10 Things I Learned from Getting Lean

Throwback to the leanest condition I ever achieved...

Here's 10 things I learned (thread)👇 pic.twitter.com/09ybxW7Ua5

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

1. It took an insane amount of discipline.

Yeah, I went from the picture on the left to the picture on the right...

It was cool, but it took SO much sacrifice. pic.twitter.com/S8mi9c1yDK

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

I've gotten lean many times, but getting to levels of shredded that I've never seen before required my to up my game... massively.

In the past, I would track calories most of the time and could get away with having a few days off.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

To get to an uncomfortbly low level of body fat I had to meticulously track every calorie.

It took up a lot of my time and mental energy.

I would always be thinking about food, and would be measuring out the milk that I was putting in my coffee.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

2. I was grouchy all the time.

I was hungry.

I was restricting food (even healthy food) to continue losing body fat way past what is necessary.

It sucks the happiness out of you. I was horrible to be around and I struggled to have my usual patience with my kids.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

3. I was cold.

For the last month or so I felt cold all the time.

This is due to having not enough fat on you to keep you warm... but also your body lowering your temperature to try to save energy (as a survival mechanism).

I also got lazy (same survival mechanism).

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

4. I got weaker.

Food = energy.

My gym performance started to drop after a while. I lost a fair bit on my pressing exercises and my squats.

I probably lost some muscle too.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

5. My sleep sucked.

Once I got to a certain point, I couldn't sleep past 5am - even if I'd gone to bed at 11:30pm the night before.

My body would just wake me up and I couldn't get back to sleep.

Another survival mechanism, I think (waking up to look for food)

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

6. I looked skinny in clothes.

This example is from a previous fat loss phase, but you can see I look DRASTICALLY different with clothes vs. without.

I got much leaner than this - so the effect was even more pronounced.

I even had to buy medium t-shirts and 32 waist jeans! pic.twitter.com/R2RckVe3Vn

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

7. My face looked gaunt.

You can't really tell this as much from the pictures, but in real life my cheeks were incredibly hollow, giving me a gaunt look.

My face was just skin and bone. People would ask if I was sick.

This picture kind of shows it. pic.twitter.com/96z4yFiSUo

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

8. I didn't know what I actually looked like any more.

I think a lot of people in bodybuilding circles (or similar) experience some form of body dysmorphia.

You think you look skinny, or you think you look fatter than you actually are.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

During my journey to sub 10% body fat this ramped up to whole new levels.

My face looked like a skull but I was still telling my wife I could probably lose another 3kg and would grab some "fat" from my stomach to illustrate my point.

She was totally dumbfounded.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

9. I had a horrible rebound.

First thing I did after my photoshoots were done was go out to various restaurants and demolish an obscene amount of food.

Even when I was uncomfortably full I would keep eating.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

For example, eating TWO of these cheesecakes after already destroying a load of Turkish and Lebanese food.

OR eating a whole tub of icecream AND a box of cookies after already eating a huge burger, fries and fried chicken (loads of it) pic.twitter.com/dt3O8RVzyV

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

If this has just been one or two occasions it wouldn't have been too bad.

Unfortunately it went on for weeks...

Leading me to number 10:

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

10. I couldn't maintain it.

I would have liked to have stayed lean and slowly reversed back out and started slowly gaining again (gaining quality mass and keeping fat gain to a minimum).

In reality, this didn't happen and now i have more fat on me than I'm happy with this soon.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

My biggest learning from all of this is that I won't be doing it again anytime soon!

I can happily get down to 11-13% with pretty much zero ill effects.

This gives all of the health benefits of being lean whilst still enjoying life and avoiding most of these negative effects.

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

If you want to get absolutely shredded out of your mind.. i can help you, but it isn't easy.

If you just want to lose fat and be healthier, I can 100% help you and steer you clear of all the negative side effects.

Send me a DM to enquire 👇https://t.co/LqkD5DQdtu

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023

P.S. If you're wondering about the training I did whilst getting this lean... this is the program I used.

20 minute workouts... 4x per week.

Program on sale today with code (automatically applied through this link)https://t.co/jAlDkEfE9B

— Rob - Nothing Barred Fitness (@Rob_NBF) June 7, 2023