How to Set Up Your Kitchen for Fat Loss After 40

The food closest to your hands is the food you eat. Coach Brian built this entire round table on that one rule, and it is why the kitchen gets fixed before anything else does. Episode 143 is the live teaching from inside The Call To Rise men's group.

Setting up your kitchen for fat loss after 40 comes down to proximity. The food closest to your hands is the food you eat, so the work is to move good options within reach and push the calorie multipliers out of the house. Coach Brian Parana taught the full makeover live to his men's group on this one. Listen to Episode 143 for the whole session.

This is a live round table from The Call To Rise. Real men asked real questions and got answered on the spot. Coach Brian is a coach and not a doctor. Nothing here is medical advice.

Your Environment Makes the Choice Before You Do

Research shows our environment affects our eating habits more than we think. You make around 250 food decisions in a day. Coffee or tea. The candy jar on the counter. What lands on the plate at seven at night.

Almost none of those decisions come from hunger. Coach Brian does not eat off hunger at all. He looks at his schedule and eats when the day gives him a window, because waiting until he is famished hands the choice to whatever sits closest.

That is the first law of the kitchen. If food is in your possession or near you, you will eventually eat it.

Eat Off a Budget Instead of Off Hunger

Before you touch a cabinet, get the target clear. You have a calorie budget for the day. You spend it across three or four meals. Most men land near 400 to 600 calories a meal.

Coach Brian builds each meal from three blocks. Around 200 calories of protein. Around 150 calories of a fibrous carb. Around 200 calories of a starchy carb. What goes in those blocks is yours to pick. The men on this call eat plant based and meat based and everything in between, and every one of them gets results.

His own lunch that day was chicken breast baked three days earlier, two small baked potatoes and fresh pineapple cut that morning. Around six ounces of protein. Chicken juice and red pepper flakes over the top. It held him for four hours.

Dax built his dinner the same way on a busy night, out of what was already in the fridge. There was a roast, so he took about six ounces of beef, a cup of mashed potatoes and two and a half cups of green beans. It filled him up. His takeaway from the call was that you can make almost anything work by grabbing from the fridge.

Pablo Stepped His Calories Down Twice

Pablo came in already tracking, so Coach Brian had months of his own numbers to work from. They started him near 2,800 to 2,900 calories. The first week or two nothing moved. They went to 2,700 and the weight moved a little. Then they cut 300 more and stopped there, which put him 400 calories a day under where he started. They have not moved the number since.

Pablo is down twenty some pounds. His pants fell down at a urinal and he caught them on the way. He told Coach Brian he feels "springy again and like athletic again," and the guys around him keep asking what he is doing.

Pablo is a NASA scientist, so he tracked to the gram. For about five weeks he sent Coach Brian a photo and the macros of every meal, some days close to 18 texts. Coach Brian hardly hears from him now, because Pablo can build his own plate without checking. Tracking that tight is not required. Other men on the same call get results without counting a thing.

Put the Plate in Front of Someone

Coach Brian asks the men to post pictures of their food where the rest of the group can see it. Chris worked with him years ago and kept the habit. The night before this call he pulled a quarter of a slice off a piece of bread. It fit his macros. He photographed it anyway, because anything going in his mouth goes in a picture. Chris called the constant contact something that "feels like nagging, but it's not."

Ryan is an old client who came back, and right now he is the one driving the group chat. Coach Brian dared the rest of the men to out communicate him. The reason is plain. A man who knows the picture is going to the group picks different food.

Step One: Plan It and Talk It Over at Home

A kitchen makeover starts before the trash bag comes out. Write down why this matters to you. Coach Brian asks every new client that question on the first call. Some men answer that they want to keep up with their kids. Others answer that they do not want their father's health.

Then talk to the people you live with. You cannot walk in and bulldoze the house. That is how a kitchen project turns into a marriage problem.

