How long can you be in a deficit | ETP#62

[Unknown2]: 0:27

happy tuesday friends welcome back to another episode of eat train prosper today is brian and myself and what we are going to have is a little bit of a follow up episode to two episodes ago we talked about preparing for your summer shreds and in doing so we just find it important anytime we are speaking around something like a calorie deficit where there can be a negative aspect to it that we frame the conversation a little bit more robustly so today we are going to cover basically what limits how long you can be in a deficit and some of our ideas around that that may be very beneficial for you in implementing it before we jump into the meat and potatoes of today's episode brian what's going on

[Unknown1]: 1:09

yeah this is the last few hours in san diego for us so tomorrow morning at circa five a m we will be leaving for our road trip trying to make it all the way to like moab on the first day which is gonna be like twelve hours with no stops and probably more like fourteen with stops so so big day of driving ahead of us which also means that today right after we get off this podcast is my very final training session in san diego so a little bitter sweet i've i've i've kind of began to endure being in the commercial gym and kind of absorbing the energy of the people around me i think that probably that's my favorite part of being in the commercial gym is just that energy that permeates the entire building and it almost motivates you to work a little bit harder like that idea that someone's watching you even though nobody is and nobody cares right but like yo that swo dude over there that really hot chick over there like is totally watching me right now as i do these leg extensions so so that's been kind of cool and it's been fun just having a different perspective on things and of course i'm going to miss access to some of the prime equipment and stuff like that too but equally excited to get back home and have access back to all of the things that i have metrics on in diagnostics and i can see how these five weeks have actually gone as far as you know whether strength is being gained or lost or stayed the same or whatever it is um so like i said a bit bitter sweet but um looking forward to my final session today i have upper body oh and then yesterday i had a really cool pendulum squat to final to as my final session for quads in in san diego so you know i have the pendulum at home that i do all the time so it's not like a pendulum squat is a new movement that i'm introducing where you necessarily wouldn't expect a ton of neural or ski adaptations along the way however it is a new brand a different machine so i think that you would expect there to be some neural adaptations but either way i basically started in my first week here in san diego with four plates on the pendulum and got eight reps and literally almost failed the eighth rep like came to a grinding stop in the middle and then somehow like pushed my way through um and then this week you know five weeks four and a half weeks later i uh put four plates plus fifteen pounds on there and i got eight reps with maybe one ri r like it didn't come to a stop in the middle but it certainly slowed pretty drastically and so i don't know how much of that is in fact like neural or skill adaptations to the machine versus whether you know i actually made some progress while we were here but um for sure i'm up fifteen pounds the effort was equal or slightly less and then on top of that ip and my sissy squats for the first time in months like i'd been basically just hitting forty five pounds for nine forty five pounds for nine forty five pounds for nine week after week after week and then this week i got ten and um so that was pretty cool like i don't know if it was just a good day or uh or what but increasing pendulum consistently pring the sissi squat it was a really solid quality day of training and uh looking forward to to do upper body stuff for the final session you're on mute

[Unknown2]: 4:50

updates from me i had to deal with the internet of verizon for a very long time last night and it it got the best of me as much as much as we enjoy the travel lifestyle i have been increasingly looking forward to the day when i just have a home and i'm not like my my bullshit meter is getting close to filled with like dealing with internet things and like stop gap solutions and like piecing things together so it's been hitting me a little bit like last night was pretty brutal um but but the positive side is i have been i've hit this stretch where i am loving working right now i've worked straight through the past two weekends um and have just really really been enjoying it i'm feeling super creative and super motivated at my positioning in the space and what i'm delivering to my clients and i'm really just trying to capitalize on as much time as i have doing that so that's been a very very awesome feeling i'm loving the standing desk i kind of converted cold turkey i literally don't even have a chair here and the only thing that will bother me is like my heels will start to to get sore towards the like i mean it's nine ten at night and i'm still standing here so that will happen a little bit and then lastly with training i have been really enjoying like i'm i'm at this gym that's not well equipped like not by any stretch of the imagination but one of the things that i'm really implementing that was a big takeaway from the n one practical is when cassim is like just be creative and explore and when i now that i know what i am looking for with like positioning and and movements i can just i'm just getting creative with with recreating them like i don't have a seated row but there's a cable stack and we go well if i pull the bench over here and there's this like two by four then i can shove underneath and wedge my feet into like i can recreate that um rear del row like perfectly i just grabbed my angles ninety grips and then i attach them to a straight bar and like i can set up my angle i'm like this is perfect so it's just like thinking outside the box and using your imagination and the knowledge you have of which position you want to recreate and then what tools you have at your disposal to recreate them and that's been really really fun so that's been sweet but other than that um not too much just just enjoy enjoy another another opportunity to just continue doing what i do and and and making the most out of it i've been really feeling really really grateful for that lately

