[0:00]What is up, YouTube? Today I'm going to be going over the top questions people ask me on how to bulk. Any question I get towards bulking, I've kind of compiled into like a top 10, and I'm going to be going going over all of them today so you have them in a concise area. Pretty much based off my experience rather than just purely science-based stuff. It's everything I've done and learned from my mistakes throughout the years, so you guys can learn from what I've done right and done wrong and hopefully learn faster than I did. First question is always, how do I know when to bulk? And I find this such a funny question people ask me cuz I have no fucking clue when people should bulk. It's very like situation dependent, person dependent, goal dependent. But as a whole, I would say, obviously, if your goal is to put on muscle, you should bulk, and if you're not fat, you can bulk. And fat is obviously very different to the average person, but if you're unhappy with the level of body fat you're at, that's super important, I don't think you should bulk yet. Come down to a body fat that you're happier with, maybe a little bit below even, and then work your way back up. But a general rule of thumb, I like to be like around 12% body fat for men, maybe 18 to 20 for women, but having visible abs for men specifically, is usually a gauge. So if my abs are still poking through a little bit, then I'm good to go, and I know I haven't bulked too far or I'm good to bulk. Next question, tail off that last one is, how do I know when to stop bulking? And similar to when you know if you should bulk, if you start to lose your abs or if you get too much of a high body fat percentage, I always struggle to say that back that time. Then you know it's time to slow down. There's a few other things, like when your appetite is absolutely like in the shitter, like you can't eat at all, it'll be tough to eat when you're bulking really hard. When it's completely gone, sometimes you need to just take a step back. If your lifts in the gym are plateauing, if your weight is stagnating, all these different things, it's kind of time to give your body a little bit of a break, whether it be for a week or a full cut, it kind of depends on your goals and situation, of course. But again, big thing is if you have some abs, you're still happy with how you look, you're not too fat yet, then you can keep pushing that way. All right, so how to start? How to start your base calories, macros, meal plan, whatever it may be. The simplest thing and that everybody needs to do and this is Jay's quote, is he always says what isn't measured isn't managed. So the more you measure, the more you can manage, the more you can adapt and you know what changes you're making are causing the changes in your body. So the most important step of starting anyone's fitness journey, really, is tracking everything you eat consistently and calculate the calories and macros on that. Maybe do it for a week, take the average and see what it is, and weigh yourself during all those days as well. So if I'm 250 pounds, I'm eating 4,000 calories every single day, then my base to maintain 250 pounds is 4,000 calories. So if I want to lose weight, I'll go under that. If I want to gain weight, I'll go over that. Typically, you'll increase by like 5 to 10, probably like 5%, I would say. I usually go on more so like 300 to 500 calorie increase when I start a bulk. So if I'm resting at 4,000, I'll go up to 4,500, and then from there, you can count your macros through that. Obviously, most important, if you're trying to bulk, put on muscle is protein. And you don't need quite as much protein when you're bulking, because carbs are actually protein sparing. When you're really low carb, your body is going to use protein for energy. Whereas when you're really high carb, you have all the carbs used for energy, so your body uses the protein to build muscle. Therefore, they're like, they help you spare protein. So when you're in a low, low carb deficit, your body's pulling from your protein source in order to make energy, not just rebuild. You need to add more protein to make sure that you're actually rebuilding properly as well as getting the energy from them. So I stick to a minimum of 1 gram per pound of body weight. Everyone knows that number. It's so simple, just stick to it, make sure you're at least hitting that, and that's what you prioritize. So then you take that, I'm 250 pounds, I'm 250 grams of protein, with four calories for every gram of protein, so multiply that by four, you're already at 1,000 calories. And then if I'm trying to hit 4,000 calories total, then I'm going to take 20 to 30% of that total caloric intake and make that into fat. And then so whatever that isn't fat, I'm not that quick at math. What is that? 20% of 4,000, 200, 800, 800. quick math. So that would be 800 calories for me in fat. So then I have 1,000 calories of protein, 800 calories of fat, and then I just fill the rest with carbs. And then there's your macros right there. That's literally how simple it is. And the most important thing is to continue to track going forward. Make sure those