As we enter Week Three of the Lean Bulk Challenge, our hormones are balancing to allow for maximum muscle building and swifter fat loss. 

So this week I want to cover the points that can either prevent muscle gain, or slow it, and the things that allow us to maximize muscle gain and fat loss, and speed recovery from workouts.

So make sure you’re pushing hard in your workouts and lifting heavy, because we want to build as much lean muscle as we can now.

In both women and men, estrogen exists and is necessary.

But when estrogen levels rise too high, it can unbalance other hormones.

This not only causes excess body fat to be built, which can be hard to remove, it lowers key muscle building hormones as well — testosterone and growth hormone.

And it lowers levels of the hormone thyroid, which regulates our metabolism.

Your digestive tract’s ability to fully digest and absorb protein determines, in large part, your body's ability to build muscle and lose body fat.

When protein isn’t properly digested, this triggers a sequence of actions, involving our immune system, which leads to inflammation in the body and higher levels of cortisol, the hormone that prevents fat loss and breaks down muscle.

But also, without full digestion, our body receives less of the protein we consume in a form it can actually use.

As we enter Week Two of the Lean Bulk, cravings for junk food or processed sugars should be lowering or gone.

And you may not have added much in the way of muscle yet.

That’s fine, you’ve just started and it will come. Right now we’re dialing things in and balancing hormones for muscle building and body fat regulation.

You also may have found it hard to eat all of the natural proteins on the protocol. But this protein is necessary.

In the first week of this challenge we have several things happening.

We’re trying to switch our diet so we’re getting what we need to build lean muscle without the other calories or hormone-triggering foods that would cause excess fat gain.

With this comes restructuring our cells so they will use the foods we’re giving them properly and balancing or increasing hormone levels so our body will prioritize building lean muscle over body fat.

Then we’re addressing digestion, which is crucial to your overall health as well as building muscle, as you need to be getting all of the nutrients and vitamins you’re consuming.

And, improperly digested proteins lead to inflammation, which leads to higher levels of cortisol, a hormone that prioritizes building fat and breaking down muscle.

Wow, those are some big claims in that title.

But note the, “over time,” part of the title. Because, no, it isn’t immediate.

But, yes, BCAAs, or Branched Chain Amino Acids, do contribute to building fat over time, as well as reducing muscle gains… and kidney trouble, and type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome, and obesity, and…

Here. Let me explain.

Measuring Progress — Every Body Is Unique

I want to state this here because it’s very important.

Every person’s body is different. This is due to genetics, your microbiome (the bacteria living in your lower intestine), your diet or lifestyle and how long you’ve had them, the toxic load you’ve taken in from food, water, and air, and more.

These play out as varying hormone levels person to person, differing abilities to gain or lose muscle and fat, better or poorer digestive ability, immune system function (vital for building muscle), blood flow, where fat cells are physically located on your body, how the body responds to different nutrients, etc, etc, etc.

All of these are different from person to person and need to be thought with on an individual basis.

The one-size-fits-all view of fitness (or beauty) doesn’t work because of this.

YOUR 30-DAY LEAN BULK CHALLENGE EXERCISE ROUTINE:

You’ve most likely lifted weights before. But as there are a few points that are specific for the success of this program, please read this.

On this protocol you will be lifting 5-6 days per week.

As this protocol is very specific, there will only be weight lifting — no running or other forms of cardio.

If you would like to take a walk, that’s fine. But adding in other forms of cardio will hamper your progress and may cause you trouble.

And it’s only 30 days.

Let’s run through the key points.

If you’ve done a lot of Bulking & Cutting in the past then these calories may seem too low.

But realize one thing here. You’ve most likely been consuming processed foods for your bulking & cutting. And whey or other low-utilization protein powders.

These give less nutrition and usable protein than whole food protein sources do. And more hidden sugars.

In fact, while you may get “less” calories on this protocol, you may actually have more trouble consuming all of it.

This is so much so that your biggest problem will likely be getting it all in.

Ask anyone about bulking and cutting and they’ll bring up calories and macronutrients.

Calories are basically a measurement of how much potential energy is in a food.

Potential because some of it will actually be used as energy and some will not.

This can be energy which is “burned” right now for physical activity (sugars or fats) or energy stored for later use (body fat and glycogen (stored sugars)).

Bulking & Cutting has been around for decades now.

We workout hard, count our macros, and eat and eat and eat, and build lots of muscle.

And… at the same time we’re building muscle, we also build body fat. And we build them at about the same rate, a pound of muscle for a pound of fat.

Environmental toxins are getting worse.

And I don’t mean that as a generality. I mean it on a very real, very personal level.

We’ve passed the point where taking “reasonable caution” or “buying all organic” is enough.

We’re exposed to too many chemicals every day. They’re in our personal care products, the clothes we buy, the fabric of our car seats, and our dishwashing liquids. We even have toxic heavy metals in our baby foods.

But we’ve heard all of this before, seen all the stats and figures.

What does it really mean? How does this work, how do these things actually harm us? And is it really that bad?

Let’s have a real example and you tell me.