Losing weight fast is really easy.

Eat as little food and do as much cardio as you can for the next month or two, and you’ll lose weight fast. I promise.

You might be disappointed in the end, though, even if you can suffer through it.

Why?

Because while the scale will proclaim a victory, the mirror will disagree. You may not look as fat as before, but you’re going to look more skinny fat, and that’s not the goal.

You see, the standard “starve yourself skinny” approach to dieting burns fat, but it also burns muscle, and that’s no good for your body composition.

That’s why your goal shouldn’t be to “lose weight,” but to “lose fat, and not muscle.”

And that’s what you’re going to learn about in this article. You’re going to learn how to lose weight fast, but also how to do it in a way that preserves your muscle (and sanity).

It’s pretty easy, too. There are just five steps:

1. Use an aggressive (but not reckless) calorie deficit.
2. Eat a high-protein diet.
3. Do a lot of heavy compound weightlifting.
4. Strategically use cardio to burn fat faster.
5. Take fat loss supplements that actually work.

Let’s go over each.

Table of Contents

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• 1. Use an aggressive (but not reckless) calorie deficit.
• 2. Eat a high-protein diet.
• 3. Do a lot of heavy compound weightlifting.
• 4. Strategically use cardio to burn fat faster.
• 5. Take fat loss supplements that actually work.

Want to listen to more stuff like this? Check out my podcast!

1. Use an aggressive (but not reckless) calorie deficit.

Studies show that the only way to lose a significant amount of fat is to eat fewer calories (less energy) than you burn.

You see, the reason you’re carrying excess body fat is, over time, you consistently ate more calories than you burned. And the only way to get rid of that excess fat is to do the opposite: eat less than you burn.

When you do this, you’re in a “calorie deficit” because, well, your energy intake is falling short of your body’s needs. It must get that additional energy from somewhere, though, and its go-to is fat stores.

Now, the larger the calorie deficit, the faster the weight loss, but if you make it too large (by eating too little), you’re going to run into various problems related to “starvation dieting.”

We want to avoid that, but we also want to push the envelope as much as we can. That is, we want to be aggressive in our fat loss efforts, but not reckless.

And that’s why I recommend that you set your calorie deficit at 20 to 25% (eat 20 to 25% less calories than you burn every day).

Research shows that this will allow you to lose fat rapidly without losing muscle.

If you follow the rest of the steps in this article, you also shouldn’t run into much in the way of hunger or cravings, either.

Sure, you might feel twinges now and then, but nothing like what most people associate with “dieting.”

Want to learn more about how to calculate how many calories you should eat? Check out this article.

2. Eat a high-protein diet.

When we’re talking body composition, protein is by far the most important macronutrient.

Studies show that eating adequate protein helps you…

• Recover faster from your workouts.
• Gain muscle and lose fat faster.
• Retain muscle better while restricting your calories for weight loss.
• Feel more satiated by your meals (and thus be less likely to overeat).

The bottom line is high-protein dieting beats low-protein in every way, really, and especially when you’re cutting.

So, what’s the right amount of protein then?

Well, when you’re looking to lose fat, then you should eat about 1 to 1.2 grams per pound of body weight per day.

And if you’re very overweight (25%+ body fat in men and 30%+ in women), then this can be reduced to around 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass per day.

Want to know more about how much protein you should eat? Check out this article.

3. Do a lot of heavy compound weightlifting.

There are many ways to train your muscles, and when the goal is gaining size and strength as quickly as possible, nothing beats heavy compound weightlifting.

It’s better than workout machines, “pump” classes, bodyweight exercises, Yoga, Pilates, and everything else you can do to develop your muscles.

What do I mean by “heavy compound” lifting, though?

Well, by “compound,” I mean focusing on compound exercises, which are those that target multiple large muscle groups, such as the squat, bench press, military press, and deadlift.

And by “heavy,” I mean lifting weights that are above 75% of your one-rep max (weights that you can do 12 reps or less with before failing).

The main reason heavy compound weightlifting is so effective is it’s the best way to overload your muscles, which is the primary trigger for muscle growth.