are hitting with right and track your body weight, look yourself in the mirror, monitor your lifts, if things are moving in the direction you're happy with, just keep doing it. That's what's important. If you start to lose weight or you're not gaining weight fast enough, you add a little bit more calories, and then you keep those ratios the exact same. You can play with that. A lot of people do better with higher carb or higher fat, and you kind of rotate through. Typically, most people do that 20, 30% fat. That's what's worked best for me. I enjoy eating a lot of carbs and not crazy amounts of fat, but also as I get to the end of my bulk and I'm eating like 6,000 calories, I'll start to just cover things in olive oil just cuz I need anything to get those calories in. So, obviously, there's a place to start, but the number one thing to be successful at anything is knowing that you're not stuck between these confines. If it works for you, it works for you. That's all that matters. It doesn't matter if someone else tells you what to do, if I do it or not, it works for you, you're making muscle. The other thing to take note when you're counting your protein, the 1 gram per pound of body weight, is there are some extreme cases where when people are really like underweight. Like if you weigh 100 pounds and you're a male and you're taller and you're just really skinny, you might want to bump that up from the beginning. And if you're heavily overweight, so you're 400 pounds and you don't have that much muscle on you, you don't need 400 grams of protein. If you can eat it, I guarantee you, you will lose weight more efficiently, having more protein rather than fats or carbs in your diet, but it's not necessary for putting on muscle. So if it's too hard for 400 grams of protein, if it's a lot of protein, then bump that down to something that's a little bit more appropriate, what you would get through lean body mass would be, and then use that number. It's an estimate, again, doesn't matter, you kind of play with things as they go. If you're really overweight, losing weight, all that really matters is that your calories are below what your basal basal metabolic rate is. All right, next question is, what type of food to eat? Cheat meals, clean bulk or dirty bulk? Rule of thumb for this, and my absolute belief, is whole foods are the most important thing. Something that grows from here, something that cavemen could eat, anything like that, single ingredient foods are your best bet. This is because, I mean, it's just normal food, much easier for your body to digest. The more food you can digest and the nutrients you can actually absorb from it, the less you actually need to eat to get the same benefit out of it. Then less you have to digest, better your stomach feels, the more you can eat. It's all just like a feedback loop to making more gains essentially. And even eating bad food, causes inflammation in the gut, which slows everything down, slows your bulk down, your muscle gain down, causes inflammation in your joints, can start hurting you when you're in the gym, training. There's a cascade of effects that can come from that, not to mention that it's just not as healthy for you. So yes, we're trying to put on muscle, but the healthiest way to do it is often also the best way to do it. So make sure you're actually focusing on eating clean, whole foods and not just going after like a nasty dirty bolt. People always ask about cheat meals, why can I have cheat meal, I want a cheat meal, what's the point of cheat meals, all these things. And over the last like four or five years in my preps, I didn't get any cheat meals. And that was cuz what I was talking about before, I didn't want that like gut digestion mess up. I didn't want the inflammation from it. I didn't want to ruin my sleep that night. I was full of all this shit and I had my joints hurt in the next day. Everything I was doing was so calculated to be the best that I was like, "I could have a cheat meal calorically and not get too fat, but it's going to have this other, you know, effects on my recovery, my digestion that's just not worth it right now." So I didn't have those ever when I was in prep. In my off season, I like to live a little bit. I still eat really healthy though, like if I get a burger, sometimes I get a lettuce wrap, no cheese, because I know it's going to mess with my stomach, and I make sure I stick with that. But again, kind of depends on what your goals are. The only point of having a cheat meal is pretty much for your mental sake, if you need like a little bit of like stress relief or a break from it. And if that's going to help you, then absolutely it's worth it. Even if you're a professional bodybuilder and it's going to benefit your mind and calm you down and give you a nice like cortisol brief to eat a cheat meal, then go for it. It's not the end of the world. But as me trying to be the best in the world, I wasn't going to do that shit. I was like, "Fuck it, I'm going to fill up on good food, food I know I can digest, just eat more of that, still sleep good, digest good, and be better for it." But that like 