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Introduction
If you’re reading this right now, and fat loss is something you’ve
struggled with in the past, this guide is about to make life MUCH
easier for you.

Fat loss is a subject of constant interest and for good reason.

Approximately ¾ of Americans are overweight or obese. Across the
Western World and the Developing world, diseases related to excess
fat are on the rise.

On the individual level, most people want and need to lose fat. Fat
loss improves your physiological health, hormonally and
metabolically. When you sort out those three areas, your physique
improves. That is on the level of the body.

On the level of the mind, fat loss is a mental reformation of

completely changing your beliefs about who you are to the world,
how you treat yourself, and changing the dynamic of what you
consume.

If you properly train and change your mentality and physicality, you
wouldn’t have to worry about keeping "fat off." Fat will never even
appear on you.

And I mean that sincerely.

The whole conceptualization of ‘keeping fat at bay’ is ridiculous. If

your mental and physical health is optimized, the prospect of getting
fat is almost non-existent. You would have to willfully and
conscientiously try to destroy your health. Let's get started….

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How To Lose Fat, In 600 Words
I want to talk about losing fat first, as this is where most questions
come from.

There are 2 major strategies to lose fat:

Strategy #1:
Start improving food choices, and do not focus on calories
Diets like paleo, carnivore, and keto are fundamentally based on
changing what you eat and not focusing much on how much you eat.

This strategy appeals to people who don’t want to quantify their

eating. And it works for many people. To get started, I’d suggest
reading the book Deep Nutrition. This will teach you everything you
need to know about ‘What to eat.’

How to Keep Progress Going On With This Strategy?

● Eat more protein
● Decrease sugar and carb consumption
● Avoid processed food
● Control portion sizes
● Try to go to bed hungry each day. It indicates that you're losing
body fat.

Pros - Cleaning up your eating can yield fat loss and changes in body
composition.

Cons - If you're not tracking anything, you can still have fat loss stall
out, as calories and overall energy intake still matter. These diets are
not always the magic bullet people expect them to be.

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Strategy #2:
Start counting macros and calories and worry about food
choices later.
The reality is that most people have no understanding of how food,
nutrition, and thermodynamics work. If that is you, I suggest you read
The Poor Misunderstood Calorie.

Start by calculating your maintenance calories and eating that every

day for 2 weeks to establish a baseline.Then reduce that number by
about 500 calories. You WILL lose weight. As weight loss stalls, reduce
daily intake by 100-300 calories.

How to Keep Progress Going

● Eat more protein. Ideally, it should be 1-1.25 grams per lb body
weight. This will feel more satiated.
● Start eating at maintenance, then reduce calories by cutting
either carbs or fats.
● Learn how to space out your calories to minimize hunger.

Pros - You start to lose weight consistently.

Cons - This still doesn't teach you what ‘healthy’ nutrition is, and food
choice and nutrient timing do matter regarding sustainability.

Once you've selected your approach:

Track Bodyweight Daily in the Morning.

Real talk: you need an objective measurement to know that the

changes you make are having an effect. Weigh yourself daily. Once a
week, take a front, side, and back photo. Photos don't lie. These are
your Lead Indicators that you are doing something right.

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Having Selected Your Approach, Let’s
Talk Lagging Outcomes
You want to achieve 1lb of weight loss, which means your weight
goes down a lb each week. Some weeks it might be less or more, but
1lb is sustainable and reasonable.

Caveat: The more obese you are, the more you lose each week, at
least initially. The closer you reach a normal BMI, the slower your
weight loss will get.

How to Adjust?
Whatever approach you use, you will eventually need to:

A. Count calories, even if you have cleaned up your eating

B. Change your food choices. Otherwise, it’s not sustainable to
continue cutting calories
C. Be consistent with WHEN you eat. Meal timing matters because
your body habituates its hunger.

How Long Should You Diet For?

Now the time you diet depends entirely on how much fat you want to
lose. If you are 100 lbs overweight, that can take up to a year.

