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Weight Loss Advice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hG617JZNo0

This video outlines an evidence-based, 30-day protocol for eliminating visceral fat, the most dangerous type of fat stored around internal organs. The creator, Dan Go, emphasizes that this approach prioritizes smarter habits over excessive cardio or relying on willpower alone.

Core Protocol Steps:

  1. Eliminate Alcohol: (0:35 - 1:35) Alcohol causes inflammation and elevates cortisol, making the body prioritize burning alcohol over stored fat.
  2. Avoid Processed Foods: (1:35 - 2:23) For 30 days, eliminate fast and packaged foods to stop intake of inflammatory, lab-created ingredients.
  3. Protein-Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF): (2:23 - 3:46) A strict, two-week reset focused on high protein (1–1.2g per pound of goal weight), minimal carbs (approx. 25g/day), and low-fat intake.
  4. Optimized Mediterranean Diet: (3:46 - 4:46) After the initial two weeks, shift to a moderate calorie deficit focusing on anti-inflammatory foods, particularly those high in polyphenols (blueberries, fatty fish, olive oil).
  5. Compress Eating Window: (4:46 - 5:35) Stop eating 3–5 hours before bed and prioritize a high-protein, high-fiber breakfast (40g protein/5–10g fiber) to regulate hunger.
  6. Training Program: (5:35 - 8:36)
    • Strength Training: The "2X Method"—full body, 3x per week, 2 sets per exercise taken close to failure with 3 minutes of rest.
    • Shadow Movement: Maintain 7,000–10,000 steps daily using "shadow movement" (e.g., walking during non-typing work).
    • Sprint Session: Once weekly, perform 10 minutes of biking with high-intensity 20-second sprints.
  7. Sleep Hygiene: (8:36 - 9:24) Focus on the single biggest "bottleneck" in your environment, routine, or timing, rather than trying to fix everything at once.
  8. Track Progress: (9:24 - 11:37) Track your waist-to-height ratio (aim for under 0.5) using a tape measure around your navel, as this is a more accurate indicator of visceral fat loss than scale weight.

Introduction

If I only had 30 days to eliminate visceral fat from my body, I wouldn't do hours of cardio. I wouldn't just focus on calories, and I definitely would not rely on discipline and willpower. Instead, I put my focus on avoiding the things that make visceral fat worse. And using a simple evidence-based protocol that's been shown to reduce visceral fat in a matter of weeks, and the last one is the one that almost no one does. It worked amazing for Saurin. Four weeks in, his visceral fat had actually been dropped in half. 16 weeks later, he was down 43 lbs with most of his dangerous fat gone. Now, he didn't do anything exotic. He just worked smarter, not harder. (0:00 - 0:35)

Step #1: Avoid Alcohol

So, the very first thing we need to avoid is alcohol. For the next 30 days, we're not going to drink, not even a sip. And we're going to do this for two reasons. Alcohol raises inflammation and it also raises cortisol. Both of which push your body to store fat around your organs. And it's not a coincidence why they call it a beer belly. Also, alcohol is negative calories. Your body treats it like a literal poison. So it drops everything and burns the alcohol off first. Meaning every single thing that you ate last night is standing in line waiting to be burned. And if you're drinking three or four nights a week, that's actually most of the week. And this is actually what held up Saurin from losing the visceral fat in the first place. He had three or four client dinners a week. He had wine at every single one of them. He wasn't eating badly, but he was drinking his way out of every bit of progress he made during the day. And once he pulled this one lever, the visceral fat started to come off as well as inches off his belly. But the best part about it was the fact that he was talking about waking up every single morning feeling like a million bucks. (0:35 - 1:35)

Step #2: Avoid Fast and Packaged Foods

Now, the second thing to avoid is going to be fast foods and packaged foods. And I want to be clear about this because this isn't about eating clean for the rest of your life because 30 days is actually quite a short runway. This means that you don't have room for foods that were built in the lab that were literally designed to make you eat past the point that you are full while also causing inflammation. What we want to do, at least with this part, is to create the right environment for visceral fat to be safely eliminated. And that's why we avoid these two things for the next 30 days. And quick thing before the next step, because the next one does a lot of the heavy lifting, and I want you to have it written down before you start. We have the whole protocol as a free guide. All of these steps and all the exact numbers, everything is going to be on the guide. Comment the word lean and I'll send it to you. (1:35 - 2:20)

