Transcription
[Music] 3, 2, 1. J. What's up, 3DMJers? I am here with fellow coaches Alberto Nunees, Jeff Alberts, and Brad Lumis. How are you guys doing? Good, good, good. I'm with you guys. Couldn't be better.
So, today's topic of the podcast is there is an umbrella topic that has a lot of different areas we can discuss, but fat loss pacing. So, we get a lot of questions from clients and, you know, in our day-to-day coaching where, you know, we're having to make decisions on how to structure a fat loss phase and the appropriate rate of loss and, you know, planning ahead for things like a contest prep. And then we get a lot of questions, you know, how fast should I be losing given my goals? And that can really depend on the situation. There's a lot of context that I think can go into this. I guess I'll pass it to Bert. Like, you just started prep, so how do you have things structured compared to like any pre-prep dieting you had done?
Um, well, preps are kind of weird in that it's this mixture between a—it's not a short-term goal, right? It's not like I'm trying to have a really good output during this month of training or something like that. And it's definitely not like offseason length. It's kind of in the middle. So, they're sneaky because you have a lot of time, but at the same time, before you know it, you don't have a lot of time.
So, um, it's a combination of like, okay, I guess the diet intensity is up a little bit compared to how lax I was before. But generally speaking, I think what dictates the pace of the prep is knowing where you need to be and how rough of a fight that's going to be like at the end. So, you need to definitely have energy to salvage for that dog fight. So, it's pretty relaxed. There's just little things like, you know, usually I'm the garbage disposal here at home. Can't play that game no more.
Um, you know, like I kind of—there has to be a certain level of hunger that is appropriate for this portion of the contest prep, like the opening rounds. But at the same time, I can't go too hard too early, right? Because then it's like, shoot, I'm going to be ready in 12 weeks. Wouldn't be a good thing. And I have my first show's not scheduled till like roughly double that, right?
So, um, but there's a lot of parallels. I think even though it's a contest prep, the way I like to frame it for newer athletes who are just trying to nail down their first successful fat loss phase is that my shredded glutes are like you getting under 200. Like when you think about it, like it looks like a very different goal, but it's all relative. And I go back to this. This is something that a friend of mine who dealt with cancer in their childhood. Someone had tagged him in something and they were like, "Man, like isn't everyone like just such a baby compared to like, you know, the things you've gone through?" And his response was amazing, which was just essentially, you know, the hardest thing is the hardest thing, right?
And when it comes to contest prep, because we're more expert dieters, we kind of know what trap doors to look for. But, you know, at the end, it's the exact same principles that you would use for someone who is just trying to get from like 250 to like they just want to be 199 for the first time since high school. It's just that we're aware because we've taken that trip many times over. Someone who's very excited right now today about their fat loss journey and how they're going to nail it. Sometimes the excitement can have you go out on a journey that you're just not ready for or you haven't thought of everything all the way through. So, pace and having all your equipment with you and understanding what the task requires is super important. But at the end, like whether you're just trying to get to a healthy BMI or contest prep, it's all relative at the end. It really is.
So, we'll go through all different types of fat loss diets, but at the end, that's the one thing you'll see that they have in common is that regardless of what the end goal is, the people who make it there successfully are the ones that again, they're just ready for their journey, their backpack looks right, and, you know, they have a clear map of what it is they're trying to do and the pace makes sense relative given their current level of fitness. And I mean mental fitness is what I refer to when I say that.
No, that's good. I think, um, I think it would be helpful maybe we talk about some of the factors that influence pacing and what, you know, you'd mentioned kind of experience level. But Jeff, I'll let you kind of go on this one. What are some of the things that you take into consideration when you're determining like a reasonable pace for fat loss or a target pace on paper to at least start somebody on?
I think we have to first think about like what's the actual goal and is it realistic? You know, if it's someone who's competing for the first time, is it looking like Alberto's glutes? Probably not. You know, it's okay. So, we have to think about realistic expectations. But first question is what's the actual goal? Are we trying to get on stage shredded? Are we trying to just recomp? So, just depending on the person's situation, you got to factor in what that goal is. Be on the same page with it.
And then from there, I'm thinking about, okay, now what's this trajectory look like? You know, is this person needs, let's say, needs to lose 50 lbs? That's a long stretch to try to do it on all one shot. So, maybe strategically it's like, okay, we're going to do this in maybe three, four, five different phases. So, maybe we're, you know, thinking about, okay, we're going to diet for maybe two months, take a break, diet another month, take another break, diet a couple more months, take a break. Because every time you go through each of those phases, it's going to get more challenging. The leaner you get, the more challenging it's going to get. Calories might get a little bit lower. Maybe you're more active. You got to think about how you're executing those things in the game we call life because everybody has different life scenarios, families, relationships, all these things. So, you got to think about outside factors going through this type of a process.
