The Muscle + Fat Loss Protocol
Lose the fat, keep the muscle, for the decades ahead
Built and medically reviewed by Dr Luqman Haris, MBBS, and real Catalyst coaches. Not an app, not AI.
Most fat-loss plans cost you the muscle you cannot spare, and after 40 you lose about 8% a decade anyway. This is the 12-week system our coaches run in the studio, made self-serve, to lose fat and keep muscle.
One payment, yours for life · See what’s inside first
Designed by a medical doctor
“The most significant health gains for most people happen long before they need a doctor.”
Dr Luqman Haris, MBBS, Co-Founder
The clinical thinking behind the Protocol is Dr Luqman Haris, a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) doctor who chose preventative health over clinical practice and co-founded Catalyst Performance. The muscle-after-40 science, the screening logic, and the line between coaching and medicine are his. Every claim is cited, and prepared for his medical review.
The coaching craft behind the method
The coach who trains the coaches
Bervin Manoharan, Co-Founder
Bervin Manoharan has spent over a decade in the industry, a coach first. He has coached hundreds of clients one-on-one, and has hired, trained and mentored hundreds of trainers, managers and leaders across Singapore’s fitness industry. The Protocol’s programming, its form-first standard, and its assessment logic are his craft.
The short version
What you get, why now, what it costs
What you get
- The 12-week programme: home, dumbbell or full-gym
- The Protein Playbook for a sustainable deficit or lean-gain surplus
- A mini cookbook of high-protein, Singapore-friendly recipes
- A recipe and meal-planner spreadsheet
- Training Around Your Life, for the weeks real life intrudes
- The at-home 4-Pillar Checkpoint, week 0 and week 12
- A maintenance plan and your next training block
- A cited Science Brief, with lifetime updates
- The designed PDF book and training trackers
Why start today
Muscle leaves steadily from around 40, and a careless diet speeds it up. Every week you cut hard without resistance training and enough protein is lean mass you may not get back. The sooner you train while you lose fat, the more of the right tissue you keep. Launch pricing is held for the first 50 buyers.
What it costs
One payment, from SGD 99, yours for life. Less than the cost of a single personal-training session, and a fraction of a month of generic app subscriptions you would otherwise stack. No subscription, no upsell.
Get the Protocol, from SGD 99 →The problem nobody packages for
Most fat-loss plans cost you the muscle you cannot spare
The scale rewards weight lost. It does not tell you whether you lost fat or muscle.
Crash diets and endless cardio do move the number on the scale. The trouble is what kind of weight leaves. Eat far too little, skip the lifting, and a meaningful share of the loss is muscle, not fat. You get lighter, and quietly weaker, at the same time.
That matters more after 40 than at any point before it. From around 40 you lose muscle steadily, about 8% a decade, and faster later on. Run a careless diet on top of that and you draw the account down quickly. Muscle is not only about looks. It is the tissue that keeps you strong, supports your bones, helps your body handle glucose, and lets you stay independent through your later decades. Lose it and you erode the very thing the diet was meant to protect.
The fix is not exotic, and it is not a crash. The research names the same three levers every time: a modest, sustainable deficit, enough protein, and progressive strength training. The deficit takes the fat off. The training and the protein are the signal and the raw material that tell your body to keep, and build, the muscle. That is the entire job of this Protocol, written so you can run it on your own.
What you get
Six parts, one job: lose the fat, keep the muscle
01
The 12-week programme
Three phases of four weeks: Foundation, Build, Consolidate. Two to three short strength sessions a week, built from compound patterns (squat, hinge, push, pull, loaded carry), with week-by-week loading and a defined endpoint. Three equipment tracks ship in the box, home, dumbbell-only, and full gym, so the same programme runs wherever you train. Form is earned before load is added.
