Setting up my muscle gain phase and calorie surplus!

Today we're dropping a big update as Ruby enters a 20 week calorie surplus and muscle building phase 🏋🏽‍♀️

Rubes breaks down her goals, the protocols, calories & training she'll have in place to achieve these goals, and some of the mindset standards she puts in place to embrace a big goal and journey like this!

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DISCLAIMER
The Eat Like Ruby podcast is not a substitute for professional medical or dietary advice.
The advice given in this episode is general in nature and should not be used to treat any medical conditions, health conditions, illnesses, injuries and/or any nutrition related conditions, deficiencies or similar.
This podcast is not to be used as, or in place of, medical advice or dietary advice.
Please consult your health care professional before implementing any of the advice, information or protocols discussed in this episode.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello, podcast fam. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm gonna do an episode all about my own personal goals and plans and nutrition and training and just a big update on everything and more so the plans and the goals. If you know, you know. If you follow along on Instagram, you'll know that I have recently started a 20-week muscle gain phase, which is just so exciting. You got no idea. You're about to find out. But I'm gonna talk about that today. At the time of recording, I'm on day two, but by the time the episode comes out, I think we'll be about like two weeks in. I actually wasn't planning on recording this episode, and then I was like, nah, we gotta talk about this. So I'm just gonna record and then we're gonna work out when the hell we can actually fit this into the podcast drop. But really gonna talk today about my own muscle gain phase. And very first thing I want to say is if you're not interested in doing a muscle gain phase, I would not tap out of this conversation because there's so much mindset stuff to think about here. If you do have goals similar to this, like obviously it's no-brainer, you want to listen to this. But even if you're someone who's more at a place of being like, you know, I want to be a bit leaner, I want to be a bit lighter, fat loss, all of those things, like very common. We obviously talk about that a lot. So sometimes you can hear the fact that we're gonna talk about muscle gain and be like, well, I don't have that goal. But there's so much to look at with a muscle gain phase in terms of like body image, mindset, scale weight, like so many things that I just think is gonna be so cool. If you're someone who's into, like, especially if you're a female who's into nutrition training, body composition, um, you've had beef with body image, scale weight, any of these things, I just think like there's there's so much juicy stuff that's gonna come up today. And the first sort of cool thing to think about here is we've spoken about this in so many different ways on the podcast before. Yes, like I am going into what I'm gonna refer to as a big dog muscle gain phase. We don't swear on the podcast anymore, but if we were swearing, I'd be dropping F bombs left, right, and center because this shit lights me the F up. Like I am doing a big dog F and muscle gain phase, right? But if you can relate to that, that's awesome. Hit me up. Like, let's actually go. But we've spoken so much about the fact that even if people have goals to just want to like tone up, build a bit more shape, build a little bit more strength, like just have that lean athletic physique that looks like you go to the gym and you lift and you have that nice, like toned shape, that is still built by muscle gain. Like we get a toned physique, we build shape through the glutes, the hammies, the shoulders, any of these body parts that we want to like ramp up and define a little bit. Part of that definition is building that body part. So it can be common for people to think, I don't want to gain muscle, I don't want to get, quote, too bulky. Side note, I've been trying to get bulky for 17 years and I'm still sitting here like a little pip squeak. So you're not gonna get too bulky, guys. But I think it can be common when people hear the term muscle gain to go to that place of just thinking, like, oh my god, that's not my goal. Like, I don't want to beef up, I don't want to be bulky, I don't want to be huge. It's like, again, I've been trying to get huge for a long time and I'm about to go again harder than I've ever been before, and I'm probably still gonna fall short of where I would love to be. So just cool if you are hearing this. I'm I'm mindful that the title might put people off. If we put fat loss in a title, we get quadruple the downloads than if we put muscle gain in a title. And that's fine, that's the world we live in. I'm gonna keep fighting the good fight to try and build that muscle gain audience. But I'm mindful that people might not even be here when they see the title of this. But if you're a regular listener who dislikes to hear what we have to say, I think you're gonna hear some cool shit today. That's just good mindset chat regardless of your goal. And then I think just important to understand if your brain instantly goes, I don't have a muscle gain goal because I don't want to get big, bulky, etc. It's just important to understand that if you want to be toned, if you want to be lean, if you want to have definition, gaining some muscle is gonna be part of achieving that goal. So you actually do have a muscle gain goal, maybe just not in the big dog effing way like I do. So just cool to think about all of that stuff. Like I said, today I'm just gonna speak about what this is gonna look like for me in terms of the actual like plan and the stats and the protocols and all of that, but then also the mindset stuff. I'd say this is the biggest mindset shift that I've ever had to make going into a phase, and I'm gonna talk about that a lot today. But yeah, I'm just gonna go for it. And I don't have any notes at all, but this is the shit that lived rent-free in my head. Like, this is the number one tenant, it's taken up all the space. So she don't need no notes. She got plenty to say. So there is like one massive mindset thing that is just like lingering on my mind, and I'm just so aware of the fact that really breaking this down could be so beneficial for so many people. We've spoken so much about mindset and scale, weight, and body image and like breaking out of old conditioning, of always wanting to