Welcome everyone to the Noble Just Bacon podcast.

I am your host, Dr.

Allen.

With me here today is Coach Beth to answer all of your burning health and fitness questions from around the social media world.

Today is a rapid fire episode.

We have a ton of great topics to cover, so let's get rolling.

First on the docket today, when limited on time, when you have a written program, which exercises should you choose?

This person states that she's been choosing the first two or three exercises of what's programmed, but she misses being able to do some of the exercises later in her program.

This is a good question because a lot of times we get caught with issues with time commitments.

We get caught with maybe the equipment that we're trying to use is being taken up and sometimes we just can't get in what we want to get in.

My general recommendation for this type of thing is typically if you have proper programming in place, doing the exercises in order in the way that they're intended is the right choice.

There's a reason that coaches, when they're programming correctly, will typically put exercises earlier in a program versus later in a program.

The earlier exercises tend to be larger compound lifts that tend to hit a larger amount of musculature.

It tends to be more thorough and it tends to be the exercises that you want to progress the best or most readily.

Those later exercises in a program tend to be either isolation lifts or maybe musculature that you are not as focused on progressing.

Now that's not to say that the exercises later in a program aren't important, but when you have something like compound lifts earlier in a program, let's say you're doing a barbell bench press.

Well, you're hitting your pecs, you're hitting your triceps, you're hitting your shoulders.

So those isolation lifts that are later in the program that only hit triceps or only hit shoulders, you're already getting some work in that musculature to begin with.

So those earlier exercises make a lot more sense to keep into the program themselves because they tend to be the biggest bang for your buck.

If as you become a more intermediate or advanced trainee, you find that some of the exercises that you were putting at the end of a program could be advantageous in the beginning, that is a switch that you can make.

Say you're in a position where, OK, same example, I'm having issues growing my triceps, but my chest is working really well.

Smart programming might include shifting some of those tricep exercises earlier in the program itself, but you don't necessarily make these shifts unless you have an exact reason to do it.

So a general recommendation, hit those earlier exercises If you're caught on time and if this is a consistent thing, that's when you start bringing in some of those more advanced training techniques, things like, you know, drop sets, super sets, rest, pause, all of those different things to add density to shorter periods of time when you don't have time available.

Anything you'd like to add to that, Beth?

No, that was perfectly, perfectly.

Covered.

I was about to say I'm kind of a jerk on that one, because that was a little bit of a thorough answer where I didn't leave you anything to say.

Literally everything I would I was going to say you, you covered.

OK, cool.

Well, I hope that helps.

Moving on to the next question, I've had past injuries of my Achilles.

I noticed my glute and hamstrings are affected and I'm not as strong in that leg.

What do you recommend to increase strength on that side?

We have questions about discrepancies quite often.

Discrepancies, meaning maybe one side of a of a body, maybe 1 limb is stronger than the other limb, maybe 1 limb is bigger than another limb.

And it's important to understand that this is a common thing.

You are pretty much expected to have a discrepancy of some kind.

So just the because you have a discrepancy doesn't mean it's something that you need to address.

That's an important thing to, to think about.

You know, if you're within an inch in size between arms or legs, I don't know if I would really go out of my way to try to adjust something like that.

Now in this person's scenario where they have issues because of previous injury, this is certainly one of those times where maybe you do start to look at this and say, OK, well what can I do?

There are a bunch of strategies that you can use to bring up lagging body parts.

You can use the weaker body part as the guide of how many sets you do.

So if your left arm is weaker than your right, you can only do 3 or 4 sets, you know, really well with that left arm, well, cap it off there.

With the right arm, you can add 25% more volume in that weak arm.

You can prioritize that weak arm as the beginning of the set, which is something that I would typically recommending recommend doing in any kind of, you know, unilateral sets, putting the weaker arm first.

I just find mentally and emotionally that works better for me because you can start to get a little bit fatigued as you're moving along and having that weaker one first allows you to hit that a little bit better.

But you can prioritize the weaker limb or the weaker side when you have a discrepancy because of an injury or whatever it is.

The idea there would be giving it a little bit extra volume, using it as the limiter to allow it to catch up with the other musculature, or even putting, you know, a few sets extra in there on that specific side to allow it to catch up by having that higher volume to begin with.

Any recommendations there?

So this person talks about like 1 legged hip thrusts and stuff like that.

And I would just say, you know, if we ever have anything in our program like AB stance, hip throat, like a heavy barbell, B stance, hip thrust, definitely start with that weaker leg and let that be, you know, you'll, you're when you, when it's time to hit your right leg, you're going to feel like you can do more on that right leg.

And that's the point, right?

So if that weaker leg is starting and you're sort of limited by what that like can do overtime, you're going to catch up.

But I also want to know, and this particular person didn't say like how long it's been since their injury, but I also want to manage expectations around time and, and coming back from an injury like like a ruptured Achilles tendon that's going to take you a hot minute to recover from in the sense of a strength imbalance that you might notice.

So if you are like within a year or two of that ruptured Achilles, I would not expect for you to be back to full strength on that side.

When I did my, when I had my ACL reconstruction, I mean, that took years for that right quad to catch back up to the left.

So I also just want to put that out there in terms of managing expectations around a really serious injury like that, like a ruptured Achilles is no joke.

So if you're expecting within a year or two to be like 100%, you shouldn't be.

So manage your expectations with time as well.

Yeah, certainly.

