How To Lose Weight In 2022

Wanna know how to lose weight in 2022?

Today, I’m gonna show you how to to lose weight, build muscle, improve your health, and have quality of life and longevity in 5 easy steps.

We’re gonna cut through all the noise and BS because there’s a lot of bad information out there. There’s definitely more bad than good.

How To Lose Weight In 2022 (5 Easy Steps!)

1. Avoid prolonged periods of stillness

I was a competitive weightlifter for years training with some of the best weightlifters in Canada. I own all the provincial records in my weight class. 

The reason why I’m telling you those things is you can accomplish 90% of your exercise goals just by doing this one thing. Funny enough, it doesn’t involve lifting a stupid amount of weight.

Go for a walk. Your goal is to get at least 10,000 steps daily. Ideally, 12,000. Because it’s a big enough goal that it forces you to move your body throughout the day.

For context, the average North American walks a measly 4000 steps a day which is the definition of sedentary. 

A meta-analysis of the longest and healthiest people on the planet show that they all walk at 12,000 steps a day. It makes sense. If you move three times more than the average person, you’re gonna look and feel a lot different.

This was something I neglected for a long time even as a competitive athlete. I had, and most people are guilty of this, the infamous active couch potato syndrome. Most people are just couch potatoes, period.

But I would workout for an hour, and you don’t even actually workout for the entire hour. 

But afterwards, I would avoid anything and everything that involved me physically exerting myself. Because I was under the impression that I had already fulfilled my physical activity quota for the day. That is completely false.

I was basically still living a sedentary lifestyle for the rest of the day. I mean obviously that’s better than being completely sedentary. But it’s still not optimal. 

We evolved as human beings to move. Otherwise, you’d be a tree. Our Paleolithic ancestors regularly walked 3.5-9 miles every day. Modern day hunter gatherers like the Maasai from Africa still do this. Our Paleolithic ancestors also ate a whole foods diet of plants and animals. 

They didn’t have a 24-hour fitness gym. They also didn’t have fast-food or diet soda back then. And they didn’t suffer from modern western diseases like obesity, cancer, Diabetes, or cardiovascular disease.

Walking has so many benefits that almost everyone can get access to. It strengthens your heart, it eases joint pain, it boosts immune function, it improves your mood, it helps lower stress, and it strengthens your bones and muscles. 

In terms of fat loss, walking guarantees to keep you below your maximum aerobic heart rate where you’re mostly burning fatty acids for energy. If you’re trying to lose weight, that’s exactly what you want.

Walking regularly, and you have to do this when you’re younger, obviously, reduces your risk of getting Dementia by 40%.

A strategic 15 minute walk after a meal also lowers the blood glucose response by half. People that wear a CGM have proven this time and time again. 

The faster you can regulate your blood glucose, the faster your body can start burning fat again. Long story short, walking promotes optimal gene expression. Again, almost everyone can get access to those benefits.

Let’s quickly talk about the 1 mile run test because most people aren’t familiar with this. 

The standard is 8 minutes for men and 10 minutes for women. If you can get under those numbers, you’re good. 

That means you’re generally in good health and if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re gonna live a long and healthy life. 

But the one thing you need to know is the minimum. You owe this to yourself to try. 

If you can’t walk a mile without stopping because you’re out of breath. You have something like a 60% chance of dying in the next 5 years from one of the 4 major killers in North America which is Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease, and Dementia. 

Again, I have some street cred when I say this. If your goal falls along the line of lose weight, have a flat stomach, build some muscle so you can have that tight and toned look, and fit better into your clothes. 

You don’t need to set an unrealistic goal of going to the gym 5, 6, 7 days a week when you can’t even make it once a week regularly. 

It’s too much. It’s overkill. It could even potentially start working against you. Especially if you’re just doing strenuous cardio based workouts which is what a lot of people do trying to manually burn calories.

