5 Rules For Getting To 15% Body Fat Over 40
Aug 24, 2025Why Fat Loss After 40 Feels Different
Did you know losing body fat after 40 can actually feel easy if you follow five simple rules?
After years of struggle, I've maintained 15 to 20% body fat for over a decade, and I've helped hundreds reduce their body fat, too. So, I'm going to show you the five rules you need to follow and how to fit them into your busy life to achieve 15% body fat over 40.
Rule 1: Prioritize Protein To Lose Fat
To start, let me show you how to eat in a way that keeps you full and makes fat loss feel easier without extreme diets or constant hunger. Prioritize protein to lose fat. One of the best ways to make fat loss more manageable is to increase your protein intake. It helps you stay full, reduces cravings, and helps build and maintain your muscle.
➡️ My client Mike told me that he'd been trying to lose fat for years, eating what he thought was healthy, and working out pretty regularly, but nothing was really changing. He was always hungry and he had a hard time keeping his calories under control. I asked him to add more protein to his breakfast. Greek yogurt with berries and sometimes eggs too, foods that he enjoyed, and then to add more lean protein to his other meals. He found that the extra protein kept him full and he wasn't driven by hunger all the time. He lost 30 lbs in 6 months.
Even though he went on a few vacations, usually a big weakness for him in terms of food. And it was because he found a way of eating that kept him more satisfied. He could manage his hunger.
➡️ So, aim for 0.7 to one gram of protein per pound of your body weight. That's 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilo per day. If you're 180 lbs, you'll need 126 to 180 g per day.
Spread that amount across at least three meals so that you don't go long periods without eating, which often leads to bad food choices or overeating. Use mainly lean protein sources like lean meat and poultry and fish, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, whey protein isolate, and high protein milk.
If you're not sure how to hit your protein numbers, download The Lean & Strong Protein Plan. It includes a list of lean protein sources and a sample meal plan that makes the process simple and realistic.
Rule 2: Exercise Strategically To Build Muscle
Now, eating enough protein helps reduce your appetite. But in order for it to help you build muscle, your body needs the right stimulus to use it. And muscle is valuable for reducing your body fat percentage because that's the ratio of fat to lean tissue. Primarily muscle, but also blood, organs, bone, skin, and connective tissue like tendons and ligaments. Even if you don't lose fat, but you put on muscle, your body fat percentage will go down.
➡️ So, you need to exercise strategically. This isn't just about burning calories. It's about building muscle to help you lose fat more easily. Weight training should be the focus of your program if you're over 40. Without a stimulus for muscle growth, you'll gradually lose your muscle as you get older. 0.8 to 1% of your muscle mass per year, starting around 40. And getting to 15% isn't about weight loss. It's about fat loss. That means getting and keeping as much muscle as you can while losing body fat.
➡️ If your only form of exercise is cardio, you'll lose weight, but it probably won't look the way you want it to. Muscle gives your body shape. Without it, 15% body fat can still look soft. With more muscle, you'll look defined and athletic, which I think is what you want. So, strength train two to four times per week. Short focused workouts from 25 to 45 minutes are plenty. Our recovery from exercise can go down as we get older. So, make sure that you're not doing several really long sessions in a row.
Rule 3: Use Activity To Support Fat Loss
Right now, I've found myself leaner in the last couple months. Probably 15% when I usually sit around 17 or 18%. I'm going to tell you how I did it in a sec, but I should note that 15% for a woman is about the equivalent of 8 to 10% for a man. It's very lean and most people don't need or want to get that low. 15% can be fairly comfortable for a man in his 40s or 50s. For a woman of the same age, 20 to 24% is probably a more reasonable range to reach for.
➡️ To get myself leaner recently, and this basically happened accidentally, I'm doing something called high energy flux. That means I'm eating a pretty decent amount, but I'm also moving a lot. I lift weights two to three days a week right now. On weekends, I go for long bike rides with my family, 2 hours or more. And for three Sundays in a row, we went kayaking for 2 to three hours after the long bike ride on Saturday. Even with the extra summer food, patio lunches and dinners, ice cream and popsicles, I'm leaner now than I was a couple of months ago.
➡️ You might have experienced something similar if you were away on a European holiday and you ate a lot of food, but you walked so much that you didn't put on any weight. When we were in Barcelona and Prague last year, we were walking 16,000 to 22,000 steps doing our sightseeing, way more than I usually do. Exercise helps with appetite management, and long-term studies of people who've lost weight and kept it off for years show that they almost always exercise regularly. Do at least 150 minutes of moderate cardio or 75 minutes of vigorous cardio per week. Get at least 7,000 steps a day and closer to 10,000 if you really want to push the fat loss.
Rule 4: Design Your Environment For Success
And to make fat loss feel effortless, you need to design your environment. Willpower and discipline are overrated. You need to set up your environment to make positive changes easy and make your bad habits hard to do.
➡️ In 2012, at Google's New York office, employees were eating large amounts of candy from clear jars in little kitchens throughout the building. To encourage healthier choices, Google replaced the clear containers of M&M's with opaque ones and moved healthier snacks like nuts and dried fruit into clear, easy-to-reach jars. Over just 7 weeks, that little switch led to employees consuming 3.1 million fewer calories without actually removing any of the food options.
➡️ You can use this idea in your own home. Make eating healthier food easier by keeping it out on the counter or buying pre-cut veggies and fruit. Use smaller plates and bowls to help with portion control. Put tempting foods out of sight in high cupboards or even in another room. Design your schedule too. Prepare meals ahead of time, bring healthy snacks when you're on the go, and build routines that make your food decisions easier.
Rule 5: Track Progress The Right Way
But even when you have your food systems in place, you won't know if they're working unless you track things properly. Track progress using multiple methods.
➡️ You probably do want to weigh yourself, but it's better to use average weighing. Taking your weight every day and then working out a weekly average. Your weight can go up and down on a daily basis because of your water and salt intake, temporary inflammation from workouts, hormonal changes, or where you are in your digestive cycle.
➡️ Take progress photos every four weeks using the same lighting, pose, and clothes. Film a short progress video of yourself turning slowly. Measure your waist and hips. Track your workouts, cardio sessions, and steps. If your body fat levels start to come up again, you can look at what might need changing.
Build A Sustainable Nutrition Plan
And remember that none of this will work if you're eating in a way that isn't sustainable for you. So build a nutrition plan that works for you. If your plan includes cutting out all your favorite foods or starving yourself, it won't keep you at 15%.
➡️ In my 20s, I tried to only eat clean whenever I was trying to lose weight. I'd do well for weeks or months at a time, but eventually I'd binge hard on chocolate, ice cream, usually a couple of tubs of Ben & Jerry's in one sitting or whatever else I'd been denying myself. Now I include those same foods, small portions, often many times a week without guilt, and my cravings have actually died right down. That's how I stay lean in my 40s without obsessing.
➡️ So don't try to lose body fat with extreme measures so that you can't keep up for the long term. Include your favorite treat foods on a regular basis in small quantities so your cravings don't build up. You need to stick this out and be patient. 15% body fat isn't about doing something extreme for a few weeks. It's about building a system you can live with for months or years.
Stay Consistent And Be Patient
Progress won't be linear. The leaner you are, the slower the progress is. That's normal. But stick with the five rules consistently and you'll get there if you're committed to it. If you want to make sure that you're building the lean muscle that you're going to need to maintain that 15% body fat, watch the VIDEO HERE.