Someone like myself and Alberto, we've been through this process many, many times over. So, we kind of know what to expect along the journey. We know where these pitfalls are going to happen. So, it's from a stress level component, it's stressful, but it's not as stressful because we know what those expectations are. For someone who's new to doing it, all this is just like fresh new territory and how you handle emotions around the process is huge. So, I always think about like where the experience level is with the person. You have if they're new to the game, if they're more advanced or whatever and what they I think they can handle.
But I think about like when it comes to the pacing, like, okay, we need to think about the goal, realistic timeline for that, how many phases it's going to look like. And we think about rate of loss, like we kind of know through the research half to 1% of body weight loss per week is going to maintain our muscle mass. Granted, our training is on point. You know, we're advanced and skilled with that, but I think when you—like a lot of us, we get overeager sometimes to a fault because we want to get to our goal like now. And then once you start pushing past that 1% threshold for weeks on end, that's where stress levels creep up because physically the demand is a lot harder. Then you're more susceptible to muscle loss.
And whether you're a competitive bodybuilder or not, like people who listen to this podcast, the goal is always recomp. Like every person I talk to for the first time, it's always what's your goal? It's always some type of recomp. Bigger muscle, get leaner. It's more about how you're going to get there. What does that trajectory look like? So, that's like the most important thing you can do anytime you go on an adventure like this or an endeavor is what's the goal? What's that—what's the realistic timeline for that? And how do we pace that?
If I could just, um, piggyback on what Jeff said with a little bit more context, um, kind of where you're starting body comp has a lot to do with pacing too because it's going to vary as you get leaner and leaner and leaner. So, even though like 1% of body weight we know is kind of the optimal rate of loss for muscle retention. Berto, I'm sure you're probably not starting out at 1% of body weight and losing like what, 1.7, 1.5, 7, 1.5 to 1.7 pounds per week. A lot of times that's a pretty invasive when you're already pretty darn lean.
And so, kind of the more body fat the person has, that's when I feel like you can be a little bit more aggressive, maybe lose 1% per pound of body weight, maybe even a little bit more, you know, maybe a little bit above 1% to where if you have like a 5'8" person that's 220 lbs, yeah, maybe they can lose 2.2 to 2.5 lbs a week. But as they start getting leaner and leaner and leaner and those body fat stores start getting depleted, so does that energy source also start to get depleted. And so, you kind of want to slow that rate of loss down. You know, once they're down to about, say, say they get down to it from 220 to 190. I don't even know if 1.9 pounds a week is really going to be sustainable because that's a pretty steep caloric deficit. You know, you might have to slow down to one and a half to one, one pounds a week.
And me, I know, uh, I just started my diet here about a month ago as well. I mean, at 178 lbs, I'm ecstatic if I lose close to a pound every week because that gets me right where I want to be by the end of the prep, the end of the—when I'm getting close to competition, you know. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to start at 1%. And I'm going to start at like 0.5 and be happy with that. So, I think body comp really needs to be taken in consideration. When you've got a lot of energy stored on you in the form of body fat, you can probably go, you know, more aggressive.
And so, I guess with that being said, I kind of want to toss it back into you guys. Because I kind of want to learn here too, learn from my fellow coaches. If I see abs on a person and, um, you know, some fairly good definition in kind of like their, um, what do you want to call it, like your—a person where they kind of tend to store less body fat. But if I see abs and I see fairly lean appendages, to me, that's not the body composition to push fat loss and weight loss quickly. I'll usually program for less than 1% per week of body weight loss when I'm seeing abs and I'm seeing definition. So, with that being said, I mean, Brian, you can chime in, anybody, whoever. What is your guys's kind of delineated point to where it's like I don't want to go all the way to 1% now, you know?
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good point. The method you have with just kind of having if they're reasonably lean already, then a case is going to be made just from that alone to slow things down a little bit. Um, you know, I think in the offseason and mini cuts I might get a little bit more aggressive. Like if somebody's at their top end offseason weight and we're cutting back down to 12 to 13% over stage weight and slowly climbing back up, like that's a decent amount of body fat still at that point. And you're able to get away with, you know, a slightly more assertive approach in the offseason.
But even then, like 1%, like you guys said, it's a very—it's kind of an assertive pace anyway for people. Like I don't think I could sustain 1% for more than a few weeks, just because like it's a pretty robust deficit. You know, if you're 200 lbs, you're talking 1,000 calorie deficit a day.
I got firsthand experience like all through my 20s and 30s. I'd run preps very aggressively because I was the super motivated and overeager guy who just really got after it and I dieted down, get to 160 lbs, get on stage, shredded, think I'm doing something right, won in some shows and that reinforces that. But then, you know, once I met Alberto, Eric, and Brad and I slowed things down a bit, got closer to like half percent, maybe three quarters, all of a sudden I'm on stage 10 pounds bigger and just as lean, if not leaner, and it wasn't because I put muscle on in the offseason. I was like, I learned how to retain it.
