Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1565: Why Women Should Bulk

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the benefits of increasing calories for women who want to add shape to their body and speed up their metabolism. The benefits of eating in a calorie surplus to gain strength and muscle. (3:50) The first ways women were marketed to get “curves.” (5:27) The consequences of eating in a severe calorie deficit. (7:33) Busting the “rat-race mindset” of eating a higher caloric diet to build muscle and promote a healthier metabolism. (9:48) Why Women Should Bulk: The benefits that bulks provide and why they are so important to people who never do them. (18:43) #1 – Fuel's muscle growth. (21:44) #2 – Balance's out your hormones. (25:09) #3 – Feel more energized. (27:15) #4 – Increase's your strength. (29:50) #5 – Encourages sustainable fat loss. (31:30) #6 – Break away from the number on the scale. (35:39) How to make your body a fat-burning machine. (39:11) The Mind Pump formula how women should bulk. (42:47) Related Links/Products Mentioned May Specials: MAPS Aesthetic & the Extreme Fitness Bundle 50% off!  **Promo code “MAYSPECIAL” at checkout** Visit Super Coffee for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code “MINDPUMP” at checkout** How To Properly Clean-Bulk – Mind Pump Blog When Exercising Less and Eating More Burns More Fat and Builds More Muscle – Mind Pump Blog Why Resistance Training is the Best Form of Exercise – Mind Pump Blog Why Should Women Incorporate Resistance Training Into Their Workout Routine? - Mind Pump Blog Why The Scale Is Not Always The Best Way To Measure Progress – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1387: Turning Your Body Into A Fat-Burning Machine Mind Pump #1517: The No Cardio Way To Train Your Body To Burn Fat MAPS Macro Calculator MAPS Fitness Anabolic | Muscle Adaptation Programming System MAPS Strong | MAPS Fitness Products - Mind Pump Media Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Layne Norton, PhD (@biolayne)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salta Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Right, in today's episode, we talk about why women should bulk. Now, what do we mean by bulk? Well, that's a term in the fitness space

that means eating more calories than you're burning and also working out in a way to build muscle. And there's tremendous benefits to doing this. Now, oftentimes due to the way that women are marketed, the way that media portrays how women should look and what they should do, women are often afraid to approach their fitness in this way, and it's a huge mistake. There's tons and tons of benefits to doing a proper bulk with the right kind of workout.

In today's episode, we talk all about it. Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Super Coffee. Now, they make coffee that is delicious, but also contains compounds that enhance the energy buzz you get from the caffeine, things like B vitamins and theanine. You probably heard me talk about theanine with caffeine on this podcast at least 50 times. Well this coffee has it included. It's great stuff. It's some of my favorite coffee.

Go check them out and you actually get a discount because you listen to Mind Pump. Go to drinksupercoffee.com forward slash mine pump. Use the code mine pump get 25% off. By the way, they also have ready to drink cans of super coffee. For example, they have a blueberry latte. Really, really good. They have an espresso one. That's really, really good.

Go check them out. Really, really cool. Also, we have one day left for our month promotion. Maps aesthetic was 50% off and our extreme fitness bundle is 50% off. So there's one day left to get that promotion. Go check them out, go to mapsfitinistproducts.com and use the code MaySpecial with no space for the discount. I was actually talking to Justin about this today. This morning we came in to work out, so we came up with this great idea for a topic for a podcast.

It's always a great idea, what is your idea? No, no, actually, Justin actually came up with this idea. Justin, I came to the pot. No, I'm a little nervous. Yeah, no, we were having. Should be. Why cheese is the only food you got? The cheese diet.

No, here's what happened. So I've really started to reduce my calories with my food intake. And for a couple of different reasons, one is, you know, going through a process to try and get real lean. Two, I, I, I'm trying to improve my gut health. And the way I do that for my body,

where I like completely eliminate carbohydrates, because I tend to react to them sometimes. This is because you were saying now your hips were looking bulky. Yeah, that sort what it was. But this morning we're working out. And I'm like 30 minutes in, he shows up, he starts doing his thing.

And I'm like, oh man, it's such a mind game for me to cut calories and stuff, because I notice I get weaker, obviously. You're gonna get weaker, right, when you drop your calories. And I said, it's so hard and he goes, oh yeah, me too, you know, he's doing kind of something similar. And so, So, like totally lying, just, when you drop your calories. And I said, it's so hard and he goes, oh yeah, me too, you know, he's doing kind of something similar.

And so, I'm totally lying, just trying to make you feel better. Yeah, right. Absolutely, with you, sir. But I mean, there's challenges, depending on the kind of person you are, right? Right. So we're talking about this and Justin thought

it would be a great idea to talk about why women, in particular, should bulk, why they should go on a calorie surplus. I just feel like nobody talks about that. You know, that's something that I just don't see that in mainstream media at all, in magazines, in any of these like, you know, shape magazines or anything else that's out there,

really addressing like the benefits to that for women. Totally. And ironically, it's like the number one thing that I'd have to do with almost all of my female clients. Totally. Totally. And the reason for this, by the way, it's not that women are different than men.

And so we're saying women should bulk. And, you know, because it's special to them. No, no, no. It's because women almost never try to purposely gain anything at all because they're, this blaming this on media blame this on standards Mm-hmm. I blame part of the part partly the fitness industry that's called always talking about Getting small or getting small or losing weight never talking about the benefits of eating any calorie surplus So every time I would get a female client I would talk to them. Hey, have you ever tried to you know

Eat in a way to gain to gain gain strength, gain muscle? Oh my God, no. I'm always ever trying to lose. And that's exactly why I would do what I would do at them is because I would put them on a bulk to try to get, gain, get them to gain muscle and strength. And we can talk about all the reasons and the benefits for that. But the vast majority of female clients that I ever worked with, anytime they were conscious about their nutrition, under eight, they under eight, it was never, okay, let me see if I can speed up my metabolism,

let me see if I can build muscle. It was always, I'm just gonna eat as little as possible to try and get smaller. Well, I think between the three of us, we're always trying to kind of pick out those avatars of like a common client that we just would see all the time. And you know, this was just one of those things where I just would always have a female client

that the first thing I knew right away, is I don't remember the time that they weren't, you know, they were eating in a surplus little loan like maintenance and not always just trying their best to try and cut down and then do cardio and just were consciously trying to lose weight or maintain what they got. Yeah, you know, you know, it's funny, by the way, because I'm such a supplement fanatic, I love, I'm a historian with this kind of stuff. I love looking at old ads and stuff like that.

