We all have that one friend.
That one friend who is always so damn lean.
No matter what they eat, how little they exercise, where they go, or what they do, they never seem to put on a pound of fat or end up looking like a blown-up version of themselves.
WHY DAMMIT?
Why can they get away with it and you can’t?
What are they doing that you’re not?
Let’s dig deeper and find out how you can master the art of staying lean without ever having to think, worry, or stress about it…
What are the habits of those annoyingly lean people who are always so lean?
Habit 1 – They Don’t Eat Crap
Sounds kinda obvious right? But it’s true. Lean people just don’t eat crap.
Yes they may indulge in the occasional dark chocolate glazed, roasted hazelnut, feuilletine, and Ferrero Rocher doughnut every once in a while, but the majority of the time, lean people don’t eat crap.
You may think these people get away with consuming a diet of crisps, chocolate, and cake, but every minute you’re not in their company they’re avoiding calorific foods like millennials avoid gluten.
Now telling people not to eat crap is akin to telling an alcoholic to stop drinking alcohol. It’s just not that easy, I know.
But there are some behaviours you can incorporate into your daily routine that’ll minimise the chances of you indulging in all the food you can get your hands on:
– Every meal should centre around some form of protein. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No excuses. Whether it’s eggs, meat, fish, or legumes, protein should be your first port of call when deciding what to put on your plate.
– Start learning to use food as fuel. Lean people rarely view food as ‘good’ or ‘bad; they perceive it as something that’s going to help them feel fuller, stronger, and provide them with more energy.
They don’t stress over ‘diet’ foods like daikon radishes and microgreens; they focus on the foods which are going to help them build muscle and fuel their bodies.
– Avoid liquid calories. Lean people seldom drink their calories. They minimise the amount of alcohol, juices, smoothies, and calorific beverages they indulge in.
– Cook at home. Lean people will always prioritise making meals themselves. They avoid takeaways and buying readymade meals, and will always look to make recipes from scratch.
It’s rare you’ll have McDonald’s chips and Domino’s pizzas stashed away in your freezer, so by rummaging through your fridge for the foods you keep there, you’ll be better off when trying to avoid the foods you know you shouldn’t be eating.
Habit 2 – They Eat The Same ‘Not Crap’ Consistently
Lean people are boring. Not in the ‘omg I want to scratch my eyes out with a rusty knife when I listen to you talk’ kind of boring, but boring in the sense of what they eat.
Lean people have got into the habit of eating the same things over and over again. We’ll call this low diet variability.
Too much variability and choice within your diet can set you up for failure. Minimising the selection of foods you eat, however, will provide you with more structure and ease with which to decide what to have.
Just like Barack Obama only wears grey or blue suits in order to avoid wasting mental capacity and decision making on mundane judgements, eating the same foods consistently will ensure you too won’t end up squandering valuable willpower on deciding what you’re going to have for breakfast, lunch or dinner, how you’re going to make it, and what time you’re going to eat it.
Just in case you thought I was lyingThe trick is to have a few select meals you can always rely on that don’t require too much thinking to plan, prepare, or consume.
Lean people don’t view every meal as a circus. People tend to eat more when they have more options, so people with the lowest amount of body fat will keep meals simple with just a few ingredients.
Eating the same foods may seem like a pain in the butt, but it’s no coincidence lean people will happily eat the same meals, at the same time, week in week out.
Habit 3 – They Don’t Focus On The Numbers, They Focus On The Process
Those annoyingly lean people who are lean all year round couldn’t give two hoots about how much they weigh or whether they’ve lost .2 of a centimetre round their elbow joint in the past two days.
Yes they’re probably tracking progress and setting goals in some capacity, but their main priority is focusing on the process.
Their focus at all times is on enjoying training, relishing in eating well, and above everything else, being consistent. They want to get stronger, they want to eat healthily, and they want to enjoy everything they’re doing.
When they don’t feel like training or eating healthily, they seem to be making no progress whatsoever, or have experienced a chocolate biscuit cock-up of monumental proportions, they just keep going. Being lean is almost an afterthought.
Process Goals vs Outcome Goals
When most people set themselves goals it’s often about the outcome.
‘I want a six-pack in six weeks’. ‘I want to lose 10 kilograms’. ‘I want to weigh what I did when I lost my virginity’.
