If I told you that there was a way in which you could become leaner and more muscular with less than 10 minutes of exercise per day, would you believe me?
Most likely you would be skeptical, but in this article, I want to show you that it is fully possible to get lean and build more muscle with as little as 10 minutes of exercise per day.
In this article, I’m going to share 5 steps that you can implement to build more muscle, lose more body fat, and become a lean mean fighting machine.
So most likely you are reading this article with a skeptical framing.
Getting lean? On less than 10 minutes of exercise per day?
Absolutely! Personally, I would consider myself pretty lean and don’t have a lot of body fat. This hasn’t come from exercising several hours every day, but instead from the implementation of a few daily habits done at specific times during the day.
These habits are easy to implement and they will allow you to get leaner and more muscular on less than 10 minutes of exercise per day.
And when you develop more leanness, your muscles will naturally show themselves more. This will increase your confidence, inner strength, and allow you to get the six-pack you’ve always wanted.
Before we get started it is important to take two important things into account when looking at these steps.
Number one is that the way to get lean is to burn body fat. Therefore the goal of the steps shared below is to help promote fat burning in your body.
Number two is that the timing of these habits is key when it comes to becoming lean and staying lean.
The specific time you perform these habits will certainly affect how good of a result you will get.
So with this in mind, I am going to share the 5 steps I take to stay lean with less than 10 minutes of exercise per day.
Also if you want tailored guidance on how to get leaner, build more muscle, and form a rock-solid exercise routine, I have a surprise waiting for you at the end of this article.
Without further a due let’s get started.
Intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting, if you are new to the definition, means restricting your feeding window so that you eat for a shorter time span during the day, therefore not eating for a specific period of time.
This means that you basically don’t allow yourself to eat whenever you want, but instead limit the time span of when you eat during the day.
This is because, after 12 hours of not eating, your body enters a state where it burns fat rather than glucose. This state helps to burn body fat and ultimately will help you to get leaner.
Burning body fat is the ultimate goal, and with intermittent fasting, you will be able to burn more body fat when prolonging the time that you don’t eat to 12 hours or more.
To start you can for example stop consuming anything other than water after 7 pm in the evening and start eating when you want after 7 am the day after.
This is a good start to intermittent fasting and after you have easily accomplished this, you will be able to do longer fasting sessions which will promote fat burning even more and will also promote many more health benefits.
Check out this article here to learn even more benefits of intermittent fasting.
Also, make sure to have fun with it and to stay safe, and listen to your body while doing it. Drink lots of water, start slow and work your way up.
Personally, I fast every day for at least 12 hours and sometimes up to 16 hours or more depending on my goals. I will also once every few months do longer fasts of 24-48 hours to challenge myself and reset my body.
Try it out, have fun, and challenge yourself in a way that gets you excited to try this out!
Exercise with HIIT
What is HIIT I hear you ask? HIIT stands for high-intensity interval training, and it basically means that you should alternate the intensity of movement during your exercise session.
Before you end a fast and have breakfast, you want to incorporate some form of movement or exercise into your morning routine to promote fat burning and ultimately get lean and muscular.
The way I recommend you do this is to incorporate a 2-10 minute HIIT session of movement in the morning before having breakfast.
You should do this because varying between high intensity and low intensity is super beneficial and healthy for your body and for your mind.
… And more importantly for the goal of getting lean, it is especially useful because HIIT poses many fat-burning benefits.
Not only that but exercising with HIIT can help you build more muscle in less exercising time.
For the example of running, this means that long steady pace cardio like jogging will not be as effective to burn fat as varying your intensity with speed and time like doing sprints.
And for strength training, this can mean doing pushups, situps, and jumping squats in intervals of 20 seconds work and 10 seconds rest.
If you want to learn more about HIIT and the fat-burning and muscle-building benefits, check out this article to learn more.
All in all, HIIT is an exercise form that will definitely help you burn more fat, build more muscle and also get leaner. So go try it out and have fun with it.
Cold showering
I can certainly say that taking cold showers has helped me stay lean in many ways.
Cold showering poses incredibly many benefits for both your body and mind. Not only is it a challenge every time you do it, but your body feels like a million bucks afterward.
Cold showering also helps to improve fat burning, which is as we’ve touched upon many times, is needed to get lean.
But even more importantly the strength you will feel after completing a cold shower will make you want to do more things that make you stronger later in the day, for example, moving your body more often and eating more healthy.
Here the timing of the cold shower is also important since it will impact how much of a result you will get. You want to take a cold shower that will have the best fat-burning effect possible.
That is why I recommend taking a cold shower after a morning exercise and before breakfast.
To burn the highest amount of fat in your body, start the habit of taking cold showers and do it before consuming anything.
If you do HIIT first, then take a cold shower, all during the last stages of your fast, you will set yourself up to burn the most amount of fat possible before even having breakfast.
To learn more about the health benefits of cold showering, check out this article here.
