Chasing Clarity: Health & Fitness Podcast

Body recomposition is one of the most contested concepts in physique development — and one of the most misunderstood. The traditional dogma says you have to pick a lane. You’re either bulking or you’re cutting. You can’t gain muscle in a deficit. And once you’re past the beginner stage, recomp isn’t on the table. But the research over the past several years has made it increasingly clear that this...

Body recomposition — the process of building muscle and losing fat simultaneously — is one of the most contested concepts in the entire fitness industry. The traditional dogma says you have to pick a lane. You’re either bulking or you’re cutting. You can’t gain muscle in a deficit. And once you’re past the beginner stage, recomp isn’t on the table. But that framing is built on an oversimplificatio...

Most dieters think more cardio equals more fat loss. And most of them have spent years stacking HIIT classes, bootcamps and spin sessions on top of their training, assuming the intensity of those workouts is what drives the result.  But the data tells a different story. The variable doing the most work for your daily energy expenditure isn’t your formal cardio sessions. It’s your non-exercise acti...

Body recomposition — the process of building muscle and losing fat at the same time — is one of the most contested and most misunderstood concepts in physique development. The conventional view is that recomp is reserved for two specific groups — beginners and individuals with excess body fat. And while those populations do see the most dramatic outcomes, that framing leaves out several other grou...

How you train during a Fat Loss Phase determines whether you finish the diet leaner and more defined or just smaller and softer. But the conversation around how to actually train during a deficit has become one of the most polarized debates in the evidence-based fitness space. One camp says you should proactively reduce training volume the moment you enter a deficit because recovery is compromised...

Most people think fat loss is just about eating less. And while your diet determines whether or not you lose weight, your training determines what that weight loss actually looks like from a physique standpoint. Are you losing body fat while maintaining muscle and building a leaner, stronger, more defined physique? Or are you just becoming a smaller, scrawnier version of yourself? That distinction...

There is no shortage of advice when it comes to cardio, fat loss, and hormones. And when it comes to women…this is where a lot of the misinformation becomes the most convincing. You’ll hear things like: Fasted cardio wrecks your hormones. Zone 2 cardio doesn’t work for women. Birth control is killing your progress in the gym. And the reason these claims spread so quickly is because they sound scie...

Fat loss isn’t just about eating less and watching the scale drop. If your goal is to build a lean, strong, defined physique, your approach has to go far beyond just creating a calorie deficit. It has to be more strategic, more structured and more sustainable than what most dieters default to. Because most people who diet end up disappointed with the result. They hit their goal weight but they don...

There is no shortage of training advice in the fitness industry. But when it comes to women, a lot of that advice is not just inaccurate, it’s completely misleading. Women are constantly being told they need to train differently. That they need to lift heavier or muscle growth won’t happen. That shorter rest periods are better. That they need to constantly switch workouts to keep progressing. And...

In this month’s Q&A episode of the Chasing Clarity Health & Fitness Podcast, I’m joined once again by Jeff Hoehn for Episode 4 of our monthly series. Each month, we answer your questions and break down the strategies that actually move the needle when it comes to improving your physique, your performance, and your overall health. This episode is focused on the principles that separate trai...

Fat loss is simple in theory but far from easy in practice. With so much misinformation in the fitness industry, most people end up spinning their wheels, chasing fad diets, or relying on quick fixes that don’t last. In this episode of the Chasing Clarity Health & Fitness Podcast, I’m breaking down the research-backed truths about fat loss so you can finally separate fact from fiction and make...

Women are more likely to diet for fat loss than men. But they’re also more likely to run into challenges that make the process feel frustrating, confusing, and harder to sustain. In this episode of the Chasing Clarity Health & Fitness Podcast, I’m joined by Lyle McDonald for a deep dive into the topic of female fat loss. Lyle has been writing about fitness, nutrition, dieting, and female physi...

Most people go into a Building Phase with the right intention. But they execute it the wrong way. And that’s why they either spin their wheels…or they gain far more fat than muscle. In Part 5 of my LEAN GAINS SERIES, I break down the most common building phase mistakes that accelerate fat gain and limit muscle growth. IN THIS EPISODE, I COVER THE FOLLOWING MISTAKES: NOT STAYING IN A BUILDING PHASE...