0.01% change it's going to make, doesn't matter to most people. And even now, as a retired bodybuilder, I'd be less strict on doing something like that myself. So, why would you clean bulk versus dirty bulk? I would say, people who dirty bulk are just people who don't understand the in-depth like my new show of how important every little thing is to your body. So I just think it's just kind of the easy way out. I need to get some calories in, I'm going to throw some shitty food down. It's also a very like a Band-Aid, it's a short-term solution for a long-term goal that you have. Used to do that for a year, two years, even five years from 20 to 25, maybe you'll get away with it if you're lucky, but it will start to catch up on you. So, I just don't even recommend dirty bulking. Throw in your cheat meals if you really want them and need them, but clean bulking is the way to go. We're not just trying to get jacked, you want to take care of your body. And when you build that healthy relationship with food that you're nourishing your body, you're feeling your body, you're putting good food in your body because you care about your body, it also makes it easier to diet. Because then you're not craving shitty foods when you're dieting, because food isn't just like a obsessive I can have now, I can't have it now, it's actually something that you appreciate and you're putting good things in your body. When I switched that mindset of eating for health, rather than just like restricting now or eating as much as I can now, I know like, "No, I'm putting good food to take care of my body." When I started prepping, I didn't even crave shitty food anymore. I was like, I want a little more rice and chicken, but like, it is what it is, I'm dieting. And it made it much easier for me, just a little mindset switch. As I said, it's so case dependent in bulking, like when I was a 21-year-old trying to put on much muscle as possible, I remember putting on like 20 or 30 pounds on off season, probably more than that. And I was like 270 plus pounds, midday I was like 275ish, and I dieted down to 220 and I was like, eating shitty food, messing up my digestion. Didn't care because I was 21 years old and I was just pushing things. And that variance made it really hard for me. So I stopped doing that, so this is kind of again back to when you should stop bulking. If you're a bodybuilder, you really only need to go like 10% over your weight. So I started being 20 pounds over my competing weight, which made it much easier for me to come back and down and make that weight, not stress my body out too much, it made my bulking way more efficient. But I'd also been doing that for a decade. So when you're at the beginning of your career, things are different. And this is why I always say, don't just listen to what I say, kind of just take knowledge in and try things out for yourself and see what works best for you at this point in your journey. What will work for me won't necessarily work for you. When I was young, I could dirty bulk, do all these things, same with you guys when you're young, you can get away with these things. When I had to eat six, almost 7,000 calories sometimes, I threw in some dirty food because at the end of the day, I just couldn't eat another bowl of chicken, rice, I was just over it. I would have a protein shake, peanut butter and jelly, go to bed and just, it is what it is. Now that I'm 30 years old and I'm a little older, my joints are good, digestion is good, everything is clean food, and you got to be a little bit more strict. But luckily, because I have more muscle mass on me, I didn't have to eat as much food. So I was actually eating way more food when I was younger than I am now because I've already built such a good base. So, there's always something different going on in your journey, just grab the basics, top of the knowledge that I'm giving you right now. Start with this, track it, pay attention to how your body responds, and adapt accordingly. That's the only thing that's going to make you successful, understanding your body and being able to do that. All right, so next question, we're in my personal supplement shop here. Best supplements for bulking. Number one, got to be creatine. If you're trying to put on muscle, creatine is the best muscle ever. It's good for your brain, good for energy, it's good for repair, it's good for putting on muscle. It's the most studied sports nutrition supplement ever. If you're not taking it, you're falling behind. There's so many other supplements that help build muscle, but specific to bulking and trying to bulk hard, number one thing I would say is digestion. I have a pretty good array of digestive supplements that you use at different times. One specifically is a glucose supplement, a GDA, glucose disposal agent, typically chromium, burberine, and a few other things in there that help. And this just helps your body actually utilize all the carbs that you're taking. I never took insulin as a bodybuilder, some people dabble in that, and it's such a an anabolic hormone, because it allows your body to use more food and shuttle it into your muscle. So there's no more natural supplements to take, like I said. Pony makes one called Evolag that has digestive enzymes and a bunch of GDA's in it. Revive has one called Glucose, that's a stronger version of just the GDA's. Super helpful, you just take them with every single meal, super easy to take.
