Train. Eat. Think. Episode 3 - Fat Loss aka Cutting Phase

Struggling with fat loss? Lose too much muscle when you attempt it? Stuck in a cycle of 6 week cut and 8 week bulk but still look the same despite your efforts? 

Join Francis and Ben as we share the tips that will make your journey smoother! 💪 

In today's episode, we dive deep into fat loss strategies. With summer just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to get lean. But beware of the common pitfalls that can derail your progress as you want a successful cut!

We discuss what it truly means to be in a fat loss phase, who should consider it, and the metrics you should look for, like progress photos, improved composition,  arguably better metrics than just body fat percentage alone.  

Remember, patience is key! Don't rush the process. It’s all about consistency and trusting your journey.  

Let’s simplify the myths and focus on what really works for achieving your goals.  

Check out the full episode for more insights!  

#FatLoss #NutritionTips #FitnessJourney #SummerBody #HealthyLiving

For online 121 coaching enquiries/information

Please contact Francis on X/Instagram @coachfhm                                                  or email fmeliacoaching@gmail.com 

Contact Ben on X/Instagram @benjaminyeezus                                                         or email benyeezus@gmail.com  

Thanks for listening. See you next week :D 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Trainy Think, episode three. We're back. First two episodes have went down a went down a street. Got lots of uh lots of great comments of everybody. Everyone's enjoying it. Being over the fundamentals of training and nutrition. So again, just right off the bat, we appreciate all the support that we're getting of everybody. And we're gonna keep the these coming for you. But today, episode three, where we're talking about fat loss, everyone's favourite topic. How do we get lean? You know, tips and tricks, pitfalls to avoid, and especially with you know summer, which is just on on the horizon, coming around the corner. And again, uh, you you'll probably agree, mate. I think taking people through diet phases is probably one of the most sought-after requests that we get when people come to us. There's a lot of pitfalls and mistakes that people make. There's things that you should do are going to benefit you, and we just want to we want to get into the weeds of uh a fat loss phase, don't we?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Absolutely uh buzzing to get into this one and and just to echo as well, you know, thank you to everyone. Had lots of messages, lots of comments as well, and we're we're stacking up the views. So thanks for everyone who's who's watching, coming back, and hopefully, you know, as Francis has just said, we're going to talk about cutting um fat loss um and in this session, and um hopefully some real gold that you guys can take and and move forward with.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

And this is fresh in the uh in the mind for the both of us right now, me, especially with you right at the end of your diet phase and getting very lean. You know, I'm six weeks into prep, so we're we're right in we're right in the heart of it ourselves. Got loads of clients doing the exact same thing. So yeah, we're we're in you know, we're in the best possible position, mate, to try and share some tips and sticks and to tell people not not sort of mess up the fat loss phase.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I think what's really good as well that we can touch on and and we'll get into, you know, you've just sort of come through, Francis, that first we we spoke about it on the spaces before the the first few weeks where it's maybe not seeing the change that you want and getting that what am I actually doing, and and and linking into some of the mistakes that people will make, where it's like it's not happening fast enough, you know, no trusting in the process. Uh I know yourself you've been round you know that um fat loss and and into you know a muscle improvement phase multiple times over the years, but um it's something that we can touch on. Obviously, I'm at the kind of the the the business end, so to speak. Um I'm gonna push to the end of the month. Um I don't know if we'll get into it, but we can mention you know, I've had a little play with peaking the look of where I'm at. So I've been doing some refeeds as well, so that'll feed into some of the things that we'll probably cover um over the course of tonight. And I'm buzzing into it. Buzzing.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah, it's uh it's it's it's always an interesting one, but I I think it's again as we spoke about with nutrition, nutrition and fat loss they go hand in hand. There's a lot of myths out there, there's a lot of again bullshit and just rabbit holes that people go down with fat loss phases. Um so I again we're just gonna I want to clear up a you know a lot of the nonsense with that. So I think we we start off from from the sort of get-go with a with a fat loss phase. Like who who should be going for a fat loss phase? What what markers are we looking at? You know, are we looking at body fat percentage? Uh, are we looking at photos? Uh again, the other way to look at it as well, is someone just being a little bit too impatient to pull the trigger on a diet phase? You know, let's say someone's been into an improvement season or a gaining phase for they're in the middle of it four or five months, but because they feel maybe a little bit softer, is it do they need to cut? So I think there's there's multiple different lenses on on how we can uh attack it, who should cut, who's ready for a cut, what what are some of the metrics that that you're looking for with someone?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yeah, I mean, I I think that's a fantastic point that you make. You know, different people will be at different parts of of their journeys, and and one of the things that we we often stress is we need to get a little bit comfortable with being uncomfortable. I think one of the pitfalls that comes, and I know we're not going to touch too much on improvement phases here, but one of the ways that you'll stay stuck is this constant cycle of an eight-week, let's call it a bulk. I like call it an improvement phase, but let's call it a bulk. And then it's a six-week cut straight off the back of that. You just sort of get going into well, you should if you again if you're doing it right, you just sort of get going into your improvement phase into to get stronger, to getting bigger, to growing using the calories that you actually need to get the tissue on, the strength and your training, the recovery, and then you're too quick to go back into this and getting a little soft. Now, now done right. Nobody's saying that you need to go and put on five stone, for example. But similarly, you're not going to make much progress if you're only putting on just a couple of pounds. You're going to see that again in your pictures. We've spoken often about when we're building strength and the improvement phases, it's then that strength and that size that we want to keep when it comes to the cut. So that range of how we do it is as important in the improvement phase as it is in the cut. And if we're talking about someone that's come off the back of, um, I know that you're a fan as well as I am, um Francis, that we do that length and longevity in your improvement phase, which means you don't get too bulky or put on too much body fat too quickly. So it all comes down to that rate and adherence and doing a lot of things well. It comes from a good start point, cut into a transition into a muscle improvement phase, and then going back out. You know, you want to have that patience and say it's not just time because you're feeling a little bit uncomfortable, there will be clear markers. Maybe your abs have totally smoothed out a little bit, and that's where you should probably start looking. So it's going to be photos for me, predominantly, it's always photos, but you can use body fat percentages if you want to.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah. Absolutely. I think with the best the best improvement phases, they they start from the best possible position anyway. So that likelihood of you know you feel like you're getting fat or you're getting smoother, you know, too fast too quickly. If you start from the best possible position, the likelihood of that happening, it diminishes. But I I I definitely like taking photos. I think photos are one of the best measurements to see exactly where you're at. Body fat percentages alone, I don't think they're accurate enough because there is there is people who would distribute body fat differently, you know, from the torso, you know, glutes and hips. Again, I know myself I can I can store a lot of body fat uh you know, maybe around the hips and upper body might look a little bit leaner. So, in terms of just looking at photos or just body fat percentage alone, I like to try and tie everything together. But I think if you if you are looking at a range for most people, no, most fellas, you know, once you start probably uh approaching that 20% body fat range, you're probably gonna oscillate. Let's say you finish a good cut and you're around that 10% range, right? Just as an example, if you're around 10%, you're probably gonna oscillate slowly up to that 18 to 20% range, very, very slowly, pushing your body weight up, progressing your lifts. And once you start getting to that sort of north end of that range, you're around that 20%, that's probably gonna be a decent time to you know pull the trigger on a little bit of a cut phase. But if you've done that improvement season right, that's gonna take 9, 10, 11 months to go from 10% body fat and slowly keep things up. That will take a long time. So that's where we're where you start from a good position and you get those ratios right, you're not gonna be trying to be too trigger happy on getting into a cuff phase. Um, so I think that that goes uh hand in hand with you know someone who's looking. Should should I should I cut? Am I in a position to cut? Well, I think if you if you are close to that 20% body fat, and you know you're looking at your photos, you've there's just no vascularity, there's no separation anywhere. I think you're probably in a good spot to go into a cuff phase looking at those markers. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_00 8:10

