Can the same fat loss diet work for two people with totally different body types and lifestyles? I had Kevin eat like me for 30 days to find out.

Recently, I shredded down to 11% body fat with a meal plan I thought was pretty easy to follow. But then Kevin, our head engineer here, comes up to me and asks…

"If I ate exactly what you ate, could I get the same results?"

Which got me thinking. Can the same fat loss diet really work for two people with totally different body types and lifestyles?

To find out, for the next 30 days, Kevin’s going to follow my exact meal plan on my fat loss diet, and we’ll see just how much fat he loses and how you can use this plan as a cheat code for burning fat.

Fat Loss Diet Meals

So we're going to start off with the first meal of our fat loss diet: breakfast.

Kevin's breakfast for the next 30 days will be yogurt and oatmeal.

So this was my staple breakfast, and it's actually oats left in the fridge overnight just to harden and then topped with Greek yogurt and some of our vanilla protein powder.

And this was actually one of the clutch meals for my fat loss diet because oats is full of fiber, and it keeps you a lot fuller for longer than other carbs, like bread or cereal.

Okay, so, at this point, I should probably mention that Kevin is actually an incredible cook.

He’s even helped us shape the flavor profile of our most popular protein powder. So, as I’m about to have Kevin ranking my fat loss diet meal plan, I’m honestly pretty nervous.

Here's what he said about breakfast:

"It actually kind of tastes like pudding, like banana pudding."

I then had him rate it out of 10:

"6 out of 10"

Thankfully, Kevin did seem to actually enjoy the rest of my meals in our fat loss diet, including chicken wraps with veggies for lunch ...

Chicken salad with an apple for an afternoon snack ...

Peanut butter pad thai for dinner (which is a personal favorite of mine) ...

And my Greek Yogurt parfait for dessert.

Surprisingly, Kevin was starting to sound pretty optimistic about seeing this fat loss diet through:

"Honestly, I would say, believe it or not, I think this would be more than what I would eat."

Day 1 Measurements

So, Kevin’s starting weight is 229lbs.

Based on his current activity levels, this fat loss diet should put him in a deficit of 600 calories daily. Hopefully, resulting in 4-6 lbs of weight loss in 30 days. 

But we’ll also be tracking Kevin's waist circumference, as research has found once you reduce your waistline by at least 5cm, you unlock several health and cardiovascular benefits.

While 5cm is probably too ambitious for a 30-day goal, I want to set Kevin up for long-term success even after this fat loss diet. 

Week 1

Here's Kevin's experience:

The first week of the fat loss diet was, I think, the hardest because your body is adjusting to many different things.

So, the calorie intake, and also dropping more on carbs, made me feel a bit more lethargic, especially during workouts. The first week of workouts were terrible, and it was actually kind of a good thing because my personal trainer, Alex, wasn't here.

So, part of Kevin’s early struggles during his fat loss diet were my fault.

Because he wasn’t a fan of the first overnight oats I made him, he was consistently choosing to skip breakfast.

This means that not only was Kevin in a higher calorie deficit than we had intended, but he was also missing out on a big chunk of his daily carbs to fuel his workout and the rest of the day.

While Kevin won’t notice this right away, after about a week of limiting his carb and calorie intake, the carb stores in his muscles and liver will start getting depleted.

This eventually leads to what’s known in dieting as “hitting the wall”, where energy levels drop and you experience high levels of muscle fatigue and reduced performance in the gym. 

And despite advising Kevin to eat his breakfast, he was reluctant:

"I don’t know. I feel like the weight is coming off."

And Kevin’s not wrong. His body was already down a whopping 5 pounds in just 1 week!

But I want Kevin to see great fat loss results not just in the next 30 days, but to be able to keep that weight off afterwards and continue making progress.

And this is where I started getting concerned.

Not only is there pretty strong evidence suggesting that those who “skip breakfast” are more likely to re-gain fat after a diet is over, another major predictor that somebody will re-gain their weight is how much muscle they end up losing during their diet.

And if Kevin continues losing weight at this rate, he’s likely to start experiencing muscle loss and eventually start to crash.

