If you want to reduce body fat, get lean, and build the physique of your dreams, you definitely want to take a look at this…

 

 

What you’re looking at is called your TOTAL DAILY ENERGY EXPENDITURE (TDEE)
It’s essentially a representation of all the ways your body uses energy (calories) on a daily basis

 

I’m gonna break it down for you real quick

 

EAT = Exercise-related Activity Thermogenesis
Calories burned through exercise

 

TEF = Thermic Effect of Food
Calories your body uses to digest, absorb, and metabolize the food you eat

 

NEAT = Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis
Calories burned from everyday activities such as walking, fidgeting, and non-athletic daily activity

 

RMR = Resting Metabolic Rate
Calories used by your body at rest (basically energy used to exist)

 

These are the factors that determine how many calories your body needs to maintain its current state.

 

Why do you need to know any of this?

 

Let’s dive in…
When we talking about reducing body fat, you will almost always hear about needing to create a calorie deficit.

 

Well your TDEE is the number the deficit is based on.

 

So if eat less calories than your body needs to maintain itself, it will make up for the deficit by using stored energy.

 

Body fat.

 

But you can only do that to a certain point.

 

Another method would be to increase your daily activity.

 

This (in theory) would increase the amount of calories your body needs and would (in theory) widen the gap and embellish your calorie deficit without you needing to eat any less.

 

The issue here is that exercise only accounts for about 5-15% of the overall calories used daily.
So no matter how hard you push yourself in your workout, it’s only going to do so much in terms of fat loss.

 

Now for the good stuff…

 

What accounts for the most calories burned per day?

 

Your Resting Metabolic Rate 🔥

 

And your resting metabolic rate is heavily influenced by your body composition.

 

The more lean tissue you have on your body, the more blood is needed to maintain it. Which increases the the rate and efficiency of cardiac output (how much blood your heart is pumping), which increases the amount of energy your body needs to maintain itself (your Resting Metabolic Rate).

 

Long story short: the best way to reduce overall body fat is by increasing the amount of lean muscle on your body.

 

This is why progressive and consistent strength training is top tier in terms of fat loss.

 

This is also why you can’t cardio yourself into getting lean.

 

Yes, cardio can help with weight loss.

 

But all of that weight lost isn’t body fat.

 

Because while body fat is a source of stored energy, so is protein… which are the building blocks of lean muscle.

 

And under enough stress, your body will use lean muscle for energy.

 

That might make the scale go down, but that won’t get you tight and toned.

 

In fact, you’ll be lighter with more jiggle.

 

Skinny fat.

 

Which flips this whole thing on its head and is counterproductive to creating a lean physique.

 

Bottom line: IF your goal is fat loss, prioritize strength training and build your program around the central goal of adding as much lean muscle as possible without adding too much body fat in the process.

 

Hope you found this helpful and make the changes necessary to get where you want to be without doing anything drastic or unnecessary to get there.

 

Because I want everyone to feel like a billion dollars everyday, all day, for the rest of your life 🦾