Lifting Nerds
Adrian Ma and Brandon Emslie share discussions and interviews with the fitness community's best science-based researchers and coaches.
Lifting Nerds
S3E6 - The Hidden Truth About Visual Progress
We examine the realities of physical transformation and share insights on how to accurately measure progress beyond what you see in the mirror. Drawing from our competition prep experience, we explore stubborn fat areas, transitioning from regular training to competition, and managing social obligations while staying on track.
• Using multiple metrics (progress photos, waist measurements, bioelectrical impedance scans) to track changes objectively
• Strategy for first-time competitors: aim 10-15 pounds lower than your initial target weight guess
• Realistic expectations about stubborn fat areas - lower abs and obliques are last to lean out, even for competitors
• Managing social events during prep through strategic pre-eating and protein prioritization
• Understanding true refeeds versus untracked "free meals"
• Psychological symptoms of prep often appear before physical ones
• Consistency level directly correlates with results - 70-90% adherence yields 70-90% of potential results
• For summer body goals, start early and aim for 1-2 pounds of fat loss per week
Ready to transform your physique or step on stage? DM us on Instagram or find the application form in our bio to learn how we can help you achieve your goals.
IG: @liftingnerds
Youtube: liftingnerds
Host
@_adrianma
@brandonemslie
welcome guys, back to our seventh episode of our lifting nurse podcast. Um, just me and me and brandon here today, uh, and we wanted to share a little bit on some of what our clients are struggling with and a lot of infer on a lot of some of our clients and some of the problems that actually do run into are some of the visual results that you might be seeing. So if you have been lifting for you know quite a while and you're not seeing results, here we're going to give some tips on how you can actually measure these objective what do you call that objective results and what to look for if you are actually taking progress photos, and we'll teach you a little bit of tools and things to look for and how you can actually measure if you're actually making results. But before that, we what is it March, late March? It's late March right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah uh, yeah, march 19th today so, and how time flies.
Speaker 1:Uh, you are six weeks from, uh, your bc cup show. Yes, and it's also the six weeks from wmbf vancouver show. Uh, I can't wait for everybody who's going to be taking part in the vancouver show. I'll see you all. I'll see you all there. I won't see you until much later. Uh, shows happen on the same day, so I can't support you. No stress man, no stress, but uh, house prep, let's.
Speaker 2:Uh, let's talk a little bit about house prep for you uh, it's, it's been good man like definitely been seeing more weight drop these past two, two weeks. Um besides, what was it last?
Speaker 2:not last night, but the night before, um, I, I got some like stomach virus or something, so I was kind of in the washroom most of the night and then the morning was kind of iffy and then last, like last evening, uh, it was like like I was pretty much fully recovered from it, so I don't know what was going on there, um, but other than that and things, things have been good. Like I still think this prep so far has been like the most successful in terms of, like, reducing the prep symptoms, more so towards the end of this prep, well, I guess we've still got a ways to go, but like I haven't been noticing any crazy symptoms when it comes to energy, when it comes to hunger the only major symptoms that even with my last prep I was, I had, but it's more so just the psychological ones where I almost feel like I, I need to be doing more. Like there's this great sense of like okay, I gotta be doing more of this, I gotta be doing more of that, or I just feel like my like anxiety or my urge, like, okay, I need to be. Like doing something is really kicking in, which is good from a per productive standpoint, but it's hard to. It's getting hard to like wind down.
Speaker 2:Um, so that's pretty much how like I've been doing, like in terms of like the symptoms, but like the physique is definitely tightening up, like I'm noticing like my shoulders, my arms they always um get lean first, but like they're they're getting like real close to where I want them to be. Um, abs are coming in more, obliques are coming in more. Um, legs are even starting to come in. Glutes have like a very faint striation to them and good lighting. So like like physique's definitely going in the right direction. Um, and uh, yeah, just excited to see how, how these next six, uh I guess six and a half weeks go. Yeah, six and a half weeks, how?
Speaker 1:about. Why do you think you're away from? Uh, your, uh, what is that word? I wouldn't like ideal physique that you visualize yourself on stage. How, like, how much weight am I away from it?
