How Does Online Fitness Coaching Work?

If you’ve stumbled onto this article because you’re in the research phase of hiring a “fitness” coach to help you with your goal of losing fat and building muscle, you’re in the right place.

In fact, I actually much prefer to call it online body recomposition coaching since it’s more specific to what most people want.

Let me explain.

Most people want to live a lean, muscular life.

In fact, you could put it even more bluntly and say that most people want to “look better naked” (as the expression goes).

And, although being fit can certainly overlap with an impressive physique, there’s no guarantee that getting fitter will make you look “better” in a swimsuit by the pool next summer.

Fitness and physique are not one in the same.

So keep that in mind as you continue reading.

As of now, I’ll officially be abandoning the term “fitness coaching” in favor of “body recomposition coaching” since I’m willing to bet you’re more interested in looking like a Greek god or goddess than you are improving your mile time.

I’m also willing to bet that you have a lot of questions about how this whole online body recomposition coaching thing works (as you should).

For example, you might be asking yourself…

• How can you even do personal training without being there with someone in-person? Isn’t that the whole point?

• Or is this somehow different than personal training? This “body recomposition” lingo is new to me.

• How do we communicate? Is it all through email or Zoom or what?

And you’re definitely wondering how much it costs.

Am I right?

Fortunately, I plan to answer all of those questions and more in this write-up.

What You Can Expect from This Article

My goal is for you to be thinking one of two things once you finish reading this article:

• “Wow. That was really helpful. Online body recomposition coaching sounds like exactly what I need in my life right now.” Or…

• “Wow. That was really helpful. I’m not sure online coaching is a good fit for me right now, but now I feel educated and empowered to make the right decision for myself.”

If you can say either of those things, I’m going to give myself a jovial slap on the back and treat myself to a bar of dark chocolate tonight.

So without further ado…

How does online body recomposition coaching work?

That’s a great question that deserves a great answer, but first I’m going to describe how traditional, in-person personal training works for the sake of comparison.

Let’s get right into it.

How does traditional, in-person personal training work?

With traditional personal training, you sign up for an initial consultation at your local gym and then typically book one to three sessions a week with a personal trainer that guides you through about an hour of stretching, resistance training, and cardio that they’ve programmed for you beforehand (hopefully) according to your goals.

They walk around the gym with you, lead you to each specific exercise, and offer corrective feedback on your technique.

They also program the number of sets and reps you will perform for each given movement and coach you through that accordingly.

There also seems to be a big social component to a lot of traditional personal training. In many cases, your coach becomes a sort of friend, and you wind up shooting the breeze with them for three hours a week.

In terms of rates, one week of discounted personal training at the local gym I attended for most of my twenties costed $99 for three 60-minute introductory sessions. If you add that price to the next three weeks of non-discounted sessions at $129 per week, that accumulates to over $500 for your first month of personal training, and it only goes up from there once the discounts no longer apply.

And this can be a great fit for a lot of people.

That’s in-person personal training.

So how does online body recomposition coaching work?

How does online body recomposition coaching work?

Online body recomposition coaching is much different and quite a bit more comprehensive (unless you choose to work with a reputable coach or company). Although I no longer run my own body recomposition company, I’m going to outline the experience as it was when I did.

So here we go.

Your initial consultation is done online from the convenience of your computer, which means you can Zoom in from anywhere in the world.

So the immediate advantage of opting for online body recomposition coaching is that you now have access to coaches and trainers on a global scale, which means you’re not limited to working with local trainers that may not align with your goals, values, or personality.

This is also a major advantage for online trainers because their pool of potential clients is now a splash shy of eight billion.

Not bad for business, right?

But back to consultations…

Your initial consultation is usually an opportunity for you to talk with your potential coach about whether or not working together seems like a mutually beneficial idea.

For example, your coach might ask you…

• What are your specific goals? Are you looking to lose body fat? Gain muscle?

• What are your motivations?

• What’s your diet history?

• What’s your training history?

• Do you have any prior injuries or medical conditions that I should know about?

• Are you taking any medications with side effects that are known to hinder weight loss efforts?

And, of course, you’ll (hopefully) have the opportunity to ask anything you might be curious about too.

• Will I have to run?

• Do I have to count macros?

• I’m vegan. Is that going to be a problem?

• Going to a public gym is overwhelming for me. Can I workout from home?

You get the point.

By the end of the call, the coach will either extend an offer to you or politely decline your interest in a coaching relationship if they feel they are genuinely unable to help you achieve your goals.

Assuming it’s a good fit and you decide to join the roster, you sign contracts and get to work.

On a second or third call with your coach, they might pitch you some kind of a lifestyle change proposal, which would essentially outline their big-picture plan for how they’d like to go about achieving your goals given everything you’ve told them in your consultation and all subsequent questionnaires. Essentially, this is a list of all the lifestyle habits and routines they’d like you to implement for optimal results.

For example, they might say:

• This is how many calories I’d like you to consume for these first two weeks.

• This is how I’d like to structure your training split.

• This is how much I’d like you to walk this week.

And much more, of course.

Here’s a quicker breakdown of the pros and cons as we see it:

PROS OF ONLINE COACHING

• It’s suited really well for busy people.

  • We live in a fast-paced world, and online coaching is designed for the digitally savvy.

  • You do the workouts on your own time, report your activities on your phone or on your laptop, and check in digitally for feedback.

• It benefits those who can take responsibility for what needs to be done.

  • If you’re an independent person, online coaching is a dream come true. You set a goal, surrender the strategy to your coach, and you implement what needs to be implemented. The guesswork is completely offloaded, and you have the freedom to execute without thought fatigue.

  • It’s also clear from day one that no one is going to do the work for you.

    • With in-person personal training, it can be easy to become convinced that you’ll see results “automatically” each week simply because you’re showing up. After all, you’ve got a personal trainer now, right?!

    • With online body recomposition coaching, you understand from the get-go that there are distinct coaching and client responsibilities in this process. The coach is responsible for designing a program that generates results according to your goals, and you are responsible for executing that plan.

  • Online coaching works particularly well for people who already feel comfortable in a gym environment.

    • Although we’re happy to send instructional videos on how to use the Hack Squat machine, progress tends to occur more quickly for individuals who have past gym-going experience. That being said, don’t let this deter you if you are new to the gym! Just be prepared for a steeper learning curve and more initial communication with your coach.

• It’s flexible and requires less scheduling and calendar management.

  • With traditional personal training, you have to align each workout session with your coach’s calendar. For most people, that means working out at a set time each week. For example, let’s say Mondays at 7 AM. But let’s say you’re a mom and a businesswoman and Little Johnny has been sick all night. You have to navigate an early morning doctor appointment, and the only time slot available is one that conflicts with your workout slot. You have to cancel last minute, and there’s no reimbursement. You didn’t workout, your money is gone, and you’re mentally discouraged.

  • With online coaching, let’s say you were still planning on working out on Monday at 7 AM. Little Johnny gets sick like he did in the first example, but now you’re able to make a simple and easy adjustment. You simply go to the gym after work on Monday, or maybe you even move your workout to Tuesday and take the day completely off while adjusting the rest of your week. You wind up getting a great workout, you don’t lose a dime, and mentally you’re actually better off than you were before because you’re feeling confident about your ability to navigate adversity while still pursuing your physique goals.

• It can be more affordable (but not always).

• It’s modern and effective.

  • We’re living in the 2020s, which means a lot of cool stuff is happening in formerly unthought-of ways. And for those who don’t know, thousands of people are obtaining healthier body shapes through online coaching. There’s no sense in thinking online coaching is “a bit edgy” or “risky.” At the company I currently work for, we don’t take your money and then surrender you to robots and automated messages. All of our one-on-one communications are 100% authentic and automation-free.

CONS OF ONLINE COACHING

• Your trainer obviously isn’t there with you in-person, and there might be a greater chance that you perform a few exercises with improper technique.

  • This is a fair critique, but we do ask for form videos from most clients in the early weeks of a program to ensure safety and movement quality.

• Some feel as though accountability is lessened when your coach doesn’t meet with you in person, but we mostly disagree, and here’s why:

  • Obviously, when you’re doing a set of decline weighted sit-ups and clearly slacking off, having an in-person trainer benefits you in that they are there to motivate you and encourage you to “push through the pain.” But what happens during the other 23 hours of your day? Keep in mind that most commercial personal trainers help you workout and that’s it. They consider nothing beyond what you do in the gym. So what happens when you go home and eat four slices of Papa John’s pizza and dig on a little Ben and Jerry’s for dessert? Where’s the accountability there?

• You workout alone.

  • For people who value the social element, this can certainly be a con of online coaching, but we honestly find that most people enjoy the time spent alone moving toward their goals without distraction and unnecessary noise. After all, there are plenty of other ways to get your social fix. Or, better yet, consider applying for our coaching with a friend! That’s a great way to make physique development more socially healthy for anyone who’d rather not be alone in the gym. And we’d likely cut you a slight discount for the creative thought and the addition to our client roster.

And those are the main pros and cons of online body recomposition coaching.

Summary

• Unless true fitness is your goal, you’re probably better off hiring a body recomposition coach than you are a fitness coach. Unfortunately, however, these terms are often used synonymously in the fitness space.

• And, although improved fitness is a fantastic goal for overall health and wellness, most people would rather pay someone to help them regain confidence in their physical appearance than be able to do 75 sit-ups in a minute.

• Traditional, in-person personal training can be a good fit for people who need in-person accountability, but I personally find its overall effectiveness to be limited.

• Online coaching favors those who are independent and digitally savvy. It makes good use of modern technology and allows for deeper and more intentional coach-to-client relationships.

• Online coaching also tends to be more affordable and grants you the opportunity to work with your favorite trainers across the globe.

• In some rare cases, online coaching may not be a good fit for people who don’t have any prior gym experience.

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As always, I hope you found this article helpful!

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at @weswh1te on Instagram. Although I admittedly avoid social media like the plague, so be patient if it takes me a bit to get back to you.

Until next time,

-Andrew

How to Eat More Food and Look Leaner in the Long-Run

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately on what most people really want when it comes to the relationship between their body composition and their lifestyle.

And I think I've made one big realization.

It has to do with our metabolisms.

Are you ready for it?

Most people who want to improve their body composition also want to be able to eat enough food to enjoy their lives.

In other words, being super lean and "hot-looking" probably isn't worth it if you have to eat like a bird, never go out for pizza with friends, and punt your favorite alcoholic beverages to the curb for a lifetime.

In this case, I think a picture is worth a thousand words.

Have you seen a photo like this at some point on social media?

My guess is that you have.

After all, what could possibly be more jealousy-inducing than a picture of a super fit guy or gal in a luxurious resort setting enjoying what seems to be a plethora of delicious foods and drinks?

They're lean, muscular, and aesthetically pleasing in a way that would make nine out of ten people whisper, “I want that,” under their breath.

My point?

I think this is what nearly all of us are secretly longing for in quiet desperation.

But before we get too far, I want to be clear about what you can expect from this article:

• Firstly, I’m going to continue to make the case that living a lean lifestyle is more enjoyable when you can eat plenty of food.

• I’m going to remind you and encourage you that your metabolism is adaptable.

• I’m going to offer you my two best tips for how to improve your metabolism for the sake of eating more while keeping your lean look long-term.

• I’m going to highlight a few specific lifestyle examples of how to take actionable steps today.

In short, if you’re interested in how to eat more food while looking lean and feeling confident in your own skin, you’re in the right place.

Your metabolism can change.

Most of you reading this article won't know me personally, but I think it’s relevant here to mention that I have an insane appetite, which means I couldn't be less interested in looking super peeled if it means I have to be on something like 1,800 calories for an extended period of time.

Pass!

I'd rather be fatter and happier.

But here's the silver lining.

Your metabolism can be improved over time, which seems to be somewhat classified information in the fitness industry.

And as much as I hate to admit this, even I wasn’t aware of this until I entered the pre-planning phase of my own body recomposition effort in 2018.

I remember it distinctly: I was watching a Paul Revelia video on YouTube, and he kept talking about adaptive metabolisms.

I was shocked.

Up until then, I had assumed our metabolisms were kind of like femurs or noses in the sense that they were fixed and unchangeable. I assumed we were just born with them and that they were completely out of our control.

But in that moment I learned that that’s not the case:

You can, in fact, up-regulate and down-regulate your metabolism based on how you live your life.

Ever since then I've been fascinated with the idea of improving my own metabolism for the sake of eating as much food as possible while looking lean and muscular.

Is anyone with me?

Assuming you are, I want to throw two big tips at you today for how to improve your metabolism for the long haul.

1. Building Muscle Is Probably the Best Way to Improve Your Metabolism

I've mentioned this before in content I've put out, but muscle tissue is roughly three times as metabolically active as fat tissue, which means your body requires more energy to maintain muscle than it does fat.

This is great news for jacked people because it means you need approximately three times as many calories to support your muscle tissue than your fat tissue.

The implication? Arguably the best thing you can do for the sake of improving your metabolism is to add as much muscle mass to your frame as possible.

More muscle means more food.

And this is true for you as well, ladies! Adding muscle can be done strategically to maintain whichever curves you currently love about your body.

In other words, building muscle doesn’t mean you have to “get bulky.” Like many female physique competitors these days, you can focus heavily on certain areas of your body like the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and back to help you emphasize that stereotypically feminine appearance.

I might even argue that it’s more important for women to try to build muscle since they tend to be smaller than men by nature. Smaller people require less food than bigger people, so as much as you can muscle-up your frame while maintaining a physical appearance that supports your confidence, the better.

So again, more muscle means more food.

Are we tracking?

To illustrate this point further, I want to offer you quick, personal anecdote.

How I Improved My Own Metabolism

In my mid-to-late twenties, I started trying to figure out the whole “macros” thing because I was unhappy with how I had “let go” of my formerly athletic and trim physique.

At the time, I was eating a decent amount of protein, but my calories were generally still pretty low.

But they weren't low enough to have me in a meaningful caloric deficit, which landed me in a state of perma-chubbiness with a "bad" metabolism while making little to no progress in terms of improving my body composition.

In my opinion, that's one of the worst places to be: chubby with a sluggish metabolism.

For for those who are curious, I was eating around 2,300 calories per day (when I wasn’t overeating on the weekends) with plenty of belly pudge and no definition. I was hovering between 200-205 pounds at six feet tall.

Now I'm eating between 3,500-4,000 calories per day at 190 pounds with way more muscle and way less chub while gaining weight slowly at a rate of around 0.25% per week (on purpose).

That's a 1,200-1,700-calorie increase in my metabolic performance, which is the equivalent of four to five large pieces of pepperoni pizza from Papa John's or 20 Double Stuf Oreos per day.

Oh, and I’ve lost between 10-15 pounds since then.

So the question is…

What the heck did I do?

And the answer is simple.

I tried to build as much muscle as possible.

• I resistance trained intelligently and systematically within evidence-based training guidelines and best practices from leading industry experts.

  • More specifically, I sought to hit between 10-20 sets per muscle group within a few reps of technical failure per week.

  • I chose exercises with an optimal stimulus to fatigue ratio.

  • I made minor technique adjustments on those exercises to favor hypertrophy as much as possible.

  • I overloaded my sessions properly over time.

  • I manipulated my session to session volume strategically to allow for optimal recovery.

• I ate enough protein to support my muscle growth goals.

• And most importantly, I trained this way consistently for four years.

And now I’m a real life example of what it can look like to juice up your metabolism simply by putting in the work toward training for muscle growth, eating a high-protein diet, and implementing those habits consistently over time.

Pretty cool, yeah?

The somewhat unspoken implications here, however, are the following:

• You might have to sacrifice a lean look now for the sake of a lean look later.

  • What I mean by this is that muscle is built best when we eat in a slight surplus or at least match our total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) calorie-for-calorie with our caloric intake.

  • Unless you’re brand new to training, this probably means you are going to have to gain weight slowly.

    • Although I think this is best accomplished in the context of a one-on-one coaching relationship, the general rule of thumb is to aim to gain weight at a rate of 0.25-0.5% of your body weight per week.

  • Fortunately, I can proudly say that I’ve led by example here. I forfeited my 173-pound photo shoot bod to multiple cycles of surplus eating to favor muscle growth instead of being tight-fisted with my six-pack and shoulder veins.

• Your training needs to be your greatest focus.

  • As much as activities like hiking, group cardio classes, boxing, yoga, and pure barre can be wonderful for overall fitness, I’m not aware of any powerful scientific literature that suggests they have any exciting metabolism-boosting benefits.

  • Stick to hypertrophy training or another form of high-volume resistance training like CrossFit for optimal metabolic improvements.

• You are going to have to be patient.

  • In fact, “Play the long game,” is one of the most common phrases I use with my clients.

  • In a society driven by everything but delayed gratification, I find that a combined lack of patience and perspective are what prove to be most self-inhibiting for people who want to eat in abundance while sporting an increasingly lean and physique look long-term.

And really it’s that simple in most cases.

Having said all of this, I can guide you down this same path if you’re willing to adjust your lifestyle and put in the work.

Just keep in mind that I'm not a metabolic wizard with a fancy wand that unleashes its magical powers at the subtle swipe of a credit card.

You will still have to train hard and manipulate your dietary habits strategically (and sometimes even counterintuitively) for months and years, which transitions me smoothly to my next point.

2. You Might Have to Reverse Diet and Be Willing to Get Chubbier Before You Get Leaner

Honestly, I think this is one of the most valuable strategies any coach could ever bring to the table.

Why? Because it's super counterintuitive and terrifying for most people who have struggled to lose weight for years.

Eat more and actually gain weight temporarily? Yes!

It's called metabolic building and/or reverse dieting, and the point is to set you up for better body recomposition success in the long-term by up-regulating your metabolism and enhancing your training quality.

Unfortunately, this article would be way too long if I got into the exact details of how to reverse diet, but just know that increasing your calories systematically in controlled increments is an extremely effective way to improve your metabolism over time while training hard and eating a well-balanced diet designed for physique improvement.

The only downside to this tip is that most people won’t be able to implement a well-designed reverse diet protocol on their own, which means the best way to reverse properly is to hire a reputable coach.

But if a one-on-one coaching relationship isn’t something you can afford right now, don’t fret.

There are still things you can start doing right now.

How to Get Started Right Away

If you’ve been sold on the idea of “playing the long game” in favor of eating more over time while keeping your physique intact, here are a very quick ideas that may or may not help you get started:

• Quit hopping from plan to plan and settle into something consistent and sustainable for the long-term.

  • In other words, quit experimenting with new dietary patterns and training plans in search of the one “perfect” plan for you. Consistency is the name of the game.

• Similar to that first point, make sure the main focus of your exercise regimen is resistance training.

  • I’m feel like I’m feeding a fed horse with this point since I seem to mention it in nearly all of my articles, but it really is that important.

  • If you aren’t training with weights, you aren’t going to build an appreciable amount of muscle that will allow you to eat more in the long-run.

• You could consider joining a CrossFit gym.

  • But before you drive to my house and toss a Molotov cocktail through my living room window because you hate CrossFit with all of your mind, body, and soul, know that I have to mention it here due to the potential metabolic and lifestyle benefits it can offer.

    • Without belaboring the point, CrossFit is unique in that it incorporates resistance training while challenging the cardiovascular system at the same time. So as it pertains to living that lean lifestyle while eating in abundance, CrossFit can be a quicker road to Rome because you can reap the metabolic benefits of adding muscle mass while cashing in on an increased energy expenditure from demanding workouts that allow you to eat more on a daily basis.

    • In a lot of ways, I think CrossFit allows people to recomp more effectively than any other training strategy, but I realize it won’t be for everyone.

Summary

• Most people don’t just want to look good. They want to look good and be able to eat plenty of food while enjoying life to the fullest.

• The best way to do this is to focus on building as much muscle as your lifestyle allows. This is because muscle tissue is approximately three times more metabolically active than fat tissue. In other words, the more muscle you have, the more you get to eat without gaining weight.

• The best way to build muscle is to focus primarily on hypertrophy training or something that incorporates resistance training like CrossFit.

• You’ll also want to spend as much time eating at maintenance or in a small caloric surplus as possible.

• And in some unique cases, some people will need to reverse diet and “risk” weight gain in favor of improving their metabolism before attempting a focused fat loss phase.

• Lastly, remember that nothing about this process will be quick and effortless.

  • Most people with impressive metabolic “transformations” will have accumulated years of strategic training and dieting. In my case, it took me about four years to be able to eat 3,500 calories per day while staying relatively lean.

  • Be willing to play the long game as you think about whether or not metabolic building is something you want to attempt. Although the rewards can be truly life-changing, the path to success will require discipline, diligence, consistency, and patience.

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As always, I really enjoyed writing this article, so if you found it helpful, do me a favor and send it to a friend who would rather be smashing the all-you-can-eat buffet as a lean machine than smashing their face into a wall from metabolic frustration.

Until next time,

-Andrew

5 Tips for Getting Back to Basics When You've Overcomplicated Your Body Recomposition Journey

To be honest with you, this article originally began as a personal note to myself I cyber-scribbled into my iPhone one day on a flight from Denver to St. Louis.

For quite some time, I had been making my body recomposition journey way too complicated, and I had become the poster child of self-inflicted paralysis by analysis.

And although ultimately my desire to understand every known detail about evidence-based body recomposition had fueled a lot of personal growth for me, I was starting to realize that it had also prevented me from taking my best strides at times.

I remember rewriting my own training programs over and over again thinking, “Finally! This is the perfect mesocycle for muscle growth,” just to rewrite it once more in a few days.

I remember thinking tirelessly about the “perfect” number of sets I should be doing each week and wondering fruitlessly if I should be counting drop sets as full sets or a half sets.

And I remember being hyper-focused on getting six “hits” of muscle protein synthesis per day to the extent that I was setting 150-minute timers on my phone so I’d know when to guzzle down my next serving of shredded chicken and half of a plain bagel.

I once even bought raw, cartoned egg whites and drank them in the car during a road tip because I was unwilling to miss an opportunity to “stimulate muscle growth.”

As the saying goes, I was missing the forest for the trees.

I had become so entrenched in the details that I had failed to look up and remember the grander narrative of what it meant to improve my body composition sustainably over time.

Does any of this sound relatable?

If so, I want to share with you what I wrote in that small note on my phone that day with the hope of helping you refocus on what matters most for a successful body recomposition endeavor.

5 Tips for Getting Back to Basics for an Improved Body Recomposition

1. remember that Calories matter most for fat loss, but your health and livelihood probably matter too.

It's so easy to overcomplicate this, but it really is true that you can get shredded to the bone while paying attention to calories and nothing else.

Just take a look at anyone who’s ever been stranded at sea on a handcrafted life raft like Chuck Noland and his spherical confidant Wilson circa 2000.

And in some sense, this is both good news and bad news.

It’s good news in that weight loss has now become very simple. If you consume fewer calories than you expend, you’ll lose weight.

But it’s bad news in that it becomes increasingly tempting to think of foods exclusively in terms of their caloric density and nothing else.

So now there’s really no good argument for ever eating an avocado or a handful of almonds over a Rice Krispies Treat because avocados have nearly three times as many calories than their marshmallow friends.

And yet most of us understand that avocados are probably the healthier option when pitted against an ultra-processed dessert made by a curious clan of animated elves.

Are you seeing how this can quickly become complicated?

At some point, the question we all have to ask ourselves is this:

To what extent will we nuance our understanding of calorie balance for a fat loss effort with our best understanding of how to eat for optimal health?

And so even though you could consume brownie batter flavored whey protein, Rice Krispie Treats, and peanut butter toward a leaner and meaner physique, it begs a few questions.

Would that be good for your health? Would you lose muscle mass? Would you be performing at your best on a diet of ultra-processed foods and somewhat “empty” calories?