Day 10

And on day 10 of his fat loss diet, Kevin finally hit the wall:

"Um, just had lunch today, and I’m pretty tired. I’m trying to eat some carrots to tide me over. And, I’m super sluggish. I think this is the second week and I’m just super low energy."

It was now crucial to find a way to get Kevin to actually integrate breakfast into his mornings.

Otherwise, there’s no way he'd be able to make it 30 days. But this wasn’t going to be easy. Remember when Kevin said this?

"I think this would be more than what I would get to eat”

Well, it turns out this fat loss diet is more food than Kevin’s used to eating.

As a busy engineer, once he starts coding, he doesn’t even think about food until he gets home. 

In fact, here's what he said about his usual diet:

"I kind of only had Fairlife Shake for lunch, and for dinner, I would kind of eat whatever. I kind of assumed if you were eating really limited calories throughout the day, you could kind of eat whatever you want at night.”

So not only did I need to find a way to change Kevin’s habits around eating, I needed to create a breakfast he actually liked. So, I decided to put my chef hat back on and test out some more overnight oats recipes.

And by utilizing members of our Built With Science team to make sure Kevin was remembering to eat each morning, Kevin was quickly having his energy bounce back while continuing to lose weight on his fat loss diet. 

Now, at this point, you’re probably wondering, “How does someone switch from eating one meal a day to now eating 5 meals a day with way more food, yet end up losing weight?” 

Well, it’s all about picking the right foods that have a low-calorie density and also fit your lifestyle and personal preferences.

Here at Built With Science, myself and our team of dietitians have worked years on creating a completely done-for-you workout and diet program full of highly effective fat loss meals and meal plans that take care of all the guesswork for you.

Our system has helped hundreds of thousands of our members get in the best shape of their lives without cutting out the foods they enjoy.

If you’re interested in joining today, just take our quiz below to discover the best program for your body, and use code “KEVIN” at checkout for 15% off:

Click the button below to take my analysis quiz to discover the best program for you:

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Day 15

It was time for our 2-week check-in.

After Kevin had stepped on the scale, we saw that he now weighed 222 lbs — so that's a loss of almost 7 lbs in just 2 weeks.

While Kevin’s weight loss was on the right track, I realized there were some serious problems with how Kevin got such fast results.

He mentioned that he's been kind of ... just avoiding eating out:

I've been avoiding going out altogether. I've just played a lot more video games at home, just hanging out with a cat. I don't know, man.

That's an area where we definitely want to improve because, again, I want Kevin to do what's sustainable for him in the long run. I don't want him to live in a cave, not go out, and sacrifice everything for it.

Now, you can probably relate to Kevin's struggle to stick to your fat loss diet over the weekend. 

In fact, research shows that even if people stay on track during the week, they end up overeating so much on weekends that they gain all the weight back.

So, I understand Kevin’s reservation about going out when he's on a fat loss diet.

But rather than saying no to all social events every weekend, I want to give Kevin a few of the secrets I used to enjoy going out without seeing all my progress disappear. 

So, here's what I told him:

Today's Friday, so you pick a day today, tonight, or tomorrow night. I want you to actually go out and enjoy yourself.

So, the first thing is to just give yourself permission to have that meal and enjoy yourself. You know what I mean? And at the same time, you definitely want to avoid going out to a social eating occasion and being just ravenously hungry.

This is where it sets you up for failure.

You're going to eat everything. You don't even care.

So, one of the things that you can do is preload your stomach with protein and some fruit and vegetables. That way, once you actually get to the event, it's not like you're, you're already pretty satisfied.

It's going to reduce the likelihood that you actually go and try to eat everything.

With Kevin now having the ability to enjoy his weekends while continuing to make progress on the scale, there’s something else we’ve been neglecting that will be key to Kevin’s long-term success.

Preventing Post- Fat Loss Diet Weight Regain

If you look at the research comparing diet vs exercise for fat loss, diet is the clear winner.

In fact, in the past 15 days, we haven’t changed anything about his activity levels. Kevin literally sits on his computer 10 hours a day, yet the fat was quickly melting off just from his diet changes. But if we continue neglecting this, it’ll come back to bite us. 

So that is an area where we have to focus on.

I got him to just be more active and take more steps per day.

