Cut, Reverse, Maintenance or Build: Which Phase Are You In?

Nikkiey: Literally, you guys, this is where the freaking magic happens.

What's going on, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode number 33.

The one that I'm sure you guys have all been waiting for. We're diving into the different phases of changing your body composition. I'm going to talk about a cut. I'm going to talk about reverse. I'm going to talk about maintenance. And I'm going to talk about bulking, or what I like to call build, because it's easier on the mindset for you ladies. But I'm stoked.

This is going to be filled with tons of value, tons of insight, some things to take away. Maybe you're like, I don't even know where I should be at right now. This is going to tell you where you need to be. This is going to tell you what you need to be looking for. I'm going to tell you how much time you should be spending in these. This is going to be good, guys. This is going to be real good.

Because what it comes down to, I shared this in an earlier podcast, but there are six things that I wish I knew at the beginning of my journey. The first one was that I wish I knew at the beginning of my journey that I would need to go through multiple of these phases. Multiple cuts, multiple maintenance phases, multiple bulks, multiple reverses, in order to achieve what I've achieved now, which is the body that I wanted eight years ago. The body that I've wanted my whole life. I wish I knew at the beginning of my journey that I had to go through multiple phases of each one of these to get to where I am.

So you're going to know each of the phases by the end of the podcast today. Let's just get right to it, because it's probably going to be a lengthy one. In each of these phases, I'm going to talk about who this is for and who it's not for. So I'm going to talk to the cutting phase, who the cutting phase is for, who it's not for. The maintenance phase, the reverse phase, the building phase. I'm going to talk about what the goal is in each of the phases. I'm going to talk about the changes that you can expect from your body in each of those phases.

And I'm going to talk about the ideal time recommended to stay in each phase. This is exciting stuff. I love talking about this because you need to know these phases. If you want to build muscle, if you want to change your body composition, if you want to do all of the things and unpack those statements, you've got to know this. And you've got to be okay with what you're going to expect in each of the phases. And you've got to be okay working through them. You've got to know the timeline, because if you just stuck to these phases, you could be where you want to be in three years' time versus 10 years' time.

And I say that because I've taken my girl Cheryl Beaver, who I talked about on an earlier podcast, who's 60 years old, through multiple of these phases. And she's only been working with me for about three years. It could take a woman 10 years, 20 years to achieve what she's achieved in three, by just doing these multiple times.

All right, let's get to it. So the cutting phase. What is the cutting phase? First I want to talk to who the cutting phase, the fat loss phase, is for and who it's not for.

So two scenarios here of who it's for. The cutting phase, fat loss phase, can be for somebody who is 20-plus pounds overweight, 30, 40, 50, 60. You've got the fat to lose. This is for you. Okay? You've got to focus on being in a caloric deficit. You've got to focus on shedding that weight.

Now, scenario number two is, for example, me right now. I've gone through multiple of these phases through the last eight years of my journey. But sometimes I'll throw myself into a fat loss phase. I'll sit in maintenance the majority of the time, and I'll get to maintenance. Maintenance is going to blow your mind, you guys. I will sit there the majority of the time and I will maintain a pretty lean, solid physique. But sometimes I'm just like, yo, let's drop some percentages of body fat here. And so I'll throw my body into it for eight weeks max, maybe 10.

So if you're somebody who has been through these phases, and I'm talking to some veterans here that have been through these phases multiple times, or maybe you're toned already and you've been through the journey, and you just want to decrease body fat, you want to show more definition, then cool. This is for you, throwing your body into a little bit of a fat loss phase. But for the majority of you guys who I'm talking to, a fat loss cutting phase is a caloric deficit. You've got the fat to lose. You've got to focus on dropping the LBs. You've got to focus on dropping the percentages of body fat, to expose more, to show your muscle, to be more toned. That's who I'm really talking to when it comes to a cutting phase.

Who this is not for is somebody who has a smaller frame, who is skinny fat. You've got more body fat to muscle ratio here. You've got body fat on your belly, you've got body fat on your arms, and you need to build more muscle. That's what's going to change. If you're skinny fat, you do not need to go into a cut, guys. And like I said, I'm going to blow your mind when it comes to maintenance. But for you guys, cutting phases are just not for you. Someone who's skinny fat, you need to build some muscle. You need to focus on eating enough to build that muscle. And it ain't going to be in a caloric deficit, okay?

It's also not for somebody who has been on a restrictive diet, or you're just not eating enough. Ain't no way, ain't no how. Myself or a really good accredited coach, if you've been on 1,400 calories for the last year, two years, five years, ten years, sorry, I am not going to put you into a fat loss phase. I am not. You've already been there. And your metabolism is probably shot, because you should be getting some type of result being that low. And if you ain't, your metabolism ain't working for you anymore. All right? We need to give that metabolism a break.

So those are the two categories I would not put anybody into a fat loss phase. You're already skinny fat and you need to build some muscle. You ain't going to do it in a caloric deficit. You're not going to do it in fat loss, and I'm not going to put you in there. This is just not for you. Or you've been on a restrictive diet, you've been doing keto, you've been doing low carb, you've been doing that stuff, you're not eating enough, or you have no idea what you're eating, which probably means you're not eating enough.

Now, if you're overweight, then you've been eating too much, okay? That's why you're overweight, and if you're 30, 40, 50 pounds overweight, then this is definitely for you. But if you've been on a restrictive diet and you have a smaller frame, you ain't going into a fat loss phase, at least not on my watch.

So that's who it's for and who it's not for. Again, two scenarios of who it's for. You're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 pounds overweight and you need to lose some fat. Or you're like me. You've been doing this for years and you just want to throw yourself into a little bit of a mini cut, is what I like to call it. A little bit of a fat loss phase. I'm here for eight weeks and I'm out. Back up to maintenance.

All right. So what is the goal of this phase? I'm going to speak really quick to the 20, 30, 40 pound overweight woman. The goal of this phase is to drop body fat while at the same time preserving as much lean muscle as possible. So you could be 20, 30, 40 pounds overweight, you go into a fat loss phase, a caloric deficit, and you're dropping the fat. But let's say underneath that body fat, you have muscle. You have muscle mass.

And this is why the scale is not your friend, because you could probably lose three pounds on the scale, yet your body could look completely different while you're in this phase. Because, again, there's a difference between weight loss and fat loss. I explained that in an earlier podcast. Since we're on this topic right now, once you're done listening to this one, go to that podcast and listen to it, especially if you're someone who is embarking on this phase.

Because you can do a double whammy here. You can focus on losing the fat, being 20, 30, 40 pounds overweight, yet eating enough, aka protein, to preserve the lean muscle mass that is underneath and/or being built in this process. And therefore, when you're 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 months into your journey, you've dropped the fat, but you've also preserved the lean muscle.

I like to think of this as an illusion concept. You're exposing muscle that has been built while dropping the body fat. So you're going to see more of the body that you want to have shine through, right? I like to say it's like Christmas morning. And this is kind of going from a bulk to a cut. But you have all these extra LBs on you, so you're dropping that, and then you're seeing the hard work that maybe you once put in in the past. Or maybe you never really dialed in your nutrition, so you never really saw the hard work that you put in. But now you're seeing the hard work, because you're exposing more muscle that has been built, or that you've already had on your frame when it was just hidden by that body fat. Okay?

So those are the goals on the physical side of things. Another goal within this phase is to increase your endurance capacity. For me right now, and for anybody that is overweight, you're probably doing more elevated heart rate work in your exercise than you've done before, whether it be supersets with strength training, progressive overload, X, Y and Z. For me, I've just dialed up the intensity in my workouts, and my endurance is being woken back up. And it feels good. That is another goal that you can focus on here as well.

So those are some of the goals. You're decreasing body fat while at the same time you're preserving lean muscle mass, and you're having more muscle exposed.

Now let's dive into some changes that you can expect from your body in this phase. Like I said, you're going to see more muscle development. You're going to see more muscle splits. You're going to see more striations. You're going to see all of this when you're dropping body fat. You're going to have less body fat on your body. So the main change that you can expect is to see more of what you want to see. Point blank. Okay.

Now, some other things you may experience in this phase. I just need to drill this home, because I can't tell you how many times I've heard women say, I hate being in this type of phase because I'm hungry. I'm hungry all the time. Well, there's a difference in hunger. Do you have gnaw-your-hand-off hunger? Because if that's the case, you've got to reassess how much you are eating. Are you eating enough protein to make you feel satiated? If you don't feel satiated, then some things need to be adjusted.

Or there's just the slight hunger that you're always going to feel. And that's good. It means your metabolism is working, guys. So if you eat a meal and then two hours later you're hungry again, fire. Your body is utilizing and doing all of the right things. I just need you to know that. I'm not going to get too sciencey here, but it's doing the right thing. You will have some slight hunger here, and it's normal.

Another thing that is normal, and that you should expect in this phase: there are a lot of women that go from a building phase where they've been eating a shit ton of food. You're working out and you're feeling solid in your workouts, being able to move heavy weight because you're eating the food. But then you go into a fat loss phase and all of a sudden you're slashing your carbs or you're slashing your fat, you're slashing your calories down. And so you have a decrease in energy. Completely normal. What you may have been lifting weight-wise in a maintenance or a bulk, you may not be lifting in a cut, in a fat loss phase. You should know that you're going to feel a little less, and you should accept this now, because you could be in this phase not lifting that heavy weight and beating yourself up and being like, why? I feel so weak. It is a part of it. You're slashing your calories. You're in a caloric deficit. It's normal. Okay.

So those are some changes that you can expect within your body during a fat loss phase. Now I want to talk really quick about the ideal timeline to stay in this phase. And this is really important, because a lot of women will get stuck in this phase for years and years on end and just shit out their metabolism.

The time that I would recommend you stay in this phase: a moderate cut, and I'm speaking more to the woman that's overweight, who's got the weight to lose, the fat to lose, will be anywhere from three to five months. Three to five months, maybe pushing it to six or seven, depending on how overweight you are. Be realistic with yourself. It's going to take time. I've got to say, the 50 pounds you put on didn't take five months to put on. It probably took you a year to put it on. Right? So be realistic about the time it's going to take for it to come off.

Now, a slow cut. I'm speaking to you inconsistent people here. If you're inconsistent, you're going to get inconsistent results. If you're consistent, you're going to get consistent results. So if you're consistent, that moderate cut is going to be your timeline, depending on the weight you have to lose. And a slow cut is if you're inconsistent and you're dabbling in your discipline. You're showing up Monday through Friday and on the weekends you fall off. Expect your cut to take longer. Expect to get to the destination later, because you're not being serious about it. You're dabbling in what you want. So that could be six, seven, eight months. And in there, you're going to have to give your body a break so that you can still facilitate the results that you want. Okay?

Now, really quick, I do want to speak to plateaus in this phase.

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All right, let's get back to the show. Plateaus will happen, but it doesn't mean you have to go and change everything. Okay. It's normal for your weight to plateau for a week, or for you to not really see any changes in body fat percentage or in the mirror for a week. It's normal. Keep doing what you're doing. You're going to have a whoosh of results happen in the next week or maybe the week after. Okay. Plateaus are normal. Don't go changing everything up, my friends, please. I'm speaking to you. I know there's somebody listening to this right now who's like, I needed to hear that.

All right. With plateaus, just do more of what you're doing. Eat the same. Work out the same. Rest the same. Stay hydrated. If you've been stuck in a plateau and you've been consistent with your stuff for three to four weeks, then maybe some adjustments need to happen. I just need to throw that in there.

So that's the cutting phase. That's a lot of things: who it's for, who it's not for, what you can expect and the ideal timeline.

Now, let's say that you've reached your goal. You're where you want to be. You're super amped. You've achieved an incredible milestone for yourself. You've lost 20 pounds. You've decreased body fat. You see more muscle showing up. You see the striations happen. You're more toned, aka more muscle is being exposed.

