The Most Effective Way To Lose Body Fat (The Golden Rule)

The most effective way to lose body fat?

There’s one golden rule you need to follow.

The world of nutrition is really fascinating. Especially when it comes to the debate on what’s the best diet for fat loss, building muscle, and overall good health. It’s almost become a religion for some people.

Having said that, there’s one golden rule when it comes to nutrition and trying to find the best diet that works for you. Because, there’s no one size fits all approach.

Bio individuality comes into play here. There’s no one diet that’s perfect for everyone.

A lot of different diets like Keto, Paleo, Pescatarian, Vegetarian, Vegan, and Carnivore. They all have great attributes and qualities about them to help different kinds of people with different kinds of issues.

So there’s not one diet you should follow to achieve fat loss and optimal health. Everyone’s different. That’s why I’m a big fan of taking a multi faceted approach as being the most effective way to lose body fat.

Everyone’s gonna need a different diet depending on their goals and beliefs. If I tell a vegan that they should eat meat, it’s probably not gonna go well.

But there’s one rule that applies to any diet that you follow. Any lifestyle that you follow that encompasses and defines health. It’s drastically gonna help with fat loss and even build lean muscle mass.

This rule applies no matter which diet or nutrition plan you follow. I think we can all agree on this, for once.

The rule is whole foods, I’m talking about real food, is king above all else.

I explain this golden rule as being the most effective way to lose body fat in further detail in this video.

The Most Effective Way To Lose Body Fat: The Golden Rule

If you just revolve your diet around single ingredient, mostly unprocessed, nutrient dense foods 90-95% of the time, I can almost guarantee that you’re gonna be healthy.

You’re gonna shed all your unwanted body fat, you’re gonna fit better into your clothes, you’re gonna feel amazing, you’re gonna more energy, and you’re gonna be happy.

We don’t need to get into a discussion whether carbs are bad. We don’t need to argue that carbs are good. Or if meat is bad for the environment.

It’s not, by the way. Especially if it comes from regenerative sources. Grass fed and grass finished beef is actually carbon negative.

We also don’t have to argue if cholesterol and dietary fat is bad. But again, it’s not. Dietary fat won’t clog up your arteries.

Cholesterol is also essential to every cellular function in the human body. You would literally die without it.

You can make any argument you want about a food group, a particular kind of food, a nutrient, a style of eating, and you can find something to back up that claim.

The problem is, not all of these “studies” are good and can be downright misleading.

The Only Rule Of Nutrition

But the one thing that remains true. No matter what you’re doing, you should always be focusing on a whole foods based diet if you want to be a lean, happy, and healthy human being.

This is the only rule in nutrition. It is hands down the most effective way to lose body fat. It will always stay true no matter what.

The problem is, there is absolutely nothing sexy about it. This isn’t anything new. It’s not a revolutionary approach.

In fact, a whole foods based approach is the original human diet if you think about it. This how we evolved to eat as human beings.

Let’s use Keto for example. You see people doing Keto in a whole foods based approach.

They’re eating a lot of non starchy, green, leafy, cruciferous vegetables, eggs and fatty cuts of meat. They’re eating avocados and nuts. That is awesome. I’m a big fan of the Keto Diet.

But then you see the other side of it where people are eating a lot these processed keto bars (Quest bars for example). They eat a lot keto balls, keto bombs, and keto protein powder.

Or, anything that’s just branded as keto. Those are two entirely different ways of eating.

Yes, they’re both keto. But one is a healthy whole foods based keto diet. While the other one is just a diet full of processed foods.

The Problem With A Plant Based Diet

Same thing with a plant based diet. If for some reason, you watch a stupid documentary like ‘What The Health’, or ‘Game Changers’. They pull your heart strings and they do a really good job doing it.

You now think that cow farts are the biggest CO2 contributors and eating an egg is as bad as smoking a cigarette.

Or that cows eat grass and they have a lot of muscle, so we should just eat grass. It’s not as simple as that because you’re not a cow. I feel anxious even mentioning those bogus claims.

None of the health claims in those documentaries are based on good science. None. They’re all just based on observational studies which can only establish correlation but not causation.

An example of a correlation is, let’s say Justin Bieber released the song ‘Despacito’ in 2017. That same year, divorce rates went up. You can’t just say that Justin Bieber caused the rise in divorce rates.

You can only establish correlation. That is the type of research used in those documentaries. Does that sound like good science to you?

The problem is, people watch a documentary like that with a plant based agenda, and they take it as the truth.

Either way, let’s say you decided to go vegan because you think it’s healthier and it’s the most effective way to lose body fat.

Then you better not be eating a lot of bread, Oreo, pasta, cereal, Twinkies, granola bars, vegan chocolate cake, or any of the mainstream plant based meat substitutes.