Did you guys know that some of the original supplements that were ever sold to women and we're talking back in the 40s, 50s, and maybe 60s. They actually would advertise to women to gain weight. Did you guys know this? No. There were weight gain stuff. For like pregnancy or something? No.

To add curves. Don't be a skinny mini or whatever. Oh, really? Yes, to add curves. When was that? That was a 30s. We could pull it up. Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

I don't know. I've never seen that. These are some of the first ones. Now, after that, those decades, that's it. And it was always about weight loss. It was always about being skinny. It was always about getting small. Anything you can connect that to, why?

I think part of it had to do with the obesity epidemic and this kind of awareness around it. And it became this whole thing about getting smaller, all about getting small, wasn't about curve. There you go, look at that, 1954, 1936. Oh wow. Yeah, you can, I mean, read some of those titles. Pretty interesting. Give me a title. Yeah, I don't know. Game more weight and 10, wow. Yes. Crash weight gain. And they were advertising to women. Now, back in those days, I think the issue, if you go back in the 1930s, 40s and 50s,

uh, dude was a little more scared. It was, it was an obesity epidemic, right? And so, and a lot of women wanted to look like, uh, they had more curves. And so it was like, you got to eat more. Oh, that's very challenging. So let's create some supplements around that. But it totally changed the result of this. And yes, of course, there is an obesity. And girls don't have, isn't that funny? By the way, if you look at a lot of these old ads, they were definitely not politically correct anyway.

They're hilarious. Even for men, they were terrible. I like the subtitle. It says, it takes those extra pounds of solid flesh to bring out your natural curve. That's it. That's it. I didn't know this.

Did you know this, Justin? Yeah, I mean, I'd seen like a 1930s ad or something. I just thought it was like a one-off, though. You know, I didn't know it was like you know this, Justin? Yeah, I mean, I'd seen like a 1930s ad or something. I just thought it was like a one-off, though. You know, I didn't know it was like a campaign. Yeah, no, I did not know this was ever a thing for one. But then since probably the, I'd say the late 60s on, it was all about smaller, smaller, smaller. Every magazine was about being skinniest possible.

Of course, it kind of reached a, it's peaking the 80s and 90s with the heroin chic, you know, that they had for these models that were just, they were very, very stick thin. And so women, when we would get them as clients, they almost always, any time they ever tried to do anything with their nutrition. So any time they became conscious of their diet,

it was about, I just need to eat as little as possible. And then there was variations of that, right? Cut all your carbs or cut all the fat. became conscious of their diet, it was about, I just need to eat as little as possible. And then there was variations of that, right? Cut all your carbs or cut all the fat. That was the first one, or have two shakes a day, and then a meal, that was slim fast, that was kind of popular in the 80s and 90s. But there's a lot of consequences

that happen as a result of this, right? One of them being women under a protein like crazy, and you would see very little muscle mass. And this is a big problem because muscle is metabolically active. It balances your hormones, it makes you feel good, and it gives you those curves that you're looking for. But because every time you die, you go so extreme,

you end up with very little muscle and it's slower metabolism, which makes any kind of being lean unsustainable. Well, an exercising low calorie, low protein, is like the perfect formula for like slowing the metabolism down. Totally. I mean, it doesn't get worse than that. And it's the, and it was the, and it was the, you had a completely out of balance.

And it was the most common thing. In fact, one of the most common things that I would hear from the client sent across from me and, you know, say we're just first meeting and she would say, you know, out of my don't really eat that and they would ride out and they're like, I swear, I only eat 1400 or 1500 calories and look at my food choices and let, but it's years and years of low calorie, low protein,

and you're just shipping away and really embodying that. Yeah, overexercising like crazy and they've just slowed their metabolism down. And I tell you one of the hardest things too was, you know, here they are saying that they want to lose maybe 10, 15 pounds or coming to me or whatever or more. And then telling them that, okay, we don't want to lose any weight, you know, what, what, what, and they're like, no, that's actually what I'm paying you. I'm paying you to lose weight and you're telling me you're not like, I'll go hire somebody

else. That was a major hurdle to try and overcome as a trainer. No, I remember, I've told the story many times, I love it because it was so effective for me, right? So this was, when I managed the 24 hour on Santa Teresa, that's the club that we've all worked in. And I used to have a trainer that worked for me, Fienile trainer, she was like five, one, very fit, right?

She lifted weights, she wasn't muscular, but she looked very fit, very sculpted, great shape tone, the whole thing. And she worked for me. And any time I would get a potential member that would come in that was a woman, that would, I'd give him a tour of the gym, right? And I'd show them the cardio, I'd show them the classes, I'd show them the weights.

And they'd say things like, I'm not interested in the weights, I don't want them, I'm just trying to lose weight. I don't want to touch that or whatever. Then I take them on my office, I talk about the benefits of building muscle, speeding up, and metabolism. And then I would do this challenge. And it was so effective. It was like one of the most effective sales techniques

of all time because it really proved an incredible point. And I would say to the person, okay, look, I'm gonna call in one of my trainers right now and I want you to guess her weight. And if you can come within five to 10 pounds of her weight, I'll give you a free month membership, okay? So I call attention staff, so-and-so come to Sal's office, inward walk in my female trainer,

and I'd say, how much do you think she weighs? Now, they have the idea of getting a free month membership, so they're not lying, right? So they'd say something like, she weighs 100 pounds, 105 pounds, 110 pounds at most. Then I'd say, okay, you know, and I'd have my trainer stand on the scale and it'd be like 135 or 140 pounds.

