Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - New Books...Mini-Bulks & Cuts...and Clinically Effective Trolling

Episode Date: March 13, 2015

In this podcast I talk about my new books and what sets them apart from their previous (first) editions, what "clinically effective dosages" really means (24:33), and why I'm not a fan of "mini bulks" and "mini cuts" (37:34). JOIN MY BOOK LAUNCH HERE: http://www.muscleforlife.com/launch/ MY PRE-WORKOUT PULSE: https://legionsupplements.com/products/supplements/pulse/ MY FAT BURNER PHOENIX: https://legionsupplements.com/products/supplements/phoenix/ ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS VIDEO: Examine: http://examine.com/ 3 Calorie Counting “Secrets” Every Dieter Should Know: http://www.muscleforlife.com/counting-calories/ The Definitive Guide to Effective Meal Planning: http://www.muscleforlife.com/healthy-meal-planning-tips/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do like what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you're going to like my books. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger If You're a Guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger If You're a Girl. I mean, these books, they're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live

in the gym grinding through workouts that you hate. Now, you can find these books everywhere. You can buy them online, you know, Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks and you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer, so as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven't already. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I think you're going to really like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion. As you may know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted who knows how much money over the

years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that's why I finally decided to just make my own. Now, a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they're a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we've chosen each ingredient and we cite all supporting studies on our website, which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which

means that you know exactly what you're buying. Our formulations are 100% transparent. So if that sounds interesting to you, then head over to legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission for the company, because I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it's long overdue. And ultimately, if you like what you see and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T, and you'll save 10% on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get

to the show. Hey, this is Mike Matthews from muscleforlife.com. Welcome to another episode Muscle for Life second editions of two of my books, Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, that were recently released. What are the differences between the second editions and the first editions? And for people that have read the first edition, is it worth getting the second edition? And I think it is, but I'm going to explain why. And then a couple other questions as well. I have here one related to bulking and how it relates to body fat percentages. I've talked about this before. This is a little bit different of a question. So yeah, we'll jump into that. And then also, I want to talk about just briefly about some, you know, semi supplement rant, I guess, maybe not a rant, but it's just a lot of supplement companies. It seems like everyone now is jumping on this clinically effective dosages bandwagon. You know, a year ago when I started Legion, you would see it out there,

but it wasn't everyone that says it. Now everyone says that, you know, all ingredients backed by science, all dosages clinically effective. So I want to just enlighten you, the listener, a little bit on what clinically effective dosages actually are and how you can actually check if companies are telling the truth or not, because the vast majority aren't. So yeah, that's going to be the podcast, and we'll just get to it. All right, so if you follow my work at all, you know that I just recently released second editions of basically two of my best-selling books, Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger.

Bigger Leaner Stronger is for men. Thinner Leaner Stronger is for women. And obviously I've had a lot of readers and, you know, just, you know, of the blog and of my books previously and followers and whatever ask, what are the differences? Why the second edition? I addressed this briefly on the sales page. Well, sales pages for the books, just that question, what's the difference between them? But basically the long story short is I published Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, the first edition, which you can see here. I published it in January, 2012. And as you can see, it's not a

very big book. I wasn't, you know, I didn't really know how people are going to respond to it. So I didn't want to make it this big, massive thing. I wanted to just put the core fundamentals in there, put all the basic, basic information in there, everything that you need to just get going. Uh, and in almost airing on the side of giving, I wouldn't say giving too little information, but I wanted to err on the side of, of maybe, uh, glossing over certain things that aren't, uh, you don't necessarily need to know to just get going and get results. Um, but, but, you know, make sure that all the, all the fundamentals and all the practical, practical information was in there. And, um, so the, you know, within, I mean, I published it without any – I didn't have any contacts in the industry.

I didn't have even any book launch plan. I did nothing. I just put it online. You know, obviously, I put some thought into the marketing of it. I came up with the name and, you know, put a little bit – I think the design was pretty cool, not bad. But, you know, it had professionally designed or whatever. And then it was probably by like six months or so, it was, you know, had professionally designed or whatever. And, and then it was probably by like six months or so it was selling pretty well. And I, and I saw like,

this is actually, this could be something worth pursuing further. And I started getting a lot of feedback as well on the program. So what I was doing, what I had been doing basically is I was keeping a word document of all the feedback that I would get where, you know, I would judge what people were telling me. And there were people had a lot of good suggestions, a lot of good questions, you know, points that, that would need clarification and so forth. And, uh, and then also as I've done a lot of research and done a lot of writing, um, on over here, you know, over at muscle for life, um, I have kind of, I have my own list of things that I wanted to change in the book. Nothing major, just minor things regarding meal timing and such. As I'd come across new research, I'd

want to either modify what I recommend in the book or add things that give you more tools, I guess you could say, for achieving your goals. Just to make the process, especially with diet, you want it to be as flexible as possible, meaning you want to be able to eat a wide variety of foods. You want to be able to eat on a schedule that works for you. You need to be able to build your diet in a way that you can sustain it over the long term. You don't want dieting to be kind of like a short-term ordeal. It's not something that you just suffer through for a couple months to drop as many pounds as possible before your willpower just crumbles. You know what I mean?

