help you massively with hitting that calorie deficit and going to bed feeling full every single night. Step four, track like your life depends on it. So, if hitting the calorie deficit is the most important thing when it comes to fat loss, then actually making sure you hit the deficit is the second most important thing. So, most people, they don't lose weight because they're simply not in a calorie deficit. You know, the amount of times I'll have people come to me saying like, Rio, my metabolism is shot, my testosterone is shot, I have this genetic disorder that stops me from losing weight, I'm a special snowflake, that's why I'm not losing weight. I'm like, dude, it's not that deep, man. You're not losing weight because you're not in a calorie deficit. It's that simple. And there are only two reasons why people are not in calorie deficits. Either your tracking is so you're not accurately tracking your calories and you're actually eating way more than you think you are, or your adherence is meaning you can't actually stick to your diet plan because it's unsustainable. If you're not losing weight right now, it's because of one of these two things, or both. Most of the time, it is the tracking. So, if you have to hit 2500 calories to lose weight, are you actually hitting 2500 calories or are you eating 3,000 or 3500 calories? That's the most common cause of people's lack of success when it comes to weight loss. There's simply a huge discrepancy between what people eat and what they think they eat. And so, you have to be very dialed in with your tracking. And you have to track everything that goes into your mouth. You know, like you can't just like you can't just track like 80% of what you're eating. You have to make sure you're tracking everything because a bite here, a bite there, a snack here, a snack there, extra oils and sauces throughout the day that you don't track all adds up. So, you have to make sure that you are accurately tracking your calories and you're tracking everything that goes down your throat. You need to be accountable for it, right? So, when it comes to fat loss, tracking is king. Like, tracking is the most important thing. If everyone who struggled to lose weight just started tracking their calories accurately and actually made sure they're in a deficit, their problems would be solved. Like if there's one way to solve lack of success when it comes to fat loss, it is simply to just get more dialed in with your tracking. Because if you track, you'll know without a shred of doubt that you're in a calorie deficit. And if you're in a deficit, you'll lose weight. There's no other way around it. It's basic thermodynamic. You cannot argue it. So when it comes to fat loss, you have to track your calories. You have to track your protein. You have to track your steps. You have to track your scale weight. You have to track your weight every single day because then you'll be able to see, okay, am I in the deficit or not? Right? So like like people think that everything's like up in the air and it's all guesswork. But if you track the key metrics relating to body transformation, you will always know what the problem is. Like if you're not losing weight and you and you're also tracking your weight on the scale, you can simply just look at your how your weight has changed over time. And if you're not losing weight, you can be damn damn well rest assured that's because you're not in a deficit. So that's why tracking is so important. Step five, eat the same thing every day. And so having a lot of variety in your diet plan makes fat loss very, very difficult. And I'll explain why. So like we've talked about, the key to losing fat is being in a calorie deficit consistently. That's it. That's all that matters, right? And then underneath of that, there are two big obstacles that stop people from being able to consistently sustain a calorie deficit. There's tracking and then there's adherence. Tracking just means are you actually hitting the calorie number that you think you're hitting. So if you if you think you're hitting 2500 calories and that's how much you need to eat to lean down, are you actually hitting 2500 or are you eating more like 3,000 or 3500? Right? And then adherence just means can you actually stick to your diet plan? And this doesn't mean Monday to Friday. This means Monday to Sunday, 7 days a week, every single week until you lose the fat that you need to lose. These are the two big obstacles to consistently sustaining a calorie deficit and thus losing weight. And the reason why having too much variety in your diet plan is not a good idea is because it makes these two things far more difficult. The reason why it makes tracking difficult is because if you have a lot of different meals and a lot of different ingredients and foods in your diet plan, you're bound to be inaccurate with your calorie tracking because you're increasing the amount of variables that you need to track. And so it makes tracking really difficult. If you can reduce the variety of your diet plan, you can consume fewer meals and fewer foods, tracking becomes way more easy, man, because there's just fewer variables to track and you're far more likely to be accurate with your calorie tracking. The reason why it's bad from an adherence standpoint is because it requires a lot of decision fatigue. It requires a lot of willpower because if you're eating different meals all the time and they have so many different ingredients, you're going to constantly have to pull out My Fitness Pal and track and be like, "Oh, what am I going to eat today? And what how many calories in this meal? How many foods? Like, what are these ingredients?" It's like, oh my god, man. That would drive me nuts. Like, it just makes life so much more difficult, guys, to have too much variety in your diet plan. And everyone thinks this is restrictive, right? Everyone thinks that limiting the variety of your diet plan is somehow very restrictive and very difficult. But if you actually look at your current diet plan, you'll realize that you only actually eat a handful of different meals. Like if you actually look at what you eat throughout the week, you'll realize you don't actually have that much variety in your diet plan. And that's