And there would be, their mind would be blown. And I'd say, okay, the reason why you guessed that she was so light was because she's small. But she's small because she doesn't have a lot of body fat. Muscle is very dense. So if you lost 10 pounds right now of weight, but it was body fat and you replaced it with 10 pounds of muscle, your weight on the scale wouldn't change,

but you would be much smaller. But then there's more things that come along with it. And then I would end up asking the trainer, tell this person what you eat on a regular basis, and then they go through their food, and then their mind really would be blown. Like, how can this little girl eat so much food again she's burning it off. Well you know what's really interesting about that story that you share is that I found that this was actually just as common within my female trainers. So and I don't know I think I've heard

you guys tell your stories about your wives but you know we all have wives that were in health and fitness or sports, right? So very athletic or health minded, all of us. And I know that even when Katrina and I got together, I had to increase her calories. I mean, that was one of the biggest things that we changed about her diet and training. And I remember she used to run all the time. That was her method of staying

in shape was running long distance and doing the, you know, plyometrics and high intensity type of of training, reducing calories. And then when she was off the wagon, she'd put on a little bit of body fat. And she was just on this cycle all the time. But she never ate more than about 2200 calories, 2300 calories. And I said, well, have you ever tried to bulk? And she's like, bulk, I mean, I mean, she goes, I unintentionally do it when I stop training and I eat pizza and I don't pay attention. So yeah, yes, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Like intentionally train yourself to build muscle to speed up your metabolism. And it took years into our relationship before I convinced her to even trust me to do this with her. And it blew her mind because she's like, this is crazy to me on how many calories I now eat with zero cardio whatsoever, and I'm in the best shape of my life. And that's the result of actually bulking and building your metabolism. Oh, yeah.

Same story. I mean, it was the high intensity interval training. It was the cardio kickboxing. It was everything, you know, typically that I would have from clients that like, like my wife was in that same kind of rat race where it was just like, I always constantly have to burn, burn, burn calories, you know, in order to keep or lose weight and to shed down this body fat.

And so to take her through a program like anabolic first thing and then put her on a bulk. It was a complete shell shock, but it was so massively beneficial. Then, you know, what that produced and what kind of strength she got as a result of that and then her body actually composition started to change and then the momentum of that really carried her on, you know, healthy place. Oh, Jessica, she went for meeting 1200 calories a day, doing miles of running every single week, lots of circuits would gain weight

if she any more than that. And she used to say, like, she told me, when we first met, like, oh, my body's just wants to gain weight, I have to be very careful. I'm like, let's try doing a bulk. Let's do a slow bulk and have you lift weights. Well, now we're at the point where she just trips out. She's like, this is crazy south.

She's like, I can eat like crazy. Yeah, Katrina eats with me. Yeah, and I stay lean and she had to go on a bulk to do that. Here's the other problem that you run into when you're on this constant deficit, when you're always trying to eat little calories. This is very common for women. Your hormones get really thrown off in a negative way.

I have had countless female clients work with me and I used to work very closely with a functional medicine practitioner when I used to have my studio and we would work with clients together. And I can't tell you how many, it's countless, female clients who their cycles were irregular or they would have all these symptoms of hormone imbalances where they're cold intolerance or heat intolerance Their sleep was off. They would notice things about their hair And I would put them on a higher calorie diet higher protein diet higher fat diet oftentimes proteins and fats were too low and their diets

And then I would have them lipwrites and then slowly but surely Things would start to balance out and I'm gonna tell you something right now your hormones make a very big difference diets, and then I would have them lip weights, and then slowly, but surely, things would start to balance out. And I'm going to tell you something right now, your hormones make a very big difference. Your hormones can tell your body to build muscle or to gain body fat or to keep fat off or to get rid of muscle. Of course, it controls your libido, your energy, your moods. If you're constantly in a calorie deficit, you are telling your body, don't be fertile,

don't be motivated to be fertile because calories are scarce. You're in this kind of stress response. You notice it in your skin, your nails, your hair. Again, I mentioned things like libido, energy, and so on. And that's what I would see with this constant cutting all the time. Once you reverse that, put someone on a responsible and appropriate bulk along with a form of exercise that's pro tissue, which is traditional resistance training,

you would see this miraculous changes in their bodies. And you know they've done such a great job of aggressively marketing the opposite. Because you talk about these three women right now, right? All very educated, all in the fields, health, personal trainer, collegial educated, all in the fields, health, personal trainer, collegial, little athlete, like very smart women. They never received this information. Mary, detainers, and still had this challenge. So you have to think, and then of course,

I can't, why we're sitting here talking, it's such a great idea, Justin, to go this direction, because I cannot remember a single client that this was not an issue. It was just became common practice with all FEMA clients that no matter what your goal was, the first thing that I was going to do with you was to put you on a colorex surplus and build some muscle. Right. And by the way, I get this because I was like this, but in the opposite. So I was a skinny kid.

I was a very skinny kid. The whole reason why I picked up a weight when I was 14 years old in the opposite. So I was a skinny kid. I was a very skinny kid. The whole reason why I picked up a weight when I was 14 years old in the first place was because I wanted to build and gain weight. So I was the opposite. Now, because of this insecurity and fear of the scale moving in the wrong direction, which for me was down, I was constantly in a bulk,

always in a bulk. I mean, everything I possibly could, all calories were good for me. And anytime I tried to get a little leaner, I had this fear, as soon as I saw the scale move, one pound down, oh my god, I'm losing muscle, what's going on. And I would get this from female clients.

