Forget killer workouts and eating boiled chicken breasts day after day — these 4 simple, science-backed tricks can help you lose fat 2x faster without losing your mind (or muscle).

How to lose fat — fast? Well, tons of fitness videos promise to reveal the secret ... then hit you with a workout that’d make a Navy SEAL throw up, boiled chicken for lunch. Not to forget, lots of crying.

If you’re not suffering, it’s not working.

But what if I told you a simple walking method can burn fat faster than killing yourself with cardio? 

I know that sounds hard to believe, but it’s just one of four science-backed strategies I’ll show you to help you lose fat up to 2x faster — without losing muscle. And I’ve crunched the numbers to prove it.

Strategy #1: Cut Fats Close to the Minimum

How to lose fat strategy #1: adjust your fat intake.

I want you to think of how to lose fat like budgeting your money. 

Imagine you had 2,000 calories to spend each day. 

Protein, like chicken, and carbs, like potatoes, pack just 4 calories per gram, so you can eat a lot of them without spending too many calories.

Fats, on the other hand, are over double this, containing 9 calories per gram, making it easy to overspend with. 

This isn’t about demonizing fat.

But to maintain muscle, protein needs to stay high, and cutting carbs usually tanks energy fast.

That’s why, whenever I diet, I focus on cutting down on fat first. This is exactly what most professional bodybuilders do, too, because the only real compromise is slightly less tasty food. 

Now, for health reasons, you don’t want to go below around 35 to 50 grams of fat per day. 

That’s your minimum.

But you'd be surprised by how much fat you're actually consuming. 

A ribeye steak with oil and butter is already over 60 grams of fat.

That’s almost 700 calories right there!

How To Lose Fat By Looking Into Your Dietary Fat Sources

So here's what I want you to do: 

Think about the fats you eat every day. Cheese, butter, and even healthy fats like avocado.

• Cheese 
• Butter 
• Mayo 
• Oils 
• Creamy dressings and sauces 
• Nuts
• Avocado

Starting tomorrow, cut however much you usually have of these in half. 

Now I’m half Filipino, so my big fat sources were from the meats. Tons of pork, sausage, spam, and weird meats like full-out pigs laid out on the dinner table, and Balut, which is basically a half-born duck, which is very cruel now that I think about it, and explains why every friend I brought over for dinner never ended up coming back. 

Anyways, I want you to also check if you’re eating any of these high-fat proteins:  

• Ground beef
• Pork
• Sausage
• Steak
• Bacon
• Salmon
• Chicken Wings
• Eggs

Delicious, but calorie bombs — sorry, Mom. 

So, try having just one of these daily, then for all your other meals, choose a more pure protein source from this list:

• Chicken breast
• Shrimp
• Tuna
• White fish
• Skinless chicken thighs
• Extra lean ground beef
• Turkey
• Egg whites
• 0% Greek yogurt
• Cottage cheese
• Tofu
• Protein powder

You can also apply this same concept when eating out.

Now, I would recommend using some kind of food tracking app to keep track of this.

I personally use the one we built here called Built With Science+, as it personalizes my fat intake and lets me know how much wiggle room I have, and prevents me from going too low.

But regardless of how you do it, when it comes to how to lose fat, if you just cut 1 fat source in half and make 1 protein swap, boom, you’re saving up to 250 calories per day, which already speeds up your fat loss by half a pound per week.

And you can lose even more by combining it with the next how to lose fat strategy, the walking method. 

Strategy #2: Plain Old Walking

So when most people think about how to lose fat, they immediately think of doing a bunch of cardio. But the truth is, cardio isn’t very effective. 

Let’s take a bunch of people and have them burn 2,000 calories from cardio every week. On paper, after a month, this should amount to about 2 lbs of fat loss.

But when a study actually tested this, the average fat loss was less than half of that. With some people not losing any fat at all. 

Why? 

How To Lose Fat: The Power Of NEAT

Well, some of the total number of calories you burn in a day comes from intentional exercise like cardio or lifting weights. But what most people don’t know is you burn way more calories from all the things you do outside of the gym. Simple things like typing at a computer, walking your dog, or cooking dinner. All these “non-workout” activities are called NEAT. 

And what’s fascinating is that a highly active person can burn up to 2,000 more calories daily just from NEAT compared to someone who's sedentary.

2,000 calories!

So what happened with the participants in the study is that even though they burned a ton of calories during their cardio sessions, they took the lazy route for the rest of the day. 

