Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 179: Mini-bulks & mini-cuts for more muscle and less fat

Episode Date: November 5, 2015

For many muscle builders bulking and cutting are extreme events, blowing up like marshmallows and then undergoing long, painful periods of deprivation to lose the fat. Is this really the best method for building more muscle? Sal, Adam & Justin argue lay out why the better approach is using mini-bulks and mini-cuts to take advantage of the short-term anabolic benefits of eating in an excess without putting on a detrimental amount of fat. Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Learn more about Mind Pump at www.mindpumpradio.com

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. When did you find out you were you like gambling? I was really into cards really early. So I started playing cards. Shit, even when I was a kid, my grandmother, that's my tattoo is my grandma with cards in her hair

because when we were younger, she used to teach me how to play runmy. And I used to play games like runmy and you know, basically five card draw poker and stuff. And then I was like, a little bit older, like by older, I'm talking like I'm 15 years old at best or younger. You know, learn how to play seven card poker.

Yeah, our Texas hold. Did you play for money as a kid too? No, I'm like, chain pennies. You know, my grandma and I would play it like I always had pennies and change. I'd say, because I feel like gambling. I feel like you either, you either can tolerate it, uh, or it makes you excited or you hate it.

You know what I mean? Like, like, those are the three kinds of people that I've, I have to say when I, maybe when I, when I played it as a kid, it was more just competitive side of me liked it, but I wasn't like really liked it. I didn't really like it until I found out there was math behind it. I've always liked math.

I like math in high school and stuff like that. It was always really good at math. And when I realized that there was equations that came into play, I became very fascinated with that. So I was drawn to poker right away and drawn to that, trying to compute that as fast as you could faster than the guy sitting at the table with you. That's what it was all about. It was always about. And when you were playing other players, you just had to be smarter than everybody else you're playing. And if you paid systematically, you know,

good chances were you were going you end up taking everything. Right. But there's a risk tolerance that you have to have inside you. Like for me, I enjoy math, I enjoy, you know, outsmarting people, but I hate gambling because I hate the thought of losing even $10. Well, so that pissed me off. That's how I had, of course it's true. I just don't like it.

Well, I know. So I'm asking like, what is is it that is it the excitement of No, it's it's the it's like I just said the math thing so that I don't ever play with money And this is maybe where I'm different than maybe your average gamble or like I never play with money that I am not okay with totally blowing it in the way. Yeah sure You're not exactly how I play. I mean, yeah, I had a similar experience with my grandma too, but she taught me more like games like Rook and, you know, other games like that where it's like, it's just like poker, but like you have you have suited hands and all this kind of stuff.

And like you learn how to like play that competitively against the person in opposition to you and all that stuff. It's just strategy, dude. I mean, we played a lot of strategy games growing up. But you guys are not degenerates. Obviously, you guys are gambling smart. But my point is, like, if I had... If there's such a thing.

Right. What? Gambling smart. No, no, no. What I mean by responsibly is what I mean. If you go into it, looking at it is entertainment and not that you're gonna make money, right? Well, I think that's a healthier mentality.

Well, there are people who have addictions to it. And they don't gamble responsibly. You know what I mean? Just like alcohol or anything else. Right. It can be abused. I know obviously you guys are not like that, but the reason why I'm asking you is because I find it fascinating

because if I had a hundred million dollars, I couldn't go gamble with 10 grand. Even though 10 grand. Even though 10 grand is fucking nothing, I have $100 million. It's just something I would never enjoy doing. Yeah, even if I lost 1,000, I'd be like, what the fuck? I lost 1,000. I can't have enough of it. It's so quickly, too, I think. I think that's the part of it that really sucks.

It's just fascinating to me, because I remember I went to Vegas once with a friend of mine who had his friend come. I didn't know this guy but this guy was at the time he owned like the second or third biggest gambling website on the internet This was a while ago. So this guy had a shit ton of money and I watched him blow through not exaggerating in like it was like Two hours I saw him blow through $50,000 Gambling with the roulette on the reddit table. And to me, it was just fascinating. Now, I know that 50 grand for him would be like 50 bucks for me, but it was like, I'm looking at it.

I could not do that. I mean, I just couldn't. No, it reminds me of this guy. And I was in this casino, and I was playing reddit, I think. And I never played reddit. I was just like, ah, whatever. There wasn't a table open for me and This guy just comes in like this, you know like all carrying himself like he's a some kind of like big ball or whatever

Drops down 20 grand puts it on one Shit fucking idiot and like everybody's coming around like oh my god look at this guy dude totally lot of course he lost it got it I'd look I look to my lap that payout is ridiculous if you were of course yeah but he just like disappeared like I didn't even see him after that you just like was gone he like vanished and you're like why don't you just give me the money bro I'll freaking I'll give you a background for which just happened yeah yeah I was just standing there but it's gotta be exciting that's what That's what I'm saying. It's got to be something about it That's exciting. I mean if you've never played craps or been at a crapp table one of the what it's one of the most exciting games to play I'm a firm believer in that a lot of it has to do with the energy that's going on with the table too when there's great energy

Reload table and everybody's when we all got our crystals When it takes when a roller when a roller what's neat about that it's the only it's the only It's the only thing on a casino floor that one person could be making 20 other people lots of money all at the same time So everybody wants this one person. Yeah, so everybody is rooting for you, right? And so that's what's great is Nobody ever root for the synergy. Nobody ever roots for the casino. Yeah, although imagine that dickhead at the table. Well, there is a guy. There is a guy. I know my touch shit to him too.

