 Question is from Lindy Lazer. How to know that you're ready to start a cut? What is the best way to cycle between cutting and bulking? Okay, this is a common question. I think we've done enough episodes now where we've kind of talked about the potential negative effects about cutting your calories too low for too long and how difficult that is to maintain long-term. And so because of that, I tend to get, and I don't know if you guys get questions like this, but I get them relatively often where someone's like, okay, well, how do I know then when it's time to cut? Like when can I reduce my calories to get leaner? This is gonna be different from person to person. I used to like to tell my clients when you're at the point, when you're able to eat a amount of food where you feel very comfortable and you think you would be comfortable even eating less than that long-term, that's the point at which it's probably okay for you to start to cut, or at least it gives you a better chance of hitting a caloric level that you'll be able to maintain long-term. Now, it's not perfect. And the reason why it's not perfect is a lot of people's appetites are not necessarily based off of hunger, but many times based off of other factors. And so they never tend to feel satisfied because what they're trying to satisfy is unsatisfiable. You know, like I eat because I'm stressed, I eat because I'm anxious, I eat because I hate myself or I'm depressed, in which case there is no amount of food typically that'll satisfy you. I've known people to be totally stuffed and uncomfortably stuffed with food but still eat because they feel sad or whatever. So it's not perfect, but if you're otherwise self-aware, I would say get to the point where, for example, if I'm a man and I wanna maintain, I feel like, okay, I think I can maintain realistically, comfortably at 2,400 calories a day, let's just say, then I wanna get my calories as I'm building my metabolism, building my muscle. I wanna get it to where 2,600 calories is kind of what I'm eating. Then I can drop it down to 24, get leaner and kind of maintain that or maybe a little bit lower than that. I like this question because it's hard to answer because like you said, Sal, there's a lot of, there's a lot of exceptions to the rule, there's a lot of variables that come to play, but it's also something that I deal with still on a regular basis. I'm here right now, so that's why it's kind of a cool question right now too. You know, since I've had Maximus six months or six weeks ago, we have a very sedentary job now. We sit on a podcast all the time. We're either in front of a computer, in front of a phone, we're flying a lot, sitting a lot. And then now anybody who's had a child knows that the first six weeks or so is a lot of holding him and laying on the couch pretty much is I watch a lot of fucking TV right now. You're feeling a little fluffy. Yeah, so I am, I am, I'm softer. My body fat percentage is definitely up. I'm training though, right? So I'm lifting weights right now and I'm building a little bit of muscle, so that's good. But what has happened during this time, I've dramatically reduced my chlorocontake. I'm only eating like twice a day. I eat twice a day. I'm probably eating around 3,000 to 3,500 calories or so. And that's maintaining for me. Sometimes it seems like it even puts on body fat for me. And for me, I've been as high as in the 5,000 calorie range before and not putting body fat in. So I know it's like to eat that much and not get fat, which is what I love about having a metabolism that is burning 5,000 calories a day is it gives me a lot of flexibility. It allows me to on Fridays have cheeseburgers with Katrina and feel great from it, not feel like it sets me back a week in my progress. So here I am right now, I wanna lean out. Like so, the guy who wants to be more aesthetic looks at himself in the mirror right now and I go, man, I wish I was a little bit leaner right now. But then I assess my training in my diet and I go, well, fuck, I'm only eating two times a day. And it's 3,000 calories, sometimes even a little less than that. Do I wanna cut myself down to 2,000 calories just to lose a couple pounds of body fat right now? I know I could do that. I could say, hey, Adam, let's try and go for an hour walk every single day and let's cut your calories to 2,000 calories a day and absolutely I'll drop a good three to seven pounds of body fat. Now, why I won't do that right now and why I've decided not to do that right now is I know to Sal's point that once I do that, that's now my new maintenance level is now eventually the body will adapt to that new calorie intake. Let's say it was 2,000. And okay, so I leaned out and I'm feeling a little bit better about myself. Maybe I'm not all the way as lean as I'd like but I'm leaner than what I was two weeks previously. But now my body is used to only eating 2,000 calories and now I have a choice either I need to kick up more cardio and more movement or more intensity in my workouts or reduce my calories even further. Now, this is a rabbit hole that a lot of people get into that sends you into a place that is really tough to maintain once you get to the goal. And so I think it's very crucial when you're trying to decide is it time to cut or not that you take this into consideration. And so because of that, my goal for clients and this wasn't until later on that I really piece this all together and like my goal for myself right now, I don't worry about so I'm a little fluffy right now and I'm gonna be carrying a little bit of body fat. Right now, my goal is to build. I'm gonna just even though my ultimate goal is to lean out and I wanna be leaner, I reframe my- You're going with the flow. Yes. And I'm going to, instead of fighting my body and cutting calories, I'm going to keep my calories where they're at. In fact, I'm actually kind of boosting them a little bit and kind of flirting with closer to the 3,500 calorie range really pushing the volume in my training and strength training right now and trying to build and put some mass on me because I know that for every pound of muscle that I can add to my body, it's going to speed my metabolism up. Now, my goal right now is actually not to move anything on the scale, not really to lose any body fat. It is, can I continue to eat more calories and not get any fatter? And the way I don't get fatter is I end up building muscle instead of putting body fat on because my training is there. And my goal just like it is for clients is to reach a point where I go, fuck it's getting hard to get that many calories. That's always a good sign for me that it's time to go the other direction. If I am having a hard time getting enough calories in the day because my calories are so high, that's a very natural good place to switch and go the other direction. So that's what I'm waiting for. That's the advice that I give to clients is, well, if you're at a place right now where you're just satisfied, I don't normally like to take you and start cutting you from there. I like to try and build your metabolism up to where you look back at me as a client and you go, fuck Adam, you got me eating five times, six times a day and I'm eating freaking 2,800 calories. If I'm a girl, if I'm a guy, I'm eating 4,000 calories. This is hard. I'm like, great, now let's start to cut because then when I ask you to reduce 500 calories, you're in a very comfortable place and now you're in a caloric restriction and the body starts to drip. Right, and one thing you said too is because you're eating a little bit higher calories for your level of activity, you're focusing on building muscle. So what you wanna do is you wanna make these calories work for you. So you're either gonna store the calories as body fat or turn into more calorie burning machinery which helps you more down the road. So if you're thinking about doing a cut, it's a great idea to work up to a cut by building muscle and giving you a better place to start with is basically what we're talking about. This is how I did every, before every show and I used to tell clients that are competitive, right, the same thing, that the real hard work to competing on a stage is not done during your cut for the show. It's done leading into the cut. Did you do a good job of building a roaring metabolism so that when I do decide to kick cardio up, if I do decide to restrict calories, the body responds and you start to drop really fast and we have a long way to go. You have a lot of room to keep doing that every two to three weeks. Totally, now the second part was what's the best way to cycle between cutting and bulking? Okay, so let's just assume everything's healthy, everything looks good. I would say spend more time in the one that is your goal, but spend a little bit of time in the opposite. So let's say your goal is to bulk. I would push calories and workouts and stay consistent for, now a couple of ways you can do this, you could go one day a week, eat lower calories, but the rest of the week eat high calories or you could push it a little longer. Some people have a lot of success going two or three weeks for a bulk and then eating two or three days or four days at maintenance or a slight cut and then reverse that. If you're cutting, you could do the same thing, two or three weeks of consistent cut with four days or five days of maintenance or slight surplus or bulk or do a break it down over the week. Five or six days a week, it's a cut. One day a week, it's maintenance or a bulk. Those, both those options seem to work best and this is from experience. There is a little bit of science that supports what I'm talking about, most of what I'm talking about right now is based off of working with clients and experience, but I found those two cycles to be generally the better ways to approach it. Yeah, I just tell them no cuts, no butts, no coconuts, so it's pretty simple.