Speaker 2:probably, or even like, just visually yeah, so for in terms of like the body weight, um, so I, I was actually 174.8 this morning, so like I'm having the feeling I'll probably be around like the 170 to 173 range for like my scale weight. Um, in terms of my actual look, um, yeah, I, I think I have maybe a little bit more to come off in like the, the obliques, like the lower obliques area, the lower back area is always that last place. Yeah, that takes some time to come off. Um, so I, I think if I lose that next like three to five pounds, I think that's where I'm gonna be looking quite crispy there. Um, when it comes to like classic physique, I I have a feeling I'm probably gonna have to get under the 170 mark. But uh, yeah, no, I, I think I'll I'll be a couple pounds up from the last time I I competed, so I, so I think I should be good for it.
Speaker 1:How about you man?
Speaker 2:How has the last couple weeks been for your prep?
Speaker 1:For me. It's a little rough For stage weight, honestly. I had a deload and then after the deload, I went all the way down to 63.8. So wait, let me just put that back in pounds for you. Sorry, 63.8. That was my lowest. So I was at 140 pounds. I was at 140.4 pounds. That was my lowest so far in this prep, uh, up to date. And after the deload week, uh, we start. We began training volume again. Uh, I think food was roughly about the same, calorie was about the same, and my body weight jumped back up to 146, if I'm correct and I hate this kilo and pound thing. Oh, sorry, 140. Yeah, 141, 142, not 146. I correct myself. I was like 141.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we jumped up about one or two pounds back up. One or two pounds back up. Mainly we were guessing it's due to just after training. There's, you know, info like minor inflammations and things like that. However, on you know, in the mirror we are seeing the physique coming in a little bit tighter.
Speaker 1:I am actually in the very same situation as you. I do have that lower oblique, not the lower back, but just that lower oblique on the side. I can't. I'm really having difficulty identifying if it's actually body fat or water or it's just skin. So that is just something that I'm I'm not sure of. Uh, but obliques are coming in, abs are coming in. Even abs are coming in on a situation where I'm not even flexing and we're seeing it quite nicely. That's where I'm currently at. However, body weight is sitting still this morning at 141.8. Therefore, it's the needle's not really moving in terms of body weight so far. Um, talk to brian. Um, I asked should I really be concerned on that? He said yeah, it's okay, you're, you know, usually I'm mainly I'm vainly pretty lean at this point and we've got for me. We wait. Kelowna is eight weeks or nine weeks. Yeah, uh, so it'd be, it'll be eight weeks yeah, it'll be eight weeks by the end of this week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it'll be eight weeks, so got roughly about two months, I'm assuming. We'll probably be feeding two to three weeks away from actual show day, gotcha.
Speaker 2:So I think I'm just I may not reach down to the 136 pound mark that we set in the beginning which is probably a good sign because, like, if you don't have to go that far down, man, like that's a good sign that you gained a lot of tissue, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, like I would. I would hope so. I would really really hope so. Um, however, I I am quite happy. You know, now I'm very, very lean. I'm quite happy on what this off season has brought. I could definitely see, uh, major improvements on the chest, uh, the triceps and the delts. That is something that now I'm very lean. I look at previous pictures, back in 2022. It's a very obvious improvement, so I'm quite happy with that.
Speaker 1:But, speaking of which, I just want to rewind back a little bit while we're talking about mind, uh, back a little bit, uh, while we're talking about what our potential stage weight was going to be, um, that. So we like see, even for myself, we were expecting, uh, our stage weight to probably be about one 136, 138 for myself and you're a little bit heavier from your previous prep. You're expecting yourself to be about 170. So we've been sort of doing this and, for me, I'm still guessing our stage weight. And if you guys have not seen Brandon's post, he made a recent post on setting benchmarks for your bodybuilding show. I think we talked about this before, but I think we want to go back again and talk about this how do we, you know, how would you determine on a first timer if they want to compete regardless in men's physique, classic physique, bodybuilding. You know, how would you determine, how would somebody determine their first weight? Or how would you determine?