02
The Protein Playbook
A protein and energy-balance system you can actually run. A realistic gram-per-kilogram floor, the eat-protein-first tactic, and meal-by-meal scaffolding for a modest, sustainable deficit when you are losing fat, or a slight surplus when you are building muscle. It comes with a mini cookbook of high-protein, Singapore-friendly recipes, and a recipe and meal-planner spreadsheet, so the target turns into food you would actually cook.
03
Training Around Your Life
How to keep the programme moving through the weeks real life throws at it: travel, a missed session, poor sleep, a busy stretch at work. How to scale a session rather than abandon it, where the non-negotiables sit, and how to protect the week as a whole rather than chasing a perfect one. Consistency over twelve weeks is what builds the body, not any single heroic session.
04
The 4-Pillar Checkpoint
Score your own healthspan at home, in week 0 and again in week 12. A self-baseline and a re-check across the measures you can take without a studio scan: weight trend, waist-to-height ratio, and a simple strength self-test. Strength holding or rising while the waist comes down is the at-home signal that the weight leaving is fat, not muscle. It points you toward the two pillars a home programme cannot fully measure.
05
What comes after week 12
The programme does not leave you at the finish line. A maintenance plan for holding the body composition you built, and a clear next training block so the strength keeps climbing rather than drifting back. How to set a deficit for more fat loss, or a slight surplus to add muscle, and how to know which you should be running next.
06
The Science Brief, with lifetime updates
The full evidence base, referenced so a doctor, a scientist, or a sceptical family member would nod: the recomposition evidence, the lean-mass-sparing research, why the deficit must be modest, the protein numbers, and the honest limitations. Your access does not expire, and updates land as the research moves.
A look inside, Foundation week 1
What a week actually looks like
Full body, three sessions, built from compound patterns. Reps sit in the strength-relevant 6 to 10 band, the descent is controlled, and you leave two to three reps in reserve. You add load only when you own the top of the rep range with clean form. This is one sample week; the programme progresses it across twelve.
Session A
Lower-body lead
- Split squat3 × 8 to 10 each side
Control the descent, leave 2 to 3 reps in reserve
- Hinge (Romanian deadlift)3 × 8
Hips back, flat back, feel the hamstrings load
- Horizontal push (press)3 × 8 to 10
Three seconds down, one second up
- Loaded carry3 × 30 seconds
Tall and braced, walk at an even pace
Session B
Upper-body lead
- Vertical push (shoulder press)3 × 8 to 10
Ribs down, press without arching the lower back
- Vertical pull (pulldown or row)3 × 8 to 10
Lead with the elbows, pause at the bottom
- Goblet squat3 × 10
Chest up, knees track over the toes
- Core (dead bug or plank)3 × 30 to 40 seconds
Breathe, keep the ribs and pelvis stacked
Session C
Full body
- Squat3 × 8
Own the depth you can control with clean form
- Horizontal pull (row)3 × 10
Squeeze the shoulder blades, no momentum
- Single-leg (step-up)2 × 10 each side
Drive through the heel, no push off the trailing foot
- Core (carry or anti-rotation)3 × 30 seconds
Resist the twist, brace through the whole set
The book edition
Look inside the Protocol
The whole Protocol comes two ways: an online member area you train from on your phone, and a designed PDF book you keep and read away from a screen. Same content, yours for life. Here is a real taste of both.
Anyone can lose weight. The part worth keeping is the muscle. Train hard enough to keep it, eat enough protein to rebuild it, and the weight that leaves is the weight you do not need.
Swipe through. The full book runs to 68 pages, and ships with your purchase alongside the online member area.
The opening · The raw material that keeps your muscle
Why protein is the harder half
Eat less than you burn and the scale moves. Whether what leaves is fat or muscle comes down to two things: training hard enough to keep the muscle, and eating enough protein to rebuild it. The strength work in this programme is the signal that tells your body to hold on to muscle, and to build more. Protein is the raw material it holds on to. You can do the sessions perfectly and still lose more muscle than you should if the protein is not there, which is why this chapter sits second only to the training plan itself.
