@Scott_Herman Hey Scott!!!! I don't know how to contact you. I´m hoping you could answer me this post, I'm extremely new on the fitness world and I just joined as a platinum member yesterday (I NEVER join to anything I find on the internet, but you and your videos really conviced me). I'm from southamerica (I don't know if you know, but when I search for your app on your link it says it doesn't exist. I'm an android user, maybe it's the location i do't know if anybody have reported you this problem). My "fitness journey" began 4 years ago when I was 19, I began to go to the gym during 3 years, taking mass gainers and, like everybody else and like you explain on your videos, wasting my time with no knowledge of how true and proper nutrition works. my weight was 62 kilograms and it did go up to 75 kilograms (in almost 2 years). I was very happy with the results because I as extremely thin, and I began to see more muscles, more chest and specially more back, and I was happy. Suddenly I stopped growing even if I went to the gym 6 days a week killing the workouts, and I began getting fat (obviously). I was very frustrated and I stopped working out, and that just made me more fatter and chubby. I began to understand that I really had very bad nutritions habits and not a very healthy lifestyle with the food I eated. I stopped working out for a year and a half. 3 months ago I went to a nutritionist to learn how I could drop weight and have a more healthy lifestyle (since my body age was the one from a 31 year old person and I'm 23). I'm extremely motivated and happy changing all my eating habits and I'm eating healthier than ever, I dropped almost all the sugars and all the crap I used to eat since I was 7, and I've been dieting and making workout rutines (not so hard) with 30 minutes cardio at the end of the workout for almost 2 months and I dropped my fat % from 22 to 19% and a half. I thing I lost 2 kilos of fat.

Besides everything I'm telling you, I want to congratulate you for your AMAZING and INCREDIBLE job you've been doing. Your videos are fu%&/#@ AMAZING. I've heard a lot of crap, bad explanations, false theories and myths, false information and bad advices about how to train, how to eat, about supplements and stuff, and I really see on your videos THE TRUTH. I want to thank you for that. I don't know if you think about it, but do you know how many persons have you helped out and guide them through the fitness world properly? You're amazing man! You've helped a lot of body transformations and goals. I admire that.

I began to watch your videos 2 weeks ago. I think I've watch all your videos, amazing information. And I really understood that for really reaching my goals of building muscle without adding fat, is to tracking my macros, build a solid meal plan, stick to it and to a proper workout routine, giving my best and maximum effort and having patience for results, there is no other way to reach for those goals. These last 3 days I've tracked my macros (I did it with your video and calculator). my height is 1meter 83 cms. my weight is 75 kilograms , my fat is 19% (like 16 kilograms) and my lean weight is 60 kilograms. According to your video and explanations, after tracking my macros I realized I need a 2500 calories diet per day (I think of 250 grams of protein, 150 grams of carbs and 100 grams of fat because I want to get a lot of muscle but not increase my fat%. I don't know if this is o.k., because according to the protein, fat and carbs multiplier calculations that your video explains, I should be having 198,9 grams of protein, 66,3 grams of fat and 302,525 grams of carbs, but I just think that there are too many carbs and I don't want to gain fat %, specially if I just dropped of 2 kilograms) to build muscle and grow, gaining almost not fat at all (I'M SKINNY FAT AND I HATE IT). BUT I have a few questions Scott:

I'm building my meal plan for every day (I'm a person of habits and it really doesn't bother me to eat the same stuffs everyday) triyng to build specifically what to eat everyday for reaching 250 grams of protein, 150 grams of carbs and 100 grams of fat a day, but even with your recomendations on food, I can't find a way to reach the carbs intake goal per day. It is just too few. According to my calculations (eating eggs, lentels, black beans, sweet potatoes, beef, chicken, whole grain bread and pasta, salad, etc etc, I calculate I would end up with 80 grams of fat, 234 grams of carbs and 250 grams of protein. (that's a lot of carbs right? that would mean that if I stick to this I would grow but with a little fat included right? And I really dont wan't that! But carbs are everywhere!! and can't find a way of eating less carbs without having to short down my protein intake (unless I eat chicken all day long and that bothers me I wouldn't like to do that, I wouldnt enjoy it)

Could you help me please with these? I would really appreciate it, I am certanly no expert on fitness so I'm a little stuck and I want to beginn with the meal plan and workout as soon as possible.

And another question. with all the information I gave to you of myself, which one of your trainings and workouts do you recommend me to begin with? I'm not sure if I quailify as a beginner, because I've worked out the lasts 4 years, but I had 1 and a half year of pause, and I have been working out burning fat the lasts 2 months.

It would allow me to begin my adecuate fitness journey to reach my goals once I solve these doubts, so please answer me when you can.

I really appreciate your time to read this and your amazing possitive energy.

greetings from Colombia :D

(My name is Camilo)

Hey Camilo.

