How To Lose Weight and Gain Muscle Quickly - My Story
Published February 12, 2023 by Sabah V.
During the Summer of 2019, I took my fitness journey seriously.
I’m here to share what worked for me, what didn’t work for me, and what I learned.
The results you see here are very reasonable and attainable, and I strongly believe that if you implement what I teach you today: you will be able to see a lot of progress in a short time frame.
The 3 Fundamentals
There are three things you need to get in order to reach certain results. The first being the most obvious: the physical activity of exercising itself. The second being what people state to be the harder part: maintaining a healthy diet. And the third and less obvious fundamental: having the right mentality. I am going to work backwards in explaining these, as I believe your mentality is the most important aspect.
Mentality
Before that “summer transformation” that you see above, I actually went to the gym. But, I wasn’t consistent. It was usually once or twice a week and I would never really see any progress.
Odds are that’s what’s happening to you, it’s not that you’ve never stepped in the gym, it’s that you’re not seeing sufficient progress.
Problem:
- your identity – see yourself as someone who goes to the gym sometimes instead of someone who works out.
- You have goals but no system in place to reach those goals.
The way you view yourself is crucial to reaching your goals. If you read Atomic Habits by James Clear, this is highlighted throughout the entire book. You need to develop the mindset of someone who DOES go to the gym, not someone who is TRYING to go to the gym.
Anyone can have goals, but the people who reach their goals are the ones that have systems in place. With the 3 fundamentals in place, you will be able to develop a clear system to help you reach these goals if you stay consistent.
Exercising
Weightlifting is a great way to lose fat and gain muscle, It is much harder to lose weight by just doing cardio. Believe it or not – you actually burn more calories lifting weights.
You can follow many different regiment routines, but I recommend push, pull and legs for beginners. For example, a week for you could consist of 6 workouts with a 1 day break.
- Monday and Tuesday – Push (Chest and Triceps)
- Tuesday and Friday – Pull (Back and Biceps)
- Wednesday and Saturday – Legs
With this split, some people will also work out their shoulders on Leg Day, but I prefer to do it on Push Day.
It is important to stretch, I always stretch for 5 minutes before and after my workout. I would usually work out this muscle group for 90 minutes and occasionally walk on an incline for 20 minutes at the end of my workout. You can find plenty of workouts to do for each day on various websites and YouTube videos, and I will upload a more in depth guide at a later date.
Diet and Nutrition
A Calorie Calculator is a great tool to help you determine how many calories to eat per day to lose weight or reach your desired goal. It takes your age, height, weight and activity level to calculate this.
In terms of protein – you are going to want to eat 1.1 times the amount of whatever your weight is. So if you weigh 185 pounds, you want to aim to eat about 200 grams of protein while still remaining under your specified calorie deficit.
During this time period my eating habits went as followed:
- Breakfast – 1 egg and 1 cup of egg whites with a granola bar.
- Lunch – 2 chicken breasts, 2 cucumbers, and a protein shake.
- Snack – tuna packet or banana.
- Dinner – a reasonable serving size of whatever my mother made for dinner.
- Dessert – 0% nonfat greek yogurt, a serving of granola and a scoop of Nutella. (This is an insane hack, the yogurt itself is 90 calories for 16 grams of protein per serving, and it tasted like Ice Cream every time).
This is just what helped me lose a lot of weight quickly. I didn’t follow the calorie calculator and protein requirements that strictly, but you can basically follow any meal plan that will be less in calories and higher in protein.
All that really matters is that you exercise, cut out junk food, and stay consistent.