Here is the awkward part for healthy people. The problem is not that you cannot eat. It is that food is everywhere, easy, and rarely organised around protein. Left to habit, most of us build a plate from carbohydrate first and fit a little protein around the edges, then top up on whatever is convenient between meals. That fills you up. It does not feed muscle. So the work is not fighting hunger; it is bringing order to abundance, deciding the protein in advance rather than letting the day decide it for you.
So the playbook is built around a single shift in behaviour. You stop eating to fullness and start eating to a target, protein first, planned in advance. Your energy balance decides whether you lose fat or add muscle. Protein and training together decide how much of what you carry is muscle. Get the protein right and both jobs, the cut and the build, run on the same foundation.
Read the rest first
Unlock the full sample
That is the opening. Enter your email and we will send a link to unlock the complete Protein Playbook chapter, the first training week, and the cited evidence. Yours to keep, at no charge.
Built on the evidence, not on hype
Every claim cited, so a doctor would nod
About 8% a decade
is the muscle most adults lose from around 40, and faster later on. A fast, careless diet on top of that runs the account down quickly. Training while you lose fat is how you keep the weight that leaves the weight you do not need.
Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia, J Am Med Dir Assoc, 20205% versus 2%
is the lean-mass loss in older adults who dieted with cardio alone against those who added resistance training, at a matched 9% weight loss. Lifting is the signal that tells the body to keep the muscle a diet would otherwise shed.
Villareal et al., N Engl J Med, 2017Around 1.6 g per kg
of protein a day is the point that maximises lean-mass gains from training, with little extra past 2.2 g/kg. In a deficit the target sits higher, because protein is doing double duty. The Protein Playbook turns that into food.
Morton et al., Br J Sports Med, 2018About 16% per 5 kg
is the higher risk of death from any cause carried by every 5 kg of lower grip strength, across nearly 140,000 adults in 17 countries, a stronger signal than blood pressure. Strength is the currency of the decades ahead.
Leong et al., PURE study, Lancet, 2015The full Science Brief inside the Protocol carries the complete reference list, a plain-English summary of each study, and the honest limitations (some findings are population averages, not a personal line). We do not claim what we cannot cite.
Who designed it
Designed by a longevity studio, not an anonymous PDF
The Protocol was designed by the founders of Catalyst Performance, a healthspan and longevity focused personal training studio in Singapore’s CBD, with more than twenty years in the industry between them, and is run in studio every day by our coaching team. The same movement vocabulary, the same form-first standard, the same four-pillar thinking, written down for you to run on your own.
This was not generated. It was written by the people whose names are on it.
Co-Founder, personal trainer
Bervin Manoharan
Over a decade coaching in Singapore, a coach first. Has coached hundreds of clients one-on-one, and hired, trained and mentored hundreds of trainers, managers and leaders across the industry. The coaching craft behind the programme.
Co-Founder, Head of Performance and Operations, personal trainer
Jeremy Soh
HYROX-podium athlete with three career podiums and over 25 marathons. The applied-performance lens, refined inside the training, not above it.
Co-Founder, Head of Training Systems, MBBS, personal trainer
Dr Luqman Haris
MBBS-qualified. The clinical lens on programming, screening, and the boundary between coaching and medicine. The rigour the four pillars are built on.
Written and reviewed by
Written by Bervin Manoharan and Jeremy Soh, co-founders of Catalyst Performance. Medically reviewed by Dr Luqman Haris, MBBS, co-founder and Head of Training Systems.
Catalyst sells training, not medication. We are not a medical provider and do not prescribe. If you have a medical condition, keep working with your own doctor.