[12:20]Other than that, like I said, the digestive enzymes, as well as between HCL, this bad boy right here, a lot of people don't have the proper stomach acidity for them to digest food, especially a lot of protein. When you're bulking like a bodybuilder, you're eating a lot of protein. So taking a supplement that helps like aid your gut essentially so it doesn't have to work so hard itself is super beneficial, because the average person should not and does not need to be eating 5,000 plus calories a day. So you want to give your body as much assistance as possible to make sure, like I said, you're absorbing those nutrients, actually using them, and you're able to pass that food through you so you don't get bloated and you can't eat your next meal and then you just start falling behind. So digestion is absolutely key, creatine, and then anything that helps you up take carbs. Other than that, of course, post workout shake, protein powder, it's like the most basic supplement in the world, but it's so helpful. Do you need it? Absolutely not. Can you get away without it? You're damn good if you can, cuz I've always needed it, both you prep or an off season. And I still really believe that a post post workout shake is extremely important. I like to get my EAAs mid workout still and then right after my workout or at least soon, getting in like 50, 75 grams of carbs with 50 grams of protein. And I take that all in powder form, just super easy to get down, I can eat again an hour later. And I know people are like, oh, the anabolic window doesn't matter or whatnot. Maybe it doesn't, it probably doesn't if you're getting all your food in, but if it makes me 0.5% better or 0.1% better, I'm going to do it. I'm a professional bodybuilder, I want to take everything I can. It's not that hard to drink a protein shake after you work out. And to be able to get that protein in, starts your your anabolism immediately. Your body's not breaking down tissue anymore, you're rebuilding it. Your recovery gets into immediately, your cortisol drops because your body's starting to get into rest and digest phase, which actually also helps your recovery. And the quicker you get in, the quicker you can eat a meal after that, and then go to bed earlier to get good sleep. So all super important things to help your gains and some of the benefits of supplements.
[14:20]All right, so gym questions. People are always asking how to train in a cut versus a bulk and all these things. And at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter that much. If you're training really hard and progressively overloading on proper periodization, probably on my app, and you're doing all the stuff you already know. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter that much, but if you take a look at what's going on when you're on a bulk, if you have a little bit more fluid in your body, therefore in your joints, you have more energy, you're recovering a little bit faster, a little bit easier. There's more nutrients to uptake, and a lot of people think, "Lift really heavy in this phase." and yes, you should lift really heavy, but the thing you can actually get away with more so is doing more volume, more intensified. So a higher level of hypertrophy. So training in a bulk with a lot of food, even on refeed days or whatever, you want to upload up your volume and intensifiers on those days. So things like double, triple sets, drop sets, rest pauses, all those kind of things are what you want to do on a bulk, because your body can actually handle that much stimulus and recover from it, and you have enough nutrients in your body to push that much volume for a longer workout. It's kind of a different thinking than you might think when you're eating more, you want to do more weight, but you actually want to just still be heavy as possible, but more volume, more intensifiers, and you'll get more gains to use all that food. Like I said, there's no like optimal, perfect way to do it, but that's the way I would do it. And to give an example of the way that my year used to look like with training, is I would take some time off, which I'd be in right now post Olympia, if I were competing again. Give my body a break to kind of recover, get back into it, and then I would start rebuilding my strength for a little bit. Adds food, still low, not too high. And I've had my food ramped up, I would try and have my strength already back by then, and then I would start doing a crazy amount of volume with that base of strength. So get a little bit stronger than being your off season, then my food gets really high. Use that strength, keeping the weight the same, but then you start adding rest pauses, drop sets, super sets, all the kind of crazy shit, of just like killing the muscle. Pushing some more sets past failure, training with a training partner, all