Step 1: Set up your calorie deficit

Your body fat is just stored energy.

As your body uses that energy, by draining fat cells, you get leaner and lighter as a result. If you cut off all your fat, you could actually measure the energy inside it. It would have a certain number of calories, which is what your body runs on.

Think of it like your phone battery.

If your phone runs out of charge, it dies. Same with your body. So it keeps a backup reserve just in case. That reserve is your body fat. The problem is, if you keep topping yourself up with enough calories through food, your body never has to tap the reserve. It’s like using your phone while it’s plugged in: the battery never drains, no matter how much you “use” it.

So how many calories should you eat to make sure you’re burning fat?

Everyone burns a different amount based on size, activity, age, and sex.

But here’s the good news: there’s no single perfect calorie target.

Eating anywhere from 250 to 1000+ fewer calories than you burn each day will get you losing fat.

Faster loss is harder to stick to and you’ll feel hungrier. Slower losses means fewer side effects.

Every gimme has a gotcha.

Here’s the shortcut so you don’t get overwhelmed:

• Option 1: Yse my free Fat Loss Command Center spreadsheet to calculates this for you and gives you a place to track progress.
• Option 2: Take your body weight in pounds and multiply by 15. That’s roughly what you burn per day. Multiply by 10 for the floor (about as low as you’d want to go) and by 12 for the top of your range.

So if you’re 200 lbs: you’re burning ~3000/day (200×15)

Your target range is roughly 2000 – 2400 calories per day (200×10 – 200×12)

Manageable enough to sustain for 60 days, assertive enough to actually show results.

And before you ask about your metabolism, your “exact” maintenance number, or refeeds – don’t.

I wasted years overthinking the details of my training business instead of doing the work. As long as you’re losing body weight reliably week after week, your body is tapping into its fat cells and you’re getting leaner.

Don’t worry about how lean you’ll be at the end.

Just make your goal to do the work.

What about macros?

For carbs and fats, you basically don’t need to worry about them.

The research on weight-loss diets is clear: low-carb and low-fat approaches give essentially the same results when calories match.

If you really want to get nerdy about it… The Effect of Low-Fat and Low-Carbohydrate Diets on Weight Loss and Lipid Levels: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Unless you’re going to extremes to avoid dietary fats or carbs, you’re fine.

(If you want one guardrail: keep dietary fat at least ~0.3g per pound of body weight for hormonal health.)

Protein is the one that really matters.

The gap between a low- and high-protein diet for fat loss is massive:

• > High protein keeps you fuller between meals, so you naturally eat less.
• > In a deficit you’re more prone to losing muscle. High protein helps.
• > It makes body recomposition far more likely. The average person who starts eating a high protein diet and lifting weights will actually build muscle while losing fat at the same time.

So, pick the level that’s stupidly simple to stick to for YOU:

1. Level 1: Just hit your calorie goal.
2. Level 2: Hit your calorie goal and get protein on every plate.
3. Level 3: Hit your calorie goal and aim for ~0.7g – 1g of protein per pound of your body weight per day.

Step 2: Make meal tracking simple

You’ve probably planned out your calorie deficit before using an online calculator, then felt totally overwhelmed about where to actually start.

Tracking your food is way simpler than you think if you break it into three steps.

1) Get an app

As I write this, I’m on a 1009-day streak on MacroFactor. It’s fast, the interface is clean, and it adjusts your calorie targets based on how your weight loss is actually progressing so there’s no guesswork. It’s about six bucks a month on the annual plan, and you can try it free for 2 weeks with code MARRA. 

There are free options like MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, and LoseIt, but I found them so much harder to use.

You’ll be opening this app multiple times a day for weeks or months. So pick one you don’t hate.

2) Log what you eat

Tell the app the foods and amounts and it gives you calories, protein, everything.

It can be as simple as scanning the barcode on your bread and entering two slices.

3) Stay at or slightly below your targets

Do that and you lose fat.

It’s kind of cool that fat loss works 100% of the time if you’re willing to work for it.

The only problem is that most people dramatically underestimate how much they eat.

Researchers have shown this, like in this study, where registered dietitians underreported their intake by hundreds of calories a day.

If you’ve “tried tracking” and it didn’t work, this is almost always why.

I hear from guys all the time: “Matteo, I’m 200 lbs eating 1600 calories and not losing weight”

No, you’re not.

You think you’re eating 1600. But it’s actually eating closer to 3000 because the little bites, sauces, oils, drinks, and weekend blowouts aren’t getting logged.