Speaker 2:help them determine it, um, during a call yeah, so I would always try to get progress photos from them just to see how things are sitting, try to make sure they're in decent light, like in like window lighting or natural lighting, just to really make sure that it's not just like down lighting and you're seeing everything popping really well, because then that can be a little bit more harder to determine, but it's more so.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, looking at, find things like, hey, like, do they have like, are there abs in right now? Can you see like their obliques if they're flexing? Can you, with their back, pose like how much detail is there? And then we can also have a look at maybe previous times when they got to a really low weight, like when I did like a fat loss phase or something like that, if they have, have a look at those photos, see how lean they look there, and based off of that kind of information we can like with an experienced eye, you can kind of calculate, okay, like, how much weight do we think that needs to come off in order to get there? I usually like to have it lower than what I possibly think it is, just so we have some extra time so we can even possibly like again feed into the show if we're ahead of schedule.
Speaker 2:Um, so, yeah, just looking at those kind of markers, um, it's again, it's gonna be a bit of a guesstimation. Most people, even with like, say, like a dexascan or something like that, if you can get access to that. There's still going to be some level of error there, um, but it just, it just comes with time. But I would say, like if you're somebody brand new to it, you're like oh, I think I'm gonna be out of this weight. Take literally 10 pounds, maybe even 15 pounds, off that weight and then set that target and that's probably what your target's gonna be just because it's.
Speaker 2:Most people generally for their first show don't understand how lean you actually need to get to get to that stage conditioning because in great lighting, like, like people. Like when I posted one of the photos or the videos on my Instagram in like crazy, damn lighting with a massive pump people like man, you're so lean already. Like, like you don't even have to get much leaner. I'm like man, like if you see me under the actual lights at this weight, there's still a decent amount of body fat that actually needs to come off of.
Speaker 2:So like yeah there's a difference between that kind of beach, kind of that lean, kind of instagram look and like being absolutely peeled for your show.
Speaker 1:So I agree. I agree where lighting can play a big uh, big factor here, uh, when lighting is more favorable, then it looks more appealing for, for, for social media, for for depth, for sure, uh. However, the second part of the question is now we've determined a, a, you know, a stage wait for first timers. Something just came across my mind I just want to pop in is how would you transition? How do you transition from somebody who's a GP into somebody who wants to compete the first time?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So a general follow up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so with the general population person or gen pop person it's usually you've built these like staple habits with them. So either it be tracking food or understanding portion sizes, or like a flexible meal plan or something along the lines of that, or certain eating behaviors, depending on how you they generally, what generally works best for them. You have these eating behaviors. You have the consistency with the gym for the most part. So when you transition them over, it's usually not too bad, especially if you have in the back of your mind an idea that they want to compete, because then you can kind of build these habits around like your training, your nutrition, your lifestyle, so that when you're transitioning to competing it's just a little, just kind of one step up from what you're already doing. So just kind of getting into the mindset okay, like there's going to be a bit more restriction here. Um, you're probably gonna like energy and everything going through, like the symptoms with them and like what to actually expect is going to be a huge thing, because sometimes people see these shredded physiques online or they're following like sam sue look like. Another point I wanted to say before I go into this is like, um, you mentioned with, uh, sam sue how he just looks fucking crazy and like his photos and his videos and then when he's on stage he's like, oh, he looks good, but he doesn't look as shredded. That's a exact thing that typically happens for most people is they look really shredded in this crazy lighting and they go on stage and people are like, oh, like he doesn't look as lean as like he did in this photo. It's because of the lighting, they're playing with lighting.
Speaker 2:But to get back to it, yeah, just going through the symptoms that people are going to expect to feel in terms of energy drops, in terms of, like the brain fog, less focus, um, maybe having a hard.
Speaker 2:It's just going to put a little bit more pressure on other things outside of lifting too, just with, like um, being a bit more moody, a bit more short and stuff like that. So, just kind of going through what this process is actually going to look like and like how it's probably going to be more difficult than you think it's going to be. In some aspects it might be easier in others, like some people think like, oh, I'm not only be able to eat these specific foods there, you can still be flexible with your food and everything like that as long as you're hitting targets and as long as you're controlling for volumes like if you're just eating protein bars and like protein powder and then having candy and stuff like that you're not going to be satiated, you're not going to have a good time during prep. So keeping the good structure with foods but I think I'm getting a little off track here. Was there any specific points that you wanted me to highlight with a transition over?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I think you make a really good point on uh, just the difference between uh, the you know what their their current training program is and things to expect when they transition into doing their first show. Maybe I wanted to highlight a little bit on would there be any difference between their training volume or their frequency in their training?