They just ended up in a couch lock watching Netflix with their most intense activity being carrying a Dorito from the bag to their mouth, tanking the calories they usually burn from NEAT. 

Plus, cardio sessions can make you hungrier, and oftentimes people eat back all the calories they burned, or even more. 

So while cardio is great for your heart and health, it’s kind of just “meh” for fat loss.

A much better approach I personally use myself and with our Built With Science clients is plain old walking.

So I actually learned this by mistake.

Back in the day, I once got a summer job as a funeral caterer — weird gig, I know — but I was on my feet all day.

Unloading caskets, serving people food, and trying to cheer them up.

I remember looking at my phone, and I was getting on average like 12,000 to 15,000 steps a day.

After 2 months of this, despite not changing my diet or doing any cardio, I ended up being the leanest I had ever been in my life without even trying.

I remember every time I’d go to the bathroom, I’d lift my shirt, and every week my abs would pop just a little bit more to the point where I was contemplating turning that funeral room into a Magic Mike show.

Now, thankfully, my YouTube channel picked up, and I no longer have to cater funerals, but to this day, walking has remained my main form of “cardio” to get lean and stay lean. 

My Walking Strategy

I even invested in a walking pad under my desk. You can get some pretty cheap ones on Amazon, such as this, but twice a day, I’ll do a 30-minute walk on this guy while I’m banging out emails or watching videos. 

That alone is already like 6,000 steps.

Then the rest of the day, I just do simple things like park far away when I get groceries or walk around the block when I need a break. 

Now I’ve set a goal in my Built With Science app to hit 10,000 steps a day, and it keeps track of it for me. 

But you can use the health app on your phone, and just aim for anywhere between 7,000 to 12,000 steps a day.

But 30 minutes of walking is already 3,000 steps, and for the average person, can burn anywhere from 100 to 200 calories.

Do that simple 30-minute walk every day, and after a month, you’ll lose an extra pound of fat, or an extra quarter pound of fat per week. 

And if you're wondering how to lose fat faster, well, you can speed the fat loss results up with a dieting strategy I call the accidental deficit. 

Strategy #3: The Accidental Deficit

The easiest way to prevent calories from being stored as fat is by not eating them in the first place.

Think about it.

It takes 30 minutes of jogging to burn 250 calories … but just a handful of chips to eat that right back. 

I ran an extreme test a while back (which you can read all about here) to prove this point.

I ate nothing but protein — just 1,200 calories a day — and barely moved. While a lot of chickens died for this transformation, and may they rest in peace, I DID manage to burn off several pounds of fat in just one week. Now, I’m not saying you should do this. Seriously — don’t.

But it proves the point when it comes to how to lose fat: your diet can do most of the work. And that’s where the accidental deficit comes in.

Think about the last time you got really sick. Like when you were stuck in bed for days, barely able to nibble on a cracker, and by the end of it, shed a few pounds without really trying.

It’s kinda the same idea as that. 

No. I’m not telling you to give yourself food poisoning. 

But think about your busiest days at work or school, where you barely have time to eat let alone think about food, and by the end of the day you get home and realize “Holy crap, I’ve barely eaten all day”.

Why not use those days to your advantage? 

For example, Kevin is our head engineer for our app, and as soon as he sits down to code, he just locks in. He doesn’t even think about food all day, and I have to remind him of his basic needs, like drinking water. So he barely eats at work, but when he gets home, he’ll Uber Eats some pizza or Chinese takeout and pretty much eat whatever. 

So when I tried helping him get in shape, all we did was swap his unhealthy dinners for better options, and he quickly lost 11 pounds in a month.

Now, we had to slow that down, because when it comes to how to lose fat, there’s definitely such a thing as losing weight too quickly, but you can speed up your fat loss by applying a similar concept once or twice a week.

During your busiest days, rely on quick grab-and-go protein sources and ready-to-eat fruits.

Then, when you finally get home, have a big dinner of lean protein and vegetables instead of ordering takeout. 

Then, just go to bed before you start snacking.

How To Lose Fat Sample Diet

And here’s an example of what your full day could look like:

Breakfast:

Protein shake + banana

During the day protein (pick 2-3 of these):

• Protein bar 
• Protein shake
• Beef jerky
• Greek yogurt to-go
• Chicken salad

During the day fruits (pick 2-3 of these):

• Apple
• Orange
• Banana

Dinner:

• A big serving of lean protein (Chicken breast, shrimp, white fish)
• Tons of baked/steamed vegetables or big salad

Dessert (optional if still hungry):

Greek yogurt + frozen fruit

If you do this right, you could end your day eating as little as 1,300 to 1,600 calories.