They would freak out if the scale moved in the other direction, even though it was positive way, or if they felt the shape change, like, why are my jeans tighter here? I'm like, well, your quads are growing, your butt's growing. And they would freak out. It's the mind games that you get from that

because what you want to see as a woman oftentimes is I don't care, I just want to see the scale move down. I've had this happens, this has happened many times. This is a reality, by the way. You can lose weight and have your body fat percentage go up. And this sometimes it's hard for people to understand because they're like, how's that possible? I lost weight. Body fat percentage is a, it's your body, that means your body fat

as a percentage of your overall body weight. That's what matters. Matt the total weight on the scale. So if you took a 200 pound man with, you know, 10% body fat, right? And you took that same total amount of body fat and put it on a 100 pound man, the body fat percentage now is 5% right? Half. See what I'm saying? So if you lose weight and you took that same total amount of body fat and put it on a 100 pound man, the body fat percentage now is 5%, right? Half, see what I'm saying? So if you lose weight and you lose muscle, let's say you lost 10 pounds, eight of it is muscle, two of it is body fat,

your 10 pounds lighter on the scale, your body fat just went up, you're smaller but flabier, and you have a slower metabolism. So some of the benefits, so I wanna go into some of the benefits that bulks provide and why they're so important, especially for people who almost never do them, lower metabolism. So some of the benefits, so I want to go into some of the benefits that bulks provide and why they're so important, especially for people who almost never do them or never intentionally do them. Well, I'm so glad you brought up to though how similar

this is to your own insecurity because I was the same way. And I was a trainer and have, I mean, that's my profession, yet I was just as guilty of allowing my insecurity to drive my bad behaviors when it came to nutrition and exercise. It was just like you, I was afraid of the scale going the opposite direction of what most these girls are afraid of, but the truth is the best thing and what my body needed more than anything else was to go into a cut and actually go the other direction. So a lot of this is fuel for that. I think a big piece is the marketing and the advertising

because that's what people do. And again, marketing always does feed into the insecurities. And then it's ourselves being insecure about that. You know, everybody has one, right? Everyone has a direction they don't wanna go. I don't wanna get bigger, I don't wanna get smaller. And so that it just seems counterproductive if you are wanting to get smaller to add calories.

Cause in heavily, you might see things, things right you might see inches and certain areas go up you might right you might see your arms because you certain also in lifting muscles or you might see your quads get more developed but the shape right you're gonna you're gonna lose body fat and build muscle it's a total different body composition right there are benefits to gaining muscle and certain circumstances and there are benefits to gaining muscle in certain circumstances, and there are benefits to losing body fat in certain circumstances. And by the way, they both oftentimes can be synergistic.

So in other words, for someone always trying to gain like me, what helped me a lot later on when I finally figured this out was learning how to get lean, it actually helped me build more lean body mass, right? And if you're always trying to get lean, but you never focus on gaining positive tissue, like muscle, you're making it very challenging for yourself. In fact, if you're listening right now, and this is you, this is what your experience has probably been. You've probably lost weight many times and gained it back,

and here's what you're finding. Each time you try to lose it, it's harder than it was the time before. It's much harder than it was the time before. It's much harder than it was the time before. And this is because you're probably losing the wrong kind of way. And then when you gain it back, it comes back as body fat. Yeah, I mean, you're less effective in the gym. There's something to it, which is something I noticed too, by putting some of my female clients on a bulk bulk was just their overall attitude, energy, strength, and

just enjoyment of being there and going through these workouts was tremendously different. And to be able to feel what that is supposed to feel like and to be able to nourish your body when it needs the calories is a completely different animal. And it's something that I just hope that they trust they can go through that. It's also super empowering to go into this thing that you might be fearing. And then you stick with it and you're like, okay, let me trust the process. And then you see it start to work. Like, I'm not afraid of this anymore.

Now I can utilize this as a way to get myself healthier and more fit. Now, the obvious first benefit of doing a bulk, okay, a bulk, by the way, is when you're eating more calories than you're burning, and we're not talking about just eating a ton of food. Obviously, this is that you're eating the right kinds of foods, you're not going crazy with it, but you are eating more than you're burning.

This and you're training in a particular way, this fuels muscle growth. Now, why is muscle growth such an important thing? Boy, does it make getting lean and staying lean easy? If you have, by the way, most women listening right now, if you were to gain 10 pounds of muscle, that's a lot of muscle, by the way. I'm gonna be honest with you,

most of you won't gain 10 pounds of muscle, most of you won't gain 10 pounds of muscle in a year. But if you did gain 10 pounds instantly right now, if you're listening to podcasts and I snap my fingers, you gain 10 pounds, you wouldn't be that much bigger. You wouldn't even notice that much with size. What you would feel is a lot tighter. So you touch yourself and be like, man, I'm a lot tighter. And then what you'd notice is, oh my gosh, I'm just getting leaner automatically. Well, that was way faster than that was. Especially if you did it clean and slow. Yes. Because if you did it with just a slight surplus, like we're not going crazy and just saying, I'm going to eat everything in sight. Right. Right. You're not going to just,

you're not going to gain 10 pounds necessarily on the scale because what might happen is you might add five pounds of muscle along the way and lose three pounds of fat. That's usually what happens. Right. That's usually what happens. And that more muscle obviously speeds up the metabolism. We said that. It also feels and looks very good. Oftentimes when we've referred to like sexy curves, what we're talking about is the sculpt that comes from muscle, right? If you build the muscles of your butt, your hamstrings. You're a muscle group in the body. Yeah, you're, yeah, and that is. That's a good point. Like when you're doing, when we talk on the podcast about the big bang for your buck exercises, your squats and your dead list, for example,

the prime movers there are the glutes, right? So that's one of the biggest muscles of the body. So if you were to gain 10 pounds of muscle in your body, a good chunk of it would go to your butt, your hamstrings, some quads, maybe some back, a little bit of shoulders. And what you would notice is you just look more firm, you look more sculpted, things feel tighter.

Of course, you're stronger, you feel more stable. And then you have this metabolism, now that is roaring. It's not, it was not, you know, crazy, or it wasn't out of the ordinary for me to take a female client, go through this process and boost their metabolism by 500 calories. You might think that's not a lot. That's like doing an hour and a half of cardio every day, but you're not.

