Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2212: The Value of a “Dirty Bulk”

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

What is a “dirty” bulk? (2:23) The bad things that get associated with a “dirty” bulk and who it is NOT for. (4:12) Who would benefit from a “dirty” bulk? (19:32) The gains from doing this. (27:52) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Entera Skincare for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MPM at checkout for 10% off their order or 10% off their first month of a subscribe-and-save.** BLACK FRIDAY SPECIAL: ALL MAPS Fitness Products & Bundles 60% off!  **Promo code BLACKFRIDAY at checkout** (Code expires Sunday Nov. 26th) Mind Pump #1797: The 5 Step Strategy To Defeat Cravings Calorie labels are often wildly inaccurate. Here’s how to prevent extra calories from derailing your diet. Mind Pump #1952: How To Bulk The Right Way Nutrition Advice for Skinny Guys Who Want to Gain Muscle – Mind Pump Blog MP Holistic Health Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

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and entertainment podcast ever. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode we talk about the dirty bulk and ready for this, the value of the dirty bulk. Believe it or not, some of you will benefit from the strategy, but please listen to the whole episode before you attack us, we break it all down. Now this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors.

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maps prime pro, this is for mobility, this is to alleviate pain to improve your range of motion. This can be to complement any other workout program is also 50% off. So they're both half off. If you're interested, go to maps fitness products.com and then use the code November 50 for the discount. All right, back to the show. The dirty bulk. All right, a lot of you are probably like, don't do that. That's bad for you. And oftentimes it's true. However, in today's episode, we're going to talk about the value of a dirty bulk. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes a dirty bulk is just what you need.

Now in today's episode, we're going to talk about who it's not for, who it's for, and then we'll give you some advice on how to do it the right way. The good, the bad, the ugly. Yes, dirty, dirty. So I think we should define first what we mean by dirty bulk, because what we don't mean is eat all kinds of garbage

all the time with no structure whatsoever. That would be. No, a dirty bulk in my opinion is just using, utilizing heavily processed foods, hyper palatable foods, hyper palatable. So desserts and sweets and things like that to push your calorie intake into a much higher level, which sometimes you do that extra boost seems very counter for our podcast to talk about, considering we are typically addressing

the majority of people and their relationship with food and being healthier versions of ourself and the psychology of wanting to be buff or shredded, right? So I do think that this is a bit controversial for very controversial. We're going to piss some people off that we'll probably not even listen to this or we'll get five minutes in and be like, I can't, and then they'll get on Instagram. I can't believe you guys were advocating for this, right? So that'll come. Yeah, I would say that, you know, the Dernibolt really is really trying to get a large calorie

surplus, right? A calorie surplus surplus and of 700 or a thousand calories, right? Most of times when you go into calories surplus, what's advised is 500 calories are so above maintenance. And in some cases, you want to go far above that. And within that context, certain foods can make that doable, right? So that's why Adam said the foods that are very palatable because let's say you want to get you know 1200 or 1500 calories above maintenance and it can be hard with with whole natural foods because they they hit that satiety button really quick. So it can make it you know very

difficult. Now for for many people it's not a good idea to go this hard. But for some people, it's a great idea. And there are some potential benefits to doing so. Now, I do think that quote unquote dirty bulks should be limited, even for people that it's really good for, mainly because it can get out of control. But I think we should start with, I guess, the stuff that dirty bulks or quote unquote dirty bulks

are associated with the bad. Right. What are some of the bad things that get connected to these and why most people say don't do this? Yeah. Well, the first thing that comes to mind for bad is just the extra fat gain that you get with it because you are pushing calories so high and you're using things like processed foods a lot of times.

