Trans men tend to be shorter and lighter than cis men, so their protein requirements are usually lower on average, but the reason isn’t their sex.

If you’re a trans man and you have a similar weight and body composition to another cis man, your protein requirements will also be similar.

Having said that, some research suggests that females may need less protein than males relative to their lean mass.

For instance, this paper by Refalo and colleagues shows that females may need less protein to maintain muscle mass in a deficit.

However, as far as I know, there isn’t yet enough high-quality data on this topic, we don’t know for sure why this difference may exist, and the discrepancies in protein requirements in the papers I’ve seen so far don’t seem significant.

That’s why, until more data emerges, I’m still recommending protein targets based on body mass, not sex.

Caveat: If you’re overweight or have obesity, you can use your goal bodyweight instead of your current bodyweight to calculate your protein needs, so you don’t get an unnecessarily high recommendation.

The Masc/Fem Physique Blueprint includes a guide on how to work out your protein needs.

If you’re a bit nerdy, I also have an article on protein needs here.

2. “This expensive high-protein Babybel is better than standard Babybels.”

Not all that says “high-protein” on the packaging is worth the extra money.

For example, a high-protein Babybel contains 48 kcals and 5.2g protein. In the UK, they cost £20.42 per kilogram.

A Babybel light contains 42 kcals and 5g protein… and costs £14.45 per kilogram.

Don’t get me wrong, some “high-protein” products are great.

For example, high-protein pasta made of legumes or lentils is great because it usually packs about twice the protein as standard pasta (and a ton of fibre, too).

But other products are just a costly scam.

The bottom line: Compare nutrition labels before investing your hard-earned money into a supposedly “high-protein” product.

Bonus: If you want to watch me rant about this, click here.

3. “Source of protein” vs “High protein”

In the UK and EU, food manufacturers can label a food as:
 

• “A source of protein” when “at least 12% of the energy value of the food is provided by protein.”
• “High-protein” when “at least 20% of the energy value of the food is provided by protein.”

 
By this logic, peanut butter can be labelled as “a source of protein” because it contains ~25g of protein (100 kcals) and ~600 kcals per 100g.

But is it a meaningful source of protein?

Not really.

A typical serving of 15 to 30g of peanut butter contains 90-180 kcals and 4-8g protein.

4g of protein in a 90-calorie portion is a pretty shitty calorie-to-protein ratio.

As another example, due to these regulations, protein balls like this product can be marketed as “high-protein,” even though they only contain 10g of protein per 181-calorie portion.

In comparison, the average protein bar contains ~20g protein and ~240 kcals.

To hit 20g of protein with these protein balls, you’d need to consume 360 kcals – again, a pretty shitty calorie-to-protein ratio.

For this reason, don’t rely on marketing terms like “a source of protein” or “high-protein” when choosing your protein sources.

Instead, use the calorie-to-protein ratio: How much protein and how many calories do you get per portion of a certain food?

For example, chicken breast contains 106 kcals and 24g of protein per 100g. This is an excellent calorie-to-protein ratio – far better than peanut butter and protein balls.

As a handy rule of thumb for when you’re dieting and don’t want to blow too many calories on protein, foods with the best calorie-to-protein ratio contain ~20g protein per 100-kcal portion.

Some examples:
 

• Chicken breast
• Egg whites
• 0% fat Greek yogurt
• Whey isolate and clear whey isolate

 
4. “Animal protein is better than plant-based protein.”

Five years ago or so, I used to believe that animal-based protein sources were “superior” because they’re all “complete,” meaning they contain all the essential amino acids in the right quantities to maximise muscle protein synthesis (MPS).

On the other hand, most plant-based sources are incomplete.

However, recent evidence (example 1, example 2) suggests that, as long as your total daily protein intake is high enough, animal- and plant-based protein produce similar results.

Having said that, when your protein is low, protein quality seems to become more important. For example, if you’re only eating 50g of protein per day, you’d benefit most from sources with a complete amino acid profile.

In this case, animal-based protein has an edge.

However, the amino acid profiles of plant-based protein sources can complement each other: by eating a variety of these sources, you can end up with a similar amino acid profile as animal-based protein.