[Unknown1]: 7:30

yeah totally man i love the the idea of just being creative at the gym it kind of makes the process fun too so a huge fan of that um i have one more quick update too and uh when we started the follow my program program i briefly talked about how we would have to do a metabolic phase at some point and i kind of like was like tongue and cheek like oh that's you know not really looking forward to that one well i'm going to do it starting march twenty eighth we're gonna have a de load week so next week um i have a little small mouth surgery thing that's happening next week as well so that's just perfect for that to be like a de load week for the program and then starting the following monday i think april fourth we're going to jump into a what i think will be a four week metabolic phase i'm gonna do two weeks systemic where it's kind of like circuit style compound movement type thing just kind of increasing work capacity systemically and then the next two weeks after that we'll probably be the more like local peripheral um muscle endurance type training so i'll say three to five weeks i think four is probably going to be the number but something like that for a metabolic cycle and that is actually going to coordinate with the start of my deficit so this is one of the things we talked about on the shreds podcast two episodes ago was you know starting your diet early and kind of getting ahead of the curve there and that is something that i think i want to do i thought about it i ruminated on it and this way

[Unknown2]: 9:07

that's

[Unknown1]: 9:07

starting the diet essentially in the end of march early april is going to give me three full months uh to hit it before i go on vacation for july fourth weekend to wisconsin and what i would love is to be able to have the diet completed by that point instead of having to take like a two week diet break and then jump back into the diet so i think that that actually transitions relatively well into our discussion of what limits how long you can be in a deficit because for me i know that if i'm going three months that's pretty much the end of it unless there's a diet break in there so the decision for me will essentially have to come if i'm gonna put a diet break in there i almost need to do it before the fourteen weeks like by the time i get to wisconsin it will have been fourteen weeks at that point i don't know if i want to do a diet break and jump back into a diet anyways so at some point in the middle of those fourteen weeks i'll i'll make a decision as to hey am i behind schedule and i may need that diet break in wisconsin well then i probably need another diet break at some point earlier on too so i know for me like twelve to fourteen weeks of dieting without a small hiatus in there is just too much but what do you think what are your thoughts on all that

[Unknown2]: 10:25

yeah what i like is we have a practical example to talk about right so the first thing i think that limits not necessarily how long can you but how long should you is what is the ambition of your goal right so brian i'm going to pose this to you because we have this perfect working example what is the goal of your diet for this season

[Unknown1]: 10:47

yeah i mean so last time i got down to one eighty two right and that was pretty lean for me but i would say that that's about the goal this time too unfortunately i don't have the very important data of what i actually weigh at the moment because i haven't had a scale here for five weeks um i've weighed myself post workout at the gym but that's you know with liquids and food in me and a pump and and clothes and and all that stuff so i think i could render a guess that i'm in the mid to high one ninety seconds so using that as a a general starting place that would mean that i have sixteen pounds to lose or something along those lines and we had the discussion the other day about how you know the first five pounds that you lose are really fast and they're not really even fat so i may only have twelve pounds of actual fat to lose and like four pounds of glycogen and water and food volume and stuff like that in which case twelve to fourteen weeks probably seems like a reasonable time frame yep

[Unknown2]: 11:53

yeah i think that's that's that's perfect so it's it's a really cool talking point because like you said those first that first week when you button things up you're consistent you're going to drop the most weight that week and like i said weight not necessarily fat and then from there you're like hey right uh about a half a percent to one percent right even on on average on either end ends up being around a pound or so and then you have like i have twelve weeks for that so i think that is a very

[Unknown1]: 12:20

y

[Unknown2]: 12:21

it's an easy frame up and it makes sense with the ambition of hey this is about how lean i was last time assuming that you may have slightly more ever so slightly more tissue or you do a better job at maintaining the tissue that you have as you diet