those things that would stress your nervous system a little bit more, but are easier to recover when you have more food in you. So that's the way I would get do it. And right at the end of my off season when I would be like peak volume, peak hypertrophy, just like hammering my body, and then when my calories would start to drop, I would actually start increasing the weight a little bit. Because my volume would naturally have to come down because I don't have as much energy, glycogen stores in my muscle, going to drop the volume a little bit, but I'll keep the weight as high as possible, because a stronger muscle is often a bigger muscle. So if you already have the size to your muscle, maintaining strength will maintain the muscle, especially with low calories. So sometimes the reverse of what you think, but it's what I did in the last like, pretty much my whole career, and it really helped me get strong, make gains and hold those gains throughout my prep. All right, next question, should you do cardio on a bulk? Like I said, everything is person specific, but if I had to give an overarching answer, it would be yes. For many reasons, especially as a bodybuilder, the bigger you get, you want to take care of your heart. Obviously, cardio is the way to have the best heart health, so keeping up with that is super important. But also not caring about your health. If your goal is just to eat more, cardio helps you eat more. The amount of calories you're going to burn from doing 20 to 30 minutes of cardio is nowhere near what you can eat. You can have a bite of a sandwich and overcome the amount of calories you do with 20 minutes of cardio. So it's really nothing to be afraid of. A lot of people are like, "I'm trying to get huge, I don't want to do cardio, because I don't want to sacrifice gains." That's complete bullshit. Unless you're running marathons, biking two hours fast or doing anything, you're not going to be losing any muscle. There's a few tips that you can do, like if you are doing fast cardio because you love doing it in the morning, I would 100% recommend taking an amino before that, just so you're not burning through muscle. Your body at least kicks and protein synthesis, at least get 3 grams of leucine, two scoops of EAAs or something, and you're good to go. Also, one of the easiest things to do, and this is the stand efforting thing he always talk about on his diet, is doing a 10, 15-minute walk after every single meal that you eat. You're not going to burn through the food that you ate. I promise you're not even going to be close to it. But what it is going to do, get your digestion going, lower your blood sugar, help your insulin a little bit, allow your body to actually utilize those nutrients that you put in your body, and then eat quicker in your next meal. Like sometimes you eat a lot and you just want to lie there and you feel like crap. Like after Thanksgiving, you just want to pass out. But if you actually go for a walk, your body will start moving that food through you quicker, and then you can eat again quicker. It's going to help your insulin levels, which will help your body uptake the food better. So there's a lot of benefits that come into it, so cardio, good for your heart, actually going to help you eat more, and it just helps them move the food through you. So I 100% recommend cardio on a bulk. I wasn't always the best at keeping up with this, if I'm being completely honest, but I did notice to a T, in the years where I didn't do cardio, but I ate as much as I could, my appetite wasn't as good, and I put on fat quicker. Not muscle, but fat. When I was doing a good amount of cardio, I could eat more, I felt better, and my body was utilizing it for muscle better than it was in adding fat. So I just noticed a different body composition, why I body was doing when I was choosing to do cardio in my off season. So in the end, when I was doing it all the time, I felt way better, and I absolutely recommend it to everyone, whether you're skinny, fat, whatever. If you're skinny as fuck, do less cardio. If you're fat, do more. Don't overthink it, but focus on your heart. All right, so another question I always get asked is around, how fast should I gain weight? How do you know if you're getting too fast or too slow? And again, everything is so person dependent, it's so hard for me to even answer these, but I'm trying to give you guys something to go off of. So take what I say and apply it to yourself in real life and adapt it. But I would say in the range of 0.2 to 2 pounds a week, is like good, it's great for gaining muscle. Again, that could be from a beginner to someone who's advanced. So when I was young, and I was like 18 years old training, I could probably put 2 pounds of muscle on if I really bulked and trained hard and one efficient in food, life, it was incredible, it was amazing. And now over the last four years, I've maybe put on 4 pounds of muscle, doing what I've been doing, and I've been struggling to do that. And that's me guessing, cuz I'm always a little bit leaner, not always lean, so it's like my stage weight is variable, but it's really