While outcome goals can be useful, these numerical or quantitative targets aren’t as motivating as they appear to be. Nor are they exclusively within your control.
Lean people don’t obsess over process goals. They’re more in tune with process goals.
Process goals focus on the behaviours that generally lead to your outcome goal. These are the little things you do have control over and are the little targets that all add up to create your bigger goal.
This is Sophie.
Sophie is one of those annoyingly lean people who are always so damn lean. She sits at an impressive 20% body fat the majority of the year, can always be found holding a dumbbell in one hand and an apple in the other, and is more than happy with her physique.
Being 20% body fat however, is not Sophie’s primary goal.
Her primary goals – those tasty looking process goals – are:
– Tracking her food intake every day
– Completing three strength training sessions per week
– Avoiding purchasing her trigger foods in her weekly shop
These supporting process goals are the reason she’s so lean without her even trying. She’s not focused on the numbers, but on the behaviours that lead to her being so lean.
These goals are easier to achieve, smaller to break down, and within her control. Start focusing on the process, not necessarily the end goal, and you’ll start to find yourself living a leaner lifestyle.
Habit 4 – They Have A Kick-Ass Environment
I’ve written extensively about this before, and I still maintain your environment is one of, if not the, biggest factor in losing body fat and keeping it off.
Your environment shapes your decisions more than you realise.
All the eating decisions you make have more to do with predetermined habits, physical cues and what’s going on around you, as opposed to you making your own actual choices.
Your eating environment consists of places like the home, workplace, restaurants, and supermarkets. All places where you can make minor adjustments to ensure you’re not fighting that delicate willpower, but manufacturing easy actions that ultimately help you to eat less.
Lean people keep their environment in check so they don’t have to think about what they’re doing, eating, or thinking.
Here’s three ways in which they do that:
– They Don’t Buy Crap To Keep In Their House
You: ‘Oh man, I can’t believe I went to the freezer and chugged down that whole tub of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Caramel Cookie Dough’.
Lean Person: ‘Oh man, I can’t believe I went to the freezer and there was no Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Caramel Cookie Dough for me to chug down’.
If it’s not in your house, you can’t eat it.
– They Don’t Have To Think About Their Next Meal
You: ‘Oh man, I don’t have anything for dinner tonight and I really can’t be bothered to cook. I’ll just get a takeaway this one time’.
Lean Person: ‘Oh man, I really can’t be bothered to cook tonight. Luckily I made that salmon and rice stir fry earlier this week and kept it in the fridge for times like these’.
If you’ve got meals already prepared and ready to go, you won’t have to rely on motivation or effort to constantly think about what you’re going to eat and how you’re going to make it.
– They Avoid Shops They Know Are Bad News
You: ‘Oo, I’ll just pop into this newsagents to pick up some toilet roll; while I’m in there I’ll see if they’ve got any snacks’.
Lean Person: ‘I need some toilet roll, but I’ll get some on my next online delivery so I’m not tempted to buy things I don’t need’.
Changing your environment can be as simple as changing the journeys you take or the shops you go into.
Habit 5 – They Jump Straight Back Onto The Wagon
Lean people screw up. There’s no denying that.
The reason they stay so lean though? They’re straight back on track like a moth to a flame.
No matter how big the meal out, heavy duty drinking session, or monumental slip-up, they’re straight back to following their daily plan.
Their thinking is completely different. They don’t think they’ve screwed everything up, ruined all their hard work, or decide to indulge in a 6000 calorie blow out because ‘what’s the point?’
Here are three ways in which they jump straight back onto the wagon:
– The Turnaround
The turnaround is how quickly you manage to sweep the slip-up under the carpet and get back on track.
If your turnaround is two or three days – ‘ah sod it, I’ve had something I know I shouldn’t have had that, so what’s the point; bring on a two/three day bender’ – then chances are you won’t ever succeed.
If your turnaround is a matter of minutes– ‘I know I shouldn’t have had that, but I’m going to forget about it and get back on track immediately’ – then your chances of partying with the lean people of this world are pretty high.
– Damage Limitation
Lean people will always take action to try and limit or offset the damaging effects of their one ‘off’ meal.
Instead of embarking on a chocolate-fuelled rampage because they screwed up, they refocus and limit the effects of their earlier incident.
Limiting a day’s consumption to 3000 calories is always going to be better than 4 or 5000. Stop, think of the end goal, and put the motions in place to begin a fresh start.
