Should you be concerned about putting on body-fat during bulking? What happens once you get over 15-% body-fat? WIll insulin sensitivity go to hell? Will chronic inflammation impair your muscle building efforts? Do you need to start a gaining phase when you’re at 8% body-fat? What is an acceptable rate of weight gain during bulking? These are some of the questions which many trainees will ponder before they even give themselves the permission fo finally start eating in a caloric surplus. In 2018, some of the podcast episodes on the Sustainable Self-Development Podcast have presented us with some really useful insights on these topics. Besides this, I’ve had the pleasure to interview Dr. Eric Helms on his experiences when it comes to eating without tracking macros, and letting energy intake autoregulate itself based on hunger and satiety cues. Many think that while you can stay at a healthy body-fat and body-composition without counting calories and macros, having abs and progressing in the gym is just not doable without meticulous macro tracking. Well, if all of my previous episodes that were done on this topic were not enough to convince you about the opposite, this episode surely shed some light on the matter. I hope this compilation episode will give you some useful insights and allow you to keep 2019’s fitness journey in good pisit, less neurosis and ultimately end up with good results! Time-Stamps: 2:35 - Body-fat percentage and your muscle building ability 5:30 - Is there any studies showing that you build less muscle over 15% body-fat? 13:20 - Mike’s take on body-fat percentage and anabolic resistance 22:19 - Final point on body-fat and anabolic signalling/your muscle building ability 26:30 - Steve hall on rate of weight gain 32:55 - Caloric surplus and implementing mini-cuts during bulking 42:35 - Eric Helms on improving body-composition without tracking macros 50:35 - Bulking without macro-tracking 1:07:00 - Important announcement on the ad-libitum eating course ;) References episodes: Bulking debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFIsCWnHiaI&t=2777s Steve Hall’s episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdE1Z9MIA4k Eric Helms on Macro-tracking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thHy0dfwN7g The SSD training and nutrition course: www.sustainableselfdevelopment.com The SSD Facebook community: www.facebook.com/groups/sustainableselfdevelopment The Ad-Libitum eating course: https://www.sustainableselfdevelopment.com/p/adlib My personal blog: www.ssdabel.com Insta: @ssdabel