Living Lean

Body Recomposition At Maintenance Vs. Fat Loss & Building Phases - Which Is More Effective For Women?

September 02, 2024 • Jeremiah Bair • Episode 453

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Ever wondered why your fitness journey seems to be stuck in a plateau? Are you clinging onto the fat loss phase, while the answer may be in building muscle? We're about to reveal how understanding body composition and the different phases of body recomposition can completely transform your fitness journey.

In this episode, we unravel the mystery behind the three types of body recomposition - fat loss recomp, maintenance, and building phase recomp. We share insights from our coaching experiences, where we've guided women to understand their unique body fat settling points and choose the correct phase for achieving their goal physique. We shed light on the visual impact of muscle growth and how it can be as significant as fat loss, challenging the conventional wisdom around physique transformation.

Get ready to take notes as we discuss the optimal strategies for building muscle and when to enter a building phase. We delve into the importance of peri-workout nutrition, training close to failure, and achieving consistent results over time. And that's not all; we also explore the merits and drawbacks of entering a building phase versus staying in a maintenance phase, emphasizing the need to manage stress, deload, and focus on nutrition for maximum muscle growth. Join us as we arm you with the right knowledge and tools to smash your fitness goals.

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Speaker 1:

Hey team, welcome back to the show. Today it is coach Andrea and I once again, and today we're going to be discussing body recomposition at maintenance versus fat loss in building phases. So, basically, achieving body recomposition through staying at maintenance versus cycling through these different phases of fat loss in building and really determining which is going to be more effective for women. So, to dig into it, all of this stemmed from a listener question we received. So the listener asked first. You said hi, I'm a big fan of the podcast.

Speaker 1:

I've been lifting and recapping for the past one and a half years with success. I love being on maintenance and I'm not in a hurry to get lean because my goal is to build more muscle. So my question is when will the body continue to be as long as I'm making progress on my lifts, or can I get better results by doing a cut followed by a long building phase? Thank you for taking time. So, first and foremost, we appreciate you listening to the podcast. That means a lot. Also, we appreciate you using the question box. So, as a reminder for everyone else, if you want us to answer your questions, there is a question box. There's a link to a question box in the show notes, a question form, I should say, where you can just drop whatever questions you have for us and we will answer them on the podcast. So we appreciate you listening and using that and I'm excited to get into this.

Speaker 1:

It's really this is a super common question we get. We talk about the different phases of nutrition a lot and basically what she's asking is should I enter a fat loss phase, a building phase, or try to continue to recomp at maintenance? I get this again so frequently so I really wanted to kind of just provide our decision making process around how we decide which phase is right for the women we coach, which will, of course, be helpful to the asker and the rest of the audience as well. So really, today we're going to be digging into first and foremost, like, the concept of body recomposition what does that actually mean, and then how we can achieve that through fat loss phases, building phases, maintenance phases and, again, which is going to be the best in context of long-term physique development for women. So, before we get into it, anything that you want to add, andrea.

Speaker 2:

No, not yet. I think anything I add it would get into the things that we're getting ready to talk about.

Speaker 1:

Okay, perfect. So first and foremost, I really just want to make sure that the listener understands body recomposition. So to define body recomposition, we typically most commonly here defined as losing fat and building muscle at the same time, which is really what almost everyone wants all the time. So the asker of the question definitely isn't alone here. But the most important thing to understand is body recomposition doesn't have to be in just a fat loss phase, as she says use your competent maintenance. We can also actually see body recomposition in a building phase and this really aligns well with three different types of body recomposition. We've discussed before that we see in the women we coach most frequently. So again, really three different types here. So first we have a fat loss phase recomp. So this is again kind of that classic body recomposition scenario Most people think of where you lose fat and building muscle at the same time.

Speaker 1:

Now, in this case, typically your measurements and visual appearance will change pretty drastically. Your weight will also likely decrease a decent amount. But most women will find they achieved their goal physique probably at a little bit heavier weight than they expected, and we really see this very frequently in women we coach who have consistently been in the gym, but maybe they were more focused on burning calories prior to starting coaching, so they're doing something like orange theory or at 45. Basically, they're missing the proper stimulus coming from the training for muscle growth. They're also oftentimes mindful of their diet and maybe eat mostly clean but haven't consistently tracked their macros. So basically they're also missing the nutrition component and again it's not like a like we don't have quality foods. Oftentimes those are in place, but typically the like hey, the deficit needed to lose body fat and the fueling component. How do we fuel our training and muscle growth? Typically those two components are missing and this is going to also happen pretty consistently.

Speaker 1:

For this also like one of the most common times this happens actually is for detrained women. So a client example that comes to mind for me is my client Karen, who when we worked together she was a coach yourself. She had, prior to our work together, had a good amount of muscle, but she had a child and at the period of like being pregnant and the postpartum period she had lost a lot of muscle that she had previously. So for her it's a great example of someone who's detrained. When you have built the muscle, like the first time you have to build muscles the hardest, it'll come back much easier than it takes to initially build it. Muscle memory is a very real thing. So in those situations that's one of the most fun situations to coach because people just change like crazy.

Speaker 1:

So again, like that, fat loss recomp is what most people think of when they think of recomposition. But there are two other types. So the next type is going to be a maintenance or building phase recomp. So here you might not lose much or any weight or body fat, but you gain a lot of muscle. So basically what this results in.

Speaker 1:

So let's say again so the listener or the question, asker slash listener she said she didn't recompine it maintenance. So when we're at maintenance, the reality is, if we're truly at maintenance, by definition we're actually not losing any body fat. So let's say she started that maintenance phase with 20 pounds of body fat on her frame. If we truly been a maintenance, she probably still has the same 20 pounds of body fat on her frame. But if throughout that timeframe, let's say she had 120 pounds of lean mass and let's say over the last year and a half she's added eight pounds of muscle, so that was 128 pounds of lean mass, again it's not like we actually lost even like a single pound of that body fat that we mentioned, but because she's added more overall muscle mass, the ratio of the lean mass to fat mass has improved. Her body fat percentage will actually have decreased and she'll look a lot leaner. And that's like we talk about this so much.

Speaker 1:

For so many of our clients is not just the fat loss lever that we're pulling, like the dramatic results you see where it's like. This person just looks completely different. Their shape has completely changed is just as much because they build muscle, right, that's what we always talk about. Idea hey, just losing body fat basically just creates a smaller version of the same physique you have currently, whereas if we focus on building muscle, that allows you to completely change your shape. So again, this is another relatively common type of body recomposition.

Speaker 1:

We see and we most often will see this in the women we coach who are already starting the process, pretty lean, but they typically haven't had the proper training stimulus.

Speaker 1:

So very similar to that first, like maybe just focusing on burning calories, maybe just having been training hard enough, and they often also aren't doing a great job of fueling themselves for muscle growth, especially around their training Right, so we're not prioritizing. Oftentimes it's someone who is just going to their training, fasted, right, and they're probably dehydrated as well, so we know right away there hey, recovery isn't going to be as good, muscle protein breakdown is going to be increased. Muscle protein synthesis is going to be decreased. Our performance isn't going to be as good. We're leaving so much on the table there. So those are two things that are typically missing in this case, and referenced her before, but I still think your client, janae, is such an incredible example of this where she's a very, very and the cool thing about it is like her weight is so similar to where it was when you all started, but her body composition looks just completely different. Is that pretty accurate? Yeah, it's really accurate.

