If I had to start from zero at 220 lbs and get lean AND jacked in 6...
Kevin Heintz@AskCoachKev
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Aug 12, 2026
~5 min read
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If I had to start from zero at 220 lbs and get lean AND jacked in 6 months, this is everything I'd do:
1. Creatine. You should take it, your friends should take it, your parents should take it. 5g a day, forever. No loading phase needed.
1. Creatine. You should take it, your friends should take it, your parents should take it. 5g a day, forever. No loading phase needed.
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2. Don't post pictures of yourself going to the gym. People cheer for about two weeks, and when they stop, so do you. Do this quietly and show up as a different person out of nowhere.
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3. Eat your bodyweight times 11 in calories. At 220 lbs that's 2,420 a day. This number will be an estimate to start your deficit. Eat at this amount for 2 weeks and make adjustments as needed.
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4. Eat 1g of protein per pound of your goal weight, not your current weight. A 190 lb goal means 190g a day, and that's what keeps you full and holds the muscle while the fat comes off.
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5. Don't bulk first. Your main goal should be getting to a healthy body composition by focusing on fat loss while building/maintaining muscle. Men aim for 10-15%. Women aim for 18-22%.
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6. Expect about a pound a week or 1% of your body weight at most. Week one you'll drop 5 or 6 lbs and most of that is water, so don't be surprised when things start to slow down.
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7. Weigh yourself every morning and compare this week's average to last week's. The daily number swings all over the place for reasons that have nothing to do with fat. The weekly average is the only one worth reacting to.
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8. Most calories should come from: beef, chicken, turkey, eggs, salmon, shrimp, Greek yogurt, whey, potatoes, rice, fruit and veggies. Make meals simple when you're just getting started. 80% of everything you eat should come from this list.
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9. Get 30g+ of protein each time you eat. However many meals you have in a day, divide your protein target across them and don't let any meal come in short.
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10. Have 3 or 4 go-to meals you can make in 10 minutes. Deciding what to eat while you're already hungry is where most weeks die, so take the decision off the table entirely.
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11. Keep jerky, Greek yogurt, fruit and shakes in the house so there's always a fast option when you're starving. That's what keeps you out of the drive-through.
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12. Throw away all the junk in the house. "It's for the kids" is a poor excuse, and if you shouldn't be eating it, neither should they.
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13. Drink coffee black or with a little milk. A venti Frappuccino runs 470 calories, which is a fifth of the day gone on something nobody would ever call a meal.
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14. Cut the alcohol. Your body stops burning fat until the alcohol is cleared, and that takes hours. Then it takes your sleep, and tomorrow you're hungry and weak and calling it a bad day.
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15. Lift 3 days a week, full body. Three days you'll actually do beats five you'll quit by October, and every muscle gets trained three times a week instead of once. Start here and once you're consistent you can add more.
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16. The entire workout: leg press, chest press, seated row, lat pulldown, shoulder press, leg curl. 2-3 sets of each. Same six movements every session, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
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17. Every set lands between 6 and 15 reps. Anything in that window builds muscle if the last two reps are genuinely hard.
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18. Stop each set 1 or 2 reps short of form failure. You need to provide new stimulus to your muscles in order to grow.
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19. Write down the weight and the reps for every set, then next session beat one of those numbers. Adding a rep or 2.5 lbs, over and over, is the entire reason a body changes.
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20. Machines and cables are fine. They build the same muscle as barbells. They also remove A LOT of the variables from the equation (form) which makes them one of the best tools to train closer to failure.
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21. Train at whatever time of day you'll actually keep. My recommendation to everyone who is getting started is to train first thing in the morning. Get it out of the way, do something hard, and you'll make better decisions the rest of the day.
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22. Walk 10,000 steps a day. The gap between 1,500 steps and 10,000 is a few hundred calories a day, and a few hundred calories a day is the difference between losing fat and staying exactly the same.
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23. Get an under-the-desk treadmill. Walk through calls and whenever you can during work. Try to make working and walking a synchronous activity, that way you don't need to find extra time in the day for it.
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24. Walk 10 to 15 minutes after every meal. Helps with digestion, steadier energy and an extra 30-45 minutes of movement each day.
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25. Sleep 7 to 8 hours, same bedtime, same wake up. Short sleep makes you hungrier tomorrow and weaker in the gym, then you blame your discipline for a problem that started the night before.
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26. Stop caffeine 8 hours before bed, because your 3pm coffee is why you're still awake at 11.
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27. Stalled two weeks or longer (meaning you haven't seen improvement in weight or body composition)? Drop 100 to 150 calories a day, or add 2,000 steps, or add in formal cardio.
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28. Every 4 to 6 weeks, put those 500 calories back for one week. Long deficits build fatigue, taking a week at maintenance is a good refresher.
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29. More important than anything on this list: have some f*cking belief in yourself. There are people with less money, less time, and more excuses than you who are STILL making this happen.
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None of this is new and none of it is complicated.
Bodyweight times 11. Protein at your goal weight. Six movements, three days. 10,000 steps. Seven hours.
Run it for 6 months and you won't recognize the guy in the photos.
Bodyweight times 11. Protein at your goal weight. Six movements, three days. 10,000 steps. Seven hours.
Run it for 6 months and you won't recognize the guy in the photos.
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If you are looking to drop 20+ lbs, message me:
1. Current weight
2. Goal weight
3. What's been holding you back
I'll tell you if my program's a fit to get it off in 3-12 months, guaranteed. x.com/messages/compo…
1. Current weight
2. Goal weight
3. What's been holding you back
I'll tell you if my program's a fit to get it off in 3-12 months, guaranteed. x.com/messages/compo…