Would your skin look the same? Would your hair be healthy? Would you be thriving sexually?

Would your sleep quality be high? Would you have energy throughout the day to invest in the relationships that matter most to you?

As I alluded to before, I ignored nearly all of those questions for a very long time in the name of caloric over-obsession and nothing else.

Did I get lean? Absolutely. But did I do so at the expense of my overall health? I believe so.

So to mitigate the risk of overcomplicating my first point in an article written to encourage people not to overcomplicate things, the main takeaway here is this:

Being in a calorie deficit is king for fat loss, but you’ll want to make sure you’ve thought through the health and wellness ramifications of your dietary pattern as well.

In fact, I think it’s similar to playing a game of chess.

In some undeniable sense, the king is the most important piece on the board. You cannot win without protecting him. Your own king, in this case, is your application of calorie balance.

But there are other important pieces on the board as well: the queen, your rooks, the bishops and the knights, and even the seemingly insignificant pawns that can become queens if you shepherd them well and guide safely beyond enemy lines.

We might consider these your overall health, your energy levels, your sleep quality, and your sex drive (among many others).

The key to becoming a great chess player is being able to command all of your pieces toward a unified goal while considering the greater context of the ultimate task at hand.

Will you be able to consider all of the pieces and how they can help you achieve your goal?

Or will you fail to see the bigger picture and miss the forest for the trees?

2. Don’t forget that training quality is the most important thing for building muscle.

I screwed this up for a long time too because I was searching for the “perfect” dietary pattern like it was the lost city of Atlantis.

In other words, I was placing a disproportionate amount of attention on my diet to give me the look I wanted instead of the quality of my training. I was incessantly tweaking something with the hopes of optimizing my physique just that much more.

And in doing so, I neglected my training quality.

In some sense, this this is the overcompensation for my first point in this article, and it’s a great example of how you can make a good thing a bad thing.

If you focus too much on the quality of your diet, you might forget that you actually have to train intelligently and intensely in the gym to build the muscle you want.

The point here is to settle into a dietary pattern that is supported by evidence for positive physique improvements and then eat habitually while you train with purpose.

The less time you can spend overthinking your diet the better.

For example, don’t waste time and energy wondering if eating 20 extra grams of carbohydrates from bananas versus berries during your pre-workout meal is going to yield you an extra 1% of muscle gain over the next five years.

Just get in the gym and train hard!

In summary, if a major component of your body recomposition goal is to grow bigger muscles, be sure to focus on high-quality training above all else.

3. Don’t overcomplicate your protein intake at the expense of other macronutrients.

This is another mistake I was making.

I had gotten overly focused on consuming excessive amounts of protein at the expense of food quality and overall food diversity.

As I mentioned before, there was a time when I would estimate that nearly 80% of my calories were coming from Fresh toast doused in sugar-free maple syrup and bowls upon bowls of teriyaki chicken.

Why?

Because they allowed me to “hit my macros” with convenience and ease.

Not only this, but I was convinced that five protein feeds per day must be better than four, and six must be even better than five. In doing so, I manipulated myself psychologically to believe that I “didn’t want my goals badly enough” when I only made time to eat three times per day.

Do I regret it? Absolutely.

Unfortunately, that season of eating was characterized by low energy levels and overall lethargy, digestive discomfort, and delayed post-workout recovery.

And even more unfortunately, I see now that choosing to eat that way had actually suppressed some of my greater values of health and vitality in favor of a “protein at all costs” mindset.

In short, my encouragement to you here is not to become protein-obsessed at the expense of a more well-rounded nutritional profile.

Instead, focus on eating an adequate amount of daily protein that supports your goal, and then maximize your intake of colorful plant foods as you approach your daily caloric target.

In an attempt to lead by example, I’ve now adopted a completely plant-based diet that is rich in lean protein sources, fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.

I feel better than ever, I eat much less protein than I used to (while eating way more carbohydrates and fats), and I’ve only continued to see steady muscle and strength gains since making that change in May 2021.

4. don’t stress about meals you can’t track perfectly.

As much as I enjoy the systematic fat loss outcomes of tracking food, I had come to realize that there were many times in life when tracking a meal just wasn’t worth the cost.

For example, one of my really good friends made me a delicious curry the other night.

If you've been around the macro-tracking block a few times, you know that curry isn't very tracker-friendly.

It's nearly impossible to know exactly how much of this vegetable or that vegetable was in your particular serving, and the sauce is always a caloric mystery.

This can make eating out with a friends a nightmare for people with orthorexic tendencies.

And this can be the case with many homemade meals like pastas, casseroles, and slow cooker meals.

Rather than stressing about it (like I would have in the past), I embraced the meal and simply kept my portion size reasonable and limited myself to one plate.

And I couldn't have been happier about it.

I didn't strain the relationship by being a high-maintenance guest, we were able to enjoy a delicious meal together without distraction, and I left feeling completely in control of my diet and physique.

So remember that not every meal in life will be trackable.

Learn to know when to relax and rely on mindful eating habits like portion sizes and eating to fullness without excess.

5. never forget that Sustainability wins in the end.

I mostly hate the phrase "do what works for you" because it always seems wildly unhelpful and conversationally lazy.

But this is one scenario where I think it works really well as long as we offer a brief explanation of exactly what we mean.

As it pertains to feeling more confident in your birthday suit, you’re still going to have to do all of the evidence-based things I’m always teasing out in all of my IVRY articles, but there are going to be small ways here and there that you can tweak your own lifestyle in unique ways for long-term body recomposition success.

For example, when dieting for fat loss, I used to eat a big breakfast and skip lunch in favor of a small snack in the afternoon and a bigger dinner while other people might prefer to fast until 1PM and then have their first large meal.

We're both generally still playing by all of the same rules of calorie balance, but we're manipulating those rules to our advantage based on our own preferences.

Does that make sense?

In my observations, this is a hallmark feature of all successful dieters - the ability to modify and nuance minor lifestyle behaviors in way that is rhythmic, repeatably, and sustainable for them.

Can I take it a bit further?

To be super frank, I'm not a proponent of transformations that people can't maintain long-term.

After having done this for awhile, I know how to sniff out a transformation photo of someone who crash dieted and destroyed their health to win an online “transformation challenge.”

Most people can starve themselves for eight weeks and "look hot" for a wedding. Most people can do super keto for three months and lose 30 pounds. Most people can suffer through P90X once to reveal a blurry six-pack and a plump, worm-like vein in their left bicep.

But what most people can't do is keep the weight off.

My point? Sustainability wins in the end.

Do yourself a favor and remind yourself to play the long game.

Summary

• When you’re passionate about improving your body composition, overcomplicating things can be an easy trap to fall into.

• Remember that calorie balance is most important for weight loss, but it’s probably a good idea to consider your health and wellness as well. The key is to find a balance.

• Never forget that training quality matters most for building muscle. Try not to let other aspects of the process distract you from executing a well-designed training plan with a high level of focus and intensity.

• Avoid overcomplicating your protein intake. Once you’ve identified an adequate amount of protein to eat on a daily basis, maximize your consumption of healthy carbohydrates and fats within your caloric target.

• Come to terms with the fact that you won’t be able to track every meal to the gram. In those unavoidable situations, eat mindfully and do your best to enjoy the moment stress free. You don’t have to keep a food scale in your back pocket at all times to be lean and muscular.

• Lastly, remember that sustainability is the name of the game. If overcomplicating any aspect of your body recomposition journey is preventing you from getting the results you want, you’d be smart to reconsider your plan in favor of something more sustainable.

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As always, I really enjoyed writing this article.

If you found it helpful, consider sending it to a friend!

Until next time,

-Andrew

CrossFit vs. Bodybuilding: Which is Better for Living a Lean Life?

To be honest with you, I never thought I would be writing this article.

For those of you who don't know, I was one of those classic “CrossFit-haters” before I woke up to the fitness, mobility, strength, and other positive health benefits of the CrossFit methodology, which means I would have given bodybuilding the award for “best training methodology for staying lean” over CrossFit in a heartbeat.

But after having dabbled in CrossFit for awhile now myself, I’m not so sure.

So it's time to discuss the battle of the training styles: Bodybuilding vs. CrossFit.

Which is better for getting that lean, hard-body look?

In this article, I am going to:

• Tell you what it means to train like a bodybuilder.

• Tell you what it means to train like a CrossFitter.

• Consider the general benefits of bodybuilding and CrossFit respectively.

• Tell you which one I think is “best” for living a lean, muscular life.

• Reveal how I personally train and eat based on my own goals and values.

You're busy, so let's define some terms and then jump right into it.

What does it mean to train like a bodybuilder?

Just know that the term "bodybuilding" here just means training with mostly straight sets of 6-20 reps with the primary goal of building muscle for aesthetic purposes above all else.

If you’re familiar with the term hypertrophy, you know that this is the name of the game for every serious bodybuilder - size and shreds at all costs.

But first, I want to make it clear that I don’t think you have to identify as a bodybuilder to train like a bodybuilder, and you certainly don’t have to be a competitive bodybuilder to train like a bodybuilder.

I wouldn't even have identified as a bodybuilder when I trained exclusively for hypertrophy from May 2019 through August 2021 because it simply wasn’t something I embraced as a part of my identity.

So when you see bodybuilding language being used in this article, remember that it just refers to that style of training, which is honestly what most normal people seem to do when they go to the gym to lift weights.

For example, they hit three sets of barbell bench press and then three sets of machine incline bench. Then they move on to a shoulder press and a few tricep movements to finish off their session with a skin-splitting pump and a quick flex in the mirror on their way back to the locker room.

Does this sound familiar?

In other words, most bodybuilders train with a particular training split in mind, which means they target specific muscle groups on specific days of the week (in most cases).

This is one of the main differences between bodybuilding and CrossFit.

Some of the most common training splits are:

• Push, Pull, Legs, Push, Pull, Legs, Rest

• Legs, Push, Pull, Rest, Legs, Rest, Arms

• Upper, Lower, Rest, Upper, Lower, Rest, Rest

• Full Body, Full Body, Rest, Full Body, Full Body, Rest, Rest

Mike Thurston, bodybuilder

To represent the bodybuilding side of the “argument” in this article, I’ve chosen to feature Mike Thurston, who has been one of my favorite fitness influencers for years.

And although Mike Thurston has often been accused of using performance enhancing drugs, he claims to be a drug-free bodybuilder (and I choose to believe him despite the rising intensity of the “natty witch hunt” movement).

For that reason, I think he's a great example of just about "as good as it can get" when it comes to training purely for physique outcomes.

So maybe consider his build as you continue reading about the bodybuilding side of things.

What does it mean to train like a CrossFitter?

CrossFit, for the purposes of this conversation, probably means that you actually go to a CrossFit gym and do their daily workouts usually called WODs or metcons.

You could maybe loop a more general circuit-like training style into this, but I'd rather not. It's just not the same, and I think we should keep CrossFit distinct from other training systems that might seem similar like Orangetheory or F45.

So for the purposes of this article, let’s assume that training like a serious CrossFitter is the dedicated equivalent of training like a serious bodybuilder.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with CrossFit, I think CrossFit is unique from bodybuilding in two distinct ways:

Noah Ohlsen, CrossFitter

1. True fitness is the goal of CrossFit - not aesthetics. And what’s important to remember here is that fitness refers to one’s ability to perform as much work as possible as efficiently as possible. What I mean here is that it’s not just about looking fit, which is a huge misconception in the fitness industry. While most people might agree that bodybuilders look fit, the truth is that most of them would struggle to post a respectable mile run time or even sprint 100 meters without straining a hamstring. And this isn’t meant to be an unfair dig at bodybuilders. Running in any capacity isn’t a primary component of what it means to be a bodybuilder.

2. CrossFitters don’t have training splits. In fact, one of the fundamental principles of CrossFit is known as The Hopper Model, which states that all-around fitness can be tested by pulling random fitness activities out of a bingo-like machine. For example, if you had 10 athletes looking to compete for the title of fittest of them all, you could pull out 10 random bingo balls with workouts on them and see who had the most impressive average performance. These workouts, however, would encompass a wide range of physical tasks: a max deadlift, a mile run, a couplet of pull-ups and overhead barbell presses for time, etc. The winner, in this case, would be the athlete who could perform the greatest variety of fitness exercises as well as possible. Because of this, CrossFit programming is about training in a way that best prepares you for the unknown. In other words, you won’t see CrossFitters doing bodybuilding splits. Instead, most of their training combines physical tasks in the categories of strength, gymnastics, and aerobic or anaerobic output (usually in the form of running, biking, rowing, or swimming).

Pictured above is Noah Ohlsen - one of my favorite physiques in the CrossFit space. Maybe think about him as you read about CrossFit and its perks.

He has finished in the top ten of the CrossFit Games seven times since 2014 and is frequently mentioned in conversations surrounding the “nastiest CrossFit physiques.”

Katrin Davidsdottir, CrossFitter

In both cases, I’ve tried to pick athletes who represent the cream of the crop for each of their respective sports.

And then obviously there are female representations as well, but I've decided not to go browsing the internet too intensely for women in minimal clothing, so you might have to do some of your own research for female physiques.

But for guidance you could Google "Gymshark chicks" "or “bikini competitors” for the bodybuildling/physique piece and then maybe Tia Toomey, Brook Wells, or Danielle Brandon for the CrossFit piece.

Pictured here is Katrin Davidsdottir, who won the CrossFit games in 2015 and 2016.

GENERAL BENEFITS OF BODYBUILDING

Keep in mind that the focus of this article is on which training modality is better for living a lean life - not necessarily which one is better all around.

But I've decided to start with a broader list of benefits of bodybuilding when compared to CrossFit to help people understand the bigger picture:

1. You can sculpt your physique more intentionally. So if aesthetics, symmetry, and shape are the most important things for you, this training methodology probably wins out. The most common example of this is probably women who want bigger glutes or men who want a bigger chest or bigger arms. CrossFit could certainly help with that, but a bodybuilding training style would be much more appropriate for a specific goal like bringing up a specific body part.

2. You're probably less likely to get injured, but it's no guarantee. I would just personally say it's less likely because the movements are generally less explosive, but some might disagree. You can hyperextend your knee on a leg press and fold in half like a piece of cheese just like you can tweak your back at CrossFit doing a heavy deadlift. And the only sense in which this injury piece has anything to do with getting and staying lean is that it’s hard to maintain an impressive physique as a wounded soldier.

3. Your workouts will be significantly easier in a "cardio sense" if you train like a bodybuilder. In other words, you never really get out of breath or feel like your lungs are going to explode. Some people really hate that feeling, so I think this is a notable perk for the bodybuilding camp.

4. You don't have to be athletic to train like a bodybuilder. While CrossFit might have you jumping onto boxes, running, and doing ring muscle-ups, bodybuilding is mostly about staying in fixed positions and focusing on a maximal mind-muscle connection.

GENERAL Benefits of CrossFit

On the other hand, I think the general benefits of CrossFit when compared to bodybuilding are:

1. Getting leaner and stronger happens fairly thoughtlessly if you show up consistently and continue to challenge yourself. That elimination of thought-fatigue is enormously important in my opinion. Most people already have enough to think about. Do you really want to have to design your own optimal diet and training program for glute hypertrophy?

2. You get to eat more food than bodybuilders and physique-minded people, which can have major lifestyle implications for people who don’t have the time or energy to be obsessing over food scales and precise macronutrient targets. Why? Bodybuilding doesn’t burn very many calories when compared to CrossFit workouts.

3. You actually get to take home a bit of fitness with your vanity. As amazing as some bodybuilders look externally, their aesthetic appearance is the extent of their “fitness.” CrossFit focuses on physical fitness above all else, which allows physique improvements to be byproduct of the greater goal. I think this has powerful psychological implications for people who want to be leaner and more muscular but are tired of being told to focus on “being in caloric deficit.”

Now that we’ve discussed the broader benefits of bodybuilding and CrossFit, which is better for living a lean, muscular life?

which one is better for a lean, muscular life?

Steve Cook, bodybuilder and fitness model

If your sole goal is to live lean life while looking like a Greek god or goddess, bodybuilding is going to better because it’s a more appropriate training methodology for your specific goal.

But a major caveat here is that it requires a level of discipline in the gym and the kitchen that most people are incapable of embracing.

For example, are you really going to make time to train 5-6 times per week for 60-90 minutes? Are you really going to hit 20 sets of quads taken within a few reps of mechanical failure? Are you really going to periodize seasons of cutting and bulking with specific macros and calories targets to accompany your goal?

Maybe! But maybe not.

For a lot of people, that level of self-responsibility and ownership just isn't realistic. They don't have the drive or the ambition or the time or the energy.

For that reason, I think CrossFit is better in terms of living that lean, muscular life that so many people seem to desire.

But let me be clear here about what I’m saying so you can understand the nuance.

In a vacuum, I think bodybuilding is better for overall aesthetics. But in real life, I think CrossFit is a better training system for longterm body recomposition.

In other words, if I had it my way, I would encourage everyone with a fat loss goal to start doing CrossFit over bodybuilding with the supervision of a weight loss specialist like me.

Why?

Firstly, bodybuilding just can't hold a candle to the time-effectiveness of CrossFit.

Christian Harris, CrossFitter

With CrossFit, you show up, get your bum kicked and lungs torched in less than an hour, and you go home having gotten a great stimulus for muscle growth and having burned a ton of calories in most cases.

This also leaves more grace for imperfect eating habits that bodybuilding folks don't get. In other words, you might be able to "get away with" training hard 4-5 times per week at your CrossFit gym while pretty much eating what you want within reason.

Does this mean you get to eat pizza and ice cream every night and be shredded?

No. It just means you can probably eat mostly whole foods to satiety and enjoy occasional (or even frequent treats) while staying respectably lean and in good health.

Secondly, most people are clueless when it comes to structuring a muscle-building workout (much less an entire cycle of evidence-based hypertrophy training) and lack the discipline required to execute that workout plan consistently.

In this case, the insurmountable benefits of CrossFit (in my opinion) are:

• The reduced thought fatigue of knowing the workout is already written for you.

  • All you have to do is show up and give your best effort.

• The accountability of a coach and other athletes in the class.

So, at the end of the day, I think it’s less of a question of which is “better” in an absolute sense and more of a question of which is “better” for you and your life.

Both bodybuilding and CrossFit can lead people toward leaner body compositions that boost health and confidence.

Ask yourself the following:

Which one do you enjoy more and which one can you see yourself doing sustainably?

If that’s bodybuilding, train like a bodybuilder.

If that’s CrossFit, train like a CrossFitter.

It just might be that simple.

What am I currently doing?

Right now, I'm blending both bodybuilding and CrossFit training concepts, but the majority of my training is centered around 5-6 CrossFit workouts per week.

Before or after those days, I do strength work primarily in the front squat, squat, and overhead press because improving my strength is a personal goal of mine.

Beyond that, I'm hitting extra bicep and side delt volume to help boost areas of my physique that I enjoy being more pronounced for aesthetic purposes.

In terms of how much I weigh, how lean I am, and how much I’m eating, I tend to hover around 190 pounds while eating about between 3,500-4,000 calories per day at somewhere between 12-15% body fat (according to the best body fat scan technology I have access to).

Why am I doing this?

This unique blend of training modalities is what most accurately reflects my personal values at this point in my life.

Personally, I value my overall physical fitness over my aesthetic appearance (which wasn’t always the case), and CrossFit is a much better lifestyle fit for me than bodybuilding.

It allows me to “eat in abundance” and “train like a freak,” which is personal motto of mine. I eat more than twice I used to eat as a bodybuilder, and I frequently enjoy 21-inch pizzas, toddler-sized burritos, Oreos, and red wine.

For me, nothing could be better, but I encourage everyone to make that choice for themselves.

Summary

• Bodybuilding will probably be better for anyone whose goal of being lean is driven by aesthetics above all else. While CrossFit will help you lose fat and build muscle, bodybuilding principles (when applied properly) will yield better aesthetic outcomes over time in most cases.

• CrossFit might be better for people who don’t have the time, energy, or ambition to write their own workouts and show up the gym consistently on their own accord.

• CrossFit might also be better for anyone who isn’t interested in looking like a Greek sculpture. There are plenty of people who just want to lose some weight, gain some muscle, and look and feel more confident in their clothes.

• I personally think CrossFit is a more practical approach for most people, but you can certainly live a lean, muscular life training like a bodybuilder as well.

• I am currently doing 5-6 CrossFit workouts per week while supplementing with some strength and hypertrophy work because it reflects my goals and values.

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As always, I really enjoyed writing this article, so if you found it helpful, do me a favor and send it to a friend.

Until next time,

-Andrew

4 Big Mistakes to Avoid for Improving Your Body Composition

If you’re committed to improving your body composition by losing body fat and gaining muscle, there are a few big mistakes you’ll want to avoid at all costs.

In this article, I’ve chosen to highlight four of them.

1 - You’re Being Inconsistent with Your Caloric Intake

Being inconsistent with your caloric intake tops the list because calories are king for fat loss, which means…

You don't have to lift weights to lose fat.

You don't have to run to lose fat.

You don't have to go to group fitness classes to lose fat.

You don't even have to walk to lose fat.

You also don’t have to give up pizza or beer.

But you do have to be in a calorie deficit, which means you can always look to a calorie-controlled diet for fat loss. That one is non-negotiable.

So if you're screwing around with your caloric intake due to a lack of discipline by eating 2,000 calories on Monday, a random 1,400 calories on Thursday because "life got busy," and then 4,000+ on Friday through Sunday because #theweekend, there's a very small chance you're going to be able to make any systematic or sustainable progress toward that lean, hard-body look.

I know a lot of "fitness people" like me like to shy away from saying the hard truths sometimes, but I really think you're wasting your time if you can't find a way to get consistent with your calories.

Do you have to be perfect? Of course not.

In fact, the “perfect” diet doesn’t exist.

But there should be some semblance of consistency when it comes to your dietary pattern if you want reliable results.

Side note: Don’t be the guy or gal who says, “Oh, my diet is consistent alright! I have three Cokes every day and three beers every night like clockwork!”

I’m encouraging you to consistently eat mostly whole foods in modest portions - not excessive amounts of ultra-processed junk foods.

In my opinion, one good way of gauging how consistent your caloric consumption is on a daily basis is to see how well you can answer the question, “So what’s a normal day of eating look like for you?”

If your answer is something like, “I almost always have oatmeal or a smoothie for breakfast. Lunch is usually a tofu salad or a tofu sandwich. And then I usually have some kind of pasta dish for dinner with vegetables. And if I need a snack I tend to grab a piece of fruit or enjoy some peanut butter toast,” then you’re probably doing great.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that you have to be eating those exact foods, I’m just making the point that it’s probably a good sign if you can speak to that question with specificity and rhythm.

In other words, if you eat similar foods or genres of foods in similar daily patterns, there’s a good chance that you’re being adequately consistent with your caloric consumption.

But if you stumble through that question awkwardly because it depends on the leftovers selection in the office refrigerator and whether your significant other bought Twinkies or Nutty Bars that particular week, your dietary pattern might be worthy of reconsideration if you’re really trying to hone in on that lean, hard-body look.

More specifically, f your goal is lose body fat right away, you’ll need to consistently eat a bit less than your current metabolic needs. If your goal is to gain muscle right away, in most cases you’d be best to consistently eat a bit more than your current metabolic needs.

In either case, consistency in context of your caloric consumption when applied strategically to your specific goal is paramount for successful and sustainable fat loss and muscle gain.

So what’s the main takeaway here?

Make sure you’ve tailored your caloric consumption toward a specific goal and then actually consume that number of calories consistently (even if you’re not tracking them meticulously).

