If you missed the first part of this article, you can read it right here.

 

5.) Limit Your Cheat Meals To 1 Day A Week. 

 

Cheat days and meals are a necessity. You’ll need 1 day a week to allow yourself to eat whatever you want. If you have an abnormal level of self control, and can go longer than a week without a cheat meal, I’ve also heard of some people doing one every 10 days instead.

 

This is more uncommon, because chances are if you have that much self control you’re probably not struggling with your weight in the first place, but I have heard of it and everyone’s a little different.

 

My cheat meals start on Saturday night at dinner and go for that whole 24 hour window. Starting with Sunday night dinner I’m back to eating clean again.

 

I will admit that sometimes I struggle with these cheat meals/days. Of everything contained in these two articles, this is probably the one I personally struggle with the most.

 

If I have a stressful day at work, sometimes I’ll just say screw it, and eat/drink whatever I want for dinner. I’ll go more into more detail of managing stress down below, but for now that’s just an example of how I get thrown off the rails sometimes.

 

I will say, that if you’re serious about losing weight and dropping your body-fat percentage, this is not something that’s going to be acceptable for you. Your body may or may not be like mine is.

 

What I mean is that I have a naturally high than average metabolism, so if I have an extra cheat meal or two a week, I’m still able to maintain my lean and mean look. When I look in the mirror, I see the difference those extra cheat meals that week had on me, but it’s unlikely anyone else can tell.

 

Most people cannot take one or two looks at you and tell if you’re at 10% body fat or 12.5%. If you’re a fitness guru and know a lot about it, then yeah maybe you could tell, but the vast majority of people cannot tell the difference. You will always be able to tell however, and what’s important here is how you feel about yourself, not other people.

If you are serious about being 8-10% body fat, then you’ll have to start holding yourself accountable on a level that you’re not used to doing. Managing your stress, and how you react to it will be very important during the initial weight loss period.

 

On your planned cheat days however, eat whatever you want: Pizza, cheeseburgers, fries, soda, beer, ice cream, you name it. I’m serious eat whatever you want, but only 1 day per week and within your planned 24 hour window. 

 

6.) Limit Your Dairy Intake.

 

I stopped consuming dairy when I went on my initial fight club diet I outlined in the first part of this article. It had been normal and common for me to drink 1% milk, and eat cheese on a daily basis. Once I stopped, I cant help but think this had to contribute to some degree to the 25 lbs. that I lost. Once I had lost the weight this was a rule I followed for the next few years. Again, I cant help but think this had to contribute to my ability to also keep that weight off.

 

Eliminate cheese, milk, and dairy products from your daily meals and only consume it on the weekend when you have your cheat day. If you are going to drink milk, at least switch it unsweetened almond milk instead. I don’t even think you should drink that though. Be strict on yourself and get serious about this. If you’re going to do this, you might as well go all the way and do it correctly.

 

7.) Go To The Gym At Least 4 Days Per Week, But Preferably 6. Focus More On Lifting Weights & Less On Cardio.

 

Unless you’re a gym veteran, and you’ve already been seriously lifting weights for the last 10 years, you’re going to need to go to the gym 4-6 days a week. 4 days a week is the minimum. If you can, it really needs to be 5 or ideally 6.

 

The workouts DO NOT have to be 1-2 hours long. In fact I think that’s a waste of time. They only need to about 30-60 minutes long. My lifting sessions are typically anywhere between 25 and 50 minutes long.

 

I’ve been seriously lifting weights since I was 14 years old, so I honestly don’t need to lift any longer than this. I’m also a busy guy with my own business. So for me to spend any more time in the gym than this is just not an option anyway.

 

My life mission and focus is on my business and building wealth, not on my physique. Unless you make money off of your body, this should be the case for you as well.

 

Lifting weights is the way to go, not cardio. You’ll burn more calories, and for a longer period of time, by lifting weights than you will by cardio. I’ll even tell women this same thing. I still think cardio should be done a couple times a week, but that’s it. You should be lifting 5 days a week and doing cardio once or twice a week.

 

So maybe do 30-60 minutes of cardio on Saturday, and do 12-20 minutes of cardio 3 days during the week, either on an empty stomach first thing in the morning, or right before your lifting sessions. It doesn’t matter what you do, running, swimming, spin class, or hot yoga are my personal favorites.

 

8.) Don’t Allow Yourself To Get Stressed Out By Work Or Other People.

 

This is tough one, because it’s usually hard to predict how or when something will happen that will stress you out. I find that usually its work matters or other people pissing me off, that will cause a sudden shift in stress for me. Everyone’s different on this one.

 

Get a sheet of paper, and write down 20-30 things that commonly stress you out. This may take 15 minutes or so, but it’s worth it. Once you have your list, make a new one with the items on that list numbered from most common to least common. The top ten, you need to give serious thought to how you’re either going to:

 

a.) Prevent the stress (from occurring in the first place), or

 

b.) Deal with it in a way that wont make you want eat or drink.

 

For you that might mean maybe you meditate by only focusing on your breathing for 5 minutes. Or maybe you stand up and walk around for 5-10 minutes. Whatever you have to do to calm your self down. A couple things I take on daily basis that help me regulate my stress levels are L-theanine, and kratom.

 

Here’s a great video on the benefits of L-theanine here. I wrote a detailed article on kratom right here.

 

The point of this, is you don’t want yourself to get easily deviated from your goal of dropping weight. You don’t want something to happen that will affect your mood in such a way that you just say ”screw it”. Unpredictable things will happen, and when they do its better if you’re already prepared for them beforehand (make those lists).

 

And that’s it boys. Intermittent fasting, as well as juicing are other great ways to lose weight. I will have future articles detailing how to use those methods, but for now these articles should get you going.

 

It could help for you to do a meal prep on Sundays, so you already have most or all of your meals in tupperware ready to go. During the week, cooking these meals can get time consuming. Especially if you’re used to eating most of your meals out.

 

Understand that this is mental game, you’re going to find out how badly you want this. If you don’t really, truly want to drop to 8-10% body fat, you’re not going to.

 

The truth is: there isn’t a diet, workout regimen, or eating schedule that by itself is going to do this for you.

 

YOU have to want it. Deep down, you really have to want it badly. Changing the way you eat and workout, and then sticking with those changes, is likely not going to happen if you don’t want this bad enough. Period.

 

I believe in finishing what you start. So I suggest before you attempt this, you take a good long hard look in mirror, and ask yourself how serious you are about getting to 10% body fat (and staying there).

 

I’ll see you soon.

 

Live Intentionally,

 

-Matt Mitchell