Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How My Mom Used Thinner Leaner Stronger to Lose 11 Pounds & Double Her Strength

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

We’re fast-approaching Thanksgiving and the winter holidays, which for many of us, means spending time with family. Well, I don’t trust 2020 the slightest bit, so I’m going to beat it to the punch and spend some time with my mom before it’s expected. (It’s never a bad idea to keep father time on his toes and rattle expectations in such an unpredictable year). Jokes aside, on this episode I’m indeed chatting with my own mother, Laura Matthews, and discussing how her fitness has changed since following my programs. Before Thinner Leaner Stronger, she was athletic and doing ballet, but she wasn’t entirely happy with her physique. After reading my book and following the program, she’s lost fat while gaining muscle and is now in the best shape of her life at the age of 61. In this interview, we talk about her story and the important lessons she’s learned along the way, including what she was doing exercise-wise before reading TLS, how understanding and changing her diet lead to big changes, how she doubled her strength while losing body fat in her first six months, the importance of regular deloads, and more. So if you’re looking for a jolt of inspiration and like motivational stories, I highly recommend you listen to this episode. 9:09 - What were your numbers before and after you read my book? 20:21 - What were some of the diet and exercise obstacles that you had to overcome? 25:21 - Did you notice any positive or negative effects from flipping the carbs and the fat? 28:05 - Did you have to make any adjustments during cutting? --- Mentioned on The Show: Thinner Leaner Stronger: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/thinner-leaner-stronger/ Legion Black Friday Sale: legionathletics.com/shop/ --- Want free workout and meal plans? Download my science-based diet and training templates for men and women: legionathletics.com/text-sign-up/

Hey friends, welcome to another episode of Muscle for Life. I'm your host, Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today. And Thanksgiving is almost here. The winter holiday season is almost here. At least as of right now, Thanksgiving is almost here. Actually, I'm not sure when this is going live. I am recording this on November 17th. So it is not Thanksgiving yet. And that means that the family get togethers are about to begin. But as I don't trust 2020 in the slightest, I decided to beat it to the punch and spend some time with my mom before Thanksgiving. And in this episode, we don't talk about just anything but her fitness transformation because she used my Thinner Leaner Stronger program to

get into the best shape of her life probably. When I was younger, she was always into running and she always stayed fit, but she is super fit now and she's 61 years old. And with Thinner Leaner Stronger, she lost 11 pounds and she doubled her whole body strength. And before that, she was doing different types of athletic things. She was doing ballet. She was running. She was doing like workout, like Taibo type workouts. And then I published a book called thinner, leaner, stronger, and she read it and she figured she would give it a go. And she was really surprised at how much more effective it was than anything else she had done in the past. Again, in the past, she was mostly focused on cardio. She didn't do much strength training because she

didn't want to get bulky, and she didn't want to look like a guy. And now, of course, she understands that it is basically impossible for a woman to get bulky if she just keeps her body fat in the range of let's say 20 to 25%. For most women, if they maintain that level of body fat, they will never get bulky no matter how much weightlifting they do, unless they are genetically built to just be big and strong. And of course, those women know who they are before they ever even step in a gym. These are women who have always been bigger and stronger their entire life. They have bigger bones, for instance. I mean, it's very similar with men. A lot of the guys that you see on Instagram who are super jacked were always big and strong. Like if you see pictures of them when they were teenagers, they look like buff

20-year-olds at 15, 16. And that is true regardless of drug use. If I were to use steroids, for example, I could get pretty big, but not nearly as big as many of these other people that you see on Instagram because I was never a big and strong person. I have small bones and my anatomy is not really suited to weightlifting. I have long legs, long femurs. I have very long arms. And so I've been able to gain probably 40-ish, maybe 45 pounds of muscle over the course of my entire lifting career. And that is all I will ever be able to gain. Really, there is not much left. Anyway, to end that tangent and get back on track, in this episode, my mom and I talk about her story and the important lessons she has learned along the way

and the big changes that she has made and the big aha moments that allowed her to, again, lose about 11 pounds of fat and gain quite a bit of muscle definition and whole body strength. Also, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their life, please do check out my sports nutrition company, Legion, which thanks to the support of people like you, is now the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. And we are on top because every ingredient and every dose in every product is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research. Every formulation is transparent. There are no proprietary blends and everything is naturally sweetened and flavored. Now, Legion is also holding its biggest sale of

the year right now over at buylegion.com. That's just B-U-Y, legion.com. And that means that for the next few days, you can save up to 30% on our best-selling products, including our protein powders, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more. Plus all orders over $150 will also get a free $15 Legion gift card. All orders over $200 will get a free $20 gift card and all orders over $250 will get a free $25 gift card. That's another 10% off. So that means that you can stock up on your favorite supplements for the winter and save up to 40%. So skedaddle on over to buylegion.com, B-U-I-L-E-G-I-O-N.com right now and save big. You need to hurry though, because no matter what our exorbitant ERP software predicts,

we run out of stock of at least a thing or two every year during our Black Friday sale. And so that means that your favorite products or flavors may or may not survive the initial onslaught. Do not risk such a calamity, my friend. Place your order now over at buylegion.com and claim your discount and then bask in the post-purchase glow. Hey,. Hi honey. So this is a unique success story episode for everybody listening because it's my mom and she has been doing my program more or less the thinner leaner stronger program made some changes along the way, but that basic approach to weightlifting for how many years now mom? You know, when I checked, I couldn't believe it. I went back and I've been doing it for five years. Yeah. Five years. So, and so before that, for a long time, I remember you're always into

exercising, but I guess it was mostly running and just kind of cardio plyometrics, that kind of stuff. Yeah. I mean, for most of my adult life, I mean, I started running when I was in my twenties. So for most of my, I should say, young adult life, I ran. Before I read your book, I had been doing a weight program. But what was interesting was that as I was doing it, I kind of, I remember looking at myself and going, oh, I look kind of big. I wasn't fat, but I looked kind of big. Then, of course, when I read your book and I got more data, I went, oh, well, it's because I must be gaining some muscle because I was lifting fairly heavy weights but not the program that I did with you. But I wasn't doing any cutting or leaning out. So it kind of went, oh, that's why I look that way. But that particular program,

it wasn't really great because it didn't have all of the components that yours does. It just didn't have all the data and all the components and the importance of the diet. If you're really going to get what you're trying to achieve, that's very, very important. The correct amount of macros, protein, carbs, and fats. So yeah. On the training side of things, I'm assuming it didn't teach too much in the way of why and how it works. It's more just, hey, just do this and something will happen. It was a video. Yeah.