Imagine that. Imagine if you burn 500 more calories. Not a manic calorie burn. Just waking up. Oh, I just burned 500 more calories. That's like adding an extra meal in your day. Now, eat the same amount of calories and when it's up happening. You're at burned 500 more calories. That's like adding an extra meal in your day. Now, eat the same amount of calories and when it's up happening.

You're at a 500 calorie deficit, you're getting leaner, easier. It's much more easy to maintain, it's easier to get lean. And then when you're there, you can eat more food because you have more of this metabolically active tissue. Now, why do you have to get in a bulk to do this? You have to fuel the muscle that you're trying to build.

So if I'm lifting weights, can't build from thin air. No, it's like giving the building plans to a house to a bunch of workers. But no wood. Yeah, there's no materials. You have to feed the body. Once you send this signal, such your body has things to work with. It's got amino acids and fats and carbohydrates to build this incredible, lean body mass that's so desirable that speeds up

your metabolism. Now, this leads to the next point, which is it balances out your hormones. Now, what do people like? What does that mean? Balance out the hormones. Okay, your hormones tend to match your lifestyle because your body's receiving signals from your lifestyle, the things that you do. And so your hormones will kind of match in a way to adapt

to what you're doing. So if I'm not getting good sleep, if I'm not feeding myself very well, or if I'm eating very little, I'm doing tons and tons of cardio, lots of stress, lots of stress on the body. So my stress hormones go up, why do stress hormones go up?

Like cortisol, they give you energy. If I inject you with cortisol right now, you'll notice this boost of energy. So cortisol goes up, right? But because it also, I'm under this kind of stress, my anabolic hormones, my pro-fertility hormones, start to get at a whack. And men, it's testosterone starts to lower.

And women, you notice a change in progesterone and estrogen. You also notice growth hormone starts to go down a little bit, right? Now, what if I tell my body to build muscle? What if I lift weights or do resistance training and I feed my body? My body's getting a signal that says there's plenty. There's plenty out in the world.

Obviously, I'm eating more than I'm burning. Oh, and I'm sending a signal that says any more muscle. We better ramp up the pro muscle hormones and we better balance out those hormones because now we wanna be fertile. By the way, that's youth. That's what youthful hormones are like. So you notice estrogen, progesterone balance out. You notice even in women, you'll see a slight rise in testosterone. This is a good thing. Testosterone is important for women, like it is in men. For women, it's

obviously much lower, but testosterone is connected to confidence, drive, libido, so connected to building muscle. And building muscle. Growth hormones starts to become much more youthful. So the process of building muscle with a calorie surplus balances out hormones. Oftentimes, if you go to a functional medicine practitioner and your hormones are all over the place, besides looking at things like sleep and stress and those kinds of things, they will almost always have you eat in a slight surplus along with some kind of resistance training to balance

it out. Well, and another one that comes to mind right away that I would always notice as soon as I would increase their calories is it's amazing like how quick the body respondents says, thank you. I needed all that. It's so how quick the body responds and says, thank you, I needed all that. It's so hard, okay, it's impossible to hit your nutrient targets when you're eating 1,300 calories. You're gonna be missing so many micro and macro nutrients

that your body needs, and simply putting that client into a surplus. All of a sudden, the body starts getting all these things that it wasn't getting before, and it thanks you immediately. And you feel that in your energy levels. Yeah, that's a good point because we do have calorie and macro nutrient requirements. So calorie obviously what it does are macro nutrient requirements,

proteins, fats, those are essential. Carbohydrates make up the difference. But then there's a micro nutrient requirements. And the easy ones are like your vitamins and minerals, for example, B12, iron iron all those things Protein goes up all these things that you were lacking in right? So if your calories are really low all the time the odds are you're not also getting the micronutrients You need and I know some people think I'll just take a multivitamin

It's not the same now multivitamin can make a difference But studies will show getting it from food. It's way more bio-available. It makes way more of a difference in the body to get your vitamins and minerals from food than it, because it comes along with these co-factors and food digesting a particular way. Your body's evolved, the nutrients from food. So you're absolutely right, because the first thing that they tend to notice is like, I've got more energy. Yeah.

I'm not a sleepy or I don't feel as moody or I don't feel as irritable later on of the day or tired later on of the day. I feel more hyped and energized, which is, by the way, this is great when you're working out. You're stronger. You feel more stable. It just feels good. I used to love getting, you know, having women comment on that.

They would do this slight bulk and they'd come in and be like, I feel great. You know, I feel really good. Well, and also, I mean, it's an attitude thing too. Like it's, you don't really notice it because it's something that you probably got adjusted to and you just have lived this way for so long and this is sort of your routine.

And when you change it up like that, you understand that like now I'm feeding my body, everything's getting more close to balance, that what that feeling feels like and what that energy level is. And it's just all of a sudden there's like a whole new door that just opens, it's like I can feel like this too. And there's ways to cycle that in more to benefit you.

And then you see the carryover in all aspects of life. You're better at work, you're better at life, you're a better mother, and I'll say like, you're more productive, you get better sleep, but you're listening. All those things start compounding in your day. Yeah, increased strength is my favorite. You notice more performance in the gym,

and I'll tell you what, obviously guys, when I would train guys, of course we're generalizing, by the way, but guys are always like, oh, I want to get stronger. Women would be like, oh, I just want to lose weight and getting stronger, I guess that's kind of cool. That is changing, though, I will say that lose weight and getting stronger, I guess that's kind of cool. That is changing though, I will say that.

I've heard more women ask me about getting, so I, I, I, I, you know why? Because they're finally experiencing what it feels like. Like when I would get a female client to get stronger, all of a sudden she's like, I like this feeling of grabbing and feeling, you know, grabbing items. It's empowering. I had one client ever forget this younger woman.

