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Pretend the following:

You have a personal goal of dropping your body fat from the 13-16% range down to 6-8% in the up coming weeks

What is your plan of attack?
How will you accomplish your goals?

Here is a list of possible separate options that are pretty typical:

• Drop your carbs and do cardio 5 times a week for 30 minutes.
• Slowly reduce calories for the next few weeks while slowly increasing cardio.
• Keep a steady diet while increasing your cardio.
• Concentrate soley on a perfect diet.

All these techniques are pretty solid in theory because they ensure that you’re expending more energy then you’re taking in - making you lose weight.

But we’re bodybuilders - we already have a very healthy body fat percentage, we don’t want an “average” low body fat, we want that extraordinary lean, shredded look.

That’s why those above techniques aren’t enough.

So What’s the Problem With These Techniques and How the Heck Does It Relate To Chess?

The problem with these techniques is that they’re just that, they’re techniques. Your typical one or two stage fat loss technique (such as eating slightly less each week) is inferior - your body is smarter than that, just like your opponent in chess.

To win in chess, you must use a superior strategy and be able to anticipate your opponents next move.

Luckily, your opponent (which is your body), is very predictable. All your body wants to do is survive, so we’ll use this knowledge to our advantage when building the ultimate fat loss strategy.

It’s All About Strategy

What’s more optimal is to combine specific techniques in certain orders from week to week to build a fat loss strategy.

How do you build a strategy?

Pick one (and only one) of those techniques above, and write down a week by week plan of how you are going to trick your body.

Writing it down is paramount because you’re building a structured routine, not randomly applying techniques on the fly hoping they’ll lead to fat loss.

Building a structured strategy means applying changes on a weekly basis.

Cardio Strategy Example
Week 1: Post Workout Cardio - Elliptical 30 minutes
Week 2: Post Workout Cardio - Bike 30 minutes
Week 3: Post Workout Cardio - Treadmill 30 minutes
Week 4: Morning Cardio 20 minutes + Post Workout Cardio 30 minutes

Notice the switching of cardio types from one week to the next, as well as how it’s done for a whole week.

This structured strategy is superior than randomly doing the bike, elliptical, and treadmill all at random intervals. Structure is the key word here, as well as the foundation in our strategy example.

Why is this so much more complicated than regular fat loss?

Because we’re bodybuilders with already low amounts of fat. To explain, understand the following analogy:

Our bodies do not want to lose fat, it’s their “savings account” so to speak. Do you want to dip into your savings account? I’m willing to bet you don’t want to, unless you’re under the following conditions:

1. It’s an “emergency” situation (Lost a job, must pay bills) AND
2. When you feel confident that you’ll be able to replenish that savings account (You know you can find a new job)

Under these circumstances, you’re likely to dip into your savings account. Your body is no different. It doesn’t want to burn fat, unless under the following conditions:

1. It’s an “emergency” situation (You’re doing cardio and your body is out of glucose) AND
2. When it feels confident that it’ll be able to replenish that lost energy (Because you’re eating every 2-3 hours)

Under these circumstances, your body is likely to burn fat.

In the example, the savings account and fat are one in the same. And all we’re doing is tricking your body into dipping into that “savings account.”

To answer the question directly though, the process of burning fat off of an already lean body is so complicated because your body absolutely does not want to do it, especially with an already low body fat percentage (15% and less).

The Big Fat Disclaimer (no pun intended)

There is no golden ticket to fat loss (unfortunately). So each individual will have his or her own strategy on how to lose the most body fat, mostly based on what they’ve done in the past as well as their genetics.

Focus on what you’ve done in the past when considering your fat loss strategy, and remember variety is the spice of fat loss.

Summary

• Don’t use fat loss techniques, build a full 8 - 12 week fat loss strategy
• Use your strategy to “trick” your body
• Write down your 8 - 12 week strategy and stick with it, don’t use fat loss “techniques” on the fly