 Want to gain muscle and size, but not a lot of body fat watch this our next caller is parth from Massachusetts What's up parth? How can we help you? Hey guys? First of all, I really want to thank you I've been listening to mind pump for the down two years now and Earlier I used to hate doing daily chores like doing the dishes laundry or cooking now I look forward to them since I always have mind pump on tell your wife. You're welcome Are you putting those are you putting those dishes away right in the dishwasher? So I have two questions both kind of unrelated to each other the second question is more topical since we just had Valentine's Day, so so my first question is about training volume Just to give you some background. I used to be overweight in 2019 I read bigger leaner stronger and learned about calorie deficit and then I got down to 10% body fat So since last year, I've been really trying to lean bulk And I have been following the BLS routine since November, but I feel like my volume is inadequate Since I'm gaining around 1.5 to 2 pounds per week. So my calorie intake is on point. I track my sleep I'm a consistent person in general. So my first question is How do you really know if you are doing too few exercises or sets or volume and should I be changing my routine? Well, that's a good question. Well, first off your Mike Matthews is a good friend of ours and he's got good information So if you're following something that he's recommending chances are you doing most things right? Okay, so let's now put that aside for a second Let me ask you a few questions. You said you're getting one and a half to two pounds of body fat a week Are you tracking body fat percentage as well? So I have like an in-body scanner at home, which isn't really accurate But it sort of helps me identify trends and so I know my body fat percentage is going up Okay, like how I mean because here's the thing that from just first glance the the pound to two pounds a week is not Necessarily bad and the fact that we know that you're you're gonna probably put on a little bit of body fat How is it? Is it moving relatively fast compared to where you I mean and what you said was perfect, too You're watching trends, right? So that's what matters most is where you were before you trend on the in-body scan Where were you before you started the bulk and then where are you now? Yeah, so so close to so this is again. These are not accurate numbers since it's the machine So I'm just identifying trends But basically in August 2020 the machine showed that my body fat percentage was around 1011 percent and right now I'm at 19 percent. Okay, and I'm I weigh 195 pounds back then when I was at my leanest I was 157. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, so okay So yeah, I mean the way that I would judge the fat gain muscle gain or the way I would correct that is really with my Chloric intake so I would bring the calories down a little bit. You might be in too much of a caloric surplus now in regards to your workouts Are you getting stronger? Do you are you building good muscle? Do you feel improvements in performance? If the answer to that is yes, then you're doing you're okay now if the answer to that is no Then the other questions I would ask are do you feel excessively sore? fatigued Stiff or inflamed if the answer is yes to that then I'd say you're doing too much volume Not the other way around now if you're not gaining muscle and you're not getting super sore You're not feeling stiffness. You feel really good Then maybe you can increase some volume in your workouts, but it really depends on on those things Let's talk about the calories a little bit. Where were you in the cut and then where were you? What where are you at now calorie wise? So what's yeah, absolutely. So so my TDE is around 2500 My when I when I'm on my lean bulk. I usually eat around 2900 And when I was cutting I was eating around 2200 So those are the numbers and I'm doing around 0.5 to 0.8 Pound protein per pound. So it's around 155 156 grams of protein And I also track my my fat and carbs So it sounds like you got I mean you sound like you're a pretty good But the only difference I'd probably make is when you went from 22, maybe I'd go to like 25 Yeah, just maybe I I just did the math on your body and I hope I'm right here I just did the math on your body fat percentage lean body mass So your lean body mat your body fat. Sorry your total weight was 157 At 10 body fat now you're 190 at 19% body fat. That's correct. Uh, according to the machine Yes, okay. So your lean body mass went from 141 to 153 That's pretty damn good. That's not bad. Yeah, but he also went from 157 to 190 Right, which is why I think that you just a little too much calories But everything else is pretty good like when what sal was alluding to earlier about, you know, if you're getting stronger And we're putting muscle on there's not a problem with the volume of training Your volume of your volume of training is is probably spot on and you're doing just fine You're probably just either one Under estimating how many calories you're actually eating or you just didn't need that much And so I would just instead of doing 28, 29 hundred I'd probably pull back more like 24, 2500 and see how your body responds Well, can you tell me I'm not as familiar with this programming in terms of like rep range and like what we're switching up Phase wise like what what does that look like for you? And have you done like a one to five rep range? Yeah, absolutely. So BLS usually has around four exercises Three of them are compound movements and then the one is usually an isolation So on a typical chest day you have a inclined bench press Normal bench press and then inclined bench press with dumbbells and then probably a rear fly So you usually have Three compounds and one isolation and you're supposed to go you're supposed to do three hard sets for each of these compounds And the rep range is Usually four to seven four to eight. Yeah, you're it's a body part split, right? Yes, so it's uh, yes, it's a four-day routine. I am falling the four-day routine, but it's uh upper lower Core throw month performance or aesthetic. Yeah, I was gonna say now. How often have you switched that up in terms of, you know Like changing all the acute variables Oh, yeah, it's been a while. I haven't switched it up since uh, november last year. Yeah, that would be my recommendation Part let's um, we're gonna map center ballpark part. I'm gonna send you maps in a baller So I love Mike. He's got great programming. I think we're a little better just because We've been trying to provide you new stimulus. Yeah, but no, Mike's Mike's great. Okay, but I'm gonna