Step #3: Protein Sparing Modified Fast

Now that we know what to avoid, here is what we are going to lean into. With most of our clients who want to lose visceral fat, we start with a diet that's called a protein sparing modified fast. It is a short aggressive reset and it's only done for 2 weeks and there are three rules. So carbs are minimal. We're aiming for about 25 g per day and we're mostly getting these from the vegetables that we're eating. The only fat that you're going to eat is going to be the fat that's attached to your protein. And even with your protein, we're going to be aiming for fairly lean meats. And when it comes to protein, we're going to be aiming for 1 to 1.2 g of protein per pound of goal body weight. So a 200lb guy who wants to weigh 170 lb is going to eat anywhere between 170 to 204 g of protein per day. Some of our clients drop a good 15 lbs within these two weeks just by doing this diet. And I tell every single one of them the same thing up front. A good chunk of the first week is going to be water and glycogen loss. So, it's not going to be all fat. And I say this on day one because I don't want that number to lie to you later because the guy who thinks he's lost 15 lbs of all fat in the first couple of weeks is actually the guy who kind of quits after week three when it starts slowing down. Now, two things before you try this. This is actually built for someone who carries a significant amount of weight. If you're already lean or if you're trying to get leaner, this is probably not your tool. If you're on blood pressure medications or blood sugar medications, talk to your doctor before you start. When you eat like this, your numbers can move fast and your dosing may need to change with them. After 2 weeks, you're out and then you're moving on to the next step. (2:20 - 3:45)

Step #4: Optimized Mediterranean Diet

So, the biggest question we got asked is, what do we do after these two weeks? Well, we would head into a moderate calorie deficit around 500 calories per day. And we want to build our diet around foods that lower inflammation. And we use something that's called an optimized Mediterranean diet. And I talked about it on this video over here. And this is considered to be a normal Mediterranean diet with fatty fish, olive oil, and vegetables loaded with plant compounds called polyphenols. So the polyphenol piece is actually the part that a lot of people skip, but it could be one of the most important steps, especially for your visceral fat. So in a trial called direct plus, a group eating the polyphenol heavy version cut their visceral fat by 14%, while the group that just followed a standard healthy eating diet cut it by 4%. And this tells you something important. Visceral fat doesn't just respond to how much food you eat. It responds to the quality of foods that you eat. So, we're building our plates around fatty fish, dark leafy greens, extra virgin olive oil, blueberries, raspberries, any berries, green tea, herbs, and spices. And we want to be generous with these because that is free polyphenols at every single meal. (3:46 - 4:45)

Step #5: Eating Window Compression

Now, the next step is to compress our eating window. And it comes with a few simple guardrails. So, the first one is going to be we're going to stop eating around 3 to 5 hours before going to sleep. So, when you eat late, it affects your sleep quality and it can also raise your cortisol. And when people eat at night, they usually make horrible food decisions. Guard rail number two is going to be starting the day with a high protein, high-fiber meal. And I'm a big fan of this meal over here. I call it glop. And you can check out that video over here. Make sure you have at least 40 g of protein, at least 5 to 10 g of fiber within 1 to two hours of waking. This is going to help you regulate your hunger, your appetite, and your energy throughout the day. And this final one is optional, but recommended. If you need a middle meal, put it between breakfast and dinner. And I usually find that with clients who skip the lunch, it actually increases hunger and appetite later in the day. So we want to put something in the middle to help regulate that. (4:46 - 5:34)