And not to mention, like when you're pacing that quickly, like think of like the pressure and the stress of that. It's almost like I'm telling you guys to tie your shoes in 10 seconds. Like you might get—you might do it. I use this analogy all the time. Like you might be able to do it, but you look down at your shoes, you're like, "Holy [ __ ] my shoes look pretty. I got some knots going on here," but if I give you 30 seconds or a minute to tie your shoes, there's less pressure there. Yeah. The shoes are going to have better quality to it when you're done tying them. So, it's not so much like because sometimes we can get too wrapped up in numbers, too. Like someone listening might be saying, "Okay, I need to make sure I'm going by these numbers." But you also go by how you feel and where your skill level is at. And I know B—I know, I know Berto can vouch for this. It's like more than just the numbers. It's actually what this person's actually experiencing going through because you're not just navigating a spreadsheet. You're navigating life itself.
Yeah. The whole sustainability of it. Like a lot of it's what they're behaviorally—like the behavioral infrastructure that can facilitate whatever rate of loss they're going for. Um, yeah, and I like—I remember the first prep I had, I think I lost 50 lbs in 20 weeks and still had weight to lose, and it was in hindsight like I'm glad I was able to prove to myself that I was able to do that, but it made—and it made every other prep after that significantly easier.
What did it feel like when you did that?
I—it was, it was exciting because it was the first time I had gotten as lean as I did. Um, but it was all of the symptoms—the dietary symptoms were amplified. You know, even though I didn't get nearly as lean as I got in subsequent preps, just that consistent environment of really low energy availability, it just zaps you. I definitely lost a good bit of muscle, too. Um, so, and I think that—
Would you say your emotional side was running the prep? Like the overeagerness, the motivation, just like the hardcore, because you're excited about doing this. So, you probably like things you were actually feeling you weren't really feeling.
Yeah. You're ignoring it. You're ignoring it because it was being overridden by the drive to just like, I'm going to prove that I can do this.
Yeah. Similar, I lost 30 lbs in six weeks my first prep. It was death, but I didn't care. I was motivated.
Yeah. Wow.
And I'd have people telling me like where I go to work like, "You look—you look sick." And I'm like, "You don't know what you're talking about, man." Like, "You look sick, man. Your face is all sucked in. Your shirts are baggy. Like, you used to look—you look gaunt, man." And I'm like, "Nah." In my brain, I'm like, "You don't know nothing. You don't know what you're talking about."
Yeah. So, you can ignore—I remember vividly when, um, Berto for the first time he told me, because I was the same way, you guys. I just—I just started at a 2,000 calorie diet and every week I would just eliminate a little bit of food until by the end of prep I was down to 15 or 1400 calories, you know. And I remember vividly, Berto, you said something that really resonated with me and it took me years to actually be able to kind of really put the nuts and bolts of it together. But the goal of prep is to eat as much as you possibly can while still losing the required weight and the rate of loss that you need. And I—I remember when you said that, I was pro—I probably looked at you like I had a—you might have had a third eye popping out of your forehead or something because it sounded so foreign to me. But I just remember processing that over the weeks and I'm like, you know what, he's absolutely right. You know, we—we—I'm sure you guys have had people kind of undereat. You give them the calories that they need and they're like, "Bonus, I'm supposed to hit 1,800 and I hit 1490." And you're like, "No, that's not what we want." You know, but, um, yeah, I remember that vividly, you know, and like—like I said, that's—I'm pretty sure, Berto, that's how you said it. Eat the most amount of food that you can possibly eat while still losing the required weight that you need.
I have a question for you, Berto. So, I mean, you're the one that created the pre-prep positioning course for us. Where did that concept start? Like, when did you start noticing like, okay, we need to look at this from more of a big picture perspective as far as running like long contest preps? Because this is a concept that I use with just about everybody I can get my hands on that I get on like early in the process. It's like this—this prep actually starts before six months out. It's starting maybe a year out or a little bit longer like setting them up in a good position to start a prep. So, for you, like when did that start to manifest in your brain like when you started seeing all these things?
Uh, you know, like a lot of things, it's a selfish need where I realized that losing 40 lbs to get into stage shape probably wasn't the right way to go about things. It was a little bit more normalized back then, I think. And the—I guess the troubling issue for me was that there's like my fighting weight, my offseason weight, my comfy weight, and then there is my contest weight. And they were just two very contrasting things.
So, I'm like, "All right, there's got to be a way where I can spend the majority of my offseason here where recovery is the most predictable to body weight, body comp that I can manage quite well. It allows for less restriction in life. All these wonderful perks." But the issue is that like, okay, but going from there to contest shape, they're like two—two opposites. It's almost like the example I like to give people is if a powerlifter was working on their 10 rep max and it's like, okay, now they got a new 10 rep max like in the squat, it's like, well, you know, that's great. You're obviously a lot stronger, but like this doesn't apply to the specifics of the sport. Like you're getting kind of good at the wrong thing almost.