Welcome to the site again! So glad you decided to sign-up my man, that really means a lot! And I guess you figured out how to post in the @forums as well, so that's good! In the future, if you can keep any posts about fitness or diet in the @forums that would be helpful, it's just a lot easier for me to keep track of and that way other people can see what's going on and learn from any advice you're given, plus other people can give you advice too! Just make sure to only post once next time haha, sometimes it will take a little while for me to respond but I will always do my best to make sure I get back to you!

For the app, version 2.0 is coming out really soon.. I'm just waiting on approval from Apple, but you can get on the waiting list for the new app here: https://newapp.muscularstrength.com/

Congrats on all your initial gains my friend! That's awesome! Diet is crucial though, so it's good you've started to get that on track, because if your diet is on point, that will help you get the best results from your training!! Congrats on the recent weight loss as well, sounds like you are definitely back on track!

Thanks so much for the support too. I do my best to put out nothing but quality content, because I know just how much garbage is out there. My goal is that instead of having to sift through all the useless information online, people can just come to my channel and my site to get nothing but the best information for reaching their goals! It makes me so happy when people like yourself make such great progress from my content ðŸ˜Š 

Whenever you are looking to gain muscle, you will also gains SOME fat. It's unavoidable. But you can minimize it by keeping your surplus small, keeping your carbs fairly low (carb cycling), and by doing some cardio as well. Either of the set of numbers you posted sound fine. You will need a few more carbs when bulking, so I think starting with your second set of numbers would be a good starting point. If you notice you're gaining too much fat with those numbers, then you can reduce the carbs and maybe reduce your overall surplus. But try it for a couple of weeks at least to test the waters and see what kind of results you get!

Keep your protein where it is if you can, there are lots of other protein options other than just chicken you can have haha.

I would say start with the PPL program if staying lean is a big goal of yours as well, plus it will be a good program to get you back into the swing of working out with a solid structure.

Hope that helps!!

@Scott_Herman Oh man I'm sorry. I sent you an inbox because I did not think the posts had been sent! I didn't know I've sent you all those messages, sorry, won't happen again now that I know ;) Thank you for your answer man, really, and for taking the time to read everything! I will stick to the second sets of numbers as I begin PPL and then see what happens. I'll keep you posted!

ps: I forgot to mention that I just graduated from University and I'm looking for a job (I'm unemployed right now) so because of the free time I have, my physical activity other than working out is very few. I don't know if this should affect my "staying as lean as possible" goal, or if that should change my macros goals for the day.

Hope you have a great day man!!

@csehuanes It's OK man, no problem! At least you saw this reply 😊 

So apart from working out, you don't do much physical activity, is what you mean? That's fine, still go with those second set of macros as a starting point, and you can adjust them later on if you need to, if they aren't really bringing your towards your overall goal.

Look forward to hearing about your progress! Have a great rest of your week!

@scott_herman Hey Scott! The PPL program is going great!! I'm beginning week 3 and I couldn't be happier. I think the diet is working good as well and I'm training very hard. I'm feeling very well and also stronger somehow. The program is really heavy, it was difficult at first but now I'm getting use to it 😀👍

I would like to ask you a couple of things though:

1: On pull A day, even when I'm getting use to this training and doing it with the adecuate rest periods and everything, it takes me almost 2 hours to finish it. When I finish it I'm exhausted (not fatigued, just very tired haha) does that mean it is overtraining?

2: On leg A, is there an exercise I could use to replace the single leg dumbbell step up? I do not have much balance, so that makes it a little difficult for me to perform it the right way, and besides that I really hate that exercise hahaha

3: If I understood correctly, is the deloaded week after the whole 3 months right?

4: As I told you before, the last couple of months I was on a fat burning training program, so because of that I decided I wouldn't do the circuits workouts, I'm just doing the push A, pull A and legs A 2 times a week and 1 day of rest. Is that good or that change I made could sabotage anything on my workout and my results?

Looking forward to read your answers, thank you for all the help Scott, the program is amazing!!! I'll post results when I finish the whole 3 months.

Thank you!! 👍👍

@csehuanes Glad you are enjoying the PPL program!!

1. It's normal to be tired after training, so no, that doesn't mean you are overtraining. If you feel sluggish before and during the workout, then that might mean you are under-eating and under-recovering (sleeping). Do some supersets if you want to save on time, but even with the short rest periods, it should only take you one hour and 45 minutes max to complete.

2. If you have bad balance, that's a good reason for why you should keep doing that exercise, so you get better at it my friend 😊 Do it without added weight if you need to.

3. Yes, deload after going through all 3 months!

4. That's fine, the circuits are kind of optional. Basically you are following the MONTH 3 structure, and if you're a more advanced/experieced trainer, that's OK!