Next question, tips on mindset when traveling and trying to achieve fat loss.

So essentially, you're in a calorie deficit.

You know, this is something that a lot of people find troubling in a way because they're used to tracking.

They're either doing macros or a meal plan of some kind, and then they're essentially off on their own and they feel like they've lost their safety net.

Because the reality is none of us are going to be super neurotic and bring a scale on vacation with us.

I don't.

Yeah, I don't.

Absolutely.

I don't recommend that people do this because it's such a bad habit to maintain.

So what do you do?

Well, you switch to habits and routines to help get you through and to start things off.

The right expectation is you're probably going to hold steady.

Maybe you're going to be up a pound or two, and that's OK.

You know, assuming we're not going on vacation every month, this is a rare thing.

The frequency is just not that high.

Now you can use these strategies that we're about to talk talk about in any situation where you're not weighing, you know, if you have a short weekend away, if you go camping, if you're out eating dinner with friends, you can use habit work to maintain success and allow you to continue to progress really well.

And particularly when fat loss is a goal.

The main idea here would be limiting total calorie intake, keeping protein high and essentially accounting for as many nutrients as we possibly can.

And so the main thing that I would start to look towards when identifying what habits I should use is setting up the way that you choose meals, whether you're tracking or not.

In a similar manner, start with a lean high protein source, move on and fill half the plate with veggies, maybe some fruits, and then add in your starchy carbs and healthy fats.

Last, if we start to prioritize these higher fiber, higher protein, lower calorie density foods, 99% of the challenge is already solved.

And I think that this is the biggest issue that most people have is that when they travel, particularly on a vacation, they want to indulge a little bit.

And that's certainly fine.

That's a good relationship with food.

But before you go off and, you know, in the words that we typically use, eat like an asshole, make sure that you establish some boundaries for yourself.

You know, am I going to moderate heavily my breakfast, my lunch, and then indulge more at dinner Perfectly great choice.

Am I going to have drinks during the day?

Am I not going to have drinks during the day?

How many drinks am I going to have daily?

Because this is a big challenge that people face every time they go on vacation or every time they try to eat ad libitum, you know, going out with friends.

And I'm a big proponent of setting goals for how many alcoholic drinks that you have whenever you're in these situations because it allows you to have some without feeling guilty and then also ends up teaching you that that you know, when you stick to these goals, none of these foods hold specific power over you.

Other strategies we can use?

Staying hydrated, making sure that you're drinking a glass of water at every meal, particularly in between bites.

Set this fork down, allow yourself to enjoy it.

Stay in the moment, be mindful.

The biggest problem that most people have when they get into these situations is that they're just eating mindlessly and not even realizing what they're eating.

And slow down.

You know, if you were able to chew your food, put your fork down, take a drink of water in between every, every time you eat, you're going to feel satiation much more thoroughly rather than shoving food into yourself and, and you know, overeating quickly before you even realize it.

Any additions to that?

Yeah, I have a lot.

So I have a personal rule whenever Alan and I are on vacation or whenever we go out to eat.

And my personal rule is I never want to allow myself to get to a point that I am so full that I am disgusted with myself.

When you cannot control what necessarily is being served to you or what is going to be on your plate, you can always control how much.

So if you have, if you set boundaries for yourself around fullness, around satiety.

So making sure, like Alan said, that you're eating slowly, putting the fork down between every bite, that's actually going to allow you to feel full earlier than if you're just hoovering food into your face.

And if you another big thing that I like to tell clients when they're traveling on vacation, leave 20 to 30% of your meal on your plate.

I know that that's really hard for a lot of people.

A lot of us millennials and Gen.

Xers, we were always taught to clean our plate.

You know, they're starving children in Africa.

That whole mess that our boomer parents put us through.

You do not, you are not obligated to anybody to clean your plate.

Like you're not finishing your food does not result in a starving child in Africa.

So do not feel like you have to clean your plate.

I know people also will say, well, that's money wasted.

It's, it's either money wasted or it's your waistline.

Those are your two choices.

You can also bring food back.

I personally don't recommend that.

But if you're super set on the fact that like you're, you feel like you're wasting money or being wasteful with food, you can put it in a doggy bag and bring it home if you're really strung out over it, or you can give it to a homeless person on the way home.

Every time I mention that people are like, Oh, I would never go out of my way to do that.

And it's like, well, there you go.

Like there's your choice.

So there are options around moderating your, your, your intake.

And I really want for people to understand that you are 100% in control of how much of said food on your plate that you eat.

And aiming to leave 20 to 30% of your meal every single time on your plate and not eating to the point of like feeling overstuffed is going to combat a lot of that vacation weight gain that a lot of people see.

Another thing is when Alan and I travel, like when we came to Maui on our honeymoon, we one of our first stops was the grocery store.

So we bought some protein powder, we bought some string cheese, we bought some deli Turkey meat.

We bought like individual cups of Greek yogurt, hummus with pretzels.

We bought fruit, we bought a couple of other just like little snacks that were protein full.

Yeah, beef drip.

And we brought, I mean, I always bring protein powder every time we travel anywhere and protein powder.

In an extra shaker bottle yeah it's super easy have like you know and you know that you're going to be deficient in protein probably on a vacation so prioritize like bring stuff with you to make sure that that doesn't happen so Alan and I would get up in the morning we would go to the buffet that our hotel had and it's actually really easy to eat healthy or.

Do you guys remember buffets prior to COVID?

I mean, you can get, get eggs, you can get fruit, you can get toast, you can get oatmeal.

And like we used to just fill our plates with like all the fresh fruit that Maui has to offer, you know, cheeses, you know, like lean salmon and that kind of thing.

And so we were, we were very protein forward at our breakfast and we often would have a really light lunch and just sort of nosh on some of the, the protein snacks that we had and then we would go out for dinner.

So to Alan's point, you know, choosing the meals where you really want to indulge and, and choosing those opportunities versus breakfast, lunch and dinner are all just blow out meals.

That's how you manage your intake.

Yeah, don't eat like an asshole.

Never I that is my one rule even even when Alan and I go out to eat here.

My one rule to myself is I won't like I because I hate that feeling of overstuffed and it reminds me a lot of when I was in bodybuilding, like the throes of bodybuilding and that caused some binge eating in me because of the severe restriction that you need to have in order to get stage lean.

I would be super strict on a on a show prep diet and then binge after a show and I just very distinctly remember that feeling of being so full that you literally can't fit another bite of food in your mouth and you just hate yourself.

So my personal rule is I will not ever get to that point of fullness at any meal.

Well, let's put things.

Let's put things in perspective too.

Just because you're on vacation doesn't mean that every meal has to be 3 appetizers, an entree, a drink and dessert.

It doesn't have to be that way.

In fact, if you're eating every meal like that, this is an issue that you have because this is almost like a binge and restrict style eating pattern.

You're eating pattern when you travel should not be dramatically different than when you're at home.

You know, some individual meals might be a little bit different because of, of whatever reason, you know, it's your anniversary day and so maybe you're going to indulge a little bit more.

But I think that when we look at this type of thing, whether this is a vacation or whether this is just eating out with friends, I like to tell my clients specifically figure out what part of that meal you want to indulge in a little bit more and then moderate the rest.

And Beth can verify this after I've said this, because this is this is pretty much how we eat.

And, and whenever we go out to restaurants, I almost indulge a little bit more on the appetizers.

And then my main meal is almost always like a grilled fish and then I don't get dessert.

And so it's it's a personal choice on my part.

And I would recommend that anybody that's going into this type of thing think, OK, health doesn't ever really take a back seat, but the ratio of moderated to indulgent changes depending on the situation.

Be very conscious of the situation that you're in.

And I like to tell people to have a forward-looking viewpoint on this.

Look a month ahead.

What important events do I have coming up?

Label them in rank, most important to least important, The least important events.

Maybe you don't really go off plan from the types of foods that you choose compared to what you eat at home at all.

The most important you're going to go off more.

That allows you to feel better being more nutritious or on plan in those more mundane days, and it allows you to have some grace when you have those days that you're off that you're choosing to indulge a bit more.

The biggest issue that I see people having is they will go to these events organically and they won't have any foresight about what's going on.

And so they'll be at one event and they'll be like, I'm going to blow it all out.

And then another event the next week I'm going to blow it all out.

And then another event the next week I'm going to blow it all out.

And then like in three or four weeks they're like, man, I'm up in wait.

And now I feel bad about myself.

Well, it's because you didn't think about what was coming up.

And when you think about it in this way, in rank levels of importance, you can look at the situations and it can make you say, hey, I'm not restricting myself.

I'm choosing to eat a little bit more nutritious today.

Or hey, I'm not cheating on my meal.

I'm choosing to eat a little bit more indulgent today because of how important this is to me.

Your kids birthday might be really important to you.

Your office party might not be.

You hate those people anyways.

It's fine, just, you know, have your protein shake and fruit before you go.

Be a little bit content.

Have just a little bit of a snack there.

Nibble.

Make it about the experience with people.

Anyways, no matter what you're doing, if you're going out with friends, it should be about the experience with your friends.

Make it sociable.

Focus on that.

It's not necessarily always 100% about the food.

So think about the importance of the event and then think about the meal itself.

What's the most important thing that you want to indulge on in that meal?

If you choose to indulge, moderate the rest.

If you're going to have a decent dessert, maybe don't get liquid calories.

If you're going to have a few drinks, maybe don't get dessert.

You don't have to double up on these things.

And I think that this is where things really creep up on people is they go from these really strict regimented, I'm eating very, very nutritious foods to now I'm choosing everything as indulgent as I possibly can because I feel restricted from choosing indulgent foods at other times.

And it helps to change that mindset from I'm being restricted to, I'm choosing to eat in this way because it supports who I am and what I'm trying to become.

And then I'm choosing to indulge a little bit more.

It's not a cheat because there we go with that, that dichotomy that we're setting up.

I'm choosing to indulge a little bit more.

I'm changing that ratio slightly because it's appropriate for the situation.

And I think that the mindset here really is.

The major beneficial factor for those people that find success long term because they don't feel like, oh, I'm always, always, always fighting to be healthy and then I can finally just be myself and eat like a pig and then I go fight, fight, fight, fight, fight to be healthy and then finally back to myself.

That's kind of how a lot of people view it and that's not how it has to be.

So if you start to look at it as both of these sides are you, they're just the appropriate you and the situation you can be comfortable with moderating more sometimes, indulging more sometimes.

And that's that healthy relationship that we can attain.

All right.

When in a deficit, when do you know it's time for a decrease in calories?

I think this is a really good question.

And I think that this is something that troubles people a lot because based on my experiences with helping people set up their nutrition, I can at least anecdotally say that most people try to change their nutrition up too often.