[Unknown1]: 12:36

yeah

[Unknown2]: 12:37

that's about my ballpark again and it's a really really easy plan so i think for that's about my ballpark again and it's a really really easy plan so i think for that like twelve weeks and that's to get really lean but let's face it brian like that like twelve weeks and that's to get really lean but let's face it brian like you're already lean you're probably you're already lean you're probably twelve thirteen percent body fat fourteen maybe

[Unknown1]: 12:50

i don't know i feel like fifteen maybe

[Unknown2]: 12:52

he's

[Unknown1]: 12:53

it's it's just like i guess the way you

[Unknown2]: 12:55

me

[Unknown1]: 12:56

define what body fat percentages are and like you know you always have to remember that people with a lot of muscle can make higher body fat percentages look good still so i think with my body fat it's always ambiguous and difficult to tell because i hold most of that fat in my glutes and legs which you don't always see um and so i can have that six pack and like still have some lines in my delt and stuff when i believe i'm probably at fifteen percent body fat so if i were to have to render a guess right now i would say fifteen uh is is my guess but um i could be wrong on that i don't know you know

[Unknown2]: 13:35

gotcha gotcha yeah it is interesting i'm the complete opposite right i will hold mine in that um more android region in my stomach ah like i'm well i'm like in like one ninety six one ninety seven right now fasted in the morning like when i'm training legs i still have like veins all through my quads and stuff like that but my abs are not there

[Unknown1]: 13:55

yeah i don't i don't have veins in my quads yet at a hundred and eighty two pounds even like they look more diced obviously and separated between the musculature but but i i don't have any veins or anything like that so like for me i have an ab vein at you know twelve percent body fat but i don't have any quad veins at eight percent body fat

[Unknown2]: 14:16

yes and it's the complete opposite for me like i have to be dumbing before i get like actually decent abs and stuff so it's interesting like it's where you're gonna we're all gonna have differences in that and that's going to come back to

[Unknown1]: 14:28

okay

[Unknown2]: 14:28

like one

[Unknown1]: 14:30

yeah

[Unknown2]: 14:30

male versus female rate fat storage pattern hormone pattern patterning and then also just individual

[Unknown1]: 14:36

yeah

[Unknown2]: 14:37

variation too so

[Unknown1]: 14:39

yep

[Unknown2]: 14:40

kind of jumping back on track right with with how long you can be in deficit the ambition of your goal is the first one right that's obviously going to the more ambitious you are the longer it will go secondly how far are you from that goal right that's a really really big one you can have not a very in by the ambition of your goal i really mean how lean do you want to be right like an eight percent body fat for a male right we're speaking in terms of males on this show it's going to be a longer attempt just because it takes more to get to those lower body fat percentages if your goal is fifteen percent i wouldn't consider this like very overly ambitious unless your starting point is like maybe thirty percentage something like that like i was just having this conversation with a client earlier this morning before we recorded the show and mapping out realistically how far away and how long that might take us so ambition being the first one second being proximity from your goal the because in the earlier weeks right or when you have a larger when you're starting at a larger body fat percentage you can lose more with a more body fat with less risk of cantabrian body mass as you start at a leaner body weight that risk let's call it a risk for sure of catabolism as a fuel substrate goes up it's just the the nature of the beast right you can't completely there there's some strategies you can use which we've covered in different episodes but it's wishful thinking to to say i'm going to maintain you know one hundred percentage of my lean body masses like diet so that's a second big thing anything you wanna add onto that one brian

[Unknown1]: 16:41

no i think that that's definitely the the point about how lean uh you're gonna get is ultimately the biggest thing because we know that as you get closer to that goal that the percentage of weight loss that you can do week to week without feeling the compromising effects is going to decrease and i talked about my own personal example i think on the last two episodes as well two episodes ago where i referenced that you know the first ten pounds went off in like six weeks and then the last ten weeks i lost six pounds so it like completely flip flopped and reversed and that's just because it gets harder you have to be so much more adherent you have to be more uncomfortable and just have less overall fat to lose so um so definitely that goal is super important and so for me going from like fifteen to eight would be way different than me going from like twenty to twelve or something along those lines