Instead, you don't want to feel like you're a slave to diet. You want to feel like diet is a functional tool that you can use to change your body as desired. And it's something you can loosen up on if you want to. Like let's say you are, let's say it's the holidays and you're just going to enjoy yourself. And so you want to do, you know, what you want to make sure that you're eating enough to, or eating in a right balance to, let's say, maintain your training intensity, maintain your muscle. But you're going to knowingly overeat a bit, put on some fat. And then afterwards you want to know what to do. How do you change it to now just get rid of that fat, get back on track and so forth. So, um, and then on the training

side of things, nothing major has, uh, you know, there weren't any major modifications. The, the, the main modification that I've made and I've been kind of trialing this with, with guys for probably about eight to 10 months now is putting a little bit more upper body work, uh, in the, in the second edition workouts versus the first edition workouts. Um, just because particularly chest and shoulders on a lot of guys, uh, are the slowest to come in a lower body usually comes in pretty quickly just between heavy squats and heavy deadlifts at a proper, you know, weekly volume and intensity brings the lower body up pretty quickly. And the reality is also many guys, you know, most of us, we want to have great legs, but we don't want to have absolutely massive legs to where we can't fit into any jeans and all, you know, all we can wear is sweatpants. And now of course that doesn't come easily. It comes with a lot of work, but the, the, the lower body, the legs being the biggest muscle group in the body, they, you're going to build

your legs faster than you're going to build your shoulders, which are small muscles, which have a, a pretty big visual impact on your physique though. Um, you know, if, if you see, uh, you usually, you know, you can see this with guys that do a lot of, let's say something like starting strength or strong lifts, which are great programs, but they, if a guy has been doing one of those programs for a while, you're probably going to see a very well-developed, big, strong lower body. And in comparison, an underdeveloped upper body, and particularly underdeveloped chest, particularly upper chest and shoulders. And that's not really a critique of those programs.

Those programs are not for – they're not necessarily like – they're good for building muscle and looking good. But they're not geared specifically for aesthetics. They're geared for strength. So I had basically made this long list of things that I wanted to add and change about both bigger leaner stronger and thinner leaner stronger. Because like speaking for thinner leaner stronger for women, you know, the emphasis becomes a bit more of the lower body. Because most women want a, I guess you could say like a lean kind of but not overly muscular, toned. That word kind of sucks, but I think that's the only way it communicates, upper body. Like you don't want to have a frail upper body and then a good lower body,

but most women want to have an athletic looking upper body. And I guess you could say a bit of an overdeveloped lower body even in that, you know, overdeveloped glutes, for instance. And by overdeveloped, I just mean in proportion, not that it looks bad, but you know, overdeveloped glutes, for instance, and by overdeveloped, I just mean in proportion, not that it looks bad, but you know, you're going to find that most women, the type of body that they want, it requires a bit more emphasis on the lower body than the upper body. So there's just a difference there between goals and between, you know, again, how, how the, how, how people's bodies develop. And, uh, with women, it takes a bit more emphasis because hormonally women are just not really, they're not genetically predisposed to building muscle easily basically because

probably the main difference is just testosterone levels. Your average guy versus your average girl when you're looking at T is the girl's going to have about a 10th to a 15th of the, of the testosterone as, as the guy and testosterone is the driving, uh, hormonal force behind, behind protein synthesis, behind muscle growth. Um, so I'm probably about a year and a half of, or a year or so of, of gathering up all this feedback and gathering up all these notes and doing all these things, I felt like, okay, I feel like this warrants now a new book. Because I didn't want to release a second edition, just like change a couple things and add a couple paragraphs here and there. And then just for an excuse to say, oh, here's a second edition, give me more money. I wanted to deliver something that somebody could read the first edition and then read the second edition right after it and actually feel like, wow, they really got even more value. So that was my goal, and I felt like there was a point probably about six months ago when I started to work on the second edition when I was like, okay – or second editions, plural – where I felt like I could do that now.

I could deliver that. So what I did was, all the basic principles of both Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger are the same, but I basically rewrote the book from scratch because I wanted to, I'm a better writer now than I was then. I've written, I don't even know how many words in most of my life. It might even be close to a million words or so, you know, just at the blog. It might even be close to a million words or so, you know, just at the blog. So practice makes perfect, right? So I'm a better writer now. And I want to reorganize the books as well, make them a bit more user-friendly,

and add all this additional content in and tweak the training to really just maximize results. And the result here, like here's the second edition of Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. So also I got a new cover made, which I think this cover is cooler for sure. And I'm pretty happy about it. And as you can see, it's quite a bit thicker. I added about 50,000 words, 40,000 words. So you can see the difference there. I think the original book was about 70,000 words of content and the new is about 130,000 words, give or take. And, and I've been getting a lot of great feedback. Like I really didn't want to

add filler too. That's another common second edition. I wouldn't say scam, but it's just a second edition thing is to add a bunch of diagrams and just add charts and stuff that, you know, it doesn't take very much work, but it makes it look cool and makes it look, you know, like you're getting more. And so I didn't want to do that either. I did add there are a couple more visual type of elements like there are some more sample meal plans, but these are things that people were consistently asking for. plans, but these were things that people were consistently asking for. Um, for instance, I didn't add diagrams for every single exercise you're going to do because I still think that, um, you know, the big lifts are in there, uh, the military press bench, press squat deadlift, and there's each of those get their own section and really lay out proper form with diagrams and everything. But there are a lot of other exercises. It's just not necessary. Again, I, you know,

