Empowering Women: The Benefits of Building Muscle with Brandon DaCruz

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This week on the podcast Mikki speaks to returning guest Brandon DaCruz about muscle mass and women, specifically why females should consider spending some time building muscle and chasing strong, rather than always trying to get smaller. They discuss the primary benefits of muscle, why it aids in building a more resilient metabolism, how the diet should be adjusted to support muscle mass building, how hormones affect this and much more. 

Brandon DaCruz at his website https://www.brandondacruzfit.com/, and on Instagram @brandondacruz_

Chasing Clarity https://podcasts.apple.com/dk/podcast/chasing-clarity-health-fitness-podcast/id1619611966 

Brandon DaCruz is an online nutrition and physique coach and sports nutritionist. He’s also a National Level NPC physique competitor and an internationally published fitness model who’s written articles and filmed educational content for publications like Men’s Fitness Magazine and Bodybuilding.com. 

Brandon has spent over 12 years  working within the sports nutrition and fitness industries and has coached every type of client including Olympia Level professional men’s physique competitors, college athletes, MMA fighters, CrossFit competitors, and lifestyle clients. 

He believes in blending what’s been proven in the research with his own anecdotal and first hand "in the trenches'' experience to improve body composition, optimise performance and enhance health in order to help his clients achieve their goals whether that be building muscle, losing body fat, increasing performance and/or optimising health and longevity. This is what he refers to as his health-centric coaching model as he believes that improving one's health is the cornerstone to optimising their physical goals. 

Brandon on Mikkipedia https://podcast.mikkiwilliden.com/226

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Creators & Guests

Host

Mikki Williden

What is Mikkipedia?

Mikkipedia is an exploration in all things health, well being, fitness, food and nutrition. I sit down with scientists, doctors, professors, practitioners and people who have a wealth of experience and have a conversation that takes a deep dive into their area of expertise. I love translating science into a language that people understand, so while some of the conversations will be pretty in-depth, you will come away with some practical tips that can be instigated into your everyday life. I hope you enjoy the show!

Transcript generated using AI transcription, errors may occur. Contact Mikki for clarification

00:00
Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mikkipedia and this week on the podcast, I speak to returning guest Brandon DaCruz about why females should consider spending some time building muscle and chasing strong rather than always trying to get smaller. We discuss the primary benefits of muscle.

00:25
why it aids in building a more resilient metabolism, which is something we all should be focusing on, how the diet should be adjusted to support muscle mass building, hormones affect this process, and so much more. Because as you know, Brandon is like a walking encyclopedia of knowledge. He is awesome with what he knows in the general health space, but also of course, his area of expertise, building a physique and keeping it.

00:55
You guys have undoubtedly listened to my earlier podcast with Brandon and I've linked that in the show notes. It was podcast number 226 where we talked more about fat loss and physique. So this is a different focus and it's one that Brandon is super passionate about and if you follow him on social media you will understand and see this on the daily. For those of you unfamiliar with Brandon absolutely check out that earlier podcast.

01:23
He is an online nutrition and physique coach and sports nutritionist. He is also a national level MPC physique competitor or has been and an internationally published fitness model who's written articles and filmed educational content for publications like Men's Fitness Magazine and Bodybuilding.com. Brandon has spent over 12 years working within sports nutrition and fitness industries and has coached every type of client including Olympia level professional men's physique competitors.

01:52
college athletes, MMA fighters, crossfit competitors, and lifestyle clients. He believes in blending what has been proven in the research with his own anecdotal and firsthand in the trenches experience to improve body composition, optimize performance, and enhance health in order to help his clients achieve their goals, whether that be building muscle, which is what we're discussing today, losing body fat, increasing performance, and or optimizing health and longevity.

02:21
This is what he refers to as his health-centric coaching model, as he believes that improving one's health is the cornerstone to optimizing their physical goals, and I couldn't agree more. I have links to where you can find Brandon at his website, on Instagram, and in his own podcast, Chasing Clarity, which is again a wealth of information. And as I said, I've linked to his previous podcast on Makipedia in the show notes.

02:47
Just before we crack on into the interview though, I would like to remind you that the best way to support this podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform. That increases the visibility of Micropedia in amongst literally thousands of other podcasts that are out there on the interwebs. All right team, please enjoy this conversation.

03:12
phases or even just training sessions that are really for progression. So and then there's those other times like I've done many contest perhaps over the years, I've competed 15 times over the years and done many photo shoots and like a lot of those sessions when you're depleted and you have very little reserves, like you don't want to be there, but you know that it's adding up to that end goal. And so with that in mind, those training sessions are like a means to an end, but you're essentially, I kind of look at it as like making a daily deposit into that progression bank. So every single day.

03:42
I get closer and closer to that goal, whether it be that stage or it be to getting ready for that photo shoot and they all add up. So it's like this compounding effect of consistency where even if you're not motivated to get your ass out the door or to get into the gym, as soon as you're already on your run or you're in the gym, in my case, I'm doing a warmup. As soon as I get a couple of working sets into that workout, like I'm ready to go. Like I'm motivated to be there. I'm happy to be there. I really took the commute to get out there and it's like, I'm not turning back at this point. I'm not going to stop my workout. I'm going to keep pushing through.

04:11
And I'm sure you can relate to this. Like sometimes those sessions where you didn't anticipate them being great, they end up like surprising you. And sometimes you get a personal record or a personal best and it surprises you and just kind of shows you that we always have one more. We always have reserves left in a tank, whether we initially feel that way or not. No, I agree. And in fact, part of it as well as you build your mental tenacity. So you're like, I really don't want to be out here. I do not want to be moving fast. My body is not playing the game. But, but then at the end of it, you're like,

04:41
Well, with all of those things in my brain, I was still able to go out and sort of achieve what I wanted to. And unless, of course, you get injured during that run, you're just never going to regret it. Absolutely. I can definitely say that. I have so many times that I've conversations with clients and they ask me about motivation. And motivation is honestly not something that I ever want anyone. I don't use it myself, nor do I want my clients to rely on that. I want them to develop habits and patterns.

05:08
that they can lean on and rely on even when times are tough because those consistent habits and behaviors that you ingrain within yourself and within your lifestyle are what are going to be the most substantial anchors to keep you into the routine, keep you into the pattern that you need to drive yourself forward. Whereas motivation and ebbs and flows, we know that and a lot of times motivation is great to get someone started, but it isn't enough to keep you going. And that's why we have such whether we look at diet recidivism rates or even look at

05:36
For instance, I have a lot of friends that are gym owners. And even just in conversations with them, we see a massive dropout rate, especially in the States, after January 1st, where a lot of people have New Year's resolutions. And so they sign up for a gym and they get a discount. And then we see, especially in terms of their actual check-ins, that it starts steadily going down. It's so funny, my co-host, Jeff Black, he owns a gym himself. And so we often have this conversation about like...

06:01
New Year's resolutioners that are motivated to get in the door. Like they really want to change their life and I commend them for doing so. Like I used to be someone that I wasn't, I guess, a proponent or a fan of New Year's resolutions. And I'm at the point in my career where I'm like, if you have any reason to change and transform your life, I'm with it. Let's get it going. It could be a class. It could be a group fitness instruction. I don't care what it is. Get your body moving and just make that first step towards making yourself better. However,

06:28
A lot of times when people only do that for especially external or extrinsic motivation, they don't have an internal driver and they don't know their why behind doing something, that doesn't allow them to actually stay in the process and really facilitate both growth and a transformation. Now, I agree with you and I think it's a really good point about the what is their why and I talked to people about this a lot. Like, obviously, I have a lot of people come through my fat loss program and their primary thing is I want to drop some kilos, you know, like I want to release some weight.