And most people change up nutrition too often because they have inaccurate expectations about how fast they should be losing weight.

And I think that they get a little bit antsy and a little bit gun shy because they feel like they don't fully know what's going on.

And so they make changes a little bit too quickly.

And unfortunately, what ends up happening is they change, they drop their calories so quickly, they become, they, they are no longer in a, a coherent mode.

They can't stick to that diet.

It's too low.

They start to have issues with, you know, emotional regulation, their energy drops.

They, they have real issues with consistency and adherence.

And so when we look at these types of things and when I'm determining this as a coach, and I'm sure Beth has a way that she likes to determine it, it's, it's a little bit science and a little bit art.

And the reason that I say that is I will never make a change based off of one week.

It's simply too soon.

There's a lot of water flux that can come into play.

I keep in mind what's happening the days before weighing and measurements to see what's going on, you know, and if we've got anything like significant off plan meals, particularly those with sodium are a lot more carbs.

You're going to be up in weight.

So maybe you look at this and you say, oh, well, I've stayed the same weight as I was a week or two ago.

But in reality, you could be down to pounds in body fat and not even realize it because of these shifts in water weight.

So being conscious of the situation surrounding these is really important and then giving it enough time to actually be able to tell some trends.

And I think that if you are significantly consistent and adherent, you probably shouldn't make significant changes any sooner than three or four weeks.

Now, if you put yourself on a dietary plan outside of the first month where you have all this water flux from changing up your nutrition and you're going in the opposite direction at two weeks, maybe you make some adjustments.

But what I would look at is what is happening over longer periods of time, particularly in women with menstrual cycles, where that's going to come into play as far as weight goes.

Look at those trends and then make the adjustments based on that.

And the way that I would make adjustments is I would be shooting for a rate of loss based on my current body composition.

If I'm a very lean person, maybe .25 to .5 lbs per week.

If I'm a a normal body weight person, even a slightly overweight person, maybe a pound a week.

And if I'm an obese person, 2 or 3 lbs is possible in a week.

Although you are going to have periods, particularly when you first start, where you have an accelerated rate of loss and you might have periods where you have less of a rate of loss.

And that's because of some of these water fluxes that come into play.

So looking at rate of loss and then adjusting to stay within that rate of loss and realizing as you become leaner and leaner, you're going to lose less and less weight every week is extremely important.

So we've got a lot of variables that we're watching in these situations.

And when people ask, well, you know, how do I know when to change and how much do I change?

It's damn near impossible to tell you that without seeing the individual person, seeing how consistent and adherent they are, seeing what their step count is like, you know, how active are you?

Is that what should be adjusted?

Looking at both weight and certain measurements like hips, waist, arms, legs, you know, are those changing?

If those are significantly changing, but your weight's not, you may not change calories at all.

And I have had, I've, I've given this example once before on one of our podcasts, but I'm going to bring it up again.

I had one guy who I worked with for four months and he lost 1 LB but he lost a combined it was 16 or 18.

Inches it was.

16 or 18 inches off of his midsection measurements and it only went down 1 LB.

I can't explain why that weight change was like that, but I have the before and after pictures and you can tell that he lost 18 inches off of his midsection measurements.

The only thing that I can think of is this is the first time that he started lifting.

He was really responsive to lifting.

He was probably putting on muscle.

He was probably storing more muscle glycogen with the water that comes with it.

And so adding muscle tissue plus those two things probably was counterbalancing the weight loss.

But I remember at week like 3 or 4, he's like, I don't think that this program is working.

And I'm like, you've lost like 6 inches off of your midsection.

People get really hung up on the scale in that sense and they don't really, they don't see the value in those measurements.

If anything, I love when I see a huge reduction in measurements, but not much scale movement because that means you're keeping muscle.

Like that's literally we want that metabolic, we want to keep that metabolically active tissue.

And to your point, there's, there's so much art around this, like I know people want a definitive answer here of like after X many weeks, we drop by X many calories.

It doesn't really work like that.

And in practice.

I know that I know that apps make it seem like that's the way that it is, but this is the reason that those apps don't work well.

Yeah, and I like, I'll use myself as an example.

I'm in a cut right now and I've been in a cut for about 3 weeks.

I'm down 3 lbs on the scale, which is about right.

Like, you know, 4 lbs three to 4 lbs within the first month is kind of what, what you'd want to be looking at.

I'm not I'm not, I have no plans on touching my calories for probably at least a minimum of another two weeks because my, my measurements, especially my abdominal measurement, which is the one that really kind of shows you that the visceral fat patterning that's dropping really quickly.

So for my own self like this, I'm three weeks in and I'm not, I'm not touching any.

And everybody just wants those results so fast and they want them to come so fast.

But they if you do that, if you go for super rapid fat loss, you are losing all of your metabolically active tissue and you're setting yourself up for a major, major, major rebound on the scale.

Because usually if you have very fast fat loss, that means that your deficit is too steep, you're going to start to lose muscle mass.

And it's just, it's not a good situation.

Yeah, and if you're going to be doing these fast weight loss things, I mean, fast weight loss can happen, but the problem is a lot of times the people that try to chase it aren't doing the things necessary to prevent some of the problems that you're talking about.

I mean, you can do fast weight loss with protein sparing modified fasts.

They're not made for long term.

And that's one of the problems is that like people try these and they're like, Oh my God, it works extremely well.

And then, you know, you should only be running this for like 4 weeks.

You shouldn't be running it for any longer than that because the calories get dropped so low and then on top of it you have to bring protein up so much that you essentially lose all of the comfort foods in your diet to achieve this fast.

Very restrictive.

Yeah, it's super restrictive and you're not willing to do that if you're not willing to eat egg whites in whitefish and shrimp.

I mean that it's a, it's a, it's a bodybuilding contest, prep diet basically.

Yeah, and I've, I've, you know, prepped people for bodybuilding contests and we've had really, really good success.

But those people are are different than everybody that typically asks this question because they're so focused.

And I'm like, you can only use, you know, these condiments because I want it.

We want to move these out because we're getting so close to prep day.

We want to move out some of this error.

And they're like, OK, cool.

And they're eating egg whites with just hot sauce on it and they're fine with it.

Are you willing to do that?

If you are not, then you probably shouldn't be trying to do the strategies that they use because you're not willing to do what's necessary for it to actually work.

And, you know, going back a little bit to what Beth was talking about, I love the idea of using circumference measurements as a better guide than weight because I think that it is.

Now, I, I did bring up watching the, the rate of weight loss that is less relevant the leaner that you become.

It's actually pretty relevant when you're significantly overweight and it's a good way to to to monitor some of those things.

But one of the points that I do want to bring up, because I see people getting super antsy and wanting to change things really quickly a lot of the time is if we see midsection measurements slightly going down and limb measurements going up, sometimes I see people freak out about it.

But I specifically point those out as this can be a good thing.

Particularly things like arms and leg.

You're going to be able to build muscle that will add circumference measurement there.

You're not adding a ton of circumference measurement around your midsection.

So typically seeing that going down over time is a really good thing.

You may see arm and leg measurements never go down.

I.

Really.

Go down.

Yeah.

And, and that I've, I have people that get into to cuts in their arm and leg measurements go up and it's because they're building lean muscle, which is what you want anyways, because that's going to allow you to lose fat more readily in the future.

So having these measurements and being able to understand them is part of that art and then making those adjustments.

And certainly when you are a lighter person, calorie drops are going to be a lot lower.

I mean, smaller women, and this is stereotypical because women are just typically smaller.

The smaller women that I have, I mean, you might only drop 75 or 100 calories at a time.

Yeah, I was gonna say when it is time for me to drop my calories, I'm gonna probably.

Even 50 is not wrong.

50 to 100 is is is sort of what what I'm aiming for.

Yeah.

And I mean people that are are larger, like when I get in with men, I mean it might be 100 to 250 calories at times.

Yeah, and.

That's why I'm like, I'm sorry, I wish there was a better answer for people, but like, there really is a true art form to this from from a coaching perspective.

And the, the longer you have been coaching and the more people that you have touched, the better you get at making those calls.

And I wish that there was a like a, a solid answer that we could give here for like time and specific number of calories, but it's it's impossible to do that.

Well, and then you can't jump the gun when you have not been consistent and adherent, you know, because like a lot of times I'll have a person that'll be OK.

Remember we talked about earlier, this is a good segue.

We talked about earlier where you look at the events that you have coming up and then you you make calls on how much you're going to be indulging in certain days.

You might want to keep a notebook where you said I decided to indulge this week.

And so you don't look like 3 weeks down the line and be like, oh, I haven't lost anything in four weeks.

Therefore I've been doing something wrong.

Well, no, you went up and weighed a little bit because you had your anniversary or whatever it is.

And so it's not, it's not that you've been 100% on plan this entire time.

You had a little bit of variance, but you did that in an understandable way.

But then you need to be conscious of how that's going to affect this process and then not freak out and say, oh, I have to catch up and I've got to overcorrect and and make that happen.

Now Carrie has a question that is very relevant to this.

Is there a specific macro area that you're going to be lowering when she brings up the 50 to 100 calories that we talked about?

Me like me personally, yes I will probably be taking that out of my carbs first.

So here's the thing, as you get leaner and leaner and go deeper into a deficit, protein amounts become more important because they're anti catabolic.

So when you set protein targets you typically do not want to lower that macro at any point during a cut.

If anything, you might raise them.

Yep, I'm not.

I'm not ever planning on touching my protein.

No, and you probably shouldn't.

Now it's funny because when we look at the recommendations from like all the research and all the people talking online, they're like, OK, well, you set your protein to 1.6g per kilogram of body weight and that's that's what a person needs.

That's true in a build or when you're trying to build muscle at maintenance or above or above and you're trying to maximize the return of building muscle.

That's not necessarily true if we're trying to recomp or if we're in a cut.

There are benefits to having higher protein levels, and in fact, we see benefits up to like 1.5g per pound of body weight.

So significantly higher than that number, we see body composition potential benefits.

The leaner that you are, the more muscle that you have, the more experience that you are, there could be benefits to that.

So when people are like, well, where should these calories be coming from?

Well, you might be shifting a few things.

You might be adding some protein in at times you might be taking away.

When we typically look to do these types of things, you want to get down.

Well, there's a lot of personal preference involved in this because you can technically take away from carbs, you can technically take away from fat.

These are the two things that you're going to be focusing on if your fats are at a higher level.

That's probably where I would look first, only because when we look at the research, people that have higher carb intakes compared to higher fat intakes when in a cut, they tend to do a little bit better.