Speaker 2:

And she. So she lost some body fat right off the start with just like the first month, and then we sort of bring your calories up and from there she really hasn't seen much change at all in her body weight, even pushing calories up pretty high. Her calories are higher than mine, as she's a little person, and she's just continued to build a good amount of muscle and leaner and leaner because of that, without seeing any shift in the scale at all. Really, Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And I know, like Natalie and I in both this in the last week have posted even like our own, like what we've been up to over the last couple of years and both of us shared, actually pictures at the same weight where it's hey, clearly body composition is different. Now for both of us that was also like we actually gained some body fat and then when we come back down body comp is different out of that same weight. So that's again like more of like a true building phase and then like long term body to recomposition, versus both of those things are happening, happening simultaneously. But again that's, I would say, like this type is very common for so many of the women we work with, because we do work with a lot of people who are already pretty lean. But again, like that muscle growth component, people typically think like what they need is more fat loss, but again, I would find for the majority of the women we work with is the muscle growth side of things is what actually needs the most focus In order to get the physique you want. So finally we have another for type three here, the third type of body recomposition.

Speaker 1:

We once again have a fat loss phase, recomp, but this is a little bit different in the first in that you probably don't build a whole lot of muscle but just lose a lot of body fat. So, even if you just build a bit of muscle but losing considerable amount of body fat, you will again still see some body recomposition. Your physique will look dramatically different. It's again just like less, like 50, 50, like hey, the muscle growth created just as much change as a fat loss, whereas, like we very often see this in clients who have already been following a smart training program and training hard for a long period of time. But again, like for the in the case of Natalie or myself, right, if you would have looked at us at the peak of that building phase versus, like the coming back down to that same weight, like from the peak of that building phase to now, I know like I've gotten stronger still in this fat loss phase.

Speaker 1:

I know I've built a little bit of muscle in this phase. So I have still, like effectively seen some recomp not a ton, but I have seen some recomp. But those fat loss, the fat loss that happens, just unveil such large visual changes in the muscle that you've already built. I would really say this is probably the least common type that we see, simply because, again, people really truly having nailed their training, training hard and following a smart approach to training for a long period of time, that is typically kind of the most rare scenario. So I would really say that, again, like types one and two are the most common. I would say to that, like maintenance, recomp, at least initially with clients, is probably the most. I don't know what should in your class, like what should those two would you say is more common.

Speaker 2:

I would say the fat less phase recomp, just because of the position that most people are in whenever they come to us, because we can dial those things in, get them in a slight deficit and optimize both of them at the same time. I think we have good examples of all three of them. But yeah, I think that that first example is probably more common for me.

Speaker 1:

Okay, okay, absolutely. And then when we're getting into. So basically what we're deciding here is which of these types of recomposition do we want to pursue? Or again, is even recomposition still something on the table? Or maybe again, like I discussed with Natalie and myself, you're going to have to take more of that long game approach where we're focusing on building and then like a subsequent fat loss phase where we actually see more of that recomposition you want. So this really ties into when we're trying to decide what the best next step is.

Speaker 1:

This ties into your body fat levels, which I would say, like when we're deciding what the best phase for a client to start at is, we're typically going to be assessing what's your body composition currently. We want a good idea of again about where your body fat is, because that's really going to impact something called the P-Ratio. So P-Ratio stands for partitioning ratio, which is how well you partition nutrients into muscle tissue versus fat tissue. So basically think, for every pound you gain, how much muscle versus fat are you gaining? So someone with a high P-Ratio for every pound gained, the weight that added is mostly muscle, with very little fat gain happening. So they're making mostly lean gains. Someone with a low P-Ratio would gain mostly fat with very little muscle. Now you'll often hear people say women between about 15 to 25% body fat, will have the best P-Ratio, whereas outside of these ranges, even above or below, for every pound of body fat that you gain, you'll gain much more fat tissue than muscle tissue. Now, that's not gospel, but there is some takeaways here. Right, where it's basically like, there's this range we probably want to stay in. So again, like deciding are we in this range or out of the side of this range determines. Are we going to start on deficit, a lean gains phase, a more like a maintenance focused phase, or a fat loss phase, which is going to put us in the place to productively build muscle.

