Ranking BEST & WORST Diet For Visceral Fat Reduction & Muscle Gain | Mind Pump 2520

it's 2025 we took the five most popular diets and we ranked them we actually picked our favorite broke them all down so in today's episode we're going to pick the best diet out of the top five most popular diets of 20 I like this what is the um what's the criteria so what's the thought process on like how we're going to score this cuz there's a lot of different ways that we can look at all these different diets has to include sustainability right totally so what I picked was we're going to rank each of them on and of course we're going to break them down right what they are but we're going to rank each of them on Fat Loss muscle gain longevity and then sustainability sustainability meaning uh how easily or well that we estimate somebody could stick to um one of these diets and they're each going to get each of those categories will get a score of 1 to 10 one being obviously terrible four being best yeah and at the end we're all going to pick our favorite uh out of out of one of the five uh so for us personally or for people in general just for people in general people in general this this should come from our our coaching perspective not our personal experience toally totally and again for people who aren't familiar like we trained uh people and coached people for well over two decades um so we have a lot of experience with different kinds of diets different kinds of people um and and I do want to preface this by saying that the best diet is typically individualized okay there's such a wide variance in how people react act and respond to different foods different ways of eating and what you're what you're really what you're dealing with here isn't just the food isn't just your physiology isn't just your psychology and your emotional health around these things it's all of those things combined which can make this very individual so when you're considering how to change your diet you can't just look at you know which one's going to be the best for my goal but also how am I going to stick to this is this what I'm going to enjoy does this work with uh you know my my personality that kind of stuff but based off of our experience and and most of our experience was in training lots of Everyday People we we the vast majority of our clients I'd say probably 95% plus of our clients were just everyday average people the most common goal being fat loss the second most common goal being muscle gain and Longevity so that's kind of where we're basing um all of this abely so what I did is I went online and I looked up the most searched for and popular diets of the year as at the beginning of the year the most uh common thing is that somebody has a I think 80% last time I checked 80% of people surveyed have a New Year's resolution and of those people uh the vast majority of their of the most popular New Year's resolutions revolved around health and fitness uh weight loss being the most popular one so by far the most common New Year's resolution that is affecting 80% of people has to do with getting in better yeah getting in better shape essentially so this is something that a lot of people are thinking about so I think it's a you know timely do you want to do you want to list the diets first and then we'll go into each one so yeah that's let's do that so Mediterranean diet is the first one uh the keto diet uh would be the second one the paleo diet would be the third one um fourth we have the plant-based diet um and then uh intermittent fasting um so did I say paleo I did say paleo so uh intermittent fasting paleo plant-based keto um and Mediterranean so we'll start with Mediterranean diet now that one's gotten quite a lot of media um and and Attention medical attention um for being very healthy uh you're seeing studies around it data around it now I just little side note um well let's break down what that what they say it is and then I'll give a little bit of my opinion on what an actual Mediterranean diet looks like because my family's from the Mediterranean but the Mediterranean diet uh if you were read up on it the focus is on vegetables fruits nut seeds whole grains um lots of olive oil then they tell you to moderately intake chicken eggs cheese yogurt red wine of course is included um and then they tell you to limit red meat processed Meats processed sugar um you know that's kind of like let's avoid this or or limit those types of things what what what's the um the origin of that was it base like oh let's these are the most popular foods in the Mediterranean and so therefore we're going to make a diet around it like how did how did it get the name the Mediterranean diet part the Blue Zone yeah that's a good question because like I said my family's from Sicily and the truth is um they eat a lot of processed Meats in particular they eat a lot of pork they they eat red meat um so and they don't eat all whole grains I mean pasta is quite common um and and so is white rice in certain areas so I think that this might be what people believe a Mediterranean diet is supposed to be like just cuz it has olive oil an emphasis that's the only thing well no I was under the impression that it was like they more fish-based a little bit on poultry and a little bit on red meat it's not doesn't say no red meat it's just minimal red meat minimal poultry and then mostly fish that's what I was under the impression Mediterranean kind of looked like yeah fish will be in there right on as the primary source so I thought primary source was was fish for protein and then came kind of poultry and then red meat and that kind of it's actually mostly vegetables fruits nuts seeds whole grains olive oil and then moderate would be fish I forgot to put that in there chicken fish eggs mhm uh you know some cheeses and red wines now this was based off remember anel Keys came up with this like lowfat hypothesis um and he you know he said oh people in the in the Mediterranean live a long time