ERF 979: I Doubled My Calories and Barely Gained Any Weight — Here’s Why

I'm currently eating 5,000 calories a day and I weigh 255 pounds, which is basically the same weight as when I was eating 2,800 calories per day. Let me say that again. I've almost doubled my calories and my weight has barely moved. If you think that doesn't make any sense, Then stick around because I'm going to explain exactly how that is possible, exactly what I am eating, exactly how it's changed my workouts, and what it means for you for how to think about your calories, metabolism, and building muscle. So for those of you who are avid listeners of the podcast, you'll know last month in February, I took a vacation to Turks and Caicos, and before that vacation, I was on a calorie deficit. So my calorie deficit was 2,800 calories, and I know a lot of you are like, oh my God, I'd love to have 2,800 calories. I get it. That is the perks of being 6'4 and a high metabolism. Okay, so when I finished that, I then went into the vacation sitting right around 245 pounds. There was some fluctuation in my weight. Maybe some days I was 241, some days was 246, but somewhere around that range. I went on the vacation. I enjoyed myself to the fullest. I ate what I wanted. I, you know, went back for seconds. I had desserts. I did not do a calorie deficit. So when I got back from vacation, I was expecting my weight to be up, and it was. It was right around 254 pounds. So you could say I gained roughly 10 pounds of weight. I do not think all of that was body fat. Actually, I know all of that was not body fat. I would say maybe 4, 3, 4 pounds maybe was body fat, and the rest was just stored glucose. glycogen inside of my body, stored water weight from the glycogen, and just extra food in my stomach than what I had at 2,800 calories. And so when I got back, I decided, number one, I didn't ruin all my progress, so I didn't need to go back and do a calorie deficit again to get my weight back down. Because for me personally, I don't really care what the number on the scale is. I care about how I feel. I care about how I look, how my clothes fit, how my workouts are. So when I got back, I decided, you know what, I'm not going to re-lose the weight. I don't need to go back to being a lower body fat percentage. Instead, I'm going to go the opposite direction and I want to start increasing my calories. building more muscle and potentially trying to go into a calorie surplus, which is a bulk, which is eating more calories than what your body needs to maintain its weight. I haven't done this in quite some time, to be honest with you. I would say at least a couple of years. I would either be right around maintenance or in a calorie deficit getting ready for a vacation, but This time around, I was like, screw it. Let's start to work the calories back up and let's see if we can get into a calorie surplus. And I say, let's see if we can get into a calorie surplus, because you will find out later in the podcast if I'm actually able to get into that calorie surplus. Now, the thing about this, I didn't just jump from, okay, I left I was eating 2,800 calories and now I'm going to go straight to 5,000 calories. It's not what I did after I got back and I saw the damage that was done, which again, there was no damage. I gained some weight. I was fine with it. I was like, okay, I'm going to work my calories up to about 3,500 calories because for me, that's somewhere around usually where my maintenance calories tends to be like 3,500. Maybe 4,000 calories. And again, I know you're like, wow, Eric must be nice. Wow, Eric, I wish that was my maintenance. I get it. I understand. But I worked my calories back up to 3,500 and then I stayed there for about a week or two and I saw what my body weight did. And pretty much it stayed right within the same couple of pounds. It actually, in fact, I think it dropped down to like 252. So when I came back, I was 254, and then I ate 3,500 calories and it dropped down to like 242, which shows me even more that the 254 was not fat. It was purely mostly water weight and extra food in my stomach. So I watched the scale. I saw my energy in my workouts. I saw my energy just in general on a day-to-day basis. And then after about a week or two, when my weight was actually going down, I was like, all right, I'm gonna bump this up to 4,000 calories per day because again, I'm trying to find the top end of my maintenance calorie range. Because number one, to find a calorie surplus, you first have to find what maintenance is. And then second, for me to actually get to the top end of my maintenance calories, I gotta keep working the calories up. So that's what I, that's what I was doing. So I bumped up to 4,000 calories. Now I'm going to talk exactly about how I increased my calories. I'm going to go through an exact full day of eating of my 5,000 calories per day. So don't worry, I'm just trying to give you the overview of the calories thus far. Bumped up to 4,000 calories and then I did the same thing. So a week or two went by. And I'm like, okay, I was at 4,000 calories. My weight is more or less the same. Maybe instead of 252, I'm now up to like 253, maybe 254, but again, within the same couple of pounds. So then I was like, okay, well, I'm clearly still in maintenance. And so I'm going to bump up to 4,500 calories. So I bumped up to 4,500 calories. I am more or less the same weight. And so now I am working up to 5,000 calories per day. So I'm typically Probably ending somewhere around 4,800 to 5,000 calories per day. So each bump that I made, for me personally, I am somebody who has a very adaptive, and you could say fast metabolism. So what that means is when I decrease my calories, my metabolism adapts quickly and like pretty rapidly. And then when I increase my calories, excuse me, when I increase my calories, my metabolism adapts rapidly, quickly, and pretty dramatically. And so that's why in both directions your metabolism adapts. It doesn't just slow down when you go into a calorie deficit. It also speeds up when you start to increase your calories and go back to maintenance. Now, does that mean everybody listening to this is going to be able to, you know, double their calorie intake? Probably not. Some of you might be able to, but probably not all of you. But that doesn't mean it's still not true that your metabolism increases when you add more calories. And why does your metabolism increase? Because many reasons. Number 1, you have more food your body has to digest. This increases your thermic effect of food. Number 2, you have more Energy for your workouts, especially if you eat the right, especially if you increase your calories in the correct way, you'll have more energy for your workouts. I will talk about that in a second here in the podcast. And then number 3, your body subconsciously burns more calories through something called NEAT, your non-exercise activity thermogenesis. So this is like fidgeting, Even just walking around, talking with your hands. You might not even consciously do this, but you will subconsciously burn more calories. And the last one is when you recover, when you sleep, your body will end up burning more calories because now it has more calories to do all of the recovery processes. It can build muscle easier, it can lower your cortisol easier. It has the resources it needs to be able to help facilitate recovery better. So that's why all of these weeks and all of these bump up in calories that I'm doing, I'm still like this morning I woke up and I was 255. So think about that. When I got back from vacation, I was 254.2. That was the exact weight. I went to 3,500, I went to 4,000, I went to 4,500, and now I'm at 5,000 and I'm weighing 255. That is the power of increasing your maintenance calories. That is the power of increasing your metabolism. That also goes to show you, when you eat more calories, it doesn't automatically mean you're gaining a bunch of fat. I have literally doubled my calorie intake and I don't— I know I haven't gained a bunch of fat. I will talk about some of the changes that my body has made, and I will talk about maybe where I have gained some fat, but it's not like you just ruin all of your progress from eating more calories. And this is the power of understanding the knowledge behind metabolism, calories. And most people don't even talk about this stuff, which is why most people feel bad when they eat more calories. But that's how I did it. Now, I actually want to talk about exactly what a day of eating looks like for me to hit this calorie goal. And I think I'll incorporate this For educational purposes, and I'll talk about why I'm doing this. But also, I think it's just you're going to find this insane. So we will just we'll go ahead and get right into it. Actually, before we get into it, just want to remind you: this is what myself and my coaching team does for a living. We create personalized plans for you listening, for your calories, for your workouts, not only for your calorie deficit, but also when you've done your calorie deficit. How can you increase your calories without? Gaining a bunch of weight. So if you want somebody to create a personalized plan just for you and hold you accountable and guide you every step of the way, you can click the link in the description below of this podcast to apply and learn more about our one-on-one online coaching program. Now, getting into the days of eating, I'm going to give you a day where I work out in the morning. So I'll typically either work out like middle of the day, or I'll work out in the morning to Typically the weekends are when I work out in the morning, but all of the food stays the same. It's just the, the structure in which I eat the food is a bit different. So for example, maybe I'll have my pre-workout meal as my first meal on the morning I work out. In the morning I don't work out, I will have my pre-workout meal later in the day, but more or less the food stays the same. So we'll go through yesterday. I'm recording this on a Monday, so I'll go through the Sunday, what I ate. So my breakfast, It was 1.5 scoops of whey protein from Legion. Of course, if you would like the same protein powder that I use, you can head to legionathletics.com. You can use my code Eric at checkout to get buy one, get one half off. But a scoop and a half of protein mixed with water, and I had 60 grams of Rice Krispies cereal. So I pour the protein shake over the Rice Krispies cereal. I had a banana. I had peanut butter with some honey on top. And then I had 3 caramel rice cakes. By the way, people hate on rice cakes. I don't know why. Rice cakes to me are incredible. I enjoy eating them. Like I could mindlessly eat those things for, for days. I think tastes really good. So I like rice cakes and I'm glad I'm able to eat a lot more of them because now I'm trying to be in a surplus. So that is my breakfast slash pre-workout meal. It's 761 calories, 39 grams of protein, 125 grams of carbs, and 11 grams of fat. And this is a high-carb, fast-digesting breakfast or pre-workout meal that is designed to reload muscle glycogen before my workout. So the Rice Krispies, banana, rice cakes, honey, it's all quick-absorbing carbs. And even the whey protein. Yes, it's protein, but it's also a fast-digesting protein. This is not a typical, like, clean eating meal. It's, it's strategic fuel for my workouts and for the purpose of maximum workout performance to fuel muscle growth. So that was my breakfast slash pre-workout meal. Then after that, I come home and I have If you're an avid listener of the podcast, you know, sometimes I'll do these meal prep meals. And so what I did was I had the meal prep meal of jambalaya with brown rice, and then I had a side of sweet potatoes, and then I had a side of in like a salad kit, one of those salad bags. And then since I knew I was gonna have to get a bit more protein, I threw in an extra scoop of Protein at this meal. So this is the kind of like, again, you're refueling muscle glycogen, you're getting in enough protein, and it's not tremendously high in dietary fat because after a workout you want a meal that is high in protein, high in carbs, and lower in dietary fat so your body can digest it a bit quicker, refuel your muscle glycogen, and kind of start the recovery process. So. That was after. That came out to about 1,200 calories, 83 grams of protein, 127 grams of carbs, and 38 grams of fat. Next up is another meal. And so this meal was again, a meal prep meal of filet tips and broccoli. So it had filet tips, broccoli, and rice in it. Also on the side, 'Cause I gotta get the extra carbs. I had some more sweet potatoes and then I had more caramel corn rice cakes. And then on this, on a different kind of, this, that was part of the meal 1 and part of the meal 2 here. I had Greek yogurt with blackberries, raspberries, honey, and avocado on the side of that. And so this like meal is more than what like most people's calories are in an entire day, but that's the reality of trying to eat 5,000 calories per day. Like I need, whenever I have a meal, it needs to be a lot of calories. Otherwise I'm not going to hit the calorie goal. So the filet tips, the steak filet tips are high quality protein. The sweet potatoes, the rice, and the rice cakes are all glycogen loading carbs. And then the yogurt, berries, avocado add some healthy fats and micronutrients that I want to get as well. Also along with you know, some extra protein and some extra fiber. So that was next meal. And the last meal of the day is dinner. And so for this, I had 96/4 ground beef. I had seasoned fries. So I buy these frozen French fries from Aldi. I had another salad kit. I then had some caramel corn rice cakes. And then as a little dessert, I'll have my Ninja Creami protein ice cream. And so I'll have another scoop and a half of protein with Almond milk that was kind of mixed in and frozen overnight. So this meal had 101 grams of protein. The 96 for ground beef is lean, high in protein, and low in fat because I don't want to end up eating too much dietary fat. I'll talk about why in a second. The fries are a great source of starch carbs. The rice cakes are a great source of starch carbs. And for me, it's just a meal that I love eating. Like I could eat this and I do, I eat this like pretty much every single night. I'll swap out the ground beef for chicken thighs. You know, those are 2 things I'll swap, but more or less it's the exact same dinner every single night. And so that rounds out to about that day was almost 4,750 calories because the dinner was 1,370 calories, 101 grams of protein, 129 grams of carbs, 45 grams of fat. And so I know that sounds crazy, but what I want to dive into is now kind of going through the food quality that you just heard me go through. Because if you kind of re-listen back, when you hear those foods, it's not like I'm eating a bunch of ice cream or a bunch of pizza or like just peanut butter by the scoop or a bunch of cookies. I think a lot of people get this wrong that they think 5,000 calories or whatever your maintenance calories or calorie surplus will be means you can eat whatever you want. And that could not be farther from the truth. When you're doing working up to your maintenance calories or going into a calorie surplus, food quality matters more than it does in a calorie deficit, because the goal is not just to eat more, it's to eat more of the right things. So those calories go towards muscle glycogen recovery, performance, and muscle building and not fat storage. And truthfully, like a surplus, you need to be more dialed in than a deficit because if you are not and you eat the wrong kind of food or the wrong macros, you're just gonna end up gaining more fat than you would building muscle. So you heard me mention earlier about the carbohydrates and the starch carbohydrates. So let me explain why this is so important. When I increased my calories from 2,800 to 5,000, I didn't double my protein intake. My protein rose a little bit. That's because I like eating protein to begin with, but also number 2, I was already at a high protein. When I ended my calorie deficit, I was already eating 230 to 250 grams of protein per day. So I didn't go massively jump up my protein intake because quite frankly, the more calories you have, the more anabolic state you are in. So when you're in a calorie deficit, you're in something called a catabolic state, which means your body might use muscle for energy. So in a calorie deficit, if you're not eating enough protein, you're at a big risk for losing muscle. But that's because you're in the calorie deficit and you already have limited resources. Whereas when you start to work your calories back up, you have much less risk of losing muscle because you're not in the calorie deficit. You have enough resources. So the mistake people make is thinking, oh man, Eric must be eating, you know, so much protein. It's like, well, yeah, I am eating a lot of protein. How was that? You know, whatever it was, like 300 grams per day or something. But in the grand scheme of things, it's not that much because I'm eating 600 grams of carbs. And the reason you are trying to get in more carbohydrates is because these starchy carbs get stored as muscle glycogen. So there's 2 main ways that your body can store carbohydrates. It's usually either liver glycogen or muscle glycogen. And if the liver glycogen is full, it just kind of spills over into your bloodstream. So foods like fruit, foods like honey, foods that are quicker digesting and maybe higher in sugar, those get stored as liver glycogen. So when the liver glycogen is full, it doesn't really get stored as muscle glycogen. Whereas starchier carbs like rice, potatoes, oats, rice cakes, Rice Krispies cereal, those carbs will always get stored as muscle glycogen. And this is important because when your muscle glycogen starts to build up and build up and build up, and you have more glycogen in your muscles, you can push harder. You can lift heavier. You can squeeze out those last few reps that matter most for muscle building. When your glycogen is low, which is what happens when you're in a calorie deficit or eating lower carb, your workouts feel flat. You fatigue faster, and you can't generate the same force in your workouts. It's like training with a Half-empty gas tank. And so the reason most of my calorie increase came from starchy carbs is that carbs are really the most anabolic macronutrient when it comes to workout performance. Yes, protein is what builds the muscle, but carbs fuel the workout that stimulate the muscle to grow. If you increase and go into a calorie surplus with, let's say, a ton of dietary fat, Peanut butter, oils, cheese, ice cream. Those calories are more likely to be stored as body fat because dietary fat is number one, easily converted into adipose tissue. And number two, unlike protein, where your body is going to basically use protein for every single cell function in your body. And number two, your body will use the starchy carbs to either store as muscle glycogen or Use as energy for your workout. Once you hit enough dietary fat, you, the extra dietary fat doesn't really get used for anything. So what will it do if it's not getting used? It will store. So the starchy carbs fill muscle glycogen, especially pre and post workout. And the type of calories in a situation like this matters. As much as the amount of calories. And this is something people get wrong about eating more calories. They hear eat more and they think it just means like whatever you want, or they think it means like you're just going to gain body fat. Well, no. Well, yeah. If you fill the more food with like ice cream and chips and tons of peanut butter, like, yeah, you'll probably gain more fat, not muscle. But if you fill it with rice, Potatoes, oats, you're loading your muscle with the fuel they need to grow. So you could have the same calorie number, but completely different results. So that's why a calorie surplus requires more precision. And that's why you should be focused on not being afraid of carbohydrates. And they're actually exactly what you need to change your physique and build more muscle. Now, Will you maybe store some extra water weight? Yeah. Because remember when I left for vacation, I was 245-ish. When I came back, I was 254. Now I'm 255. So I would say right now I'm probably holding an extra 4 to 6 pounds of water weight, but I'm holding it in my muscles. It's not like I'm just like, It all goes to my belly. And don't worry, I'll talk about my belly fat in a second, but I'm storing extra water weight and extra glycogen in my muscles. And so maybe I gained 1 to 2 to maybe 3 pounds of fat. I don't think it was 3 pounds, maybe 1 to 2, and then I'm building some muscle. So maybe 1 to 2 pounds of muscle. So that's where the 10 pounds came from. So yes, your scale weight might go up, but it doesn't mean He gained fat. And that brings me into the next part of the podcast, which is my workouts. And so this is really where I'm enjoying things a lot because my workouts are so much better than when I was in a calorie deficit and they were fine. Like, it wasn't like I was not able to do them, but if you've been in a deficit or even eating at maintenance for a long time, you genuinely don't know what it feels like to train. With a full gas tank. Remember I said a calorie deficit is like training with half a gas tank? Eating more food, trying to go into a calorie surplus is like training with a full gas tank. You eat the amount of calories and you're like, oh, this is what it's supposed to feel like. Like, not only am I lifting heavier, I'm getting stronger, but the biggest difference I notice for me personally Is that I actually want to push those last 2 to 3 reps, not because I'm like disciplined or, or I'm like mentally pushing myself, but it's genuinely because I have the energy to do so. My body is literally saying, give me more instead of please stop. Like those, and those last few reps are where muscle growth actually happens, but you can Usually only get there if your body has enough fuel to get there. And so for me, I felt like I was leaving those most important reps on the table for months because my calories were too low to support the output. And I knew that, and that was the trade-off I was making. But now eating more calories and knowing the last two to three reps of a hard set are where mechanical tension is the highest, and mechanical tension just means. Like that's what you need for your muscles to actually grow. And those last 2 to 3 reps do that for you and it fully maximizes your muscle fiber recruitment. Those reps require glycogen. If you're underfueled and you stop at rep 8, when you could have gotten to rep 10 or 11 over the weeks and the months, those missed reps turn into significant muscle that you never built. Whereas increasing calories, going into at the very least the top end of your maintenance calories or a calorie surplus, it allows you to train harder, which is the primary driver of muscle growth. Because unlike fat loss, where all you have to do is be in a calorie deficit and you'll lose fat, just Being in a calorie surplus or eating more starchy carbs doesn't trigger muscle growth. The training has to trigger the muscle growth, and then you will recover from the training and build the muscle, but the training has to come first. And so last note here is I'm also in my head being like, okay, Eric, you're eating 5,000 calories. You better fucking push yourself. Like, don't bitch out. You have to get these last couple of reps in, which again, does help me from both a physical and a mental perspective. And so let me just quickly walk through what my workout program looks like right now. And I'm actually trying something out that I haven't done in a while. And I actually might throw it into some of our Clubhouse workouts and our Clubhouse programs inside of our app, which, by the way, if maybe you're like, Eric, I would love to get some help from you, but I am Ballin' on a budget, totally fine. We also have our Clubhouse app that is less than $2 a day, and you can join and immediately get on a proper strength training program, get your calories and macros set up for you, join our community, get access to our coaches, have an all-in-one app to track everything you need for fitness, track your steps, track your workouts, track your body weight, your pictures, your nutrition. Everything. And that is our Clubhouse app. So you can click the link in the show notes below of this podcast to learn more about our Clubhouse app. We'd love to have you inside. So on Monday, I'm doing shoulders and more specifically I'm doing side delt and rear delt. Now I'm only doing this because number one, I have found that if I just Stay at home all day and do nothing. I enjoy life less than if I leave my house. And so, you know, I work from home, I do everything from home. And so I'm like, I gotta get the fuck outta my house. So I was like, what can I do that I enjoy? Well, I enjoy working out, but what can I do that doesn't impact the rest of my workouts for the week? And so I was like, okay, I can do side delt and rear delt. 'Cause that workout only takes me Maybe 30 minutes. And it's not a very fatiguing workout because I'm just working small muscle groups on my shoulders. And let's be honest, who doesn't want to get some extra boulder shoulders, right? Who doesn't want to have shoulders that look better? So Monday I'm doing shoulders. Tuesday I'm doing upper body. So on the upper body day, since I don't do front delt on Monday, I only do side delt and rear delt. It doesn't impact my pressing movements. So like chest press and those sort of things. And And then I don't do shoulders again on Tuesday. I'll do more arms and less shoulders. So Monday is shoulders, Tuesday's upper body, Wednesday is zone 2 cardio. So I'm really trying to be mindful and disciplined with getting in my zone 2 cardio, which by the way, this is a mix of I wanna leave my house, but also a mix of I have more energy and more motivation to get this done because I have more calories coming in. So I'll do that for 45 to 60 minutes. It's an incline treadmill walk. Thursday is legs. Friday is my HYROX training, which by the way, at the time of me recording this, I got about 2 weeks until that race. So we'll see how that goes. Saturday is upper body, and then Sunday is lower body. And on top of this, I'm also getting my daily steps. So at least 8,000 steps a day is what I'm shooting for. So I'm doing a lot of exercise, but the 5,000 calories per day is also what's allowing me to recover from all of it and still perform at a really high level every single session. And again, if you've never been in a real surplus, you don't know what a full— excuse me, a full gas tank feels like. Like you think you're training hard, but then you eat enough and you realize that you were running on fumes the whole time. So the more calories allows me to do all of this exercise that I'm doing and not burn out. And also I'm trying to be smart about it. Like I said, with the shoulders on Monday, because it's just side delt and rear delt, it's not systemically fatiguing. And then on Wednesday I'm working out, but it's zone 2 cardio. It's low intensity. I don't get my heart rate up. I'm getting in my steps every single day, but this is what is allowing me to do that. So the next part I wanna talk about here is you might be thinking, well, Eric, this sounds really cool and you get to eat 5,000 calories per day. And I just wanna again quickly hit this point. Eating 5,000 calories of quality food is genuinely difficult. Like it's not a vacation from discipline, it's just a different kind of discipline. If I'm not on top of my meals, I'll easily miss my target. Like the other, I think it was Thursday, Yeah, it was Thursday. I had really, it was really busy during the day. There's a lot of stuff going on. So I missed a meal. And so I was like, well, fuck, I have to eat 3,000 calories at dinner to hit my goal. And I just couldn't do it. Like I could have went and got a pint of ice cream, but that's not what we want to do. So I only ate 4,000 calories that day, which I know sounds crazy, but it's easy to hit the, it's easy to miss the target or you have to be more disciplined with just eating different kinds of foods and the specific foods and the right kind of foods. So people think like bulking is the fun phase and trust me, parts of it are, but you know, eating 2,000 calories for dinner of rice cakes and rice and potatoes and the right kinds of foods, it's not always the most fun. It takes prep, it takes intentionality, and quite frankly, it is kind of a full-time job keeping up with this amount of food. And the right amount of food. So the couple of things I have found to make this easier is front-loading calories on purpose. So in breakfast, pre-workout, and lunch, I've really had to bump up the amount of calories during the day so that I don't have to eat 2,500 calories at dinner to hit my goal. And then also that wouldn't mess up my sleep quality because eating big meals close to your bedtime raises your resting heart rate and your core body temperature and can disrupt getting into deep sleep in the beginning of your sleep cycle. So I really try to not have a huge, huge dinner. I mean, all the meals are pretty fucking big at this point, but I got to eat more earlier in the day. And that way I'm also just not playing catch up. It's very strategic and it's very much also If I'm getting in my workout earlier in the day, okay, well, I'm fueling up before and I'm recovering after. And then now the dinner is more so just kind of topping everything off and making sure I hit my goals. So for you, if you are going to increase your calories, you got to be mindful of it. You got to front load and kind of pre-plan earlier in the day so that you're not playing catch up at night. And this is where I think something like having a calorie calculator and putting into a day of like, what is my breakfast going to look like? What is my pre-workout meal going to look like? What am I going to add in? How many calories is it going to be? All those sort of things. So now I want to talk about some of the trade-offs I've made because I've talked about how I feel better in my workouts. I talked about how I have more energy, I'm able to push harder, eat more food. But I do want to kind of be transparent here because I think this is the part most fitness influencers won't tell you. Am I as lean as I was at 2,800 calories? No. My stomach is a little bit softer. My, my love handles are a little bit more apparent when I take my shirt off. I don't look as shredded as I did a month or two ago, and that's just the truth. But here's what I've gained in exchange. More energy, better workouts, strength going up, more flexibility with nutrition. I can go out to eat, I can have larger meals, I can enjoy the food without stress. And so for me, I feel as if my quality of life is genuinely better, and the muscle I am building during this phase will be there when I eventually want to lean back down. And this is the point. Go through phases of gaining, go through phases of not being your lowest body fat. And then when you do want to lean back down, drop some body fat, you will have more muscle. So you'll look even more defined. So for me right now, do I care that my stomach is maybe a little bit softer than I would like? I mean, I care, but not to the point where it outweighs The overall package of how I feel, how I perform, and the muscle I'm building. All of that is worth me not having shredded 6-pack abs. I think this is the reality of a building muscle phase that nobody really wants to show you on Instagram. Like, you won't look your leanest. You're going to carry a little bit more body fat. Your abs won't be as visible, and that's okay. Because the goal of a surplus isn't to look good right now, it's to build the foundation of muscle that makes you look incredible when you cut later. You have to zoom out of the day-to-day and think more in seasons. So this is the muscle building season. Cutting season, calorie deficit season will come later. And when it does, you'll have more muscle to reveal than you ever have before, but you can't build the house and live in it at the same time. So if you want to upgrade your house and you want to build a new mansion, you can't live in it while it's being built. It's messy, but when you move in, it will be worth it. And so if someone on the internet tells you they're eating in a calorie deficit, they're— I'm sorry, eating in a calorie surplus, eating 5,000 calories, gaining muscle and staying shredded. They're either lying on steroids or both. A real surplus comes with real trade-offs. And I'm just going to— I'm giving you the honest version of this because I think you deserve to know what this actually is if you end up deciding you want to try this for yourself. Now, last couple of notes here that I wrote down is, you know, what does this mean for you? So I just told you a bunch of stuff about what's going on with me and kind of how I'm doing it. If you're in a calorie deficit and you're trying to lose weight, don't hear this episode and think you need to start eating 5,000 calories. That's not the point. The point is there's a season for everything. If you're cutting right now, cut, do it right. But at some point you're going to come out of the cut, come out of the calorie deficit and start eating more. And when you do, this episode is kind of your blueprint for how to do that strategically and what to expect Along the way, or if you've been scared to eat more, a lot of people, especially who have been dieting for years, are terrified of eating more. They think more food automatically means more fat, and I get it. But what I've shown you today is I've almost doubled my calorie intake, and my weight has barely moved because the type of food matters, the timing matters, the training you do to support it matters. You can eat significantly more than you think without gaining fat. If you do it right. And last but not least, if you've hit a plateau and maybe you've been eating 1,600 to 1,800 calories for months and your workouts feel flat, your progress has stalled, you're frustrated, maybe it's time to like step away from the deficit for a bit and maybe focus more on increasing your metabolism, focus more on building more muscle, focus more on getting your body in a state or a season of building. So that way, when you go back to the season of cutting, it's a bit easier for you to go through. It's kind of like refueling the gas tank so that you can go and push harder. And this is exactly the kind of stuff we help our clients navigate in one-on-one coaching, like when to cut, when to surplus, how to increase the surplus and increase the calories without gaining fat, how to time your carbs, how to adjust based on how your body responds. Like most people don't need a new or another diet. They just need someone who understands the science and can help them guide through the plateaus. And that's exactly what our coaches do. So if you're interested in having us walk you through this entire process, so, you know, for a fact you're doing everything right, and you're going to continue to see results week over week, you can click the link in the description below of this video to learn more about our one-on-one coaching program. So guys, that is the podcast for today. You know, I've been about an hour here and that means, you know, now it's only 40 minutes, but that means I got to go eat some more food because 5,000 calories ain't going to eat itself. But I hope this was helpful for you. Hope you enjoyed this. If you did, please feel free to leave a 5-star rating and review. I appreciate you listening and we will chat next time.