It was a video that I followed and I had dumbbells, you know. Which is fine. So it's more like exercise. It was valuable for burning calories and exercising. There are health benefits and it's going to do something for your physique, but it doesn't have really the components that make for training then, which is like, okay, so here's this very specific goal. This is what we're working toward, and this is how we're going to get there. And this is why it's going to work. Exactly. And also too, realizing after I had read your book,

had I known what I knew after reading it, had I known this when I was younger, like say in my forties, later thirties, I wouldn't have been running so much because really it was not conducive to maintaining muscle, you know, because I was running every day. And I, at one point I was running like four and a half miles and then I went to like six and a half miles. And, you know, in my 40s just really was not conducive to maintaining muscle. I didn't know anything about the amount of protein I should be eating. You know what I mean? So I definitely would have changed had I known then. Yeah. And you cut down on the running eventually because your knees started hurting? No, I could still go out and run today. But initially I did when I, this was before I read your book. Initially when I was starting to do

This was before I read your book. Initially, when I was starting to do ballet, it wasn't conducive to running. It just was not a good... It didn't pair well with ballet because with running, your Achilles tendon shortens and it already had shortened for the number of years I had been running. And with ballet, you want that actually lengthened. So I stopped. I see. But then I did ballet and then that was for, you know, five and a half, six years. And

then when I read your book, I went, oh my goodness, you know, this is what I need to do. And what's a snapshot of kind of the before. So before you started doing things as they're laid out in my book, where were you at in terms of body composition? If you remember any sort of metrics related to strength versus now? Yeah, I definitely, I remember my, I remember how much weight I lost when I did the cut, which was very interesting because I literally lost 11 pounds. Now you wouldn't necessarily look at me and go, she needs to lose weight, you know, but it's, it's very interesting to me as you do start to, you know, I was on the cut and I was actually, I gained strength pretty quickly.

Even though you had been doing some resistance training previously. Yeah, I did not have the strength that I gained when I was doing your program. And it's because I got the macros in, I got the amount of protein I should be eating. I also had dropped out carbs for whatever reason. Many years ago, I just kind of had this idea that I had dropped out carbs for whatever reason. Many years ago, I just kind of had this idea that I just dropped out carbs. And when I read your book, I had to laugh at myself and go, Hey, so why did I, why am I not eating carbs? And I just went, okay, yeah, that's going to change. So just getting in the correct diet is very important in being able to

gain strength, which I did. How did that strength manifest? How did you know, oh, wow, I'm definitely stronger now? I would say when I started the program that my body fat, I would imagine was probably around, wasn't super high, but maybe 25%. I'm very small boned. So that's a high percentage for my body and how I want to look. Which I guess for anyone listening, any women listening, wondering what that looks like, So that's a high percentage for my body and how I want to look. Which I guess for anyone listening, any women listening, wondering what that looks like. 25% of most women looks, you'd say it looks athletic. You don't look overweight, certainly not.

You don't look fat. And if you do have a bit of muscle, you are going to look athletic, but the very lean and defined and toned look that I'd say in my experience, working with a lot of women over the years that women want, where you don't just look maybe kind of athletic, but you look like an athlete, that's probably around 20% body fat for most women, maybe as low as 18%, depending on how lean you want to be. But that's where you really start to see definition in your stomach, for example. Now, I understand most women don't want a six pack, but they want to see some definition in their stomach. And you're going to see plenty of definition in your arms and your shoulders, but you're still going to have curves

and you're still going to look like a woman. You're not going to look jacked. You just look really like an athlete, probably around 20%. And the male equivalent of that is probably around 10% is where you really look like an athlete versus just kind of fit or kind of athletic. Yeah. I mean, and I could even then maybe a little bit as you're describing it, I'm thinking, oh, maybe I was a little bit higher. I could have been closer to 30%, but there was definitely too much fat. I definitely did not like the way I looked because I do like a very athletic, lean, athletic look, you know, well-toned look. So when I started doing your program, doing the cut, for instance, you're asking me about, you know, strength. I remember I started out on my squats, I think 60 pounds. And by the end of that cut, I was up to 113 pounds. Yeah, that's great.

Yeah. And I did that cut probably for about, I don't know, it was four months, maybe six at the most. I really did, you know, gain strength. And my upper body, listening to one of your podcasts, you were talking about for women, it's, you know, that they will develop their upper body much easier and faster than the lower body. And I found that to be true. Yeah. Or minimally what most women find is that it's going to take less time and work for them to get an upper body that they are happy with than a lower body. It just is

going to take more work for women to get the amount of definition and development they want in their lower body, in their legs and in their butt really than in their upper body. And with guys, it's the other way around. It takes a lot more work for guys to get to the upper body they want versus the lower body because the legs are, you're talking about very big muscles and they respond really well to heavy lifting. And it just doesn't take that much for a guy. Like I'd say for most guys, they probably, as long as they train their lower body consistently, they're probably more or less, they're like at 80% satisfaction probably by the end of year two, sometimes even in the case in year one, depending on how their body responds. Whereas their upper body, if they're like most guys, it's probably going to take three or four

years of consistent work until they feel like cool. They now have the entire package. And with women, it's kind of the other way around. I've seen a lot of women by the end of the first year, maybe second year, they're happy with their upper body. If they don't gain another ounce of muscle in their upper body, they would be totally fine with that. But they may be happy with the progress they've seen in the lower body, but they're not at that same level of achievement in their own eyes. They still say, man, I still want more. I want to have more. It's usually again, glutes.

And I want a little bit more definition in my hamstrings and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I can definitely attest to that. But yeah, I definitely gained strength pretty quickly, which I actually really liked. I enjoyed. It was definitely completely, I have to say, the progress was, I didn't get any kind of progress like that from the other program, the video that I was doing with all of the elements in that you need to have in order to,

you know, lose fat and gain lean muscle. Well, then I started to do that. Whereas on the other program, that was not really happening. And you said you lost 11 pounds. So you almost certainly gained muscle. It'd be hard to believe that you are doubling your squat strength and gaining no muscle. No, I definitely did. Yeah. So that's also something that's just worth highlighting for women because a lot of women who are new to this are, and they're used to paying a lot of attention to the scale and to

their weight. A lot of women will ask me, for example, what do you think my ideal body weight would be? And they come into it with usually an idea of an ideal body weight. It's usually something related to the past when they felt they looked the best, whatever they weighed. So they have this idea that if I weigh any more than that, I'm just not going to look good. And when a lot of those women come to maybe not the end, but when they've done what you've done, where they've put a lot of work now into their body composition, and maybe there's still things they want to work on, but on the whole, they're actually pretty happy. They're like, wow, I've made a big difference. They're often surprised at their body weight, that it's higher than they, or that it didn't even change that

much because of the, from the beginning to the end, because of the fat they lost and muscle they gained. So that's just a phenomenon that it can throw women for a bit of a loop because again, the mainstream, and it's still the case now, advice to women is just obsess over your weight and starve yourself and do a bunch of cardio. Yeah, it's very true. And, you know, when I lost 11 pounds, I, you know, really ended up around 120 and, you know, I thought I looked really good. I was pretty happy with that amount of, you know, weight being lost and I didn't look skinny and I didn't look skinny fat. And, you know, I was happy with, as I said,

it was, I had more definite, you know, gain definition faster in my upper body. But, you know, I was happy with that. So I definitely, it is true with scale. It's a very interesting thing, but honestly, it's really, how do you look? How are your clothes fitting? How does your body look?