I totally agree. And what I really like what you've done there, Francis, is you've talked about ranges. I think it's very, very difficult. You mentioned body fat distribution as well. Using myself as an example, my my front is is not my upper, sorry, is normally ready, maybe nine as much as nine weeks before my lower half is. So you're only as lean then as your leanest body part. So you could quote a number just by taking a picture of the upper and saying I'm X percent. Well, that's not technically true because, like yourself, I carry um on different body parts as well. Mine predominantly my glutes and my sorry my hamstrings is where I've where I carry most. So I think it's important to introduce a range because then you can account for different people looking slightly different at different percentages, depending on, for example, how much muscle mass that they actually carry. Because you I think for me, using a strict body fat percentage, you could have two people, even using a bodybuilding stage as an example. One person could technically be leaner than the other, but they still look different. Yeah, different size, bellies, insertions. Uh you could there's a whole list of things that you could go into. But the point being, body fat looks different on different people, and I think using that as a soul metric, you know, you touched on pictures and stuff like that, something that's very, you know, it's a necessity for us in the space when we're online and we don't always see people face to face. We need those pictures in the same lighting and the same conditions each week. You know, we need it fasted for a reason so that you've got the same environment. Because if you take it in the gym and it's pumped and it's full of water and and and stuff like that, it looks totally different from what it would look like when you're taking your pictures um just fasted um in the morning, and that's the the same conditions that you're looking for week on week.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, the check-in photos are a very important part of the process. I I get weekly check-in photos from me, coach fasted every Tuesday morning. That's my uh that's my check-in day. Every Tuesday out, uh get the photos in the same position, and it just allows you to have objective measurements, doesn't it? I think that that's very important, would it?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Absolutely. I mean, it's paramount, and when you've got the same factors there, that's what you're looking at, and you're comparing then like for like. So, what would you what would you do um when you're transitioning someone into a cup? What what how would you break it down? Do you do you start to pull calories down, for example, or maybe if someone's coming from an improvement phase, do you get them to maybe tidy up because they're a little bit comfortable? I know myself, if I'm in that phase, there's a wee biscuit or two in there with the tea. Let's tidy up, keep calories as high as we can. How do you how do you approach it?

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Yeah, so I think if someone was coming to me, it will be slightly different if someone is coming from if you've worked with someone through a gaining phase and then you're going into a deficit, that's different than let's say someone is just coming to you, flesh out the gates, you've never worked with them and you just want to drop some body fat. I think initially, mate, I think it's always gonna come for me from a drop from calories. I always assume that baseline expenditure or we get that into a decent spot, uh, you know, whether that be step counts of 8,000 a day, 10,000, 12,000, whatever, with a little bit of cardio in there as well, if someone needs it. But the big the big lever that we're always gonna pull on is gonna be uh a nice little drop in calories. Um, so let's say someone has been you know into a surplus phase, you're just finishing an improvement phase. I think a safe better is pulling you know maybe 20% of calories down as an example from where you might have been, maybe a little bit more if someone's got a little bit more body fat on them. But I like to get someone into you know a decent deficit, not too conservative where we're not going to see much changes, but not too aggressive that we're gonna risk any sort of muscle or performance loss. So, what I tend to see a decent range for a lot of people. Again, I like to work on ranges just so you don't give someone luck. You have to use you have to drop one pound a week or shit or bust. You know, it's a I like anywhere from like 0.5% to one percent of body weight coming off per week in that range. Someone might be higher on the end of that if they've got more body fat to lose, someone might be a little bit on the lower end of that, you know, if they are getting closer to being leaner, and you might even creep lower than that, you know, once someone is starting to get you know sub 10% as an example. But most people who are going to be listening to this have got no interest in sort of getting stage lean. So, yeah, in that range of 0.5 to 1% of body weight coming off per week.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Yeah, so basically what you've said there is there's no cast dieting because we're going to support performance, and that's one thing you know we see often when when people start that cutting phase, it's like, how quickly can I get to our weight? Which really, to be honest, that weight means nothing. You could pull what 12, 14, 18 pounds off someone in a week if if you just pulled out, let's say carbs, just pull out carbs and just eat protein and and a little bit of fats and watch the scales absolutely plummet. But what happens as a result as a result of that? And again, you touched on it, we're supporting performance, we don't want to lose that. If someone spent a lot of time, money, effort in the phase that they're building muscle, you want to fight basically for every ounce of that. Now, will we keep absolutely every single strand? We'd be liars if we said yes, but we're we're gonna fight for it and we're gonna try to do it. And I think that thinking comes as well about instilling that into people from the very start of the cut to say, listen, this is a process, the same as your um improvement phase was if it's someone you're working with in an improvement phase, we're gonna stagger up the same way, we're gonna stagger down here. We're not looking for dramatic drops in scales, actually, quite the opposite. We're looking for steady or we're looking for feedback from photos because again, some people will you know a little bit slower on the scales, but if you can see that there's visible change and and people can feed back to you as well. My clothes feel better, I'm still getting stronger in the gym, I'm fighting for that performance. And what you're doing then is you're protecting the longevity of the cut so that it doesn't need things like a deload in the middle of it, we wouldn't want that. Yes, we've got things in the bank where we've got diet breaks and refeeds if it's needed based on the individual basis or whatever they're facing, but again, we'd probably I don't know if you would agree with this, Francis, prefer like a linear type path so that you've got someone, you're working well with them, you're understanding them, you're supporting them through their journey, and it then means that there's a there's a consistency in it, and by that I mean the consistency of their body responding. So you might not need to make as many, and certainly not any drastic changes, but you're just seeing that nice, you know. The only thing we can't control are the actual scales themselves. So if everyone's doing something right, they've got their cardio in nice, they're doing the nutrition and they're training nice and hard, you know, we're gonna have that, we're gonna see that trend over time.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