So if you come to my, yeah, if I'm rolling and you come to my table and you play the dealer bets, I normally, I do talk shit to them. Oh, hell yeah, I talk shit to them. You know what I'm talking to. I call them out. So you're going to be that guy, huh? You know, they're, you know, they're all like,

you know, like, you know what, dude, they're the worst. And right after that, you start and that changes the mojo, the table. And some guy comes in and is betting against you. When it wild, the whole world is a lot of machines loser. Yeah. No, nobody likes that guy either. Nobody likes that guy who comes over and does that. So most of the rest of it, if you're a crap player and you play lots of crabs, like it's the last thing you want is some guy coming over and trying to

fuck the mojo up. So, you know, there, there is, you know, you, you won, like Justin said, when I go into, so I gamble a lot, I gamble a lot in Vegas and Reno. And Vegas, I have to go with obviously a lot more money than I do have to go to Reno. Reno, I bring five random, I'm a boss out there. That Vegas barely gets you started. But you, I go with the amount of money that I go with, it's to me it's like I'm vacationing and I'm spending that money. Yeah, because you're having fun, that's what I'm saying.

I can't have fun gambling. That's why it's to me and so fascinating. Yeah, well the same. I would rather spend, it's literally like right between you guys. I'd rather play video games. I'd rather go spend money at the video games and come out and be like,

I just spent 500 bucks playing video games. To me it would be more fun than gambling. And I'm not making fun of it. I just, it just fascinates me because every time I go to Vegas, because I've been to Vegas a million times, I, you know, I'll have buddies at gamble and I'll watch them. And it's cool.

And I have fun watching people, but I never have fun playing. Well, I find the hard. And I've won before too. I find the hardest part for people that I know that the one before too. I find the hardest part for for people that I know that that the gamble and play and And why why Vegas wins is because there are a couple of reasons one I think a lot of people don't understand like games like Crap's and like poker. There is a lot of math involved

And then if you if you play the numbers if you play the math even with it in the favor of Vegas We all know that it Vegas wouldn't be around if around if it wasn't in the favor of the house. But it's not like it's a huge favor in the house. It's not like 90% Vegas is supposed to win in 10%. Well, you got to look where they make their money. Yeah. It's they make a lot of their money on the slot machines. Yeah. A lot of them. They make a lot of their money on the games that have shitty odds. And then they kind of break even sometimes on the other games like poker, you have a there's a lot of skill involved in poker. You do a lot better in poker, yeah.

Right, or Baccarat or whatever. PuyGow, you don't go anywhere. You just sit there and drink. That's what I do. I just sit there and play PuyGow and I'm there all night. Don't lose a dime, just get hammered. I just get a lot of free drinks. I feel like if you're a gambler and you live by a few rules,

then you're okay. And one of those is one, you make the rule that whatever money I bring, this is the money I bring, that's all I'm playing with. Once I run that out of that, whether it's in 10 minutes or last me three days, it's over. So I never, I bring cash, I never bring an ATM. I don't use my ATM card to go keep pulling money out

of my account because that could get crazy. Yeah, that's the one machine I always get money out of. I won. Yeah. And I also make sure that if I double up, I walk away. And this has happened to me before. I've gotten on a table. So if you hit double, if you double your money,

you leave. Yeah, so that's cool. Yeah, there's been times where I get right to Vegas or right to Reno. And I just hit the tables right away. And I'm super hot. And I make a quick five to $7,000. and then I'm like, okay, that's it. I'm done.

Rest of the trip, I'm not gambling anymore. So my trip to control, see that at that point, that's why you, you know, you have these good experiences. Most guys can't do that. Most people have a hard time and then the same thing goes, you'll either lose your amount that you gave yourself and then you go dig in for more or you win and then you end up giving it all back because you stay there longer and you continue playing their odds.

You end up spending that money anyway on hookers and drugs, you know, so. True, break even either way. Yeah, and then it turns into... Yeah. Speaking of self-control. That's where it all went. We should talk about fitness.

Sometime this month. Oh, sometime this month. Yeah, so why don't we... What's that? What was the subject we were to? Oh, mini cuts and mini balls. We've been getting asked some... We've been getting a lot of questions about this That sounds like some kind of you know weird. Well, let's kill you don't massacres

Let's talk about let's talk about can we talk about all the idiots first? So we like we like to address all the silliness that's out there, which is these excessive bulks Yeah, and I mean the reason why I talk about it is let's break it down a bulk is when you're eating in a server You're eating to gain weight. Yeah, okay, just the bottom line. You're eating to gain weight Okay, and you use you mean excessive bulk by people are like gas bulking for like six months Yeah, and an excessive amounts of surplus is too like and just like they're just getting You don't need to be in that much of a sir And the reason why I like to do it and I know like some people they probably listen to us and they're like to these

Just but you assholes. They just pick on everybody. I like true. We are yeah, but I like to pick I like to I like to address these things that I was I did myself I was that guy too. I was a kid who always try to put weight on was always trying to get bigger I can never be big enough and so I always was eating in this crazy surplus of trying to trying to gain weight always struggling So I had the same mentality. So, you know, even though I'm talking, we're gonna talk shit about these same people, we come from that. So that's the reason why I feel like we can speak this way

is because it's not only something that we're educated on and understand and have an experience, but we also have the experience of being the same dumbasses that did the same thing too. Well, we gotta look at, okay, obviously to break down, just very basic science, if you wanna gain weight, you have to take in more calories than you burn, more energy than you burn. And if you want to lose weight, you have to take in less energy than you burn.

