The Best Diet to Get Ripped and Lean at Home + Meal Plan

Best Diet to Get Ripped – Introduction

What’s the best diet to get ripped and lean at home?

If you’ve been eating healthily and training consistently for a while, you’ve probably lost some weight and started to see some hard-won definition emerging.

You can probably see the outline of some of your muscles, and you look like you work out.

Well done, you have succeeded in achieving a remarkable body transformation!

While you could continue with what you’re doing, many exercisers choose to take things to the next level and get ripped.

Ripped is the expression bodybuilders use to describe low levels of body fat.

It means your muscles look like they are shrink-wrapped, with every detail showing through paper-thin skin.

You can even pick out individual bundles of muscle fibers – called striations.

Your body fat needs to approach ten percent for men and about 15 percent for women to achieve a ripped state.

Getting ripped requires a dedicated approach to training and nutrition.

This article reveals the strategies you’ll need to use to get ripped.

Training to Get Ripped

Exercise serves two functions in your quest to get ripped – calorie expenditure and maintaining muscle mass.

As such, you need to include both cardio and strength training in your workouts.

When it comes to cardio, you have two choices – low-intensity steady state (LISS) or high-intensity interval training (HIIT).

There are pros and cons for both, so it’s really up to you which one you use.

You could even use both to keep your workouts varied and exciting.

HIIT vs. LISS

So, while HIIT workouts tend to be shorter and burn more calories per minute, a longer LISS workout could burn the same number of calories.

Both types of cardio should help you lose body fat.

How much cardio?

Aim to do cardio 2-4 times a week.

If you feel you need to do more, you are probably overeating, and tightening up your diet will save you from doing more cardio than necessary.

Supplement your cardio workouts with plenty of walking to burn more calories without tiring yourself out – 10,000 steps per day is a good target for most people.

Regarding strength training, when you lower your calorie intake and start doing more cardio, there is a risk that you’ll begin losing muscle mass.

Decreases in muscle mass will reduce your basal metabolic rate, so you burn fewer calories.

Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of calories your body burns at rest in a day.

It is determined by your size, age, and activity level and accounts for about 60 to 75 percent of the calories you burn each day.

Also, losing muscle means, as you get leaner, you’ll have less muscle to “show off” and could end up looking slim but skinny.

Instead, you’d probably look like a lean and mean MMA fighter than a gaunt marathon runner, so you MUST continue strength training as you work toward getting ripped.

As always, focus on the big compound lifts and try to maintain the weights you’ve been lifting.

It’s unlikely that you’ll get stronger as you diet your way to being ripped, but you should strive to maintain your current level of strength.

Lift weights 3-4 times a week.

Consider using training systems like circuit training, supersets, and complexes to maximize the number of calories you burn per workout.

Your get ripped weekly workout plan should combine cardio and strength training and end up looking something like this:

Get Ripped Weekly Workout

The Diet Plan to Get Ripped

Getting ripped means lowering your body fat percentage.

To force your body to burn body fat, you need to create a calorie deficit, which means eating fewer and burning more calories.

When faced with this energy shortfall, your body has no choice but to burn the fat currently obscuring your muscles.

You can use lots of diets to get ripped, but they all work the same way – by creating a calorie deficit.

However, you’ll probably do better if you create your diet plan based on the foods you like to eat, your food budget, and the amount of time you have to spend preparing and cooking food.

What’s perfect for one person may be impractical for another.

That’s why so many diets fail; they’re not sustainable.

Although there is a sample meal plan towards the end of this article, use the following principles for your get-ripped eating plan:

Start counting calories

If there is one thing that most dieters are bad at, it’s tracking how much food they’ve eaten.

Usually, they underestimate their calorie intake, which will quickly put the brakes on fat loss.

Counting calories can be a chore, but it’s critical to your success.

After all, you could be eating all the right foods, but if your daily calorie intake is too high, you won’t lose fat.