2 - You're Not Eating Enough Protein

The path to improving your body shape in a noticeable way is littered with unexpected difficulties, unwanted plateaus, and lots of demanding training sessions, muscle soreness, and a high level of discipline in both the gym and the kitchen.

Why make it any harder by skimping on your protein intake?

That's always the question I bounce around in my noggin when people push back on the amount of protein I recommend that they consume on a daily basis.

Firstly, know that my protein recommendations aren’t unique or unreasonable.

If anything, they’re much lower than the recommendations of popular experts in the fields of bodybuilding and physique enhancement in that I commonly encourage people to aim for 0.7g of protein per pound of lean body mass.

High-protein black bean pasta

For many, this will seem very low compared to the ultra high-protein diets touted by many, but it’s a position I’m happy to stand by.

In fact, I’ve even updated the original content of this very article to better convey my current opinion on protein consumption, which is…

That you need an adequate amount for muscle growth and nothing more.

I used to be of the opinion that protein was the “most important” macronutrient for a body recomposition goal because it:

• Maintains and builds new muscle tissue

• Tends to satiate us more than other foods, which can lead to improved diet adherence

• Has the highest thermic effect of food which means it requires more energy for your body to burn

But now I find that position to be narrow-minded and a bit heedless in context of a bigger body recomposition picture that includes that importance of carbohydrates and fats.

I might compare it to being asked what is the “most important” feature of a car: the engine, the wheels, or the steering mechanisms.

It doesn’t take most people too long to realize that the question is nearly impossible to answer because…

All of those features provide essential value to the overall function of the vehicle.

In this particular example, I think most people would be tempted to think of protein as the engine because it seems to come first in the chain events.

In other words, being able to turn on the engine seems like the “most important” thing because the car can’t go anywhere without the ignition.

At the same time, it won’t do you much good to have the engine running if your car is sitting on cement blocks without wheels or tires.

And, of course, something similar could be said of sliding into the driver’s seat to find yourself without a steering wheel (even though you’re smuggling 500 HP under the hood with a fresh set of tires that would make even the Michelin man blush).

In some sense, everything works synergistically toward the same goal of moving from Point A to Point B, which I how I feel about the relationship between protein, carbohydrates, and fats when it comes to trading in unwanted body fat for lean tissue.

So what’s my point?

Protein is important in the sense that you need an adequate amount to support muscle growth, but healthy carbohydrates and fats are important too (not to mention fiber).

That being said, the focus of this segment of the article is to make sure you’re eating at least 0.7g of protein per pound of lean body mass.

Once you have that in place, you can focus intensely on the quality of your training.

3 - Your Training Style Isn’t Conducive for Muscle Growth

This is a big one for obvious reasons.

If your goal is to lose body fat and build muscle but you aren’t training in a way that supports fat loss or muscle growth, what are you doing?

To be fair, I sincerely believe that most people don’t know any better.

They assume that all kinds of training methods can build muscle, but this is a classic point of confusion between general health, fitness, and “looking hot.”

To spare you the nuance, this is what you need to know in two brief points:

• Lots of training methods are good for building some muscle, but some are much better than others.

  • I think the lowest hanging piece of fruit here is the infamous group cardio class.

    • Need a mental picture? Picture 15-20 men and women in a room with a bunch of mirrors doing half-burpees, half-lunges, and shoulder presses with pink dumbbells. And I’ll admit I feel a bit dirty for positioning it so poorly, but group cardio classes strike a sensitive nerve in my body recomposition brain because they just don’t work very well if your goal is to look lean and muscular, (which is an extremely important caveat).

    • If your goal is improved general health and fitness, knock yourself out! I couldn’t be more supportive of group cardio classes for people with non-aesthetic goals. You’re just very unlikely to see meaningful improvements in your physique by going to “gen pop” group cardio classes.

  • Other examples could be boxing, yoga, or spin classes.

    • All by themselves, they just aren’t going to build you any impressive amount of muscle. Will they help you lose fat, build a small amount of muscle, improve your mobility, and boost your heart health? Yes! But you probably won’t be looking markedly jacked and lean at the pool.

      • Side note: If you’re currently reading this an enthusiast of one of these training methods or fitness activities, please don’t be offended! I love and appreciate exercise of all kinds, but the focus of this article is on how to avoid mistakes for drastically improving your body composition through added muscle mass and decreased body fat.

    • Lastly, if you love boxing or yoga but you want to be more jacked too, just added resistance training into your routine, which brings me to my second point.

• You grow muscle best by weight training within a few reps of technical failure mostly in the 6-20 rep range.

  • Really, this is the advice you need to take to the bank and cash-in on.

  • Lift heavy with as many sets as you can recover from as often as possible while getting modestly stronger over time.

So what’s the point here?

Make sure your training methodology is known for producing the physique you’re personally looking to achieve.

4 - You Let Small Obstacles Get In Your Way

One of my favorite mottos with regard to losing body fat is not to let perfection become the enemy of progress, and I mean that sincerely.

Perfection when it comes to dieting for any body recomposition goal is largely a fallacy, but I also think it's important not to give yourself too much grace.

And here I go putting myself at risk of being canceled…

Stick with me for a moment.

In my personal opinion, grace is really good thing to give freely in life. Your spouse needs grace, your friends need grace, and you need grace.

I need grace.

But, there's a difference between giving ourselves grace in moments of true need and making excuses for not doing what needs to be done.

For example, if you're a mother of three and one of your workouts has to be moved because your youngest comes down with a fever and needs some motherly attention, that seems like a legitimate reason to give yourself grace to miss that workout, love and care for your child well, and make plans to do that workout tomorrow instead.

But here is a quick list of three excuses I could see people making.

Are you ready for a series of hot takes?

"All I had on me was a protein bar, so I had to get fast food for lunch."

• First of all, a protein bar is a great option in a pinch! What's wrong with eating a protein bar?

• Secondly, the language here says a lot. You "had" to get fast food for lunch. No, you didn't. You were not the victim of the universe here - you just made a decision that valued your immediate comfort and preference over your body recomposition goal.

• I’m not trying to rip this person’s head off, but this is classic example of an “excuses mentality.”

"I'm having a hard time meeting my step goal on Mondays because The Bachelor comes on at 7PM."

• Girl, I watch the Bachelor too! You just need to plan accordingly. As far as I know, the Bachelor comes on at 7PM every week without surprise. Get up early. Stay up late. Snag 2,000 steps over your lunch hour. Get it done, you know? That's much more of an excuse to me than a legitimate reason to be set back.

"I didn't get groceries this week so my protein has been way off."

• Dude, go to the store! There is such a simple solution here. At the same time, I know what it's like to run out of groceries and be in a pinch when it comes to needing a high-protein meal.

• Me personally? I consider it self-imposed “punishment” for poor planning and laziness, so I'll make myself go buy a nice, protein-dense meal. For me, this usually means hopping over to Chipotle.

Long story short, I find that the people who are constantly eager to let relatively insignificant obstacles knock them off track are the ones who have a hard time achieving their body recomposition goals.

Does it mean you're wasting your time? Not necessarily. But I think it's worth a look in the mirror and asking yourself, "What are we doing here? Are we doing this or not?"

Summary

Firstly, please do your best not to be offended by this article. My intention is purely to help and never to harm, but I’ve been known to have a direct tone at times.

I'm just speaking to trends I’ve seen anecdotally among unsuccessful people: the people who lose 20 pounds and then gain back 30, the people who bounce from fad diet to fad diet, or even the people who mean well but just can't get their habits and behavior in check for long enough to see a difference.

The solution to avoiding all of these things?

Do your best to take extreme ownership of yourself, your lifestyle, your journey, and your results.

In summary, here are the four big mistakes I referenced in this article:

• Avoid being wildly inconsistent with your calories. The key to both losing fat and gaining muscle is eating a strategic amount of food tailored toward a specific goal.

• Avoid eating an inadequate amount of protein. In most cases, it will be more the sufficient to consume 0.7g of protein per pound of lean body mass.

• Don’t make the mistake of picking a primary training methodology that doesn’t support your goal of losing fat and building muscle. Resistance training usually produces the “best” and “most attractive” physical results.

• Don’t make unnecessary excuses for not doing the things you need to do to achieve your goal.

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I really enjoyed writing this article, so if you found it helpful, do me a favor and send it to someone in your life who finds body recomposition banter just as entertaining as you do.

Until next time,

-Andrew

How to Use Single-Day Fasting to Lose Fat and Build Muscle

You guys remember when Zoolander dropped in 2001 and Will Ferrell’s Mugatu character couldn’t stop obsessing over Hansel’s hotness?

That’s how I feel about fasting right now in the fitness industry.

Some people think it’s an amazing dietary strategy to help with fat loss (and sometimes even muscle gain) while others believe it’s suboptimal to having more consistent protein feedings across the day in order to maximize muscle protein synthesis.

Some people will tell you it improves insulin sensitivity and boosts natural testosterone levels while others would lead you to believe that it’s putting you at risk of muscle loss.

So which is it?

And why does it always feel like the fitness industry is exploding with conflicting claims?

These are good questions, which I hope to address (in part) in this article.

Here’s what you can expect:

• I’m going to avoid speaking about any health benefits of fasting outside of weight loss in order to respect my scope of practice. In other words, I’m not going to be taking a position on whether fasting can help us live longer lives or improve our hormone profiles.

  • So as for all of that insulin sensitivity and testosterone talk, you won’t see me addressing those claims (even though I find them fascinating and worthy of your own independent exploration).

• Instead, I’m going to tell you how to use fasting simply as a form of caloric restriction to help you improve your body composition primarily through fat loss.

• I’m going to provide practical examples of how I’ve used single-day fasting in my own body recomposition effort.

• I’m going to outline the advantages of single-day fasting when compared to other more traditional forms of caloric restriction.

How to Use Single-Day “Semi-Fasting” to Improve Your Body Composition

Although there are several ways to use fasting to improve your body composition, I’m going to focus the attention of this particular article on one specific strategy, which is…

Single-day fasting.

In other words, I think a lot of people would benefit from fasting for one entire day a week.

Sound crazy?

Maybe in context of our modern dietary patterns, but keep in mind that our modern dietary patterns have led 42% of people into a life of obesity, which is why I think a creative reconsideration of our eating habits surrounding the idea of sustainable body composition improvement is a very good idea.

So what’s up with not eating for an entire day? How is that supposed to help anyone with a body recomposition goal?

Simply put, it’s a very basic way of reducing your weekly caloric consumption.

In short, it helps you get into a caloric deficit to help you lose body fat.

We really don’t need to make it any more complicated than that, but we’ll dive into a bit more nuance in the following section.

That being said, if fasting for an entire day seems daunting and overwhelming, you could easily modify your strategy by fasting through the majority of the day and then enjoying one large, nutritionally-dense meal for dinner.

This is what I personally refer to as “semi-fasting” but only in the sense that you’re fasting for most of the day instead of complete 24-hour period. I understand that you can’t technically “semi-fast,” so take that terminology with a grain of salt.

Ultimately, it would be better described as a very low-calorie day relative to one’s normal intake.

When I do this myself, I usually have an 800-1,000-calorie smoothie packed with greens, plant-based protein powder, berries, bananas, nuts, and seeds around 5PM.

Or I might opt for an enormous tofu salad with a plethora of leafy greens drizzled in tahini and sprinkled with hemp hearts and walnuts.

The objective (for me) is simply to eat one nutritionally-dense meal with plenty of protein, which makes smoothies and salads great options given how easy it can be to pack them full of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and lean proteins like protein powders or soy products.

What I like about this modified idea is that I never have to go to bed hungry, but I can still reap the benefits of a restricted eating window.

And, of course, eating once per day tends to be much easier to adhere to (for most people) than an overnight fast.

In fact, this modified “semi-fasting” approach is what you will see illustrated in the upcoming examples as I have applied it to my own lifestyle (as opposed to a full day of fasting).

Why might a SINGLE-day weekly “SEMI-fast” help with fat loss?

As I mentioned briefly above, there doesn’t seem to be anything “magical” about fasting when it comes to losing body fat other than that it serves as a very simple way of reducing your overall intake.

But I think another underrated benefit of single-day “semi-fasting” is that it helps you start thinking of your caloric deficit in the context of one week instead of a single day.

In fact, this is what I do with all of my fat loss clients and it's why things like carb cycling and high/low approaches work for bodybuilders.

As long as the caloric math makes sense at the end of the week, the fat loss is always systematic and exciting.

For example, you may have heard that 3,500 calories equal roughly one pound of body fat.

So, if you can get yourself into a 500-calorie daily deficit, you'll be cruising toward about one pound of fat loss per week because 500 calories multiplied by 7 days equals 3,500 calories.

Boom. Math, right?

But sometimes people get too caught up in the "24-hour-ness" of it all.

In other words, people focus too much on that 500-calorie daily deficit when they could be acting more strategically on a behalf of a 3,500-calorie weekly deficit.

I’ll use myself as an example here.

If my maintenance calories are around 3,300 calories right now, we could say that a daily intake of 2,800 calories might lead to approximately one pound of fat loss per week based on the math we just discussed.

Because of that, I could structure my weekly (non-fasting) eating pattern like this:

Standard static Weekly Calorie Example

The standard static example would look like this:

• Monday: 2,800 calories

• Tuesday: 2,800 calories

• Wednesday: 2,800 calories

• Thursday: 2,800 calories

• Friday: 2,800 calories

• Saturday: 2,800 calories

• Sunday: 2,800 calories

As you can see, this is simply the “eat the same number of calories everyday” approach that many people ascribe to for the sake of consistency and routine.

But a one-day “semi-fasting” example could allow you to eat more during the week while eating much less just once per weekend.

This is cool because you could choose to eat more carbohydrates to bolster your weekday workouts knowing you can rest up and eat less (or nothing) on Sunday.

Here is an example of what that could look like (and what I often do):

One-Day “Semi-Fast” Weekly Calorie Example

• Monday: 3,100 calories (+300)

• Tuesday: 3,100 calories (+300)

• Wednesday: 3,100 calories (+300)

• Thursday: 3,100 calories (+300)

• Friday, 3,100 calories (+300)

• Saturday: 3,100 calories (+300)

• Sunday: 1,000 calories (-1,800)

In this example, limiting myself to just 1,000 calories on Sunday allows me to eat an extra 300 calories on each of those other six days per week. Keep in mind too that those +300 calories in parentheses are relative to the deficit, which means this entire week of eating is still designed for fat loss.

Three hundred calories may not seem like much, but that's an extra PB&J and a glass of almond milk that you could apply to a important pre or post-workout meal.

But again, this is just one way to do it.

If you really want to be a Level 1000 Fat Loss Ninja, you could nuance your daily caloric intake even further by biasing your calories toward your most intense workouts or even planned, higher-calorie social occasions while utilizing single-day fasting over the weekend.

Check out what I mean in the following example:

Level 1000 Fat Loss Ninja Weekly Calorie Example featuring a One-Day Semi-Fast

• Monday: 3,400 calories for a nasty leg day because you want that peach (+600)

• Tuesday: 3,100 calories for an upper body day (+300)

• Wednesday: 2,800 calories for a rest day (0)

• Thursday: 3,100 calories for a normal leg day (+300)

• Friday: 3,400 calories because pizza with the boys (+600)

• Saturday: 2,800 calories because math (0)

• Sunday: 1,000 calories (-1,800)

Do you have to make it this complicated? Of course not.

I just want to illustrate that you have the freedom to do so if you like the idea of heavily nuancing your caloric consumption based on fluctuations in your training routine and lifestyle overall.

All three of these options add up to 19,600 calories per week, which means the fat loss in each situation would be almost identical while all other factors remain equal.

Pretty cool, yeah?

You could easily do similar math with your own numbers.

Just remember that these numbers were calculated for someone with a maintenance calorie intake of 3,300.

I also have a few opinions on why I think this can work really well for people.

Advantages of “Semi-Fasting” Once Per Week

• It's easy to fast for one day when you know you get plenty of food the very next day.

  • I like to think of this as the "light at the end of the tunnel" effect. For those of you who have never fasted before, this may still seem extreme, but it's really quite doable once you commit.

  • Plus, if you've ever dieted before, you know that the worst part of dieting comes from being randomly hungry on a Monday and knowing it ain't getting any better for the next six weeks. This dieting pattern fights against that drudgery.

• You're unlikely to downregulate your metabolism by fasting just once per week.

  • I don't pretend to be an expert on metabolic downregulation outside of plenty of anecdotal experience from working with my own clients, but to me it just makes good sense that it might be better for keeping your metabolism churning along to duck your calories hard once per week versus committing to a peasant's 1200-calorie diet for weeks and months on end. It's almost like your body senses that there is no need to process energy more efficiently when it knows more food is coming soon. Anecdotally, I have seen this work time and time again. And, although I wouldn’t call it “biohacking,” I do think it’s a creative way to manipulate your caloric consumption.

• It gives your digestive system a break, which I personally think may have some exciting health benefits.

  • In my own experience, it can also create a refreshing feeling of emptiness as the fast goes on, which leaves me feeling acutely lighter.

• It exercises your discipline muscle.

  • In a modern gimme-gimme culture where we tend to complain about anything we can’t have instantaneously, I find it grounding to limit my food consumption once per week.

  • I also personally think this translates well into other areas of life.

• For me personally, my stomach starts feeling noticeably tighter around 1-2PM, but this is of course just my own experience and a small psychological benefit I enjoy.

Disadvantages of “Semi-Fasting” Once Per Week

• Some people will never be able to handle the acute hunger of even a half-day fast, and that’s fine.

  • I’m not here to try to convince anyone to be hungry if you’re not bought into the benefits beyond the hunger (and I mean that sincerely).

• It might be difficult to navigate certain social situations like dining out with friends if you and your significant other are social people on the weekends.

  • For my own lifestyle, Sundays tend to be very relaxed, so this isn’t an issue for me personally in most cases, but I think it’s worth mentioning in case it applies to others.

• Your Monday workouts might feel a bit lethargic if you don’t prioritize a massive, carb-heavy breakfast to replenish yourself from the low-calorie day prior.

  • And again, you obviously don’t have to choose Sundays for your “semi-fast.” This was just the example used consistently throughout this article (and what I do personally).

Summary

• I think single-day fasting is an underrated form of caloric restriction that could help a lot of people lose body fat sustainably.

• Single-day fasting can be a helpful strategy to help people think of their caloric deficits on a weekly basis instead of a daily basis.

• “Semi-fasting” once per week can allow you to eat more food during the week to fuel your most intense training sessions.

• Practically speaking, I personally like to fast through the first half of the day and then eat one large, nutritionally dense meal around 5PM.

  • This is usually a large smoothie or a big tofu salad.

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I really enjoyed writing this short article, so if you found it helpful, do me a favor and send it to someone in your life who finds body recomposition banter just as entertaining as you do.

Until next time,

-Andrew

How to Fix Your Squishiness

Let’s talk about the squishy fix.

As silly as it may sound, nearly everyone I talk to about training or dieting is interested in mitigating their squishiness in favor of a harder-looking physique.

Some people call this the "skinny-fat dilemma," but to me it's more of a squishiness dilemma.

So what do you do if you're squishy and you don't like it?

Firstly, I think it's important to understand how we all get squishy in the first place because not everyone is in the same squishiness boat.

How do we get squishy in the first place?

Scenario 1: you were lean but let go.

Probably the most common route to squishy is what I would call the person who grew up thin or lean by nature and then let go at some point in life.

Some of you are probably nodding your heads and thinking, "Yep. That's me." You never really had to think about food as a young person because "your metabolism was awesome!" And now it's apparently less awesome because you're squishy?

Or maybe your food and exercise habits changed a bit along the way as well.

A lot of these people were athletes in high school or college and then lost their way in their twenties.

scenario 2: the long-time chubster

But there are also people who have never known life without their squishiness. This would be anyone who feels like they grew up as a "fat kid" or thinks of themselves as genetically cursed.

You've never really felt confident at the pool or on the beach. You've never loved your picture being taken and you've probably always been insecure about a t-shirt that's just a little too tight. Maybe you were even made fun of for your weight when you were younger.

For those who know me well, you know that I actually fall into this camp.

Scenario 3: The Freestyle Friday Protein-Deficient Cardio Crowd

This third camp is probably the one that gives me the most grief because it represents a group of people who are trying really hard in all of the wrong ways.

And usually, pervasive ignorance is a common denominator among these people.

I know that sounds terrible, but I plan to defend what I mean by that as gently as possible. I call this group the Freestyle Friday Protein-Deficient Cardio Crowd.

Let me break that one down for you.

• Freestyle Friday is a term my high school basketball coach used to talk about anything that wasn't designed for a specific goal in mind. In short, it's something random and it implies little to no consideration of the future. With these people, I find that there's usually no method to their madness. They just "do" a bunch of stuff, and it's never systematic enough to warrant any meaningful or predictable returns.

• Protein-Deficient is pretty self-explanatory. Even though I've shifted my focus away from ultra-high-protein diets in recent years, you still have to consume an adequate amount of protein for any semi-serious physique endeavor.

  • If you want a deeper dive on calculating your own protein needs, check out this article I personally wrote on the topic.

  • You can also check this article out for practical tips on how to eat more protein if you don't know where to start.

• Cardio Crowd simply refers to the fact that these people generally spend way more time doing cardio than they do getting stronger and lifting weights.

When these three forces combine, you're bound to find some degree of squishiness. You might be fit in the cardio sense! But you might be squishy too.

For a surprising example, check out this photo of David Beckham I found the other day.

I'm not saying the guy looks "bad," but it's definitely a softer look for an elite soccer player in a photoshoot setting.

In my experience, most people want to be both more muscular and leaner than his physique in this particular photo.

Why Most People Don’t Love Their Squishiness

This is simple. Squishiness usually implies the combination of two unappealing factors: little to no muscle mass and unwanted fat.

This is a problem because most people would rather be the opposite of at least one but ideally both of those factors!

In other words, having little no muscle while carrying extra body fat is kind of the worst case scenario for most people.

You'd probably prefer having the combination of muscle and fat or the combination of no muscle and no fat than being all around squishy.

For example, powerlifters can sometimes be a decent example of what it means to have plenty of muscle but also plenty of fat, but, as you can see here, this lifter has a ton of muscle and a very healthy and aesthetic amount of body fat.

On the other hand, long distance runners tend to be a decent example of what it means to have little to no muscle or fat.

It's kind of like preferring to have your favorite team be 1-1 instead of 0-2 going into the third week of the football season.

Why would you want anything other than everything?

So in short, people don't love their squishiness because it's a double-opposite of what most people want.

Although each of those camps would benefit from slightly different strategies, the baseline principles are going to be the same.

5 Steps to Fixing Squishy

Be warned, these fixes are not sexy, and you won’t see any mention of lemon juice solutions.

Step 1: set a specific goal.

Firstly, you need to decide if you're going to lose fat first or build muscle first.

You can always try for a nice, slow, and steady recomp, but I think most people would be smart to pick one road or the other and get going.

This decision is important because it dictates how many calories you will be consuming as you start your new program.

Step 2: REMEMBER THAT calories matter most.

Once you have a clear direction and a specific goal, you've got to take extreme ownership of your caloric intake.

Remember that there are only ever three ways to eat:

• In a caloric deficit for a primary goal of fat loss

• In a caloric surplus for a primary goal of muscle gain

• At maintenance calories for a body recomposition effort

In any of these cases, I personally believe a modest approach will work best for most people.

In other words, I would recommend against any aggressive caloric deficit or caloric surplus, and I will tell you why.

Keep in mind that squishy or “skinny fat” people are typically visually softer and less muscular than they need to be for a hard-body look, which means…

• Eating in an aggressive deficit is going to severely limit the muscle you can gain.

• Eating in an aggressive surplus is going to cause excess weight gain and create an ever softer appearance.