In summary, to get the most from plant-based protein:
 

• Eat the right amount of total daily protein for your goals to neutralise the differences between animal- and plant-based protein
• Eat a range of different plant-based protein sources across the day to create a complete amino acid profile (you can Google complementary plant-based sources if you’re interested)

 
5. “Collagen is a great protein source.”

It isn’t.

Collagen is classified as an incomplete protein because it lacks tryptophan, one of the nine essential amino acids.

It’s also very low in leucine, isoleucine, and valine (collectively known as BCAAs), which are critical for muscle protein synthesis.

Unfortunately, collagen has been getting a lot of hype in the last couple of years, so food manufacturers have been adding it to protein powders and bars, and charging more for it, like this product, which is about three times more expensive than a well-known UK-based whey protein powder brand.

Beware of this marketing strategy.

It seems like a quality boost, but it’s really just a costly downgrade.

While I did mention that incomplete protein sources can be part of a high-protein diet, marketing collagen as though it’s the same or better than whey, casein, soy, or a vegan pea-and-rice blend is incorrect.

So, if you’re going out of your way to purchase a protein powder or bar, I’d steer clear of collagen.

Not only are you likely to be paying a premium because of the hype. It’ll also probably be worse for muscle protein synthesis than the same product formulated with a cheaper protein source, like whey or soy.

6. “The phytoestrogens in soy will affect your estrogen production.”

Yet another myth – and one that can give you a headache as a trans person.

According to research, soy isoflavones don’t seem to have a significant impact on human estrogen in the amounts most people usually consume, including vegetarians and vegans.

To all my trans and cis men and masculine-leaning readers: Don’t worry, soy protein won’t make you any less manly.

And to all my trans and cis women and feminine-leaning readers: I’m sorry, but soy won’t meaningfully increase your estrogen production.

As one of the few plant-based protein sources with a complete amino acid profile, soy protein is excellent in all its forms – protein powder, tofu, etc. – but it’s not so powerful as to affect hormones.
 
In summary:
 

1. Protein requirements are based on body mass (or lean mass if we’re being anal).
2. “Protein” products aren’t all worth the extra money.
3. The labels “Source of protein” and “High-protein” may be correct by law, but they’re useless in practice.
4. Plant-based protein is comparable to animal-based protein under the right circumstances.
5. Collagen is a shit protein source.
6. Soy won’t affect your estrogen production.

Thank you for reading. May you make great gains.
 
Download my free copy of The Masc/Fem Physique Blueprint: a set of four programs to choose from, with an evidence-based guide to training and nutrition for your goal physique.
 
To receive fitness articles like this every week, sign up for my newsletter.

To learn how to develop an effective mindset for long-term fat loss success, sign up for my free email course, No Quit Kit.

For more audiovisual content, check out my podcast on all audio platforms or on YouTube.

1. Program higher weekly set volumes

Scientific evidence like this paper consistently shows that the more weekly set volume you do, the greater the hypertrophy stimulus tends to be, provided you experience progressive overload and adequate recovery.

That said, volume requirements are individual. For some people, 10 weekly sets are enough to drive substantial growth; others may need 15 or more.

Still, patterns emerge over time.

In my experience, most of my AFAB trans masc clients (and myself) tend to respond especially well to 12+ weekly sets for chest after the initial “newbie gains.”

How often should you train chest and how many sets should you do?

Based on research, if you’re doing 10+ sets per week, you’ll probably see better results by dividing them across multiple sessions rather than doing them all in the same one, like the old-school “bro split.”

This is because there seem to be diminishing returns to increasing per-session volume, especially above ~11 fractional sets.

(“Fractional” means that one set of bench press counts as one set for chest and 0.5 set for front delts and triceps respectively. In other words, a set counts as “a fraction of a set” – hence the term fractional – for the secondary muscle groups involved.)

For example, if you plan to do 14 sets of chest work per week, you’ll probably grow better from doing 7 sets in two sessions than 14 sets in one session.

The bottom line: Distribute your weekly volume in a way that works for your schedule and that enables you to generate progressive overload and recover well.

As a rule of thumb, if you do 12+ sets per week, distribute this volume across two to three sessions on non-consecutive days.

Also, if you’re a nerd and want to learn more about the current evidence on the relationship between hypertrophy and per-session volume, I interviewed one of the authors of the paper linked above on my podcast a while back.

2. Train as close to failure as is productive

In my experience, most of my clients (and myself) recover from chest training fairly easily, even with 12+ sets per week.

Moreover, most pec exercises are relatively safe, with only a few exceptions – namely, any variation of the barbell bench press.

For this reason, I usually program most, if not all, of my clients’ chest training to all-out failure.

When this isn’t safe or a client can’t recover from too much failure training, I’ll program no more than two reps in reserve, which means stopping a set when you think you could only do two more reps before hitting failure.

In other words, keep your chest training between RPE 8 and failure most weeks, apart from deloads and the week after a deload.

If you want to learn more about how hard to train for best results, listen to this podcast or read this article.

3. Choose effective exercises for your goals and physique

These are the lifts I’ve found most effective for the majority of my clients:
 

• Mid/Overall pec bias:
  • Dumbbell flat presses
  • Push-up variations
  • Pec deck
  • Seated 90º cable flyes
  • Lying flat dumbbell flyes
  • Plate-loaded flat press machines
• Upper pec bias:
  • Dumbbell incline presses (with a 20-40º incline)
  • Smith machine incline presses (20-40º)
  • Seated incline cable flyes (20-40º)
  • Incline dumbbell flyes (20-40º)
  • Plate-loaded incline press machines
• Lower pec bias:
  • Chest-focused dips
  • Seated lower pec-focused cable presses
  • Seated lower pec-focused cable flyes

 
Importantly, these aren’t the only exercises I program because I don’t believe there are universally “bad” exercises.

For instance, if a client loves flat barbell presses and gets a great stimulus doing them, they’ll find a place in this person’s program for sure.

However, in general, the barbell reduces many people’s range of motion in the bottom position, thus compromising the stretch and overall stimulus, which doesn’t make it great for hypertrophy.

Personally, I love barbell pressing, but I’m one of the people for whom it doesn’t seem to generate much stimulus, so I rarely program it for myself.

As another example, most pin-loaded chest press machines are built for taller people than the average AFAB lifter – and certainly for me, seeing as I’m 5ft – which makes proper elbow alignment a complicated affair.

In addition, many pin-loaded machines have a small range of motion in the bottom position, once again compromising the stretch.

On the other hand, in my experience, plate-loaded machines tend to accommodate people of different sizes a bit better and allow for larger ranges of motion.

However, if your pin-loaded machine fits you like a glove and your plate-loaded ones aren’t that great, stick with the pin-loaded one.

Ultimately, effective exercise selection is about finding the lifts that work best for you and your own individual anatomy rather than arbitrarily labelling exercises as “good” or “bad” for everyone.

How many exercises should you do?

The smallest amount that gets the job done, depending on your weekly set volume and lifting experience.

In other words, the higher your weekly set volume, the more exercise variations you’ll do. For example, if you have 10 weekly sets, you may do 3 sets of flat presses, 3 sets of incline presses, and 4 sets of flyes.

If you have 15 sets, you may do 3 sets of flat presses, 3 sets of incline presses, 6 sets of flyes, and 3 sets of lower pec-focused presses or dips.

Furthermore, the newer you are to lifting, the better it may be to program fewer exercises, so you get more practice with them throughout the week. You also need less weekly set volume (or proximity to failure) to grow.

For instance, I may program a brand-new lifter 6 to 8 weekly sets of chest work and distribute them across flat presses and incline flyes. This way, they get several sets of each and can focus on learning only two exercises.

On the other hand, a client who’s been training for several years and is doing 15 sets per week will get several more exercises because they’re already pretty proficient with form on all of them and thus don’t need as many “practice sets” of each.

How many exercises per pec division should you do?

As hinted above, the pec muscle fibres are categorised into three divisions:
 

• Upper or clavicular: the muscle fibres running from the clavicle to the upper arm
• Mid or sternal: the muscle fibres running horizontally from the sternum to the upper arm
• Lower or costal: the muscle fibres running from the ribcage to the upper arm

​You can bias one division more than others by manipulating the exercise setup and execution.

This doesn’t mean that a decline cable press won’t train the upper and mid pec fibres at all, only that you may emphasise the lower fibres more than the others.

Again, exercise selection – like every other aspect of a training program – needs to be customised for best results, so there’s no “best” number of exercises for each division for everyone.

Moreover, since “biasing” doesn’t mean “only training this one division and not the other two,” it’s also not that big of a deal to get it “right.”

In my view, if you’re new to training, focus primarily on exercises that bias the mid pecs, like flat presses and push-ups, since these also tend to target overall chest development.

If you’re AFAB and haven’t had top surgery, breast fat tissue tends to cover the lower half of your pecs. Therefore, if you want to maximise your visible gains, you may want to focus more on mid and upper pec fibres – which will be more noticeable – while sprinkling in some lower pec-biased training for complete development.

As you become more advanced, you may notice an area of your pec lagging behind the others. That’s when you may benefit from increasing the number of exercises for that specific area.

Finally, you don’t have to stick with the same ratio of upper to mid to lower pec bias in your program forever. You can cycle through phases, emphasising a different division each time.

4. Adopt the right form to stimulate the pecs

Learning to use effective form while training close to failure is one of the most impactful drivers of muscle growth.

So you can rest assured that if a client wants bigger pecs, I’ll relentlessly ask for videos of every chest exercise in their program to help them refine setup, execution, and proximity to failure.

These are the most common form mistakes I see:

Elbow position on presses and push-ups:

If the elbows are too high and far from your body, you tend to feel it more in the shoulders; if they’re too close to your sides, you tend to feel it more in the triceps.

The sweet spot is somewhere between these two points.

Arch:

You don’t need a powerlifting arch like this:

This reduces your range of motion in the bottom position (as per photo) and thus your ability to stretch the pecs, which isn’t ideal for hypertrophy.

However, depending on the shape of your ribcage – which, in most AFAB people, tends to be relatively flat instead of “barrel-like” – you’ll probably benefit from a moderate arch, especially on mid pecs-biased presses, to increase the range of motion and stretch.

Range of motion:

On the descent of any press and dip, stop before your elbows change direction.

For example, when doing flat dumbbell bench presses, stop before your elbows start tipping up, and your shoulders begin to tip forward.

Arm path:

The pecs don’t just press forward; they pull your upper arms closer together in a converging motion.

So, as you press, imagine trying to crush your chesticles between your biceps. Weird cue, but it works.

The arm path also depends on your intention:
 

• To bias the mid pecs, line the hands up with the nipples (or with the lower outline of the pec if you had your nipples removed) and press forward
• To bias the upper pecs, press up towards the clavicle (low to high forearm motion) on an incline
• To bias the lower pecs, press down towards the ribs (high to low forearm motion) on a dip machine or cable decline press or flye

 
Since form is a bit tricky to describe in writing, here are some links to a few reels I made over the years to address these common mistakes:
 

• Elbow alignment and arm path
• Back arch and arm path
• If you feel shoulders more than pecs, watch these: Pt. 1 and Pt. 2

5. Program pec work first

Do your chest exercises first in every session and program your chest training in the first session of the week.

Since you’ll be most energetic at these times, you’ll perform better.

While it won’t make a night-or-day difference, it’ll nonetheless contribute to a greater pec stimulus.

Conclusion

If you want to grow your pecs, steal my top five evidence-based strategies:
 

1. Program higher weekly set volume
2. Train as close to failure as is productive
3. Choose effective exercises for your goals and physique
4. Adopt the right form to stimulate the pecs
5. Program pec work first

Thank you for reading. May you make great gains.
 
Download my free copy of The Masc/Fem Physique Blueprint: a set of four programs to choose from, with an evidence-based guide to training and nutrition for your goal physique.
 
To receive fitness articles like this every week, sign up for my newsletter.

To learn how to develop an effective mindset for long-term fat loss success, sign up for my free email course, No Quit Kit.

For more audiovisual content, check out my podcast on all audio platforms or on YouTube.

When you diet, you do most things right.

You’re in a moderate deficit; you’re not starving yourself.

You’re eating your protein, fibre, fruit, and veg regularly.

And yet, no matter how hard you try to be disciplined, you always eat too much when going out for a meal or when someone brings cake to work.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because I coach many people like you.
 
That’s why I’ve developed the Fuck Yes Framework as an effective mindset strategy to overcome mindless over-eating.
 
The Framework is simple: Only eat foods that are worth it, stop when they’re no longer worth it, and think about how they’ll make you feel after.
 
This Framework has three components:
 

1. Fuck Yes foods
2. Fuck Yes bites
3. Fuck Yes mood

#1. Fuck Yes foods

We live in an obesogenic environment, which means we’re surrounded by tempting food that’s designed for us to over-eat.

A bag of peanut M&Ms left open on the table at a birthday party, filling the air with the scent of roasted peanuts and chocolate.

A basket of freshly baked garlic bread at a fancy Italian restaurant, seducing you with its mouth-watering crust.

A delicious ice-cream you know you really don’t “need” after the meal you’ve just eaten, but it looks so good…

While there are many tempting foods, not all of them will be Fuck Yes foods.

Your mum’s homemade chocolate cake is way more of a Fuck Yes food than the box of stale supermarket doughnuts someone brought to the office two days ago.
 
So, before diving into that bag of M&Ms, bread basket, or ice-cream, ask yourself: “Is this a Fuck Yes food?”


If so, enjoy it using this Framework.
 
But if it isn’t, is it really worth the trade-offs?
 
#2. Fuck Yes bites

In most cases, the pleasure of eating has diminishing returns.

The first bite is the most delicious.
 
The second is still good.
 
The fifth is just fine.
 
By the tenth, you’re just eating because the food is there.
 
As you keep eating, you begin to feel full and to experience more and more palate fatigue – a fancy term that means you’re getting tired of the same flavour.
 
Eventually, you may only clean the plate because you didn’t want to waste it or because you were taught to eat everything growing up.

But, while pleasure decreases with each bite, the calories per bite are always the same. So, if you run out of Fuck Yes bites and continue eating anyway, you’re no longer investing those calories into enjoyment; you’re wasting them.

After every bite of a Fuck Yes food, check in with yourself: “Is this still a Fuck Yes?”
 
And if it isn’t, you don’t need to keep eating.

#3. Fuck Yes mood

You don’t just want to pick Fuck Yes foods and bites; you also want to eat food you love in quantities that make you feel like a Fuck Yes afterwards.
 
Most of us over-eat because we want the immediate gratification that comes with it, the dopamine hit when that delicious combination of sugar, salt, and fat lands on your tongue and makes fireworks go off in your brain.
 
But that immediate gratification lasts a few seconds, whereas how you feel long-term after over-eating isn’t quite as pleasant:
 

• That feeling like you’re out of control around food
• Shame and guilt for “messing up again”
• The crushing inability to achieve the fit physique you work so hard for the rest of the time

 
Now think about how eating just enough of a Fuck Yes food would make you feel instead:
 

• Like you scratched the itch without going overboard
• Confident and in control
• Like you can trust yourself

 
In other words, you’re going to feel like a Fuck Yes.

So, when making a choice about eating a highly palatable food, and how much of it to have, think beyond immediate gratification and ask yourself: “How do I want this food to make me feel later?”

Practising this three-pronged Fuck Yes framework will help you see food in a different light, and make choices that better serve your long-term goals.

Thank you for reading. May you make great gains.
 
Download my free copy of The Masc/Fem Physique Blueprint: a set of four programs to choose from, with an evidence-based guide to training and nutrition for your goal physique.
 
To receive fitness articles like this every week, sign up for my newsletter.

To learn how to develop an effective mindset for long-term fat loss success, sign up for my free email course, No Quit Kit.

For more audio content, check out my podcast.

Let’s talk about the recent “women’s creatine” trend AKA an excellent example of how the supplement industry creates confusion where there doesn’t need to be any.

A few days ago, I came across a product marketed as “the best creatine for women in the UK (…) for muscle growth, recovery, and wellbeing.”

These are two of the benefits listed on the product page:
 

• “Build lean, toned muscle – Look defined without bulking up”
• “No hormonal side effects – Works with your body, not against it”

 
This kind of marketing affects most of my clients: cis women and trans feminine people who are worried about getting “bulky,” and trans masc individuals wondering how “women’s” creatine might impact their body.

None of us need this shit, so let’s clear this up.

The product in question contains 100% creatine monohydrate, listed as Creapure.

