Train. Eat. Think. Episode 25 Maingaining!

In this episode, Francis and Benjamin discuss the realities/pitfalls of main gaining, debunking myths, and sharing practical insights on muscle building and fat management. 

We take deep dive into who can benefit from main gaining, how to implement it effectively, and common errors to avoid.

Don't believe the hype on this term!

Key Topics

Definition of main gaining and who can benefit
The realworld application versus scientific theory
The importance of slight surplus and disciplined tracking
Psychological aspects of staying lean and gaining muscle
The role of coaching and accountability

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 ben@yeezuscrew.com  

Thanks for listening. See you next week :D 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Train, eat, think, episode 25. All about main gaining. This is a hot topic in the industry at the moment. Can you build muscle while eating at maintenance? This is what everybody would love to happen. Everybody would love to be able to build all the muscle in the world and not accumulate any fat. It sounds greater than theory, but does it work in execution? And again, we're really looking forward to chewing the fat off this one, mate. This has been a long time coming, hasn't it? Well, you don't have any fat left to chew, mate.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

It's all gone, mate. It's all gone. I've seen the I've seen those shredded picks of you, but seriously, um looking forward to getting into this one, mate. There's there's a lot we can talk about. And and the main thing, obviously, when when we're on the podcast, you know, we're trying to lead people and discuss things that are relevant as well as provide you know logic um that that goes into proving that for a lot of people this this can't be done, it's not a thing. We'll obviously start from the start with it, but yeah, um might even be a couple of um tantrums from each of us on this on this episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

It's uh a lot of it comes from real-world experience, but like it's this is this is coaching experience and what we've put ourselves through. And we're open for new ideas, we do not think that we know everything, right? Um, we've always said this since the very start. We are not just dogmatic and black or white in our approach, but there is certain things that will emerge that they just don't make sense. And I think this main gain this force right in this braca for me, it's one of those where it sounds great in theory. You know, people are doing all there's a lot of literature which supports main gaining. It's all done in these scientific, you know, in the labs, in a pet tradition, whatever. Like what what everybody is missing with this is that we are not a science experiment, we do not build muscle just in a lab. There's real-world application to this stuff, and that's where I think this main gaining falls short, which obviously we're we're gonna delve into now. But that's the uh that's the big issue for me with it, it's the real world application of it.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

I mean, absolutely, it's an uh an expensive process, and I like to to see the kind of logic approach, especially in a lot of the things that we do in nutrition training and fitness space. I mean you think about it really logically. Again, as much as we'd love to never have periods where we've had to accrue accrue body fat, and and we can talk to that, Francis. Okay, maybe when we look back, we we can say we've learned from those mistakes and from mistakes of maybe what the industry did at the time, which was to push the envelope a little bit and how much body fat you had to accrue. I think now in the social media era, um there's a lot of people that are a lot more conditioned year-round, whether or not those are photo shoots and it's five different pictures, and I'm never really going to truly share where I'm at. And again, I I've held my hands up to that and and tried to be better where I'm sharing the the real um stages of it, so I don't just walk about shredded. It's like cumulatively something like 30 or 40 weeks out of the 12 years that I've been coaching, and again, as we always say on the podcast, we're never going to go too far to the left or too far to the right, we're gonna try and be somewhere in the middle. Um obviously, what seems to be happening now is you want to maintain a decent level of condition because we know after a given point we lose things like insulin sensitivity, but again, just bringing it back a step if we do it correctly. And I've got gents at the moment running through this uh very process, they're 30 plus weeks and they've gained minimal body fat because we've had that that good approach. I'm not saying it's main gaining, I'm I'm gonna just go right out there and say I don't really believe in it for the majority, and I think what we can do then, Francis, is just start defining basically what main gaining is and and and go from there, I think.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, I think we you've got to set our stall out with like what what is the definition of main gaining so people understand like what we're talking about here because I think there is a couple of different like definitions of it, but the main premise behind main gaining is like someone is gonna eat at maintenance calories and you're gonna build all the muscle tissue that you potentially can, and you're not gonna accumulate any body fat. Like, literally, you're just gonna slap on muscle tissue upon muscle tissue and never get fat. And it sounds great, doesn't it? We'd love that, mate. Wouldn't you have loved to have trained for the last 10 years and just built muscle tissue and never accumulated any fat? You know, it's it's the holy grail of it. We'd love to do it, and I think this is why a lot of people buy into it, and it's a it's um it's emotionally driven because you know if someone has they've dieted down, they've got themselves really lean, first time in their life they've shredded, and someone says to them and dangles that carrot of, whoo, you can main game right now. You don't you don't need to accumulate or add any body fat if you just listen to us? You just need to eat the maintenance. But the problem with this again, as we've mentioned, is it's the real-world application of it. Is someone goes down the rabbit hole of are they just going to spend the next six, seven, eight months just spinning the wheels, staying too lean, eating that maintenance? How do you know that you're making progression it's versus okay, that slight surplus bumping the scale up steadily, and we know that we're definitely growing, we're definitely doing the right things versus getting really lean and then just spending the next six, seven months wasting time because you're falling for this main gaining trap. But I think a lot of it is uh emotionally driven, mate, because it sounds good, doesn't it? It sounds great, it sounds like that's that's what we want is lifters. We want to build a lot of muscle tissue and not get fat, so that's why people delve into it, and I think they're willing to give it a sort of uh a nod of approval for that reason because it sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

I think it's definitely oversold, you know, and I think you need to be very careful there because it can almost verge on the disingenuous. There are very few people that main gaining would work for, so that the the real question is who is it going to be useful for? And obviously, we can outline that, but muscle tissue is expensive, it takes energy to create that. The body is programmed for things like famine and feast. So, what we're trying to do when we're adding muscle tissue, and to that I mean on every sort of level, we're going against really where the body wants to be, which is why we've got to work so hard in the training. We we sort of mentioned off Earl, Francis will obviously bring that into this arena as well. And you can be training, you know, very, very hard, but if you're not giving your body then the nutrients and the recovery and that surplus, a small surplus, and I think what's really important to mention as well is terminology, as we've said in the past, is really really important, and none more so than here. Being over your maintenance calories isn't maintenance, it's not maintaining. You're either cutting, maintaining, or you're growing, and it's it really is as simple as that. Now, what we'll probably when when we chat about it tonight, we're not gonna look to to pick people up, you know, eight, ten waste sizes. That there is a point where you would come back from an improvement phase or a bulk. Obviously, you're gonna start to lose things like insulin sensitivity. More doesn't become automatically more. But there's a very limited audience that the main gaining can um obviously apply to things like beginners, those with a higher body fat, somebody that's coming back. So we're not challenging that at all. We're not saying that that isn't the case, but if you've got a decent numbers on the board already, you've been doing it a while, your window of being able to achieve this gets smaller and smaller to the point of in my opinion and our experience as well, Francis is slim to none.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

