Ep 221 – The Reality of Off Season Bodybuilding

Let’s talk about what happens after the glitter and tan fade. You know—that time between shows when the real work begins. Whether you call it an improvement season, build phase, or just “eating more and lifting heavy,” it’s where champions are made.

In this week’s episode, Alice opens up about her shift from bikini to a more muscular division, the psychological rollercoaster of gaining weight intentionally (yes, it’s a thing), and how judging has changed her perspective on posing and physique goals.

Ben shares why the off-season is where strategy matters most—and why you might need to get uncomfortable to level up.

If you’ve ever questioned your path in bodybuilding or wondered what the next chapter might look like, this one’s for you.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Ep 221 – AUDIO The Realityof Off Season Bodybuilding

[Ben]

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins and Muscles by

Brussels Radio. My name is Ben.

[Alice]

And I’m Alice.

[Ben]

And thank you for tuning in. So, Alice, you’re here in the wonderful land of Massachusetts. You

arrived yesterday, drove up from Virginia.

How was the drive and what do you think of Massachusetts so far?

[Alice]

The drive, I’m so lucky, was super easy. Well, part of it is luck and part of it is the fact that I left

at 3 a.m. and arrived about 2 p.m. So, I hit minimal traffic. And I even thought ahead and took a

nap the day before.

And so, I felt okay the whole time. Granted, I did rely on caffeine.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Alice]

But in Massachusetts, never been to Massachusetts before, I feel like parts of it look like a little

bit of New York. Parts of it look a little bit like Virginia. It’s very green.

[Ben]

Are you going to stop in Boston at all and like try to check it out and explore that a little bit?

[Alice]

I don’t know if we’re going to have time to hit Boston, but definitely want to do Salem. That’s

going to be on the list.

[Ben]

Salem is cool.[Alice]

I don’t know how many vegan options as far as restaurants we have like around here, but

fingers crossed we’ll be able to find a couple things.

[Ben]

Yeah. And for the meetup that we’re doing in June for Vegan Proteins Community, you could

have some time then to go explore Boston if you don’t get the time now and future trips as

well. That’s good though that you didn’t hit too much traffic and you thought ahead and nap

and prepared yourself because that’s a long drive.

I did that pretty much exact drive when I moved back from North Carolina like a month or two

ago. Did you do it in one shot? Sorry?

[Alice]

Did you do it in one shot?

[Ben]

Yes. Yes, I did it. Well, kind of.

I drove from Raleigh up to trying to think of the area that I was in, kind of close to where you

are. And then I did that in one. So it was about 12 hours in total.

I only stopped twice, which for me is crazy considering how much I drink and my bladder size.

So you’ll know what I’m talking about. When I went to go visit him, we had to stop like so often

in the van.

So he was giving me crap for that. But yeah, you have arrived to truly Massachusetts weather,

cold and rainy in May. So it doesn’t start really getting consistently nice here till June.

[Alice]

I don’t really mind as long as it’s not pouring down rain because I don’t have to wear as much

sunscreen. And I also just I’m just a vampire. I just melt in the sun and in the heat.

And so, yeah, I can go outside and just be a little mist and be happy.

[Ben]

Okay.

[Alice]

We’ll have a good time.[Ben]

Okay. And you and Danny are going up to Vermont tomorrow to check out some scope out the

scene, I guess you could say for the meetup. So how has that been kind of planning that

because this is the first one that we’re really doing with since I mean, since I came on board, I

think since since you came, I don’t even know if there has been really a vegan proteins meetup

before.

So I think this is the first first one. Is that correct?

[Alice]

This is the first meetup we’re doing. And we’ve been talking about doing it for eternity. But it’s

really, really exciting to see everything come together.

And I’ve had such a good time planning everything. But the hardest thing to plan is restaurants

because even though there are a million and one photos of food online, it’s so hard to just see

what the storefront looks like how many seats how many tables, you know, if it’s a, like, sit

down and order or if you go and, you know, order up at the counter and pay and then the sit.

So it’s, we’re gonna just get the lay of the land with the places that we think we want to go to

and make some final decisions because we’ve got a good head count now and it’s gonna be a

good group.

It’s gonna be nice and comfortable.

[Ben]

Well, I’m really excited to hang out with all of you guys and all the vegan proteins community

members are coming. I think it’s gonna be a smaller group for this first go, which I think is a

good thing. And try to iron out some of the kinks and make it like a, you know, maybe even a

twice a year or once a year sort of thing, because I always enjoy that in person time.

Obviously, having the online community, it’s nice because we always have access to each other.

And if you’re interested in wanting to be a part of future meetups, and you’re not currently a

mass member of our muscles by Brussels membership, then you can head over to

veganproteins.com and check that out. Because that is, you know, one of the best parts of

working for vegan proteins and why I love it so much is the community and the group calls that

we do with the community members and getting to know them.

And so I think it’s gonna be really special to get to meet up in person and interact with

everyone. So I’m really looking forward to that.

[Alice]

Me too. Sometimes we get people showing up at the booth, but that’s historically been about it.[Ben]

Yeah. Okay, so topic for today. I know we had mentioned the last time that we recorded

together, I believe it was last podcast we did together, we were talking about our competition

seasons last year, and kind of recapping all of those and what went into that.

And I, I would highly recommend you go check that out if you haven’t listened to that so far.

And you’re listening to the podcast today, because that’ll give us give you some greater

background as to our journeys with competitive bodybuilding and everything leading up into

the culmination of our first seasons last year. So go check that out.

And then we talked about in that episode doing kind of like a follow up series and giving

updates as we go throughout our offseason. Because, you know, when you see people

competing on Instagram, you see a lot of prep photos, you see a lot of photos of people up

there on stage, the glamour of it all and the glitz, but you don’t see all the hard work that went

into that beforehand. And I think that’s one of the biggest misconceptions with people who

want to compete is how much work it takes to even get to the point where you’re ready to think

about competing.

[Alice]

Yes.

[Ben]

And that’s really what we’re talking about right now is some people call it, you know, the

improvement season, the offseason, building phase, growing phase, whatever you want to call

it, I think different phrases resonate with different people. But it’s really that time where you’re

not actively trying to, you know, lose body fight, get in competition shape, and you’re working

towards building and, you know, building towards your next season, whatever that looks like.

For some people that might be, you know, maybe they competed in one division, they want to

stay in that division and try to get more competitive there for other folks.