She was very, very slim, chronic, dieter or whatever. And I trained her for a little while. I'll never forget she wanted a business trip. She came back. She was almost in tears when she told me this because she was petite. And she says, for the first time in a long time, I didn't have to ask somebody to help me put my luggage

in the overhead compartment. You know, when you're getting the plane, you put your thing in there. And she's short, so she had to really reach up tall. She's like, I did it myself, Sal. You know, when you're getting the plane, you put your thing in there and she's short, so she had to really reach up tall. She's like, I did it myself, Sal, you know, I say, how crazy that feels. She said, and I told her, I said, you know, I never thought of that.

And she goes, do you know, I don't, I don't really think about it too much. She goes, but to have to always ask somebody to do that for me, I don't realize what a big deal it was until I did it myself. I had a client that would open her own jar. I don't ask my husband anymore. Being strong, the little things, man.

Yeah, it's little things. Being strong is very, it feels very good and secure and capable. And when you bump your calories and do resistance training, proper resistance training with it, it feels amazing to feel this new sense of strength, this physical strength that you have in your body.

This one is an easy one to sell to women, which is that you'll have sustainable fat loss. You know, let me paint the picture of the traditional way that people lose weight and why it's so unsustainable, right? What they do is they typically, they'll do lots of cardio because they're looking at exercise mainly for its calorie burn. It's like a mass equation. Yes.

Which form of exercise burns the most calories? Well, it's easy running, right? So, okay, so I run and then I'm also going to cut my calories. Now, here's what happens. Because you're doing lots of running, you don't require lots of strength to do it. Your body is trying to get better at running. It's actually trying to become a more efficient running machine, which means that leant needs less muscle, and it also needs to burn less calories. So that causes you to lose some muscle, and it's true. Studies

will show cardio with diet tends to result in about half the weight lost, being muscle, half of it being body fat. So 10 pounds comes down, 5 pounds is body fat, 5 pounds is muscle. So now they're smaller, same body fat percentage because remember, they lost fat and muscle, but now their metabolism is slower. So then they get to this place with like, okay, I lost the first 10 pounds, nothing's moving anymore, I've totally plateaued.

So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna add another two days of running, and then they do it again. Now I gotta cut my calories in more. Then they reach their target. I lost 30 pounds on the scale, not realizing that 15. But I'm eating 800 calories and I'm running on the treadmill seven days.

I'm doing five days a week of running. I mean, a thousand calories a day, like that is not sustainable. It's impossible to sustain for most people. For many reasons too, it's not just not sustainable because it's a miserable way to live, but I mean, every life happens for everybody.

You're gonna go out to dinner with your spouse and wanna have a glass of wine. Somebody's birthday is gonna come around the corner, and there's nothing, and how many times have you heard this before too, where it's like, man, Adam, I eat so good. I mean, every once in a while, I have a glass of wine or every once in a while we eat out dinner, but I feel like anytime I do this, it sticks to me.

I don't understand. Why is it, why is it feel like I can't, I can't slightly eat outside of my chicken and salad type of meal plan all the time without feeling like I put on fat. Every single time. Totally true. And muscle is a much more resilient way

to maintain fat loss because if you work out and you're eating it away to build muscle and you do build muscle, let's say you gain, you know, four pounds of muscle and you stop working out for a couple of weeks. Muscle sticks around. Now of course if you stop long enough, you'll lose that muscle. But it actually sticks around for a while.

That metabolism boost that you have, it sticks around. Now if the way that I'm burning calories is this manual cardio, the second I stop, it's gone. The benefit's gone. My body is no longer burning those extra calories and that's why they'll see that is they'll go off a little bit Then they'll gain body fat like nothing whereas if you did it through Building muscle and you stop for a little bit You might notice a little bit of strength loss or whatever you go back to the gym

Remember there was that study that I think Lane Norton shared where they compared three on one off Yeah, they had groups they have two groups men. One group lifted weights or worked out with weights every single week consistently. The other group did three weeks on one week off. And I think it was like three or six months. It was like a 16 week study or something like that. And what they found first off, within the study, very predictable, the guys that took the week off during the week off, they would say, little dip in performance, a little dip in strength. But at the end of the study, at the end of the 16 off, during the week off, they would say a little dip in performance, a little dip in strength.

But at the end of the study, at the end of the 16 weeks, I think it was 16 weeks, they found that they were pretty similar with the game. This is because muscle is very resilient. So building it sets you up for much more sustainable fat loss because let's be real, the average person is not gonna not miss a week working out their whole life, right? They're gonna miss time, they're gonna have those times when they go to birthdays and stuff.

And what's gonna buffer against that is muscle that doesn't get off your body too quickly. That's what happens when you lift weights. But also a faster metabolism. You have this buffer against eating, you know, some of these extra calories. In fact, when clients have decent muscle and strength and they eat extra calories sometimes, they throw when clients have decent muscle and strength in the e-extra calories, sometimes they throw in the extra high calorie day because they went out. You know what they often notice? A little extra strength in the gym. It actually goes to fuel. Muscle definitions. Right, because they have that signal that says, I want to build muscle. Now, the last one, which is I think one of my favorite things that

would help my female clients is it would help them break away from this scale number. Yeah. It no longer like that is like one of the hardest things now. How often did you hear this to someone hires you and they say, Adam, I want to get down to one 25 or I want to get down to one 15 or one 30 they have a number. And I always chuckle because it's like that doesn't matter. I said it really does and like no, no, I try.

It does matter because I remember what I look like really does, and they're like, no, no, I try, it does matter. Because I remember what I looked like at 135, and they're so, they're such a slave to the scale that they have this idea of their body image with a number. And once you show them that you can completely change their body composition at their current weight, where they're currently at right now, or not really moving weight,

or maybe even going up a little bit, it completely shatters that part. Or even just gaining healthy weight. That's why I love this so much because there's a lot that we make criticize in terms of some of the marketing tactics based off of what the current culture is promoting. We've seen this drastic shift of the models that we're basically starving themselves to now, we're looking at other models that are maybe in an unhealthy weight situation, but they're loving themselves. So that's sort of the underlying message. Well, what we need to start looking for are healthy

ways to increase weight. And what that looks like, and what it looks like building muscle and something that's actually beneficial to you, that actually is going to give you really good body composition, but you may keep the same way or you may actually gain a little bit of weight and that's really healthy. Yeah. And the main ways, I used to love seeing this because you would see their body image improved dramatically because they start to get over their fear of the scale maybe going up.