I think you make a a great point about setting out the the demographic of who can actually use main gain to their advantage, as you say, beginners, novices, people with a high amount of body fat, you know, potentially even that this the skinny fat physique that we've mentioned off air as well, coming back after a layoff. Maybe if someone is you know using a dose of PDs or whatever, you know, all there's there's a this there's there is a couple of things that can muddy the waters when it comes to main gaining. But the majority of people who are going to be listening to this podcast now, they're not gonna be in that situation, they're gonna be probably someone who's trained for a couple of years consistently. You know, they've probably had a couple of bulk and cut cycles as it is, so most people don't fall into this demographic. So I think it's important to set that out. Like we're we're not saying that main gaining or maintaining or even that maintenance, it doesn't work for some people, it can. But if you've got a couple of years under your belt, this is where we've got to be a little bit more astute with uh with what we're doing, and we don't want to be falling for main gaining tactics and just end up wasting your time, which will that's ultimately the ultimately the rabbit hole that we think that people will end up going down with that approach. So I think I do think it's important as well to to mention that we are not telling anybody to get fat. We are not saying, you know, that this is something that might have um it was a lot more prominent in the industry a few more years ago, where eat big to get big, bruh. You know, if you're if you're not force feeding yourself, brother, you're not eating enough, you know, you know, all that sorts of stuff. And it it doesn't have to be like that, it doesn't, it's just uh we're looking for a slight daily surplus. Now, what Maine Gainon is saying is look, just eat that maintenance. So let's let's just use a calorie example. Someone's maintenance is 2,000 calories. Main Gainon wants you to sit and eat 2,000 calories and you're gonna build all the muscle in the world. What we're saying to you is look, no, let's let's nudge that up, let's go 2,300. We're not selling someone to go, okay, your maintenance is 2,000 calories, let's eat 3,000 every day. We're not telling anybody to do that. 2,300, couple of hundred calories over, done consistently seven days a week. We just make sure that we're moving the needle forward here. You're gonna see that scale weight coming up steadily, not coming up too aggressively where you're just gonna accumulate tons of body fat, lose incident sensitivity, you're going up 10 waist sizes, and you have to throw your whole wardrobe out. We're not saying that, and that's the differentiator, that's what we're after. Just that slight steady surplus instead of uh you know just just spinning your wheels at uh at maintenance year-round or getting too fast. There's the answer lies somewhere in the middle, as always, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

And and and you're quite right, mate. As someone's getting maybe closer to their genetic potential. You've you've said there, you know, they've been around the block a few times. There is going to be a difference between them adding tissue and holding what they have, it becomes a longer process as well. And as we know, Francis, it's already a long process trying to put on muscle tissue. For me, it would almost feel like that the rate that you would be going at would be so slow that again, as you've rightly said earlier, what what are the markers for this? You your strength probably won't be going up too much if you're not having the surplus. We've spoken about the physiological processes as well. You you need the energy there to create things in the body. Your body's fantastic at homeostasis, it likes to be in the middle. We spoke about when we go into a cut, how the body's really clever at just basically keeping you alive. Again, it's something that we're pushing against to try and get body fat to come off and either keep muscle slash grow a tiny bit of muscle when you're in a cut, and this is the same when when you're at maintenance, your body's gonna get really good at doing the essential processes. And is there any room left over at the end of the day for non-essential processes, which includes muscle gain? And that's where I think as well, when you just bring it back to that logical just thinking it through, it doesn't it doesn't make any sense at all, you know. It's a main it's a maintenance estimation as well. We're always working in the confines of how much energy went out on that given day. You always stick in the nuances that we see. If you eat almonds, you don't absorb the energy as a as a like a caveat, and there'll be things like that where the you don't know everything down to the very 0.1 gram or one calorie of everything that you eat. So, again, if you're trying to set something up that the window's so small, you're gonna miss those rates that you need to grow. You you're gonna you you're probably not gonna change compositionally, which I think is a really good marker that you're putting on muscle tissue. That little bit of body fat's gonna come with it. Again, as we're saying, it doesn't need to be extreme in one way or the other, but it's a nice bit of feedback, not only from the skills, but from the training that you do, from the recovery that you'll be getting, and then you're just seeing and feeling a bit better around just getting more food in basically.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

It's the the problem with it, mate, is it's it's all theoretically, it sounds good. I use the example so you're off air. If I if if if we were a robot, if we could if we could program ourselves to know exactly what our calorie burn is every day to to the to the kilodewel of energy in, energy out, everything like you just we were a computer and we could you know changes in energy expenditure each day, changes in, you know, meat non-exercise, activity, thermogenesis, calories we burn from our training, the thermic effect of food, because as we know, there's the slight differences in the the the digestion of protein, carbs, fats, all this stuff. If we if we were a computer and if we could manage that and we could put ourselves in a 20-calorie surface every day and run a computer like that, yeah, go for it. Like probably gonna work, you're gonna be fine, but this is the problem. We're not computers, we're not big robots that you can we can adjust everything daily like this. How much of a headache would you cause yourself trying to do that? Versus just going, look, this is my estimated maintenance calories, give or take, and I'm gonna eat a couple of hundred over that every day, and we're gonna start to see the scale moving forward. We know that we're in a surplus, and it's not too aggressive, but it's not too little. We just know that we're in a surplus, and as long as saying stimulus is on point, we are going to be growing. So you just take out all the guesswork, and that's where the the main gain and argument for me falls down. We are not robots, we can't track and and manage energy expenditure and all this calorie burn stuff. We can't manage that to the absolute sort of gram or the minutiae because it just causes an absolute headache for someone. So, what is it's either you treat yourself like a robot and just cause yourself an absolute headache, make no progress, versus we go, okay, just a couple of hundred calorie surplus. We know we're growing, you're gonna accumulate a little bit of body fat, it's not gonna be excessive, can be easily taken off when the time is right, but you know that you're growing, and you know that you're not sp uh spending months and months and months wasting time, and that's I know we agree on that. It's just that that's the message that we're trying to get across to people.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