Eat a protein-rich breakfast
This is also a super important step. Getting enough protein for breakfast is essential because it is the signal to your body that you are full.
If you end your fasting session with milk and cereal, it won’t take long before you become super hungry later in the morning.
And becoming super hungry will most likely lead you to seek a fast solution for food, probably a solution with high calories, very little nutrients, and probably not a lot of protein.
This in turn will not fill you up enough and will further the negative cycle, making you more hungry and indulging in more bad foods throughout the day.
That is why breaking your fast with a protein-rich meal will not only fill you up, it will help you to make better decisions with your food later on in the day.
This will end up creating more positive situations where you implement more healthy habits unconsciously that will further help you to become leaner.
A positive spiral will form and all of these in combination will help you to get lean exponentially quicker.
So after having done your HIIT workout, taken a cold shower, and have fasted for a minimum of 12 hours, eat a protein-rich breakfast that will fill you up and set you up for the day.
This is the cherry on the cake and you don’t want to neglect this step!
A few ideas on great protein-rich breakfasts include:
- A couple of eggs
- Turkish yogurt and granola
- Leftovers from dinner the night before (that include lean protein like beans or chicken)
- Or read this article for more ideas
Minimize soda and alcohol consumption
This one I know will probably not be super popular, but I can definitely say that not drinking alcohol and soda regularly has helped me to stay very lean and fit.
This is one of the major benefits I’ve experienced from not drinking alcohol which I’ve outlined in this article here.
So why should you minimize alcohol? There are many benefits in general but for the goal of getting lean, it is because many alcoholic beverages have high amounts of calories.
Beer or cider for example has a lot of calories, and excess calories can turn into body fat very quickly.
That means that if you are for example drinking beer often and having more than one can on each occasion, you are quickly going to be consuming more calories than you can burn.
The same can be said for non-alcoholic beer and also other soda drinks, they pack such a caloric punch that it will definitely sabotage your progress of becoming lean.
This might lead you to ask…
… What about other alcoholic drinks with little calories?
Even with other alcoholic drinks that don’t contain as many calories like wine or whiskey, getting a bit tipsy can have you make bad decisions with food like buying that late-night pizza or indulging in too many snacks.
This will also sabotage your progress of getting lean and is an indirect consequence of consuming alcohol.
When I have an alcoholic drink I know I will go crazy on snacks and chips which is one of the many reasons I choose to keep alcohol to a minimum!
Obviously, you are free to choose how you want to drink, but if your goal is to get lean and fit then I certainly recommend that you radically minimize alcohol consumption.
I recommend trying to incorporate new habits to take the place of drinking alcohol, this can turn out in many different ways and can vary from person to person.
The positive feeling of having a beer with friends for example is usually the social value of it. Personally, if I go to a social event involving alcohol (obviously not a good idea now during Covid), I will maybe have one beer and after that, I will go for sparkling water.
And if you want to cut back on drinking soda, try to go for sparkling water instead. If you crave the sugary sensations of soda, try to add a bit of orange juice or something similar, but make sure to keep it in very low amounts.
Minimizing access calories is essential to becoming lean, so get into the mindset of sacrificing what you want now for what you want most.
You can engage in all of the habits above, yet if you indulge in too much alcohol, soda, or anything with excess calories in general, your efforts will most likely be in vain.
You can still get the best out of what alcohol and soda have to offer by substituting it with something else or radically minimizing the amount, you just have to be willing to sacrifice a little bit to gain a lot more of what you actually want.
And lastly
So hopefully with this article, you will have found inspiration to work your way to become leaner, and with this simple protocol, it requires less than 10 minutes of exercise every day.
The protocol I’ve outlined here is the one I personally use every day and I’ve experienced great results from them.
Being lean doesn’t mean that you are skinny or lack muscle, it shows that you don’t indulge in excess and bad habits. Getting lean shows to yourself and to the world that you take care of your body.
Also staying lean signals to yourself that you are a healthy man that likes to take care of your body and that will induce a lot of self-confidence, turning into a positive spiral that will help you to continue with these habits, exercise more, eat healthier, etc.
That is why I definitely recommend that you start your own journey to becoming more lean and muscular.
To help you on your journey and as a reward for getting all the way to the end of this article, I did mention at the beginning that I have a surprise for you, and here it is.
If you want to learn how to incorporate these habits into your life to get leaner (especially for summer 2021), I can definitely recommend that you sign up for a free 30-minute coaching call with me.
With this coaching call, I will specifically help you to incorporate these habits successfully and tailor them to your specific needs and everyday routine and schedule.
The call is completely free, so you have nothing to lose, except for every day you don’t take action and don’t work towards getting a lean and muscular body.
With the summer approaching it is definitely the time to incorporate habits so that you can get the “summer body” that is so satisfying and rewarding.
Sign up for the coaching call here and we’ll talk about how you can get lean, muscular, and confident in your body for the summer of 2021.
Looking forward to hearing from you and until next time stay happy, healthy and strong!
Gustav
Gustav
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