Want to Finally See Your Abs in the New Year? Trainer Reveals Simple Tips to Drop From 15% Body Fat to 10%
If you’re clocking in at 15 percent body fat, you’ve already earned a gold star when it comes to healthy habits. Obviously shooting for 10 percent is more for getting toned and revealing your abs (think V-lines and lower abdominals that pop) than it is for performance goals of brute strength or getting bigger.
While the journey from 20 percent to 15 percent was undoubtedly tough, it's nothing like the discipline it takes to drop down to 10 percent (or 7 percent). When it comes to gaining a low body fat percentage, you'll have to drop the fast food burgers, be strategic about your workout routine (lift heavier, incorporate cardio workouts), and get some extra sleep.
Here’s what you need to do to drop down to 10 percent body fat, according to Jim White, R.D., owner of Jim White Fitness and Nutrition Studios in Virginia Beach, VA, and celebrity trainer Lalo Fuentes, C.S.C.S.
Related: A Personal Trainer Reveals How Often You Should Train Your Abs for Muscle vs. Strength
What 15% vs. 10% Body Fat Looks Like on Men
DaniloAndjus/Getty Images
Dylan Coulter
How to Go from 15% Body Fat to 10%
Curious what body fat ranges look like on men? The photo left depicts someone hovering around 15 percent body fat, while the image right depicts 10 percent.
1. Rethink Your Approach to Food
“To hit below 15%, you need to be laser-focused on getting the best fuel for your body,” says White. “You’re looking at chicken with no sauce, five to nine servings of fruits or vegetables a day, choosing the leanest proteins possible, the best possible fats—nuts, oils, chia seeds—ditching most saturated fats, and consuming not just decent carbs but exclusively high-octane fuel carbohydrates like quinoa, ancient grains, brown rice, and sweet potatoes.”
If your goal is to look as good as humanly possible, you have to prioritize what the food offers your body over what it offers your taste buds.
“Healthy guys are most guilty of overeating the good stuff—peanut butter, avocado, hummus,” White explains. But calories are calories, and if you don’t need it as fuel or for repair, you should cut back on it.
2. Focus On Clean Macros
Rather than cutting calories, it’s more about cleaning up the calories you have, says White. Stay between 1,800 and 2,200 calories, but switch your focus to protein and fat over carbs, and clean up the quality of what’s on your plate.
It’s time to take all those final steps—going from salted nuts to natural, regular yogurt to Greek for more protein—and cutting sugars out entirely.
This is one of the biggest factors keeping guys above 15 percent body fat, Fuentes says. Lastly, up your fiber to 25-30 grams. “Not only does it help keep you full, but high protein diets can make you constipated, and fiber will help promote good GI health,” White says.
3. Live a Little
“You can go into the grey a little bit when it comes to diet, but you have to be careful because the more you do this, the longer it’ll take to reach your goal,” White explains.
Give yourself one indulgent meal a week if you need it. You know what a cheat meal looks like, but what about the most delicious indulgence of all—beer? Luckily, White says one light brew—infrequently—is OK since it’ll only cost you about 100 calories. But imbibing often or having more than three beers in one sitting, or a higher alcohol content pint, does.
“Alcohol slides into your ‘indulgences’ category, of which you’re only getting once, maybe twice a week,” he adds. When you decide to spend it, stick to light-colored, juice-free drinks, like vodka with soda water and lime.
Bottom line: Cut back to two or three drinks on only one night a week, White says.
4. Go Heavier
To get to 10 percent, kick your workouts up to five to six days a week, White advises. If you want to get the most bang for your buck, research shows you can shed fat and gain muscle mass in a shorter amount of time with HIIT than you would with other kinds of workouts. However, according to White, you should stick to a combination of weight training, HIIT, and cardio.
Increase to heavier weights and higher intensity, focusing on not just the big muscles but also specializing in the smaller muscles to help carve that definition.
5. Sleep More
Your most unhealthy habit probably has nothing to do with your workout or diet. Forty percent of Americans log fewer than seven hours of sleep per night, according to a Gallup poll.
Not only is it harder to resist snoozing through your morning workout alarm if you hit the hay too late, but studies show the less you sleep, the higher your chances of having belly fat. Shoot for 7-8 hours a night.
6. Get Your Mind Right
When it comes down to it, what separates 15 percenters from 10 percenters is the ultra-focus,” White says. We're talking about dedication to meal prep, bulletproof accountability, a social life full of ultra-supportive people—fitness and nutrition has to be the number one focus in your life. Whatever takes away from your motivation—friends who don’t understand why you can’t just have another beer, a job that only allows for five hours of sleep a night—has to be adjusted, and whatever drives you and keeps you going, taking measurements and progress pictures, needs to be kicked up.
Related: If BMI Is BS, How Much Should You Really Weigh?
The 10% Body Fat Workout Plan
“The closer you get to having low body fat, the more impact muscle mass will have on improving your composition,” says Joe Holder, personal trainer, Nike Master Trainer, and founder of The Ocho System.
To get down to 15 percent body fat, you probably hit the gym four to five days a week and have a solid baseline of strength and conditioning. One vitally important note: If, for some reason, you're walking into the gym for the first time at 15 percent body fat, it’s crucial to start conditioning from ground zero to build a base of strength and avoid injury. Sound like you? Here's our beginner's guide to strength training. Otherwise, read on.
You’ll work out six days a week with this plan, but since you're increasing the intensity, keep your workouts below 75 minutes, Holder says.
Your goal for the week, Holder says, should look something like this:
Day 1: Strength + Conditioning
Start with a strength workout and burn it out with conditioning. All your workouts should include multi-directional movement to increase stability and work all your little muscles. But what Holder really likes is to have the same compound lifts in every strength workout that change in rep and tempo schemes week-to-week.
Start with bench press, squat, deadlift, and weighted pullups at 75 percent estimated max, 8 sets x 8 reps, with 60-75 seconds rest between sets.
For conditioning, get after circuits of 40-yard prowler sled pushes, 1-minute jump rope, repeated for 5-10 rounds or sprints on an inclined, powered-off treadmill, 20 seconds on, 60 seconds rest, repeated 8 to 12 times.
Day 2: Bodybuilding-Focused Day
For a solid, all-around bodybuilding workout plan, check out our 4-week weight loss workout plan designed by a personal trainer.
Day 3: Mobility
Day 4: Strength + Conditioning
Day 5: Active Recovery
“As you ramp up your workouts, it’s critical to properly recover both mentally and physically,” says Marc Perry, C.S.C.S., ACE-CPT, and founder of Built Lean. Stretch at the end of your workout, take the time to do active recovery work like yoga or swimming, and sleep a solid 8-9 hours every night. These can really help keep you feeling fresh as you take your workouts to the next level, he adds.
Day 6: Rest
Day 7: Tempo Conditioning
Gains aren’t always made by upping the weight. Keep adjusting your interval lengths, reps, and sets—longer intervals for fewer rounds, shorter intervals for more reps—to challenge your nervous system and muscles in different ways, Holder says.
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