Because that’s when you get into overtraining. One of the side effects of over training is chronically elevated cortisol levels. Which leads to massive sugar cravings and that all too familiar fat gain around people’s stomach. They start to look like a pear. And we’ll talk about that more in a second.

That’s why I don’t even recommend signing up for a gym membership right away. You’re better off achieving your daily 10,000 step goal and doing resistance training based bodyweight workouts a couple of times a week for starters. 

If you’re keen on going to the gym, do your resistance training there. That’s it. That’s the minimum effective dose of fitness. 

Just remember this. Exercise is all about movement, not about counting calories.

2. Eat your veggies

There’s always gonna be a never ending debate on what the best diet is.

But virtually almost every diet will agree with this one thing. Whether you’re doing Paleo, Keto, Weight Watchers, IIFYM, and I’m even gonna agree with vegans and vegetarians on this concept. Eat vegetables and seasonal fruit.

Unless you’re on an elimination diet like the Carnivore diet. It’s unbelievably effective when it comes to reversing auto immune issues. You also won’t have a hard time finding success stories of people posting insane weight loss transformations.

All the big names in the Carnivore Diet space like Dr. Paul Saladino and Dr. Shawn Baker are also absolutely shredded and have amazing bio markers.

But I personally don’t have an autoimmune disorder which can be triggered by the anti nutrients found in vegetables. So I eat my veggies. And I eat a lot of them. I also eat some seasonal berries.

My personal favourites for vegetables are broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, asparagus, mushrooms, avocados, and sweet potatoes. You can also experiment with weird vegetables like kohlrabi.

Most vegetables, except for the starchy variety, are basically free carbs and calories. You can eat as much until you’re satiated. You don’t have to account for their carb or calorie content. You’ll never hear anyone say they got fat from eating broccoli or cauliflower.

3. Lose weight fast: Practice Time Restricted Eating

If you’ve been following my channel, then you should already be familiar with this concept.

This is one of my all time favourite questions to ask. What do you think will happen if you don’t eat? What do you think will happen if you skipped a meal? 

You’re probably going to lose weight. A lot of weight. No, you’re not gonna die. Because it’s not about eating less, because you’re always gonna be hungry when you do that. Being hungry sucks. You wanna eat less frequently.

There is a world of difference in your physiology when you eat 6 small meals a day. Which is the conventional diet advice. And you’re never really satiated when you just eat a small meal. So that advice is more like conventional stupidity. Versus eating all your food within a 6 hour window, for example.

The former basically puts you in fat storage mode all day. Your body never gets a chance to burn fat for energy. 

I mean, why would it? You keep supplying it with energy from food. Your body has no reason to tap into your stored energy aka body fat. It’s more than happy to keep it for a rainy day like in times when food is scarce. 

The key player here is the storing hormone insulin. Basically, every time you eat. Your insulin goes up. High insulin blocks fat burning. 

So if you have high insulin levels all day, you can’t burn fat. It gets locked away. 

For context, the average person has a mind blowing 15 hour eating window. That’s basically one’s entire waking hours.

While the latter, only eating in a 6 hour window, is a great way to moderate your insulin levels. If insulin is moderated, that’s when your body is able to tap into your almost unlimited fat stores for energy during those 18 hours when you’re not eating. This is how fat loss works. 

And you, my friend, have at least 100,000 calories of stored energy waiting to be used in your butt, thighs, and belly. You just need to give your body the right hormonal signal to burn it for energy.

4. Learn to self regulate

I used to be one of those people where every time I had “bad food”, I would feel really bad about it. A lot of negative self talk starts to take place.

The problem is when people feel that guilt and shame about a food decision and they don’t know how to self regulate, it can start this negative vicious cycle. 

Because you already feel bad, you might as well write off the entire day and see how far you can take it. 

Studies back up this destructive behaviour. Researchers have done MRI’s on people’s brains where if they feel guilt and shame, it actually activates the reward centre of the brain. It makes you double down and keep eating junk food.

Where as, if you plan ahead and are intentional about it. Then, you’re fine. Even if it was unplanned. You’re still fine. It’s just a small bump on the road. 

The most important thing you can do is to forget that it happened. Don’t beat yourself up about it.

The danger lies when you have an unplanned indulgence and you think you’ve just ruined everything. You didn’t. One bad meal won’t make you fat. Just like one good meal won’t magically make you skinny.

People often forget about this but you’re one good meal away from being back on track. Play the long game.

Some experts out there want you to swear off treats completely. And, they’re not wrong. 

But, I also love food. I love to eat. To me, life is all about being able to share special moments with your loved ones. And we usually celebrate around food. That’s why I’m a big fan of scheduling an optional “cheat” meal every week. 

Is this process gonna be a little bit slower when it comes to getting results? Maybe. Because the results are gonna be so much more permanent because you don’t feel deprived, you’re allowing for life to happen, and you’re able to self regulate. Which is such an invaluable life skill.

5. Make supportive lifestyle choices 

80-90% of your body composition is determined by your diet. But you still need to make supportive lifestyle choices to maximize your results. Let me just give you the rapid fire notes.

A. Alcohol

This is a big one. I have yet to see a randomized controlled clinical trial that shows that alcohol is good for you. Anybody who tells you otherwise is lying to you.

You are literally poisoning your body when you drink. That’s why you get the buzz. Now, I’m not saying you should never drink. I personally don’t.

If you can count the amount of times in your hands that you got drunk in a span of a year, you’re probably fine. 

But if this is something that happens every weekend and/or whenever you’re having a bad day. You’re gonna need to re-asses your life decisions and coping mechanisms if you want to lose weight, let alone stay healthy. 

Otherwise, you will run a very high risk of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, among other things. 

Pro tip. Stick to hard liquor like tequila and vodka soda if you’re gonna drink. Dry red wine is also an option. Avoid sugary drinks and beer. Beer is basically liquid bread. They don’t call it a beer belly for nothing.

B. Sleep

Let me make this short and sweet. If you don’t get your sleep right, none of this is going to work. 

There is overwhelming evidence that lack of sleep moves every health metric in the wrong direction. Sleep is more important than diet. If that’s news to you, now you know.

Protect your sleep as if your life depends on it. Because, it does. Your goal is to get 7-9 hours of quality sleep in a pitch black room every night. 

C. Stress

Stress is another big player to your health and weight loss goals. Not all types of stress are created equal.

Short term stress isn’t a bad thing. Exercise is a form of acute stress for example. Cold showers? Spending time in a sauna? Same thing. It’s the good kind of stress. The ‘what doesn’t kill you make you stronger’ type of stress.

It’s chronic stress that you need to manage because that’s where it becomes an issue. It’s when you’re stressed 24/7. 

Whether it’s stress from work every day, you’re in an unhappy and stressful relationship, you’re dealing with financial problems, you’re getting into chronic cardio patterns, and then you cap it off with poor sleep. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Let me offer possible solutions. If you hate your job, quit. Unhappy with your relationship? Leave. If your friends make you feel bad, you need new friends. Weather sucks where you live? Move. If your workout feels like a near death experience and you’re just miserable while you’re doing it, slow it down.

If the price of something takes away from your happiness, it’s too big of a price to pay. Why? Because your mental health and physical health will start to suffer. That’s when people get sick. That’s how some people get cancer; from stress. 

That’s why it’s so important to practice mindfulness and gratitude because it’s one of the best ways to self regulate and manage stress. And, it’s free. You just need to carve out a little space for yourself. 

If you think you don’t have time to do it, all the more reason to double down and find time for yourself. You’re absolutely worth the effort. That’s how to lose weight in 2022.

As always, if this was helpful, share it with a friend who could benefit from it as well!

Need More Help?

Use this simple 4-step process to melt ALL the fat around your stomach and look good shirtless WITHOUT going on a crazy diet or wasting hours at the gym. Get the Lean Body Blueprint here for free!