You're bang on, mate. You're you're bang on there in everything that you said. You know, what we're trying to do is as well is prevent people from wasting that time, especially if they've gone deep in a cut and and really worked hard to get themselves into you know really tip top shape. And we know as well from there we can create a really good stimulus and platform for people then to build a lot more muscle tissue, especially as well, like in the the rebound phase, if you want to call it that, when you're coming out of the deficit, when that's controlled. Again, we we've spoken in in episodes before. Long runways, 40 weeks, 46 weeks, 52 weeks, is as long as you can get of a runway coming out of the cut, these are the these are the things that you want, and that just shows you know you've got those little bits that you're adding, and you're finding a good a good range rather than oh, have I gone 20 calories above here? The the accuracy that you would need for that is just to be honest, immeasurable. And if you're gonna drift between what would be true maintenance and a tiny surplus again, your body's not gonna react to that in the best possible way. So, one of the things obviously as coaches that we want to see, and something that we've lived is when we're exiting, and and Francis, you're gonna be doing this very, very soon when you finish your your competition, you're gonna exit out, and you're looking for a two-year period of growth where you're probably gonna want to take as little breaks from the grown process as you can because again, you've worked so hard here, and we are talking about an extreme goal, and in that sense, we're close to five percent body fat, but the the the the terms still apply, it's still the same sort of process, it's just that you're a bit leaner. You want that runway to be huge, you're not gonna come out that and go gonna main game for the next two years.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

I I think you're spot on, mate, and where we were talking now about this rebound phase. So I think I think the issue comes from here because people have got themselves very lean and they're scared to that body fat. It's the psychology of the reversal out phase. That's where the the main gain and the dangle the carat in front of people with that is like oh you're so lean now, you can you can keep this level of shreds, the the vascularity, and you know the that level of condition, you can keep that and just build all the muscle in the world because people have worked so hard to get that lean, and we've been there, mate, ourselves. You know, you you you you you don't want to lose the shape that you've got, but we know at some point body fat accrual is it's needed, you're not gonna turn into the Michelin man and you know become fat as fuck. We're not saying that, but you're not gonna remain that that level of leanness, you know, that that that level of shreds that you've got. That there has to be a bit a bit of healthy body fat that comes on. So it's a great example of Michelin man.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

I wasn't expecting that one, mate. You you got you got me a crack, you got me a cracker. Sorry, sorry, folks. He's he took me aback with that one. It's um it's a great analogy, it really is. And yeah, and you're right as well, Francis, that let's just call it what it is, there's an addiction to being lean. You know, there's a a fantastic feeling to it. You get to see when you're getting right into the nitty-gritty, regardless of where you're going, people start to see the new veins coming and wake up on another day, it's a new vein, a new belt hole. My arms look bigger in this t-shirt. There is an addictive element to that, multiplied by the fact that what we see out there on social media is everybody's just sliced 365, that they're never out of shape, or there's never like a bad picture or a bad angle. Uh again, admitted to admittedly, I've fallen foul of that, and I've tried to fix that and and what I share to say, you know, I sp I spend a lot of time here. Granted, for me, I can push or historically push out a little bit because getting lean for me personally is an easy part. You mentioned earlier about the the the chugging the food in, and that's where I get to pretty quickly in that in that phase. And I'm not even like at peak where I could be in the food, but it's a it's a constant cycle where you're like, I need to get this food in because I need to grow, and that's the really hard part for me as like a a hard gainer or a fast loser, whatever you want to call it. And again, we you're just trying to show and give people examples here that we understand and we've been through that process. If we thought for five minutes that we didn't need to go through that push-up and then we need to bring it back down again, we we wouldn't we wouldn't bother. We'd just sit and go, I I'll quite happily, quite happily doing that.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

It's because we've we've been through it many times, mate, and we've seen that this process works when it's done correctly. So that's why we we we like to plant our flag with this topic because we've we've seen the we've we've seen the big benefits of it when it is. Done correctly, and that's why we we want to get people away from the nonsense and the shit that's in the industry. And we've been at the level of leanness where you say you're seeing your physique change day to day. I'm there now, I know you've been there multiple times. It gets addictive, and it's the psychology of that reversal out. So this is where us as coaches come in because we've been there, we know what people are going through. When you're coming out of that reversal, it's setting realistic expectations and mapping a sort of timeline or a rate of gain, setting some bodyweight caps of what we're going to push to. It's letting people know what's what's going to be expected through you know an actual improvement phase versus main gaining. So you're setting out an appropriate rate of gain as an example, maybe mapping out some rate of gains per month, putting some sort of signpost. Look, we're going to be roughly X amount of weight the end of this month, X amount of weight the end of this month. As a guideline, it gives people a look, this is where we're going to go now. We're going to end the cut here, and this is how we're going to push over the next 11, 12 months. Now, that might only come up, that could be 15 pounds of gain, but that's not main gaining. But it's also not putting on 40 pounds, 50 pounds of shit. That's the difference. But mapping out that timeline and setting up the expectations and psychologically getting someone on board with look, it's okay. We've got to the level of leanness where we're at now. It's it's going to be okay to add a little bit of body fat now. Good body fat because you know, good body when you when you're that lean, mate, and you're coming out, you actually need a little bit of body fat, it's actually going to help you perform better, recover better. So there's there's there's there's nuance to it. So it's it's okay to accumulate a little bit of body fat in the question for new muscle tissue.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Absolutely. Again, it just feeds into your body right now, Francis, is is trying to keep you alive in essence. You know, you're you're pushing it hard. I'm not saying that you're near near death, but what I'm saying is your non-essential processes will slow down, like the rate that your nails have grown, you've probably noticed that they've maybe slowed, and that's because you're pushing your body to like a decent limit. Again, if if someone's coming down to if we use 10% as the marker that we normally do, there will be elements of that, so you've got a little less padding around the joints. We've spoken about how that affects, for example, maybe some pushing for most. You've got different um different biomechanics in at that point, so you perhaps lose some strength in your pushing. But the other thing that's really important as well, and I think it's worth mentioning here. We've done it before, but I think it's worth mentioning here when we're talking about main gaining and then trying to make the most of our improvement season. That exit, that V-bound, if you like, comes down to how adherent you can be on the way out, and also keeping things like your cardio or your steps in, and perhaps tapering them down as you bring the food up. Because what you don't want to do is go from at the moment, again, using you as the example, Francis, you know, you've got high output, your calories are not through the floor, but they're they're lower than they would be if you were in a caloric surplus, and when you just stop doing the cardio and um your adherence levels aren't good, you go from a deficit of here, and here's like your maintenance or even a slight surplus, and you go to here because you've you've lost all of that discipline, basically. And again, I think it's just worth mentioning that because these are the important factors that feed into exactly what you're saying. Rate again, we want to control that. We do want to have um some body fat coming on, seeing some weight on the scales, seeing recovery improving and getting stronger, but we want to do that with as much um control and and being part of the plan that we can.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

