How to Stay Lean All Year Round and Still Build Muscle (Fix Your Body Fat Set Point)

How to stay lean year round and still build muscle (fix your body fat set point)

The first step in staying lean is to get lean. When I’m talking about lean, I am referring to my percentage of body fat, not shredded. I haven’t gotten shredded for over 4 years.

This is below 15% body fat but above 10, something that will leave you with visible abs.

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I haven’t always been this lean. If you’ve followed the channel for awhile, then you’ll know I carried quite a bit of excess body fat in my 30’s and didn’t start training until I was 45.

Now, my body is used to being this weight, and I can stay lean all year round while building muscle. And you can do this too.

Over 90% of people who lose weight eventually end up gaining it back. We want to be that 10% keeping it off, and we do this by applying the same principles used to intelligently lose body fat to maintaining this fat loss.

To lose fat, we need to have some sort of calorie management system. Some people will restrict the time that they are allowed to eat, or they will limit a particular macronutrient like carbohydrates. Others may use a hand portioning system to measure their food intake.

For me, I tracked my macros and calories almost right from the start. At first, I ate very paleo with lower carbs, but now I have learned a more balanced dieting approach works best for most people.

When it comes to building muscle, it’s imperative we know how much protein, fats and carbs we are ingesting.

Losing weight is hard. Keeping that weight off is harder. Then it gets easy. Once you have lost that body fat and it’s time to go into maintenance, you can start to eat a bit more. But not too much because your body will fight you at that new weight and try and go back to what it feels is normal. Once you have maintained your new weight, your body will, over time, accept it as normal. When this happens, you have established a new body fat setpoint.

If you have a lot of body fat to lose, you might want to lose it in stages. Stopping your weight loss once you feel like you are struggling, and it seems like no matter how little you eat, you just can’t lose anymore. Taking some time to maintain your weight at this level allows your body to adapt to a lower fat percentage before beginning to lose again.

Activity level and training play a crucial role in maintaining a lean physique. One thing you will notice about naturally lean people is that they tend to be very active. So we want to be looking for ways to be more active.

I work at a desk but have a standing desk too and split my time between them.

In the summer, I ride my bicycle to do errands instead of driving. I also like to run, and if your main goal is to build muscle, running might not be the best choice, but you do need to include some form of cardio in your training.

When it comes to weight training, make sure you are training to build muscle. What I mean by this is continue to apply progressive overload to your program, increasing weight, reps or volume as you progress. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need to train differently to stay lean.

The longer you are lean, the less eating feels like a diet and more it becomes a lifestyle as normal and natural as you eat now. It’s just going to be better food than you used to eat, with the majority being whole foods.

This doesn’t mean you can never have a piece of pie or ice cream, but you do learn to manage those calories over the course of a week or a month to keep your weight in check. Over time it becomes second nature and doesn’t take that much effort at all.

Once you have gotten lean and are comfortable maintaining, it helps to build muscle when you are in a small calorie surplus, but this doesn’t mean bulking.

Some call it a lean bulk, but I never think of it that way. What I do and I did this last winter, and some of you did comment on my weight gain. Is from July to January, I gained a pound a month before allowing my weight to level off. Then come May and June, I’ll strip off the excess and enjoy the summer.

To help you get started on your weight loss journey, watch this video next to learn what foods fill you up with the least amount of calories and how much of these foods you should be eating to get lean while working out and having fun.