It's, you're going to be less, less accurate to like your exact amount of calories you need. And you're pushing well beyond that. If you're pushing well beyond that, you're more than likely going to add more body fat than you would be if you're hovering just around maintenance or doing a small surplus. Yeah, well because a lot of times too, you're going to be doing this through liquids and you know shakes and whatnot like the calories themselves. Dense calories you're going to get from this can get away from you pretty quickly if you're not like equating that into your diet. Yeah and then you know people are really afraid of that extra fat gain. Now to be clear, I think people in the gym who are lift weights who are really overweight,

they'll often get that title of, oh, they're always doing a dirty bulk. There's definitely a point where you'd want to stop, but I get this, right? Because if you go, if you're 500 calories above maintenance and you're lifting weights and you're training properly, you're gonna gain mostly lean body mass. You're getting some body fat maybe, but mostly lean body mass. If you go above that, there is going to be additional fat gain. And for some people,

this is really scary. And for some people, this is not a good thing at all, right? If you're in the category where your body fat is already really high, then you may not want to do something like this. So that's true. It is true that a quote, quote, dirty bulk can result in some extra or, you know, non-essential fat gain that you may, you know, be okay with a traditional bulk, but maybe not so okay with a dirty bulk. The other one that's hard is the ability to reverse out of it. Because these foods are highly palatable, borderline addictive, You start eating these and you decide, okay, I've put on the 10 pounds I wanted to, now it's time to cut them out,

and you find yourself having a really tough time letting go, or quitting a lot of these foods that you've now introduced into your diet. So I would say that's another big, bad, or negative to the dirty bowl. Oh, it can be really tough because if you get used to eating, you know, 4,000 calories a day, let's say that's a good 1200 calories above what you've identified as your maintenance. And you've been doing this for a while. Like to go from 4,000 down to 28, that's a big

drop. And that's two large meals, essentially that you'll be cutting. And so it can be a big contrast. I mean, one of the challenges with, or should I say, one of the strategies with helping someone create a sustainable approach, is to not introduce too big of a contrast when it comes to diet, right? The larger the contrast, the more the person has to acclimate to, the more that they have to change their lifestyle in order to accomplish the new task. So if the contrast is big, there's a lot of things that are changing.

Like if you cut 300 calories in your diet, that's just a little bit less than what you're currently eating. You're eating 1200 calories or 1000 calories or 15 calories less than what you're eating during this dirty bulk period, that can be really hard for some people. Yeah, a lot of these foods are a little bit more processed or have such a distinctive flavor profile that's engineered in there to really enhance that. So it's like you compare that now to whole foods and it's like a dramatic difference.

And once you get used to that, your buyer really promotes that craving. So it makes it difficult to cut it out. By the way, too, like most people probably are thinking that we're talking just about desserts and sweets and these packaged types of foods, or like highly processed foods that junk food. But I actually experienced this with protein bars. So I've shared with you guys before

that I had one prep where I said like as much shakes bars, whatever I would allow. As long as I hit my macros, eat whatever I wanted to eat basically. And then I had another prep where I said I'm gonna do this all through whole foods. No bars, no shakes. I'm gonna do this all through diet and try and compare like, you know, what, how my physique looked different. Now, I've told you guys that even though the macros were all supposedly the same, I felt the notice a difference. But one of the thing, but it was very little. The average person would be able to tell. I got on stage on both of them. I presented a great physique. I came down to single, small, single, digit body fat. So all in all, not much of a difference. The biggest difference though,

that I noticed was the cravings for the bars. I remember when I gave, said, okay, I can have as much as I want. There was times when I was eating four or five of those quest cookies and cream bars. Well, think about how that industry has changed and evolved over the years. Like I remember when I was playing

the three on three basketball tournament and they were introducing power bars and they just tasted like... Yeah, terrible. Like I remember when I was playing the three on three basketball tournament and they're introducing power bars and they just tasted like... Yeah, terrible. Like cardboard. Yeah, like awful. And so their mentality was to really engineer in like more flavor and a lot of these things

that weren't good at it. Yeah, like we want stuff that tastes like birthday cake. We want stuff that tastes like donuts and all these things. And so to be able to engineer that into like, quote unquote, healthier like protein bars or protein shakes, it's following that same pattern of what they've done the food industry. Exactly.

And I had a really hard time after I had allowed myself to do that, to go back to the other direction. I found myself craving those sweets, those protein bars all the time. Now someone might be going, oh, well, what's the big deal? Then why not? They're protein bars.