That's right. Or they, like you said, Adam, they've now broken the chains to the scale. In fact, there were some, there were oftentimes, I would have to do, I'd say probably one fourth of the time, at least, is I would tell a female, because they would struggle with this and we'd go back and forth and I'd train for a while. Oh, are you sure, Sal, like, at the scale, I'm up a pound, or I saw it go up two pounds, or whatever, and I'd say, okay, here's what we're gonna do. I want you to take your scale and put it in the closet

and you're not gonna weigh yourself anymore. We're gonna completely ignore the scale for three months. At the end of three months, we're gonna test your body fat and see where you're at. And they would do it, and then I'd test their body fat, and they'd be like, guess what, you went down four percent body fat, or five, and then I would do the math from them. That means you've lost this many pounds of body fat. You've be like, guess what? You went down 4% body fat or five, and that would do the math from them.

That means you've lost this many pounds of body fat. You've gained a little bit of muscle, oh, and by the way, if you haven't noticed with your diet, you're eating more and you're doing okay. And that would be such a great thing for their body image, because now they're not fearful of eating a little extra. And by the way, this actually would contribute

to more balance in their diet anyway, because here's where the whole like binge comes from when you go off of a diet. It's the whole I hate my body, I hate my body, I hate my body, that's it, I'm off the diet. And then they, you know, instead of having one cookie or a slice of pizza, it goes in the opposite direction. Well, when you have this more positive body image

where you don't really fear the extra calories or whatever, you're not in that position. Then when you do well with your friends, you enjoy a slice of pizza. But you don't find yourself going in the opposite direction because you're rebelling against this tyrannical version of yourself that was always having you eat in this calorie deficit all the time.

So it makes a very, very positive impact on your body image. If you're fearful of ever eating in a calorie surplus, if you do it and you build muscle with it, you'll start to develop this better connection to it. I want to share this story with my clients, and I feel like somebody needs to hear this that's listening or watching this right now. If you're somebody who needs to or wants to lose weight, So whatever number, 30, 40, 50 pounds, or even 15 pounds, doesn't matter.

And you're getting ready to start your weight loss or fat loss journey, and you're just getting really started. And let's take two scenarios, same basically, same goal, same weight. This person needs to lose 30 pounds. These two people need to lose 30 pounds. And we have two different scenarios right here as far as a client that's listening to me or not.

Client one, at the end of the month, has lost 10 pounds. They maybe they've reduced their calories, they ate consistently, and then they've lost 10 pounds. Then I have the other client who hasn't lost any weight. Now, a lot of times, the client would go, oh my God, the client that lost 10 pounds has had more success.

And the opposite is true. When you first start off training, no matter how big, no, how big the number is 30, 50, 100 pounds you need to lose, that initial month, I do not want to see, wait, come off the scale. If you have not been strength training at all, and we start to follow a meal plan and we start strength training, I do not want to see the scale go down. And if you were my client and I saw that after week one, that we dropped two or three pounds.

You're bumping the calories. I'm bumping your calories. And then if the following week, you drop another pound or so, I'm bumping the calories again. I actually want to find a place where I know you're not losing yet because the main goal when we first start is to build this metabolism

up. I want to build a roaring metabolism because I know whether it's 15 pounds or 100 pounds that we need to lose, I want that metabolism working for us and I don't want the whole process working against the metabolism. So keep that in mind because it's really hard for, it was really hard for my clients to wrap their brain around that when they hire me. Tell me they want to lose a bunch of weight and then I'm telling them that I don't want to see any weight loss

at the beginning and if we do see weight loss, that's a signal to me as a coach that I need to increase calories. You know, it's funny is that I never worked with you guys specifically in gyms, right? We knew of each other, we don't, but we all came to the same conclusion. I would tell my clients the exact same thing towards,

and it took me a while to figure that out, by the way. For the first half of my career it was about just getting the scale to move down. But then later on I realized exactly what you did. It's like, okay, here's what's happening with people. They're losing weight and then they all gain it back. And we're in this crappy situation. And so I figured out the same thing.

Let's keep you from losing weight initially, boost your metabolism, create this fat burning machinery to get hotter in your body. And then later, and then when we start to lose weight, it's much more easy to sustain. Well, and that's really a shift in the confidence in who you are as a trainer, because what used to cause me to do the same thing too,

was wanting to keep my client. That's right, given what they said. Yeah, I'm afraid that I'm gonna lose them. And I tell you what, I guarantee anybody who hires me that needs to lose any amount of weight, I can get you to lose weight in the first 30 days. That's simple. I just need to find out where you're currently at,

calorie wise, restrict calories, get you moving more than what you were for. And you will lose weight. That's a fact. The problem is I know that 99.9% of those people that go on that path are going to fail eventually. Whether they get to their goal initially because they have the discipline

to keep starting themselves and moving like crazy, ultimately long-term, that client will fail. The one that will succeed long-term and forever may take a little bit longer because we take the time to build the metabolism, focus on strength, focus on increasing calories, but that is the client that has the most chance for long-term success.