So we know that. So by definition, bulking means taking in more than you're burning and cutting means taking in less than you're burning. However, as we've discussed in the past, the body is amazingly, it adapts at an amazing rate. And if you're at a deficit or a surplus for too long, your body tries to adapt to the surplus and to the cut by doing everything down to get to that situation where it's going to make you efficient.

Right. So if you're at that level if you're always eating if you If your calories lower than your burning your body's gonna find a way to burn 500 calories less That's it after if you keep that cut for too long And then if you bulk Your body's not gonna want you to keep building muscle because that's expensive Muscles are very costly tissue and so you'll lose that muscle building effect if you stick to it too long and you just start getting fat. And then there's the effect of doing it, you know, too hard, right, going too extreme, you know, from one end to the pendulum to the other. So,

of course. And that does not do well for your body long term. What's the craziest bulks you've ever done as far as calories? Yeah, because I know, so me and Adam are more similar in this respect that we're both, you know, we had trouble gaining weight as kids growing up. I mean, did you ever go nuts? Because I did some stupid shit to gain weight. You know, I did. I've gone nuts. And the problem with it is what I found I couldn't do. Like, let's say, for example, like going nuts for me was like, you know, I'd start to eat like six, seven thousand calories every day, wish at the time was nuts,

considering I had a hard time eating three thousand calories. And was it clean food? No, I couldn't. I couldn't get six, seven thousand calories in clean. So I was just like shoveling whatever shit I could get my hands on, you know, and what that did was this one one, it put me in an excess surplus, the balance was really off. I was, you know, lacking in foods that I should be getting,

I was getting an excess of foods that I didn't need so much. And then I just would be so satiated and stuffed that I could only do it for a few days. And then I'd have a day where I was way under. So it's been looking back now, it would still even out, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, because I was, so I was, you wanna talk about mental, fricking, tenacity.

I would just eat and I would, I didn't give a shit. I was gonna eat more than, or enough to gain weight. And I'd get my body weight up to like 240 pounds. And I weigh like right now, I weigh 200, 205. So 240 on my frame and it wasn't all muscle. I was just a big frickin' meatball. And the food that I ate to get there was, I mean, I would eat a bucket of chicken.

I'd go to KFC and get a bucket of chicken. Do you know how gross that is? Do you know how nasty that is? Oh, he's probably, I love it. Bro, you would sweat. Do you know that? I'll sweat a lot. Do you know that if that is? Do you know how nasty that is? Bro, you would sweat. Do you know that if you were to compare grease? Do you know if you were to compare all fast foods? And the reason why I like to bring this up

because I remember the day when I was a trainer and in my head I was thinking, because I remember thinking like, okay, you know, I'm trying to bulk them, try to put weight on. I'm going to go to KFC and pick that up. And when I started looking at like from a fat standpoint, the KFC is worse than any thing.

Any burger fucking McDonald's. And it was all trans. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The worst of it all. Oh, just so bad. And it wasn't that much higher on protein than going to have like a double double or having a, you know, going to have a big Mac for McDonald's.

Oh my God. I had no idea. And how many people in their head think because they're eating chicken chicken? They're, yeah, they will. Well, let's eat healthy today. Let's eat KFC instead of McDonald's like, oh my God, I had no idea. And how many people in their head think because they're eating chicken? A chicken man? Yeah, well, let's eat healthy today. Let's eat KFC instead of McDonald's. Let me tell you what I would do. I'd get this one. I'm gonna die it.

This would be my breakfast. I remember it like it was yesterday. I would have 10 scrambled eggs with cheese. Then I'd have a punch bowl of whole milk with Cheerios. That was breakfast. Okay. Oh. That was breakfast, okay? Oh! That was breakfast, bro.

I just diary it, right? Then I'd have a shake between breakfast and lunch, so it would be like a 500 calorie, whatever shake. Okay. Then my lunch, which was, you know, usually post workout, would be either a bucket of chicken, or I'd go to Pizza Hut, which was, all you can eat pizza, okay?

And because again, I was an ectomorph, so I could kind of get away with it, but I'd still gain weight, right? And so I'd go over there and I'd mow. I'd probably eat like an extra large pizza by myself. Just go nuts on it. Well, I'm gonna be honest, yeah, if you're in. I'm gonna be honest, I love it.