It's funny you should mention this, don't we? Because the the exact same thing it's happened to me over the last seven days, right? The scale didn't budge, didn't budge at all, right? Now, let me let me lay the context in this because it's it's very important. Because this, if I'm going through it, you know, think about it. You know, I'm I'm going to try and step on stage. Yeah, like this could this can happen to anyone as well. I've been working with my coach since last January, so you're talking 15-16 months. So we we know each other well, we get on very well. You know, we're five weeks into prep, six weeks this week. So last week, you know, the first four or five weeks of the diaphase, scale weight was coming off good rate, 0.7 to 1% coming off weekly, spot on. All of a sudden, the last week, it didn't move at all. The average stayed exactly the same for the week, it did not budge. But the visuals, it was the leanest that I've looked. Now, how do we know that? Because we could we take consistent check-in photos every week. I've got 15-16 months of check-ins with my coach, and as soon as the check-in came through, he said, Look, this is the best that you've looked, like this is the leanest that you've looked, even though the scale hasn't moved. So there you go. That's what we're saying. It's not just about your fat loss phase or the cut is not always dictated just by a scale number because my scale number never dropped at all, but it's the best I've looked, and all of a sudden, right this week, the scale, it started to come back down again. So we're not chasing scale numbers, we're chasing again the visual as well. Obviously, at some point, the scale weight, it's gonna have to come down, it can't just stay the same on a full fat loss phase for forever. There is gonna be some drops, of course, but I just thought that's that that's a great example, which has just happened to me over the last week where the visual improved massively, so much leaner, so much leaner through the midsection, the obliques, even the glutes starting to come in a touch, but the scale weight stayed the same. That's why it's important to get your photos.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Yeah, I mean, we've we've touched on the the importance of consistency of your check-in photos, and and without them, you know, it's one of the first things that you look at probably as a coach yourself. I mean, I can look at somebody's picture, and I already know the kind of week they've had before I even read what the what the check-in would say as an example. Turning our attention to mistakes that people might make in in the cut. Um, we've spoken about you know what we want to do is keep performance and we want to keep every ounce of muscle, and that comes as well from our training, you know. So we don't we don't change the training up too much. So maybe we just have a little um few minutes on what what we do and and what we don't do in respect to training.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yeah, so when it comes to training on a cut, and I I know you hold the same sentiment with this, and we have touched on it in the spaces that we were doing. Like what training you were doing in an improvement phase or a building phase, that is the same training that is going to retain your muscle tissue. Think about it. This is not gonna be a time to start doing all sorts of high rep sets, super sets, running around the gym like a blue ass fly, just doing crazy stuff, you know, high reps shred you up, bro. That that's that's the classic myth that you're there all the time, and it's fucking nonsense. The same training that built your muscle tissue is the exact same training that of retainer. You're coming in, you know, you're hard, heavy sets, pushing with a good proximity to failure, accurate reps, you know. The only thing that might change, it might not change out the gate. Maybe you have a little bit of a drop in your volume numbers. Maybe as you get towards the end, like you might pull a set or two off some some of your big movements that are really, very fatiguing because you don't need the extra set. That is something that can change, but we're talking as you're getting towards maybe the end of a course here, but for the most part, everything will stay the same because it it is the big message of what builds your muscle tissue will retain it, and it really is as simple as that.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

I mean, that I totally agree, and I've experienced it as well. You know, what builds the muscle, what gets you bigger, is going to keep the muscle. We spoke about you know maintaining that performance, we want to do that out the gate and also deep into the cut of how uh whatever the particular person in front of you is is looking to do. But if we're already swimming in junk volume and and eating into that recovery, because we're not going to be replenishing when we're in the deficit, you're not gonna get the glycogen replenished, so there's not going to be that state, and and and as we mentioned, the the more that we can do without needing to resort to like a deload week, for example, or refeeds when they're necessary, you know, refeeds when they're absolutely necessary. Again, that'll come from from the person in front of you. But if if you're already swimming in junk volume right out the gate, you're creating you know that people hate talking about it, you know, it's the big the big uh elephant in the room, the fatigue monster. But in all honesty, it's a real thing, you know. You can't keep adding, you can't just do sets, they they serve no purpose anyway. You know, you add in junk at that point. If we're being honest, you're not going to put on muscle tissue when you're in the deficit, you're fighting to keep every ounce of the muscle that you've built and shred the body fat, which will come mostly from your nutrition, of course, and the in the deficit, your cardio. But what you're doing in the gym is you're there. One of the things to have in your head is to fight, fight for the muscle tissue, fight for your reps, and then see where you land.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah, you could I like that the analogy, like you have to fight when you're in the gym, you have to fight for every set that you've got, every set is an opportunity, so that's why we have to make every set count. If you're doing sets that are just let's be honest, they're just done productive junk, that's only taken away from your ability to recover. Now, we spoke at length about the stimulus recovery adaptation process, even more important than a deficit, because you don't have the same ability to recover, you're on down tools, you you are on lower food, you know, you're in you're in a decent deficit, you're chug you're you're chugging away the body fat that you've got stored across the body. So your ability to recover is not the same as it when you're in a an improvement phase. So your training, it needs to line up with that because the last thing we want to do is with three or four weeks into a cut, we're having to deload already because you're doing too much volume, you're taking too many force reps, you're doing too many sorts of set extenders like drop sets and all this stuff, and that that's another elephant in the room. You know, people think. Ah, you're a pussy if you're not doing drop sets, go hard or go home. And you know, we're the first people to say you we don't want to train like a fart or a fanny, we're not saying that, but you've got to line up your training with your ability to recover, and when you understand that, your fat loss phase is just gonna go a lot smoother. You're gonna be you're gonna be stringing productive weeks of training together, 12, 13, 14, 15 weeks of consistent, steady fat loss, maintaining good training performance, and that's what's gonna make you cut ultimately go as best as it can instead of trying to force through force reps and triple drop sets on a hack squat we trained into a cut. It's just a it's a recipe for disaster, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 22:42

So there's a good few things in there I wanted to touch on, like um if you don't if you don't use it, you lose it. You know, that that's one of the things to keep in mind, you know. What builds muscle keeps muscle, and and and that's two important things where you're fighting for those reps. Again, we're not saying go and grab the pink dumbbells and do 10 10 reps or whatever. You another good thing about having that sort of insight or foresight, if you want to call it that, is you're gonna exit the cut arguably in a stronger place because you haven't lost much, if anything. One thing I probably would like to touch on, Francis, I think is a good thing. What we see with a lot of people, really common legs and back arms will probably stay in the realms. Now I'm not saying that you're going to go in and do PBs every single workout, but it doesn't mean that you don't fight for them and you give it your all to get and match the numbers in your book, but with good form, you know, you're not just trying to get the numbers. But what happens is when you get to the end of the cut, you're a stone's throw, maybe with the exception of push, which is which is a good one. A lot of people do lose their push strength when they're in cuts. Um, maybe just sort of some things you've seen around that, Francis.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Yeah, so movements in terms of what are affected more by fat loss. I think, as you mentioned there, it's it's always push. It's something I'm always at I always explain to clients because it's it's probably one of the first things to drop off. Now, what we've got to look at is that when we drop body fat, we we lose internal stability. Body fat is stability for us, right? There's a reason you'll see uh some of the world's strongest men competitors or top powerlifters, they they carry a little bit of extra body fat, not excessive, but you know a little bit of extra cushion, and that's for good reason. Now, when we get leaner, we don't just pull body fat off from our midsection and our ass, like everybody thinks. You you lose body fat from around your shoulders, your elbows, everywhere. So when you're doing presses, you're losing body fat now from you know your arms, your shoulders, your chest. You've got less stability and less cushioning in the bottom of a press. Also, you're losing body fat from your upper back. Your upper back is your base of support, that's your base of stability. So you're pulling off body fat from all of these areas which just it makes your presses feel a little bit weaker. That's something I see with a lot of people. Uh, don't panic when this happens. You're not gonna maintain peak pressing strength from week one of a cut into week 12, week 13. We try and fight as much as we can, but ultimately, you know, there's going to be a couple of drops and reps here or there. Um, you know, you might even have to pull off a little bit of weight on some of your pressing movements, and it is just part of the game. So that is something to expect. What you don't want to do is start trying to fight to the nail to keep that same the same weight and same load on the bar and letting technique go to shit. It's so easy to do that. Someone's doing a bench press as an example, or before you know it, their head's coming forward like the chicken head reps, their ass is coming off the bench, they're using everything they can to leverage the weight, and then we're just taking tension off the chest. So you've got to know when, okay, leave the set there, and I need to take a little bit of weight off next time. So there's a fine balance. You've got to train hard enough, yes, but with the within the right capacity.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