be leaner, lighter, etc. I'm gonna go on a similar tangent today, but I think just in a little bit of a different way. And I think we just have to keep going over things like that because the more we hear it and the more we hear it explained in different ways, the more we can take it in and just slowly start to change our mindsets. We speak so much about the fact that as women, most of us spent 10, if not 20, 30, 40 years just thinking about eating less and weighing less and being lighter and being skinnier. So then when you start to understand things like, oh, if I have a goal to have a toned physique, that toned physique actually needs to have a bit of muscle on it. Muscle, like building muscle mass is going to build my overall mass, therefore it's gonna increase my weight. So I've spent 20 plus years wanting to weigh less, but now I have to kind of break that mentality and realize that if I want to have this toned physique with a bit of muscle on it, I might need to weigh a little bit more. And that usually is something that we have to understand and then implement and then try and implement a little bit more and get our head around a little bit more. And we are commonly in this position where like our subconscious has done things one way and believed in things, like believed in one way for such a long time that we just kind of default back to those thoughts and those habits and everything, and we have to continuously and actively pull ourselves out of that and be like, maybe my goal isn't to just weigh less anymore because I understand that to actually achieve the thing I want to achieve isn't just about weighing less. So we've spoken about this in so many different ways, and like I said, I'm gonna speak about it again today, and I think we just need to keep hearing it in different ways. So I'm gonna get into that in a second, but I feel like the best thing to do first is to just actually explain what my muscle gain phase is gonna look like in terms of the protocols and the plans. So I'm gonna do 20 weeks, which is two 10-week training blocks and 20 weeks all up in a definite calorie surplus. So this is gonna tie into some of this like body image scale weight chat that I'm gonna talk about. But we've spoken on the podcast before about the fact that some people and a lot of people can build muscle and build their shape and increase their strength on their maintenance intake. Like we don't always have to move into that definite surplus. So if we don't understand what that means, a surplus means we are giving the body a surplus of energy slash calories. So we are literally intentionally giving the body more energy or calories than it needs, and it's has no choice but to move that excess into storage. Because if we think about the word surplus, a surplus means too much. Like we've given the body too much energy in relation to what it needs. So it has to do something with that extra energy, it moves it into storage. A lot of people don't like the thought of this because obviously we can store energy in the body, or we can store those excess calories in the form of muscle or in the form of body fat. And the body can only put on so much muscle at a time. So if we push this too hard or too far, then the body's got no choice but to put those excess calories or that excess energy into storage in the form of stored body fat. So most people don't want to risk this when they go into a surplus or when they have a goal to gain muscle. Most people, and not all people, but it's very common for women to go, I don't want to gain unnecessary body fat. I don't want to risk gaining unnecessary body fat. So I don't want to push to that level. I'd rather play it a little bit safer, stay at my maintenance intake. If we think about maintenance, maintenance means we're giving the body the energy that it needs. So if we want to go and do hard training sessions, we want to recover from those sessions and all the things that we want to be doing when we've got a goal to gain muscle. Obviously, we want to make sure we're giving the body the energy that it needs. Some people, like I said, some people can gain muscle here, they can see the return, they can see the results. Some people who just don't have the genetic disposition to gain muscle that well need to push that bit harder. So I'm not gonna get into that today. We've spoken about that before. If you want to see what that looks like for you, you can talk to me if you're a client or don't talk to me if you're not a client. But if we come back to me going into a definite surplus, I'm gonna get into this today, but I don't give a shit about gaining excess body fat. I just don't care because I know how to get it off. I know I will get it off eventually, we'll talk about that soon. But I would rather push too hard and know that I did every single thing possible in my power to gain muscle than play it safe and think, oh, I wonder if I could have gained more muscle or if I would have like could have got a better result if I had gone a bit harder. I would rather go too hard than not hard enough. And this is not wrong, there's no right or wrong way to do this, there's no one way to do this. This purely comes down to the individual and what your preferences are and what you decide. I've worked with so many women who are like, I would rather, like I said before, I would rather essentially like play it safe, dabble in my maintenance, maybe try and find that top end of my maintenance, see how I go and see how my body responds to that, see if I get the muscle gain that I want there. If I don't, I might consider a surplus later on, but I would rather take that approach than go into a definite surplus, push really hard, know that excess body fat's gonna come with that. Like most women don't want to do that. And that's fine. That comes back to what we said before. Most people have a lot of conditioning about gaining weight and stuff, so it can be weird for people to just make that conscious choice to be like, yeah, I don't care. I'm happy to put it on. Then we come over to me and I'm like, yeah, I don't care. I'm happy to put it on. So I'm gonna go into a definite surplus for those 20 weeks for my intake. What I've decided to do with my intake is aim for around like in the 2600 calorie range, but I have two days a week where I don't train and I also don't move that much. These are my big work days where I'm literally on the laptop from like 6 a.m. till 7 p.m. Like I do not move much at all on these days. And this is Wednesday, Thursday, and then I train Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, and