I had a period in college where I moved position, so originally I was an outside linebacker where my size and frame being lean and being powerful was good, was good enough. My coach wanted me to be at like 250 and just be like this big juggernaut size guy because you're getting all these polling guards and Lyman and everybody coming down on you

and these guys are really big. And so he's like, you know, you got to get up to like 250, you know, 255 by, you know, come season. And at this point, I was living on campus and they had a cafeteria. And so outside the cafeteria too, like I would take my car, I'd go to Wendy's and I'm just eating all, and I ate chicken my car, I'd go to Wendy's and I'm just eating, and I ate chicken sandwiches. That was my thing. I didn't really like eating burgers and I would eat like three or four, come back, eat a full plate at the dining room, and then I would also go out and there was this, all you can eat buffets. That's like the thing. They have these like buffets,

like China Hut Buffet, this other like a whole crowd. Yeah. Buffets and like it was, it was a competition. Like we would stack these trays and see who came out with like the most trays. My roommate of course always won. What, how was a free? Did you get to two feet? A freak.

What's that? Yeah. So I got up to 250, bro. And I grew. You were a moose, not moose. I was like, basically, I was top heavy and was always like, imbalanced. So when I was playing, it was like,

you know, I could hit really hard, but I just, I had no snap. I had no, like, I was not on the balls on my feet. You know, I was just really heavy, flat footed. If somebody hit me like a specific way, I would fall over. It was so weird. I was so not athletic. I was like, I can't handle it.

The next year I cut back down, it was so bad, dude. It was misery. The whole time I just felt just bloated was so bad, dude. And it was misery, like the whole time I just felt, just bloated, it just, blah, blah, blah. Oh, it's horrible feeling. And we've been walking around on this flat foot. So we've all done it, we've all done the long.

Yeah, you just bought books and the long book. Were you, I'm trying to remember if you were at 24 with me when I was doing this, or were you there? I was fat coming into 24, too. No, I know, when you left, I can't remember if it was when I got up to 240 or not. So when I was over 240, that's the thing. I've seen you, I've seen you pretty can't remember was when I got up to 240 or not so that when I was over 240 I've seen you I've seen you pretty big well when I was up there what I the recipe for that was before I got to work

So first thing when I got got up I would I was eating a go waffles So I'd have I'd have six ego waffles with peanut butter layered on it and then regular syrup and a banana And then I had off to work when as soon as I got to work, which is only 15 minutes away, I'd walk across the street where we had this donut shop and I would get this ham, egg, cheese, croissant. And then I'd get two glazed donuts and a regular sugar loaded rock star.

And I'd watch the rock star down with that. So that would start off my morning. Now we have so much damage to raising our bodies. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And then I went from there, I tried and switched to my like balance, good meals. And then I'd have a training session. I'd train in the afternoon after I trained,

I would then go either to the mall and get two foot long fillet, cheese, steak, sandwiches, or I'd get like two, you know, whatever sandwiches I wanted from quiz nose or whatever that smashed those. And then I would, the end of the night, do the way I finished my night off was I'd go by McDonald's and I'd get a number one with an extra big Mac in a 20 piece McNugget and that's how I'd finish off my night. So it was probably, that was probably a crush in seven, seven thousand. And we were in the fitness industry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. We've confessed,

we've confessed to some horrible shit on the show But I think right now that was the worst confessing control. It did well. I killed a man I know it was that bad it was a bucket of chicken. It was hard It was hard and many of it, but you know what like I think it's important that no It's important. They know that we made these mistakes. So when we talk shit about it's like we were there. Yeah, we've done it That's why it's like it gives us the right to talk a little bit of shit because it's like we've been there But it's not as like pointing the finger like these guys are missing. No, we were an idiot too.

Yeah, well you're a wiser now. Look, here's the deal. When you're trying to bulk, there is an anabolic effect. There is a muscle building effect from having extra calories. The body does want to build more muscle as a result. But this is a short lived.

It's very, very short lived. It lasts maybe two to six weeks at the most, depending on how anabolic you are based on your workouts and whatnot. And after that, then your body really starts to gain more body fat at an accelerated rate. Look, one of the most anabolic feelings you're ever having in your life

is going from super, super lean to eating and excess. Your body just piles muscle on, like, like crazy, but that's it ends after a short period of time. Well, let's transition that. So now all the fat people that are listening to us that have always been fat, always try to get skinny, you're on the other side of the spectrum. Right. And, and it is, and I know we just went to one extreme and it sounded and I'm sure like all the fat people are like, oh, it's so lucky. You got to eat all that shit. Right. And get away with it. I just get fatter. Well, the same rule applies for those people that, and I don't know how many times I've seen this,

and this is super common in my world, and the whole competing thing is I see these athletes that go from eating normal to these extreme cuts, where all of a sudden they go and they're eating 2500 to 3500 calories. It's anorexically just ridiculous levels. And they cut super, super hard right out the gates. And they and just like the guy who tried to eat like that, like we're talking about

right now, sure, the first week or two, you put on a couple pounds and you saw some change or the first week or two, you shredded down a couple, couple pounds because you cut so hard. But then guess what happens after about two to three weeks to do it on that shit? Body figures it out. Body figures it out and it becomes your new caloric maintenance level, which really sucks for you.

Yeah, because it's because you're working out. I think at the end of that is, you know, eating 500 calories a day at maintenance or whatever. Yeah. Because your body will burn muscle to help you adapt to the new caloric intake. So, the concept behind many bulks and many cuts is the idea is to take advantage of the anabolic muscle building effect of the bulk and take advantage of the fat burning effect of a cut, but to jump out of them when you're starting to get the negative. Exactly, that's your mental.