good. The key the key now is to just figure out what those meals are that that you like and that keep you full and get clear on what they contain in terms of calories and just stick with them. You know, like when I'm trying to get really lean and get locked in to hitting the calorie deficit every single day, I just pick two to three meals that I love and that I can eat every single day and I just eat them. I I I repeat them every single day. And it makes fat loss so much easier because I don't have to think about what I'm going to eat and I know that the calorie tracking is accurate because I've done it so many times and I know that this combination of meals gets me lean. So, I just stick to it every single day and I remove the guesswork. I remove the decision fatigue. There's no willpower. I just eat the same thing every day. It makes life so much easier. And if you're someone who loves variety, you can introduce variety down the road. Get lean first. Strip off the fat and then you can start to be a bit more lenient when it comes to having more variety in your diet plan. Step six, get a balance of all the macros. So, you do not want to cut out carbs and fats when you're trying to get lean. A lot of people go way too high in protein and they leave no room for carbs and fats. And the truth is, cutting out carbs and fats will absolutely destroy your testosterone levels, which will make it much more difficult to build and maintain muscle mass as you get leaner. And it'll also make it way more difficult for you to be satisfied on your diet plan because carbs and fats are very important for satiety. I remember back when I used to do low carb diets, low-fat diets, life was hell. My mood sucked all the time. I could barely fall asleep at night. My workout sucked because I didn't have carbs fueling them, you know? I could never feel full no matter how much protein I ate. It was just it was a living hell. Guys, do not cut out carbs and fats when your goal is to get lean. It's going to destroy you. It's going to it's going to your testosterone levels. It's going to make you feel like You're never going to feel satisfied. Your workouts are going to suck. For the love of God, get enough carbs and fats when you're trying to get lean. All you got to do when you're trying to get lean is make sure to just get sufficient protein, right? And then get a balance of fats and carbs. That's it. Step seven, save your calories for later in the day. So, don't get me wrong, guys. The calorie deficit is what matters, not when you eat your meals or how many meals you eat per day. But the thing is is that when you eat your meals and how many meals you eat per day does impact your satiety. It does impact your ability to go to bed feeling full every single night. And so, the thing is, guys, like I mentioned earlier, I have a massive appetite. And so, I cannot eat small meals throughout the day. It just it won't do anything for me. like it will be impossible for me to hit the calorie deficit if I just try and eat tiny little meals spread throughout the day. I have to eat big meals and that is what I like doing. I like eating big. I like to have big meals that fill me up and keep me satisfied. And the only way to do that while still being in a calorie deficit is to create a buffer. And so this is what I do. I like to eat light throughout the day in order to give myself more freedom to eat bigger later in the day like in the evening before I go to bed, right? And so if you think about when you actually like to eat food, like yeah, it's it's it's fine eating food throughout the day, but when you really like to just, you know, relax and enjoy food is usually in the evening. And the only way to be able to actually do that while still getting lean and being in a deficit is to save calories for the evening time is to create that buffer to give yourself the freedom to enjoy more food at that time. So I know that throughout the day, like I can get by on very little food because I'm busy working anyways. I'm not even thinking about food. But in the evening when I'm trying to relax and I'm getting ready to go to bed, that's when I want to just chill and just eat some food, you know, and that's when I like to save most of my calories for. The beauty of that is that when you when you do save your calories for the evening and you you basically have a smaller eating window, it gives you this illusion that you're eating way more calories than you actually are. So if you if you're eating 2500 calories per day and you're spreading that evenly throughout the day, that's going to feel like very little food. But let's say you eat 500 calories throughout the day and then you save 2,000 for the evening. It's going to give you this illusion that you have so like you're eating so much food when really you're eating the same amount of calories. You're just eating it in a condensed time period. It's really really powerful. If you can save most of your calories for the evening, it's going to be a gamecher. And this is what allows you to go to bed feeling full. Because if you eat most of your calories throughout the day and then nighttime hits and you're like, "Fuck, I ran out of calories. I I have no more food to eat." and you have to go to bed. That's what causes people to get out of bed late at night and start snacking and start eating and then you know they're before you know it they're in a binge eating session. So if you can save most of your calories for later in the day and just eat light, eat enough to just save off hunger throughout the day and just keep the majority of your calories for the evening, it's going to make a big difference for for your ability to enjoy your diet and actually go to bed feeling full and satisfied each night. Step eight, ditch intensive cardio and walk. So, walking is the number one fat loss tool. What walking does is it helps you burn more calories and increase your calorie deficit without increasing your appetite. And so, the problem with most forms of cardio that people do, like, you know, going for jog, running on the treadmill, doing elliptical workouts, hit training circuits, this stuff tends to work up your appetite. And obviously, that's not what you want when you're trying to lose weight because then