If you’ve been using creatine for some time, this might ring a bell. Which is unsurprising, because Creapure has been around for years, certainly longer than “women’s creatine.”

Creapure is simply micronized creatine monohydrate, which is milled into a finer powder than regular creatine monohydrate, so it dissolves and mixes more easily in liquid.

As a result, it can be gentler on the stomach.

Also, anecdotally, people on micronized creatine may not get the same weight spike in the first two to four weeks of use as people who take regular creatine monohydrate.

Not that this weight spike is anything to worry about. Creatine is stored in your muscles with intracellular water, and it’s this increase in water that causes the weight gain.

That’s it.

Beyond that, there’s no meaningful difference between Creapure and regular creatine monohydrate.

And more importantly, there’s nothing about Creapure – or any other form of creatine – that makes it “for women.”

Creatine doesn’t work differently based on your sex.

Compared to these “women’s creatine” products, regular creatine doesn’t suddenly cause excessive muscle gain in women, nor does it interfere with natural hormone levels or hormone therapy.

Saying “buy my creatine because it doesn’t have any hormonal side effects” is like saying “buy my water because it doesn’t have any hormonal side effects.”

Of course it fucking doesn’t!

As it pertains to body composition, research suggests that creatine may help increase lean body mass and high-intensity exercise capacity, such as resistance training capacity.

That’s true whether you’re a cis man or woman, a trans man or woman, or a non-binary person.

When you pay for “women’s creatine,” you’re paying for a pink label.

In many cases, that label comes at a higher price, despite the contents being identical to regular creatine monohydrate – the so-called “pink tax.”

Case in point: this “women’s” Creapure is £20 for a 200g tub. The Creapure I buy – again, the same form of creatine monohydrate, just branded differently – is £20 per kilogram.

My Creapure – just “regular” Creapure with no pink label – is five times cheaper.

This isn’t unique to creatine, either.

It’s a broader pattern in the industry: take a well-established product, repackage it for a specific group, and sell it as something more appropriate or safer, rather than helping people understand how and why it works in the first place.

To add insult to injury, the supplement industry overhypes all supplements when, in truth, even one as well-researched as creatine has a minor effect at best.

A couple of years ago, I interviewed Dr. Forbes – also known as Dr. Creatine – on my podcast. Even a creatine expert of his calibre compared creatine to the sprinkles on the icing on a cake.

Most other supplements aren’t as effective as creatine… so they’re even less important than sprinkles.

The bottom line: Gendered marketing for creatine is a very expensive scam. “Regular” creatine monohydrate is the cheapest and most effective form of creatine, whereas the micronized version (Creapure) is slightly more costly.

That said, if you don’t have the budget for performance supplements, you don’t need to buy any of them.

This will not hold you back from getting excellent results, like the supplement industry would have you believe.

If you have some spare cash and want to know which performance supplements might give you the best bang for your buck if you’re interested in building your physique, I’d suggest:

• Protein powder
• Creatine monohydrate
• Caffeine, but likely only if you train in the morning

If you want to learn more about these three, check out my latest podcast interview with Dr. Eric Helms on peri-workout nutrition and supplements.

Also, if you missed my email from a few weeks back, regarding whether you should pick men’s or women’s multivitamins as a trans person, check it out here.

In summary, fuck women’s creatine.

Thank you for reading. May you make the best gains.
 
Download my free copy of The Masc/Fem Physique Blueprint: a set of four programs to choose from, with an evidence-based guide to training and nutrition for your goal physique.
 
To receive fitness articles like this every week, sign up for my newsletter.

To learn how to develop an effective mindset for long-term fat loss success, sign up for my free email course, No Quit Kit.

For more audio content, check out my podcast.

You’re not lazy. You’re not inconsistent. And you’re definitely not “lacking discipline.”
 
In fact, it’s the opposite.
 
You work hard. You follow the plan. You push yourself.
 
And yet, every time you try to diet, you burn out. You either quit early, or push so hard that it becomes miserable… and you still don’t end up as lean as you wanted.
 
You don’t have a motivation problem. You have a strategy problem.
 
Since 2019, I’ve coached trans lifters exactly like you: people who do everything right, but still don’t get the return on their effort that they deserve.
 
If this sounds familiar, here are seven reasons hard-working lifters like you burn out dieting and what to do instead.