How it compares
The Protocol against the alternatives
| What you are comparing | The Protocol | DIY or free programmes | A generic fitness app | Dieting alone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it does | Builds muscle and loses fat together, with the strength to carry into the decades | Gives you exercises, but no system tying training, protein and fat loss together | Gives you a library of workouts to follow | Drops the weight on the scale, with no plan for what kind of weight |
| Built for the 30s and beyond | Yes, designed around the muscle you cannot afford to lose after 40 | Rarely; most assume a younger, well-recovered body | Rarely; generic targets assume a general user | Not addressed |
| Progressive structure | 12 weeks of week-by-week loading with a defined endpoint | Often a one-off plan with no progression built in | Often a content playlist, not a progression | None |
| Protein and a sustainable deficit | A protein system plus a modest deficit or lean-gain surplus you can actually hold | Usually a workout only, with nutrition left to you | Generic calorie targets, rarely protein-led | Often a steep cut that costs muscle, not fat |
| At-home healthspan checkpoint | A week-0 and week-12 4-Pillar Checkpoint you score yourself | None | A weight or step count, not a healthspan read | The scale only, which rewards weight lost, not body changed |
| Medical review | Medically reviewed by an MBBS-qualified co-founder | Varies, often none | Varies, often none | None |
| What comes after | A maintenance plan and a clear next training block | Not addressed | Not addressed | Regain is common without a plan |
What it does
- The Protocol
- Builds muscle and loses fat together, with the strength to carry into the decades
- DIY or free programmes
- Gives you exercises, but no system tying training, protein and fat loss together
- A generic fitness app
- Gives you a library of workouts to follow
- Dieting alone
- Drops the weight on the scale, with no plan for what kind of weight
Built for the 30s and beyond
- The Protocol
- Yes, designed around the muscle you cannot afford to lose after 40
- DIY or free programmes
- Rarely; most assume a younger, well-recovered body
- A generic fitness app
- Rarely; generic targets assume a general user
- Dieting alone
- Not addressed
Progressive structure
- The Protocol
- 12 weeks of week-by-week loading with a defined endpoint
- DIY or free programmes
- Often a one-off plan with no progression built in
- A generic fitness app
- Often a content playlist, not a progression
- Dieting alone
- None
Protein and a sustainable deficit
- The Protocol
- A protein system plus a modest deficit or lean-gain surplus you can actually hold
- DIY or free programmes
- Usually a workout only, with nutrition left to you
- A generic fitness app
- Generic calorie targets, rarely protein-led
- Dieting alone
- Often a steep cut that costs muscle, not fat
At-home healthspan checkpoint
- The Protocol
- A week-0 and week-12 4-Pillar Checkpoint you score yourself
- DIY or free programmes
- None
- A generic fitness app
- A weight or step count, not a healthspan read
- Dieting alone
- The scale only, which rewards weight lost, not body changed
Medical review
- The Protocol
- Medically reviewed by an MBBS-qualified co-founder
- DIY or free programmes
- Varies, often none
- A generic fitness app
- Varies, often none
- Dieting alone
- None
What comes after
- The Protocol
- A maintenance plan and a clear next training block
- DIY or free programmes
- Not addressed
- A generic fitness app
- Not addressed
- Dieting alone
- Regain is common without a plan
Why not just ask an AI
A plan from real professionals, not a prediction
Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Gemini to write you a training plan and you will get a confident answer in seconds. They are genuinely useful tools. What they cannot do is the part that decides whether this works: none has ever coached a real body, watched your form, or carried a doctor’s review, and each starts fresh every time you ask, with no memory of the week before. Here is the honest difference.
