Lex Friedman's Weight Loss Journey

How I went from “ugh” to “holy crap, this works”

Let me say right up front, I use a personal trainer. I'll mention him again at the end, but if you contact Irslan, tell him Lex sent you.

Now, let's get into it: The first thing you have to do is figure out how many calories your body processes on its own each day. There are oodles of calculators, and none are exact.

Here’s one: BMR Calculator.

The more accurate you are, the more accurate they are. Obviously you can be exact with your age, height, weight, and gender. But know your activity level. If you don't workout currently, use the “sedentary” activity level. Otherwise, follow the chart.

Left: Lex at 239 pounds. Right: Lex at 186 pounds.

Weight loss is mostly math. I know. Ugh — math.

But here’s the math: 3500 calories = one pound. If your body needs 2500 calories a day, just eat nothing and vomit out 1000 calories a day, and you'll lose a pound a day.

But maybe don't do that.

Instead, set a target, and know you'll be a little hungry. I started at 2000 calories a day. I use MyFitnessPal. I hate MyFitnessPal, and I hate tracking food, but it is the only reason this has worked for me. Subtracting 500 calories from your basal metabolic rate (that daily calorie number) is a great start. Because if you eat 500 fewer calories than that number for a week, you'll lose a pound.

Even if you eat 2000 calories of chocolate a day, and then stop — it works. Calories are calories.

For months, I logged 2000 calories a day. I have a food scale; they're cheap on Amazon if you don't have one already. I weigh my yogurt every single time. I weigh the strawberries in my smoothie. I weigh my grilled chicken breast.

(If you've never used a food scale, this is easy. You put the empty plate on the scale, “tare” the scale, add the chicken, see the weight, log it.)

This is a pain in the ass for complicated recipes. The more accurate you are, the better. When in doubt, overestimate. You’d rather take in fewer total calories than more calories.

Ignore the “extra calories” from workouts

If you use a smart device and MyFitnessPal or another tracker sees you worked out, it'll tell you that you have more calories that day. Ignore it. You budgeted your workouts into your calorie goal when you calculated it. Eat your calorie goal and then stop.

This is the hardest part: measure your food, count the calories, stop at the total.

If you want to start even easier, start JUST by logging your calories. Don’t change your eating. Just log what you eat in MFP or another app. After a week or two, THEN start capping your calorie count at something lower than what you're already doing.

Protein: the one macro to rule them all

After you get a week or two under your (shrinking!) belt at hitting your calorie goal, start focusing on one macro: protein. You want about 1 gram of protein per pound you weigh, per day. If you're 200 pounds, you want 200g of protein per day.

Getting that level of protein without going over your calories takes … learning.

Grilled chicken! Beans! Protein-enriched everything! Egg whites! Yogurt! Protein powder in smoothies!

I eat SO MUCH egg whites and yogurt. I pour the egg whites into a glass and measure the exact grams, and log that. Egg whites you can basically have infinity of, because they're so low calorie. Sometimes, I have 200g of egg whites and add one real egg into the mix. Sometimes I add cheese. (That adds a lot of calories, though!)

Seasonings are free. I add TONS of seasonings. I don't log those. But I do log the butter that goes into the pan.

Strength training + protein = keeping your muscle

If you do JUST these things, you'll lose some weight. If you want it to work efficiently, the other thing you have to do is strength training. I am not an expert. I use dumbbells. I can share my exercises. You can look up strength exercises. You can do “body weight” stuff like pushups. But the goal of the protein intake is to make sure that the calories you're cutting come from burning FAT and not MUSCLE. I capitalized those words for no PARTICULAR reason.

The strength training combined with the protein ensures muscles get bigger while fat stores go bye bye.

Caloric deficit
40–50g of protein per meal
Strength training 3x a week

The other 15%

On the days I do strength training, I also do 15 minutes of HIIT. I think it stands for HELL, I'M IN THERE.

For 15 minutes, I run as fast as I possibly can for 25 seconds, then walk for 35 seconds, then repeat, back and forth, 14 times. The final 60 seconds is all as fast as possible. I do this on a treadmill, but you can do it in place or outside, too. I hate it.

But there's science behind it. It makes your body burn more calories all day. I used to run at 7mph and think it was fast. Six months later, I run at 10mph. I can go faster.

On the in-between days, I always do at least 30 minutes of cardio, ideally 45–60 minutes. Usually it's literally just walking or biking.

I think the “10k steps a day” mantra is bullshit, but it's now also my mantra. I get 10k steps a day. Walking burns calories really, really well. I got a walking pad and I also walk on a regular treadmill most days at a higher speed to drive up the steps. I never, ever get fewer than 10k steps while I’m in this fat loss phase.

Shirtless Lex again. No one deserves this

But why should I trust you?

Oh, you probably shouldn't. Consult a doctor or other experts, you know? But I'm Lex Friedman, the real one, not the Joe Rogan dude who ripped off my name. I make Lex.Games. I lost 50+ pounds doing this. I'm not an expert. I'm sharing what worked for me. I can't argue with results.

Let it be known, I'm decidedly not a personal trainer. I pay one, and he's awesome. He's changed my life. If you decide to contact Irslan, make sure you tell him that I sent you.