As you can see, those are both unwanted outcomes.

So for some general advice, I think a 0-10% deficit or surplus depending on your goal is a very conservative place to start.

This means if your maintenance calories are 2,000 per day, you’d switch to an 1,800-calorie or 2,200-calorie diet depending on the goal (if you were to use the 10% figure).

STEp 3: make sure your protein intake is adequate.

You've got to get your protein in check.

Since so many people struggle to optimize their protein, I’m willing to throw out a few general recommendations.

I really think most females would benefit from targeting a minimum of 80g of protein per day while most males would benefit from targeting a minimum of 120g per day.

Obviously, you can eat much more than that if you personally feel you need to. That choice is yours. I'm just one guy yelling in a noisy room.

For a much more nuanced discussion on this, click here.

STEP 4: prioritize resistance training and progressive overload.

Train consistently with weights while minimizing unnecessary cardio.

You're just never going to develop succulent, balloon-like muscles that look impressive in your best outfits if you never train with weights.

I also realize it may sound a bit counterintuitive to minimize cardio, but you have to remember that building muscle is much more difficult than losing fat.

For that reason alone, I try to encourage people to commit to longer phases of muscle gain knowing in the back of their mind that cutting the fat later is always an option.

So if you're on the fence about training for muscle gain or dieting for fat loss, I might encourage you to train for muscle gain.

Some might argue it’s the less satisfying short-term move, but I firmly believe it’s the more gratifying long-term move.

You’re also going to want to make sure that your program is designed to allow for progressive overload, which means you’ll gradually be increasing the load, reps, or sets performed over time.

If you’re new to the idea of progressive overload, click here.

Step 5: diet in phases.

Diet phasically. I don't have the space to get into that here, but it's worth saying.

If you're squishy, you're probably not going to be able to do a single dieting phase and wake up lean and muscle-puffy someday.

In other words, you might start with an 6-week body recomposition effort at maintenance calories while optimizing your training quality and then deload for a week before jumping into a small surplus to start burning away some of the unwanted fat that’s preventing you from looking trimmer.

It might even take multiple phases of manipulating your strategy, which is where I personally think having a body recomposition coach can be extremely helpful.

Special Considerations

If you used to be lean but you've let go, there's a good chance you can "get your old self back" simply by getting back to old habits.

It's also most likely that you can go straight to cutting body fat since you might have some lingering muscle from your leaner days as a high school athlete or something similar.

If that’s you, it would certainly be my recommendation to start eating in a small deficit of around 10%.

For anyone who feels like they're bigger by nature, you might have to make a more dramatic shift than our leaner friends. But in my opinion, it's better to face the facts and get to work than it is to mope over the unfairness of genetic predispositions.

And I'm allowed to say that since I grew up "husky."

If your metabolism seems to be in a decent place, you're probably best to start chipping away at body fat and then building muscle once you get to a leaner base. Also, don't expect it to be easy. You might have to be more meticulous with your diet than the naturally thin girl at your office you secretly despise.

For these people, I would also recommend a small deficit of around 10%.

For the FFPDCC, you're in a bit of a pickle but it's not void of all hope. It's a hopeful pickle.

But you probably need to decide if you care more about being a cardio monster or a Greek statue. They just really don't go hand in hand in any optimal sense.

If you're more about cardio, then a lower-protein life makes good sense. You're not actually trying to build muscle and that's fine!

But if you're sick of squishy more than anything, get on a structured weight training program, bump your protein intake, and snooze the cardio for a few months to give yourself a chance to build some lean tissue.

For these people, I would actually recommend maintenance eating or a small surplus of around 10%.

And that's that!

Just some thoughts on being squishy and how to rewrite your story if you're in pursuit of leaner and more muscular body composition.

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Thanks for reading! I genuinely hope you were able to take something meaningful away from this article.

If you feel like it brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member - especially someone who might be tired of having their love handles melt over the sides of their favorite jeans.

Later, guys.

-Andrew

The One Thing All Jacked People Have In Common

Every jacked person has one thing in common.

And I'm willing to bet you're going to be very disappointed when I tell you.

It's not some secret behavioral hack that you might pick off of a motivational Instagram account, and it's not some superfood or supplement.

And, to be clear, I’m also not saying it’s the only thing that matters.

I’m just saying that it’s the one common denominator among everyone who has built a very muscular physique.

Are you ready for it?

Every person with a well-built physique trains hard.

Truthfully, I wish I could modify that adjective to say something like "intelligently" or "strategically" or "in a periodized fashion with a well-planned diet," but that's just simply not the case in my experience.

Jacked people train hard...

• Even if the training program was wack.

• Even if their diet was suboptimal.

• Even if their recovery could have been better.

And when I use the term hard, I mean some combination of heavy lifting (usually in the 6-20 rep range), lots of sets (usually 10-20 per muscle group per week), and plenty of intensity.

And this is actually really annoying to me.

Why?

Because training hard (for whatever reason) was pretty much the last thing I tried over the years in my efforts to gain muscle.

I know that sounds stupid.

You're probably wondering what exactly I was doing if I wasn't training hard, but for whatever reason I just had this notion that I could outsmart the discomfort of training.

I would think things like…

• "Maybe if I do the perfect number of sets and time my perfectly macro-calculated meal post-workout to ignite maximum anabolism, I'll get jacked."

• "Maybe if I train 7 days a week, I'll get jacked."

• "Maybe if I sleep 9 hours per night and eat 200g of protein a day, I'll get jacked."

It just doesn't work like that because...

The training stimulus is what ignites the adaptation.

That is by far the most important thing for you to take away from this article today.

The training stimulus is what ignites the adaptation.
The training stimulus is what ignites the adaptation.
The training stimulus is what ignites the adaptation.

Get it?

So as much as I want to encourage you to optimize as many things as you possibly can in order to get the most out of your body recomposition endeavor, none of that stuff really matters meaningfully unless you introduce an incredible training stimulus.

A good analogy might be to think of it like a general and his army.

The General and his army analogy

You could have an infantry of 100,000 of the most skilled soldiers in the world, but if they don't have a general to tell them what to do, they'll never be as effective as they could have been with good direction.

Does that make sense? You need both a clear signal and an effective response to that signal for optimal outcomes..

In this case, the general represents the training stimulus - the thing that communicates the mission to everything else down the line.

And the army represents your caloric intake, your protein intake, your overall diet quality, your hydration, your recovery, your sleep, etc.

If the general says, "Grow muscle," then your army of food, water, and recovery will know exactly what to do.

And if you have an incredible army to support an incredible general, you'll get amazing results - arguably the best results you could possibly get!

But let's consider the other combinations:

• A great general with a terrible army

  • This basically means you're training really hard but you're not optimizing the rest of your lifestyle for muscle growth. It's slightly better than the second option, but it's still sub-optimal.

• A terrible general with a great army

  • This is the mistake I made for years. I had everything dialed in except for my training quality and intensity. Because of it, I still got decent results because my training wasn't a complete disaster. But it wasn't as good as it could have been is the point I want to make here. Again, it was sub-optimal.

• A terrible general with a terrible army

  • Hopefully you aren't this person! This would mean your training is wack and you're literally not taking care of your diet, hydration, or recovery in any meaningful sense. But if you do find yourself thinking, "Yeah, that's me," don't fret! Just make the necessary changes and redefine your narrative. That choice is always available.

So to make the best of your situation, be sure to:

1. Maximize your training quality. This includes exercise selection and execution/technique.

2. Optimize your training volume. This usually refers to how many sets you do per week.

3. Optimize your training intensity. This means performing most of your sets within 0-3 reps of technical failure.

4. Eat well.

5. Drink well.

6. Rest well.

7. Repeat until jacked.

Is this true for women too? Or just guys who want to get huge?

This absolutely goes for you all well, ladies! The same muscle-building principles apply.

This is not some exclusive tip for dudes who want shoulders that no longer properly fit through a doorway.

This is for any woman who wants strong and aesthetically pleasing legs and glutes (or a strong, attractive back) as well.

In fact, unless you came out of the oven with satisfactorily enormous buns (to your own standards and desires), you're going to have to squat, lunge, hinge, and thrust your way to glory just like every gym bro had to curl his way to making his biceps look like mutant chickpeas.

Summary

Every jacked person trains hard.

It’s not the only thing that matters, but it’s what matters most if building an impressive amount of muscle mass is the goal, and it’s the one common denominator among all well-built physiques.

However, if you’re less interested in building muscle and more interested in losing body fat while maintaining your muscle mass, energy balance will be the most important factor in achieving that goal. But that’s for another article.

If you’re here to get jacked, be sure to dial in your training quality, workload, and intensity first. Then eat well and rest well consistently until you reach your goal.

Not sure where to start? Check out this article about How to Build Muscle Effectively Using the Rule of 7’s and 11’s.

You’ll be on your way to sporting the best body composition you’ve had in years (or ever).

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I sincerely hope you found this article helpful or illuminating in some way!

If you feel like it brought you value, consider sending it to a friend or family member - especially someone who might be failing to optimize a few important aspects of their body recomposition journey.

Later, friends.

-Andrew

How to Build Muscle Effectively Using the Rule of 7's and 11's

I want to share something with you that I've been meaning to immortalize somewhere on the internet as an extremely simple way of thinking about how to string together a muscle-building workout.

Until I have a better name for it, I'm going to call it The Rule of 7's and 11's.

It’s best-suited for a few specific kinds of people and scenarios:

1. People who are brand new to the gym and feel clueless about how much weight to use, how many reps to perform, and how many sets to complete

2. Seasoned gym-goers who are lifting in a new gym with new machines due to vacation or travel for work

3. Anyone who is looking to incorporate a new piece of equipment into their routine

The common themes here are newness and ambiguity.

The Rule of 7’s and 11’s is most appropriately applied when we are forced to learn something new either as inexperienced lifters or long-time gym-goers being exposed to new equipment or new exercises.

Tracking so far?

Good! Let’s get into the details.

The Rule of 7's and 11's

Step 1

For every movement you choose to do in the gym, pick an initial weight that seems very doable for an easy set of 7. When you get to 7 reps, stop - even if you could have done way more (which you certainly could have because that’s exactly the point).

To keep this easily understandable, let’s use an example of a brand new machine bench press in my local gym.

• Remember, the machine is brand new, which means I have no idea how much weight I should be using to elicit an optimal muscle-growth response.

• As a complete shot in the dark, I pin the 120-pound mark and do an easy set of 7. Mission accomplished.

• So my first set was 120x7.

Step 2

The idea from here is to continue doing sets of 7 while adding 10-20 pounds per set until you can no longer do 7 reps (or in some cases 11, which I will explain later).

• In this case I would probably move to 140 and complete another 7 reps.

• So my second set was 140x7.

• My third set might be 160x7. It’s getting more difficult, but I’m still able to get all 7 reps, so I rest and continue on.

• My fourth set might be 180x7, which feels plenty challenging, but I’m still able to get all 7 reps. So what I do? I rest and increase the weight for a fifth set.

• My fifth set might be 200x6.

Great! I found the point at which I could no longer lift a weight for 7 full reps. Now what?

Step 3

Once you've identified that roughly-7-rep weight, hang out there for 2-3 additional sets of roughly 7 reps. These are what we call working sets: the ones that actually “count” toward your total weekly volume. And always count that “failure set” where you were unable to do the full 7 reps.

I also recommend resting around 90-120 seconds in between each of your working sets. I personally do 60-90 seconds on my feeder sets and 120 seconds on my working sets, but I encourage you to experiment with your own recovery ability.

So in this case, I would have done 4 feeder sets before finding my working weight. These may be new terms to you, but simply think of your feeder sets as the sets that lead you to your true working weight.

All in all, my logbook would look like this.

Feeder Sets for Machine Bench

• 120x7 (90 seconds rest)

• 140x7 (90 seconds rest)

• 160x7 (90 seconds rest)

• 180x7 (90 seconds rest)

Working Sets for Machine Bench

1. 200x6 (120 seconds rest)

2. 200x6 (120 seconds rest)

3. 200x5 (120 seconds rest)

Step 4

And then you repeat that for each movement of the entire workout.

Boom. That's it. Seriously.

4 Reasons Why It’s a Very Good Idea

ReaSon 1: IT DEMANDS TRAINING CLOSE TO FAILURE.

Well, firstly and most importantly, it forces you to train within a few reps of a failure in a rep range that most experts in the muscle-building space agree is extremely effective.

I seriously doubt there's a single jacked person on the planet who would tell you that lifting within a few reps of failure between 7 and 11 reps is a bad idea.

So, if it's not a bad idea (and probably a great idea), why not do it?

Reason 2: IT INCLUDES A PROPER WARM-UP BY DEFAULT.

The next most important thing is that it forces you to warm-up for each movement properly. When you start with very doable weights and move up until you can no longer achieve a baseline rep range, you can know for sure that you've prepared your muscles properly to exert maximum force on those sets of 7 that "count."

Reason 3: IT CHALLENGES PEOPLE TO lift heavy.

Thirdly, it doesn't allow you to fall short of your potential because you have to increase the weight if you got your 7 reps the last time.

For example, if we were doing this on the squat, you might have gotten 225 for 7 last time and wanted to just hang out there even though you probably could have gotten 9-10.

The Rule of 7’s and 11’s would have you jump to 230 or 235 and force you to get 6 reps before calling it a day.

In my opinion, that's a great way to chase your true potential in each movement. It's like built-in wimp protection.

I also find that some movements hurt no matter what.

For me, these would be weighted dips and Bulgarian split squats. Bodyweight dips hurt just about as badly as weight dips with a 45 hanging from your belt.

The trap here is that you could easily misinterpret your discomfort for maximal effort. But this rule forces you to continue adding weight.

Reason 4: IT ENCOURAGES DISCOMFORT.

Fourthly, training like this forces you to enter into the suck zone when you don't want to.

Think about it. Squatting for sets of 6-7? Gross.

Deadlifting for 6-7? Gross.

Barbell reverse lunging for 6-7? Gross.

But this is how you grow muscle!

When should you use 11's instead?

If you've been lifting for awhile, you know which moves to use 11's on instead.

These are typically going to be isolation movements like exercises for your biceps or triceps or higher-rep stuff for your legs like leg extensions or hack squats.

Similar, I wouldn’t use 7's on super tiny muscles like your rear delts or calves in most cases. For those muscle groups, you’d probably even be smart to add a third tier rep range of 20-30.

But for the sake of keeping things as simple as possible, I encourage most people to think in terms of 7’s and 11’s.

Remember that training this way is particularly helpful when you're in a new gym or on vacation or on a business trip.

Why? Because you've got brand new machines to work with, so you can't really look to your logbook to help you much.

This allows you to keep adding weight to the random machine bench in your hotel in Dallas until you identify the weight you should be training with rather than "going by feel" and subjecting yourself to a suboptimal workout.

How do you know which sequence of exercises to do?

Unfortunately, the Rule of 7’s and 11’s won't help you figure out which moves to actually do. Fortunately, I've decided to help you out with a few structures below.

There's nothing magical about these sequences other than that they make good sense for achieving a full upper body, lower body, and full body workout.

If you want an upper body workout...

• Some kind of vertical pull like an assisted pull-up or lat pulldown (7's)

• Some kind of horizontal press like a bench press (7's)

• Some kind of row like a seated cable row (11's)

• Some kind of vertical press like a DB shoulder press (7's)

• Some kind of bicep move like a DB curl (11's)

• Some kind of tricep move like a rope extension (11's)

If you want a lower body workout...

• Some kind of squat like a barbell squat (7's)

• Some kind of hinge like a deadlift or a good morning (7's)

• Some kind of lunge like a reverse barbell lunge (7 or 11's)

• Some kind of stabilized squat like a hack squat (11's)

If you want a full body workout...

• Pick a few superstars from each of the above categories and get to work.

For specifics, here's a sick 7-move upper body blast I like to toss in every once in awhile when my training schedule gets a little weird and I need a one-off pump:

Andrew’s Favorite One-Off Pump Session

1. Deficit Bent Over Rows for 7's

2. Incline Machine Bench for 7's

3. Assisted Pull-Ups for 7's

4. Seated DB Overhead Press for 7's

5. Seated Incline DB Curls for 11's

6. Straight-Bar Tricep Cable Pushdowns for 11's

7. Superman Curls for 11's

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I really hope you found this article instructive.

If you feel like it brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member - especially someone who might be using the classic “I travel a lot for work” excuse when it comes to neglecting their muscle gains.

Later, guys.

-Andrew

How to Get Huge Legs: 6 Tips for Building a Great Leg Workout

Let's talk about how to build a leg workout that actually grows muscle. 

Now obviously training and nutrition always go hand in hand, so keep in mind here that we are only talking about the training portion in this article.

But anyway, in my experience, building a good leg workout comes down to a few simple things that we tend to overcomplicate all the time.

6 TIPS FOR BUILDING A GREAT LEG WORKOUT

1. Determine Your Weekly Sets Target

2. Distribute Those Sets Across Your Sessions Sensibly

3. Pick Mostly Compound Movements

4. Train Relatively Close to Failure

5. Use Full Range of Motion

6. Rest Properly Between Sets

Let's break these down one by one in as few words as possible.

1. Determine Your Weekly Sets Target

Most experts in the body recomposition space recommend training most of your major muscle groups with 10-20 hard sets per week.

Unless you already know your own body better from personal experience, I would recommend starting around 10 hard sets per muscle group per week. Why? Because you can always add sets in future weeks if your recovery is awesome and you're confident you could do more.

This means I would dedicate 10 hard sets to your quads and then maybe 5 hard sets each for your hamstrings and glutes since there is inevitably plenty of overlap in terms of how much your quads, hamstrings, and glutes get worked across certain movements.

If you find that you recover on time from session to session and week to week, you can start adding sets for additional weekly volume.

2. Distribute Those Sets Across Your Sessions Sensibly

This just comes down to simple math.

If you've decided you want to train your legs once per week, you would obviously toss all of your leg sets onto your one leg day. This would be most like the traditional “bro split” approach.

For reference, here’s an example of what a brutal 18-set leg day could look like if you were forced to complete all of your leg work in one day.

• Seated Leg Curl (3 sets)

• Deadlift Pattern of Choice (3 sets)

• BB Back Squat (4 sets)

• Hack Squats (4 sets)

• Leg Extensions (4 sets)

That being said, I personally wouldn’t recommend training your legs only once per week for optimal muscle growth. Can you build a ton of muscle training your legs just once per week? Absolutely. People have been doing it for decades.

I’m just personally biased toward a higher frequency approach, which allows for quicker sessions on fresher legs.

If you're training twice per week, you would probably split them half in half or perhaps have a quad-focused day and a hamstring-focused day.

Or, if you're like me and you want to grow your glutes above all else, feel free to program a glute-focused day for yourself.

And the same concept applies if you are training your legs three times per week as well. You could easily do a quad-focused day, a hamstring-focused day, and a glute-focused day.

When I saw some of my best leg growth, I was doing around 9 sets on Monday, 9 sets on Wednesday, and 9 sets on Friday, but be warned that this was a very high-volume leg program.

You can only run 27 sets of legs per week for short bursts of specialization before you risk injury or overtraining, so be sure to tailor your approach intelligently with your long-term goal in mind.

Let me show you an example I think might be helpful for most people.

One way to spread out your weekly sets on a two-times-per-week training split could look like this:

Two-Times-Per-Week Leg Training Split Example

Monday (Session 1 of 2): Quad-Focused

• 3 sets of barbell back squats for quads

• 2 sets of leg press for quads

• 3 sets of leg curls for hamstrings 

Thursday (Session 2 of 2): Glute/Hamstring-Focused

• 3 sets of barbell step ups for quads and glutes

• 2 sets of Bulgarian split squats for quads and glutes

• 2-3 sets of a deadlift variety 

3. Pick Mostly Compound Movements

Compound movements generally give you a better bang for your muscle growth buck, which means it takes fewer sets to "get the job done."

Isolation movements like leg extensions and hip abduction machines can be a helpful supplement to your leg training, but I think most of us would agree that the strongest and most shapely legs were probably built with heavy compound moves like squat varieties, deadlift varieties, other hip hinge movements, leg pressing, heavy lunging, etc.

• From personal experience, my own legs seem to grow the best in the most favorable proportions (which is important) from lunging, squatting, hamstring curling, and hinging.

4. Train Relatively Close to Failure

Most people in the evidence-based space agree that training within four reps of failure is sufficient for muscle growth.

That's certainly where I tend to "live" in terms of my own proximity to failure (as we like to call it), and it's where I have all of my clients train.

5. Use A Full Range of Motion

Lifting through a full range of motion is going to recruit more muscle fibers than lifting through a partial range of motion, so it makes sense that you might experience better growth while going to full depth. 

That means with your squats and lunges, the key is to get deep.

If body recomposition outcomes are your primary emphasis, you want to be jamming as much tension into those targeted leg muscles as possible, which means the deeper you can get with immaculate technique the better. 

I when I say deep, I mean all the way down.

You can visit this Instagram post of mine to see what I mean.

6. Rest Properly Between Sets

I think I talk about this more than most because it's really personal to my own physique transformation.

Most people in the gym just simply aren't resting long enough between sets to allow for maximally productive sets.

For compound movements, I recommend resting at least two minutes in between sets. For small muscle groups and isolation movements, I'll take it down to 90 seconds. I only ever take rest times to 60 seconds or below when I'm implementing specific intensity techniques.

Bonus Tip: For whatever reason, my hamstrings seem to respond extremely well to working up to a heavy top set of 8-10 reps on the seated leg curl and then dropping the weight by 20 pounds or so for each set after that while only resting 30 seconds each.

To be clear about what I mean, the last time I did this my numbers were:

• 125x9 (then rest 30 seconds)

• 100x12 (then rest 30 seconds)

• 85x18 (then roll off the machine and curl up into a ball like a small child)

The pump and perceived disruption was gnarly and the work load only took about three minutes once I found my working weight for the 8-10 rep range within a few reps of failure.

---

Once you've accounted for all six of these tips, the trick is to simply overload these workouts slowly over time through added weight on the bar, more reps, and improved technique!

So there you go - six tips on how to write your own leg workout that actually grows some muscle. Just be sure to eat an adequate amount of protein and to keep your macros in check along the way!

If you’re not sure how to optimize your protein intake, you can read more about that here.

Lastly, just to help anyone out who'd rather just be told what to do, I think the following weekly workout split for getting juicier legs would be a great place for just any beginner to start.

MY SAMPLE WEEKLY LEG ROUTINE FOR MUSCLE GROWTH

Monday (Session 1 of 2)

• Squats or Leg Press for 3 sets of 6-10 reps

• Bulgarian Split Squats for 2 sets of 8-15 reps/leg

• Stiff-Legged Deadlift for 3 sets of 6-10 reps

Thursday (Session 2 of 2)

• Reverse Lunges for 3 sets of 8-12 reps/leg

• Smith Machine Cannonball Squats for 3 sets of 10-20 reps

• Seated Leg Curls for 3 sets of 10-20

You could, of course, do it a million different ways, but I personally like this sequencing.

Enjoy!

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I hope you found this helpful!

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member - especially someone who might be looking to thicken up their tree trunks.

Later, guys.

-Andrew

Vegan Bulking: My Most Common Meals for Building Muscle on a Plant-Based Diet

Today I'm coming at you with a quick-hitter about which meals I'm eating most often as a plant-based fitness enthusiast with an emphasis on building muscle.

I'm doing this because I’m realizing that more and more people are getting curious about how to consume more of their calories from plant foods while optimizing their fitness and their ability to build muscle.

The problem is that they just don't know how to do it.

And maybe you’re in that very same situation. You love the idea of getting jacked on plants, but you don’t you know where to start and the entire idea seems overwhelming, unpractical, and unsustainable.

