During today’s reevaluation I want you to really take stock of where you are with my 12-Week Lean Muscle Program for Men & Women. You’ll also be making a slight shift in calories, which I’ll describe below.

First, I recommend that you get a bodyfat check, using the same type as you did at the beginning of the program. If you had a calipers test, then try to use the same person as the one who performed the original test. You can also get an InBody test—remember that many of these are available at gyms. You want to compare apples to apples, so it’s important to get the same type of test—just as it’s important to weigh yourself on the same scale each week.

And of course I want you to go through all of your weekly reevaluation steps:

YOUR WEEKLY CHECK-IN

Here’s your Week Four to-do list, and potential adjustments you should consider making based on your results:

* Weigh yourself upon rising. At this point you will have lost weight unless you have gained more muscle mass than the body fat you’ve lost. Going forward, you’ll use this current bodyweight to determine your macros and calories. So you’ll likely be reducing calories a bit based on the decrease in body weight alone.

* If you have not lost weight—or if you have gained weight, especially since the end of Week Three:

Evaluate whether or not you think you’re adding muscle mass faster than you’re losing body fat. If so, then that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Many people readily add muscle mass, but many people burn stored fat more slowly. It’s also possible that your metabolism has slowed due to previous weight loss. Make sure that you are following my calorie and macronutrient counts as precisely as you can. I recommend that you:

• Use a scale to weigh your foods
• Rely more on the calculator I included in my Nutrition Overview, and make sure that all of your meals and foods adhere to my guidelines.
• Reduce carbs consumption to 1.2-1.3g per pound on your weight-training days. It’s possible that you’re simply consuming too many calories to lose weight, and the best place to cut them now is from carbs such as yams, rice and potatoes.
• Cut dietary fats to 0.4g on all days of the week going forward.

* If you have lost more than about 8-10 pounds since you began my program:

This may be a good result for you, especially if you’re overweight and weigh more than about 170 pounds. After all, you’ve been following a restricted-calorie program for 4 full weeks while expending far more energy than before you began my 12-week program.

Continue to follow my basic nutrition recommendations unless you think you look overly depleted. If you do look overly depleted then I recommend that you:

• Use a scale to weigh your foods
• Rely more on the calculator I included in my Nutrition Overview
• Also consider that you’ve dropped water weight
• Bump up your protein intake by about 50g per day, especially getting in Kasein before going to bed to help prevent catabolism (muscle breakdown)
• Don’t include my baseline cuts in macronutrients because you should be reducing calories overall based on your significant weight loss.

* If you’ve lost a moderate amount of weight:

This is precisely the result you want to see after about 4 weeks on my 12-week program. Just stay on track with your weight training, cardio, and supplementation. I’ll be taking up both the cardio and weight-training intensity next week so you’ll naturally be burning more calories, and you’ll potentially be adding muscle mass, which also helps burns calories to support fat loss.

You’ll also:

• Reduce carbs consumption to 1.3g per pound on your weight-training days. The best place to cut them is from carbs such as yams, rice, oats, quinoa and potatoes.
• Cut dietary fats to 0.4g on all days of the week going forward

* Take photos of yourself. I want you to take these photos in the exact same way that you did before you started this program and at the end of Week Three. Here are my bullet points about taking these photos:

• Take them at the same time of day
• Take them in the same place
• Take them with the same lighting
• Wear the same clothes
• Use the same photographer (even if that’s you)
• Pose in the same way

WORKOUT

GETHIN TIPS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE: Staying on your diet when you’re traveling.

One of the biggest challenges to staying on your program is dealing with nutrition while traveling. Follow these suggestions to avoid falling off your diet.

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