Right, so let's say your ultimate goal is to lose 50 pounds. Okay, I want to lose 50 pounds. That doesn't mean you should go on many cuts and many bulks. What it means is you should go on cuts, followed by maintenance, followed by cuts, followed by maintenance. Kind of do like a step ladder. Right. Where you go, you know, cut for three weeks and then do maybe three days or four days of

maintenance and then go down again and cut it down. This keeps the metabolism working and it prevents the body from adapting by trying to burn muscle. And on the flip side, if your goal is just to bulk and you want to build muscle and you're super, super skinny, then you want to be in a surplus for two or three weeks and then go maintenance for a week and then do it again. Or maybe even drop it down under just a little bit. What does that look like? K-loroquize. Like we're talking like 500, we're talking 1,000. Like, what would you say?

Top's 500. Yeah, right. I would say 500 should be the surplus. Yeah. If you're trying to gain 500 calories, the most that I would ever have anybody go surplus or deficit is 1,000. At the absolute most, but in those cases,

I'm talking about extreme situations, like the 16 year old kid, who's rail thin, needs to gain weight for football. Raging the tables. Right, or the person who's 80 pounds overweight, and they were already consuming 4,000 calories a day. That's a good point.

You know, type of deal. But for most people, 500 calories are good. That's a good measure to get up or down. Yeah, absolutely. And here's the, I think this is the biggest key to both the many cuts and the many, but the reason why most people fail at it is the mental discipline it takes because they don't see the huge swing on the scale. Right.

When you're in a mini cut, a mini bulk and you're only manipulating 500 calories surplus or deficit, when you think, when you do that mathematically, it's only going to compute and you're only manipulating 500 calories surplus or deficit. When you do that mathematically, it's only gonna compute to about a pound or so of fat tops in a week. So break that down per day, less than a quarter, less than an eighth, what is that about an eighth? That's overall.

Yeah, so it's not like, I see it just right here in my stomach. Exactly, that's overall. And that's not like I see it just right here in my stomach exactly. That's overall and That's not taking an account the difference of water retention up or down a little bit So easily you could be on a 500 calorie deficit doing perfect Day seven goes by and you see a one and a half pound gain on the scale which flocks with people They just oh my god. This trainer is terrible who's having me do this. So this is why I spend a lot of time, you know, when I first meet with somebody explaining all this, is that if you're gonna, if we're gonna be successful, I need blind faith from you. I needed you to

trust in me that I know what the fuck I'm doing. And there is a big picture to this that you've got to follow this because if you let your mind start messing with you after we've only been going for two weeks and you've been perfect just like I want you to do and you don't see any movement on the scale and your head, you may be thinking that this is all bad and it's not going the direction in my head, I'm going this is perfect, this is just what I want to see. And here's the thing, and there's a great point that you made because in the short run, a mini cut mini bulk system would yield you possibly less results. So if I'm trying to gain muscle, and I'm competing with my twin who's trying to gain muscle, and he stays on a bulk for a long period of time, where I go bulk, then maintenance, maybe

a little cut bulk, he might gain more muscle overall. However, he's a lot more body fat. And when he tries to peel that fat off of him, he's going to end up lower than I am. He's going to end up with less muscle than me. And the same thing is true with fat loss. You might lose more weight or even more fat by going more hardcore long term. But at the end of the day, at the end of your, you know, six months or however long it takes you, you'll end up with a slower metabolism and more body fat. And so that's the science that comes, that's the approach that you have to take with us. Personally, I keep my mini bulks and mini cuts, or I try to at least, I've been on a mini bulk now for fucking two months, but I try to keep it at about three to four weeks,

three to four weeks at a time, and then I start to switch gears a little bit. And I get the, and it's actually hard to switch gears because when you're in that mini bulk, you're stronger in the gym, you're eating more, you feel like you're in this, I'm gonna gain. And then you have to switch gears to try and get leaner, and of course initially you have a little less strength, a little less, and it's so it's kind of a mental fuck too,

but you have to understand the whole. It's mental fuck on both parts, because you know and I, and this is why I had to explain this to these clients because, you know, here I am with, you know, a female who hires me and she wants to lose 50 to 75 pounds and we're four weeks into supposedly cutting. We're in a deficit and we've only maybe gone down a pound or two, you know, maybe a pound or two that's got to it, maybe, maybe nothing. Maybe we stayed even for four weeks and we've just got our healthy and balanced. And then I go, okay, now I want to put you on a surplus. You know how hard that is, you know, it's very hard to get that person to understand that this is what's best for your body right now,

is we need to feed it. I need to feed it some more. I need to get it, get this metabolism ramp back up a little bit before I decide to take away again. Now, along those lines, by the way, when we're talking about deficits and surplus as a 500 calories a day, that's average. It's actually better to not have a 500 calories surplus or deficit every single day. You're better off having an 800 calorie one day surplus,

300 calorie the next day, set, you know, a thousand one day zero the next day. So not only can you take advantage of the body's adaptation system in the mini buck mini bulk mini cut, you know, three week four week period, but you can also take advantage of in a daily period on a daily basis, because I don't eat, I'm not if I'm trying to, if I'm on a mini bulk, I make sure some days I have a thousand calories surplus, and other days I have zero.