| What you are comparing | The Protocol | A plan from a general AI tool |
|---|---|---|
| Who built it | An MBBS-qualified doctor and coaches who have hired and trained over 100 trainers, from more than a decade on the gym floor | Generated from text across the internet, with no author who has coached a body or carries the outcome |
| Medical review | Every health claim reviewed by Dr Luqman Haris, MBBS, and cited from primary research | No clinical review; it can sound certain and still be wrong |
| Watches your form | Optional Coach Check: a Catalyst coach reviews your three main lifts on video | Cannot see you train; it takes your word for your technique |
| Shows you the movement | Every exercise demonstrated on video by the coaches who wrote it | A text description, or a link to someone else's video |
| A finite, progressive plan | 12 weeks of week-by-week loading, with a defined endpoint and a plan for what comes after week 12 | A fresh answer each prompt; no progression unless you build and track it yourself |
| Who stands behind it | A named Singapore studio; one payment, yours to keep with every update | No one is accountable for the result |
Who built it
- The Protocol
- An MBBS-qualified doctor and coaches who have hired and trained over 100 trainers, from more than a decade on the gym floor
- A plan from a general AI tool
- Generated from text across the internet, with no author who has coached a body or carries the outcome
Medical review
- The Protocol
- Every health claim reviewed by Dr Luqman Haris, MBBS, and cited from primary research
- A plan from a general AI tool
- No clinical review; it can sound certain and still be wrong
Watches your form
- The Protocol
- Optional Coach Check: a Catalyst coach reviews your three main lifts on video
- A plan from a general AI tool
- Cannot see you train; it takes your word for your technique
Shows you the movement
- The Protocol
- Every exercise demonstrated on video by the coaches who wrote it
- A plan from a general AI tool
- A text description, or a link to someone else's video
A finite, progressive plan
- The Protocol
- 12 weeks of week-by-week loading, with a defined endpoint and a plan for what comes after week 12
- A plan from a general AI tool
- A fresh answer each prompt; no progression unless you build and track it yourself
Who stands behind it
- The Protocol
- A named Singapore studio; one payment, yours to keep with every update
- A plan from a general AI tool
- No one is accountable for the result
Get the Protocol
One payment, yours to keep
A finite, progressive plan that does the whole job: lose the fat, keep the muscle, and finish with the maintenance plan most programmes leave out. It is built for people who train on their own terms, whether you are overseas or not ready for 1:1 yet. No subscription, no upsell mid-programme. Your access link lands in your inbox the moment payment confirms, and the whole Protocol also ships as a designed PDF book edition for offline use. Launch pricing is held for the first 50 buyers.
Want it coached instead of self-guided? See Catalyst Online Coaching for the same discipline coached anywhere, or sustainable fat loss if you are in Singapore and want to start with a complimentary 30-min consultation.
Questions, answered straight
Before you decide
Is there a self-guided 12-week programme to lose fat while keeping muscle?
Yes. The Muscle + Fat Loss Protocol is a self-guided 12-week programme built to lose fat while keeping muscle, run as three four-week phases of progressive strength training with a protein system for a modest deficit. It is medically reviewed by an MBBS-qualified co-founder, and every health claim is cited from primary research. It is yours to keep, with an optional Coach Check that adds a one-time form review.
What is the best self-help training guide to lose fat and keep muscle after 40?
After 40, keeping muscle while losing fat comes down to two levers a guide can teach: resistance training two to three times a week, and enough protein, around 1.2 to 1.6 g per kg of body weight, inside a modest deficit. The Muscle + Fat Loss Protocol structures both across 12 weeks, with an at-home strength and waist checkpoint to confirm the weight leaving is fat, not muscle. Speak to your doctor before starting.
I have tried losing weight before and it did not last. Why is this different?
Because most plans cut too hard and train too little, so the weight that comes off is partly muscle, and a deep, prolonged deficit pushes your metabolism down in ways that outlast the diet. If you lost weight before and watched it come back, that was not you failing, it was your body doing what a crash trains it to do. The Protocol runs a modest deficit, a few hundred calories a day, with resistance training and enough protein, so you lose fat steadily while keeping the muscle. Then it hands you a maintenance plan for after the twelve weeks, which is where most people come undone.
Will I get bigger than I want to be?
No. You build lean, usable strength, not size you did not train for. Building noticeable muscle takes years of deliberate, heavy, high-volume work and a real surplus of food. On a modest deficit, or at maintenance, what this programme adds is strength, density and shape, the muscle that keeps you strong and independent, not a different physique you have to chase. You will most likely look leaner and more defined, not larger.