100% mate. I think you can make or break the the building phase or the runway within the first couple of weeks when you're coming out, and this is why again you you you you could you correct me if you think I'm wrong here or you've seen this before, but I think I think people have had failed building phases in the past. They've got lean and they've come out too aggressive and or they've had too many off-plan meals and they've just accumulated too much body fat. So then they're just against build phases that are they're against bulking or improvement phases because they've done them wrong. So then someone dangles the main gaining carrot in front of them. Oh, you can build all the muscle tissue in the world and not get fat. They jump at that because they've seen themselves get lean and basically destroy the runway from shitty habits nutritionally, shitty habits with cardio training, just just you know, every all the structure and discipline that they once had in a diet phase, they lose that and they end up getting fat within four, five, six months, where they shouldn't have done. So then that's where the main gain and switch comes on because they've had failed building phases in the past. Would you agree with that? Have you seen that before?

SPEAKER_01 27:11

It's classic six-week bulk, eight eight-week cut almost behaviour, if you if you want to call it that. Um, unfortunately, you you do see it a lot where you know the exit that's me, I'm done with the cut, and it's like on to the next phase. And whether that maybe doesn't involve the coach, so it's like uh thanks very much, done done what I've done, and I'm I'm gonna take it from here. And then you know, it can be you know, well, where do I start from a calorie perspective? I was doing all of this output again. As we mentioned, you know, you're going from the bottom right up to the top, and you don't give yourself that period of adjustment, you don't give yourself time to say, I'm looking in the mirror, as well as the scales, as well as potentially like measurements to see where you're going. And honestly, one day you wake up and you go, Oh, yeah, I've I've definitely pushed that too far in that sort of six, six week period. The other thing to say as well, you know, the the longer that you stay at that lower level, if if you're not coming out, let's say you've undershot the main game that you're trying to do, you're staying on a lower BMR for for no real reason. You you're fighting against your body to try and get that growth, the expensive tissue that you you need the energy for, that you need more recovery for, you're never recovering your body, and it leads to basically the other side of the coin, which is people just eternally being in a cut and never trying to grow or get bigger. Because the ironic thing is if you do go through this phase successfully and get on some more muscle the next time you come to diet, and I can attest to this myself. One of my first second diets, actually, my second I would call proper diet, I was down as low as 14-1500 calories. Again, yes, I was going extreme, a lot of caldo with that to take me close to five-six percent body fat, but now when I diet, I diet almost on double, just a smidge of double those calories. So even at around about 3,000 with the right output, I can lose body fat. So you're keeping your carbs higher, which means you're getting more fuel in your training, better recovery. Yes, there is fatigue when you start to get to the low levels of body fat. But to bring my point home, basically what I'm saying is if you stay on that side too low year-round, too lean, you never give your body a chance to heal to bring up your basal metabolic rate, and you're just basically, as we said earlier, spinning your wheels and potentially wasting maybe like a calendar year, maybe more.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

You make a great point, uh mate, about you about yourself, like dieting now on close to 3,000 calories. Um I've seen the photos obviously when you first started, and I'm sure when you went around, was it £140, £150 when you first started?

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Yeah, one four one four three, mate. Yeah, yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

So £143. So I I've seen it when you when you diet down, now you're close to is it is it around £190, £200 when you diet down lean?

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Yeah, a little bit of dehydration, about £187, £185, but 185, 190, mate.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Yep, yeah, yep. So we're talking a good £45-50 pounds of lean tissue that's been put on your frame there over the course of 10 plus years, right? That's what that's what we're looking at. So according to the main gaining crew, you you should have just maintained your uh maintenance calories and you would have put on 50 pounds of tissue over 10 years. That that's so how how how would that be possible? That's what makes no sense to me. As you mentioned, muscle tissue is expensive. You've gone through multiple building phases and diet phases, you're now able to diet on double the calories that you once was, and that's all because you've spent time building surpluses and adding that expensive muscle tissue. Like you, you nobody is going to maintain their way at 50 pounds up of scale weight or lean tissue. There's just zero way. Do you think you know we towards the top IFBB pros, Samson, Nick Walker, they're gonna maingain the weight at 300 pound plus on stage. It's like, come on, like the proof is in the pudding, but there's so many real-world applications of it, and I just think it's uh you're a great example of it, mate. To put on 50 pounds of lean tissue, that's that's a lot of muscle tissue to slap on a frame, and you're not doing that, eating that maintenance year-round, you're just not.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

No, uh first of all, mate, I really appreciate that. You know, I I've basically put my heart and soul into it across the last I started sort of seriously taking training and seriously in 2013 in the March is when I changed gym and it sort of went up and up a level from there. But that just came from you know giving up my all in terms of my eating and my training, recovery, all that sort of good stuff. And that's what it that's what it takes, unfortunately, to to get that muscle on, especially if you're a hard gainer, you need to push push the boundaries a little bit. There's one sort of thing controversial that I say, and I think everybody should do one sort of call it a bulk if you want, where you're just pushing out and you are getting a fair amount of tissue on. I think everybody would really learn from that, see what happens and see where you can go. Especially as I say, if you find it hard putting tissue on and you find it like easier to get into condition, um, it's it's one of the things to to really push. And it just comes down as well. You you make a make a great point, mate. If the guys at the top of the tree, and and we include the the natural bodybuilders in this as well, you see them when they do guest posing when they're doing the bodybuilding shows, and they're not sliced to within an inch of their life, are they in very, very good condition? Absolutely, of course. But they're nowhere near being at the level that they would be to to compete. And again, extreme example, but something that we can talk to because we're in that sort of environment, we've seen it. But if it was possible, these guys, and I'm saying natural pros here as well as the IFBB pros, why would they bother? They would just walk around, I'm I'm four weeks out, and and just sit there four weeks out year round because you you can grow from that. These guys are making money from it, or they're doing sponsorships and maybe making some money from doing the guest posing, for example, things like that. If that was true, then we'd always see them just sliced within an inch of their life, they would never spend any time getting that bit softer.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