06:57
want to get rid of it. But that in itself for a lot of people isn't enough. It's enough for the first couple of weeks, but as the novelty of any sort of plan wears off, this is why we have a journal with the fact, you know, you've got a workbook, and we've got a journal for them to reflect on their process and sort of try and tease out what their ultimate sort of goal is. But I think people struggle, Brandon, with really knowing their why or having it sort of, having that real deep set.

07:27
reason to begin with. It's almost something that happens along the journey for a lot of people. I don't know what your experience is. Yeah. So I'm going to be honest with you. I'm at the point in my career where I make sure that I have a deep conversation with any client that I take on. I'm kind of fortunate in the fact that I have usually a wait list. And so I can't work with everyone that contacts me. And I find that to be a blessing, but it also allows me to be more selective. And when I say that, I don't mean that by any arrogance of a manner like I'm only picking people with great genetics or whatever it may be. I need to really connect with someone's

07:57
I'm very, I only do one-on-one coaching. There is no group. Everything is very customized. I do a lot of one-on-one calls. And so it's very individualized to that person. And so if I'm going to invest my time, it's a reciprocal thing. So this is a mutual investment. I'm going to invest my all into them and I want them to invest into this process. And so one requirement, so I have a pretty lengthy intake form, but one requirement is I want to know their whys. I want to know their values. I want to know their goals. And I want...

08:24
these to serve as anchors. I want them to, you know, essentially put that out into the universe and tell me so that I can keep them accountable. So a lot of times it needs to go beyond the extrinsic. Why? Like I love the fact that, you know, I'm a body composition coach, so I'm not going to sit here and tell you that when people come to me and they want to transform their physique and get leaner and build muscle, I'm all for that. However, I also want them to have some type of internal driver. So that could be if someone is suffering from poor metabolic health, we want to improve their lab work.

08:53
I'm sustained a longer, you know, more fruitful life. I want them to feel better, function better. Or a big thing is I work with a lot of parents. So it's they want to be there for their kids. They want to be not only a good example, but also someone that could be an active participant in their children's lives. So I work with a lot of parents between the ages of, say, 30 and 50, and they have younger kids. And so this is a driving force where we can always fall upon that, you know, back on that. And we can on our calls, I can give them a little reminder. And it's not like a kick in the ass like, hey, listen, do this for your kids. It's more like

09:23
Listen, I understand that right now you're frustrated. You've had a week where you haven't seen the scale go down or you've had a week where you've had a lot of external stressors come into your life. It's made the process seem more difficult. But keep in mind that this is a temporary situation and what you're working towards is so much more valuable to not only yourself like the improvements you're going to make from a physical perspective, but also the ripple effect that you're going to have on everyone around you. You're going to improve the way you feel, the way you function, the way you look. You're going to have better confidence in yourself. But you're also going to be a role model

09:52
you know to your children, to your family and to those around you. So there's so many multifaceted benefits of investing into this process, improving your body composition and especially from like a muscle building perspective because that's where we really transition from those that come to us that have a long history of dieting where they've always looked at things from this dieting mindset where it's a mindset of restriction and subtraction rather than a mindset of abundance and addition and transitioning them into that goal of building muscle.

10:21
is so fruitful, not only from a body composition perspective and how it can transform their physique, the way they feel, the way they function, the way they perform in the gym, but it can also really have so many downstream benefits to their health, to physical and mental health, and then also just how they look at their physique pursuits and their body composition journey going forward. So it's, I find that a lot of times when I focus on the muscle growth aspect of things, especially with women.

10:46
it's transformative from them, not only from a physique perspective, but also from like a mindset perspective where they realize they don't have to be caught in this dieting hamster wheel like all the time like they have previously. And there's other goals that we could focus on that we could pursue and that we can really go after that don't include restricting themselves. Yeah. And of course, this is what we're talking about today is about the importance of muscle building for women and sort of stepping away from that restriction mindset.

11:14
Brandon, I mean, I guess I think the thing is with you as well, because you do have a weightless and you are a coach that has the ability to work selectively with people. I feel like many people coming to you will already know that this is sort of part of the journey for them. But if you're working with someone when they're not quite as familiar with you or that this is actually, you know, an important part of the process, like what kind of buy in do you get? Like how are people resisting the idea of the.

11:43
build before the cut because of course they're coming to you for body composition improvements and obviously building muscle is all part of this but building muscle does require sort of letting go of being a smaller version of themselves which it's competing in their mind they know it intellectually but it's hard to move beyond that sort of emotional I just want to be smaller. No absolutely you hit the nail on the head there are so many conversations that I have in it.

12:13
really try to focus a lot on education, because I believe that, and I've seen this in my own practice, that I can empower others through education. So when someone understands the benefits of doing something, such as going into a muscle building phase and stepping away from the dieting hamster wheel or from the chronic, consistent yo-yo dieting that they've been on, they're much more likely to buy into the process and then also stick with it, because oftentimes we are looking for instant gratification. A lot of people suffer from delayed discounting, which means that they value

12:42
their present self more than their future self. So they're thinking about short-term goals. So for instance, right now in the States, we're at the end of May and it's coming up to the summer. So there's so many people that reach out to me for inquiries for fat loss. And fat loss is a great goal. I'm very supportive of any goal that someone wants to go to. But just because you have the goal of fat loss doesn't mean that you're physiologically or psychologically ready for fat loss. And oftentimes I also within say my intake, as well as

13:11
onboarding conversations that I have with clients, they have specific physiques that they're looking to achieve. And oftentimes, especially with women, I find that a lot of them have a physique in mind, whether that be a picture that they send me or even a previous physique that they've attained, say in their 20s or 30s, and now they're in their late 30s or 40s or 50s. And they don't realize or they don't truly realize and acknowledge the fact that the physique that they're looking to achieve has more muscle on it than they have currently.

13:37
And what we have to realize, and this is something that I educate many of my clients about, is you're not going to calorie deficit your way into a lean muscular physique. You have to put in the time and be committed to the process and be patient to build muscle and to reap the benefits that muscle will be able to provide you with. Because that loss is great from a cosmetic perspective, and there are a lot of metabolic benefits, but there are also a lot of physiological drawbacks, such as the diet-induced metabolic adaptations that many suffer from.

14:07
especially with women in that population, is that they've went through dieting cycle after dieting cycle after dieting cycle. So a lot of times they come to me and they're in this down regulated state. I'm looking at labs and they have low thyroid hormone. They have a hunger regulation issues where they can't appropriately match their energy intake to their appetite because they've been so used to over restricting themselves. And now it's actually had negative ramifications to their body composition because they've gotten lean in the past, but then they've rebound. So they've suffered from that body fat overshooting effect.