And some days I have 800 and other days I have 200. Because it keeps the body processing and moving and taking advantage of the super extra calories. And also coming to back down to zero so the body doesn't adapt. So that's another way to look at it. It's not too like carbon copy, formulae. No. Because you can't do that. And it very much mirrors what we do with training.

Just kind of say that. Yeah, just kind of say. Right, it's no different, right? It's the same as your, it's funny how they treat a different body. It's trying to build, yeah, you're just doing the same. You're training your metabolism, you're training your, you know,

your body to eat properly as far as like, being in a surplus, being in a deficit, and then, you know then adapting and responding. It's like trying to get the right response and send the right signal. You know what nowadays? Almost nobody will argue with you that you should change your workouts.

Like if we go and talk to people who understand exercise, and we argue and we say, you need to periodize your workouts, or some workout should be heavy, some workout should be, most people would agree. We know this by now. But with nutrition, it's like,

nobody gets that. People can't have them that. It's the same fucking thing. Well, it's because there's so, like food is like, it's like life or death. Like, every day you have to have food and you have to have it regularly, because that's what you need to have energy and operate properly, which people just don't want to think outside of that, that being restrictive with that, and not always having things readily available,

that, oh, guess what, you still can function. It's crazy. I could still function, I didn't have lunch, what? You know what? And shit! You can apply that to macros too. Yeah. And actually, some competitors do.

Carb cycling, really, what carb cycling is, is it's like periodizing your diet. That's it. Really, at the end of the day. It's prioritizing one macronutrient versus, you know. It's exactly what it is. The rest of them. It's just a simple thing that somebody can follow,

but what's really going on is that, you know, which is, I think just like Justin said, comparing it to the way, you know, we underlate and we prioritize our workouts, is the exact same way that you should do it with nutrition Yep, the only thing with a nutrition that I feel like it gets even more Advanced or taking yourself to the next level is okay once you understand that signs you get that then learning how to implement Food certain foods that are really important to you like you talk about anti-inflammatories

Foods and stay away from flammatory foods and getting foods that are probiotic. Well, rotating your phytonutrients. I mean, how many people even focus on that? Nobody. Nobody eats with color in their head. Like what? The benefits each one of these phytonutrients presents itself to you. Having that diversity in your diet is so important because all the different benefits and all these micro nutrients you get from it. So, I mean, I just feel like that gets washed under because everybody's so concerned

about the overall static of the outside of the body. Well, I think if you really listen to your body and pay attention to it, you can start to understand, like, I know for myself, you know, you guys know I talk about eating cholesterol because it's anabolic, but I don't always do that. Because when I eat a lot of cholesterol all the time, I start to get, and then flamm-

I start to feel inflamed. My muscles feel more sore. That's part of the reason why it helps you build muscle, but also if I do it all the time, long-term for myself, it doesn't feel good. And so you gotta listen to your body a little bit, how you do it. I've told you guys for a long time,

where now I'll throw in a vegan day. I'll have one day every once in a while, I'll eat no animal product whatsoever. Now I'm far from a vegan, but I do notice when I do that, that I get this little boost or anabolic bump, the following day. Can we, can we, can we, I wanna stop you right there, and I wanna elaborate on this because all the idiots

that are listening right now that are like, oh, see, that's why Viggins better. No, no, no, no. You're taking one thing to the extreme. That's the problem with everybody does that. Everybody takes what, you know, the paleo diet or whatever diet that has. You need that contrast.

I mean, you need that contrast. You need that harmonious balance between the two. You have that inverse relationship. So if you're extracting one component of that and you're not taking its counterpart, then you're not gonna have the overall balance and optimization of it, right? All you're gonna have is an excess.

And then the excess turns into inflammatory, even if it's an excess of good. Right. So, you know, what's, you get to pair those together. And it's true with anything. Anything that you think is good can be done in excess. I just read another study that just came out a huge fucking study, big one, conclusive, that people who supplement with high doses of calcium, number one, do not build stronger bones, and number two, have higher instances of heart attack and kidney stones. So, for, again, an excess. These are people who are like, oh, calcium builds bone,

I'm gonna take a shit ton of calcium. And guess what, bad for you. Not only does it not do anything for you, but it's bad for you. And so this is true with anything. This is true with the macro nutrients, proteins, fats and carbohydrates, but also the foods within. I don't get so frustrating with like the WHO, they're coming out with, I kind of wanted to bring this up anyway. Oh, you're talking about the bacon. Yeah, just the bacon and just this demonizing of, you know, meats in general and just, you know, it's just crazy. Well,

what they, do we talk about that article that came out? We haven't. Let's talk about it. Why don't we talk about that since that was something that came out of all of it. Yeah, so the WHO came out and basically put bacon and processed meats in the same category of cigarettes in terms of, it conclusively will raise your risk of cancer.

Now, we need to explain that real quick, because people were freaking the fuck out and they're like, oh my god, bacon's like serious. Well, especially since we've been telling everybody that cholesterol's all fine. It has nothing to do with my God, bacon's like serious. Well, especially since we've been telling everybody they're cholesterol, you all fine. It has nothing to do with cholesterol, but nonetheless the process. I'll get there. Yeah.