I was the same way.

I was mesmerized by the idea of eating more plants, consuming fewer animal products, and getting more jacked than ever. It seemed like a win for the animals, a win for the planet, and a win for my own health, longevity, and moral compass.

And yet I had no practical knowledge of how to make it happen.

Fortunately, all of that has changed!

At the time of publishing this article, I’ve been flourishing on a 100% plant-based diet for 160 days.

In that time, I’ve noticed the following things:

• Dramatically accelerated recovery from weight training in both bodybuilding and CrossFit

• Increased volume capacity in terms of recoverable sets between 0-3 reps in reserve

• Increased cardio capacity

• Better pumps and improved vascularity

• Improved blood flow

• Increased sex drive

• Better day to day energy levels

• Sustained mental focus

• Heightened ability to resist irritability and be more patient

• Improved sleep quality

• Reduced body pain specifically in my sides and lower back

• No “gut clog,” which is what I call that heavy, sluggish feeling I used to get after eating meat or dairy-heavy meals.

• Better poops

• Being happier and more content overall knowing that my dietary choices are in alignment with my desire to be a more compassionate and selfless person

Not bad, right?

And, because I’ve had such a positive experience in my transition to a plant-based life, I want to pay it forward by giving you some specific ideas from my own dietary pattern about what to eat if you're wanting to eat more plants, excel in the gym, and look more muscular in the mirror. 

Let’s get into it.

My Most Common Plant-Based Meals for Building Muscle and Getting Lean 

1. Smoothies with Plant-Based Protein Powder 

I have a plant-based smoothie almost everyday because it's just too easy to smash 30-50g of protein in a single meal this way.

Back when I was a meat-eater, I remember following a lot of vegans who would say, "It's not hard to find protein on a plant-based diet!" And to be honest, it always confused me. 

“How could that be true?” I thought. “All of the most obvious protein sources seem to come from animal flesh. Are you really suggesting that broccoli can be a substantial protein source?”

Being on the other side now, I realize that they were trying to promote their lifestyle in a practical, winsome light, but...

The reality is that it does require a greater degree of intentionality to accumulate 120-170g of protein per day on a plant-based diet.

Sure, beans have protein, but compared to egg whites? Let's be real. You'd have to smash a lot of beans and poop your pants twice to get enough protein from those beans as you would an effortless 300mL pour of egg whites.

But, in my opinion, this is nothing to worry about.

I hope to touch on this in more depth in a separate article, but I’ve actually been challenging how much protein the body really needs to build an impressive amount of muscle mass. In fact, I’ve even dabbled with intakes as low as 80g per day, which is less than half of what I used to consume as an omnivore.

But enough on that for now. Let’s get back to the utility of smoothies for building muscle on a vegan diet.

Assuming you want to follow current evidence-based recommendations for protein consumption in the context of optimal physique outcomes, I would encourage anyone who is looking to gain muscle mass on a 100% plant-based diet to utilize the convenience of protein protein powders as one of the few protein sources that rival the macronutrient ratios of animal proteins.

To wrap this one up, protein smoothies make the #1 slot for a few reasons:

1. They’re quick and easy to prepare and consume.

2. You can pack them with greens, nuts, and seeds that might be less convenient to eat elsewhere throughout your day.

3. They taste delicious when supplemented creatively with bananas, mangos, papayas, dates, and nut butters.

4. They are a good opportunity to consume plant-based EAAs or BCAAs, which are more scarce in the plant kingdom

   1. Although I’m personally skeptical of the importance of leucine in the context of stimulating muscle-protein synthesis to a meaningfully greater extent than the other amino acids, you might be less suspicious than I am. As a bit of an insurance policy, it might be a good idea to buy a protein powder that contains EAAs or BCAAs. As a vegan, I’ve now purchased and used products from Vivo Life and 1st Phorm. I have no affiliation to either.

2. Plant Protein Pasta Explosions

This is another extremely common meal for me because nearly everyone on the planet loves pasta.

In fact, if you come from a traditional perspective on how to diet for building muscle, you’ll know that pasta is rarely to never a part of the conversation.

Why? Because it’s “too high in carbohydrates.” After all, bodybuilding and the pursuit of a god or goddess-like physique is all about protein, right?

I’m not so convinced.

Even though the protein hit from these pastas does come with plenty of carbohydrates, I still find that it's not that difficult to keep my calories in check - especially while bulking.

For example, if you find a plant protein pasta from chickpeas or lentils or even black beans, you can easily get 20-40g of protein per meal. Just be sure to keep your sauces lower in calories and to minimize oil use if you're looking to lose fat.

As a bit of a bonus, I like to sprinkle around 10g of nutritional yeast on top of my pasta bowls for that cheese-like effect while supplementing with vegan meatballs for an extra 16g of protein from soy.

Once you add all of that up, you can easily get 40g or more of protein in a completely vegan mountain of pasta.

Pretty sick, right?

3. Toddler-Sized Burritos

I have become the king of Panchero's.

You can literally get some of the most delicious plant foods out there for the modest price of $9 and some change.

Just in case Panchero's isn't a chain you have in your area, I'm basically talking about anything in the Chipotle or Qdoba category as well. 

And what's particularly cool about burritos is that there usually isn't one obvious protein source. This is one of those things that really perplexed me when I was a meat-eater. I just didn't understand the concept that all of the foods within the dish could work together to provide the accumulated protein dose I needed to stimulate muscle growth.

I thought I needed chicken or beef or tuna or eggs or something to get more jacked! But I couldn't be happier that I was wrong. 

In this case, the combination of the tortilla, the beans, the rice, and the tofu add up to around 46g of protein.

My specific order?

• Tortilla, rice, black beans, pinto beans, grilled veggies, tofusada with an extra scoop, lettuce, corn salsa, and pico

  • Depressing Update: I recently found out that Panchero’s tortillas are not 100% plant-based, which means I’ve shifted to being a bowl man. But Chipotle’s tortillas are 100% plant-based, which means they’re getting more of my business these days.

I also like mentioning Panchero's because it gives some people hope that you can eat on the fly on a plant-based diet. Although the options are skimpy, this is a super solid one. 

In fact, I actually documented the importance of burritos in my vegan bulking diet by naming every single burrito I ate during my first dedicated, vegan bulking phase.

I also named them hurricane-style, which I thought was pretty cheeky. If you want to check that out, you can sink your teeth in here.

4. Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches 

Believe it or not, the combination of some high-protein wheat bread or Ezekiel bread with nut butter and a banana can get you 20g of protein fairly easily. 

It has also not been uncommon for me to eat 2 plain peanut butter and banana bagels post-workout for a wily 932 calories from 27P, 166C, and 19F.

And if you read that and thought, “What in the flying fork?!”…

Calm down and remember that these are tips for plant-based bulking, which automatically assume a caloric surplus.

You also have to consider the context.

• I’m a 190-pound male that trains fairly intensely 5-6 days per week. Because of that, my maintenance intake at 190 is currently 3,500 calories, which makes a modest surplus around 3,800 calories for me.

In short, I need to eat ultra high-carbohydrate meals like this to get the results I want.

Do you? Maybe not.

I’m just giving you an insider look at my diet.

Always make the decision that makes the most sense for you and your goals.

5. Quinoa, Broccoli, and Tempeh Bowls

I really wish more people knew about tempeh!

If you’re not aware, tempeh is made from fermented soybeans.

I can't encourage you enough to try it for yourself if you’ve never dabbled. It's literally as easy as cubing up the block on a cutting board and tossing the cubes into a stir fry with some soy sauce.

For me personally, tempeh bowls really have become the "chicken, broccoli, and rice" equivalent for me from my omnivorous days.

But now, it's tempeh, broccoli, and quinoa.

I choose quinoa because it's actually a fantastic supplementary source of protein. Believe it or not, there are 45g of protein in the bowl you see above. 

All you need to make this dish a success is:

• Quinoa

• Broccoli

• Tempeh

• Garlic powder, onion power, black pepper, iodized salt or pink salt

• Optional

  • Korean Gochujang sauce

  • Tahini

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And there you have it, my friends!

These are the most common meals I’m using right now to build muscle on a 100% plant-based diet. For those who love to know exact macros, a fairly normal day for me might look like 150P, 620C, and 85F (although I routinely utilize the freedom to tweak my carbs and fats depending on training volume and fluctuating day-to-day preferences). This winds up being around 3,700-3,800 calories.

I hope you found this helpful.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member! You never know who in your life might be plant curious, and you could be the catalyst for a major change in the way they view the plant, their diet, and their fitness.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

7 Reminders to Keep Things Simple for Muscle Gain and Fat Loss

The fitness industry is always buzzing with controversy and confusion, which makes it easy to chase headlines and dabble in new ideas while neglecting the fundamentals. 

In light of that temptation, this article is a quick list of how to keep things simple for the long-run while seeing consistent and encouraging improvements in your body composition.

If you are not doing any of these and your goal is to get that lean yet muscular, hard-body look, you'd be smart to ask yourself, "Do I really have a good reason for making this more complicated?" 

There are often good reasons for complexity, but make sure you challenge them thoroughly before you abandon simplicity. 

And if you’ve stumbled onto this article because you’re brand new to the idea of body recomposition, these seven reminders are the perfect place to start.

7 Reminders to Keep Things Simple for Muscle Gain and Fat Loss

1. You need to be getting stronger over time in the main movement patterns to grow muscle.

This is what we call progressive overload.

Transparently, this is probably the one strength training and body recomposition principle I have personally neglected the most, which is a shame considering I’ve given it the number one slot. 

For whatever reason, I have always been more attracted to the pursuit of accumulating increased volume through additional sets over the pursuit of putting more weight on the bar.

And although increasing your work capacity over time can be a powerful driver of muscle growth, most would agree that it should be accompanied by a gradual increase in absolute load over time as well. 

Long story short, keep things simple by focusing on getting meaningfully stronger in some kind of squat, hinge, lunge, push, pull, and row pattern over time. 

If you’re looking for specific exercise recommendations within those categories, I would point you to the following:

• Squat: Heel-Elevated Smith Machine Squat to Full Depth

• Hinge: Romanian Deadlift 

• Lunge/Thrust: Reverse Barbell Lunges

• Push: Barbell Bench Press

• Pull: Weighted Pull-Ups

• Row: Barbell Bent Over Rows 

If you were to consistently add weight to all of those movements over the next five years without doing any other exercise, I’d be willing to bet you’d be a very muscular person assuming proper diet and recovery.

This goes for both men and women. 

2. You need to be doing enough challenging sets of mostly 6-20 reps within a few reps of failure to grow muscle consistently over time. 

In other words, you need to make sure you’re training with sufficient volume.

I think 12-20 sets per muscle group per week is the sweet spot for growing muscle consistently over time, but even I can admit that this seems like a large, ambiguous range.

“Well, is it 12 sets or is it 20? And how do I know what’s appropriate for me?”

In my opinion, the best way to identify the “perfect” number of sets to complete per week per body part is to start conservatively low at 10 sets per week and move upward from there as recovery allows. 

For example, if you want to grow your quads, you could split up your weekly quad volume into three different movements. We’ll use the following exercises for this example. 

1. Barbell Back Squat

2. Hack Squat

3. Leg Extensions

Given our goal of distributing 10 sets sensibly across those 3 movements, I might choose to delegate the volume as you see below:

1. Barbell Back Squat (4 sets) on Monday 

2. Hack Squat (3 sets) on Thursday

3. Leg Extensions (3 sets) on Thursday

Without going into too much detail regarding the “why” behind that distribution of set volume, this would be a logical and evidence-based baseline of training if your goal is to grow your quads. 

“So how do you know when it’s appropriate to add more sets?” 

If you can overload your sessions modestly and progressively while clearing nearly all of your muscle soreness by the next time you train your quads each time per week, I think you would be justified to add more sets. 

For example, maybe I find that the 4 sets of Barbell Back Squats on Monday are actually very fatiguing and soreness-inducing to the point that it takes Tuesday and Wednesday to recover fully. In that case, I would not add sets to that Monday session. But if I felt completely recovered by Tuesday evening, I would consider adding a fifth set of Barbell Back Squats the following week.

3. You should probably be eating most of your calories from whole food sources while keeping processed foods to a minimum.

There is no need to make this one more complicated than it needs to be. 

Although you can certainly enjoy “junk foods” and highly-processed treats from time to time, those who consistently see improvements in their physique and overall well-being over the long-term tend to be those who prioritize basic nutrition practices rooted primarily in a whole food diet.

Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, teas, and lean proteins should probably make up the majority of your diet.

Bonus Reminder: I’d also like to throw in a bonus reminder here that you don’t have to eat meat or animal products of any kind to build muscle effectively, which means the “No Meat No Gains” motto from of old doesn’t need to be a guiding principle in your body recomposition journey.

If you’re curious about how to make the transition to a more plant-based life, email me personally at andrewwesleywhite@gmail.com with the subject line “Let’s Chat Plants.”

4. You need to consume an adequate amount of protein. 

To be honest, I've really been challenging the notion of ultra-high protein diets lately, so I think it makes sense for each individual to experiment with what seems to work best for them. 

In the evidence-based body recomposition community, most people agree that eating around 0.7-1g of protein per pound of lean body mass is sufficient to maximize muscle growth outcomes. 

Within that overall daily target, it’s probably a good idea to spread that protein across 3-6 meals depending on your lifestyle, preferences, and how much protein you need to consume to support your goals. 

Making it more complicated than that likely won’t yield any additional benefits. 

What do I do personally?

You can read more about my own plant-based dietary approach during gaining phases here, but I generally eat 3-4 high-protein meals per day with an emphasis on pre-workout and post-workout nutrition.

5. Your caloric consumption needs to match your goal. 

If you're trying to lose fat, you'll need to be in a modest caloric deficit.

If you're looking to build muscle, you'll need to be eating at maintenance (at the very least) or in a modest caloric surplus. 

If your caloric deficit is too aggressive, you risk burnout, unnecessarily decreased performance in the gym, and muscle loss.

If your caloric surplus is too aggressive, you risk gaining too much fat too quickly and reducing the overall productivity of your muscle gain phases. 

It’s that simple. 

If you need help determining those numbers for yourself, I would highly recommend reaching out to us for online coaching.

6. You need to be taking responsibility for your sleep quality. You can only train and grow as hard as you can recover.

It seems like no one in the fitness industry wants to talk about sleep quality because you can’t monetize it as easily as training programs and nutrition plans.

But you need to let your muscles and systems recover in order to introduce increasingly powerful stimuli over time.

Practically speaking, most research that I’ve seen over the years suggests that most people recover near optimally when sleeping between 7-9 hours per night. 

Although this won’t be possible for everyone in every season of life, its importance is certainly worth mentioning so that you can optimize it when possible.

In other words, there’s a big difference between losing sleep because you have a newborn versus losing sleep because you’re out partying or binging Netflix.

7. You can lose all of the fat you want simply by walking. You can make it more complex or intense than that, but you don't have to. 

As sexy as it may be to design a program that has you rowing on Mondays, biking on Tuesdays, swimming on Wednesdays, and sprinting on Thursdays, anything more complicated than a strategic walking plan is unnecessary for fat loss. 

Can you make it more complicated? Absolutely. 

Is there a place for more complicated methodologies for some people? Absolutely.

I’m just highlighting the reality that, if you want to, you can tailor your diet and training in a way that allows you to walk your way to your fat loss goal.

In fact, I wrote an in-depth article about exactly how to leverage walking to your fat loss advantage, so give that a read if you’re interested in learning more.

Conclusion 

How you get the physique of your dreams can be very simple. 

Does that mean it will be easy? Absolutely not. But the principles are simple and most effective when repeated and manipulated strategically over time. 

In fact, if I had to try to put all seven of those statements into one sentence, it would be something like this:

Getting lean and muscular is the result of progressively overloading the main movement patterns of squatting, hinging, pushing, and pulling while strategically manipulating your food selection, overall caloric consumption, and recovery within periodized phases of varied focus over time. 

Screenshot that for the moment you’re tempted to jump ship for Keto 3000 and Johnny Bravo’s latest Arm Blitz Split to add 6 inches to your biceps in 6 weeks.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

"Should I Eat Low-Carb to Lose Fat?"

The tabloids and internet advertisements have us all wondering:

Should you eat low-carb or low-fat if you want to lose body fat and look lean and jacked?

Which one is it?

This is an immensely loaded question, but I'm going to keep it short and sweet.

Do What Is Sustainable and Feels Best

My extremely unsexy yet honest answer is that I think you should probably do what makes you feel best in context of your day to day energy, dietary preference, and performance in the gym.

Second to that, make sure this is something you do long-term. In other words, set your own adherence up for success in choosing a macronutrient distribution that you’re confident you can maintain for months and years.

But why? Shouldn’t there be a more definitive answer to this?

Not really, and this is why:

Looking lean and jacked is about having lost enough body fat to look lean and having built enough muscle to look jacked. And, since you can lose body fat and build muscle on both low-carb and low-fat diets, it doesn’t make much to heavily bias one over the other for most recreational lifters.

That being said, most physique and bodybuilders would agree that a high-carb, low-fat approach is best if you’re interested in building the most muscle possible due to the anabolic benefits of carbohydrates.

But this may not be you.

You might not be interested in “optimally jacked,” but you are interested in losing some body fat and building some muscle in a sustainable way because you don’t want to be a fluffy father or a mushy mommy.

So this brings me back to my initial point. It’s probably a good idea to do what allows for long-term adherence and feels best to you on a daily basis.

Questions to Ask Yourself

For example, these could be some helpful questions to ask yourself:

• Do you feel really good when you eat a higher carb diet?

• Do you naturally enjoy eating more carbs than fats?

• Do meals heavy in fat make you feel sluggish?

Or is it the reverse?

• Do fats keep you noticeably satiated and energetic throughout the day?

• Does eating fat give you a great mental clarity in the morning?

In my opinion, it might be as straight-forward as paying attention to the answers of those simple questions and acting accordingly.

As long as you are respecting essential levels of healthy fat consumption per day, which most experts in the field define as around 0.35x your body weight (in pounds) in grams of fat per day, I don't think it's worth overcomplicating your macronutrient distribution beyond that.

In practical terms, I think a conservative lower end for most men is around 50g per day while women can eat a bit less around 35-40g per day.

So to be clear, I think most people should distribute their macros in a way that allows them to enjoy their diet maximally while feeling and performing optimally. 

5 Reasons I Prefer High-Carb Dietary Patterns for Looking Better Naked

But, what do I do personally? What helped me lose my 31 pounds?

My bias is 100% toward high-carb, low-fat dieting, and here's why:

#1: All of My Favorite Foods Are Carbs

I freaking love carbs. I used to eat up to 6 bowls of Honey Bunches of Oats before bed each night. In fact, most days I'm actually trying to figure out how to add more fats into my diet to get to 50-60g of fat per day. 

So this first point comes down to preference and nothing else.

All of my favorite foods are carbs: sweet potatoes, white potatoes, oats, rice, quinoa, pasta, beans, bananas, berries, cereals, etc.

And now that I’ve made the transition to eating a predominantly whole food plant-based diet, it’s easier than ever to bias my macronutrients heavily in favor of carbohydrates over fats. 

#2: Carbs Make My Muscles Look Like Big Balloons 

Carbs create that full muscle effect that makes your guns look like freshly inflated balloons due to intramuscular water retention. 

When I keep my carbs low, I just look deflated. I don't like looking deflated. I like filling out my t-shirts.

If I enjoyed looking deflated all of the time, I’d probably take up marathon running. That’s no shade thrown at my long-distance brothers and sisters, but let’s call it how it is. There aren’t too many marathon runners out there experiencing restricted blood flow to their forearms because the sleeves on their t-shirts are inadvertently functioning as a tourniquet. 

Here’s a professional photo of me on more than 600g of carbohydrates the day of the photoshoot.

#3: Carbs Give Me Nasty Pumps at the Gym

High-carb dieting gives me sick pumps in the gym due to topped off glycogen stores. I like sick pumps in the gym, so I eat high-carb. Makes sense, right?

I also think there is a powerful psychological component here.

There’s an old adage that goes something like this: look good, feel good, play good. And as simple as it may sound, I think there’s quite a bit of truth there.

If you’ve ever had a skin-splitting pump in the gym, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. When you catch a pump, you feel invincible. So what happens? You really start to connect both mentally and physically to the session. With each curl, you drive more and more blood into the biceps until you can’t help but sneak off to the group classroom and snatch a shameless selfie like I did in the photo you see here.

To summarize, I really think half of the fun of lifting weights is chasing the pump and feeling confident in your own skin, which is bound to produce other positive outcomes in both your psychology and your physique.

#4: Carbs Keep Me Feeling High-Energy

I just feel generally low energy when I eat high-fat and restrict my carb intake. Even when calories are equated, I just don't feel the same. 

There’s really no better feeling to me than smashing an enormous salad with berries, hemp seeds, and Italian dressing. Or even a Mexican-inspired bowl of rice or quinoa topped with a medley of beans, corn, tomatoes, and just a touch of avocado.

But again, this is just personal to me. You may not feel the same way, and there are plenty of intelligent people in the industry pushing for a higher-fat, ketogenic approach.  

#5: Carbs Seem to Help Me Stay Focused

I have a great mental focus when I'm eating carbs. I know some people swear by fat (and good for them), but I swear by carbs. Pick your poison.

I’m really not trying to tell you what to do. I’m just telling you what I do and what I’ve found success in over the years. 

For example, smash an enormous 800-calorie bowl of oatmeal in the morning can oftentimes sustain my mental focus through the lunch hour (without food) and well into the late afternoon.

If you need inspiration, check out this recent upload from my phone because you know I take pictures of my oatmeal like first-time parents take photos of their children.

"What does high-carb mean though? Give me some numbers!"

I do like giving people specific numbers, so when I talk about high-carb dieting I'm essentially talking about maximally high-carb dieting. In other words, I keep fats as low as possible (while maintaining general health parameters) to maximize the anabolic benefits of carbs.

My Current High-Carb Diet

Right now, my macros are 120-150P, 50-60F, and 500-600C, and you can check out this recent full day of eating in Cronometer for a more in-depth look.

But keep in mind that this comes in context of my personal body, my personal metabolism, my personal phase of training, my personal phase of dieting, and my personal preferences. 

Do not take my macros and try to implement them into your own life with the hopes of achieving the same success I have had.

That’s just not how it works.

If, however, you are interested in calculating your own macros for fat loss or muscle gain, send us an email and let’s set up a consultation call. If that sounds too scary, I highly recommend this article I wrote about how to know if you’re ready to hire an online body recomposition coach.

Lastly, if you want an additional “non-me” resource on the benefits of high-carb eating, check out this article by Dr. Mike Israetel.

I love Dr. Mike, and even though this article is written in the context of massing (or bulking), the ideas apply across all phases of training and dieting assuming no outstanding medical issues. It's an absolute smash of a write-up, so I highly recommend the read. 

Summary

• Which style of eating makes you feel good and perform well? Do that probably.

• Eating high-carb instead of high-fat tends to be more popular among physique sport enthusiasts and bodybuilders.

• I am personally biased toward high-carb, minimal fat approaches.

• I personally lost 31 pounds eating high-carb in context of a caloric deficit.

  • I just toss that in there to say that I was still maximizing carbs (although much lower than usual) while dieting for extended fat loss.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

"Which Protein Bar Should I Buy?"

Let's chat briefly about protein bars.

We all know what it’s like to casually stroll into the health market section of a grocery store in search of a protein snack just to be met by a seemingly endless selection of sometimes 50 or more protein bars.

It can be intense, overwhelming, and discouraging, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people wind up leaving those aisles just as soon as they’ve entered in hot pursuit of a Cosmic Brownie and a bag of chips instead.