100% mate, and like I I'm obviously involved, like uh working with um you know AJ Morris, he's one of the best natural bodybuilding coaches out there, he's well respected in the industry of natural bodybuilding, and yeah he's got multiple, multiple clients, pro bodybuilders who step on stage and they're sliced, and then they go through two-year off seasons where they're pushing up body weight nice and steady. The next time they step on stage, a couple of years down the line, they've got more muscle tissue. Uh, it's just again, and you you make a great point, mate. If if it didn't work, why bother? Why why do it? And this this is not just you know, AJ who's my coach or whatever, it's it's it's a lot of the top top coaches within natural bodybuilding. So I don't want people to think, oh, uh, you know, what you're talking about IFBB pros, they're loaded on gear, yeah. But it's whatever, like they're all doing the same thing as what the naturals are doing. If it didn't work, why would why would they bother? If if it was just a waste of time and we we could just maingain our weight to an extra five pounds of stage weight over the next couple of years, well, they'd all do it, they wouldn't bother wasting the time. And I can tell you now, for an absolute fact, where I am now at body fat levels, if I raised my calories to maintenance and I just sat there, I would still feel like shit. Like it wouldn't be enough to bring me out of this hole. I uh training performance would it just wouldn't sustain or I wouldn't maximize the muscle tissue or performance that I could have if I just was if I was to eat in a steady two, three hundred surplus, and that's just a fact. I I know my body well, there's just no way I could hold this level of condition and eat not maintenance and expect to put on uh lean tissue, it's just not happening, it's as simple as that.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Honestly, mate, what a fantastic point, and something that you're living right now, and the sort of first time that you've been at this sort of level, so you can talk about it now because you understand all the feelings, how hard you've had to dig to get here, and you're still doing that now for the next couple of weeks before obviously you take to the stage for your first natural bodybuilding show, and that's the that's the trade-off. I think we mentioned just in if not the last episode, two ago, is it worth going below 10% body fat? And the answer for most is probably no, because that's the point where your training starts to dip, as you've said there, you you you wouldn't get the recovery that you're looking for. It's a real struggle to sort of get in the gym. It's like so much focus because I need to go to the gym, I need to get there, I need to do this, and it just really becomes hyper focused, and everything builds into having to do that. So the leaner that you stay, the less opportunity you get to to grow, which probably is like smacks of well, that's absolutely obvious. But then I probably just say, Is it you know, though those trade-offs of trying to stay that lean and fighting against your body's sort of natural place of trying to come back out of this spot that you've you've pushed it into, it just it just makes sense that having lived it myself and and understanding everything that you're going through right now, there's no fun in all honesty when you're four weeks out, even six weeks out and be and below. It's uh you getting in and doing like eight to ten sets is a win in itself, and if you've ever been to that level, then you you can understand you know how difficult it is. And using Jonathan as an example, who's one of my um natural clients, he he stepped on stage in 2022, and I think we were 87 kilos, and he came on stage in 2024, and he was 97 kilos on stage. Some of the guys up there with him were I think the guy was 104, another guy was 102. So some of the guys that he's gone against, really big. Hopefully, the next time he goes on stage is going to be 100 kg plus, but that only comes from from the grown phases, which obviously, Francis, you're gonna step into, but when your shows are done across the next six weeks or so.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Yeah, you make a great point there with Jonathan, mate, as well. And you know, when when when we're at this level of leanness, mate, uh training is it's not really fun, it's it's not that it's not productive, it's just you're hanging on, you're getting in there and you're getting your stimulus just to hold on to your muscle tissue. So I couldn't imagine trying to stay at this level of body fat, eating that maintenance and trying to build muscle tissue from this place. Now, I I think there is I think there's some slight individual difference on this. I think people some people will perform better at a little bit higher body fat. Some people can maintain maybe a little bit lower and perform better. I know myself personally, I've got my my sort of fighting weight where I perform well. It's it's always genuinely being around that sort of 95 kilo to 100 kilo. Now, right now I'm 87. Think about that. Uh diced, nearly stage lean, 87 kilo. I perform best around 95. So we're talking 8 kilo of body but body weight coming up. That's where I feel good. I I really feel I can have productive training between 95 and 100 kilo. So if you were to look at body fat percentages there, once I reverse out, I'm probably slowly going to tinker myself up. You know, I'll probably be 90 kilos within a couple of weeks with glycogen, the replenishment that goes on. But I want to get myself back to a place where I can have productive training, and that would probably be the low 90 kilos within the first month or so, and that's fine. I cannot stay 86, 87 kilos and expect to have productive training sessions. I'll probably be right 92, 93 within the first four, five, six weeks, and then we go from there nice and steady. You have your sort of set points and your fight and weight where your body likes to it likes to be, it likes to be to grow muscle tissue, and that's what will happen with me. And that that's that's what people are missing. If I try to stay 87 kilos shredded, eating that maintenance, it's just makes no sense. Get yourself out, get yourself in into your slight surface, get yourself growing. Boom. I think two, three years down the line, because it's not just about trying to remain shredded year round, and then just uh you're shooting yourself in the foot.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

