 Our next caller is Sam from Colorado. Sam, what's happening? How can we help you? Good. How's it going guys? Good, man. So, uh, my question kind of revolves around, uh, transitioning from a cut to more of a strengthening phase. So I've lost like 30 pounds or so in the last six months, almost unintentionally, I've just been so, uh, my work has been so physically demanding that I've lost all that weight, um, switching jobs, moving back home to Michigan and excited to get back into the weight room. I'm thinking about starting, uh, Matt's anabolic and maps prime to start and then maybe moving into, uh, performance. But my question probably revolves more around nutrition. Like how can I, uh, what's a good strategy to start eating more calories, building metabolism back up and, and building strength and building muscle back without sort of putting on some of that body fat that I've worked so hard to, uh, shed. Yeah. Well, Sam, let's get a little more detail. I've seen your question here that you were guiding hunts for six months. What does that look like? Like, what are you doing with that? And then how, well, how soon can we come out there and you do that for us? Yeah. Next fall, man. All right. Let's plan that. So what does that look like guiding hunts? It says for the last six months, what, what, what does a typical hunt look like in terms of, you know, your activity and, yeah, so it depends on clients for me, like September, um, I like bow hunting. So September's bow hunting archery elk season out here. Um, and it's just so active. Like there, there'd be days where we'd be putting on 15 plus miles hiking with the backpack on. Wow. Uh, and so it's like, you, you can't even eat enough to maintain weight at that rate. And so, you know, there's days where you're guiding older clients and stuff and you're not as active, but in general, for the last five or six months, it's just been so much like just putting on miles and burning so many calories that, um, that's, I'm, I didn't even weigh myself for like three months. And then I hopped on a scale and I was like, holy shit, I've lost, you know, 20 pounds or whatever. So, um, but I've just, I've lost so much strength and I'm excited to get back into the weight room. But, um, that's why I added that into my question, just to kind of explain like, uh, what kind of what's happened. You're a fun client to help. Yeah, you're a fun one to do your body. You're okay. So your body just adapted to what you were doing. So you're hunting, you're hiking lots of miles, probably not eating, probably eating foods you could carry with yourself. So it says in your question, meat, eggs, vegetables. So your body adapted, became quite efficient. You probably got really good at hiking and hunting, but now that you stopped, you want to gain a little bit of muscle mass. And really this is just typical, slow, reverse dieting. You got the right routine. So you're doing maps on a ball, which is perfect for this. Maps prime, which is going to be great because that's going to help you avoid injury and just kind of get into your workout really connected. Um, I would slowly increase calories. Take your current caloric intake and bump it up by about three or 400. Start with that. See how you feel. You should notice a bump in strength. You shouldn't gain too much body fat from that. You should start gaining mostly muscle and then continue from there. Um, I might actually keep him right where he's at calorie wise. Cause he's obviously going to drop the 15 miles a day of, of hiking. You probably are already eating a sufficient amount of calories for building muscle right now. You're just moving. You're not going to, obviously you're not going to be moving 15 miles real soon here, right? So even though the, the, the calorie intake is caused you to lose a bunch of weight right now for the amount of activity that you're doing, you're about to dramatically shift that. So actually the first couple of weeks, I would actually say, you know what? Cause I love the, I love the mostly meat, eggs and veggies as far as a great whole food type of a diet. I'd say, well, let's eat very similar to that. And kind of what you were doing, let's see how your body responds to maps, anabolic, and then after about a week or two, you and I would assess and go like, okay, what are, are we building? Are we still losing? Are you maintaining? If you're maintaining or losing, I'm obviously going to bump calories, but you may actually start to kind of put on some, put on some weight and put on good weight cause now you're lifting weights because you're just not moving that many miles anymore. So I might actually kind of keep you similar to what you're doing nutritionally right now because about your balance is nice. Just, and your calorie intake may be actually okay for a guy who's go, it went from 10, 15 miles a day to now none of that and just strength. Now, now just, just another ultra, just to, just to think about your, your, when you stop all that hiking, you start lifting weights. You're in, you're going to, the first few weeks are going to be very anabolic and I'm not just talking about maps, anabolic. I mean the state of building muscle, not too different than what you'll find with competitors post show where their body just absorbs nutrients and builds muscle. So after that week or two, you're adding calories, it'll probably all go to muscle. I think you're probably going to see some really big strength and muscle gains because of the changes that you're doing with your activity. Remember, all that activity, yes, it burns calories over time. Your body adapts to that and your body actually starts to become efficient with calories, but really what's happening is your body pairs muscle down just to make you better at hiking long distances, stalking prey. So it's not necessarily that you're burning tons of calories after a certain period of time really just becomes your body's just kind of get efficient. So you may find that you're just the next couple months is just muscle building time and just you get strong and you feel good and you can fuel that with extra calories on top of the reduction in cal in activity. Yeah, listen to your body. I mean, the main thing I'd have you focus on is making sure you hit your protein intake every day. Like that would be the main, the main thing that we would be tracking at first would be like, okay, based off your, I don't know, I don't think we even covered your weight, right? How much do you weigh, Sam? I'm like 185 now. Okay. So I'd say, okay, the goal, Sam is make sure we hit 180 grams of protein every day. That's the main focus. And