So, which protein bars should you buy?

That’s a great question, but let’s first talk about what I mean when I personally use the word “should.”

Every “should” you will ever hear from me will be accompanied by a disclaimer that answers the question, “Why?”

I’m a big believer that anyone telling anyone what they “should” do would be well-suited to have a good reason for suggesting such things. In other words, when there’s a “should,” I always provide a “why.”

So, the only sense in which you “should” take my advice on which protein bars to buy is if you want to optimize your body composition in the most efficient and sustainable way possible.

I want to be clear that buying and consuming protein bars without a nuanced understanding of the goal behind the behavior is not an automatic ticket to “looking better naked” or even being a healthier person overall.

And, remember I don't write for general fitness or health tips usually - this is about body recomposition, which means gaining muscle and losing body fat over the long term to reshape the integrity of your body.

Sound good?

So if you want to change the shape of your body by ditching body fat and building lean mass over the long term, this is my advice to you regarding protein bars.

Tips for Buying Protein Bars When Body Recomposition Is the Goal

Tip 1 - Try to get 20-40g of protein if possible.

To me, the most important thing to look for is that you're getting at least 20g of protein from the bar or that you're eating the bar with another protein source that gets you to that 20g minimum threshold.

We don't need to get too much into the science, but research tends to show that eating protein in doses of 20-40g per eating event stimulates near optimal muscle growth signaling through muscle protein synthesis.

Basically, if you’re going to eat protein, you might as well eat at least 20g of it per sitting to make it worth your while.

That being said, it's not an on/off switch, so you haven't "failed" if you only get something like 15g or 17g. That is certainly better than no protein at all.

In fact, most mainstream protein bars won't have 20g, which means you’ll probably have to do a bit of searching.

It'll be the ones that seem to be marketed a bit more to the bros that have 20-35g, which actually makes a lot of sense.

Bros want muscle, so bros eat more protein. You want muscle, so now you're a bro by a loose application of the transitive property, which means it’s time to level up your protein consumption per meal.

Why settle for 17g when you go for something more optimal?

So make sure you’re getting 20-40g of protein from your bars if you’re interested in maximizing your lean tissue accumulation.

Tip 2 - Do the calories fit your goal and overall eating strategy?

Make sure the calories make sense in context of your full day of eating, which needs to be tailored to your overall goal.

For example, you might find a protein bar that passes the protein test of 20-40g, but it might also be packing way too many calories if your goal is fat loss.

That means that bar isn't a good fit for you!

I have the perfect, real-life example.

Check out these Super Cookie Crunch Bars from MET-Rx that Josh and I used to pound.

You'll notice that they advertise a robust 32g of protein, which is great, right? It ticks our first box.

But they aren't advertising the calories, which are a hefty 420 calories per bar.

Yikes!

And although I can't offer anyone a magical number of calories that an ideal protein bar “should” contain, I can tell you with confidence that 420 calories per bar is probably going to be too many calories for most fat loss dieters (even men) unless you’re using it as a meal replacement bar as the brand recommends.

Even then though, the numbers just don’t add up well, and I’ll show you how.

Let's take some of my exact numbers for example. At the tail end of my diet when I was peeling back the layers for the photoshoot you see at the top of this article, I was eating 1,800 calories per day, which wasn’t much food for someone who was around 170 pounds.

In that case, spending 420 calories on a single bar would have been 23% of my entire day of eating but only 16% of my protein target.

That’s a meaningful percentage of my caloric allotment for the day from a processed brick of pseudo-Oreo happiness, which means it just probably wouldn't have been a good fit in context of the bigger picture.

In other words, it would have been a better idea to replace those calories with whole food option likes lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and healthy fats for a more complete nutritional profile.

Now, apply this same bar to the life of a 110-pound female who is dieting on 1,300 calories per day, and it's now 32% of her daily calories.

You get the point.

It's probably not going to be a good bet just because it likely won't fill you up as much as whole foods would, which is ultimately a poor overall strategy for sustained diet adherence.

Could you do it though? Absolutely. The key is simply to make an informed decision for yourself.

You have to make sure the calories in the bar fit your goal.

Oh, and one last thing: You're probably realizing how a lot of people can actually gain weight eating what they thought would make them "fit."

Remember Regina George from Mean Girls?

Yeah, perfect example. Don't get duped like Regina.

Tip 3 - Are you okay with the ingredient list from a health perspective?

Some people like the idea of keeping the ingredient list as short as possible for personal preference and health.

If that's you, do it!

Just remember that pursuing general health and pursuing a body recomposition goal aren’t necessarily always intimately intertwined, so this consideration is less relevant when it comes to building muscle and losing fat in a direct sense.

For more on that, check out this article.

And, as a bit of a pro-tip, keep in mind too that protein bars are usually processed by nature, so if you're an ingredient purist you've sort of been kicked in the knee before you ever set foot in the aisle.

As far as I know, protein bars don’t grow on trees next to the bananas nor in the soil alongside the yams.

I would also mention that if you're vegan you'll want to make sure your bar's protein is sourced with a soy or pea protein instead of whey.

Tip 4 - Does it taste good?

If taste matters to you, make sure the bar you are buying on a consistent basis tastes good!

That's probably a no-brainer, but it's worth mentioning as a quick fourth point.

When it comes to a fat loss diet, sustainability and adherence are the most important factors for success, so be sure you at least somewhat enjoy the protein bars you’ve chosen to help you reach your goals.

At the same time, don’t expect them to taste like your favorite childhood Halloween treat.

My Personal Recommendations

I know what some of you are probably thinking...

"Just tell me which one to get, dude! I don't have time to think about this stuff!"

Fine.

Although I have to be honest in that I originally published this article before I adopted a plant-based diet.

So, instead of completing reworking the article to be more plant-predominant, I’ve just sprinkled in a few disclaimers here and there to help nuance my new position.

My Ex-Protein Bar

For a long time, my favorite protein bar was the Pure Protein bar for the following reasons:

1. They pack 19-21g of protein depending on the flavor, which means you could either eat 2 in order to hit the 40g of protein mark or happily settle for just one. First rule checked!

2. The Chocolate Deluxe variety only has 180 calories, which means the macros are really great for body recomposition purposes. Keep in mind that the calories have to go up as the protein content goes up, but that's okay! You want your calories to come from protein when you're eating a protein bar, right?

So even when I would eat 2, I was only eating 360 total calories, which is something I could personally afford even when eating like a peasant for fat loss. Second rule checked!

3. The ingredient isn't impressively short like an RX Bar, but I was personally okay with it. Third rule checked!

4. I personally loved the taste. Fourth rule checked!

5. They were very affordable. Fifth rule checked!

Walmart carries these bad boys if you need to make a sprint after work, and I'm definitely not sponsored by them.

Should you buy this one? If it makes sense for your life and your goals!

My Current Protein Bar

There are only two protein bars I regularly consume now that I eat a completely plant-based diet.

The first and most common one is the Clif Builders bar series.

They’re a bit more calorically dense than they whey-based bars I used to consume, but they make up a very small portion of my diet now, so I simply make it work as needed.

These are still great for busy moments, so I try to keep a few in my gym bag or in my vehicle at all times.

The second bar I utilize from time to time is the NuGo Slim Chocolate Mint bar.

It’s a bit more calorically-friendly than the Clif Builders bar, but I try to eat them in pairs since each bar contains 17g of protein.

Curious about what else I eat as a part of my plant-based diet? I’ve got you covered.

Be sure to click on over to my article called Vegan Bulking: My Most Common Meals for Building Muscle on a Plant-Based Diet.

I hope this write-up helps you think about how to navigate the millions of protein bar options you've probably been presented with when shopping.

If you have any specific questions, just email me at ivry.fitness@gmail.com and we can have a humanizing chat about it.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

How to Lose Weight for Your Wedding: A How-To Guide for the Brides of 2023-24

A lot of brides are gearing up for their special day in 2022 thinking, “It’s time to get into the best shape of my life for my wedding day.”

If that’s you, you’ve come to the right place because I’m here to tell you exactly how you can feel as confident as possible in your own skin as you walk down the aisle this year.

Before we get started though, I have to offer an extremely important disclaimer. 

This article is all about how you could lose weight and look “super hot” for your wedding, but no one here at IVRY is telling you that you should lose weight or need to lose weight - or that you can’t look beautiful on your wedding day just the way you are. 

You absolutely can.

I just know that there are plenty of brides and grooms who do want to shed body fat, build muscle, and “get hot” for their wedding day and honeymoon, which is why I’ve decided to write this article.

So let’s get into it.

You Need to Figure Out What You Mean When You Say “Lose Weight”

A lot of brides will say something like, “I want to lose weight for my wedding.”

And, to be fair, I know what most women mean when they say that, but I do think it can be an unhelpful way of thinking about “looking good” on your wedding day.

What do I mean by that?

Some people literally just want to see the number on the scale go down while other people care more about achieving a certain look.

These are very different things, which means…

You need to decide which person you are.

Do you really just want to lose weight? Or do you want to look a certain way?

The reason it seems like I am always teasing out this point is because it has a significant impact on the way you set up your diet and training.

In fact, it’s the very reason we call ourselves body recomposition coaches instead of weight loss coaches.

“I literally just want to lose weight and feel slimmer overall. If my butt looks like a sad raisin, I’m cool with that.”

If you literally just want to lose scale weight, I would encourage you to prioritize two simple things above all else:

1. Creating a moderate to aggressive caloric deficit through food

2. Burning calories through activity

In terms of practical application, that means you could go on something like a no-carb diet and commit to five classes at OrangeTheory per week. 

The diet is straightforward and simple to understand, and there’s no thought to the workouts, which means you just show up and burn hundreds of calories.

But remember, this isn’t going to make any of your muscles grow in any meaningful capacity because you’re only focused on losing weight - not body fat - just weight, which could be fat, muscle, water, or even just less food in your digestive system at any given moment.

At best, you’d be hoping to maintain any muscle you already had while getting smaller overall.

Nonetheless, you could very easily be “hardcore” for the few months leading up to your wedding, get the weight loss results you apparently want, snap the wedding day photos, feel “hot” on the beach and…

Oh, shoot.

Then what?

BEWARE THE EPIC HONEYMOON REBOUND

Unfortunately, you would probably rebound harder than Tom Hanks once he ditched Wilson and finally made it back to civilization after island life in the movie Castaway. 

Why?

Because crash dieting and reckless amounts of cardio just aren’t sustainably-designed or meant to bring anyone long-lasting results.

Not only that, but a traditional honeymoon experience sometimes involves the overconsumption of both food and alcohol, which results in an extremely high-calorie experience that could lead to anywhere between 3-10 pounds of fat gain.

This is why I warn against it.

But hey, maybe you’re not interested in a more phasic, long-term approach, and that’s totally fine!

You can make that decision for yourself. 

Some people literally just want the shortest route from A to Z and they don’t mind crashing and burning as long as Z is a good time.

Would I recommend it? Not at all. I think it’s shortsighted and destined for long-term failure, but I really don’t say that with judgment. It’s just my honest position.

But let’s address the brides out there who want to channel that shapely, fill-your-dress-out-in-all-the-right-ways type of lean bride vibe on their wedding day. 

We’re talking about strong yet feminine legs and glutes, a lean back peeking out from behind your straps, “toned” arms while you clutch the bouquet, and a flat tummy as a bit of icing on the cake. 

Do I have your attention yet?

“Okay, yeah. I’d rather put in the work to be shapely yet feminine! How do we do that?”

Sweet. That’s what I thought. 

So, if you’re wanting to lose mostly body fat (rather than just weight in general) while maximizing muscle retention or even building lean tissue on the way down, I would encourage you to do four things above all else:

1. Create a modest caloric deficit through food

2. Eat protein in doses of 20-40g per serving 3-4 times per day

3. Train 3-6 times per week with weights in an overloading fashion

4. Become a walking enthusiast

And here are some quick tips on how to achieve each of those numbered points without diving into too much detail.

Create a Modest Caloric Deficit Through Food

This is the most important thing on the list because the old saying that “you can’t out-exercise a bad diet” is absolutely true outside of Olympic athletes, genetic outliers, and those skinny eighth grade boys at the pool with a six-pack for no reason.

This comes down to identifying a caloric target for yourself that will have you losing around 1% of your bodyweight per week at most.

As a 200-pound guy, that means I’d be hoping to lose about 2 pounds per week.

Now obviously you can’t do that forever, but the point is to lock-in on a caloric target that can bring you that general weight of loss for 4-8 weeks. 

So if you’re a 150-pound female looking to get the ball rolling, you would set up a diet that would have you losing around 1.5 pounds (at most) per week for 4-8 weeks before adjusting.

Sample Fat Loss Pace for a 150-Pound Female

• Week 1 - 150 pounds

• Week 2 - 148.5 pounds or so 

• Week 3 - 147 pounds or so 

• Week 4 - 145.5 pounds or so 

• Week 5 - 144 pounds or so 

• Week 6 - 142.5 pounds or so

• Week 7 - 141 pounds or so

• Week 8 - 139.5 pounds or so

That would be a great start. 

But I know what you’re probably thinking.

“Well, are you going to tell me how many calories to eat?”

And the difficult answer to that question is no!

There is no one-size-fits-all caloric script that we can write because everyone is different.

That being said, I have found that starting most women out around 1800 calories is a great place to begin.

If you’re significantly overweight, you’ll probably lose plenty of body fat for quite awhile.

If you’re only slightly overweight, you’ll still probably start trending downwards, which is great.

But, women who are already relatively lean or who might just be very small people could benefit from starting their caloric target lower than 1800.

In some cases, eating 1800 calories per day could even cause you to gain weight slowly, but…

This could even be a good thing since it will give your body an optimal energy for muscle growth, which could even accentuate your muscular yet feminine curves despite a gentle uptick on the scale.

But again, did you just want to “lose weight” or did you want to look a certain way?

Now that’s true body recomposition, and it’s what lights my fire more than anything else as a coach.

The point of starting at 1800 calories per day is to kickstart the process because, well, you have to start somewhere. You can always adjust once you’ve accumulated about 14 days worth of bodyweight data.

If you’re losing weight around 0.5-1% per week, you’ve found the sweet spot! Slower than that? Maybe make a 100-calorie reduction to 1700 and continue to observe.

Others have speculated that you can take your current bodyweight in pounds and multiply that number by 10-12 for good estimation of a caloric target that should get you dropping some body fat.

Eat Protein in Doses of 20-40g per Serving 3-4 Times per Day

This is the second most important thing in my opinion because protein is the macronutrient that preserves and builds muscle. 

So, if you want to look svelte when the DJ cues up Canon in D, you’ll want to make sure you’re giving your body an optimal amount of protein to support your goal.

In short, I like to recommend a maximum of 1g of protein per day per pound of your goal body weight.  

So if you’re 150 pounds and you know you’d be excited to be a lean 140, it’s probably a decent idea to aim to eat between 98-140g of protein per day while you’re shredding for the wedding.

If you want more nuance on that, you can also check out our full article on just about everything you could ever want to know about structuring your protein consumption.

But, to keep with our 140-pound example, you could easily do the following assuming it doesn’t violate any food intolerance you might have:

• 8:00AM - 35g of protein from a plant-based protein shake with soy milk

• 11:30AM - 35g of protein from a tofu salad

• 5:30PM - 35g of protein from a chickpea pasta with salad

• 8:00PM - a piece of fruit for dessert

It really doesn’t have to be too complicated. Just make sure to keep your calories controlled to the goal.

Train 3-6 Times per Week with Weights in an Overloading Fashion

If you’re trying to look “uber hot” according to modern cultural standards, you’re probably going to need to be lifting weights multiple times per week.

In other words, thick bums and strong legs are in.

Can you do group fitness classes or hot yoga or pure barre or something similar? Totally.

But it’s probably not going to build the muscle you might be drawn to when dreaming about your ideal wedding day physique.

Those types of exercise are good for general health, fitness, flexibility, and burning plenty of calories, but they aren’t overloading enough to build an optimal amount of muscle.

Does that make sense?

So back to lifting.

For brides new to lifting, you really can’t go wrong with what we call the “push, pull, legs” split, which means you’d do the following:

• Monday: 4-8 pushing exercises (chest, triceps, shoulders)

• Tuesday: 4-8 pulling exercises (back, biceps)

• Wednesday: 4-5 leg exercises (quads, hamstrings, calves, abs)

And then you could easily repeat that for Thursday, Friday, Saturday while resting on Sunday if you want to make a 6-day split out of it.

You could also do 3 full body days a week or even a 4-day legs, push, pull, legs split if you’re a bride that wants to emphasize the lower half of your body (as most do).

For more information on how to structure a workout for optimal muscle growth, check out my article called How to Build Muscle Effectively Using the Rule of 7’s and 11’s.

Become a Walking Enthusiast

I’d recommend tracking your steps and aiming to hit the same semi-challenging number each day.

There’s nothing magical about 10,000 steps, but it’s a nice, round number that people like to see pop up on their phones or watches after a successful day of walking. 

When I lost around 30 pounds in 2020, I eventually had to push my walking up to 15,000 steps per day in order to see the continued results I wanted.

Whether your number is 10,000 or 7,000 or 15,000, get after it and get consistent. 

Walking burns way more calories than most people give it credit for, so if you’re in an area that allows for outdoor walking, I suggest you maximize it during the months approaching your wedding.

Seriously, if you think walking is silly advice, you’re probably unaware of the fact that most bikini competitors walk for 1-2 hours per day in the weeks leading up to their shows in order to achieve that fit yet feminine look that many brides are after.

So get to walking!

Looking for a more in-depth discussion on how to tailor your walking to your fat loss advantage, I’ve got you covered.

Manage Your Timeline Intelligently

The hard part about writing articles like this is that I can’t nuance every piece of the puzzle for everyone at the same time, but what I can do is remind you to be sensible about your timelines.

If your wedding is in two weeks, you’re probably a little late to the party.

At that point, “losing weight” probably comes down to wearing a trash bag in the sauna and chewing on ice like a high school wrestler. Don’t do that.

If your wedding is in a month, you could do an accelerated mini-cut for 4 weeks and lose a few pounds of body fat with an aggressive protocol.

But you really have a great chance at reshaping your physique if you’ve got 3-12 months until your special day.

The point is to tailor your approach to the time you have to achieve the goal, so if you’ve got plenty of time to make meaningful change, don’t put yourself on an unsustainable starvation diet.

Instead, go back to those four main areas of focus and start figuring out how to implement those strategies into your own life repeatedly for the duration of your engagement.

And, of course, if you need help doing any of this, these are the exact services I personally offer as a body recomposition coach, and I would be happy to walk alongside you for this process.

All you have to do is reach out for help.

Consider the Bigger Picture

As cliche as it may sound, every bride wants to feel like the most beautiful woman on the planet on her wedding day, and the photos you capture with your loved ones will be the moments you hang on the walls of your home for years to come. 

Which version of yourself do you want to be looking at for the next 50 years?

Not only that, but they’ll be the photos you one day share with your children, and I can’t help but think it would be a very proud moment to one day hear your daughter say,

“Dang, Mom! You looked HOT on your wedding day!”

And lastly, launching yourself into your married life with a strong, healthy, and confident body could be an excellent gift to your future spouse. 

Again, not because you should get fit or need to get fit, but more simply because it’s a token of discipline that communicates, “I want to be healthy and fit and present to live a full and thriving life with you.”

I think there’s something selfless and very romantic about that.

In fact, that’s one of my own greatest motivations for staying lean and muscular - to set myself up for a long life of romance within my marriage, adventures in the mountains and along the beaches, and (if I should be be so fortunate) fun spent with my future daughters and sons that will inevitably want to keep dancing or playing soccer with Dad for as long as he can keep up.

Is there any part of you that shares that sentiment?

Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content. 

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

Are Being Healthy and "Looking Hot" the Same Thing?

In my opinion, three of the most abused terms in the fitness space these days are the following:

1. “health” or “healthy”

2. “fitness” or “fit”

3. looking “good” or looking “hot”

That being said, I’m pretty sure I know why these words get confused so much and it comes down to social behaviors.

What do I mean by that?

I mean some people are too afraid to admit that they really just want to look “hot” so they say things on January 1 like, “I just really want to get healthy this year.”

Don’t get me wrong - I love a good and honest goal of improving your health, but is that really what you want?

Or do you just want to feel a little more confident when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror each morning?

What about that “fitness” word though?

What’s up with fitness? What does that even mean?

Just a few days a go, I was chatting with my good friend Justin Miller about how confused most people are when it comes to training for fitness versus training for aesthetics.

And we decided the core of the issue is essentially that people don’t realize that fitness and aesthetics don’t always go hand in hand.

In other words, you can have great physical fitness abilities without looking like an Instagram fitness model.

And on the other side of that very same coin, you can look like an Instagram without being able to do 20 burpees in a minute with clean technique.

Really, it’s the classic difference between a bodybuilder or a bikini competitor and a CrossFitter.

So without beating the point to death, these are the three main things I want you to know as we consider the bigger theme of this write-up, which is to tease out the differences between being healthy and “looking hot” as our current culture seems to have defined it:

Health, Fitnesss, and Aesthetics

1. The way we use the word health should speak primarily to non-fitness markers. Having some level of physical fitness is certainly an element of optimal overall health, but that doesn’t mean you need to be a CrossFitter to be considered healthy in a general sense.

2. Fitness isn’t actually a term that speaks to body composition at all. Fitness speaks to work capacity, which means that being fit is an indication that you can “do a lot.” You have a large capacity for physical achievement, but what does that even mean? Admittedly, the waters are murky. Are we talking about running a marathon? Are we swimming? Are we lifting heavy weights? Or are we trekking through the jungle with a 60-pound backpack? Fitness is gray, but what I want you to know most is that being fit doesn’t mean you look like an Instagram god or goddess.

3. If you want to train for statue-like aesthetics, there’s a really specific way of training to achieve that. Burpees don’t make you look like a statue. Ab circuits in your living room don’t make you look like a statue. Air squats don’t make you look like a statue. And although all of those movements might make you a fitter person, they aren’t (in and of themselves) going to make you jacked and lean like you think of when you pass by a fitness tabloid while you’re checking out at Walmart.

Alright, so having gotten all of that out of the way, let’s chip away at the bigger idea.

"Are being healthy and “looking hot” the same thing?"

No way! And I think people need to hear that and be reminded of the differences. 

You can absolutely be healthy as a horse with a very unimpressive physique just like you can be shredded to the bone and hormonally suppressed.

Health and aesthetics are not the same thing.

That being said, I think there is definitely a sweet spot (and we'll get to that), but let me chat through what I think the biggest differences are.

What It Means to Be Healthy

All "healthy" really means in my opinion is that your doctor is giving you the thumbs up each year at your physical.

Your blood markers are good, you don't have any major vitamin deficiencies, your blood pressure is within an appropriate range, you're not significantly overweight, you're not smoking or drinking to excess, your lipid panels look good, etc.

In addition to that, there are also some general exercise parameters you might be meeting like 30 or so minutes of moderate exercise several times a week. That probably means getting your heart rate slightly elevated through jogging or some kind of recreational sport like pick-up basketball, soccer, or even pickleball.

But not much of that has anything to do with having an impressive physique or a body shape you're proud of.

You wouldn’t pick a healthy person out of a busy crowd in the name of looking amazing, but you just might notice if Mike Thurston happened to be walking down the street.

I think you get the point. Health and hotness aren’t always linked.

So, what does it mean to “look hot?” 

What It Means to “Look Hot” According to American Pop Culture in the 2020’s

If you're a dude, you're probably pretty jacked.

The softer, So-Cal, "Brody Jenner-esque" bodies of the early 2000's used to be the standard for "fit boys," but the game has changed now.

