 Do you feel like you're doing all the right stuff but you're still gaining weight? Pay attention to this. Our next caller is Bailey from Minnesota. Hey Bailey how can we help you? Hey guys um so like everybody else since you've been doing these live Q&As I just want to thank you guys um there's actually a huge overlap business-wise between what you guys talk about and the work that I do as a musician um so that's been really cool as I've been ramping up um my my own business and career and all of that so I really appreciate that aspect of things um and then I have a question about body recomp and um hormone levels and and what's a realistic and smart expectation of that um if you guys want me to go into like the background I um I can I don't know how much you guys remember from my original submission yeah well I see it here but we're looking at it right now yeah but I'd like for you to go over it so people can kind of understand what's where your question is coming from. Sure sure sure sure so I um I am in my late 20s and I have been lifting consistently for about five years I started off with CrossFit um and then I realized the error of my ways and I went in more of a powerlifting direction um but when I started CrossFit I um I gained a ton of weight in a relatively short amount of time while cutting my calories and exercising like six times a week um and wait you said you gained a couple a bunch of weight or you lost a bunch of weight? I gained a bunch of weight. So you cut your calories and worked out like crazy and gained weight? Yeah okay um and so I I do have um a little bit of like disordered eating in in my background as well um before I had started working out I had just significantly significantly cut down my my calories and um I am not in that place anymore I've like full transparency like been going to therapy and all of that to address those issues and that's been really helpful um but I had a bunch of doctors um tell me things like my weight gain was because of my my weight lifting and my strength training um and they refuse to test hormones they refuse to test my thyroid all that stuff um so I had to like go through a lot of doctors and I finally found one that was willing to run those tests and it came back that um my testosterone is like through the floor um and my progesterone and estrogen are also on the low side so I'm just wondering moving forward since I am eating to fuel my workouts um and I am higher protein and all of that um I'm just wondering what a realistic expectation as far as that recomp goes okay and how to approach that in a in a smart way okay so let's back up for a second okay just talk about her broken food scale yeah yeah I know for okay so I want to go back to what you said earlier because I want to get this straight here correct when Trent maybe even figure this out yeah you dramatically increased your activity and dramatically cut your calories and gained weight okay so were you tracking calories how did you know that the the calories changed that dramatically how much weight did you gain and was it water low like what what happened here it so I I was tracking my calories when I was like in a really disordered place with my eating and that was as few as like between 900 and 11 calories a day okay and then when I started working out and doing that more consistently um I did get hungrier and I increased those calories to 1400 to 1600 and like despite eating within like a um like a whole 30 parameter so still not super great with with like that food relationship um but despite that I gained like 60 pounds whoa so you gained 60 pounds from going from 900 to 1100 calories to 1500 calories plus resistance training mm-hmm okay and and was this a healthy 60 pounds do you feel or do no okay okay no I think some of it was needed I think some of it is muscle um but like my body comp right now I am like around 35% body fat okay which does not reflect my habits okay and then are you on now you're on hormone therapy or the supplementary hormones to bring things back up yeah mm-hmm what and do you mind if I ask what you're taking is it testosterone progesterone anestrogen or just testosterone it's so my functional medicine practitioner is going through more of a holistic protocol before we go through like the um through like the the injection route and and all of that um so she has me on some more natural supplements and is adjusted and is addressing some um like vitamin deficiencies that I have okay so you're not you're not taking any hormones is what you're saying right now mm-hmm okay are you in there are you in our mind pump hormone hormones group yet no that's free so while we're talking get your ass in there yeah yeah really gets experts on hormones in there okay so what it sounds like your functional medicine practitioner is trying to do is get you healthy mm-hmm yeah and nutrient deficiencies overtraining um you know disorder eating can cause a lot of hormonal issues and weird things to happen in the body um and what might have happened with that weight gain was you starved yourself so much that your body was ready to absorb and suck in and store any additional calorie it probably could when you finally started to feed yourself uh a little bit more so that's probably what happened what okay so your question is about testosterone okay if you if your testosterone levels are up and uh nothing else changes you can expect to gain muscle and burn body fat that's a re comp uh re comp effect that happens from testosterone it's well documented but in the studies where that happens it's supplemental testosterone okay so it's like nothing changes you give someone testosterone either through injection or cream or pellet and then you see muscle gain and fat loss now the reason why I'm trying to be clear with that is because if you raise testosterone naturally many of the effects that you'll see will come from the things that you're doing to raise the testosterone and then the testosterone goes up so the difference between raising testosterone naturally and taking exogenous testosterone is with exogenous testosterone your testosterone is high no matter what with natural testosterone you got to change a lot of things in your lifestyle to make that go up and the things that you change in your lifestyle often result in what you're looking for which is more muscle more strength less body fat