And if scale doesn't match what you have in your head, it doesn't really matter. And you're right about the past because I look at, okay, well, I weighed this particular amount, you know, when I was 20 or when I was, you know, younger. But truth be known, I'm in better shape because of the program than I was, let's say, 10 years ago or even 20 years ago. Which is a very encouraging achievement because how old are you now? 61. Yeah. So at 61, you're saying you're in better shape. And when you say better shape, I'm assuming you're referring to. I'm stronger. Yeah. The performance and what you see in the mirror.

For sure. Yeah. I'm stronger. I'm, um, I'm still very fit aerobically and the diet is correct. It's healthier. It's the correct amount of protein. So I'm not, you know, consistently burning muscle and losing muscle because I did lose muscle, you know, over those years that I ran and I just was not getting enough protein. I thought I was, but I wasn't. And I think that happens with most people. I mean, a lot of women in particular, a lot of women, they don't like to eat meat. And just, again, this is just my experience having worked so many of the, they don't like to eat meat or they don't like to eat as much meat or eat as much as guys like to eat meat. So that won't be a major part of their diet. And a lot of women will, they'll tend to

eat a more just plant-based diet, which is fine, but it makes it hard to get enough protein. Yeah, for sure. Well, it's definitely true because I've had over the years, just women ask me, what do I do? And et cetera. And of course, I always refer them to your book. But they ask me about the diet and I talk about the protein. And, you know, for one, they just can't like, wow, that's a lot of protein. And I said, well, it's necessary. Every body is different. You know, there's a formula to figure it out.

Most people in general just don't have that understanding or that reality that how important, you know, the correct amount of macros is for you, you know, depending on what you're trying to do, whether you're trying to cut or whether you're trying to maintain or whether you're trying to bulk, it's the key. So, you know, you have like, let's say a woman and she's, you know, I see this in the gym, you know, when we travel and I go in the gym and they're just endlessly killing themselves on the cardio machines, right? But they're overweight.

They have a very high body fat percentage. Of course, they're eating too much. But the point is, is that they're in there killing themselves for like an hour. And what are they doing? You know, I doubt that they're eating anywhere near the protein they should be getting. Most girls, when they're trying to diet, they eat salads. But then what they eat on their salads, because I've had this conversation with women who say, well, you know, I just can't lose weight because I mean, all I'm eating is salads.

Okay. Well, what are you putting on your salad? Oh, well, you know, olive oil. Well, how much olive oil do you put on your salad? Oh, I just, you know, pour it on. And I mean, we know there's a lot of calories in one tablespoon of olive oil and they're doing more than that. And then everything else there's cheese and then nuts and then maybe eggs and there's a lot of calories in one tablespoon of olive oil and they're doing more than that. And then everything else, there's cheese and then nuts and then maybe eggs. And there's nothing wrong with those foods per se, but that salad might be 1200 calories. That's right. And I had this exact conversation with a friend who she got done. She was like, oh, and she really had a realization on it. So, but anyway, yeah. So I see these women in the gym. I just want to go up to them and I just want to help them. You know, I just want to just tell them, gosh, if you just

read this book, you might find that what you're doing is maybe there's some other things you could do that would be more helpful, but just basically burning muscle. You know what I mean? So I'm so glad that I don't do that anymore. Yeah. And now along the way, what were some of the obstacles that you had to overcome on both the diet and the exercise side of things? Well, you know, on the diet, it was an adjustment for my body because I think that my diet being that I was not really doing carbs and what I mean by that, I wasn't doing really any whole grains. I really wasn't doing, you know, any kind of potatoes, particularly, I really wasn't doing any kind of potatoes particularly.

It was just mostly whatever meat that I fixed, chicken or fish or hamburger, whatever, really not a lot of carbs. There was a point where I just stopped eating carbs altogether. When I first started my meal plan, it was an adjustment for my body because it was getting more, it was more carbohydrate heavy as opposed to fat. My fat grams for what my body, to lose what I wanted to lose weren't super high. I think they're like 32 grams of fat in a day or 34 or something like that, 32, 34 for my meal plan. And just to interject there, any women who are surprised or even guys who are surprised by that number, that's a low fat approach to cutting. And then there's no problem with that. That's enough to get by while you're

cutting. And if though you wanted you listener, Mr. Or Mrs. Listener, if you wanted to eat more fat, so let's say that's probably around, let's say it's 0.2 to 2.5 grams of fat per pound of body weight per day. And that is totally fine as far as a low fat approach goes. And Eric Helms did a good review of the literature through the lens of bodybuilding that anybody listening, you can go find it and you can see what his position is on fat intake. And I agree with his position. And when you're cutting, like some people go even lower than that just to maximize carb intake because it is a limited period of time. And yes, it would not be ideal to, let's say, go maybe as low as only 10 or 15% of daily

calories from fat for a long period of time. No, but some people, especially bodybuilders during certain phases of their cut where they're really, they're trying to maximize their carb intake just so they can have energy really, and at least have a little bit more energy, have a little bit better workouts. But as far as mom, where you were saying your fat is at, that again, probably around 0.2 to 0.25 grams of fat per day. And that's totally workable when you're cutting, there are no downsides. There's not going to crash your hormones or cause any health issues again, because this is a short period of time. But if you want to eat more fat anyway, listening, you can, if you're like, eh, I just don't like going below, let's say 30% of daily calories from fat, because then my meal

plan just gets a lot less enjoyable to me. You can certainly make that work. However, anecdotally speaking, working with so many people over the years, I'd say most people prefer to eat as much carbohydrate as they can. And they're okay with figuring out how to eat less fat because they get more satisfaction and more fullness satiety from carbs? For me, it was like I was saying, it was a bit of an adjustment. So I found myself being quite hungry for the first, I would say, you know, week. And then it kind of settled out because it was a bit of a change on the body. Because I think that I had a much higher fat diet because you say I was eating really next to nothing carb wise in terms of

grains and breads and things like that. I mean, I always had vegetables. So I think that my body kind of went, Oh, wait a minute here. What happened to all the fat? Yeah. What happens is it gets used to whatever energy source you are giving it. And obviously carbs are primarily energetic, but if you're not eating carbs, it's going to get a lot of its energy. If that's what it's getting is a lot of fat and a lot of protein, it's going to go to the fat for energy before it goes to the protein. And so your body just gets used to however you eat. And so, yes, if you make a change, you can think of it.