[Unknown2]: 17:34

exactly the next part that i wanted to talk about is where like where in your priority of of life does this come into play right because the longer it goes the more of a priority it kind of needs to be because in order to continue to facilitate fat loss in the later stages it requires you to run a tighter ship so example being if you are a let's use brian example right so i mean we've talked about this before that's been we've had the conversation and you've kind of brought it up or hey you're family man right and it's like does attaining these leaner body compositions in me having to further restrict what might be like a date night or a vacation or something like that like is there a added benefit there and obviously that trade off is going to be different for every single person but the where you find that answer and is this just impacting me is this now beginning to impact like my you know my relationship with my wife or husband or children that comes into play as well so if you are a fortunate enough to be a a lone wolf like myself per se i can diet it for pretty much as long as i want it doesn't really impact anyone else because there's no direct like you know dependencies on me or there's no one who's like aaron you know but i want to go get pizza this weekend or whatever like it's just me so where i can diet for like twenty weeks if i wanted to because it's literally just me that there's no other responsibilities for me to hand off or for me to take over for anyone else you may not find yourself in that i would say let's call it a luxury and it's important to realize like your wife your husband probably doesn't care if you go from like one ten percent body fat to seven percent body fat but they probably do care the extra you know seven eight weeks that might take and what that means for like date night flexibility hanging out with friends type of thing and that one's a really really important conversation to have with those people that are important in your life

[Unknown1]: 19:48

yeah yeah for sure i kind of equate that of like you being you know untied to children and family as much to like doing the diet without a timeline because if you just know that it's an open ended period where you you can kind of have these moments of more freedom than it makes the experience a little bit more like it may be for you where there's less pressures and things like that because the occasional going out and things like that doesn't feel like as much of a a break from protocol so to speak but um but yeah i mean that's for sure

[Unknown2]: 20:21

sounds interesting

[Unknown1]: 20:21

something you have to account for and it also becomes harder as the diet goes on to fit those calories in like for me in the beginning of a diet especially coming from california right now where i've been eating out a lot and like putting a lot of you know unknown oils into my body and things like that i literally should be able to lose weight for a number of weeks going forward even continuing to go out to eat once a week because that's less than four times a week so it's kind of relative to to where you're coming from with that stuff too um but for sure like the way that i personally deal with the idea of going out and being a family man during these times is that it's just using the skills that we have taught here on the podcast and that we've learned ourselves in that you can balance calories throughout the week and it's not a day to day thing where oh no i went over today i'm my diet is totally screwed up it's just like hey you plan for that and you know if you have a date night on friday night that monday through thursday maybe you cut two hundred calories off of each day so you have an extra eight hundred to eat on friday and now you have a re feed day and the diet continues and there's nothing wrong with that you know maybe you even have like a squat session the day after the refd and you know you put it to good use

[Unknown2]: 21:38

exactly exactly yeah the one thing that i will add onto the back of that for myself because it's i'll obviously share things around like you know my own periodization and stuff like that on instagram but this is m this is my job you know what i mean so for me i can internalize things different because uh i for me been just being fully transparent it's very important to me that i coach from a place of experience right so if i have a client that wants to get to like seven percent body fat and i've never been to seven percent body fat i understand the theory but i don't understand the application i don't have conviction in the application because i haven't been there yet so for me there's this blend of like professional and personal type type things where it might be like yeah like when i when i wrapped up my diet last year like i didn't really care to get any leaner and that's why i stopped because there's just no benefit for me but then if there's a point where like let's say eventually i start taking uh client tell who want to get on stage right that's that last like okay last last day and i was eight point two one ada going from eight point two to five is a whole new beast and for me like i would be well i'm i'm compartmentalizing this is like a three month you know investment in my coaching experience and business to go through this myself so that i understand its implications on um sex hormones right and the conversations you have to have with your partner on why you have zero interest in you know having having sex because you're so lean and you've been dieting for the last like nine months type of thing uh and all these other things that kind of come out of that so when you are looking at things that other people are doing or their durations it's important to understand their specific contexts and they may have reasons that are different for yours so that's another big part to look into there

[Unknown1]: 23:33

yep when uh when you're working with a client what kind of tools do you use to assess their level of metabolic adaptation that's occurring throughout the deficit

