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Wes Patterson| IFBB PRO 🌐

@mr.wes_ifbb_pro

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THE SHAKE DIDN’T BUILD YOUR MUSCLE. THE WORKOUT DID. HERE’S WHAT PROTEIN ACTUALLY DOES.
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The protein shake didn’t build your muscle. The workout before it did.

A year-long randomized controlled trial by Mertz et al. (2021) gave healthy older adults daily protein with or without resistance training. Protein alone did not significantly increase muscle size. Protein paired with heavy gym-based training produced the largest gains.

Training creates the signal. Protein supports your response to it.

Here’s why: Your skeletal muscle is never static. At any given moment you’re simultaneously building new muscle proteins through muscle protein synthesis and breaking down existing ones through muscle protein breakdown. When synthesis exceeds breakdown over time, you’re in positive net protein balance, which is the environment for muscle growth. When breakdown wins, you’re losing muscle.

Two tools control that equation.

Resistance training: It provides the mechanical tension stimulus that tells your body there’s a reason to remodel skeletal muscle. It increases muscle protein synthesis and makes muscle tissue more sensitive to the amino acids you consume afterward.

Dietary protein: It’s digested into amino acids that enter circulation and support enzymes, hormones, connective tissue, the GI tract, and protein turnover across the entire body. For muscle, a protein-containing meal stimulates synthesis and provides the substrate to build new tissue.

Combine both signals and the anabolic response is greater than either produces alone. That’s exactly what the Mertz data shows. A year of extra protein without a stimulus did almost nothing. The same protein with a robust stimulus built muscle.

Protein without training doesn’t build muscle. Training without enough protein means you can’t fully capitalize on the stimulus.

We train to provide the stimulus. We eat sufficient protein to support the adaptation.

Comment “PROTEIN” below and I’ll send you the full episode.

📧 Coaching Info: Bdacruzfitness@gmail.com

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IIFYM WORKS FOR THE PEOPLE WHO POPULARIZED IT. HERE’S WHY IT FAILS YOU.
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A 200 calorie Pop-Tart is 5% of a bodybuilder’s daily intake. For a woman dieting on 1,600 calories, it’s 13%.

That’s why “If It Fits Your Macros” works for the people who popularized it and fails for most of the people trying to copy them.

Let me be fair about what IIFYM gets right. It was developed as a response to overly restrictive diets that demonized specific foods. Hit your calories and macros and you can technically include any food. From a pure body composition standpoint, that’s accurate. And the flexibility has real value for adherence and a healthier relationship with food. The principle isn’t the problem. The execution is.

The pattern I see most in clients from an IIFYM background is what I call playing macro Tetris. They spend an ungodly amount of time fitting processed foods into their targets. Their tracking is meticulous, but they’re constantly hungry, constantly thinking about food, and constantly fighting the urge to overeat the same foods they worked so hard to fit in.

The most vocal IIFYM proponents online typically fall into three categories: heavily muscled males eating 4,000 plus calories, nutrition professionals with 15 years of tracking experience, or people who can get away with more because of genetics, PED use, or a training capacity most people can’t replicate.

Most lifestyle dieters don’t fall into any of those categories. A female executive on 1,600 calories trying to lose 30 pounds needs maximum satiety at every meal, high micronutrient density, and food choices that support adherence. At 1,600 calories, the math stops working in her favor.

When I move clients like this onto a structured, whole food dominant diet model for 4-6 weeks, appetite drops, cravings subside, energy improves, adherence increases, and body composition tightens up.

Flexibility has its place. But it comes off a foundation of 80 to 90% whole, nutrient-dense foods, not the other way around.

Comment “QUALITY” below and I’ll send you all three episodes.

📧 Coaching Info: Bdacruzfitness@gmail.com

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We're great at setting goals. We're less great at asking what they'll cost.

Before you commit to your next goal, ask yourself: what trade-off will I make this season to hit it?

Maybe it's fewer social plans so you can get to bed earlier. Less time on your phone so you can train. Saying no to an extra project so you have energy left for yourself.

Every goal has a cost. When you decide your trade-offs ahead of time, you stop relying on willpower and start making room for real progress.

What trade-off are you making this season?👇🏼

#femalefitness #healthylifestyle #healthjourney #goalsetting #mindsetshift

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PRIMER PHASE UPDATE
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Coming up on 4 weeks into this Primer Phase with Wes & we’re off to an incredibly productive start.