Beyond meat has at least 17 ingredients and it’s processed to the nth degree. There are also other horrible processed foods that are labelled as vegan, simply because they contain no animal products.

They’re anything but healthy.

Let me go a step further. Let’s say you decide to go vegan because you don’t want to harm animals. That’s respectable. I commend you for that.

Just know that anytime you eat something that’s processed and is grain based, you are contributing directly to the death of millions of tiny animals.

If you’ve ever seen how they harvest a wheat field, and this is what 90% of food is made out of these days. A lot of them are technically considered vegan food.

They have these giant machines that stretch as wide as a football field. And little animals like squirrels, rabbits, hares, moles, weasels, and other small animals make those wheat fields their homes.

Guess what happens to them come harvest season. Just use your imagination.

The Problem With Labels

This is why I don’t like labels, even in relationships, but especially when it comes to diet.

Because the moment you say you’re doing Keto for example, then all of a sudden you’re against everything else that’s not keto.

Then you get attacked by the anti-keto crowd. Like I said earlier, nutrition is like a religion for some people.

If you were to put a label on my diet, I would be classified as Keto. But I don’t look at it like that.

I like to think that I eat a diet that closely resembles the original human diet. Because that’s how we evolved to eat.

My diet revolves around mostly animals and some plants. I eat single ingredient, mostly unprocessed, nutrient dense foods, 90-95% of the time.

I’m not saying that my diet is the greatest diet of all time. But I’m healthy, I’m happy with my body, and I have tons of energy. So, it works for me.

No matter what diet you’re doing, following a whole foods based approach should be your number one priority. After that, you can then decide if you wanna go keto, paleo, pescatarian, vegetarian, vegan, or carnivore.

I think that followers of all those diets can agree to that.

If you decide to go against that golden rule and you go on a crash diet. That’s where you see people make videos and say, “I ate McDonald’s every day for 30 days and I lost weight.”

Sure. If you’re on a calorie deficit, yeah I’ll give you that. You’ll lose weight. Going on a calorie deficit always works at the beginning.

But the keyword is at the beginning. Especially if you just do it for 30 days.

But your body is an adaptation machine. If you eat McDonald’s every day for 30 months, I hope you have good health insurance.

Now this post would be incomplete if I didn’t mention what a whole foods based approach does to you on a physiological level. Otherwise, this is all just based on bro-science.

Eating whole foods will naturally optimize important hormones in your body. It’s gonna moderate insulin levels which is the hormone that controls your body weight. Very important if you want to lose fat.

It’s gonna moderate cortisol which is your stress hormone, because you won’t have a blood glucose roller coaster ride.

It’s also gonna turn off Ghrelin which is your hunger hormone, it activates leptin, and other satiety hormones to naturally signal your body that you’re full.

I love using these examples for a reason. What do you think is more healthy and satiating?

Bacon and eggs or breakfast cereal?

A bowl of pasta or a grilled chicken with some asparagus?

Nuts for a snack or Doritos?

A scoop of protein powder post workout or ground beef?

A can of diet coke or water?

Do you see what I mean here?

The Most Effective Way To Lose Body Fat: The Second Rule

Now, there’s actually a second rule that is directly linked to the golden rule.

No matter what diet you’re on. No matter what nutrition plan you follow. Everyone can agree that alcohol is not the healthiest thing to put in the human body.

You are literally poisoning your body just enough when you drink alcohol. That’s why you get the buzz. If you drink too much, then that’s how you get alcohol poisoning.

Yes, you can find some studies out there that says red wine has some good stuff in it. And they’ll usually point out the anti oxidants in red wine.

Well, that usually comes from the grapes. If that’s all you want, then why don’t you just eat grapes? There are also way better sources of anti oxidants.

Plus, those studies are usually just observational studies which again can only prove correlation but not causation.

Also, beer might be the worst alcoholic offender because it also contains carbs. They don’t call it beer belly for nothing.

You can eat all the whole foods on the planet. But if you chase it with a couple of beers or a couple of glasses of wine every night, you’re gonna be severely disappointed with your results.

Am I saying you should never drink alcohol ever again? No.

I personally don’t drink but I also bartended for a few years. So I know that’s just part of social gatherings. But alcohol should fall in the 10% side of things.

The Most Effective Way To Lose Body Fat: The Third Rule

I mention the 90/10 rule a lot in my YouTube videos because it works. 90% of the time, eat whole foods. The other 10%? Live your best life.

That’s when you allocate for celebrations and gatherings. Feel free to have a glass of wine and eat a piece of cake when “life” happens.

To me, that sounds way more practical. Rather than telling someone they can’t drink or have a treat forever.

Again, I think there’s always gonna be a discussion about which diet or which lifestyle is best. That’s up to you.

I do think that all diets will work at some capacity as long as you follow the golden rule of a whole foods based approach.

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

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