Maybe they’re looking to go to a different division, or maybe something entirely else. So I

thought it would be neat for us to kind of just give an update on where we’re at in our journeys

and what that has looked like since we kind of ended our seasons and, you know, things that

we’re excited about what we’ve been doing with nutrition and training and maybe, you know,

plans for the future if we have any. So I don’t know where your brain is going first or where you

want to start.

But I’ll just open it up to you there.

[Alice]

Well, I guess, top of mind is divisions. I’d be very interested in moving up at least one category.So we’ll see.

I mean, we’ll see what this build phase shakes out to. But the goal for me personally, I guess is

going to be similar to most guys, right? Just trying to put on as much mass as possible, as far as

lean tissue and trying to be brave enough to, you know, go up enough in body weight to see

like significant body changes.

And of course, there’s a lot of psychological to that. Lots of ups and downs. But I think I’ve just

planning in advance and planning to sort of watch the numbers on the scale go up have really

helped me.

And so far, you know, I’m looking in the mirror at the gym, and I’m really excited about my

physique. And I’m really excited about the changes that I’m seeing. I’m very hopeful that I will

be able to move up a category.

So we will. Yeah, we’ll see. What category?

I’m not really sure. Anything else would be cool. Just change.

[Ben]

I want to get to the importance of gaining weight for building phases in a second, because I

think that’s a huge topic that there’s a lot of different roads that we could take there. But first, I

want to just touch on you competed in the bikini division last year for your for your first season,

you want to touch on maybe why you chose to compete in bikini. And then what are some of

the maybe things you liked or didn’t like as much about that?

And then what is kind of spurring you to change divisions? You know, what excites you about

those divisions? What are those divisions for folks who are maybe not super familiar with, with

bodybuilding and what that entails?

Touch on you can touch on whatever you want to touch on in terms of criteria or anything like

that.

[Alice]

Okay, glad I have my notepad. Take some notes here. My why for choosing the bikini division

initially is because genetically that is what I seem to be made for.

I’ve always been a very lean person. I historically have had trouble putting on weight. At least

Yeah, and put anyway, really.

So when I started my bodybuilding career, it was very quickly became very apparent that oh,

I’m I seem to be building in the right places for bikini. And then as soon as you start practicing

posing, that’s when everything really sort of comes together because you never know how

people are going to look. It’s the funniest thing like being backstage, sometimes you’rebackstage and there are people back there.

It’s like you’re just you might sort of think like, Oh, I’m surprised they’re kind of a competitor,

but then they get on stage. And they know what they’re doing with posing. And they just it’ll

floor you, you know, so bikini went with it really excited.

I enjoy it a lot. I wouldn’t be super, super heartbroken if I had to stay in bikini, just for genetic

reasons. But I would really like to explore just more muscular categories.

That would basically mean me getting leaner for competitions because historically, you know,

bikini girls do not usually have to get as lean as the more advanced categories, right? So that’s

probably the only downside for me is just this a little bit of a fear of getting that lean. But it’s a

very pretty category, obviously, no one I mean, it’s the most popular category.

That’s also another reason why I love it when you go to a competition. There are plenty of girls

back there that are so excited to be there. They’ve always wanted to be in bikini like this is it for

them.

You have plenty of competition, seeing how everyone you know, dresses up and does their hair

and the suits that they choose like it’s it’s an experience and there’s plenty of content out there

about just being a bikini competitor in general. Like it’s a big deal. That’s what I love about it.

What I dislike about it, I’d say is, I feel that the pageantry portion, like aspect of bodybuilding is

at least two or three times more important in bikini. And I would like to, I would prefer to be

less in like sexy posing than something a little bit more muscular, something a little bit more

interesting. And as I learned to, as I got my judges training, so I’m now a judge for the OCB, I’ve

really developed an interest, especially in figure, I think, because never really understood the

posing before.

Now that you know the criteria, and you see enough physiques, there’s a very interesting

beauty to it. So I think, you know, I think my body will most likely go in that direction as I grow, I

hope, depends on the lats, of course. But any, any other division, even if I were to go and

compete in wellness, I think it would, I think I would be most excited if I were to just go and

compete in women’s physique, but we’ll see.

You never know. You never know how much you’re able to put on, especially with an aggressive

build.

[Ben]

I think you touched on a lot of interesting stuff there. One, the kind of community aspect of the

bikini division. That’s something that I just don’t see.

And really, I don’t see it in any men’s divisions. I don’t see it in any women’s divisions. It’s huge.

It’s massive. And so I think that that can be a positive for folks who are really looking, you know,to have more of a social aspect, maybe to their bodybuilding journey, connect with people, that

sort of thing. I agree with everything that you said.

I think it maybe fits more into society’s beauty standards for women, especially with the posing

as well that you mentioned. So I think that there is more of that aspect. Whereas if we look at

maybe more traditional, like pure bodybuilding, the focus just on kind of the physique, I would

say more than like the presentation, of course, that was important, but really on, you know,

shape and symmetry and the posing and all of that.

I mean, bikini posing is very complex. It’s extremely difficult and really important too, for the

criteria. So that’s not to say it isn’t.

The other divisions, I think just tend to show off muscularity a little bit more, which is kind of

what we’re getting at in figure, especially with the symmetry aspect to that. You know, you

mentioned the lats, you know, the wide flaring lats, the broad shoulders, the delts, and then a

lower body to match. And so you mentioned with bikini that that was kind of something you

were naturally suited for, maybe a little bit more lower body dominant.

You know, like I think glutes, hams, delts are usually the muscle groups that people look at for

bikini, unless I’m mistaken for that.

[Alice]

And certainly having a small waist. I think that’s important in all, but nothing can give you more

of a competitive edge than a small waist and good delts, I’d say.

[Ben]

Yes. Yes. So, okay.

Moving into a division like figure, and then even thinking about maybe like physique or

women’s bodybuilding, you can kind of think of these steps up in muscularity and conditioning

and slightly different criteria when it comes to the judging. What have been, I guess, do you

have like concrete goals around, you know, I want to get, you know, lift this amount of weight

on this amount of exercise, because that’s going to correlate to the physique changes. Do I

want to have certain exercises that you’ve been implementing or certain things you’ve been

doing with your programming to really like emphasize those muscle groups that you want to

bring up for the category?

Because I think it is, bodybuilding is kind of this choose your own adventure where you can,

okay. You know, I competed what I like about the process. What did I not like?