Um, so I needed a bridge. I needed to create a bridge. And I'm like, well, the good news is that there is all this fat that I have right now is very easy to remove. Like I can actually go at a pretty accelerated rate. And oddly enough, it gets me to just a place that's way more reasonable.
And the way I had—because it's evolved a lot over the years. The way I had it set up was there is a holding period, um, where especially for newer athletes, you really can't do too much in that body comp for them because it's still a little leaner than they would like. Um, so maybe there was a follow-up specialization cycle where we take two or three body parts and that's what we do in those months while we're like regenerating health from the setup diet before we start the prep.
But you know what I think over the years a lot of what I've come to realize, and this is just me, is that it's usually the athletes' lack of skill that keeps them at certain body comps or their lack of attention span even. I think that's one of the reasons that athletes like to see very linear progress on the scale body weight scale when they're in the offseason and that's because, guess what, like again, physics, like yeah, if you gain 7 lbs the last 4 months, guess what, yeah, all your lifts are going to go up. And for someone who's younger, I think that might make sense because it keeps him in the game, keeps him entertained. For guys like us who are in a place where, you know, health matters a little more at this point. It doesn't just happen by default. And we're a little bit more patient and our lifestyle and our habits have just gotten a whole lot better over time. We might not even need that setup diet. So, that was kind of my experience this go around. I'm like, hey, I'm actually like right around 12% to start this diet. 12% above stage weight. Not 12% body fat, but I need to lose 12% of my body weight roughly, just where I happen to be to be in contest shape. I didn't need no setup and that's just because over time my habits have just improved. I'm much more patient as a lifter. It's like on my dumbbell press I don't need to see myself go through like four or five different pairs of dumbbells in a 6 month span. It's like I'm perfectly fine just chilling here adding reps because I'm probably putting on the same amount of muscle.
But I think I'm going to pull this back to something that really matters before you do get going with your whatever your fat loss goal is. Because the thing with, I think, a lot of contest preppers are sometimes afraid to come to us because we're going to tell them no, no, you can't prep yet. No, you haven't fulfilled all the requirements that would make me feel like responsible to just take you on that journey. So, they usually go find someone else that's going to say yes to them, but we usually know how that ends up. They might be one and done. Or maybe they keep kind of doing this in a very fragile and limping state.
So, what I suggest people do is that before they actually decide what they want to do moving forward is like you have to look at your own history because that's going to dictate what you're going to be able to tolerate and what goals are appropriate for you. So, if you've been over 250 lbs, you're 5'9", right, male, and you've gone on like eight unsuccessful diets over the course of the last 5 years, we probably have some mending to do mentally before we even get rolling with that. And there's probably a certain level of like baseline skills that you have to have in order before we can even expose you to the elements.
And as a matter of fact, I'd say most people who find themselves in this position where they can't seem to orchestrate a successful fat loss phase, I would tell them just do this. It's like, hey, for a whole year, for a whole year, don't—don't hop on any sort of like purposeful or intentional caloric restriction. Eat this many servings of vegetables. Eat this many servings of fruit. Stop and eat a lean source of protein three times a day and that's all you have to do. And I think most of us, it sounds so simple, but like if you think about it, most people, if most people in this country just did that for—say it was just the default, it was just built into the culture and this is just what they grew up with. Like we probably wouldn't have a lot of the things going on right now with the weight epidemic, right? You're kind of just—
So, you're saying so many words, focus on habits more so than like some specific goal or some like up a mountain. It's like let's—let's sit down here, learn to tie these knots, let's run these drills before like they actually have a purpose while we're on there, like before we get into those cutthroaty moments.
Uh, absolutely. And it—it pains me that every other sport like has these things in place like—like, kid, we're going to show you how to throw a baseball, you know, like before you just get to pitching back, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like but—but we don't have those set—those things set in place when it comes to bodybuilding. A lot of it's because people's excitement makes them do dumb things that like lose 30 lbs in 6 weeks. Yeah. And it's like we know where that's going to end. We know what's going to happen. Yeah, you made it pretty far up the mountain, but then you're just going to roll back down and—and you're going to be worse and you—and—and every attempt afterwards just gets harder and harder. Like we know this. We've done dumb things from a dietary standpoint. And it takes sometimes years to fully mend from that trauma.
And it makes sense as to why because that is like the one thing all humans—we even if we're just naturally thin people—like if you [ __ ] with people's food long enough, you will get them to start acting weird. Like people don't realize how much—how—how—like because for most of our existence it's—it's a—it's been a threat like not eating enough. Like people complain about their poverty macros, but I'm like, all right, I'm going to go throw you in the woods but with nothing there and I—and you need to find somehow 1500 calories today to sustain your body weight and plus all the moving, right? So, we're like when you think about it, it's like, wow, like I can see why based on our like evolutionary history, why that is just a button that if you press with people, it can really like [ __ ] you up. Especially when you're like living in like—like this modern world where there's [ __ ] commercials for like milkshakes like every 15 minutes. Um, so yeah, I think before you—you decide the trajectory, it's like you—like just like with contest preppers, it's like, "All right, kid. Let me see. Do you know how to throw a [ __ ] baseball?" No, no, no, no, no. You're not on the team yet. We're going to teach you to throw a baseball. Same thing with general fat loss. For a lot of people, they haven't tried. Let me eat fruits and vegetables and lean protein for a year and have a lot of fun in the weight room. And for a lot of folks, that—that's—that's literally the solution. That's literally what's going to give them better results than anything they've tried over the last however many years.