Speaker 1:

So first, understanding why being lean to lean is a problem is important here. Your body needs some fat or to maintain health. So when you diet to an extremely lean state, your body will prioritize regaining fat tissue over muscle tissue. Basically, it needs to feel healthy and we have adequate fat source and energy source. Fall back on before it would make sense to put on a lot of calorically expensive muscle tissue. Right, because muscle tissue is very calorie expensive to build and maintain. So that's an important factor. Alongside that, many of your hormones, especially for women, so many different factors as far as your hormonal health are also tied to your body fat levels. You will have higher essential body fat levels, basically, like the floor of where your body fat needs to be at in order to be healthy is going to be higher than for most men. So because of this, if you are below again that body fat threshold which is important to understand, it will be different for everyone and I think again for a lot of women especially.

Speaker 1:

I see this just vary so much and I also think this is easy to kind of create a huge comparison trap. So a great example of this is like my client, tass, who I know you're familiar with. Tass is awesome from over in the UK, big Tea Drinker, anyways. I don't know why that came to mind, but anyways for her, like she is probably, I don't think I've ever worked with a woman who couldn't maintain as lean of a Zika. She did and like, still have good biofeedback, still feel good, and it was just like much more natural to her whereas like, even like at the peak of our like building phases or like our health phases, she was still pretty ripped right and then when it was like I know, like we took her through a quick eight week fat loss phase which was just like we're just cleaning things up a bit, and she had like veins in her.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, she was shredded and it was, but that's an example of someone who is Like that set point. For them, the lower end of that is very low. That won't be the case for everyone. Also, your body fat distribution will be different, so you also have to consider that right. Like some women will hold a lot more of their body fat and their hips and thighs, and so thus, like, typically, when we're looking at trying to assess how lean we are or how lean someone else is, the first thing we look at is always the abs, right, but for some people the body fat distribution is going to be different, right, where now most women will genetic, will tend to store more around, like their, their hips and thighs. But some will hold more around the stomach than others and that won't be like an area that gets lean first, whereas, again, like In her case, tassas case, it was like the abs would definitely come through. Lower body was the last thing that would really kind of lean out. But I think when we're comparing that, like forgetting that fact is so easy as well. But I digress, I'm getting a little bit off a topic here, but basically, point of that being, it is important to have to not be too lean If you want to optimally build, to build muscle. And if we're below that range, whatever that is for you, your body will prioritize Gaining back more fat mass until we get back to healthy state before it will allow you to build muscle as productively. Then, alongside that, like if we're in that state where we're below that point, you're just gonna feel like shit, your training performance isn't gonna be as good as you think, your training performance isn't gonna be good, your recovery isn't gonna be good because we're not gonna have enough fuel coming in to have you well fueled. So, again, like in this case, we probably want to actually enter a building phase, like, hey, we need you in a surplus. I don't know if I do even call it a building phase in this case We'd probably be more like a health phase because we wouldn't want to push training extremely hard but we would need to have you, like, actually gaining back a little bit of body fat to productively build. So that's kind of the detriment of being too lean there.

Speaker 1:

Now, as far as having body fat too high, again, typically that number that's thrown out there is about 25%, which again it varies from person to person just kind of think of like a rough idea as far as how much body fat is kind of the upper end of that. Now, here, I think, is where the idea p-ratio is a lot less accurate, because individuals with higher body fat percentages can definitely still build muscle pretty effectively Again, especially like that person who's like, hey, if we do have a lot of body fat and we're coming and we're like coming down, we're in a fat loss phase and you, they can build muscle very, very quickly because there's a lot of stored energy there as well they can liberate from fat stores. But it is important to understand for the best health, controlling inflammation and the best insulin sensitivity, which will also really tie into your nutrient partitioning. And again, this idea that the p-ratio right, like those carbohydrates, are we doing a good job shuttling them to the muscle cell or not? Those things will be the best at. Again, about somewhere between approximately 15 to 25, maybe for some people creeping up to closer to 30, when we're talking like women, specifically about like that body fat range. So again, like saying somewhere in that range. Again, these are like rough numbers, but saying somewhere in that range where we're not shredded and we have a healthy amount of body fat, but again, it's also not an excess amount of body fat is going to be important when it comes to deciding or basically when it comes to building muscle Most productively. So basically, point of all this, this long tangent being how your current what's your current body composition is like again like where your current body fat levels are is Going to be a very important part of the siding with which phase makes the most sense.