While It's actually not very effective for fat loss, it has been shown to be extremely effective for preventing weight regain.

So that's where, although it's not going to help Kevin lose a crazy amount of fat and speed things up too much, it is going to be that thing that we need to prevent him from regaining the weight post- fat loss diet.

But in addition to getting Kevin moving around more, there’s 1 more piece of the puzzle to ensure he doesn’t regain the weight he loses. 

See, I couldn’t possibly expect Kevin to stick to the same meals forever, even after the 30 days were up.

This is why strict “meal plans” only work in the short term until you can’t stand what you’re eating anymore.

Instead, research suggests you get the best success when your fat loss diet is tailored to your individual preferences.

And luckily, with Kevin’s skills in the kitchen, he was already one step ahead of me.

"Chicken breast is the most boring thing you could possibly eat. And I don't know ... it tastes like sandpaper to me. I like seafood a lot. I've got some tuna and shrimp, both of which are pretty clean."

And the more Kevin found ways to make smart substitutes and still hit his protein and calorie targets in his fat loss diet, the more progress he made on the scale and, more importantly, the less restrictive his meal plan became.

Here's what he said:

"So week three and four, I felt like it wasn't like a meal plan or anything like that. In general, it doesn't feel like I flipped my life upside down just to do this. I can still get my work done. I'll just bring my lunch to work. And then I know what I'm going to eat, I'm not going to feel bad about it."

Now, before we reveal the final results, if you guys want to give this same fat loss diet a shot, I’ve created a free downloadable PDF of the full meal plan and a list of substitutes you can use for each ingredient just like Kevin did.

You can download it here:

Click the button below to download Jeremy's fat loss diet plan:

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30-Day Fat Loss Diet Results

Alright, it’s time for the final weigh-in.

And Kevin came in at 216.4 lbs — so he's down 12 lbs in 30 days.

While I usually wouldn’t recommend losing weight so quickly, once Kevin upped his daily calories to our 2000 calorie target, his rate of weight loss slowed down to a consistent 2lbs per week. And the visual results are pretty striking.

Look closely at his face, jaw, and neck.

He’s literally starting to look like a different human. But what’s even more impressive is Kevin actually lost an entire 5cm across his waistline in just 30 days, which is a great indicator that the weight he did lose was mostly fat rather than muscle. 

TL;DR

• Kevin’s 30-day fat loss diet looked like this: yogurt and oatmeal for breakfast, chicken wraps with veggies for lunch, chicken salad with an apple for snack, peanut butter pad thai for dinner, and Greek yogurt parfait for dessert.
• Kevin skipped breakfast during the 30-day fat loss diet because he didn’t like it. He quickly ran into energy issues because this removed a big chunk of his carbs.
• So, I tested out more overnight oats recipes — and finally found one he liked. I also got Built With Science members to ensure Kevin ate breakfast.
• While Kevin lost 7 lbs in just 2 weeks, I was concerned about how he wasn’t going out. So, I gave him some useful tips about eating out.
• To help Kevin prevent post- fat loss diet weight regain, I also had him take more steps during the day and tailor the meal plan to his preferences (e.g., swapping out chicken breast for seafood).
• Kevin dropped 12 lbs (from 229 lbs to 216,4 lbs) in total at the end of this 30-day fat loss diet.

Here's what Kevin had to say about his transformation:

"Realistically, I don't think this is an end. To me, it doesn't really feel like a diet so much anymore. It's more like, 'Hey, you kind of get your eating back on track'.

So yeah, I think I will stick to it.

I really got to work on the workouts, but as far as I understand, working out while on a cut is rough. So, I guess that's just the way it is."

I’m going to continue personally working with Kevin on his transformation, but as for you, if you’re looking for some easy diet hacks that’ll let you eat way more food while still losing fat, check out this article next.

But if you’re ready for a more detailed, step-by-step approach, check out our science-backed programs below, and don’t forget to use the code 'KEVIN' at checkout for 15% off so we can continue funding Kevin’s love for seafood:

Click the button below to take my analysis quiz to discover the best program for you:

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Thanks for sticking to the end, and I’ll see ya next time!

By the way, here’s the article summed up into a YouTube video: