People who look lean don’t go on diets and starve themselves, they don’t attempt to do countless amounts of exercise every day, and they don’t obsess over weight loss and battle the bathroom scale. In fact, they do the opposite. That being said, you will be encouraged to know that getting lean and staying lean is absolutely doable from an action standpoint. But looking lean requires you to change the way you think.

There is an abundance of inaccurate thinking about weight loss. Where does it come from? The weight-loss industry! Think about it for a second: The weight-loss business is a multibillion- dollar-per-year industry. If what they taught people actually worked, then people would become fit and healthy and the industry would begin to lose business. What is the core message they teach people? You’ve heard it a million times: Eat less, exercise more and you’ll lose weight. But that advice is not working, and you can no longer ignore the facts.

Right now in our country there are more people on diets and involved with extreme exercise programs than ever before in our history, yet the percentage of overweight Americans and obesity-related illnesses continues to rise. In other words, there are more people eating less, more people exercising more and more people getting fat. Very simply, that’s rock-solid proof that what most people are doing now to lose weight is not working. The reality is that the eat-less-exercise-more weight-loss myth is fundamentally incorrect and sets people up for failure. The great news, however, is that there is a select group of people out there who have already figured this out and who think accurately. They’re called lean people. Here are the five proven strategies used to create success.

People Who Look Lean Focus on Fat Loss, Not Weight Loss
Being lean starts with the understanding that weight loss and fat loss are not the same. Weight loss is an ambiguous term and doesn’t tell you whether you’ve lost fat weight or muscle weight. Fat loss is a specific term with a single meaning: loss of body fat. Most of your body’s fat is stored on top of your muscles and consequently determines how “defined” or lean you are. Having more fat on your body leads to a variety of health problems.

The point is that looking good and feeling great has absolutely nothing to do with general weight loss. It’s losing body fat that makes you look leaner, and it’s losing body fat that makes you healthier so you feel great.

People Who Look Lean Eat Wisely, Not Less
When you don’t provide your body with enough fuel (food) to keep up with its energy demands, your body is forced to burn its own muscle tissue as an energy source. Straight to the point, when you deprive yourself, what’s actually showing up on the scale is a loss of muscle weight. Why is that such a big deal? The fact is that muscle tissue is one of the largest contributing factors in determining the speed of your metabolism. So when your body is forced to burn its own muscle for energy it sets off a chain reaction of detrimental consequences:

The weight-loss industry has everyone trapped in a hamster wheel, and that’s why 98 percent of the people who lose weight rebound and gain it back within five years. The real kick in the teeth is that you’re not just losing weight and gaining it back; you’re losing muscle weight and gaining fat weight. What about you? When you stand naked in front of the mirror, do you see less muscle and more fat than you had before? If so, then it’s time to start eating enough to protect your valuable tissue so you can keep your metabolism functioning efficiently.

People Who Look Lean Exercise Wisely, Not More
Time. Without doubt it’s the No. 1 reason people have for not exercising consistently. Part of the problem is that the weight-loss industry has convinced everyone that “more is better,” and consequently too many people set themselves up for failure by getting started on unrealistic programs that either lead to burnout or that they just don’t have time to stick with. With that in mind, there’s absolutely no point in even getting started on a program that you can’t stick with and that sets you up for failure.

The encouraging truth is that exercise doesn’t take long to be effective, and that people who look lean have discovered how to create consistency by making their exercise both effective and time efficient. They combine a few brief cardio sessions each week with a few brief weight-training sessions in a format I call “the 1-2 punch.” Here’s why it works: Cardio activity burns fat, and a faster metabolism from weight training not only allows your body to burn more fat while you’re doing your cardio, but speeds your metabolism 24/7 so you can burn more fat all the time.

People Who Look Lean Measure Body Fat, Not Body Weight
Reality check: The bathroom scale doesn’t measure what kind of weight you lose. What about you? When you step on the scale and it says you lost 10 pounds, are you 100 percent sure that it came from body fat and not muscle? Measuring your body fat and monitoring your lean body weight is the only way you can be sure. People who look lean ignore the scale and are much more focused on keeping their body fat levels down.

Weight Training (Not Endless Hours of Cardio) Is the Absolute Key to Fat Loss
Fact: Muscle tissue helps control the speed of your metabolism. Your metabolic rate is like a fire. When you protect and maintain your muscle, your fire will remain hotter and bigger. As a result, your body will consume more energy, or calories, all day, not just when you’re exercising. Therefore from a fat-burning perspective, protecting the muscle you have and rescuing the muscle you’ve lost must become your top priority.

Hands down the most effective activity for rescuing and protecting muscle is weight training because it’s the only activity that involves all your major muscle groups through a full range of motion. People who look lean understand that even though they may participate in other activities, the other activities cannot and do not replace the benefits you get from weight training.

Bruce Day is the developer of the Eat Wise and Exercise educational DVDs and the creator of the Learn to Be Lean fat-loss system. Day has more than 27 years of experience teaching fitness and nutrition.