14:36
And the one thing that they're really missing is having a committed period of time focused on building muscle. Like they've done the dieting cycles and then they've done the rebound cycles and they've never had either time at maintenance where they've really learned to live at maintenance nor have they had a time where they just focused on, let me build a good amount of lean mass, lean muscle tissue and really push myself from a performance perspective to see what my body can do rather than what my body just looks like in a bathing suit or what my body weighs on the scale.

15:05
And I imagine as well for some people, it would almost be a relief. You know, like they're like, they're like, Oh, my best body composition in their mind. They're like, I'm going to then have to go into this dieting cycle, reduce calories, potentially miss out on, you know, I don't know, some amazing, you know, cookout meals or whatever. But to come to you and you're like, actually. Hold up, we're going to work on a building phase, which of course, we're going to talk through what that actually looks like. But.

15:33
it's not that sort of deprivation mindset. So they can get their head around potentially having to build as opposed to cut initially, to get past that mindset hump. It might actually be a relief for a lot of people to know that that's actually the journey for them rather than the, okay, constantly restrict, constantly restrict. No, absolutely. I think that a lot of times nothing changes unless you're willing to change. And I think for a lot of individuals,

16:01
And I find this with my coaching the first few weeks, it's often resistance, like they're resistant to change. And then as they see the process go along and they feel the benefits, both from a physical perspective, they feel the increase in energy availability, the better energy levels, both in the gym where they're increasing their performance and improving their performance. They're feeling good in the gym, but they're also, they're feeling great out of the gym. So now their biofeedback's improving, their sleep's improving.

16:25
they're feeling so much more benefits. And also from a psychological perspective, they don't have this dietary fatigue, which is like that accumulation of just feeling like you're restricted. So I really often speak to clients about, you know, I want you to transition. We really want to work on this mindset. And I want to transition you from this mindset of always having to restrict and subtract calories to a mindset of abundance and addition and thinking about all the things that you can now do within this building phase that you have flexibility for. So that could be increased calories intake that could be adding protein

16:55
you know, fibrous fruits and vegetables, like things that you were restricting yourself of previously because of whatever diet that you were on and whatever very limited calorie budget. And instead of always thinking about, you know, if I don't hit this very small calorie budget, I'm going to be over and I'm going to be gaining weight. Let's really look at this as a period of time to take a step back, really focus on driving your body composition progress forward, fueling yourself sufficiently and really putting those calories to work and really getting the most like the bang, biggest bang for your buck out of what you're doing.

17:23
and improve your body composition in the process. Yeah, nice one. And, you know, I've seen in the literature, a lot of people talk about or in the literature and on social media, people say that it's impossible to recomp your body unless you're in a surplus. Although I would say, Brandon, I like anecdotally speaking, I don't always see that that's the case.

17:47
So what are your thoughts, sort of practically speaking, with the people you work with? Is it always necessary to be in a calorie surplus to get a body recomposition? Or, yeah, what are your thoughts? Yeah, so if we're talking about body recomposition, as in the process of building muscle and burning body fat, that would actually be best attained through a slight deficit. So if we look in the literature, there is a great review on body recomposition, and it's actually in trained individuals, and it's by Barakat and colleagues. I believe it's a 2020 study.

18:15
And what they found was a slight deficit, high protein intake, sufficient, you know, very progressive resistance training and adequate sleep was the best method to actually building muscle and burning fat. Now the other aspect that if we look into like hypertrophy training and we look at muscle growth, a lot of people think that you need to be in a surplus to build muscle. So you know, we're going to get away from body recomposition, which is a simultaneous process of building muscle and losing body fat. And then if we go purely to

18:43
muscle growth. When we look at it from a nutritional perspective, there are, I guess, some fallacies where people think that you have to be in the surplus and you really have to eat to grow or push food to grow. And that's generally not what I see personally, nor what we even see in the literature. So really, when it comes down to nutrition for muscle growth, there are multiple factors that we need to dial in. And so from the first and foremost, the first thing we need to look at is someone's energy intake. And that could, muscle growth can be substantially attained in

19:13
or multiple states of energy balance. So you can technically build muscle in a deficit. So that is essentially body recomposition. But the first thing we really got to dial in is your total energy intake. Because we have to realize that despite the fact that you can technically gain muscle in a deficit, you're not going to diet your way to a more muscular physique. So there are those certain use cases where someone has excessive adiposity. So they have excess body fat where they can.

19:42
you know, utilize their stored body fat to liberate and burn and utilize to fuel the muscle building process. But if you want to maximize your rate of muscle growth, you want to at least be eating at maintenance calories. And we want to do this for a prolonged period of time. But if you are someone so if we're talking about maximizing muscle growth and you have a good amount of lean tissue that you're looking to build or that you still can build based on your level of training advancement, you're better off eating a little bit above maintenance and in a slight surplus. And we got to really look at this from an energy

20:12
energetic perspective. So, you know, to build something as energy costly as muscle tissue, you either need to have, you know, a lot of endogenous energy in the form of extra body fat on your frame, or you need to be taking enough exogenous energy through your diet. So you need to be sufficiently fueling yourself, meaning essentially, we don't need to look at this as this dichotomous thing, like you need to be in a surplus. But what I really would suggest is that you stay away from being in a deficit and you need at least that maintenance. So a lot of times with

20:41
they're not willing to go into a surplus, especially initially. And so I, you know, reinforce the fact that we can build muscle at maintenance and if they want to maximize muscle growth, we will titrate that up over time and put them into a very slight surplus. And I think this is really important for women out there to realize, because there's a lot of women that come to me and I'll give you a specific use case, Mickey, which I think you will be able to relate to in terms of like some of the females that you work with where I have a lot of women that come to me that want to grow their glutes.

21:07
And now first and foremost, from an anatomical perspective, we have to realize that your glutes are a large body part, which has that on them. So if you think you're going to like stay in a deficit and you're going to get a set of rounder fuller glutes, you're sending yourself to be disappointed and to spin your wheel. So we need to be feeling for the work required and for the goals that you have. However, at the same time, there are a lot of people that are opposed to building phases and to the goal of muscle growth because they think that they have to eat in this massive surplus and they fear fat gain. And I understand that completely.

21:37
very compassionate individual and I try to really put myself, I seek first understand before, you know, I want to be understood. So essentially, I'm trying to put myself in other people's positions. And even if you were to go into surplus, the surplus that is utilized or is beneficial for muscle growth isn't as big as most people think. Now, we have to keep in mind that building muscle is an energy expensive process, but the actual amount of calories it takes to build a pound of

22:07
I always allude to this. I've done many presentations on this is by Slater and colleagues and Eric Helms, one of the authors on this and it's an immensely great paper if you guys go into it. And so if you look at it from an energetic perspective, a pound of lean mass only has a net metabolizable energy content of around 825 calories. So this means that if you have your training dialed in, you're eating sufficient protein and you're even in just a slight surplus, you can maximize muscle gain as compared to doing what most do, which is to under eat and stay in deficit and limit muscle gain or

22:36
they go in the exact opposite direction and they eat in too large of a surplus and gain excess fat in this process. And just to elucidate a little bit further how we can gain muscle even when not eating a ton of calories, there's actually a paper by Dr. Eric Helms that just released at the end of 2023. And I had him on my podcast to discuss this and it's a great paper because essentially what they looked at were the differences in muscle growth and skin fold thickness, which is essentially a proxy for body fat. And they compared eating at maintenance. So they had

23:04
three groups, they had a group eating at their maintenance calorie intake. They had a group eating at a 5% surplus. So a very tiny surplus. So think about it. If you are someone that has a 2000 calorie maintenance, calorie intake, that would be a 2100 calories. So a hundred calorie surplus, very small and negligible at that. And then they also had a 15% surplus and they found that all three groups, when training on the same program, gained about the same amount of muscle. However, those in the larger surplus group gained significantly more fat mass. So even if you just.

