The Smarter Sculpted Physique: Training | Nutrition | Muscle Gain | Fat Loss

Cheat days are about resetting metabolism. If you’re on a caloric deficit, the “anti-catabolic phase” of the diet only lasts for so long. After while, the breakdown of not just fat but also muscle begins. Spike days help prevent this, while resetting metabolism and hunger hormones (leptin, ghrelin, etc.). There are also side benefits related to digestion and giving your enzymes variety.

Scott’s “Cycle Diet” is actually a maintenance and muscle-building diet, where the trainee eats in a caloric deficit throughout the week, and then has a big cheat day. People who are deep into “Supercompensation Mode” may get more or less spike days, from only a single weekly cheat meal, to weekly half-day cheats, weekly full-day cheats, and full day plus half day cheats every week.

Scott’s Cycle Diet is a bit different from other similar ideas out there for two big reasons.

1. Namely, he doesn’t restrict the intake of fats on your spike. You eat what you crave, and let your body and cravings dictate what you “need.” You don’t each such-and-such number of carbs and such-and-such grams of fats. (It is, after-all, a mental break as well!)

2. Also, you don’t just begin spiking all willy nilly. You don’t just add in a cheat day because your’e on the diet, nor do you eat low carb and do glycogen depleting workouts or anything like that. You deplete glycogen and so on over time, and you read your biofeedback to determine when your body needs a spike. Assuming you’re not just playing head-games with yourself (which is very possible) being totally depleted of glycogen feels unique. You can tell when it happens.

♦ Cheat Day Key Terms: ♦

Supercompensation Mode: This is a state where your body will take in a huge influx of calories and “supercompensate” in terms of its energy stores. It won’t store towards fat, but energy stores like glycogen and intracellular fats (different from your “fat stores”). Note that it takes weeks or months to enter this state… not “a week.”

Relative Deficit: A caloric deficit that is relative to your maintenance calories. (Good.)

Absolute Deficit: A huge caloric deficit that is low in an absolute sense; it ignores what the body needs. Usually we’re talking less than 1,000 calories per day. (Bad.)

Tolerable Hunger: A reasonable, normal level of hunger, that just frankly comes with the territory if you’re on a relative deficit and you’re losing fat. Mike calls it the “Sweet Spot” of hunger, because there are other benefits to it, in terms of concentration, overall readiness and energy levels, and so on. This is NOT the same as intolerable hunger, or just starving yourself.

♦ Cheat Day Assorted Terms: ♦

Don't add a cheat day just because. Do it when your body needs it. You need to be “real.”

Don’t quantify your spike days or cheat days. No grams of this, grams of that. Just refeed. Engage your hunger and appetite.

Mostly it’s the intake of calories that does it. This means don’t focus on carbs or fats.

Yes, spike days involve “junk” food. And yes, it really is junk. It’s filled with processed crap. But we live in the real world, and these foods are enjoyable. Also, they’re much easier to digest when you need lots of food. (Good luck getting a huge number of calories if it’s all very fancy, fine dining.)

One of the big signs of supercompensation is hunger. You’re no longer satisfied after each meal. Five minutes after eating you’re like, “Was that it? I’m still just as hungry!!” and then when you start eating on a spike, you feel like a bottomless pit.

If you’re hyper-aware of hunger, you’re attuning yourself to each and every possible food cue. You’re not truly listening to your body. You have to "lower the volume," psychologically speaking.

NOTE: Download a PDF of the Meal Plans Scott mentioned at smartersculptedphysique.com/011

What does successful bulking look like in the real world? What are the key success factors in a successful bulk? WHO is a good candidate for bulking, and — perhaps more importantly — who isn’t?

♦ BULKING NOTES ♦

Scott and Kevin emphasized the timelines. Building a significant amount of muscle does not happen overnight. It just doesn’t.

A corollary of this is that mentally, you have to be prepared to bulk, and to keep bulking, and then to stay bulked up for not just weeks or a few months, but a year and longer.

