As 2025 begins, many seek quick and effective ways to shed fat. Achieving a healthier body fat percentage and weight significantly benefits physical performance and overall well-being. (1) Given the overwhelming amount of advice circulating on social media and online, choosing where to start is challenging.
To simplify the process, Hypertrophy Coach Joe Bennett recently shared five straightforward methods for fat loss.
Five Easy Steps For Getting Shredded
- Establish Maintenance (Consistency Over Accuracy, Ideally Both)
- Decrease Food Intake
- Increase Expenditure
- Slow & Steady Over Fast
- Diet Breaks/Refeeds
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Establish Maintenance
First, determine your maintenance calories and consistently hit them. That starts by tracking macros. By knowing exactly how much of each macronutrient — carbohydrates, proteins, and fats — you’re consuming, adjustments can help achieve specific goals, whether losing fat, gaining muscle, or maintaining weight.
Consistency is crucial when tracking macros to ensure reliable results. Maintaining daily habits creates a baseline upon which meaningful adjustments can be made. For example, if someone consumes six cans of tuna, six packets of oatmeal, and a tablespoon of olive oil daily and their weight remains stable, they’ve identified their maintenance calories.
Modifying the approach from there is mostly straightforward. To lose weight, you can reduce calorie intake or increase activity levels. Bennett emphasizes proper recovery from training and balanced macronutrient ratios, which can influence progress.
Decrease Food Intake or Increase Expenditure
Achieving a shredded physique often requires a calorie deficit. For example, if you consume 3,000 calories to maintain weight and burn 3,000 calories, there’s no calorie deficit. Adjust your calorie intake or output to create a deficit.
You can reduce calorie intake while maintaining your current activity level, increase your physical activity while maintaining your current diet, or combine both approaches by eating less and moving more. Each method tweaks your energy balance to create a deficit for fat loss.
Slow & Steady
Coach Bennett advocates a slow and steady approach to calorie deficits. Creating a more significant deficit can lead to challenges in maintaining muscle mass as the body adapts. Over time, this considerable deficit may reduce muscle mass, lowering maintenance calorie levels and overall energy expenditure.
In contrast, a more gradual deficit allows for better muscle preservation, improved training performance, and hormonal balance. It is also likely more sustainable for achieving long-term fitness goals.
Diet Breaks/Refeeds
Sometimes, a quick weight-loss approach is necessary. In such cases, Coach Bennett recommends incorporating diet breaks or refeed days into the plan to support the process effectively.
Refeeds are typically short-term — three to six days. These brief periods of caloric surplus can boost training performance and help realign hormones more favorably, offering physical and metabolic benefits.
Diet breaks are extended periods of consuming maintenance calories. This approach mirrors the slow and steady method, offering a pause from strict dieting. It allows for more intense training and helps reset the hormonal balance. “You can, of course, do refeeds and diet breaks not just for the physiological benefits but for some mental, emotional benefits,” explained Bennett.
Role of PEDs
The role of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in shredding fat fast comes in two ways: muscle growth and fat loss.
PEDs can help one put on muscle and increase maintenance levels, leading to weight loss. “When you’re on PEDs, you can put on muscle when you’re in a deficit. So while you’re in a deficit, you can increase your maintenance level,” said Bennett.
PEDs boost productivity, accelerate metabolism, and promote fat burning. Additionally, certain prescription medications can suppress appetite, making it easier to maintain a caloric deficit.
Wrapping Up
According to Bennet, achieving a shredded physique requires establishing maintenance calories first and then creating a calorie deficit. He advocates for a slow and steady approach unless there’s a compelling reason to take a more aggressive route.
Bennett suggests tracking progress and adjusting as needed, as maintenance levels can shift during dieting. Additionally, diet breaks and refeeds can be beneficial during an aggressive calorie deficit to help maintain balance and sustainability.
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Reference
- Beavers, K. M., Miller, M. E., Rejeski, W. J., Nicklas, B. J., & Kritchevsky, S. B. (2013). Fat mass loss predicts gain in physical function with intentional weight loss in older adults. The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 68(1), 80–86. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/gls092
Featured image: @hypertrophycoach