– Learn From The Mistake
Why did you fall off the wagon? What could you have done better to avoid this situation?
It’s common knowledge successful people learn from their mistakes. So instead of believing you’ve ruined all your previous hard work, focus on how you can improve for next time.
The quicker you ascertain what went wrong and what steps you can put in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again, the quicker you’ll be able to adopt that lean lifestyle.
Habit 6 – They Think And Talk Like A Lean Person
Lean people match their behaviours and identity to their goals.
Everyone knows the foods they should be eating, the foods they should be avoiding, the exercises they should be doing, and the way they should be living their lives in order to stay lean. Lean people just make sure they think and do exactly these things.
If you want to be lean you have to think and act like a lean person.
People get stuck because their thoughts and discussions about nutrition, diet, and exercise don’t match their actions. They may attempt a new way of eating or new training programme, but they still talk and act like a ‘not lean’ person.
In order for behaviour to change, your identity has to change.
Not Lean Talk: ‘I probably shouldn’t have the office snacks everyone brings in, but my willpower sucks so I just can’t say no’.
Lean Talk: ‘Sorry, I’ve brought my own snacks in this week so I’m going to have those instead’.
Not Lean Talk: ’I really don’t like going to the gym’.
Lean Talk: ‘When I get to the gym I actually end up quite enjoying it. I just need to focus on getting stronger and not dread the thought of the gym’.
Lean people are in control of the way they think and act. Just like everyone else, they know what they should be doing, they just make sure they think and act accordingly.
Habit 7 – They Know When To Say No
Lean people appreciate they have full control over their eating behaviours.
They know they don’t have to always eat out, consume all the food on their plate, and accept every invitation for a meal, snack or treat that comes their way.
They know when to say no.
While you may be thinking ‘my mum would be offended if I didn’t have the dessert she made for dinner’ or ‘I’ll be secluded from the work group if I don’t get involved with their weekly drinking games’, lean people are often content to decline these invitations.
Others don’t actually care about your goals.
When you state the habits you’re trying to perfect, after a little flak, most will actually take the time to support you.
Most will understand when you’ve got a gym session booked. Or you can’t have the dessert they’ve made. Or that you’re not drinking on this particular day.
Leaning to say no is one of the best ways to take back full control of your eating behaviours.
Start to appreciate you don’t have always have to eat to make others happy and you’ll start thinking and acting like a lean person.
To Conclude
As Aadam Ali at Physiqonomics says:
‘You don’t get the abs and then become the person who has abs. You have to, first, become the person who has abs and then you will get abs.
Meaning: change your habits and your habits will change you.’
Work on mastering these seven habits of those annoyingly lean people who are always so lean and you too will live a lifestyle full of minimal body fat and a chiselled physique.
This Article Was Too Long And I Didn’t Read It; Can You Summarise It Please
Lean People Don’t Eat Crap – Yes lean people may indulge in the occasional dark chocolate glazed, roasted hazelnut, feuilletine, and Ferrero Rocher doughnut every once in a while, but the majority of the time, lean people don’t eat crap.
Lean People Eat The Same ‘Not Crap’ Consistently – Lean people have got into the habit of eating the same things over and over again. Eating the same foods may seem like a pain in the butt, but there’s it’s no coincidence lean people will happily eat the same meals, at the same time, week in week out.
Lean People Don’t Focus On The Numbers, They Focus On The Process – Their focus at all times is on enjoying training, relishing in eating well, and above everything else, being consistent. When they don’t feel like training or eating healthily, seem to be making no progress whatsoever, or have experienced a slip-up of monumental proportions, they just keep going.
Lean People Have A Kick-Ass Environment – Lean people keep their environment in check so they don’t have to think about what they’re doing, eating, or thinking.
Lean People Jump Straight Back Onto The Wagon – No matter how big the meal out, heavy duty drinking session, or monumental cock-up, lean people are straight back to following their daily plan.
Their thinking is completely different. They don’t think they’ve screwed everything up, ruined all their hard work, or decide to indulge in a 6000 calorie blow out because ‘what’s the point?’
Lean People Know When To Say No – Lean people appreciate they have full control over their eating behaviours.
They know they don’t have to always eat out, consume all the food on their plate, and accept every invitation for a meal, snack or treat that comes their way. They know when to say no.
How To Win At Fat Loss
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