I give links to videos, uh, for proper form in the bonus report. And I really think that's the best way to do it because a lot of the exercises are just very simple. You're going to watch a video. You're going to keep a few basic things in. You're going to do the exercise a few times and you're going to feel comfortable with it and that's going to be it. Whereas a squat, there are more things to keep in mind, especially as you're loading it heavy and so forth. So, um, yeah, the, all that, that the additional content, that extra bulk that you see, I mean, it's also, uh, it's a bit bigger. This is a six by nine book and this is a seven by 10, I believe. So you're looking at, you know, you can see here, it's not only quite a bit thicker, but the pages have more words on them. Um, and, and then also here's thinner, they're stronger and here's the

new cover. So here's the old one here you can see, and then here's the new one. Again, same style as big, leaner, stronger, different colors and girl in the background instead of me. Um, and, uh, again, I think it looks pretty cool. You can see, you know, the back here. And, uh, so it's similar in, in, in terms of word count. Um, there are quite a few different little things that have been tweaked to make them fit

for women specifically, but the principles are the same, of course. I mean, a girl's metabolism works fundamentally the same way as a guy's. Girls just burn less energy. Girls have to do fundamentally the same things to build muscle and lose fat. They just do it slower.

They lose fat slower as well. So girls could read Big Leaner Stronger and do the program and be okay, lose fat. They just do it slower, lose, they lose fat slower as well. Um, so you know, that girls could read big leaner, stronger and do the program and be okay. But, um, I would recommend that they read thinner leaner, stronger instead, because the program is a bit different. As I said, it's a bit more lower body centric. And then there are quite a few different female specific things that are in there. Um, just again, these were just basically came from a lot of reader feedback and, and, and things that women would run into that guys don't run into as much, you know, water retention is a, is a thing that women have to deal a lot more with, especially with, with monthly periods and so forth. Um, and guys, you know, we do run into

water retention issues now and then, but not, it's just not as usual. And it's like when, when, when a girl's going about losing weight, you can pretty much count on water retention being a problem, obscuring fat loss and so forth. And women should know about that so they don't get discouraged. But guys, I would say that chances are they're not going to run into water retention problems unless their potassium or sodium intake is all over the place or unless something physically is up or unless they just are genetically predisposed to holding water, which some people are. But again, a lot of that relates back to hormones, and girls are more hormonally inclined to have to deal with water retention than guys basically. So yeah, I mean that's how these second editions came about. And so like I said, it was a lot of work.

I started on it about six months ago, and a lot of that time was the writing because I really did just start from scratch and took each chapter, rewrote them, reorganized the entire book. Now it's broken up into sections that deal with – so the first section deals with fundamentals type things, basic laws of fat loss, muscle growth, the big mistakes that people make. And then the second section has what I call inner game, which has been expanded on. This was something a lot of readers were asking for a bit more on willpower and motivation because when it comes to diet and training, there are basic there are basic, uh, I guess you could say laws

and principles that you have to follow. Um, and, but they're not, they're very flexible and they, in terms of in your training, in terms of the time that it takes, it does not take, you know, hours and hours and hours every week to get fit. Um, and on diet, you can eat all kinds of foods and you can really enjoy your diet and still have a great body and still achieve your goals. Um, you know, so those basic principles probably give you about 80% to 90% of your progress. But compliance is the big thing. You've probably heard that the best diet is the diet you can stick to kind of thing, and there's truth in that. As long as the diet manages energy balance properly and as long as it manages macronutrient intake properly, and as long as it provides you with adequate micronutrients,

those are very flexible rules to follow. You can fit all kinds of foods in there. You can go high carb, low carb. You could be vegetarian. You could be vegan. You could be strictly just a meat eater, almost like a paleo without the vegetables. Not that that's the healthiest way to do it, but a lot of different things that you can do. But if you can't stick to the diet, then that's going to be the problem. So I wanted to address that. And training is similar. If you're following some basic rules of progressive overload, if you're emphasizing heavier lifting, if you're doing the right types of exercises, you know, emphasizing that the compound lifts over the isolation lifts.

And if you have your weekly frequency and then intensity and volume, if you understand that relationship and you're managing it at least semi decently, you're going to make progress in the gym. And, you know, again, though, it's going to require that you stick to the program. So I greatly expanded that inner game section and put a whole, you know, pretty big chapter. It's about a 30 page chapter actually on just the whole science of willpower and discipline and how to stick to your program. And that's been getting a lot of really good feedback. People really, really like that. And it was a lot of fun for me to research. You know, basically I had to read a bunch of books and take all my notes and compile them all together. It was just fun.

It was a fun thing to put together, and I'm really happy with how it came out. And then we have the third section is nutrition and diet, which just gives you everything you need to know about what really is and isn't healthy dieting and how do you use diet and how do you, as I was saying earlier, how do you make it a tool as opposed to just, you know, feeling like it's an oppressive, you know, tyrant that looms over you every day telling you what you can and can't do and, you know, you don't even get where you want to be. And the fourth section is training.

So that goes into all the exercise information and lays out the whole program that you're going to be doing. And then there's a section five, which is supplementation, which just goes over a lot of, most workout supplements are crap and they're just a waste of money. Some are not, none are necessary, but some can help you get to your goals faster. So I explain which ones are and aren't worth it and why. And then there's some end of book stuff where I give my contact information. And then there's a Q&A section, which I've also expanded on and added a bunch of questions that I've been asked just frequently and put the answers there in the end of the book.

And then there's some bonus report stuff, and I talk about my meal plan service and Legion supplements and so forth in the back. So yeah, so those are the new books. If you've read the first editions, you are going to – you're not going to feel ripped off. I guarantee you. I have put hundreds of hours into just really retooling and overhauling these books and making them as good as possible. And I'm really happy with how it came out. I'm getting a lot of good feedback.

And you can just go on Amazon and just look at, you know, the last two weeks worth of reviews, and you'll see there's quite a few in there from people that had read the previous one. And they're really, really happy with this second and really feel like this is like the books have kind of come into their own. Like this is, you know, I wouldn't say these are my masterpieces, but I think that they're a big improvement on the first editions, which I also did my best at the time, but now I'm able to do better essentially. And, you know, I could have just not. I could have just left the other books up and they would continue to sell well and do the whole thing. But, you know, I also I want to I want to deliver as good of products as I can basically and really try to over deliver.

You know, the books are not expensive. and really try to over deliver. Um, you know, the books are not expensive. The eBooks are seven to $9 depending on discounting that occurs randomly. And then the, the paperbacks are like 11 to $15 also depending on sometimes Amazon discounts. Sometimes they don't, it's out of my hands. They just do their thing. Um, and, uh, yeah. So if you haven't even read these books at all, And yeah, so if you haven't even read these books at all, I highly recommend you check them out. I'm also doing a whole giveaway where I'm giving away over $10,000 in actual stuff, not like stupid, shitty PDFs that I say are worth $100. No, these are like hard goods like workout gear, headphones, supplements. Nico, one of my guys that works with me closely on all of my Muscle for Life stuff,

he spent months reaching out to companies, explaining what we're doing with this book launch and getting them to send us stuff so we can give it away to you for buying books. So, yeah, I think you'll be pretty surprised, actually. Some of these prizes are like, damn, I want to win. Of course, I'm not in it. But anyways, so yes, if you want to find out more about the books, you can go to muscleforlife.com forward slash launch. And I'll put the link down in the description below for those on YouTube. And yeah, you can read about the books. And if you want to get them and get in the giveaway, I'd be grateful and I'd

love to hear your feedback. As I was saying before, if you haven't read the books, I've gotten a lot of really, really good feedback. I got a lot of good feedback on the previous editions as well, but I mean, people are really blown away with how comprehensive and how thorough these books are, where they feel like they don't even need to, like this answered every question they had, you know, that they have been unable to get answered, you know, reading a bunch of other books and magazines and so forth. And I honestly, I wouldn't say these are the end all be all of fitness books and you don't have to ever read anything else again. But I can say that if, if your goal was simply to learn the, the 80% learn that the 20% of the knowledge that's going to give you 80% or even,

I'd say 90% of your results. And if all you did was read, you know, if you're, if you're a girl, if you're at thinner, leaner, stronger, a guy, bigger, leaner, stronger, if that's all you did, you would be there. Like these books give you everything you need to know to build muscle. Uh, and I wouldn't say just build muscle to build a lot of muscle, like build, I would say to, to at least reach 80% of your genetic potential in terms of muscle and strength and lose fat. And it's basically have the body you want to have. Um, and if you now want to take it further and you want to really maximize, like, you don't just want to be muscular and lean. You want to be like really freaking muscular and really lean and, you know, super strong. Then of course,

there's more, you have to know of course there's more you have to know. And depending on, you have to get more specialized in your training. So, you know, I have a lot of guys that they'll get on bigger, leaner, stronger, and in fair amounts, I wouldn't say fair amount. There are occasionally girls also that run thinner, leaner, stronger, and, you know, they build a really solid foundation, but now they want to get into, let's say really into strength training. They want to get really, really strong. Well, of course now they change. And I've helped a lot of people move on, move into other programs like five, three, one for powerlifting or, uh, uh, even Westside barbell and so forth. And, uh, so there's that

direction, or if they want to get, go really in the, in the aesthetics kind of proportions direction, then the training does change a bit. And that's why I actually wrote the, there's a sequel to bigger than a strong called beyond bigger than a stronger, which is meant for intermediate and advanced weightlifters that want to not just maximize strength and muscle in general, but they want to also, um, in a sense, you know, if you want to really sculpt a physique and you want to really address your weak points and, uh, uh, that that's, that's also, you know, that's another direction you can go in. So, uh, and, and just to throw it out there, a lot of girls have asked if I'm going to do a sequel to Thinner Than You're Stronger.

And the answer is yes. I probably won't be able to start on it until later this year. I also, for me, beyond Bigger Than You're Stronger was very easy to write because it was something that I had been running that program for close to a year. And running other people on it. And the dietary stuff that I go over, the advanced dietary stuff, it's not that it's all that advanced. It's just that it requires you understand and have a really firm grasp and personal certainty on the basics that I go over in Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. And then you can start getting fancier in a way. I've been doing all that myself. And so it was very easy to write

because I'm speaking from my own experience and my experience working with people. With girls, I now am starting to do that process and tweaking programs and seeing where should a girl go once she's done, let's say, something like Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for a year or two. What's the next play that is, uh, that it's going to appeal to most women. So, um, I'm, I'm kind of in research phase on that right now. And I plan on starting writing it later in the year. Um, so that's my spiel on the, on the books. That's what makes the first editions or the second editions different than the first editions. And again, if you want to get more information, you can go to muscle for life.com forward slash launch.