hard. So it really comes down to a lot of different things, but I think what's super important is having a high standard of which you hold yourself to. So your norm of how you look, you should be proud of how you look. You're working out to feel good, to look good, to be good, so you want to be happy with how you look. So if you start from a leaner spot and you bulk and you don't want to change too much from that, you're not going to be too fat, obviously, versus if you start from a fatter spot, you get a little more fat, you're more fat than that. So having that norm, that high standard to which you hold yourself to, know you're proud of how you look, is super important when it comes to these things. It's hard to manage tracking body fat with clips or BMI's or all these things. So if you're taking constant check-in pictures of yourself, put your weight beside it, the amount of food you're eating with that, and you're following along those things and you're seeing how your body's adapting. You're much better off than just like guessing what's going on. And obviously, gaining weight, there's so many variables it could be. When you first start bulking, you know, your glycogen stores are filling up, you're holding on to more water, carbs make you hold on to more water, creatine sometimes can, but then it typically levels out, so I don't trust about that, and I don't want to say that. But there's so many different things that can make you hold on to weight that aren't just fat or muscle. Water, fat, or muscle are the main top three that it's going to be, so you really need to be careful of what the difference is. If you diet, if you bulk for a year and you put on 20 pounds and then you diet down and you lose 19, for the average person, that's not a very good bulk. If you're like an elite bodybuilder, then you're doing all right. For the average person, you probably don't need to put that 20 pounds on to gain 1 pound of muscle. So try and like just even that ratio out. Again, I hate giving numbers, but if you're putting on 10% in a year, you're doing pretty good for yourself, depending on the level at which you're at. Just keep watching yourself, don't let yourself get too fat, be happy with how you look. Monitor your breathing, your heart rate, all these different things are super important, how you feel, how you look. It's all going to go into the final result, so it's all important. All right, next thing is, how long should I bulk for? Minimum time to put on muscle. If you put on muscle, you put it on muscle, but there is the longer period of time you're holding it, the less likely you are to lose it when you cut really hard. So that's something to take into account. If you bulk for two months, and then you cut really hard, you're probably going to lose a good amount of that muscle, versus if you're someone who's been holding on to that muscle for a year, two year, three years, or six months versus a two month bulk, you're more likely to hold on to it. So just take that into consideration. I personally liked a longer bulk because I didn't feel like I had to force it as hard and I had to put a bunch of food in really fast. I could slowly tape her up 250, 300, 400 calories at a time, I let my body will plateau. I would just add a little bit more food, add a little bit more food, and my body wouldn't put on fat as quick. The slower the change you make, the more likely you are to put on good weight rather than just fat. So understand that, take your time, the longer you hold it, the longer your body's going to maintain it. Also again, it's super important to be specific on what your goals are, and definitely not goal hop around. If you're like, "Oh, I want to bulk." and then you bulk a little bit and your abs are a little less shredded. I want to cut and you start cutting a bit. I want to be bigger and you start flip-flopping back and forth, you're going to make zero progress, and there's no point doing it. So start something and commit to it and understand what your goals are. If your goal is to put on muscle, but you hate when you lose your abs, do a really slow, long bulk, very slow increase of calories, make sure your abs are staying there. Stick to training your abs, stick to doing your cardio, eating good food, no inflammation, you won't hold on as much water, you won't look as chubby, you'll feel better. All these different things. If all you want to do is put on much muscle as fast as possible, you don't give a shit, that's the type of person who pushes it a little bit faster for a little bit longer. So you kind of got to figure out what your goals are, and tailor it, you work towards your goals. All right, last question and another big one, crucial one. I've been here, what if I can't eat enough, and how to increase my appetite? Can't is a very strong word. Whenever I meet someone and they come up to me and it's often at expos, who are like 170 pounds, they're like, "I can't put on muscle, I can't eat enough." I'm like, "You're lying. Eat more, train harder, just do it." There's it's always a possibility. If you're really can't put food down and you're skinny skinny, there's probably