Set Up Your Body Recomposition Plan For 2025

Losing fat and building muscle is what most of my clients want.

They don’t need to be as massively muscular or as tiny as possible. They like the look of lean muscle—strong but not bulky. In some cases, just losing some fat will give you that definition you want in your arms, legs, or your back. That’s what gives you that toned look. But you need to work on preserving and ideally building muscle. That’s always important for long-term fat loss.

I’m going to explain why as I share how I would design a body recomposition plan if I was starting from scratch.

 Body recomposition works best when you have a bit of fat to lose, if you’re new to strength training, or coming back after a long break. The other situation is when people just haven’t consistently been following an optimal workout and nutrition plan for body recomposition.

I’ve been coaching people for over 20 years, and I can tell you that most people have not been doing that.

If you have 10 to 20 pounds to lose and you want that look of lean muscle, you want a program that helps you lose fat and build muscle.

Will you maximize your muscle mass completely and be able to do a bodybuilding show in a few months? Probably not. But I’m guessing that’s not what you want anyway.

Starting on a body recomposition plan means putting the focus on muscle.

My weight has gone up and down over the years for various reasons—digestive issues that affected what I ate, injuries (both acute and chronic), going through tough periods emotionally, and having my son. Pregnancy really does change your body.

I’ve been on that body recomposition journey many times.

I’ve always been able to get to my leanness when I focus on building muscle because if you do the things it takes to build muscle—from both a workout and nutrition standpoint—you’re also going to be helping your fat loss efforts. I’m going to explain that a little more later on.

Fat loss comes through lipolysis, the breakdown of fat, and muscle building happens through protein synthesis. These are separate processes that can occur at the same time as long as you have the right stimulus and nutrition.

Your body composition, or body fat level, is the ratio of fat to lean tissue, like muscle, organs, fluid, and bone. Body recomposition improves the quality of your physique by increasing muscle mass and reducing fat. That means you’ll look leaner and more defined, even if your weight doesn’t change dramatically.

It’s also more sustainable long-term because building muscle slightly increases your metabolism, helping you burn slightly more calories even at rest.

First, you need the stimulus, which is at least 3 days of weight training per week. Okay, maybe two would be okay for some people starting out, but three is ideal. Up to five is probably still useful for most people.

But remember that your muscles grow while you’re resting. If your muscles don’t recover well from session to session, you won’t have the same training effect because you’re not able to push yourself each time.

The intensity, which is the weight that you lift relative to your own abilities, is an important determinant of your ability to grow muscle.

 We used to say that 8 to 12 reps (and sometimes 6 to 12 reps) was ideal for muscle hypertrophy (muscle growth), but recent research suggests that what matters more than the rep range is how close you are to what you’re able to do.

So, about one to two reps in reserve is generally what you should be aiming for.

“Reps in reserve” tends to be with respect to complete failure, where you’re really, really pushing.

So if you’re picking a weight that you could only do for 12 reps with your head exploding, and you do it for 10 or 11 reps most times, that’s probably fine.

But if you use that weight that you can do for 12 reps and you only do seven reps, you won’t get as much muscle growth. And that’s actually quite common in research—people tend to leave about five reps in reserve.

Definitely not ideal for maximizing muscle growth.

Ideally, you’re hitting major muscle groups twice a week, 10 to 20 sets per muscle group as a rough guideline.

Your volume over the course of the week is what you want to focus on. Each workout session adds some more volume for muscle growth.

You want to focus on compound exercises. These are exercises that hit multiple muscle groups at the same time.

Leg exercises like lunges, squats, and deadlifts are particularly useful because you’re hitting the larger muscle groups in the legs and back.

Upper body exercises like rows and presses, and bodyweight exercises like chin-ups and dips, are also valuable.

These exercises hit multiple muscle groups and stimulate muscle growth more effectively.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t do some concentration curls for your biceps as part of your workout. It’s just slightly less effective to have a workout plan that consists solely of isolation exercises.

And that’s the way I’ve designed the workouts in The Lean & Strong Academy—three days a week of mainly compound body exercises, with some abs thrown in for good measure.

You should be training with progressive overload.

That means gradually increasing the difficulty of your workouts over time.

This can mean adding more weight, doing more reps, or increasing your total volume over the course of the week.

Track the weights for your exercises so you can see where you’re progressing. If you’re new to resistance training, start with lighter weights to get your technique right. As you get stronger, gradually increase the weight.

Following those workout guidelines will optimize your muscle growth.

You’re probably curious about the role of cardio because most of us associate that with fat loss. It can be helpful since aerobic exercise will increase your calorie burn.

We don’t want to ignore our heart health either, although you do get some heart benefits from weight training—particularly if you’re using short rest periods.

While cardio isn’t essential to a body recomposition plan, I still recommend that you include some aerobic exercise, preferably something that you enjoy.

Concurrent training is the combination of strength training and cardio, and it seems to be the most effective for optimizing your body composition—maximizing muscle and minimizing fat.

But don’t overdo it with cardio.

Moderate sessions of 30 minutes a few times a week aren’t likely to interfere with your weight training, which should be the primary focus of your body recomposition workout plan. But if you’re doing something with higher intensity or going for 45 minutes or an hour, it might.

So make sure that you’re managing your recovery for muscle growth.

That includes getting enough sleep.

Many important hormones are impacted by sleep—growth hormone, melatonin, cortisol, leptin, and ghrelin levels.

Those hormones will affect your energy levels, which correlates to how many calories you end up burning off through activity, and can affect your appetite.

A body recomposition plan is also highly dependent on your food intake, which is the next piece we’re going to add.

Do you need to track calories?

That’s debatable and depends on where you’re starting from.

If someone is carrying 30 pounds of extra fat and not exercising at all, they’ll probably see fat loss and muscle growth after a couple of months from just adding strength training and doing a few minor tweaks to their diet.

The leaner you are, and the closer you are to your goal body fat percentage, the more precise you need to be with calories and macros.

I do initially recommend that most people track their calories and macros for at least three weeks. You’ll learn how to keep your calories and macros in line with ideal recommendations, which I’m going to explain now.

You need sufficient protein for muscle growth.

I recommend a minimum of 0.7 g per pound of body weight per day.

For those people like me who are over 35, trying to maintain as much muscle mass as possible while they lose fat, maybe up to around 1 g per pound of body weight per day. 

That’s about 1.6 to 2.2 g of protein per kilogram, which is where the scientific research tends to show ideal muscle growth.

Our rate of muscle protein synthesis goes down as we get older, so you need slightly more protein to get the same muscle-building effect that you did in your 20s.

Some good sources of protein are:

 • Chicken, turkey, and lean beef

 • Fish and seafood

 • Eggs and egg whites (Eggs only have about six grams of protein each, but egg whites are pure protein.)

 • Dairy sources like Greek yogurt or Skyr, which have more protein than regular yogurt, can bump up your protein.

 • Cottage cheese—either the usual tub kind or the pressed cottage cheese—can also be helpful.

Protein powders can be an easy way to add a lot of protein at once.

I like a whey protein isolate because it’s just protein and it’s easy on my sensitive digestion.

You can also use other varieties of protein powders—soy or rice and pea can be good choices if you can’t have dairy.

Protein helps repair and build muscle while keeping you full during a calorie deficit.

Being able to manage your appetite is really important because you don’t want to feel deprived on a body recomposition diet.

You need to be feeling energetic and strong for your training sessions.

Protein also reduces muscle breakdown, especially during a calorie deficit, when your body might otherwise use muscle tissue for energy.

By eating enough protein, you’ve got the right environment to build and maintain muscle while losing fat.

As far as calories are concerned, you’ll probably want to be in a slight calorie deficit, although some people will be fine continuing at maintenance.

Generally, about 150 to 200 calories less than what you’re eating at your maintenance—your current eating pattern that keeps your body as it is now.

Remember that a body recomposition plan is slow, especially compared to just starving yourself for a couple of months on a very low-calorie diet.

That’s partially because muscle building is a slower process than just simple weight loss.

You need to look at this long-term, several months at least rather than weeks, depending on where you are now.

The slower pace of the body recomposition process is worth it because you’ll maintain your muscle as you go through fat loss.

You’ll probably still like the in-between parts, when you’re starting to see a bit more muscle and some muscle definition in your arms and legs.

Maybe even your abs.

As far as your other macros—don’t fear carbs.

They support your energy during workouts.

Sufficient intensity is very important for muscle growth, and if you’re tired, you’re going to move around less in what we refer to as NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis).

That’s less calories out, and that will affect your fat loss efforts.

Don’t forget your fat.

About 20 to 35% of your daily calorie intake should be fat.

Fat supports your hormonal health.

The steroid hormones—testosterone and estrogen—need fat for their production, so don’t go too low with fat.

A body recomposition program primarily comes down to two things:

 1. The stimulus from weight training 

 2. A protein-focused nutrition plan 

If you want more ideas about putting together a body recomposition diet with some meal ideas, click the LINK HERE.

Ivana Chapman