I have Sundays off from training and I have Wednesday, Thursdays off from training. So I train four times a week. We might talk about that today if we have time. Um, but so what I'm gonna do with my calories is knowing that my surplus is in the 2600s, I'm gonna do 2800 Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then I'm gonna do 2300 on Wednesday, Thursday. I've never really taken this approach to a surplus before. Like usually I've just gone to the one intake and stayed there every day. But I just, I really love the idea of this. Like this just appealed to me a lot. Firstly, like I said, I'm pretty sedentary on the Wednesday, Thursday. If it's not raining and it's like my first call isn't too early, I might get out and do a big walk in the morning. But some days I don't. Like some days that first call is 5 a.m. And then she is literally 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Like, if you do call something on a Wednesday, Thursday, you'll know. You'll know they're just back to back. So that's fine. Like I set my schedule up that way on purpose. But then, like I said, I don't train on those days. So I'm gonna go to 2300 on those days and really just like pulling out my pre-training, like just pulling out a few things like that to bring the day down to 2300. And then every other day I'm gonna do 2800. And this is just to make sure I've got room for that big pre-training, big post-training, and purely because I want to eat 2800 calories a day. I want to eat 2,800 calories a day for the next five months. And I want to do that more than I want to play it safe and not risk the body fat. I'll take the body fat because I want to eat 2,800 calories a day, right? And I'm gonna use those calories as best I can. Like I said, big pre-training, big post-training, big carbohydrate days. Like I love high carbohydrates. My carbs on those 2,800 calorie days are up around 380, 390 grams. I just personally thrive on a high carb diet. I absolutely love it. And just the thought of sitting on 2,800 cals a day for five months is like the dream to me. And then I think about those 2,300 calorie days and I'm like, oh, they're sad. And then I'm like, wow, they're 2,300 cals. They're not sad. Um, so that's just the context of where my mind is at. But like I said, I train Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday. That obviously then leaves Sunday to be a high calorie day with no training. But again, that's just me going, I want to eat 2,800 cows on a Sunday. And no, I'm not training because it's Sunday. So there's no right or wrong with these things. This is purely me being like, this is the shit that I want. I understand the trade-off is that I'm gonna be in a definite surplus, meaning I'm gonna do every single thing I can to have every calorie that comes in go towards muscle gain, but I know some of it will go towards body fat as well. And I am fine with that. I am absolutely fine with that. And we'll talk about that mindset stuff in a second. But if I come back to the plan and the protocols for a sec, um, what have we talked about? The intake, the training. So my training to start off with will just be two upper, two lower, like two upper body days, two lower body days. My upper body days are pretty small. I don't really have a goal to gain muscle on my upper body. My upper body is naturally very jacked. Literally, since I started doing nippers when I was like eight years old, I built that big swimmer's rig and I've still got it to this day. And even last year I had that gnarly rotator cuff injury. Pretty much didn't do upper body for like eight months, and my upper body's still jacked. Like it just is what it is. So that's fine. First world problems, it's not a problem, but I just don't want to build it anymore. I definitely want to build my legs up more. If you know, you know, that's been my goal for 15 years, and they're huge, but I want them to be more huge. So just coming back to my goals and my training, my upper body sessions are quite small, and it's more of a focus on movement. So obviously, having that rotator cuff injury last year, I definitely lost so much strength and so much skill in my upper body. I used to be able to do bulk push-ups, like good bulk push-ups. Haven't even done a push-up on my toes since doing that injury. I probably could, but I know I just need to progress back up to it. Um, and then obviously didn't do any chins or pull-ups or anything in that time either. Pulling weight on my shoulder was probably the most painful thing when I had that injury. So I feel like my upper body's really gone back to, I'd say like it's gone back to square one, but it's it's moving pretty quickly. Like my strength is coming back pretty well, but that's more of my focus with my upper body is like I want to get back to good pull-ups, good push-ups, but I'm not going in and doing like shoulder press and lat raises and bicep curls and tricep pull downs. I haven't done tricep exercise in like 15 years, and I've got the biggest triceps, right? And that's just the way my shape is and my genetics is, so that's fine. But I'm definitely not going in and doing like bodybuilding hypertrophy style stuff on my upper body. I'm doing like a pull-up variation, a push-up variation, a little bit of shoulder work, just more so for that injury and like strengthening that back up and getting it back to where I want it to be, and it's going really well, so that's awesome. And then I do most of my ab work on those days as well. So I do a fair bit of abs compared to most people. I just personally really like good core work. I like putting the time towards that, and I'd rather, like I said, I'd rather skip the lat raises, the front raises, the curls, the pull downs, all that shit, and spend that time on abs just because, again, this is not right or wrong, but this is just me looking at my physique, my goals, the shit I want to achieve. Couldn't care less about a bicep curl. Could definitely care about ab progression, more so not for the aesthetic, but more so for the core strength and the ab strength. And so, really, that's just what I look at when I write my sessions. I'm like, I want to progress with my pull-ups and push-ups and get them back to where they were. I want to make sure I look after my shoulder, and then I work, want to work on my core strength. So then I just write the session accordingly, and that's how my upper sessions plan out. Then we get to lower bod. Lower bod. I feel like I've had this conversation with people recently where it's like upper body going into the gym to train upper body is like, meh, it's just upper body. Whatever. When you go in on lower body day, it's like you're going to climb Mount Everest. Like, first world problem. But I just feel like a mentally to get your head around leg day is like it's a missh. So I do my leg days on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and I do that really intentionally for a few reasons. I don't work with clients on those days, so I feel like I've just got time and my brain is quite clear, like I'm not full of other people's nutrition and training. Like I love what I do, but my head is full of other people's nutrition and training all the time. So I like to schedule my leg days around that where I can just go in, I don't have to rush, people aren't waiting on me. I can actually just focus and do a good leg sesh. And then I also like to line that up with think about what I said before, Wednesday, Thursdays are really sedentary for me. So I like to send it in a leg sesh on a Tuesday and then know that I don't have to do sweet effort with those legs for like three days. So that's very intentional, and those leg sessions really are like big hypertrophy sessions. I've spoken so much about how I structure legs, but I love to do a push, a pull, a thrust, an abduction, a bit of hammy work, I'm mindful of like lengthened exercise, shortened exercise, squeeze exercise, knee dominant exercise, hip dominant exercise, all the things I've spoken about before. So I've written those sessions very intentionally, very structured, might go through them at some point on the pod. But I think people maybe think you've got these like brand new revolutionary sessions. Like, guys, I'm still squatting, I'm still pushing weight, I'm still pulling weight, I'm still hip thrusting, I'm still doing hammekales. Same shit, different ear, right? And then, like I said, that training will be split into two 10-week blocks, which is why I'm doing the 20-week muscle gain phase. That just works out really well for my training, for my life. I might talk about that in a sec. So much to talk about with the muscle gain phase. I told you, I don't need the notes. Um, but I really love that idea. Two 10-week blocks in the surplus the whole time. I might adjust those cows at some point if I feel like I'm getting too fat. If I'm gaining too much body fat, I might bring them down. But really, these initial weeks, like I always say, will just be about settling in, nailing it, ticking the boxes, seeing how things respond, and then adjusting if needed. You know how I always tell you guys to do that? Well, believe it or not, I do that for myself as well. And then I guess on a similar note, a cool thing to talk about will be my plans afterwards. So I did say at one point, I feel like it was a long time ago, but I did say at one point I wasn't sure if I was gonna do a fat loss phase this year. I wasn't sure, I wasn't planning on pushing into a big surplus and then doing that definite fat loss phase on the other side. But I've been hanging around my maintenance for about six or seven months, actually a lot longer, like pretty much all of last year. Actually, I was at maintenance, but I stopped tracking in around September last year. So I had about seven months of not tracking and just kind of eating at maintenance, training well, but not really having like big phase goals. And then just like as I was going through the last few weeks, I was like, I really just want to give this everything I've got. Like, I really just want to send it in a muscle gain phase. I don't want to leave anything on the table. I don't want to look back and be like, I wonder if I could have gained more if I had to pushed harder. That's why I'm like more than happy to go into that surplus, take the excess body fat that comes with it. I don't care because I would care so much more if I got to like October and I was like, oh yeah, I've seen a little bit of shape change, but I wonder if it could have been better. I don't want to wonder. No way. So coming back to the fat loss, yes, I will do a fat loss phase. I'm pretty planned, I'm pretty structured, I'm pretty set for the whole year. So I will do these 20 weeks, which takes me to the start of August, and then I'll do a 10-week fat loss phase, which will be start of August through to middle of October. I'll do a two-week diet break. Like I told you guys, she's sorted. I know what's up. Two-week diet break in October when we go to Port Mac for Shaq to do the Iron Man. So the week leading into the Iron Man and the week after the Iron Man, I will diet break, which will be like two weeks of maintenance, and then I'll see if I think I need to do any more fat loss on the other side of that. I really don't know. Sometimes it can take, like when I've done a big muscle gain phase and I go into a fat loss phase, sometimes it can take like four to five weeks to get any movement happening. I've spoken about this before. I've just spent 20 weeks giving my body excess energy. It's not going to turn around on day two and be like, here's your fat loss. Like you've literally pumped it full of excess energy for 20 weeks. It's gonna take a while to start reversing that. So that's really common for me to go into a deficit, nail everything, and not see any movement or any progress for four weeks. So, side note, if you come crying to me after eight days of the scale not moving, you're crying to the wrong person, mate. There's no sympathy here. But coming back to my own shit, very common to not see much happen for four weeks and then things start to move from there. So if I look at that timeline, if that were to happen, I might only have say six-ish weeks of fat loss progress before I get to that diet break. And oh definitely diet break. Any Iron Man wife will tell you trying to have a perfect week in a deficit while you are literally at the Iron Man. And saying right now that ain't happening. So that works out actually really perfectly because that is around the time we'd want to look at a diet break anyway. So I would diet break around then, and then I'll just see on the other side if I think there needs to be more fat loss. Um, I'd run that through pretty much through November and go from there. Bit of a side note, and I won't get into this too much today. I might talk about this in a separate episode, but the end of this year, 18th of December 2026, is going to be the 10-year anniversary of my dad passing away, which, first of all, is wild. To think about my dad being gone for 10 years is insane. It's gonna make me emotional, which you guys know, I don't