23:31
Your goal is to maximize muscle growth while also limiting fat gain. Just staying between, say, 100% or 105% of your maintenance calorie intake is going to be a sufficient amount to help you gain lean mass without adding excess fat mass. So really, when it comes down to it, you just need a little bit over. And you just want to kind of avoid being in deficit because we see that being in a deficit decreases rates of muscle protein synthesis. So, you know, there's there's many studies have looked at this. Aretha has looked at this. Murphy has looked at this. There's so many researchers that have looked at this in detail. But we really see

24:01
that when you go into a deficit, generally we see decreases in muscle protein synthesis rates between 19 to 27%. So you're just making it harder. Muscle growth is already a difficult process, so don't make it any harder for yourself. So at least eat at maintenance to be able to maximize your muscle protein synthesis rates, which is needed to be able to accrete lean body mass. Because essentially, muscle growth from a mechanistic process or perspective, it really is just a balance between having your muscle protein synthesis rates exceed that of your muscle protein breakdown rates.

24:30
Another thing that I really try to get to across my clients is that muscle gain doesn't mean that we're going to add a ton of weight on the scale. It could be a very slow and gradual process. So generally what I do with most of my clients is I'll target a one percent rate of body weight gain per month during a building phase, which I've seen to be a really effective rate for fueling training, improving their performance and building muscles. So say that you are, say, a hundred and fifty pound female, that's one point five pounds or less gain per month. And say we do a four month building phase, which is usually.

24:59
something that I like to target with women. I say, listen, let's at least do this for four months. That's six pounds, like six pounds over the course of four. Yeah, exactly. It's a very small portion. But what I try to get across to them is I can have you lose six pounds of body fat in six weeks, like easily. And so just keep in mind that this is an investment into a process of building your body, building a better body. And you're going to really be able to maximize your progression in terms of building lean mass. You're not going to gain a ton of fat mass at that rate.

25:28
But any additional fat that you did gain during that process is going to be lost in the span of a few weeks as compared to the growth that you had over these months where you ate well, you felt well-fueled, you restored your hormones, you experienced all the benefits of sufficiently fueling yourself. And then when you go back into that next dieting phase, you're going to be revitalized, especially from like an energy and a mental perspective. Yeah, no, that's really nice, Brandon. And with regards to eating at maintenance.

25:56
how many women would you come across that are well below maintenance when you start working with them, then you bump them up to what maintenance is. And of course, you can give examples here, but would you get some sort of like a massive increase in weight at the get go? Like how does that work for you? How does that look for you? So keep in mind when someone comes to me and I do have a lot of, I would say experienced and historical dieters that come to me. So essentially I work with a lot of women that have a long history of dieting.

26:26
And one of the reasons that they come to me is I've spoken a lot on metabolic adaptations, relative energy deficiency topics that they're suffering from. So a lot of times when they come to me, I put them through a primer phase, which is something that we had discussed on the last episode we did together. Essentially my whole like one of my coaching mottoes is a healthy body is a responsive body. So a lot of times when someone comes to me with poor biofeedback, so they're not recovering sufficiently, they have inadequate sleep, like they're restless, they have high stress levels.

26:54
They're not recovering adequately from their training sessions. They're excessively sore. They're not able to progress their training. And then I look from an objective perspective and they have downregulated sex hormone production. I have a lot of women that have lost their menstrual cycle. So they're suffering from hypothalamic amenorrhea from just under fueling themselves for such a long period of time where they've been in this state of low energy availability and have essentially just downregulated all their hormonal processes and including their their menstrual cycle. So really our first focus is to get them into a

27:22
more sufficient state of energy availability. So that does increase. No, that is going to come with increases in calories. However, I'm trying to gauge based off of the data that I have on them and also a titration process of increasing calories slowly, trying to get them back to their maintenance. But I also explained to them, so I want to differentiate these things. Yes, we do see weight gain, but I'm not seeing fat gain. And I'll explain the difference between the two. So for instance, when you come to a coach, so if someone comes to me, and I can give you many examples of this, women have come to me that they're essentially on zero carb diets,

27:52
They're in a state of very low energy availability. They're excessively under fueling themselves where everything is essentially down regulated, but they're also at their lightest weight. So yes, they're very light on the scale. However, they're glycogen depleted. They don't feel well. Their bile feedback is really poor. So you have to realize that the lightest weight that you see during a phallus phase is not your true weight. That is a depleted weight where you've been eating less food volume. You have depleted glycogen source. So now you've lost not only the glycogen source in your muscle and your liver,

28:21
but also the water that comes with that. So oftentimes when I'm adjusting their diet and getting them back to maintenance, I'm going to look at the areas in which they're most efficient, not only from a micronutrient perspective, but also a macronutrient perspective. So for instance, I've had a lot of women that have come to me on less than 50 grams of carbohydrates and they've been on moderate protein and low fat. So I'm looking at what macronutrients do I have to restore to get them to a better state of health? So I'm gonna make sure that they have sufficient essential fatty acid intake,

28:50
make sure that I set their fat intake generally between 0.5 to 1.5 grams per kilogram. And once I've done that and I make sure that their protein, obviously that's the top priority, it's sufficient. But honestly, in the population I get, generally when someone comes to me and they've been dieting hard, they're not under eating protein. So that's one thing I don't often have to worry about. So protein is sufficient. I get their fat intake back up, but the rest of the calories that I'm bringing them back up to into maintenance is going to be from carbohydrates. So I explained to them right off the bat, you are going to see an increase in weight.

29:20
that does not mean fat gain. So what I really try to explain to them is when I increase your carbohydrate availability, we're gonna see an increase in glycogen storage. And for every gram of glycogen that we restore into muscle, you're gonna pull three to four grams of water with it. So even if I just increase your carbohydrates by a hundred grams, that's a hundred grams that you're taking on and storing an intramuscular glycogen source. But that might also include an extra 400 grams of glycogen or water that is stored with that glycogen. So off the bat, I just increase your scale weight by

29:48
500 grams, which is approximately 1.1 pounds. So we have to be very realistic about looking at weight gain objectively and realizing and differentiating it from actual fat gain. Also by increasing someone's calorie intake and their food availability, we're also gonna see an increase in gut residue. So they're gonna see an increase in weight. But really what I try to do is I try to first and foremost educate them about that so that they don't see something that they didn't expect. And then they're really nervous. They wanna go right back to what they were doing previously because that is a commonality when someone sees something

30:18
they're averse to, they want to go right back to what they were doing. But if what you've been doing for a substantial period of time has not been serving you, continuing to do it is not going to give you any different results. So if you want better, you need to do better. And so during that process, yes, they'll see some weight gain, but often we actually see an improvement in their body composition from a visual perspective. So I'm really big on taking photos and doing comparison photos. So a lot of times while these women, they're flat in terms of their muscle belly, so they look kind of stringy, scrawny.