Speaker 2:yeah, so it. It would depend on where they're starting off with, like. If they're, say they're training like two, three times a week, like they're, they're not going that many times to the gym, yeah, we'd probably want to bring it up a little bit more. Bring it to like four times, maybe five times per week. If it's somebody that's literally trained like five, six times a week, you might even expect to pull down the training towards the end just to help manage fatigue and stuff. It would just.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just need to see the context for like what that looks like, what the eating behaviors look like, what that transition is going to look like.
Speaker 2:If somebody's coming to me a gp and like a gen pop person, and like they don't know what macros are, they're super inconsistent with training, they're having a hard time staying focused on one single goal and they find themselves jumping around from thing to thing to thing.
Speaker 2:That's where I always like to have a time frame where, okay, let's see what we can do within these next couple months.
Speaker 2:Let's see if we can get you learning macros, see if we can get you learning how to stay consistent with the gym, and once we can do that, then let's transition into prep, because the worst thing you want to do for a gen pop person is like, okay, I want to get healthy, so I want to compete, and then, like you're, going from like not having these habits down to trying to get all these habits in play while trying to get super lean and that's where a lot of times people tend to fall apart is because they don't even have a lot of these things down and they're trying to do so many things and they just get overwhelmed, whereas, like for me and you, like we've, we have these habits pretty well set. Even in the off season it might just be a bit looser, but we're still consistent with training, we're still consistent with sleep most of the time. So it's, it's a pretty smooth transition in, so it's not as many extra variables to stress with because it's already become a habit, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do mention eating habits, which I think it's a very important. I think it's the most important one from somebody who's a GP and transitioning into prep, let's say for somebody who trains consistently. I'll maybe give you not a really case study, but an example here somebody who trains two to three times a week very, very common for gen pops uh, they, they live life. Honestly. They're not, they're not, they're not a full-time athlete. So they will have social events, they will have many social events. So eating habits are probably not as consistent as like, they're able to track everything and their, their tracking skills are not very, very mature yet. How would you make that transition or how would you address that to them?
Speaker 2:but for per se, giving more context, maybe their job requires them to attend to a lot more social events yeah, and that's where, um, yeah, if you don't have those skills for leading out, like that's for meal prepping your meals, bringing like your container, like storing in the fridge in the area or just bringing that to these kind of events and like, typically, if you let somebody know, like of your friends in a like or work environment, know that, okay, like, I'm in prep, this is what is required for me to get to where I need to be, most people are going to be like, okay, yeah, no stress or anything like that. Um, so, yeah, just just having that structure. Okay, like, having those meals prepped out, weighed out so that we can be nice and dialed in. Um, and then, just for the social events, yeah, well, for that jump out person, just letting them know that maybe, like, for you're probably not going to want to go to as many social events as you, or if you're going to a lot right now, you might need to reduce them a little bit as you get closer to your show, especially if you're somebody that you find you tend to give in to when people like oh, I just have this, or just have this, or have a couple drinks.
Speaker 2:If you find you're a person that always generally tends to give into that. It might be one of those things that you do have to pull away from a little bit and just let the person know okay, this is my goal, like I'm really focused on this right now. We can do some other things together, like that's not around food and that's maybe not around like partying, just to still keep that relationship going well. But it's just, yeah, pulling away from some of those things, it's gonna make your life a lot easier. And like, if you have these events and you're staying up till like one, two in the morning, like every single weekend, yeah it's, it's probably's probably not going to be the best for like sleep quality, like moods going to be fluctuating a lot more. Hunger the next day will probably fluctuate a lot more. So, trying to make sure that you can still have some of that, but have not as much as maybe before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a. That's a pretty good practical way. I would like to just sort of piggyback off what you just said in terms of their job culture and some the GP may require to attend some company events, even on behalf of you, the company. They might have to go to uh events where they have drinks and a little bit of champagne and maybe just attend a I know uh, maybe just like a reception or something like that, like a retreat kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, retreat, and you know they, we attend weddings and things like that.