What do I maybe want to do differently next time? And you think about changing divisions and

okay. If I want to stay in this division or change divisions what does that require from a

muscularity perspective?And what do I really want to focus on? You know, my often people will call them a weak points

and, and kind of bringing those up. And so it’s, can be exciting to say like, Ooh, I have these

muscles I really want to focus on.

And that can make the improvement phase, the growing phase really exciting because it can be

hard when you’re coming out of a prep. And maybe that was an awesome experience for you to

still have that kind of same motivation through your building phase that can take a couple of

years. If you, if you take off again, that’s another thing kind of dictated by the criteria, the

category, how long you take off in between seasons.

Because, you know, as a bikini competitor, you might have enough muscle and you might not

have to get as lean. So you could compete maybe every single year and get a little bit better.

But for something like figure or physique, muscle takes a lot of time to build.

So you might have to have a longer off season. Those are all kind of considerations to make. Do

you want to change your training program to fit a category or do you want to just train how you

enjoy training and then compete in whatever category fits you best?

I think that’s actually an important distinction because if all you care about is being as most

competitive that you can in a certain division, okay, that’s going to change the way you train

versus I’m going to train hard. I’m going to enjoy my training and then I’m going to compete in

whatever division I want to, or whatever division suits me best. So how are you kind of

approaching that, you know, weighing the balance of those different things?

[Alice]

Yeah. Um, my, so this is going to be a long bulk for me. Um, I am planning on doing this for at

least two years and then seeing where I’m at, um, recovering from the last competition season

was very challenging.

And originally I was really, really hoping to set some aggressive PR goals. And as I sort of

started to resume my training, it became really apparent to me very quickly that I wasn’t, it was,

this was not going to be like a, an easy transition. And so I’ve been not, not necessarily focusing

on strength goals because I feel a little bit sabotaged in that area, at least for now.

Um, but just trying to build all over and seeing what, what shakes out at the end of it. Um, right

now I’m doing four full body days and it’s a pretty high volume. Um, and I’m really, really

focusing on, all right, what exercises are going to work for me personally, as an athlete, the

most, as far as what feels good, um, where I’m able to feel that connection, the proper muscles

firing, um, and my feeling like they’re being effective.

So I’m just sort of really, really sort of taking notes about that each and every week and kind of

reflecting on that. And the program is fluid right now. Um, but as long as I’m doing the full

body every day, um, and still trying to get into the corks, you know, isolations, that’s, that’s

been the goal so far.And just seeing what I can get. Um, I think I’ve already seen really impressive lat growth, um,

just working lats every single day and working on, um, actually being able to flare lats. That’s a

huge thing.

Um, that’s one of the biggest things that holds women back from ever competing in another

category other than bikini, um, is because it’s such a challenging thing. And so I’ve seen a lot of

growth there and I’m really excited about it. Although my lat insertions are a little higher than

I’d like to be for figure.

I don’t think that that’s necessarily going to like completely ruin me or sabotage me these days

from what I’m seeing from the competitor, from the competitors, at least at the shows I go to,

um, emphasizing, I mean, there’s not really an emphasis on one thing. It’s just an emphasis on

total body growth.

[Ben]

And I think that you bring up a really good point that you don’t necessarily have to have like

strict, like, okay, in the past, bodybuilders have used squat bench a deadlift as like primary tools

of tracking progress. There was a big movement of power building Danny and Jocko. I’ve talked

about that in the past, uh, as a way to get competitors in their off season to really focus on

performance.

But as a bodybuilder, if you don’t like doing those exercises, you can focus on hitting PRS on all

your exercises. And just kind of like you said, finding those staple movements that really work

for you, where you feel them, you are able to progress on them and they don’t give you like

aches and pains and they work for kind of your anthropometry and how you’re built. Uh, to give

kind of a personal example, I struggled to really find a squat pattern that I really liked until I got

onto like more of a machine based squat, like a hack squat or, you know, like a hammer

strength, like V squat or a Smith machine squat.

Like those allowed me to put my feet forward. And I noticed that I was able to get a lot more

range of motion for my quads and they grew a ton. So that was an example for me where it’s

like, okay, barbell squatting definitely works and it works for a lot of people, but maybe there

are more efficient tools out there.

I also think usually when you struggle to have a mind muscle connection and really feel a

certain muscle working, those sometimes are your weaker muscle groups and often are your

weaker muscle groups. Like for me, that’s my biceps. Like I can get a pump in my biceps, but it’s

never like this thing where I really have a good mind muscle connection with my arms in

general.

And I would say that my arms do probably tend to lag behind the rest of my physique, whereas

like my back early on, I was actually able to get a pretty good mind muscle connection. And so

that’s one of my stronger body parts. And so, um, I think it, it, it is a good skill to develop is tobe able to say, okay, what exercises work for me, what are going to, um, get, have longterm

progression potential.

So I can, you know, add some combination of weight or reps consistently over time to that. Um,

and it can be hard because it can be a slow process, right? Isolation exercises, a lateral raise,

you might be trying to add a rep every single week, like across all three sets.

Like I got one more rep total this week on all my sets for lateral raises, like that, that could be a

win. And it’s those small little compounding wins week after week, after week, after week, that

can feel really kind of monotonous in your off season. But if you can fall in love with that and

just looking for the little plus ones and the little, you know, add two and a half pounds here or

there, uh, those are the folks that I tend to see make really great improvements from their last

season to the next season where they’re able to stay focused.

And that doesn’t mean you have to have the same kind of laser-like, uh, vision when it comes to

every, you know, day in and day out that you do in a prep scenario. And I think a lot of that

probably comes more to nutrition because training, you know, you’re probably going to spend

similar amount of time training, um, in and out of the gym, regardless of whether you’re in

prep or, um, in your off season, maybe a little bit longer in your off season. Uh, but I think a lot

of the, the like life changes, uh, in a prep come from the flexibility with nutrition and just like

the stress that a prep puts you under.

So.

[Alice]

And I love that you mentioned machines as well, because that’s been something that I’ve really

been trying to lean into. Historically, I’ve been just kind of a barbell snob. It’s been my favorite

thing.

I’ve told, I tell people this all the time. It makes me feel like superwoman lifting a barbell. I had

to have at least one exercise bell rock compound every day.

Um, and now the fatigue has I’ve started to realize it’s not necessarily going to be worth it for

me to include it every day. It’s just taking away from other exercises, taking away from, uh,

stamina in general. And so I’m really leaning into the squat machines, the pendulum squat and

the hack squat, and even doing a single leg Smith, uh, split squats, things like that.