Scott compares building a body to building a house: you need to bring in the workers, you need to have enough material, and you need to keep them there. If you send them home, it’ll take awhile to bring them back.

♦The ABCs of Bulking ♦

If in doubt, eat.

That said, avoid big meals. Eat a bunch of small meals. This isn’t magically stoking the metabolic fire, but it is stoking things like subjective hunger.

Never stop listening to your biofeedback.

Protein and other macro needs for bulking?

Protein needs not *that* huge. Your body can only build so much muscle. If you take in excess protein, what happens is deamination: it’s broken down and used for glucose. That’s expensive physiologically and actually, in terms of your wallet.

The “building blocks” of the house are the protein-sparing nutrients (carbs and fats)?

16-20 X BW in calories is a good starting point for total calories.

After that starting point, it’s about biofeedback: elimination, digestion, energy, etc.

♦Other Notes:♦

Don’t ignore biofeedback. If your’e not hungry, don’t force feed. Stoke your hunger and build your way up.

Bulking is one of those situations where you can “drink your calories” (as opposed to dieting, when you don’t want something that won’t fill you up).

Don’t load up on veggies if you’re bulking. Don’t cut them out entirely, but by virtue of your increased total intake, you’ll get what you need, and overdoing it can be…. unpleasant.

Bulking is not that complicated. Stick to the basics.

Cosmetically, bulking is not pleasing. But if you quit too soon you’ll be gaining fat for no reason!

We’re talking at least 6 months, and more likely something like 2 years, if you’re doing a real, serious bulk. But you can’t give an exact timeline. The body will take the time it takes. AND once you get up to a certain point, you need to stay there.

Signs things are going well:

• You’re doing well in the gym. Stronger, good energy, etc. If suddenly you can’t perform because you’re so out of breath, you’re not doing your physique goals any favours.

• Some of what you gain is clearly muscle.

• Hunger is still up.

Who should NOT bulk?

• Someone who puts on fat very easily. This might mean endomorphs, or people who’ve lost a significant amount of fat previously and are pre-disposed to put it back on.

• Anyone over 50 years old. Gaining a lot of weight is a form of stress on the body that you shouldn’t be applying to it at that age.

• Anyone not able to mentally make the long-term commitment. It is a mental game too.

♦ LINKS / RESOURCES MENTIONED ♦

The Sh*tter: A Cautionary Tale About Biofeedback: http://scottabelfitness.com/the-shtter-cautionary-tale-about-biofeedback-metabolism-and-diet-cults/

Andy Sinclair’s Bulking Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDoG3b2Ihel/

Download a PDF of the Meal Plans Scott mentioned at smartersculptedphysique.com/011

These are the 10 strategies or ways of thinking that Scott and Kevin try to teach all their clients. This isn't about this or that diet, or this or that workout plan; rather, it's about the longterm principles that work.

The 10 Strategies:

♦ ONE. Focus on Process Goals over Achievement Goals

• Don't focus on the top of the staircase. Focus on the next step, then the next, then the next.

• The goal is the process, and the process is the goal.

• Be focused on where you're at, and get it done.

♦ TWO. Focus on Small Wins

• Each small win builds momentum, and you can build off each one.

• Sometimes "staying consistent" is the most important on. Sometimes "nothing's happening" is itself a win.

♦ THREE. Coax the body.

• A lot of this is learning what coaxing the body really means. I.e. it's not "coax the body for a week" and then if something isn't happening, drop calories be 300.

• Timelines are a warning sign that you're trying to force something; the body changes at the rate it changes. This is different for different people.

• Don't demonize food groups, learn what tolerable hunger is, and ride that wave.

♦ FOUR. Avoid Fads and Get Real.

• It's not the diet. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about Paleo, low carb, high carb, vegan, Atkins, HCG -- whatever. Focusing on these things is itself the issue. Many diets work, once you nail the other principles we're talking about (getting the process right, coaxing the body instead of forcing it, etc.)

• Choose the behavior; choose the consequences.

♦ FIVE. Learn to Listen to Biofeedback.

• In Scott's opinion, this is the number one thing a coach can teach a client.

• Forget the numbers. That's outside in. Biofeedback is inside out.

What worked for you however many years ago is not what will work for you now. Biofeedback has changed!

• Focus on the general principles. What do the successful diets have in common (a caloric deficit)? People who gain a lot of muscle -- what do they have in common (caloric surplus and decent training)? Get those right, apply the general principles to biofeedback, and the rest fall into place.

• One potential "hiccup" with this, is the fact that people can't read their own biofeedback for emotional reasons. E.g., you emotionally want a cheat day, so it's harder to accurately gauge your actual, physiological need for one. (This leads into the next point.)

♦ SIX. Establish Rapport (with the client, or with yourself)

• Scott likes Vern Gambetta's quote that the role of the coach is to go from a guiding light to a mirror.

• Rapport is about tuning, learning what will and won't work, how best to send and receive a message. This also occurs inside your own head. Learning to read your biofeedback, for example, demands a certain amount of rapport with yourself.

• "Establish" is a verb, and an ongoing on. Think of it like tuning a guitar or a piano. You don't just go in and tune everything. You make an adjustment, then listen. Make an adjustment, then listen. This takes time.

♦ SEVEN. Create an Atmosphere of Trust, Not Judgment (again: with the client, or with yourself)

• Without trust, the coaching relationship falls apart.

• For a coach, this is obviously done between coach and client... but even then, this is always about self-talk, and what's going on in the client's head. The client should be able to trust themselves.

♦ EIGHT. Be More Person-Centered

• It's about the person in front of you. Physiologically, this is about biofeedback,

The bodybuilding bench press is not the same as the powerlifting bench press. Today’s episode was all about understanding WHY you’re doing a movement (like the bench), and how that affects your lift. The two styles of bench press are so, so different, yet if you walk up to any trainee in the gym and ask them which one they’re doing, you’ll often get a totally blank look!

Scott laid out 5 basic rules for nailing your barbell bench press technique, and of course Kevin had a LOT to add with respect to the powerlifting style bench press.

After the age of 50 it’s still possible to build muscle and lose fat—but there are certain physiological realities (especially hormonal realities) to keep in mind! Episode 008 was all about providing a bird’s-eye-view of some of these realities, and what to do to make the most of your body after age 50.

Scott calls fitness after 50 the “Platinum Club.” That is, these don’t have to be your “golden years.” If done right, these can be the platinum years!

♦ PHYSIQUE AFTER 50 GENERAL NOTES ♦

• Scott emphasized the dangers of too much cardio when you’re dealing with sarcopenia and muscle loss.

• People wonder why they’re finding it hard to keep up with their kids when they’re doing X number of minutes on the treadmill each day or week, but the exercise they’re doing on the treadmill isn’t giving them the kinds of physiological adaptations they clearly want from exercise. They’re missing strength and the ability to exercise their muscles through their intended ranges of motion.

• Even a bodyweight squat by itself will build a lot of strength.

Strength needs to be built through a muscle’s full range of motion, otherwise you’re inviting problems down the road. Don’t add resistance BEFORE you’re able to move the muscle through the full range of motion.

• Warm ups are very important! See the videos at scottabelfitness.com/warmups (that link redirects to a Youtube video).

• A proper warm up includes “general preparation” phase that warms up the body, and then actual physical “rehearsal” of the movements you’ll be doing that day. Think warm up sets, that kind of thing. (Again, see the vids.)

• Scott has had clients whose entire leg workout was unloading the knees, precisely because of the importance of range of motion.

• Mike mentioned some studies related to cognitive decline. These can be found in John Ratey’s book, Spark! The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.