You still hold the power of choice. If your wife eats ice cream at nine at night, you can say no thank you. A pint of rocky road runs about 1,200 calories. You can also build a version that fits your day. On Episode 137 Nate keeps a daily ice cream habit built on his own pistachio recipe, and people line up when he makes it.

Step Two: Get the Calorie Multipliers Out of Reach

Chips and cheeses and chocolates go first. These foods stack carbs and fats and sodium and sugar into something engineered to be eaten past full. Pringles are not a slice of fried potato. Coach Brian calls that one "food science paste that got turned into a chip."

Oil belongs on the same list. It is the fastest calorie multiplier in any kitchen and almost nobody measures it. Pour 200 calories of olive oil over a pan or eat seven cups of broccoli. One of those keeps you full. Air fryers need no oil at all, since the appliance fries with air.

If you want fat in your day, spend it somewhere you enjoy. Coach Brian takes peanut butter or avocado over oil every time, because both bring vitamins and minerals and staying power with them.

A client on the call shares Coach Brian's first name. Brian the client is two weeks in, and his baked potatoes came out of the air fryer looking bad to him. He measured a quarter tablespoon of olive oil, painted it on with a brush, and checked it against the fat he had left in MyFitnessPal. It fit, so it stayed. Two weeks earlier he was cooking rice in a lot of oil and counting none of it.

Frozen dinners are not automatic garbage. Two higher protein Lean Cuisines and an apple land near 40 grams of protein and 50 to 60 grams of carbs and 15 grams of fat. That checks the box. Hungry Man style trays and restaurant leftovers are the harder ones, because a kitchen you do not control cooks with far more calories than you would.

The junk drawer goes too. If you would not eat what sits in it, look hard at why your kids are eating it. Coach Brian's own kids already get 200 to 300 calories of dressed up snack carbs at school in a crinkly bag.

Step Three: Catch the Trick Foods

Trick foods are the ones wearing a health costume. Whole grain Chips Ahoy. Light ice cream. Oat and honey granola from a brand with a farm on the label.

Granola is the one that catches men over 40. A quarter cup of granola can run 150 calories. A cup and a half of plain Cheerios runs the same 150. Volume is what keeps you full, so granola loses that trade unless you are about to run five miles.

Yogurt is the same story with a better ending. Two Good Greek yogurt carries 12 to 15 grams of protein and 2 grams of carbs. The Yoplait next to it carries about 15 grams of sugar. Put a cup of berries in the Two Good and you land at the same calories with real fruit in the bowl.

Then flip the box over. Nutri-Grain bars carried filling as the first ingredient for years. Organic sugar is still sugar. A Fruit Roll-Up is not fruit.

Five Questions to Ask in the Aisle

Coach Brian's label test for anything unclear:

1. Does it come in a bag or a box or a plastic package?
2. Does it have more than a couple of ingredients? Triscuits have four. Wheat Thins have a paragraph.
3. Can you pronounce every ingredient on the list?
4. How far is this food from what it used to be? Ketchup started as a tomato and does not resemble one now.
5. Is it perishable? Anything good for you goes bad quickly.

That last one carries the whole test. Eat things that were recently living. Cut something out of a garden and it withers in days. Food built to sit in a bag for two weeks is a different substance.

Brands Pay for the Shelf You Reach First

Shopping the perimeter of the store is old advice. Here is the part most men have never heard. Inside the aisles the big brands pay a premium for eye level placement. You are not bending to the floor or reaching to the top shelf for those products, because the company bought the exact height your hand goes to first.

Joe had heard the perimeter rule for years. The eye level part was new to him, and it was what he took off the call.

Swaps That Keep the Food Worth Eating

Coach Brian does not eat food that tastes bad and he will not ask you to.