It has, of course, the machinery to burn carbs and fat for energy. But if you've only been running fat through the machine for a long time, it's not going to adjust overnight. It does adjust quickly, but yes, the extreme example of this is the keto flu that people experience when they, a lot of people, most people experience when they try the ketogenic diet for the first time and it's such a dramatic shift in where the body has to get its energy from and what it needs to do to do that. People feel, many people, most people feel terrible for the first week or two once it really sets in. So that's normal.

That's to be expected. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I just went, okay, I understood. I knew that it was, you know, obviously a change. I would say by the second week, you know, it calmed down and I just continued, you know, with the meal plan and it was fine. And I was enjoying eating my oatmeal in the morning and, you know, just having putting carbs back in.

So I just kind of changed my, me, my viewpoint and my attitude after I read your book and then changed my diet. And did you notice any positive or negative effects from flipping the carbs and the fat? Not, you know, as far as negative other than just being hungry. Which could have been related to the calorie deficit though. When you're in a deficit, like, yeah, usually for the first week or so, that's also when you experience some hunger and because your body is, again, it just gets used to being fed certain amounts of food at certain times. And if you make any major changes to that, it can take a week or so for the body to adjust.

So, you know, the hunger may have been more just the deficit. Could have been. Yeah. Yeah. Could have been. Could have been. As far as any negative, I mean, not really positive. I just think that I was now getting all the food groups as opposed to leaving one out.

I mean, whole grains is good. It's a good thing. And was leaving that out. It was just, so I think that was very positive to get back in my diet. I think that I wouldn't have gained the strength that I had gained had I not had that diet, you know, had I not had the carbs in because carbs are very, very important, you know, for that. So I think that was, you know, very positive. And yeah, but I can't think of really any other negative. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, please do check out my sports nutrition company Legion, which is now the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. Now, Legion is also holding its biggest sale of the year right now over at buylegion.com. That's just B-U-Y, legion.com. And that means that for the next few days,

you can save up to 30% on our best-selling products, including our protein powders, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more. Plus, all orders over $150 will also get a free $15 Legion gift card. All orders over $200 will get a free $20 gift card, and all orders over $250 will get a free $25 gift card. That's another 10% off. So that means that you can stock up on your favorite supplements for the winter and save up to 40%. So skedaddle on over to buylegion.com, B-U-I-L-E-G-I-O-N.com right now and save big. You need to hurry though, because no matter what our exorbitant ERP software predicts, we run out of stock of at least a thing or two every year

during our Black Friday sale, and so that means that your favorite products or flavors may or may not survive the initial onslaught. Do not risk such a calamity, my friend. Place your order now over at buylegion.com and claim your discount and then bask in the post-purchase glow. Along the way on the cut, did you have to make any adjustments? Because I do my best in the books to give a one-size-fits-all approach, but do explain that ultimately there is individual variability. While energy balance works for everyone always in the same way, how you do that doesn't necessarily work the same way. Like even take high carb versus low carb.

Some people, they do great on high carbs. Some people, they just don't actually like it. Like, yeah, maybe their workouts are a little bit better, but maybe they have sensitive gut and they find that, for example, different types of carbs, even nutritious carbs, they don't sit well with them. They cause gastric distress and bloating and gassiness. And so a lower carb diet just works better for them. So when you were cutting, you said it was over four to six months. Did you take diet breaks? Did you run into problems related to hunger or cravings? Were there any things, any just maybe unforeseen variables that you had to deal with? Yeah, I think now that I'm looking at it, I think that every once in a while, my body would just crave like nut butters, just which would be a fat, right? So I would just increase my fat a bit.

I would add some extra fat in and that would seem to, I would be happy with that. I never really took a break just because it's not in my nature to do that. I have a very hard time doing the deloads. Taking a week off is not in my nature. So I really never took, you know, a particular diet break, but there would be points where I would just add in some extra, like a couple tablespoons of almond butter or something like that, where I just, you know, particularly a diet break, but there would be points where I would just add in some extra, like a couple tablespoons of almond butter or something like that, where I just, you know, I just wanted it, my body was craving it. You know, also too, there is an adjustment that as you, you know, gain more muscle and you lose fat, I believe that there is an adjustment that eventually you should do in

your diet, right? Well, yeah, sure. As your body weight goes down and as you get deeper into a cut, inevitably you have to reduce your calories unless you start your calories way too low. I guess if you started your calories like 20% beneath your resting metabolic rate, which would be a terrible idea, but if you did that, I guess you could just starve yourself all the way, but you probably wouldn't make it because you'd feel terrible and it wouldn't work. But if you do it right, if you're starting with a moderate calorie deficit based on your total calorie expenditure, total daily expenditure in the beginning, and if you have a fair amount of fat to lose, if you do need to go more than let's say four or six weeks,

you can count on having to reduce your calories along the way. Even if you take diet breaks and no matter what, you can do it all right. And you're not going to be able to lose, let's say 30 pounds, 20 or 30 pounds with your calories staying the same for the entire cut. with your calories staying the same for the entire cut. That makes sense. I mean, I had my meal plan. So fortunately it was based on my DDE and it was based on my body fat percentage, you know, so it was the correct amount and it wasn't like a crash, obviously diet that I put together, you know? So I think that's why for me, you know, I was able to lose the amount of weight really that I needed to lose without having to, you know, because it wasn't 20 pounds, it wasn't, you know, any longer than six months at the most.

I was able to pretty much, you know, keep that diet, you know, the one that I, my cutting diet and lose that weight, you know, lose that 11 pounds. And as far as the time goes, again, if people are wondering, because they might be wondering why did it take six months to lose 11 pounds? My guess is two things. Could have been four, you know, could have been four months. It's five years ago. So I didn't really have that noted anywhere. You know, it probably honestly, Mike was not more than four months.