and feeling better does this make sense yeah yeah it does I honestly when my hormone levels came back to my my doctor she was kind of surprised that I am as strong as as I am um so I just I don't want to put my body back in in a place where I'm just like beating a dead horse Bailey Bailey besides your functional medicine practitioner are you and you don't have to answer this if you don't feel comfortable are you working with a therapist that specializes in body image issues and disorder eating yep okay that's the best investment I think you can make because uh in order to do what you need to do for your health and of course when you get healthy and this is important for you to understand when you improve your health all the other stuff that you're looking for right the leaner body the more strength looking a particular way or whatever that will follow the health okay so we just did a whole single topic episode we did it'll follow the health so as you get healthier the other stuff starts it trails behind but it starts to show up as the health improves and it takes a little longer than the health markers do but it will follow and the challenge is going to be being able to do what you need to do and wait that yeah patient patient and that's why working with the therapist is by far of all the stuff that you're investing in probably the best investment because uh I I mean there's nothing's going to get in your way like yourself so that's going to be the biggest obstacle for you now as far as your your exercise is concerned yeah what's the training like oh I would be 100 focused on just feeling good and if you need to focus on a goal I would make it strength and not that you can't get disordered with strength you can get very dysfunctional with strength too but it's harder to get stronger while also having your health suffer it usually and not saying it's not possible there's plenty of power lifters and bodybuilders out there that do it but it's it's harder if your strength gains are going up consistently it usually means that your health is better off than it was before it's if your health is declining it's hard to also make strength gains but like I said it's still possible it's just harder so if you have to focus on anything I would focus on strength well let's dive into that a little bit what is your strength training routine look like right now like how many days a week are you training what's the kind of the breakdown look like are you still in the kind of strength focus are you running like a five by five are you following in the maps programs what are we looking like yeah so I like once I left CrossFit I just started doing maps programs so I'm working my way through again right now through uh maps red um I did your power lift program like this summer and competed and like had a bunch of fun with that oh cool um yeah that's great yeah you're on your own point have you done map strong yet uh no not yet oh you'll love that yeah you'll love where you're at right now it's great I'd like to have you an anabolic so anabolic seeing the therapist working with the functional practitioner to try and first naturally balance your hormones out get in the mind pump hormones for them so that you can sit there and pick the brain of Dr. Ran and Dr. Todd they're in there all the time answering questions they're phenomenal um but I sounds like you you're on the right path right now I think you just uh need to be patient be patient yeah and don't try and rush this process and but it sounds like you you're listening to good people you're you're in and you're following the right type of a routine and heading the right direction yeah are you um do you follow a lot of influencers and stuff on on social media absolutely not okay thank you good in fact I would say get off I would say just don't even go on social media at all that's it that's such a no sounds like she's doing a lot of the right things you just need to be patient you're doing good yeah you're on the right track Bailey and I appreciate you calling in and you have access to a lot of our programs are you in our are you in our other private form the one that costs money to have access to no I'm not all right we'll let you in there I would love for you to give us periodic updates um and it's a great place too to get some feedback because I know it's gonna be it's a challenging process okay you won't be alone there's actually plenty of people that are in a similar boat as you at that that are in that form so we'll let you in there okay we appreciate you calling thank you that's awesome thank you guys no problem thank you Bailey boy that's a that's a that's a tough one right um but I think the therapist is gonna be her best bet oh man she's I mean she's doing all the right things yeah you know she really is I mean she sought that help right away so that's you know she's she's doing making steps in the right way yeah you know what this call was for her she just wants validation that's all it is that's everything yeah I think she just wants to make sure am I checking all the boxes and she literally everything we asked she said yes to she's on the right program she's got a therapist she's addressing the functional direction first so trying to naturally bring up all her hormone balance her hormones out um yeah I you know I would not tell her to and the other thing is just to be patient because it just just focus on getting healthy yes step when when you when you uh when you hammer those hormones man that it could take I've seen things flip around I've seen clients uh we change a few things and bam right away their bodies responding to then I've seen other people it takes a long time it does so you just got it you got to be patient and and consistent with the beyond being patient because sometimes when you say be patient I think that people think oh if I'm patient enough then something's gonna happen I'm gonna hit this goal but the truth is it's uh it's just a lifelong journey and you improve you continuously improve along the way keep chipping away but there is no target you know I'm actually gonna hit oh my god I did it I was patient now it happened because I think if if people have that mentality then it's like it could be very very challenging it's so just it's just it's a forever process and once you accept that understand that I think it makes staying on that path a lot easier