Now, this is really important, and this may be harder than the cut. The reverse. The huge goal of the reverse is to maintain what you just worked so hard for, yet give your body more food. Give your muscles more food. Give your body the reason to build more muscle, and help you stay pretty lean. If you do this the right way, you'll only gain a little bit of weight on the scale. But really, what's happening is your muscles are filling out. You're putting on a little bit more muscle in the process. So the reverse is so important. And it's uniquely different for everybody, as all of these phases are.

But ideally, your reverse is adding in 125 to 150 to maybe a max of 200 calories on a biweekly basis, depending on how your body is dealing with those adjustments.

So let's say you've reached the end of your cut phase. And by the way, along your cut phase, the macros that you start off with in the cut phase are not going to be the macros you end with. You're going to have to make adjustments to continue your progress. But I'm not talking about adjustments here. The only point where I'm going to talk about adjustments is in this reverse, because it's important, and I want you guys to know how to go about a reverse the right way.

So you've ended the cut, and then you decide to start adding in more calories. You're adding in about 125 to 150, to a max of 200 calories at the start. I would probably start with 125 calories at the start, just to see how your body handles it. Now, those calories are majority coming from carbohydrates and fats. So do the math. I'm not going to do it here.

You're going to give your body that food. You're going to see how your body adjusts to it. You're going to watch. You're going to track your progress. Watch how you're feeling. Look at yourself in the mirror. All that jazz. It's really important to track your progress. I'm telling you, this is probably the harder phase for people than cutting is.

Let's say you're moving and grooving and you're getting those types of results. You want to give your body more food. So let's amp it up another 125, 150. Maybe even at some points I would do 200, and then give your body a little bit longer time frame to adjust to it. And that's mainly coming from carbs and fats. Maybe a little bit of protein, but not much. I'm talking three grams, five grams max. So again, coming from carbs and fats.

And then let's say you do a big jump. Hold out there for two, three weeks. Let your body fully adjust to it. That's what's most important when it comes to adjustments. And this is everything that I share inside the Blueprint program: knowing how to do all of these adjustments in each phase that you're in. The key is to understand that, because that's like a golden ticket to being in control. But I'm not going to talk about that here, because it's just so much more in depth, and it really depends individually on where you're at, what you're feeling and all of the biofeedback from your body.

So let's say you do that big jump and you're holding out. And now you're leveling. You're pretty much maintaining your physique in terms of where you're at with your fat loss. You're moving and grooving here. You feel good. Three weeks go by. You've adapted to that adjustment. Do it again. Do 150.

Your goal here is to get to your maintenance area, where you're maintaining a solid physique that you want to hold on to. You're not gaining too much. You're not getting messy with it. But you're super happy with where you're at. You've pretty much maintained your results. Maybe a little bit more body fat added on from your cutting phase, and that's normal. It's okay. That happens. It's part of the process of building muscle. You need to add a little bit of body fat to make that process happen.

But that's a reverse, and it could be different for everybody. It could be somebody who goes into a reverse for six weeks. It could be nine weeks until you get up to your maintenance threshold. It's completely different for everybody.

Now, some changes that you could expect in that process: you're adding a little bit more weight, or you're adding a little bit more body fat. You're filling out. Your muscles are getting a little bit bigger. Normal. Okay. But the most important aspect of this reverse is paying attention to how your body responds to you adding in more food. And that more food is, again, coming from carbohydrates and fat. Okay.

So at the end of your cut, you start the reverse. You start adding in more food. You're assessing your biofeedback, seeing how you feel, the progress, all that jazz. Maybe you're adding in more, and more, and more, and more. And at a point, it's going to stop. And then you've entered into maintenance.

Now, something I do want to note here really quick is that during the reverse, with you adding in more food, you're going to slowly back down on the cardio sessions that you've been doing in your cut. I would either take out one full cardio day, so let's say you were doing four, take out one, make it three. And then from there, you can play with timing. So let's say you were doing 30 minutes of cardio in those three sessions, take it down to 25. Okay. So you're playing with both of those in the reverse, but the most important thing is the nutrition, and cutting back a little bit on your cardio sessions.