Love those. Yeah. I’ve seen you doing them on your, on your Instagram.

So I’ve just been enjoying it. And. Well, as soon as I started to relax about, all right, I’m just

going to do what works for me and explore.

Then it’s when the strength started coming back. And so it’s been a really exciting, probably

past a couple of months and a half, maybe one, one and a half months to two months of finallyfeeling like, all right, I’m getting back in the zone. I’m liking, I’m feeling back in my own skin.

[Ben]

There you go. That’s, that’s, it’s a good feeling to have, uh, you know, the process of coming out

of a prep, it’s like every week you’re like, Oh, I’m feeling so much better than every month after

that. You’re like, Oh, I’m feeling so much better until you kind of forget what it’s like to feel

normal and to feel like really good every day and wake up feeling fresh and motivated and

energized.

I wanted to circle back to what you had talked about with the importance and necessity of

putting on a body weight, body weight and body fat, uh, over the course of a build. Now that

doesn’t say that our goal is to put on body fat, but it is kind of a necessary by-product of the

process because gaining weight, being in a surplus, you know, if somebody, you know, told me,

all right, you have to get the gain, this per have this person gain as much muscle as possible.

Let’s just say it’s someone new to the gym or someone who’s been training a long time.

It doesn’t really matter. And you have six months or you have a year to do it. I’m putting them

in a surplus.

No doubt about that. If we’re just looking about trying to get them as much muscle as possible.

Now there’s kind of a sweet spot where you don’t want to gain more than is necessary, but you

do need to gain some in order to facilitate the muscle growth and the muscle gains.

And I’ve noticed with myself, the times that I’ve seen the most growth have been when I have

pushed my body weight up to places it has not been before and also stayed there for a little bit

of a time. So maybe I got to a peak body weight where at that point, I’m starting to get signs

that I’m not physically comfortable, whether that be I’m hot all the time, my skin doesn’t look or

feel right. I’m my cardio is suffering.

Digestion, I think can take a hit and hunger can take a hit. And you try all these different ways

to work around it and still like pushing back against you. Maybe sleep is suffering.

There’s all these different signs that you could think of. In addition to you’re just not

comfortable with how you’re looking at a certain body weight. And I think you have to be a little

uncomfortable in that realm and get a little uncomfortable with how you feel about how you

look.

I remember the first time I ever did a bulk, I really did not like the way that I looked at kind of

my peak body weight. But I think the more you do it, the more comfortable you get with

looking all sorts of ways and, you know, appreciating the positive and negative aspects of being

at a different body weight. So I would say the times I’ve seen the most growth of when I pushed

to those new limits, found those, and then sat there for a little period of time, because usually

that’s where your training is going to be the best.It’s not always the case. Some people do train better at, you know, a slightly lower body weight

than they could get up to. But I think for most people, finding that kind of comfortable settling

range where your body wants to be having enough body fat to at least recomb if, you know,

you’re, you’re at a higher body weight.

But, you know, being an inherent surplus over time and slowly gaining weight, it can be

something small, you could literally be gaining a percent of your body, half a percent to a

percent of your body weight every single month, that would be fine. There’s not like a set

formula for it. But if you look over the past year or six months, and you can say with a

confidence that you’ve gained some amount of body weight, you’re probably doing a pretty

good job.

And of course, photos and measurements and all these other different ways that we have the

track progress come into play Absolutely, the scale.

[Alice]

And if the scale is going up, your strength is going up your body, your weekly tracking is is

going up in the right ways, then you can be certain that you’re putting on this muscle is

comforting. I mean, what about what about you for as far as your training?

[Ben]

What I decided to end my season, I went into the gym and injured myself, which is just like,

which is really, I find it funny, like, obviously, it’s not that funny, like saying it, but it’s just like,

that, you know, I have all this motivation, I’m going into my off season. And then the first day

after and so what that was, was, you know, it was something I’ve had probably a dozen lower

back injuries over the time that I’ve been lifting. And I say this to clients all the time, injuries,

sometimes they’re just going to happen.

It’s part of pushing, pushing hard. And of course, you want to try to use good technique, listen

to your body, all those caveats come into play. But sometimes you did everything right.

And you’re just going to encounter that. And that’s okay. And it’s not something to get super

stressed or worried about or say, you know, I’m never going to get back to where I was.

Those are conversations I find myself having a lot with with clients. And I’ve learned that over

time, just from personal experience, the first couple of times it happened, I was very scared. I

was, you know, really hesitant to get back into the gym to keep lifting.

But I found the more you kind of build up your body, the more resilient you become. And you

also learn things like, okay, I got injured there. Was there anything that I could have done

differently?

Oh, yeah, you know, I probably should have listened to my maybe my back was feeling a littletight or a little sore. So that particular instance, I think it was probably just trying to push myself

to to too hard too soon, and doing some new exercises. And so I woke up the next day, I could

just tell my back was really stiff.

And then I noticed kind of like a radiating pain down my right side. And I’m like, Okay, well, this

is probably something that is, you know, not just muscular, there’s probably some some nerve

things going on there. So I ended up kind of figuring out I didn’t get like a formal diagnosis.

But, you know, I went to school for exercise science, I did many did like over 100 hours of PT

observation. So I’m familiar kind of with rehab and certain signs and symptoms of stuff. Not to

say I’m an expert or I’m licensed, but I know kind of enough to kind of figure out also like

paying attention to my body, what positions feel better or feel worse.

So I kind of figured out that I think it was it was some form of sciatica. And so that lasted about

a month of needing to modify my workouts. And the thing I always come back to when injuries

pop up are what can I do?

What can I focus on? I can focus on my nutrition, my sleep, you know, maybe still getting some

steps in focusing on what I can for for movement, stress management, and all those things are

going to help me get better sooner. And then when I’m in the gym, can I still train my upper

body?

Okay, if I can, maybe it needs to be more stabilized. So I’m not doing as much dynamic

movement. And if I’m doing lower body, can I do like leg extensions and leg curls?

Can I do more kind of bodyweight stuff? Can I do calves? Can I train my adductor?

So I always just try to think about what can I do during this timeframe? And what positives can I

find from it? Can I explore some different things in my training right now, maybe I can’t train

the way I would love to, but maybe I can try out some new things, higher volumes, lower

volumes, you know, emphasizing a certain muscle group, playing around with a certain

technique on a different exercise.