Wes & I have been working together for the past year & a half, with each phase building on the work we’ve done in the previous one. This past July, he earned his IFBB Pro Card in Men’s Physique, accomplishing a lifelong goal.

Now our focus is on creating the foundation for his next level of development.

I’m a big advocate of priming the body before pushing a client toward either end of the physique spectrum. Whether we’re pursuing contest condition or a new level of muscularity, I want their nutrition, training capacity & recovery in a position to support what we’re asking of them.

For Wes, this Primer Phase is designed to put him in a productive position to build from in 2027.

We’re focusing on:
▪️Leaning out to establish an appropriate starting body composition for his next Lean Building Phase.
▪️Supporting metabolic health through structured nutrition & consistent activity.
▪️Improving aerobic fitness to support his work capacity & recovery between demanding training efforts.
▪️Maintaining productive resistance training while monitoring performance, fatigue & recovery.

The goal is to enter his next building phase ready to train progressively, fuel appropriately & sustain productive work over the months ahead.

That’s why I take a health-centric, periodized approach. Each phase has a specific purpose & the decisions we make now need to support both immediate progress & the longer-term physique we’re working toward.

Wes has been executing exceptionally well & I’m excited about the foundation we’re putting in place.

A HEALTHY BODY IS A RESPONSIVE BODY.

📧 Coaching Info: Bdacruzfitness@gmail.com

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YOU’RE NOT EATING INTUITIVELY. YOU’RE PRACTICING INFORMED EATING. HERE’S THE DIFFERENCE.
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If you’re actively trying to get leaner, you are not eating intuitively. You’re practicing dietary restraint, whether you log your food or not.

Intuitive eating is one of the most misused terms in this industry. I see coaches and competitors claim they “dieted intuitively” to get stage lean, but that’s not what’s happening.

Intuitive eating was created by two dietitians (Tribole & Resch, 1995) as a weight-neutral framework. It’s built around principles like honoring your hunger, making peace with food, and rejecting the diet mentality. It was never designed to change your physique.

And the leaner you get, the more your hunger and satiety signals skew. Follow true intuitive eating principles in that state and you’d honor that hunger, eat more and stop losing fat.

What advanced physique athletes are actually doing is informed eating. They’ve spent years tracking macros and repeating the same habits, so even when they stop logging, they’re running on trained autopilot.

Informed eating uses your nutritional knowledge, structure and experience to guide your choices while still listening to your body to a degree. It’s a flexible restraint model, and that matters, because flexible restraint is consistently associated with better long-term weight outcomes than rigid restraint (Westenhoefer et al., 2013).

Calorie restriction is required for fat loss, so some degree of restraint is part of the process. The goal is to make it flexible, not to pretend it doesn’t exist.

This is why I believe everyone should track for at least a period of time. Not everyone needs to track forever, but the ability to “eat intuitively” and still hit your goals is earned. Your intuition is only as good as the data that trained it.

Comment “INFORMED” below and I’ll send you the full episode.

📧 Coaching Info: Bdacruzfitness@gmail.com

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ERIC HELMS: HOW TO CUT YOUR WORKOUT TIME WITHOUT SACRIFICING GAINS | EP. 247
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Having less time to train doesn’t mean your physique goals have changed. But when your schedule gets busier, spending 90 minutes to 2+ hours in the gym may no longer be realistic.

The question is how to make your training more efficient without sacrificing the volume, performance & hypertrophic stimulus you need to keep progressing.

In this episode of the CHASING CLARITY HEALTH & FITNESS PODCAST, I’m joined by Dr. Eric Helms for a TIME-EFFICIENT TRAINING MASTERCLASS focused on intermediate & advanced lifters who still want to maximize muscle growth.

This is NOT a minimum effective dose episode. We’re not discussing how little training you can get away with. We’re discussing how to maintain a high-quality, relatively high-volume hypertrophy program while reducing the time it takes to complete it.

We break down how to use supersets, which exercise pairings offer the best balance between time savings & performance, and why cardiovascular fitness matters when you’re trying to fit more work into less time.

We also compare drop sets, rest-pause training & traditional sets, including where each method makes sense, which exercises are poor candidates & how to manage the fatigue these techniques create.

Throughout the conversation, we discuss how to preserve your key performance indicator exercises while making the rest of your session more efficient, rather than rushing every exercise & compromising the quality of your training.

The goal isn’t simply to finish your workout faster. It’s to reorganize your training so you can preserve as much productive work as possible without spending unnecessary time in the gym.

For experienced lifters balancing demanding careers, family responsibilities & physique goals, this episode provides a framework for making your training fit your life without abandoning your priorities.

Listen now on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

📩 Coaching Info: bdacruzfitness@gmail.com

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So what makes this one different? We don't overdo it. 🎃

There's just enough pumpkin to make it soft and fluffy, with only a hint of pumpkin flavor. Our cinnamon whey isolate and a dash of cinnamon add warmth without the spice taking over.

That balance is the secret. It's pumpkin you can enjoy every day of the season without being sick of it by November.

In fact, customers are already asking us to keep it all year round! 👀

#glutenfree #proteintreatqueen #proteingoals #͏p͏u͏m͏p͏k͏i͏n͏s͏e͏a͏s͏o͏n #highprotein

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PHOTO SHOOT PREP UPDATE
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And just like that, we’re officially 1 day out from my next photo shoot.

After months of dieting, we’re finally at the point where all the work comes together and the focus shifts from getting leaner to bringing the best possible physique to the camera.

This week, I implemented a front-loaded carb-loading approach, with my highest carbohydrate intake on Monday & Tuesday before gradually tapering things down on Wednesday & Thursday.

Today has been focused on managing fluid balance & putting the finishing touches on my conditioning.

These photos were taken at 8 AM this morning, approximately 29 hours before the shoot.

One thing I’ve learned from years of competing & preparing for professional photo shoots is that my physique tends to change considerably during the final 12-24 hours.

That’s where having years of data on how my body responds to different peak week strategies becomes invaluable.

Although I’m many years removed from my competitive bodybuilding & professional modeling days, I still genuinely enjoy challenging myself to reach this level of conditioning.

The difference now is that my life, career & responsibilities look completely different than they did when I was competing regularly.

Between running my coaching business, working with high-level clients & continuing to grow the Chasing Clarity Podcast, finding the time & energy to execute a prep at this level requires another degree of structure, discipline & intentionality.

But that’s exactly why I continue doing it.

Every prep reminds me just how demanding getting exceptionally lean really is, both physiologically & psychologically.

It also gives me another opportunity to experiment, collect data, refine my approach & take the lessons I’ve learned back into my coaching practice.

After 16+ years of doing this, I still approach every prep as both a practitioner & a student.

There’s always something new to learn.

Now it’s time to finish this Peak Week strong & see what tomorrow brings!

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STOP OVERPOWERING HUNGER WITH WILLPOWER. BUILD A DIET THAT NEEDS LESS OF IT.
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The best hunger management strategy isn’t waiting until hunger becomes unbearable and trying to overpower it with willpower. It’s designing the diet so you need less willpower in the first place. There are four levers I use to do it.

Protein: Protein is the most satiating macronutrient, has the highest thermic effect, and becomes critical for lean mass retention in a deficit. Weigle et al. (2005) raised protein from 15% to 30% of calories and let participants eat ad libitum. Spontaneous intake dropped by 441 calories per day, and over 12 weeks they lost 4.9 kg of body weight despite being allowed to eat as much as they wanted. Nobody restricted them. The higher protein intake allowed them to drop body fat while feeling full.

Fiber and food volume: Higher-fiber foods require more chewing, add physical volume, and can slow gastric emptying. Howarth et al. (2001) found every additional 14 g of daily fiber was associated with a 10% reduction in energy intake, with a stronger effect in overweight individuals. The average American eats about 15 g a day, roughly half the recommendation.

Degree of processing: Hall et al. (2019) fed participants ultra-processed or unprocessed diets matched for presented calories and macros. On the ultra-processed diet they spontaneously ate 508 more calories per day and gained weight. Processed food drives passive overconsumption and makes the fat loss process harder.

Palatability, variety, and default meals: Rolls et al. (2025) identified portion size, energy density, and variety as the big three drivers of intake. Variety delays satiation through sensory-specific satiety. That’s why having several default meals you enjoy and know keep you full is a tool, not a limitation. Not every meal in a fat loss phase needs to be a culinary event.

Build the diet so it requires less willpower, not more.

Comment “LEAN” below and I’ll send you all three episodes.

📧 Coaching Info: Bdacruzfitness@gmail.com

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PEOPLE WHO LOSE FAT & KEPT IT OFF DON’T HAVE A SECRET. THEY HAVE HABITS.
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There is no secret strategy separating the people who lose fat and keep it off from the people who don’t. Most people already know what to do. The bottleneck is execution.

When researchers studied the National Weight Control Registry, people who lost an average of 66 lbs and kept it off for over five years (Wing and Hill, 2001), they didn’t find a special diet. They found shared behaviors.

Systems, not just goals: “I want to lose 30 pounds” is a destination. A system answers what you’re eating, when, how training is structured, what happens when you travel, and how you’re monitoring progress.

Meal prep and environmental design: Prep reduces friction. If a meal is already in front of you at noon, there’s almost no decision. Make nutritional decisions before you’re in the state least conducive to making them well. And stop asking how to be more disciplined. Ask how to make it require less discipline.

Default meals: A consistent collection of meals you know fit your targets, keep you full, digest well, and you enjoy reduces decision fatigue and the food novelty that drives extra consumption.

Self-monitoring: 75% of registry members weigh themselves at least weekly. Drift is easy to correct early and hard to correct late.

High daily activity levels: 94% increased physical activity, 90% exercise about an hour a day, and walking was the most common form, averaging over 12,000 steps. Not HIIT. High volumes of low-intensity movement, daily.

Never miss twice: One deviation doesn’t ruin a phase. The skill is returning to the behaviors that produce the outcome before an isolated slip becomes a pattern.

Fat loss is a phase, not a lifestyle. But if all structure disappears when the diet ends, you never solved the problem.

The goal isn’t a successful diet. It’s a successful dieter.

Comment “LEAN” below and I’ll send you all four episodes.

📧 Coaching Info: Bdacruzfitness@gmail.com

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MOST PEOPLE QUIT AN EFFECTIVE RECOMP PHASE BECAUSE THEY’RE OBSESSED WITH THE SCALE.
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Everyone says they want to recomp. Very few have the mindset to actually pull it off.

Body recomposition isn’t just a physical process. It’s a mental one. If your psychology isn’t in the right place, you’ll quit a working recomp because it doesn’t feel like it’s working. Four mindset shifts separate the people who recomp from the people who talk about it.

Patience and process-focused thinking: You won’t see the scale drop rapidly or get the dopamine hit of weekly wins. That doesn’t mean you’re not progressing. It means the scale isn’t measuring what’s changing. Your progress lives in photos, gym performance, and how your clothes fit.

Letting go of the scale: This is one of the hardest shifts, especially for chronic dieters. A kilo of fat holds roughly 9,400 calories. A kilo of lean mass holds roughly 1,800. So when you lose fat and gain muscle simultaneously, the scale can sit still or rise while your composition improves dramatically. If you’re chasing a lower number, you will never put yourself in a position to gain muscle.

Accepting that sustainable progress feels slow: Aggressive weight loss in your past skewed your perception of what a transformation timeline should look like. Recomp is slower, but the results last because you’re changing your physiology, not starving yourself to shrink. It takes consistency, repeated exposure to high-quality training, months of adherence, and a willingness to trust the plan.

Not majoring in the minors: Nail your training, fuel appropriately, manage recovery, stay consistent. Don’t get distracted by program-hopping, supplement obsession, or day-to-day scale fluctuations.

Every one of these is about delaying gratification and trusting a process without immediate feedback. That’s why recomp filters people out. Not because it’s impossible for them. Because they bail the moment the scale doesn’t move.

Comment “RECOMP” below and I’ll send you all four episodes.

📧 Coaching Info: Bdacruzfitness@gmail.com

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WE HAVE BIG NEWS!!

We’re adding a SECOND shipping day at Protein Treat Queen!

You asked for more flexibility, and we’re making it happen!

Starting now, PTQ will ship MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY! And yes, we’re keeping our 2-day shipping!

HERE’S WHAT’S CHANGING!

If you’ve been ordering with us, you’re used to our Sunday order cut-off for Monday shipments. With our new schedule, that changes!

MONDAY SHIPPING
Orders placed Wednesday through Saturday will ship Monday.

WEDNESDAY SHIPPING
Orders placed Sunday through Tuesday will ship Wednesday.

WHAT ABOUT SUBSCRIPTIONS?
No changes here! All subscriptions will continue shipping every Monday.

WHY THE CHANGE?

More flexibility. Less waiting. More opportunities to stock up on your favorite protein treats!

As PTQ continues to grow, we’re committed to making your experience even better, from the moment you place your order to the moment your treats arrive at your door.

Thank you for continuing to support us as we grow!

TWO SHIPPING DAYS. SAME 2-DAY DELIVERY.

Save this post so you have our new shipping schedule handy, and share it with your fellow PTQ lovers!

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