[Unknown2]: 23:46

so what i will do is i will never get don't want to say never because i don't like speaking absolutes it is incredibly rare that i will have a client start with a with a with a periodization of a calorie deficit right so one thing that i've really moved to is like a prove to me type of thing like prove to me you can thrive at maintenance prove to me that you have that you can sustain your body weight on a high level of maintenance calories because like any coach who's gone through there their paces i've been down that road before and i've had clients who we failed to get through fat loss periodizations because there was a bunch of red flags going off and i just didn't have enough experience to read them so uh it still is interesting like once you work with enough clients you start to notice patterns and you'll have like two clients right who are within one to two inches of each other within a handful of pounds of each other one is losing you know uh between that point half a percent to one percent total body mass i messed up my words there but whatever you guys get what i'm saying you're within that those bounds that we explained earlier at twenty four hundred calories right that that next client who has the same amount of you know weight approximate same body fat percentage they're training roughly the same he needs to be at nineteen hundred right so there are these big gaps between people and that's where things start going off like that's why now that's why i i want blood work out of my clients because i wanna be able to spot these things before we even attempt a fat loss fees because there's no point in going through it if we know that it's going to be an uphill battle of testosterone already super low if they are showing signs of like um adrenal insufficiency or something like that like success leaves clues and as does failure as well and then it as you spend enough time in you're fortunate enough to have enough client help to begin looking at trends you can then explain to them like hey i've been down this road before these are our options you know and it's one of those things that's the out there there's a lot there uh and you just have to look at all the clues and put together the pieces really

[Unknown1]: 26:05

yeah so but does does when someone spends this time at maintenance with you does that give you a sense of how adaptive their metabolism is because wouldn't that more be a reflection of whether they're gaining weight losing weight at different calorie amounts right

[Unknown2]: 26:19

yeah so people with the like most adaptive i should say is you will continuously keep feeding them right and their weight to staying the same and you have to reduce different things like i have a client right now i had to tell him like listen you need to stop walking like your step count is just too high or else we're just gonna have to keep putting food in you but like eventually our digestion and stuff is going to tank right we can only put so many carbohydrates in you before it starts to become a problem for digestion like it's easier for you just to get less steps than for me to continue feeding you i mean we're already i think this client we're at like a twenty four x body weight multiplier and we're only

[Unknown1]: 27:00

wow

[Unknown2]: 27:01

averaging like point eight pound you know a week on average and it's it's yeah it needs a lean too so i'm like listen dude you just gotta stop walking so much

[Unknown1]: 27:14

that's a huge

[Unknown2]: 27:14

um

[Unknown1]: 27:15

multiplier

[Unknown2]: 27:17

yeah it's absurd uh

[Unknown1]: 27:18

yeah

[Unknown2]: 27:19

so it's really really interesting like the adaptive um uh metabolism it it it's it's going to vary person to person generally sorry go ahead

[Unknown1]: 27:31

yes with that person who is eating that many calories using him as the avatar like would you because it's so adaptive going up would you then expect it to be just as adaptive going down so maybe this duet on like an absurdly low amount of calories or like how what kind of clues do we find to be able to figure that out

[Unknown2]: 27:50

the clues for those that's going to be very person to person the so it is a possibility however the upside is when you've spent the last nine ten months eating an absurd amount of food you are in a very very leveraged position to then start a calorie deficit because you know i mean i mean you can know or or you can assume but like i we that exact client we literally just grabbed labs last week everything looks great right like hormones are fantastic thyroid is absolutely fantastic there are zero red flags so when he is ready we know that things are or when he does want to change his goals or whatever like we know he's in a good spot the people the client tell who whose weight is stable on a what would be considered like a low estimation of their maintenance calories those are the ones that those are where you have to really be

[Unknown1]: 28:48

it is

[Unknown2]: 28:49

like metabolic resiliency isn't there those are the people who like their weight fluctuates wildly after like a meal or two out on the weekend they're up five or six pounds come monday that sort of thing like those are the clues that i'm talking about and you're like you know with those calorie deficits you want to be really really cognizant and have that clear communication with them of like hey now that we're dieting like we want tighten the ship because the last thing and this is really the part of the reason i wanted to have this this episode is once you get into that those waters considered like you're around oh i'm at a calorie deficit but like my weight's not changing i'm not losing fat like now you're just under feeding yourself and when you get in that cycle you're just kind of digging that hole whatever whatever the reasons of why you have that whole of y the deficit isn't quite working as well for you you're just digging that whole deeper you're just like you know um uh burning time type of deal

[Unknown1]: 29:47

yes

[Unknown2]: 29:48

so with those clients it's important to frame that's like hey we've just reversed and we were things are any good a better spot now but we want to be really cognizant of like digestion now is not the time to be super flexible with your you know lifestyle type thing like let's get in let's get our fat loss and let's get the hell out and those clients may need a few iterations of like your nutritional periodization loops to really get themselves into like a more much more like resilient metabolic position