It becomes so difficult even just to do things that like normal things in life, you're going to be so diet fatigued as well, especially trying to maintain such low levels that that sort of irritability that we've spoken about, and and it comes to probably 90% of people. That's something that you've got to internalize and absorb because it's nobody else's problem or issue that you chose to do this and and not eat the foods that are not on your plan or not going to take you to where you want to go, and all of this features in because eventually then you're going to start hampering yourself as well as the close relationships that you could have with people because you'd never be able to go out for a meal, you would never be able to, you know, basically do anything because the whole thing would be focused on trying to keep this low level of body fat. It's almost like playing a game where you're just destined to eventually succumb and you're as well just understanding that you're as well setting that course and having that plan to say, here's my flag in the sand. I've I've done what I came to do on this, and and then how do I get out and grow? And I don't know if that's a good link, Francis, if we start sort of maybe doing a little of the case studies or maybe starting with like a beginner, somebody that's got higher body fat, and we could talk through maybe that would look like whether being new to like serious training, a little bit extra body fat in there, and what what we could do with them when they're looking to do not a main gain, but you know, uh something proper.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Yeah, so with with that type of uh demographic mate, obviously, because they've got a lot of body fat on them or store body fat, they're gonna be using a lot of that for for energy anyway, even if they are a maintenance. So for them, they don't need a uh a slight surplus, they probably don't even need much of an aggressive deficit, to be honest. Like it can be it could be a slight deficit or main gaining because they've got that much body fat on them. Again, the body can utilise that for fuel as well. Also, the if they're new to training, uh the training stimulus at this point, for someone who's new, it's so powerful because everything is just a novel stimulus. If someone hasn't lifted a weight in their life before, and you're coming in the gym and everything is new, you your body's gonna it's gonna grow like an absolute weed. So, this is where main gaining and and and find the maintenance calories, it works really well for this demographic because they're gonna be able to again they're good, they're still gonna be able to grow and probably drop body fat while eating that maintenance. And but the main thing for me here is the training stimulus is the most powerful driver with this. That's what is the catalyst for making these changes.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

So probably break the internet here, but they're in essence going to turn fat to muscle. So does that basically, yeah. I mean, that that's not obviously the mechanism, but exactly what you're saying there, mate. The training stimulus comes. A decent level of protein. They're doing something for the first time. They're learning how to train hard right off the bat. And you've got that sort of balance between slight deficit, maintenance, recomp, maybe a little bit of a surplus. And you see where they sit along that. And I've used that with some clients as well in the past where they come and we're trying to find out where their place is, where their starting point is. And it can take a couple of weeks just to find out how somebody's body reacts to even a slight tweak in micronutrients. Excuse me, sorry, micronutrients. And the other thing I would say is one of the things that really gets noticed, especially when you're bringing a coach on board, and something of experience myself, your accountability, or in terms of the application that you have, because you know you're checking in on a Friday, you're doing that a little bit more, you're making sure that you're spot on, you're making sure that you've checked off all the boxes. So you could even turn something that that isn't into something that is just because you're so dialed in on it, and it just gives you that leg up because you've you've made the choice that you want the change, and it's like I'm going to go after this, and that's where obviously then as a coach you're learning somebody and you see them come up because the redehrance levels have shot up to probably a place that they haven't gone before. So they're creating one of the things I really enjoy is people then creating their own journeys, so to speak, because they're coming out the traps, they're flying and they're doing everything right. And whether or not you've one client I'm thinking about, I brought his calories up because he was dieting for so long, I brought his calories up, and he's continually dropped on the higher calories. But again, that's because of the adherence and all that sort of good stuff. So these are the these are the things that really count and matter.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

100% mate. I think it's uh I I call it the the the haul of arn effect, like when people know that they're being watched or being studied, the behaviour should they just pick up with things again. Massive uh massive benefits of a coaching, especially for beginners. So if that's if that's a beginner with higher body fat, that's how we go about that. But let's flip it on its head. What about a beginner who's just you know naturally lean, you know, quite quite thin, hasn't got a lot of body fat, you know, where you was 140 145 pounds, like no muscle tissue, just uh just just nothing, just just just like a rake. So where would you where would you go from that scenario? What what would you do with someone there?

SPEAKER_01 46:39

I mean that this is one of the ones where you know you would start out trying to find out where where they sit calorically a couple of weeks to see, you know, are are they are they do they struggle to eat? Something that I've experienced. Yeah, um, just trying to build up the appetite, you know, maybe in using things that are a bit more calorie dense if needed, excuse me, and just trying to watch the scale and and the feedback as well come up about performance and training. Again, you would expect that to be pretty good, again, if they'll they'll learn the technique because it's it's new stimulus, you're just you're just starting, and you've got that good runway, or you're looking to get muscle on. So probably maintenance are above, and all in all honesty, probably a small surplus, whilst we let the training, and depending on what activity levels are like, you're obviously going to try and set a kind of level so that you've got all of the benefits that come from from the movement, but not overly because obviously you don't want to stimulate too much, um, and just encouraging sticking to the goal, which would be if you want to grow muscle tissue, then this is this is what we want to do. I think there can be that fear I'll I'll share with you, mate. I wanted to get big, right? But I didn't want to get too big, and obviously now knowing now what I didn't know then is you know, don't worry about that because it's not gonna happen for you. Um I'm not genetically gifted in in that kind of area, but again, that's something that maybe somebody doesn't know at the beginning, they don't understand how it's all put together, which is obviously what we're gonna try and offer. But it's just that you know, taking the handbrake off a little bit and understanding we're gonna guide you here on the right path, and and those are just some of the things that I think would would help that particular person, you know, starting off naturally lean that you're trying to maximise that for them.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

I think this demographic of the naturally lean person, I think the big struggle is the eating side of things. I think the struggle is to eat enough food, and it's always they always say, Oh, yeah, I eat loads, mate. I eat loads of food, and then you get a food log off them and they eat like a bird, they eat like some sort of wood pigeon or something, like you're looking at the calories across the day, and it's like, what are you doing here, mate? Like, we've got to get these calories up now, and that's what you mentioned there. It's it's getting the you know, we're not just gonna force feed them shit food, but it's it's eating more calorie-dense foods that'll be coming in now. So again, you know, you you more more white rice, more things like some more fats in some of your meals, like you know, utilising maybe things like nut butters, olive oil, fattier cuts of meat. It's getting um more calorie-dense food in there for them so they can get the calories up a little bit easier. Things like um fruit juices as well. We're not against that sort of stuff, like natural fruit juices, um, things like dates, drive fruit, honey, all this sorts of stuff, which can be you can easily add calories in there and not rehab it on the digestive system. So it's getting them used to eating the food that they need to be at to put on muscle tissue, whether that be that slight surplus or maintenance range, but what they're naturally leaning, people tend to just naturally fall into is that they think they're eating enough, but they're actually in a deficit. So that's what you've you've got to really hone in on making sure that they're uh they're getting enough food in.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

100%, mate. You know, cover your basis first of all with the micros, making sure that you're getting everything in, and then at the point where they they can't eat anymore. Again, I I can completely talk to this. You're then focusing on on the macros, which would come from things like you know, as you mentioned, your rice, bit of haribo, some dark chocolate, things like that, honey and your yogurt, granola is another good one, and you've already got your let's just say your chicken and rice covered, but that's the real struggle. Again, something I I can definitely talk to. I remember seeing my very first plan of what I was to eat, and I was like, How am I gonna eat that in a day? And and that's what I learned. You know, you need to you need to eat if you want to grow, and and that's that's really what it comes down to. Um, that if you want to get the tissue on, then you need to commit to it. Because, like you say, if you're eating like a butt, you know, like uh like a finch or something like that, you're just never gonna get the calories in that that you need to grow, which means your weights are never gonna go up, you're never gonna get the recovery. So stepping into scenario three, mate, which would be somebody that would been maybe around a couple of let's say bulking and cutting traditional cut bulk cycles. So, like a year of decent training, let's just say they're in a reasonable kind of body fat um range and they've come in to you and said, you know, I want to get a wee bit more muscle on, but I definitely don't want to get too sloppy. How would you set that up, mate?

