- So in this video,
I'm gonna break down, bulking and cutting.
So if you have questions such as, should I start with a cut?
Should I start with a bulk?
How fast or slow should I cut or bulk?
What do I do if I'm skinny fat?
What do If I'm find overweight?
What if I have fat to lose, but I wanna gain muscle?
Can I do it at the same time?
This video will help you address all those things,
because what I'm gonna do here,
is explain, bulking and cutting
in a way that it makes sense for you.
I'm gonna share six different types,
three types of bulking, three types of cutting,
give pros and cons to each,
who should do it, when you should do it,
and my recommendation for you,
what's the best decision that you can make right now.
Cause one thing I don't like to see,
is people who are putting in the hard work
and showing up consistently,
not seeing good results
because they don't have the right information
and the right direction.
So this video will give you that direction that you need.
So without any further ado, let's dive right into it.
So let's start with bulking.
The first type of bulking I want to address,
is the so-called,
dreamers bulk,
or how some people like to call it, the dirty bulk.
I like to call it the Yolo bulk.
Essentially in this space, you eat big to get big.
There are no considerations on how fast you gain.
There are no limits to how fast you gain,
and you're willing to accept any amount of fat gain
in order to keep getting stronger in the gym,
in order to keep putting on muscle.
And these days, this is not a very common recommendation,
at least from what I can tell,
back in the day, about a decade ago,
when I was starting out, most skinny beginners,
if they're going on a strength program,
they would get a recommendation to,
drink a gallon of milk a day,
just eat a bunch of food,
gain as much mass as possible, as fast as possible.
I think these days,
because of the culture of being shredded and fit and lean,
there's a lot less people doing the dirty bulk,
but it's still somewhat common
depending on which circles, you look at.
Now there's a couple of pros and cons here.
First and foremost, with the pros,
pro number one, is that it's a pretty simple face to do.
Just eat a bunch, train really hard
and magical things happen.
Number two, there's not much food tracking involved
because you just have to pile in,
as many calories as possible, that's basically it, right?
You don't have to worry too much about the macros,
because you in general are gonna get a bunch of everything
and the goal is ultimately to be in a,
such a large caloric surplus,
that you are very likely to hit all your protein,
your carbs and your fats,
and pretty much, more than everything that you need.
Number three is that, it can be enjoyable for some people
because it does have that simplicity,
as well as you get to eat a bunch of food
and you train hard and you push yourself,
and that's pretty much it.
Now, a list of cons.
Number one, you will gain a lot of body fat
because, your body can only use so many calories
to gain muscle and any number of calories above that,
will be stored as body fat,
which will then make the fat loss phase
that you're gonna go through, afterwards,
really difficult to do it,
because it's gonna be a very long phase,
you might need to lose 20, 30 pounds of fat, which is a lot.
And the other con here is,
that it actually does negative affect your health.
If you stay at those high body fat percentages
or get into those high body fat percentages,
does have some negative health consequences.
Top of that you might be dealing with some stretch marks
or some loose skin as well,
depending on how far you push it.
So you've gotta be very, very careful with this.
And number four, which I think is really critical,
is it's not really setting you up
for a good relationship with food.
It's setting up these eating habits where you're just eating
without really paying much attention,
without learning good food habits,
and then when you want to do a fat loss phase
and you wanna stay lean in the future,
this is really not going to work out as well
and it's gonna be a very, very tough transition.
You're essentially going to have to change,
pretty much everything about how you make food decisions,
what I've seen in real life,
people that have done dirty bulks,
they have a very, very hard time eventually transitioning
to something more sustainable,
something that requires a little bit more management.
Now, do I recommend a dirty bulk for anybody?
Well, I can't think of a person that should do a dirty bulk,
if your goal is physique.
So if your goal is to be between 10 and 15% body fat,
have a lean fit body,
I don't think dirty bulking is for you.
Now I can see, it being in effect for someone potentially,
who is, for medical reasons,
looking to gain as much weight as possible,
as fast as possible,
or someone looking to move up in a weight class,
or in their different sports or whatever,
but for a physique purpose,
I don't see how you could do a dirty bulk
and not have to deal with all these negative consequences
and I don't think it's actually worth it for you.
Now, the second type of bulking I want to address,
is the so-called classic bulk
or how some people like to call it,
also the traditional bulk,
With a classic bulk, now you're actually putting a limit
to how much weight you wanna put on each month,
in order to control for that unnecessary fat gain.