[Unknown1]: 30:20

yeah interesting yeah so i guess when you're looking at the different avatars of metabolic adaptation like you have that guy who you know he can eat a lot of food on the higher end and we don't exactly know yet but you could suspect that he won't be super adaptive on the way down like he'll still get a decent amount of calories i guess on the flip side of that you have the person that is super adaptive going down and has to like diet on super low calories and then is not as adaptive going up and they don't even get to eat that many calories when they're when they're balking so to speak which that's quite unfortunate i think

[Unknown2]: 30:55

yeah it's like they can their bulk happens

[Unknown1]: 30:57

what

[Unknown2]: 30:57

more easily which is like a slippery

[Unknown1]: 30:59

yeah

[Unknown2]: 31:00

slope because you don't want to put weight on too fast because we just

[Unknown1]: 31:03

right

[Unknown2]: 31:03

busted our ass to to have it come off type of thing yep

[Unknown1]: 31:07

yeah so in regards to this idea of how long you can be in a deficit like we can look at you know the godfather jeff albert says an example of somebody that has gone through multiple diets

[Unknown2]: 31:20

see

[Unknown1]: 31:20

contest

[Unknown2]: 31:21

nice

[Unknown1]: 31:21

preps where he's done it over the course of a year and of course there have been like you know a couple diet breaks and there's been re feed days and and stuff like that but i know we've mentioned this on the podcast way long ago but since we haven't addressed it in a number of months maybe even six months here what are your thoughts on kind of that idea as it applies i don't think anyone that isn't getting on stage would would apply that to like their life and be like i'm just going to diet for the next year but maybe somebody would extrapolate that out and like you know i'd rather diet over six months and take three diet breaks for two weeks each then try to do that diet in three or four months you know so what about the applicability or your thoughts on that approach versus a more like directed approach where there's less kind of flip flopping of the the diet breaking and stuff like that

[Unknown2]: 32:15

yeah what i would say is does this six month diet stand to dramatically improve your health right if we're talking around a five foot ten to six foot male who's starting at two hundred eighty pounds at thirty five percent body fat a six month outlook of a diet to maybe a to and their goal is to get to eighteen percentage body fat will dramatically improve their health in that context yes six months of dieting dieting right calorie deficit but it's for the outlook of dramatically improving your health in biology as a human being yes that is

[Unknown1]: 32:54

yeah

[Unknown2]: 32:54

a fantastic approach if you think that you need six months of dieting because when you go to the beach in june that the girls are gonna want you i i got i got news for you they don't they don't give a f so in that case it's probably going to detract more from your life but with that when you don't have as much of a gap to close with the deficit it becomes hard to discern your progress well right you're if you're only losing fifteen pounds right let's say that and you and you extrapolate that over six months and you're taking like multiple like weeks like a three weeks in a row of a diet break now it's been let's say six weeks you're sure for four five weeks even the the delta between the the start and end like it's really not much and you're kind of getting into like what i call that like around period where it would be beneficial to like either return calories to maintenance like deliberately or choose a shorter timeline um where you won't have like vacations you know uh trips plans sort of thing

[Unknown1]: 34:15

yeah

[Unknown2]: 34:15

yeah

[Unknown1]: 34:16

i like that i was also thinking about this on like a personal level as far as like if i were to ever take it to stage like what would be the approach that i would implement and i don't think i would ever get to the point where i was large enough to warrant like a year long diet kind of like jeff was doing you know i think he started at something like two ten and got to one hundred seventy so he was like forty pounds over the course of a year but i do think that the way i probably would approach it would be to take like three or four months and get down to like one eighty ish and then take like a month ish and build back up and above maintenance maybe maintenance or a maintenance in a little higher just to potentially get out of that deficit and put out the fire maybe so to speak and then take like another three or four months and get from that like one hundred eighty five to one hundred seventy or whatever the number is where i would need to be on stage and so at that point you're looking at like three or four months plus a month diet break and then another three or four months and that could be eight or nine months you know so um that's kind of how i look at it for myself but that's certainly a lot of time of being on fire

[Unknown2]: 35:24

yeah and that's

[Unknown1]: 35:26

yeah

[Unknown2]: 35:27

it's a but the the ambition is huge right it's natural body building which is you need to be stupid lean and you don't have any of the help of exogenous hormone replacement

[Unknown1]: 35:37

hey

[Unknown2]: 35:37

that keeps your muscle mass or even increases your muscle mass as you go in right that keeps your muscle mass or even increases your muscle mass as you go in right so it's that is it's an ex i mean i don't know if extreme is a great term to use so it's that is it's an ex i mean i don't know if extreme is a great term to use but it is it is a unicorn use case right that many people will never find but it is it is a unicorn use case right that many people will never find themselves in themselves in

[Unknown1]: 35:51

yeah yeah

[Unknown2]: 35:52

for me with that approach w i think what i would do is at that starting point dex a scan right and obviously

[Unknown1]: 35:58

yes

[Unknown2]: 35:59

like it would be i wouldn't recommend living my lifestyle where you're getting dex of scans at different places like you go back to the same place and your

[Unknown1]: 36:05

yeah

[Unknown2]: 36:06

reports are there dex a scan when you start you diet it for twelve weeks okay how much lean body mass have i lost between day my start dea in nestea i'm gonna spend six weeks trying to only put on enough weight to reclaim all of that lean body mass and now i've reclaimed it but i have six seven pounds less fat great i have all of my gains less of my fat and then use that iterative approach because like with natural body building and now i'm speaking outside of where i feel very convicted in my views because i've no experience doing it the the best natural bodybuilders right on stage are able to maintain his more lean body mass as they diet because like at the in the in the in the later stages of it once like as a natural like you once you crossing a certain threshold of leans you start sacrificing a decent a bit of lean body mass to further facilitate those lower numbers of body fat percentage so the better you can maintain as you get to that maintain the the the the gains you already had made that's really really good

[Unknown1]: 37:20

yeah i feel like uh the last thing that i have on this is to speculate on this idea that you brought up earlier of you know an advanced athlete that's dieting down like if i get back to one hundred eighty two would you feel more confident estimating or guessing that my one hundred eighty two looks better because i put more muscle on during my gaining phase or that i got better at dieting and have a little more muscle at one eighty two because i lost less muscle on the way down right so they're basically the same thing and at an advanced level it could be half a pound of each you know but anyway do you have any thoughts on speculating on that or is it just that like a speculation and a guess at best

[Unknown2]: 38:08

yeah what my like my ego and w and what i want to be true is the former right no dude you just put more bott you just got more jack than you were last

[Unknown1]: 38:18

yeah

[Unknown2]: 38:18

year but like the like the the pragmatic in me is like he probably just got a little bit refined your dieting expertise right or precision in and we're able to maintain more of it

[Unknown1]: 38:31

yes

[Unknown2]: 38:31

as you dieted realistically i think it's a combination of both right and and you know we're like we're splitting hairs here but like i still like i'm still getting better right like i'm i'm like i'm the best i've ever looked at one hundred ninety six now like when i die it down the weight the numbers stay about the same they don't really don't change much but i'm like i didn't have these veins when i was here last year

[Unknown1]: 38:54

right right

[Unknown2]: 38:55

type of thing like okay i'm you know i'd never had veins in my legs until like last year so and now i have them in the one hundred ninety sixes where like the first time i died down to like the one ninety i didn't have them so like okay well doing i'm figuring something out it's just over like from from an absolute standpoint those differences are marginal but from a relative standpoint the differences are noticeable

[Unknown1]: 39:24

do you think

[Unknown2]: 39:24

i think i think i got that right i might have that up but got that point across i think i think i got that right i might have that up but got that point across

[Unknown1]: 39:26

yeah no no i i know she i know what you mean do you think that part of the increased vascularity could be related to just aging processes of like you know skin thinning and veins moving closer to the surface and i'm not trying to just say this to to be contrary but it's something that i was thinking about literally just the other day so it's really funny that you brought it up but i was walking around and you know non workout situation just hanging out at the beach with the kids and i've been eating you know plenty but i noticed

[Unknown2]: 40:00

yes

[Unknown1]: 40:01

that i had a cross vein in my bicep like i always have the one that goes up the vertical but i usually have to get quite lean to see the cross vein and i was just hanging out and realized oh my god like it's there and it's not just like kind of there it's like really there and so my first thought was what you said to be like i've put muscle on you know like absolutely like my biceps have grown type thing um and then i kind of thought about it reflected on it and tried to to look at it from the the other side and i was like maybe it's like the skin is thinning you're getting older the veins are being pushed more to the surface like i don't i don't know these things you know but

[Unknown2]: 40:36

i don't i don't have an opinion on that right and i think we'll have to have someone on maybe we'll bring

[Unknown1]: 40:40

yeah

[Unknown2]: 40:41

on like a like like n no or something like that who knows that you know and can speak

[Unknown1]: 40:45

yeah

[Unknown2]: 40:45

to it but i just i mean to me with mine it's like my legs right and i'm like i've finally after years of years of trying like i finally learned how to train quads you know properly properly and it cause it's like always a moving target but like they are way better than they used to be and this is where it kind of it c it gets hard to discern because then we'll have like conversations with dave

[Unknown1]: 41:12

correct

[Unknown2]: 41:13

and they don't really change that much and we kind of know

[Unknown1]: 41:15

right

[Unknown2]: 41:16

but it's like if the last time i measured my quad at when i was like fifteen percent body fat now i'm at ten like they're gonna be smaller to some degree because i have less fat in them too so when you're taking measurements it's there you need to bring in the context of your body fat percentage at those measurements

[Unknown1]: 41:34

or body weight yeah like me at one ninety five compared to me at one ninety five

[Unknown2]: 41:35

as well because

[Unknown1]: 41:38

type thing but

[Unknown2]: 41:39

yeah

[Unknown1]: 41:40

yeah he always wants that concrete data and i'm just like i'm like dude i don't i don't have it you know so so yeah i mean like for me the comparison is the pictures under the same lighting from the prior year compared to the pictures the same lighting from this year but like to his point you know it's not the exact same like there are differences potentially in like like even if i'm a half hour off and the sun is in like a different place in the sky or something along those lines like that can change the way it look it looks so

[Unknown2]: 42:11

yep

[Unknown1]: 42:11

yeah it's just super ambiguous

[Unknown2]: 42:13

yeah but i mean that is why as i i because i i my my biggest fear the biggest thing that i never want is to be like a like a charlotte in or someone who's just like well this is what i think and it it's this way belief you know believe me type thing i want to be able to have backup data i'm like okay this is and that's why whenever i i'll make posts they'll be like this is what i did with my dex right they're always at nine a m they're always fast uh i always take the day off training you know before i just try and minimize my my variables because i don't want to be promoting bad information because one thing is it's hard when it's yourself because you have an emotional investment into the outcome right if i go into to get a dex scan and it tells me i have i put on muscle and i'm leaner right i am emotionally invested the positivity of that outcome of course i want it but it's i do try and do my best to be

[Unknown1]: 43:13

yeah

[Unknown2]: 43:13

like okay well i don't want to like prote you know misinformation am i checking and i crossing my teeth and dotting my eyes here did i do my due diligence in preparing or preparing or did i load more glycogen the night before so it's like really important for me so that's where the data thing is i've gotten a lot better at at collecting it for those reasons specifically and kind of earlier in the podcasts when i talked about how i'm like as much as the travel lifestyle is fun i'm really excited for when we settle down is because i'm gonna go to that dex scan place every three months and this is stack data you know and get

[Unknown1]: 43:50

yeah yeah

[Unknown2]: 43:50

labs and stuff and it i i'll be very excited um just to even further uh refine my own b scientist methodologies

[Unknown1]: 44:02

yeah buddy i'm gonna try and find the time to go get to dea next week when i'm on my de load week before my diet starts or right when my diet starts and do a dex of then and then try to do the blood work as well and have those comparisons pre in post and see

[Unknown2]: 44:17

yeah

[Unknown1]: 44:17

how it goes so

[Unknown2]: 44:19

if you do them on the same day dex a first then blood work

[Unknown1]: 44:23

yeah i remember i remember that cause you lost muscle in one limb because it took

[Unknown2]: 44:27

yeah my my like it was like two pounds less than the other one and i was like holy

[Unknown1]: 44:27

blood out of it yeah it's crazy yeah

[Unknown2]: 44:32

yeah all right be anything else you wanna add onto this one

[Unknown1]: 44:35

no

[Unknown2]: 44:37

fantastic as always guys hope this was a fun and informative episode any follow up questions you have for brian or i please send them over to us on instagram and then lastly if this has been something that you find valuable please share it with your friends family even or anyone you think that would benefit and then brian and i don't ask for this often because personally i hate when people do it so i try not to but if you have the time and would like to leave us a review on apple podcasts or spotify we would love an honest review of how we are doing and if you are enjoying it so with that guys thank you for listening as always brian and i will talk to you next week