30:45
They essentially through these dieting cycles, they become a skinnier, smaller, scrawnier version of themselves. And even through that process of increasing their, their energy availability and getting them back to maintenance and then really focusing on muscle growth. Because if you've been under fueling yourself, you're not training sufficiently, you're not pushing yourself. Many of them are not progressively overloading. They don't have enough fuel in the tank. So they're just going through the motions. So then when I transitioned them into a progressive resistance training program and make sure that so many areas are dialed in.

31:13
You know, they're not only able to increase, you know, in terms of like every aspect of their total daily energy expenditure, because we're seeing increase in the thermoconfective feeding from eating more food. We're seeing increases in the resting metabolic rate from getting them back out of a deficit and to maintenance. We're seeing increases in their training output. So that's going to increase their exercise activity thermogenesis. And now they don't feel so sluggish. They don't feel like they have no energy to engage in their daily habits or even to go on walks or go out to the park with their kids. So now their needs going up. So oftentimes they're burning more energy.

31:41
as a result of that. So I kind of get them into what we had discussed on the last episode, this high flux state where I increased their food, I had them move more and I had them eat more. And so now I'm seeing all these body composition benefits. They have fuller, rounder muscle bellies. We're finally seeing like some glute growth, but we're also fueling their training sessions and getting them into a progressive training cycle where then we're able to really benefit and get them to start building muscle, which is not something that they've been doing previously.

32:11
I mean, I know that it will, but that sort of slight increase in calories, it's reverse dieting over and above what their projected maintenance calories are. So would it matter how you would define reverse dieting? So this is actually a kind of a bit of a contention in the, I don't want to see in the literature because to be honest with you, if you look in the literature, there is no literature on reverse dieting. So I always find it quite ironic when someone says, I got this evidence-based reverse dieting plan, like that doesn't exist.

32:37
guys. And so it's very interesting when I see that advertised. However, reverse dieting often can be one of two things. When I consider a reverse diet, that is essentially getting someone back to maintenance, but it's their projected maintenance. So yes, this could be very similar to what should be a reverse diet. However, unfortunately, what many people have done within the reverse dieting space has been this very slow titration of calories. So what I'm saying, if I have someone that's losing at a one pound rate of loss per week,

33:03
I'm going to try to get them right back to their maintenance, what I would project. So if they're losing at one pound per week, they should be in a 500 calorie deficit. So I'm going to try to get them back right off the bat, 500 calories up and try to get them right back to maintenance and into a state of adequate energy availability. Now, what I see and what's very interesting is I kind of stay in my own echo chamber and many of the people that I engage with and I speak with, they're very intelligent. Like some of the mentors that I have are guys like Alan Aragon or Dr. Scott Stevenson. These aren't guys that are involved in that space where they've been doing things a little bit differently, I guess.

33:32
But it was interesting because I had done a bunch of content of reverse dieting years ago. And so I had people reach out to me about two years ago. There was like these reverse dieting debates and stuff. And they were asking me my opinion on that. And I didn't realize that people in the States and even other countries were doing reverse dieting very differently where they were essentially doing where they would take someone and say that you finish a 12-week diet and you were still with that coach. They would essentially like five carb you know, five or ten carb you every single week or they would just bump your fat up by five.

34:01
Now the issue with that is if you are in a 500 calorie deficit and now I'm just a coach is just increasing your carbohydrates by say 10 a week, it's going to take you another 12 weeks to get out of that deficit. So in that entire time you're in a deficit still yet, we have to be honest about this, it's a smaller deficit. But the reason we were seeing a bunch of reverse dieting transformations where people were staying very, very lean is because they were still in a deficit. My goal is not to keep clients in a deficit. It's to get them back to their maintenance intake.

34:30
doesn't mean we always hit square, you know, right on the head, you know, right off the bat because there are some differences in fluctuations, there's tracking errors, things of that sort. But I really try to get people right back to their maintenance intake because the goal is not to stay in the deficit, especially when muscle growth is the goal. So if someone comes to me and they're under fueling themselves, I'm going to get them back to maintenance as quickly as possible. And it's not going to be such a titration where it's every single week, like reverse diets often people used to utilize this system where

34:56
they would essentially do very small bumps every single week for the same length that someone was in a fat loss phase. And I don't find that to be effective because if someone is suffering the ramifications of metabolic adaptation or something like relative energy efficiency, you know, slowly and steadily just increasing their calories just a little bit is not going to get anything back online. So we're not going to see signaling to the hypothalamus. We're not going to see increases in leptin. We're not going to see restoration of your thyroid hormone, testosterone, estradiol, progesterone. None of these things are going to get back online until you get back to...

35:26
know, energy balance essentially. And so if you're doing a 12-week reverse diet where you're still in a deficit for 12 more weeks, essentially you took a 12-week diet and made it 24 weeks because for 24 weeks you were in a deficit. Yeah, no, I know. And it's, and for people who have that real dieting fatigue, it's almost like it makes no difference. 50 calories a week, bumping up from their diet calories is like nothing. It's honestly, it's not realistic, nor do I find it to be something like when I think about in theory,

35:54
And even when I would think about if I did this in practice, I don't think people would be able to adhere to it because it's such a small increase in calories that by the time that someone comes to you and they're already done with a diet or you're dieting them yourself. So with my clients, generally, I'm getting them right back to maintenance right after we finish a fat loss phase. And I make it very clear to them, listen, I want to get you back to your maintenance. This doesn't mean that you're going to gain excess weight. I'm just going to get you back to your predicted maintenance based off the last four weeks of data that I have on you.

36:24
the weight that you've lost in that period of time. However, to keep someone in this down-regulated state when their biofeedback's poor, I think that's a disservice to people first and foremost, and then also it's not realistic, because a lot of times at the end of a diet, a lot of people are starting to have slip-ups and starting to have issues with adherence, that if you're to keep them in that state where their targets are very low, they're not only gonna be mentally restricted, but not only just physically restricted, but mentally restricted, where it's very difficult for them to actually adhere to that. And oftentimes that just leads to...

36:52
like this binge restrict cycle where they're on plan for a few days a week. And then it's, you know, a weekend comes up and they have family occasions or they have social gatherings. And it's like all bets are off. Like they've been restricted all week and they feel like, you know, this is my time. I'm going to, you know, reward myself. Instead of if you were to just take them, give them bigger calorie budget right off the bat, give them sufficient energy intake where they're able to re-regulate their hunger hormones, get them feeling sufficiently fueled. We're able to put that towards productive training sessions. They're able to upregulate all components of their total daily energy expenditure.

37:21
that would be much more of an effective method. Yeah, absolutely. Brendan, how do you deal with particular cases that may come to you, and they are already strength training and lifting heavy. They are unable to lose any more weight, although their body composition's not where they'd want it to be. Yet their calories are actually really low, and they've been in this metabolically adapted state for months, if not years, like...

37:48
So the number of calories it's taking for them to maintain their weight, maybe several hundred less than what you would anticipate. Would you bump them immediately up to their projected maintenance or would you do it a little bit slower? What are the pros and cons of both of those? Yeah. So if someone is in essentially a down-regulated state and they're doing everything else right in terms of their training, their activity levels, that's a big thing I look at that a lot of people overlook is actual activity levels because... Yeah.