The good news is that counting calories is much easier than it used to be, and you can use an app to do most of the work for you.

Here are a few apps that make calorie counting and tracking a whole lot easier:

#1. MyFitnessPal

• iPhone
• Android

#2. My Plate

• iPhone
• Android

#3. My Net Diary

• iPhone
• Android

#4. Nutrients

• iPhone

#5. Calorie and Diet Tracker

• Android

Using your chosen app, determine your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) and take 500 from this number.

That will give you the calorie deficit to burn fat for fuel.

Then track your food intake, ensuring you never consume more calories than your TDEE, minus 500 calories.

Remember that, as you lose weight and fat, your TDEE will decrease, so recalculate your caloric needs every four weeks or so.

Protein first

You need to consume plenty of protein to get ripped.

Protein will help repair and preserve your muscle mass, is satiating, and has a high thermic effect.

That means eating protein gives your metabolism a slight but valuable boost.

Aim to consume one gram of protein per kilogram of body weight from various sources.

To determine your weight in kilograms, divide your weight in pounds by 2.2.

For example, if you weigh 200 pounds, divide 200/2.2 to get your weight in kilograms, which is 90 kilograms. (Or you can use this Pounds to Kilograms conversion tool.)

At a weight of 90 kilograms, you will want to consume 90 grams of protein throughout the day.

That means you’ll probably need to eat protein at every main meal, and maybe between meals too.

Good Protein Sources

Good protein sources include:

• Meat
• Fish
• Poultry
• Whole eggs or egg whites
• Whey protein
• Cottage cheese
• Nuts
• Peanut butter
• Seeds
• Beans and pulses
• Tempeh
• Soy
• Tofu
• Seitan
• Edamame
• Spelt and teff
• Peas
• Amaranth and buckwheat

Eat your carbohydrates

Low-carb diets are popular for weight loss.

Still, your body needs carbs to fuel your workouts, so diets like keto are not ideal for your needs.

Instead, you need to eat carbs in abundance, but choose foods that won’t cause big spikes in blood glucose, interrupting fat burning.

Good options include:

• Wholegrains, e.g., brown rice, oats, sprouted grain bread
• Vegetables, e.g., asparagus, bitter melon, bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, snap peas, spinach, sweet potatoes, watercress
• Low-sugar fruit, e.g., berries, apples, and watermelon

Try to eat carbs a couple of hours before and shortly after your workouts to ensure your muscles have the energy you need to train.

Eating fewer carbohydrates could help facilitate faster fat burning outside of those times.

However, other than as an occasional (once a week or less) treat, you should refined carbs, such as baked goods, candy, or desserts.

Don’t fear fats

Contrary to what many people think, eating fat won’t automatically make you gain weight.

Eating healthy fats promotes fat loss.

However, because fat is higher in calories than both protein and carbohydrate combined, you should avoid overeating.

That’s easy enough if you stick to lean proteins and avoid junk food as much as possible.

Good sources of healthy fats include:

• Olive oil
• Avocados
• Nut oils and nut butter
• Coconut oil
• Fatty fish

Don’t starve yourself!

Many dieters slash their food intake in an attempt to starve themselves leaner.

Big mistake!

Starvation diets work for a week or two, but then hunger will take over, and you’ll end up cheating on your diet and undoing any of the progress you made.

You may even regain the fat you’ve just worked so hard to lose.

Instead, make sure your diet plan is sustainable, doesn’t leave your stomach feeling like your throat’s been cut, and contains at least some of the foods you enjoy eating.

The easier your diet is to live with, the easier it is to maintain.

Expect a little hunger during a get-ripped diet, but if food is constantly on your mind and your stomach grumbles non-stop, you should probably eat a little more.

It’s almost always better to lose fat a little slower and stay true to your diet than lose it fast but then quit before reaching your goal.

Sample Get Ripped Diet

It’s not practical to provide you with an exact diet because your food preferences and caloric needs won’t be similar to mine.