Well, it's still not ideal of talked before about, the goal is for me to eat all-whole natural foods. We're just, there's certain things we're not getting when we're not eating it through whole foods and we're getting it through this packaged food. Not to mention the addictive properties that came with the processed foods of me wanting more and more each time. So it isn't just these treats like ice cream or candy or things like that, even these

protein bars which people would consider a health food. Right, right. I remember that market started to shift with detour bars. That was the first one that actually tasted like a candy. Oh yeah. You guys remember that? Not only do I remember that, you remember that D-Tor got sued because they were off the list. Yeah, they're macros, which also a point too is that these labels, we've talked about

this before, they can be up to 20% inaccurate. That's what they're allowed. Yeah, FDA allows them to be 20% off. So in my case, if I'm eating four of these quest bars a day, and as a protein bar, they're in the health category. Well, if the each one is on average 300 calories, they could be off by as much as 60 calories each. Yeah. 60 times 420 calories, you could be off.

Right. For down. And it's in their best interest to skirt the line on the opposite side. Whatever makes it taste better. Yeah, yeah. And they're so if they're categorizing as a low calorie high protein treat, well, they're going to say it's higher protein and lower within the confines of the 20% that FDA allows.

It's in their best interest to do that. So, you know, and I'm not saying that I have any proof that, you know, Quest is going out there and doing that by any means. I'm just saying that I would caution you if you're just buying these protein bars and shakes and assuming that the macros are exactly what it says. It's less likely to be precise because of how much FDA allows them to go left or right. The other challenging thing or bad, I would say, about the dirty bulk mentality is it can definitely give someone the perception that it's like,

oh, it means I can eat anything and everything, right? Like I could just go without, you know, abandon, right? Without any confines or discipline or structure. Now, you know, remember we said a dirty bulk puts you at a high calorie surplus, but that doesn't mean an infinite calorie surplus. Now that's I think where people really go wrong and I think that's where the term dirty bulk came from was people were like, oh, I want to pack on size. I don't even know what my maintenance calories are. I just going to eat a ton as much as I possibly can. It's only in it with

a two or three thousand calorie surplus and they're eating a lot of garbage, a lot of candy, a lot of ice cream, a lot of fast food. And if what we're talking about makes you move in that direction, that's definitely not for you because that does the next point, which is it definitely will encourage an unhealthy food relationship where if you do this for too long and then you try to reverse out of it, then you may go in the extreme opposite direction. And then you get caught in that, you know, crazy bull, crazy cut, crazy bull, crazy cut conundrum where you're never, you never have this healthy relationship with food.

It's always super restrictive or it's always an unhealthy binge type mentality. That to me is the biggest bad. Well, back to your point about the permission to eat bad food. You know, I think I shared this with you guys off air. I'm not sure if I shared this on the podcast or not. But one of the hardest things actually for me to reverse out of was, so I had trained myself for a long time that I could, when I would eat these, Friday used to be like my burger and Friday. It was like just, all week long, I was eating my meals that I prepared. Friday, I would have

a lot of enough calories to get in there that I could eat at five guys or in and out one of my favorite places. And at this time in my lifting career, you know, I'm 225, 230 pounds, single-digit body fat, training hard and intense, moving a lot. So I can eat, when I had ordered that, it would be two burgers, a large fry, and you know, which is like a, almost a 2000 calorie meal that I'd be consuming and no problem. I mean, it was within my calorie budget. I could totally do that high protein. Yeah, I'm getting some extra saturated fat.

Also palatable, probably helped you get those calories. Yeah, right. So help me push there. That was long ago. Still to this day, I were five guys just the other day last Friday or the Friday before we left to London. And I still have a habit of ordering two of those, even though I'm half the man I was back then. I'm not moving nearly as much as what I was. I'm not training as

intense I was, but I have given myself permission to when I eat this way, I'm going to eat this way in that it's okay. And really it's not. I don't have the muscle mass on me. I'm not moving, it's like I used to, I'm not training as intensely. And so it's way beyond my, but yet I've created that relationship with it for so long that I have to catch myself and go like, no, I can't order two of these right now. This, the best evidence for what you're talking about,

I would get with clients who were high level athletes in college, and then let's just, you know, 10 years out. They maintain the same eating habits, the same calorie intake and all that, and they're not moving anywhere near. They're just, they're just cute. They're just cute on what a normal meal should look like.

I remember I had a young lady who she was a competitive swimmer and rower. She also did rowing in college. So that's, they really trained the shit at you and those sports. And I remember her telling me, well, I just had chicken and rice and a salad. And I said, can you show me what this looks like? And I'm like, that's like a 10 ounce chicken breast.

I said, you know, you're serving as five ounces. She's like, what? And like, half of that. Like that, that's like two cups of rice. You need to have maybe like three quarters of a cup of rice. She's like, it's I'm like, yeah, half of that. Like that, that's like two cups of rice. You need to have maybe like three quarters of a cup of rice. She's like, it's so weird because I was, for so many years, I had to push myself to eat so many calories.

It's really hard for me to really know what is an appropriate meal size for me. So I used to get that all the time with those athletes. Now, here's the person that this is the worst for. Okay. I was a terrible person. I'm going to, I fall in this example, okay. This is a terrible approach for somebody who has an insecurity

of being too skinny or too small, okay. If you're really insecure about being skinny, going on the dirty bulk, you'll just end up going way crazy in that direction. That was me. I was so afraid of being skinny that I learned nothing from going on a bulk. All I learned was watching the scale,

making sure that it would go up a pound every single time, and even if it meant that I had the whole water, that I had to weigh myself at the end of the night, by anything's necessary. By any means necessary, and so I never really developed a better relationship with food when I was bulking. In fact, for me, going on a cut was how I learned how to develop a better relationship with food when I was bulking. In fact, for me, going on a cut was how I learned how to develop a better relationship

to food. Now, I know most people are in the opposite category, but for those people who are like really, really insecure, I should say, not that they're skinny, but that they're insecure about being too skinny. And you know this? Then this dirty bulk strategy is probably not for you. We're not very careful.

No, I mean, that's we are that person. I mean, you are, I was 100% this is not, it was the wrong way and we did that, right? So I made that mistake. This is no different than the client that we've trained who is obsessed with their weight staying low and they're afraid to put on a single pound or two on the scale and they choose to do intermittent fasting.

Because they're more light and the reason why that is is if you're insecure about putting any weight on, you follow a diet that gives you permission to basically starve yourself for long periods of time, you're more likely to push those boundaries. You're more likely to, oh, I'm supposed to not eat for 24 hours.

Oh, why not 36 or 48 or maybe 72? Or maybe when I do eat, I'll eat less than half for what I was supposed to eat. Like you flirt with those lines. The same goes for the skinny kid, right? Who is so skinny, he's insecure about being skinny and all he wants to do is just put weight on the scale so bad because he's been skinny his whole life and he's insecure about that.

And then someone gives him the green light to eat whenever you want to bulk, to put calories on. You need this and so you take it to the competitive, which is exactly what I did. I took it to such the competitive level that I used to weigh myself after every meal. Yeah, so I'm like, obsessively, like see, and like watching,

like, oh wow, that meal put three pounds on me, like, even though you know it's food and you're going to. Yeah, it doesn't even matter. It just shows you what a psychological disconnect that you have to like reality, and just you become obsessed with wanting to see a number on the scale you've never seen before and it the reverse is true like it works for the person who's obsessed with being skinny and doesn't want to put weight on the same thing works for the the kid who's so obsessed with wanting to put more weight on and is afraid the other direction and so

Yes, it is a terrible idea for someone like that which by the way Yes, it is a terrible idea for someone like that, which by the way, this is the person that will be attracted to this advice or this podcast. And so you need to have the self-awareness to know that you're that person, that you are insecure about being skinny. This is not an ideal way.

A controlled bulk would be good. Yes, this is not an ideal way for you to go about this. All right, so let's talk about who would benefit from doing, quote, unquote, dirty bulk. Well, first category are men and women who are in an unhealthy lean place. People who are really lean, who always maintain themselves really lean, and never really let themselves creep up above that really lean level. These people, their bodies are craving nutrients,

they're craving calories, they would feel amazing, or at least they would have improved health outcomes from doing this for, you know, six to eight weeks, right? So what do we talk about with this unhealthy lean? Now this is depends from person to person. So it can be quite a range, but for men, it's usually people who, men who maintain under 8% body fat

and for women who maintain kind of under 18, 17% body fat all the time. These people, probably, again, there's always exceptions, right? So this can be different from personal person, but generally speaking, if that's you and you're living it away to maintain that and you're hyper structured about it and you're afraid to gain a single pound type of deal, like a dirty bowl would probably be a good way for you to change your relationship it away to maintain that and your hyperstructured about it and you're afraid to gain a single pound type of deal. Like a dirty bulk would probably be a good way for you to change your relationship to food and change your relationship to how food affects you. When I get clients like this and I would convince them to really push the calories after they

settled with, okay, I'm not afraid anymore, it was like, oh my God, I'm so strong. Oh my God, I feel so good or my female clients, my feel so good. Or my female clients, my period came back. My hair is thicker. I feel so good. This is amazing. And it's life changing for people like this. Yeah, I mean, this is what I was just talking about with the people obsessed with being skinny.

Like sometimes this is exactly what they need to do is go have a cheeseburger. And you've probably heard us on the podcast, right? If you've been listening long enough, we've had enough live callers call in before and normally after a short period of time that we're talking to them about where they're at with their diet and their body fat percentage. We've, I know we've given that advice before, like go have a cheeseburger. Yeah. Well, easy. It wasn't the orthorexic.

It's sort of that like over in a litigal people with food and like how everything has to be so healthy and organic and everything. I feel like, yeah, just bringing back that flexibility that you're going to be okay. We're just going to bump up your calories a bit and we can introduce some of these foods that, you know, like it really isn't going to have that damage even impact as long as like it's well balanced and we remain flexible. Yeah, loosely, I mean, this is for people who are so afraid of fat game and they know it.

Like I don't like, I don't want to gain a single pound of body fat. And we'll know this because I'll ask them. When's the last time you went on a bowl? Ugh, I really don't do a bowl. And you know that they're really lean. Yeah, or they say they've been on a bowl with their cause.

It's like they let a day of like, I had an extra salad. Yes, it's so structured that it's like a hundred calorie. In fact, we had a collar while ago. Yes, I've been on a bulk, 150 calories above, you know, my maintenance, like you might have been, I feel like sneeze that sometimes. Yeah, so people are really, really afraid of fact gain, like this may be just what the doctor ordered.

This is what I would do with clients like this. They're so afraid of gaining a single pound. Their body weight's always been the same. They're trying to build muscle, trying to build strength, can't figure out why the hell is not happening when the answer is right in front of them. And then I'll put them on a bulk like this and we'll include those types of foods because it actually helps. It actually helps them. You take someone like this, it's afraid of getting fat gain and you have the meat, super clean types of foods that are satiety producing. It's actually more challenging.

It's difficult. And it also doesn't really show them that it's okay sometimes. That's really the main thing. Is I like to show people in this category, hey, you ate some food that isn't quote unquote unhealthy three times or four times last week. You know what we noticed? You're way stronger. Yeah, well that's how you know if you are this person

or like a lot of times what ends up happening is that same person tends to have a lower sodium diet. They don't get a lot of saturated fats. They're just never in a surplus or always in a deficit. And that meal kind of checks all those boxes. Yeah. Many times highly palatable foods or processed foods are high in sodium.

They have more fats in them. They have obviously a bunch more calories. That person eats that one bad meal and they look better. They feel better. They perform better. And it's normally a huge indicator of like, yeah, that's because you've been starving your body of nutrients for so long and you've been low calorie for so long. Your body was needing that.

And so there is a place for that, your perfect example of yours, who I think would serve them to do this. Now, the last category is the hardgainer. Now, this is not, you don't want to be a hard gainer and also be super insecure about being skinny. You know, we talked about that earlier. But if you're a hardgainer and you're okay with yourself, but you are trying to put on some size and you find it really challenging a Calorie surplus that's you know 50% or twice as big as what is a recommend to the average person might just be what you need I mean I had this when I was younger

My metabolism had this amazing ability to speed up when I would bump my calories It was like yeah, if I did a five a five hundred calories surplus for me when I was in my calories. It was like, if I did a 500 calorie surplus for me when I was in my teens and early 20s, you might as well have put me at maintenance, not gonna do anything. I had to go two or three times that much to start to notice some weight. I found this with the high school athletes.

It was like, trying to stress as much as I can the importance of whole foods and protein and protein sources and where to get them from and all that. And you know, we went through a good month or so with, you know, decent progress, but their calories were still so low and they're finding it very difficult for them to, to, you know, meet that need that they had to increase calories. So to be able to now add in shakes and other ways of like getting more hyper palatable foods was like crucial for. I would probably categorize you there right now, Sal. I would think that obviously you're more evolved than the 19-year-old version of you who

was insecure about being skinny, so that's not you anymore. But you've now ramped your metabolism up so much with the amount of lean mass that you have on your body. I imagine when we do a trip like London, you don't get fat from a trip like that. You just lose muscle. And so you're an example, I would say if somebody who still falls

in that hard gainer category of, you've ramped your metabolism up so much that you were probably better off while we're on that trip, enjoying that dessert or that high calorie, hyper palatable type of food when you could because otherwise your metabolism's roaring so much right now, you're more likely to lose even more muscle if you didn't at least feed it some calories.

Yeah, if I wanted to bulk now, I would definitely have to go a thousand calories above maintenance to notice because of that. But I'm in a different position because I'm more even more lean bodymates. When I was a kid, I don't have a lot of lean body mass like I do now. I just had this metabolism just on fire for some damn reason. And there's hard gainers out there that can understand. Like, we've had them on the show where they'll call in and it's some, you know, 20 year old kid. And he's like, I'm eating, you know, 4800 calories.

And I can't get you away. And I'm 175 pounds. Like, okay, we got some strategies that might help you. I do have a tip for the kids that are, or it doesn't have to be a kid with just the people that are listening to this and they identify as that hard help you. I do have a tip for the kids that are, or it doesn't be a kid with just the people that are listening to this, and they identify as that hardgainer. So probably the single best thing I ever did when I realized that I'm in this category, I've moved past my insecurities, and

now it was like, it was actually this was getting ready for building that physique to compete. What I would do was I would make myself hit my minimum macro targets through whole foods. And then I would use some food on there. Because what I had learned, the young insecure version of me that was just trying to put weight on the scale and eat calories,

that I would actually end up missing some of my protein targets and my macro targets. Because you're over on the car. And I was over and all the crap and I wasn't getting what my food, my body needed, yet over consuming on things that it didn't need. And so I find that you do this in a much more controlled way and it'll serve you more. If you still go after hitting at least your protein intake, right? And healthy fats through good sources of food,

so a whole natural foods. And then if you notice you're still under your calories, okay, that's where I can have my dessert or have the hyper-palatable food to push the calories up beyond that, that seemed to serve me much, much more. That's excellent advice. All right, so what are some of the benefits?

If this is for you, if you fall into the categories that we're talking, so what are some of the benefits? If this is for you, if you fall into the categories of that we're talking about, what are some of the benefits of doing this? Well, first thing is it can definitely improve your mental health. Now, physiologically it even missing that sometimes, because when you're always trying to be at the line, that means especially if you're afraid of getting body fat, that means you're probably just under the line most of the time. Increasing your nutrient intake or calorie intake can feel like the most powerful, neutropic of all time. I mean, I've had clients like this where I bumped their calories, their mood and their cognition dramatically improved. They'll come to me and be like, I feel like I took, I'm taking antidepressants or something

and my energy is through the roof and I can remember things, you know, it was so absent-minded before that, hopefully, you were getting enough nutrients and now you're getting those nutrients. Now, it also can be beneficial to your mental health. If you're that person that's so scared of gaining body fat that you just, everything's so perfect, you finally break free that Oh, that is a freeing Feeling and mentally that can be very healthy because then you can feel more free in the world

Not feel like you're so constrained by these these you know rigid, you know lines that you put yourself into it before Well, it can also improve your physical health Which I think that in turn improves the mental health Just going back to that point, I made that, you know, a lot of times what you'll see with the person that needed this is, you give that meal to them, and then all of a sudden,

they see a difference in their physical performance. You know what I'm saying? Their muscle belly is fill out, so they look even better, they perform better in the gym, and then all of that reverts back to like, oh, they have a better mental relationship and better psychology now around it because they saw the physical performance

that this meal that they would consider bad all of a sudden serve them in a good way. And so that helps shift the mental part too. So sometimes your bias is craving these extra calories for a build and we're depriving it. And so your bias is not functioning. It's highest capacity. Once you start feeding it and really fueling that process for you, your body starts responding pretty great.