• Scott is a big fan of HRT as a way of enhancing quality of life. Do research, talk to your doctor.

• Mike mentioned Scott’s “Base Hit” strategy, where you intelligently go for “base hits” instead of “home runs” every time you step into the gym. Consistency trumps going all-in, then having to stay out of the gym for a week. This is called “active recovery.”

♦ LINKS / RESOURCES MENTIONED ♦

• Warm Ups Part 1: General Preparation Phase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHJFV13Njsk

• Warm Up Part 2: Physical Rehearsal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHXYvxAU-Hw

• Unloading the Knees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mQsVp5TWnk

• Scott’s initial Physique Over 50 blog post: http://scottabelfitness.com/fitness-and-physique-over-50/ (Scroll down for the comments.)

• The Base His Strategy: http://scottabelfitness.com/basehit

In Part 2 of our interview with Trevor Timmins (Vice President of Player Personnel and Director of Amateur Scouting for the National Hockey League’s Montreal Canadiens) we focused much more about the nitty gritty of his hectic, high-pressure schedule, and how he is able to stay lean year round, and stick to his diet and training.

Trevor is actually currently doing Scott’s Hardgainer Solution, partly because he’s in his mid-40s and partly just because the program is very flexible.

♦ There are a few things worth noting about Trevor’s schedule:♦

• He calls ahead and generally has some idea of what gyms he’ll try. In our modern day, he’s almost always guaranteed to find some place that’s “pretty good.” Sometimes not, granted, but he can usually find something, and if not, he can go for a walk, or use whatever the hotel’s got

• Trevor makes a point to get his work out in, because it keeps him balanced and focused for everything else he has to do. It’s less that he has to fit it in “on top of everything else,” and more that getting it in makes everything else that much easier. He feels MORE energy after working out.

• Trevor would rather miss a meal than a workout.

• He doesn’t count calories, though he knows what makes a generally healthy meal, and he’s very in touch with his body and his body’s biofeedback. He knows what he needs to stay energized. He knows when he’s not getting enough carbs, for example, because he feels “flat.”

• At fast-food places, you can usually find *something,* even if it’s just eggs, or a grilled chicken burger without the bun and a salad. Lots of places have something. The trick is to focus on finding the protein.

• For fancier restaurants and business dinners, Trevor stresses that they’ll pretty much make what you ask them to make. Steak, chicken, some other protein, grilled, plus a salad or baked potato or some other side, and it’s not too hard, assuming you’re not stressing over counting each last calorie.

♦ Links / Resources mentioned ♦

• The researcher who writes about flow and being in a flow state is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. When Mike mentioned that sometimes you have to go "out of flow" during training, he was referring to research on deliberate practice. See Daniel Coyle's book, The Talent Code.

• Trevor’s Profile Page on the Montreal Canadiens' website.

• Trevor’s client page on Scott’s site.

• Up In the Air trailer, where George Clooney's character turns airport travelling into a science.

• The program Trevor is doing is Scott's The Hardgainer Solution.

Scott and Mike interviewed Trevor Timmins. Trevor is Vice President of Player Personnel and Director of Amateur Scouting for the National Hockey League’s Montreal Canadiens. What this means is Trevor is the guy running the NHL entry draft for the team, so he spends each year working with an entire team, scouting around both North America and Europe preparing for that draft. Trevor in particular was responsible for drafting NHL superstars like Carey Price, PK Subban, and others.

This episode is a must for everyone interested in high-level success, whether you’re an NHL fan, a bodybuilder, or just looking to improve your physique or your career.

What most people don’t know about Trevor is that he is a former bodybuilder, and he actually hired Scott as his coach for his first few bodybuilding shows. Trevor now stays lean and ripped year round, despite an insane schedule and a high-pressure job.

In part 1, we talked a lot about how Trevor progressed through his career, starting at the bottom with the new Ottawa Senators hockey team in the early 90s, and rising from there. Scott stressed that he knew — just knew — early on that Trevor was going to go far.