I probably stayed on it longer than I should have because I just whatever had the idea that I had. But it probably was not longer than four months. Okay. Okay. Even four months is, I mean, that's maybe you might've been able to do it a little bit faster, but I think that if somebody were to tell me I want to lose 11 pounds now, you also gained muscle. So you probably lost a little bit more fat. So let's say over that period, you gained a few pounds of muscle. I think that's a fair guess. So you might've lost upward of 15 pounds of fat. Let's just call it 10 to 15 pounds. And if somebody

would tell me that's what they want to do, yeah, I would say think maybe around three months, it could take a little bit longer depending on your body and depending on compliance. Like you had mentioned that you didn't take any formal diet breaks, but you would just eat a bit more food now and then, which can work as well. I mean, that's also, that's just a more intuitive way of going about it where when you feel like, okay, you've been in a solid deficit for a period now and your body would really appreciate some more food, then you can then just raise your calories by three to 500 calories a day, probably no more than that. Bring yourself basically back up

to where you're at maintenance calories. Do that for a couple of days. And then you're like, all right, I feel better now. And you go back into depth. That's kind of what you're doing with a diet break. Same thing with deloading. Some people do like to deload more intuitively. I think it really depends on your training

and what you're doing. The problem with it is what you're doing the problem with it is what you said is and i'm the same way if we're gonna try to do it intuitively it probably means we're not gonna deload as much as we should we're just gonna when sunday comes we're like okay we probably should deload and then we get in the gym on monday we're gonna be like and now we're good i'll deload next week and then that can cause issues but yeah i just wanted to comment on anybody wondering on the time that even if it did take six months, that's fine. All that would mean is that if you looked at it on a day-to-day

basis, that your calorie deficit could have probably been a bit bigger. But if a smaller calorie deficit helped you stay the course and helped you get to where you want to be without having to suffer for it, then that would have been the better way to do it. Sure. Yeah. As I said, I don't think it was really any longer looking back on it any longer than four months. And also too, just to what you're saying, as far as doing the deload intuitively, I am definitely because I have to laugh because this last deload, which is I'm doing the deload this week. I was four weeks past the deload. I would go, yeah, you know, I think I just want to keep going. But then I'll tell you something. My body will, I will start to, you know, feel a bit like, and I don't mean, you know, it

happens every once in a while. I was like, well, you know, I don't feel like working out. Okay, we all go through that. But no, I mean, my body is just, I do feel a bit of almost the nervous system exhaustion a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, it's hard to say exactly what's going on, but the subjective feeling, that's definitely how it feels subjectively where your body is really like, please, can I just have a break? That's right. And that's when I went, okay, that's it. I have to do the deload and I'm doing it. And this deload that I'm doing,

I'm doing exactly what it says. The last deload, I would do more reps because like, oh, I'll just do a few more reps, whatever. But no, this one I'm following because that's what you're supposed to do. And you say, why? And it's actually very important, you know, that you do not overtax the nervous system. And you know, you give it your joints, your body, a break, and I push it very hard. You know, that's my nature is in any kind of exercise that I've done, I pushed it very hard. And when I was doing ballet, you know, I started that when I was what, 49, turning 50. I was, what, 49, turning 50. And I actually got on toe, which for if anybody knows anything about ballet, it's a lot of work to do that. And I loved it because it was very challenging. And I can push myself and push my body really hard.

But it gets to a point where, especially with weights, you know, doing ballet is very different than lifting weights. With lifting weights, I mean, you are, you know, I'm lifting for my body, I'm lifting heavy weights. And after a while, as I said, my body just went, okay, you know, just give me a break. And I do and did feel that. So it's important. It's important to do. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. It's funny with deloading because many people, they get it backward. They think that it's more important for newbies than it is for intermediate and advanced weightlifters. And the opposite is true. It's less important. Now, I do recommend deloading for newbies. And by newbies, I mean people in their first year or so of proper weightlifting, even though they don't need it physiologically in the same way that intermediate and advanced

weightlifters do, it's good to get into the habit of it and it's not going to hurt. It's not going to set them back. But I have seen firsthand and I've come across many people over the years just working with people who they would skip in the beginning. They might not deload for their first six or eight months, not even once. And they have no negative side effects. They were able to just consistently make progress, have no negative side effects. They were able to just consistently make progress, keep on adding weight to the bar, no real joint issues, no muscle aches, no feelings of fatigue, just smooth progress. However, once your newbie gains are exhausted, then deloading becomes a necessity and it needs to be on a regular schedule because your body is now no longer as responsive to the training. It doesn't have the same level of anabolic response to the training. And more importantly,

the weights are now a lot heavier. And a lot of people, they miss that. It is very different, especially if we're talking about tissues and joints, it's very different to squat half of your body weight. And that might feel subjectively just as hard in the beginning as squatting twice your body weight feels later, but there's a big difference in weight. And that puts a lot more stress on the body as the weights go up. And then also what usually goes up as people progress is the volume goes up too. And it needs to, if they're going to continue making progress, the amount of hard sets per major muscle group per week that gets them through a successful first

year is eventually just not enough. So let's say you go from doing like 10 hard sets per major muscle group per week in the beginning, which is similar to thinner than you're stronger. There's a point where if you want to continue gaining muscle and strength, you're just going to have to do more. Now, if you want to maintain what you have and have good workouts, you could stick with that. But if you are trying to break through the next level, you're probably going to have to go as high as 15 hard sets per major muscle group per week. And so now you have that as well. So volume has gone up by, in this case, 50%. that as well. So volume has gone up by, in this case, 50%. Weights have probably doubled or tripled on the big lifts. That's a whole different experience for the body. And that requires a lot more to recover from. So it becomes essential. And I've made the mistake firsthand of not

deloading often enough. And what would happen is usually the deloads would come from getting sick and just getting a cold or something. And then being out of the gym for five days would like turn into a deload basically. Since putting myself on a regular deload schedule, this is not a point of causation. I'm sure it's more just correlation, but it is interesting that I have not only not gotten sick and there are other factors in that, but I've also noticed that I just, my body has never gotten to that point where it really just starts to feel kind of run down because of my training, you know? Right. That makes sense because you know, you're stressing it or you're putting more stress on it. You know, it's going

to lower different, you know, could lower the immune system a bit because you're stressing it, you know? And it just falls behind in recovery. You just fall behind and that deficit just grows and grows and grows and it manifests in different ways. Right. You know, as I've been doing the weightlifting, I have experienced, you know, some joint issues like in my, you know, I had this thing with my left elbow where it was just bothering me and hurting and whatever. And again, my nature is not to back down. My nature is to go, yeah, okay, well, that's just too bad. And we're just nature is not to back down. My nature is to go, yeah, okay, well, that's just too bad. And we're just going to continue. But I mean, eventually it went away. You know, I have had, I, you know, I've heard doing deadlifts because form is very, very important,