Speaker 1:So all these social events will add up uh in in, uh just come together in like maybe once a month or maybe twice a month, and it will, it will tax eventually at the end of your entire prep, a little bit by bit by by little, and I think and I think there's something in Asian cultures where they have a family gathering and you say no to the table and it feels rude. So it's going to be a little challenging in that scenario where somebody is put in that situation and to say, you know, pull back on those. It's going to be a little bit challenging. Um, so what I have, uh, in this scenario is mainly I'll pre-eat the meal before attending to these. I will still show up.
Speaker 1:It's a must in some, in some asian cultures. It's a must that you have to show up to these social events and family gatherings. I'll eat first and then we attend it, and it's just your best interest to stay away from any sorts of alcoholic drinks. And, uh, probably just focus a little bit more on the the protein size, and since you're rich, full from your previous meal, it just tends to fill you up a little bit more. On the the protein size, and since you're rich, full from your previous meal, it just tends to fill you up a little bit more. And you just didn't want to eat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah no, makes sense, man. And like, well, that's another thing too. Like you can still partake in some of those kind of meals, like if, if you have some good planning, if you kind of overestimate things, if you kind of know what's going to be there and you look up like a homemade recipe ahead of time or like on my fitness pal or whatever tracking app you're using, like look up like the exact thing that you're having overestimate a little bit, and as long as it's not like happening like five times a week, where you're having to guess that five times a week meal, then I think that's totally fine, like I've. It depends on the client too, because I've had clients like I had a client like where he was having a family dinner every single Sunday or he was very loosely tracking like he still got his pro card at the end of the day, like doing that every single weekend and I incorporate that into his refeed. So like I do find there is ways to work around these kinds of things and still be able to do it, as long as we're still seeing the right trend with your weight, right trend with your body fat levels, all of this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Because if you're incorporating that like say, you're trying to do your best to guesstimate it but we're noticing, like every time you do that your weight jumps up a bunch and we're not seeing the rate of weight loss we're wanting.
Speaker 2:That it's like, okay, maybe we're, we're not going to do this anymore, we're going to try to pull back on it because we're not seeing the results we want to see.
Speaker 2:But if we can incorporate those kinds of things and still see the progress we want to see, like that's like the perfect world, because it's like you get that little bit of freedom, you don't feel quite so restricted, you have that good family time, you have some tasty meals, but then you also get the fat loss you're wanting. So that's where I find just kind of getting into like the mind of like your client, like what they kind of need, like if that's like a family routine that they're doing all the time and if we can figure out a way of still incorporating that so that they're not feeling restricted, that they're not feeling like they're left out of things A lot of times. I find that helps somebody keep going with the prep is the biggest reason that a lot of people quit the prep is because they're like, okay, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do that, whereas we want to try our best to still incorporate these things, um, but to the extent that it's going to allow us to still get the end outcome we want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some things I do agree that we have to give up for for prep it. Yeah, if you're living a rather unhealthy lifestyle, it's going to be a little bit more challenging. So I agree with what you, what you said in the beginning. I think we got to. We got to first shift your basic lifestyle to fit a similar module to what prep may potentially look like before we make that transition. I think that they make a very, really good point.
Speaker 1:I want to just rewind a little bit about uh refeeds, and we've talked about this back, I think season one or season two, I don't remember uh. However, we're still getting uh a lot of misinformation on what refeeds actually are. Uh, so let's address that. You know, refeeds are not food, it's not a free meal. So we want to get, we want to be crystal clear on that. If you are in prep, refeeds are not eat whatever you want and and they're untrackable. They're untrackable. So maybe they are a little bit more untrackable, but they can't be 100% untrackable. Um, I'm not sure I can't give like a good example what untrackable? Maybe dim sum.
