Transforming Your Physique on a Guaranteed Timeline - Tyrone

A little bit about me first. So as you see, I was a little fat kid, but I also am currently an Enterprise Master Coach. I've been a personal trainer since 2013, and I've done education throughout the years by the top industry leaders, whether that be by Mark Ottobre or Charles Poliquin or Dave MacDonald or Sebastian Oreb. The list goes on, I can go on for a while. A lot of those people that are older than me, and I'm pretty old as it is, as you can tell. So I am the oldest guy in the team. You'll hear all the old jokes. Feel free to crack some old jokes, but feel free to get some jokes back as well. I won't hold back. You don't hold back on me, I won't hold back on you. Let's all have a bit of fun. And as you can see there, I've got the fat kid, which is half the reason, or probably the majority of the reason, why I am so passionate about this industry and doing what I do. And just a little caveat, I do look so tired and look so old because I do have 3 kids, so So, you know, that's also why I don't smile when I'm cranky. But also I am dieting, getting ready for myself. So I do, I have my own timeline that I'm, because I'm competing in Season 8 next year. So I've also using the same process for myself because I am coaching myself at the moment. Why will we use a timeline? Okay, because you want to create a sense of certainty, right? And the benefit of using the timeline is creating a sense of certainty between you and your client, and it also develops some trust, right? Now, you also are going to be able to eliminate the amount of work you do. So by front-loading the amount of work you do and planning out the whole 24, 40, 60, 72 weeks in advance, right, you've already done half your work. You can plan out the macros depending on predicted weight, predicted body fat, um, at the start, and therefore you and your client already know when it's coming, right? Not only this, but it develops a sense of trust from the client. You sitting down and mapping out the client's 24, 40, 60-week transformation, they are going to trust you straight on the spot. Not only does it develop a sense of trust, but you're also going to increase your retention. I did one yesterday where I mapped out, I think it was 40, 44-week transformation with a client for a comp prep. I know that I have that client for the next 44 weeks. So I don't actually have to get a new client for the next 44 weeks, unless you really fuck things up and piss them off, then you're stuffed. So the other thing you want to— yes, you do want to map out a plan and a timeline, but you need to be aware that plans do change at the same time. And this is where the art of coaching does come into effect, right? Because how the body responds, as much as we're going to go down mathematical timelines and lay out plans, the body will respond in certain ways and sometimes not as you expect it. So you need to be prepared to change the time plan, the timeline, on the fly, all right? It's not set in stone, it's just a plan and a rough guide, okay? The other thing I do want to put out, put out as well, is that sometimes you might find that changes that you make within the plan don't seem to come into effect. Sometimes I find in my experience it takes at least 2 weeks. Right? So you might find that somebody doesn't drop weight one week, but then they've dropped double the amount the week after. So before you go freaking out and going, oh shit, it didn't work this week, give it another week, let things settle, and then if it doesn't work the second week in a row, maybe make some adjustments then. This is just what you can— these are some of the transformations that you can achieve using the timeline and that I have used in time as well. So A lot of comp prep, a lot of photo shoots, but overall it does— it can be worked for general population as well. It, like I said, creates a sense of certainty. Okay, I'm just gonna flog you with before and after photos until you're convinced that it works. Okay, that's my whole presentation. So when it comes to determine the timeline and what you want to do, first you need to be able to determine the goal. Okay, now you want to determine the goal, whether that's going to be comp prep or photo shoot, or it's just health and longevity, right? Determining the goal and determining the goal with your client is basically how you're gonna set this up, right? And that's gonna dictate what phases that you're going to need. Now, what I mean by what phases is you're gonna— I'm gonna go through them later, but you're gonna go through 3 different phases within the timeline in order to get the ultimate physique transformation. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. Then you need to determine your starting point, okay? So you need to determine what is, uh, what your starting point is. So from straight away, from there, you're gonna go Where are we and where do we need to get to? Okay, now are you gonna— do you just need to do what Mark Ottobre called glorified fat loss, which is sometimes necessary? So you're just going to go straight into fat loss and reveal what's underneath and the client already has, or you're going to be a bit of an artist and a sculptor and actually create a physique from scratch? Then once you determine that and you set a date and a deadline, you want to work backwards. Okay, now determining your starting point as well and working backwards, you may— you're going to use this and you'll continue to use the same effect, the same ways of measurement, whether that be skinfolds, weight, photos, girth measurements, or multitudes of the above. So for me, for instance, with my face-to-face clients, I'll use weight and skinfolds and photos. With my online clients, it's just weight and photos. Okay, because obviously I don't see them face-to-face. So this is what timeline is all about. It's all about working backwards, okay. After you determine the starting point and assessing what is required to achieve the goal, to achieve the goal, you need to determine your approach, okay. Again, is it going— are you gonna go down the glorified fat loss route, or are