it's going to cause you to eat more food. And so if you can actually increase your calorie deficit and speed up the fat loss process without causing yourself to want to eat more food and and take yourself out of the deficit, that's going to be very very powerful. And that's why walking is so effective for fat loss. It burns more calories, but doesn't give you those negative downsides of increasing your appetite. And it also is very low impact, so it doesn't impede your recovery. And so a lot of intensive forms of cardio, they will interfere with your weight training and your ability to build muscle and strength in the gym because fundamentally a calorie deficit is an energy deficit. And so if you're using up all your energy for your cardio and you're not saving very much for your weight training sessions and your weight training sessions are what matter most because that's what's going to help you maintain your muscle and strength as you strip off body fat and help you look good once you strip off the body fat that you want. Step nine, lift heavy two times per week. So, I'm actually a huge believer in this whether you're bulking or cutting. I'm a huge believer in 2day per week training. I think it's the most effective way to train. But this is especially important when you are cutting because training less, you know, doing fewer workouts and doing less volume in those workouts is going to help keep your appetite lower, which is going to help you hit the calorie deficit. So, so many people have been brainwashed into thinking that you want to keep your activity levels and your exercise levels as high as possible when you're trying to lose fat, but that's completely counterproductive because it's going to increase your appetite and make it more likely for you to screw up your diet. So, you actually want to keep your activity levels as low as possible when you're cutting in order to keep your appetite lower, make it easier for you to hit the calorie deficit. The other thing to consider is that again, when you're in a calorie deficit, you're in an energy deficit, which means you're in a recovery deficit, which means that you cannot recover from very much training. And so if you give yourself more recovery time, you're actually going to have a much easier time maintaining your muscle and strength. If you overtrain while also being in a calorie deficit, you're going to strip off muscle and strength faster than you can blink. So training twice a week is going to allow you to train much harder and maintain more muscle and strength. Step 10, get locked in. So fat loss is a lot like moving a train out of its stationary physics. It takes a lot of energy to break it free and to get it moving, but once it's moving, it accelerates with ease. That is exactly what fat loss is like. And so, you got to understand that the first two to three weeks of following a diet and putting yourself in a calorie deficit are going to be tough. Your body's going to resist it. You're going to be hungry. It's going to feel very uncomfortable. But once you push through those first two to three weeks, you get locked in and it becomes very easy. Your body no longer resists to the deficit. and you do not you do not experience any hunger or any discomfort and just become super easy and all you got to do is just ride the wave. And so it's funny dieting only actually lasts about 2 to 3 weeks that most people are too much of to push push through two to 3 weeks. It's that simple cuz once you push through those first two to three weeks, it's easy. It's so easy. All you have to do with fat loss is you just have to gain momentum. So, when you're starting a diet plan, you're putting yourself in the deficit. Be very strict for those first two to three weeks. Apply a lot of discipline, then once those first two to three weeks are over, you'll have gained momentum and you will no longer need to apply any discipline or willpower in order to stick to your diet. It's going to feel very easy and all you have to do is just ride the wave until you reach your goal body fat percentage. Step 11, change your relationship with hunger. So, honestly guys, what I've observed throughout the years is that cutting for me is a mindset. It is just a mindset shift. Like going from a bulk to a cut. It's just flicking a switch in me. Like I just flick a switch in my mind and all of a sudden I'm in cutting mode and it's so easy. It's this mindset that you kind of learn over time. And really the core component of that mindset is embracing hunger. It's changing your relationship with hunger. So a lot of people they see hunger as a bad thing. You know when they're hungry on a diet plan they're like this sucks. like I wish I could eat more and like I I'm a bit of a psychopath in this sense, but I see like I actually enjoy hunger. I've like trained myself to enjoy the feeling of being hungry because I know that if I'm hungry, it's a sign of progress. It is a sign that my body is stripping off fat and getting leaner. Because fundamentally, the way fat loss works is that your body is actively eating itself. And so you you you have to understand that it's not supposed to feel that comfortable because you're putting yourself in an energy deficit and that is forcing your body to tap into its fat stores for energy. So your body's actively eating itself. Your body's using itself for energy. And so when you frame it that way, you realize like, oh, like that, yeah, that that it's probably not going to feel that comfortable. And that is that's a very important mindset shift. So when I feel hunger, I see it as a beautiful thing. I'm like, "Fuck yeah, I'm getting leaner. I'm making progress. My body is tapping into my fat stores for energy." So, if you can train yourself to see it that way, fat loss is going to become very easy. Like, when I feel hunger, I just feel like, yeah, like this is good, you know? Um, so when you start to feel a little bit of hunger, which is going to be inevitable sometimes when you're cutting, don't judge it. Look at it and see it as a good thing. See it as a sign that you're getting leaner and that you're making progress. If you enjoyed this video, you're going to love this video right here where I talk about how to actually get jacked in your 40s.