Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Bite 7: John Berardi - Ectomorph Weight Gain Tips

Episode Date: December 3, 2019

An incredible Power Bite coming to you from John Berardi giving you Slim-Gyms tips on gaining some weight! Listen and watch the entire episode here: https://lnk.to/JohnBerardi Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Visit our sponsors: ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/shop.aspx?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Power%20Project for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/powerproject Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 15% off your order! ➢Quest Nutrition: https://www.questnutrition.com/ Use code "MARKSQUEST" at checkout for 20% of your order! ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

What's up everybody, it's Andrew and we got a sick Power Byte for you today. In case you guys don't know, Power Byte is just a highlight clip from a full-length podcast that you guys might have missed in the past. They're a little bit easier to digest and one thing that I really love doing is just sending them off to other friends that maybe aren't fully invested or maybe they don't have time to take in an entire podcast. You can send them this short 10-minute and just they'll be on their way. And maybe they might be interested in finding the podcast later down the road. Today, we're going

back to episode 251 with John Berardi. And he's basically breaking down how he as an ectomorph was able to gain so much weight and size. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Perfect Keto. Head over to perfect keto.com slash power project at checkout. Enter promo code power project for 15% off your order. If you guys do like what you're hearing, make sure you check the show notes to listen and watch this entire episode on all platforms. Peace. What you got over there, Andrew?

I know you're brewing up some questions. What's going on, John? We were texting each other. Hey, before the show, uh, I wanted to go wanted to go back to when you were talking about the three different body types because right here on this podcast, I believe we have all three. Mark gravitates towards the weights and he can run really well off of a low-carb diet. I've been skinny. I have a runner's body even though I can't run for anything. I do feel more comfortable on carbs. And then you have Nsema, who's the other guy that we all hate because he's so jacked and he's had abs since 16 and he's insanely strong and good looking and whatnot. But I feel like it might be a little bit just too easy for myself or somebody like me to just say like, oh, i run good on carbs you

know i'm skinny i can eat whatever i want um but like i just i feel like that's that's one irresponsible but i i i do feel better but not 100 better meaning like i still get inflammation in my back but like uh this week i've been eating a really high fat diet and truth be told, midway through the podcast just now I had to run to the bathroom because the bathroom was calling me. So what's, I mean, I guess what I'm asking is like, how do we know exactly what we thrive on? And I know we can, we can experiment with diets and feel a certain way, but is there maybe something a little bit more precise in deciding on what diet we want to follow? That's a great question, man. I appreciate you asking it.

So two things come up for me. One is the idea that eating a higher carb diet is somehow synonymous with eating whatever I want. You said it was the same breath, right? And so we need to really unpack that for starters, because that's not true. Because usually when people are like, oh, I can eat a high carb diet, eat whatever I want, what they're eating are foods that are high in carbs and fat at the same time, right? And so that's what we talked about. Like, we have to look at the inverse, right?

Like, there's very few people who are like, oh, really, I'm having a lot of problems with my high carb diet. Well, what carbs do you eat? Apples and potatoes. You know what I mean? That's not really where the problem's coming in. So I think, I'm not saying this is what's happening with you, Andrew. I'm just saying for all the listeners out there. So that's number one. But I love the second part of the question too, which is how do I know? How do I figure out what works for is, this is one of those things we talked about a minute ago when people start saying things too often, I'm like, Hey, timeout for this gets to be a little cliche. Uh, so how should I eat coach? But you got to find out what works for you. If I had a nickel for

every time I've heard someone say that in the last five years, um, I'd be able to buy precision nutrition back easy um the uh the it's a difficult thing to say because how many people know how to do that experiment you know what i mean like how many people are like research trained and know how different variables have to be controlled right so like to find out what works for you, you have to keep certain things constant and change only one or two things. It's kind of tough to do. Like you can't be like, I tried a new training program and I'm taking new supplements and I went keto. Man, keto is good for me. Oh wait, like 16 things just changed there. You know what I mean? And that's, that's a really hard proposition. So, I mean, there are things you can measure. If you want to talk about laboratory type tools,

like that's my background. You know, I come from a PhD lab or we had cool tools to measure stuff. You know, a few people have access to that. You know, simple set of things you can look at though is if you want to figure out what looks for you, you have to set up a good experiment right so if you want to like let's say keep your training the same keep your sleep the same keep your stress management the same and you want to change your macronutrient profile that's close okay but then you have to make sure when you change your macronutrient profile you're doing that right um and not the perfect macronutrients, but that you're not like lowering carbs, increasing fat, but also accidentally changing protein, you know. And then from there, like there's a few things you can measure. My favorite thing to measure is

just a simple set of like body composition, some performance metrics, blood work, and then keep a journal of how you feel. Like if you want to be really robust, that's good enough for most people. And then you'll figure things out. And then always like underlying your whole like, and I learned with the idea that this may not always apply to me. You know what I mean? Like in one year's time, some other things could have changed in my life, my sleep, my stress, my work, whatever. And this learning may not apply anymore. So I have to do some more experiments. You know, I think if you're going to have some longevity in this game, you have to you have to become experiment minded.