All right, let's talk about maintenance. I just talked about cutting. I just talked about reversing. Now, literally, you guys, this is where the freaking magic happens.

I need you to know this with the maintenance phase. The average woman who just needs to lose five to 10 pounds, okay, if that's you, you do not need to go into cutting. I just said that in fat loss. You do not need to go into fat loss. The majority of you guys who just need to lose five, 10 pounds are skinny fat. You do not need to cut weight at the very beginning. Okay. Instead, you should maintain your weight, you should build muscle and you should reduce your fat stores, because you probably have more body fat on your body relative to muscle.

So most women should start in a maintenance phase, not a cut. In my opinion, this is where all the magic happens for body composition changes. If you want to build muscle and you're skinny fat, this is your phase. And once you go through the cutting and the reversing, this is the phase that you would live in. I personally live in this the majority of my year, okay, if we're looking at it over a year.

Plus, you guys, when you sit in maintenance for a long period of time, after you've done all the jazz that I just spoke to with cutting and reversing, it makes future cutting phases way more enjoyable and way easier. Your metabolism is restored. Your metabolism is happy. Your metabolism is revving. Your metabolism has more food. It will then allow you to easily tweak your numbers.

You live in the maintenance phase for a while, and let's say, for me personally, I just went into a cut phase, a slight fat loss phase. I just easily tweak my numbers and it's like, whoosh, my body knows what's happening. It's like, okay, Nikkiey, here are your results. Literally, I'm not kidding you. That's what happens when you've trained and adapted your body so freaking well.

So my friends, babes, ladies, live in maintenance. If you're 50 pounds overweight, after you've done all that work, live here. Live in maintenance. Welcome to maintenance land.

Okay, let's talk about who it's for and who it's not for. It's for you if you're more of the average skinny fat type of woman that I've already alluded to, and you need to build more lean muscle, but you don't want to go as far as a build phase. If you're asking, do I want to go into a massive surplus, and you're like, I don't want to, that's a mental game. I'll tell you, it's a mental game. So it's for you if you're skinny fat and you need to build more muscle, but you don't yet want to be too far into a caloric surplus, because you can build muscle while you're in maintenance. You're eating food here. Okay.

Who it's not for, though, is what I alluded to: somebody who needs to be in a cut phase. If you need to lose an extra 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds, this phase isn't for you right now, but it will be once you do all of that work.

So the goal of maintenance is a lot of awesome things. It's just where the magic happens. I should just say that and be done, but there are so many things that happen here. Overall strength increases. Increased energy levels. You'll notice an increase in mood. You have better sleep quality. You're maintaining your weight, give or take. You're not going to stay at 150, 150, 150, 150. You're going to ebb and flow with it. It'll be 150, maybe 148, 152. Know that there are fluctuations on the damn scale.

And please, in any one of these phases, you shouldn't really be relying on the scale as an indicator of whether you're doing anything right in that phase. It's not the be-all and end-all. Okay. So you're going to be maintaining your body weight, give or take a couple of pounds. Overall, everything increases: strength, energy, mood, sleep. You're building muscle while also having the ability to drop body fat.

And as you do maintenance over and over and over again, just as with a cut, your calories and your macros will never be the same. As you do more maintenance phases over time, that maintenance threshold will increase. I may be getting a little technical here, but let me dumb it down. As you build more muscle, your BMR naturally increases. Your BMR is your basal metabolic rate, which is anything and everything you need to stay alive, the basic functions of your body. It increases.

So it makes sense that as you put more muscle on your body, which you will do in these phases, you will need to eat more. Therefore your cut calories will be different. Your macros will be different there. Your maintenance calories will be different. Let's say your lowest maintenance threshold is 2,200 calories, where you could maintain your weight. I'm not going to speak to adjustments here because it's just another world. But in maintenance you could add in more calories and macros, still maintain your weight, give or take a couple of pounds, maintain your physique and your body fat, but eat more food. And you could hit a threshold at 2,600 calories. That's just an example. It's pretty freaking cool. Just understanding this stuff is so freaking cool.

So all of that will evolve over time. You could be at a maintenance threshold of 2,400 calories, and then all of a sudden you're making adjustments in your maintenance phase and you're up at 3,000 calories. I've been there. It's pretty dope. Yet you're still maintaining your physique. It's awesome.

So that's the overall goal. An overall increase in strength, increase in energy, mood, better sleep. You're maintaining your weight, give or take a couple of pounds. You're building more muscle, which gives you the ability to drop more body fat or stay at that body fat. And then you're able to eat more food. You're going to make adjustments in this phase where you're eating more food than where you started out in your maintenance phase.

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Okay, so the changes that you could expect in your body when you're in maintenance. Again, fuck the scale. But I know that I could say fuck the scale all day long and you're still going to step on the scale. You will see weight increase here. It shouldn't be messy, and everybody is going to experience this fluctuation differently, but give or take three to seven pounds. You will see that type of increase. And it's okay, because let me remind you, you're building muscle here. That weight is both body fat and muscle. And this is where the body comp magic happens. So I just want to drill that in.

Another thing that you can expect with your body: if you've been in a cut for way too long and you're coming into maintenance, your metabolism just gets happier. You're giving your body more food, so your digestion gets better. It's just a beautiful thing to experience. There are even strategies that I use when people are in cuts for long periods of time, like the six, seven, eight month timeline that I alluded to. There are some periods in there where you have to throw somebody into maintenance just to help their metabolism and their digestion. I've done that for women in a two-week span inside of their cut. They go up to maintenance numbers for that time frame, and then they drop more body fat and weight. More happens just by having more food. It's just a beautiful thing.

Okay, so I've covered some things in maintenance there: who it's for, who it's not for, the goal, what you can expect for your body. You've been in a cut, where the main focus was losing LBs and losing fat percentages. Cool, that's awesome. You're going to gain a little bit in maintenance. But the most important thing that I want you to focus on is that your body composition is either still the same or better. You're either growing more muscle or you still have that shape that you achieved with fat loss.

Now, the ideal timeline to stay in this phase. Honestly, as I mentioned before, maintenance is where all of the magic happens for changing your body composition. You should spend as much time in this phase as you need and want, to ensure that your metabolism is working optimally and that you get to eat more. Ideally, the majority of your time should be spent here. After you've done it and achieved the results that you want, spend the bulk of your time in maintenance before you do little tiny fat loss phases and little tiny mini cuts. Highly, highly, highly recommend.

But for those of you who want a hard estimated time, I would recommend anywhere from six months to a max of 12 months, one year. Like I told you, over a year span, the majority of my time I will sit up here in maintenance. The majority of the women that I coach will sit up in maintenance until they're like, Nikkiey, I want to go into a cut. Cool. Let's do an eight-week, three-month type of deal. Then we'll come back up into maintenance.

It greatly depends, you guys, on where you are currently at in your journey. The length of time you spend in maintenance greatly depends on where you're at. If you are more of that average skinny fat type of woman and you need to build more lean muscle, but you don't want to go as far as a build phase, which I'm going to get to next, then this phase is for you, and you should spend the majority of your time in it until you build a lot of muscle, to then reveal the hard work you put in by going into a fat loss phase.

If you are someone who has to lose 50-plus pounds, then like I've mentioned before, this phase isn't for you right now. Do the fat loss phase, lose all of the pounds and then spend some time up here. But again, it greatly depends on where you're at in your journey. Me as a vet, I'm going to spend the majority of my time up in maintenance. I can speak to Cheryl. We're just getting to the two-and-a-half, three-year mark, where I'm like, okay, the majority of your time is going to be here in maintenance. And the majority of her time this last year has been in maintenance. We've dabbled with a few cuts, two cuts in that time frame. So I just want to put that into perspective for you.

Maintenance is where the gold is. Maintenance is where the magic happens when it comes to changing your body composition. Building muscle needs food, and you get food when you're in maintenance. So that's maintenance.

Now let's talk about what I like to call the building phase, guys. People call it bulking. People call it a lean bulk. But to women, mentally, bulk is a narrative that can fuck with somebody. Okay? You're bulking, you're gaining some weight. It is not what people want to hear. You're building in this phase.

If you want to build muscle at an accelerated rate, give your body more food. And giving your body more food is aka a surplus, aka a building phase. So you go from a cut, you lose all the weight, you do a reverse the right way, and then you get into maintenance and spend a little bit of time there. But then you're still adjusting your calories and your macros to bypass maintenance and get into a lean bulk. Okay? So you're eating more calories than you burn here. Yet these calories are helping you build muscle and change your body composition. So if you want to build muscle and you want to do it fast, this is your avenue.

If you're not okay with the weight that's going to come on here and the body fat that's going to come on here, then I just recommend women stay in the maintenance phase. And you can stay in the maintenance phase. It's chill. You can do all the things that you want to do there. But some people just want to go gung-ho for it.

My girl Cheryl signed up with me three years ago and was like, I just want to build. She gained some weight here, but she gained some muscle in the process. And then she revealed that hard work by going into a fat loss phase. So if you want to accelerate and be like my girl Cheryl, you can do that. But bulking isn't for everybody. Lean bulking isn't for everybody. It shouldn't get messy here, and I knew Cheryl was the type of person who could deal with that. So it was chill. But you shouldn't gain so much that it's hard for it all to be lost. Because with the mentality of women, the majority of you guys should just be in maintenance. All right.

The building, surplus phase is cool, but not everybody has to do it. For the sake of the podcast, I'm going to talk to it, because maybe there's somebody out there who's like, I don't care, I just want to build muscle. I want to do it fast. I want to do all the work, and then I can reveal my hard work like it's Christmas morning when I go into a fat loss phase.

So who this is for and who it's not for. It's for you if you want to solely focus on building lean muscle mass and spend a good majority of time doing it. It's not for you if you have 20-plus pounds to lose first before really focusing on composition changes. Okay. And it's also not for you, like I just alluded to, if mentally it's hard to swallow the fact that you're going to gain some weight here.

So what is the goal of a build? The goal is to build lean muscle mass. The goal is to make your future cuts easier, just like maintenance. And the goal is to improve your metabolism and digestion. The only thing that's different between maintenance and a bulk, obviously, is that you're eating more food, and you're going to put on more muscle faster. That's really it. That's the difference between the two. You can achieve what you want in maintenance. It's just not going to happen as fast, because again: food, energy, muscle building, getting you toned.

Now, the changes that you need to understand you will see in this phase: the scale number will increase. Point blank. It will increase. Accept that, because when you accept that mentally, it's going to be easier for you to know what to expect. Again, mentally, this is for the people who can deal with this shit. Okay. It's not for everybody.

So the scale number will increase, and you will have a softer body. You're going to kind of feel like all of your progress went in the opposite direction, kind of, sort of. But you've got to keep in mind that you're doing this for a reason. There is an outcome that you're going toward. And you need to remind yourself of that outcome every single day, because it's going to make it easier for you to accept this phase that you're in.

So many people ask me all the time, can you speak to the mindset for women inside a building phase? That is it. It is all mindset here. You can achieve what you want in maintenance without having to have a softer body. Here you'll see a number increase on the scale, probably a little above the seven-pound marker. But you're accelerating your results here. So which one do you want? It really comes down to you. Which one do you want? Do you want to just stay in maintenance? Then chill, do that. If you want to accelerate the results, bulk. Okay. I said that multiple times. I think I've drilled it into your head by now.

Another thing that you can expect to change within your body is that muscle mass and strength will increase. You're going to feel like She-Hulk here. You're going to be able to move some weight. You're going to be able to increase some PRs. That is what is awesome about both the maintenance and build phases. But you're going to feel like a badass babe in a build phase. It's not mentally for everybody, though. I just need to keep saying that. Your clothes are going to be fitting a little bit tighter. And you would really want to have a coach do this with you here. No doubt. I don't think Cheryl could have gotten through this without my guidance, holding her accountable to the outcome she was striving for.

