An Update On My Growth Phase

Today we are talking about my growth phase and how if you are only 50-60% adherent to your plan, expect to maintain. If you want to grow and change your body, you need to be at least 80-90% adherent

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Most women won't experience the level of leanness that they so desperately want because they absolutely refuse to spend any time not focusing specifically on fat loss, but on building their body, even though their body is literally begging for a breather. It's stressed out of its mind and it's not responding. Welcome back to the embodiment lab. My name is Addy and I want to give a little bit of a growth phase update. I actually don't know if I've talked about my growth phase on the podcast before. And honestly, just in case you haven't heard about my growth phase, I'm just gonna give a little recap. So basically, last January, I entered my first ever deficit, and I was in a deficit through June of 2025, and I got really, really lean. So I was really, really proud of my physique. It was a really successful first deficit. And then I pulled out of the deficit and started reversing up to maintenance. So my deficit, like my lowest calories were 1800, and my maintenance is 2500. So I pulled myself back up to about 2500. And my plan was to start going back into another growth phase after that. And what ended up happening was I just kind of hung out at maintenance and then I got really, really sick in November and I did lose quite a bit of weight because I was like super sick for about three days and it was not ideal. Um, and then ever since then, I've just kind of been coasting and hanging out at maintenance. So I haven't done an intentional growth phase in a little over a year, and so coming into 2026 is about February, where I was like, okay, I'm gonna call myself all my shit because I'm not growing. I'm staying exactly in the same spot, which isn't a bad thing, but I definitely am someone who is always striving for a goal. My goal is always, as you know, every other girl on the planet, growing my glutes is always like a really big focus for me and staying lean while I do it. So I pride myself in being able to build muscle, go through a strategic growth phase, and also not put on a ton of body fat. So I've been able to do this whole process while staying relatively lean. Now that's not to say that I'm not feeling a little fluffier because I definitely am, but that does come with going through a growth phase. But all that to say, February, I increased my calories from 2,500 to 3,000 calories, which I will just like start off by saying that yes, that can be a lot of food for majority of people, especially like the women that I work with who come into the program eating around 1200, 1400 calories. And their maintenance is typically around like anywhere between 2,000 and like 2,400. So for me to be eating 3,000, a lot of my clients are like, Addy, what the heck? That's so much food. And yes, yes, it is. But when I started eating about that much in February, I did feel like it was a lot of food. So how I get in all 3,000 of these calories is I eat six meals a day. So I have breakfast, I have my mid-morning snack, I have lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner, and then like a pre-bedtime snack. And all of these snacks are all of these meals, sorry, have obviously very, very much are very protein focused, but I'm also very heavily focused on fiber, making sure I'm getting in enough carbs and keeping my fats nice and moderated. So all these meals have like fruits and protein and everything, obviously built in. So my I feel like the meal that I struggle with the most was lunch. I usually eat like a big bowl of rice and salmon. Um, and then I season it and make it taste really, really yummy. But it's like the quantity of food that is in this bowl is a lot. And so February, March, April, I felt like I was just eating so much food, which I was, but eventually my body kind of recalibrated and I j it adjusted and it didn't feel as difficult to get in that amount of food. Like I didn't feel as stuffed and bloated and full and like, oh my gosh, how can I possibly keep eating this freaking bowl of rice? But yeah, so I in the beginning of the growth phase saw pretty fast progress. So my goal is to get up to 150 pounds. I've never been 150 pounds, so I thought it would be really cool to see if I could push and challenge my body to be able to do this. So my starting weight was 136, and I would say within the first like two months, I got up to 140 and I held that pretty easily. And then I've been around like anywhere between 139 and like 141 for the last few months since March, April. And then I've just kind of stopped, just kind of plateaued. And in my head, I'm like, okay, I guess my body is just like stuck. It's just, it's not meant to grow, it's not meant to be any more than 140, I guess. That's just my weight. And what actually was happening beneath the surface was, you know, here's the deal. If I eat six meals, I will grow, right? My meals are structured in the way that help me to hit my calories and help me to hit my macros if I do eat them. And what was happening was there were a few days out of the week where the meal that would most frequently get missed was my afternoon snack. So this is my yogurt bowl with my strawberries and granola. And either I would be like rushing out the door and not have time to eat it, or like for instance, Thursdays for me are days that I don't go to the gym. And so obviously, like if I'm not going to the gym, not expending any energy, then like my hunger's a little bit lower, my appetite is a little bit lower just because I'm not expending that energy. And then it's very easy for me to get caught up in work and just let the day drag on. And next thing I know, it's like six o'clock and it's not time for yogurt, it's time for dinner. And so, like that meal just very easily gets missed. And then you throw in the fact that beginning of May, I went out of town. And when you're out of town, eating 3,000 calories is very difficult to keep up with when you are not at home with your own kitchen and all of your food. I did my best to handle this, and I made a whole episode on this trip several weeks ago when I went on it. But I ended up actually coming back a little bit lighter. It was like only a pound, and I looked very like visibly leaner, which is like kind of crazy. That's just what happens when you have a high metabolism. But that didn't set me back. It just like kept me stuck. It wasn't a week where I was actually like pushing and growing. And then a couple of weeks later, I got engaged, which like all of my friends, not all my friends, but like I had a friend, and then my family and everybody was in town. And so like things kind of got difficult, and I just didn't, I wasn't as adherent to sticking to getting in all six of my meals. And so I've just kind of had a lot of things in the last few weeks, months that have made it difficult for me to stick to my protocols. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not somebody who skips workouts. Like I still get in my workouts, but the issue is that, you know, you could be showing up and working out and training really hard. But if your nutrition is not there to back the training and support your body in the way that it needs to, then your body's just not going to respond. It's just gonna stay put, right? So I was putting in just enough effort to maintain the progress that I had made, but not enough to actually push. So what I did the last two weeks, I would say, because remember, I was hanging out around like 139, 141, is I've been really, really, really, I mean, like really diligent about making sure that I'm getting in all six of my meals. And weekends, like Saturdays, I'm really good about getting in my food. Sundays, even now, even now, since I've like held myself to the higher standard of like not skipping my meals, even now, Sundays are a day where they're more chill. I don't fully reach the mark with my meals, but I'm like eating, like I'll make a meal at home that's definitely more high calorie, more fun. So that kind of helps me to like stretch how I use my calories, but I'm not like by any means hitting my calories. But that doesn't mean that it's a complete free-for-all. It's just there's a lot more flexibility and I'm not actually like expending that much energy because it's also a rest day, right? So like six out of the seven days of the week, I am getting in all six of my meals. That is a really good spot to be in to actually be able to see growth. And that seventh day, like I said, isn't just like a day where I'm eating like 1,500 calories, right? Like I'm still eating somewhere around 2,000 to 2,500 calories. I'm just not eating the full 3,000. And that is okay. Now, if there's multiple days a week that look like that, then yeah, I'm not gonna reach the goal. But having one day, totally fine. And I'm very happy to report that I've officially pushed past the plateau of my growth. On Wednesday, I'm as I'm recording this, it's Friday. On Wednesday, I actually woke up and I saw a number that I've never seen before. It said 143, and I was very proud of that. But I also was like, ooh, this could be a fluke. This could be not permanent, this could very easily go away. I woke up Thursday morning, still 143. Super freaking cool. Woke up this morning, still 143. So we are officially at a new weight, which is exciting. So all I have to do is continue showing up, getting in all six of my meals, and I will continue to gain weight. So, what would be really freaking cool, because now I'm officially up seven pounds since February. If I can get up another seven pounds, that'll get me to 150. So seven pounds sounds like not that much, but it's a lot when you are focused on building muscle without putting on fat. I could I could easily put on like seven pounds of fat, right? But the goal is not fat. The goal is muscle. Muscle is so hard to build, right? To build just one pound of muscle, it takes about six weeks of adequate fuel and intentional strength training in order to build that muscle, right? So it's not something that you accidentally build. You have to be very intentional and strategic when it comes to building muscle, especially when you're wanting to build muscle with as little fat as possible, right? So that's where I'm at with my growth phase. It's super exciting to finally see the scale like actually moving up instead of just like kind of bouncing around between like 139 and 141. So super, super cool. And then eventually, whenever I do reach 150, I kind of want to just like hang out, let my body get comfortable with the 150, really make sure that I'm continuing to build muscle within that 150. Um, maybe do like a little bit of a recomp while I'm maintaining that weight. And then I want to go through another deficit, which I think would be super sick to see. Because gosh, I don't even know if I've told you guys this yet on the podcast, and I've definitely talked about it on my Instagram. But I have started tracking my like progress photos in the superset app that I use with my clients. So, like obviously, my clients, they're all, they all use the app that I train with where they can do like weekly check-ins and everything. So I haven't actually done that for myself. And I actually started doing that in April, where I take pictures. I'm only doing it bi-weekly. So bi-weekly photos, bi-weekly weigh-ins, and just like keeping up with everything. So I can like visually see the progress like a normal check-in picture instead of just like gym