I mean, it can be a sucker punch to the ego, and it's just something that you need to accept. As we've touched on, you know, you're not replacing the energy, yes, you're drawn down on stored energy in terms of body fat, and and that'll take you, you know, a good a good way of the way, but you know, having that, and and we'll probably move on to that in in a second about structuring how we would structure our food around our workouts and and just for the rest of the day. Um, I was just smiling because one of my clients, when they checked in this week, their feedback was my arse must have shrunk a bit because I now fit on one of the seats in the gym. That's what you know. A non-scale victory. Um, so yeah, we'll we we'll we'll go with that. So um they they're on a cut at the moment, so we could probably just you know link that into you know what we'd expect in terms of you know food coming down. We're gonna keep protein high, we're gonna have carbohydrates supporting the training, probably take um dietary fats around that so that we're not slowing down digestion and it gives you some um other food to keep you a bit more satiated, you know, outside the workout perimeter. One of the things I did like from the spaces that we did, Francis, was someone said an improvement season is just a cut with more chicken and rice. Yeah, it's true. Similarly, for a cut, it's just the same, just a little less chicken and rice. Obviously, you know, every meal isn't chicken and rice, but the the the it's a nice idea. I I always thought that was quite funny, and it's very, very true. So, what what what do you do structure-wise and and and what you're looking for in terms of consistency?

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Yeah, I think uh it's it's it's it there is very very similar a lot of similarities between how you approach things with you know a diet phase and your gaining phase with your food structure. Just to lead on from the last point with training, is that in a gaining phase or an improvement season, we're trying to get tension on the muscle tissue. That's what grows muscle tissue, that's what retains muscle tissue, it's the tension on the muscle tissue. So, you know, if you if you drop a rep or you drop a little bit of weight, but if you're maintaining that tension on the muscle tissue, again, that is that that ticks the box. You come in, you tick the box. Now, the food around the training allows you to come in to tick the box and get the stimulus and get the tension on the muscle. The biggest thing, the most important thing I would say when it comes to nutrition around your diet phases, you know, you probably know what I'm gonna say. It's the carbohydrate timing around that pre-warehouse perimeter. Absolutely important. I can't state the importance of this enough. What I recommend for a lot of people is to for as long as you can try and keep that pre-warehouse meal exactly the same. As what you add in your improvement season or your gaining phase, keep that the exact same in the diet phase, protect that pre-warehouse meal at all costs. If you're gonna pull carbs or calories away anywhere else, pull it from meals you know post-training or further away from training, just keep that pre-warehouse meal exactly the same, protect that because that's what's gonna allow you to come in the gym, perform the best possible capabilities that you can, hard sets, maintaining all the tension on the muscle tissue that you want to tick the box to retain muscle tissue. So, yeah, you're keeping that the the carb time and all your carbs again higher on your pre-warehouse window. And if you if you are used to using intra-warehouse, keep them in, don't change that.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

I think you've made a fantastic point there about keeping food steady. It maybe links a little bit to those like in the competing space, but similarly, in a in a cut when you're really being challenged potentially for how many calories that you can have, if you get yourself into a nice rhythm, yes, we want to pay attention. We talk about the macros so often, yes, we want to pay attention to the micronutrients, so we're making sure that we're getting our veggies in our salad and stuff like that. But one of the things we want to do is make sure we're having regular foods from whatever your list may be, because your body will get used to that, and also you're giving yourself, in my opinion, less decisions to make of a day. Again, using myself as an example, I only really make one nutrition decision in a day. I already know what my my first meal is going to be. Meal two and three takes care of itself. It's really my my pre-workout as well. Um, my yogurt before bed that I've had for 13 years just doesn't change. Yeah, I enjoy it, I still enjoy it to this day. Um, yeah, yeah, as I say, just that consistency around it, things like digestion, all that for when you get into training, you obviously want that to be in a nice spot, and I think that that really helps because then you find a way through the calories, a way to make it work for you. And the more I don't want to say rigid, it is rigid, you know, just being honest, it is a little bit rigid, but it's not rigid because you're stuck, you don't have choices to make. It's just about finding what of those choices work for you, and then just sticking with them because it'll make it so much easier for you.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