Speaker 2:Dim sum is sort of untrackable yeah, like there's certain meals, like, say, if somebody, like somebody, makes a homemade meal for you and like they put like, like, say, like 30 different ingredients in there and, like they, they don't weigh anything out and they throw that in, and then like it's a recipe that's homemade, that is not similar to like any other recipes out there, those kind of things are kind of untrackable, where you really just have to guess what's what you're putting in, and like those kind of meals, I'm always kind of like, yeah, that's, that's probably not something we want to be throwing in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so still keep, just keep on, just keep a a fact like, if we do, we do save free meal. We don't see free meal. We'll just say a refeed, maybe more or less. It's the same food, uh, just in a higher volume. So it kind of it works out for your weekly uh, caloric intake Now. Um, so we've talked about frequency. We've talked about you know what is a good eating habit. We've talked about, uh, what is a good volume overall. Um, for a first timer to transition into a prep now, prep or no prep. We've worked with athletes, we've worked with gen pops. Something that I do run into is we have a lot of jump up asking you know, when will I see abs, or when will I see this, when will I see that? Uh, have you ran into similar situations?
Speaker 2:yeah, where they're just curious on, like, when they're going to start to see, like, the the end results, when they're, yeah, going to start to see their abs coming in, or when they're going to actually start to notice like a significant change to their physique yeah.
Speaker 1:So what would be your a good you know tactic for them to? You know, just see their uh or what? Maybe I'll re-question that. What is sort of a metric that you would use, an objective uh metric that you would use to measure? How do you see visual results for a gen pop who trains, say, two, three times a week?
Speaker 2:yeah, so for the visuals, like progress photos, doing them on a week to week, like for um gen pop people, I usually have them do them on a month-to-month basis because, like you're not going to see changes usually week to week or even like every three weeks. Four weeks is like that's where you're going to start to notice some change that you can visually see on like a picture.
Speaker 1:Depending on the individual to like.
Speaker 2:If your body fat percentage is quite high, like if you're in the 30 40%, and you're doing progress photos, it's probably going to be pretty hard to tell the difference Like you can see around, like your waist there, how it's like bulging out maybe, or through the side poses, or like you can see minute changes. But yeah, typically if somebody is around like 20% body fat and they get they're getting down to like 15 or like 10, like you'll see quite a substantial change in the detail coming out. The higher ends is a little bit more challenging and that's where I like to talk about how clothing is fitting. So if you're noticing, okay, like I'm down like a pant size or my shirt's a lot looser around my waist, these are some good indicators. Okay, we are 100% seeing some fat fat loss and a lot of times, with these kind of individuals, especially if they have not even trained uh before and they just start resistance training, they start eating more protein, they start eating a decent killer of intake.
Speaker 2:A lot of times they're going to see a lot of what is known as body recomposition, where they're gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time so that's where, like the scale itself, like hopping on the scale every morning, if they're seeing like the weight stay the same or even plus, they even go up a little bit and they're getting frustrated.
Speaker 2:That's why I don't like just using the scale, because it's like that may happen. But you may go down a size in your pants and your shirts and stuff like that with that body recomposition. So doing like waist circumference measurements is another key one I always like to throw in with people, especially for looking at the progress was we're not seeing quite as much as we're thinking, or scale is not saying well, quite as much. And if we look at the waist circumference measurement and it's down a decent amount, they're like okay, we 100% are losing body fat there. So I always like to use more than one metric, because sometimes one metric can be a little bit hard to decipher. If okay, like how much change has actually been made?
Speaker 1:that's a really good one. So same same here. I use more than one metric. For my online ones, I, yeah, I use more than one metric, so waist hip ratio one, uh, I've been using recently, uh, uh. The second one, of course, progress photos are going to be, uh, an all-time favorite for online. For my in-person ones, I've started to use, uh, the not a dexa scan those, what is it? Those in-body tanita scales, those. And yeah, what is it? Those?
Speaker 2:in-body. Tanita scales those in yeah, in-body scans yeah, in-body scanner scales.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they don't tell like 100% truth, maybe just like 50 or maybe 40% of the truth, but it's just a number that we can work with. What was it one month ago, four weeks ago, and what was it now? And I've started incorporating one more, which is a body metrics, so biometrics, I'm sorry. Now I start. I take the time to measure the circumferences of my clients, basically their neck, delts, arms, legs, waist, the whole shebang, and some, some of them enjoy it, some of them enjoy it and they can see.