a reason why. Your cortisol is too high, your recovery isn't good enough. You need to sleep better, you need to slow down, you need to eat better foods, you need to check your gut. There's there's a reason why. People aren't just that hard gainer. People are harder than gaining than others, but there's no hard gainer who can't eat and gain weight. It's complete bullshit, you just have to do it and it takes a long period of time. So the biggest thing is I think, honestly, like I mentioned, the cortisol, sleep, recovery. If all that stuff is on point, your body can take in food. It's people you hear about stress eating and people who no term for it, but people when they get stressed, they they forget to eat all day. A week will bulk go by and they eat one meal a day maybe, just because they're so stressed out all the time. Your body's in a fight or flight state, cortisol's running through your body, it's not ready to rest and digest, why people say rest and digest. You're in a fight fight or flight, high cortisol, your body's not ready to digest food, not ready to take in food. So it's super important to eat in the calm state. So like, being in a relaxed state as often as possible to get your sleep in, sleep and rest and low cortisol is like the secret to bodybuilding. My ability to like lower my stress at times, when I was in prep, literally won me Olympias. It's so crucial, and it comes in so importantly to bulking as well. So yeah, that that I would say that's the biggest thing, especially post workout, when you're training, you're at a high level of stress, which is important. You're putting your body through a stimulus, and the quicker you can switch your body into from fight and flight into rest and digest, the better you're doing. So after a workout, if you can like meditate, chill, get your protein in, some vibing music on the way home, don't just get on your phone, go back to work. Stress yourself out with some stuff, just like calm your nervous system, you'll be recovering better, and you'll be able to eat and absorb more nutrients after that workout. Super important. On top of that, just a little tip, trick that everyone knows to do, smoothies. You're eating your meals throughout the day. Understand your meals that you can get, nutrient timing is so important. Pairing that with smoothies, it's the secret. If you figure that your body's nutrient timing of when it can absorb certain food, certain meals in the best way, you're going to crush it. Me, I like having low carbs in the morning, because then my entire appetite for the rest of the day is bigger. A lot of times I used to think, oh, I need a 1,500 calorie breakfast to get these calories in, so I don't need as much later in the day, but then I can't eat my meals later in the day and I screw myself. But if you have a high high fat, whole food, high protein breakfast, your insulin levels are actually more consistent throughout the day rather than spiking and dropping and peaks and valleys throughout the day. So it's a lot healthier for your body and easier to eat your meals later on in the day. So high fat, whole food, high protein breakfast, start getting your carbs in around your workout, both of your carbs would be pre and post workout. I can handle them pre and didn't make me tired, so it was completely fine. And some points in the day, have a massive smoothie. I like having mine later in the day. If it didn't fill my stomach up too much before sleeping, you threw in some intro workout carbs, some protein powder, some whole eggs for some real nutrients, some oats if you want, some peanut butter, almond butter, whatever you want to throw on there, whatever your body digests great, blend it all up. Drink it before bed, you can get in easily 1,200 calories in a shake. And you don't need to get a mass gamer, stuff like that, cuz that'll just fuck your stomach up. Unless you can handle it, good for you, but I never could. So digestion or smoothie, blend all your shit up, drink a smoothie, digest it good, go to sleep and get huge. So another big thing on that, increasing your appetite, low cortisol, nutrient timing, big smoothies, big three. All right, so that's the bulk of these questions. I'm sure I rambled on a heavy amount. If you guys have any more questions, drop them in the comment section below. I will add them to the next Q&A that we do. But yeah, these are the biggest tips and tricks I can say that I've done. I've gone through many different phases in my career, bulking really hard and not bulking really hard. And again, I listen to so much knowledge over my career. I took in so much stuff and I tried so many things. The only things that stuck were what worked for me. You have to like flow with things, you have to like treat bodybuilding like the art it is and understand that there's so many nuances to it that it's dependent on each specific person. And only you can figure that out for yourself because only you know yourself. So trial and error, pay attention, track things, what is it measured, is it managed, lock it all in and get fucking huge. So that's it. Thank you guys for watching. I'll see you next time.