By lifting heavy weights (and progressing to heavier and heavier weights as you get stronger), you create tremendous amounts of tension in your muscles, and this tells them to grow.

I think you can figure out how this benefits you when you’re restricting your calories for fat loss.

In short, it allows you to minimize muscle loss while dieting, or, depending on your circumstances, even gain muscle while you’re losing fat.

Want to know how to build an effective weightlifting routine? Check out this article.

4. Strategically use cardio to burn fat faster.

The best way to include cardio in a weight loss regimen is to do as little as needed to reach your desired rate of weight loss and stay fit, and no more. 

For best results do . . .

• At least two low- to moderate-intensity cardio workouts per week of 20-to-40 minutes each. 
• One HIIT workout per week if you enjoy it.
• No more than 2-to-3 hours of cardio per week.
• Cardio and weightlifting on separate days. If that isn’t possible, lift weights first and try to separate the two workouts by at least 6 hours.

Although you’ll often hear fitness gurus tout HIIT as the most effective kind of cardio for fat loss, this isn’t true. Moderate-intensity, steady-state cardio is just as good at fat-burning, easier to recover from, and doesn’t sap your motivation or energy as much as HIIT, which is why I recommend you do it for the majority of your cardio workouts.

5. Take fat loss supplements that actually work.

I saved this for last because it’s the least important.

Unfortunately, no amount of weight loss pills and powders are going to give you the body you want.

In fact,  most fat loss supplements are completely worthless.

But, here’s the good news:

If you know how to drive fat loss with proper eating and exercise, like we’ve just covered in this article, then certain supplements can help speed up the process.

Based on my personal experience training for over 10 years, and working with thousands of people, I’m comfortable saying that a proper weight loss supplementation routine can increase fat loss by about 30 to 50%.

In other words, if you can lose 1 pound of fat per week through training and diet (which you can), you can lose 1.3 to 1.5 pounds of fat per week by adding the right supplements.

And here’s those supplements:

3 to 6 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight per day

Caffeine raises the number of calories you burn and also increases strength, muscle endurance, and anaerobic performance.

I get my caffeine from my pre-workout supplement PULSE, which contains several other natural ingredients proven to boost workout performance.

0.1 to 0.2 milligrams of yohimbine per kilogram of bodyweight before training.

Yohimbine is a natural substance that increases fat loss, and is particularly helpful with losing “stubborn” fat in the belly, hip, and thigh regions.

There’s a catch, though–studies show that yohimbine only works when insulin levels are lowest. And that means it can only help you lose fat faster if you train in a fasted state (which you can learn more about here).

The easiest way to make this work is to do your workouts first thing in the morning after you wake up. That way your body has had the entire night to finish processing your last meal, which means your insulin levels are guaranteed to be at a baseline level.

Fasted training has other benefits, too.

Namely, it increases the amount of fat that you burn while working out and increases blood flow to “stubborn” fat regions like the stomach.

In terms of a specific yohimbine supplement to take, I recommend you check out my pre-workout fat burner FORGE.

Every serving contains clinically effective doses of yohimbine, HMB, and CDP-choline, which help you burn stubborn fat faster, preserve your muscle, and have better workouts.

1 to 2 servings of my fat burner PHOENIX per day.

PHOENIX is a fat burner that I developed that contains seven natural compounds proven help you lose fat faster, including synephrine, green tea extract, and forskolin.

The bottom line is if you want to lose fat faster without taking a bunch of stimulants or harsh chemicals, then you want to try PHOENIX.

The Bottom Line on Losing Weight Fast

Some people think that losing weight fast is a fool’s errand.

That you simply can’t do it without feeling miserable and burning away significant amounts of muscle.

They’re wrong.

You can drop anywhere from 0.5 to 2 pounds of fat per week (the leaner you are, the slower your fat loss will be) without even a hiccup.

All you have to do is follow the simple steps in this article.

What’s your take on losing weight fast? Have anything else to share? Let me know in the comments below!