I have never trained before. Is this too advanced for me?
No. The programme is beginner-first: you earn clean form at each movement pattern before any load is added, and every exercise carries an easier regression for the days a movement is too hard. Two to three short sessions a week is the whole ask, and three equipment tracks mean you can run it at home with almost nothing, with a pair of dumbbells, or in a full gym.
Do I have to diet the whole time?
No. You cut for fat loss and eat at maintenance, or a slight surplus, to build muscle, and the Protocol shows you how to set each. We also build in planned stretches back at maintenance, because a non-stop deficit is exactly what stalls progress and provokes regain. You are not signing up to eat less forever. You are learning to steer your own energy balance for the rest of your life.
Can I really build muscle and lose fat at the same time?
Yes, especially if you are newer to training or carrying some fat to lose. Building muscle while losing fat in the same window runs on two levers, progressive resistance training and a higher-protein diet, and the evidence is strongest for exactly the people most likely to start here. The honest limit: the leaner and more trained you already are, the harder it gets to do both at once. If that is you, expect to lose fat while keeping the muscle you have and adding strength. Either way, you finish better composed than you started.
Is this medical advice?
No. The Protocol is an educational training and nutrition programme, not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment. Catalyst is a personal training studio, not a medical provider. If you have a heart, joint, metabolic or other medical condition, or you are returning to training after a long break, speak to your doctor before you start. If you have any kidney concern, set your protein target with your doctor or dietitian first.
I am not in Singapore. Can I still use it?
Yes. The Protocol is fully digital and self-guided, so it works wherever you are, and the three equipment tracks mean it adapts to the gym you actually have. If you want the same discipline coached anywhere in the world, Catalyst Online Coaching is the next step up. If you are in Singapore and want it coached in studio, the complimentary 30-min consultation is the place to start.
What does the Coach Check tier add?
The Protocol plus Coach Check tier includes everything in the Protocol, plus a one-time form review of your three main lifts by a Catalyst coach and personalised protein and calorie targets. It is the option for anyone who wants a human set of eyes on their technique before they load up.
Why pay for this when I can ask ChatGPT to write me a plan for free?
Ask one and you will get a confident plan in seconds, and for many things these tools are genuinely useful. What they cannot do is the part that decides whether this works. A general AI tool has never coached a real body, it does not watch your form, it carries no medical review, and it starts fresh every time you ask, with no memory of the week before. The Protocol is a finite, progressive 12-week plan built by an MBBS-qualified doctor and coaches who have trained over 100 trainers, with every movement demonstrated on video and every health claim cited and reviewed. An AI hands you an answer. This is a plan that real professionals stand behind, and the optional Coach Check puts a human set of eyes on your lifts, which no chatbot can. Read the sample of the writing on this page and judge the depth for yourself before you pay a cent.
Do you offer refunds?
No, and there is a fair reason. The Protocol unlocks in full the instant you buy, the book and the trackers included, so there is nothing to return. That is why the full cited evidence and a sample of the writing sit on this page: you can judge the depth and the voice before you pay a cent. Once you are in, it is yours to keep for life, with every future update.
Read it before you buy
There is no money-back guarantee, and there does not need to be. The Protocol unlocks in full the moment you pay, downloads and all, so we let you judge it first instead. The full cited evidence and a sample of the writing are on this page. Read them, buy only if it is for you, and once you are in it is yours to keep for life, with every future update.
Important
The Muscle + Fat Loss Protocol is an educational training and nutrition programme. It is not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment, and it is not a substitute for care from a qualified medical professional. Catalyst Performance is a personal training studio, not a medical provider.
Speak to your doctor before starting a new training or nutrition programme, especially if you have a heart, joint, metabolic or other medical condition, or you are returning to training after a long break. Speak to a doctor or dietitian before changing your protein intake if you have a kidney condition, and manage any diagnosed condition with your own doctor. Individual results vary, and no specific outcome is promised.