38:16
There are a lot of individuals that they train hard and they train frequently, you know, a few times a week, but we really have to think about the fact that our exercise activity thermogenesis accounts for a very small portion of our total daily energy expenditure. So if you look at the calculations, generally exercise activity thermogenesis, which would be your formal exercise. So that would be your resistance training sessions, or if you do a group class, it only accounts for about 5% of the total calories you burn per day. So I find that a lot of people are essentially what we could categorize as active couch potatoes, essentially. If you were to look at their

38:46
activity levels and a lot of people, they don't track their steps. This is something I'm really big on. The reason why they have low energy expenditure levels and they have to, they feel like they always have to restrict themselves and stay on a low energy intake is because they're active in terms of their training sessions. However, the rest of the day, they aren't that active. So, for instance, if you are someone, most people that come to me are training and most of the clients that I work with train between three to five times a week. So they generally train about an hour per day. So that is.

39:13
three to five hours per week. However, say on their training day, they train for one hour that day, they sleep for eight hours, they're still, you know, that's taking up essentially nine hours out of their day. There's another 15 hours that they could be active, they could be burning, you know, calories and being, you know, very active. And we see from the NEAT literature that someone of the same body composition, so if we take two individuals of the same body composition, meaning the same weight, the same lean body mass, and the same fat mass.

39:40
they could have a discrepancy in terms of the calories that they burn through non-exercise activity thermogenesis of up to 2000 calories per day. And that is due to lifestyle differences and activity differences. And so if someone is, you know, very sedentary in terms of working an office job and they train and they do all these things, they may not be getting the full benefits of, you know, their active lifestyle because really in actuality, they're sedentary. And so that's really where I would look to increase energy flux. So I would essentially

40:09
start increasing calories and I would start increasing steps and we would do in a tight traded fashion. But if someone was in and now this is where we really would have to get analytical, I got to go over all their data. I have to see, yes, this person's calories are low, but if they're not actually losing any weight, they're not in a deficit. So this could just be an indication that either this person has low total daily energy expenditure or they could. And this is very, no one wants to hear this, but this is the reality being a coach and dealing with people and working with individuals is that

40:38
many of us including and I work with many nutrition professionals, they're inaccurate in their tracking. And I know no one wants to hear that. And I'm not saying that you're a bad person because you miss tracker, miss estimate your calories. I'm saying that realistically, none of us are perfect. And a lot of people underestimate how much they're eating and overestimate how active they are. And we see that in so many areas of literature, but I'll tell you from an experience perspective, I see that all the time. So a lot of times when I have some, someone come to me and nothing adds up in terms of they're very active, they seem

41:06
They have great body composition, they have a good amount of muscle mass, and it's like, man, their calorie intake just doesn't match up with what I would expect based off of a thousand plus people I've worked with. Let's do a nutritional audit. Let's really look at what you're eating. I want you to take photos of all your meals. I want you to track everything, and I want you to track every single calorie. This isn't just the meals that you sit down to eat. I want to know if you're taking chicken nuggets off your kid's meal. I want to know if you're using coffee creamer. There's been so many instances.

41:32
where I found, I'll give you a perfect example. I had a client that's actually from Australia and I could not figure out, and I worked at this individual for a long period of time. There was a fat loss phase that we went through and it was the first fat loss phase we had been through and he was just not losing. And every time I made an adjustment, it just wasn't towards the calculations that I made. And now keep in mind, I had done a primer phase with him and I'd done a lean building phase. And it was only when we went into the fat loss phase that when I would make an adjustment, it never essentially...

42:00
The data that I got back or what I saw from his visuals and from his weight trajectory never matched up with my expectations. Now, obviously I'm very well-versed with metabolic adaptation. I understand the many down regulations that can happen during a diet, but he wasn't having any poor biofeedback in terms of just being overly hungry where it would have been just an adherence issue. And this was someone that I had calls with every two weeks and we'd have conversations. So one day we're on a call and I said, listen, his name was Demetri.

42:29
And I said, listen, I really want, we're going to do a nutritional audit. And I walked him through the whole process. And I said, and the last, one of the last things that I said, you know, I went through oils and condiments and when I got to condiments, I said, I want all condiments tracking. He said, all condiments. He said, how about the zero calorie ones? And I said, well, nothing has zero calories. So yeah, I want you to track it. Like for instance, you know, if you're using, you know, mustard, look up the serving, it's like for a teaspoon of mustard, it's three calories. He did not realize that mustard had calories. Now it is for, especially in the States, but also in other countries, if

42:59
a product has less than five calories per serving, they can market as zero calories. That is one of the laws in terms of labeling. He was going through one container of Frenchies every single day, Mickey. He was eating 360 plus calories of mustard. He was just a mustard feigning to say the least. He was drinking it. And so that was a huge oversight that if it wasn't for really digging into details, no one would have figured that out. You know what I mean? This was really just having coaching experience, really going through and really picking apart things.

43:27
with an individual and realizing, listen, there's more here than meets the eye. And oftentimes our job as a coach is to be a detective. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And so before we just, I want to chat to you just a little bit about the type of exercises and stuff, or, you know, the training side of things. Supplements, Brandon, like what are your, like, do you have any particular supplements that you're like, right?

43:54
these are my non-negotiables? Is it based on the nutrition order that you do with someone? Like, are there any sort of blanket things that you would recommend outside of the obvious protein powder, I suppose? Yeah, so to be honest with you, it's interesting because I come from the supplement industry. I spent over 10 years in the supplement industry. I had an immense amount of respect for the supplement industry. But this is the kind of question that I know that my former employees and coworkers hate when I answer. Because really when it comes down to it for muscle building, we have one goal.

44:22
And that is creating monohydrate that's going to help with ATP resynthesis. It's going to help with increasing lean body mass. It helps the glycogen restoration. So if I was to advise anything, I'm a big advocate despite the fact that I spent so many years working the supplement industry. I am very much a food-first approach. So I want someone to have a nutrient-dense diet. I want to make sure that their macronutrients are dialed in from a protein fat and carbohydrate perspective. I would prioritize all of that well over supplementation. So if I was to advise anyone and I do with my clientele, there are certain

44:51
specific use cases where I do utilize certain ingredients, whether that be supplements or nutraceuticals to help enhance different aspects of the muscle building process or more so to negate some of the downsides of being in a surplus such as insulin resistance and things of that sort. So that could look like a berberine hydrochloride, but it's very use case specific. And really when it comes down to supplementation, there are no sexy supplements besides anabolic spionosothia. And so it would be creatine monohydrate would be my number one go to.

45:19
I always place a massive emphasis on I do this with my clients as well. I'm always going nutrition first. So I would always opt to that and discuss that before I would ever discuss. So I would go energy intake as we discussed, and then I would go protein intake, then into fat, then into carbohydrates. And I would prioritize that well over any single supplement that we could ever discuss. Yeah, no, that's really insightful. And Brandon, do you have any notable sort of different techniques if you're working with a woman who is reproductive years?

45:49
perimenopause, menopause, like any differences in your approach to different life stages? Yes, so I think one thing I really have to do when I'm working, and I do work with a lot of women that are in perimenopause in that transition or in menopause, I think a big thing is leading with compassion first and foremost. I think a lot of people take these two different dichotomous approaches. We have two camps, essentially like, listen, menopause is a handicap or like just suck it up and work through it. And I don't really align with either of those.

46:18
So it really comes down to taking a very client specific and client centric approach to how I approach muscle building. Cause I really want to make it very clear to every single person out there, whether you have been resistant training for 20 years and you're 50 years old and you just entered menopause or you're in perimenopause or you have never, you know, trained with weights a day in your life. The best time to start is now. And so you're never too, it's never too late. And it's never like, you're always going to get a benefit from it. And the body is extremely adaptive.

46:48
and responsive to things. So despite the fact that I would encourage every single person out there. So if you're a 20 year old woman listening to this podcast, I want you to get into the gym tomorrow. And I would, I would love you to do so. And because I look at resistance training and building muscle almost as like a reserve account where you're just adding to that. It's an investment. However, really when it comes down to it, being in perimenopause or menopause will make the process harder. However, and maybe we should discuss why that is.

47:17
during perimenopause and menopause, there's certain things that we're seeing. So we're seeing hormonal shifts, especially during perimenopause into menopause. So we're seeing decreases in estradiol and progesterone. We're seeing sleep disturbances, especially from things like hot flashes and night sweats and things of that sort. We're seeing an increase in insulin resistance. And we also see if, and I want to make this very clear because oftentimes this could be taken to a different degree, we do see shifts in fat storage patterns.

47:47
pre-perimenopausal, we essentially see that they have a gynoid fat pattern. So they store more in their hips and thighs and more in subcutaneous fat. And despite that being like the jiggly fat that no women want, it really is the more metabolically healthy fat as compared to men who store fat in an android fat pattern, meaning around their core, around their organs essentially. And that is because it's visceral, it is more metabolically unhealthy. And so during that shift into menopause, we see that there's a shift and a preferential

48:15
deposition of

48:44
differences in your fat storage patterns, but often that does not mean you've gained fat in total. It's just where your body is storing it is preferentially in your core rather than in your hips and thighs. However, with that, you know, there are many things that there's been many women I've worked with where I haven't seen that because I've worked with them either before they went into perimenopause or throughout their entire perimenopause phase. And so I had their protein intake dialed in, I had the resistant training dialed in. There's so many things that we have worked on to build a foundation that when they go into that,

49:14
that stage where they completely lost their cycle and they've went through that one year where they have no menstrual cycle and they go into menopause, we're not seeing those degradations, essentially, or those changes. But I really think the first thing we have to focus on is that it's important to not see whether it be perimenopause or menopause as a handicap or a reason not to try. And one of the main reasons we see so many shifts in body composition during menopause is because of the lifestyle that individuals maintain or essentially opt to during this period. And so,

49:43
instead of looking at this period in your life as a handicap, I found that if I'm able to get clients to dial in the big rocks of their nutrition and training, it's hugely beneficial. And honestly, I have many examples of women that I've worked with during this period in life, whether it's perimenopolis or it's menopolis, and they've made massively impressive transformations where they were shocked because they didn't think that was possible. But it really came from very specific strategies that...

50:08
will benefit anyone out there, but specifically for women in this phase of their life, the first thing, we gotta dial in your protein intake. And that is something that many women in that stage of life are not doing. And it's not just from a total daily protein intake perspective, but I also like to increase the total amount of protein that they're eating in their meals due to the anabolic resistance that they're suffering at that stage in life. So I often look at dietary logs and, you know, I'll be honest with you, it's not enough to just eat one, you know, one egg at breakfast.

50:36
That's not going to cause a robust stimulation of muscle protein synthesis. So with many of my women, I want 40 grams of protein at every single meal. And if they are someone that's slight and they're much lighter, that may only be three meals a day. It's not that they have to eat like a bodybuilder. But I want that each time that they sit down for a meal, that it's going to be sufficient protein intake to robustly stimulate muscle protein synthesis. We actually have literature that looks at very low meal frequency in women that are postmenopausal versus higher meal frequency with more total daily protein intake. But none of them hit the leucine threshold.

51:05
and they actually see better body composition benefits from a lower amount of meal frequency but a robust stimulus in each of those proteins, in each of those meals from a higher protein intake. The next thing is I'm making sure that they're resistant training in a progressive manner, which not only allows them to build muscle and improve their body composition, but also improve and maintain bone mineral density, which is huge during this period because as especially estradiol comes down, we see that bone mineral density decreases and there's an increased risk for osteoporosis and osteopenia.

51:35
Another thing that I'm very big on, because we have to think about the lifestyle factors that are getting taken into consideration during this phase in our life. Oftentimes women, when they're going through this, it's late 40s, early 50s, they're in the busiest stage of their career. I know a lot of like, they're at the highest level of their executive career in corporate America or whatever it may be, and they have a ton of stress. So what does that lead to? That leads to a lot of compensatory eating behaviors, emotional eating, looking at food as a coping mechanism or self-medication.

52:03
And so it's leading to unfavorable patterns in their actual dietary habits, but then also it's excessive alcohol intake. So these are all compounding errors. And a lot of times they're only blaming it on the hormones and the phase that they're in in life and not looking objectively at the lifestyle factors, the nutritional factors and the, um, you know, the substance abuse that they're, they're essentially utilizing. So I really try to focus on that food first approach. I'm trying to switch them to a whole foods, you know, base nutrient dense diet. I'm making sure that they're.

52:31
sufficiently, you know, not only from a calorie perspective, but also from a micronutrient perspective that we have all their bases covered so that the hormones that they still can produce, they're going to be in good status. So like your thyroid hormone, making sure that adequate selenium iodine, tyrosine, things like that. Another thing that I'm big on is actually getting comprehensive lab work drawn because I want to know I want essentially get a look under the hood essentially, because we don't know, you know, it's just the same thing with tracking like you can't

52:58
manipulate and improve what you don't measure. So I'm a big advocate, especially of women in this time period, is to be very objective and to analyze things and to get lab work drawn and really look after your health status. So I want to be able to check their metabolic health and check changes in their markers, especially if stuff like insulin sensitivity. So I'm looking at HbA1c over time. I'm looking at fasting insulin. I want to check their blood lipid profile because that's actually one of the things that when I have a woman that comes to me that has already went through menopause or

53:25
is just going through that transition. Often what I notice is a skewing of blood lipid profiles and often that is due to declines in estradiol. And so I'm doing that. And then I'm also checking their hormones. And that's where as a coach, this is not my lane to like push them into, but I do have, I open up the conversation about hormone replacement therapy because this is something that there's a lot of fallacies around, especially in the States, in terms of some of the older literature that showed detrimental effects too.

53:51
on hormone replacement therapy for women, but we actually see a lot of benefits from a body composition perspective. We see it helped to mitigate a lot of the negative experiences and side effects of perimenopause and instatmenopausal transition. And so that's where we can look at an adjunctive therapy like hormone replacement therapy, whether that be a transdermal estradiol or that be micronized progesterone or that be even testosterone replacement as a way to mitigate and reverse some of the negative effects of these down regulations and hormones. And so

54:19
This is really where we have to take a multifaceted approach. It's dialing in their training. It's making sure that they're sufficiently active. So making sure they get their steps in. I'm big on post meal walks. I have a lot of the women that I work with in this age group that I just had them do a habit stacking technique where I place a walk, a 10 to 15 minute walk after every single one of their meals. And that has been shown to decrease insulin values, decrease post meal or postprandial glycemia or glucose levels. It's increased insulin sensitivity. We see some research that shows that three

54:48
You know, 10 to 15 minute walks is as effective as what's utilized as the number one type two diabetic medication in the States, which is metformin or glucose. So there's so many multifactored event, uh, factorial benefits. And also just from like an energetic perspective, I often notice that when women come to me in this stage in life, like they have low energy, they have that two 30 feeling. And it's like, they're just kind of in a slump. And if I could just get them moving, get them resistant training, get them feeling good about themselves, feeling well functioning well, and then also look at some of the more intricate nuance things.