So your goal here, is to gain between 1%
to one and a half percent, of your body weight per month.
So if you're someone who is 160 pounds,
that's 1.6 to 2.4 pounds per month.
If you're someone who's at 80 kilos,
that's 0.8 to 1.2 kg per month,
and you don't wanna gain more than that.
So you're actually controlling that rate.
And this is actually a very popular approach these days,
especially among beginners.
Now a couple of pros and cons.
First pro is that it's actually easier
to track progress like this,
compared to something like a main gaining approach
or a lean bulk,
because you do see the scale would go up.
Number two is your sure that calories
are not limiting your growth,
because there's plenty of calories,
so you know that now, the growth will come from training
and you wanna really maximize your training effort
and focus more attention on that.
Now, couple of cons here.
First, you will still gain some body fat,
even though it's an acceptable amount,
some people will still be tempted to go back
into a fat loss phase,
because they don't feel very comfortable
with gaining any body fat.
Now, the second con here is,
that it still might be too fast of a rate of gain,
for intermediate and advanced lifters,
who don't gain muscle as fast.
So they still might accumulate, quite a bit of body fat,
by using, such an approach.
And the same could be said for, someone that doesn't have
the best genetics for muscle gains,
so they don't actually benefit from the extra calories
and they just end up gaining a lot of body fat.
And lastly, the con here is,
that you do want to be lean to begin with.
So, if you're going in a classic bulk to gain 1%,
to one and a half percent of your body weight per month,
you do wanna be, on the leaner side.
So I would recommend starting this,
around 10 to 12% body fat,
and this is a con because, for a lot of people
that's very hard to do to get down
to 10 or 12% body fat,
or they simply don't know how to do it.
So, who is this best for?
I would say for skinny beginners.
If you're just starting out,
where you have those newbie gains working for you,
this is excellent.
Or if you're a skinny, skinny, fat, and you're again,
still a beginner, so lots of newbie gains,
you can safely go for a classic bulk
and you will be maximizing your growth
for that first six months to a year,
and this would be a great approach to take,
and then afterwards, obviously you can do a fat loss phase,
to clean up the fat
and you will be in a really, really good place.
Now the third type of bulking that I need to address,
is the lean bulk.
And this is my personal favorite way of setting up,
a muscle gaining phase.
But a lean bulk, compared to a classic bulk,
here you're limiting the rate of weight gain even more,
in order to make sure that you're minimizing fat gain.
So here you're aiming to gain, half a percent to 1%
of your body weight per month.
So if you're at 160 pounds,
that's going to be between 0.8 to 1.6 pounds per month.
If you're 80 kilos, that's 0.4 to 0.8 kg per month.
So you really are controlling the gain in a sense that,
you want to make sure that you're taking
that slow and steady approach,
and there's a couple of pros and cons here.
The first pro is that, you can start the lean bulk,
even if you're not very, very lean.
So you can start the lean bulk at 15%
and then gain up to 20, and from 20 go down to 10.
And this is ideal for you, if you're someone who is,
actually that skinny fat beginner,
and you don't want to start with a cut
because, you know, you don't got much muscle to show
and you do wanna, actually put on some muscle
and then you go for that fat loss phase.
And the other pro, is that it really matches well
with the rate of gain for someone who is more advanced,
because the closer you are at your junk potential,
the slower you can gain muscle.
So lean bulk, makes the most sense.
And then lastly, this is also a phase that,
you can actually stay lean with,
because if you're doing what I'm doing, for example,
you go down to 10% body fat,
and then you lean bulk up to getting to 15%,
well, you're still lean at 15%.
So, you go down and cut to 10, and rinse and repeat.
A couple of cons.
First and foremost,
you do actually have a harder time tracking progress
because we're talking about a very small amount
of weight increase per month.
And if you're looking at a pound or half a kilo a month,
I mean, it gets pretty tricky,
because a couple of glasses of water,
letting it a little bit more or less salt,
sweating a little bit more or less,
water weight changes,
can really skew the data a lot,
so you have to pay more attention
to what's going on in the gym,
you have to pay attention to data measurements.
You have to really be diligent with tracking,
to make sure that you are actually making progress
and that you're not really just getting stuck.
And then on top of that,
the other con is that it does require more micromanagement,
especially in the beginning,
if you're new to this,
you will basically have to track things
as if you were doing a fat loss phase,
and you'd be really making sure
that you're eating correctly, the right amounts,
that your surplus is not too high or not too low.