So number one, bacon is not as deadly as cigarettes. Not even close, the classification that the WHO, the World Health Organization uses, is that it will raise your cancer risk, but not that it will raise it to the percentage that cigarettes will. For example,, but not that it will raise it to the percentage that cigarettes will. For example, if you eat bacon every single day, processed bacon, the bad bacon, every single day,

you'll raise your pancreatic cancer risk or your colon cancer risk from 5%, which is everybody, to 6%. So they know for sure you'll gain 1%, which is still fucking nothing. Now if you smoke cigarettes every day, you've increased your chances of getting cancered by like 3,000%.

Well, isn't it? So it's not the same. Wasn't the things they were highlighting for the most part, carcinogenics. Like, so if you're talking about bacon, aren't they talking about it being smoked and, you know, as far as the processing of that, like having carcinogenics.

All bacon is so different, right? You can get minimally processed organic bacon, or you can get this super high processed smoked or processed with lots of nitrates type of bacon. Very, very different. Same thing with meats that they put in this category. Now one thing that they said that got on my nerves was they said that grilling meat creates so many carcinogens, right? Any type of carcinogens? Right, any time you need to use any genes.

Right, and that might be bad for you. Okay, that's not true because something can be carcinogenic, but not cause cancer in the body. We've cooked foods for thousands of years, so go eat raw meat. Exactly, so silly. I've heard that before too, when I used to work with this dietitian lady,

and she was like, don't barbecue anything. I'm like, what are you smoking? Like, seriously? Yeah. You're gonna tell people not to barbecue things, like that's gonna give you carcinogen. No, they're looking at what's created by the barbecuing and saying that, okay, this is a known carcinogen.

However, in that context of eating meat that's cooked, it's not gonna become a carcinogenic. Like exercise, for example, if we study exercise, we know it's a stress. Exercise is carcinogenic. If you just look at it, like right now, like you work, oh, free radicals went up, damaged your DNA is going up, that's carcinogenic.

Therefore, exercise causes cancer. No, it's not true. But yeah, when it comes to meats, you know, meat is very different. I could have grass-fed organic beef that could have a different fatty acid profile, different markers in it. It's going to be healthier than eating, you know, the super processed meat that the beef was eating, you know, grain all the time. Really? Yeah, it's the quality of it and how it was treated. Right. So there's a big

difference. And also the cancer risk increase isn't that much. Like I said, I think for pancreatic cancer, your risk goes from 5 to 6%. Like, okay. That's nothing like. There's so many things. Why don't we do this? Why don't we do this? Why don't we do this?

Why don't we do this? You, uh, Mrs. Johnson, rather than stopping eating bacon and lowering your pan radic cancer risk by 1%, why don't you start exercising and eating less calories than you burn, you know, more consistently, and overall, you're gonna be out far less cancer risk than just removing the cancer. So you know, I'm saying, like put things in context. Yeah. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah.

No, I mean, you just balanced it. When you use percentages like that, you can do any study like that. You could say that, you know, by you having a family member who smokes, if you visit them once a year, you increase by 2% your chances of getting cancer, which is higher than the bacon. So if you visit your family member who smells, don't you love statistics? Well, yeah, you have to visit your family member who smokes three or eight more than one time a year. Your chances of increasing is higher than you having bacon every single day. Well, the true thing with cancer is they believe that up to two thirds of all cancer is genetic. So do everything you possibly can and you can handle about one third of cancer risk.

The rest is all up to your genes. Yeah. So it's just one of those things, kind of scary. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. Before we hang up and some of that, why don't we go into a little bit of the,

because we just slightly touched on the, inflammatory foods and inflammatory foods and probiotic type foods. Like, why don't we give some such, because everyone just heard us talk about the importance of balancing this out, living in a 500 calorie surplus or deficit, like, okay, what should the majority

of those type of foods look like? Well, number one, eating in too high of a surplus for too long is inflammatory, period. Okay, so that alone is inflammatory in the body. Even if you're eating clean, healthy food. So would you say then, like, on your step ladder method, right? So you're in a bit of a surplus then maybe you're in a maintenance

and you're in a bit of a surplus is a better approach to being in a constant surplus. Absolutely. So honestly, what it should look like is, you know, I mean, not, I'm not being, just that's being, I shouldn't say that. An option is, you know, okay, I'm going to, we said 500 calories, right? So an option is, I'm going to go 800 calories surplus. And then I'm going to do a 300 calorie deficit the next day, 800 calories, 300 calories. 300 calories calorie. So overall you're at a surplus. So you're at your end of your week is really

what you're concerned with. Exactly. The end of the week I'm averaging a 500 calorie so that would be right. It's just an example obviously that I'm prescribing that or saying that's how you should do it. I'm just saying it. You get the idea. Yeah. So you know eating in the surplus for too long or too high is inflammatory eating in a deficit deficit tends to be anti-inflammatory. Now obviously we're looking at the big things. Now if we start to break it down, sugar tends to be inflammatory. Process food. Process food.