55:18
You know, obviously dialing in your diet from many different aspects, replacing nutrients that they're missing and then looking at the hormone aspect. That's really where this multifaceted approach really helps you get them into a better state of health, better state of body composition. But then that also has a lot of downstream benefits on their mentality. Yeah, no, absolutely. Brandon, all of that. I think when people listen.

55:39
to you talk about it, they're like, that absolutely makes sense. And I love that you bring up that hormone replacement therapy as an adjunct to all of the other lifestyle behaviors. So I feel like there are professionals out there that are concerned that women look at HRT as this is a silver bullet without actually dialing in those other factors. But the reality is, is that any kind of supplement or medication is really not going to be as effective if it's just sort of slapped on poor habits, poor behaviors.

56:09
and like a poor lifestyle like this, like there's so much more value that will bring so much more value if you're dialing in all of these other factors as well, right? I couldn't agree more. So this is actually common in both, you know, both genders, both sexes, where a lot of people look at hormones, especially hormone replacement as a panacea, meaning it's going to be a fix to all your problems, to be the solution to everything. And it's almost looked at as a shortcut. And actually, if you look in the literature on specifically testosterone replacement therapy and men, the vast majority of men

56:37
that engage in testosterone replacement will get off it within a year. And now when we look at systematic reviews on that, there isn't like, there is postulations, there are suggestions as to why that can be. But when I really think about the vast amount of individuals that I worked with that have come to me and that have previously been on testosterone replacement and then got off it and then felt really terrible in either case and then come to me and we've worked together, oftentimes I've consulted with them and I just wanted to know, cause it's on their medical history that I take within my intake.

57:06
hey, you were on testosterone replacement. Why'd you get off it? And oftentimes it's because they did not see the purported benefits. So they saw all these commercials and they saw that they were gonna have better libido and vitality and better body composition. But here's the thing, when we had this conversation, they tell me they didn't experience that. They felt better for the first eight to 12 weeks. And then after that, they just didn't notice any more of a benefit. They didn't see better body composition. They didn't see fat loss. They didn't see muscle gain. They didn't see better energy. None of these things that they were expecting. And then I also peel back the layers of the onion. I asked them about their diet.

57:36
about their lifestyle, about their training, none of those things were dialed in. So they had expected based on the advertisements and the things that I'd seen, that this was going to be the solution that was gonna undo all the negative lifestyle factors that they had going on. So oftentimes with those same clients, I'll take them through a primer phase or an initial phase and work just on the fundamental habits. So their nutrition, dialing in their diet, their dietary habits, their eating behaviors, their training, making sure that they're engaging in progressive resistance training.

58:02
I'm really making sure that their habits in terms of their activity levels, their sleep habits, their stress management abilities are all at a better level. They're operating, you know, on, you know, they're running on all cylinders, essentially. And then I will get lab work on them. And if they're still in a clinically low testosterone level, this just happened with a client of mine out of California Dennis. And we did everything possible to get him into a better state of health. And now his insulin sensitivity markers have improved. His blood lipids are substantially improved. He stopped smoking after 30 years smoking.

58:32
He's made such substantial, you know, beneficial changes and shifts in his habits, his behaviors and lifestyle within the last 12 weeks. However, he's still clinically low in terms of his testosterone values and his free testosterone values. So that's where I referred him out to a physician and he's getting on hormone replacement. But here's the thing, I made a big reminder to him that this time we have to do things differently. It's not that you're relying on testosterone reverse.

58:54
all of the bad lifestyle habits that you have, we're going to add this into the equation. It's like a cherry on top. And the same thing can be said about hormone replacement therapy or menopausal hormone therapy with women. We need to build that foundation and focus on the big rocks. We need to make sure that you're getting adequate protein, that you're getting skeletal muscle loading so that you have those bone, venereal density maintenance benefits, that you're watching your calorie intake, that you're engaging in regular resistance training, that you're staying lean so that you don't have inflammatory markers increase in it.

59:23
You're not seeing hormonal shifts just due to having excess adiposity. You got to make sure that your sleep's in a good place, that you're managing your stress adequately and then will look towards hormones. And it will just make the equation better. It will make your response to everything that you're doing. You'll get a little bit more bang for your buck. But if you lead with hormones and you rely off those and you don't and you overlook all of the fundamental lifestyle habits that you and I would work on with a client as a coach, that is really missing the force for the trees and essentially stepping over dollar bills to pick up dimes. It's

59:52
the hormones are the sexy aspect, they're like the diamonds, they're shiny. However, they're really not what's going to lead to long-term progression and really transform your lifestyle because anyone can slap a hormone into you. But if you don't have all the fundamental habits, behaviors, and the lifestyle to facilitate progress over time, you're never going to get to where you want to be. 100% Brandon. And I could talk to you for hours on this.

01:00:16
And I feel like we've really just scratched the surface, but I think that you've really given people a really good grounding in the importance of focusing on building muscle, what that potentially looks like, and how instead of the always chasing the deficit, always chasing the surplus. So what it actually means to build a better physique. Like I really feel like you've given us a really good grounding there.

01:00:42
You mentioned that you have, you've got a wait list, but I imagine that people can still apply to work with you and become part of your little ecosystem. So can you remind people of how they find you and your contact details? And of course, remind them of your podcast too, which is amazing. Well, Mickey, thank you so much. And yes, I'm always open to taking people on. I am selective with who I work with, but that's the blessing of it. Because when I do take someone on, I'm all in on that person. So it's.

01:01:11
It's a great, it's a mutually beneficial relationship because it's super fulfilling for me. And so you guys can reach out to me on my email is the best place to reach me, which is bdeacruzfitness at gmail.com. Can also find me for daily content on Instagram, which is at Brandon DeCruz underscore. And then I do a weekly podcast. It's a deep dive on any topic you really can think of, especially in the realms of nutrition, building muscle and metabolic health. And it's called the Chasing Clarity Health and Fitness Podcast. And that can be found on iTunes, Spotify, or even on YouTube.

01:01:39
Amazing, Brandon. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you again, Mickey.

01:01:56
Alrighty, hopefully you really enjoyed that. I really did and I'll definitely be having Brandon on. Again, he is so gracious with his availability to share his knowledge and I just so appreciate the time he's put aside for us already. As I said, I've popped links to where you can find Brandon in the show notes. Next week on the podcast, I bring to you the conversation I have with Dr. Darren Kando for a creatine update.

01:02:24
Until then though, you can catch me over on Instagram, threads and Twitter @MikkiWilliden, Facebook at @MikkiWillidenNutrition, or head to my website, MikkiWilliden.com, for a one-on-one call with me. All right team, you had the best week. See you later, bye bye.