And again, if you want to get more information, you can go to muscleforlife.com forward slash launch. All right. So let's move on now to some supplement fun, which is clinically effective dosages. Everybody says now clinically effective dosages of this, that. Everyone is on that bandwagon because the scientific side of fitness is becoming more and more mainstream. So marketers see that and jump on it. So what does it mean though? How do you know? How do you know if companies tell the truth?

So what a clinically effective dosage is, is a dosage of a product that, or not a product, but a molecule substance that has been shown to be effective for whatever in clinical research. been shown to be effective for whatever in clinical research. Um, and there, when, when you're determining, you know, how much of, to, of a molecule to put in a product, this is, this is how, how I go about it. And it's not just me, but I have somebody that works with me that knows a lot more about me, a lot more about all this stuff than me. And, and his, uh, consultation is vital in this whole thing, but you don't just look at one study of something. You have to look at everything, like let's say green tea extract for weight loss purposes, right? So you're going to find varying ranges. If you kind of were to lay out on a chart,

if you were to plot like a scatter plot, all the different dosages used in different studies that showed weight loss benefits, you're going to find that the majority of the benefits, they kind of group into a certain range. You're going to find some outliers where you have some low, low dosages that do something. And then you're going to find some high, high dosages that don't necessarily do a lot more than this middle type of area. And in the case of green tea extract, for instance, it's about four to 600 milligrams a day. That's, you could take more and you might get a little bit more, but once you get over 600 milligrams, it's a point of diminishing returns, essentially, where, you know, you're going to get the vast majority of the weight loss benefits are

going to occur in that range. So if you're taking less, if you're taking a hundred milligrams a day, you will get some benefits, but you're not going to get as many benefits or as much out of it as if sometimes you don't want to go with the highest dosages. It depends on what else is in your product because there are synergisms that you have to take into account. If you were to go very high on one thing, that might actually decrease the efficiency or effectiveness of another product. decrease the efficiency or effectiveness of another product. So what I'm looking for is I'm looking for dosages that when you look at all the studies available, where are the majority of the benefits found in terms of dosage? Beta-alanine, for instance, let's talk about like I have beta-alanine in my pre-workout pulse, which I'll link down below if you want to check it out. And I have beta alanine in my pre-workout pulse, which I'll link down below if you want to check it out. And I have 4.8 grams per serving, about 5 grams of beta alanine per serving. And why that dosage?

Well, in this case, I was fortunate because there was already a meta-analysis that was done, which I linked to on the sales page of Pulse. I think they reviewed about 23 beta alanine studies that were conducted for performance-related benefits. And they basically did my work for me. And they found that the dosage that the range that is going to give you the most of beta alanine's benefits, performance related benefits is going to be, I believe it was, it was like around high threes to, uh, five ish, give or take. And, uh, the, the, what I, what I took from that then is, okay, so I wanted to go, so I have this range here. I can go on the low end and still be able to honestly say that's a clinically effective dosage, but I don't know. It's just the nature of with my products. If I can get more

out of it by adding more, um, and it doesn't explode my costs. I mean, my margins are already way smaller than many other supplement companies because supplement companies, um, I don't know if you may not know this, but the margins are insane. Basically your average pre-workout that you spend $50 on costs maybe $3 to manufacture. I mean, it's like, it's like clothing, uh, you know, and jewelry margin insane. But the, the, this is just a quick little aside. The problem here is that, okay, so, um, you know, let's say I buy a, uh, I don't know, some brand name shirt or whatever. I pay $40 for a t-shirt stupid. I know that that t-shirt probably costs them $2 to make, let's say, or $3 to make. I know

that. Or not just to make, but like $3 in the store, that was the cost to make it and get it there. But I still buy it because I like it. I don't care. I mean, I think it has a cool design or whatever. I think it fits well. It's comfortable. It wouldn't change my perception of it as a consumer knowing that it's been marked up 10 to 15 times. And also it's not sold. It's, it's a t-shirt sitting on a rack. It's not like anyone's telling me this t-shirt is going to change my life and turn me into a, you know, alpha male, super, uh, Superman. It's a shirt. If you like it, if you think it looks good, I think it fits good. Buy it. If you don't, don't. Same thing with jewelry.

My wife's into different jewelry brands and stuff, and she's getting destroyed by some of these companies. But she really likes how it looks, and as long as she stays within her budget of spending, I don't care what she buys. She can waste all the money. I wouldn't buy a piece of that for that much money, but hey, whatever. However, again, she likes it. The brand has a good association to her. There is obviously an artistic creative element that is pretty cool. The stuff is pretty unique. It's very nice. Okay, fine. And again, it's just being sold as it's a necklace. It's a gold necklace. And yes, it's a very overpriced gold necklace, but it looks cool. Right. And yeah, you like it, buy it. And that's it. The problem with supplements is it's not these companies. They'll, they'll make the $3 pre-workout that sells for $50 and it's a shitty pre-workout because you cannot make a good pre-workout for three or $4.

All you can do is like put some creatine in there, put some stimulants, maybe some caffeine, some, you know, him being a couple other stimulants, try to get people all jittered up and a low, low dosages of maybe a couple amino acids and then some other worthless stuff. And that's it. That's all you can do. Um, you know, so companies though, they make that shit pre-workout and then, or shit, anything shit, fat loss product, shit, whatever. They're not telling you, Hey, you know, the product is pretty shitty. The everything's underdosed and there's not that much in here that's really going to do anything. But it looks right. It looks cool, right?

And you like this big drugged up bodybuilder in our ad. He looks pretty cool, right? And he's holding the bottle. You want it, right? No, that's not how they sell it. They sell it like it's going to change your life and like this is going to be it. This is the secret to making gains, the secret sauce or whatever, right? So that's the – unfortunately, that's just kind of the state sauce or whatever, right? So that's the, that's the,

unfortunately that's, uh, that's just kind of the state of the supplement game right now. And, uh, you have companies that they put, you know, tons of money into their marketing and very little money into their manufacturing. And because right now it works, but, um, I don't know how mainstream, you know, I, I, whatever, I, I can't predict the future, but at least there are, I mean, I have, obviously my company is pushing for transparent labels and honest use of science and actually scientifically backed ingredients and actual clinically effective dosages based on good human research, not rat research, not misinterpreted research. In some cases, companies will cite studies for claims when their products that have nothing to do with the product at all, or the, you know, the molecule, like they're going to say this, you know, research shows this molecule does this and this, and you go look at the study they're citing, and it actually has nothing to even do with it. They don't even care. They're just,

you know, put anything there because the majority of people aren't going to check. So, um, but I've seen quite a few other companies kind of try to emulate what I'm doing in some cases, just straight swipe, try to copy me, even copy product formulations and stuff. And, you know, Hey, whatever it's, uh, as long as, as long as it doesn't get to the point where it's like, you know, uh, infringing on the trademark. I'm all for competition. And again, it's kind of cool to see that it's becoming a bit more just mainstream to talk about the scientific side. And at least some of these companies are trying to produce decent products. I mean, I would say they're stretching the clinically effective dosage,

meaning a little bit, but it's not too bad. At least it's not as bad as some other companies. So that's pretty cool. And, uh, you know, who knows maybe in five years from now I'll have helped. Uh, and this was kind of one of my goals. Um, one of my audacious kind of goals would be to help reform the supplement industry a little bit by educating consumers and, and making, cause as, as you as a consumer, I mean ultimately you are driving the demand. If overnight a huge chunk of the consumer base for supplements were educated in the way that you probably are if you followed my work, the supplement companies would be forced to change because you just simply refuse to buy the shit. You just wouldn't buy it anymore. Some company, they would come out with their latest crappy fat loss product, seven proprietary blends, this, that, and whatever. You would see that and you would – let's say the majority of consumers or a large percentage of consumers would see that and not only not buy it but talk shit about it and give the companies shit about it and say, why are you making these proprietary blend products?

Why don't you make real products? We're not falling for your shit anymore, supplement companies. Why don't you make real products? You know, we're not falling for your shit anymore. Supplement companies, even, even though they're, you know, they wouldn't be doing it because they want to do the right thing. They'd be doing it because that'd be the only way to survive. So who knows, maybe things will go in that direction and that would be cool. That'd be great for the industry. Um, well, it wouldn't be great for, it'd be great for you, the consumer and I'm all for it. Um, you know You know, in making supplements, I could have just made shit supplements myself and I could make a lot more money on them. But, you know, that's not

my style. And I just, it's not worth it to me. I'd much rather make really good products that I can really stand behind honestly and make less money on them. And then hopefully, you know, build the brand big enough and sell enough stuff where, you know, it all just kind of works. And that's been the experience so far. So anyways, back to the clinically effective dosages. So that's when you see, you know, something, a company or a product that's claiming clinically effective dosages. Unfortunately, if you want to really know for sure, if they're telling the truth, you have to go look at some research yourself, or you can actually, I mean, I've done a lot of research and I've talked about a lot of the research on all types of molecules on Muscle for Life.

So you can always search for them on my website or email me or social media me or whatever about certain products. Another great resource for this is examine.com. If you want to know about just supplementation in general and you want to get a better understanding of what clinically effective dosages are, go check out whatever it is that you have a question on at examine.com, and you're going to get a ton of great information. I mean it's a really, really good resource. And they're run by good guys that are really working hard to just help. And so if, you know, whenever you see that in a product, you know, if it's a fat loss product and then they say clinically effective dosage of sinephrine, for instance, and it's 10 milligrams, no. A clinically effective dosage of sinephrine is going to be in the range of 30, 40, 50, 60 milligrams. For instance, my fat loss

product, Phoenix, which I'll link down below. Also, if you want to check it out is has 50 milligrams per serving. Sinephrine that's a clinically effective dosage, not 10 milligrams, because if you do even find a study of, you know, Sinephrine that uses 10 milligrams, the effects are not going to be nearly as pronounced as, uh, you know, 50 milligrams, for instance, and at milligrams also, snefren, it's a mild stimulant, but it's that 50 milligrams is not enough to cause any, any side effects or negative effects, at least reliably. And some people, some people don't respond well to a lot of different things. Some people don't respond well to creatine monohydrate.