which you talk about in your book. It's very, very important. And when I was doing a couple times, this was in the past, I was doing deadlifts. I ended up, you know, torquing my back. And when I looked at my form, I didn't realize that my one leg was a bit forward, you know, from my other leg. So the stance that I was in was not a proper stance. Now, for some people, it might've been nothing, but my body isn't 20 years old, right? And also as the weights get heavier, little things like that matter more in the beginning, you can get away with that when you're lifting 50 pounds. That's right. So I have had some, you know, if you want to call them setbacks, you can call them setbacks. But for me, I've never been one to allow that to stop me or to, but I wouldn't, you know, continue. Obviously I had to handle it back because it was quite torqued these couple of times. I'm assuming it was more just a, it wasn't some major. No, I just, you know, like pinched nerve, you know, vertebrae that was just, you know,

kind of a pinched nerve and chiropractic, you know, and things like that. Healed it in just me just not lifting weights. And that's the key is not continually re-aggravating it. That's the key. Anybody listening, if you run into any repetitive stress injuries, even just things that start to become nagging, pains that will not go away, then you just have to stop doing whatever is aggravating it. That really is probably 80%

of recovering from stuff like that is if you do not stop doing what is aggravating it, no amount of other treatments are likely going to fix it. The primary thing you have to do is stop pissing it off. Give your body a chance to fix what is wrong. Yeah, exactly. So I did because it was such that I really couldn't, you know, continue. It was just the nature of, you know, having kind of like a little bit of a pinch of nerve there.

So, but that set me back because then, you know, I had to lay off for a bit. So then I had to work back up to where I was. And, but that said, I would, you know, it took me a while. I think the second time that it happened, and again, it was just different periods of time, but kind of set me back. But I did, you know, obviously recover and I did continue. And, you know, took me a while to get back up to, I was deadlifting 113 and squatting 113. It took me a while to get back to that because of the amount, obviously, of weight and, you know, that is on your spine,

you know, when you're squatting. So, but I did, but I have in the last, I don't know, I want to say a few months, several months, I started adding extra sets like you were talking about, because I'm not far from, you know, a beginner. And I had, I think I'd listened to one of your podcasts, or I think that's what it was. And I, or maybe talk to you. And I realized that, you know, I had the capability, I just naturally wanted to add more sets, I had the capability of doing it. And I wanted to do it because I want more muscle in my legs. And ultimately, I probably have to do a bulk because my body fat percentage stays around, you know, 18%, give or take. So I probably ultimately, and I, you know, should probably do a bulk, but I did end up adding more sets, you know, so that for instance,

I'll do four sets of squats. I'll do four sets of bedlifts. Pretty much I'll add four sets to everything every day. I probably don't have to do that, but I do because I can, and I have the capacity to do it. So I actually have started to increase my calories, but my carbs to start with, almost doing, you know, kind of letting the body ramp up. That's my preference is I haven't leaned bulked in a while, but the last time I did is I think I got my carbs up to, I want to say like six to 800 grams a day. And at that point, I just, I was sick of eating more carbs. So then that's when I was, okay, I'm going to eat more fat toward the end of my bulk. That

wasn't enough to continue gaining weight. You mean the amount of carbs wasn't enough or the amount of calories, right? So I was raising my calories and I was just raising carbs because that's best for maximizing performance in the gym, best for gaining muscle and strength and best also for minimizing fat gain. But there is a point where anybody reaches their ceiling. Like you actually just physically, you're like, I can't think about eating more carbs. I mean, I was my last meal of the day. I remember it was a bowl of pasta that I would like force feed myself. I did not want to eat it, but I was just eating it. And so at that point when I needed to eat more calories, because eventually it's, it's really the same experience. It's just the opposite. When you're cutting,

you have to slowly lower your calories over time. When you're lean bulking, you have to slowly raise your calories over time to continue gaining weight. So eventually that 600 ish grams of carbs per day was not enough to continue gaining weight because of eventually that 600 ish grams of carbs per day was not enough to continue gaining weight because of my calories. And at that point I was like, all right, I'm done. I'm not going to, I don't even want to eat a half a cup of oatmeal. And then I'm going to add some butter to my pasta and some oil to something else because it's already ridiculous. I already feel full and disgusting basically all times all day. So I know that's tough. It's tough for me because I'm not used to, that's what I'm doing slowly. I naturally, I don't, you know,

I eat until I'm full and then I don't eat again until I'm hungry. I really do not like eating. If I'm not hungry, I just, I don't like it. As a matter of fact, I hate it truth be known. So it will be interesting, but I realized that I needed to start, you know, upping my carbohydrates first. And lean bulking, you're going to have to get used to eating when you're not hungry. I mean, that's the only way to successfully do it. That's going to be a rough one for me. We'll see how that goes. But you know, I actually probably need to, in a new unit of time, get a new meal plan and just kind of, you know, plan it all out and really take a look at it. I mean, I know it could be done with maintenance too, because you and I have talked about that. Yeah, you can. No, you can for sure. You just have to expect, you have to know it's a slower process and already there's probably not

much muscle and strength left for you to gain already just because of where you're at in your journey. But whatever there is left to gain, it's just going to be slower doing it at maintenance. But there's a bit of scientific evidence to support that and a lot of anecdotal evidence to support that you can have your calories hover around maintenance, especially if you're willing to err on the side of being in a slight surplus and not deficit. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. That's what I was thinking. The problem with how many people, especially if they're lean and they like being lean, how they execute this strategy is the opposite. What maintenance means for many of them is slight deficit, probably three to five days a week, and then maybe a slight surplus. I've seen it many times where they're

in a slight deficit throughout the week, and then they're in a decent surplus on the weekend. And so, yeah, it might even out to maintenance calories for the week, but they're in a deficit essentially most of the time. And that impairs muscle growth. And that, of course, then impairs strength gain. And so they don't understand why are they stuck even though their body weight is not changing. They're like, I'm not cutting. But you kind of are.

You're just undoing that deficit in a couple of days. And it's usually the weekends when they go out and eat with friends, or maybe it's when they allow themselves to have some alcohol, whatever, when their calories are less controlled. And that's unfortunately the opposite of what you'd want to do because these people are the people who are training during the week. So they're in a deficit in all their training days on their couple of days off, they're eating more food. Yeah, totally. That makes sense. That's what you have to don't make that mistake. If, but if you do it the other way around, for example, if you go, okay, how about I maintain, I'm going to air on the side of a little bit of overeating during the week. And then on the weekends, I'm going to

lower my calories a little bit to lose. I mean, you're not gonna lose that much fat in two days, but if you gained a little bit of fat during the week, maybe lose a little bit on the weekend, that approach works much better. Yeah. That makes sense. Or, you know, just do your maintenance calories. And like you said, just air on the side, eating a little bit extra on the weekend, you know, not a lot, don't go crazy, but yeah, that makes sense. So I think that's, you know, for me, that's where I'm at because I would, as I said, I'd like to put on, I'd like to have a little more definition in my legs, you know? So that's kind of was, I was thinking, well, that's really what I need to do. I listened to a podcast with a gal that I don't remember her name, but it was a great podcast because she talked about

how she had osteoporosis. She actually had quite a bit of osteoporosis. She started doing weight lifting. She found her book, started doing weight lifting. Her numbers changed drastically where her osteoporosis started to reverse. Well, the reason I brought it up is because she talked about doing a bulk, right? And she did a couple of bulks and, you know, she was talking about how she, on her first one, she freaked out. She had a personal coach she was working with, but she freaked out. She put on five pounds like immediately, you know, and she was very, very small to begin with height wise and just body wise. So it just really freaked her out. But as I was listening, you know, to her talk about the bulk and the results that she got, I was kind of like, okay, you know, I need to relook at that whole thing. And because I think I'm to a point where

I need to do like either a maintenance and then a little bit more, you know, maybe a couple of days, whatever, or do a full bulk, because I did increase my number of sets that I'm doing. Like I said, it got me looking at it basically. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So then that's the plan. That's where you want to go from here is a lean bulk or an extended maintenance, lean gains type of phase. Yeah, I think so. I think that's probably what, I mean, it's, it's kind of what I've started. Like I said, adding, you know, some, just bringing up my carbs and, you know, kind of going from there. Because you lay it out very simply, you know, how to, you know, it's basically when you're talking about reverse dieting, you know, you're increasing your carbs. I think it was like, you know, 25 grams a day, was it?

I'm trying to remember. trying to remember. I think that was in an older edition of the book because there was, I've spoken about this a couple of times recently that my position on reverse dieting has changed. And that years ago, it was something that had a little bit of evidence for its effectiveness, or at least for the theory and the literature. And it had some anecdotal support and many experts and thought leaders in the evidence-based fitness space either believed in it and used it regularly or said, yeah, there could be something here. And they did it even though they knew that maybe it wasn't necessary. And now fast forward to today. And I think the weight of the evidence in the literature and the anecdotal evidence makes it clear that

it's not necessary. Actually, you can just increase your calories when you're at the end of a cut. You can just jump back to maintenance calories and you're not going to gain fat. There are no negative downsides to it. What you may not want to do though, is be at the end of a cut and then go straight into a surplus straight into a lean bulk. And that's probably mostly behavioral and just psychological. It might be better to get back to maintenance, get used to eating a bit more food, stay there for a week or two maybe, and then move into a, I would start with a small surplus, maybe 200 calories per day and just see if that's enough to be able to consistently start gaining muscle

and strength. Because as, especially as an intermediate or advanced weightlifter, you should be using a smaller surplus than somebody who is new, because again, somebody who is new, their body's going to respond a lot more robustly to the training. And it will be able to do more with those surplus calories because like start with, it's going to build more muscle. It needs more raw materials for that. Whereas you're not going to respond like that anymore. Then you don't need to be providing your body with as many extra calories. So, you know, going from cut to maintenance for a week or two weeks until you

feel satisfied and adjusted to the, to the larger amount of food and you no longer have the desire to eat a lot more. A lot of people experience that when they are at the end of a cut, they increase their calories. It's nice. And they feel like they would really like to eat a lot more, let that pass, and then move into a slight surplus. Probably about 200 calories a day is a good place to start over your maintenance calories and see over the course of a couple of weeks, how does it reflect in your training? How does it reflect in your body weight? If you don't really see any change, if your weights, or you're not able to add any gain reps or add weight or anything, and your body weight hasn't

changed beyond that initial jump from going from your cuts, your maintenance, then I would say increase your surplus by a hundred calories. So now bump it up. So now you're 300 over and just kind of rinse and repeat that until you are gaining anywhere from 0.25% to 1% of your body weight per month. And the low end is for intermediate more, let's say more like advanced weightlifters. If you're an intermediate weightlifter, maybe about a half a percent of body weight per month is a good goal. And if you're new, you could go up to a percent of body weight per month. Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense.

It's a very simple way of doing it. Yeah, again, reverse dieting was something that a lot of people in the evidence-based fitness space at least acknowledged was maybe a worthwhile strategy. worthwhile strategy. But now, at least the people whose work I like the most and who I follow the most have said, they're like, yeah, this thing, it didn't really pan out. It doesn't really make sense really for anybody under any circumstances. Interesting. So why bother? Interesting because my thought is, we've all heard this and maybe even experienced it where you have gone on some sort of diet. Let's say whatever it was, whatever you were doing, somehow you managed to eat less calories than what you were burning. So you lost weight. And then let's say they go off their diet and they go back to eating, quote unquote, normal.

My thought was, oh, well, it's because the metabolism does naturally slow down a bit in response to getting less, having less energy to burn. So that's why it would make sense, not in every case, but in some cases that these individuals would start putting on weight because they're all of a sudden giving their body more energy than the metabolism is up to handling. You know, that kind of made sense to me. Yeah, that was the theory. It hasn't panned out in research and practice because yeah, the metabolic adaptations that occur are significant enough to become weight loss

impediments. That is one of the reasons why you have to reduce your calories gradually as time goes on, but they're not as major as it was once believed that they were in the average person. And they reverse very quickly when you do start eating more food. And a downside of the reverse diet approach is you are in a deficit still. You're staying in a deficit, let's say, three or four weeks longer than you need to. And unfortunately, if you reduce your deficit by, let's say, 25%, you're not going you reduce your deficit by let's say 25%, you're not going to reduce side effects by 25%. You're going to feel just as bad. There's going to be no difference in terms of you're not going to see a 25% increase in

performance in the gym. You're not going to now be able to go from like zero muscle gain to at least a little bit of muscle gain. Really nothing is going to change. And that's likely true also of, let's say you've reduced your deficit by 75%. You're still in a deficit. You might feel a little bit better because, well, because you're feeding your body a bit more food, there might be some psychological relief, but to really kind of flip that switch on in terms of performance in the gym and muscle and strength gain, it requires coming out of the deficit altogether. And really eliminating those metabolic adaptations requires coming out of the deficit altogether. And also something worth mentioning to you and everybody