I think, you know, I watched the West Side documentary on Netflix the other day, you know, and I was like, you know, that's not a gym of scientists, let's be honest, but they are, right? There's a different kind of science happening there, a different kind of experimentation that's like sort of lifelong, you know, and the, you know, I think that like you mentioned earlier about calorie counting, the same thing applies. The first little while of figuring out how to do your own experiments on yourself will feel like calorie counting. A lot of work, a lot of bullshit, a lot of effort.

But now you don't have to calorie count for the rest of your life because you can just eyeball things. So it's like a lot of other things in life. When you try it for the first time, it's really thoughtful and intentional and takes a lot of cognitive real estate. But then if you put in the reps become second nature. So for me now, it's super easy for me to figure out what works for me in this present time and do these experiments. I barely have to think about it. I don't have to journal everything, but I have a lot of reps. You know, there's a lot of sort of skill, like under the tip of that iceberg, all that stuff

under the water, skill I built a long time ago. So Andrew, I don't know if that well answers your question, but the idea being controlling variables, testing only one thing at a time, controlling variables, testing only one thing at a time, trying not to draw false conclusions, underlining it with like, and this is what works for now, maybe for me, you know, and then building that skill set though, of figuring out what works for you so that for the rest of your life, you can figure out the next stage of it. Yeah, no, that absolutely answered it. I mean, it's kind of what, it's one of those things where like when somebody asks you a question and you just stare at them and they're like, oh, okay. Yeah. I, I guess I do know what I have to do. Um, but when you're coming from being a skinny guy and I do, um, selfishly use this podcast to try to get answers for myself. try to get answers for myself. Um, is there a better reason to use it? Yeah. Right. Um, you know, I'm still, I'm climbing my way out of being the skinny guy. Um, was there anything like in particular that like clicked or it was like, Oh, once I started doing X, Y, and Z, that's when I

was able to maintain like a certain body weight or a certain, uh, physique or that sort of thing. like a certain body weight or a certain physique or that sort of thing? I think, and you know, this is so many moons ago for me, but I remember it so well, you know, I had basically two philosophies. One in the weight room was if I can do six, I'm going to do 10. And when it came to outside the weight room, if I'm not chewing, I'm not growing. Uh, and when it came to outside the weight room, if I'm not chewing, I'm not growing. So I was like, I used to work out at this boys and girls club in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, where I grew up. And, um, and we, like me and my training partner, we're just obnoxious. You know, we, we terrorize that place.

We just go in there and we're doing curls. You know, we put on a weight we can do six times and we'd scream our way to 10 and bend our backs and all, you know, swing our hips, you know, and that's what we did with everything. So the idea was we were going to get stronger. You know, thankfully we had like Gumby joints and we didn't hurt ourselves too badly and we weren't that strong yet. So there wasn't enough weight to really cause a big injury but that was part one like if we're not you know if we're not overextending ourselves in the weight room we're not going to be growing and then like i said i mean i you know this isn't what i necessarily always advocate but i would throw up after many meals you know, my, my breakfast was usually like half a loaf of rye bread, you know, 12 whole eggs, a bunch of packets of instant oatmeal. You know, I'd be chewing bagels and drinking like whey

protein and water. This sounds amazing. It sounds great. Try and get back to me in a week. Tell me how many meals. Yeah. Half a loaf of Yeah. You know, and my post-workout meal was the worst, right? Like I'd get done training. I would cook a pound of pasta and a pound of ground Turkey and, uh, and a bunch of, and a bag of frozen broccoli. I put all that together and I would, and I would try and eat it all. Now it's a lot of food, right? And if I threw up halfway through it, that was good in my mind, because then I had room to get the rest down. Like, I remember many times, like I would come home, I'd make that thing. I'd be, oh, I'd be eating it. It takes so long, you know? And I'm like, I want my shower.

So I like bring it in the shower with me. And I would often, it was convenient because when I threw up, I just put it right down the shower drain. Right. So, I mean, it's absurd. It's ridiculous, but you know, I, I could have been worse. You could have been sitting on the toilet, right? That's right. I, I went from 135 pounds to like 205 in 18 months of doing this, you know? So, I mean, that was my journey. I don't know if, you know, we have two boys. If when my sons are 17, that would be the exact approach I would give them. You know what I mean?

But it's, I mean, that was my path, you know? I just got to say I am fully inspired right now. So thank you for all the encouragement. That sounds amazing, man.