They just, it upsets their stomach. Um, but obviously the vast majority of people are fine with it. So, um, yeah, that's, that's basically all I want to say on clinically effective dosages is just don't, it's becoming so ubiquitous now. And so it's, it's like, I almost want to just not even use it anymore myself. I just don't know what better way to say it. At least I back up when I say clinically effective dosages and I list my ingredients on, on my website and stuff. I'm, I'm already linking you to the study. So you can go check out and you can go verify for yourself, I have included that ingredient at that dosage. Every ingredient in every product is backed up in that way. And then you furthermore, you can go on examine.com and you can read more up

on each ingredient if you'd like and learn a bit more about them and verify the dosages even further basically. So yeah, that's it on the clinically effective dosages. All right, so I want to get to a question here, something that I get fairly often, and it's about mini-cutting and mini-bulking, I guess is what you could say. So basically guys have asked, mostly guys, usually girls don't ask this, is what do I think about bulking for short periods of time? So a calorie surplus for a couple of weeks, calorie deficit for a couple of weeks. Is that a good idea? And basically, I don't think it's a good idea.

And this is not so much research-based. I can't point to any studies. I don't know of any studies of that type of calorie cycling, but I can speak from experience here in my own body and working with people. And what I've found is that is particularly true in bulking is that you get into a rhythm and it after maybe four or five weeks or so is at least how it is with my body. And a lot of other guys have experienced the same thing where you, your first week or two, you know, you you're, you've increased your calories and you feel it in the gym, but you get into a rhythm when you're bulking, especially if you're in a slight surplus and you're managing your intake well, where you are, your glycogen levels are now in your muscles

are maxed out, they're full and your workouts feel great. And you're able to consistently add reps every week on all your big exercises, which turns into adding weight every couple of weeks. And so you just get into this rhythm of making progress. And if you, and for most guys, it takes a few weeks to get into this and then they can ride it out for months. I mean, guys that the guys that have really done well, you know, they've been able to bulk for four to six months at a time. Some cases, even as much much as eight months if they genetically tend to just – if they don't put on body fat easily and make a ton of gains in that period. Uh, and, and not that much body fat, you know, going from like nine or 10% to 15% or so, but adding a lot of muscle, then they retain when they cut. And then, you know, that's like, that's where you really start going, wow. And a transformation, when you see a guy that

worked a year of doing it right. And if he has decent genetics for it as well, I mean, he can go from like, Oh yeah, whatever. A normal dude to like, damn that dude, that's pretty, he's pretty ripped actually. Um, and, and same thing with girls as well. Um, it's just a, it's, it's a bit slower with girls, girls, no girl is going to naturally build 25 pounds of muscle in an, in one year. It's going to probably be the most like a girl that was genetically predisposed to building muscle. Maybe you would build half that maybe 10 to 15 pounds in a year. Um, and that would also be on the high end. So, uh, I don't recommend the mini cuts, mini bulks, because when you're in that surplus for, let's say two or three weeks, then you flip to a deficit. You just never really get that momentum going. You don't get a chance to really actually build some serious strength and

muscle. And, uh, you know, that's just that I would say if, if you were maybe at a point where you're not trying to build much more muscle and you're just kind of maintain, well then sure you can mess around with stuff like that. I mean, I, I personally don't really like doing that. Um, I would, I would prefer being in a slight calorie surplus on my training days and then a deficit on my rest days, which I talk about in my book beyond bigger than, Leaner, Stronger. That is a much better way to cycle your calories and still be able to push hard in the gym, have good workouts, and not gain really any body fat or very little over time. Because, of course, it's hard to balance your energy intake and output exactly. But you're going to feel good and strong in the gym and your, your body fat percentage is really not going to change. It's going to, you can stay lean over long periods of time. If you need to make

little adjustments, you can, like if you find that you have put on a little bit of fat, despite the surplus deficit, something is off a little bit there and you can go into a deficit for a few more days to undo that and then just get back on track. But that's a much better way to cycle calories. But I don't recommend you cycling calories until you're at that point where like, if you're new to weightlifting and you're relatively lean, if you're around 10% body fat, you really should just be looking to maintain a slight calorie surplus seven days a week. Some people like to drop to maintenance on their rest days, and that's okay, I guess. I mean, remember that though, that on those rest days, your body still is recovering

from previous workouts. So everything you can do to maximize protein synthesis on those rest days is beneficial and a slight calorie surplus does that. But some guys, if they really are trying to gain the least amount of body fat and they're okay maybe giving up a little bit in terms of protein synthesis, in terms of muscle growth, to just stay lean, they can drop your calories to around maintenance. But it's also like you may fall into a slight deficit because, again, it can be hard to really quantify calorie output. it can be hard to really quantify calorie output. Intake is easier to modify, is easier to watch, but output, there are factors that, you know, it's tough to quantify, like the thermic effect of food,

your basal metabolic rate, how much energy your body burns during exercise. If the more muscle you have, more energy it's gonna burn. Genetically, some people burn more, just more energy exercising than others. I'll actually link an article down below where I talk about these things because some of these output problems are what lead people to think that calorie counting doesn't work. Uh, where no, that the body energy balance is energy balance. There's no arguing that that's how the metabolism works now achieving. Well, I wouldn't say achieving energy balance. Cause that would be like a maintenance type of, uh, if you're achieving energy, if you're at a neutral energy

balance, that means that your input is more or less matching your, uh, your intake is more or less at matching your expenditure. Um, but some people have trouble, um, learning their body's sweet spots. You could say for, for instance for instance, like you have that baseline of your total daily energy expenditure. You need to be able to know that with your body pretty accurately if you want to then be able to reliably increase or decrease body fat levels. And some people, they don't get to that point. They just don't realize how many different factors go into, sometimes it's intake, sometimes people just eat a lot more, they don't realize how calorie dense certain foods are, and they think because they're clean foods or healthy foods, they can just eat a

