Balancing Diet and Fitness: Recipes for Success

Josh emphasizes creating balance in diet and workouts to achieve personal goals.

### Achieving Balance: My Diet Journey and Favorite Recipes
* 🎥 This video shares insights from my journey to achieving a **balanced diet** and the importance of creating **outcomes that matter**.
* 🍔 I'm excited to announce the return of recipe videos, which many of you have missed, as we aim to **expand our content beyond just recipes**.
* 🌮 One of my favorite recipes is for GOI Jang charred fish tacos, featuring **marinated cod loin** and a **vibrant green sauce** that enhances the flavor.
* 📊 My current daily macros are **2,460 calories**, consisting of **320g of protein**, **60g of fat**, and **160g of carbohydrates**, but these numbers vary for everyone.
* 🏋 ️‍♂️ Consistency in both workouts and diet is crucial; I emphasize the importance of **not skipping cardio** and **sticking to your plan for success**.
* 🍽 I share three key recipes that helped me stay on track, including a **high-protein burger** and a **protein cereal bowl that satisfies cravings**.
* 💪 Achieving balance in your diet is possible; it requires **identifying your goals** and **committing to the necessary daily actions** to reach them.
* 🔄 Ultimately, this journey is about **finding sustainable balance**, not just dieting forever, and **adapting your lifestyle to fit your goals**.

They say never trust a skinny chef, but what does that mean? If you're not overweight, you don't know anything about good food or how to make it. Chefs have to give up a lot; their weekends, seeing their friends and family, is often their stress levels are through the roof, all because of their dedication to making great food. Balance can go out the window. Matter of fact, I have an example for that. That was me 8 months ago. Balance didn't exist for me. And how can balance, especially in your diet, exist for somebody who works with food every single day? Kind of hard, right? After many easy-to-use excuses, that's when I realized you have to create balance. Saying never trust a skinny chef is a cliché to me. It kind of creates a reason and excuse for people to not have balance, and honestly, it's more telling of what society thinks about balance. So why are we talking about this? Because I think a lot of people are struggling with this, and if I can find balance, so can you, especially when it

comes to he, and I'm going to help you with that. A lot of people asked for this video, and we weren't going to do it, but we decided, you know what, let's just do it. I'm going to tell you what happened, and I'm going to give you some of the recipes that helped me along the way that I came up with. Let me be completely honest here. I'm going to be transparent for a second. Two things. Number one, I already noticed that I wanted to trim down. Okay, I was getting comments like this, and my decision to trim down happened before these comments, but the comments definitely added a little fuel to the fire for sure. But if I'm being really honest, my whole thought process wasn't that much deeper than I want to get shredded, and I want to get to 9% body fat. After trimming down for about 8 months, I started at 240 lbs. Now I'm at somewhere around 178, 175, and now I'm about 1 to 2% away from the body fat.

percentage goal that I set for myself in the beginning. Remember when I said earlier about the comments I was getting? Now look at the comments I'm getting. See that? Isn't that funny and ironic? A lot of people don't ever see the back end of what we look at all the time, but we see all the comments, and there's a whole lot of hypocrisy that people don't realize is going around, sort of like a damned if you do, damned if you don't. It doesn't bother me, but one thing I think people can learn about is, Hey, guess what? Maybe just do what you want to do. But it did get me thinking about releasing this video. I'm going to give you very detailed specifics on everything I did, but before I dive into that, let me just say something real quick. Everything I'm about to say can be distilled down into two key points. Number one, identify whatever the goal is, commit to that, and number two, and this is the most crucial part, you just got to do the things you're supposed to do every day to get

there. That's it. That's it. I know that that might sound a little overly simplified, and maybe you don't have the exact answers right now of what you need to do, but that's all you have to do. There's no secret, and this applies to everything in life: a goal you want to achieve career-wise, or family relationship-wise, or body, anything. Now for the details of my training: 6 days a week, I do a full workout, get up at like 4:30 or 5: in the morning. That's the only way I have time to do it because it takes a long time; it just does. I do 60 to 80 minutes of weight training, depending on what weights I'm doing. I do push-pull legs 3 days, one rest day, and then another Push-Pull legs, which is a different variation of the previous Push-Pull legs. And then I alternate that PPL back and forth: 3 days PPL, 1 rest day, and then another PPL 2. Everybody's going to need something different, right? The

