Skip the cut-then-bulk cycle. Instead, burn fat and build muscle simultaneously with a steady approach: eat a modest calorie deficit, get 0.8-1.0g protein per pound of body weight daily, and do progressive strength training mixing hypertrophy and heavy lifts. Results take 3-12 months but stick around.
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So most of the time in our industry, when it comes to the idea of like fat loss and gaining muscle, most people will recommend that you kind of go on a fat burning phase first. So you get cut or get lean, and then you go on a bulking phase after to, to build the muscle. Or the other way around, you'd go into a bulking phase first, build some muscle, and not really care about any additional body fat that might be gained, and then go into a cutting phase where you then get lean and reveal that muscle that you've been building. Now, the catch-22 with both of these approaches is that often once you achieve the first goal, whether it's you've aimed for the muscle mass or for the fat loss, what tends to happen is you get there, you achieve that goal, now you need this complete flip in how you're approaching things. The training has to change, and also your calorie intake and so on will need to change. But let's say, for example, you went for the fat loss first. So, you came in, you were overweight, you lost the weight, got to whatever your initial target weight was, what tends to happen when we go, "Right, cool, now we're gonna up your calories and look to build some muscle," most people have this kind of inherent fear that they're going to get fat again. So then what tends to happen is they won't fully commit to the bulking phase because they're kind of worried, "Well, if I eat all this food again like I was before, I'm now going to gain back all that body fat that I lost." And then the same happens in reverse when you do it the other way and you build muscle first. Then you go into the cutting phase, and now, well, they're worried about losing all of the muscle mass. So in reality, what you're better off doing, if you can, is obviously build muscle and burn fat at the same time. Now, not many people talk about doing it this way because the, the initial results aren't quite so profound, and it can sometimes be a little bit harder to maintain your momentum and your motivation. Because the first thing that you actually need is patience. You do need a bit more patience when you do it this way because the initial results aren't quite as quick or as profound in many cases. They can be at times, but because you're burning fat and building muscle at the same time, it's not like you jump on the scale, "Holy shit, I've lost 8 pounds this week!" or "Oh my God, I've gained 2 pounds of lean mass!" It's not— it's often much slower and more subtle than that, but your long-term results are often far more profound. But again, it takes that patience, that discipline of mindset to say, okay, well, I'm doing it in this way because it saves me having to go excessively high in calories where I'm going to overfeed myself, and it saves me going excessively low in calories where I'm going to underfeed myself and overly disrupt your physiology and risk your health and metabolism and so on. So what we do, the first thing is patience, as I mentioned, because the visible results may take a little bit longer, but the long-term results are often more profound and easier to maintain and sustain because of the way you've done it. You're not actually eating far off of, what's the word I'm looking for? You'll be eating different, but you're not going on any type of restriction or overfeed. So it's easy to maintain that. You don't have to now suddenly adjust and go down to maintenance calories because you were on too much or too little. So it's easier to, to stick with. Now, the next thing that you will need to do is make sure that you're fueling the muscle gain that you want. So we need to make sure that we're getting adequate protein. Here I go on about protein again. I often talk about it because it is the most important aspect of the meal. Doesn't mean the rest isn't important, as in your fats and your carbs, they're important too, but protein is number one. So we build it around protein when it comes to the nutrition. Because that will make sure that whilst we are losing some body fat, etc., we're actually maintaining as much muscle mass as possible, plus providing additional protein that may be needed to build new muscle mass at the same time. So, first thing is patience, then we go protein. Now, the next thing that you're going to want to do— so essentially we're looking at the 3 Ps: patience, protein, and the third one is performance. So what you want to do is aim to get stronger. Use your training to get stronger. If you aim for constant improvements in strength, that's obviously going to be challenging your muscles repetitively. So, session by session, week by week, month by month, you're looking to get stronger. Yes, you're going to vary the ways in which you do it. You will use variations between hypertrophy-type training, which is what we call muscle building or bodybuilding-type training, as well as strength training, which is lower reps, higher weight. And whereas your, your, um, hypertrophy or muscle building stuff would be more moderate weight and moderate reps, or the 8 to 12 rep range, um, we'd say around 70 to 80% of your, your max weights and so on. So we go patience, protein, performance. So if you constantly chase increases in your performance and your, your athletic abilities— now when I say that, I just mean your physical capabilities. I'm not necessarily meaning, oh, I could run the 100 in in 11 and now I can do it in 10. Not necessarily that type of athletics, but you want to know that your body is performing better and better. And if you aim for strength, then you know that you're going to be stimulating the body in a way that requires it to build and develop new muscle, and you're going to be stimulating it in a way that will prevent you from losing any muscle with the calories not being excessively high. So those are the 3 Ps. We want patience, protein, and performance. If you stick with those 3, and as I say, because you are exercising patience, you're looking at a longer-term thing. So we're talking maybe 3, 6, perhaps even 12 months that you would aim this out, rather than go, okay, well, I'm gonna cut for 3 months and then bulk for 3 months and so on. You just take that same period of time, but you can do both without overly sacrificing calories or overly indulging in order to kind of go through that bulking phase. If you want me to dig into this any deeper or give you some additional strategies that you might find useful, as always, as I always tell you guys, post in the comments below or post your own post asking any questions you might have, and I'll more than happily record a video or respond to you in the comments. And obviously, as always, thanks for watching, people. I hope you all have— all have? No, hope you all have an awesome weekend ahead planned, and I look forward to checking with