They tend to do better because fruits and veggies are part of that carb intake.

You can get more of those in and that fiber is very satiating and it provides a lot of nutrients.

So as a general rule, it may make sense to take fats down to their minimum 1st and then start taking carbs down.

However, that's not a hard set rule because different people have different preferences and some people would rather lose some carbs first because they can deal with hunger or they just don't have the same kind of hunger cues that somebody else might have and so they prefer to have some more fats.

I myself am like that.

So the general rule that I give, I'm an exception to that rule.

Well, and I'm the, I've been tracking, you know, because I've been tracking my intake over the last several weeks.

I'm averaging roughly about 160 to 165 grams of carbohydrates a day and about 55 to 60 grams of fat per day because I eat a lot of salmon, which is a a fattier cut of fish to, to get my protein.

So for me where I'm at right now, personally, I like my carbs are set to 180 and I'm not even hitting those.

So for me, it makes sense to drop my, my carbohydrates here and keep my fats where they are since that allows me to eat salmon, which I really enjoy.

So that that choice is again, to Alan's point, that's very personal.

So it's going to depend on on the person's eating habits and what they tend to gravitate more for their food choices.

So for me personally, that's why when it comes time to pull the trigger, those are going to get cut from my carbohydrates.

And the physical demands that they have from exercise every week, because if you're doing more endurance type stuff, if you play sports, maybe you want to keep carbs higher, It might be something that's necessary to fuel you.

So there's, it's funny when these questions come up because the answers, it depends.

And people hate that answer.

And I wish that there was a good way to give it.

But the real answer is this is, this is the reason you get a coach, because then you have that conversation with the coach.

They figure out what is best for you, You fit, you try a few things, you figure out what's sustainable and then you move forward from there.

All right, isn't building too much muscle unhealthy as you need so many calories?

I've actually heard this question a couple times before.

The answer is no.

As a natural lifter, you cannot build so much muscle it's unhealthy.

In fact, more muscle's only going to help you if you're on steroids.

There could be issues with some of those things, but there are other issues from the steroids that are probably going to get you long before the muscle mass gets you.

You know, it changes blood lipids, you know, some issues with with tendon and joint health and those types of things.

But having to eat some more calories because you have a little bit more muscle mass.

There is nobody that's listening to this that is like all of a sudden going to blow up and have so much muscle mass that they cannot sustain it by eating food.

It's just not going to happen.

So is it unhealthy in any way?

No, not really.

Should every set be taken to failure when trying to build muscle?

This is actually a timely question as I just made a post covering the research on this on Instagram this past week.

No, in fact most of your sets probably should not be taken towards not be taken to failure for hypertrophy.

If you're trying to maximize lean muscle building, you do want to take sets in proximity to failure outside of the beginner stage.

You want to be about two reps short of failure or or closer to failure.

So like one to two reps short of failure.

And the reason that you would essentially shoot for that is because you get the same benefits according to the research when you equate volume between this and going to failure.

You get the same benefits in the research for hypertrophy, but you have less fatigue and slightly less injury risk.

And so if you're taking every set of failure, you're probably going to burn out a little bit more quickly.

Now, having said that, there's the counter problem that most people don't know what failure is.

And so if we tell you go one to two reps short of failure and you're really 5 or 6 reps short of failure, you may not be progressing really well because the research does show that most people don't know how to gauge failure.

So the way that you can handle this is you can take some guided sets or specific sets to failure to see where you are.

If you choose a specific weight that you think is one or two RIR and test that RIR, meaning reps in reserve or reps away from failure.

So if you are thinking, OK, well I'm going to do 4 sets of 10 reps and I can do 135 and that will put me at one Rep short of failure when I get to 10, take it out.

If you get more than 11, you've chosen a weight that's too light.

It's important to do these tests occasionally because you want to make sure that you're actually giving the effort that's necessary to be able to change.

Because people get this idea that, hey, you know, when I first started lifting, I had no problems progressing because you can be 5-6 reps away from failure and still progress really well as a beginner trainee.

But then as you get more experienced, usually within the first six months of regular training to one year of regular training, all of a sudden it requires more effort to give your body the signal to actually change.

And so I would be conscious of this and this is something that I would shoot for for anybody that's intermediate or intermediate or above.

If you're a beginner, don't worry about this at all.

Just hit your just get in, be consistent and and train whatever way is most fun.

But once you have some experience under your belt and your body's able to handle the challenge, start to push yourself and figure out where things are when in doubt.

Sure, take things to failure.

If you don't know, being closer to failure is probably better than being farther away.

But if you can't start to learn to gauge that over time, where if you're taking things to failure and you're like, OK, I can kind of figure out the weight that I should use to be that one or two reps away.

Go to that.

You're probably going to progress just as well without the built up fatigue.

Now, if strength is the goal, this is interesting too, because counter to what sounds logical, maximal strength development can be farther away from failure and still progress just fine.

Even in intermediate and advanced trainees being 5 reps away from failure, you can gain strength just fine.

You have to be closer to failure to build muscle than to build strength, and this might be why.

Sometimes when you're working out, you might say, man, my strength keeps going up, but I'm not seeing the, the growth, the lean muscle building that I thought that I should.

It might be that you're farther away from failure than you think you are and you're in the strength range, but you're not necessarily in that hypertrophy range.

So all things to keep in mind whenever you're doing this.

Next question, is the whoosh effect a real thing?