have you I'm gonna send you maps and here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to maps and a baller Do three foundation. So there's two options. There's two or three foundational workouts a week I want you to do the three foundational workouts a week and then on every other off day I want you to do three trigger sessions a day. So let's switch to that program and you should see Faster muscle growth and a boost in metabolism I think it wouldn't hurt you also to maybe reduce calories a little bit So, you know, maybe not go all the way down to what your cut was at 22 Maybe land somewhere around 25 26 and see how you feel With also switching the stimulus with the new programming those two things. I think we should see Nice, hopefully if we do a really good job You actually don't see the scale move too much You feel like you're getting a little stronger and a little leaner if we hit the if we hit you right Where we want to calorie wise And with the new stimulus we should kind of see that response So the other part I want to do so we can keep up with you because I'm very curious to see how Your body responds when we do this is uh, let's throw you you're not in our private forum. Are you? No, all right. I'm have Doug put you in our private forum So make sure you look for access in the facebook private Mind pump private forum and then I would just love to get some updates from you Just tag anytime you get in the forum and you write anything To make sure that one of us sees it just make sure you tag us And then we'll keep an eye on how the programming and everything's going. Yeah, and that's that's wonderful That's actually a great segue to my next question So so I actually recently moved in with my girlfriend and Before her I used to be super laser focused with my tracking calories Like in the last two to two and a half months and so now that we cook and eat together Tracking has actually gotten much harder. Even though I still track So my question is what are some strategies you would recommend for tracking and staying focused for nutrition? Even when you are sharing food with someone who doesn't really track Well, since you're watching a new girlfriend since you're washing all the dishes doing all the laundry and doing all the chores I was I would ruin everything. Yeah, I would I would say look. I'm doing all the chores You need to weigh and measure my food. So here's what here's what I do with When so Katrina actually used to cook for me and we'd actually eat relatively normal meals for somebody who was prepping for shows So and I only had to do it one one time it does it's a little bit of work the first time But yeah, and I think this is the easy way to do when you like let's say you make like so she makes this quinoa pasta dish I love it reminds me of like lasagna It's got some it's got ground beef or ground turkey we put in it But what I do is the the first time that she preps it I actually calculate everything that's going in it right because I'm not going to eat that whole pan in one sitting But I can figure out the total protein in there the total carbs the total fat in the whole dish And then based off of how many squares I have did I eat a quarter of it? Did I eat half of it did I eat three quarters of it? I can get a more accurate estimation on a on a dish that would be really hard for people to track Where people go wrong is they don't calculate all that up and they just kind of try and guess they try afterwards Yeah, they try afterwards to try and figure it out and that can get really tough to estimate your calories And then once I've done that one time, you know, I don't know how what you guys are like But you know, I tend to rotate through the same 10 dinners or so, you know, I'm saying like and once I've got it written down one time I've got a pretty good estimation on how many calories how much protein which are the two main things that I'm really paying attention to when I'm tracking Does this dish have and how much of that dish what what fraction of that did I eat of that dish because I'm probably going to put the other Half in the refrigerator I can kind of figure out that's my recommendation on trying to do trying to You know eat normal with a girlfriend and have you know prepare meals like that Is it's a little little work at the beginning to track and figure out what the total amount is in the dish? But once I got that down any time I go really like another thing I love to do is like a big chili dish rich That's got all kinds of stuff in it Which would be really hard to figure out if I'm just like spooning it in from this big pot But if I know what the total pot is I have a better guesstimation on what I'm probably consuming. Does that make sense? Absolutely. No, that's that's really helpful Yeah, and so before we end this conversation, I just have one quick message for for your audience So so until seven months ago I used to be the guy who would straight away skip two questions and answers Since I felt that that's where I got most value and boy. I was wrong Soon enough I realized that I have soon enough I realized what I had been missing out on and how much fun and info packed the introductions are So so my advice is don't be that guy It's it's it's like skipping leg day I love that bro. Thank you. Thank you parts. See you in the forum man. Thank you. All right Yeah, that's uh, I mean he was on track. You're just seeing a little too much Yeah, no, you know what now after we heard the second question He's probably underestimating what he's eating. Yeah. Yeah, I mean he's happy. He's probably Yeah, but I mean as far as everything else, I mean, I think he's he's pretty damn close I bet you the only thing is happening is that he he probably increased a little more than he needed and or He was also probably uh, under calculating what Dinner is really the big That's why I use that that's why I use that uh example is what we would do And that's what Katrina and I would do it It would be a little laborious the like what getting it all tracked one time, you know, there's two pounds of meat in here That's right. Yeah a pound of pasta or whatever. Yeah, and it's attention to that one meal Yeah, and then it's easier to estimate Normally, I would eat half of whatever it is. She normally eats about a quarter There's normally, you know another quarter quarter and a half that's left over and I can get an idea of okay What I just could and I just learned something too from this question and that is that we help people do chores So if your partner is not doing enough chores, have him listen to my pump Doing good things Hey, if you enjoyed that clip you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe