Transcription
The five simple and fastest underrated habits to get lean, especially if you're starting at 30%.
Hi, my name is Dr. Michael Diamonds. I'm a medical doctor, and I'm also a new professional natural bodybuilder. I've been doing this for a decade, and I'm going to share with you the five underrated habits that I have utilized to be able to transform my physique multiple times.
I'm an endomorph, if you'd like to describe it that way. I easily build muscle but hold on to fat very easily, and I gain it very quickly. That has allowed me to utilize all the knowledge I've been able to accumulate over the last decade, apply it to myself, and see amazing results—not only that, but to do it with my clients as well.
Look at my client here, Dominic, 60 years young. Once I implemented these five habits that I utilize in this video, Dominic released the weight and had a six-pack in amazing shape. Look at my client, Dwayne—80 years young! You look at his transformation, and that just tells you there's really no excuse. You're simply lacking some information.
If you watch this video to the very end, you can achieve a transformation like Dominic or Dwayne. But even that, look at my client Harry. We had an interview on this very channel; he dropped 80 lbs utilizing these five habits. The same goes for Sandra and every single client I've coached over the last decade.
Let's not waste any more time, and let's dive straight in.
**Habit number one** is going to be the 15,000 step rule. The big advice that I can give everybody that we have control over—I'm sure you've heard of the "diet" each and every single time. But the one thing that I've seen with each and every single one of my clients is that they get 15,000 steps. I calculated and tabulated all of my clients' steps, and they eventually get 15,000 steps daily.
I'm going to show you exactly how to do that as a habit. Now, before we talk about how to do it, I'll tell you why we should do it based on the fat loss and scientific basis of fat loss. Research has shown that when you walk, the energy source you're using is mainly your fat stores compared to your carbohydrate or glycogen stores when you're sprinting. So why not walk more?
The reason is people don't want to walk because it feels too simple. The second reason, scientifically, why we prefer walking to running is that it's much easier to guarantee that I can walk 365 days in a year compared to running 365 days a year or using an elliptical or any machine.
So making it with the least resistance, walking is one of the best things. Research has also shown that simply walking 10,000 steps is incredible. So I highly recommend that, in a simple fashion, the habit of 10,000 steps is going to be amazing for you. Every client I have will tell you that walking is by far one of the best things you can do for cardiovascular health—it's amazing for your heart.
Think about your heart as a system; think of your heart as the pump and all your arteries and veins as the pipes. If you're walking more, you're improving the blood flow throughout the pipes, so you don't have anything clogging in the future when you're in your 60s and 70s, avoiding any cardiovascular health issues.
On a longevity basis, this is amazing for you. Research has also shown that it's amazing for your mental health. What I really love about walking is that it's a task you can do accompanied by another task. For example, if I'm on the phone or if I'm texting, I should have a rule that I should be walking. If I'm reading a book, I can actually walk and read the book or listen to a podcast.
This is actually a way my wife and I spend quality time. Sometimes we'll go to the gym together and get our steps on the treadmills while having a conversation, whether it's about business, life, or any plans we have. So it's an amazing way to habit-stack and build some healthy habits.
More importantly, what people struggle with once they've lost the weight is keeping it off. Walking is going to be that insurance policy for you. I have actually tested this. Black Friday, we always love contacting our clients and seeing if they need help. Most of them never need it because they've stuck to the very simple habit, and that's something you should implement.
So simply start at 10,000 but work your way up to 15,000. The easy math is this: 10 minutes of walking will give you 1,000 steps, so you need roughly 150 minutes in your day. But you can do this very easily—walking to the gym and back. If your gym is 15 minutes away, you can get 1,500 steps to the gym and 1,500 steps back from the gym.
What I also recommend to everybody is when you're exercising, during the minute of rest you have between every set, instead of just sitting on your phone, walk. If you have about 20 sets per exerciser in your daily routine, that's about 20 minutes of movement within that workout period and you can get 2,000 easy steps.
So in total, just going to the gym and back, and in the gym, you can come home with 5,000 steps. Another easy thing you can do is wake up earlier and just walk. For example, I get on to meetings in the morning with my team or with clients, and I’ll walk during those calls. You don’t have to walk really fast; as long as you're moving, you’re good.
In one hour of a meeting, I can get 6,000 steps. Being very conscious about this, carry an Apple Watch, a Fitbit, or any tracker; it will give you a good estimation of how much your body is moving. I promise you this habit will be life-changing.
I've actually had a client I'm showing you here on the screen; we did a step challenge. In this picture, I'm showing you—4 weeks apart—he went from 10K to 15K steps and lost all his belly fat. The big picture is you're burning more calories, and you're doing it the simplest way. It's low-hanging fruit.
The formula to build muscle and lose fat is this: 30 to 50g of protein multiplied by a caloric deficit, plus weightlifting will equal your ability to build muscle and lose fat. Let me explain: to repeat, protein 30 to 50g multiplied by caloric deficit plus weightlifting equals your ability to build muscle and lose fat.
Protein in Greek, Proteus, means "first rank." It means it's the most important in Greek. So why I put this first is that protein, in my books, is the most important macronutrient, and that's my opinion. I'll tell you why—it has the biggest benefit.
If I were to compare it to carbs and fats, number one, it will help you build muscle. Number two, what's amazing about protein is that it will restrict your calories. You've never heard someone getting fat from eating too much steak or chicken breast, and the reason for that is that protein has this peptide YY that actually increases satiety. It makes you feel full. So every meal, eat 30 to 50g of protein, and it will automatically put you in a caloric deficit and help you build more muscle.
The third beautiful thing about protein is it will increase your thermic effect of food, which is a fancy way of saying your body burns more calories trying to break the protein down. Think about it—it takes you more time to chew a steak compared to rice or oatmeal. There are so many benefits to protein that it should be the main thing you focus on and why it's so underrated.
If you’re eating 50g per meal and you’re 200 lbs, in four meals, you want to have 50g in each meal, and that will give you 200g of protein—very easy. I'm going to give you a cheat code; I call it the 26810 Method. Two scoops of whey protein will give you 50g of protein. Six ounces of cooked chicken breast will give you 50g of protein. Eight ounces of cooked steak (I recommend topside steak) will give you 50g of protein, and ten ounces of tuna will give you 50g of protein.
Now you have half of the equation figured out. For breakfast, I can have a protein shake; for lunch, I can have chicken breast and any carb. For dinner, you can have a steak and potatoes, for example. And maybe as a snack, you can add some tuna on rice cakes—voila! Right? It’s very easy and simple, and this will allow you to lose weight quickly because you're going to be eating less since you're eating so much more protein.
The second part of being in a caloric deficit is—I highly recommend using apps like MyFitnessPal. If you just Google "calorie calculator," you can calculate how much you should be losing—one pound per week. But just make sure you're eating roughly 1g of protein, 20% of your total calories to fats, and the rest towards carbs.
There are so many tools on Google that help calculate this for you. Actually, if you're watching this video, if the advice I'm giving so far is right, it's up to you to tell people in the comments that it's true. Because people are going to go in the comments and see, “Hey, should I just do this?” Share your story. Did the steps help you? Did the protein and being in a caloric deficit, even the apps I’m mentioning, help you? I’m telling you, it will inspire someone.
If you're enjoying the content so far, leave it a like; I’d greatly appreciate it.
**Underrated habit number three**: I call it the Awakening. I want to tell you guys something—I lied; there aren’t three habits. I'm going to give you ten, and from five onwards, there are actually amazing little habits you can incorporate that could be what helps you lose 10 more pounds. So just stay with me.
The Awakening is that sleeping 7 to 8 hours is a must. It must be the foundation of your entire process. The way I want you to think is like this—when you go to bed, it's when you're able to take your car into the mechanic to fix everything you did to it during the day. Imagine you took your car out onto a track; you’re racing it down the streets, doing so many things to it—you need to fix it so it's prepared to race again the next day, and that's what sleep is.
If you don't sleep enough, maybe you didn’t change the tires that you were supposed to change, maybe you've damaged the engine a little bit, and the car is going to break down. That's exactly what happens to people who sleep 5 to 6 hours.
I'll tell you why. Number one, for men and women, the main muscle-building hormone is testosterone. When you sleep less, it can decrease by 30%. If you're wondering why you're feeling low on energy, or you're not performing as well, or you're mentally foggy, it’s probably because your testosterone is in the gutter as a result of sleeping poorly.
The second thing is, even brain-wise, there's a direct correlation between dealing with Alzheimer's or dementia because you're not allowing your brain enough time to clear all the waste material because you're not sleeping enough, right? So again, that analogy of not taking it to the mechanic to fix everything—you become more insulin resistant. What that basically is, is your body doesn't put carbs where they're supposed to be, and if your body doesn't put the carbs where they're supposed to be, what does it do? It stores it as fat.
