Nutrition & Knowledge

Where this material comes from and how to use it

This section explains where these numbers come from, which ones still apply as-is, and which ones need changing.

• Source: a personal plan written in 2025 by the remote coach "好人松松" (Haoren Songsong). The original file is 减脂方案-晚饭前练.xlsx (Fat-loss plan, train before dinner). It contains the personal diet plan, the Q&A summary (《问答汇总》), the cardio calorie table (《有氧热量消耗》), the gym 3-day split (《训练计划-健身房三分化》), the gym 4-day split, shoulders-on-their-own version (《训练计划-健身房四分化（肩单练版）》), and a few other sheets.
• The original plan was written for one specific fat-loss case (training before dinner); the personal numbers have been removed.
• So:
  • Calories and gram amounts: the original plan deliberately set calories low for fat loss. At maintenance, work out your own numbers with the method in section 2, "Working out your own numbers at maintenance".
  • Meal order: the original plan trains before dinner; here the order follows "train before lunch" in section 3; if you train at a different time, see Q&A 13.
  • What to eat, takeaway, snacks, cardio, strength-training principles, Q&A: these do not depend on the body-weight goal, so use them as written.
• The course this page draws on has been through a scientific review; where it conflicts with the review, the review wins (the changed points are marked in the text).

What the original plan says about the weight loss itself

The original plan's warning: be careful with the Boohee (薄荷) app

• The original plan already calculated every food weight, so there is no need to calculate anything with the Boohee app.
• Data in the Boohee app you must not use:
  • Mixed foods made from several ingredients (any dish, burgers, sandwiches, beef noodles, etc.).
  • Meats that mix lean and fat (barbecue, fatty beef slices, fatty lamb slices, ribs, steak, sausage, meat patties, minced meat, meatballs, etc.).
• For the detailed reasons see point ② of Q&A 1 in the appendix.

Calories and macronutrients

This section says how much to eat each day: first the original coach's formulas and steps, then how to use the same formulas to work out your own numbers at maintenance. All numbers below are worked through for the same fictional example person.

Example: male, 70 kg, 175 cm, 30 years old. This is a fictional person used only to demonstrate the method; substitute your own numbers.

The original plan's formulas (fat loss)

The original plan's notes on each item:

• Basal metabolism uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation because studies evaluating the main prediction equations found it among the more accurate.
• Without strength training or cardio, basal metabolism is about 70% of daily expenditure; the rest is the thermic effect of food and daily activity, so b = a ÷ 0.7.
• Strength-training expenditure is counted at 200 to 300 kcal for men and 100 to 200 kcal for women; it has little effect on the result, so a rough estimate is fine.
• By default the whole deficit comes from diet, with no cardio; only people under 70 kg, or people who want to keep cardio, have a number in d.
• Balance calories e are the theoretical intake that keeps weight unchanged; training days include the training expenditure, so they are higher.
• Why calories to eat f are e × 0.64: a suitable fat-loss deficit is 20%, so it should be balance × 0.8; but another 0.8 is applied as a margin, first because studies show people unconsciously eat about 10 to 20% more even when eating measured amounts, and second because some calories are not counted in the table (such as the protein and fat in staple foods). So 0.64 = 0.8 × 0.8; it looks very low, but what you actually eat is higher than this number.

The original plan splits the macronutrients by body weight:

Check (example): training day 196 × 4 + 112 × 4 + 60 × 9 ≈ 1770 kcal; rest day 168 × 4 + 112 × 4 + 60 × 9 ≈ 1660 kcal, roughly matching the calories to eat above.

Working out your own numbers at maintenance

This subsection was adjusted by Claude from the original formulas; it is not the original coach's plan.

The goal is to hold weight with no calorie deficit; cardio is not counted for now (if you do cardio, add it separately using the table in section 8). Steps:

1. Work out basal metabolism a with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation.
2. b = a ÷ 0.7.
3. Take strength-training expenditure c as the midpoint of 200 to 300 kcal, 250 (women: 150).
4. Training-day balance calories = b + c; rest-day balance calories = b. Maintenance means eating at balance calories, or 5 to 10% above it (if you want to build muscle slowly), without the fat-loss factor of 0.8 or any other reduction; then adjust by the two-week weight trend.
5. Split the macronutrients as below.

Example person (male, 70 kg, 175 cm, 30 years old):

Split the macronutrients like this:

How the carbs are worked out:

• Carbs = (balance calories − protein g × 4 − fat g × 9) ÷ 4.
• Example training day: 2600 kcal minus protein 112 g (about 450 kcal) and fat 60 g (540 kcal) leaves about 1610 kcal ÷ 4 ≈ 400 g.
• Example rest day: 2350 kcal minus the same roughly 990 kcal leaves about 1360 kcal ÷ 4 ≈ 340 g.
• If you want to build muscle slowly and eat 5 to 10% above balance, put the extra calories (about 130 to 260 kcal on the example training day) into carbs, about 30 to 65 g more.
• Review correction: an earlier version followed the original plan's reasoning ("people eat more than they log, and some calories are not counted") and multiplied balance calories by 0.85 before working out carbs. The review found that maintenance does not need this reduction; eating at balance calories and calibrating with the weight trend is more reliable.
• If you eat more protein, the extra protein has the same calories as the same grams of carbs, so eat that many grams less carbs.

How to check and fine-tune:

• Look at the two-week average weight trend (see section 7) and adjust by the trend, not by single days.
• If the two-week average drops by more than 0.5 kg: add about 25 to 50 g of carbs a day (about 80 to 160 g of cooked rice).
• If the two-week average rises by more than 0.5 kg: cut about 25 g of carbs a day.
• If you add regular cardio, convert its expenditure into food using the table in section 8 and add it on top.

Meal order (train before lunch)

This section answers "on a training day, which meal comes when and how much goes in each": the example here trains Monday, Wednesday and Friday 11:00 to 12:00, using the "train before lunch" line from Q&A 13 of the original plan; if you train at a different time, adjust using the matching line of Q&A 13.

Training-day order (Mon, Wed, Fri)

1. Breakfast.
2. Pre-workout snack (optional): 20 to 30 g of carbs before training.
3. Training 11:00 to 12:00.
4. Lunch = post-workout meal: the largest meal of the day; staple food + 30 to 50 g of protein, vegetables as usual, in any order.
5. Dinner = other meal.
6. Snack / late-night snack (can be skipped).

Share of each meal

The original plan gives each meal a fixed share of the day's carbs and protein. To use it: multiply the share by the daily carb / protein totals you worked out in section 2 to get that meal's grams. The "original example" columns are the gram amounts the original coach gave for one fat-loss case, for reference only.

If you skip the pre-workout snack or eat less, add the carbs you saved to lunch.

How to choose the food for each meal

The original plan's rules:

• The options 1, 2, 3… in each column are "pick one", not "eat all"; the options within one meal are equivalent and give the same amount of carbs or protein.
• The food weights are already calculated; at first you must weigh food with a kitchen scale, and once the habit is built you no longer need to (see Q&A 2 and 3).
• Cooked rice is cooked weight, raw rice divide by 2.5; cooked noodles are cooked weight, dry noodles divide by 3; cooked lean meat with some oil is fine, raw meat multiply by 1.3; corn means sweet corn, not waxy corn. Instant oats and oat bran are dry weight.
• (Added by Claude) The "original example" figures in the tables below are the gram amounts the original coach gave for one fat-loss case. To convert to your own amounts: food grams = the meal's carbs (or protein) in grams ÷ that food's carb rate (or protein rate). The carb rates, back-calculated from the original gram amounts: cooked rice about 30%, cooked noodles about 23%, sliced bread / steamed buns about 50%, instant oats about 60%, oat bran about 46%, fortified rice cereal about 73%, corn / potato about 18%, sweet potato about 20%; cooked lean meat about 25% protein. Rounding to 5 or 10 g is fine.