oh that's where this is coming from this is mostly low fat except for your your nuts and seeds are probably your olive oil and stuff like that now I mean and again um I think that this this Mediterranean diet was more like a a diet creation nonetheless there's been studies that have been done on this type of eating and it gets a lot of points in the medical community for things like heart health cardiovascular health in particular brain health and that kind of stuff um you know uh now I let's go through the list of things right like what what we like about it what we don't like about it and then that kind of criteria that we broke down yeah so for fat loss let's talk a little bit about fat loss um I would give this an okay rating you know I would say it's probably I'd give it a two or three at least yeah that's what I would say right like maybe we could do like a 2.5 maybe kind of you know in the middle D yeah I am okay yeah what do you think Justin same same yeah I I would give it about two and a half um what did I have next on there was it muscle gain was muscle gain muscle gain uh it's going to be low on me here's low being two because or less because any diet that tells you to limit meat in my opinion has to be low scoring for uh building muscle yes the protein's not going to be high on this right because it's that's already a challenge for the average person and so if you put my my client in a diet that tells you you should even limit that more than what they probably already naturally do that tells me right away as a coach like it's going to be a huge challenge for us to hit our protein targets and so any diet that's going to call for or limit you on your choices of protein dense foods automatically is going to get scored a low number for me so it's two for me I agree and and we're also going to rank you know this is also ranked in the context of each other right compared to the other diets and I can think of one of them ones that's lower than this in muscle building but I agree with you two it's probably about right because when you read up on what the Mediterranean diet is supposed to be even other sources of protein besides red meat like chicken and eggs and fish they say moderate yeah so I agree with you I would say it's it's a two uh so two and a half for fat loss two for muscle gain longevity all right what do we think about longevity three yeah it's high yeah I would say it's a three or four you know limiting processed foods now why wouldn't I why am I not PR balanced too for the most part it is now why am I saying that a four or five why am I saying three or four instead of four or five the whole red wine part of it that they you know that's oversold like crazy it's it's the res trol and all no it's it's what they're what they're having trouble doing with these red wine you know health benefits or whatever is parsing out uh the community around red wine cuz there's health benefits to that um parsing out other healthy habits that these people are engaging in so I think if you just were to isolate alcohol regardless of where it comes from um take out the community aspect of it and the social yeah totally so that's why I'm not like a strong like four or five but I'd say it's probably three or four maybe three and a half for me is where I put it I mean I'm looking at the last two longevity and sustainability and this is a 3 three for me so three on three on long just because I think if you did eat this way you may not have the most optimal amount of muscle for you know building a physique or metabolically or what that but overall health I think you're going to have pretty solid uh healthy so good for longevity here uh especially since it's limit it tells you to limit processed foods and you know how we feel about stuff like that that's also why I give it about a three sustainability I think it's sustainable you're not they're not eliminating entire food groups which diets that that are eliminate entire food groups all will always get a low score for me sustainability so at least you can still have chicken and fish and stuff like that so I would put it up there with like a three unability yeah they can make it work I would definitely go a little higher in sustainability maybe 35 and then three on longevity yeah I'm with you Justin because you know you can also you you know based off of this like there's some really tasty enjoyable dishes you could yeah that you can make uh you know with these you know with these Foods I had I had decent success with clients that ran this diet so I I've ran this diet with uh many there uh this was more popular when I first started than it was today even so I find it interesting that this popped up as the top five because how diets are they I know right I've heard less of it recently but maybe it's it's it's getting popular again it was really popular my early years as a trainer and so I had clients that ran this and I remember the first time learning about it and like kind of looking over I'm like okay this is I'm I'm okay with this like when they would and I could work with this you give me all those food I could put it together I personally don't have a big problem with this diet but I do have challenges with the low protein and take encourages meat yeah so I mean you're not going to be so low of protein that's a problem but you're not going to be optimizing protein for things like muscle gain performance or fat loss so that's always that's really my challenge but aside from that it's not too bad attention trainers coaches online coaches we have a course that teaches you to be more successful and more effective with your clients by the way our training course is now approved for cus by nasm and AF uh AFAA in fact with nasm you get 1.9 cus you got to check out our course click right here all right next is the ketogenic diet this was when we started the podcast 10 years ago this was the diet All the Rage this was devoted just to this yes and and it's it's still it's still one of the top diets it's still quite popular um now I remember when ketogenic style diets became mainstream popular this was back in I want to say the late 90s when uh Atkins came out with his book and he essentially was ad ating for a ketogenic style uh diet and it was really popular in the late 90s because it was so opposite countered to the low fat movement completely in the 80s I mean you know late 70s 80s especially you know most of the 90s what was preached was lowfat lowfat lowfat lowfat and out comes this book that says eat as much fat as you want just don't eat carbs yeah and you'll do well and and it was so opposite and people you know got results from it because it's at the end of the day a lower calorie diet um it explod it in popularity now correct me if I'm wrong but isn't isn't the ketogenic diet almost exactly the same as the Atkins diet except the Atkins diet would advocate for high protein the ketogenic diet is moderate protein high fat both are high fat Atkins was also high protein well depends on who you as the original ketogenic diet was low protein yeah I was going to say very low protein medical well even even low in fact the original ketogenic diet which was used uh for epilepsy yeah and other neurological issues actually advocated for minimal protein very little yeah almost none cuz they they wanted like just enough essential protein now today Nobody Does it that way right people who do a ketogen diet it looks like the Atkins diet where it's like moderate proteins it's high fat it's very high fat you're eating High you know fatty cuts of meat fish whole eggs dairy cheese avocados macadamia nuts um oils butter it's very high fat moderate protein extremely low carbohydrate like people are limited to under 50 grams of carbs in fact it's they would advocate for zero if you possibly could so the irony of this is that this gets a four for fat loss for me yeah I think this diet is I agree uh in comparison to all the ones we're about to talk about very effective in that realm yeah yeah not not just what I've experienced with clients myself personally uh I mean if you when you eat it see it seems to the average person count counterintuitive because you're allowed to eat these high fat high calorie type of foods but it's amazing how satiating this diet is and it's hard to eat too many calories it is it is very hard I'm going to score it a four on the fat loss but a one or a two on the muscle gain I agree with you I think for muscle gain I you know based on the rest of the diets that we see here I'll say a two it's hard for muscle gain now I know people are going to bring up studies you can gain just as much muscle on a ketogenic diet etc etc look here's a deal in my experience with people that I've worked with good luck it is hard the pumps are you don't get great pumps at the gym um it's hard to get uh you know to really hit the calories that you need especially your protein targets with that much fat with that much fat you know it'll throw you out of ketosis remember a ketogenic diet is named ketogenic because you're supposed to be in ketosis eating too much protein with three of ketosis is well um and so it's it's again high fat moderate protein at best it's so easy to to not eat enough calories you know and so it's just yeah it's tough to to stick with that and gain muscle yeah so I I'm with you Adam I'd say it too I did keto for a long time um and and it was really for gut health issues you also used to love for the cognitive benefits I remember you I still do I still do uh when I get when I am able to uh get my my blood ketones up by being on a ketogenic di it's great for inflamation for me inflammation oh my God I love this diet when I'm like feeling super achy and like I need a change yeah yeah so um you know 100% now for longevity it's still not a it's not a great score um depending on who you're talking about but on on average I would say it's a two and a half and here's why what you find when people go strict keto for too long over time you actually start to develop no joke insulin sensitivity issues it's very very strange in fact the the the most Ardent uh you know the past in the past some of the most Ardent ketogenic diet Advocates will now say it's a good idea to throw in some carbs at least once a week because it's a very strange effect that happens in the body where your body almost doesn't know how to react to carbohydrates and insulin sensitivity actually gets worse I remember when uh I think it was your wife was really really low carb for a while and she tested uh like her blood sugar was high while she was pregnant and they had to that's why because she had gone for too long yeah I I'll give it two and a half a longevity it's only a two for sustain for me um so yeah two I'll take I'll take two two and a half on longevity and sustainability is is a one or a two yeah uh anything again on this list I don't care what diet it is if it limits an entire food group it cannot possibly score over over over a two yeah I don't I don't I don't know anybody who's going to stay keto forever unless there's a real medical or health and what a terrible way to live understandable if it's something medically you have to and and I've had clients where we've had to do that that makes sense of course uh and and and not being massively inflamed and we have we had people like M Kayla Peterson who's been on there who has to eat diets like this hers is even more strict it's carnivore only uh but for the rest of the world people that are doing most people that sign up to do this are doing it to get in shape and so that's the perspective I'm thinking of when I score this and I just think that something that limits you to that there's too many great foods that that are uh that are carbohydrate based that you eliminate which it's hard enough to eat healthy and eat you know different foods yeah you're going to make it even harder it's really hard to select Foods in this category oh when I was keto and I I was keto for again this was for gut health issues this is I was having a lot of trouble with gut health and this seemed to be the only thing that controlled symptoms until later I was able to treat sibo and stuff like that but I remember I tried to go out to dinner or to lunch and it was it's it sucked it sucks to go out and eat when you're keto what are we going to go eat oh let's go get steak that's it we're go get steak like nothing else can eat like is there a place that has meat and vegetables cuz that's all I can eat just olive oil and everything totally sucks you know back to uh longevity also one other thing I want to comment on there are polymorphisms it's not the majority there's a small minority but there is a small minority of people when they eat a high-fat diet like this it throws their blood lipids all over the place and they don't get great readings uh at all now this is most people are not like this if you're on a low calorie ketogenic diet you tend to see improvements in blood lipids but some people their cholesterol numbers their LDL goes all over the place um and it just it just isn't good so that again contributes to that that two and a half that we gave it for longevity all right next up is a plant-based diet now this runs the gamut from vegan to almost always vegan but you allow the occasional cheese in there com something like that it's plant-based means that you know like 80 to 90% of your diet is plant um all right let's let's talk about where we go with fat loss with this I think for fat loss this is terrible I think weight loss but you're going to lose muscle on it yeah yeah this is going to be maybe a two uh for me um and even and even so like the the clients that I had that would that would do this it maybe initially they see the weight the weight loss and then we would rebound and come back see how much muscle they lost or something like that um the protein is low you're not getting the nutrients uh from animal sources that you need animal you know sources of food will give you nutrients you don't typically find or sometimes never find in uh in plant-based right so you'll tend to see vitamin D levels will be too low iron certain B vitamins you get zero creatine in your diet so when you look at the studies on [ __ ] supplementation and improvements in cognition and health most people will see a little bit of an improvement uh creatin is just an an amazing supplement vegans they get like a measurable massive boost boost in in their IQ because they're deficient plant-based and vegan type diets are higher higher than other diets higher definitely higher than the ones in this category for nutrient deficiencies so not great well it just I mean to me talking about in the manner that we're talking about these diets where we're scoring them I think this really highlights why we've s we've sounded like we're so out on it yeah because it to me both fat loss and muscle gain are under a two there just it's a it's a muscle G is a one there's no benefit there yeah it's a one it's the worst diet for so you know that's and we what do we deal with mostly most the people that we help are are in pursuit of building muscle or in pursuit of losing body fat and I I just think overall for those two main reasons this is one of the worst diets in both those categories and so yeah it's going to score by far of the ones and by far of the ones that we have up here if I had clients on all of these the plant-base would be the worst one to work with for sure longevity it's also very low now I know that's not going to sound like the it's not what it's been sold but popular media but I'm going to tell you something right now having worked with many many many people who's gone down this path when they go plant- based what goes up is their processed food uh consumption they go from eating the deficiencies get worse yeah you you start the average person when you look at the average person's diet it's already processed food dominant but the few foods that are whole food FS are like milk eggs meat and then they're like I'm going plant-based now they're 100% processed foods so and now also nutrient deficiencies and the data on this is clear people who are vegan uh typically have higher rates of nutrient deficiencies and a nutrient deficiency will screw your longevity up faster than almost anything you lack a vitamin or a mineral you have increased depression anxiety cognitive function disorders uh you name it because your body literally can't function proper so two on longevity uh I would give it a one oh a one even wow one even okay I'm going to give it a high score though for sustainability I'm going to give it a three and here's my argument because we cater because we've catered so much to to vegans so many restaurants so many packaged Foods so so there's so much marketed to and that are and options that are processed foods for the vegan that I think that for the person who just oh I just got to choose a vegan food that is something that makes it more sustainable although I don't think it's IDE trying to be nice cuz I'm think I'm thinking the average person right now that I know who's gone vegan their fail rate is 100% for me well that's yeah but that's everybody that's every diet right we know oh it's it was it was a little higher there was only one person I trained ever in my entire career that was that went plant-based and vegan stayed that way but it was for moral reasons I mean the the the most biggest value of it for me is an temporary window you know I could make some arguments there in terms of like being introduced to you know higher dense um you know vegetable options and like fiber and those aren't on the category so I don't really know where to posi score so so it doesn't seem like we're just hammering this diet I'm with Justin exactly I'm trying to find some there no there is there and by the way there's times where I actually recommended this for a client for a short period of time uh many times it was clients that uh just neglected to eat a lot of vegetables and so switching them over and then allowing them to see how they felt and and then then teaching them that it wasn't because we eliminated these Foods it's because we introduced these foods that your body also wants and needs uh I can see value in doing that but I the sustainability what I think about sustainability is like their ability to keep doing it ex right like uh I I think the ketogenic diet is really hard to do because you're so there's so minimal choices but there's a lot of vegan choices today and you go go down the frozen food aisle there are but when you throw a nutrient deficiency you're not that's longevity argument that's that's the longevity argument that's Health argument that's that means people have to drop out the ability for people to to keep doing it uh and and you're getting so much positive reinforcement from television I think sustainability it scores higher than a lot of these diets I would my AR I would give it a two at best is what I would give it for sure hey sorry to interrupt look we have a free guide It's the benefits of eating Whole Foods this gives you a shopping list what foods are best for proteins fats carbohydrates there's recipe samples it's all based on real whole natural food and it's a free guide it's totally free you can get it if you go to Whole Foods guide.com or by clicking on the link in the description below all right last is the paleo diet now paleo is short for Paleolithic and so this diet sorry it's not last it's the second to last the paleo diet is based on and again this is not really based on real science but this is just what the diet said right because You' be bugs would be in there everything whatever we could get our hands on but essentially the theory was you're going to eat what cave people ate which meant minimally processed what they they they really didn't cook or process anything and so it was it was relegated to meat fruit nuts seeds vegetables potatoes maybe some hardcore paleo people not even potatoes but now I think they all agree potatoes are okay but there's no grains no Dairy no processed anything so it's so it's meat eggs again you know fish fruit nuts seeds seeds vegetables yeah potatoes Birds so anything that runs swims or walks fruits nuts seeds vegetables this potatoes this is a solid diet it's an interes one this is a solid uh overall diet I don't think it is ideal or optimal for any one of these categories but like right away to me and I don't want to get way ahead because we can make we can go through each one but it's like it's like a three across the board for me yeah it's like a three across the board it's decent for fat loss it's decent for building muscle it's decent for longevity it's decent but it's not the best or great at any of these one things but I also don't I don't have a lot of problems I had a lot of clients I had on the paleo diet that were successful if you took potatoes out of this I would give it a lower score but because potatoes like like the old school original paleo was like no potatoes was just seeds and nuts I can't get my energy there no I mean uh I the my bodybuilder esque diet looks very had like rice I mean yeah the rice is the only I I ate a lot of sweet potatoes yellow potatoes red potatoes yams and then I also use I almost eat like this except for Rice I would give this a higher score for muscle gain paleo diets tend to be pretty high in protein yeah paleo people tend to eat not good for endurance but you know found that on Cross but the potato helps this right this is why they changed it so the original paleo diet didn't include potatoes because the argument was you have to boil them and really cook them and Cave people didn't do that which again I don't know where they get their sence from and what they found in CrossFit athletes and other athletes like I I fruit doesn't do it for me I need some starches so they started throwing in potato and sweet potato and those are great sources great sources I mean since we're on this diet because I think of all the diets we're going to go through today this is probably going to win with me as far as the the better scores this is also such an example of like good coaches and trainers here like if I have a client that wants to have some sort of structure I could I would build them a diet like this and include things like rice and quinoa yeah why and then I have like a beautiful because I've never met anybody that's had a problem with white rice I don't think I've ever had a client that couldn't couldn't digest white r dig super R good such a great starchy carbohydrate inexpensive easy to make like goes with everything and it's like and now you've got this incredible diet and it's customized to you and it's like more realistic and more sustainable so I mean this is where all diets go wrong is they they try they limit something and it's like dude most people I mean how many have you guys trained had a problem with white rice yeah no I I haven't met one no I don't think I had anybody it's it's it's such a it's like a it's a staple food that there's no re other than you're trying to fit in this paleo thing this plus rice is my diet yeah generally how I eat so yeah great scores across the board again muscle gain of the diets we're going to talk about is one definitely all right last is intermittent fasting intermittent fasting really has one hard rule which is you eat in a window of 4 to8 hours okay now there's lots of different ways to do intermittent fasting there's the one meal a day diet right you don't eat all day you have one big meal then there's a you can only eat between you know noon and 4 or whatever but so generally speaking it essentially means you eat within a eating window and then there's really no other rules essentially with this and and people lose weight on this typically because they eat less calories because they're limited on when when they can eat I still feel like it should be slowest or slower instead of fast fast dude I mean the whole