Losing 20 lbs could be accomplished in 2-3 months.

FYI: 1lb weekly loss is better than 2 lbs or more.

Faster is not better.

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What happens when Fat Loss Plateaus?
1. Take a week off from dieting and eat normally

2. Take a weekend off from dieting and eat normally

3. Cut more calories and food intake. You probably need a bigger
deficit.

4. Once you’ve reached a healthier weight, you resume a

maintenance level of calories.

My Accelerated Fat Loss 5.0 program is

designed to deliver 1-2lbs of Fat Loss
weekly.
It is NOT a long-term plan, but an example of how to diet ‘hard but
smart.

In This Program, You Will Discover:

● The thermogenic power of high protein intake and why fitness

models and physique athletes can stay lean year around

● A proven method that’s been used for decades to whip

actors into shape for films roles and is backed by clinical
science

● 6 things that will help you to consistently drop 1-2lbs of fat a

week, every week for 8-12 weeks.

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● How lifting weights preserves muscle mass while keeping
metabolism continuously elevated

● How total body training preserves muscle tissue and keeps

metabolism elevated while dieting

● The most straightforward workout program you will ever see

anywhere that will give you results you won't find anywhere
else.

● Exact guidelines of what and how much to eat.

Get your copy here.

Now unto the 50 facts…

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50 Facts And Strategies
1
Fatloss sells. It sells pills, wraps, tea, detoxes, magic workouts, and a
bunch of other silly shit. It sells emails too. Fat loss emails always get
me the highest opening rate. Anything to do with fat loss, people are
hooked. Everyone is trying to lose fat, everyone is failing. You failing
over and over is supplement manufacturers gain– for a program that
guarantees fat loss IF YOU FOLLOW IT, invest in the 60-Day
Accelerated Fat Loss Program. It works.

2
“You are fat because you eat too much.”

Do not buy into the bullshit. There are no secrets. Fat loss is not
only your hormones, and it is not only your genetics. Does it affect
those things? Yes, it does. Is it affected by them? Absolutely. The crux
of the issue is that you’re overeating beyond what your body needs.
For as long as you are overweight, this is a self-evident truth.

3
If you are over 20 pounds overweight, you likely have high
estrogen, skewed leptin levels, lowered testosterone levels, and
insulin resistance. What’s that all mean? Your hormones are
contributing to you being overweight and/or obese, and you need to
fix them by way of dietary changes. This is why fat loss is NOT only
calories. Your biochemistry is responsible for how your body
metabolizes food, stores and burns fat. I am going to make this point
more than once. You NEED TO EDUCATE yourself on your own

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biology and make appropriate food choices. A high protein,
moderate to high fat, low carb, zero to deficient sugar diet will
probably be your best strategy. ‘Everything in moderation’ is not
going to be a good strategy. You need to fix your hormonal health for
the long term.

4
Being overweight/obese changes your genetics for the worse. A
large part of your genetic code is malleable (epigenetics), and being
obese leads to maladaptive adaptations in your body that are then
passed on to your offspring. Not only are you changing your genetics
in real time to eventually get multiple diseases (which will be your
fault), you’re negatively changing the genetics of your eggs or sperm.
You will have fewer healthy children as a result.

5
Fat loss requires an energy deficit. This means you will need to eat
less food than you currently consume. Period. This is unequivocal.
You cannot diet forever, but you WILL need to diet for some period of
time. There are many ways of doing this, some require counting
calories, others don’t. Regardless, an energy deficit is happening on
some level.

6
Fat Loss versus Weight Loss. You need to understand the
difference. Fat loss is to lose fat cells specifically. This is what you
want to diet for. Weight loss combines losing fat, body water, and
muscle. You do NOT want to lose muscle. To avoid muscle loss, you
must eat an adequate amount of protein. Having protein in every
meal is a sound strategy.

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7
There’s no such thing as a ‘perfect’ diet. Diets based on alarmism
or food demonization are lousy science. The ‘best’ diet is the one that
covers your protein, fat, and carb needs and supplies you with
sufficient micronutrients. Different kinds of diets work for different
people and different situations. Some are proven to work better and
are more reliable than others.

8
Calorie counting is not the be-all-end-all solution. However, it is a
reasonable place to start. If you are entirely ignorant of all things
nutrition and cannot understand how you are overeating. You need
to begin assessing the energy/calorie content. It is highly illuminating
and will help you make better dietary choices.

9
Learn and memorize the following terms. This will make dietary
information easier to understand.

Isocaloric = maintenance calories

Hypercaloric = Eating more calories than you burn (fat gain)
Hypocaloric = eating less than calories than you (weight loss)
Protein = 4 calories per gram
Fat = 9 calories per gram
Carbohydrates = 4 calories per gram

10
Develop awareness of when you eat, what you eat, and what
behaviors surround your eating. Begin with keeping a daily food
journal.

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11
It is not expensive to change your eating. It is expensive to diet
only if you think dieting involves special diet foods. Most people
focus on superfoods, healthy foods, and what they can and cannot
eat. That is all bullshit. It obscures the more profound, practical truth
that losing body fat requires improving metabolic and hormonal
health. Eating healthy is not expensive once you understand what
foods are healthy.

12
A good diet is based on whole foods and nutrient-rich foods. You
can tailor this list to suit your preferences, but a good diet should
begin with:

● Meat/fish/poultry/eggs

● Dairy products (only if you can digest them well. I don't

recommend dairy, as most people cannot digest it, it has a
medley of adverse health effects, and modern dairy is of low
quality. Experiment for yourself and see)

● Vegetables and tubers

● Fruits

● Whole grains

● Legumes (IF you digest them well)

● Nuts

● Healthy fat sources like olive oil, walnut oil, macadamia nut oil,
coconut oil, and avocado oil

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13
Your individual food choices are based on your metabolism. It
also depends on what digests well and how your body reacts to the
food. Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan is the absolute best
book to educate yourself on what ‘eating healthy’ means.

14
You must consume enough protein. Protein is the most critical
nutrient for healthy metabolism. Your body is made of it. Aim for 1
gram of protein per pound of bodyweight (1gm/pound of your
bodyweight). If your diet is sufficient in protein, being sustainable will
be possible.

15
Use your biofeedback. Do not eat and multitask. Eat slowly.
Understand the difference between being full and being stuffed. Pay
attention to how food digests and your energy levels afterward. Don’t
eat foods that do not digest well or crash your energy. Avoid foods
that make you feel sluggish and bloated. Eat the foods that make you
feel energetic.

16
Understand that weight loss has a hormonal component. And
the hormonal component is most important for being lean in the
long term. Your insulin, leptin levels, testosterone, estrogen, and
cortisol - ALL of these hormones influence how your body partitions
nutrients, burns and stores fat, and functions daily. Fat loss takes
time because you adjust your body's hormonal cascade. This is not
an immediate process (nothing in biology is).

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17
Lower your sugar intake. Over-consuming sugar is a common
issue, and it causes a hoard of metabolic problems. Which leads to
overeating, screwed-up hunger hormones, decreased testosterone,
increased inflammation, and contributes to obesity, diabetes 2, and
metabolic syndrome. Cutting out all added sugar alone can
dramatically change your eating and lead to fat loss.

18
Eat Protein for Every Meal. Seriously. Protein is highly satiating,
most nutritious, preventing overeating and quick energy spikes that
constantly sabotage people.

19
If you’re confused about food and nutrients, learn about macros,
micros, and calorie counting. It’s not mandatory for everyone, but
there is no denying that education is beneficial.

20
Use apps to help you be accountable and record. Fitgenie,
Myfitnesspal, Sparkpeople, FatSecret, and many other apps allow you
to measure food intake. You have the technology; don’t make
excuses for not using it.

21
If you are going to count calories, a 500-calorie deficit is a
valuable place to start. It is impossible to know precisely how many
calories you eat, and measurements are always approximate.