And I find often these periods where I do have injuries come up that forced me to modify my

training, I learned something from that. So that was that was about a month after my show.

And I think at that time, I was doing some sort of a, I think it was kind of like a, an Arnold split.

So like torso, chest and back and then arms and belts and then legs. And then I, after that

switch to doing a I think it was a either like a upper lower or full body split for a period of time

for a few months where I was having more rest days. It was, I think it was pretty much like full

body off, full body off, or like upper off, lower off, upper off, lower off for a while there, just

because I wasn’t super in love with training.

The fire hadn’t really come back yet, my strength really hadn’t come back yet. Mentally, I was

still kind of in a tough place. So I was just, I was just like, you know, I’m going to kind of do thebare minimum necessary for training, but I’m not going to force myself to go more than I want

to, or to do more than I want to.

And so that lasted probably, I would say through March of this year up until the cruise. And I

had kind of rebounded from my show from beginning of September through mid-December.

And so I think my prep low was like 143 or something like that.

And peak body weight after the rebound, I was like 197, which is the highest I’d ever been. And

this just goes to show you people, the post-show phase can be really, really tough, especially

your first time doing it. You know, I’m a coach, I’m a coach myself, but I was so kind of burnt

out from having this regimented, like living groundhog day that I was just like, you know what, I

want to have a period of time where I’m eating whatever the hell I want.

And I accept the consequences of that. So I was okay with everything that happened because I

knew that that was my, my intention was just to like get back to a place of normalcy mentally,

socially. And so that was a time where I just let that happen.

And I knew I had the skills to, when I was ready for it, focus more on my body composition. But

for that period of time, body composition was not a top priority for me. Then I got to the point

where I felt like I was, I was pretty heavy.

I was again, those, those signs that I was not comfortable kind of in my clothing, in my training,

just like feeling good everyday life. And a lot of the symptoms around food focus and you know,

those prep related symptoms had dissipated. So at that point I decided and you know, for most

people going into a diet phase, even a couple of months after their prep is probably not

advisable.

But I knew for me, it was the case where it would be fine. So I went then from high one nineties

down to, uh, one 70, one 75. And in between that range before the crew hormones allow you to

do that before the cruise.

So yeah, I think that gaining back that weight, I probably gained back a decent amount of the

muscle mass that I had lost. And then I was done with food at that point. So it made the first 10,

20 pounds pretty easy to come off.

And so I got to a point where, um, and it’s weird, like the body fat distribution that I have right

now is definitely different than it’s been at this way before. Like I store a lot more in my

midsection that I haven’t in the past at this current weight, which is interesting. Um, I think it’s

because when you put weight back on very rapidly, it tends to be stored more kind of viscerally,

um, in, in that, in that area.

Um, and I still don’t think I’m quite back to the amount of muscle that I had before I started my

prep. And I, um, I’m okay with that because, uh, I got to a point where I was feeling like I had

good balance again in my body composition, um, in my habits with nutrition. Um, and then

finally, I would say probably about a month ago, since coming back from the cruise, sincemoving from North Carolina, back to Boston, uh, and getting a new, a new gym, uh, living on

the Cape that just new, new environment, new scenario, uh, really started to enjoy training

again.

And that was about, uh, three or four weeks ago, so that beginning of April. Uh, so I had one or

two weeks of really good training and then unfortunately I, uh, I came back to Boston, uh,

marched in a parade and I was carrying this really heavy pole for like three or four hours on the

parade and I had it kind of sitting on my hip and I was fine doing that. I trained upper body like

earlier in the day when then did that in the afternoon, marched in the parade, that was fine.

And then I went into the gym the next day, um, and trained legs and no warming up felt fine. I

remember I did my seated hamstring curls. Um, those felt okay.

And then I went to go do my squats and I noticed that my lower back was feeling kind of tight.

Now hindsight 2020, I definitely should have just said, you know what? I’m just going to do

some leg extensions and some leg curls and some adductors today and not do anything else.

Um, but I was stubborn and I wanted to do the exercises that I wanted to do. And so I did my

squats and it wasn’t like I had like a pop or anything happened, but as I went throughout, you

know, doing all my exercises, my back just got stiffer and stiffer and stiffer. And I’m like, this

does not feel great.

People are listening to this. Yeah. And then the next day I woke up and it was like, Oh boy,

something definitely happened there.

And then I noticed kind of that radiating pain again, going down my right leg. And I’m like,

okay, I kicked up, definitely kicked up, um, the sciatica again. And so it’s been two and a half

weeks since that happened.

It’s definitely improved and gotten better. And I knew last time it took about a month for me to

recover from that. So I just took it as, you know, of course it was a little bit discouraging and

disappointing at the time because I was like, I finally started to really enjoy training again.

Like I’m in a good spot with my body composition, um, with my metabolism. I’m in kind of this

phase where, uh, I feel like I’m, I’m at a, uh, a body composition that is both healthy and like

aesthetically, I don’t mind it at all. It’s kind of a good balance between leanness and body fat for

my off season.

I feel good. So I can kind of just main gain here. Like, um, I’m not currently tracking, obviously I

have a lot of habits that I do day in, day out.

Maybe we can talk about that. Uh, that lead it to, you know, lead me to be confident in my

ability to put on muscle that I’m not in a deficit, that I’m at least at maintenance, et cetera. Um,

and that’s a skill that I’ve kind of honed over my off seasons over time, um, is being able to kind

of, I guess you could say eat more intuitively and know that I’m either at maintenance orgaining weight, um, and getting my protein in and all of that anyways.

Um, so my plan was kind of just, I’m going to kind of hover maybe between one 70, one 75, my

body weight slowly goes up. So be it, I use a smart scale that tracks my weight, but I don’t see it

every single day. And so my plan with that is to kind of just like let my body do what it wants to

do in terms of like hug nurse, hunger signaling.

If I’m hungry, I’ll eat a little bit more, not to the point of like fullness or uncomfort

comfortability and to see where my body kind of wants to go. Um, so that’s kind of been my

plan. Uh, and then training, I had had a good, pretty good setup and I was doing a, right now

I’m doing an upper lower off repeat and I’m really enjoying that.

I think that’s a good balance for me right now. Um, not like super high volume. I’ve definitely

done more volume before in the past, but just kind of focusing on the exercises that I really

know work well for me and sticking to those.

Um, so I had this injury obviously that made my lower body training look a lot different right

now. So, um, nothing where I’m loading kind of my, my spine actually. So that means no,

nothing with the Smith machine, nothing with like the V squat.

Um, no like hip hinging. Um, I can’t do the seated leg, uh, hamstring curl, even the lying one.

Sometimes getting into that position is a little tough.

So what I did is I can stand in between the leg extension pad and face the leg extension into a

standing like a single leg hamstring curl. And I noticed on my right side, it flares it up a little bit

more, but I can still do it on my left side. And there’s been, you know, uh, research published on

if you can train one limb, the other limb actually maintains muscle pretty well, or it can even

build in some instances.

So if you have an injury or something where one side, you can’t do it, still do the other arm. It’s

definitely not a waste to like, say I, well, I can’t do, you know, shoulder exercises. So I’m just not

going to do it at all.

Do the other arm. You’ll still be able to probably maintain better. Um, and then when you’re

able to train that again, it’ll probably come back quicker.

Uh, leg extensions, upper body, little bit modified there too. Um, but my, you know, coming

back to like finding the silver lining, I was changing some of my exercises for my upper body.

And I’m like, Oh man, I did this, you know, certain bicep exercise.

And I noticed I got a lot more sore than I typically get. And I’m like, okay, that’s a good sign

because, um, that’s not something that typically happens. I did a different tricep exercise that

was a little bit more stabilized because I did was, you know, wanted to make sure my pelvis was

a little bit more, um, yeah, it was more stable.And I tried a different tricep exercise. I’m like, Oh man, I would have never tried this one. This is

really good.

So I think you can kind of try to find those little things where, yeah, it sucks, you know, getting

injuries and having that stuff pop up, but you can always try to find little things that, um, you

know, you wouldn’t have found otherwise, or, you know, areas to look at that you can, um, take

a positive, take a positive outcome from. So, um, currently rehabbing that still probably another

couple of weeks, Tom, really feeling good and back. And I’m going to give myself time before I

start going back into those exercises that I was doing.

But I think in the past, you know, before my first season, I always had this like clock ticking in

the back of my head, like, Oh man, like you got to build muscle as soon as possible right now.

Like you want to compete someday. So you need to be as big as you can.

Everything that you do is about bodybuilding. And I just felt like this pressure that my training

had to be on the, you know, a hundred percent on point all the time. Injuries were really

stressful because then it was setting me back and setting back my timeline.

Whereas now, you know, I’m still focusing on doing the best that I can do, but I don’t feel as

much of that kind of internal pressure for myself to, um, you know, it’s okay for me to have a

couple of weeks or a month or two where my training is not exactly what I would like it to be.

Cause there’s no rush.

[Alice]

You’ve already got a really great foundation and just having the goal of maintenance, there’s

nothing wrong with that. Especially if you’re going to allow your mental health to recover, your

hormonal health to recover, you know, do, do what you need to do to maintain. And you can

come back when you’re ready and still make your gains.

I mean, I would, I would be careful, you know, advising someone who is new to bodybuilding,

right. And trying to get, build their physique to get on stage. Like we need to be a lot more

careful about how many breaks we take.

Um, as far, I mean, there’s always the balance of don’t go so far as to injure yourself, but as far

as pushing yourself to, to have that initial foundation is so important. Yeah. Um, but I think it

was really great that you gave specific numbers and probably really valuable for, for a lot of the

ladies on the, who are watching this, right.

So, so I’m five eight and, um, I am looking to gain an additional 10 pounds from the top of my

prior bulk at least. And I’m open to gaining more than that. Um, so at the, at the very top of my

bulk, uh, was 140 last time.

And so I’m working on, I’m working on this low gain right now. And at this point, I’m kind of

doing a little bit of pause and doing a little bit of body recomposition because the build washappening a little bit too quickly, but my body has responded beautifully as far as coming back

from the competition season. Um, it’s actually really exciting because I can tell where I had put

on muscle during the cut that wasn’t there before there are clear changes to my physique, um,

which I was not expecting.

So coming back, even though it was happening faster, I knew like a lot of this is muscle. A lot of

this is from all the work that I put in during my competition season and in the prep phase,

cause you can still continue to build muscle during that phase. And it’s really exciting.

That’s really exciting for me. So, I mean, if I have to get up to, you know, one 60, I’m not going

to bat an eye at that because at this point, you know, my bodybuilding career is so like center of

my life that if I didn’t try, if I didn’t push myself like, and know that I gave it my all, I would just

be this personality type. I would just be very what if I would be very much like regretting not

experimenting, you know, cause I want to, I just want to get as much as I can right now.

And, and it’s less scary knowing that I have the skills to be in control of my body. Uh, I have the

skills to, you know, once I’m a little hormonally repaired after the competition phase, um, which

typically, you know, around six months after your competition phase of healthy eating, regular

eating, um, and getting up to staying at a certain healthy body fat level. On average, most

people can expect to see a lot of recovery there hormonally.

Um, and yeah, I’ll be able to, I’ll be able to make major changes to my body. And it’s just a focus

of not being afraid, not being afraid, which I think is the biggest thing, holding a lot of women

back as far as their physiques is concerned. I think I’ve been talking to a lot of people recently

about just not being so married to the number on the scale, not being so married to the sizes of

the clothing, because it’s all arbitrary.

It’s all what society has taught us is right. And in fact, it’s actually what’s wrong for your health.

You know, um, having a good foundation of muscle is going to benefit you so much more than

staying ultra, ultra, ultra lean and tiny your whole life.

Um, so what else?

[Ben]

I think you can also flip that on its head, right? Like you can look at the fear of, Oh, what if I put

on body fat or what if I don’t like the way that I look? What if you flip that on its head and said,

you know, what kind of muscle could I build?

What could I look like at this certain weight? And then if I decided eventually I wanted to get

leaner again, then what would I look like? How would I be different?

And you’ll never know, like you said, unless you really explore that. So I think that’s one of the

really fun and exciting parts about this whole body building process. And I would say, I’ve

heard, uh, Alberto Nunez say before, who’s a coach who’s worked with both Danny andGiacomo, I think in the past, um, say that, uh, everyone is a, is a bodybuilder because everyone

at some point is probably trying to put on some muscle or lose some body fat.

And either of those are body composition. If you’re trying to lose weight, you’re trying to lose

body fat. You’re, you’re trying to change your body composition.

That’s what bodybuilders are all about. So I think, um, you know, no matter where you are on

that spectrum, it’s always cool to think about, uh, what could you, what could you achieve and

what could you do? And you don’t really know until you do things that you haven’t done before.

And I think that’s why I have having the tutelage and mentorship of a coach can be really

helpful to reassure you and guide you through that process, especially when they’ve gone

through it themselves.

[Alice]

Absolutely. I’ve had, you know, I’ve had so many close friends who have gone through phases

of their life where they’ve had significant weight gain and thankfully they were able to come

back from that, but they did spend a significant number of years, you know, with a different

body. And I will say that I always try and remember this when they came back, their body

looked completely different, even without money building.

And I would say in some pretty interesting and a lot of positive ways, as far as like, when you’re

looking at people on, you know, social media, for example, all these, a lot of those influences

that you’re looking at and everyone wants to look exactly like, right. They’re not going to be,

you know, a size two, they’re not going to be, you know, the perfect whatever for women, 120

pounds or whatever. They’re not concerned about those numbers.

They’re concerned about looking at themselves in the mirror, feeling that confidence, having

the curves, having the curves in the right places. When you have curves from muscle, it’s going

to be totally different from when it’s curved from just gaining body fat, right? These are the

curves that you want.

These, this is the real reason why most women are pursuing bodybuilding. Most of us aren’t

interested in competing. Right.

But if you can, if you can get those kinds of results, like you’ve won.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Alice]

Who cares if you’ve, if your clothing sizes are different, they’re based off of different heights,

different, everyone’s going to be a different shape and size. So it drives me crazy. The wholenumbering system that we have and how personally people take it, it’s a hard thing to detach

yourself from, but it’s so worth it.

And I’m loving this journey.

[Ben]

That’s awesome. I think maybe the only area we haven’t touched on too much yet is nutrition.

So I think it would be interesting for people to hear kind of our approaches to nutrition right

now, because in prep, as you know, there’s a certain amount of rigidity that needs to happen or

to get you to your outcome.

And oftentimes kind of the post-show phase that shifts a lot. I mean, I talked about myself, like I

just basically was on the seafood diet as in I see food, I’m going to eat it. Like it’s kind of a

bodybuilding joke, but yeah.

So, you know, going from superstructure to no structure, not advisable, probably wouldn’t

recommend it to most people. That was for me what I needed to do to heal where I was at. But

I think that you find this middle ground in your off season or your improvement season where

you have some flexibility, but there’s still structure.

You’re working towards your goals. You feel good about your nutrition supporting that. So

what does that kind of transition look like for you and where are you at now with nutrition?

[Alice]

My nutrition, my protein has remained the same from competition. I’m doing 135 grams of

protein a day. I feel like I function my best on that.

At some point, we did a little bit of a bump up and I’m just, I don’t know. I just, I don’t feel like

I’m ready to let that go. Also something interesting, I started taking symbiotic, so digestive

enzymes, I guess, during competition at some point, because obviously digestion is something

I deal, I have a lot of challenges with, with ulcerative colitis.

And when you are losing weight, you’re, especially women are going to have the problem of

getting constipated, right? And so that can be a major, major hurdle for women trying to get

stage lean. So I just tried, I started to try a symbiotic called seed and I talk about, I talk about

this to people all the time because I’m just like preaching about it.

But it’s as if all of that went away and I’ve stayed on it and oh my gosh, total, total game

changer. So because of that, I’ve actually been able to include more dietary fats in my macros,

which has been a little exciting because now I’m learning to eat in a different way. And yeah,

just slowly, just slowly building them up.

I think right now I’m at 2000 calories.[Ben]

So, and what for the viewers context, what was like the lowest that it got during your

competition season?

[Alice]

I think it got to like 1490. Okay. Yeah.

And that was, that was this, that was a, towards the very, very end. The first few shows when I

was getting stage lean, my body was a lot more receptive to higher calories, but because I had

such a long season, I chose to continue competing, you know, that it gets harder and harder

like to maintain that. And I saw other changes to my physique that I didn’t love because as a

result of competing for so long.

So it was a lot, it’s you learn a lot as you go through all this.

[Ben]

Yeah. Have you noticed that there are some folks that, you know, it’s been my observation that

some people you feed them more and you keep having to feed them more and more and more.

And it’s really hard for them to gain weight.

They, their metabolism is super adaptive. And then it goes the other way as well for those same

folks where usually like you drop their calories, you expect them to lose on a certain thing. And

you have to keep like, so there’s these people who their bodies just really adapt to whatever,

whatever way you go.

[Alice]

I feel like they’re the masters of body recomposition. Yeah.

[Ben]

Yeah. And then there’s other people who just like their body really responds well in a narrow

range. Like you don’t have to feed them too much and then they’ll gain.

You don’t have to cut their calories too low and they’ll lose. Um, so it sounds like maybe, I don’t

know, do you think you’re maybe in the latter category of folks where you, your body’s more

comfortable in kind of a certain range or do you find that you fit into the other category?

[Alice]

Um, normally I have a huge maintenance window and normally I am able to recomp like you

wouldn’t believe. Um, even I got stage lean way before my first competition way too far in

advance to be comfortable. But even though we didn’t move calories, macros, anything, I

continued to lose body fat steadily.Um, so I’m definitely one of those people for sure. What about you?

[Ben]

Uh, it’s interesting because I’ve experienced both actually. I think I’m more of the first

archetype where my body, um, adapts either way pretty quickly. So, um, you know, I’ve had

phases where I’ve had to just increase calories, increased calories, increased calories.

Like my, my last bulk prior to competing, I had to get up to 4,500 calories a day, which was

quite a lot. Um, for, yeah. So I was pulling out, I was pulling out all the stops for like frequent

meals.

I was really having to dial in like my carbohydrate sources. I was eating, I think between 700

and 800 grams of carbs every single day, which was a, which is pretty nuts. And I think probably

like over 200 grams of protein as well.

And my fats are probably around 80 or 90 or something like that. So, uh, yeah, that was a lot.

And then, um, during prep, I cut my calories.

I mean, I basically just started my prep really aggressively and cut my calories immediately

from like peak bulk 4,500 to like 2,200. And just, I was able to ride that out for a really long time

and make progress. Um, and I would kind of like, as progress was slowing, I would kind of

increase my steps and do it that way.

Um, I think usually my body is, um, can go either way, but I would say that I’ve seen good

progress. If I stay at the same body weight for a period of time, I can recomp on similar

calories, but I’ve also seen it where sometimes I think it’s, as I get to either end, like get really

low in my body weight or get really high, my body starts to push back on me. And I think that’s

pretty, that’s normal for most people.