pictures. So this is something fun and different that I'm doing now, and I'm very excited about it. My point is it would be super, super cool to like visually see my body at the end of this growth phase compared to now. But then also whenever I do go into a deficit, seeing those comparisons and just seeing my body basically like shrink grap and like get lean while holding on to the muscle that I've worked really, really hard to build. So I'm excited to see all the pictures as I go through the rest of this growth phase and into maintenance and then my next deficit. So that is the growth phase update. Something else that I want to talk about is I actually got a message this week from a woman. She just like responded to one of my stories. I took a picture in the gym locker room, just like showing a little glute pump, right? It's feeling really good, feeling really thick. And I got this comment that was basically like, oh my gosh, like I could never have the amount of muscle that you do. Like you're you're so blessed, blah, blah, blah. And it just made me like really sad that that was the thought that she had from that. Because you get to this point after training for so many years where you think, okay, this is like as far as my body can go. And you feel like you've done like everything that you can in your body, like this is just how it is, right? I really wish that more people understood that that is not that's not the case. Because there's a lot that you can do with your nutrition, with your training to get a result that you want, right? If you feel that you don't have enough muscle and you want more, you can train. Like I said earlier, you can train really, really hard. But if your nutrition is not there, then you're just training to train. You're not training to build anything. You have to give your body like the tools and resources to actually build that muscle with, right? It doesn't just like appear out of thin air just because you did a squat. You have to like give your body food. So it just made me really sad to think or to hear that there are women out there that just accept that. Oh, I guess this is just it for my body. Because no, it's not. You can definitely get more strategic and more specific with your protocols, especially if you're somebody who isn't tracking your food or you're not really strategic with your food, you're just kind of eating to eat instead of like eating for a specific goal, right? Like there are definitely ways to push for more muscle. And it's gonna require more than just showing up and doing workouts and just eating healthy, right? There, there's more to it than that. In fact, there are many seasons of my life, I can think of about three right now, where I've reached a point with my body where I thought, oh, this is just it. This is just where my body lands. I remember before I was able to actually build the muscle that I wanted to, I was 125, I was stick thin. I remember looking in the mirror at Planet Fitness and just being like, well, I can see my muscle. That's cool, but like I look like a stick. And I was working so hard, I was doing so much. How could I possibly do more to get more results? And then I got real smart and I learned about nutrition, and that actually made my body change completely. It changed so drastically. And it wasn't with more effort, it was just by being more strategic with my food. And then I reached another point after I had built muscle where I was like, I can't build more muscle. Like my body literally won't do it. And so I kind of backed off a growth phase a little bit and went into my deficit. And I got really, really lean and shredded. And to where now pulling out of that deficit and into another growth phase, my body's responding again. It just takes adjustments with your nutrition to get your body to respond. As long as you're showing up and you're training intentionally, you're being smart about your training and you're not just like running weird circuits where you're doing like an RDL into like a shoulder press or like a squat to a shoulder press, like weird exercises like that. You're actually training one singular exercise with a challenging weight, that is what grows muscle. As long as you're doing that paired with strategic nutrition, then your body will respond. Right. There are bodybuilders that literally change their body year after year after year after year. And if they just settled for, oh, I guess that my body is just like the way that it is and I can't, I can't push it anymore, then we would not have pro bodybuilders. We would not have Olympians, we would not have all of these incredible athletes that have literally changed their body and continue to change their body. So don't think for a second that you are just stuck in your physique. Because I promise you that there is something else that you can do. There are things that you are missing, even if they are small little details, but details that will make a world of a difference. So you are not limited by what your body can do. You are limited by what you believe that you can do. You're limited by maybe it's education, but that's fixable. Maybe it's guidance, that's also fixable. Maybe it's strategy, that's fixable. There are things that you can do. So you're only limited by what you think that you are capable of. If you get resourceful and you figure it out, then it is absolutely 100% doable for you. But you have to be determined enough to actually make it happen for yourself, not just settling for, oh, okay, I guess this is it. So that is it for today's episode. I hope that you enjoyed hearing about my growth phase update. I'm super, super excited to continue growing and continue sharing this journey with you guys. But if you enjoyed, let me know over on Instagram and I will chat with you guys in the next episode. Bye.