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Yeah, so I think this is 100% got to be your small surplus, hasn't it? Like we're not we're not telling someone to I wouldn't tell this person to need that maintenance because the the past or the newbie stage of where novel stimulus and eating that maintenance, they can milk the most out of that. They're past that stage now. So they're genuinely if they want to maximize progress, what are the phases they're gonna be? It's gonna be uh you're in a deficit or you're gonna be in a slight surplus. So if these want to build muscle tissue, just a slight surplus. Let's let's let's take your maintenance calories, let's get two, three hundred calories over where your maintenance is. Let's start assessing your scale weight over the next seven to fourteen days, see where the average is going. We want to see that average just taking up nice and steady. I like our rate of gain meaning between 0.5 to 1% per month, roughly in that range. So let's get yourself a little bit of a slight surplus in there, monitor where your rate of gain is going after the first 14 days. If we're happy where it's trending, happy days, we'll keep it where it is. If it's not moving in the direction that we want, and we've already added two, three hundred calories. Okay, well, maybe let's add on an extra 100 or 150 calories, get the needle moving forward with that. Because an extra hundred calories a day over a week, that brings your weekly calories up an extra 700. That's enough to get something maybe nudging forward. So that's how I do with the with an intermediate who's reasonably lean. I'd just get yourself on that small controlled surplus and we just monitor where your body weight are going and we uh we get the feedback from that.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

We're in the same spot, mate, exactly. You know, if if if we see the sort of weight maintaining for a you know a period of time, we'd maybe just bump like an extra portion of carbs in, half a bag of rice or a wrap, something around the sort of 40 grams of carbs mark, roughly like 125 calories or something, and that's just gonna be enough to lift, and you're gonna go by the lifts that they're performing, where the measurements are along with with photos, I think, is a is a really good one, and just make sure that they're definitely not men gaining because you know the the goal's sort of been called out that we want to get more muscle tissue on, and that's something that again, you know, we're trying to when I say protect people against, I mean we're trying to deliver the result that we're not trying to hold them too lean, but similarly, you know, as we said earlier, we're not trying to push them to the other end of the scale where within six months they're a like a size 40 waste, for example. So at that point, if you've got them in a in that energy surplus and you've got the tracking on point, obviously by that point you'll set up things like check-ins, the communications open, and as well, you know, that sort of coach's intuition, you sort of understand of the pathway then that you've got somebody on and what you're kind of expecting to see, and when something comes through that you're either not sure of or not um happy with, then you make the call, don't you?

unknown 54:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

What I would like to touch on with this, especially with this person, like this sort of demographic using the slide surplus. You've probably seen this yourself. If you ever took someone's weekly average, so they're going up nice and steadily, and all of a sudden you just have one week where they might their average might drop. Okay, it's at that point you don't need to panic right away and add more food in right away. I've seen it happen where someone's average just dropped for a week, and we just we we just stay cool, don't change nothing, keep going, but the average bumps back up again the next week. So sometimes it's don't make knee-jerk reactions off one average week of readings. I like to let it settle 14-21 days and then make a call. Don't make a reaction after seven days because sometimes your average body weight, week to week, it might actually drop a touch, but then when you zoom out and you look where your monthly average is coming, it's still coming up in the range. Perfect. It just stops you from adding too much food too fast. And this is where the coaching eye comes in. You get to know your clients who you're working with, you're looking at your the visuals, you're assessing training performance, you're getting all these metrics. If someone's training performance is going up, visuals look great, and their average body weight just for the first time in week, just to step back a touch. I'm not worried, I let that settle out, and nine times out of ten, the average body weight, it just continues to keep climbing, it's just been one anomaly every week. I think it's important to get that across because I see that quite a lot.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

I think it's so important, mate, and I think that that's elite coaching, in all honesty, where you know you're taking that step back and you're looking at it and saying, This is one week. I do see often and and sometimes in content where it's like I've been doing this, and then three changes come off the back of one week, for example, of that, and it it's not the play. If you're up for the month, so let's say two pounds and two pounds, so you went up four pounds and you've come down £1.2 in a week, well, you're still up. You see how good my maths are net £2.8. So that's still you're still in a good place for the month that you've climbed, maybe a little over, but again, your average is that you're up, and that's what you need to be looking at. That there will be. I often say to people, whether it's the scale going up the way or the scale going down the way, pretty much more on the downside, but it's the only thing that we can't control. If you've had the perfect week and even mirrored the week previous and the week before that, you know, nothing's changed. We know how we love to be, you know, routine removing the decision fatigue, Francis. And there's people out there that that do the same thing. The only thing we can't control is the number and the scale, but that's why we don't use scale as like the the top factor or the only factor. We've got multiple metrics, as well as that coach and eye that you mention. You know, you're keeping an eye on the pictures, you're making sure that they're confirming what you see, the feedback that you're given, and you just you bring that all together to make a judgment. And I think that that could be potentially as well. I'm not I'm not gonna decry everybody with this, and it could be maybe a huge generalization, but your coach probably won't make changes every single week, and and probably neither should they, in all in all honesty, because you are gathering data, and that data feeds into another week of of the bigger picture, it's not just that week in an isolation in terms of what's happening. I don't know how you feel about that, mate.