So you're really looking at a small surplus here.
We're talking a hundred up to 200 calories a day.
So, this is not a lot of food
and given just a couple of tablespoons of olive oil
or something like that can really skew the numbers
and you don't know where you're at.
So you do have to track and micromanage in the beginning,
to get in a good rhythm for a lean bulk.
And overall, who do I recommend the lean bulk for?
Well, this is gonna be a deal for you
if you're an intermediate or an advanced lifter,
if you're doing this for awhile,
I think it makes the most sense to spend the majority
of your time, in a lean bulk.
Now, even if you're a beginner,
you can still do a lean bulk,
if you prefer to gain at a slower rate,
and maybe you've just lost a bunch of weight,
and you're really conscious about putting on body fat,
I think it makes sense to do a lean bulk
and just control the rate of weight gain.
So, lean bulk is sort of a universal approach,
that I personally love to do,
and something that I do recommend,
I'll do it to a lot of my clients,
and this is something that you do wanna learn how to do,
and it's gonna be challenging, but it does pay off
in the long run.
So now that we got bulking out of the way,
let's talk cutting,
and there's three types of cutting that I want to cover,
and before we dive into this one,
please do me a favor and destroy that like button
below the video for some extra gains.
I heard rumors that the harder you hit the like button,
the more gains you make as well.
So, do make sure to do that right now.
Now moving into cutting.
The first step of cutting, we need to talk about,
is the aggressive cut.
So what is an aggressive cut?
Well, an aggressive cut, is when you're aiming to lose
between 1% and one and a half percent
of your body weight per week.
So in numbers, this means that if you're 200 pounds,
you're aiming to lose between two to three pounds per week,
or even higher than that,
or if you're someone who is a hundred kilos,
that means you're losing a kilo to kilo
and a half per week.
So that's your target.
Now there's a couple of pros and cons here,
with the pros being that, you see results much quicker
because the weight is just melting off,
and of course, that can be very motivating,
which is the second pro
and can deliver that buying that you might need,
especially if you haven't been very successful with dieting
and you'd like to see the number go down
and you find that, the kickstart,
the early stage of your journey kind of gives you that fuel
and that motivation and that inspiration,
to really push through.
Now, couple of cons here.
First and foremost,
you are going into an aggressive calorie deficit,
which means that you are limiting muscle growth,
so your body composition, can suffer to some extent,
especially if you keep this going up until a lean level,
you can really have some negative effects from that,
and you just won't gain as much muscle and strength,
as someone who would be taking a more moderate approach.
The second con is that, it can also lead
to a more of a unhealthy relationship with the scale,
because you're getting used
to the scale dropping down really quickly,
and then when things do slow down naturally
on the journey as they will,
you might not know how to deal with that,
and it can be very mentally difficult.
And then the third problem here that I do see,
with an aggressive cut is that
it can then lead to higher hunger levels,
more cravings, can negative affect your sleep
and just overall, it's not a very sustainable approach.
So it can lead to binges, falling off track,
which can actually then disappointment
and you falling off track entirely
and losing that consistency.
So who is the aggressive cut for?
Well, I'd say it is really for those
who are at a higher body fat percentage.
So if you're at 25% or 30, 35, 40% body fat
and you wanna get those early wins,
I do think it makes sense, to run an aggressive fat loss
for six to eight weeks,
get rid of a whole bunch of weight,
and then, plan to transition into something more balanced.
Either do a diet break and then a balanced approach,
or just switch directly to something a bit more balanced
and something more sustainable,
as a rate of fat loss, that will eventually,
bring you to your goal weight.
Now, the second type of cutting here,
that is actually appropriate for most people,
is what I would call, a balanced fat loss.
And this is one where you're really optimizing
the rate of fat loss, to match sort of the ideal sweet spot.
When I say balanced fat loss, I mean,
losing between, half a percent to 1%
of your body weight per week.
So if you're someone who is at 200 pounds,
that means losing between one to two pounds per week,
or if you're someone at a hundred kilos,
that's between half a kilo to one kilo per week.
And there's a couple of pros and cons here,
First and foremost,
you are definitely in that sweet spot,
where you're still seeing some great results,
but you're not negatively impacting your muscle growth.
So this is better for your body composition,
compared to going really aggressive.