Nowadays, the "fit look" for men is to be carrying quite a bit of muscle mass. Big chest, big arms, sweeping quads, and a plump enough backside to rival the ladies.

Think Chris Hemsworth from Thor or Chris Evans from Captain America. These dudes have size!

If you're a woman, it's no longer about just being thin, which was the thing for a long time.

Nowadays, it's all about the booty. And when I say all about the booty, I mean it. We've traded thin for thiccck with 3-4 C's depending on which Instagram accounts you follow. 

“Fit chicks” are apparently the new breed of "hot girls," so we've seemingly ditched the Paris Hilton look for the girl who squats and hip thrusts 3x per week but still looks feminine enough to slay a classy yet fitted dress at a wedding. 

For better or worse, this is my perception of the way the tides have turned in what America and most of Western culture thinks is sexy on a larger scale.

I'm not celebrating it or demonizing it nor am I saying it's "good" or "bad" for people to be categorized like this and exposed to these cultural expectations.

I’m also not saying I agree on a moral level with how we tend to view people and their bodies.

I'm just setting the scene and speaking to a current social reality.

Also, if you read that and thought, “That is not at all what I personally find attractive,” then cheers!

I’m speaking to the greater theme of what I see in fitness pop culture everyday, and you are totally entitled to your own thoughts of attractiveness and sex appeal.

I am by no means saying that this is how you (or anyone) should think of the human body.

"So what does this have to do with the correlation between health and aesthetics?"

Honestly, this is kind of a cool time in culture to try to get the best of both worlds - both feeling culturally “relevant” while eating and training in a way that is probably optimally healthy at the same time (or at least a step in the right direction).

Let me explain.

I think you can be really healthy and look really good at the same time by doing a few simple things consistently.

How to Tick the Boxes for Health before you tackle aesthetics

Unless you’re hardcore into physique sport, I think most of us would agree that prioritizing our overall health and wellness should come before our physique endeavors.

If that’s you, I came up with these five points to help you make sure you’re putting your health first:

1. Make sure you're eating a balanced diet of plenty of vegetables, fruits, lean proteins, whole grains, healthy fats, etc. You probably already know this. Diet is a huge part of health. Get your diet in check first according to the recommendations of a trusted registered dietician.

2. Drink plenty of water. If you need a number, half your body weight in pounds and drink that in ounces. I aim for 100 ounces per day.

3. Sleep like a champion. I like no less than 7 hours per night, but 9 is my preference.

4. Walk plenty. For people looking to lose fat, I really think 10,000 steps per day is an amazing place to start.

5. Be carrying a healthy amount of body fat. Wait, what? You read that right. One thing a lot of people don't realize is that some Instagram models (both men and women) are actually hormonally suppressed given their extremely low levels of body fat. That's not healthy. So make sure if you want to hit the sweet spot of health and aesthetics that you're not too lean to the point that you're putting your health at risk. For men, that 8-15% body fat range is probably golden. For women, I’ve heard people smarter than I am recommend adding 7-10% to the low and high end of those recommendations as a general rule.

Now, what's cool is that none of those suggestions regarding health have to interfere with an aesthetics goal. 

How to sculpt your body aesthetically once your health checklists have been met

If you’re consistently nailing the aforementioned points, there’s a good chance you’re in good health standing, so now it’s time to get into the aesthetics piece:

• Get your calories in check with your goal within the parameters mentioned above.

  • If you're looking to lose fat, get into a caloric deficit. If you're looking to build muscle, either eat at maintenance or get into a caloric surplus. 

• Eat around 1g of protein per pound of body weight within the parameters mentioned above. I wrote an article on this to help you out. 

• Consider training with a higher-carb, lower-fat approach if you want to maximize aesthetics.

  • I know plenty of people have success doing ketogenic diets, but I'm personally biased toward high-carb, low-fat approaches for a handful of evidence-based and anecdotal reasons. Plus, bananas are carbs and everyone loves bananas.

• Train with weights 3-5x per week in a primarily hypertrophic fashion.

  • I am consistently blown away by the things people do in the gym when I know for a fact that all they want to do is look better naked and feel more confident in their own skin. Notice that I didn't say do cardio to burn fat. I said lift weights to get strong and build muscle. 

    • Prioritize the muscle groups that you know will help you achieve the aesthetics you want. 

      • For men, this likely means growing your chest and shoulders since most women find broad shoulders attractive and indicative of protector-like qualities. If that's you, you probably want to train your chest 2-3x per week with some specific side delt work 2-3x per week. If you're like me, you want big glutes and legs, so you'll train them 3x per week (which I do).

      • For women, this probably means big glutes and quads with a flattering midsection. Given that having a slimmer midsection is all about fat loss, I would recommend training your glutes and legs 3-4x per week with great muscle-building movements like squats varieties, lunge varieties, deadlift varieties, thrust varieties, etc. 

• Be sure as heck you are progressively overloading these movements over time.

  • That's way too much nuance to toss into this write-up, but make no mistake that progressive overload under proper technique is extremely important for growth.

Some Parting Words about Fitness Pop Culture

Here’s a hot take for you.

I'm actually a big fan of this change in "the new hot look" for one huge reason that has nothing to do with vanity or sex appeal.

Are you ready for it?

Having big, strong glutes and legs is a very healthy and functional body shape.

I know plenty of conservative people who think the butt craze is pure vanity (and it certainly can be), but at the very least it's somewhat cool that we're now encouraging people to lift and eat rather than smoke and starve.

To segue that, having a non-butt is not an overtly healthy or functional body shape. 

In fact, I call it the inverted butt. Everyone knows an older guy in their life whose jeans somehow seem to bubble inward instead of outward like a traditional butt would generally behave. I hate to say it, but that’s not good.

Having weak glutes and hamstrings can lead to all kinds of problems like posture issues, low back pain, and increased injury risk just from being a weak sack of potatoes.

Plus, the implications of being thin (or even skinny fat) with little to no muscle mass are that your calories are inevitably going to be very low.

And frankly, that's just no way to live a fun life. Food is so good! 

So when you think about it, that means 20 years ago people were being forced to make a choice: "Do I prioritize my health and fitness or do I try to look the part of what society tells me is attractive by keeping my calories super low to look as thin as possible?" 

In my opinion, that's a pretty slimy question to have to navigate in the first place, but the silver lining is that our current culture is now celebrating both at the same time (health and a strong body composition) - and that is pretty cool. 

What’s the takeaway then?

Be jacked and be celebrated for it!

Eat and put on some strength or muscle mass depending on your goal. And fuel your body with the foods that create strong bodies instead of obese bodies.

There has never been a better time.

Summary

• Health and aesthetics are not exclusively the same, but they can overlap in a way that allows you to get “the best” of both worlds. 

• You can be fit and not look like a social media Adonis. You can also look like a fitness icon without be very fit at all.

• For a rare moment in human history, pop culture is celebrating big, strong glutes (and jacked people in general). So, take advantage of this and get to lifting! 

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

How to Look Like Chris Hemsworth from Thor

Just the other morning I met up with a new potential client for coffee at Panera, and I asked him the question I ask nearly everyone when the topic is how to get maximally jacked and lean.

“So, do you have a favorite physique? Maybe a celebrity or something?”

And almost without fail, nearly everyone has that one photo in their phone that they keep coming back to - the one you pull up from time to time and say, “Dang, it would be so sick to look like this dude/gal.”

You’re probably no different.

Over the years, I’ve ebbed and flowed between wanting to look like Brad Pitt from Troy and Zac Efron from Baywatch.

Maybe for you it was Ryan Reynolds from The Amityville Horror (a random genre of movie to be jacked in) or Deadpool.

For this guy, it was Chris Hemsworth from Thor, and who can blame him?

Chris Hemsworth’s physique is absolutely next level - arguably the perfect combination of aesthetics and brute size, which in tandem flawlessly captures not only the heartbeat and admiration of the ladies but the respect and inner applause of the men as well.

In my personal opinion, that unique combination is the epitome of the ultimate physique - the one that captivates all audiences.

My Very Important Disclaimer on Wanting to “Look Like” Other People

Now, as a quick side note, I know a lot of people like to frown upon this idea of “trying to look like someone else,” so I’d like to speak to that briefly.

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt when they tell me they want to “look like” someone they admire in terms of fitness or physique.

If you pull up a picture of Ryan Reynolds and say, “Take me here,” I know what you mean.

You’re not asking me to drive you to the nearest plastic surgery facility to reshape your pecs to look just like his…

You’re saying you want to build a similar amount of muscle and shed a similar amount of body fat to get a similar result.

You’re saying, “Let’s move toward this physique in my own specific context,” and I respect that.

It’s not like when I first saw that scene of Brad Pitt in Troy I was thinking about how to grow long blonde hair at the same time. I wanted to know what I would look like if I were carrying that much muscle at that body fat percentage.

Does that make sense?

I just want to be sure to tread really carefully when I speak about wanting to “look like” other people.

It’s not about “looking like” someone else because you’re insecure. It’s about being inspired by a strong, muscular physique in someone you admire and setting a personal goal to achieve similar outcomes in your own context.

It Might Be Easier For Men Than Women

To be honest, I think men are generally better at keeping these distinctions in mind than women.

That’s not a dig at women, I just think women are perhaps a bit more likely to want “hips like J-Lo” or the “ratios of a Victoria’s Secret Angel” - and that's much different than saying you want to be jacked like Thor.

In fact, I think it’s a very dangerous way of thinking for women who are looking to understand their dignity and self-worth, which is want to make it very clear that I would never want to encourage body negativity of any kind.

As you read this article, please understand that “looking like” someone else in the fitness industry should never (in my opinion) come at the expense of dismissing your own self-worth.

So, ladies, if you think you want to “look like” some other girl who you think is the epitome of beautiful or sexy, my encouragement to you would be always to hold your own beauty, dignity, and self-esteem in a precious place.

If you want to build muscle, lose fat, and feel confident in your own skin, I think it’s best to do so out of self-love - not envy or insecurity.

And although this article will most likely attract men looking to get uber-stacked, I wanted to be sure to include that for my female audience. Consider it your daily dose of advice you didn’t ask for.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about what you showed up for - how to get as jacked and lean as Chris Hemsworth was in Thor.

Is It Even Possible to Look Like Thor?

Frankly, it’s probably not possible for most. Ouch!

But I don’t say that to play the “genetics card” (although he certainly seems to have phenomenal genetics for aesthetics).

It’s deeper than that - an impossibility that speaks more to the willingness of the individual.

I say that because most people don’t want his physique badly enough to tailor their entire lifestyle toward that outcome.

Simply put, looking like Chris Hemsworth as he was in Thor just doesn’t happen by accident unless it happens by accident. And if you’re already jacked like Chris Hemsworth by accident, you probably skimmed over this article without a second thought.

But, let’s say you’re crazy enough to attempt it like me.

Here are my top seven tips about how I personally would approach it.

7 Tips for Getting Jacked Like Thor

1. Your Physique Is Now Your Full-Time Job

This first step is more of a mental adjustment than anything. Your food, training, and recovery are now of paramount importance at all times. You have to maximize all of the variables.

Some specific examples of this might be:

• Binging Schitt’s Creek but you know if you watch another episode you’re going to dig into the sleep you need to train properly all week? Turn it off and go to bed. It’s your job.

• Work party tonight but it’s going to be pizza and booze? Eat your own high-protein, macro-tailored meal beforehand and enjoy a sparkling water with your co-workers. It’s your job.

• Long stressful day at work and leg day sounds worse than hell in the moment? Cowboy up, my friend. You’re the one who signed up for this. It’s your job.

This also means no more stupid excuses about “missing breakfast because you overslept” or skipping leg day because you had a “tough day.”

Or only eating 67g of protein on Saturday because you were “traveling.”

Or having a lackluster training session because you “went out for too many drinks” with your friends on Friday night. Stop that.

If you really want to get after a big boy goal like getting jacked like Thor, you have to stop making excuses and starting owning every detail and outcome of your life - both positive and negative.

That’s a mental tweak and nothing more, but in my opinion it is certainly the first step.

2. Figure Out If You Need to Cut First or If You Need to Get Straight Into Bulking

For most people, looking like Thor is going to be a multi-year or even decade-long pursuit depending on how much muscle you want to add to your frame.

That means you need to tap into that idea that your journey is going to have to be phasic for you to see any kind of meaningful long-term success.

The first step is deciding if you need to bulk or cut, and these are my quick tips for making that decision.

People Who Should Cut First

• If you have no semblance of abomination definition, you should probably cut body fat.

  • The only exception I can think of is if you’ve never trained before and you’re not super overweight. But visible abs are probably a good indication that you’re near or below 15% body fat, which is where most people agree you should stop the gain train before your nutrient partitioning becomes more biased to fat gain (and even that’s still highly debated).

  • If you’ve never trained before, there’s a good chance you can build muscle and lose fat at the same time, so you could certainly make that your goal in this unique case.

• This probably goes without saying, but if you’re very overweight or obese, you probably need to cut body fat first before trying to put on muscle size.

  • You can still train for hypertrophy along the way, but you should probably be in a caloric deficit.

People Who Should Get Straight Into Bulking

The hardest part about looking like Thor is going to be putting on the muscle mass.

There’s nothing wildly impressive about his level of leanness, but the size and proportions are what turn heads when mixed with that leanness.

Your best gains are most likely going to come when you’re somewhat lean, which is why I would recommend most people who are any degree of “overfat” cut to a lean place in order to maximize those great gains. If you’re overweight and you go into a further caloric surplus, there’s a good chance that excess energy is going to be stored as more fat rather than more muscle - and we don’t want that.

But there are some people that would benefit from getting straight into bulking.

• If you’re that classic skinny dude who can’t put on weight to save his life, you should absolutely get straight into bulking, which probably means a modest calorie surplus.

• If you identify as skinny fat, I might also recommend getting into a very modest caloric surplus that might be mistaken for maintenance from time to time. You’re qualified to maximize that whole “build muscle and lose fat at the same time” idea, so why not press into it? Plus, cutting when you’re already sort of deflated and squishy can be a big shot to the ego, so why not set yourself up for more positive vibes by putting on some muscle beneath the flubber instead?

3. Get Your Calories Straight and Track Them

Talk to a trusted person in the industry about what your calories should be and get after it.

If you decided you needed to cut, make sure your caloric deficit is appropriate.

If you decided you needed to bulk, make sure your caloric surplus is appropriate and actually working. Wait, what does that mean? Metabolic adaption, folks. Your metabolism is not static.

If your surplus should have you gaining in theory, but it doesn’t have you gaining in practice, guess what? It’s not enough.

Add calories from carbohydrates (if possible) until the scale starts ticking upwards. If it becomes too unbearable to eat more carbohydrates, grab some extra calories from healthy fat sources to help you out.

Beyond that, make sure you are gaining at the proper rate per week, which most experts in the field would agree is around 0.5-1% of body weight gained per week.

Don’t want to track your calories? That’s fine, but that’s like saying you want to brew the best beer of all time but you’re simultaneously not interested in paying attention to the quantities and qualities of the ingredients.

You probably can’t do both if you want to maximize the quality of the outcome. You either get convenience and suboptimal outcomes or you get discipline and optimal outcomes.

If the glory of Thor is your end goal, suboptimal sure isn’t the word I would use to describe it.

4. Get Your Protein Straight and Track It

Within those calories, eat protein at least 3x per day in doses of somewhere between 30-50g each from high-quality sources, and get most of those calories and protein from whole food sources if possible.

In terms of overall daily amounts of protein, that’s going to vary from person to person, but this article I wrote should get you headed in the right direction.

As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to be consuming about 0.7-1.0g of protein per day pound of lean body mass to optimize your muscle-building efforts from a protein perspective.

Also, supplementing with whey protein or a pea protein blend is probably a good idea for convenience and adherence purposes - especially if you are vegetarian or vegan.

Curious about how to do this on a completely plant-based diet? Click here.

5. Make Sure Your Training Program Is Top Notch and Train Like a Freak for Years

Make sure your training program is hypertrophy-based and well-rooted in proven methods.

This means training with the right amount of volume, a sensible array of movements (meaning the right blend of compound moves to isolation moves), and utilizing intelligent progression and overload schemes from week to week.

I can’t outline what that would look like in a single post, but this probably means hiring a good coach.

Trying to DIY your training to Thor status is probably a fool’s errand.

Also, remember that putting on an impressive amount of muscle mass takes years, so be ready to train relentless for a long time before you take on an endeavor like this in ignorant bliss.

6. Sincerely Consider Hiring a Coach If You’re Anything Less Than an Expert or Super-Enthusiast

Funny - I was just talking about hiring a coach!

This truly isn’t even a shameless plug for our own coaching services. Although we would love to have you, this tip makes the list because it’s genuinely probably the quickest road to Rome.

As much as it would be amazing if everyone were as educated in building muscle and losing fat as Dr. Mike Israetel, that’s simply not the case.

Having a coach provides you the peace of mind that your program is incredible and your nutritional strategy is appropriately tailored to the goal.

It also saves you precious time and energy that would be an epic shame to have lost in the stubbornness of your own unwillingness to invest in a coach.

7. Manage Your Recovery Like a Superhero

Although sleep is most likely the most important aspect of recovery on a macro level, there are other ways that recovery can oftentimes be overlooked.

• Minimize high-impact activities that might prevent your muscles from recovering on time.

  • This might be recreational basketball or soccer or even Spike Ball. You can do all of that fun stuff once you already look like Thor, but until then it might be time to lock down your recovery. Or if you must do it, do it sensibly and only on occasion.

• Nap when you can.

• This hopefully goes without saying, but don’t stay up late for no reason like a dumb-dumb. If you can bag an extra hour or two of snooze, do so.

• Drink plenty of water and get as much of your diet from high-quality, whole-food sources as possible.

• As a bit of a bonus consideration, you could consider sipping on a nighttime ashwagandha drink. Personally, I use KOS’ Organic Calming Blue Spirulina Blend once or twice per week to help wind down before what I hope becomes an epic night of sleep. Anecdotally, I have found it does exactly what it claims to do: It calms me down and leaves me crawling into bed with a warm and fuzzy sensation that usually leads to a bit more restorative sleep according to my Whoop.

8. Take Around 5g of Creatine Monohydrate Per Day

Although I don’t take creatine right now for personal reasons, the science on creatine monohydrate is pretty convincing in terms of improving strength output and muscle gains.

It is by far the most researched and well-supported supplement in the fitness space alongside whey protein, so it’s a bit of a no-brainer if you’re serious about rivaling Thor.

Just be sure to stay hydrated as creatine monohydrate does pull water into your muscles to aid in its beneficial effects.

Summary of How to Blow Up Like Thor

And there you have it, friends!

My top seven tips on what it would look like to really dig into the idea of pursuing a Thor-like physique as optimally as possible.

1. Realize that tending to your physique is now essentially a full-time job.

2. Decide whether you need to cut or bulk first.

3. Determine the right number of calories to eat and track them.

4. Identify a daily protein target and hit it consistently.

5. Be certain your training program is hypertrophy-focused.

6. Consider hiring a physique coach.

7. Manage your recovery as optimally as possible

8. Take creatine if desired.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Lastly, I want to disclose that I do earn from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

6 Signs You're Ready to Hire an Online Body Recomposition Coach

How do you know if you’re truly ready for an online relationship with a body recomposition coach?

That’s a wonderful question. Let’s talk about it!

Sign #1: You’re finally ready to invest financially. 

Oh, this is awkward. We’re talking about money on point number one? Absolutely, and I’ll tell you why.

It’s one thing to say, “Shoot. I’m just not sure I can responsibly spend that money on a body recomposition coach right now,” because that’s a reality of life.

I used to walk by the freshest cuts of Wild Atlantic Salmon at the grocery store and think, “Man, I’d really like to buy those cuts, but I’m not sure we can responsibly afford that right now,” for that very same reason. I just simply couldn’t justify paying for it at the moment, and that was completely understandable.

So, what’s the difference?

Well, I don’t have a strained relationship with the fact that I’m not eating the best cuts of salmon on a weekly basis. If I were walking around on a daily basis cursing my non-salmon dinners of ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwiches while harboring an excessive amount of negative energy toward the lack of salmon in my life, that might be a different story.

What’s my point? If I had wanted the salmon badly enough, I’d have found a way to afford it even if it meant making sacrifices in other areas of my spending.

In short, your spent dollars tend to reflect the nearest and dearest values of your heart, so if you’re not willing to spend a few hundred dollars a month getting fitter instead of fatter, it’s probably a good indication that you’re not ready for an online coaching relationship yet.

Sign #2: Frankly, you’re a little bit pissed off.

You’ve been overweight for years, and you’ve decided that enough is enough.

You’re tired of being that person and being discouraged by the image you see in the mirror.

I even had a client once tell me that they were going on vacation in six months and they were determined not to be the “fat friend” in photos. I will never forget that conversation because it created a renew sense of empathy in me. I couldn’t imagine the shame this person was feeling toward the shape of their body.

Are you sick and tired of being the “fat friend?”

If so, this might be the perfect time to make a powerful investment in yourself.

Now, I’m not saying you have to be angry in order to commit to a successful body recomposition goal, but I am suggesting that you should be experiencing some degree of motivational and emotional restlessness to help you kickstart your endeavor.

If this is you, there’s a very good chance that you’ll be willing to make the lifestyle adjustments necessary to achieve your goal, and a coach might be the perfect fit for you at this time.

Sign #3: Getting a personal coach has been a long time coming and you know it.

You’re probably ready for an online body recomposition coach if you’ve been spinning your wheels aimlessly for years dabbling in all kinds of diets and “training programs.” 

You lost 10 pounds on keto, but then you gained 15 back over Christmas. You lost 15 pounds as a vegan and then gained 20 back once you ate a pizza. Now you’re doing intermittent fasting in tandem with Whole 30, but you’re starving like Tom Hanks on a life raft in the middle of the South Pacific.

When will it stop?

To be fair, there’s nothing technically wrong with this. No one is saying you can’t continue experimenting with new dietary patterns and training styles.

But it might be worth admitting that at this point you have no idea what you’re doing when it comes to dieting and training for an improved body composition.

So ask yourself this, “Is anything really going to change if I keep leaving myself in charge of this process? Do I really have the knowledge to do this on my own?”

If the answer is no, you’ve been blessed with an exciting moment of honesty and clarity.

When you’re able to face that reality openly, there’s a good chance you're in an appropriately humble position to hire a fitness and nutrition coach for the next six months to a year.

Sign #4: You’ve stopped asking questions like, “Am I going to have to run?”

Why is this important?

Because if you are still asking questions like this, it exposes the reality that you’re still keen on keeping things as cozy and non-invasive as possible. That sort of mentality generally doesn’t inspire optimal results.

The key to being successful in this process is to approach all things with an open mind and a willingness to learn.

No, you don’t have to run, but why are you not willing to run? 

The mindset of someone who is truly ready for an online coaching relationship is one that communicates this: “I am ready to trust my coach to guide me toward my body recomposition goal, and I know for a fact that this will mean remodeling old habits, welcoming new habits, and adapting to any adversity that may present itself along the way.”

You should be asking what you get to do to get the results you’ve always wanted - not immediately hoping to shirk as many unpleasant forms of exercise as possible from day one.

If that’s you, you’re probably ready for an online coaching relationship.

Sign #5: You’re excited about the challenge.

If you’re dreading the idea of becoming the leanest version of yourself you’ve ever been, what are we even doing here?

Save yourself the cash! I mean that sincerely. Life is short and there’s no sense in forcing yourself to be something you don’t want to be.

Your legacy is yours for the forging, and no one is asking you to trade in your muffin top keg for a six-pack if you're happy and healthy just the way you are.

But if you are excited about the idea of seeing your body transform in new and motivating ways, you’re probably in a wonderful position to consider hiring a body recomposition coach.