I think coming off that point you say there about the rigidness, I think the more consistent you can keep your meals and you eat similar things daily, you take away that decision fatigue because that's that's the crux for so many people is that they wake up and they don't know what they're gonna need for the day. It's an absolute fucking clusterfuck of what's gonna go on. It's a free-for-all, like they haven't got food in the fridge, they haven't got things prepped, and that's where the the mismanagement of calories and total macros at meal time and around training, that's where it all goes out of whack. Training suffers, digestion suffers, recovery suffers, all because a uh of a lack of organization. But I think one of the big mistakes that I see or I have seen people try and make, I don't know whether you've seen this one, someone goes into a diet phase, and yes, they pull calories, but they then start to pull calories from the pre-workout meal, and if they save calories for the night, which is like you know, let's say 9 pm at night, you like they like to sit there and watch Netflix, and they want to save as many calories for the night as possible, but then the pre-workout meal is is suffered and performance suffers, so then you've you've you you've got it ass backwards there. You're trying to save calories to sit on your ass at night and watch Netflix when you don't need the extra carbs, then you need your carbohydrates pre-training. So, this is just a common mistake that people make and you don't want to make it. So, I'm I'm sure you've seen that before yourself.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Yeah, definitely. I mean, one of the things I've ended up pulling out for those types of scenarios is things like popcorns and and as I call them, lifesavers. So if you're uh you know like a lifestyle type client, you might have a couple of snacks there sat to the side. We took we touch on the frozen berries again. Something I I personally love and I know that you love them as well, Francis. Classic for me. Even on my own dieting phase, that's what I've been eating. I I ordered three boxes of popcorn, small um 14 gram bags, I think 30 grams of normal um popcorn, and it fills a bowl, and it it's it's you know minimal in terms of the calories. So one of the things I do like to do when when I'm working with people is give them suggestions. Different people have different skill sets, you know. There'll be people that are very fluent in macros and know how to manage and chop and change. Some people I try and empower them and educate them to say this is this, and you can swap that in and do all these kind of things. I think it's really difficult, like you alluded to there. Um when when somebody gets um like calories for the day and they get to the end of the day and they've got a hundred grams of protein and 70 grams of fat left. What kind of meal can I make with that? And you're like, well, you need a better distribution across the day rather than you've eaten all your carbs, a little bit of protein, a little bit of fats, but you've got all of this left at the back end. So I like to make those suggestions and give it to people so that they can then see how to then structure that, um, as opposed to you know, sometimes if people haven't got the relevant enough experience, when you just throw numbers at them, it's like, how do I get how do I turn 2200 calories into your four meals? We could say it's 40 grams of proteins, 40 grams of carbs. Again, it doesn't help some, depending on what level someone is, they were that's fine, I can run with that. And then for some people, it's like, oh okay, I know what my options are and what I can change here and go with it.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yeah, I think it makes sense to have a decent supply and steady structure of food throughout the day. You don't really want to have you know front loading all of your calories early in the in the morning for breakfast, and then you know, before you know it, you go shit. I've got nine hours left, and I've got 20 grams of carbs to play with. You know, it's uh obviously, let's say someone's having four meals, you've got 2200 calories to play with, as the example, you know, you'll you'll you'll bias the majority of your carbs in that pre-ware window, but you still want to save some good food for your three other meals, your protein feedings, a little bit of carbs and each, but just you scatter and bias the majority of your carbs in that pre-warehouse window. But yeah, you the last thing you want to do is uh you don't want to leave yourself in too much of a hole, you know, as you are getting towards the the latter stages of a day because that is where people can uh you know they're they're ravenous, hungry, they're going in the cupboard. So you know there's there's a balance to it, it's not save all your calories for the night, but it's it's be mindful to spread it out as evenly as you can throughout the day just to put yourself on a something that you can be more adherent to, because that's key.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

It's a great point you make about the protein feedings because they become imperative where we're going. You know, if we're not in muscle protein synthesis, we're in breakdown. A very oversimplified way of saying it. You know, there is various different states, I'm not going to try and panic anyone. But if you think about it, like you're either in breakdown or you're or you're in in synthesis, and what we want to do is avoid, especially when we're creating um a negative energy balance, and there could be low energy availability depending on how far down the cut you are, how lean you are. So you really want to make sure that we're getting those those protein feedings in. Again, as we've said, it's it's another extension of use it or lose it, because if you're not using the muscle tissue at that point in time by having you know positive nitrogen balance in your body from you know a nice protein hit, then you're again I'm not trying to like uh scaremonger, but you know, it is an important, it's an important point to make that you want to be you want to be regular with your protein feedings every probably three to five hours.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Yeah. It's like the anabolic switch. That's that that's what I like to call the protein feedings. I think two of the best ways that we can switch on the anabolic switch. It's training, it's a training stimulus. Flip we flip on the anabolic switch and your protein feedings throughout the day. That's how you're going to retain your muscle tissue. You know, you're training, you're hitting a muscle group with it enough frequency, you're hitting the anabolic switch, getting a stimulus, and then you've got your your protein feedings throughout the day. And I again, we what do we always recommend? Anywhere from like three to six feedings of protein throughout the day, you know, that and that will that will genuinely depend on a person's lifestyle and what they can make work. But as long as you're getting that minimum three, that's that's a minimum for me. I don't I I would never like to see anyone go below three meals a day. If you're hitting that as a minimum, you know, maximum six, I think if you're in that three to three to five, three to six, you're gonna be you're gonna be spot on.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Yeah, I totally agree. I'm not a huge fan of one meal a day. I think it's too much stress, especially if you're trying to get you know over two thousand calories into one meal. You know, you can argue that you're giving your your uh GI a break um to settle food, but then you're chucking 2200 calories at it. People swear by it. I'm I'm just not a fan, and I don't think it supports uh optimum. Got the word there, um especially when what we're trying to do, you know, we want people to come out of the diet phase with the hard work that they've put into improvement, you know, still there, and um you know, nothing's wasted at the at the bottom line, there's no on or off. You know, people might be a little bit more focused in the cut because they are a bit more focused on the on the meals. I know myself, and I actually just commented on this today when you don't have a lot of calories to play with, you've got to be really focused on your nutrient-dense food, whole foods. I know myself at the moment I'm having a salad before every meal. Today I missed it because I was having a little play with trying to pique my look, which meant I ate more carbohydrates, but they weren't satiating ones, and I've been really, really hungry as a result of that because I didn't have my salad, I didn't have my veggies, I didn't have my extra coffee in the afternoon because I was trying to protect kind of my stomach a little bit. So it just shows when you when you do take these things out, if you're not managing the society, then it's quickly going to kind of try and bite you because hung hunger's there in hiding.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Yeah, the the foods that are high in the on the society index, they're the they're the staples of everyone, uh what I recommend for everyone's diet phase. So, you know, we've we've touched on the frozen berries, you know, the absolute staple. Um things like a white potato, you know, white potato and white potato and just berries in general, if you like oatmeal, um, these sorts of foods are very, very high on a satiety index. Now, what does that mean for you know if you're not sure? Satiety, you know, is basically how how full of food keeps you. So if you you'll if you eat something like a you know, uh a pack of Jaffa cakes versus a bowl of oatmeal, you know, what's gonna keep you fuller for longer? And you you're laughing, but those Jaffa cakes, they go down at sweet mate. You can put a pack of 12 of those down and not even know you've had them. And you know, same with you if you versus that versus a big bowl of oatmeal, big hundred gram bowl of oats, you know, it takes a little bit of time to eat as well, you'd always feel full after those. So that's the difference in uh satiety signaling. So yeah, we're basically telling you don't be eating jaffa cakes.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

I mean I mentioned the the refeed that I started on on Friday, and that was one of the first things I had, Francis, not not the jaffa cake. Um a hundred grams of oats in the bowl, and at the moment, uh because my calories are fairly low, one of the things I have put to the side is oats. Um oh, they were magic. Honestly, they were they were so so good. They were so so good. I've just got a quick question for you. How's how's your Spanish? Spanish?