In this month’s Q&A episode of the Chasing Clarity Health & Fitness Podcast, I’m joined once again by Jeff Hoehn for Episode 3 of our monthly series. Each month, we answer your questions and break down the strategies that actually move the needle when it comes to improving your physique, your performance, and your overall health. This episode is focused on the fundamentals that too many pe...

Most people still think building muscle is as simple as “just eating more.” So they push their calories in the name of muscle gain and then they wonder why they gained far more fat than muscle. In Part 4 of my LEAN GAINS SERIES, I break down the truth about calorie intake for muscle growth and answer one of the most common questions I get as a coach: HOW BIG OF A SURPLUS DO YOU ACTUALLY NEED TO BU...

There is no shortage of nutrition advice in the health and fitness industry. Yet despite all the information available, many people still struggle with the same core challenges: losing fat and keeping it off, improving metabolic health, and building a lean, strong physique. In this week’s episode of the Chasing Clarity Health & Fitness Podcast, I’m joined once again by nutrition researcher and...

One of the biggest bottlenecks holding many back from reaching their ideal physique is that many people overestimate how hard they’re actually training. They believe they’re pushing their sets to failure…But in reality they often still have several reps left in the tank. When this happens, the training stimulus they think they’re creating doesn’t match the stimulus their muscles are actually recei...

A lot of people say they want to build muscle. But what they end up doing is taking the same extreme mindset they use during fat loss and flipping it in the opposite direction. They go from cutting calories aggressively to force feeding food, loosening up diet quality, gaining weight too fast, and calling that a productive building phase. And that is exactly where a lot of people go wrong. In this...

A lot of people still think muscle gain is simple: eat more to gain more muscle. But the real question is: do you actually need an energy surplus to maximize hypertrophy or do you just need to be out of a deficit, training hard, and executing consistently? In this episode, I’m joined by return guest Dr. Eric Helms to break down the relationship between weight gain, rate of gain, and muscle growth...

Most people keep trying to diet their way into a better physique. They chase scale weight loss. They bounce from deficit to deficit. And they never build the foundation of muscle that actually creates the look they’re after. So they end up becoming a smaller version of themselves, not a better version of themselves. And this is especially true for the person who describes themselves as “skinny fat...

In the fitness space, most conversations revolve around two things. Being in a calorie deficit to lose body fat. Or being in a calorie surplus to build muscle. But very rarely do you hear people talk about the value of intentionally spending time eating at maintenance.  And that’s a mistake. Because spending time at maintenance can provide a wide range of metabolic, physiological, behavioral, and...

What actually makes a great coach? In this episode of the CHASING CLARITY HEALTH & FITNESS PODCAST, I sit down with longtime bodybuilding coach, mentor & founder of Cement Factory Nutrition — AJ Sims. AJ is a coach, a leader, and a man who lives the standards he teaches. From training alongside Jay Cutler as a teenager to building a reputation rooted in discipline, faith, identity & hi...

A lot of people think they can diet their way to the body they want. But if your goal is to look lean, strong, and muscular, here’s the truth: You cannot maximize muscle growth in a calorie deficit. In this episode of the Chasing Clarity Health & Fitness Podcast, I break down why living in a deficit year-round keeps you stuck, why building a foundation of muscle has to be prioritized and how t...

On this episode of the Chasing Clarity Health & Fitness Podcast, Jeff Hoehn and I kick off a new monthly collaboration series where we break down listener questions and dive into the strategies that actually move the needle for physique progress, fat loss, recovery & long-term health. We start with personal updates, then move into one of the most important conversations in physique coachin...

In this episode of the Chasing Clarity Health & Fitness Podcast, I’m joined by Ben Mayfield-Smith for a raw and honest conversation that goes far beyond reps, macros, and training splits. We dive deep into the pivotal moments that shaped who we are from career-altering accidents to caring for terminally ill family members and how adversity became the catalyst for personal growth, mindset evolu...