Sign #6: You want to change your body shape for yourself and no one else.

Yikes, this one cuts to the core! But, how true is it?

If you’re considering hiring a body recomposition coach because you want to look hot for Justin Bobby at the pool this summer, you’re essentially looking to hop in a dune buggy at 100mph headed for the edge of a cliff.

Devastation awaits.

Why?

Because I’ve found that the only meaningful and lasting results in body recomposition are the ones that are pursued and accomplished in a spirit of self-respect and love. 

Cliché? Probably. But I’ve found that some of the most cliché things in life turn out to be true.

So, if you want to get lean or jacked, do it for yourself - not to impress a person or earn a meaningless badge of cultural approval.

If you’re in this for yourself - or even selflessly for others in the sense that you know your current body weight is putting you at risk of early mortality - then hiring a coach might legitimately be one of the best decisions you have ever made. 

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As always, I really enjoyed writing this article, so if you found it helpful, do me a favor and send it to a friend.

Although I no longer run my own body recomposition business, I have joined forces with The Vegan Gym, where you can apply to work with me directly.

Until next time,

-Andrew

How and Why to Use Deloads for Optimal Recovery

If you’ve been following our content for a while, you’ll know that we have spoken a lot to the fact that both Andrew and I did a ton of things wrong for a long time in our early twenties.

In fact, that’s a huge reason why we both have become so passionate about fitness and doing things the “right” way; so we started a business to try and help others avoid the same wasteful journey that we took.

When we didn’t know any better (i.e. we weren’t tracking our lifts efficiently, tracking calories, practicing effective recovery, etc.) we both encountered the strange phenomenon of what I’ll dub, “a week at home with Mom’s cooking.”

We would travel back home to our parents’ houses over holiday breaks and random weekends here and there, not lift while at home, and eat loads of great food.

When we would return to the bachelor pad, one of the first things we wanted to do was get a solid lift in like a couple of bros.

I kid you not, during every single one of those lifting sessions back from “a week at home with Mom’s cooking,” we felt like superheroes.

We would be putting up bigger numbers than we were hitting previously (albeit for only a few sessions because we were boneheads), and we thought that we were invoking some kind of magic power divined from middle-aged Midwestern women’s cooking.

What we were really experiencing - in some form - were the effects of practicing a great recovery tool called a “deload week.”

Deloading has become a staple in both of our personal programs and has allowed us to continuously push for bigger numbers and greater strength gains.

Let’s define the idea of a deload.

What is Deloading?

Generally, we define our deload phases as a period of decreased training intensity (amount of resistance used) or volume (number of reps/sets performed), while usually eating at maintenance calories (especially during a fat loss phase) usually four around a week but sometimes less.

Sometimes, deloading can mean completely taking the entire week off, but my recommendation would be to still perform the same sessions you were previously doing while lowering the intensity and/or volume.

There are many ways you can go about deciding what the best set of reps and what percentage of the load you should be using when deloading, but here are a few options:

1. Keep the same load on your movements, but cut the volume down.

2. Keep the same volume, but decrease the load you are using.

3. Use 50-70% of the load from the previous week and hit 50-75% of the volume, which is what I do.

So, the whole purpose of a well-timed and intelligent deload phase is to allow your body to have an extended period of recovery.

What happens is that once we successfully deload, we create a desirable launching point for our next training cycle.

Earlier I mentioned that “a week at home with Mom’s cooking” made us feel like superheroes and that we would hit big numbers upon our return to the gym.

Part of the reason for those feelings was the fact that we weren’t practicing strict progressive overload. We would hit more reps or use more weight, but none of those choices were really well thought-out.

You should still probably feel refreshed after a restful deload week, but you may only notice a slight increase in your performance, especially if your are an intermediate/advanced lifter, or you are following a strict training plan implementing progressive overload strategies.

So, what are the actual benefits of a deload phase?

Benefits of Deloading

I think one of the hardest parts about lifting weights, especially as people get more advanced in their training, is managing your body well in a way that avoids injury.

Lifting weights puts a ton of stress on our bodies, especially on our central nervous system (CNS) and connective tissues, and a lot of that stress is hard to manage.

So, instead of taking a few days off to give our bodies a chance to recover, we can end up injuring ourselves, which can put us out for an extended period of time away from the progress we have been working so hard towards.

To help you avoid those kinds of injuries and to practice healthy recovery, here are some of the benefits of implementing a deload week into your programming:

1. Muscle Recovery

   • Lifting with less intensity or less overall volume allows our muscles more time to fully recover.

2. Central Nervous System (CNS) Recovery

   • When you’re training in a light to moderate manner, your CNS may recover just fine by the next day, but some studies show - specifically for high volume training - that it may take multiple days for our CNS to fully recover after a very demanding session. And, since training intensity tends to ramp up at the end of a mesocycle, this makes deloading after your overreaching weeks the most beneficial time to sensibly deload.

3. Psychological Recovery

   • Just like we need to take breaks from our actual jobs and careers for vacations and weekends away to relax and mentally escape, taking a break from your normal gym routine can also promote mental benefits the next time a heavy squat is staring you in the face.

4. Connective Tissue Recovery

   • Muscle tissue generally recovers much faster than our connective tissue (ligaments, tendons, cartilage), and there aren’t any highly reliable ways to track damage done to our connective tissue. Deloading ensures that by decreasing the overall stress on these tissues, we are allowing them to recover and heal for the sake of injury prevention.

     • It’s worth noting that a majority of the injuries that I and a lot of friends experienced from lifting have been connective tissue injuries since they are so hard to manage properly.

5. Social Recovery

   • If you work a normal job and also lift 5-6 days a week, a lot of your precious time is already spent, which leaves less time for friends, family, and other hobbies. One of the best benefits of a deload period has nothing to do with your body, but rather the amount of time that is freed up from shorter or fewer workouts. I love spending this newly available time by hanging out with friends and family.

Now that we know what a deload is and have seen the benefits, how do we know when or how do we plan a deload phase?

How I Personally Know When It’s Time to Deload

There are several different ways to go about adding a deload at the end of your mesocycles, and I will say more about that in the next section, but I wanted to give a quick look into how I personally organize my routine to include deload phases.

But before I do that, I think it’s important to lay out my current approach to training so that I can provide a little bit of context before I talk about my deload.

My Approach to Training

After years of making mistakes, I have finally settled on a sustainable approach to weight lifting, which includes a thoughtful implementation of progressive overloading.

I have spent a lot of time learning about my limits for different exercises in different rep ranges so that I can now intelligently push to increase every week.

The way that I progressively overload is by starting out my mesocycle with 2-3 working sets for each of my exercises for that session, and then each week after I try to add a few total sets for that week along with trying to match or improve upon the number of reps I hit for each set the previous week.

In this way, I can ensure that I am progressing and every week. But, as the demands of progression inevitably increase, the need for a more dedicated recover period become more and more apparent.

At this point in my training journey, I can pretty much predict at about which point I will need to deload (which is usually after four or five weeks of increasingly demanding training), but I only know that because I keep a very organized logbook for each and every one of my sessions.

On occasion, however, I will plan a deload for a specific week, but generally I try to use my logbook to guide my decision making for the appropriate time to deload.

A Look At My Logbook

Here is a look at how I am currently organizing my logbook in Google Sheets.

This has been my Monday AM session for the last several weeks, and I organize everything from rest times to number of reps performed. Each week for this mesocycle is all included in the same Google Sheet so that I can easily check my progress from the previous week and then set a goal for myself for the current week.

So what I like to do is let my body tell me when it’s time to take a break.

Take a look at a few sessions from my previous week of lifting for example:

I’ve included (in parentheses) the decreases from the previous week to this current week for a few of the exercises.

At first glance, only missing a few reps may not be that big of a deal. For example, I may have had a poor night of sleep or felt more stressed that day.

What is important to note is that it’s okay to have one bad day in the gym. Life happens, and sometimes our gym performance struggles. So I will usually chalk up a day like this as a bad day, and I won’t go into a deload because of one day of missing my numbers.

This changes though when I have multiple days of not hitting my numbers in the same week. I interpret this lack of performance as a sign that my body needs a break from the stress I’ve been putting it under.

Here is another session from my logbook in the same week:

I hit this session two days after the pair of sessions in the previous picture.

There was a much greater decrease in performance in a few of the exercises on this day, so I decided I couldn’t really chalk up the lack of performance to tiredness. Instead, I realized I had pushed my body hard for five weeks and that now it was time to deload and recover.

Again, I know that not everyone keeps a detailed logbook for their exercise programs (although we highly recommend it), so you may not be able to use a method like this to help you decide when you should deload.

Here are a few methods for determining the right time to take a deload week.

How You Can Time Your Deload Appriately

Just like most things in life, there isn’t a “one size fits all” approach to deloading. Depending on how you organize your fitness life, there are a few options for you to try:

1. The “Drop in Performance” Approach

In the last section, I spoke a lot about how I personally implement this approach.

Again, the idea is that if you are keeping a good logbook and trying to progressively overload, you will eventually run into a week where you aren’t quite hitting the numbers you want to be hitting - whether that be not performing the same number of reps as the previous week or even not being able to perform an entire set of an exercise.

Again, when you arrive at this situation yourself, make sure that it isn’t just one day of tiredness, but rather multiple days of “missing the mark” in your training before you decide to take a deload week.

What is nice about this method is that it sort of becomes predictable to a point.

Eventually you will start to realize that you have been deloading consistently every four weeks, and you can then start to plan for those deload weeks in future training cycles.

A benefit of knowing how long it takes for your body to reach a point where it’s begging for a deload is that you can begin to plan things around when this week approaches.

For example, if I know I am going to be going on a week long vacation in September, I may try to plan my training so that my deload week lines up perfectly with my vacation.

2. The “Planned” Approach

This approach is exactly what it sounds like: instead of waiting to see your performance drop (especially if you aren’t keeping a logbook), you can just plan a deload week into your training cycle at predetermined time intervals. At IVRY, we personally recommend every 3-6 weeks, but it totally depends on the individual.

Depending on how you look at it, this can be a more carefree approach to deloading because it doesn’t require you to burn any training sessions on subpar performance.

On the same page though, this method can also be less precise.

For example, maybe you have been taking a deload week after four weeks of pushing hard in your training. There is a chance that you could have pushed for a fifth week of hard training, but you would never know it because you chose to deload sooner than you may have needed to.

Again, we are digging into the weeds here a little bit, but I am all about maximizing my output in my performance, and I hate the idea of leaving a good week of hypertrophically stimulating training on the table. Because we are trying to improve, aren’t we?

That being said, this method is probably most conservative way to go about deloading because at least you are giving your body a break over the course of a regular period, and you can know that you are safely recovering. It just might not be quite as precise and appropriately timed as it would be by using an more auto-regulatory method.

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Hopefully you found all of this information to be helpful, and if you weren’t adding deloads into your workouts before, maybe we have convinced you to give it a try! The last thing you want is to be chronically banged-up when a focused time of rest and recovery is actually exactly what your body needs to continue growing optimally.

Part of what we include with our personal coaching is an intelligent implementation of deload weeks to ensure that there is plenty of recovery and a limited risk of injury.

If you are interested in learning more about our online coaching, or just want to ask a question or say hello, click here to learn more.

And, we are currently accepting new clients, so don’t be shy. Saying hello just might be the best decision you’ve made this year.

9 Sneaky Ways to Get More Protein Into Your Diet

Let’s talk about how to get more protein into your diet.

If you’re reading this article, it probably means you’re in one of three positions:

1. You’re either skeptical about how high the evidence-based protein recommendations are for athletes/trainees who want to maximize their muscle growth response, or…

2. You’re already bought into the idea of eating a higher-protein diet, but you’re not sure how to practically eat that much protein on a daily basis, or...

3. You’re the parent of a young athlete and you’re trying to figure out how to cook and prepare food at home to support their goals.

In any case, this blog is for you.

But I have one quick disclaimer before we get started:

ONE QUICK DISCLAIMER

These tips and tricks only apply if you know that you are currently eating less protein than you could be eating for optimal muscle retention and/or growth. 

I just want to be clear that there’s no meaningful benefit to eating excess protein if you’re already eating plenty in the first place. That makes sense, right?

But, how do you know if you’re already eating enough protein? 

How to Know If Your Protein Intake Is Adequate

To start, you’ll need to track your food for a few days.

I recommend tracking your intake for 3-5 “normal eating days” using an app like MyFitnessPal or Cronometer and a food scale for ensured accuracy.

Once you have a few days of data collection, you’ll need to reference this article I wrote on how to determine an appropriate protein target.

But just as a brief summary, I think eating between 0.7-1.0g of protein per pound of lean body mass (LBM) is sufficient for nearly all of the muscle growth most people are hoping to obtain.

Then, when you know for sure that you’re under-eating protein relative to your goal, you can start digging into these tips like a grizzly bear in a picnic basket.

Now let’s get into a few tips and tricks on how to get more protein into your diet.

A SECOND QUICK DISCLAIMER

I originally published this article as a meat-eater, but I no longer eat meat or any other animal products (including fish, dairy, or eggs).

Because of that, this article has been heavily updated to reflect my own personal preference toward eating a plant-predominant diet.

9 TIPS FOR EATING MORE PROTEIN

Tip #1: Stop Being Bashful about Protein Shakes.

If you’re looking to get more protein into your diet as simply as possible, consider adding a plant-based protein shake to your daily routine. 

Or, consider doing a shake with a double scoop of protein or making your plain shake into a smoothie with berries and your favorite nut butter.

Why the double scoop though?

Well, not to get too geeky on you, but when it comes to building muscle, the muscle protein synthetic response appears to be optimally activated in doses of 20-40g of protein (with diminishing returns between 40-60g per dose).

You could, however, easily achieve this by using a higher-protein plant milk like soy milk to bolster the protein content of your smoothie.

Either way, consuming 40-50g of protein from your shake would be giving you an excellent hit of muscle protein synthesis to support the hard training you’re executing in the gym.

The key here is to stop associated protein shakes with “being a bro.”

Drinking protein shakes doesn’t make you a “bro” any more than wearing a pair of basketball shoes makes you LeBron James. 

So, if you’ve been avoiding protein shakes due to your ego, I would highly encourage you to drop the stigma and press into the bigger picture of achieving your body recomposition goal. 

What I Do Personally: I generally drink one plant-based protein smoothie a day for my first meal that contains one scoop of pea/rice protein blend, 300mL of high-protein soy milk, hemp hearts, and powdered peanut butter for a hit of 40-50g of protein.

For more details on my morning smoothie, click here,

Tip #2: Double Your Lean Protein Portions.

There’s no need to overcomplicate this one.

Instead of eating one chicken breast for dinner, you could eat two.

But as plant man myself, I’d love to see more people choosing plant proteins like tofu and tempeh over poultry.

Rather than eating one portion of seitan for dinner, you could serve yourself two.

Or, as crazy as this may seem, you could even make yourself two servings of chickpea pasta instead of one (if your caloric goals allow for this).

And, really this applies to any kind of lean protein you might be eating.

Just remember that it’s very important that your calories still be kept nice and tidy if you’re focusing on a body recomposition goal - especially if your goal is to lose body fat. 

For example, if your goal is to lose body fat, but you’re eating 600 calories worth of chickpea pasta each night because you took my advice to double your protein serving, that might actually be the wrong choice contextually because it’s knocking you out of the caloric deficit you need to lose fat.

In other words, make sure you account for calories above all else. It’s an easy mistake to make, which is why I wrote an entire article on it.

Tip #3: Sprouted Bread

Wait, bread has protein? Yes, it does!

In fact, sprouted bread in particular is a complete protein source, which means it has a fuller amino acid profile than some other plant-based products (which is a common critique of plant-based diets for muscle growth).

Practically speaking, if you start making your lunch sandwiches with a sprouted grain like Ezekiel bread, you’ll be able to sneak an extra 10-20g of protein into your meal. And although 10g may not seem like much all by itself, it can certainly add up across the entire day. 

You could also supplement a morning breakfast of oatmeal and berries with a slice or two of toasted Ezekiel bread for a protein-heavy start to your day.

What I Do Personally: I like to buy the Ezekiel bread you find in the refrigerated or even frozen sections at the store. People don’t think to look for bread there, but those products need to be kept cold since they’re typically made without the preservatives that allow for a longer shelf life.

Tip #4: Bagels

While we’re on the topic of how grains can get you more jacked, let’s touch on bagels.

Bagels are hands-down my favorite post-workout carbohydrate source. For whatever reason, there’s just nothing quite like a freshly toasted wheat bagel from Aldi with a plant-based protein shake after grueling training session.

Fortunately for me, the bagels I eat contribute 9g of protein per bagel. That’s a hefty bump, especially if your goal is to gain muscle while eating in a moderate caloric surplus.

To be fair, bagels are fairly calorie dense with around 260 calories per bagel, but if you’re a big person training to be even bigger - spending 520 calories and 108g of carbohydrates post-workout (with an added bonus of 18g of protein) might be a great idea.

The downside of bagels is that they aren’t particularly fat loss friendly for those eating calorically restricted diets, so I will admit that these will mostly often suit bigger people a bit better than smaller people.

Again, just make sure that the way you approach your protein intake is calorie-controlled for your greater goal.

What I Do Personally: One of my classic post-workout meals is almost exactly what I mentioned above: a whole wheat bagel, 20-40g of nut butter, 20-40g of raspberry jelly, and a plant-based protein shake for roughly 631 calories comprised of 43g of protein, 79g of carbs, and 19g of fat to jumpstart the recovery and growth process. 

Tip #5: Hemp Hearts

You may have never heard of hemp hearts, but they have been an absolute game changer for my oatmeal and salad game.

Plus, a full serving of hemp hearts packs 10g of plant-based protein and 13g of healthy Omega-6 fats. 

Just be careful not to get carried away with your calories from hemp hearts if you’re dieting for fat loss.

You don’t need to be scared of them, but it’s definitely worth noting that a full serving packs 170 calories, which can be more than 10% of your daily caloric intake if you’re a smaller person looking to consume less than 1,700 calories per day.

What I Do Personally: I spike my oatmeal with hemp hearts for a small protein bump and the added bonus of knowing I’m consuming my fats from healthy plant-based sources. If you want my go-to bowl of oatmeal, check out the graphic on the right. Just keep in mind that I would, in this case, supplement this particular bowl with a pea/rice protein shake to get within that optimal amount of 20-40g of protein per meal.

Beyond that, I used to drink a fully plant-based shake each morning with 30g of protein without the use of a plant-based protein powder when I was dabbling in veganism. So, if you’re vegan, hemp hearts might be a phenomenal way to increase your protein without the use of animal products.

Tip #6: You Could Use Egg Whites.

Although I no longer personally recommend the consumption of egg whites due to the disclaimer I gave at the beginning of this article, I do think it’s most transparent to mention that I consumed them heavily in the form of French toast from 2019-2020.

Why? Well, they’re essentially pure protein - and they are a complete protein, which means their addition to your diet will absolutely support your muscle building goals.

Just one serving of egg whites packs 5g of protein and only 25 calories.

If you’re new to tracking macronutrients, just know that that’s a really good bang for your caloric buck in terms of protein return.

Back in the day, I would typically eat them in servings of 300mL at a time.

What I Do Personally: I don’t eat them anymore due to ethical reasons, but they are a very common protein source for many physique enthusiasts.

Tip #7: Broaden Your Horizons with Seitan.

I know it sounds like the devil, but it’s really not unless you have a gluten sensitivity.

What is it?

Seitan is just wheat gluten prepared in a way that makes good sense of its “wheat meat” nickname. For a deeper dive, I felt as though this article was helpful in learning more about this ancient yet seemingly unknown plant-based protein source.

Fortunately, store-bought seitan seems to be increasing in popularity as plant-based diets gain more traction in the consumer space, which means you don’t need to stress about making your own.

Just go buy some at the store!

What I Do Personally: I like the chorizo variety of the Upton brand because it’s goes brilliantly in homemade Mexican dishes. When I’m in a hurry, I will literally just throw together a bed or rice, black beans, 1-2 servings of chorizo seitan, a dabble of nutritional yeast, and a spoonful of salsa for an extremely simple yet physique-friendly meal.

Tip #8: Chili

Chilis are nutritional powerhouses when it comes to dieting for body recomposition.

And although I’m well aware that the majority of my readers won’t be “as plant-based” as I am, I personally add a bag of Gardein’s be’f crumbles made from a textured soy protein for an extra 18g of protein for 120 calories per serving.

That being said, I know there are plenty of people out there who are scared of soy, and I empathize with you. And although soy is still heavily-debated, I found this resource featuring Simon Hill and Dr. Matthew Nagra extremely helpful in clearing up my own personal confusion.

But back to chili.

As an added bonus, throwing tons of beans in your chili is an amazing way to get a meal packed with fiber and extra plant-based protein.

It’s also a cheeky way to get a ton of herbs and spices you might be missing out in other areas of your diet.

Lastly, chilis are amazing for meal prep because it’s an all-in-one meal that you can toss into a single Pyrex dish for a simple heat-up.

What I Do Personally: When the weather isn’t too hot, my wife and I make a large batch of chili in the crockpot and eat high-protein dinners for a full week.

If you’re curious for the recipe, send me an email at ivry.fitness@gmail.com and I’d be happy to hook you up. 

P.S. Mix in 16g of nutritional yeast per serving of chili for an extra 8g of protein and enough B12 to last you a trip to Mars and back.

Tip #9: High-Protein Soy Milk

In my opinion, this stuff is almost too good to be true. Why did I make this number nine?

Silk’s version of this product packs an outstanding 20g of protein per 240mL, which is basically a protein shake all by itself given the known protein quality of soy.

How do you use it?

• Throw it in smoothies.

• Drizzle it into your oats.

• Use it as the milk for your cereals.

• Or even mix it into red pasta sauces as a thickening agent.

What I Do Personally: I drink about two cups of soy milk a day. Most often, I’ll have one in the morning as the base of my plant-based protein smoothie, and then I’ll sometimes drink a cup on the side of a peanut butter and jelly bagel post-workout.

Bonus Tip: The “Pre-Dinner Shake and Dine” Maneuver

What if you’re that person who is already annoyed at the idea of having to design every single meal around a protein source?

Well, I come to you with this final tip as a peace offering for a bit of added “normalcy,”

If you’re going out to dinner with friends and you don’t want to order the rubbery grilled chicken salad or settle for the hummus plate appetizer, just drink a low-calorie protein shake at home right before you leave and enjoy literally any meal on the menu assuming it fits the caloric needs you’ve established for your goal.

This is actually pretty genius for a few reasons:

1. Most importantly, you get to order the pasta you really want even though it’s basically a carbohydrate and fat explosion. Life is worth living (in my opinion), so if you want the pasta, why not pull a fast one to make that happen?

2. Secondly, you don’t have to look “uncool” socially. Although it doesn’t bother me personally, some people don’t like having to order the “high-protein option” in front of their friends because it just feels “uncool.” And trust me, I get it. You want to be jacked and lean and be able to order the pizza when you’re out with friends. It’s sexier and more mysterious that way. I’m tracking 100%, and this is an easy way to do it.

3. And lastly, the protein from the shake you consumed before you left the house might even curb some of your hunger and leave you more satiated before you even make your order. What does that mean? It means you might wind up eating even less at dinner and keeping your fat loss goals a bit more intact due to the added liquid volume and satiating properties of the high-protein drink. 

So, don’t be afraid to keep that trick up your sleeve the next time it’s time to have a meal out with the squad. 

And that’s that, friends! I had a blast writing this article, so if you enjoyed it, do me a favor and send it to a friend who might benefit from learning a few new tips and tricks about increasing your protein intake across the day.

Until next time,

-Andrew