Breakfast (one carb option + one protein option)

• Eggs can be boiled, tea eggs (茶叶蛋) or steamed egg custard (鸡蛋羹), but not fried eggs.
• The yolks and milk at breakfast are one basic source of fat; if you skip them, see "Fat shortfall 1" in section 4.

Pre-workout snack (optional, carbs only)

• It is just a small carb top-up, not a proper meal; eat until 50 to 60% full, because you cannot train on a full stomach; once you have eaten, get ready to train, no need to wait.
• Usually no protein, to keep it simple; if it is a proper meal, you can add some protein.
• Basically no fat.
• More portable carbs in Q&A 24.

Lunch = post-workout meal (the largest meal of the day)

• Ideally start eating within half an hour after training.
• Staple food + 30 to 50 g of protein, vegetables as usual, in any order.
• Review correction: the original plan says to eat carbs and protein first after training and vegetables little and last, so as not to blunt insulin; the review found this unnecessary.
• When no proper meal is available, portable fast carbs + protein powder will do.

Dinner = other meal

• At "other" meals, eat vegetables first and plenty of them, carbs last.

Snack / late-night snack

• Carbs: in the original plan this meal has about 21 g (10%). These carbs offset the uncounted carbs in milk, vegetables and seasonings at the other meals; they are not for eating carb foods. No carb foods (bread, rice and noodles, milk tea, fruit, etc.), no sugar-and-fat foods (biscuits, puffed snacks, desserts and pastries, etc.).
• Protein (about 23 g), pick one: 90 g of cooked lean meat; or others: 内蒙牛肉干 Inner Mongolia beef jerky, 低糖鸡肉干 low-sugar chicken jerky, dairy, eggs, vegetables, sugar-free drinks, etc.; see the low-calorie snacks in Q&A 23.
• This meal is designed to be small; if you skip it, eat a few more bites of lean meat or staple food at the other meals.

Rest days (Tue, Thu, Sat, Sun)

In the original plan a rest day (any day without strength training, whether or not you do cardio) has no pre- or post-workout meal: breakfast is exactly the same as on a training day, and lunch and dinner have the same share. The "share" columns are each meal's share of the rest day's total carbs / protein; multiply them by the rest-day totals you worked out in section 2. The "original example" columns are the gram amounts the original coach gave for one fat-loss case.

Rest-day lunch and dinner (each meal: one carb option + cooked lean meat):

What to eat

This section answers "what can I eat and what should I avoid": how to tell lean meat from fatty meat, sugar-and-fat foods, vegetables and fruit, and how to handle fat.

Lean meat list

Lean meat generally has under 5% fat, and is only these:

• Pork, beef and lamb with no white fat layer.
• Skinless chicken and duck.
• Fish, shrimp and shellfish.
• Liver, kidney, tripe, blood and heart.

Fatty meat list (not lean meat)

Generally at least 10% fat; not for everyday eating:

• 鸡鸭皮 chicken and duck skin, 大排 fried pork chop, 糖醋里脊 sweet-and-sour pork, 锅包肉 crispy fried pork, 鸡翅 chicken wings, 猪蹄 pig's trotters, 牛腩 beef brisket, 牛排 steak, 排骨 ribs, 烤肉 barbecue, 炸肉 fried meat, 午餐肉 luncheon meat, 肥牛 fatty beef slices, 肥羊 fatty lamb slices, 肉肠 sausage, 肉饼 meat patties, 肉馅 minced meat, 肉丸 meatballs.
• Among organ meats: brain and tongue are fairly fatty, only an occasional taste; intestines are like pork belly, basically do not eat; French foie gras does not count as "liver", it is close to drinking oil (Q&A 6).

Sugar-and-fat foods

• Biscuits, cakes, snacks and pastries, desserts, 油条 fried dough sticks, 煎饼 savoury crepes, high-fat bread, puffed snacks, etc.
• Fat content as high as 20 to 40%, and it is easy to eat two or three hundred grams at once; only an occasional bite to satisfy a craving.

A few dishes that soak up oil

• 炒鸡蛋 scrambled / stir-fried eggs, 炒茄子 stir-fried aubergine.
• Oily stir-fried eggs from canteens and takeaway: each egg gives only 6 g of protein but may carry over 20 g of fat, eating a lot of the fat allowance.
• Deep-fried dishes (fried mushrooms, 炸酥肉 crispy fried pork, fried chicken, fish and shrimp, 猪大排 pork chop) should also be avoided (Q&A 5).

Vegetables: no limit

• Vegetables have a very low carb rate; no need to weigh them; try to eat some every day.
• At most meals eat vegetables first and plenty of them, carbs last; this blunts insulin and helps fat loss. The original plan says the post-workout meal is the opposite, with vegetables little and last; the review found this unnecessary, so eat vegetables as usual at the post-workout meal, in any order (see section 3).
• These are not vegetables but carb staples (carb rate in brackets): 红薯 sweet potato (20%), 土豆 potato (18%), 玉米 corn (18%), 山药 Chinese yam (13%), 芋头 taro (13%).

Fruit counts as carbs

Fruit is essentially sugar water, and sugar is a form of carbohydrate, so count it as carbs and swap out staple food for it.

• How to swap: 10 g of carbs from fruit = 30 g less cooked rice.
• Review correction: eat 200 to 350 g of fruit a day and one serving of whole grains a day (oats, brown rice, wholemeal bread, etc.); just count them as carbs in place of the same amount of staple food. They are not "only occasionally" foods.

How to eat fat

Do not count fat in detail; eat it in the following way. The key point is that the fat allowance is limited, so spend it on stir-fried dishes, eggs and milk.

• Recommended pattern: yolks and milk at breakfast + ordinary home-style dishes cooked with oil at main meals, and your fat intake is basically right.
  • "Ordinary dishes cooked with oil" means home-style lean-meat dishes such as 黄焖鸡 braised chicken, 酸菜鱼 fish with pickled cabbage, 鱼香肉丝 fish-fragrant shredded pork, 小炒牛肉 stir-fried beef. Do not be afraid of the oil in them, but the meat must be lean; fatty meat pushes fat over the limit.
• Fat shortfall 1: no yolks and milk at breakfast gives about 10 to 20 g less fat than the recommended pattern; make it up over the day with 20 g of nuts or 3 egg yolks.
• Fat shortfall 2: low-oil or no-oil dishes at lunch and dinner (卤肉 soy-braised meat, 炖肉 stewed meat, plain stir-fries, clear stews, "light meals", boiled dishes) give about 20 g less fat than the recommended pattern; make it up over the day with 30 g of nuts or 4 egg yolks.
• Basically no fat in the pre-workout snack.
• Review correction: eat 15 to 30 g of nuts a day; just count them in the fat allowance. They are not "only occasionally" foods.

Takeaway, canteens and eating out

This section answers "how to stick to the plan when you cannot cook for yourself"; it comes from Q&A 7, 8, 9 and 10, with the full text in the appendix.

Takeaway (Q&A 7)

• The right takeaway: a separate portion of staple food + plenty of lean meat, so it is easy to measure.
  • Takeaway rice: a rectangular box has about 90 g carbs, a round box about 75 g (Q&A 4 says 100 g for a rectangular box).
  • Weigh the lean meat yourself to see if it is enough; if not, add a portion of meat, or eat a bit more protein at the other meals.
  • Settle on a few takeaway places first instead of changing every day, so measuring stays easy.
  • Search keywords: 跷脚牛肉 Leshan beef soup, 酸菜鱼 fish with pickled cabbage, 沙县 Shaxian snacks, anything with "鸡" (chicken) in the name (黄焖鸡 braised chicken, 蒸鸡 steamed chicken, 烤鸡 roast chicken, 窑鸡 kiln-baked chicken, 鸡腿 chicken leg, etc.).
• The wrong takeaway:
  • Short on lean meat: noodles, rice noodles, rice-with-topping bowls (盖饭).
  • Mixed meals: "light meals" and "healthy meals" with N foods tossed together, hard to measure.
  • Fatty-meat takeaway: see the fatty meat list in section 4.

Not enough lean meat (Q&A 8)

Canteens, takeaway and restaurants tend to be short on lean meat. When you can only find fatty meat, make up the protein like this:

Also: a single-serving lean-meat dish rarely has more than 100 g of lean meat (about 25 g protein), and pricier meats like beef or shrimp come in smaller amounts; do not assume one lean-meat stir-fry at a main meal gives enough protein (Q&A 5).

Eating out (Q&A 9)

• Eating out does not hurt fat loss; the table still holds carbs, protein and fat, you just cannot weigh them.
• For carbs, go by your usual staple portion; lean meat can be fairly free; vegetables as you like.
• Eat little or no fatty meat and sugar-and-fat foods:
  • At a Chinese meal, eat lean-meat dishes with some staple food and vegetables.
  • At hotpot or barbecue, order the leanest meat in the place, with some staple food and vegetables.
  • Do not go for 五花肉 pork belly, 肥牛 fatty beef slices, 肥羊 fatty lamb slices, 炸酥肉 crispy fried pork, 炸馒头 fried buns, 炸糍粑 fried rice cakes, 锅盔 guokui flatbread.

Cheat meals (Q&A 10)

• Every meal in the plan is staple food + lean-meat dishes and vegetables you like, excluding only sugar-and-fat foods and fatty meat; it is not painful, so there is no need for regular "cheating".
• Eating out is not cheating: staple portion as at home, lean-meat dishes freely, fatty meat and sugar-and-fat foods at most a few bites.
• If going without them really makes you miserable, you can have regular cheat meals, but they are genuinely high in calories and will affect results; that trade-off is yours.

When you are hungry, low-calorie snacks, portable carbs

This section deals with two problems, "hunger" and "no proper meal around training"; it comes from Q&A 14, 23 and 24, with the full text in the appendix.

When you are hungry (Q&A 14)

1. Choose high-satiety staples: rice, oat bran, oats, potato, sweet potato, corn; medium: bread, steamed buns and rolls; give up very-low-satiety ones: noodles, rice noodles, flatbread wraps (烙饼, 炊饼, 馕 naan, etc.).
2. Eat plenty of vegetables: at every meal except the post-workout meal, eat vegetables first and plenty of them.
3. Eat enough lean meat: if hungry you may go a little over. Many people eat too little protein at main meals and turn to low-satiety fruit and snacks between meals, which makes them hungrier.
4. Use the snack / late-night allowance to fill up: lean meat, sugar-free drinks, etc.
5. Add cardio to earn carbs: every 100 kcal of cardio lets you eat 25 g more carbs (about 80 g of rice); but some people get hungrier after cardio.

Low-calorie snacks (Q&A 23)

Optimize the main meals first (high-satiety staples, plenty of vegetables); if you still want to eat, consider:

• Protein:
  • 低糖鸡肉干 low-sugar chicken jerky (carb rate within 15%).
  • 内蒙牛肉干 Inner Mongolia beef jerky (must be from Inner Mongolia; other beef jerky has carb rates as high as 30%).
  • 柏香去皮熟鸡腿 Baixiang skinless cooked chicken legs (frozen, microwave, 40 g protein each).
  • 泰森鸡胸肉条 Tyson chicken breast strips (frozen, microwave, 20 to 30 g protein per bag).
  • 无穷盐焗鸡腿 Wuqiong salt-baked chicken legs (vacuum-packed, remove skin, 20 g protein each).
• Very low in calories in themselves:
  • 卫龙海带丝/魔芋爽 Weilong kelp shreds / konjac strips (small packs; squeeze out a bit of oil).
  • All sorts of konjac snacks.
  • All sorts of vegetables (potato, corn, Chinese yam and taro do not count).
• Not low in calories but you cannot eat much:
  • 有友泡椒凤爪 Youyou pickled-pepper chicken feet (too spicy to eat many).
  • Dark chocolate 80% or above (very bitter, you cannot eat more than two or three squares).
• Zero-calorie drinks:
  • 纯水乐苏打气泡水 Chunshuile soda sparkling water.
  • Sugar-free sparkling drinks (if you like sugary drinks, switch to sweetener-based ones).

Portable carbs (Q&A 24)

Mainly for the pre-workout snack; when a proper post-workout meal is not convenient you can also use portable carbs + protein powder, but satiety is low.

Why sugar should not be the main post-workout carb: starch breaks down entirely into glucose, while sugary foods are about half fructose; fructose does not stimulate insulin, and there is a daily limit of 30 to 50 g. So most everyday carbs should come from starch.

Reading your weight, and alcohol

This section answers "how to read the number on the scale" and "how to handle drinking"; it comes from Q&A 17, 18 and 11, with the full text in the appendix.

Reading your weight (Q&A 17, 18)

• With body-fat scales and body-composition analysers only the weight is reliable; do not take the skeletal-muscle or body-fat numbers seriously: changes over days or weeks are below their precision, and big changes over three to five months show up in weight, waist and the mirror anyway.
• Daily weight is moved by three things:
  • Undigested food: digestion and elimination take 1 to 4 days, so eating more or less affects the next few days' weight.
  • Water: more salt makes you hold water and gain weight; less salt makes you lose water and weight.
  • Fat: even with correct fat loss, only 30 to 50 g is broken down per day, a few per cent of the daily swing.
• So you can weigh often, but the meaningful comparison is the change over 1 to 2 weeks; weight going up over two or three days does not mean you gained fat, and going down does not mean you lost fat.
• At maintenance: use the 1-to-2-week average to judge whether you are stable, then adjust carbs by the rules in section 2.

Alcohol (Q&A 11)

• Five liang of baijiu or five bottles of beer in a day is more than an average person's daily carb total.
• If you must drink: work out the alcohol calories first, then offset them with the same calories of cardio. For example, 5 liang of baijiu in a week means an extra 1000 kcal of cardio that week (use the table in section 8).
• Offsetting by cutting carbs is generally not recommended, because carbs would drop too low (except for people over 100 kg).

Cardio

This section answers "should I do cardio, how should I do it, and how much more can I eat if I do".

Overview

• Original plan: generally the whole deficit comes from diet first, with no cardio; the person in the original case asked to keep cardio, so they did the amount filled in on the questionnaire (220 kcal a day was counted in the original plan).
• At maintenance: cardio is not required; if you do it, add the expenditure back into your diet using "cardio swaps for food" below.

Type

• Brisk walking, running, stair climbing, aerobics classes, ball games are all fine; heavier people should protect their knees and stick to swimming, cycling or the elliptical.
• Suggested heart rate 120 to 150 beats per minute, no need to be strict; in some sports the heart rate naturally fluctuates.

Timing

• No cardio before strength training; it hurts the strength session.
• After strength training, if you do cardio, generally no more than 30 minutes.
• Cardio longer than 30 minutes should be several hours away from strength training, or on a rest day.

Cardio swaps for food (important)

If you feel hungry on the plan, you can add cardio to eat more: every extra 100 kcal of cardio lets you eat 100 kcal more.