• Bake a full tray of chicken and pour the juice off as a dressing. He used it over leafy greens and tomato and carrots and it needed nothing else.
• Trade bottled dressing for salsa or unsweetened mustard. Mustard seed carries almost no calories.
• Keep herbs and spices and a no sodium blend on the counter. Mrs Dash goes by Dash now.
• Hot sauce works on nearly everything.
• Trade hot dogs for a butcher's sausage. Coach Brian calls a hot dog the meat form of Pringles. A sausage at 13 grams of protein and 4 grams of fat is a reasonable ratio.
• Restock what you clear out. An empty kitchen sends you back out for food.

The Kitchen at Two in the Morning

One man Coach Brian worked with kept waking at 2 a.m. and wandering into the kitchen. He bought yellow caution tape and taped it across the kitchen doorway. He walked into it that night and stopped.

That is a pattern interrupt. It buys the two seconds you need to run the AIM question. Am I moving toward my health goals or away from them?

The general rule is simpler than any trick. When it is dark outside, you are done eating for the day. A man who eats 400 calories of peanut butter at midnight is borrowing from tomorrow, and tomorrow starts with a smaller budget. Episode 8 covers the late night pattern in full.

Make Popcorn Work Instead of Cutting It

Taekwon asked what makes SmartFood popcorn the problem. He ate it for years before he switched to Skinny Pop. The answer is the fat, and popcorn itself is fine.

Movie style butter bags run 400 to 500 calories. A single serve SmartPop bag cuts most of that away. Skinny Pop lists 150 calories and 10 grams of fat across three cups, which works out near 3 grams of fat a cup. Air popped comes in at 31 calories and 0.4 grams of fat a cup. Three cups air popped is 90 calories against 150.

Coach Brian calls that gap negligible in the big picture. The volume is what changes. For the calories in three cups of Skinny Pop you can eat five cups of air popped.

Coach Brian pops his in a silicone popper with no oil and seasons it after. Cinnamon. Rosemary and salt. Whatever gets you eating it without butter. Taekwon buys the single serve Skinny Pop bags at Costco and Coach Brian signed off on that. Scanning a barcode is the easiest tracking there is.

One more thing about labels. The FDA allows a nutrition label to be off by 20 percent in either direction.

Do Not Throw Away Food You Already Paid For

A kitchen makeover is not a purge. One man had a thousand dollars' worth of prepackaged meal-delivery food in the house and asked whether it all had to hit the trash. The answer was no.

They read the labels together instead. Most of those meals needed more protein and two cups of vegetables added on the side. He ate through the stock and then moved on to cooking his own food.

There is a catch worth naming. A meal in a tray does the portion control for you and teaches you nothing. When the trays run out you still have to know how to build a plate.

Common Mistakes Men Make Here

Snacking while you cook. Brent cooks a lot. He gets home hungry and eats chips and salsa or potato chips or a bar the whole time he is cooking a healthy dinner. Every one of those sits within arm's reach of where he cooks. He is well into his calories before the meal reaches the table.

Eating off hunger. Six hours without food ends with you eating whatever is closest and fastest. Brian the client used to pull sweet teriyaki chicken out of the freezer thinking it was the healthy pick, and it carried more fat and more carbs than he expected.

Buying the health word on the front. Nutri-Grain and whole grain cookies and light ice cream all count on you never turning the box over.

Pouring oil you never measure. That is 200 calories most men never log.

Ordering the pizza. That was Brian the client's other answer for a hungry night. A large pizza is 2,000 some calories. An average slice runs 300 to 400, and thin crust lands closer to 200.

Clearing the kitchen without restocking it. An empty kitchen at 9 p.m. puts you in the car.

Who This Is For and Who It Is Not For

This is for the man over 40 who eats well all day and then loses the evening to his own kitchen. He travels and has client dinners and a family who eats differently than he does. Ming was on this call a week after his daughter Haley was born, running on days off work and diaper changes. He called himself "still on survivor mode." The kitchen gets set up before a week like that, not during it.

It is not for the man hunting one villain food. No single item in this makeover is the reason his weight has not moved.