I mean that's one of the major things. If you can just sort of focus and be very simple. If you could just lower that intake of sugar overall, whether it's, whether it's, especially if it's from some kind of liquid. You know, if you drink soda, which is a really high majority for your average person. Right? Liquid candy, those two, liquid candy or alcohol.

Yeah, alcohol is, yeah, come on. Yeah, those three. Liquid candy and alcohol are the three big ones for in as far as, and that's what I'm saying. Let's just talk about some of the big ones. Obviously, we can see here all day. They're all day. Balancing out your about some of the big ones. Obviously, we can see here all day. I'll talk about every little thing.

Balancing out your fatty acid, your fatty acid intake is, and I say balancing because people know that omega-3 fatty acids are anti-inflammatory. However, if all you ever ate were omega-3 fatty acids, you'd have inflammation, you have lots of it. So it's balanced, it's the balance of fatty acids that are gonna give you, or anti-inflammatory. And most people get too many of the,

I believe, nines and sixes. And not enough of the threes, most Americans. Well, and most of that were like from cooking oils, right? Yeah, well, cooking oils are definitely inflammatory. Just be careful, yeah, exactly. Of your decisions with that. The processed oils, at least we should say, the vegetable oils that are,

exactly, vegetable. That are processed heavily. Because coconut oil, olive oil, should say, vegetable oils that are processed heavily, because coconut oil, olive oil, the natural oils of the cuttle oil, those tend to be better and better options. Right, healthier options. Vegetables tend to be very anti-inflammatory.

Walnuts. Nuts tend to be anti-inflammatory unless you have a food intolerance to nuts and then become inflammatory. So for me, if I eat too many peanuts, I will have an inflammatory response to it. He eats a lot of penis. Penis. Is that what I said?

Penis. Penis makes me inflamed. I penis. It inflamed. What's wrong with your stuff? A lot of penis in there. Ooh. What else?

For a lot of people gluten is inflammatory, not for everybody. Okay. Dairy can be inflammatory for a lot of people. Yep. But I mean, if you eat a clean healthy, kind of relatively balanced diet, low in sugar, low in processed foods, and you don't eat at a high surplus all time,

you're doing very good. Yeah, well, let's talk about what inflammation feels like. So I wrote a post not too long ago about aches and pains in the knees and back and elbows and shoulders and all these things like that that people get. Nine times at a 10 unless they had some sort of major accident or injury, besides those people, everybody else that complains about aches and pain.

It's normally due to either... Yeah, systemic inflammation. Yeah, it's normally inflammation or some sort of a muscle imbalance. Right. Which, so, you know, if you have this acute pain in your elbow or your knee and you've just always just decided you think you have just bad knees and it flares up every once in a while,

it's not that it would... Oh, dude, it's a cycle, too, because... It's anything with the I-DES at the end. Right. You're inflammatory, you're fighting internally, something, and it could be the root cause of it, it could be what you're eating. Right, right, and I was gonna say

It's a it's a cycle. It's a vicious cycle I'm inflamed because of the food that I therefore I move differently and create you know Improper recruitment patterns which cause muscle imbalances which then cause more inflammation and then it's this kind of this cycle Yeah, that you know, it's it's this vicious cycle that you end up developing especially chronic inflammation Yeah, that leads to arthritis. They've already shown that. Yeah, so if you feel achy stiff, inflexible, you go to stretch and you're like,

oh, I can't stretch. If you feel a lot of headaches, headaches can be a result of inflammation. Puffiness around the eyes, puffiness in the hands. Those are all, those can all be signs of bleeding. About holes. I've heard that. What? What is that? I don't know. Those are all those can all be signs of bleeding about holes So I mean those are the things that you you kind of want to look out for to see if you're if you're getting some of that How about healthy bacteria foods? Yeah, you know fermented foods. Yeah, fermented foods

Yes, very good if you can have dairy eat like, you know, just a plain fermented yogurt. I had kombucha today. Kombucha is a great, for me, excellent for healthy, healthy factor. If you heard of some leanies getting like somewhat buzzed off that, that's hilarious. That's hilarious. You know, little alcohols and kombucha. It's like about as much as, well, less than mouthwash probably. Oh yeah, wait a minute.

You can get hammered on mouthwash. You can, yeah. I tried. Yeah, I did. Yeah. So, I mean, that's good. So that's kind of the gist of it behind the mini cuts and mini-bulks.

And that's something we will recommend all day long versus going the old school direction, which was long bulk followed by a long cut or the other way around. So you really shouldn't have a bulking season or a cutting season. If you do it kind of the way we're saying it, you'll stay relatively lean and you'll progress on a relatively consistent basis. So you'll have these huge progressions, but at the end of the year, you'll be much better off than you were.

Unless you live in Antarctica and then you want to be in a high bulk. Yeah, this is beyond it. This is an excuse for really shit food It's bulk you see soon for the next four months. That was my excuse last two months. Whatever I want no My excuse was trying to do that. We were doing the lake contest. Yeah Adam going up on a squat. So I'm like I'm just gonna eat more food Showing what time it is. Yeah, I got fat burgers in the thighs Don't forget to subscribe to mine pump and please leave us a five star rating and leave a review Showing what time it is. Yeah. I got fat. Burgers in the thighs.

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