And it makes it easier for us as coaches too if they have those skills in place because it's like, okay, so I can—okay, we know the goal like you're—you're a candidate for this. You got the skills now. Now I know how to like set your trajectory. I could set numbers up and you know how to roll with it. So, I mean, same thing like foot on the opposite—not, and I know this is more like fat loss, but even gaining phases, if you don't know how to train, if you don't know how to move from A to B properly, and if you gain, let's say, 20 lbs thinking you're going to gain a bunch of muscle, guess what, you just gain a bunch of fat because you don't know how to train. Hardly any of that's going to be muscle because your training isn't where it's supposed to be. You don't have the skill. So, it's the same—same principles just flipped the other way.
But that's what we dictate our—our planning on. It's like we—we ask these folks, what have you been through? What's your history? What do you have? What have you accomplished? What have you failed at? And then we set up these goals that, yeah, they're going to challenge them, but it's like the right amount that is going to—they're more—I like the 90% rule, like you're 90% likely to make it there. And they sometimes think I'm insulting whatever level of self-efficacy they—they think they've earned at this point, but by the time we're in there, they're like, "Oh, yeah, like this is harder than I thought." And—and it's my job as a coach to be like, "All right, and this is where we stop." Because what happens to most people like when they go further than they need to, it's like, "Okay, okay, that part of the mountain you just don't have access to yet." It's like we need to learn to just kind of stay here, chill, solidify the eating habits that let you exist at this body weight and then we can consider moving on.
But quite often like it is so crazy what people forget the power of strength training, like just what proper strength training with the good technique that's well-fed with all those good habits, um, how that, damn it, it just overpowers anything that like pure fat loss can do for most people. But, um, but yeah, that's why like for Dirk, like when he goes on his like offseason like mini cuts, we just do a protein sparing modified diet because that's his skill level. He can eat a couple hundred calories a day, super high protein, and you do that for two weeks and we're done. Cool. I would not set most people up that way. No freaking way. Right. For someone else, they might want to lose 30 and I'm like, I think you're only qualified to lose 15 and it's going to be at like roughly half the pace that you want because otherwise we're just going to be in the same predicament all over again.
Yeah. I mean, you can lose 30 lbs in a year and you think, "Oh, that's reasonable." But depending on skill level, if I double that time and I phase it, because you're going to get more skilled in each of those phases if we repeat the process. So, it could be a short cutting phase, maintenance phase, another short cutting phase, maybe it's a little shorter than the first one was. You're more skilled the second time around. It's less stress. Another maintenance phase. That's usually how recomp people. It's not like, hey, we're going to—we're going to lose all this weight now. It's like, okay, this is a 2 or 3 year process. But you're going to go through these phases multiple times and like you said, bro, they gain more and more skill with it and then when you do recomp, then it's almost like you're changing their—like if you put on a graph—like their high-end weight is usually too high, most people, not all cases, but let's just say most people.
And then the low-end weight, I always ask what—what's the lowest you've ever been because I know if the lowest they've ever been is usually a place they probably shouldn't be hanging around at if they've done prior cutting phases before because the reason they go to a coach is because it probably didn't go too well. So, it's like, okay, so I know what their old high-end weight is. I know what their old low-end weight is. And usually going through those phases over a year, two-year process, you're just closing those gaps up because now we don't have to go high above where—anywhere near where they used to be or as low as they used to be. They kind of roam in a—let's just give some arbitrary numbers. So, let's say it was like a 30 lb gap, high-end, low-end, 30 lb gap. So, now it's like maybe I close that into a 15 lb gap or a 20 lb gap at most. So, now they're going through these shorter or not shorter but longer more conservative gaining phases. And then you're just reverse ordering that. Now we're going to go backwards the other way. And because of the—the gaps been closed, the habits have been closed as well. They're like more in line with each other going through a gaining and cutting phase.