So if you’re noticing you're gaining weight, the first thing is sleep. You need to focus on that; it's the bedrock of an entire transformation. It has to be here. Not only does that happen, but sticking to a diet is ten times harder. I notice the difference when I sleep 5 hours—I crave a burger, I crave candy. But when I'm sleeping 8 hours, I’m so motivated; I love eating the foods I’m eating.
So if you're noticing you're trying all these things and nothing's working for you, you have to first focus on getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep. For all of you who are working hard, you might have very demanding jobs—every day that you sleep less, you’re shaving years off of your life. I don’t mean that as an exaggeration; it’s the truth. You will pay a price for sleeping less, so just do it now.
The hope I can give you is that I was that medical student sleeping 5 hours a night. When I became the medical student sleeping 7 to 8 hours, I was unbeatable. I was incredible in the hospital; I was incredible in my exams. You are the best version of yourself at 7 to 8 hours, so why not show up that way?
Some advice I can give you to sleep more is to set a routine bedtime. What's more important than an alarm to wake up is actually an alarm to go to bed, so set a bedtime. Your last meal and drink should be at least 3 hours before bed. So if you want to sleep at 10 p.m., make sure your last meal and last liquids are at 7 p.m.
Make sure your caffeine intake is cut off after midday. That’s my advice to you. Finally, when you wake up, make sure you expose yourself to some light because this will reset your circadian rhythm, your internal clock. If it's dark where you live, you can buy a cheap $20 Amazon light—it's called a desk sunlight lamp—and that will reset your melatonin.
Those are some pieces of advice for tip number three, but if I can get people to sleep more, it’ll be life-changing.
Let's move on to **underrated tip number four**: train in the AM, eat in the PM. This method has been very effective for all of my clients. So what do I mean by train in the AM?
I've noticed my clients are a lot more productive, including myself, training in the morning. On a base level, you get the training out of the way; you benefit from all the endorphins, you feel more energetic, and you feel good. Once you've trained in the morning, you've ticked off a box. Contrary to what people believe, you're not going to go to work tired. It's actually the opposite.
I highly recommend trying to train in the morning, and you'll have a great workout—as well as a more productive day. Right after this video, I'm going to go train. Eating in the PM allows you to only focus on your most important tasks in the morning; you don't have to focus on eating food or making your body potentially slower. You get to save all of your calories for later, and the likelihood that you follow your diet is much higher because if you're eating 2,000 calories instead of spreading it throughout the day, you get to "eat like a king" in the afternoon.
Intermittent fasting is something I practice. The simple way for most people—you don't have to do the classic 16/8 that you’ve heard of. You can actually start your diet at the beginning or your process and fast for 12 hours, eating in a 12-hour window.
There's no specific rule; over time, as you progress and get better, you can increase your fasting window to 14 hours and then move over to 16 hours of fasting, right? So you can go 12/12, 14/10, 16/8 and develop this way.
I’ll also say that for a couple of days, there will be an adjustment period because you’ll be used to eating in the morning. But you’ll actually feel a lot more energetic. For those who feel, "Hey Mike, I was always told I need to have a meal before training," that's true. It's a good idea, but you can always have caffeine as a source of energy if you don’t have any caffeine issues.
I do that; I’ll have a pre-workout or a cup of coffee before my training session and feel just as energetic. This is very productive and allows my clients to follow a plan that's a lot more regimented.
Again, this isn't a blanket statement; this should apply to everyone. We're all different; we might have different chronotypes. But I highly recommend training in the morning and eating in the afternoon. This is a beautiful formula.
Let's move over to step number five. So for all my "Hey Mike, I cannot track my diet; it’s so complicated, I'm so busy" people—we all have the same 24 hours. I coach NFL players, I coach Fortune 500 CEOs—very, very busy people. The point I want to share is that we all have the same 24 hours. Don’t use being busy as a limiting factor.
Find a solution with eating. I highly recommend tracking the day before. This allows you to think of your day and plan for your day. If you have meetings at this time and this time, and you'll be home at these hours, you can spend an evening tracking and already figuring out what you want to eat the next day. You won't have to stress about it the next day.