Speaker 1:They'll open the app on their phone. I'll open my app on my phone and we'll have the results side to side and we can just see where we can, where it's improved or where it has stayed the same. So even more metrics for them to show them. Uh, we have, like we do have, um, you know, some general population that they haven't seen results maybe in like two, three months. Uh, just due to like lifestyle and social events and just life itself. Uh, what would be your, uh, not your go-to, but then your words of encouragement in this, in this scenario?
Speaker 2:I always tell them like, like, the more work you put in, like, the more you're going to get out of it. So if you're like, say, like 90 on point with your training, your nutrition, you're going to see like 90 of that outcome. If you're on the other end of the spectrum, you're 20. There, you're getting some workouts in, you're doing some things with nutrition, but you're not putting a whole lot of work there, you're not going to get as much of an outcome. So, like, if you we want to always be kind of closer to I wouldn't say we want to be a hundred percent because like, sometimes that gets, like you get super ocd and like if you miss a stress and you stress yourself out, we don't want to get to that point, but we want to be upwards of like that 70 to 90 percent. Like if your lifestyle maybe 60 to like 80 percent, like consistent each and every month and you're going to make 60 to 70 80 percent of that progress. And if you're somebody that's a competition prep client, you're like really serious about this. Like, yeah, we want to be up into that 90 to 100 percent. So like dial things in um. So just understanding, like, okay, how much like the work that you're putting in um is going to be correlated with the what you get out of it.
Speaker 2:So, like there will be some people that, yeah, may respond a little bit better based off of like their upbringing, like if they were into sports. I find if they generally have better eating habits and stuff like that, the transition into like seeing results is probably going to be maybe a little bit quicker than somebody that has really poor eating habits or having a hard time transition into the some of these habits. So, but that's the thing with some of these interviews you literally just start walking a bit more and start eating protein in each meal. You can remove a bunch of body fat and see quite a significant change there. Um, I find the people that generally have the hardest time making changes is the ones that go, continue going from one extreme to the other. So they're like on point for a week, like 100 there. They fall off for like two, three weeks. Then they go back on 100 for a week and they fall off.
Speaker 2:So for those individuals, I always tell them okay let's just stick to one or two things that we can try to do. Like let's look at and try to break it down into a very simple way that, over time, is going to have us seeing a good outcome. So if it's like nutrition, like they can't stand tracking, they just can't get into a group of tracking right now. Let's literally just look at getting protein in each of those meals. If it's somebody that's like can't stand working out, like what's literally just look at getting steps in. Like let's get a certain amount of steps in, um, like just something that's going to move that needle to having them see progress, and then, once they start seeing progress there, then they'll get a bit more motivated and then that's just going to build on to other habits later down the road great point, great point.
Speaker 1:I think that's a very, very well said and I think this is something that we gotta to highlight for many, many, many people to hear, even for competitors as well.
Speaker 1:There is one final thing I did want to touch base on is really rewinding back on the beginning of this podcast, where we talked about our prep and how me and you were the last part of the place that needs to cut. It's just the lower obliques and lower a little bit for the lower back for you. Uh, I think a lot of even gps struggle with that and those are the first places. A lot of general population that really wants to get rid of um. So maybe just a word from us is even though we are in prep and we're really pushing boundaries and pushing our body fat percentage to this low point, if you have seen, you know brandis pictures and even my pictures we're this lean and we're still have, we're still holding a little bit on that. It takes that much work just to get rid of it. Now for beach lean, as you said with sam silica, and even just like we do a mini cut, it's still there, yeah, would you say.
Speaker 2:It's yeah like yeah so that's the thing like with, with, like the, the body fat there, like it's like for most people, like the average eye, like for the average person. Um, looking at you, like they're not gonna. Oh, like you have like big love handles or anything like that, like that's they're not gonna really notice that just for us. Like getting super, super lean, like people don't understand like how, like like, when you get super lean, like things just appear almost like dry and like just very cut in and if you want that, look, typically there's body parts that generally take a bit more time to have it come off.
Speaker 2:So, like for most people, yeah, like the lower obliques, lower abs, lower back, glutes, hamstrings those areas tend to take the most amount of time for body fat to be removed from. So like, yeah, like you can't really pinpoint, okay, like I just want to remove fat from here. It's spot reduction. Like so there there is some research supporting, maybe there's some techniques to slightly benefit losing that specific area. It's usually like it's not enough to like.