Cross-episode links

• Episode 5: How Many Calories Should I Eat for Fat Loss (Men Over 40)
• Episode 6: What Should Your Macros Be to Burn Fat for Men Over 40
• Episode 8: When Should You Eat, the Answer That Fixes Late Night Cravings
• Episode 136: What Happens Inside a Real Coaching Call With My Clients
• Episode 137: He Ate Ice Cream Every Day and Lost Weight at 45

Call to Action

Coach Brian will send you the kitchen makeover guide he taught from on this call. Email him at brian@brianparana.com and ask for it by name.

If you want a starting point with the food and the training already mapped out, the free Lose 3 lbs in 3 Days plan runs three days. Get it at thecalltorise.com/lose3lbsin3days.

The Call To Rise is Coach Brian's 100 day program for driven men who want to lose 20 or more pounds and get their health up to the level their career is already at. What is included:

• An individualized meal plan
• An individualized training plan
• Weekly round table calls with the group
• 1:1 calls with Coach Brian
• A client site holding every resource in one place

The guarantee is one sentence. Lose 20 or more pounds in the 100 days, or Coach Brian keeps working with you until you do. Apply at thecalltorise.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you set up your kitchen for fat loss after 40?

Start with proximity. If food is in your possession or near you, you will eventually eat it. Move protein and fruit and vegetables to the front of the fridge and get the calorie multipliers out of arm's reach. Then plan your day around a calorie budget spread across three or four meals, with most men landing near 400 to 600 calories a meal.

What should you throw out during a kitchen makeover?

Chips and cheeses and chocolates lead the list, because they stack carbs and fats and sodium and sugar into something engineered to be eaten past full. Cooking oil belongs there too, since it multiplies calories faster than anything else in a kitchen. Coach Brian also clears the junk drawer, the frozen tray dinners built on fat, and the takeout leftovers from a kitchen you do not control.

What are trick foods?

Trick foods are products that read as healthy on the front of the package and fail on the back. Whole grain Chips Ahoy, light ice cream, and oat and honey granola all qualify. Nutri-Grain bars carried filling as the first ingredient for years. Organic sugar is still sugar and a Fruit Roll-Up is not fruit.

Is granola good for fat loss?

Not for most men over 40. Granola is carbs and fats glued together with honey, so a quarter cup can run 150 calories. A cup and a half of plain Cheerios runs the same 150. Volume is what keeps you full, so granola loses that trade unless you are heading out to run five miles.

Is popcorn good for fat loss?

Popcorn works well when you watch the fat. Skinny Pop lists 150 calories and 10 grams of fat across three cups. Air popped comes in at 31 calories and 0.4 grams of fat a cup, so three cups air popped is 90 calories against 150. For the calories in three cups of Skinny Pop you can eat five cups of air popped. Movie style butter bags run 400 to 500 calories and are the ones to leave alone.

How do you stop eating late at night?

Use the darkness as the cutoff and be done eating when the sun is down. Coach Brian also teaches a pattern interrupt, and one man he worked with taped yellow caution tape across his kitchen doorway so a 2 a.m. trip stopped him cold. That pause buys you the AIM question. Am I moving toward my health goals or away from them?

Do you have to throw away food you already bought?

No. Coach Brian worked with a man holding a large stock of prepackaged meal-delivery food and told him to eat it rather than waste it. They read the labels and added protein and two cups of vegetables to those meals until the stock ran out. The catch is that a tray does the portion control for you and teaches you nothing about building a plate.

How do you do a kitchen makeover when your family eats differently?

Talk it over before you touch anything, because bulldozing the house creates a marriage problem on top of a food problem. You keep the power of choice at every point, so a spouse eating ice cream at nine at night does not obligate you to join in. You can also fit the food into your own day, the way Nate built a daily ice cream habit around his own pistachio recipe on Episode 137.

Listen to the full episode of Driven For Health.

Read the companion article on brianparana.com.