Your body finally letting go of water and a calorie deficit where you've been stalled for a while and then seeing a large drop on the scale.

Beth, you can give your experience with this.

I'm going to give a, a little quick idea here.

So the whoosh effect is a real thing in my opinion.

It's not how it's been presented in the past.

I've seen people say that what happens is the adipose tissue, the muscle, the fat cells absorb water and then they finally let it go and they they, you know, displace it and then all of a sudden you weigh a lot less.

That's not happening.

The muscle, the fat cells not pulling in water.

Your body is probably holding water in a way, and it might be due to either changes in nutrition.

Maybe you've started a new a new nutrition protocol and you're getting more fiber than what you had before and your body is getting used to that before letting go of some of that extra water.

Or maybe it's from a novel training stimulus.

Whenever you change up training or if you push yourself extra hard when you're not used to doing that, you get a little bit of built up inflammation that can cause some water retention.

And then as your body gets used to that training stimulus that you put on it, it can start to relax and flush that water out.

Either way, it does appear to be a shift in water balance.

I don't know the exact cause and I don't think that anybody knows the exact cause for this, but those are two of my theories for why it might be happening.

It's either shifts from a change up in nutrition or if you kept nutrition steady, it could be because of a change in training or just difference in the intensity of the training that you're working at.

Any thoughts there, Beth?

No, I mean, I've, I've seen it in practice.

I, I have no idea what causes it, but I've, it definitely does.

It is a real thing.

It is a real thing that happens.

I'm some people anecdotally notice like right before they see that big scale whoosh that like they're peeing constantly, but I haven't seen that be consistent.

I've had some people report that and others not, so I don't think that has anything to do with it either.

But just anecdotally, that some something that some people experience, right, like a day or two before that big whoosh is they're just peeing constantly.

Here's where the water's going.

That's right, it's going into your toilet.

How long is too long to be in a calorie deficit?

Did we answer this one last week?

Yes, OK.

Should you take a break from weightlifting every two weeks for recovery?

So this one kind of ties in with deloading, and people ask about deloading quite a bit.

Deloading being, if you're in a training protocol, how often should you lower the intensity or volume that you're training in to allow your body to recover?

Two weeks is certainly too soon in my opinion.

Your programming is whack if you need a break every two weeks.

Yeah, if you need a break every two weeks, your volume is way too high.

Way too high.

And I see this often with the people that try to run 6 days of training.

I don't know why anyone runs six days of weight training, even IFBB pros don't run that much.

You know?

Like unless you're on steroids, you probably cannot handle that to begin.

With, you're not going to be able to recover from that.

Yeah, I see every, I see every beginner trying to do push pull legs times 2 every week to essentially like catch up to guys that have been lifting for years.

And it's never a productive thing.

So if you're needing to do these deloads every few weeks, you're probably setting up your training wrong.

Now, in our group training, we do it every six weeks.

We have a a little bit of a deload in my in my one-on-one training, I do it every three months.

But the reason that we do it every six weeks in our our group training is because we actually have people do a two weeks of taking sets to failure, essentially an an overreaching phase.

If you're doing an overreaching phase, it's usually smart to have a deload right after that.

Otherwise, if you're not using overreaching phases, what I would consider doing is auto regulating your deloads.

And often times life allows you to auto regulate these things very easily.

Like we have vacations or we have holidays or something like that.

If that falls in place, say, OK, you know, if, if it, if I've been doing this training protocol for a little while, maybe this is the time where I use this as a little bit of a lowering of the intensity that I'm doing, a little bit of lowering of the volume that I'm doing and just enjoying myself on vacation.

It makes it really easy.

Maybe you do go to the gym when you're on vacation.

Maybe you don't, but if you do, maybe you only go in two or three days a week.

You knock it out, you you feel good, you go to the beach, you're done.

I think that that is a really good way to do it.

Otherwise, I would do it whenever I feel extremely rundown.

And if you are feeling rundown for more than a couple weeks, I mean, if it's just one week, you can have a bad week.

You know, your emotions can be bad from something that happened at work.

Maybe you didn't sleep well what that week.

Maybe your menstrual cycle is making you feel really bad one week.

That's no reason to jump ship.

But if it's continuing, you're noticing, you know, nagging aches and pains start to build up.

You're losing motivation to get into the gym.

Emotional regulation is starting to go down.

You dread going to work out and you typically don't dread going to work out.

These are all signs that may be taking a week break is a very beneficial thing and I think that can help a lot with mental and emotional regulation in these times.

So I think that auto regulating this and using events that happen in your life organically to decide when to do this can be a really, really good thing.

And that's what I would recommend for most people who don't have a dedicated training program that has these built in for whatever reason.

All right, is there such a thing as too much protein per meal to where you're just not using it anymore?

No, there isn't.

And this is also something that I covered on Instagram recently.

So if you're interested, you can look that up.

I I did a thing with Stu Phillips, who is one of the world's leading protein researchers, and we discussed all of the research that was out there that looks at this.

And this can be a confusing topic because you can find research that says anywhere between about 20 and 30 grams of protein at one time maximally stimulates muscle protein synthesis.

And so people have misinterpreted this as believing that if muscle protein synthesis is maximized, then going above that shows no benefit.

Now, that's not entirely true because there's more that protein does beyond just muscle protein synthesis.

I mean, it helps build things for immunological function.

It helps with skin repair, it helps with a whole bunch of other immune function and, and you know, vitamin absorption and some other things like that.