you going down the artist and you're gonna sculpt a complete physique. This is what is going to determine what phases you need during your timeline. Again, setting the deadline and working backwards. Does the client need fat loss? Does the client need an artist and someone that's going to build a physique and really look at the physique and point out the strong points and the weak points and focus up— focus on building up the weak points to create a perfectly balanced physique as possible? The reason why I put the Sculptor there is because this is what Arnie used to say, right? He used to say you look at the body like a piece of clay, and if you need more calves, then you get some more clay, you put it on the calves, right, and you sculpt them out. And obviously we do that through— by exercise, whether that be, you know, if you need to build up your calves, you're obviously gonna do more calf raises, or you're gonna prioritize, let's say, chest, depending on where the weak point is. Again, you're setting the date, the deadline, and working backwards. Notice I keep saying you're setting a deadline and working backwards. That's the most important bit. You can work forwards, but you're just going to be floating and punching it in there, right? Whereas if you set a hard deadline backwards, and this is where comp preps and photo shoots— it is inevitably incredibly important for comp preps and photo shoots is because generally speaking, the date doesn't move. That comp's there, right? And the Federation ain't gonna move because you're not ready. That's too bad. So you need to find the date and you need to work backwards from there. This is what— I know it's a bit hard to see, so I'm gonna show you another one later. So this is what the timelines that I use look like and the amount of information that I put in them and use from the back— use from the start. So I will use a weekly average weight, a predicted weight, a predicted body fat percentage, and actual body fat percentage, and then I'll calculate their baseline calories on the predicted weight at that particular point in time. And then I will create the actual calories and how much— I'll determine the deficit or the surplus that is needed, right, at that particular point of time, and that gives me the percentage. Then from there— I don't even know if this has got a pointer— then from there I will plan out their exact macros all the way through. This one's not even— this one's actually not even finished— all the way through until the very end. I think the next one— where is it? This one's finished. So you'll see here I've got all the proteins, carbs, fats listed out from the start all the way to the end. This one's not finished either, but this is finished. So I will even use this— so I periodize steps and cardio at the same time. So the client already knows what's coming. I know what's coming, I know what I've set into play, and I can adjust it as need be, but the client knows what's coming. So my clients come up to me and tell me, they go, hey, my cardio goes up by 10 minutes next week, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. That's what the timeline says. Yeah, it does, because I've already done it. I've done it. You've done the work already in advance. It's just rendering fake bacon fat. I like the photo. So the 3 phases that you're going to go to There are only 3 phases that you're generally going to put your clients through in order to build the best physique. How you use them and where you put them will determine the timeline length. The first phase, or one of the phases, is going to be fat loss. This can also be split up into smaller phases or smaller fat loss phases, more aggressive, less aggressive fat loss phases, depending on what is needed at that particular time in the timeline. You have the improvement phase, or the hypertrophy or the build phase. And that is obviously where we're gonna focus on building new tissue and possibly focus on building up lagging body parts that are required, or you might prioritize them, prioritize volume over that, to those particular body parts, over that improvement phase. And then you've got your maintenance phase. Maintenance phases are not necessarily, they're not necessary, but they are ideal. They can be used post-improvement phase to solidify the newly built tissue, or you can use them post an aggressive or post-fat loss phase, or just to give back to the system after a hard bout of dieting, or you can use them for longevity at the same time. I'm gonna go through each one as we keep going at the same time. Fat loss. When it comes to a fat loss phase, you may need to do an initial fat loss phase if you are in doing an improvement phase, just for a bit of a cleanup. Okay, our bodies will build lean tissue a bit better when we are, when we are leaner, just when we are a bit more insulin sensitive, because we are able to shuttle those carbohydrates to where they're needed most. The other reason why you might do a fat loss phase before an improvement phase is also so you get a better, a better gauge and a better look on what the client's physique looks like. So you can actually reveal what's underneath and see what needs to be improved on. There's no point improving on a round ball when you— if you can't see what needs to be chiseled out. So chisel it out, chisel everything out first a little bit, get some, get some insight onto what actually needs to be done. The initial fat loss phase can also be beneficial to introduce the client to a structured diet and weeding out any bad habits. There's no point letting the bad habits and at weeding out bad habits towards the end when you are coming down towards the timeline. This may be finding out what your clients like to change. This might be determining your coaching style with the client and having that sort of blending and that sort of initial blend. It'll also find out where your clients are full of shit too. So I say that in the nicest way possible, but the majority of clients will lie and they'll find ways around it. If they're a robot, all the more better. Hold on to them, never let them go, because they're the best ones. But at the same time, this is definitely where you'll find out where clients will go. You'll give them one thing and they go, "Oh, but I changed it to that." You give them one thing, "Oh, but I changed it to this." Alright, and this is where— get it out of your system now, because when it comes to the final fat loss phase, we ain't got room to move, alright? Time to get it out of your system now. And also you may be a bit more aggressive at the start, so they do have a little bit more leeway from a deficit point of view. The initial fat loss phase may also be a bit shorter because you may go a bit more aggressive because somebody has a larger amount of fat to lose. But the length of time should also be dictated by the final fat loss phase at the end. Then you have your final fat loss phase. For me personally, I try not get anyone to diet above 24 weeks, simply because dieting is hard, it is taxing. At the end of the day, that is 6 months of being in a calorie deficit. It is fucking tedious, and it is hard, right? The longer you have to diet somebody, the less compliant they're going to be, right? So this is why you may have an initial fat loss phase, and then a final fat loss phase, and then you may even have a maintenance phase in between. Right, apart from the 24 weeks of being, uh, 24 weeks being quite tedious and quite hard for dieting, right, you don't want to be dieting for too long because you dieting for too long, you run the risk of eating away too much of the tissue that is built or too much muscle mass, okay. So you don't want to be eating away on the muscle mass that you either have built or the client already has as well. For the final fat loss phase, I have a general rule of not starting that anywhere above 10 to 15% above the weight that they need to finish on. So for instance, if the final number that we need to start on, end on, is 60 kilos, I will not start, let anybody start a final fat loss phase above 66 to 69 kilos, for example. Because that means that they don't have, they've only got to lose 6 to 9 kilos over a 20 to 24 week period. The smaller amount of body fat they have to lose, the smaller amount of fat they have to lose over that time, the best rate you're gonna have of retaining the amount of lean tissue. Cool. When calculating fat loss, right, what we know is that 1 kilo equals 7,700 calories. Okay, now that is going to determine how long it takes on a rough basis for you to lose weight, or for the client to lose weight, right? This means, this is the mathematical equation, this means that no matter who you are, in order to lose 1 kilo per week, you need to be in a caloric deficit of 7,700 calories, right? This can be split into high days, low days, or it can just be over an everyday period. The one thing that you do want to note, that if you ask, if you do split a calorie deficit into high days and low days, is that you will, and the client will generally have a weight jump after a high day. Okay, and this is something to be, for them to be aware of too, right? They freak out and go, oh my god, my weight's up, I had a high day. It's fine, it's just replenishing some glycogen stores, it's just undigested food. But not only for that, not only that, but it is also the amount of water that comes on from the carbohydrates that we'll be taking in. Breaking it down per gram, so obviously, so if you want to lose 1 kilo, you need to be in a deficit of 7,700 calories. If you want to be in a deficit, if you want to lose 100 grams for the week, you need to be in a deficit of 770 calories for the week. Now, what that means is basically the way you want to work this out Here is going— okay, if you want to lose half a kilo a week, you're gonna go 5, you're gonna go 5 times 7, 70, which is, I think off the top of my head, 3850. It means I've done this equation too many times. That means for the week, right, that client needs to be in a deficit of 3850, right? And you want to split that over 7 days, right? Makes sense? Have I lost anyone? Anyone confused yet? How much weight you want to lose? Yep, so I like to use it on a week-by-week basis, right? And that's why I'll divide it by 7. So then from there, let's Let's say it's gonna, and this is where it's gonna be person dependent as well, and I'll get onto that because my ability to lose 1 kilo, 1 kilo a week is gonna be at, you know, I'm 83 kilos, is gonna be easier than somebody that weighs 50 kilos. Somebody who weighs 50 kilos, I'm gonna get on my calculator. Okay, 50, let's say their baseline is around, okay, 1650. right? Somebody who weighs 50 kilos. Mine, I can tell you off the bat, mine's 3,500, okay? So in order for me to lose a kilo a week, right, I need to minus 1,100 calories a day roughly. That brings me down to 2,400, right? That's not bad, it's pretty decent. Someone whose baseline is 1,650 calories, they want to lose a kilo a week, Right, minus 1,100? You're eating a couple of grains, a couple of licks of strawberry, right? So this is where the art of coaching comes into play as well. So you need to use a little bit of common sense, right? And this is where you need to be setting realistic sort of timelines at the same time. There's no point telling your client who weighs 50 kilos, you're gonna lose 10 kilos in 10 weeks, right? Because you need to eat 400 calories. For the next 10 weeks. But not only that, you really have 10 kilos to lose at 50 kilos, right? It's like a prime example was one of Ari's transformations that we did, that he did, and his client went from 50 kilos to 45. That's 10% of her body weight at the end of the day. 10% of my body weight is 8 kilos, so it's going to be person dependent, and that's where you need to use a little bit of common sense. Does that answer your question? But it's also going to be, yeah, how much weight do you want to lose? And then work backwards from there. So if you need to lose, if you need to lose 10 kilos, that's 770,000 calories. How long do you want to do it over? And how big is the person? In saying that as well, if somebody is, let's say, 140 kilos, right, and they're morbidly obese, so Sorry, they're morbidly obese, right? Their baseline at 140 kilos, roughly, right? 4,620 calories. You can go into a massive deficit. It's like Ari said yesterday, you know, you're not gonna give that person at 140 kilos, let's say 2.5 times body weight for protein, that's 350 grams of protein. They can afford to be on, 2,000 calories. There's plenty of meals on there to survive, right? So it's a bit of common sense at the same time. Now, this is not to say that percentage-based deficits aren't right or can't be used. This is just to help make them more accurate, okay? Because it's one thing when you're setting out for a fat loss phase and your client goes, I want to lose 10 kilos. You go, alright, we're gonna stick you in a 30% deficit. You're gonna lose 10 kilos in God knows when, who knows, right? What it then enables you to do is then go, okay, if you're in a deficit of 700 calories a day, right, which is 40, which is a 30% deficit for you, you are then going to take, you're gonna lose 100 grams a day, you're gonna lose 700 grams a week, it's gonna take you 10 weeks to lose 7 kilos, to lose 7 kilos roughly. Makes sense? When it comes to fat loss, right, best ways to improve fat loss are to either diet for a longer period of time, be a bigger human, right, or don't start off so fat. Simple as that, right? Danny DeVito will have to diet longer than Arnie, right? Well, I don't know, he's a bit chubby, so. But that's smaller human, right, will have to diet longer in order to lose the same amount of fat as a bigger human, right? Don't try and get people on 400 calories a day just because you want to lose a kilo a week. Just tell people they need to diet longer, and they probably don't need to lose as much fat anyways. When it comes to calorie expenditure, right, do not use smartwatches as a measure of expenditure. They are wrong. Next time you see— we have multiple studies showing that the majority of smartwatches and smart devices overestimate how many calories have been burnt, okay? So next time you see your client or somebody you know post how many calories they burnt during their session, send them a little message and be like, it's good to see you worked hard, but that's just not true, right? That's not how many calories you burnt. Yes, the only thing you want to look at that is, okay, Okay, if somebody burnt 1,000 calories according to their watch compared to the day before when they burnt 500 calories, it is an indication that they most likely did work harder, okay? But it's not an indication that they burnt 500 calories extra, alright? So give them a little pat on the back and go, it's good to see you worked harder than yesterday, you didn't train like a little pansy, but you didn't burn 1,000 calories, alright? We actually don't know how many calories we are expending each day because total daily expenditure is a moving target. And it has a high variability between how well you've slept that night, how many steps you're doing, whether you're hot, whether you're cold, how stressed you are. It's a forever moving target. We are only always having educated guesses and estimations, right? And it's up to you as a coach to be able to identify that, right? So me right now, I'm quite fidgety, right? A good measure is going to be how many steps that I've done, and this is where smartwatches are good. Right, how many steps have I done? There you go, 11 o'clock, I've done 5,000 steps, right? But I'm constantly moving side to side. So use the smartwatches and smart devices for things like that, not how many calories your client is actually burning. Which takes us to— so after a fat loss phase, you may go into an improvement phase. During an improvement phase or a build phase, this is where we'll look at building new lean tissue. Yes, you can still build muscle in a deficit, although it is very, very poor and very, very arduous, and it is the worst return on investment you're gonna look at, right? Because generally speaking, what the body will do is it will steal amino acids or building blocks from another part of the body, right? So let's say, in order to recover from the shoulder workout that you've done that day, it might steal some amino acids and some building blocks from your quads, okay? Although you can build muscle, not a wise idea, right? Just go to a calorie surplus, right? This, so in a calorie surplus, this is where, and you also can build a little bit of muscle and maintenance. So what we're finding out now is the amount of a surplus you need can be as little as 50 calories. You actually don't need that much of a surplus, where you need to be in a 40, 50% surplus and putting on loads amount of fat in order to build muscle at the same time. You want to be able to— this is where in the improvement phase you're going to get the biggest bang for buck and return on investment in order to building muscle. Again, how much of a calorie surplus is needed? The one thing you want to keep in mind, and this is although we only need between 50 calories or a 5% surplus in, in most cases, right, is you'll find that because your maintenance phase or total daily expenditure is a moving target, is that you, to begin with, you may be chasing this target, right? Because if you've come from a fat loss phase, right, what's gonna happen is, as the calories come up, right, people are gonna go from doing this a lot, right, because they were finding ways to conserve energy and conserve and stop that fat loss, so then they're gonna start moving around and dancing. So what's happened is their NEAT is automatically gone up. NEAT goes up, they're expending more calories as it is, right? So what you need to do is you need to find the perceived, so, the perceived surplus, right? And if you're finding that their weight doesn't go up much at all, or it sometimes starts to drop, right? Then that's when you'll start looking at increasing the calories again, okay? What it means is then, what that means is that if you've put them into what you've called a perceived surplus, right, is that their expenditure has obviously gone up. And that will be without them even knowing, okay? I think it's, I think you can burn nearly up to 1,000 calories a day just from fidgeting. So you start loading people up with carbs and they start fidgeting, their expenditure is gonna go through the roof and you just gotta chase some more food. Good luck to them. Also through the improvement phase, what I like to aim for and what we're finding is you only want to really aim to put on about 1% of your body weight per month. Okay, what does that look like? So for somebody who, let's go 60 kilos because the math is easy for me. I'm not very good at math, it is, right? So for someone who's 60 kilos, right, see, 60 times 1%, right, you're looking at putting on 600 grams a month, right? That's, right, only 600 grams a month that you want to be aiming to put on. If you break that down into the week, Right, divide that by 4, that's 150 grams per week that you want to be aiming to put on in a hypertrophy or improvement phase. So it's not a lot, right? This is also why I like to have a minimum of 12 to 16 weeks for any improvement phases, okay? Because if you're only putting on 150 grams a week, Right, not all of that is going to be new muscle, new tissue as well, right? You are going to put on a little bit of body fat, so then you still have to diet that back. So if you've got somebody who puts on 150 grams a week over 12 weeks, right, 0.15 times 12, right, that's 1.8 kilos. So this person here finishes 12 weeks at 61.8 kilos. Right? Ideally. Obviously, that you need to allow a little bit of leeway because there will be a large initial jump in weight at the start due to the amount of carbohydrates you're putting in, undigested food, but also the water that comes in with those carbohydrates. The thing to keep in mind when you are— this is why we talk about people losing water weight or gaining water weight— for every 1 gram of carbs, right, that's terrible, right. The body takes on between 3 to 4, 3 to 4 mils of water as well, right. So if you've increased your carbohydrates by 100 grams, right, not only have you got the extra 100 grams of weights from the macros of carbs, but then you've got the food volume, but then you've got, let's say, 300 to 400 grams along with that 100 grams of carbohydrates. So automatically you put on half a kilo just from increasing the carbohydrates because you've replenished the glycogen stores. Make sense? If I start talking too fast, pull me up. All right, I've had a few coffees already. If you're enjoying this presentation, make sure you hit subscribe on our YouTube or follow us on our podcast, available anywhere where you listen to podcasts. So does that make sense to why I like to have minimum improvement phases of between 12 and 16 weeks? Building muscle is a slow, arduous process. Take your time doing it and do it right. Don't do it half-ass. The last one you will have is a maintenance phase. The 3 times that you'll likely use a maintenance phase, right, and this is in an ideal situation, will be after the initial fat loss phase, if there is, or if there is not, if there's not enough, if you don't have enough time to add an improvement phase in. So you might do an initial fat loss phase, then go to a maintenance phase, and then have a final fat loss phase. And this might be just in order to give back to the system, give the body a rest after spending some time in a deficit. You may do it after an improvement phase, right, and this is to help solidify a new homeostasis and get the body used to the new amount of tissue that has been built, or after the result— well, there we go— after the result has been achieved and the client is looking for a long-term sustainable approach. Maintenance is a wonderful place. It's where people are happy. It's where people do lots of things they enjoy. It's where sleep is great, okay? It's where people should spend the majority of their time when, when they're not looking to achieve a goal, okay? Unless you're trying to lose fat, build new tissue, right, you need to spend your time in maintenance, right? It's where things start to level out for a lot longer, right? And how long do you need to spend in there after, let's say, a fat loss phase, or let's say comp prep? It's gonna depend, okay? It's gonna depend on how well the person starts to train, it's gonna depend on their sex drive, it's gonna depend on their sleep, and you'll find that the longer somebody spends in that maintenance phase, the the better all those factors are going to, are gonna go, right? As with the improvement phase, you may find that clients initially drop within, when you do bring them up to maintenance, and that's because, going back here, total daily expenditure is a moving target. So what happens, what have we learned? If you bring somebody's calories up after fat loss phase, why may their weight drop? What everyone wants? Correct, because they've got more food, they've got more available energy, right? So what do you do, what do you not do once their weight goes up? Don't freak out, right? It's okay, not everybody wants. Again, like you said, NEAT goes up, but also improved performance during the workouts, okay? So you will find that once calories, and there is more available energy around, your clients will start to train harder, alright? It's one thing training in a 40% deficit compared to training at maintenance calories, alright? You feel better, you train harder, you enjoy, and you actually look forward to it a lot more. The other reason you should experience some sort of maintenance phase during the timeline is it is a good place to reset. You may do, you may use a maintenance phase at the start if somebody has been a constant yo-yo dieter. Right, so if a client's come to you and they've been dieting on and off and here and there, or you've had some, particularly speaking, that there may be a lot of female clients that spend a lot of time eating next to nothing, and they come to you and they've been dieting for quite a long time, so you might sit them in maintenance in order to give back to the system straight off the bat. Okay, there's no point dieting somebody that's been dieting for the last 6 months already. It's just flogging a dead horse. Give back to the system, let them regenerate, and then you can go again, right? Think of this as a— yeah, again, same thing, reset for the body. So, when it comes to putting it all together, right, first thing you want to do is you want to determine the final fat loss phase, okay? So you want to start with the weight or the body fat that is needed, right? As in the final instance, right? So estimate how much body weight or body fat the client is gonna be at at the end and work backwards from there, right? Then for the final fat loss phase, you wanna find out what that 10 to 15% above the final fat loss, the final fat loss or weight target is, right? So again, if someone needs to finish off at 60 kilos, right? You know that at the start of that final fat loss phase, they need to be anywhere between 66 to 69 kilos, right? And you don't want them starting above that because then they're just going to lose too much body fat, you're chasing your tail, and it becomes a bit messy, right? Um, then from there you want to divide the weight loss needed, right, between that amount. So let's say you're losing 9, you need to lose 9 kilos, you want to divide that by 20 weeks, and that would give you a rate of loss of 450 grams a week, okay. You may extend it to 24 weeks if you want to lose it at a slower rate, okay. Everyone catching on? Makes sense? From there, right, you need to determine if is it achieve— is it, is it, Jesus, is it achievable? Like I said before, right, there's no point telling somebody who's 50 kilos they're going to lose a kilo a week in 10 weeks if they're going to survive on 400 calories, right? But if somebody weighs 90 kilos, right, it is a whole lot easier to tell them that they're going to lose a kilo a week because that might only be a 30% deficit, right, and keeps them well above their BMR. So you need to use the maths to determine the amount of time and how much fat loss is needed and how much of a period of time is required to get that result, okay? Um, yeah, again, how big is the person, right? The difference between Danny DeVito and Arnie and their calorie needs are going to be completely different, right? It's the difference between myself and Serena or Amy, right? They need to spend— they'll have a smaller calorie deficit than I will in order to achieve the same goal. After determining the final fat loss phase, you need to work out whether you need a maintenance phase or a build phase. Okay, this will depend on what type of physique you are looking to build, and if the client need— does the client need to build more lean mass, or is it simply a maintenance phase to give them a reset in between two fat loss phases? They may already have a good amount of lean mass when they walk in the door, they just need to lose fat, right? Right? So you may go— if someone's gonna lose 30 kilos, you may focus on losing 10 at the start, or 15 at the start and 15 at the end, and it might be over 2 24-week periods. But in between that, you've given them a maintenance phase, or let's say a little diet break of 2, 3, 4 weeks, in order to give back to the system and make sure that it's not becoming too tedious. Not only that, it's not only good and helpful for them as a reset, but they may be have a partner or have kids where they've spent 24 weeks dieting and then you give back and you go 4 weeks, go okay. You might give them a meal out a week, right? It's also giving back to not only their system but it's giving back to the system of their relationship, right? Because the more compliant, the easier it is for your client, the more compliant they're gonna be, the better the result is, right? It's like telling somebody they can't eat bread, right, when they love bread. If they're gonna keep them compliant because you have a piece of toast and eggs in the morning, go for it. Give somebody 4 weeks off in between. It's like, you're gonna have 4 weeks off, you're gonna go out for dinner once a week with your wife, right? You're gonna keep her happy, she's gonna be a bit more supportive of you, it's not gonna put a strain on your relationship, and therefore you're gonna be more compliant, right? It's all about compliance. If you're doing a maintenance phase in between 2 fat loss phases, you still allow for some weight gain. This is simply from the increase in glycogen and the water that comes along with it, as we said as well, and also the increase in undigested food, okay? Remember, you're gonna weigh more after you've eaten later at night than if you have earlier, but also the amount of food you had, okay? It's all about calculating the weight increases and working backwards from there and from the target that is required. If you're doing the improvement phase, Okay, you want to calculate how much weight will be gained over that 12 to 16 weeks or more. Remember, we are looking at averages as well. Okay, so maybe allow for a little bit of leeway. It may be a little bit more, maybe a little bit less, but on the, on the overall average, these are the numbers we'll be looking at, right? If you're doing— this might look like 1%, 70 kilos, so 700 grams per week. Et cetera. Remember, as I said before, don't freak out and don't jump to conclusions when you have an initial weight jump at the start, okay? Also reassure your clients not to freak out about that as well, because they tend to. Especially if they've come out of fat loss phase and then they've gone straight into maintenance, they'll be like, oh my god, I've put on so much weight, oh, put me back in a deficit. It's okay, just chill. This is what's meant to happen, alright? And if you can show them that at the start, right, from the timeline and that initial consultation, right, they're gonna know that it's already coming. Like, okay, from your fat loss phase, you're automatically— I'm automatically gonna put you up another kilo for the following week. But why? Because you're eating more food, you're eating more carbohydrates, you're storing more glycogen, you've got more water that comes along with that glycogen as well, alright. After determining how much weight will be gained from an improvement or a maintenance phase, you want to calculate how much weight needs to be lost. In order to keep you at that 10-15% above the final weight mark. And that's the post-improvement or after the maintenance phase. So what I like to do is I like to make sure that person, that the client, starts the maintenance or the improvement phase below that 10-15% mark, right? Because they're gonna put weight back on, right? So if you start under that 10-15% mark, that you're starting the final fat loss phase above, at, sorry, right, you're allowing for a weight gain, right? They're going to put on that 1 to 2 to 3 kilos that you're allowing for. Obviously, that is going to depend on the amount of time you're spending in a build or maintenance phase. Um, so working backwards, that's again, you're working backwards to determine, uh, the initial fat loss. And this, from there, sorry, sorry, let me go back. So once you've got your fat loss phase and then you've got your improvement or your build phase, then that is going to enable you to work backwards and determine your initial fat loss phase at the same time. Have we caught on? Because I know I'm jumping, jumping around. Yeah. After determining the initial fat loss phase, the same rules apply with the initial fat loss phase as the final fat loss phase is. However, I do allow some considerations. Again, I try not to go longer than 20 to 24 weeks. All right, this is simply due to the amount of time and mostly due to adherence. All right, having somebody on a constant calorie deficit for 20 to 24 weeks, especially straight off the bat, they're going to be less adherent and less compliant the longer it goes on. All right, however, the more fat somebody has to lose, the more aggressive you can be. Okay, this is why your initial fat loss phase may be shorter and it may be only 10 to 12 weeks, and you can lose, you know, 10 to 15 kilos depending on how much, how big they are and how much they have to lose, okay. So if, again, if someone is 30 kilos overweight, use common sense, they're gonna lose a lot more fat earlier on than they are when they've only got the last 5 kilos to lose. Those, like, why do people struggle to have those last 5 kilos? Because they're the hardest to lose, right. That initial fat loss and weight loss is always going to be the most easiest. So you can be a bit more aggressive at the start. Start. So when you're adding it all together, right— oh, that's an annoying sound, isn't it? Right, it may look like this, okay. You may start off, right, so you've got 20 weeks, right, for fat loss at the end, okay. Then you're gonna add on your improvement or your maintenance phase. Let's add in both, right? So we're gonna do 4 weeks of maintenance before your final fat loss, and you're gonna do 16 weeks of an improvement phase before your maintenance phase, okay? Then you might start off with a 10-week, right, initial fat loss phase. That means that this transformation will take you 50 weeks. All right, get out of the 12-week mindset. Real transformations take time, right? You want to change somebody's body, right, and improve their physique, right? This is how long it takes, right? Questions so far? And if you can lay this out to the client, right, remember you have a client for the next 50 weeks. So unless you really piss them off or stuff things up, right, you don't have to fill that spot for another 50 weeks. So it improves your retention as well. This also goes— so when it comes to comp prep, right, and this is where you'll see the little side note that when competitors go from, let's say, Season A to Season B and they haven't had any improvement time in the middle Right, they end up in the same spot because they've had no time to sit back, put on, build new tissue, and really force the body to actually grow. Okay, you're in that constant state of fat loss and dieting. I also periodize steps and cardio. Why do I periodize steps and cardio? Right, because clients are lazy. Especially when they're dieting, right, they're gonna get lazier. It's just the way it is. The body is very good at conserving energy, and it will find ways of conserving energy in the best way it can, right? Trust me, I know, I've been in a deficit for a while. Sometimes I look and I'm standing here like this for the last 5 minutes, right, because I just can't be bothered moving, right? You'll see it with your clients too. They'll find ways of conserving energy, right? But when it comes to periodizing steps, Right? I will look at an average of what they're doing at the start, and then I'll build from there. There's no point giving somebody 10,000 steps if they've only been doing 3,000, right? You want to use the minimum effective dose, okay? So if someone's only been doing 3,000 steps a day, you might say to them, okay, for the next 4 weeks I want you doing 5,000. Then from 5,000 you go to 7,000, then from 7,000 you go to 9,000, okay? So you've got somewhere to go. You throw them out at 10,000 to 12,000 from the bat, where you gonna go from there? Up to 20,000? Who the fuck's got that much time? I don't. Your clients don't, especially if you got high-level CEOs that are in meetings all day. They haven't got much time to do 20,000 steps. Work it out. Start with the minimum effective dose. They're doing 4 steps a day, start them on 50, you know. Also, when it comes to cardio, you may use cardio if and when needed, or you may use it, you may set a base amount of cardio and then that is sort of like ground zero, right? So sometimes I will set cardio from the start at 3 days of 20 minutes with a heart rate of between 130 and 140, right? And that's just because of the benefits we are finding with that aerobic, that's zone 2 cardio that it has on hypertrophy. So the increase in VO2 max, which will then increase recoverability, which enables people to train harder in the gym, which then enables them to not only eat more but then recover better, but then gain more tissue at the same time. At the same time, right, steps from the cardio should not be included in the step count, right? They are two separate things. Don't confuse them together, and make sure your clients don't confuse them together at the same time. The amount of clients, the amount of times that your client will be like 'Yeah, I did my 12,000 steps.' It's like, 'You taking your watch off during your cardio?' 'No, and 4,000 of those steps are from cardio.' It's like, 'Go back, do 12,000 steps, and do your cardio separately.' Okay, as we also decrease somebody's calories, right, as I said, the body is very good at saving on expenditure. So by giving a step count, right, it prevents that in a roundabout way. It will not prevent the fidgeting lowering, but it will stop somebody from going on 7,000 steps automatically when they're at maintenance, to then by, you know, just because they've gone into a deficit, they might decrease to 4,000 to 5,000 steps. They go down to 4,000 to 5,000 steps without you knowing, or you giving them a target, you've automatically lost that deficit, you've lost some of that deficit that you've created. Give step counts to keep movement, because if somebody's left up to their own devices, they will sit more, they will lean more, and they will find more ways to conserve energy. Okay, it's just the way the human body is. This is why prescribing a step count and periodizing them can be beneficial. The other thing I also— the last one I like to do is when it comes to cardio, is I give a heart rate target, because some people will do cardio like they're having a Sunday stroll in a mother's club. Right? If they're chatting away with their friends on the treadmill, having a laugh, you're not doing cardio, you're doing steps. Okay, there should be some— it should be counted as exercise. This is not part of your NEAT, this is not part of your step count, this is part of your exercise regime. Usually either 70% of someone's max, or in that, just run at zone 2 cardio, that zone 2 rate, usually between 130-140 for people. I keep it pretty average. Like, if you can have a conversation— if someone hasn't got a smartwatch, I just tell them, if you can have a conversation at the same time, you're not doing it hard enough. The thing is, right, if no one— if you're not doing it at the start, like the first time I started doing cardio, right, I hate running, I don't like running, right, I don't like doing cardio, I never have, right, I could do it on the treadmill on a 4, and my heart rate would be like 140. Now I'm on like a 7 to get my heart rate up. So you're going to adapt at the same time. Somebody who's an asthmatic or somebody that has a low VO2 max, they're going to be— they're not going to need much to get their heart rate up. But as they— it's like with training, as they adapt, they're going to need more. Otherwise, put them on the stepper. People love that. I don't know why. It's stupid. Suicide. Who wants to go on a stepper for 40 minutes? Gross. Questions? Let's go. Oh, there we go. Yeah. How do I manage carbs? Eat them. I, a lot of the time, I have really ventured off doing a lot of high and low days now. I like to keep things a lot more linear and a lot more consistent, just because, just from a standpoint of ease for the client. When you're in an improvement phase or a build phase, right, you need those calories on a rest day just as much as you need them when you're training, okay? Because you don't build muscle when you're training, you build muscle when you're recovering, right? So that calorie surplus on your rest day is going to be as important, if not more important, than you are on your, on your training days. When it comes to fat loss, right, I will tend to move carbohydrates depending how much they've got, generally around training and in the evening. In the evening to aid with sleep and recovery, and around training so they can train a lot harder. Is that what you meant? Yeah, cool. Any more? Yeah, so like a final fat loss phase where you're— the client has to lose, say, 5 kilos in 10 weeks or something, are you scaling the calories down, or are you just manipulating more so the cardio and stuff as they get deeper into that phase? I will manipulate the calories depending on their predicted body weight. Okay, right. So somebody starts off, they're gonna lose 10 kilos, you said, right? Yeah, whatever, 70 kilos. Right, so, and this is where, right, and this is where someone might go, okay, 70, they've started off at 70 kilos, you need to get down to 60, right? A 30% deficit at 70 kilos, right, you set the calories here, by the time they get down to here, right, that deficit might only be 25%. For example, because they've lost more weight, right? So that deficit's decreased. And this is the issue that people have, is that they don't adjust the deficit with the weight, okay? The cardio is just an added bonus on top, right? It's not there in order to go, okay, we're gonna— you're gonna expend another 400 calories in a day, right? Because they may, they may not. It's gonna be person-dependent. It's just there to actually start pushing things along. I have found that sometimes the added benefit of cardio on top of a deficit will actually help to push things along, or say, let's say, mobilize fat loss a bit better. I have seen that sometimes you put— you move the deficit and the body just doesn't budge. You add in a bit of cardio and it's like, okay, here we go. Things just start moving along. Does that answer your question? Yeah, sure. Any more? I think we've got one more minute before we move on to training. Would you get someone to do cardio in the build phase? Yeah, yeah, I don't mind people doing cardio in the build phase. As I said, we are finding out that it does have some transferable qualities in order to help building muscle due to the increase in VO2 max, aerobic capacity, so they can handle a bit more workload at the same time. But also, we are finding that people do recover better from their workouts with the added benefit of cardio. Um, cool, that is it. If you do want any mentoring or training, I do run a pretty full book, so just come and let me know or ask Hemming. I don't have many spots available, so first in, best dressed. But yeah, that's all for me now. Thanks for listening to the Enterprise Fitness Podcast and watching the full presentation. If you've enjoyed this, remember to hit subscribe and leave us a comment wherever you're listening to this through, or a review, would be forever grateful. Till next week, train hard, eat well, and supplement smart.