From there we discussed what Trevor looks for in young players who are going to be thrust into the spotlight at age 19 or 20 playing elite high-level hockey.

So there was a lot about mindset here, and what makes a champion, and what scouts are looking for beyond just skill level.

This episode was all about metabolic compensation and weight loss in the real world. It came about as Scott was inundated with emails a couple weeks back over an article in the New York Times about the metabolisms of former The Biggest Loser contestants. Basically, years later, it turned out that these contestants were burning way less calories than one would expect for someone their size–and again, this was years down the road.

Does this mean weight loss is hopeless? NO. But it does mean that forcing your body to extremes, and not being realistic, are not going to result in sustainable weight loss. They just won’t.

The main theme of the episode, then, was about strategies for dealing with this, and preventing the kinds of severe metabolic compensation we saw in the article, and that Scott has seen in bodybuilding and figure contestants for years.

♦ METABOLIC COMPENSATION (NOTES) ♦

The kinds of things Scott saw in the competition world, where insane dieting is combined with taking bodies to their extremes.

Scott’s been using the term metabolic damage for years. People are now acknowledging that “metabolic compensation” happens, even though the term metabolic damage is still considered “not real.”

Speaking of which, many ignorant coaches play the “blame game.” As in, “Well I didn’t get metabolic damage, therefore my clients must be lying.”

The “genetics no one talks about.” Two people can seem to have very similar genetics in terms of how they look, and what they need to do to get lean. While one can “get away” with insane dieting, the other suffers more from the effects of metabolic compensation.

The mind games that losing weight and gaining it back play. Metabolic compensation is really hard to deal with from a psychological perspective. (One reason why prevention is the best cure.)

Mike’s ambivalent feelings towards the phrase “obesity is a disease.” It absolutely should be acknowledged, and we should fight ANY kind of fight fat shaming, tooth and nail. (He's been through that.) BUT the phrase itself creates a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, and makes you feel like there’s “nothing you can do.” That’s just... that's not okay. There are things you can do. Anything that might make people feel helpless isn’t useful.

♦ PREVENTION IS THE BEST CURE: ♦

Use reasonable dieting. Use relative caloric deficits (~500-800 calories below your maintenance) instead of absolute ones (more than 800 calories per day below what your body needs to maintain). Note that Scott doesn’t like calorie counting specifically, but it is absolutely a good starting place.

Coax your body, don’t force it.

How do you coax your body? Don’t have specific dates. Your body will change at the rate it will change. Be in this for the long-term! As soon as you try to “force it” to “speed up” or anything, you’re no longer coaxing things as you should be.

Don’t demonize entire food groups. You need carbs. You need fats. You need protein.

That said, acknowledge that.. yes, some foods provide more satiety than others. Simple whole foods provide more satiation than simple sugars, especially simple sugars by themselves (snack foods).

Avoid losing lean mass. One of the reasons for weight rebounds is loss of both fat and lean tissue. The more lean tissue (muscle) you keep, the better off you’ll be down the road.

Accept that there’s a limit to what your body can be coaxed to do. What you see in the magazines is not realistic, even for the people in the magazines with great genetics.

The 5X5 rep scheme is well known. We used it as an intro into talking about the role of strength and strength training when your goal is gaining or building muscle.

♦ Here’s what we talked about: ♦

Scott pretty much always uses “weights constant” with his 5 X 5 rep schemes, meaning you pick a weight that you can get 5 sets of 5 reps without failure, and without having to go down in weight to hit your reps on the latter sets.

The use of crossover effects. That is, why should a bodybuilder ever focus on limit strength?

The use of the big lifts in the gym, things like compound movements, which aren’t “just” the squat, deadlift, and bench press. There are also rows, lunges, and so on.

Kevin never goes heavier than his opener in the gym, which is usually about 87.5%-90% of his projected max… that’ll be the heaviest single he’ll ever do, maybe twice before a competition. None of his best lifts are done in the gym; they’re done at the actual powerlifting competition.