specific weight movements that you do are going to be different depending on where you need to build your body. You will have to observe your body and see what you need to do. Look up a push-pull legs workout program online. There's tons of them you can start with and play with. Once I'm done after my 60-80 minutes, I do typically 40 minutes of cardio. My heart rate needs to be at 150 constantly throughout the entire workout minimum. Uh, and I'll usually do that on the stair master or I'll go do a run. This made one of the biggest differences of all time. No walking, legit cardio. Oh, I don't want to do that. I didn't want to do it either. I pushed it off for a long time. Once I started doing it, I started seeing results. Don't skip cardio, trust me, trust me, trust me. It will be worth it. You can do it, I promise you. It's only 40 minutes. You probably scroll TikTok for longer than you'll be doing this cardio. If you're looking for a secret, that's the

secret. Do not skip cardio. Do not skip your workouts. Do not negotiate with yourself. Skipping the work means skipping the progress. As long as you can do that and have commitment and rigidity to the diet plan, you will see success. Failure only happens when you deviate from that, and that's kind of like a beautiful thing if you think about it. It's reassuring to know something will happen as long as you don't deviate from the plan. Stick to the plan. Now, the other cornerstone, the diet. So, the diet is, let's say, 50% of the equation, if you will. You need to have both rigidity on the workouts as well as the diet. Everybody's diet is going to be different. I've lost tons of weight with a trainer and without a trainer. It's not a necessity to have one. I'm going to be completely transparent with you. I had a trainer for this. They checked in with me once every two weeks to see what I was looking like and if I needed to make any small adjustments. My protein would go up.

my carbs might go down just a little bit, a couple grams here and there, and he made small adjustments over time. But you can easily look up your body weight and body composition and use an online calculator to determine where you should start with your macros, calories, protein, carbs, and fat. And you can start there and go up or down as needed. Every two weeks, check in and see if you should bump those numbers up or down depending on your progress. But be patient. If you want to know what I'm eating right now, my exact daily macros currently are 2,460 calories, 320 g of protein, 60 g of fat, and 160 g of carbohydrates. Now, for some people, that's going to be too much; for others, it might be too little. It really depends on your body. So, I'm not saying you should copy what I'm doing. I'm just saying that's what I'm currently eating, and that's the diet. The last thing that there really is, I mean, those are the only two things that really matter the most, but I do take a few supplements and

this is what I take: one omega-3 fish pill, vitamin C pills, beef liver pills, vitamin D, men's multivitamin, and then as I started getting leaner, I started taking about 7g of creatine and 10 grams of L-glutamine every day with my protein shakes. I put it in my protein shake and would split it between two shakes 'cause it tastes disgusting. And for all the tastings that I do on this channel, like, Josh, how are you supposed to manage only having one cheat meal every 14 days while also doing all this training and dieting when you got to taste food on camera all the time? I guesstimated and put it in my macros. I probably over-guesstimated a little bit, but I still ate it. I can't. Somebody take this away from me. I'm going to die. But let me be really clear here before I say anything else: I'm not saying that you need to do what I did, and I'm not advising anybody to do any of the things.

that I did whatsoever. It's purely up to you how you choose to go about handling your own thing. You got to decide what you want for yourself, not anybody else. So, disclaimer, last thing I'm going to say because I know a lot of people are going to have questions, people are going to say things like, What if I don't have time to do this? I have to go to work really early in the morning. That makes it really hard. It does make it hard. I'm not saying that people's excuses aren't necessarily valid. In order for me to work out 2 hours a day, I need to work about 4:30. That was my way to change and balance that out, right? Go to bed earlier, get up earlier. So, whatever it is that you need to do, whatever excuses that pop up in your head because you are going to have challenges to get this done, you have to prioritize this and mold your life around it. Just be realistic about it and be chill about it and find your own

personal balance, and the way to do that is again identify the goal, do the steps that are needed to get there, and then move things around in your life, like move yourself around. I have to work with food every day. I have food around me all the time. Just because you're eating on a diet or eating a specific type of food or cutting out certain foods for a short period of time doesn't mean you can't sit down and make food that tastes great, that is quality and nice. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to throw a pat of butter on something and let it melt and eat that, sure, sure, but cooking properly comes from technique, not from just ingredients. That being said, let me give you three recipes, and these aren't all of them. I can have more. You let us know if you want more, that have helped get me through this, because you will have cravings, and this will help solve them. Okay, so the Burger. This is a high-protein, low-calorie-friendly version of my favorite burger. This will make around three burgers out of a pound and a half.