I've seen testosterone. Men who maintain too lean of a body fat just through restriction and overwork, you'll see them bump their calories in this way and you'll see their testosterone go up significantly Significantly. I mean, I'm not talking about a small bump, I'm talking about a big bump. And then in women, this was libido, hair, nails, skin. Oh, this was like, this was step one in getting a woman's period to come back. If I had female clients, and I would always work by the way, I want to be clear, I would always work with a functional medicine practitioner. But if I had female clients who had lost their cycle

because they were athletes and they were always very careful with their calories, I mean, step one was, we're gonna really bump your calories. And like clockwork, we would do that in a couple of things, but this made the biggest improvement in getting their period to come back and improving their fertility. Because, you know, look, women have this incredible sign of health,

which is your fertility. If you lose your period, it's because your body thinks you're not healthy enough to support a child. So if you're not getting your period, that's a sign right there. Okay, something's off. Well, one of the common things

that come in these highly palatable foods is fat. And we went through this 80s and 90s kick where we demonize fat and women. Still left over. Yeah, women were already eating low calorie diets because of what we had promoted as what looked healthy to us on these super models and shit, so they were already eating low calorie.

And then the macronutrient they were cutting out was fat. So you have someone not even hitting the RDA in their healthy fats every single day. So, and that will impact libido, it will impact hair, skin, nails, all these things, simply bumping that and adding that meal in there with all of the sudden, all those things would improve instantly. Now, one of my favorite benefits of doing something like this is strength and performance boosts. Now, you do this with the right person. They will notice a performance

improvement the day after. I mean, you take someone whose calories are always borderline low, they're always trying to maintain lean and they're an athlete or they're an endurance athlete or a strength athlete or anything. And you have them do a day of high calorie. I mean, I can't time it times people would message me, be like, oh my God, like I gained 10 pounds and my squat in one day for meeting more. I'm like, it's more energy. It's more fuel.

Your central nervous system is firing harder. Your muscles are stronger because they have nutrients. This actually, I would do this more often with endurance athletes, because I would have oftentimes in my experience, people who ran a lot and did lots of marathons were also the same people that were afraid of gaining a single pound of body fat. So they would like not only run a lot, but they were always so afraid to eat too many calories. And they'd come to me because, you know, I remember one person in particular,

was trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. And I just had her increase her calories. We didn't do anything else. I just had her eat a lot more. And boom, she was so much faster. She was afraid she was getting a slower. Yeah, thinking about the recovery that provided. Yeah, so that's the thing is like that's a big component to when you train, like you

have to be able to recover to then perform at a higher level or build muscle or maintain muscle or, you know, you need the nutrients there to pull from. So if you're not getting that nutrient, your, your body is going to feel that difference. Well, I think, I mean, this one is can be so dramatic for some people, especially if they've been you know depleted for so long. But I don't think it's just the the calories surplus for the recovery and energy purposes too. Don't you think too? It's like a lot of times We're gonna get this surge in sodium. Yeah, about the benefits of cholesterol. Yeah, like so I think it's like calories, cholesterol, sodium, micronutrients. I mean, I think that's why this can be such a dramatic swing for somebody that if you are hovering at maintenance or below and you've been doing that

for an extended period of time plus, you're also training the body, it's like just trying to survive. You're redlining. Yeah, and then all of a sudden, you give it a surplus of all these things that can impact performance and recovery and training energy.

