Lesson 2 of 5 · 9 min
System 1: Recomposition Engine
The backbone system
Everything else in the stack polishes; this one reveals. Sixteen weeks of moderate deficit takes most people 8–12 lbs down — often the difference between 'has a jawline in good lighting' and 'has a jawline'.
Setup (this week):
- Maintenance calories = bodyweight (lbs) × 15 (adjust ±10% after two weeks of scale data)
- Deficit target: −450 kcal/day → ~0.9 lb/week
- Protein floor: 0.8g per lb target bodyweight
- Training: 3× full-body resistance + 8–10k steps daily. Lifting is mandatory — cutting without it sheds the neck and trap mass that makes lean faces look strong.
Weekly deliverable: trend-weight average (weigh daily, average weekly — single weigh-ins are noise) + front/side photo pair logged to your tracker.
The stall protocol: two flat weeks → drop 100 kcal OR add 2k steps, never both. Aggressive corrections crash sleep, and sleep is holding up three other systems in this stack.
Endpoint: men ~12–14% body fat, women ~20–22%, or 16 weeks — whichever first. Below that is a different program with different tradeoffs.