Totally. Okay, so Adam, I want you to go through kind of how you would typically have a woman bulk, how you would have her bumper calories. Now for me, the range was between 100 to, depending on the client, 400 calories over what they were eating when they saw me. So they would track their food I'd see their calories and then I'd bump it. Let's say 200 calories of course in combination with traditional resistance training And that would be how I would do a bulk was how was yours? So that would so that would normally be it not one two

I would no cardio so that's I wouldn't let them do cardio yet so walking's fine right so if we want to create movement movement, they're on a three day a week type of strength training program. And you're right, the numbers somewhere in there, but really the way we are, I would focus on it, would be we are monitoring, wait, I want to see it. And that's, and I would say, don't listen, I want you to check in on the scale for me because what I'm watching is I don't want to see it

dramatically go any direction. I kind of want to hover right where you're at. Because I know if you weren't strength training before, we weren't following what you were eating. And now I am paying attention to what you're eating. And we now are including extra strength training. I know that your body is sending a signal to build muscle. And if we are dropping in calories,

we may not be building muscle. We may just be burning calories and losing weight. And that's not the goal of a strength training right now. My goal is to build muscle on you. So I'm watching week by week and I'm adjusting calories up or down based off of the way the scale moves. And typically it fell in that range,

a hundred to four hundred calories. Yeah, now the next thing would be, that would be important was hit your protein target. Right, you got a good protein protein. Yeah, and I would always aim for about, you know, anywhere between 60% or 100% of their body weight in protein. What I mean by that is if you're 120 pounds,

I'm looking at, you know, 75 grams of protein at the minimum up as high as 120 grams protein. And with all so long as it falls within those calories. So I love targeting one to one. And the reason why I like targeting one to one is I know that sometimes they're gonna miss, and if they miss and they're a little lower,

that's a good point. It's not a big deal, right? And so I, and it's also easy to calculate. You tell a client, you know, 0.6 or 0.8 grams per pound of body weight, they're going, what's the math on that? Or if they had to, if you do the real formula, like all of our books would,

it would be based off a lean body master. It's now they're gonna do all this crazy math. I beg listen, we weigh this much. This is a goal. Try and target one to one. If you fall a little short, not a big deal, that's kind of the number we wanna be at. We don't need to go anything beyond that.

We're not getting any extra benefits. And just focusing on that, honestly, I really didn't put a lot of energy and focus on the other foods yet. At the very beginning, it was like, let's hit your protein. It's your calories was like, let's hit your calories and protein. That's right. Calories and protein, let's not let the scale move up or down too much and let's strength

train. And like, no cardio, walking is fine and moving. That's good. That's all great. So drastic shift for a lot of people. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then here's the signs that you're looking for.

Strength in the gym. That's got to be the biggest one. Like, am I stronger? Do I have more energy? Do I feel more vibrant? Sleeping better? All the benefits you've been talking about. That's what you're looking for.

You're looking for all the benefits that we've been talking about. You're asking those questions. How does your hair feel? How's your skin feel? How's your sleep been? How's your mood? How's your libido?

All these energy, strength in the gym, performance. How are all these things going? Moot, like you talked into, all these things I'm asking because I know those are all the benefits of being in a colorect surplus and strength training. And as long as we're checking those boxes off, we're hovering about the same way. Now, the hardest part and where the coaching comes in

or where your job where you really got paid the big bucks for is to help them get past that mental hurdle. Totally, 100%. That's it. 100% because you don't want to see the scale move down or you don't want to see the scale move up a little bit or whatever. So that's 100%.

So when you're doing this, you got to trust the process, pay attention to the fact that you feel all those amazing benefits, pay attention to the fact that you're stronger in the gym, pay attention to the fact that you feel all those amazing benefits. Pay attention to the fact that you're stronger in the gym. Pay attention to the fact that you can now start to eat more, and the scale isn't moving at all. That's really cool. I'm eating three and more calories a day, but I didn't gain any weight. This is, and I'm stronger. This is pretty cool.

Pay attention to those things, trust the process. I would say, on average, most women should probably go through a bulk at least once a year, if not at least two or three times a year, you know, for like a, at least a month or two months just to get these incredible benches. And hiring a good coach that understands these concepts, you know, is just another good thing for accountability and just because to reiterate that you're doing the right thing. I think there just needs to be a lot of conversations. It takes a lot of times for people to feel comfortable with this approach.

So the next thing that I think that somebody who's listening right now, that's, okay, you sold me. You sold me, I'm gonna try and do this, but where do I start? I have no idea where my cows, and that's why we have the macro calculator. That's right. And what I want the person that goes to this, the website, to go to use the macro kind of, do not get married to that either. It's just a good estimate. That's right. It was at mapsmacro.com, I think. Yes. So that that you go there you you put in your goals you put in your way you put in all your stuff

And then it's gonna kick you off that is not that that's not the freaking end all be all It's just a good idea of probably where you need to be the real thing you should be watching is what I said before Is now that you got a number you're like, okay? This is what my body needs I'm gonna do what Sal was saying. I'm gonna give myself a couple hundred, maybe a hundred to 200 more calories a day. And then you're monitoring and then you're watching. And just because your goal is weight loss,

if you start seeing the scale drop down and you're falling into them, those numbers aren't perfect. Add, increase the calories. The goal should be for you to kind of hover the same on the scale. If you were training, you're being consistent three days a week, strength training, and you're making good choices, you're hitting your protein targets, I promise you are changing your body composition.

I would say the best workout programs that we have specifically for this, maps and a ballad, because it's got to be up there. Map strong would probably be a good, another good program. Yeah, map strong is who I would, okay. If you are relatively new, either relatively new or you've been off your gym consistently, I'm putting you in maps and a ball. If you're actually very consistent with your lifting and you're listening to this message,

but you've never really gone on a ball, I would love to transition you into something like strong with the same advice. Perfect, so there you go, that's why you should bulk, especially if you're a woman and you fall in the categories of the things that we talked about. Look, if you like our content, you got to head over to MindPumpFree.com. We have so many free things that you can download and get from us. Great information. Again, MindPumpFree.com.

You can also find all of us on Instagram, so you can find Justin at MindPump Justin, me at MindPump Salon, Adam at MindPump Adam. Thank you for listening to MindPumpSoul and Adam at MindPumpAdom. Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps for performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed

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and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.