Empathy Lifts

Empathy Lifts I coach lifters through one cut. Done right.
🛡️Strength protected 🔂 Lean year-round
🏆Pro Natural Bodybuilder
👇Find Your CutRate™️

Comment “CUTRATE” and I’ll send over my Deficit Dial 🎚️
06/02/2026

Comment “CUTRATE” and I’ll send over my Deficit Dial 🎚️

At 31 years old I decided to enter a cut to get back in shape. I was around 226lbs and had a goal of 200lbs.In less than...
05/29/2026

At 31 years old I decided to enter a cut to get back in shape. I was around 226lbs and had a goal of 200lbs.

In less than 3 months I hit that goal weight and walked away convinced I was past my peak.

Up until that cut I’d been off the program entirely for nearly 4 years. A tumultuous marriage. A career detour. No lifting, no eating with any intention.

By the time I came back my confidence was at the lowest it had ever been. So I ran the cut HARD and got results fast.

Dropped weight in weeks. Hit 202. Leanest I’d ever been on paper.

I looked in the mirror at the goal weight I’d just hit and I was smaller and weaker than I’d been five years earlier.

The first thought that hit me was that I was past my peak/prime. That the muscle I’d built in my twenties was gone and I was never going to see it again.

The cut never really fell apart. I tracked my intake, did my steps and cardio and pushed through to the goal weight.

The problem was the initial reason I entered a cut (to gain confidence back) never came.

I started to believe my best years were behind me. My best physique, my most confident, the most energetic.

That belief did more damage than any rebound or bodyfat% I’d ever had.

What I didn’t know at 202 was that my best was one intelligently programmed season away. A season where strength and the look in the mirror were the goal instead of scale weight.

The scale was a liar I’d been listening to for a decade.

I left that cut promising myself I’d never sacrifice muscle to see the scale move again.

That promise became the operating principle of every cut after that and the foundation for what my program (Performance Protected Cut) delivers for clients every month.

It took me 15 years to get here and I’m more than fulfilled helping lifters skip the mistakes I made.

A guy I coach hit a wall this week. He’s lifting heavier than he ever has, and the night cravings were running him over....
05/28/2026

A guy I coach hit a wall this week. He’s lifting heavier than he ever has, and the night cravings were running him over. He’d aim for 2,400 and land at 3,000 a few nights a week, then feel like garbage about it.

He figured he needed more discipline at night.

What I saw was a guy who ramped up his training and kept eating like he hadn’t, so his body came looking for food after dark. We moved him to 2,600 and a lot of the cravings backed off once he was finally eating enough.

Then the bigger piece. He’s spent months getting leaner and he’s lean now. There’s just not enough muscle under it yet, so leaner only keeps making him smaller. The look he’s after comes from building, and he’d spent those months doing the opposite.

So we flipped the goal. Scale holds or creeps up a pound or two a month. Body keeps looking better. Lifts keep climbing. That’s the scoreboard now, and the number on the scale stops being the thing he wakes up worried about.

That’s most of the job. Reading where a guy actually is, then pointing him at what works even when it’s the opposite of what he walked in believing.

05/28/2026

Comment “CREATINE” to find your dosage 💪📲

Grew up wrestling in high school, after years of Karate from ages 5-12 years old. Physical suffering has always been clo...
05/28/2026

Grew up wrestling in high school, after years of Karate from ages 5-12 years old. Physical suffering has always been closely acquainted.

2-3 days without food, forty-eight hours without water, just to make weight for a tournament or dual meet.

I learned restriction in my body before I ever connected it fitness.

The problem with knowing you can suffer is that you keep choosing it.

Every cut after wrestling was built on the same reflex👇

Scale stalls, cut harder.

Lifts drop, push through.

The engrained fear of standing in front of my coach overweight on game day was always louder than the data telling me to back off, to rest, to fuel my performance.

That reflex dressed up as discipline and ran every cut I did into the ground until I learned to stop chasing the scale at all costs.

My last prep took eight months instead of twelve weeks. Ate more. Held muscle. Let strength build through the entire diet phase.

Stepped on stage at 210, leanest condition I’d ever brought…all because I gave myself grace.

The cycle broke when I built a system that read the data instead of overriding it.

Real discipline for people like us is restraint.

Restraint from doing too fu***ng much out of learned fear and shame.

If you ever felt yourself saying “I just need to lock-in, me more disciplined”, I’d encourage you to check yourself in what you’re trying to be consistent with.

If you’re expecting to be consistent with any form of extreme restriction, you’ll know you’re operating from a place that will never let you keep your progress.

Had a serious talk with a client this morning. He’s down a good chunk of weight and maintaining it. Lifts have been clim...
05/27/2026

Had a serious talk with a client this morning.

He’s down a good chunk of weight and maintaining it. Lifts have been climbing for weeks. Latest photos show full glycogen, vascular, resting abs, actually lean.

He opens with how undisciplined he felt for indulging at a belated birthday dinner.

The data is telling him one thing. The voice in his head is telling him another. Unfortunately the voice in his head is louder.

That voice, that shame, is the engine of the cycle that has held him back the whole time.

It’s what makes a legitimately disciplined guy rebound the same 20lbs year after year, or in his case, not let himself eat enough food to build serious muscle, for fear of losing all of his progress.

That voice shows up at maintenance. It shows up the day after a high calorie meal. It even shows up after a new low weigh-in as dissatisfaction with current progress.

The voice that calls you undisciplined while the data says the opposite is the same one that says f**k it at 9pm three weeks from now when you’re staring at the ice cream in the freezer.

Same voice that wakes you Monday saying you’ll restrict for that ice cream over weekend.

Same voice that’s pulled the rug/threw in the towel on every cut you’ve started and even completed.

It’s less about the nutrition or training you’re having a hard time sustaining, and way more about the way you speak to yourself when you’re not perfect.

That’s the most unsustainable part of fitness for you. And it’s the reason you can stay lean.

You cannot run a long process like fat loss from a place where you’re convinced you’re failing at it the entire way through.

The work from here for this client is keeping that voice out of the driver’s seat.

Grace and gratitude is what keeps you showing up when s**t isn’t perfect, which keeps you in the fu***ng game for long enough to see results.

05/25/2026

Use my Deficit Dial™️ to find the right rate of loss you should be cutting at 👇

Comment “CutRate” - it’s free, no email required

05/25/2026

Making time for the gym 4x per week while being a dad of 3 is harder than the nutrition piece, once you have the right deficit dialed in for you.

Comment “CutRate” and I’ll send over my Deficit Dial🎚️, free - no email required

05/25/2026

Comment “CUTRATE” to get your deficit dialed in.

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Morgan Hill, CA
95037-95038

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