On the surface, going on a diet to lose fat sounds like a good idea.

After all, statistics show that six out of seven people who start a diet will lose a significant amount of weight.

Which is a pretty damn solid success rate by any measure.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story.

The problem is that within 12 months of achieving said weight loss, nearly 80% of those people will have relapsed to their pre-diet weight.

Within two years, that number goes up to 85%, and within three years, it's 95%.

This means diets only have a 5% success rate over the long term.

Even worse, 1/3 - 2/3 of those people will regain even more weight than when they first started their diet.

No bueno my friend, no bueno at all.

From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense.

For most of human history, we have alternated between periods of feasting and famine.

So, our ancestors evolved an elegant mechanism to carry the excess calories they consumed when times were abundant so they would be better prepared to survive the next starvation-type event.

They stored these calories as body fat.

And your body has also developed some mechanisms to hold onto as much of that fat as possible, because although famines are a thing of the past, our bodies haven't caught up yet.

The primary tool it uses to do this is called Metabolic Adaptation.

In short, your metabolism slows down beyond what could be attributed just to the weight you have lost. First, in an attempt to hold on to body fat, then later, to prime you rapidly regain the weight once you have lost it.

Having coached hundreds of people over the years, I've observed this kick in right around when someone loses 10% of their starting body weight.

For example, going from 200lbs down to 180lbs.

The longer and harder the diet, the more pronounced this effect will be.

Fortunately, you can use a tricky little workaround to prevent this from happening entirely or, at the very least, to kick it further down the line.

The Five Day Diet.

You eat in a moderately aggressive calorie deficit from Monday to Friday, and then on the weekends, you get to let loose a little bit and eat at maintenance.

The higher-calorie weekends signal to your body that food is plentiful, you're in no danger of starving, and you don't need to slow your metabolism.

Obviously, you need to be tracking calories and know your numbers to pull this off.

You can get a ballpark estimate of your maintenance calories here.​

This is the amount of calories it takes to maintain your current weight and the amount you'll get to eat on the weekends.

From Monday to Friday, you'll eat at 70% of maintenance.

To make things easier, I coach my clients to fast for the first 5 - 6 hours of the day from Monday to Friday, using black coffee to suppress appetite and as a tool to trigger the release of stored fat into the bloodstream for fuel.

Both of which it is excellent for.

And then to divide their day's calories between 2 meals and a snack.

Then, on Saturday and Sunday, they can bump their calories up by 30% to reach maintenance and enjoy a much more relaxed eating schedule.

And if that wasn't fun enough, that additional 30% should come primarily from carbs. Leptin, one of the hormones mainly responsible for metabolic slowdown, is impacted significantly more by carbohydrate intake.

This approach has been shown to help preserve muscle mass, maintain metabolic rate, and increase long-term fat loss sustainability while reducing some of the adverse effects of dieting, like hunger and fatigue.

Plus, the Five-Day Diet provides a nice mental break and allows for more social flexibility on the weekends.

The only drawback is that you'll lose weight slower as you are only dieting part of the week. Still, this will balance out over the long term as you'll also prevent plateaus and be much less likely to regain your lost weight.

This approach, known as Calorie Cycling, has also been shown to work over more extended periods.

Researchers in Tasmania performed a landmark study called MATADOR (Minimizing Adaptive Thermogenesis And Deactivating Obesity Rebound).

They found that by alternating between two weeks of dieting and two weeks of eating at maintenance, the participants lost the same amount of weight as the control group, which had a consistent calorie deficit AKA a regular fat loss diet.

But they they were able to prevent the expected metabolic slowdown and maintain more lean muscle than the standard dieters.

Not too shabby IMO.

Of course, it took them twice as long to lose the weight, as they only dieted two weeks out of the month

If you're trying to drop a couple of pounds, you can keep things simple and follow a standard type of diet.

But if you're trying to lose a meaningful amount of weight or get super lean, the Five-Day Diet is the way to go.

And if you'd like to lose fat while getting strong and flexible, A.F., I have a rare opening for two new clients.

More specifically, I'm looking for a couple of fellas over the age of 40 who wants to drop 10 -20 lbs of body fat, pack on some lean muscle, and naturally optimize their hormones within the next 90 days.

​Click here to apply​

Spots don't come along that often, so if you're interested, move quickly.

Stay Hungry,

Adam