1. Work out how much more you can eat per day: extra weekly cardio hours × hourly expenditure from the table below ÷ 7 days.
2. Turn it into food: 100 kcal ≈ 80 g cooked rice / 80 g cooked lean meat / one apple, banana or tangerine / 1.5 eggs / most of a carton of whole milk / 20 g nuts.
3. The original example: at 80 kg, running 1 extra hour a week at 8 km/h burns 760 kcal per the table, so you can eat 760 ÷ 7 ≈ 100 kcal more per day.

The original plan's note: the cardio you told the coach about before the plan started is already built into the diet plan; do not add it again using this table.

Cardio calories per hour, short table

Unit: kcal per hour. The original table has a column every 5 kg from 50 to 120 kg; only 65, 70 and 75 kg are shown here, so use the column closest to your own weight. "Per kg" is the original table's kcal per kg of body weight per hour; you can also multiply it by your own weight directly.

• Swimming, ball games, aerobics: do not count rest time.
• Sources given in the original table: swimming from Understanding Nutrition (16th edition); cycling above 20 km/h, indoor bike, rowing machine, football, boxing, jump rope, dance, elliptical and Pilates from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities; everything else from 《中国健康成年人身体活动能量消耗参考值》 (Reference values of energy expenditure of physical activities in healthy Chinese adults), Chinese Journal of Sports Medicine, 2022 issue 5.
• The original table's adjustment: the raw data scale proportionally with body weight, which overestimates expenditure for heavier people, so from 80 kg upward the expenditure rate is reduced by 3% for every extra 5 kg.

Strength-training principles and split templates

This section answers "how many sets per session, what weight, how close to failure, how long to rest", and gives the original 3-day and 4-day split templates.

Principles

Beginner path (original):

• First get the framework: split types, movement patterns for each body part, choosing loads; see 好人松松's long Bilibili video 《健身新手的完全训练手册》 (The complete training handbook for gym beginners).
• Basic exercises: chest press, chest fly, pulldown, row, overhead press, front raise, lateral raise, reverse fly, curl, triceps extension, squat, deadlift, etc.
• With zero experience, get a friend who trains to show you, or buy 20 to 30 personal-training sessions, so that you can do most of the basic exercises; after that improve gradually with online exercise videos. The videos teach refinement, not how to get started, so in-person guidance still matters.

3-day split template

The original plan's notes:

• Why it is split this way: training back already uses the rear delts and biceps, and training chest already uses the front delts and triceps, so after the big muscle group a few sets top up these smaller parts.
• Quads, hamstrings and glutes are three big muscle groups, too much for one session, so rotate: for men, first time quads + compound extras, second time hamstrings + compound extras.
• The original also has a note for women (they may skip one chest day every two rounds), which does not apply to you.

4-day split template (shoulders-on-their-own version)

• Difference from the 3-day split: the three heads of the shoulder get their own day, back day no longer tops up rear delts, chest day no longer tops up front and side delts, mid chest goes up to 12 sets and triceps to 6 to 8 sets.

Appendix: Q&A summary

This section is the full text of questions 1 to 24 from the original 《问答汇总》 (Q&A summary), translated; only paragraphs and lists were tidied, the meaning is unchanged.

1. I followed the plan for 2 weeks but my weight did not drop. How should I adjust?

The calorie deficit designed into the table is already fairly large. If your weight does not drop for 2 weeks, the first thing to suspect is not the design of the table but how it is being followed. Common reasons the table is not followed:

① Not measuring food at the start. For various reasons (laziness, not taking it seriously, feeling embarrassed, eating out being inconvenient, etc.), people do not measure food at the start and instead plan meals by vague standards such as "eat until 80% full", "mix meat and vegetables" or "eat normally". The carb and protein columns of the table must be measured at the start; only fat is not counted.

② Logging food wrongly with the Boohee (薄荷健康) app. Your personal diet plan has already calculated food weights for you and covers most basic everyday foods, so I strongly advise against using the Boohee app to work out how much to eat! Boohee's data has serious errors: for any food made from several ingredients (any dish, burgers, sandwiches, beef noodles, etc.) the data is completely wrong. For any meat that is not pure lean meat (effectively lean and fat mixed in some ratio) the data is completely wrong. Only data for single, unmixed foods in Boohee is usable; mixed foods must be broken down. For example, "土豆烧牛肉" (beef braised with potato) should be broken down into: a. potato; b. the lean part of the beef (0 carbs, 25% protein, 3% fat); c. the fat part of the beef (0 carbs, 0 protein, 90% fat); d. 5 to 10 g of cooking oil eaten with the dish.

③ Too much fat. Either eating fatty meat from time to time: chicken and duck skin, pork chop (猪大排), sweet-and-sour pork (糖醋里脊), crispy fried pork (锅包肉), fried chicken, barbecue, luncheon meat, fatty beef slices, fatty lamb slices, ribs, steak, sausage, meat patties, minced meat, meatballs. Or eating sugar-and-fat foods from time to time: biscuits, cakes, snacks, pastries, desserts, fried dough sticks (油条), savoury crepes (煎饼), fancy breads, puffed snacks, etc. This is a very common problem! In particular many people eat fatty meat as if it were lean meat, which is fatal for fat loss!

④ The plan includes cardio but you do less or none. If your plan includes cardio, your food amounts are increased to match, so you eat more than someone without cardio. If your plan includes cardio but you slack off and do less or none, the deficit becomes too small or disappears. Fat loss does not require cardio; move less and you must eat less, move more and you can eat more. But if an amount of cardio was designed in, you must do it, otherwise it amounts to "eating more without moving more".

⑤ Eating fruit without swapping out staple food. Fruit is essentially sugar water with a considerable amount of carbs; work out its carbs and swap out staple food in the carb column. Especially for lighter women, whose carb total is low to begin with, eating one or two pieces of fruit a day without swapping out staple food easily wipes out the deficit. The "fruit" column of the table has detailed text on this.

⑥ Eating anything when eating out. Eating out does not in itself harm fat loss; the table still holds carbs, protein and fat. Go by your usual staple portion for carbs; lean meat can be fairly free, vegetables as you like. But many people cannot resist eating lots of fatty meat and sugar-and-fat foods when eating out, which easily wipes out several days of deficit. For guidance on eating out see Q&A 9.

⑦ Drinking. Alcohol is very high in calories: 1 liang of baijiu = 1 bottle of beer = 200 kcal = 50 g of carbs. 5 liang of baijiu or 5 bottles of beer is more than most people's daily carb total, and even eating no carbs at all that day can hardly offset it; it hurts fat loss a lot. If you must drink, see Q&A 11.

⑧ Eating less and moving more on your own initiative. The deficit designed into the table is already large within the safe range. Some people, with the mistaken idea "I want to lose fat even faster", go against the table by cutting food or adding cardio, making the deficit too large, which risks damaging basal metabolism and in the end prevents fat loss.

⑨ Starting creatine causes an apparent weight gain. If you happen to start creatine during fat loss, within a month it can make you hold about 1 to 2 kg of water; during this time weight has not dropped, but in reality it has. This is not genuinely "weight not dropping"; keep waiting and watching.

⑩ More carbs cause an apparent weight gain. If your previous diet had clearly fewer carbs than what I gave you, your weight may not drop or may even rise in the first one or two weeks, because suddenly adding carbs increases muscle glycogen stores, which hold water, and can add 0.5 to 1 kg within a few days. This is not genuinely "weight not dropping"; keep waiting and watching.

Only after confirming none of the above problems apply should you consider an insufficient deficit. The fix is: either eat 200 kcal less per day than the original plan (100 g of rice + 1 whole egg), or, using the companion 《有氧热量消耗》 (cardio calorie) table, do 1000 kcal more cardio per week (but do not add food). Then follow this for another 1 to 2 weeks and watch the weight. To stress again: for most people the table design is not the problem, they just cannot follow the table, so check the above problems first!