For most people, this is a huge deficit and is why I do NOT recommend doing it more than once or twice a week max — and preferably on your rest days. 

But even just doing this once a week can increase your average daily calorie deficit by about 100 calories, and help you get rid of an extra pound of fat per month, or a quarter pound per week.

But this will work even better if you combine it with the last how to lose fat strategy: eating foods that do the work for you. 

Strategy #4: Eating Foods That Do The Work For You

When it comes to how to lose fat, everybody talks about “calories in vs calories out”, but they’re really just focusing on the “calories in” side of the equation. 

But did you know certain foods can actually affect the "calories out" side too?

For example, look at these 2 plates of food. 

They have the exact same calories, but this one can help you burn fat just a little bit faster.

How?

Most people don’t know this, but your body burns a certain number of calories just from digesting food. 

And protein is special because a solid 20 to 30% of its calories immediately get burned up for digestion, absorption, and metabolism, which is more than double any other food.

As a result, studies have shown that going from a low-protein to a high-protein diet can raise your daily calorie burn by 4–5%. 

For a 2000-calorie diet, that’s an extra 90–100 calories burned per day.

It may not sound like much, but that’s like doing a 10-minute jog every day, and can add up to a pound of fat loss every month. Not to mention the numerous muscle-building benefits this also offers. 

So, take your bodyweight in lbs and multiply it by 0.8.

If you’re not getting anywhere near that, then bump up how much protein you have in each meal to get closer to that target. And if you’re already hitting that, great, you can focus on the next foods: resistant starch and fiber.

Let's take two groups of people and have them eat 2,100 calories per day.

But one of them, we’ll feed mainly processed foods that have been stripped of fiber and starches — think chips, white bread, and juice. 

The other one, we’ll feed mainly whole foods with lots of fiber and starches — think potatoes, oats, and fruit. 

A recent study did this, and despite eating the same amount of calories, the whole-food diet, in addition to being far more filling, led to participants excreting an extra 116 calories per day in their feces.

Now, as a half-Filipino who grew up eating a very low fiber diet, every plate basically looked like this. White rice and processed meat.

Trust me, I get it, it’s not easy to adjust your diet and taste buds.

How To Lose Fat By Adjusting Your Diet

So start small.

Whenever possible, swap your processed foods for whole foods that are high in fiber and resistant starch. 

Think oats instead of cereal.

Potatoes or beans instead of white rice.

Popcorn instead of chips.

And slowly make eating fruits and veggies with every meal non-negotiable. 

Put all 4 how to lose fat strategies together, and even being conservative with the numbers, you're looking at an extra 1.2 pounds of fat loss per week. That’s over twice what most people manage on a typical diet, which, according to research, is just half a pound per week.

TL;DR

• If you’re wondering how to lose fat without giving up energy or muscle, start by trimming fats to the minimum healthy range (35–50g/day). Protein and carbs are more muscle-friendly and calorie-efficient.
• One of the easiest ways when it comes to how to lose fat is by walking more. Daily steps (7,000–12,000) increase NEAT — the calories you burn outside workouts — and don’t spike hunger like intense cardio.
• On busy days, skip big meals, grab protein-rich snacks, and finish with a healthy dinner. This naturally creates a calorie deficit without tracking or stress — a smart trick for how to lose fat faster.
• High-protein and high-fiber foods take more energy to digest and keep you full longer — an underrated but powerful way of how to lose fat more efficiently.

Combine all 4 methods, and you could burn an extra 600 calories per day — that’s how to lose fat at more than double the typical rate (up to 1.2 lbs/week) without extreme dieting or workouts.

Need More Help With Losing Weight?

But even if you just pick 1 strategy to start with, it’ll make a noticeable difference.

So start small, and if you want my help with personally setting up your workouts, diet, and cardio every week in a way that uses science to maximize your results, then I highly recommend checking out my app.

All the guesswork will be taken care of for you, and we’ve even got a meal scanner to make tracking your food so much easier.

You can try it out for 2 weeks for free here:

Click the button below to try the BWS+ app for 2 weeks, for free, no strings attached:

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Then, if you want a full-fat loss meal plan and to see what applying these tactics actually looks like in practice, check out this article next, where I made Kevin, our head engineer, eat just like me for 30 days.

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: