Build Muscle FAST! (Part 2 of 2)

Here's part two in another blog series that aligns with one of my five core values - living well. Check out part one here.

In part one, we reviewed the first five (5) tips to build muscle fast and they are:

1. Focus on strength

2. Manipulate training frequency

3. Perform the most effective exercises

4. Don't skip body parts

5. Eat carbs and don't miss your ideal protein intake

In this blog-post, we will cover the next five tips and they are:

6. Use the scale daily

7. Use a food journal

8. Catch up with liquid calories (protein)

9. Stay consistent (esp. on weekends)

10. Prioritize sleep

If you are hitting these big ten on a consistent basis, you WILL build muscle and strength and in turn, your body will start to adapt and, guess what, that stubborn body fat will start to go away and your body composition WILL change, no matter what age you are.

(6) Six – Use the scale daily

Checking the scale daily sounds intimidating, I know, but doing this can really keep you moving things in things in the right direction. This was a big one for me as a 20-something, when I first started lifting, because I could see every single day what was going on. It also kept me on track with my nutrition.

Weighing every single day isn't probably for the person who has body image issues. For some, watching the scale go up and down isn't for everyone. But my recommendation is to use the scale daily if you're struggling to build muscle.

When you're working hard and being consistent, being able to check-in on the scale serves as an accountability tool. It helps to see how your progress is going.

There is tremendous value in doing this because your body weight will fluctuate between morning and evening based on a number of factors but what you're primarily looking for is the trend.

It's basically a tool to help you calibrate. When you're working so hard to follow a meal plan and you've figured out your macros and you know where you're supposed to be in order for you to gain muscle, it helps to see the data related to what you're doing.

(7) Seven– Use a food journal

Food journaling is invaluable. We all eat a lot. I feel like I am eating all the damn time. But, when I keep a food journal, I can see where it adds up.

The hardest for me is making sure I am hitting my protein goal. When I keep a food journal, more often than not, I will hit that goal each and every day.

When you're struggling to put on more muscle, these are the kinds of hot tips where you will likely get some of your best results. When human being's set-up for a goal, any goal, they have to put in the work. This becomes vitally important. If you're not willing to do that work, you risk not achieving the goal.

You've got to be able to track your nutritional intake so that you can recalibrate when necessary.

Almost everybody either overestimates or underestimates what they have consumed in a day. Just recently, I felt like I was doing OK for the most part. I'd often tell myself "I think I'm around this or that" ... but, what I was really doing was just guessing where I was at the entire time. Then, when I actually start tracking again, I'm not as accurate as I thought I was in the first place.

As soon as I start writing down what I am eating and drinking, I'm always off a little and when I can see the data more clearly, then I know what to do to recalibrate. Of course, this doesn't mean you have to track for the rest of your life but know that it's especially important to track when you're first building this routine or trying to get started in the right direction. The data will drive your decisions; your decisions will drive your habits and will cause you to create new habits -- and it's those new habits that will transform your body.

(8) Eight – Catch up with liquid calories (protein)

Now, this is for the people that are challenged with eating enough protein calories in the day. For years, mostly in my 20's, I was one of those people with a very fast metabolism. I could eat anything (and I did) and I burned it off FAST. Real fast.

I was lifting like crazy but it wasn't until I started to track my nutritional intake did things change. That was when I realized why I was not growing in size and definition. That was when I knew I needed to eat much more protein in order to balance the hard work I was putting into the gym.

In the beginning, it was difficult to consume so much food, especially when I felt so full, so that was when I turned to adding liquid calories. WOW! Doing this made a huge difference.

Protein shakes aren't whole foods. Whole foods are the goal. Buying clean ingredients and preparing your own meals with your own oils and spices keeps you very much aware of what's going into your body.

Despite this, there is probably protein calories that you might be missing. And to get those extra calories you need to feed your body after your day has started to wind down.

If you're not dairy intolerant, this tip is incredible for achieving this, especially for the person who really struggles with putting on any muscle mass.

It often happens for me at the end of the day. I stop to check my tracking to see how I did and I'm like, "OK! I was supposed to get to 3500 calories, but I just hit barely my protein intake again. Dammit!" This is when I make a bulk shake. I do this at the end of the day, because the goal, once again, is to get all of my food targets into my body using whole foods.

So, at the end of each day, this becomes extremely beneficial. I start with whole milk, whey protein, a banana, one tablespoon of Nutella, two tablespoons of peanut butter, all blended over ice.

It's like 800 calories with 40-ish grams of protein depending on what ingredients you're using for flavor. The shake I make tastes phenomenal to me, and it's been a great way to end the night.

Also, it's great for somebody, like me, that loves ice cream or sweets ... and so it gives me kind of that sweet treat taste but then I'm also getting this big punch of protein at the end of the night when I need it most. (to hit my daily protein goal.)

(9) Nine – Stay consistent (esp. on weekends)

Guilty as charged.

Whether I am trying to lose weight or gain muscle, no matter what my goals are, I tend to find that I fall off track on the weekends. I know, I know, I am not alone! On weekends, so many people get off track and eat (or drink) way too much.

Listen, if you're trying to pack on muscle, size and/or definition, remember that being consistent is key -- and yes, this means being consistent for all seven days of the week.

If you do really well with your consistency levels from Monday through Friday, but then you skip breakfast or lunch on Saturday, the next thing you know your calories are low overall, especially the protein intake data. This one decision to skip a meal, is what causes the yo-yo. The key to seeing results fast, is to make behavioral changes fast and stay consistent for all seven days.

If you start by making Saturday and Sunday your more dialed-in days, it is going to work wonders for you in the long run. Trust me on this.

Consistency is key.

(10) Ten – Prioritize sleep

I've been lifting weights since I was 23 years old and it took me such a long time to figure out the value of sleep. When it came to putting on muscle "ohh man," sleep is the magic ingredient to it all.

It kills me when see young 20-year-olds spend two or three hours at the gym in one day working their tails off, set after set after set on a Friday after classes, then they go home, change clothes and party with friends long into the night and they're in bed at 3am, up at 6am and back in the gym for two hours, then partying again on Saturday night with another sleep deficit ... bitching the whole time that they're not getting the results they want.

Trouble is, most 20-year-olds think sleep is overrated.

I did, too, when I was 2o-something. But now, all these years later, I completely disagree. Sleep is vital for muscle growth and more importantly, for hormone balance.

Now, hear me out, it's not like you get one bad night of rest and then the next day you lose 5lbs of muscle. Losing sleep has a compounding effect and the body is extremely resilient. It WILL adapt to whatever you make it do.

It's, quite simply, all based on what you (1) eat (2) drink and (3) do.

I remember when I first kind of started to dive deeper into the value of sleep. I had read a few books and each one of them made this big deal about getting enough sleep and I remember finally saying "alright, let me see what the deal is."

I was one of those kids that could get away with five hours of sleep and I was totally fine. But I was a skinny 20-something that struggled to put on muscle.

After a few full nights of sleep, I thought, "oh, this is not for me."

It wasn't really until I hired an exceptional personal trainer in Dallas in 2016 (when I was age 46) where I truly learned the value of sleep. He had me focus on sleep for 30 days where he had me make a concentrated effort to go to bed early and to sleep at least 8 hours every single night, which was a big improvement for me.

It was amazing to see what happened. Sure enough, I gained like 4 or 5 lbs of muscle just in that month. That was all I needed. Now, as an adult focused on my own health and fitness, sleep has become vitally important to me.

What's going on hormonally when you don't sleep?

Insulin and cortisol are such key indicators for building muscle or burning body fat. When you're sleep is off, and/or when your circadian rhythm is off, that throws a lot of that off BIG TIME.

You're telling your body that every time you (1) eat, (2) drink and (3) do that it's going to build muscle or burn body fat but when your sleeping habits are all out of whack, it becomes a vicious cycle of all work and little results.

If someone made a bet with me today and said let's see how fast you could lower your testosterone (or someone else's testosterone) and you can only change one thing, the one thing I would change is sleep. When a man doesn't get enough sleep, this is guaranteed to hammer his anabolic hormones. Testosterone totally drops; cortisol goes up and his body actually primes itself to reduce muscle and store body fat. It's precisely why so many middle-aged men are pear shaped with love handles and lower back fat.

There is a lot of literature (and data) out there related to the connection between bad sleep and fat gain or bad sleep and performance reductions. Consider researching it. Sleep really primes the body with all of the beneficial hormones. Hormones that often times people take exogenously to build more muscle. Note: Without sleep you also produce less melatonin, which means you produce less growth hormone, which now means your body's not going to burn body fat as well. Your insulin sensitivity starts to drop.

Bottom line - good sleep is vital to building muscle.

So, if you're somebody who struggles with building muscle and you're not feeling like (or looking like) you're building muscle, use this blog-series as a check off-list to help you with a behavioral overhaul toward consistency.

I promise you, when your body composition is changing, you're probably building muscle and, hopefully, you're also burning some body fat. S0, even if you're not seeing this huge fluctuation on the scale or you're not getting people every single day complimenting you, be patient, stay with it, and just get good at all of these things over time . . .

. . . and most importantly, stay consistent with all of them. Results will happen.

Let's do this!❤️