So there are benefits to protein above that.

Regardless of these other benefits, we have studies looking at things like 100 grams of protein at one time, and it shows that this protein is not wasted.

It doesn't all go towards muscle protein synthesis, but what does happen is larger bolus doses of protein tend to slow absorption of the protein itself.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

If you take in 100 grams of protein at one time, you still tend to use it.

It just happens over a much longer time span than if you take a lower dose of protein.

So keeping that in mind and understanding that the anabolic effect of a full protein feeding lasts about 5 or 6 hours.

My recommendation for people on how to set up their protein intakes is if I'm in a cut, I would have two or three large meals where I split up my protein across the day, if not slightly more.

If you need to fit in the rest of your protein, you know of of 30 grams of protein or more if I'm in a build 3 or 4 meals instead of two to three of 30 grams of protein or more at each serving.

Any excess that you have trying to hit your protein goals on top of the day, you can get into whatever manner that you would like, whether it's snacks or adding some more to each meal.

But that assures that you have a, a really anabolic nitrogen rich environment to pull from and also allows for micronutrient absorption.

I bring this up because one of the things that I get concerned about is when people do one meal a day, which can certainly work for weight loss because you're barely eating, but you're also lowering the window that you have to actually absorb nutrients.

And so certain micronutrients, you're not going to absorb everything in one window, you know, vitamin D, stuff like that.

It might make sense to have two or three feedings at least during a day.

And that's one of the issues with these extended fast.

So whenever you set these up, I would shoot a good rule for just like everybody is shoot for three meals, 30 grams of protein or so at one time and then distribute the rest.

However, is preference for you?

Is slowing down on the eccentric and pausing a must for muscle growth?

Essentially, does time under tension matter in the way that we talk about it?

Time under tension is this buzzword that has been brought up a lot in in online spaces where they'll say, hey, slow your reps down because that's going to increase the amount of muscle that you build.

When we look at the literature surrounding this, the speed at which the tempo of a of a lift that you lift is not overly important.

Fast tempos and slow tempos all produce equal amounts of lean muscle building.

Whether that's completely slowing your eccentric down to to a bunch of seconds, we're trying to slow down.

You know, the concentric phase is probably not a smart idea, but the eccentric phase is usually what they're talking about, that lowering phase, making that excessively slow.

The problem that comes from this is that if both fast and slow tempos, as long as you control that eccentric at least one second, if they produce the same results, that doesn't mean that one doesn't come with negatives.

If you're very, very distinct at slowing down that eccentric, you know 567 seconds, you're going to be causing a lot more soreness for no extra benefit in lean muscle or strength building.

So when someone says the eccentric is important, it's important to control that lowering phase.

It's true that you should not be dive bombing the Rep.

You should be controlling it at least one second.

But as long as you do control at that one second and one to two is what we typically work at on when we're programming tempo for people.

You're going to be doing all you need to do as far as lean muscle building goes.

And often times we'll say 2 seconds because if we say one, people still go a little bit too fast.

If we say 2, that's a good balance.

Where it's not so long, it's going to cause excess soreness, but it's going to get the person thinking about actually controlling that Rep.

Other reasons you might slow the eccentric sports specific purposes.

You know, you'll see power lifters do this a lot on like bench press to, to really understand their groove or squat to really understand the groove that they get in so that when they get under heavy load, they repeat that pattern over and over and over.

And I actually like programming some AB work and some hamstring work with slightly longer like 3 seconds or 4 seconds.

The reason being, particularly for hamstrings, is that when you have hamstring movements like Romanian deadlift, you know, Nordic curl, some of these other things, people have a tendency to try to take that movement over with their backs or other parts of musculature and pull it out of their hamstrings, the main mover that's supposed to be taking effect.

And so by slowing the movement down, we get people to focus specifically on the musculature that we want them to focus on, and it tends to produce better results that way, even if going a second or two slower might produce equal results.

This is a way for us to make sure people are doing it in the right manner to really give them the most out of the exercise itself.

Any thoughts there?

No, you covered that.

All right.

Should fish oil dosage be spread throughout the day or is all at once OK, similar to other intake of nutrients?

I recommend spreading it out at least in two servings.

And I recommend spreading out at least in two servings because there is the slight chance for a more thorough absorption of the EPA and DHA, the active constituents of the fish oil that we're going for.

And just to cover this so people have the information on hand when you're looking for a fish oil.

B Conscious of the fact that most of the fish oils on the market are improperly dosed.

Most are dosed for total omega-3, and that's not what really matters.

When we look at studies that control for total omega-3, the results are really iffy.

When we look at studies that control for the EPA and DHA amounts, particularly higher EPA amounts, we see much better, much more reproducible results.

So my recommendation for people, when you're looking at fish oil and how to dose it, if you're not eating fatty fish meals a couple times per week, which would negate the real need for a fish oil, I would shoot for 2 to 5 grams of EPA plus DHA daily at a one to one ratio or higher of EPA to DHA.

If you're doing that, you're going to be covering yourself for the benefits that these provide without wasting your money on something that's essentially just extra fat in your diet for none of the benefits you're going for.

All right, that covers us for today.

Thank you for spending the time to listen to us at Noble Just Bacon.

If you have any questions, reach out to us on Instagram, YouTube, our Facebook group in Mighty Networks, and we will cover it in the coming weeks.

Thanks so much for spending time with us.

We'll see you later, guys.