bunch of them, and why am I not losing weight, but that's more of a newbie mistake, a lot of other people, you know, more common is they make the mistake of just overestimating expenditure, they think that they're burning more energy than they actually are. And, you know, for instance, I mean, that could be a simple mistake of a lot of the total TDE calculators out there are just too high. Like some people, I mean, I'll get people email me where they exercise four hours a week and they're not like particularly muscular and they're not, you know, an eo type of body. They're not like a natural high metabolism type of person. And four hours of exercise, 1.5 multiple multiplier for their activity level, meaning

basal metabolic rate, metabolic rate times 1.5, no way. 1.5. I don't even use 1.5 and I'm kind of an ecto meso. I'm somewhere in the middle of there. I'm not like a super ecto type, but I don't gain fat necessarily easily. And so my metabolism has always been maybe on the middle to higher but not super high. And I'm exercising six hours a week. And my TDE multiplier, I use 1.4, is my safe, maybe 1.45, but 1.4 is my normal go at it. So like my, my basal metabolic rate is about 22, 2100. And that, that that's by calculation and also by experience that seems about right. And so my total daily energy expenditure is about 3000. That's what I kind of go with. And that's about right. When I'm bulking, I bumped that up to about 3,300 and I gain weight steadily. And when I'm cutting, I started at about 2,600,

um, 2,500 and I lose weight steadily. So I found my ranges, but that's something you have to do. You can start with a good guess by using, you know, a good, determining your BMR and then using a good multiplier, which I'll link an article down below and that I've, that I've written on meal planning, which if you're listening to this, you can just search for planning on most of life and you'll find it. And I give some multipliers in there and you have that good, so you start at a good place and then you adjust as needed as, you know, as, uh, you see how your body responds. Um, so that's, that's just, that's just part of the game is, is kind of learning your body's, you know, sweet spots. And, uh, when it back to the, to the mini bulk in the, the mini cut, uh, you know, just to, to summarize on that, if you do,

if you are in a, if you you're kind of a position where I'm in where I want to train hard I want to build strength I would like to bring up a couple areas of my body but I'm not trying to just add mass as quickly as possible calorie cycling could make sense for you I enjoy it and I'll do it sometimes and I'll not do it I try different things actually because sometimes you know like I've recently I've been trying where I save a lot of my calories for later in the day. And so I'm eating very big dinners and I don't really want to be in a surplus on a day-to-day basis because, uh, there's only so much food I enjoy eating in one meal essentially. So like I'm eating a lot of my protein and my vegetables earlier in the day. And then I'm having a big dinner where I'm cooking different things,

partially because I'm also working on some cookbook stuff. Um, you know, I'm going to be doing a second edition of the shredded chef. That's what I'm working on now. I'm having a big dinner where I'm cooking different things, partially because I'm also working on some cookbook stuff. I'm going to be doing a second edition of The Shredded Chef. That's what I'm working on now. I'm going to be updating the content completely. I'm going to be revising some of the recipes based on feedback, adding recipes and stuff. So I need calories for that basically. But I found that it doesn't impair performance at all, which is no surprise. I mean, the intermittent fasting group, uh, movement has kind of shown that conclusively that you can eat a few meals a day and get a lot of your calories at whenever you want and be fine. Um, but yeah, if you're, if you are newer or if

you're still trying to build muscle and strength as quickly as possible, I don't recommend calorie cycling. I recommend bulking and cutting, but doing it properly where you can stretch your bulks out over long periods of time by maintaining a slight surplus so you can maximize muscle growth over that time. Stopping when your body fat percentage reached about 15, 16, 17% for guys, 25, 26, 27 for girls, and then cutting back to about 10% for guys or 20% for girls and doing that right. So you maintain your muscle. You don't lose any muscle. You lose very, very little muscle. You just get rid of the fat and then doing it again, doing it again until you're at a point where at about 10% for guys

or 20% for girls, when you feel a bit too big at those percentages, now you're at a good point to go leaner because if you feel too big at 10% or 20%, you're going to look awesome at 7% or, you know, 8% or like 16, 17%. Those are guys and girls. I'm just going back and forth there. I mean, you probably realize that, but just to make sure. So, you know, and then, and then the game becomes when, when you're at that point, which is, I guess, kind of where I'm at, I'm about 8% or so it goes up up and down a little bit depending on, you know, with my food and such. But, and also at this point, water retention makes a big difference. I could, I could go low carb for a few days just to flush out water and look like I've lost a one. I could then look like super shredded. You know what I mean? But then the game

is maintain it because you're going to really like it. I think, I mean, most guys I've worked with guys now over long periods of time where, and girls as well, where they get to that point where they started off normal, whatever. And they went through the bowl cut, bowl cut, they built the size they want. They got really lean and they're just like, I just want to stay here. Like, this is awesome. I understand. And that's where calorie cycling is, is I think more useful. All right. So I know this one ran on for a bit. I hope you enjoyed it. And yeah, check out my books, musclefullife.com forward slash launch. It's the book launch. I think we have about a week left before it shuts down and we give away all the prizes and ship everything out.

So, you know, get in while you can. All right. See you next time.