of beef, more specifically 96% lean BR beef. This actually popped off pretty decent on YouTube shorts. Thank you for that, but I want to dive a little deeper on it. So, we're going to start with the sauce. Very basic. I want flavorful sauce, and I want a little bit of creaminess, but I want to keep the calories as low as possible. Okay, there's a negligible amount of fat when you divide this amongst all the burgers. So, for three burgers, you've got 1 tablespoon light mayo, 1 tablespoon of yellow mustard, and 2 tablespoons of salsa, not ketchup. Trying to keep the carbs a little lower here. Mix together till combined. Add a little salt, a little bit of pepper to taste, of course. Obviously, sauce done. That's how quick. Here's the key to keeping this low calorie. Do not use an oiled cooking surface. Use something non-stick or use a really well-seasoned carbon steel pan, like in this case. Highly recommended to use nonstick though. Oh, don't cook with

high heat on nonstick. How about just be undyed anyway. Each patty is 3 oz, but you could go up to 4 oz. Medium-high heat. Beef goes on. We're making smash patties. Take a smasher. You can use parchment to keep it from sticking to your smasher. Smash it flat. Got full contact with the surface and on top of that evenly displaced. It's going to cook quickly. Season it with a seasoning of your choice. This is just like a garlic seasoning. Whatever. You can also make your own seasoning. It's fine. We're trying to stay on diet here, okay? Switch up the seasoning, switch up the flavor. Sometimes I do salt and pepper. Sometimes I do seasoning. This will cook fully in less than 2 minutes. You need to move quickly. I'll show you. You want to flip this early. You see how there's a band of gray? That's already about 60% of the way up through the burger. That means that we're close to cooking this all the way through. When I flip this, it will

overcook very quickly. It doesn't have a lot of fat to hold on to. We want to cook this hot and fast, so flip. I'd rather it be juicy than dry as boot leather. Okay, this is 96% lean. It will go dry fast. Now that I flipped it, immediately one slice of cheese, please. American cheese. Oh, that's not healthy. Who gives a? It's macro-friendly, but it's also lower fat. All right, I'm going to place this over here to melt immediately. My next patty, press it out, season it. I'm going to get my buns. I'm going to lightly toast them with no butter, no nothing. Is it going to get a perfect toast? No. You can put it in a toaster, though, and it will. I don't have to toast it right now. This is great for a meal prep because all the other ingredients you can make ahead and keep in the fridge, and then when you're cooking the patties, just cook as many as you want. Cook six of them, cook twelve of them, and keep them in your fridge, reheat.

in the microwave with a slice of American cheese in between the two. Put them on the toasted buns with sauce and pickles and enjoy. You got lunch over and over and over. This burger is just about ready to flip. I'm going to flip this guy too. Boom. Oh, a little better color on that. I can't complain. Buns are going to go down. These patties are finishing. Heat off, and we're going to lightly sauce about a teaspoon of sauce on both sides. Patty on top of cheesy patty just like that. Two nice thick pickles, and then you take your burger, cheesy patty, take your bun, place on top. I mean, that looks like a burger if I've ever seen one. It's actually quite nice. It's juicy because I just barely cooked the patties. It's really hard to get a medium rare or even a medium smash patty, but with these, if you cook them fast enough, you'll get just slightly above medium, and you'll still retain a lot of juice. When you try this, it's going to be an epiphany moment.

because typically when you eat something that's on a diet, you kind of know it's on a diet, even if it tastes good. But this, my brain is going, That's a burger. That's a great burger. Tastes awesome. It's a little meatier than usual, but I still really like it. It's excellent for this being on a diet, and that's nuts. But this isn't the only recipe. Moving on to the next tacos. These are GOI Jang charred fish tacos with a spicy chili salsa. We're going to make this very simple cod loin. This is average. You're going to cut it into sort of batons, essentially pieces, kind of like this, 2 and 1/2 in rectangles. That's going to get marinated in goou Jong. That has a little bit of carbs. We did calculate that in the macros. That's right. I pay attention to that. Little Sriracha, shirashi water, rice vinegar, ginger grated, of course, garlic, always garlic, and a generous pinch of salt. And you're just going to whisk that.

together it smells Smoky spicy. Add your fish in, toss till thoroughly coated. You can leave this in the fridge overnight if you like, or you can use it right away. It doesn't matter, but this is essentially a marinade. You can grill or broil. We're going to do broil this time, but grilling is also awesome. If you're broiling, get a wire rack on a sheet tray, set out your pieces of fish. You could cook half and marinate the rest. All you need to know is about 5 to 6 ounces of fish is one serving, so this recipe will make around three to four servings. One serving is four tacos for these macros. Pop this fish, make sure it's one layer under the broiler of your oven until just cooked through. Now we can get the rest of our stuff set up. It's going to take like 5 to 10 minutes for the sauce, very, very simple. To me, this is kind of a non-negotiable, but everybody likes the little creamy green sauce with the taco.