Um, so like when you’re at peak bulk, yeah, I was having to force food. And then when you’re,

you know, all the way dieted down calories have to get really low. So I, I, I don’t really know

which one I would say I fall into, but, um, uh, right now what I’m focused on doing is kind of

just the, the, the recomp strategy.

And again, I mentioned kind of letting my body weight go where it wants to go. Um, I’m doing a

little bit of an experiment. I, I love doing experiments on myself because, um, you know, I know

the most sound principles.

Again, if somebody comes to me and they’re like, I want to accomplish this in a year, I’m going

to give them the things that are tried and true backed in evidence, uh, both like evidence that

I’ve observed in the clients that I’ve worked with and, you know, the scientific literature. So I’m

going to follow all those things. But then with myself, I might do something different because

I’m curious to see like how that’s working.So, um, since we went on the cruise, I’ve kind of been exploring, leaning more into like the, the

whole food, like plant-based side of things. I’m like, okay, what if I experiment with just letting

my protein be where it’s going to be and not emphasizing it so much. Of course, I still really

enjoy eating stuff like the bean pastas and the tofu and the tempeh.

Uh, soy milk is my favorite, you know, choice in milk anyways. Um, but maybe I’m not going to

worry so much about adding in, you know, protein powders or certain like mock meats if I don’t

really care for them or want to have them at a certain meal or thinking about building my meal

around a protein source. Uh, these habits that have served us very well as bodybuilders over

the years and continue to for the clients that we work with.

And again, if I was going to say like crude analogy, but you have to gain as much muscle as you

can in the next year. I would, I wouldn’t be trying this. I would be doing the things that I know

work and probably actually pushing protein maybe a little higher than it has been in the, in the

past.

Cause I I’ve done that. I’ve had periods of time where I’m, you know, 200, 250 grams of protein

a day. Um, and it’s been fine.

Like I haven’t any issues with that digestively. Um, but I’m playing around a little bit. So if I had

to guess, I’d say my proteins probably vary day to day, but maybe between a hundred and 120

grams, which is lower than what I’ve done before.

It’s still, you know, in that evidence-based range or maybe on the, on the lower end, um, maybe

a little bit lower than that, like a one gram per pound or 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight

that people often talk about. But, um, it’s just kind of an experiment that I’m doing. Cause I

know, you know, we get folks who come to us who are more on that, that side of things where

they’d like to keep things a little bit more whole foods.

They don’t love the mock meats or they don’t want to use a protein powder or something like

that. Um, so that’s something I’m experimenting, seeing what I like about it. You know, how is

my digestion?

How is my energy? How do I feel about the meals that I’m eating? Am I enjoying them?

Am I making good progress in the gym? So, um, I think I’ll probably before making any

assessments, I think I need to have a long period of time where my training is like injury-free

and I’m doing all the things I’m usually doing.

[Alice]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And then staying, you know, moderate or at least gaining in a surplus in my body weight anddoing that for six months to a year and seeing if I notice any difference in progress than I have

in the past or seeing, you know, at the very least, am I still able to make progress? Um, which I

think I certainly will, you know, I know people who don’t prioritize protein as much and they still

make really good gains in the gym because training ultimately is going to be the most

important thing. But, um, yeah, that’s kind of something that I’m experimenting with right now.

[Alice]

Um, I think, I think it’s really interesting talking about like the different, like how things, I feel

like you weren’t sure about exactly what body, the digestion type you wanted to land on your

sort of label yourself. But I think also throughout different phases of life, that’s going to change

and bodybuilding competition is just the perfect way to highlight the fact that when you get

super, super lean and try to stay super, super lean, your body is going to be more primed to

want to gain weight on fewer calories. So you come out of competition prep and it feels, it feels

chaotic.

It feels scary. It feels out of control. Um, the scale is going to do what it wants because you have

so little willpower, but you know, at the same time, there is such a thing as muscle memory.

So throughout this phase, if you are still continuing to train, you know, you’re going to regain

the muscle that you’ve lost like in a fraction of the time. And sure, body fat might be going up.

That’s, it’s just reality, but nature has its way of, of, um, balancing things.

And once you get to a point where it’s like, all right, here I am, here’s where the scales landed. I

can sit here and do body recomposition. Like you’re going to get your physique back, you

know?

Um, and it just, now I’m talking to like clients, as far as people who have tried to stay lean for so

long and for too long. And now they’re at the point where they can’t lose anymore. Right?

Like our hormones are making up, are priming us to want to gain weight easier. Right. And

that’s why for so long, like we, we try to push our clients to like, let’s have a time of

maintenance and sort of like metabolic healing.

That’s exactly what I feel like I’ve been going through, right?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Alice]

This, this hormonal healing. So while I would say I’m a person that is usually a master body

recomposition right now, my body is priming towards, Oh, we got to gain. It’s time to get back

to a healthy body fat levels.As soon as your body fat levels get back to normal range, then your hormones can start to

repair. Then your, everything can start to even back out and you’ll come back for sure. Your

physique will come back.

So I don’t want to, I don’t want people to be afraid of, of the process.

[Ben]

Yes. Yep. And I think that having the proper guidance, like working with the coach, someone

that, you know, has your best interests at heart, and it’s going to be able to guide you back to

that period can be really important.

So if you are interested in coaching, whether that be competition coaching, or just kind of

lifestyle coaching we are taking on new clients here at vegan protein. So if you’re interested in

doing that, you can head over to vegan proteins.com and click the contact button. And we’ll get

back to you ASAP.

You can also check us out on social media at vegan proteins. Alice, my Instagram handle is at

Ben a Mitchell, and then Danny and Jocko can be found at vegan proteins and at muscles by

Brussels, Sawyer at soy boy fitness coaching. Can’t forget about Sawyer.

Sorry. I’m not forgetting about you, buddy. And then lastly, you can get in contact with us by

emailing coach at vegan proteins.com.

If you have any questions or inquiries about any of our products or offerings, we’re on

YouTube, we’re on all the social medias. You can check out this podcast on Spotify, Apple

podcasts, etc. So thank you for tuning into another episode of vegan proteins and muscles by

Brussels radio.

I’m Ben.

[Alice]

I’m Alice.

[Ben]

And we’ll catch you guys in the next one.

[Alice]

Thanks.