SPEAKER_00 58:14

I give you a good line, mate. Sometimes the best decision or the best change to make is no change at all. Just let it settle, let the dust settle, and then you'd have a bigger picture. Again, I've seen it so many times, and uh again, I think that's uh uh as you say, it's a it's a testament to understanding the clients that you work with, and again, you're building that skill of the coach and I, and that just comes with the the more bodies and people that you coach, the more that you see these trends happening. You you know just not to make knee-jerk reactions, and again, it's just something that I've experienced countless times with it. But that'll bring us on to our number five when we're talking about experienced, would be uh let's say like an advanced natural, you know, probably somewhere where I am myself right now, 16 years of training, and I'm about to you know, obviously step on stage for the first time, but you've worked with you we mentioned Jonathan before, many, many top natural athletes. You know, let's take Jonathan as an example. How would you when he stepped off stage last time? What what are you doing with him when he steps off stage and you're setting up his improvement season? How are you going about it? Now, this is someone with you know 15 plus years of training, he's got an elite physique, you know. The the the the the rate of uh how much muscle tissue he's gonna grow in a year, it's it's not gonna be at the rate of when he's one, two, three years in. What are you doing with an advanced natural?

SPEAKER_01 59:37

I think as well, it's really important to discuss when we said earlier about adherence and things like cardio. Knowing Jonathan as he is, he is an advanced natural bodybuilder, but he's also so focused. He went and did cardio the the day after he'd competed by choice because that's what he wanted to do. He chose steak and a protein bar and some yogurt before he went to bed when he could have had anything that he wanted. So, what we do for him and and for most is you're gonna look to start bringing people back to maintenance calories or as close as you can get them in the first week or two, I would say, and then you're just trying to let the body recover, as we mentioned earlier. We're gonna look to bring up body fat levels a bit, especially from that sort of low. When I say dangerous, I don't mean deathly, but you know that they're not ideal levels for training, let's be honest, and we want to try and get his performance aligned because as much as again we've spoken about earlier, Francis, we're trying to manage fatigue or we're trying to go in and still do and fight for the reps that you've got there, especially as you are doing at the moment. We're gonna turn that on its head, but we want to do that again over like a slow incremental period because you don't want to get any injuries kicking around with things like lower synovial fluid at that point in time and just the reduction in body fat. So, we're looking to how do we kick start the body and get you grown? That's gonna come from a little more food, bring down the cardio or the output as well. One of the things actually, with Jonathan on his last prep, we dropped his cardio all the way down because he came in so quickly, and this was even on higher levels of food and lower levels of cardio than than we had previously. Again, a nod to the fact that collectively over time he's now got another 10 kilograms of stage weight, so we know then that that's pretty much muscle tissue, so it gives you an idea again of how important it is to get more muscle tissue on, and what that does is it changes it just it just changes everything, changes everything in his body, how it reacts. Um, again, as well, with him being at that stage of 15 years of lifting, we need to be realistic about how much muscle he'll put on. You made a great point earlier about two-year cycles of of improvement, and that's where exactly Jonathan will go into. So we know that we've got two years to grow him, so we're not in any rush to get him a lot of body fat onto him. We do want that controlled. So those are the kind of factors that we're looking into. Get the food up, start tapering down the steps, and then focusing on his training so that we get him back to a spot where he's progressing in the lifts. Whereas for the last few weeks, it's literally fighting to hold on, which is exactly you know where you are at the moment, Francis, and kind of what you're going to be experiencing in the next six weeks or so.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

So it's basically longer, longer improvement phases, isn't it? Like nice and steady, uh keeping your surplus, just you know, nice and tight, being very adience and a discipline with all things food, cardio training, and being being very slow and you know enjoying the process of it and being in it for the long haul, that's that's what you're gonna need to have that sort of mindset, especially 15-16 years deep, as we know that the gains don't come as fast in terms of adding muscle tissue. So it requires that meticulousness to to uh to get what's what's needed out of it, mate. So you make great points. So I think if we if we just wanted to sort of bring everything to a close and and wrap everything up about main gaining and what our thoughts are, I think you can say for for both of us, we're like for the majority of people, it's it's it's a big no, apart from some of the demographics that we might have spoken about before. Um, we're just big on we just don't want people to waste the time in the gym and spin your wheels for years on end. You know, what is a two-three hundred calorie surplus a day versus trying to read that maintenance? You're going to accrue a little bit of body fat with the muscle tissue and the performance gains that come with that, and you know that you're objectively growing, that is worth it in my eyes.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

I I just echo everything that you've said, Francis. You know, we've I think we've given some fantastic examples and a lot of things tonight and in the episode that people can take away and ultimately, you know, sort of make their own minds up. We we can only put the information out there that we know and and understand to this point what we've seen ourselves, what we see with with clients that we work with, and just present that as the best case to why we believe what we believe in.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:23

Um, what I would like to say, me, as well, is that like people come to us uh for coaching. We're here to get results, right? My livelihood depends on my coaching. This is this is all I do, right? I know you're big on your coaching as well, like you invest a lot into it. I would not be taking money off people and working with people and giving them a crack of shit. If I didn't believe in something wholeheartedly, I wouldn't do it. I've got it's just the same as you, there's loads of clients getting lean and going through building phases where we're going through the cyclical approach of you get lean, we build out, lean builds out. There is some people who are eating our maintenance, but they're they are in the demographic that we spoke about. If I didn't think going in the in a in a slight surplus was the best way to maximise muscle tissue growth, I wouldn't be doing it. I'm gonna be doing it myself when I step off stage. I'm gonna be going on a two-year-long building phase, slight surplus, just what we've just mentioned about there with Jonathan. I'm gonna be doing the same thing. If it didn't work, we wouldn't be doing it. And I think that that's a great way to close it.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:29

Absolutely, mate. It's almost to the point where it would be disingenuous to do it that way, and in all honesty. I I I echo every one of your sentiments.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:40

Great episode, mate. And if anybody is interested in coaching or working with either of us, you can find Benjamin and Coach Benjamin Years on Twitter and at CoachFHM. Drop us a line again. If you if you're tired of spinning your wheels and you're not sure what direction to take with your trade in, drop us a message and I would be happy to have a chat. But yeah, enjoyed that one, mate. Fantastic, mate.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:05

Yeah, if you're um fed up main gaining, just give us a shout. But yeah, a good good episode, mate, and we got through it without any rants, which was good.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:16

There's still plenty of time for them on the next one. Still a little bit left of prep yet, so we might get that one on next Monday. But yeah, we we appreciate the support, everybody, and uh we will we'll talk to you in the next one, mate. See you later.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

Thanks everyone. Cheers, Francis.