Yeah. I think another big benefit with taking that phasic approach, you know, obviously the behavioral aspect and, you know, recharging willpower for the next push, but I mean how many people that do things aggressively all in one shot at a fast pace like they have no exit strategy once they get to that end point? You know, it's, okay, I lost 50 lbs and they don't really know how to maintain it. And so, I think those are good opportunities to, you know, when it's a multi-year project. Okay, let's—let's spend two, three months here, you know, you can aim for like what we approximate as maintenance these first couple weeks and then I want you to try to take more of an intuitive approach, you know, and more habit-based, you know, kind of audit—audit what those eating behaviors look like at this intake and then just try to mirror that day-to-day. Um, I think that's it. I've noticed when we take that approach, the fat loss tends to stick. I mean, outside of like contest prep conditions, but, um, yeah, I think a lot of people they—they want it now and get it over with and done, but you're—you—you will generally come out ahead with the slower approach on paper.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of—of especially with our skilled athletes who have done this before. I'm a big fan of just, okay, we're a little bit above where we need to be, but, um, we got time. We can kind of, using Alberto's term, kind of use this prep positioning diet phase to just do it intuitively. You know, you have your structure, you have your habits, and let's just lose weight, you know. And then you use your skills to make that happen. Don't worry about macros, you know, worry about protein and then just whatever your intuitive skills are and what that usually looks—
Like last year, uh, when I started my prep for competition, I was a little bit above where I needed to be. I—I—I—I need to start a diet between 178 and 182. Um, and at the time I was 190. And so, I mean, I was basically just keeping the same structure that I always ate big protein bonuses because Jeff told me about four or five years ago to make sure I got at least 40 grams of protein with every meal. And so that's what I did. Um, still do it. Here we are, six years later. And I just made sure I was hungry. I just made sure that I was hungry going into each meal. And I just made sure that I was, um, satisfied, but never like full after my meals all while getting protein bonus in there.
Say again, Jeff. Low-level hunger though, right?
Oh, yeah. Not like I'm ravenous, ready to eat, but, you know, my stomach's growling a little bit, you know. And then when I was done eating, I just made sure that I was not, you know, I didn't—I didn't have like this real big food baby or I was just basically satisfied. I felt like I could eat more, but I didn't. And it was effortless. It was absolutely effortless. I lost 10 pounds, I want to say, in like five or six weeks. And then I just cruised there, you know, until I started cutting for my powerlifting meet.
And Jeff, you said earlier how nice it is for us as coaches to be able to coach somebody like that. Man, I could preach about that all day. You know, just—just tell people, okay, you—here's what I need you to do. I need you to lose 10 pounds in about 8 weeks. Uh, you need to lose just over a pound a week. Can you make that happen? And then they're reporting in every other week or whatever. And they're down exactly what we need them to be. And then it's like, okay, now we just cruise, you know, just keep those same habits and let's just kind of be a little full after the meals, maybe not be quite so hungry going into. We'll be able to figure out where we need to start, you know, when we kind of start mapping out that trajectory.
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So, what are some situations where like when we think of fat loss phases, we're either talking about, you know, a contest prep, pre-prep fat loss. It could just be a mini cut in the middle of the offseason. And a question I've been getting a lot more lately is like how—how low should we be going in a mini cut? And in for me, and I'd like to hear your guys' thoughts on this, you know, for me it's like you said, Jeff, know sort of where their lowest point is, how they felt there. Um, and as soon as they start getting any push back physically or, you know, mentally, if adherence becomes difficult, then usually that's a good sign to consider transitioning and going the other direction or maintaining for a bit. But do you think it's common for people to get too lean in the offseason during the mini cut phase? Um, because really the goal is just to regain for more gaining in most cases. So, it's definitely possible for people to push it too far and I think create this environment where they're kind of spinning their wheels for the initial stages of regaining.
I think if we're talking about a perfect robot, right? There's no emotions, nothing attached to this. This is like—this is a machine we're working with. In the offseason, I'm trying to get this robot to a place where the body fat level isn't too high. It's not too low. The food is abundant enough. There's enough available energy on the body. They're performing well, they're recovering well where I never have to do a mini cut because this—this robot's going to thrive in this environment the entire time and max out their gains this way. And then when we start going the other way, it's—it's—it's simple. It's like, okay, now we're going the other way. There's no up and downs, up and downs, up and downs.
Often times, mini cuts deals with people's emotions. They're not happy with how they look and it's like they want to get better for the summer vacation. Yeah. It's like what behaviors did you do in the offseason to get you to a weight where you got to this point anyways where you need a mini cut? So, is the mini cut the solution or is it the root—like let's dig and see what the root cause is for the lead up to that specific body weight that you probably didn't need to be at anyways. Like I know there's—there's you can make a justification like we'll use mini cuts as a bridge to keep gaining. But the question is like if you were to take robot A, robot B and you go like the first scenario I said or you say I'm going to do these—these mini cuts for bridges and keep gaining. I don't know what the difference is going to be. I—I agree with you. I agree with you.
So, it's like, and then you think about, okay, how long are these mini cuts? Are we talking like a four-week mini cut? We're talking 8 weeks or we're taking 12, are we taking two? Like, because then you think about, okay, that's time away from the bigger picture. Like, if your goal is to get bigger as a bodybuilder, have more muscle on stage next time. Like, if you're spending that many weeks mini cutting, like how much of that is being taken away from the bigger picture of that ideal training environment you want to be in? Mhm. It's the same thing with, uh, I guess, you know, people kind of debate about the, uh, deloads. Like if we're taking deloads, it's time away from the bigger picture. But deload, we're talking a week. So, mini, we're talking a month, two months, three months sometimes.