Speaker 1:

So, for example again like Cass, bringing it back to her when she started she needed a health phase. She was she, yeah, was just coming off of doing most of a bodybuilding prep. She was pretty ripped, but also Her biofeedback was terrible, or mownley, like things weren't in a good place. We had to spend some time actually regaining some body fat, right? Another client that comes to mind is Lexi, who I've also talked about quite a bit on the podcast, where, or mownley, she was in a very poor place. She was very much like Doing a huge amount of movement every day, a ton of training, eating not very many calories, and to get her body to hold your place, we also had to gain back some body fat.

Speaker 1:

Now it's a lot more complex than just like, hey, let's just push food up and gain body fat. There's so many variables that we're looking here, looking out here, but again, that's like we want to make sure we're not too lean. So first, like, are you in that situation, yes or no? Now, on the flip side, maybe you're someone who again does need. Maybe that next step that makes the most sense is a fat loss phase. Right, I think you're like an incredible example of this, someone that I'm just so proud of and it's been so cool to see her Progress in her transformation with Natalie is Sam, who she shared a lot lately, where she's gotten so much leaner but also just built so much muscle in the process.

Speaker 1:

But again, that's where like to be healthy, to partition nutrients, the best right, getting to lower body fat percentage. Like, are you in, are you in that situation? And then, finally, we have again like those examples of maybe you're currently in that range or maybe you're even closer to that lower end of that range throughout. Again like to maybe in a great example that someone who was already pretty lean, where again we knew for her you knew for her the biggest lover you could pull the changer physique was just building muscle, but also she didn't yet need a true building phase, which we'll talk about how to identify if that's the case or not in a moment when for her again, kind of like that Spending time right around maintenance to maybe like a very slight surplus probably is the best approach. Anything else to add there before we get into like really clarifying how to decide where to go from here. Anything else to add there before we get into like really clarifying how to decide where to go from here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, basically, if you were to sum that up, it's just like what's going to get your body into the most healthy position. Like where can you improve health? Because P-ratio, insulin sensitivity, hormones, like all of that is going to look best when you're in the healthiest position and vice versa, like you're in your healthiest place whenever all of those are in a good spot and that those things optimize how well you're able to lose fat and how well you're able to build muscle and utilize the food that you're taking in in the best way. You know, getting gut health in a good place, so that any food that you're taking in is actually being used, utilized, the way that you want it to be. So just getting health in the best place possible is kind of like the summary there, I guess.

Speaker 1:

That's such an incredible and less convoluted way to explain that as well, but that's so true. Like your health has to be the foundation of it, and I think if you kind of use that as your compass for the decision-making here, like we do, that won't lead you astray. Okay, so to kind of summarize, then, how to decide what's the best approach, because, again, I know this has kind of been convoluted so far, but I promise I'm going to tie this together. Really, when we're looking at, I want to start with building phases, because I would say, like a true building phase, where we're actually in a surplus, we are probably intentionally not necessarily intentionally, but it will come as a byproduct in a building phase. Like a true building phase, like I discussed again, like Natalie and I going through where, like that is probably the least common scenario, I would say, like the least common phase, we actually start clients in. And, again, like I want to, like we can still build very productively at maintenance, like we discussed with a lot of clients, but, like again, like that true building phase is probably the least common. So in this case, like to start there, we would want it to be someone who was already fairly lean and we have a long runway for building right, so that's important, like if you're going to enter a building phase, but it's like, again, I'm right at the upper end of like that healthy range of body fat we can only build for like a month or two before we're going to surpass that. We're not going to have a productive building phase, so probably not the best place to start. Also, we have to be very good at pushing close to failure in our training. Again, if we're not training hard enough, then those additional calories aren't going to equal more muscle growth, they're just going to equal more fat gain.

Speaker 1:

Have been consistently nailing your training for a long period of time and training it for an in an effective manner for hypertrophy, and you've also been consistently nailing your peri workout nutrition. Digestion is good and sleep is good. Now the reality is again, with most clients who start with us, even coaches, right, and some of it's not necessarily even always like a not knowing what to do, but I think this is part of why we always have coaches as well. I think everyone benefits from someone like an objective opinion to help you make better decisions, but also just the accountability there, because, again, most people haven't been nailing the peri workout nutrition, specifically like the fueling and the training, be it like the program, inside of things, as far as like, are we actually training in an effective manner from muscle growth, but also, are we training hard enough? So if your training has been on point based on the things I described above, your fueling has been on point for the last six to eight months and you start to see to see gains slow, considerably, and again you take all the box that they talked about here then that is when I would go into a building phase, like a true building phase. We're going to work more consistently and a surplus and we're probably going to have to be okay with gaining a little bit of body fat and in this phase we're not going to be recombing. We are going to be building some muscle and I mean maybe, yes, very, very slowly recombing, but we're also probably gains and body fat. Realistically, you probably won't see a ton of the visual improvements until that subsequent fat loss phase, again like referencing, like what I talked about Natalie and myself. But the thing to understand here is, once you've been doing things very well for long enough, you will need to enter a true building phase like this, whereas at maintenance, like we can still make gains, but they will just be very, very slow and typically too slow for most people. But also, even versus that maintenance, muscle protein synthesis, which is basically that process of our body training dietary protein into muscle protein and basically building muscle bigger. Even versus maintenance, muscle protein synthesis will be elevated. When we're in a surplus, we'll have more fuel for hard training, we'll be able to recover better still and then, like when we're in a death stand, we're trying to build, for example, like muscle protein breakdown is going to be quite a bit higher, alongside muscle protein synthesis being suppressed. So, again, like this is going to be the most optimal scenario for building muscle from a nutrition perspective.

Speaker 1:

And again for, like you might be in this case to the listener, you might be in the scenario where it again is. I've been again. She said it's been a year and a half. I've been nailing everything for a long period of time and I am really starting to see gains slow. The reality is the way to see the best progress and this is up to you to determine.

Speaker 1:

The way to see the best progress might actually be like if we look a year and if you have to look long term here, because short term one won't be as gratifying because you probably will see a little bit of your lean has fade.

Speaker 1:

But if you look at like the next 12 to 15 months and we just tried to recomb at maintenance versus, let's say we spend nine or 10 months in a lean gains face, we're really focusing on building and then two months in bat loss, the reality is like the gains we make in that nine to 10, the nine that nine to 10 months will probably be more significant. And then at the end of that bat loss phase, which shouldn't take too long, if we do the building phase well, you all at the end of that phase again, if you're at this stage, probably have a better body composition. Then again, if we just try to take things extremely slow at maintenance, right, but again, that's. I don't think that's all that applicable to as many people as is often put out there. Anything to add to that before we get into like the maintenance side of things.

Speaker 2:

I would also consider how much muscle do you wanna build long term?

Speaker 2:

Because if your goal is to do this cyclically and build as much muscle as possible, then it probably would make more sense to do the building phase and then a deficit phase, cause you're just gonna shortcut it a little bit more, like, yes, you might not enjoy your look as much in that building phase time, but you're gonna get to where you're wanting to go quicker so that you can go through another one of those cycles. So if you're like the three of us us too and Natalie and wanna build as much muscle as you can, then it makes more sense to do it in that sort of like. There's a reason that bodybuilders do it that way they're wanting to gain as much as possible. But if you just really like the training and it's not worth it to you to get a little bit fatter for a few months of the year, then you don't care. If you short change the amount of muscle that you're ultimately going to build, then staying at maintenance and recomping there for a longer period of time to me makes more sense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I fully agree with all that. So, and that's a very nice transition into recomping or building at maintenance. So, again, if you've been doing things extremely well for the last year and a half which is completely okay if not right, there is very much a learning curve to all these things but if you've really been nailing everything for the last year and a half, as you said, like you may need in your goal is to build as much muscle as possible, it may be time to enter a building phase. But again, most people haven't been nailing these things right. That's why most of the women we coach who aren't starting in a fat loss phase will still focus on building at maintenance before, even if it is like the number one goal is to build muscle before we enter, like, a true building phase, because, again, we can make great gains there. But again, for so many people it's like, hey, the training we, the type of training we need to build here, just isn't in place yet, right? So, again, if we like enter a true building phase right now, we're probably just gonna gain excess body fat, whereas, like, let's spend some time really focusing on training extremely hard on seeing how your body responds here and most people can for a long period of time there See, so many women especially like for a long period of time build a lot of muscle just at maintenance, just by focusing on improving again the way we're training, the peri, workout, nutrition, because those are such like important levers that we can pull to change your body composition that most people just really haven't taken advantage of. So again, I would say, like most people in that situation, if it's not like we need fat loss right now, it's still a lot more common that we'll start at maintenance, like again focusing on building at maintenance, or aka recombinant maintenance, versus like entering a true building phase.

Speaker 1:

But it is important to track other metrics than just weight here, as this very hard to gauge progress without tracking the right things. The reality is like your weight might just slowly be creeping up and if that's the only metric you're looking at, then it'll be really hard to tell am I making progress or not? So it's also important to look at where are your hunger levels. This is another one I'm typically looking at when, like hey, might we need, when might we need to actually enter a building phase versus a like stay in a maintenance, because really, again, muscles are calorically expensive tissue. So we want to make sure that you're well fueled. Just look at your hunger signals and it's okay to have like a decent, like a small, healthy amount of hunger between meals, but we shouldn't consistently be extremely hungry. If we're in that place, your training performance, your muscle growth probably are suffering a bit as well, and that's a good sign. You may need to increase calories if the goal is maximizing muscle growth, and sometimes that requires us to actually push into like a slight surplus in order to really meet that need. We're also looking at training performance consistently.

Speaker 1:

Are you feeling good in your training? Are the palms good? Is the disruption good and also, are we recovering? Are you? Do we have like a reasonable amount of soreness, but again, it's not like for more than two days we're extremely sore and again, like that really ties into also like, how motivated are you to train? Are we consistently in a place where we're excited to train and ready to push hard? And some of those also ties into like just following a smart training program. I feel like there's so many directions we could go with this where, like, are you deloading when needed? Are we doing a reasonable amount of volume and not just crushing yourself and, like you're, again, those other factors like your sleep, your stress management all tie in here. But I want to keep this relatively focused.

Speaker 1:

Is the training logbook progressing? This is a huge one Because, again, most people, like you, can, for a very long period of time to see strength go up and up and up, even on the maintenance phase, before we actually need to enter a true building phase to push things along there. Body measurements how are these changing? Again, like when we're at maintenance, we'll typically see like things like hey, your glutes are probably growing, thighs might be growing, arms are probably growing, even like the chest measurement, like as someone's lats grow, that will increase quite a bit, but typically the midsection will be the same or getting smaller and progress pictures will also really uncover a lot of visual change here.

Speaker 1:

Now, eventually, when we're at this kind of maintenance or recall phase, we'll hit a point where the logbook progression really gets extremely slow, despite you consistently nailing your training and nutrition.

Speaker 1:

Or, again, like we talked about, maybe, we just see like, hey, we just need to keep bringing calories up in order to really have you fueled well enough to continue to support what we have to do in your training for you to be able to grow and recover and basically at that point, like we decide that either A like hey, are you okay, or just continue to make quite a bit slower gains here, or do we need to enter a true building phase.

Speaker 1:

But again, if you're in that place where it's, those metrics are good hunger, training, performance, recovery, all those metrics are good. The logbook is consistently progressing. You're seeing visual improvements on a consistent and I would say there, like it'll be like every few months, you'll be seeing visual improvements after the first few months and won't be crazy, but really, especially like the logbook and the training performance recovery, how you're feeling in your training when those things are in a good place. The logbook is consistently progressing, you can really make milk that for a long time. And then again it's really like once you start to see that slow, that's when we have to decide okay, which phase do we need to enter next? So anything to add there before we talk about fat loss no, I don't think so.

