
Do You Stay This Lean Year Round?
“Do you stay this lean year around?”
I’ve gotten asked this question and I want to set the record straight…
Yes and no.
Like any person, my motivation, my goals, my schedule and life all evolve. So there is an ebb and flow.
You can see in my videos shifts leaner and less lean at different times of year and even as I experiment with different techniques and macros.
BUT over the years, I’ve gotten leaner and stayed leaner.
It’s not from more discipline. Or better perfection.
It’s actually from trying to work less hard and instead constantly seek to evolve and meet myself where I’m at for balance.
I’ve focused on consistency with that long-term viewpoint.
And the longer you maintain, the easier it gets.
So what I’m doing now, isn’t what I did to start maintaining. And it’s not even what I did to get to this point.
What you do to reach your goal is not what you do to maintain it, but you also can’t go back to old habits.

I mention this because too often we copy just what someone who’s been maintaining their goal is doing over starting back at the beginning of the journey.
We miss all the steps that built to this point and don’t recognize how long it takes to make habit changes and have those changes stick.
That’s why I want to share the 3 fundamental facts I’ve learned that will help you stop repeating the yo-yo dieting cycle and maintain your results consistently forever.
And the first fact is that true and lasting changes DON’T always feel sustainable to start.
Because guess what?
They aren’t what you do forever!
It takes 3–4 months to build a habit. You’re practicing till you get it right.
Then it takes 16–18 months to build a lifestyle. You’re practicing till you can’t get it wrong.
Finally, it takes 3–4 years to transform your identity. You’re practicing till it’s part of who you are!
Do you remember learning to brush your teeth daily?
Potentially not at this point, BUT at some time, you had to be reminded to do it. It didn’t feel sustainable.
Thankfully we are parented into that habit and have no choice in most cases.
And at sometime it just becomes so routine and a part of our environment, we just keep doing it.
It is a boring basic we don’t even notice.
Over time, other lifestyle changes become that way too.
You may not always when you’re tired WANT to brush your teeth, but you do.
Over time, those other healthy eating and training practices will become the same way but we have to recognize they won’t feel that way to start.
Because what we do to lose fat or gain muscle may be more intensive than what we have to do to maintain it, especially the longer we’ve been at that point.
I have way more food flexibility and workout freedom now than I did when I first got leaner because my body now wants to STAY at this set point.
Just like your body doesn’t want to lose right now because it wants to stay at its current set point!
This evolution is also really fundamental fact number 2 is…
Maintaining and building a lifestyle isn’t a set it and forget it thing.
You aren’t doing one thing forever.
Have you ever started a new program and thought some version of, “This is amazing! It can be a lifestyle!”
Only to then become frustrated with yourself and feel like you just don’t have the willpower to see results when you can’t ultimately maintain it?
This is because one thing doesn’t work forever. And we should be evolving our habits over not only the years but the course of the seasons.
Your lifestyle probably looks different right at the start of the New Year than it does during the Summer or even the Holidays.
Family obligations, work and travel may impact different seasons in different ways.
Your 6 day a week training schedule that is perfect from January till even June may not fit with your Summer vacation plans or all of the Holiday fun.
Yet so often we try to enforce the same standards on ourselves all year around and this is ultimately what sabotages us.
Instead, seek to meet yourself where you are at.
Embrace evolution in those habits to keep doing something.
Because what may feel like doing less is often the consistency we need to keep moving forward.
It’s also often a lot MORE than we would have done otherwise.
Too often when we can’t do everything perfectly, we do nothing.
And that nothing is what creates the starting over again in the New Year cycle.
With making changes don’t think that the thing you start has to be THE THING. Honestly, that probably means you’re falling for another fad you’ll fall off of.
Instead approach making changes like getting to design your dream home.
Create a solid foundation and structure learning about the fundamentals and boring basics.
Then see those fun adjustments in moves or foods you include or even exact training schedule and macros as the decorations you get to put in your house.
Those may evolve BUT the house structure, focusing on tracking your food and a workout progression, will be that outline you can adjust within to always be moving forward!
And third and final fact…and probably hardest of them all to embrace is that…
Mindset matters most.
There is no perfect macro ratio. No magic workout plan.
And over the course of your life, you’re going to use a variety of both as you not only have fun, experiment but also work toward different specific goals and focuses while working to build your leanest, strongest body at every age.
What matters is your mindset behind everything.
Because so often it isn’t that we don’t have the tools or tactics…
It’s that we sabotage ourselves with unrealistic expectations – wanting results too fast, making ourselves feel guilty for not being perfect or trying to force somebody else’s ideals on ourselves.
Own who you are. Own what you want.
Be true to your goals and also realize that mistakes will ALWAYS happen.
The call of our old identities, that emotional eating pattern you’d thought you’d broken…Will always pop back up and at times we least expect it.
The more we have the mindset we will always have ebbs and flows, the more we will keep moving forward through it all.
And that consistency is what keeps us rocking those results.
So even as you start your journey toward your goals, realize your goal isn’t to avoid breakdowns or failures or setbacks.
It’s to speed up the time it takes you to get back on track.
The quicker we notice we took a wrong turn and turn back, the faster we ultimately get to our destination.
So as you work to adjust your diet to fuel your goals and push hard in your workouts, make sure you’re working on your mindset and belief in yourself as well.
Make sure you’re not giving up each time you hit the hard.
Even seek to reframe those times you want to quit as even more reason to keep going.
Because often the simple fact that we have given up at that same point in the past is why we’ve been stuck.
Now I know you were hoping for some magic move or macro ratio in this video, but these are 3 simple fundamental facts that yield results.
There isn’t one magic thing.
It’s meeting ourselves where we are at and assess what we need at different points in our journey to keep moving forward.
It’s our ability to pause and reflect on how things are going and then find a way to move forward no matter what that is truly key!
Stop trying to out exercise or out diet time.
Instead realize this is a forever process!
And if you are just starting out and need where to start to adjust your diet, check out my video – The Most Annoying Nutrition Tips ( 7 Things That Actually Work) next.