So, track the night before, and even better, track just once that week and repeat the same food each day. Track on a Sunday, then from Monday to Saturday, eat the same food every day. And maybe if you must change up your routine on Wednesday because you’re traveling, then on Tuesday, track again, and eat the same on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
What this does is allow you to be forward-thinking; it allows you to plan, it allows you to prepare. Because if you don't prepare, you'll fail. This system works really well; it takes away the pressure of needing to figure out a different diet.
I’ve actually noticed that my clients get better results because it decreases the variability in the foods they’re eating, so their weight fluctuates less. They can better manage their energy because they know where they're going to get their energy sources from, so they don’t need to crash from eating too many carbs.
I highly recommend tracking once a week minimum, then eating the same foods over and over again. For all my "Oh, I’m a foodie; I need to have different food," just do it for a week and maybe get some motivation with your plan, right?
So those are the five, but let me give you the bonuses.
**Number six**: They’re very simple. I've noticed clients see a lot more success by weighing themselves every day, and I’ll tell you why. What we call this is a system of self-monitoring.
I've noticed that by weighing in every day, when you step on the scale in the morning, don’t get emotionally attached to the number, but it can affect your behavior. Let’s say you step on the scale, right? You’re trying to lose weight, and you don’t see any weight changes. It’ll make you think, “Hey, am I not doing something right?” You'll be a lot more conscious of what you're doing throughout the day.
Let’s say you gain weight over the next 3 to 4 days—it’ll make you question what’s causing this, and it will make you aware. You’ll correct for the mistakes you’re probably making. You’ll think, “Hey, maybe I ate out last night,” or something happened. But it will make you aware. This process of self-monitoring creates a positive feedback loop.
On the positive side, when you start seeing weight loss, when you start seeing the number go down, it will motivate you, but it will also tell you, “Hey, this is what I need to do.” It's a great indicator for trend. It basically serves as a compass, not a GPS.
A compass will tell you if you’re trying to go north, and it will show you north. If you’re not going north, you’ll know, “Okay, I need to adjust a little bit.” As you lose weight, as you trend in the right direction, it will continue telling you if you're going in the right direction.
That’s a beautiful thing; it creates a positive feedback loop. I’ve noticed with a lot of my clients, when we instill this habit, the likelihood that they're successful beyond my program is a lot higher.
**Number seven** is drinking a gallon of water. For all the amazing benefits that water helps with—transporting nutrients around your body, improving skin—you’ll be surprised that a lot of times when you're not hungry, you're actually thirsty. But your brain can confuse the signals of hunger and thirst.
When you drink a gallon of water, you can make sure you tick the thirst box, and you'll be less hungry—not to even mention all the other benefits of just drinking a gallon of water.
You may wonder, “That's a lot of water to drink.” The scientific way of how much water you should be drinking—you can use a few different rules to determine at base level. The easiest one is: if you don’t have clear urine, then likely you need to be drinking more. You can use the color of your urine as a benchmark to determine if you're underhydrated or overhydrated. You want to have it clear.
The second benchmark you can use is half of your body weight in fluid ounces. So if you’re 200 lbs, you should at least be drinking 100 fluid ounces per day. If you're 220 lbs, then you should be drinking 110. The third one is simply a gallon a day.
This will automatically help you lose weight because you'll stop having these hunger signals, which can be confused for thirst signals.
Let's move on to **the next tip**: **number eight** is Zone 2 cardio.
I just finished reading Dr. Peter Attia's book. I’ve known this myself, but it brings to light so much more information—a very good correlator to longevity is actually your cardiovascular health, which makes a lot of sense. How well your heart is pumping, how efficiently your heart is pumping plays a massive role in avoiding one of the dark horsemen of death in the future, which is cardiovascular health.
You will be shocked by the statistics of how many people deal with chronic disease related to cardiovascular health. So not only is cardio amazing for fat loss, it’s amazing for living longer, which should actually be our main concern.
Zone 2 cardio can be defined as exercising at your heart rate between 60 and 70% of your max heart rate. That is usually between 110 to 120 beats per minute, depending on how fit you are. I highly recommend you do at least three sessions of 20 minutes a week of Zone 2 cardio, getting your heart rate to 120 beats and above.
A big benefit is that you can actually burn a lot of fat. People consider this the fat-burning zone when exercising at that level. What’s also amazing about it is that it is an amazing tool and an indicator for longevity. Reading Dr. Attia’s book, it shows that the more you do Zone 2 cardio, the longer you’ll live.
So I highly recommend this—aside from the fat loss benefits. My recommendation to you is I get clients who start with me and they’re above 30%. Maybe their body cannot deal with Zone 2 cardio yet, so we'll start off slow, but eventually we will integrate this plan.
I highly recommend you do three sessions of 20 minutes. What you can do is get on an elliptical, a stair master, or an inclined walk. This will have amazing benefits for you. Personally, I’ve also noticed that when I do cardio, my appetite is actually reduced. I don’t eat as much. Maybe it's an effect because I’m more conscious about the efforts I’m putting into getting healthier, but I do notice that I can fast a little bit longer and I'm not as hungry.
This may be controversial: cheat more—let me explain.
I'm sure you’ve heard you need to be in a 500 daily caloric deficit. The math works that one pound of fat, if we were to burn it up—calories are a measurement of energy spent. If I were to burn a whole pound of fat, it would roughly equal 3,500 calories. 3,500 calories divided by 7 days in a week—that’s where you get that number of 500 calories a day to lose a pound of fat a week.
However, what you can do—which is a little smarter—is actually do a 100 caloric deficit. Now, the caveat here is that you need to track your foods accurately, and you'll get better results this way. This is actually a skill we practice in my program, but track very accurately and do a 600 caloric deficit.
What I like doing with my clients is having a refeed meal every Sunday or Saturday, so they can go out to eat with their family. What happens is because I’ve set a 600 caloric deficit, you essentially end up establishing an extra 700 calories. Because now, instead of 500, it’s 600 daily, which is a bigger difference of 100.
100 multiplied by 7 is 700 calories. Basically, on a Saturday or Sunday, I give my clients the opportunity to eat any meal they want; it can be pizza or a burger. All they need to do is swap out their dinner for a dinner of their choice.
What this does is a few things. Number one, it creates a positive feedback loop as a reward for following the plan really well. It takes away this idea of a marathon; they just look at their process on a week-to-week basis. It gives you positive food associations because now you don’t think of this food as good and this food as bad.
You’re starting to eat cheat meals and you’re still losing weight. You just realize you need to be a bit more conscious. The third thing research has shown is that individuals who have refeeds actually will lose the same amount of weight compared to the person who doesn’t. However, the person who does have the refeed will maintain more muscle mass.
You might wonder, "Why do they maintain more muscle mass?" Because on the days they eat more carbs and fats, the following 2 to 3 days will show a marked improvement in their training output. They’ll train harder and stronger.
So we know there's a direct correlation between how hard and strong you can train and the amount of muscle mass you have. If you do this every week, you’re likely to be stronger at the end of a 4-month period compared to not doing it at all.
Inherently, the person who does the refeeds once a week will have a lower body fat percentage because they have more muscle mass. That's why I say cheat more, but be intelligent about it and be smart. This is a little strategy we implement. Give it a go, and I think you’ll see amazing results.
But I always say if you start a diet, give yourself 2 weeks to really track, make sure you’re doing it all right, and then implement it afterward once you've established a good baseline.
**The final one** is going to be recipes. Let me explain the issue. Many people have is they don’t have enough tools to utilize. So one thing that I teach, I have over a thousand recipes on the back end. I make very healthy alternatives to the meals people love, like tacos, burgers, fries, pizzas—it can be anything.
All the foods you see there have healthy alternatives. If you could find those alternatives and include them in your plan, it turns this from being a diet into a way of life: just the way you eat every day. You’ve made better decisions; you’ve swapped out that McDonald's Big Mac for your own version of a Big Mac.
You’ve swapped out that Domino's pizza for a homemade version with thinner crust and higher protein. I eat ice cream every single day, and it’s just calorie-friendly. I highly recommend, and I'm actually—for all of you who watched till the end—I am going to leave a recipe book with 21 recipes of all my favorite foods that are great macronutrient-wise. It's in the description below, and comment down below "Mashah" if you got here, and if you downloaded it, leave the video a like. I would greatly appreciate it.
If you want to work with me, there’s a link in the description. The people we work with are usually executives and CEOs. Fill out the application if you're interested. But I'll see you guys in the next one. If not, if you don't follow that criteria, no problem—just watch my videos. There are 800 videos on here. All the information you need to be successful is in here. But if you need someone to streamline your process, that’s us.
See you in the next one! Cheers.