I feel like, although it's not necessarily traditional in many senses, it is delicious, and it does make diet easier. So, we have some charred jalapenos going in. This sauce can be used on literally anything: chicken taco, steak taco. You could also just throw this on some grilled chicken, and it's really good. Four cloves of garlic, and then this is kind of a weird but secret ingredient: a 1/4 cup of low-fat cottage cheese. Oh, cottage cheese, Josh. Why? Two reasons: number one, protein; but number two, when you blend cottage cheese super fine, it kind of creates a creamy texture in the mouth without almost any fat at all, and it achieves creaminess like yogurt never could. Into the blender, salt to taste, a little bit of lemon or lime juice. Got a tablespoon, 2 tablespoons. You can go more if you want it more acidic, and then you're going to blend that on high until as smooth as possible, using water to loosen. Once that's relatively smooth, you're going to stop for a second, add in

a half bunch of cilantro, a tablespoon or two of non-fat yogurt. So, the yogurt's still going in. Blend on high again until smooth. It's vibrant green, creamy, salty. It's acidic taste and adjust salt levels as needed. That's your sauce. The cabbage you can do straight raw cabbage, thinly sliced. That's totally fine. You'll have even slightly, very slightly less calories than this version. But if you want to make a little bit more of a SLO, you take 2 tablespoons of light mayo, pop that in there, light mayo. You're not even going to use all this. You're only going to use about a quarter or a third of this anyway. You can also skip that and like a tiny, tiny bit of your sauce. Don't season this with salt yet. You're going to season it with Malden just before you put it on. If you put salt on it now, it'll draw the water out and it'll get all gross. Toss it dry until nicely dressed. This has only been another broiler for like 6 minutes. They're

beautifully cooked charred. They're just cooked through, just cooked through. Just pretend that didn't happen. All right, right there we go. We're ready to assemble a taco. So, to heat up the tortillas, literally just pop them over a direct open flame just until hot, and they've got a little bit of char. Piece of fish, another piece of fish. This is a loaded taco, and that's totally fine. A light drizzling of your sauce, touch of slaw right over the top, and then just a little bit of flaky salt. That is your taco. You can add some fresh red onion, pickled onion, throw ca if you have the room in your macros for it, even not on diet. This is an excellent taco, so let's taste. I don't even know which one I want to eat. I mean, they all look so yummy. Cheers. There's something about these that every time I eat them, immediately I'm like, How is this that good? This should not be that good. This is a cheat go, and you could replace this.

fish with chicken, beef, lean pork, like a pork loin. If you cook the fish perfectly, it is so moist, it's tender, it's seasoned nicely, it's salty, it's a tiny bit sweet from the gochujang, spicy umami. It's got all the flavors you want there, and then that nice refreshing crunchy cabbage, which has a little bit of creaminess to it, just ever so slight. And then you have that acidic, spicy, slightly creamy green sauce. It's herbaceous. This is what a taco is supposed to be. On to the final but absolutely easiest recipe, protein cereal bowl. I love cereal. I've found a way to keep it in my life. You can use any type of yogurt you want, but I would recommend some sort of a protein yogurt or a non-fat yogurt mixed with whey protein. Large bowl, minimum of a 5.3 oz container of ratio protein yogurt goes down on one side, whey protein. It's a little sweet. I don't love it, but when you combine it with these ingredients, it's quite nice. Three wishes cinnamon.