So, for me, I'm thinking like when I set a bodybuilder up from day one, like if I'm projecting a contest prep, I'm setting that timeline. I'm also thinking about coming out of that and setting up a trajectory. Often times when people sign up for our 8-week video call sessions depending on their goal, like if it's more big picture related, because it's like 8 weeks can only do so much. I'm often times putting on a trajectory and a spreadsheet a full year. It might not be super detailed, but it'll have markers like, hey, okay, 3 months we should be here, six months you should be here. Nine months you should be here. So, that way they're staying in line with that—that overall trajectory that's going to keep everything that we've talked about within reason. Whether it's like the physical, the mental, and emotional side of things, all those behaviors are kind of nestled in that big picture trajectory. So, to me, I try to—I try to have bodybuilders avoid mini cuts. The only time I usually have people mini cutting is if they just get to a point where, okay, maybe we weren't perfect, you know, okay, they gained a little too much. It was just accidental. You know, we need to work on some of those skills first. Okay, let's clean that up so you're in a happier place. Or, you know, maybe if this person's so tired of eating. I have a couple of advanced bodybuilders that just—they're so tired of eating. They're eating so many calories, it's almost like their digestive systems on overdrive. So, it's like, hey, let's just take a week or two and just kind of just drop some of the calories down and give yourself a break from that. Usually after a week or two they start to feel a little hunger again like, okay, I can eat again.
No, I—I'm—I agree with you. I'm not convinced like a cyclical approach with gaining and cutting is you're necessarily going to come out ahead when you take into account the fact that you're—it's time spent away from gaining. Um, and we definitely know I think most people struggle to gain at a slow pace, um, or a conservative pace. I know like that's
always been something that's been harder for me. Um, just with more flexibility, you know, it's it's easier to get a little bit more lenient. Um, but with with things like a like somebody applying that just wants to start a fat loss phase, like let's say they're—you don't want to put them in a gaining phase. You don't, let's say, they have experienced dieting. Where, where are we stopping that cut in in the off season for somebody if, if, or whether it's not like they could be a non-competitor, like a general population non-competitor, who comes in, wants to lose weight, and it's kind of an open-ended thing? They're like, "I just want to get leaner."
What factors—I guess, Berto, what factors are you looking at—um, that's going to influence that decision?
Well, before we, um, before I jump into that one, and I think it'll be a smooth transition from your previous, uh, uh, question, the whole like mini cut thing. I think exactly everything Jeff said. Basically, it's like, if we do it, it's because you've been naughty, right? And now we got to try to do this better this time, right?
Um, but quite often, again, the more these little spurts of, um, caloric restriction you see, it's like they kind of—they will reset a few tendencies that you haven't worked on, uh. Like, the best time to learn habits is not like during a fat loss phase or under the umbrella of caloric restriction. The best time to, you know, beef up your overall habits is probably when you have enough to eat and and you're not fighting hunger along with trying to like bring in these these new habits.
Um, the only real reason that I I use mini cuts in the offseason for people is is precisely that. It's like, "Okay, let's try to do this a little better this time." Hopefully, even though they're a little, they're going to be a little tapped out from the fat loss phase, uh, they'll be in close enough proximity to everything that happened. And they're like, "All right, I'm I'm going be able to do it a little bit better because I I remembered how I kept messing up on all those dates with like the endless free bread sticks at Olive Garden or whatever." And now I know, right? So, get, Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, cool.
And then the other one is just if if people's appetites just kind of they get to the point where it it's no longer fun, and, yeah, it's just no longer fun because, or, or they have a hard time adhering to even eating at all, right? So they're in a position where it's like, "[ __ ]," like they're probably going to lose like 2 kilos in the next 2 months like on their own because that's that that's just where they're at. Let's just formalize it. Get it out the way. Get them to a place where maybe they're not hungry, but food's a little bit more tolerable, for sure.
Um, but in regards to where—it's kind of a hiatus from the original topic a bit—but where you should be conducting your business in the offseason, I think over time it should get better and better. We just learn to do more with less. Like we said, that 16-year-old that's, you know, "Okay, get to 16, get to 200 lb, bro. Get to 200 lb. Go on your little dreamer bulk, bench press 225 for like sets of like 10, 15, cuz that's going to keep them entertained." You know, that's going to keep them in the game.
But, you know, eventually, like is is you do this longer, you're like, it's usually like almost all bodybuilders in retrospect, they're like the enhanced ones are like, "Damn, I use way too many drugs." Right? And then and then like most bodybuilders will be like, "damn I did way too much volume," or, "this took up way too much of my bandwidth." And the same thing when it comes to caloric surpluses. I think across the board most guys later like, "damn like that was more than I needed. Like I was literally wasting resources." So you just learn to be more efficient with with everything.