SPEAKER_01 41:29

It's getting better, mate. It's uh I'm uh I'm not fluent in it. I understand everything that the uh that the mission everyone says, but yeah, for me, I'm not fluent in it. Why? Especially if you know this word, cardio that name Yeah, yeah, I've seen that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

In all seriousness, cardio, you know, I I like it year-round. I know that you're a fan of it as well, but one of the things again, mistakes that people might make when they're coming into the the the cut, you know, get calories as low as I can, get the carbs out, get the cardio to three hours a day.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Yeah, yeah, cardio, the uh the classic. I think I think out of a lot of the things when it comes to fat loss, I think this is people, this is something that the average or general population they they get wrong, or and not just get wrong, I think they they put too much stock in cardio without uh focus on the the lifting side of things and the diet side of things. Now, I think uh when it comes to fat loss and retaining your muscle tissue, you're lifting weights and your diet, like they're gonna be your your two biggest levers. I think they are to retain your muscle tissue and performance. What happens inside the gym on the gym floor, that is that's your priority. That will retain your muscle tissue. Your nutrition, again, very important for our protein feedings and your carbohydrate timing. Now, cardio, that is that's a lever that we can pull, but at no point do we want that cardio to interfere negatively with what happens with our training. That's the kicker, that's what people get wrong. They come out of the gate trying to do three hours of cardio, and then all of a sudden they're coming in and trying to train, and they're trying to do legs, and they've got hack squats or pendulums, and the legs are absolutely smoked because they've just done a load of cardio the day before, and they didn't need to do that. So, what we say with cardio is just enough that again that you can recover and still maintain your lifts and still strain hard, and that's where dun dun dun dun the daily steps come in, everyone's favourite. One the power walk. Run the power walk, yeah, it's a classic.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

No, I th I I think you're absolutely right. You know, we want to position cardio properly. Um it's a tool in itself, and as much as we said at the start, you know, a lot of what we're gonna do in the cut is about protecting people. Performance as much as we can. If we just go all out, you know, and I'm going to do this amount of cardio per week, coming from you know our lower end of the scale straight up, that you're going to quickly find that things are not going to respond like you want. Again, we spoke about you know we're not replenishing uh our glycogen stores, we're not having the the energy that's there. And yes, understandably, we are trying to create a deficit through using different levers, and that is one of the levers that we want to pull on. But we certainly don't want to be I mean, who wants to be spending hours upon hours in the gym anyway? And and yes, we've we spoke about power walking, which we can obviously do outside. The reason I like a power walk is it gives you all the benefits of cardio, and for me, none of the drawbacks. Now, steps are good, you know, you can be out walking, you're still burning energy, you're still doing all the good stuff, you're outside in nature. But if you can get intensity into those steps when you can, you're gonna put more energy out, and you're gonna get more basically bang for your buck. But the good thing about power walking is it doesn't uh take away from your recovery and from your training. You you made a great point, Francis. Getting into train legs, there's no point in getting into train legs when you absolutely burnt them on you know the the El Dine bike or something like that, or you you so many rounds of skipping and it's your leg the next day, you know. Again, what we're speaking about here is everything has its place, but you you want to place it in the right place so that when you're going through the journey of your cut, that it's it's got a pathway that's got structure to it.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

A good question for you, Ria with cardio, mate, and this is something that comes up a lot for me. I'm sure you get it as well. You know, like general population clients who they like to play football, they like to go and play five or size with the mates. A big one now, mate's like it's I always get this as paddle. Have you seen that one? That that's a new one. That especially in America, that's um that's the big wave. So, you know, how do you structure that in with someone? You know, someone is that's as I say, it's a general population client, that they've got no interest in going to stage, nothing like that. Just want to get in better shape, you know. Do you want to play five aside or eleven aside once or twice a week, or do you want to go and play paddle with the mates? What what what recommendations are you giving that arm that weight you're structuring of your training?

SPEAKER_00 46:28

Yeah, I mean, the there's one one of my gents recently who's who's just done a photo shoot actually, he plays he plays soccer. Um, and he gets training first I say soccer, football, but he gets training and a match. So what we've had to do and discussions is sort of plan around times when he does have training, so it's a little bit more um fatiguing on the legs versus obviously then him playing, for example, on a Saturday morning. So we just need to make sure that we've got that structure, and we're doing leg sessions every so many days, as opposed to just being whatever it would be like in the programme. So if he needs another day of recovery, then that's absolutely fine because again, as we're saying, there's no point in going in and half arcing something or doing it to the point where you you you can't progress it, and by that I mean if he's already fatigued from the day before, you can't play a game on a Saturday, play 90 minutes, and then be expected to go in and do legs the very next day. So it's just about you know trying to work out where the where the happy medium is and where the schedule is. Now, again, if we're being honest, there's a difference there between a lifestyle client and and a bodybuilding client because you're maybe going to be wanting to do legs twice a week or every three or four days, five days at a push. But we just work with within the confines and manage the expectations and say this is what happens. It's not it's not good, it's not bad, it's it's just explaining to someone this is this is what will happen. But we need to manage um your performance, we need to manage your recovery a little bit because football's great, paddle's great, social events, time with people, you get to meet your friends. Again, using myself as an example. I played five aside, um, and it was the only time that the boys from from back at school used to meet up for a long time. So I totally understand. I've been through that experience where it's the as I say, the one hour in the week that when everybody's got a family and multiple jobs and stuff like that, it's the only time that they can meet up. So we'd never we'd never take that away from someone. You know, we need to be encouraging and welcome that because we're all about the fitness, we're all about nutrition and and and stuff like that. But we're hurting people's mindset if we say to them, no, you can't go to your paddle or or your soccer.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

I think it it's it goes through you'd have to go through a needs versus wants analysis. That's what it comes down to. What what what is your main priority? If your main priority is to build the biggest legs possible and you you're very upfront with that, I'm probably gonna sit tell someone look, you probably need to give some of this football and paddle a miss. But if you're just someone wanting to get, you know, you want to get in better shape, you know, you're not really too bothered about building the biggest legs that you possibly can. Well, fine, yeah. Paddle football, great. The social elements of it, you know, as long as you don't get injured. I've had a couple of those mate. I've I've had a couple of people that that's one thing that we do need we can touch on. Is that I'll give you a good example. Uh a client I had a few a few months back. He went playing basketball, he jumps up to dunk, comes down, ruptured his patella tendon, and he's he's been out of the gym for a couple of months because he doesn't play basketball regularly. He went and tried to do a big slam dunk or whatever, and he's put himself out. So that is something that you do need to be mindful of. I'm not trying to scare monger with basketball, football, paddle, but these are things that you need to be mindful of. You you we don't move in these planes of motion and uh um and change direction at these speeds all the time. So when you're going from zero to 100 doing that, again, you these just things you've uh you've got to be careful of. But yeah, we we can we can blend it into a smart programme, and you just uh what I would recommend is especially with your legs staining with football and paddle, try and keep your legs staining as far away from those sorts of sessions as you can, and then you just piece it together.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

It's so valid, Francis. Uh and I've had three gents that that I know of, um, two of them have coached over the years that popped their Achilles going back to play football, but being 10, 12 KGs, not just all body fat, but just the bigger people that when they left. And I'll be honest, I had uh a message from one of the gents I used to play um fiver side with. He's like, Oh, I should come back for a game, and I was so so so tempted. When I when I gave up football, I was what's eleven stone, 154 pounds. I don't even know what that is in kilos, to be honest, mate. 64 kilos or something. Yeah, right now, like in my sort of where I sit, I normally sit around the two hundred, two hundred and ten pounds mark, just like without kind of trying. Obviously, at the moment I'm dieted, so I'm I'm I'm under 200, but you just don't move around the park and and and two or three of the boys as I said just pop their Achilles because you're not moving, you're moving more weight, you're not in the patterns and stuff like that. I think it's a very, very good point to make, you know. People do need to make that decision whether the risk is worth the reward and stuff like that, but um it's one thing to be mindful of, especially if it's been a long, long time. Uh another gent that I worked with basically Tories hamstring, and it was a very, very, very bad grade two, very bad. Like this thing was black. Yeah, he was he couldn't train hamstrings for nearly four months.

SPEAKER_01 52:06

That's what I mean. So it's it is it's that balance, isn't it? Like we're not telling people not to, you know, because going out and socialized and getting these different sources of cardio, and if that's going to keep someone on plan, again, what do we always we always bring it back to compliance with the science, something that someone can be a dealer with, that's very, very important. But there is certain risk elements with certain types of cardio if you're not used to doing it, and again, you you just have to be uh you have to be mindful of it because I think this this is what what's happened with a lot of my clients, but you've probably seen it yourself, is that you know, we're men, we're competitive. You get out on the football pitch, you start playing five minutes in, ten minutes it in, someone puts a little dribble past you, you know, a little tackling on you, you're like, oof, I'll show you, and then you think that you're 16 years younger, and before you know it, your Achilles has popped. So, you know, that's what you've you've got to be careful of because we're we're all human.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

That was one of the reasons I actually gave up fiver sides. I was 34, I think, 35 maybe. Um it was early early in my training, so and I played against a young boy and he was 18, and he was very, very good. He played here in Scotland at the division, I think it was division one or two, so not the top, not the one under, but just one under that. So there's a good chance when it can make it, and even at that level, I used to try and chase him about because he was really fit. And for me, when I was playing, I just used to love running about. I wasn't the best player in the world, I wasn't the bad, but I wasn't the best. But I loved a runabout, and I would run about for an hour, exactly as you said there, mate. You know, he skinned me. And I knew his move, I knew what he was gonna do, and I went to tackle him and I stood on his leg, and I immediately, you know, I put my leg back, and I was like, I'm I'm so sorry, I really didn't mean it, honestly. And he's like, It's fine, it's fine, and you know that way like you replay it and you think I could have broken that boy's leg. And actually, I that was one of the reasons I kind of stepped back from it because I was like, maybe just getting a bit too because this still worked, but the leg the legs aren't this quick.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Yeah, that's it, mate. That's that's that's what I've seen with a lot of people. So that's where you know I go though. We don't have to worry about that with our daily steps or our power walks, we just get in our own head and we just bounce around to get our steps.

SPEAKER_00 54:25

That's the good thing about the gym. I think it's got one of the lowest injury um rates um going. Um when when we're talking about you know, people in the cut, just thinking of some some of the challenges that come across the way, and something I've had very recently was three different clients with digestion issues, and they can be very, very different things. One I kind of guessed, and I was like, have you increased your caffeine intake? And are you eating a bit more maybe fibre than you used to? And he's like, Yes, on both. I was like, Okay, let's drop the caffeine out a little bit, keep the rest in for this week, but let's reduce your caffeine and your fizzy drink intake. And lo and behold, a couple of days later, he's like, That's that's what it was, and that's exactly what I've done. I was like, Well, there you go, you know that's the trigger. Another gent just had a kind of like a viral infection. He knew himself that something was wrong, and we just said, you know, let's ride it out, we'll keep an eye on it, uh, and we'll see what happened. And then the third gent was just I've been working with him for a while, um, and it was just a case of nothing had really changed, and it was just one of those kind of isolated events that sort of um sorted itself after you know 24 hours. They said they kind of felt better and stuff like that, but he'd been struggling with it all week, so we didn't know if it was maybe the remnants, maybe something trying to work on them. So I don't know if you've got anything like that in the cut that you see or or you've seen recently.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

Yeah, well, I I think it's it's everyone's go-to, isn't it? Like they're getting hungry and the diet drinks, you know, they come out, you know. Yeah, they're a classic, mate. Um, you've got to be able to tolerate them. That that's the thing. You know, some people, I know myself, if I if I start going past more than maybe one or two cans a day, I can start farting my ass off. And you know, I I don't want that. So as good as they can be, I think everyone's got a sort of tolerance and a limit. You know, you I know you said yourself you can handle five or six a day, no problem. If someone can do that, like you know, fair play. I know I can't, and I know there's a lot of other people who have to be careful with that. The other one which goes under the radar, and I've I've had this happen to me as well, is chewing gum. If you have too much chewing gum, you're swallowing in the air as well. You know, that's another thing that people start to bring in when they're getting hungry. You know, all of a sudden you might have just been having you know one to two pieces of chewing gum a day, just just just normal, and all of a sudden hunger kicks in, and they're going through a a pack of a pack of 10 to 12 extra or trident a day, and all of a sudden can't stop farting. You know, I've had that in the past because I was uh I was getting hungry, and then those orange tridents, you know, they've got no calories in, but you think, ooh, I'll have one of those. One turns into two, turns into three before you know it. You know, you're sucking on a digestion doesn't like it because a lot of the sugar alcohols in it as well. So it's just things to be mindful of uh as you are getting deeper into a deficit, and that hunger is starting to drive off.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

The other thing is as well, you know, different people have different reactions to things, and some people, when they eat tunger, you know, it's obviously stimulating like the body feeding, and it can arguably make some people hungrier. You know, you're using it as to try and stop the hunger, but what it's actually doing is the the your body doesn't know that you've got a piece of chungum, for example, in your mouth and you're chewing it, so you've got the saliva, amylase, your body's like, Oh, this is good, a meal coming, fire up all the digestive juices, let's go, and and you know, we'll start a meal from there. I'm not saying that that's going to be everyone, there's going to be different reactions to it. Some people will be in the middle where it doesn't really affect them, but it's just worth noting that there'll be you know different, different effects for different people.

SPEAKER_01 58:12

I think the other point as well about fibre intake coming up, if someone increases the fibre intake, if you've had a big spike in fibre intake, I think that's again that's why it's important. And I do like to see people have consistent meals and consistent, uh consistent diet plan across the board, because you're not going to be able be having these excessive spikes in fibre if you're eating similar things daily. Because once you eat similar things daily and you know what works for you, you've got the box tick then. If you're having that variability or excessive variability, and then all of a sudden you're adding in 30 grams of fibre on top of what you have been eating, and your stomach doesn't like it, you're not used to doing that, so that's why. So that's again, that's why it comes back to just trying to get a sort of consistent meal plan and stick with similar meals, similar fibre intake, all that good stuff, just so you're not running into all of these sort of digestive issues.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

And just mindful of what we're coming up on. So, what I've just wanted to turn to was, you know, we've had a successful cut, let's just say everything's gone well. You know, what's the what's the marker, would you say then? What would do you look for, you know, to to end the cut and then say, right, it's time to get back grown again.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

I think it will it it's always going to be individual, isn't it? It's always gonna be like a uh is a is a is a person looking for a photo shoot? Are they going to stage? Because we even as we we we know like getting beach lean, photo shoot lean, stage lean, they're all different, they're all different stages of leanness. So initially, for for an end point of a cut, it all depends you know where you're trying to get to. But let's say, you know, the average sort of lifestyle client, and we've touched on this before, that not many people are gonna really need to dip below that sort of 10%, 11% body fat. Once you start getting there, once you start dipping below that, the juice isn't worth the squeeze for a lot of people, unless you're trying to go for a photo shoot or you know, you are going stage lean, which again that's another process in itself, that's just a different beast. But most people are gonna get all the benefits of a good cut, look happy on the beach, be healthy where they're that good set of abs coming through, and they're gonna be in that 10 to 12% body fat. So once you start getting to around there, then it's time to reverse it out. I'm sure we've had that conversation, haven't we around 10% body fat? People don't really need to get below that unless you're gonna go for a full social use or stage.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:35

Yeah, I mean, you've you've absolutely nailed that the just just isn't worth the squeeze, and and I'm talking here from experience. Um don't get me wrong, it's it's if something somebody wants to explore it and just to see what it's like. I'm I'm working with a client at the moment who wants to be absolutely shredded as his terms, like he is going to the stage, but he's got no as it stands intent of actually going up and doing it. I've explained when I spoke to him, we had a call, and I just said, listen, I just want to explain where you're gonna go here, what's gonna happen, especially towards the end. For you know, I don't I don't want to say, you know, it's just pushing for a few weeks that probably but it's it's also character building, so I'm I'm kind of you know, I'm I'm I'm presenting both sides of it there. You know, you're absolutely right that for most it's just not worth it, but as well, it's like how much can you actually take? Because one of the one of the things that come from it when when people have expressed to me in the past that they maybe want to compete, some people will love it and they'll want to do it again, some people will absolutely hate it and they'll never want to do it again. And well, how do you how do you find out?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:52

There's only one way to find out, and you know that's it's putting yourself through the ringer, isn't it? But I think we we've said before as well that I think most people look the best, probably around 10 to 12% body fat. I know I do. I I look and feel great around that range once it's when when when you start dipping below that, yeah, you can say maybe photo shoot leading to that seven, eight percent. Yeah, you you look good, but like that stage look, it's good for a certain day. You know, you look like a bag of bones, you you're going around with a big skeleton face, and you know, for most people for what they're after, it's in for most people for what they're after, mate. The they're made up around that sort of 10 10 to 12% body fat, yeah. And you get all the benefits of a good cut without any of the uh the negative side effects.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

I I I I keep forgetting at points that it's also um audio because we're doing it and we can see each other. Yeah, and the audio, I just point to my own face there when transit was talking about face. I know even mine's coming in. If we just wind it up, then we may be like exiting the cup for a couple of minutes and we can just talk about you know how we'd reduce um reverse our calories gradually. Um we probably to be honest need cutting part two, and and maybe we'll come back to that with with with um a deeper dive. I think it's been great what we've covered, but we can talk about reversing calories gradually, what to do so that you're not going. We know that the body's primed when you're lean to to be not lean because it doesn't want to be. You're fighting all of the you know the natural um natural effects of the body that's been shaped and honed over many thousands, millions of years. It doesn't want to be muscular, it wants to keep body fat so that it can preserve you through famine, which we've obviously seen through different places in life. So we're looking to stabilize our body weight for a point, get back to maintenance calories, or what's the next phase, which is generally go back into a grown phase. So I don't know if you want to do a minute or two on that, Francis, and then yeah. So uh when you finish a cut, the cut's over.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:06

So what this used to be something in the industry a few years ago, it was called reverse dieting, where you'd you'd be on X amount of calories at the end of your cut, and then you you bump up like 100 calories or 150 calories every week for maybe like four, five, six weeks until you got to maintenance calories. Now, that's since been sort of debunked, people don't really follow that anymore. Just because if the cut's over, doing that is a waste of time. Just get right back to maintenance, start the recovery process, go take your deficit calories wherever you've been, and get yourself to around maintenance and hold there steady, hold for a couple of weeks, get everything back off the baseline, get some extra carbs in you, start recovering a bit better, and spend a good few weeks around that maintenance calories. You know, whether that be two, three, four weeks, it will depend on the individual. But get right to maintenance, let everything settle around there, get some good productive training, good recovery, let your body weight settle around that maintenance for a couple of weeks, and then that's when you probably start from that maintenance phase. That's when you probably start layering in. Okay, let's layer in 100, 150 calories. From that point, assess after a couple of weeks, get the all clear, we're happy with the visuals, we're happy with what we're seeing. Okay, maybe a touch more, and you just go like that until you find your rate of surplus where you want to be. But yeah, when you finish the cut, you know, don't be messing around, get right to maintenance and let everything settle.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:29

Yeah, normally what I try and advise is you know, somebody on the on the day of, if it's maybe like for example, using a photo shoot as an example, go out that night and have something that you enjoy, and then maybe have a breakfast the next morning that maybe you've been looking forward to, or something like that. But then the plan's there in place. If you can get straight back to the plan with the increased calories, because you're absolutely right, what's the point in extending a cut? The cut's done or should be. You've you've you've completed what you set out to achieve. There's no point in doing another four, six weeks because it's just an extended cut. Okay, they called it reverse diet, and it's it's an extended cut is what it was. But one of the most important things, and we we we touched on it at the start, when you're heading back to maintenance or you're going into your improvement phase, it's just more chicken and rice, so and and that's important because those foundations that you've laid in your improvement phase prior to your cut, which you'll have really honed in if you've done it right, because when your calories are low, you know, you're looking at nutrient-dense foods and satiety because you know who wants to eat a portion of chips and have a protein shake and be hungry for the rest of the day because you blew your whatever 1800-2000 calories on that, you know, that that's not going to work. So, what you want to do is get yourself out there, and also if you do do that, the more that you can stick to you know what's on the plan or or or you know those those types of foods, the longer the runway you're giving yourself when you hit the improvement phase because you're not going from let's say 8, 10, 12% body fat to like 15, 16, 17 within a week, two weeks because you can't put down the Jaffa cakes, you know. Um so I think that I think it's worth mentioning.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

Yeah, and I think that that probably leads us into the the segue for for next week's episode, isn't it? Where we're gonna talk on the improvement phase. So we could we could go on now for you know an hour or two about the improvement phase, but we'll uh we'll probably save that for next week, won't we? But I enjoyed that again, mate. That was uh spot on, spot on. We even we even did half an hour before we hit the record button. Yeah, we have to start recording that for everyone. Yeah, there's just uh loads of loads of golden nuggets that just keep coming out. Um we're gonna keep bringing these out every week, every Monday. Um just uh thanks for all the support, everyone. I'm looking forward to keeping bringing them to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:12

100%. So episode three cutting, train, eat, think. Thank you, Francis, as always. Nice one, mate. See you all next week. Thanks, everyone.