cereal one cup. You can also crush this up if you want to. Half a tablespoon of honey drizzled on lightly. You're going to do one to two strawberries sliced or quartered, and then a few blueberries. I mean, look, realistically, any berry is fine. You got blueberries? Great. You got raspberries? Grap. Put a berry in there. Fiber. It helps you poop. Then just a touch of refreshment. That's it. And then you just mix this all together and eat it. I made it look nice. Most of the time, I just throw the together in a bowl and I shovel it into my mouth. This is the best set of tasting ever done. I actually got to eat it, and I'm on a diet. Yeah, immediately I'm getting like a few different vibes at once. Vibe one: I'm eating cereal with milk. Vibe two: I'm eating a yogurt parfait. Vibe three: It's sort of like a granola and fruit vibe. What more do you want? I will say, if you've never had this yogurt before, it's

going to be a little bit shocking flavor-wise. It's not great. The yogurt that you choose heavily impacts the flavor and the macros, so pay attention to that. But whatever you choose, this bowl will deliver. It's fruity, it's crunchy. You get a little bit of cinnamon from the three wishes cereal, which has got great macros and honestly surprisingly good for something made out of pea protein. That's not a sponsored ad or anything, so they owe us something. And then the fruit just freshens it up. A little bit of minty freshness, some tart, slightly sweet strawberry, the burst of a blueberry in your mouth. This is a fun bowl. You want to know what's even more fun? Not b-roll, actually. It's being on a diet. So, Josh, what are you going to do now? What happens for the rest of your life? Are you dieting forever? No, of course not. I'm going to find a new type of balance. If you want more balance in your life, all you have to do is define a goal and then do the required steps.

is to create the outcome. That's really what this video is about. I just wanted to pass along what I learned through this journey. And guess what? The journey never ends. And one last thing, we see the comments. We know that you guys are missing the single recipes, and we want to bring them back. Ultimately, our whole goal is we want to grow and extrapolate the content that we're doing on here. We don't just want to do recipe videos forever in one place, but I do miss the recipe videos myself as well. And I've got good news for you. We are going to be bringing the recipe videos back. I can't wait to share them with you. There's a whole plan to supply that for you, so that's coming soon. Just keep your eyes peeled. You won't miss that, but uh, it's coming. Subscribe. Bye. I love you. [Music]

Can You Trust A Skinny Chef (How I Lost 60 Lbs)

Joshua Weissman

I decided to trim down from 240 lbs to around 175 lbs over 8 months, aiming for 9% body fat.

The journey was fueled by comments from others, highlighting the hypocrisy of people's reactions.

I share my key takeaways: commit to your goal and consistently do the necessary tasks, along with a delicious taco recipe as a bonus.

Simplifying Life Goals and Workout Routine

Achieving life goals, whether career, family, or fitness, requires a straightforward approach.

The speaker's training routine consists of six days a week of weight training, with early morning workouts and a push-pull legs schedule.

A unique sauce recipe with charred jalapenos, garlic, and low-fat cottage cheese is shared, offering a delicious and nutritious addition to meals.

The Importance of Commitment in Fitness and Diet

Sticking to a workout and diet plan is crucial for success, with both elements being equally important.

Deviating from the plan leads to failure, making commitment and rigidity key factors.

The speaker shares three recipes to help with cravings, emphasizing the importance of proper cooking techniques and meal preparation.

Small adjustments to carbs and macros can be made over time, with online calculators helping to determine starting points.

The author's current daily macros are 2,460 calories, 320g of protein, 60g of fat, and 160g of carbohydrates, but individual needs may vary.

The author emphasizes the importance of creating balance in one's diet, challenging the cliché of "never trust a skinny chef" as an excuse for lacking balance.

Cooking lean beef patties requires high heat and quick cooking to avoid dryness.

American cheese is added for flavor and lower fat content.

The process is great for meal prep, allowing for multiple patties to be cooked and stored in the fridge for reheating.

The burger is made with 96% lean beef patties, toasted buns, American cheese, and a flavorful low-calorie sauce.

The key to keeping it low-calorie is using a non-stick cooking surface and cooking the patties quickly for a juicy result.

Incorporating 40 minutes of cardio into the workout routine has made a significant difference in achieving fitness goals.

Flavorful Fish Tacos and Protein Cereal Bowl

The fish is cooked perfectly, offering a moist and tender texture with a balance of salty, sweet, and spicy flavors, complemented by crunchy cabbage and a tangy green sauce.

The protein cereal bowl combines yogurt, whey protein, and nutritious supplements for a fruity and crunchy meal.

The speaker emphasizes finding balance in life and dieting by setting goals and taking the necessary steps.

Bringing Back Recipe Videos and Healthy Meal Ideas

The video creator shares their journey and plans to bring back single recipe videos due to viewer demand.

They introduce a healthy burger recipe that tastes great while being on a diet.

The video also features GOI Jang charred fish tacos with a simple cod loin marinade and a vibrant green sauce, offering a healthy twist on a classic dish.