I am 10lbs heavier in the picture on the right.

Useful Links: July 2019 Update | One Month Update | Three Months Update
 
I haven’t written a “bulk update” since July 2019 because there was nothing new to add. I continued to eat, gain weight at what I considered an appropriate pace, train hard, and learn more about myself as a lifter, which helped me design better and better programs for myself overtime.
 
No one likes to read a story that starts well and ends well, so I figured I would wait until something interesting came along.
 
Well, what came along was a world-wide pandemic and an order from the British government to maintain social distance and stay at home as much as possible.
 
My gym and all others in the UK closed down at the same time as many other fitness facilities across the world.
 
I haven’t done a home workout since September 2018, when I moved from London to Portsmouth, went back to university, and joined a local commercial gym. At the time, I was only three months into serious lifting, so a pair of adjustable dumbbells still posed an adequate challenge to my strength.
 
I am a bit further along my training career now, so, at first, working out at home felt like a problem rather than a solution.
 
How was I going to make progress? Was I going to make progress? How much would I eat?
 
Read on to find out what I chose to do and why.

​In my article on how to design your own diet, I outlined the steps to calculating the caloric deficit one may need as a starting point for their fat loss diet.
 
In this week’s piece, I aim to talk about reverse dieting, a strategy that originally became popular among bodybuilders following a physique competition.
 
Now reverse dieting is also recognised as a helpful method to bring calories back to maintenance after a fat loss phase. Furthermore, it can potentially aid in producing further fat loss in the future.
 
Does any of the scenarios above resonate with you?
 
Then reverse dieting might be a good fit.

​This week I am excited to share an interview with Bucky Motter, Executive Director and Treasurer of the International Association of Trans Bodybuilders and Powerlifters, a USA-based organisation for physique and strength competitors on the transgender and non-binary spectrum.
 
Since 2014, they have been running a yearly bodybuilding competition in Atlanta. Recently, they have also added a powerlifting meet for transgender and non-binary athletes to the same event.
 
Bucky and I touch upon the following topics:
 

• His own experience as a strength and physique athlete
• How he became Executive Director and the history of the organisation
• Their goals and projects for 2020
• The bodybuilding competition: judging criteria and beginners’ tips
• The powerlifting meet

 
If you are a trans competitor or aspiring competitor, this is your one-stop shop article for everything bodybuilding and powerlifting!

The end of January marked my fifth month working at a commercial gym. Having had the opportunity to talk to a variety of people, I have also had the chance to discover what confuses them about exercise and nutrition.
 
The problem is the amount of conflicting information in the media, on social media platforms, or packaged as books and newspaper articles by so-called “experts” who have some sort of self-interested agenda.
 
Bombarded with contrasting messages like “Sugar addiction will kill you”, “Fat is bad”, and “Carbs are the devil”, how are you supposed to know what to do?
 
This article is a small collection of honest messages about training and nutrition designed to help you make sense of the madness.

What’s the best diet? If you have read my content for any length of time, you might remember that, in simple terms, a good diet to gain muscle involves a caloric surplus, whereas a good diet to lose fat involves a caloric deficit.
 
Any diet can be great as long as it accomplishes either task, depending on your goal.
 
A more effective question would be: What’s the best diet for you?
 
In this article, I am going to outline some benefits and downsides of three of the current most popular dieting approaches, so that, if you are considering any of these, you can make an informed decision.
 
The dieting strategies I will touch upon include:
 

• The keto diet and other low-carb diets
• Intermittent fasting
• Calorie cycling

 
I would like to clarify that perhaps none of these methods will be appropriate for you in the long term. In fact, I would rarely implement them with my own clients.
 
However, these diet trends still exist, and I thought that writing this post instead of ignoring their popularity might help people realise that none of these are “special” or in any way superior to others.
 
When it comes to a long-term way of eating, these are signs that the particular diet you are thinking of will work for you:
 

• You can see yourself eating this way indefinitely, not only for one to three months, which is the typical length of a fat loss or muscle-building phase.
• The diet allows you to eat out with friends and family, take part in festive meals, eat lunch out in a pinch, and eat at home. In other words, it should be a versatile approach that you can apply to all life situations without major constraints.
• It is a balanced way of eating that is unlikely to result in micronutrient, fibre, or other nutrient deficiencies.