listening, it also, depending on how lean you got by the end of your cut, it often can require getting fatter. Like there are metabolic adaptations that are driven by the sheer amount of fat on your body. Like if your body fat levels get too low, you are always going to have low levels of a hormone called leptin, for example, that is related to the metabolism related to appetite. And there is no way around that. Unfortunately, there's no diet hack. There's no biohack doesn't matter how many supplements you take if your body fat levels are too low you are going to experience negative side effects literally forever until you put on more fat and that manifests differently in

different people but there definitely are levels that pretty much everybody, not everybody, there is a bottom threshold that if you go beneath that, you are going to feel worse and it is not going to change until you get above that threshold. And men, I think it's fair to say it's probably around 7% body fat, maybe 8%. Once they get around there and below that, things just do not work as well as they normally do. And they will never work as well as they should until body fat levels are increased. And in women, it's probably 16, 17% in that range. And yeah, it just is what it is. It makes sense. And so, you know, my thought as you're saying that as really the ideal scene, or at least I'm thinking the ideal scene is just to you actually are in a maintenance and you actually are, you know, you do have a good amount of muscle so that you are happy with how your body looks. And, you know, because you have a good amount of muscle, of course, muscle drives requires more calories, right?

You know, it will burn more calories. So the ideal scene would just be to really have a good amount of muscle and, you know, be lean. And, you know, as far as having a good amount of muscle and maintaining a correct diet, a maintenance diet, there really shouldn't be a problem with body fat there. I wouldn't think. Well, it depends how lean somebody wants to stay. Like if they're trying, if a woman's trying to stay at 15% body fat and she's wondering,

yeah, that's really, yeah. She's, she's like, I'm, I'm doing a good job on my maintenance. I'm cycling my calories correctly. I'm in a slight surplus during the week. I'm in a slight deficit on the weekend just to undo the surplus and I can't get anywhere. And no matter what I do with my programming, no matter what type of progression model I try to use, no matter how much volume I try to do, then again, it's like, yes, it's not going to change until you're just willing to be fatter. Yeah. Meaning you're saying she wants to go lower than 15% or she-

No, no. She wants to stay there. If a woman were to say, yeah, like I'm only happy, lower than 15% or she- No, no. She wants to stay there. If a woman were to say, yeah, like I'm only happy. I'm only happy at 15 or 16% body fat, but I do want to try a lean gains phase. I would say it's not worth it. It's not going to get anywhere. And I would- You're not going to go any lower. Well, not any lower, but I'm saying that that woman is not going to, she's not going to get anywhere at that body fat level. And the same thing with a guy at 7%. If a guy naturally, now if you introduce drugs, everything changes, but talking about natural weightlifting here, if a guy's at 7%, a real 7%, and to put a visual to that for guys, that's where you don't just have abs, you have like veins coming up your abs, you can see that's a true 7%. And if you're that lean, don't expect

to make any real progress in the gym. It's just not going to happen. So there's the psychological barrier that some people have to get over, which is this obsession with being extremely lean and it impairs performance. And it also is, it's not good for health. I mean, that level maintaining 15% body fat for a woman is, is probably not healthy over the long term. And for men trying to maintain six or 7% is not healthy because, I mean, you can just look at what it does to hormones alone. And that just is what it is. And that's why one of the reasons why a lot of guys in particular turn to steroids, there's the muscle and strength gain, but then there's also the fact that even if you just introduce testosterone to the mix, everything changes. Now you can stay six or 7% and you feel great. You sleep fine.

You have a lot of energy. You're strong in the gym and that's just testosterone. And there are many other drugs that people turn to as well. But when you take the testosterone out, different story. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Well, that's good. It's good data. All right, mom. Well, this was great. I liked hearing the details. I knew most of them, but I learned a couple of things. Well, good. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me. And I will tell you that. I just will tell you this because I think it's great. I have two friends, and I think I mentioned it, but I wanted to tell you their progress just really quickly. My one friend, she is 66 years old, and she read your book, and she got a meal

plan. And she's been doing your program. And I mean, she's doing it five days a week. She's doing the full program. And she is loving it. She is so happy with and she's one of these who said, Oh, I'm eating plenty of protein. And then she, you know, read the book and she got your meal plan and she went, oh my gosh, I had no idea that I was eating so little protein. So she's really enjoying it. And I can see she's been doing it now for, I want to say three weeks. And I see a difference in her arm. She's really thrilled and doing very well.

And then my other friend who she's kind of, they're working together in the gym. I went and helped them out one day and now they're doing great. She's also, I saw her and she's very, very happy with her progress. She's losing weight and I saw the muscle, the tone in her arm. She's really, really happy and she just turned 50. So they're both doing muscle, you know, the tone in her arm. She's really, really happy. And she just turned 50. So they're both doing really, really well, both doing the meal plans. And they're really happy with the program. That's great. Yeah.

Awesome. It's straightforward. And it works for everyone in the same way. Results vary because individual response varies and compliance varies. But the principles work and it's never too late. Really, it's really never too late. I mean, somebody could be 80 years old and yeah, if someone were 80, I wouldn't recommend that they, if it's an 80 year old guy, I wouldn't say, Oh, just do bigger than you're stronger, but

he could, or even an eight year old woman say, yeah, do it exactly as it's in the book. We'd make some changes, but there are good examples of this case studies in the scientific literature of people in their seventies and eighties starting resistance training programs. And yeah, they're using machines, but it's still real resistance training and gaining muscle, gaining strength, gaining mobility, gaining like functional capacity, losing fat. It's never too late. Absolutely. And I've read studies actually of what you're talking about. It was quite remarkable. I mean, people in their 90s, the one that I read literally in a wheelchair, it could not walk. And they started doing, started out with literally just, you know, lightweight, getting in the right nutrition and

them being able to walk again. Quite remarkable. Love it. All right, mom. Well, yeah. Thanks again for taking the time. Well, thanks for having me. Yeah. All right. Well, that's it for today's episode. I hope you found it interesting and helpful. And if you did and you don't mind doing me a favor, could you please leave a quick review for the podcast on iTunes or wherever you are listening from? listening from because those reviews not only convince people that they should check out the show, they also increase the search visibility and help more people find their way to me and to the podcast and learn how to build their best body ever as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and whatever app you're using to listen and you will not miss out on any of the new stuff that I have coming. And last, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscle

for life.com and share your thoughts. Let me know how you think I could do this better. I read every email myself, and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. All right. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.