then I would tell you to feed according to how you feel. If you feel hungry and you're making sure you're hitting your protein intake, I'd say, oh, I have a few more calories. And they kind of see where that is at based off of how you feel. So long as you're making choices like these whole food choices, I'm not really concerned. I don't think you're going to put on body fat. If you're eating, you know, potatoes and steak and eggs and choices like that, I think you're going to be just fine and list your body. I'm also, I'm also going to have Doug throw you in the forum. So you can kind of give us feedback as you're going through. So, you know, you can tell us, Hey, this is where I decided to start my calories and then give us feedback on what you're noticing. And then we can kind of help you tweak it along the way. I like that you're incorporating prime too, especially because this is going to be a massive transition, you know, in terms of like what type of activity you're doing to then, you know, going into more stationery, you know, this type of resistance training is going to be to put a totally different stress around the joints as well. And then coming back, you know, eventually to doing these guides again, you know, to maintain the joint function health and all that, you're going to now build upon, you know, the strength of that, but then the function of it will remain. Yeah, Sam, what, what are you guys hunting? Just out of curiosity. Mostly elk. We do some mule deer hunts, antelope hunts, but mostly elk. So when you, when you hit, when you get one, do you guys all, do you also take the Pete, your clients and they have to clean, you know, car of the animal, whatever, chop it and then bring it back as well. We do all that. Um, so like the guides will do all the field dressing and then we butcher it and process it ourselves. So do they have to help you carry it back? Uh, no, most of the time it's on a ranch. A few, we own a few different ranches. Uh, it's all fair chase and stuff, but a lot of times we're able to get like a side by side to it. Um, I had to pack my elk out this September, but it wasn't a terrible back out. So. Wow. So you do the, you, you, you carve it up, butcher it, and then you carry it back. They just got to come along. You guys have a place to stay like fun, a place to stay on the property too. Yeah. We have a pretty awesome lodge. It's all inclusive. We got a chef and stuff, bro. Are you kidding me? This is rad. Can we, can we book this for, do you have to book it a year in advance? We'll keep, we'll keep your contact info. Sam, this sounds like a lot of reach back out. Um, it's usually things book up, not quite a full year in advance. So like we have some clients booked next year, but we usually like to, uh, we at least book out like six months or more in advance, but we like to switch it up a little bit and not get the same people every year. So just bump somebody for us. For celebrities. Yeah. We're not fully booked yet. I'm sure just because every year, like, uh, all the clients that are here say, can we book up, you know, right after they kill the elk? This is awesome. Can we book, you know, for next year? Justin's going to want to, he's going to want to take down an elk with a football helmet. I know, I definitely, I'm going to stab it. I've been wanting to do this, but I've been wanting to do it with a guide and somebody knows what they're doing. And you'd be like the perfect person to take. Sounds like, uh, all of us on an adventure like this. So this is. It's like the, I mean, not just saying this cause I worked there, but it's like the place to go for your first elk or your first hunt. You just, you learned so much and all of our guides are, I mean, we probably have a hundred combined years of experience guiding. Awesome. Well, that sounds great, man. And I'm looking forward to hearing about your progress in the forum. But yeah, your, your body is primed to build muscle. Focus on getting strong and feeding that process. Yeah. You're going to, you're going to pack on some muscle if you do this right. So that's, uh, I guess my last, you kind of touched on, but that'd be where you'd start would be prime and anabolic. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. You're, you're right on the money next will be mass performance. So right after maps, anabolic go to mass performance, but I would definitely start with anabolic. Awesome. All right, Sam. Thanks for calling in. All right. Thanks guys. No problem. Yeah. So this is a great example of your body adapting to do better at what you're asking it to do, right? So if you're hunting, you're hiking long distances, you're carrying weight on your body. You're doing lots of kind of this low level, you know, kind of steady state type of activity, maybe with some interrupted with certain bursts of, uh, of activity. But what the body does is it pairs muscle down, makes you very efficient. You also get lean, but it also, it makes you very efficient with calories. When you're done doing all that, what you're going to ask your body to do is to become less efficient with calories, speed up them 1000, get stronger. And you will, you'll build muscle doing it, but great example of what happens to the body. Uh, you know, when you're asking it to do particular things, his body did exactly what it's supposed to. It just got better at hunting. That's why the math doesn't always equate, you know, so this is a good example of that, of like how the body just likes to get as efficient as possible at what you present it. Yeah. And I really, I mean, the reason why I came back with the, I wouldn't move the calories up right now is I just, when you're doing something so dramatically different as far as activity, um, I like to just kind of eat what feels right. And, you know, when you are hungry, make good choices, let's assess where that kind of is. Let's assess how your body is moving to decide how much I want to move you up or down in calories. And obviously we're, we're eventually going to bump calories, but sometimes when somebody, it's just like competing, sometimes when you take somebody who was doing so much cardio, so much weight training in a caloric deficit, just them going back to eating normal, uh, with the reduction of all that activity starts to pile muscle on and speed the metabolism up. So I think a week or two is fair. Yeah. That's, you just, you just need to get a week or two of assessing, uh, how his body is responding to where he's currently at. And then the goal will be to start to slowly increase the calories. 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.