This exact thing happened with a client of mine who was losing only about half a pound a week. I had him photograph everything and I watched his log for a week. Sure enough, two or three indulgent meals were turning his 800 calorie daily deficit into a 200 calorie deficit.

We cleaned it up and he took off. (I love my job)

So, get a food scale – here’s the one I like

At home, it makes you accurate to the gram.

Bowl on the scale, measure your peanut butter, know exactly what you had.

Once you’re accurate, weight loss becomes a predictable math equation: eat X calories a day, lose Y pounds over Z weeks.

Step 3: Prepare a few simple meals

It surprises me how many adults can’t prepare a couple of simple meals.

This takes a few days to learn. Saves you thousands of dollars over a lifetime. Makes a huge difference to your body.

Most people I work with who’ve struggled with their weight never built basic kitchen skills. If you eat restaurant food and takeout regularly, you’ll probably struggle, because there are far more calories in those meals than you’d guess.

So lean on convenience foods that are quick, easy, and food you actually enjoy.

A lot of online fitness content is downstream of bodybuilding culture, so people think they need to eat egg whites, sugar-free ketchup, and broccoli for breakfast.

You don’t.

Just eat normal food. Berries and yogurt, or a ham sandwich for lunch, can absolutely help you lose fat – probably better than the egg whites, because you’ll actually keep doing it.

Use a simple template: pick a protein you like, a starch you like, some fruit and veg you like, and build meals off that.

• Breakfast: Greek yogurt with protein powder, blueberries, and a piece of toast (literally what I have every day, with an espresso).
• Lunch: that ham sandwich with some baby carrots or sliced tomato.
• Dinner: pasta with ground beef and tomato sauce.

You can still fit in treats like chocolate, beer, cookies, and ice cream as long as it fits your calorie goal. 

If you’re not sure where to start, here’s a free, full folder of meal plans I share with all my coaching clients. 

Once you’ve picked one or two meals you enjoy for each part of the day, open your tracking app and pre-log your day for tomorrow.

I know that sounds almost too obvious to say – but you have to actually do it, not just read about it.

Decide how much yogurt you plan to have at breakfast, how much pasta you’ll eat at dinner.

When tomorrow’s meals are already decided, all you do is show up and eat them.

Way less friction than playing macro Tetris at 9pm trying to cram in your last 600 calories.

I’m also a big fan of grocery delivery. It keeps you out of the aisles you didn’t need to walk down anyway. Five days of yogurt, sandwiches, and beef-and-pasta delivered on Sunday for a few bucks. Saving you two hours?

(yes, I’m thinking like a business owner here.)

Don’t get overzealous with your first plan.

Life gets busy. Keep it simple enough to stick to. If that means two scoops of whey mixed in a shaker cup and poured into a bowl of cheerios with frozen blueberries for breakfast, so be it. It gets the job done.

Quick note on restaurants and family meals: I won’t pretend you can eat anything you want and lose a ton of fat.

Restaurants exist to make food delicious enough that you come back. That means butter, sauces, and bigger portions than you’d serve yourself. So estimate and round up.

Ordered a bowl of ramen? Pop a photo of it into ChatGPT or Google “how many calories in a large bowl of ramen.” If it says 1200-1600, you log 1600.

When you know you’ve got a restaurant dinner Friday, eat a little lighter earlier in the day to bank a buffer.

For family meals where everyone eats junk, be the change… put the rice cooker on, bake some chicken thighs, steam some broccoli, and you’re sorted.

Step 4: Train to keep (and build) muscle

What workouts actually get you lean? Some people swear by cardio, others by lifting. The honest answer is both help.

But the sweet spot for busy folks is lifting plus daily walking.

A daily step goal gives you a higher baseline of activity that boosts daily calorie burn, plus bonus boosts for mood, energy, sleep, and digestion.

But the stuff that makes you look cut instead of just smaller – that comes from building muscle. A sweaty circuit workout or random F45-style classes burns calories without building much.

So here’s the checklist for lifting that actually does something:

• > Push hard against challenging weights, getting close to failure on your working sets.
• > Repeat the same exercises consistently so you can measure progress.
• > Beat your logbook over time – add reps or load where you can.

Even three full-body workouts a week, at 45 to 60 minutes each, with just two hard sets per exercise can dramatically change your physique over time.

If you’re pinched for time, use supersets. Do a set of leg press, then immediately a set of dumbbell lateral raises, pairing non-competing muscles. More time lifting, less time resting.

In ten years of coaching, 3x full body days a week has a huge edge for one reason:

People actually stick to it.

A six-day push/pull/legs split is not realistic. If you want to optimize for the “perfect” split, go buy another influencer program you’ll run for five weeks before getting bored. Be my guest.

But if you want real results, pick something and stick with it for a year.

Track your workouts in the notes app, a training app, a spreadsheet, or whatever.

Without a log of what you’re doing and what you did last week, you’re throwing random stuff at the wall.

If you want one built for you, Forty Minute Physique is my free training plan with 2-day, 3-day, and 4-day options (pictured below).

what tracking workouts looks like ^

Step 5: Track Progress 

If you don’t know whether you’re losing fat and building muscle, staying motivated is basically impossible.

Tracking progress is the ultimate hack to staying on track. It’s like when I watch my investment portfolio tick up and to the right. It makes saving money feel good, and I don’t want to sell because I want to watch it grow. 

Three things to track:

1. Daily bodyweight

First thing in the morning. No food, no water, after the bathroom, no clothing. Log it. Then ignore the individual number, because it bounces around based on food, salt, water, and stress. Every seven days, average all seven weigh-ins. If that average is trending down week to week, you’re losing fat. Simple.

This is real data from my coaching client, Allen. 

2. Progress videos

Every two weeks, prop your phone on the bathroom counter and take a short video facing front, side, and back. Relax or flex, doesn’t matter.

Even just knowing the next one is coming up keeps you honest and motivated.

Allen, again. 

3. A weekly self check-in

This is the one most people haven’t heard of.

Once a week, sit down and review your data. Nutrition, steps, bodyweight average, photos, adherence.

How did the week go? Where’s the average? Are we on track? What went well, where did you struggle, what’s coming up next week?

This is self-coaching and it’s a big reason people fail when they skip it. You say you gave your best effort – then look at the week honestly and realize you didn’t.

The gap between what you planned to do and what actually happened tells you exactly what to fix.

You have to be honest with yourself if you want an above-average physique.

This is exactly what I do for the people I work with every week. They give me an update on how it went, and I send my feedback with any adjustments needed: 

How to actually stick with it

You’ve heard all of this before.

Eat in a calorie deficit. Get your protein. Lift weights. Stay active.

The question is – how do you pull it off when life is busy and you’ve tried it all before? 

Nothing is more motivating than doing the thing.

Watching videos, buying new gym clothes, and supplement shopping – that’s all exciting, but losing your first five pounds hits different.

If you sit on the fence and never go all in on this, you’ll end up putting in real effort and beating yourself up for not seeing results.

It’s the worst of both worlds. 6/10 effort, 2/10 results. 

When you get more serious – things change. Treat it like a job. Make a to-do list, put it in your calendar, raise your standards for what you’ll accept.

What happens every day? Every week? Monday/Wednesday/Friday you train. Saturday the groceries arrive. You weigh in daily.

Write it down and tick it off.

Set a clear start and end date. 

“I want to get in shape someday” isn’t a plan.

Honestly, I don’t even care about setting goal weight. The outcome will take care of itself.

Just make your goal doing the work and hitting your calories for 60 days.

I talked about this in a recent video, but changing my focus like this has been a game changer for me – I got soft, so I lost 18lb in 70 days (my full plan)

Mess up a day? Who cares. When you nail 55 of 60 days, you’ll be down 15+ pounds  and looking way better.

The people who fail are the ones who give up the moment it gets hard and start over from zero. Stop starting over, and you’ll stop having to start over.

Make one solid push, get the fat off, and you’ll feel amazing at the end.

Not just because you look lean, but because you’ll be proud you did what you said you’d do.

That’s where the real magic in this whole fitness thing actually lives.

Your 60-Day System

1. 1. Set up your calorie deficit (bodyweight × 10-12, or grab the Fat Loss Command Center).
2. 2. Download a tracking app and log your meals (try MacroFactor free with code MARRA).
3. 3. Find a few simple meals you enjoy and pre-log them. Get groceries delivered.
4. 4. Lift 3x/week to build muscle; hit a daily step goal for bonus points.
5. 5. Track progress: daily weigh-ins (weekly average), progress videos every two weeks.
6. 6. Run an honest weekly self check-in.
7. 7. Set a start and end date, and get serious about what needs doing.

You’ll be on track to get results like my client John… 

If you want my help to get your best ever body this year, send me a DM on Instagram or check out my 8-week 1:1 coaching program.

We’ll build it around your life and keep you from giving up when it gets hard.

I can tell you from experience: there’s no way I’d have the body I have now without a coach helping me to raise my standards, and giving me feedback on my training / nutrition.

You’ve got everything you need to make a kickass transformation over the next 60 days.

Just remember – nothing changes, if nothing changes.