get too emotional. But that it really is crazy. On one hand, I feel like I haven't seen him for 50 years, and on the other hand, it feels like no way has that been 10 years. Like it's just bizarre. But if people don't know, my dad was very into nutrition and training, like he's a huge part of the reason why I do what I do and like just grew up in that nutrition and training space. That was just our lifestyle, and I just moved into that as an adult, and he was such a big part of that. So he's such a huge motivator in all of my goals and everything that I do in this space. So there's definitely an element for me that's like I do have a few goals, even when I think about like getting those chin-ups back and the push-ups back and stuff. I would love to set some definite goals. Like I want to hit X amount of chins or X amount of push-ups and a few other goals. And I would love to aim to achieve those around that 10-year anniversary of my dad. I just feel like that'd be so cool. I went on such a roller coaster with my nutrition and training and just my life in general when I first lost my dad. And so I just feel like there's a really cool element there that's like, wow, getting to that 10-year mark and just ticking off a bunch of goals, like that's just gonna feel really cool. So that is a factor that's like not even in the back of my mind, kind of right there in my mind throughout this whole process. And I just think that lines up really well as well. Like to gain the strength, gain the muscle, do the fat loss, and then be coming back out of that, sort of back onto a decent intake and aim to hit some of those goals around that time. I just feel like is very doable. It's a very smart timeline, it just lines up perfectly. So it's kind of what I'm thinking, and it's sort of like those performance goals and the body comp goals as well that I'm factoring into that timeline. And so that's kind of like the facts, the plans, the protocols. Now we're gonna look at some of this juicy mindset stuff. So, like I've said in there, I'm going into that definite surplus. And with that is going to come the body fat accumulation. Because what we want to think about for a second here is the body's gonna use a different amount of energy every day. Like there's so many little factors that are gonna make up the exact amount of energy that a body uses in a day. You might have a day where you're really active and you do a bunch of chores and a bunch of errands, and so you just rack up heaps of steps, but you're just zipping around, you're getting heaps done. You obviously have days where you do big training sessions, you have rest days, you have days where you don't do any errands and you sit on the couch. So that's all factors. But then we also come over to the female body that does different things at different times of the month. That's gonna be a factor in how much energy we use. There's so many little things that are going to contribute to the overall amount of energy we use every day. And this is why I always say things like maintenance will be a range, our intake's gonna ebb and flow, our output's gonna ebb and flow, our weight fluctuations are gonna ebb and flow. So many things going on here that are different day to day. So we're never looking to hit an exact number, an exact intake because we've had an exact output. Like, first of all, we can't measure that exact output down to the calorie. We don't need to. But if we come over to me going into the definite surplus, the reason for this is really thinking about the fact that body is going to use different amounts of energy every day. When we've done a lot of successful phases of like maintenance, fat loss, et cetera, you start to work out like roughly where all these things are for you. Like most people who have had success with different phases and you've been tracking your food for a while, et cetera, you can say, like, I know where my deficit is, I know where my maintenance is. When I work with girls on finding their maintenance intake, and we speak about finding like that top end of maintenance. And really, what we're looking at there is like, at what point do I spill over from maintenance into a surplus? And for a lot of people, this is the thing that they want to find, and this is the position they want to sit in. Because, like we said before, a lot of people don't want to spill over into that surplus and have that consistent weight gain and body fat gain occurring, right? And rightly so. So, thinking about all of that, my mentality, I don't I'm aware that it's quite a unique mentality for a female, is like, okay, well, if there's always gonna be like ebbs and flows and I'm gonna have like a bit of a different output every day, I want to make sure my intake is definitely higher than that. If my output, let's say like we know my maintenance kind of hangs around that 2400-ish mark, that's where my mind goes, but if sometimes it's like my output's gonna be up around the 25s, etc., I want to know that I'm definitely taking in more than that. And this comes back to what I said before. I would rather push too hard than not push hard enough. And that's not wrong, that's not the right way to go about it. Like that purely comes down to me going, I would rather cop the extra weight gain than miss out on the potential muscle gain. And we're working in like the one percenters here, the tiny things here. Like if I was to sit on, say, 2400 cals, I'm still gonna build shape, I'm still gonna build muscle, I'm still gonna see my physique change, but it just might not be the absolute best, and I want the absolute best, right? And I'm willing to take that body fat gain with it. I just don't care. But that then starts to segue into this mindset stuff that I want to look at because there is some mindset stuff going on here for me. Like, even though people sit there and go, well, like Rose has got all the answers and she's so different and she's happy to do this and she's such a big dog and whatever, still a female, and still a female that got on the scale for I would say between the ages of like 15 and 25, I would get on the scale and that mentality of like hoping it goes down. And then even since then, like even since going into muscle gain phases and different phases throughout my life, over the last 10 years, I would say, because I'm gonna be 35 this year, you still have that element, and this is something I want to talk about today, where you jump on and you see a number lower than you expected, given what you've been doing, and you're like, oh, that's a bonus.

unknown 28:18

Right?