And, you know, you go through enough of those periods where there's sometimes there's a lot of food, sometimes there's no food, that eventually where you just kind of end up where is where, yeah, there there is some hydonic pleasures in food that you enjoy, but you've done it so many times that you're just it's just so short-lived and emptied and and you kind of like your everyday life and habits. Like we were talking with Eric the other day and how he was away at a seminar, right? And everyone's like bringing him cookies and bringing and he's like, "Dude, I like really love my everyday life. Like I I I enjoy what I do. I don't have this urge to like go rebel from it like every 3 days. I just really love what the [ __ ] I'm doing."
So, as time goes on, you you you'll see that there's a strong, um, a big part of your body fat set point is is built into your genes. There's nothing you can [ __ ] do about that, right? Very few of us can, uh, run around at 6 7% body fat and just feel like [ __ ] great. Um, very rare. Um, but, you know, the example I like to give people is that go look at pictures of your grandpa, your great-grandpa, uh, and they were probably like thin as can be. You're carrying a lot of their jeans and they were usually at a healthy like BMI. It's just they weren't living in the same food environment that we live in currently, right?
So, you can probably get to a point where you're just all the time going to be a lot leaner and and and have a ratio of fat to muscle that you'll like. You just can't rush it because if you rush it, you're not going to be building those little habits that do add up to something great. It would blow my mind if you were to tell me back in 2008, the first time I got peeled, that my sweet spot right now is, and the only reason I even go a little bit beyond that is just for like dumb [ __ ] I did to my joints. So, I just need a little bit more padding, but 10 to 12 lbs over stage weight, my god, I get life is perfect. But that would have overwhelmed me like way way before.
So, um, so yeah, with the mini cuts, it's like, "yeah, okay, we can patch that up for you every once in a while, kid." Like if I see like it's it's all right, "let's let's let's do it. Let's go back and redo this a little bit better." Sure. But the best thing the best way to solve a problem is to not have a problem at all. And that's where it's like, "hey, while while you're going through your gaining phase is like pay [ __ ] attention to what you're doing." Like like like just just be mindful of all your little habits, all your little thoughts, all your emotions. Be mindful of that [ __ ]. And you'd be surprised like very very soon you might be at one of those places where a lot of old vet bodybuilders tend to find themselves.
That place where it's like, "okay I am metabolically flexible," which just basically means I have an easy time using both exogenous and indogenous fuels to power my day. Right way it's different like when you're under your set point. You know how that goes. If lunch is scheduled at noon and you miss it by an hour or two, like the last few weeks before you get on stage, you're like, "Whoa, I'm I'm feeling it. I am cranky. I'm not feeling myself." Um, so the goal is to basically, I think for most bodybuilders, kind of get to that zone and float around there.
I think in the long term, I think the remp, uh, the power of the recmp is much more powerful than we think it is, and the power of the bulk. I think it's appropriate for certain people because of the psychological benefits, right? It's like you're going to be adding load to your lifts like week after week in some cases. That's that's going to keep them involved. Uh, but if you lift weights, just again going back to the fruits and vegetables and like protein sources and just running that super simple nutritional system, if someone were to stay weight stable for a decade and all they did was like lift weights progressively, they look very [ __ ] different after 10 years.
So, um, but but again, like getting to this point where you don't require many cuts and we don't have to go and reread that chapter, that's just going to take time. And like what you said, Brian, a lot of the people who we inherit that they're like, "Please take some of this fat off of me." They just didn't read those other chapters chapters thoroughly. And like we have to have anything like taken back. And it's like, "All right, let's work on your remedials." Like, "do you ever [ __ ] eat vegetables?" You know, "is your goal like when you go out to be as full as like possible?" Um, we look for all the low hanging fruit essentially. And same answer for them. It's like, "How lean am I willing to get you?" Well, it depends on your skill level. And just how I turn down some people when it comes to a contest prep, I'm like, "No, I'm not going to prep you." For some people, I'm like, "Mm- you got to be weight stable for me for 6 months before I decide that you're allowed to even get back into a caloric restriction." And we turn down a lot of people because of that because some some fool's going to take your money and then and run you into the ground. Absolutely. There's lots of people that would do that. So if the goal is just cuz I mean just cuz we care about the end product cuz we know the end product isn't going to be too ideal but also we've been there the aftermath of we've been there like we've we've [ __ ] ourselves up and and you know part of what we want to do here is like not have other people go through the same pain we've been through, right? Yep.
I can I can kind of tell that, Brian, getting back to your original question on on on the the kind of the time frames and the the starting and the ending points of of, uh, mini cuts, I can I can tell that I probably either—It's like the chicken or the egg. Is it because I have a lot of naughty clientele or is it because their coach tends to, um, probably gain a little bit more weight than he should? Because, um, yeah, I I I feel like I have teen different ways to, uh, to to mini cut, and, um, I have like two go-tos that I kind of of have, um, is kind of my my preferred way of doing that.
But before I get into that, let me just kind of ask you guys something real quickly.