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22
If you count calories, then you need to establish your caloric
baseline. This means determining your metabolic rate and
determining how many calories you need daily to MAINTAIN your
body weight. Once you’ve decided that baseline, you can begin eating
in a calorie deficit.

23
You cannot be in a deficit FOREVER. You’ll need to take periodic
breaks from dieting. This is where you eat isocalorically and give your
metabolism a break from energy deprivation. It may be one day a
week or a few days every few weeks. There is no exact science to this,
as it depends on how fat you are when you begin, but a general rule
is to diet/maintain at a 2:1 ratio. If you diet hard for 6 months, take at
least 3 months off from dieting to maintain.

24
Expect to lose weight quickly in the first 3 months. 4-8 lbs (1-2 lbs
weekly), but after that, it will usually slow to about 1lb a week, and
then even 1lb every 2 weeks as you get steadily leaner. The more
obese you are, the more dramatic initial weight loss can be, but this
does not last.

25
Track your body weight daily. So long as your scale gradually
trends down over time, you are losing fat. Tracking daily can be
intimidating, but over 100, 200, and 300 days, you have objective
data demonstrating how weight loss is a trend over time, not a
day-to-day battle.

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26
The most reasonable formula for fat loss looks like this: (credit to
Mike Israetel)

● Establish an eating/calorie baseline

● Establish a calorie deficit. 500 is an excellent place to start
● Aim for 1-2lbs of fat loss a week
● When fat loss stalls completely, take two days to eat whatever
you want as much as you like (this is a refeed)
● Start dieting again but at a lower deficit than before
● Do not diet for more than 4 months. After 4 months, follow a
maintenance diet for 2 months, then resume dieting again.
Repeat this process as many times as necessary
● Always be strength training/resistance training this entire time.

27
Do NOT try to lose weight as fast as possible forever. Metabolism
does NOT like abrupt changes. Losing weight too fast for too long
results in muscle loss and causes hormonal changes that put your
body into more of a fat-storing and hungry state. It’s the same reason
why yo-yo dieting never ends.

28
Intermittent Fasting (IF) is an effective strategy that can readily
simplify dieting. With IF, your eating is chronologically restricted.
Longer fasting protocols like a 5:2 schedule also make it easy; you
usually eat 5 days a week and then don't eat anything the other 2. If
Intermittent Fasting (IF) interests you, check out this free guide.

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29
The most powerful nutrition approach I know for long-term fat
loss and for radically improving your hormonal health is the
Metabolic Blowtorch Diet. It does what it says. It's the ‘ultimate’
combination of insulin-controlled diet, fasting, specifically time
resistance training, cardio, and supplementation.

30
Remember that fat loss begins internally, not externally. The
reality of fat loss is the place you store the most of it is the last place
you’ll lose it. Don’t set yourself up for failure with false expectations.
Losing fat is like raising kids. It goes by fast, but it doesn’t seem that
much day to day. Most people do not notice dramatic changes until
the 3-month mark. Take your time.

31
There is such a thing as stubborn fat. Fat cells have different
receptor sites on them, and some get ‘turned off’ from being burnt
when you are in a calorie deficit. This does not mean that you cannot
burn stubborn fat, but it does mean that you should not have
unrealistic expectations of dropping all your belly fat, inner thigh fat,
love handles, etc. The longer you've stored fat in that area, the more
likely it is to be stubborn fat in the first place. You can help burn your
persistent fat stores through low-carb diets, fasted cardio (fasted
cardio doesn’t burn more fat, but it can help burn certain kinds of
fat), and lifting weights.

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32
Metabolism can take months and years to change. Change the
way you eat and live. Do not only diet. 80% of people that lose weight
put it back on. They lose it too fast and never fix their broken
mindset and life. Change has to be a mix of the internal and external.

33
Exercise for muscle and strength gain, do not exercise for fat
loss. Unless you are a high-level, highly active athlete, exercise alone
is not a strategy for fat loss. The increased activity makes you
hungrier and increases your metabolic rate. Use exercise to improve
your body composition by adding muscle, increasing strength, and
improving overall metabolic health.

