Here’s how to break through 10% body fat.
Let’s say you’re at 15%, maybe you’re at 20% or 30% body fat. You start cutting, and somewhere along the lines, you hit a plateau. For most people, that plateau is usually around 10% to 14%.
When you’re at 20%, and you dial in fasting, training, nutrition, eliminate psychological eating, and get your mindset dialed, you start to get lean. Results happen like clockwork until this set point where your body naturally sits.
Athletes often eat whatever they want. They work out a lot and find this sticking point. They’re not tracking their calories and macros meticulously like body and fitness models.
They have this set point where they end up.
You don’t meet many athletes who are always trying to cut or lose weight. They reach this set point because their nutrition’s on point, they’re training a lot, and they just sit at a certain body fat level.
When you want to cut below that body fat level, it can be challenging.
Cutting below that set point, which could be 10% or 14%, you start to get hungrier.
The mistake most people make is as soon as it gets hard, they think they need to cut their calories down more, restrict their intake, and add more cardio. This approach can mess them up further.
Their testosterone levels drop because they’re in too much of an energy deficit at a low body fat. Their training performance declines, and they start to binge eat. They go to extremes and then binge, creating a cycle.
In Movie Star Masterclass, we help people cut below 14%, 12%, and even 10%.
I believe that if you do this correctly for months, you can teach your body to maintain a leaner state. I’ve been able to stay at 6% to 8% body fat for years without feeling deprived. I’ve had high free testosterone and healthy total testosterone at these low levels of body fat.
The first thing you must do is not go extreme when things slow down.
Your calories should be dialed in. A simple recommendation, if you’re around 10% to 15% body fat and want to cut, is to consume about 13 calories per pound of goal body weight.
This is just a quick estimate.
If you’re cutting to 200 pounds, your calories should be about 2600. If you’re cutting to 160 pounds, that’s about 2000 calories.
Fat loss, especially when you’re below your set point, is not always linear.
Sometimes your weight plateaus for weeks and then drops. If you’re reactive to these fluctuations, you’ll never reach your goal. You have to be patient and consistent.
The most important things to help you get results are:
- Get in your 10,000 steps a day. If you want to push it to 12,000 to 14,000, that’s good, but don’t exceed 15,000.
- Cook at home and keep your tracking simple. Eat similar meals every day to avoid mistakes.
- Train twice a week to maintain muscle. You don’t need tons of volume to retain muscle when cutting.
- Listen to your body. If you’re ravenous and hungry, eat a bit more.
In the past, I would do a weekly refeed with a lot of carbs to stimulate leptin, but I found that made me hungrier the next day. I find it best to focus on eating at a small deficit.
This is my advice on how to break through a fat loss plateau and cut to 10%, 8%, or even 6% body fat.
Note: Every before and after picture in this article is a result of my flagship program, Movie Star Masterclass. These are just a few of the countless transformations (more transformations here). This program will help you hit shredded movie star shape in record time.