2. Why should beginners measure their food at the start?

Because beginners have no idea how much carbs, protein and fat are in everyday food, and eating by feel will very likely get the totals badly wrong. If eating by feel were close enough, nobody would have a weight problem. I have already calculated the food weights for you, and the food choices cover most everyday foods; the only thing you need to do is buy a kitchen scale and measure your food at the start (for a few days to a week). Once the eating habit is built you no longer need to measure.

3. Do I have to weigh my food forever? Raw weight or cooked weight?

Do not take it to mean weighing every meal every day forever; at the start just measure the foods you eat regularly:

① Carbs are easy to measure; staple foods such as rice and steamed buns have fairly fixed weights. But note that noodles, rice noodles and flatbread wraps have very low satiety and a serving has a lot of carbs (typically a massive 80 to 160 g); you can eat them, but you must measure them once.

② Protein: breakfast eggs and milk are simple to count by number; lean meat at lunch and dinner needs to be weighed a few times to learn what the volume looks like. Reference: a small chicken drumstick has 15 g protein, a large chicken leg 40 g, and an ordinary lean-meat stir-fry rarely has more than 20 g.

③ Fat does not need measuring; just use the table's recommended fat pattern: eggs and milk at breakfast, ordinary lean-meat stir-fries cooked with oil at lunch and dinner, basically excluding fatty meat and sugar-and-fat foods, and fat intake will be about right.

If you never measure at the start you will certainly fall back on imagination, eating too many or too few carbs and usually too little protein. So measuring at the start is very worthwhile. It is like using a mirror to tie a tie or put on makeup: the mirror is not about being perfect, but without it you will certainly end up crooked, so put up with this initial phase.

Raw vs cooked: rice and noodles differ greatly between raw and cooked weight, so the table gives both, and you must keep them apart. Instant oats and oat bran mean dry weight, not weight after adding water, because everyone adds a different amount of water. Corn, potato and sweet potato differ little between raw and cooked weight, so no need to distinguish.

4. Are there foods with a fixed weight?

Most foods do not have a nationally uniform weight and you still have to measure them yourself. The only foods with a fairly fixed weight are these:

• [Takeaway rice (rectangular box)] 100 g carbs per box
• [Takeaway rice (round flat box)] 75 g carbs per box
• [Sliced bread] 25 g carbs per slice
• [Chicken wingette / drumette (鸡翅根), skinless] 8 g protein each (a 鸡翅根 looks like a small drumstick, but look closely and it is not a leg)
• [Small chicken drumstick (小鸡腿), skinless] 15 g protein each (the small drumstick is the lower part of a whole chicken leg, also called 琵琶腿)
• [Whole chicken leg (全鸡腿), skinless] 40 g protein each (the whole chicken leg, such as a "手枪鸡腿" pistol leg)
• [Whole duck leg (全鸭腿), skinless] 20 g protein each (a duck leg has much less meat than a chicken leg, so protein is limited)
• [Apple / orange / banana] 20 to 30 g carbs each
• [Blueberries] 15 g carbs per box

5. Which foods in the table are badly misjudged if not measured?

[Noodles / rice noodles / flatbread wraps (烙饼, 炊饼, 馕 naan, etc.)] Their carbs are easily underestimated. These are the lowest-satiety staples and are generally not used as regular staples during fat loss; a serving can have as much as 80 to 160 g of carbs, and you can eat a lot in one meal without feeling it. Unless you are a heavy person with a high food allowance, these are generally not used as a carb source during fat loss. If you eat them often, be sure to measure once yourself. Carb rates: cooked noodles 23%, cold noodles and rice noodles 33%, fresh uncooked noodles 50%, dry uncooked noodles 70%, flatbread wraps (烙饼, 炊饼, 馕 naan, etc.) 50%.

[The lean meat in dishes] Its protein is easily overestimated. A single-serving lean-meat dish from a canteen, takeaway or restaurant rarely has more than 100 g of lean meat (25 g protein), and expensive lean meats like beef or shrimp come in even smaller amounts. Do not assume that having one lean-meat stir-fry at a main meal gives enough protein (unless you are a very light woman). If you really cannot get enough lean meat at main meals, see the guidance in Q&A 8, "What if canteen, takeaway or restaurant meals do not have enough lean meat".

[A few particular dishes] Their fat is easily underestimated. Most home-style dishes are fine with their oil, but a few should be avoided: a. Stir-fried eggs (for example tomato and egg stir-fry 西红柿炒鸡蛋): one egg plus the oil it soaks up can easily reach 30 g of fat, using half or more of the day's fat allowance; definitely avoid. If you must have stir-fried eggs, make them at home with two or three grams of oil. b. Stir-fried aubergine: aubergine soaks up oil to an extreme degree; however much oil goes in, it is all absorbed by the time it leaves the pan; generally avoid this dish. c. Deep-fried dishes, such as fried mushrooms, crispy fried pork (炸酥肉), fried chicken, fish and shrimp, and pork chop (猪大排, which is also deep-fried first).

6. Which foods need special mention?

[Lean meat] The meat in the table means lean meat. Lean meat generally has under 5% fat, and is basically only: pork, beef and lamb with no white fat layer + skinless chicken and duck + fish and shrimp + liver, kidney, tripe, blood and heart.

[Fatty meat] Chicken and duck skin, pork chop (猪大排), sweet-and-sour pork (糖醋里脊), crispy fried pork (锅包肉), fried chicken, barbecue, luncheon meat, fatty beef slices, fatty lamb slices, ribs, steak, sausage, meat patties, minced meat, meatballs. None of these are lean meat; their fat content is generally at least 10%, and they cannot be everyday foods during fat loss.

[Noodles / rice noodles / flatbread wraps] Generally not used as regular staples during fat loss; a serving can have as much as 80 to 160 g of carbs, and you can eat a lot in one meal without feeling it. If you must use them as a regular staple, be sure to measure once yourself. Carb rates: cooked noodles 23%, cold noodles and rice noodles 33%, fresh uncooked noodles 50%, dry uncooked noodles 70%, flatbread wraps (烙饼, 炊饼, 馕 naan, etc.) 50%.

[Meat-filled dumplings (肉馅水饺)] Meat dumplings are not pure carbs like rice but carbs + pork belly, with a carb-to-fat ratio of at least 3:1 and sometimes 3:2. As the staple of a meal they bring an extra 20 to 40 g of fat compared with a pure-carb staple, taking a good part of the fat allowance. Rough figures for a frozen-dumpling-sized dumpling: 4 g carbs, 1 g protein, 1.5 g fat each. Not recommended as a basic carb, only occasionally.

[Meat buns (肉包子)] A meat bun is not a steamed bun but a steamed bun + pork belly. Generally do not eat them; switch to plain steamed buns (馒头) or vegetable buns (素包子). Wherever there are meat buns there are always plain or vegetable buns; just swap.

[Organ meats] Liver, kidney, tripe, blood and heart are clean protein, equivalent to the lean meat in the table. Brain and tongue are fairly fatty, like mild pork belly, only an occasional taste. Intestines are very fatty, like pork belly; basically do not eat. Note that liver does not include French foie gras, which is a deliberately produced fatty liver, close to drinking oil.

[Burgers] If you must eat a burger, only these will do: KFC New Orleans chicken burger with the skin removed (肯德基去皮奥尔良堡), McDonald's grilled chicken burger with the skin removed (麦当劳去皮板烧堡), McDonald's double cheeseburger without cheese (麦当劳去芝士双吉堡), McDonald's Filet-O-Fish (麦当劳鳕鱼堡), Burger King applewood chicken leg burger (汉堡王果木鸡腿堡). Other burgers, especially beef burgers like the Angus ones, have explosive amounts of fat. The burgers above are roughly 30 g carbs + 20 g protein + 20 g fat. As a meal the carbs are not enough and you need some pure-carb food on top, but eating two burgers to make up the carbs is not a good idea because the fat would be too high. Also, filling your set allowance with burgers may leave you rather hungry, since burgers are a fairly low-satiety food, so they are not recommended as everyday meals.

[Fried and scrambled eggs] One fried egg gives 6 g of protein, but because it soaks up a huge amount of oil it has at least 20 g of fat, spending a big chunk of the fat allowance; very poor value, generally do not eat. Unless you fry the egg yourself: 3 to 5 g of oil is enough.

[Sugar-and-fat foods] Foods made from flour + oil, generally 30 to 50% carbs and 20 to 40% fat. Examples: biscuits, cakes, snacks, pastries, desserts, fried dough sticks (油条), savoury crepes (煎饼), fancy breads, puffed snacks, etc. If you eat them, only a taste to satisfy a craving; trying to fill up on them makes fat intake explode.

[Fruit] Fruit is essentially sugar water (sucrose / fructose / glucose + water) and takes up carb allowance. Eating fruit is eating sugar, so you must swap out carbs from staple food. For how to swap and the figures, see the guidance in the "fruit" column at the far right of the diet table.

7. What should I do about takeaway?

[The right takeaway] A separate portion of staple food + plenty of lean meat, so it is easy to measure. Takeaway rice: a rectangular box has 90 g carbs, a round box 75 g. Weigh the lean meat yourself to see if it is enough; if not, consider adding a portion of meat, or eating more protein at the other meals. Settle on a few takeaway places first and do not change every day, to avoid the hassle of measuring. Search keywords: 跷脚牛肉 (Leshan beef soup), 酸菜鱼 (fish with pickled cabbage), 沙县 (Shaxian snacks), anything with "鸡" (chicken) in the name (黄焖鸡 braised chicken, 蒸鸡 steamed chicken, 烤鸡 roast chicken, 窑鸡 kiln-baked chicken, 鸡腿 chicken leg, etc.).

[The wrong takeaway] ① Takeaway short on lean meat, such as noodles, rice noodles, rice-with-topping bowls (盖饭); ② mixed-meal takeaway, such as "light meals" and "healthy meals", with N foods all tossed together so that you can hardly measure them; ③ fatty-meat takeaway: you may only eat lean meat, and you must be able to recognise and avoid fatty meat, including pork chop (大排), sweet-and-sour pork (糖醋里脊), crispy fried pork (锅包肉), chicken wings, pig's trotters, beef brisket, steak, ribs, barbecue, fried meat, luncheon meat, fatty beef slices, fatty lamb slices, sausage, meat patties, minced meat, meatballs, etc.

8. What if canteen, takeaway or restaurant meals do not have enough lean meat?

Eating at canteens, from takeaway or at restaurants, it is easy to be short of lean meat and so short of protein. If all you can find is fatty meat (the red text in the "fat" column of the table gives examples; those cannot be eaten), how do you make up the protein? ① Inner Mongolia beef jerky (内蒙牛肉干) or chicken jerky from online shops (carb rate ideally no more than 10%); protein rate is generally at least 40%, and 10 g of jerky = 20 g of cooked lean meat in the table. ② Ready-to-eat chicken breast or beef from online shops, equivalent to cooked lean meat in the table (if you have a microwave, you can buy Tyson (泰森) chicken breast strips, 30 g protein per bag). ③ Protein powder; my Bilibili shop window has packs of various sizes. Protein powder has a protein rate above 75%; 10 g of protein powder = 30 g of cooked lean meat in the table.

9. What should I do when eating out?

Eating out does not hurt fat loss. The table still holds carbs, protein and fat; you just cannot measure them, which matters little. Go by your usual staple portion for carbs; lean meat can be fairly free, vegetables as you like.

What needs special attention is eating little or none of [fatty meat] and [sugar-and-fat foods] (for specific examples see the red text in the "fat" column of the diet table). For example, at an ordinary Chinese meal, eat lean-meat dishes with a bit of staple food and vegetables. At hotpot or barbecue, order the leanest meat in the place, with a bit of staple food and vegetables. Do not go looking for pork belly, fatty beef slices, fatty lamb slices, crispy fried pork (炸酥肉), fried buns (炸馒头), fried rice cakes (炸糍粑), guokui flatbread (锅盔) and the like. A fat-loss diet must eat little or no fatty meat and sugar-and-fat foods on every occasion, at most a small taste to satisfy a craving.

10. Do I need cheat meals during fat loss?

In our diet plan every meal is staple food (a decent amount) + lean-meat dishes and vegetables you like (any cuisine, any cooking method, as long as the meat is lean rather than fatty); the only foods excluded are sugar-and-fat foods and fatty meat, so it is not painful. With a diet this relaxed there is no need for regular "cheating" to "relieve the pain". Eating out is not "cheating": base the staple portion on what you eat at home; for example, eat the same volume of rice outside as you would at home, no need to weigh it, roughly is fine. Eat lean-meat dishes freely, without limit; eating lean meat is not cheating. But basically do not touch any fatty meat or sugar-and-fat foods (see the foods in the red text of the "fat" column of the diet table), at most a few bites.

However, if your eating habits are such that not eating fatty meat and sugar-and-fat foods makes you miserable, then you can indeed "cheat" on them regularly, but because they really are high in calories it will inevitably affect fat loss; that trade-off is up to you.

11. Why does drinking do so much damage to fat loss? What if I have to drink?

① Alcohol is very high in calories!

• 1 liang of baijiu (50 g): 50 g × 50% alcohol × 7 kcal/g = 175 kcal = 44 g carbs
• 1 bottle of beer (600 g): 600 g × (4% carbs × 4 kcal/g + 3% alcohol × 7 kcal/g) = 222 kcal = 56 g carbs
• In short, 1 liang of baijiu = 1 bottle of beer = 200 kcal = 50 g carbs; five liang of baijiu or five bottles of beer in a day is more than most people's daily carb total

② What if I have to drink?

If you already told me how much you drink when you asked me for a personal plan, I have already handled it in the plan and you do not need to adjust. The method is: first estimate your alcohol calories, then offset them by adding the same amount of cardio. For example, if you need to drink 5 liang of baijiu a week, do extra cardio that week: 5 liang × 200 kcal = 1000 kcal; for cardio expenditure see the companion 《氧热量消耗》 (cardio calorie) table. Offsetting alcohol by cutting carbs is generally not recommended, because the carb amounts in this table are not large; cutting carbs to pay for it would make them plunge, very likely below the body's basic carb needs (unless you are a heavy person over 100 kg whose carb total is high to begin with, in which case using some of it to offset alcohol is fine).

12. For heavy people, how should food amounts change after losing 10 kg?

If you have lost 10 kg and still want to keep losing, your basal metabolism has dropped by a little over 100 kcal along with your weight. To keep the deficit from being wiped out, either eat 50 g of rice + 1 whole egg less per day than this plan, or, using the companion 《有氧热量消耗》 (cardio calorie) table, do 800 kcal more cardio per week (but do not add food).