34
Train with compound movements. Make your resistance training
effective by prioritizing strength along the fundamental patterns of
movement; push, pull, squat, deadlift, lunge, walk, and sprint.

35
Your relative bodyweight strength should increase as you lose
fat. With pushups, pullups, dips, plans, squats, lunges, situps,
crawling, and sprinting, you should get better/stronger at all of those
things. If you are not, your training is ineffective, period.

36
If time is of the essence, use intervals and HIIT training to
improve your cardio. These workouts can build muscle, strength,
endurance, and improve your metabolic health to burn more fat.

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37
Improve your cardio. Cardio is how your body handles oxygen,
which you need not to die. And it heavily influences your ability to
burn body fat. Work on both your long-endurance cardio and
short-endurance cardio. Long endurance is low intensity, and walking
is the most effective way to improve this. Short endurance is
intensity. Sprint-based workouts that use intervals improves this.

38
For simplicity's sake, going for a 15-30 minute walk daily can be
the most reasonable way to start being active. This is the most
common cardio recommendation I make for people.

39
The evidence is clear: once you become fat for a long period,
your thyroid and brain reset themselves to that higher weight. It
takes years to reset that back down to a lower weight. You must lift
weights and fix your hormonal health to get your body to reset.

40
Set GOALS. Goals are not the end-all-be-all, but they will be
milestone markers to aim for. Set strength and fat loss goals. Do
not set hard time frame goals. This is going to take as long as it takes.

41
Depending on how unhealthy you are, it will probably cost you
more to be fat and sick than to change your life. Being healthy
and lean is comparatively far cheaper.

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42
Be prepared to fail. Not every day is going to be a victory. You can
lose daily battles but still win the war. Do not major in the minor. This
will be hard, no doubt. Welcome to being a responsible adult.
Everything that happens to you is your fault. And you don’t get a
second chance when death comes for you. Own your choices.

43
Invest in the process. You may be a long way from optimized
health, but you will only achieve that through effort and knowledge
learned through practice. The process is your practice, and you must
practice daily. Health has to become your lifestyle, or it won’t work.

44
You can do things in giant leaps, you can do something in small
steps. What is better? I’ve no idea, I don’t know you. I would advise
you to be realistic in your actions. Don’t sell yourself short.

45
Radical change can work. It can work because of how much it can
improve things. Radical change can also be impractical, it's
challenging to make many changes at once. But if you can do it, do it.
Most people won’t tell you that, but sometimes abrupt shifts can be
powerful in changing your whole life for the better.

46
Lifestyle is not temporal. The way of living that makes you
unhealthy will not be the way of living that leads to better health.
Change your life permanently, not temporarily.

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47
Being overweight when you are young causes many problems.
Some of them are an enlarged heart, endocrine dysfunction, and
faster degenerative aging. If you are young reading this, unfat
yourself now. If you are a parent with an overweight child, you are
directly harming your child’s now and future health.

48
It’s not the food industry's fault. Food does not magically jump into
your mouth, you select it, chew and swallow it. It is not fast food's
responsibility to fix your health. Your supermarket is not your
personal trainer and nutritionist. Your life, your lifestyle, your choices
are all under your domain of control.

49
You may encounter the most opposition from the ones closest
to you. Either they get on board, or they get thrown overboard. You
are the sum of the 5 people you invest the most energy in. If those
people are making you unhealthy, time to make a change.

50
None of this stuff is easy, but it will still come down to Yes/No
choices. If you’ve read this whole list, you have a much better chance
of succeeding.

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Who Is Alexander J.A. Cortes?
My name is Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes.

I am a writer, dancer, personal trainer, and storyteller. I have an

obsession with the art and science of self-actualization. I believe
everything in the body and mind can be trained to be better, faster,
and stronger.

Here’s my website: https://cortes.site/

Follow me on Twitter: @AJA_Cortes

Follow me on Instagram: AJA_Cortes

Learn about my other training programs.

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