Speaker 1:

Okay, cool. Finally, as we mentioned just, I was starting to fat loss phase. If body fat is too high or you identify, maybe you also identify like, oh wow, I am at that point where I do need a building phase to continue to build more, but you don't have a good six months or more of quote unquote runway to gain a little bit of body fat, right, if it's like I'm right at the upper limit of again like that healthy range.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, where you feel comfortable.

Speaker 1:

All right and even like that that's an important part of it as well like where you feel comfortable. You also have to be realistic with yourself here, because some people like don't feel comfortable unless they're at that below sustainable and that's kind of an incredibly different animal that we need to focus on. But that is an important part of it as well. If we don't have that runway, then you may actually need to enter fat loss phase first and then enter a building phase, All right. So Hopefully that answered the question fully.

Speaker 1:

To kind of get into some closing thoughts here, really what I'd recommend for most people in this scenario is to hire a coach, Like we talked about. Almost everyone who starts with us sees some recomp, because it is very, very rare that someone is truly nailing everything they need to with their training, be it like your actual training program, be it your intensity and execution within your training and that pair of work out, nutrition and the recovery side of things. So again, almost everyone who we work with will see recomp, even other coaches we work with, because there is oftentimes so much left on the table, Even if it's not the knowledge, the accountability is oftentimes not there. So really speed up your progress. I think that's one of the absolute best things you can do. Of course, if you wanna work with us, the link to apply is in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

But again to the ask for the question. I hope this was helpful. Hopefully we didn't get too kind of off topic there, but I really wanna make sure we kind of fully summarize all the different things that we look into and wanna consider when deciding what the best approach is here. Anything else you want to add before we hop off?

Speaker 2:

On the note of hiring a coach, I also think it's just really helpful. I know that I had just said, like the body fat that you're comfortable with, but a lot of people that come to us have been trying for a fat loss phase for years at a time and not going through any other phases where a coach can kind of help you get into that different phase that you might not that might scare you a little bit, but that's really the best place that you can make progress. Like Jenae was in this exact spot where she had been trying to lose body fat and just thought that that's what she needed to improve her physique and so once we started actually bringing calories up, that's where she saw the most physique progress, and I can think of a handful of other clients in that exact same spot. So if you've been trying the exact same phase I know the question, asker, it doesn't seem to be in this position, but if you've been trying yeah, who don't see you?

Speaker 1:

because it doesn't sound like that, which is rare.

Speaker 2:

If you've been trying and trying at the exact same phase for a really long time, it's probably a good time for an objective outside eye on you.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and I would say for most people, that's if you've been trying that. The first type, the losing a lot of body fat and building muscle at the same time which is so, so common.

Speaker 1:

It's typically hard to hear and I've had even within the last couple of months. I can think of multiple potential clients on calls where I talk through like, all right, so this is like the approach we need to go and it can be a scary thing and I know there have been people who haven't signed up because of that. But that's okay, right, where it's, we're going to do what's in your best interest in the long-term. And again, that's very often like a coach isn't here to just confirm, like basically to pay someone to continue to do what you already been doing. Right, it's like that oftentimes the different approach is exactly what we need. But that is all we have for you all for today.

Speaker 1:

We also need to come up with a better the question, asker. We need a better. That sounds very cool. You need to come up with a better term there. But speaking of the question, I ask her again there is a link in the show notes for you to a quick form. Any questions you have that you want us to dig into on the podcast. You're going to just drop those there.

Speaker 2:

That's always appreciated Also if you go to show. I also have it in my Instagram bio. I think you do too right.

Speaker 1:

I think I do too, actually. Yeah, yeah, so more full way to access that I can never figure out show notes, like how to access those, so I'll just let you do that, but also, if you enjoy the show, do us a huge favor, leave us a five start rating and leave us a review, and we will catch you guys next time.