13. If I change my training time, how do I change the training-day meal order?

The table designs four kinds of meals: breakfast, pre-workout meal, post-workout meal and other meals, each with its own allowance. If your training time changes, just move the meals around:

• [Train after breakfast (early riser)] breakfast (pre-workout meal) - training - post-workout meal - lunch (other meal) - dinner (other meal)
• [Train after breakfast (late riser)] breakfast (pre-workout meal) - training - lunch (post-workout meal) - dinner (other meal) (the original pre-workout allowance is shared among the other meals)
• [Train before lunch] breakfast - pre-workout meal - training - lunch (post-workout meal) - dinner (other meal)
• [Train after lunch] breakfast - lunch (pre-workout meal) - training - post-workout meal - dinner (other meal)
• [Train before dinner] breakfast - lunch (other meal) - pre-workout meal - training - dinner (post-workout meal)
• [Train after dinner] breakfast - lunch (other meal) - dinner (pre-workout meal) - training - post-workout meal
• [Train late, well after dinner] breakfast - lunch (other meal) - dinner (other meal) - training - post-workout meal (the meals can be fairly evenly split, with the post-workout meal slightly larger)

14. What if I feel hungry during fat loss?

① Most important is choosing high-satiety staples. Among the staples offered in the table, choose high-satiety ones where possible: rice, oat bran, oats, potato, sweet potato, corn; medium satiety: bread, steamed buns and rolls; give up the very-low-satiety ones: noodles, rice noodles, flatbread wraps (烙饼, 炊饼, 馕 naan, etc.).

② Eat more vegetables. Vegetables fight hunger. Except for the post-workout meal after strength training, at every meal eat vegetables first and plenty of them; this both blunts insulin to help fat loss and helps fight hunger.

③ Eat enough lean meat. The protein allowance at each meal is fairly generous; eat your fill of lean meat, and if you are hungry you can go a little over. Many people eat too little protein at main meals and turn to low-satiety fruit and snacks between meals, which of course makes them hungrier.

④ Use the snack / late-night allowance to fill up. Snacks and late-night snacks can be lean meat, sugar-free drinks and other foods with high satiety per calorie; for a recommended list see Q&A 23, "What low-calorie snacks can briefly fill me up".

⑤ Add some cardio in exchange for carbs. Every 100 kcal burned by cardio lets you eat 25 g more carbs (about 80 g of rice); for cardio expenditure see the 《每小时有氧的热量消耗》 (cardio calories per hour) table at the end of the diet table. But this may not help, because some people get even hungrier after cardio and the extra carbs are not enough for them.

15. Why does whether fat loss needs cardio depend on current body weight?

Body weight determines basal metabolism, and basal metabolism is the body's main calorie expenditure. So the heavier you are, the higher your basal metabolism, the higher your expenditure, and the more calories you can eat during fat loss. If providing the whole deficit through diet leaves you too hungry, add cardio to raise food calories; this keeps the deficit the same while reducing hunger somewhat.

People over 80 kg: their basal metabolism is high enough that providing the deficit through diet alone, as long as low-satiety, high-calorie foods are excluded (fatty meat, sugar-and-fat foods, low-satiety carbs such as noodles and rice noodles), will not leave them hungry, so they do not need cardio to raise food calories. Especially for heavy people over 100 kg, providing the deficit through diet alone will definitely not leave them hungry, and adding cardio would push food calories so high they could barely eat it all.

People at 70 to 80 kg: their basal metabolism is average. Providing the deficit through diet alone, again excluding low-satiety, high-calorie foods (fatty meat, sugar-and-fat foods, low-satiety carbs such as noodles and rice noodles), most of them will not feel very hungry, so they do not need cardio to eat more. But some will feel hungry, and they should consider adding cardio to raise food calories; see the guidance in the companion 《有氧的热量消耗》 (cardio calorie) table.

People under 70 kg: their basal metabolism is fairly low. Providing the deficit through diet alone, even excluding low-satiety, high-calorie foods (fatty meat, sugar-and-fat foods, low-satiety carbs such as noodles and rice noodles), most will feel somewhat hungry, so by default they need cardio to eat more.

Although "the heavier you are, the less you need cardio" is true, where to draw the weight bands is a matter of experience. The bands above (under 70 kg, 70 to 80 kg, over 80 kg) are the uploader's own rule of thumb. In reality there will certainly be a few people under 70 kg who tolerate hunger well and are not hungry with the whole deficit from diet, so they need no cardio; and certainly some people over 80 kg who do not tolerate hunger and feel underfed with the whole deficit from diet, and need cardio to raise food calories. These exceptions can simply adjust food calories using the guidance in the companion 《有氧的热量消耗》 (cardio calorie) table: add cardio to eat more, reduce cardio to eat less.

16. Why does my weight go up on this plan after low-calorie dieting?

"Low-calorie dieting" means eating far below basal metabolism every day (this table's calories are already low enough; if you previously ate much less than this table, that counts). People who have lost weight by low-calorie dieting have low muscle glycogen and low water stored with it, and their basal metabolism may also be somewhat damaged. So once they return to a fat-loss diet with normal carbs and total calories, muscle glycogen and its stored water go up, and weight may rise rather than fall in the first week.

Low-calorie dieters must accept this process: only after glycogen, stored water and basal metabolism are back to normal can they start losing fat normally like anyone else. Not daring to give up dieting for fear of the weight going up is drinking poison to quench thirst and fooling yourself.

17. Can I trust the body-fat and muscle numbers from body-fat scales and body-composition analysers?

No. Of the data from body-fat scales and body-composition analysers only weight is useful; do not take the skeletal-muscle or body-fat numbers seriously.

If the change in muscle and fat is small (say over a few days or weeks), the analyser is not precise enough to detect it. If the change is large enough (say over three to five months), the analyser numbers will indeed differ, but by then you can clearly see it from weight, waist and appearance, so you do not need the analyser.

How do you tell whether you are really losing fat? Look at weight, waist and appearance. As long as weight and waist are going down and other people think you are getting slimmer, you are definitely losing fat. Of course, compare weight over 1 to 2 weeks; changes over three to five days mean nothing.

18. Why do weight changes over two or three days mean nothing?

Factors affecting day-to-day weight: ① Undigested food. Food takes 1 to 4 days to be digested and eliminated; the amount of food differs each day (say you eat a lot one day and skip a meal another), which affects the weight of undigested food over the following days and can change weight noticeably. ② Water loss and retention. Lower salt intake makes the body lose water and weight; higher salt intake makes it hold water and gain weight; different salt intake each day affects weight. ③ Fat breakdown and synthesis. This is what everyone cares about, but it is very small: even with correct fat loss, daily fat breakdown is only thirty to fifty grams, just a few per cent of the day's change in weight!

Since even with correct fat loss daily fat breakdown is only a few per cent of the weight swing, there is no way to judge changes in fat from day-to-day weight, nor from comparing two or three days. You have to keep accumulating, until the fat broken down is large enough to make up the main part of the weight change over that period; only then does the weight change represent the change in fat.

So you can weigh yourself often, but meaningful weight comparisons should use the change over 1 to 2 weeks. Weight going up over two or three days does not mean you gained fat, and weight going down does not mean you lost fat.

19. Why stop 16+8 intermittent fasting once you manage carbs, protein and fat?

Intermittent fasting suits complete beginners who have no idea about carbs, protein and fat.

Its advantage: it is extremely simple. Skipping one meal (usually breakfast) very likely cuts daily intake by 20 to 30%; as long as the other two meals and exercise habits stay as before, that gives a suitable 20 to 30% deficit. By contrast, asking beginners to set carbs, protein and fat at each meal to create a 20 to 30% deficit requires basic knowledge of macronutrients and measuring food at each meal, which they cannot or will not do. So simplicity is intermittent fasting's biggest advantage.

Its drawbacks: ① the ratio of carbs, protein and fat may be wrong, because fasting only cuts calories and ignores what they are made of; ② the deficit may be wrong, because total calories in the two-meal eating window may be too high (for example eating fatty meat or sugar-and-fat foods) or too low (for example eating "disciplined healthy meals").

