I’ve tried a ton of things to lose body fat—from intense cardio to keto and vegetarian diets. I’ve done it all. After all that experimenting, I finally found the most effective way to lose weight that’s also flexible with what you can eat.

But before we get into that, let me give you a bit of background on the different physique phases I’ve gone through in my life.

To start, I was always a skinny guy for most of my life, from my teens to my twenties. Gaining weight was a constant struggle. Then, the pandemic hit, and with the lockdowns, I ended up eating lots of pizzas and processed food. Well, I wasn’t exactly forced to eat those things—it was just convenient.

For those struggling to gain weight, just eat a lot of junk. Maybe not processed food, because that stuff is terrible for your health, but if you want to gain weight quickly, it’s an option.

Back to the point: I ended up gaining about 15 kg. That’s a lot for my size since I’m about 5’6”. A lot of people think the pictures of me during that time are fake, or that I’m pushing my stomach out. Maybe I was a little bit, but I was still severely overweight for my height. I remember joking with my brother that I was striving for 80 kg, and I was close—I hit about 78 kg at my highest.

I went from super skinny to overweight in about 7 years, which isn’t that bad. By the time I decided to lose the body fat, I already had six years of lifting under my belt. I had a decent idea of what to do and the discipline to get it done, even with all the extra weight.

So, here’s where the fat loss journey begins.

Cardio

Even though I knew diet was more important than intense cardio, I started with intense cardio anyway. Why? I’m not sure. Maybe I just like doing unnecessarily hard things.

I quickly realized it wasn’t that effective because my diet was still terrible. Every time I finished a hard cardio session, I’d treat myself to some really unhealthy, high-calorie foods. I can’t remember exactly what they were, but I know they were high in calories.

Long story short, my weight loss was almost nonexistent. I was doing 40-minute hill sprints daily, but I completely neutralized my efforts by eating high-calorie junk.

The Diet Arc

After that soul-sucking cardio phase, I finally surrendered to the advice I kept hearing online: diet first. So, I stopped the intense cardio and focused solely on my diet.

Little did I know how big the diet space is… There are countless different diets to choose from and many strategies to minimize calorie intake.

As I mentioned earlier, I tried various diets—keto (which is super difficult to do correctly) and vegetarianism (which made it hard to hit my protein goals). I also experimented with strategies like one meal a day, meal prepping, and intermittent fasting. I’m sure I tried more, but those are the ones I remember.

My conclusion? It doesn’t matter what diet you choose. A few strategies actually work and are sustainable.

The Secret Formula

So, what’s the secret formula? It consists of three parts: meal prepping, walking, and intermittent fasting.

How does this formula work?

Let’s start by understanding when weight loss occurs. It happens when you’re in a calorie deficit—burning more calories than you consume.

So, we need to tackle two things: the burning part and the consuming part of the equation.

The Consuming Part

For this, we’ll use meal preps in combination with intermittent fasting.

What is intermittent fasting? It has a whole lore and following online, and it can seem complicated, but it’s really not. Intermittent fasting just means reducing your feeding window. For example, if your first meal is at 8 AM and your last meal is at 7 PM, you have an 11-hour eating window and a 13-hour fasting period.

With intermittent fasting, you want to shorten that eating window. The goal is to push your first meal as far as possible, ideally to around 12 PM or 1 PM. It seems hard at first, but if you gradually push it back an hour every week or so, it becomes manageable.

Why do this? To consume less throughout the day. Of course, you don’t want to snack a lot during your eating window; otherwise, the fasting will be pointless.

This is where meal prep comes into play. By delaying your first meal, you’ll get hungry. Naturally.

When you finally eat, make it something super low in calories but filling and high in protein. This helps create a calorie buffer, so you don’t have to count every calorie at dinner. Plus, you’ll have already consumed a lot of protein, so you won’t need to stress about hitting your protein goals later.

What Meal Should You Eat?

That’s for you to figure out, as it’s highly personal. My tip is to find your favorite protein source and vegetables. Cook your meals for the next five days over the weekend.

To recap the consuming part of the formula:

1. Delay your first meal. Yes, this means skipping breakfast. From my experience, you don’t really need breakfast to perform well.
2. Eat a low-calorie, high-protein meal as your first meal. This will keep you full and load up your protein intake, allowing more flexibility with what you eat later.

The Burning Part

This one’s simple: work out and walk.

That’s it.

If you don’t know what workouts to follow, I have one on the fundamentals, but honestly, it doesn’t matter what you choose as long as you’re pushing yourself in the gym and lifting weights.

For cardio, just walk. Walking gives you the best bang for your buck in terms of cardio. Aim for 10,000 steps a day, or as close as you can get. If you can do more, go for it—there’s no harm in walking more.

But Isn’t This Strategy Too Simple?

Yeah, it is. And isn’t that awesome? The simpler it is, the easier it is to stick with. Not only is this strategy simple, but it’s also super effective.

The internet makes weight loss seem way more complicated than it needs to be. At the end of the day, it’s all about being in a calorie deficit and moving more. That’s all.