You do need to enjoy your meals!

Instead, here is an example to show you what a sample day of eating COULD look like.

Modify the foods and quantities to reflect your individual needs and preferences.

Remember that you need to vary your food intake from one day to the next to avoid boredom and ensure that you get a good range of nutrients.

Breakfast – ½ cup oatmeal with 1 cup almond milk, 2-3 scrambled eggs

Snack – 3 ounces of turkey jerky or plant-based protein shake

Lunch – 6 ounces grilled chicken breast or veggie steak with a large green salad

Snack – a handful of nuts and seeds

Dinner – 6 ounces grilled fish or tofu, baked sweet potato, broccoli, green beans

Snack – ½ cup Greek or vegan yogurt

Getting Ripped FAQ

Got a question about getting ripped?

Here are our answers to some of the most common queries!

Q1. How long will it take me to get ripped?

Unfortunately, that’s an impossible question to answer.

If you are already relatively lean, you could get ripped in a month or two.

If you are quite overweight, you could be looking at a year to get down to 10% body fat.

Bodybuilders often diet for 12-16 weeks to get ready for competitions.

Ultimately, it’s best to treat getting ripped as an open-ended project, and the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll achieve your goal.

However, remember that trying to lose weight too fast is usually unsustainable.

Q2. Can I take supplements to get ripped faster?

Supplements can help you get ripped, but their impact is minimal.

Your diet and workouts are the most significant factors in getting ripped.

That said, if you are training hard and eating right, the following supplements could be helpful:

• Creatine – for building muscle, endurance, and strength
• Pre-workout– so you can work out longer with more intensity
• Branched-chain amino acids – for muscle preservation
• Essential fatty acids – for reducing inflammation, calming your joints and it’s also good for your heart!
• Whey protein powder – to make getting enough protein easier
• Multivitamin/mineral – to prevent vitamin and mineral deficiencies
• Testosterone booster – for increasing your testosterone levels
• Vitamin D  – to help optimize your testosterone levels
• ZMA – to improve your sleep naturally

Q3. Am I allowed cheat days?

Strict dieting can take a toll.

You’ll probably crave “forbidden” foods and may feel hungry.

Some dieters try to prevent these issues with cheat days when they overeat with abandon before returning to their strict diet.

The problem with this approach is that it’s easy to eat more calories than you’ve burned, undoing all your progress.

Instead of an entire cheat day, have the occasional treat meal to avoid sabotaging your progress. 

One unhealthy meal a week probably won’t hurt your progress.

However, show some restraint and don’t binge!

This meal should be a small reward for your hard work and not a celebratory banquet!

Don’t bulk buy treats; you’ll end up eating more than you planned.

Instead, buy smaller quantities to avoid temptation so you won’t overeat.

Q4. Should I do extra abs training?

While you should train your abs as part of your regular strength training workouts, there is no real benefit to doing extra abs training as you work toward getting ripped.

Your abs will become more visible as you get leaner, and more crunches, sit-ups, and planks, etc., will not bring them out faster.

Q5. How do I stay ripped?

Getting ripped and staying ripped are the same thing, and the strategies you use to lose excess body fat are the same strategies you’ll need to keep it off.

If you don’t continue to train and eat healthy food, you’ll soon regain the fat you’ve just lost.

You WILL be able to eat a little more as you no longer need a calorie deficit, but it is inevitable to regain fat if you return to your pre-diet food intake.

Best Diet To Get Ripped – Wrapping Up

Getting a ripped physique is not easy, and not everyone has the genetics and psychological makeup to get lean and muscular.

Some people tend to store more body fat than others, and motivation and willpower vary from person to person.

That said, if you apply the information in this article to your diet and workouts, you WILL get leaner and improve your body composition.

But you won’t know if you can achieve ripped status until you try!

So, plan your training, adjust your diet, and start tracking your calories.

The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be on your way to getting ripped, or, at least, considerably leaner than you are now.

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