time you're you're watching the clock and I mean it's it's one of those things it's great for awareness too about your own behaviors so I mean I would definitely score that uh you know and to again so if this is something that's like an intermittent thing as it's named uh and you're you're bringing it in and you're doing a regular diet that you have a little bit more flexibility with like I'm on board but again if it's something probably low on the sustainability for me I'm I'm going to give it a a four for fat loss a two for muscle gain yeah I I mean you could sell me on that I was going to go three and two yeah but you could sell me on that almost everybody initially loses weight on yeah it just cuts your calories so black and white yeah it's so black and white it's so easy to follow it's like I don't have a lot of rules I just have a window that literally reducing people to a window is mind-blowing how much that restricts calories on most people I would I agree with you even longevity I'd give it a pretty good score more of a three and a half because if you when you give the average person one rule they tend to be able to stick to it simp wins yeah several rules and and here's the deal now I know people are like well what if they eat garbage what if they yeah of course that's bad but when you look at the data when your calories are low what you eat within that calorie amount a lot of the damage is taken care of because the calories are low so this is why people on intermittent fast like I remember the one meal a day version of this they used call The Warrior Diet or one meal a day diet people would eat the worst Food they' be like oh my God I'm going to eat a giant Pizza Plus a bowl of cereal muscle is one and they would have all these great benefits uh with their blood lipids and all that stuff muscle gains got to be low yeah one good good luck trying to build muscle in a 4 hour it's hard all day it's hard when you have all day you're not going to yeah squeeze all the protein in and and so uh sustainability you know so I'm flip flopped on the way you're you're describing longevity cuz I think sustainability is for all the reasons you said because it's simple they can just follow a rule longevity to me is like are you health well that's what I'm trying to say what I'm trying to say is when your calories are low as fasting one rule makes you just fat just eat low calories uh then you tend to see Health positives like you can eat a crappy amount of like like crappy food but eat low calorie and you'll see benefits across the board generally yeah generally but then you start to see deficiencies after a while and so I can't give it a three and a half maybe a three yeah maybe three on that for for the longevity and then sustainability um you know this is a tough one because it's one rule and so people like it uh as as a result and it's more flexible in terms of what you can eat so that kind of makes me want to give it like a three for sustainability yeah yeah no I would I would have done two on longevity three on sustainability but you can you can push me to this I'm kind of with you on that I think it has like a shelf life in terms of like you know the longevity of it if we had easy to do if we had a category for spiritual health which most people don't look at diets that way fasting is best because there is a that's what it's made for it's made for that so now of the diets of the five that we went through I think we're probably all in agreement that paleo as described was the best one it looks the best if I had to give a diet which I never did with my clients I did in the early days when I was dumb but really the diets became very individualized well even if you said you can modify it I think that makes a lot of sense to use as your scaffolding I think it's the close all of us are the closest to that even personally not R in there not only this is what we probably uh recommended or utilize with our own clients it's what we how we personally eat is something now I think it is important to discuss this since we're here with this it's just I don't think any of us agree uh on any diets I think that what you should for longevity I almost I give them all low scores so what I used to like to do with clients is I used to like to take them through all of these things yeah use a lot of information you yeah and I used to love to teach them then I would and then I would get feedback from them what they felt what they noticed what they liked what they didn't like and then and then from that we would we would create what I thought was the best diet for them right it's like they would tell me oh man I when I was on vegan I just my Energy felt better this felt better that oh my digestion okay it's probably the fiber and the greens we were getting so let's make sure we make we go after stuff like that man when we were doing paleo I felt like we I was just putting on muscle and I was building oh well that was because of all that high protein we got to make sure we do that I like yeah but then I was running that one I felt like I had the Mediterranean had more energy well yeah it's cuz we're getting way more carbohydrates and stuff that were in so it's like teaching the client what they're noticing and feeling from each diet and why those why they've worked or why they have so much uh you know popularity and then learning how to build that around the individual is really what's going to be sustainable otherwise almost all diets fail that's right all almost all diets fall in that category of 80% of people fall off uh after a few months the January special is here we have four workout program bundles the new to weightlifting bundle the body transformation bundle the new year extreme intensity bundle and the body transformation bundle 2.0 every single one of those workout program bundles is $300 off retail it's massive sale if you're interested go to maps january. comom all right back to the show our first question is what is the worst diet you have ever heard of oh okay the worst there's a lot of bad ones there's a lot of bades there's a cage diet there's the pizza diet celery diet you is there cookie diet diet oh my God okay now let me ask you guys this so let's rephrase this what's the worst diet you've actually ever had to try to work with where a client brought I've never had a client with a cabbage diet or anything like that vegan vegan was was the hardest I you know what I used to hate I used to hate this cuz we all manage the same gym at different times uh over there the 24 Fitness in South San Jose and you know across the streets the hospital and I would you're saying the the liquid only yes dude I would get people coming in who need to lose weight and the doctor and they weren't even good shakes you would look at the ingredients they were terrible I had better stuff G it was garbage and it was literally the doctor was like oh I I just drink this all day long this how I'm going lose weight and I had to work with these clients and my trainers had to work with these people yeah to and I it was just and I now and I'm battling their doctors you never want to do as a trainer that was the worst I ever had to work with yeah I could get I get behind that I still think I think the reason why that I that doesn't beat vegan for me still is because the that those people were told what to do their doctors telling them they had the shakes in the bars yeah it's what we had to work with it was like I I I had to my job then at that point was they're going to follow with the doctor saying nutrition wise I had to go when I used to get clients that would tell me hey I'm vegan I will only eat these things and then I got to figure it out and then you know what about this no don't eat that what about no won't eat that oh don't like that oh my God it's just that that was so difficult for me and that's by choice right those people are choosing that diet what you're being told by your doctor like yeah that presents its own challenges and sucks so to me vegan diet is is the worst to work with do I even need to be on a diet to lose weight no but you you do need to reduce calor change your diet typically yeah right but you don't need to be on a diet I mean we just talked about a bunch of popular diets but the the truth is um if you if you start to make small changes and move towards Better Health eating more protein avoiding heavily processed foods you know paying attention to how food affects your digestion not eating because you're stressed or because you're anxious or because whatever but rather just because you're actually hungry um like if you start to make small changes over time then you'll have a sustainable individualized style diet now also consider this whatever works for you now may not work for you all the time because your body changes your lifestyle changes and circumstances change so learning these things about yourself super important I want to I want to write I want to create a diet called the eat more diet and the way it works is that and it's just it's like I started to teach my clients later on which is I would track their food and see what they were doing on a normal not being good show me your Snickers bars and ice cream and McDonald All the Above and then from there uh the way I would coach them is I would add to their diet I would go after food so I would love to write a diet that's called like the eat more diet and it's based off of a assessing where you're at and then seeing Oh you undereat fiber go eat more of this oh you don't get enough protein go eat more of this and teaching people to go after the foods that their body needs nutritionally or to support whatever their goal is whether it's performance or building muscle and teach them how to go after nutritious foods that are supporting their goals versus diets that are all which are traditionally centered around restricting and taking away next question what's just one thing I can do with my diet that will have a really big impact okay so historically yeah historically this just the one thing that I I could have my clients do that had the most benefit the biggest impact would be just avoid heavily processed foods avoid ultr processed foods foods that are in boxes and wrappers lots of ingredients stick to whole natural foods and let's just start there and on average okay on average my clients would lose between 10 to 15 pounds of body fat from that alone literally just that alone and then we would do other things afterwards but just doing that alone it worked and they would always come to me and say I don't know why I'm losing weight I feel like I'm eating so much food and that's because those Ultra processed foods that make you overeat when you cut them out you automatically cut your calories you automatically increase things like protein intake just from doing that alone yeah I would I would either say that or high protein yeah CU people going after high protein it's really hard to overeat when you when you're hitting high protein uh food so but the processed foods I think we're all on the same page limiting that is like factor and it gives them still lots of flexibility on what they can choose to eat and everything just eliminating the processed foods but that or go after high protein those two things tend to be number one number two tips for me in fact those two tips by themselves and no other will handle like 80 to 90% of your results for most people all right I know you like that episode if you did check this one out 30% body fat for men this is way too high is actually a bit high for women as well so in today's episode we're talking about how you can go from 30 to 10 what is 10% body fat this is when you have a visible sixpack can you go from 30 to 10% yes it's possible but not if you guess along the way so we're going to talk about how you can do that in today's episode now there's a huge range right of like body types some people can run uh a little bit heavier uh and or a little bit higher body