How to Get Lean

“Getting lean” is one of those fitness-isms that doesn’t actually mean anything—like “toning,” or “nourishment.” It sort of vaguely means getting in better physical shape. And if you had to put a finer point on it, you could say that to get lean is to lose weight while maintaining or gaining muscle. “Generally, when we talk about leaning out, we're talking about body recomposition—building muscle while burning fat,” says dietician Maddie Pasquariello, MS, RD.But beyond the desire or pressure to look a certain way, getting lean (the right way) may also come with health benefits.“The idea of getting lean has certainly evolved over time, because it's no longer just something that’s reflected in scale weight,” says Glenn DeSimone, a personal trainer at Life Time Boulder. “We now know that muscle is one of the best indicators for longevity, and having a high muscle-to-fat ratio can lower the threat of things like cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and even cancers. It’s about putting ourselves into a healthy, functioning metabolic state.”Regardless of the “what” of getting lean, or your “why” for wanting to do it, the “how” of getting there remains the same. At the end of the day, it all comes down to a relatively simple combination of diet and exercise.“A good program in the gym will be your best friend while you're trying to lean out, but eating enough calories and protein is just as important,” Pasquariello says. “If all you did was change your diet, but you did so in a meaningful way over a significant amount of time, you'd start to see changes in overall body composition, even without changing your workouts too much. But without the work in the gym, you won't get the defined muscle you're looking for.”Whatever getting lean means to you, here are Pasquariello and DeSimone’s top tips for simultaneously building muscle, burning fat, and restoring balance to your body.Make strength training your priorityA common misconception about getting lean is that it’s all about cutting calories and lumbering endlessly on the treadmill. But if there’s one absolutely indispensable component to getting lean, it’s resistance training. “If we don't leverage resistance training, we're not going to be able to create that lean tissue that we’re talking about, which of course is muscle,” says DeSimone.Strength training isn’t just about building muscle, either. Pumping iron is also a pretty big part of your fat-burning strategy. “The more muscle we have on our body, the more metabolically active we are—and that's really important,” DeSimone says. “Basically, the more muscle we have, the more fat we burn at rest.”Crucially, strength training also stimulates the production of anabolic hormones like testosterone and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), which do double duty to help you pack on muscle and burn fat. According to a 2005 research review published in the journal Sports Medicine, these hormones spike following resistance training—particularly workouts that focus on the larger muscle groups. “We want to make sure we're doing compound lifts," says DeSimone, who recommends strength training at least three or four times a week and building workouts around multi-joint, functional exercises like squats, deadlifts, presses, and pulls.Cast cardio in a supporting role“This may be the right time to reduce your cardio a bit, if that's the majority of what you do—and instead focus on weights,” Pasquariello says. At the end of the day, you can get lean with just strength training and a dialed-in diet. That said, if you’re able to make time for one or two cardio sessions a week, a little can go a long way.Cardio won’t do much for muscle growth, but it can play a supporting role in accelerating fat loss. Zone 2 cardio in particular—where you train between 60 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate—causes your body to favor fat for fuel. And, given the inherently low intensity of this kind of training, the risk of injury is considerably lower than other forms of exercise. In fact, a long, steady zone 2 run or bike ride can be a great way to recover from your strength sessions.While zone 2 is considered the “fat-burning zone” of cardio, there’s no reason to limit yourself exclusively to slow and steady workouts if you prefer to run faster. “When we start to get into zone 3 and 4, we start to burn less fat and more carbohydrates, but that is still productive for somebody who’s trying to lose fat,” says DeSimone, who explains that improving your overall cardiovascular health will ultimately help give you more bang for your buck across the board. “The more efficient we become in the higher zones, the more fat we're then able to burn in those lower zones,” he says. “So we want to continue to work in these other zones so that we become more efficient at zone 2.”Pile on the protein“​​So many people have misconceptions about how diet works when it comes to leaning out,” DeSimone says. For one, it’s not all about cutting everything down. In fact, when it comes to protein in particular, you’re probably going to want to ramp your intake up. “We have to eat protein,” DeSimone says. “Protein is going to feed our muscles. It's going to allow us to grow, and it's going to at least allow us to maintain the muscle that we already have.”In terms of how much protein you actually need, there’s no precise formula. Recommendations vary widely from person to person, and experts differ in their approaches. The most important thing, generally speaking, is that you consume enough protein to support muscle maintenance and growth without blowing your caloric budget. “I recommend to all of my clients that they consume one gram of protein per pound of lean mass,” DeSimone says. That approach will work if you have access to an InBody or similar device capable of analyzing body composition. If not, Pasquariello recommends aiming to consume between 0.8–1.2 grams of protein per pound of your goal body weight. “That’s generally a good place to start,” she says.Keep track of your caloriesWhen you’re just trying to build muscle, calories aren’t that complicated; all you have to do is make sure you’re getting enough of them. But getting lean—specifically, building muscle while burning fat—requires a more measured approach. In the simplest terms, you want to keep your caloric intake as low as possible without cutting into your protein requirements or sacrificing the carbs, healthy fats, and other nutrients needed for your body to function at its best. “We want to make sure that we're in a bit of a caloric deficit—about 300 to 500 calories below maintenance,” DeSimone says.Keeping track of your daily calorie consumption may not be the most exciting thing, but at least it’s simple. Nutrition labels make it easy to quantify most of what you put into your body, and apps like MyFitnessPal offer intuitive ways to track your intake from one day to the next.To figure out the amount of calories you’re expending on a daily basis, you’ll first need to determine your body’s resting caloric baseline. This is known as your basal metabolic rate (BMR), and there are a bunch of free online tools that make it easy to calculate yours. From there, you’ll want to factor in your workouts and other activities. “When it comes to overall caloric expenditure, pay attention to your workouts, but also the calories you burn outside of the gym, as this can make a big difference in your total daily energy expenditure,” Pasquariello says. “Taking the stairs, getting your steps in, walking between meals, working at a standing desk—all of this adds up.” Fitness trackers like WHOOP and Apple Watch make it easy to get a handle on the number of calories you’re burning during workouts and all the moments in between.Spare your body from bulking and cuttingIf you’ve ever heard someone talking about “bulking” or “cutting” in the context of getting lean, you might be wondering where that fits into all of this. The short answer is, while oscillating between all-out muscle-building and fat-burning phases is a popular, time-tested way to get lean, it’s not the only way—or necessarily the healthiest way—to go about it.“Traditionally, from a nutrition standpoint, ‘getting lean’ has meant alternating phases of bulking and cutting—a period of muscle building in which you're often eating above your body's needs (a bulk), followed by a phase of being in a prolonged caloric deficit (a cut),” Pasquariello says. “This can be a quicker way to achieve a leaner body type, but it often comes with drawbacks, like diminished performance during your workouts during a cutting phase or unwanted fat gain during a bulking phase.”While balancing muscle gain and fat loss at the same time requires a more mindful management of your input and output, it’s ultimately the smarter long-term investment in your health. “The more sustainable, though typically slower, process of body recomposition is preferable for most people to avoid the harsh ups and downs of cutting and bulking,” Pasquariello says. “It's not revolutionary, but it's often healthier and builds more consistent habits with food and exercise.”