Speaker 1:You can't just be like 20 body fat and just have absolutely shredded obliques, absolutely, absolutely agree, and I I think I know what you're talking about. And there's a. There are not studies, but then there are just genetically gifted individuals who can. They're rare, they're very, very rare. So let's, let's take a, an average measurement that, uh, more of a general population are more or less the same.
Speaker 1:Uh, it does take a lot of work and it does depend on, um, the, the genetics of yourself, and there's also the, the um, the gender side, the, you know, females. I do find they take a slightly longer uh to to in order to achieve that body fat percentage. So that's what you know. Prepping females are so much more challenging than than than guys that guys could just shred down, and probably 12, 16 weeks, and, uh, we've talked about this, I think, last last episode of the, the last two episodes where, yeah, I think we talked about a little bit on that, uh, that we need a little bit more time for females as well, uh, but, yeah, probably one. One final thing is you know what would be your, your final uh word of advice for any general population? Who's are? Who is actually listening? Now it's march, some of them are getting ready for their summer bods. You know what is your uh last words or advice for them?
Speaker 2:yeah, I would say yeah, just make sure like yeah, if you're wanting to get ready for the summer, like, yeah, start now. Like we want to make sure we're giving yourself enough time to lose this body fat. Um, be consistent with the habits. Don't expect to lose like. You don't want to be losing like five, six pounds a week. You want to be losing probably one to two pounds per week on average. Um, be nice and gradual with it and like, yeah, use some of these things to gauge how the progress is going, like photos, waist circumference or waist to hip circum ratios. Um, if you're somebody that is a competition prep.
Speaker 2:Another one that I forgot to mention is you're going to even pinch certain parts of your skin to see how thin it is and like, like I've done like skin fold measurements and stuff when I was in kinesiology and stuff and I haven't done them since. But sometimes just pinching certain areas will allow you to understand how much fat is there. So, like, if, like you're like your biceps, most people, if you're super lean, it's like paper thin you want to try to get to. Yeah, like that point on your most of your body if you're wanting to be as body, but at like the highest level, so, like, if you're looking at areas you're like oh I'm not sure if that's lean enough. Literally pinch the skin there and see how thick the skin is. If it's super thin, that's probably a good sign that you're you're really close to where you need to be. If there's like a big thick amount of skin there, or like fat underneath the skin, there's probably a sign that okay, like you still got a little ways to go do you still have that?
Speaker 1:uh, skin fold pinch, uh, so I don't have the actual device.
Speaker 2:Uh, like for me, like I like sometimes, when I'm just like assessing my physique and like where the body fat is, like I'll just literally like pinch some areas and be like okay, so we still like it's looking like that compared to like my bias. I'm like okay, yeah, we see a little little ways your fingers are basically your tools but, um but yeah, like it's obviously not gonna be as accurate as using an actual skin fold and measuring it out like taking the average of the three and all that kind of stuff but I I do find it.
Speaker 2:It's a useful tool um to really see, like, okay, like if it's extremely thin. Um, yeah, it's, you're gonna be in a good spot okay, that's very, very good advice.
Speaker 1:I do agree with a lot of the things that you've mentioned, uh. So, even though we are during prep and, uh, you are struggling with uh getting down to you know a good fight about your beach lean physique. Uh, reach out to us. Reach out to us, brandon, and I can definitely come and help you. Uh, you can find us down at the um link below and into our instagram, uh, and there's a application form. I assume there's still. There's still an application from there on your your page.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah in the bio there, or you can just dm me um like physique and I can, I can reach out as well yeah, so dm us if you, you, you have this goal in mind.
Speaker 1:It is late march. We are, uh, literally it's spring. You believe it, it's spring. So about two and a half more months it's going to be summer, camping season, beach season, everything is going to come in. So if you want that body, lean, lean body or even you want, if you feel like you want, to try to step on stage for the first time, just dm us, or even submit your application form in new to our bio. We can definitely speak to you about it and meet you guys where you are at and for that. Is there anything you wanted to add?
Speaker 2:No, that's everything, man.
Speaker 1:All right, well, so thanks for you guys for your time and tuning in. We'll see you guys next time. Peace.