 Next question is from a Andrew Reed. Every time I bulk I feel like I inevitably put on too much body fat specifically around my midsection. No matter how slow or clean the bulk is I always see midsection fat appear. What is the best way to combat this or at least keep it to a minimum? Well there's a couple things here. The person's saying no matter how slow or clean. Yeah you gotta read between the lines here. Yeah right so you know if you did it just right you shouldn't put on a lot of body fat at all but you also got to keep this in mind. In a bulk you have a calorie surplus which inevitably is going to increase naturally probably sodium probably carbohydrates which is also going to increase your water retention and a lot of times we notice that in the stomach area more than anywhere else. So first you have to understand that that may be happening but if you're actually taking your body fat test and you test it before the bulk and then you test it say six or ten weeks or whatever later and you increase dramatically in body fat then you're not going as slow as you think you are. You're adding way more calories than you need to and I think that and I know Sal will probably go this direction is that talking about how little of calories you need to actually bulk and build and there's and I think this is perpetuated by the body building community because that's just how they've done it forever and we see them and they're like some of the best physiques out there so we assume that they do it the best and they really don't. I mean this was one of the things that I thought was really interesting when I got into competing is the way that competitors bulk and cut. They just go so extreme and I think many of them don't realize how taxing that is on the body how ridiculous that is with putting on that much body fat than trying to cut the stress that you put on the body the actual muscle that you end up building it's not very manageable you don't see a big difference when you put on 20-30 pounds and then you decide to cut for a show then you end up netting one pound of muscle like that's ridiculous that doesn't even make sense you'd be far better off going really slow so if you're testing your body fat and it's definitely going up then you you're not going as slow as you think you are but if you're going based off how you look and you feel like you're thicker you're fuller and you feel like if you're putting on body fat on your it also may be you're holding more water because you're increasing calories sodium and carbohydrates so when I hear this no matter how slow I go I gain body fat around my midsection like what's going on it sounds to me like you probably didn't track okay you probably didn't know how many calories you're eating before and you didn't know what your macros were before and you didn't know after when you started bulking so what may be a slow bulk to you you may be totally miscalculating because you're not actually tracking so whenever people are like I don't know what's happening my body is just gaining body fat or I don't know what's happening I'm just losing weight and I don't know what's happening you don't know what's happening because you don't know what's happening you got to track and really see what's happening and what you're eating and what you're consuming and how much it is taking for you to gain body fat and then go below that because however slow you think you're bulking it's obviously too much here's the other part of it is if you're not sending a good muscle building signal if your workout is not effective for your body then increasing calories will turn into body fat and not be turned into muscle you still got to have an effective workout that's the other part of it because you know I've done this with other clients where we look at their workouts they'll bump their calories a little bit they're not getting stronger they're not building more muscle and it's the workout your workouts not effective simulate those yeah let's change your workout send the right signal by the way when you send the right signal your body wants to build muscle it literally wants to and so increasing your calories a little bit you'll notice more strength and more muscle and less body fat