Step #6: Training Program

Now we get into the training program and there are three parts of this and all three are required. So when we're lifting, we're going to be lifting at least three times per week. We're doing full body exercises. We're doing two sets per exercise with 3 minutes of rest between the sets. And this is what I call the 2X method. It is low volume, but every major muscle group is going to be hit at least twice per week. And I did a video of this breaking this down. You can check it out over here. So, when we do two sets, a lot of people come back to me and say, "Oh, I think the volume's a little bit too low or and I don't think I'm going to be gaining muscle out of this." But here's the thing. When you're eating in a deficit, people don't understand that there is this balance we have to do between the work that we do and our recovery. So, if you're doing five sets of everything, especially in a calorie deficit, it's just going to make you more sore and also hungrier, and you're not going to look forward to even going to the gym in the first place. And I found that lifting two sets with every exercise as close to failure as possible reduces the time that you spend in the gym, but also keeps you fresh from one workout to another. And will we be able to build muscle on a low volume plan? Well, the evidence is actually pointing to yes, you can. As long as we take our sets close to failure, what we're doing is we're building metabolic stress. And this is what's going to help us retain, if not build a little muscle while we're on this plan. And the next part of the training program is a mandatory non-negotiable of getting 7,000 to 10,000 steps every single day. And if you really want to ramp up that loss, we're going to do 12,000 to 15,000 steps per day. And when people hear this, they're like, "Oh, I don't have enough time for this." But what if I told you you don't need more time? When we advise clients to add these steps in, we want to do it over activities they're already doing. And we call this shadow movement. This means getting a treadmill desk for your office. It means doing walking meetings. It means that we want to get our shallow work done while our feet are getting steps in. So, anything that doesn't require you to type, you can do it while walking. And actually, a little cheat code that I use is this thing called Whisper Flow, where I just speak into my computer and it does the typing for me. And when you do shadow movement, you're going to find that it's super easy to get 7,000 to 10,000 steps inside a normal workday without adding a single minute to your calendar. Now, the third part of training is going to be a short sprint session. And you're going to do this once per week. And I like to do a version that's called reh. So it's 10 easy minutes on the bike with two allout 20 second sprints within those 10 minutes and then we can scale from there. So when I say all out, I mean all out. So the cue I like to tell my clients is to pedal or run so fast that you feel like a bear is chasing you. And if you can hold a conversation during that sprint, you're not working hard enough. And also, if you are overweight, I would recommend doing this on the bike and not running because when you are running, you are carrying extra weight. And when you're sprinting on the pavement, it's just going to hammer your knees and joints. You have to realize that every pound that you're overweight adds 4 lb of pressure to your knees. 6 lb of pressure to your hips. The bike actually gives you the same intensity with none of the impact. And usually the days that I do this, I want to put it on a day that doesn't interfere with my lifting, and that's usually Saturdays. (5:35 - 8:35)

Step #7: Sleep Bottleneck

Now, step number seven is to fix your sleep bottleneck. And what I mean by this is to not try to fix everything about your sleep right now. You're just going to do four things really badly instead of one thing. Well, I want you to focus on the one bottleneck that is doing the most damage and to focus on removing that. And I use three questions to find this. So, when it comes to your environment, is your room actually dark, cool, and quiet? If you're sleeping with someone else, are you sharing covers? Is your phone in there with you? Because it shouldn't. When it comes to routine, do you actually have a windown routine that you can repeat, or do you go from the laptop to the pillow in 90 seconds? When it comes to timing, are you sleeping and waking up at roughly the same times, even on the weekends? Nine times out of 10, one of these three is doing the most damage, and you probably already know which one it is. Fix that one for the next 30 days before you buy yourself a ring, a mattress, or a supplement. (8:36 - 9:23)

Step #8: Tracking Visceral Fat

Now, the final step is to track your visceral fat because what you measure is what you manage. So, visceral fat is actually invisible. You can't see it. you can't pinch it, which also means that when you lose a real amount of it, the scale can also barely move. And that's the point when people quit on something that's actually working. So, the number I want you to track is going to be your waistline measurement around your NAVL at least once per week. We're going to do this first thing in the morning before you eat, after you've gone to the bathroom, and make sure you're not sucking it in. Okay. Now, when you get that number, you're going to divide that number by your height in the same units. And you want to be under.5. If you're six feet tall, you want your waistline to be under 36 inches. This is called the waist to height ratio. It's free. It only takes 30 seconds. And if I could only keep one measurement, this would actually be the one I would keep. If you want to take this a step further, you can get a DEXA scan. Just make sure that the one that you book actually comes with a visceral fat reading because not a lot of them do. And when it comes to the gold standard of measuring visceral fat, it's going to be the MRI, but it's quite expensive, harder to book, and unnecessary. Over 30 days, that waistline number is going to be the one that matters the most. Even if the scale has stalled and your waistline is shrinking, you are still winning the game. Now, you might be thinking, "Hey, is 30 days enough time?" And I used to believe that losing fat fast meant that you would gain it back just as fast and that slow and steady was the responsible way to do it. Well, I was wrong. Researchers actually put fast weight loss and slow weight loss headto-head, and the amount of people who gained it back afterwards were almost identical. But here's what wasn't identical. 80% of the fast fat loss group had actually hit the target. In the slow weight loss group, it was only 50%. And something that I've learned from coaching thousands of clients over the past 20 years is that visceral fat comes off at the front end of a diet. The first few weeks are actually when you get your biggest returns and most people waste that window. So speed is not the enemy that most people think it is. Doing it without a plan for what comes next is the real enemy. So if you really want to lose visceral fat, especially over the next 30 days, run this protocol. I promise your future self is going to thank you. And by the way, you might be wondering how to do the protein sparing modified fast. I did an entire video on it. You can check it out over here. See you on the video. (9:24 - 11:37)