Kevin talked a bit about the way sometimes he trains the movement for the sake of keeping his skills sharp, not just to maintain or build “strength.” It’s like a tennis player needing to practice their swing so that the muscles stay trained.

Pay attention to “force decrements.” As you get to the final reps in a set, you’ll notice you’re unable to produce as much force. Sometimes this means you pause in between reps, and you make sure your form is perfect, and that you’re mastering the movement.

How and why to use 5 X 5. There are more uses to a 5 X 5 rep scheme within a bodybuilding program than just the standard 5 X 5 program.

♦ EXAMPLES ♦

• The Hardgainer Solution contains sets of 5 in every workout, but those are whole body, bodypart workouts. Also, there are instructions to raise the rep schemes on the lower end (like the 5 X 5) if you start working out 4, 5, or 6 days a week. (HGS gives you that option in terms of how many days per week you train.)

• A new 6-day program Scott’s working on has 5 sets of 5 for the first three days of the week, but then on the last three days of the week those reps go much higher: going up to 8-10, 12-15, 15-20.

• Another 6-day program that Scott has (custom program, unreleased) is much like that six day program, except each half of the week is a mirror of the other. So on Day 1 if you do Chest and Quads, Chest will be the strength focus, and Quads will be higher rep. But then on Day 4, you do Chest and Quads again, but this time the Quads are on the lower end of the rep scheme. Day 5 lines up with Day 2, and Day 6 lines up with Day 3. (Note from Mike: I mis-spoke. The rep schemes are not actually 5 X 5. The strength focus days go as low as 4 or 5 sets of 6-8, not 5. Just a tiny bit higher. Worth keeping in mind in terms of recovery!)

This episode was all about training workout plans for fat loss and metabolic enhancement training.

There was a whole lot about how it’s not just about “oh this is a fat loss program” and “this is a muscle gain program.” It’s more about putting the client on a program that fits where they are at right now. A lot of the time, the success of a trainee during the fat loss stage is determined by what they’ve been doing up until then — are they in a spot where they can lose fat in a healthy manner, without getting caught in plateaus and dead-ends and diminishing returns?

♦ TRAINING WORKOUTS FOR FAT LOSS (NOTES) ♦

• There is no “one-size-fits-all” single workout plan that is optimized for fat loss.

• Metabolic Enhancement Training builds off innervation training. Whereas innervation training says “train the muscle, not the movement,” MET training acknowledges that you can use the movement to train the muscle.

• The issue with cardio — and this is true with all forms of training to some extent, though with cardio it can be a bit exacerbated — is it’s a law of diminishing returns. You have to do more and more, but you get less and less. It’s better to go back ‘n forth, as opposed to getting to the point where you’re spending 2 hours a day on the treadmill.

• Use a traditional bodypart split workout plan to build muscle. Then use a MET exercise program to optimize your workload capacity. Then you go back to a bodypart split, maybe this time surfing the strength training curve. Then you go back to a bodypart split similar to that earlier one. In this way, there are huge carryover effects between programs, so that the second time you do the bodypart split, your body is in a different place, and your experience of the program is far different.

• Cardio does have a place, but again: keep those diminishing returns in mind. After 4-6 weeks the benefits decrease a lot.

Think holistically about training and fat loss. Sleep is just as important as your workout plan. It’s not as though your fitness and fat loss is only determined by “what you eat” and “what workout plan you use.” There are other factors at play; they are minimal in terms of calories burned, but in terms of the whole picture — energy, sleep, sustaining the fat loss, mood, hunger, maintaining muscle while losing fat — it’s hugely important.

• Don’t try to count burned calories. The laws of thermodynamics are absolutely true, but 1) the body is an open system, not a closed one, and 2) you never end up with a completely accurate picture, because the tools we have are notoriously inaccurate.