It's like, oh my God, it becomes a huge difference by feeding them. There's also this, which is very, like I'm not eating at some deficit. I'm not eating at crazy maintenance. I'm just kind of eating when I'm hungry and hitting certain targets. But if I knew, for example, Thursday, the three of us were going to go see who could lift the most weight, I would bump my calories for the next two days. That would be the one thing I would do. And it would make me a little bit stronger. So for athletic performance,

it's perfect for metabolic boost. That's it, it's great for even short-term strength gain. Now the last benefit, this one is interesting. This one might be a little controversial, but it became very evident to me later on in my career, talking to ex bodybuilders and people who had gotten massive sizes. Muscle memory is a very real thing, meaning if you gain 10 pounds of muscle and let's say it takes you two years to gain that muscle and then you lost it, you gain it back

very easily the second time around, very quickly, okay? So if you, let's say, did a quote-unquote lean bulk, right, where your calorie surplus is just enough to gain lean body mass. And let's say you gained five pounds of muscle and only one pound of body fat. But let's say you could do a dirty bulk where the calorie surplus was even higher. And instead of gaining five pounds of lean body mass,

you gained seven pounds of lean body mass, so two more pounds, but you gained four pounds of body fat. So way more body fat in that particular scenario. It still might be worth it because you're building muscle memory. When you carve that fat off your body, now of course this can get crazy, so I don't want people to flame me here

with the whole I gained 30 pounds of body fat, and I'm trying to lose it every time. But there is some, and the old-school bodybuilders knew this. They knew this when they would do a bulk, was they would push the calories to a certain point to gain that extra muscle because it was easier to gain at the second and the third time around. Now, this is very evident when you look at athletes

who abuse and use anabolic steroids for years, go off, and they, of course, lose a lot of muscle, but they don't lose all the muscle. Some of it sticks around due to that muscle memory. So the occasional, you know, if you're relatively healthy and you do the occasional massive bulk where your calories are plus is higher than the traditional five to seven-hundred calories,

the benefit maybe if you do this right over time, you gain more muscle than you would have had you not done it. Yeah, I think that by far that's the most controversial thing that we've said so far, and you are gonna get some shit for that. But I also think that by far that's the most controversial thing that we've said so far. Totally. And you are going to get some shit for that. But I also think that this is the justification with why bodybuilders continue to do this. I know a lot of really smart, I shouldn't say a lot. I know some smart bodybuilders that are science-based and they do understand how to do this correctly,

and yet they still choose to go this path where they'll do these massive bulks anyways, even though they understand the science. I think that's the reason why. I think they realize how difficult it is to push the body to that next level of size and weight and doing whatever it takes by any means, even if they put on a bunch of extra body fat along the way, is there justification of breaking through that, that, that next size plateau and that, that then a body will be that much easier and more adapted to getting there.

I think that's the logic behind that. It's probably also the most controversial tip or point. probably also the most controversial tip or point. So you have to have some good self-awareness around, you know, where you at with your relationship with food and diet and exercise. And where do you stop? Yeah, and exactly where you allow that. Like, intermittently doing that, I get it. And I think there's some,

there's always value to training and stretching yourself to limits like that. That becoming the way you bulk all the time going forward. Or you live in there? Yeah. Or you live in there, not a good strategy whatsoever. So that final tip in my opinion, I totally get it and I see where the logic behind it, but for sure you need to have that self awareness to know where you fall in that.

Yeah, the tips with this that I would say to be that are important to focus on are hit your protein targets, try and hit your maintenance with whole natural foods, then add the hyperpalete of both foods to get in that extra surplus that you're looking for, and also give yourself a limit. Like when do I stop? Okay, when is this stopped? Now if you're a man, you probably don't want to go above 16, 17% body fat or something like this for the average person.

That keeps you still in a pretty healthy range and for women somewhere in the mid to high 20s with body fat percentage. And you wanna give yourself a place to stop. What you don't wanna do is get stuck in this like again, you're that I'm afraid to be skinny. And so you just push, push, push, push. And next thing you know, you're a guy

and you're 23% body fat because you've been dirty bulking for five years, type of deal. But I think those, those parameters make this effective. Not following any parameters whatsoever, it just becomes eating a bunch of junk food. It doesn't work out. So well, look, if you like the show, head over to MindPump Free.com and check out our free guides. We have free fitness guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin.

You can find me at Mind Pump Sal. Sorry, Mind Pump De Stefano. And you can find Adam at Mind Pump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. 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 ballac, maps for performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically

transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having sound, and an adjustment as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump.

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