SPEAKER_00 28:19

So I still have history and conditioning beliefs, and I still exist in a world where females are predominantly told to like be lean, be skinny, weigh less, etc. Like I still exist in that same world as you guys. So this is still a factor for me. And the biggest thing that's been clocking in my mind, there's a couple of things, and like I said, I don't have any notes, so this might be a bit scattered, but I'm just gonna kind of brain dump what's been what's been going through my head. The biggest thing for me is first of all, I didn't weigh myself for like seven months, and I weighed myself yesterday and today because I am gonna take weight during this muscle gain phase, mostly because A what I'm about to say, which will make sense when I say it, and B, I think people ask so much about it. Like, if I am gonna document this muscle gain phase, which I am really trying to, this is something in the past where when I've done these phases, I kind of get into this mentality of like women don't want to hear this, like they just want to hear about fat loss, they just want to see the shredded videos and this and that. And like, this is something in my mind where I have to be like, no, document this, roops, like talk about it. You convince women to do this so often. So show women how you're doing it. But there is a big thing for me that's constantly like, no one wants to hear about this, or no one wants to hear about me doing this. And I don't even know why I think that because people constantly reach out to me after these episodes and they're like, I love hearing about you doing this. So it's just a weird thing going on there in my brain. But I am consciously trying to remind myself, like, no, talk about this, document it, like go through the whole process, document the process, and like show the process. And so I'm mindful, or I know because I've experienced this for 10 years, people continuously going, how much do you weigh? What was your starting weight? Is your weight going up? What weight are you gonna get to? Like, there's gonna be so many questions about weight, and I feel like A, I just want to be able to answer those questions, but B, it does help people actually see that process because my weight is gonna go up. And that's that was the second thing I said I'd talk about in a second. My weight is definitely gonna go up. So I think seeing like having people see that and showing people that, like, I'm doing a gaining phase, and believe it or not, I'm gaining weight. Right? Funny that. So we'll talk about that in a sec as well. But I think that was a big factor in me being like, no, I'm gonna start weighing myself again and showing my weight for that reason. And then coming back to this thing that I keep saying I'll talk about for me personally. So I weighed myself yesterday and today, both days it was 65.8 kilos. And if people know me and my weight, like when I do fat loss phases and I'm kind of like down at my like shreddest, leanest self, it's around 61 kilos. If I finish like previous muscle gain phases, that's been up around that 68, sometimes 69 mark. So I'm kind of hanging in the middle ground at the moment. I am at the time in my cycle, like I know my body is on a very consistent cycle of like female cycle, that then throughout that cycle, I just know there's such a strong pattern of weight going up and weight going down at different times. And I know this is the time when it's up. So it's gonna be interesting because over the next couple of weeks, I'm gonna come into that time where my weight just naturally drops. And it's just gonna be funny to see what that looks like on 2800 calories a day. Like, is it gonna drop? But this is all just cool data to collect. But I would say I'm at the quote heaviest part of my cycle. And when I look at that weight being 65.8 kilos, that's kind of just like a middle ground for me where it's like just it makes sense because I've been chilling at maintenance but being quite relaxed, that weight's a pretty solid reflection of that. So, what I really want to look at here, and where I think there's some cool mindset stuff, and something that I'm gonna personally navigate and I've been aware, like this has been on my mind the last few days, but I also think a lot of people could learn from this is I would say looking at that number of 65.8, I would say I will finish this gaining phase in the low 70s, which even just saying that right there is like a bit of a knee-jerk reaction for me being like, whoa, low 70s, right? And I just want to side note, I'm not saying people that weigh in the low 70s is bad. I'm saying for me personally, that is a high weight. When I think about my history of weight for my whole life, that is a high weight for me. So that knee jerk reaction of like, oh my god, that seems high, that's just high in relation to me and my history and my personal like weight diet, all the things. So just can't stress enough. I'm not saying certain numbers are bad, but really like just looking at if you know your own body and you've always hung around certain weights, think about like going into a weight that you've never really been, and you've never like it's probably gonna be three to four kilos heavier than I've finished all those other muscle gain phases, which is just a little bit daunting and a little bit scary for all the reasons that we've just spoken about today, but also for the last four years, right? Like, I'm not oblivious to that, but this is the real juice, and this is the real thing that is on my mind. I want to build a physique that I've never had. I want to build shape and build muscle and build a physique that I've never had. It makes sense that I am gonna see numbers that I've never seen, and I'm gonna do things that I've never done, and I'm gonna experience things that I've never experienced. Let's really clock that for a second. I want to get a result that I have never gotten. I'm going to have to do shit that I've never done. Like sit at a higher weight. It's so important to understand that, especially if you have goals like this, if you have a goal to get out of the deficit, get on that higher intake, build your shape, build your physique, whether you want to dabble in that maintenance high end of maintenance energy, whether you are gonna move up into a surplus, like I said, go off, nothing but respect for that. But whatever this looks like for you, really just clock that and think about the fact that if you want to achieve something you've never achieved, that is gonna require you experiencing things that you've never experienced. And the reason I say this is obviously, like I said, looking at myself, my knee-jerk reaction is like, wow, is that quote too high? Is that too much? And it's like, well, Rubs, you want to grow an ass that you've never had. You want to have junk in that trunk that you've never had. Believe it or not, that's gonna weigh something, right? But then when I come over to the fact that I've worked with women on this for a long time, such a common mindset that I can see people get into. And I can't stress enough, guys, like I'm not shaming, I'm not calling people out. This is so common. If you've experienced this, you're not alone, and it makes so much sense. But I really want to bring the awareness to this because I think this is a huge cock block on people that want to build shape and build a physique. So often people hear about all this stuff and they love it. They're like, oh yep, I love this. Like, I've done the deficit, I've done the lean thing, I've done the light thing, I know I can do that again, but I do want to build my shape, build my physique, I want to get out of the deficit, I want to fuel myself, all of these things, right? Which is awesome. But there is still this big underlying thing, sometimes subconscious, but also often conscious. Like I hear people talk about this out loud. You're aware of this, but you just haven't connected all the dots. So often people are still like, like, let's use myself as an example. So, like I said before, I've done muscle gain phases that have ended up around that 68, 69 kilo mark. If I was to say, yeah, I'm gonna do a muscle gain phase now, but these usually end for me around 68, 69, like that's the quote highest that I like to get to. Therefore, that's the highest I'm comfortable getting to. Then we've got to come back and go, yeah, but Rubs, you want a result that you've never gotten. So you're going to cock block yourself and put a barrier and put a limit on yourself of like, I'm not gonna let myself get heavier than that. I'm gonna make that my cap. I'm not gonna let myself go past that point, but I would like a result that I've never gotten. I'm not gonna let myself get past a point that I've gotten to before, but I would like to get a result that I haven't gotten before. I'm just pausing for people to let that one kind of sink in and resonate because I see this so often where, like I said, people will say to me, I love everything you speak about, Robes, and I'm so keen to dabble in that. And then they say things like, you know, but if I see the scale get to XYZ, that'll be a bit of an indicator that I've gone too far. Why? Like just confirming you want to build shape, and that shape is built through muscle gain, and that muscle is mass. So you would like to add mass to your frame, but if you see a number that reflects the fact that you've added mass to your frame, you're gonna call that a red flag. We just have to tap into this because, like I said, it's such a barrier. It's like putting this cap on ourselves. And I'm speaking from experience, guys, like this is something that is hanging in my mind where I'm I'm kind of hanging in that in-between ground where my mind goes, Wow, you're gonna hit those 70s. Like the day that I step on the scale and see a seven, that's gonna have that knee-jerk reaction for me of growing up as a female that was always like lighter is better, lighter is better. And then just seeing this number that is so far from the like it's just the opposite of that. And just being okay with that because I then have to connect the dots and go, yeah, but you want to build a shape that you've never had. You want to add muscle to your frame that you've never had on your frame before. That muscle is gonna weigh something, that shape is going to be built. Anything that's built has had shit added to it. If you want to add to something, it makes sense that the total volume of that thing is going to grow and the total weight of that thing is gonna grow. So I know I'm kind of speaking in circles here, but that's kind of the circle that's rolling around in my head is like, yep, I want to, I want to push this harder than I ever have. I want to push a shape and a physique that I've never seen before. That's gonna require protocols and plans and numbers that I've never seen before, and then having that other part of me that's like, wow, that's scary. And then, like I said, just having those two minds, it's like, this is what is required for your goal roofs, and then that other part of my brain going, it's still scary. Like the day that I step on and see a seven, you're still gonna be like, wow, I've never seen that before. And my initial thoughts are like, wow, I've never seen that before. That's quote, bad, but then going, well, is it bad? Because it makes so much sense for the goal that you have. And I just think this is so important to think about, especially if you are going into a similar goal like this. Are you kind of putting those little limitations, or not even little, like they're big limitations? Are you putting things like that in place where you're just thinking, like, so long as I don't hit X, Y, Z weight, or so long as I don't move out of this range, so long as I keep hanging around this particular mark, I'm good. Like that means I haven't gone too far. That means I haven't pushed to a bad point. We just have to kind of pull that apart a bit and go, but why is it bad? If you do want to gain muscle, gain shape, gain strength, like gain all of these things, that's really what it is. Like, we do want to gain and build, but then when we see something that reflects that we're gaining, we're like, oh shit, that's bad. But is it bad because you want to gain? And this is like a huge thing because we speak so much about the history and conditioning and stuff that people have with scale and body image and all of that. So it makes so much sense, but we do have to tap into it because it can be a common thing where people like default back to that as like, oh, you know, it's just really hard for me because I grew up in that era where everyone wanted to be lighter, or I always watched my mom on a diet, I always watched my auntie on a diet, I was always pressured to be lighter. I played a sport where they were pressured us to be lighter. I grew up through like the skinny celebrity era, I grew up through skinny talk. Like everyone's grown up through shit, right? And everyone's got their shit. I acknowledge that 100%. Like it's so valid, but we have to at some point go, yeah, okay, that's how it was. But at what point do I intercept that and go, well, if I want something different, I have to stop going back to, oh, but this is how it's always been for me. I've always been conditioned to believe this. I've always been taught this. This is how it's always been for me. Yeah, but you don't want it to be like that anymore. So at what point do we stop defaulting back to that excuse? And I say that with so much love because I experience it like I work with so many women that experience it. It's so common. But for as long as we just let ourselves be like, oh, but that's just how it is, are we really going to reach new goals and transcend shit and get to a new, like for me, it's like, are you really going to build a new physique and achieve something you've never achieved before? If you let yourself constantly run the story of, oh, but it's always been like this for me. And on a similar note, I think I went into a bit of a dant in there, but that's fine. Definitely needed to be said. Even if you don't have a goal of really like building shape, building muscle, even if you're someone who is more in a fat loss phase right now, you are actually trying to drop weight, drop body fat, etc., that's fine. But I think there's still a similar thing that plays out here where people have these big strong connections to numbers and ranges and all of these things. And even if we look, for example, like a really common thing I can see is somebody coming to me and they're maybe sitting like five-ish kilos heavier than they ideally would want to be. And when we pull that apart a bit, it's like, oh, like maybe two years ago, maybe five, ten, whatever it is for you. But X amount of years ago, I sat at XYZ number and I felt great, right? And I think 99% of females listening are going to be able to relate to that. And then for whatever reason, we've been through different shit in life and now we're sitting a few kilos heavier, and we have this big thing in our mind that's like, I felt great at XYZ number, right? But if throughout that time, yes, maybe you've been through some shit that's moved you in some directions that you didn't want to go, but I think a big thing to clock here is if you're a gym girl and you've been lifting heavy and doing structured good training throughout that whole time, especially if it's been like five or ten years, but even if it's been two or three years, if you've had that wicked training in place and you've been progressing through that training, and yes, you've had some like body fat accumulation and different shit occur as well along the way, we just have to understand that. Let's I want to put some numbers on this to help explain it. Let's say you used to weigh 60 kilos, and then for whatever reason, now you're like up around 66, 67, and in your mind, you're like, I used to feel really good at 60, right? And I used to be 65 years ago, and that was great. I felt so great there. Now you're up around these 66s or 67s, and apply this to whatever numbers you're personally sitting at, or whatever numbers you're putting on this. If during that time you've had that week of training in place and you have actually built some shape and built some muscle underneath that, yes, maybe you would feel good by dropping a few kilos and doing a bit of a fat loss face. That's not what I'm saying. But drop the connection to the number that you have to get to, or more importantly, the number that you quote, feel good at. Because if you've put on a couple of kilos of muscle during that time, that same amount of body fat that you had at 60, you might have that now at 63 because you've got these kilos of muscle alongside that. And I don't want to get into that too much today. I also just want to look at dropping that fixation of like, I have to be at XYZ number or I have to be in XYZ range because that's where I quote feel good. If we felt good there at one point, but our physique has changed a lot, our life has changed a lot, like we're actually just a different person with a different life, different schedule, different muscle mass, different body. So many things going on here. Yes, we can still work towards feeling good again, but feeling good might kick in at a different number now. And I see this really commonly when people are trying to drop body fat and it's just this thing of like, I feel good at XYZ. And it's like, no, you felt good at that five years ago, ten years ago. You've also grown some wicked delts and quads and hammies and glutes in that time. But again, those things are gonna contribute to mass, which is gonna contribute to weight. Maybe you got two kilos of muscle on you now. Okay, I just got interrupted by my phone ringing, but this is why my phone is always on DD. So I can't remember exactly what I was saying, but I think I was saying we just have to clock that mentality of thinking that we need to sit at certain numbers. I think I was about to talk about myself and my numbers. It's coming all coming back to me. For myself, like I said, I would have like when I've done gaming phases in the past, they've ended around that 68 or 69. So if I had this thing on myself, that's like you have to end it there, that's where they end for you. Like that's just a story. That's just a narrative. It's like, well, what if I ended one at 72 kilos and therefore had an extra one to two kilos extra muscle on me that I've never had before? Come back to the fact that I want to build a physique that I've never had before. It makes sense to do that. And then even going further into pursuing fat loss on the other side of that, I would say that I would end that fat loss phase. I'm getting well ahead of myself now. I'm just assuming I'm gonna put on all this awesome muscle, but let's not forget I'm doing every single thing in my power to make that happen. So assuming that I put on the muscle and all of this pays off, I would say I'm gonna end that fat loss phase maybe around 64 kilos, which I've never done in my life. And not to say that that's wrong, but I'm just saying, again, in relation to me personally, I would always go for a fat loss phase. And if you're a long-term listener and you've really followed along for a long time, you would know I used to end fat loss phases at like 57 kilos. If I got to 57 kilos now, I'd be dead. Like I would be so lean, so scrawny. It would not be a physique that I would want at all. It would be so tiny. And so even just looking at that as an example, like I used to end them down there and then I went through a few more muscle gain phases and was like, actually just have so much more shape and mass on me now that I'm gonna end these phases around 60 or 61 because that physique has the same body fat that the 57 kilo physique had. It just has that extra muscle on it. So there's no point gunning it back down to 57 because I quote used to end them here and I used to feel good here. It's like, yeah, but you've actually put on the muscle that you wanted to put on, so it makes sense that you're gonna sit heavier. And I'm just planning on going through that process again now, and then therefore, like I said, ending this one, maybe 64, maybe 63, who knows? But it's really just about being open-minded to the fact of like let go of the numbers that's like I only feel good when I'm here, or I have to get here to feel good. If you are actually progressing with your physique the way you want to be, then those numbers are gonna progress as well. And the last little thing that I feel like is just worth mentioning is I will not use like body scans, body fat percentage, none of that during this time. Side note, I always say this with love, but if anyone shows me a scan that's not a DEXA, it's in one ear and out the other. Because we just know that they're so inaccurate. So no offense. Part of me wants to say like use them if you want to, but professionally, I would advise not using any sort of body scan unless it's a DEXA. So I won't be using any of those things. Shaq is getting a Dexter next week, so maybe I could get one as like my starting point. I'll see how I go. See if I feel like it. So don't bring them to me. I don't want to see them. I'm not looking at them for myself. Unless you've got a DEXA, you can bring me a Dexter, but apart from that, I don't want to see them because we know they're inaccurate and we do want to look at how are you actually looking and feeling in relation to the way you want to look and feel. You don't want to walk around with that piece of paper from your body scan and wave it around and tell people what the numbers are. You want to look and feel a certain way. I want to look and feel a certain way. I want to look like I have a physique I've never had before that has shape on it that it's never had before. I want to feel strong, AF with that physique. And I feel like I've got such a solid plan. I feel like I do have a solid mindset to do it, but I'm also aware that my mindset is gonna just be challenged at times during this phase, which is sweet. Bring it on. I'm so excited. So I think that's all for me today. Big yap, but I think I'm going to, like I said, I'm mindful of trying to document this more throughout the process. So I'm gonna aim to do more regular updates on the pod. Um, and we'll see how she goes. That's all for me today. Thank you so much.