Now, a couple of cons here as well is of course,
you have to manage the diet more accurately,
especially as you're getting closer to the 10% body fat,
for 15 out of 10,
you will have to slow down that rate,
closer to half a percent,
and this will demand more micromanagement, calories,
macros, paying attention to the numbers,
just overall, it is more cognitively demanding.
Now, a pro here of course,
is that this is a very sustainable approach for most people,
and it will lead to good eating habits,
especially if you're going to a second half there
between half a percent to three quarters of a percent,
I do think, that rate of fat loss enables
some good eating habits, while still losing fat
and because you're not rushing things,
it does actually, make it more manageable,
so you can still easily stay with those calories.
Now, the con here on the other hand is that,
of course it's not as fast as the fast fat loss,
which of course for some people it can bother them,
so it really does teach you patience.
Now, who do I think a classic fat loss approach is for?
Well, this is for a majority of people.
If you're someone who is at 20%, 25%, you wanna get lean,
you wanna get down to 12 or 10% body fat, this is it.
This is the approach you wanna take,
and I do think that, within that half a percent to 1%,
you can find whichever way you wanna go about it
that is more sustainable for you.
So some weeks might be closer to 1%.
Some weeks might be closer to half percent,
as long as you understand that, when you hit 15%
and you're going below that,
you do wanna take a bit of a slower approach,
cause at that point you do wanna protect your muscle mass
and the amount of calories you do get to eat,
is gonna be lower in general,
so you don't wanna be risking going too fast,
where at a point you start sacrificing consistency.
Now, there's another type of cutting
that I have to mention here,
that's the third type, which is doing a mini cut.
A mini cut, is an aggressive fat loss phase,
that lasts for four to six weeks
and it's typically paired up with lean bulking.
The way I like to do it, is I start my lean bulk
around 10% body fat,
and over the course of a year, year and a half,
that I am lean bulking, I will gain some body fat.
I will eventually end up at 15% body fat.
I will mini cut, down to 10%,
and then I'm gonna continue lean bulking from there.
And there's a pros and cons list of course here as well.
The pros are, it controls body fat.
It's sort of that critical cleanup phase,
that every time you hit that ceiling,
where you don't wanna go above that body fat,
you can always go down.
The second pro is that,
you can get some really nice quick results
to reveal the gains you've made.
So for example, in 2019, I had done a mini cut,
dropped 10 pounds in five weeks, and I felt great.
I was ready for a photo shoot,
did that photo shoot,
just continued my lean bulk from there,
and it was a massive success.
So, it is something you definitely wanna know how to do.
Now, there's a couple of cons as well.
First and foremost,
mini cuts are very aggressive
and they do require a lot of attention and experience,
to pull off and do them correctly.
Because in those four to six weeks,
you've gotta keep things really, really tight
and you gotta know your hunger patterns,
you gotta know which foods to eat, to keep you full,
you've gotta manage your training accurately.
So this does require, a level of experience,
that it's not the best for beginners.
The second con is that, a lot of people,
will end up abusing mini cuts
and so they're essentially gonna go from those Yolo bulks
to mini cuts and they don't control their bulks,
so they have too many cuts too frequently,
which breaks their momentum, which is not a good thing.
Now overall, as a natural lifter,
from most of these phases,
everything I mentioned in this video,
you wanna be spending the majority of your time eventually,
leaning bulking.
This is where it's at.
You wanna be in a slight caloric surplus,
focusing on getting strained, gaining muscle,
improving your physique,
and then revealing that physique,
out with a kind of classic cut or a mini cut
and we're really showed the gains you've made.
So, the majority of your year, 10 months out of the year,
you should be spending in a slight caloric surplus.
Now you've gotta get to a point,
where this is even possible.
So if you are someone who is carrying
a ton of body fat right now,
well, it makes sense to clean up a little bit,
do a classic cut or do that phase
that will get you that 10 to 12% or 10 to 15%,
and from there, you can now go into those lean bulks,
and this is how you're gonna maximize your gains long-term.
If you're getting caught up in perma cutting,
constantly obsessing about a calorie deficit,
staying super shuttered and never going for a lean bulk,
you will seriously limit your progress.
So do consider, that lean bulks are where it's at.
That's what I personally do.
That's all the natural people that I know of
that have successfully done his for years,
are spending the majority of their time, lean bulking.
So keep this in mind.
It's also easier for the lifestyle.
It is something that does make the most sense long-term.
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