So intermittent fasting suits complete beginners who know nothing about macronutrients; for people who can manage carbs, protein and fat (and this plan is for you to manage them), drop that simple method; managing macros is more precise and effective.

20. What diet do you suggest for people with high uric acid or gout?

Among protein sources, eggs, milk and protein powder have no purines, and among meats pork, beef and lamb are lower in purines. Suggestions:

① Eggs and milk at breakfast; for lean meat at lunch and dinner prefer beef, which has fewer purines, and use less chicken and seafood;

② If you have protein powder, halve the lean meat and get the other half of the protein from protein powder;

③ Drink plenty of water, 2 to 3 L a day;

④ Limit fructose, mainly from fruit and sugary drinks;

⑤ Strictly limit beer and baijiu; best not to drink;

⑥ Get regular check-ups, and if levels are seriously high, take medication as your doctor advises.

21. What diet do you suggest for people with insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes?

To keep blood sugar steadier:

① Within the set total calories, make carbs a little lower and protein a little higher: starting from the standard allowance table in my video, shift about 10 to 20% of carbs to protein, for example carbs minus 0.3 g/kg and protein plus 0.3 g/kg.

② For staple foods, prefer a few easy-to-get medium-GI carbs: oat bran, pasta, steamed sweet potato, steamed potato, steamed sweet corn (note: not waxy corn). (The nutrient rates for calculating food weights are all given at 23 min 10 s in the video.) If none is available you can also use fast carbs such as rice (but as a last choice). Oat bran for breakfast carbs is especially recommended; studies show its very high fibre is quite effective at improving type 2 diabetes (you can sweeten it with a little white sugar, honey, yoghurt, etc.).

③ Very importantly, at every meal eat plenty of vegetables first, then meat, and staple food last; this effectively keeps blood sugar down.

22. Why not aim to build muscle and lose fat at the same time?

Building muscle and losing fat can indeed happen at the same time. For example, a beginner who has just started strength training may still gain a little muscle even while on a fat-loss allowance that makes their weight drop, but that muscle gain cannot compare with what a muscle-building allowance gives.

Or someone who sets calories at balance and keeps weight unchanged long-term may gain a tiny bit of muscle and lose a tiny bit of fat, but those amounts cannot compare with a normal muscle-building or fat-loss allowance.

So these cases of "building muscle and losing fat at the same time" do exist, but not in the way people hope, "maximising both at once and getting in one unit of time what others get in two"; otherwise fitness would not need separate "bulking" and "cutting" phases, and everyone would spend all their time in a "recomposition phase". In short, cut when it is time to cut and build when it is time to build, rather than trying to "maximise both at once".

23. What low-calorie snacks can briefly fill me up?

If you feel hungry between meals or before bed, first consider improving your main meals: a. choose high-satiety staples at main meals: rice, oat bran, oats, potato, sweet potato, corn, rather than very-low-satiety ones: noodles, rice noodles, flatbread wraps (烙饼, 炊饼, 馕 naan, etc.); b. eat plenty of vegetables at main meals; they have almost no calories but give some satiety. Beyond that, if you still want something between meals or late at night, consider these snacks:

① Protein

• 低糖鸡肉干 low-sugar chicken jerky (cheaper than beef jerky; choose one with carb, i.e. sugar, rate within 15%)
• 内蒙牛肉干 Inner Mongolia beef jerky (must be from Inner Mongolia; other beef jerky has carb, i.e. sugar, rates as high as 30%)
• 柏香去皮熟鸡腿 Baixiang skinless cooked chicken legs (keep frozen, heat in the microwave, 40 g protein each)
• 泰森鸡胸肉条 Tyson chicken breast strips (keep frozen, heat in the microwave, 20 to 30 g protein per bag)
• 无穷盐焗鸡腿 Wuqiong salt-baked chicken legs (vacuum-packed, no heating needed, remove the skin, 20 g protein each)

② Very low in calories in themselves

• 卫龙海带丝/魔芋爽 Weilong kelp shreds / konjac strips (individual small packs; there is a little oil you can squeeze out)
• All sorts of konjac snack products (there are many, search for them yourself)
• All sorts of vegetables (but potato, corn, Chinese yam, taro and the like are not vegetables but carb staples)

③ Not low in calories but you can only eat a little

• 有友泡椒凤爪 Youyou pickled-pepper chicken feet (individual small packs; it is mildly like pork belly, but the skin of the feet weighs very little, and it is too spicy to eat many)
• Dark chocolate (itself a high-calorie food of roughly half carbs, half fat, but at 80% cocoa or above it is very bitter, so you cannot eat more than two or three squares)

④ Zero-calorie drinks

• 纯水乐苏打气泡水 Chunshuile soda sparkling water (briefly fills you up, and gives your mouth a little alkalinity, reducing tongue inflammation)
• Sugar-free sparkling drinks (briefly fill you up and save carb allowance; lovers of sugary drinks must switch to sweetener-based drinks)

24. What portable carbs can I use for pre- and post-workout meals?

Portable carbs are mainly for the pre-workout meal (the pre-workout meal is just a small portion of carbs to settle the stomach). If a proper post-workout meal is not convenient, you can also use portable carbs + protein powder, but satiety is usually fairly low.

• [吐司切片面包 sliced bread] 25 g carbs per slice
• [速冻或现售馒头 frozen or freshly sold steamed buns] carb rate about 50%, weigh yourself
• [旺仔小馒头 Want Want mini buns, 42 g pack] 30 g carbs per pack
• [娃哈哈罐装八宝粥 Wahaha canned eight-treasure congee] 30 g carbs per can
• [沈大成豆沙青团 Shendacheng red-bean qingtuan] 45 g carbs each; note it must be red-bean, other flavours are too fatty
• [红螺牌驴打滚 Hongluo lüdagun (rolled glutinous rice cake)] 10 g carbs each; sweetened with maltose, which produces no fructose, slightly better than white sugar
• [各品牌营养米粉 fortified rice cereal, any brand] carb rate about 75%; add "营养" (nutrition) to your search, otherwise you only get baby rice cereal
• [各品牌山西纯碱烤馍 Shanxi baked crisp bread, any brand] carb rate about 75%, very cheap, tastes like scallion crackers
• [各品牌云片糕 Yunpian cake, any brand] carb rate about 80%, weigh yourself
• [BHB袋装熟板栗 BHB packaged cooked chestnuts] 35 g carbs per bag, but not suitable as post-workout carbs because the GI is not high
• [香蕉 banana] sucrose, fructose and glucose together 20 to 30 g per banana; can be used as small carbs before or during training, but not as the main post-workout carbs
• [脉动 Mizone] 30 g sucrose per bottle; can be used as small carbs before or during training, but not as the main post-workout carbs
• [宝矿力 Pocari Sweat] 30 g sucrose per bottle; can be used as small carbs before or during training, but not as the main post-workout carbs
• [含糖可乐 regular cola] 50 g sucrose per bottle; can be used as small carbs before or during training, but not as the main post-workout carbs

Note: why can sugary foods (fruit, sugary drinks) be used for small pre-workout carbs, or eaten alongside the post-workout meal, but not be relied on as the main post-workout carbs? Because starchy carbs break down entirely into glucose, while sugary foods break down into roughly half glucose and half fructose. Fructose does not stimulate insulin and also has a daily intake limit of thirty to fifty grams. Using sugary foods as the main post-workout carbs both fails to raise insulin and adds fructose. So the great majority of our everyday carbs should be starchy, not sugary foods (fruit, sugary drinks).

Source: remote plan by 好人松松 (Haoren Songsong), 2025; for personal use only.