So let's talk about the recommended timeline to stay in this phase. It depends on where you're at in your current body composition. If I were to go into a surplus, I would only need to be here for three to six months minimum, because of my current body composition. I have muscle. I have muscle mass. For those of you who have muscle mass, you've done all of the things, you're a veteran in this space: three to six months going up into a lean bulk, into a little bit of a surplus.

But if you're somebody who wants to accelerate the process of building muscle, and you're working through cut, reverse and maintenance with the end goal of being up in a lean bulk, do minimum six months. If you're somebody who wants to put on some muscle and you're serious about building the muscle, do six months minimum, and then upwards of a year to two years.

This probably speaks more to competitors, who get on stage and the feedback from judges is, you have to put on more muscle. A smart competitor would not try to compete in the next six months. A smart competitor would take that time off, build the muscle, do the work, take a year, a year and a half, then come back and step on stage, because you will build muscle in that timeframe if you do this the right way.

Now, what I mean by if you do this the right way: lack of consistency means a slow response here. If you're not consistent, if you're overeating and going way beyond your surplus, or you're not eating enough, because it's a full-time job up here in building. You're eating a lot of food here. You've got to make sure you're doing that consistently throughout your days to get the results you want. If you're not consistent and you're not abiding by your plan, it will require more time from you. It's the same thing I spoke to in the cut phase: if you're inconsistent, inconsistent results will happen. Therefore, there's a delayed response time before you get to the result that you want. If you are consistent, if you show up, then you will experience the results you want in, say, a year's timeframe. Okay, I just need to put that there.

And that pretty much encompasses the building phase: what you can expect, the goal, the timeline, who it's for, who it's not for. It's not for everybody. It is a mental game here. And as I said, the main difference between maintenance and a bulking phase is that you're eating more food, and therefore putting on more muscle is highly likely to happen. Okay.

So other than what retraining your metabolism consists of, which is another topic for another day, that encompasses the phases of changing your body composition, and how you will have to go through multiple of them in order to achieve the ultimate goal of having your body look the way you want it to.

You will achieve cool things in a cut. You will achieve cool things in a reverse. You will achieve cool results in maintenance, where you're going to build the muscle. And then you're going to want to see the muscle. You're going to want to drop the body fat. You're going to want to reveal the work you put in. So you're going to go into a cut, and that would be your second one. And then you're going to do that again. And the more that you do that, ladies, your body just adapts. It just adapts.

You're going to be five years into this, and if you do this the right way and do multiple rounds of it, your body won't look the same as where you started. I'm saying it because I'm literally speaking from experience. You will put on more muscle. This is how I maintain a six-pack year-round. No joke. I am so serious. I'm unbelievably, ridiculously, freaking consistent with this the majority of the time, and I'm going through multiple phases of this. And I teach women to do this inside of WarriorBabe. Do all of them do it? I will say the majority of them do. The ones that don't, don't take this shit seriously. But if you so badly want to change your body composition, if you so badly want to keep your word and build confidence in yourself, do this multiple times.

All right. I hope you guys enjoyed that podcast. I think that was by far one of my favorite ones that I have recorded to date. And it's a long one. Beautiful. Perfect.

Well, guys, again, if you want any help doing this, it's a lot to unpack. I'm a professional in this. I understand this. My life's work is around this. It is my passion to share this information with you guys and to help women along their journey. You guys have your own responsibilities, your own jobs, your own life to worry about, and you're adding this on and wanting to know you're doing it the right way. You could totally do it. I don't doubt any of you guys. But if you want somebody to do it with you and just tell you what you need to do, and you just do the work and follow the plan, check out WarriorBabe. All of my life's work and love and passion is in our programs, and our coaches are doing the same thing as well. All right. Links are below this podcast. Again, I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I'll see you in the next one.

Real quick. The only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.