Most fat-loss plans look fine on paper, fall apart in real life, and leave you (or your clients) lighter on the scale but smaller, weaker, and more tired than you should be.
This free guide shows you the seven programming rules I use to build fat-loss phases that protect muscle and respect recovery instead of burning people into the ground.
Inside this free guide you’ll learn…
Why strength training is the “main event” in any serious fat‑loss phase (and how cardio fits around it, not against it)
How to structure weeks and phases so clients get leaner and stronger instead of just exhausted
How to combine resistance training, Zone 2, and intervals without crushing recovery
How to think about energy availability and RED‑S in practical programming terms
A simple weekly pattern for intermittent restriction that works with physiology, not against it
When advanced tools (keto, fasting, TRE, low‑carb, etc.) help, and when they just create chaos
The recovery and sleep practices that quietly decide whether a fat‑loss phase succeeds or stalls
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Free PDF. No spam. Just evidence‑based training principles you can actually use.
If you coach people through fat loss, or you program for yourself, you’ve probably seen the same pattern: “hard” 8–12 week plans that produce dramatic photos and then quietly unravel.
Coaches
Who want a clear, defensible framework for fat-loss programming they can explain to clients and colleagues.
Serious Lifters
Who are done with trends and want principles they can trust across decades, not months.
Serious Lifters
Who are done with trends and want principles they can trust across decades, not months.
Serious Lifters
Who are done with trends and want principles they can trust across decades, not months.
There are no “midlife hacks” or secret hormone protocols in here.
The physics of fat loss do not change with age or gender. What changes is your context: sleep, stress, recovery, injury history, and schedule.
These seven rules respect that reality without pretending every demographic needs a completely different set of laws.
Most people don’t have a problem finding fat‑loss information. They have a problem turning that information into a program that:
Preserves or builds muscle as fat comes off
Avoids living in chronic low energy availability and the RED‑S mess that comes with it
Fits inside a normal week with work, family, and real‑world stress
Still works after the first 4–8 weeks, when the excitement wears off
These seven rules are the checklist I return to whenever I design or audit a fat‑loss phase.
They don’t replace thinking. They focus it.
Once you see fat loss through these lenses, it becomes far easier to spot why a plan failed and what needs to change next time.
I’ve spent more than thirty years at the intersection of exercise science and hands‑on coaching.
Over that time I’ve:
Written more than 72,000 training programs
Coached clients from their teens into their 90s
Worked with athletes across 33 different sports, including Olympic and Paralympic competition
Completed a PhD in Exercise and Sport Science
Continued to read 20–30 new research papers every week while still coaching on the gym floor three days a week
This guide condenses the programming rules I rely on when I’m responsible for a real human body in front of me, not a theory on a whiteboard.
If you want to go deeper after reading it, you’ll see how these rules expand into a complete system inside my
Fat Loss Fundamentals course.
Enter your details and I’ll email you the PDF so you can start using these rules on your own training or with your clients this week.
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