Have you ever wondered why the scale doesn’t always reflect your hard work in the gym? In this episode of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast, I dive deep into the transformative power of strength training, especially for women over 40. It's time to embrace the journey of building lean muscle for women, which not only enhances body composition but also empowers us to feel stronger and more confident in our own skin. I understand that many women experience weight fluctuations when starting a strength training program, and I’m here to reassure you that initial weight gain is often a normal part of the process.
Have you ever wondered why the scale doesn’t always reflect your hard work in the gym? In this episode of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast, I dive deep into the transformative power of strength training, especially for women over 40. It's time to embrace the journey of building lean muscle for women, which not only enhances body composition but also empowers us to feel stronger and more confident in our own skin. I understand that many women experience weight fluctuations when starting a strength training program, and I’m here to reassure you that initial weight gain is often a normal part of the process. This happens due to increased glycogen storage and water retention in our muscles, but it’s crucial to remember that muscle gain is a positive outcome! Instead of fixating on the number on the scale, I encourage you to tune into how you feel, track body measurements, and notice how your clothes fit. These are far more accurate indicators of your health and fitness journey. Throughout our conversation, I’ll share practical workout tips for managing these weight changes, emphasizing the importance of consistency in your workouts, effective recovery techniques, and mindful nutrition. As we explore the intersection of women's health and fitness, I’ll also touch on topics such as menopause workouts, nutrition for women, and how to eat for muscle gain. Remember, true progress takes time, and I want to help you shift your mindset away from the scale to appreciate the long-term benefits of strength training. Whether you’re navigating the challenges of midlife women’s health or looking for fitness motivation, this episode is packed with insights that can help you thrive. Join me as we redefine how we perceive weight loss and wellness, empowering ourselves through strength and knowledge. Let’s embark on this journey together and celebrate the incredible potential of lean muscle for women!
If you're interested in womens health, this is the podcast for you.
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Resources: Holly to complete this section
• Episode 83: https://www.hollyperkins.com/blog/why-70-lean-mass-is-the-target-for-women-and-what-your-body-comp-report-is-really-telling-you
• Get up to 40% off Beam’s best-selling Dream Powder when you enter HOLLYP at checkout.
• Transcripts can be found on the official blog page for this episode here hollyperkins.com/blog
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Speaker #0 Strength training and building muscle is the most effective way to become stronger, look better, feel younger, and fortify your health for the future. There is no way around it. Every woman needs to be strength training if you want to live your best life now and when you're older. Improving your body composition is a long game and you might see the scale go up when you first begin a new program. If you want to know how to fix it, so that you can become smaller, tighter, and leaner, keep listening. Hello, and thank you for being here. If you are new, welcome. I'm Holly Perkins, and I help women mostly over 40 to improve your body composition so that you are at least 70% lean mass, so that you can reduce your risk of disease and stay in the game of life and out of the rocking chair in the years ahead. And after 30 years in practice, advising and coaching women day in and day out, what I hear the most is that you want to feel good, have more energy, look tight and fit to reflect the effort that you're putting in in the kitchen and the gym, and to guard your health for the years ahead. And when you look at all of the things that you could possibly be doing to get those benefits, strength training is the thing. that does it all. And it's why I'm so passionate about helping women learn how to strength train right, because it really is a magic pill and because it offers so many benefits. If you stop for a moment and think about what your goals are, what you want to achieve in the next few months, what would make you feel so good and so powerful down the road if you could improve your body, your physiology, or your health. Chances are good. Strength training will be the thing to get you there, whether you realize it yet or not. Strength training is the most effective way to build muscle. In fact, I would argue it is the best and the only way to truly build lasting muscle. Strength training improves bone density way better than wearing a weighted vest. It improves body composition so that you are more muscle and less fat at any given body weight. It promotes metabolic health by improving insulin sensitivity. It reduces pain and reduces your risk of injury by strengthening the muscles around joints. And it makes you look lean and fit and fabulous and sexy. If that doesn't encompass what most people's goals are, I don't know what would. And truly, there are a million other reasons why strength training is a must for you. if you want to live your best life either tomorrow or in the years ahead. And to me, these benefits far outweigh the one downside to strength training. And that is, you might see the scale increase in the early stages of beginning a true progressive resistance program. And further, if you're doing it right, you'll end up being a slight bit heavier at any given body size when you add muscle. But stay with me because it's not what it seems. I know that scares a lot of women. And how surprised would you be if after hearing this episode, you stopped caring about what the scale says? Because really at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. So just this week, in fact, I think it was on the same day, I got two messages from two different women. in my program asking for support around this very topic. They noticed the scale going up in the early stages of starting my program. They are new to the Body Composition Project, my program, and they have both been consistent with their training. And each basically said the same thing. After four weeks, the scale is up. I know this is not the best measure of progress, but it's very discouraging to see that. Is this common? I am in this for the long haul, and I'm committed to a healthy lifestyle, but this is discouraging, and I just thought you'd have some ideas as to why this is happening. I've been very diligent about getting the three strength workouts in each week. And while I don't get this question frequently, because most of the women that I work with already know what my answer is, the truth is this is a very common question, and I actually think this is a big reason why a lot of women don't get started with strength training. And I also think this could be why women don't really lean into strength training and really go after building muscle, because there's a part of them that's scared building muscle means they're going to get bigger, or the scale is going to go up. And most women have the goal of becoming smaller and or seeing the scale go down. So I think this is a very valid concern. And I think it's really important that we address it. and also give you some tools to avoid it, but also as a remedy if
this should happen to you. So in this episode, you'll learn why the scale might go up as a result of a progressive resistance program, what's happening inside of your body when this happens, if it happens for you, and a simple mindset shift to help you see things differently so that you can start to actually enjoy the process and see it as a long game. Without a doubt, I know that your life will be infinitely better with more muscle. In fact, you can't even imagine the ways that you and your life will blossom as your body transforms and as you get stronger and build muscle. But here's the thing so many people miss when they are focused on the scale. In the long run, you might weigh two to three pounds heavier on the scale, but you'll be smaller. Imagine if right now at this moment, you could fit into a smaller size jean, if that's your goal. Would that make you happy? And how about if you had to go out and buy new jeans that are actually two sizes smaller? than you are right now, if that's your goal, wouldn't that be amazing? Yeah, of course. Now, what if that happened, but the scale was actually higher by two to three pounds? Would you really care about the scale? Probably not, because what most people want is to feel stronger, tighter, leaner, more fit, look amazing, be healthier, have more energy, and that can happen at any body weight. And when you add muscle and burn off body fat, that is going to happen where your body size is smaller, but the scale might be up. Who cares? A while back, I did a very interesting side-by-side photo comparison of my own progress. There were a few years between the photos, I think maybe three years maybe, and I looked noticeably better in the latter, the most recent photo. I looked more... fit. I looked smaller and leaner. And it's obvious that I had improved. And I had. I had improved. I was better. I had more muscle. But guess what? I weighed four pounds more on the scale. Yet, I was closer to where I wanted to be. And I looked better and felt better. That is the power of building muscle from strength training. And foreshadowing, in order to get there, it's a process You have to go through the early stages to get there. Generally, when a woman is concerned or upset about a scale fluctuation in the early part of a program, they get sidetracked by that immediate circumstance and they lose the sight of the long-range vision. And it's really important to know that there are stages to your progress. We'll talk about that in a moment. But first, let's review why the scale might go up. either in the early stages of a new program or in the long run as a result of actually increasing muscle mass. Then you'll hear what you can do about it. The first thing to know is that it is totally normal for the scale to go up, especially in the early weeks of starting a new program. Now you might think early weeks means the first one or two weeks. It actually means the first four to six weeks of a program. Now, even if you've been strength training for years, you might see weight fluctuations when you begin a new program or you actually start increasing your weight loads, as is the nature of a true progressive resistance plan. A lot of women come to me having been strength training for a number of years, but when I look at their program and do an audit, they weren't actually progressing. in their resistance. They were just lifting weights and working hard. There's a big difference between working hard and actually lifting heavier over time. Here are some reasons why you might see a weight fluctuation and some things to keep in mind in those early stages of your strength training journey. First, the biggest cause of temporary weight gain is increased glycogen and water storage in the muscle. This is almost always the cause of weight fluctuations when you see your scale go up after strength training. When you strength train... Your muscles learn to store more glycogen. Glycogen is the stored form of carbohydrates that will be used as fuel during activity. And this is one of the many benefits of strength training. You want this to happen. For every gram of glycogen stored, the body also stores three grams of water. This alone can add two to five pounds in the first few weeks. of beginning a strength training program. But keep in mind, this is just simply water retention and water redistribution. Now in the long run, your body is going to continue storing water along with the glycogen, but that new muscle is going to burn off body fat so that you ultimately end up being smaller. Second, strength training causes micro damage to muscle fibers.
Again, this is a normal and necessary part of the process. If you're doing it right, we actually want this to happen. After your workouts, there is a normal inflammation response. I talk about this in many of my podcast episodes. And it's part of the muscle repair. And during that repair, the body brings fluids and nutrients and immune cells into the area. That temporary inflammation causes the scale to go up. Again, it's simply water. It's not a body fat gain. This repair process also often includes DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness. My most successful clients have learned that if they're sore, the scale will be up. Soreness equals water retention. And that's because fluids are coming into the muscle to heal it. So if you're sore, do not get on the scale. And my wish for you is to never get on the scale again. But I understand that's a stretch for many women. But the truth is, if you're sore, don't even look at your body weight on the scale because it will be up. And the last thing to keep in mind here is that even if you do gain weight on the scale when you start strength training. It doesn't mean it's not working or that you're not progressing. It simply means that your body is adapting. Muscle, water, and stronger bones all weigh something, and the scale can't tell the difference between those things. My question for you to ponder, what would it be like if you started focusing on other signs of progress and stopped using the scale? as your measure of success. There are so many other wins and things to celebrate. Why are you putting the number on the scale at the top of the list, especially when it really doesn't matter if it's simply a temporary part of the process? Now listen, I also speak from experience. The majority of my adult life, I was attached to the bathroom scale. I monitored it every single morning. And I was always looking at it going up and down and feeling good, then bad, then good, then bad. Eventually, I got over that. And I started to realize that the scale can give you feedback about what's going on with your body. So for example, if my habits were all super consistent, and the scale went up, I knew that either I had too much salt the day before, or my hormones were causing water retention. So the scale can be useful for giving you information, but you've got to know it is not the measure of success. And let me tell you, after enough years of being so attached to the scale, I finally woke up one day and was like, I saw the comedy and the ridiculousness around it when I realized it didn't matter. One day, I was a lot heavier than I had been in a long time, but my body looked amazing and I felt incredible and I did not care because I was so happy with where my body was and that is a wonderful place to get to. I wish that for you and I realize it might take some time. It's a process like everything else is in life. Okay, up next you'll hear what to do if the scale goes up, what to focus on, and a mindset shift that makes all the difference. But first, I want to tell you about one of my best hacks for improving the recovery process after workouts. Here's what I've realized over the past year heading into the new year. Everything goes sideways if I'm not sleeping well. I can meal prep, I can hit my workouts hard, I can get all of my protein in, but if I'm running on broken sleep or just poor sleep, I won't recover well. So this year, I'll continue to make quality sleep a top priority, and one thing that really helps me is Beam's Dream Sleep Powder. Dream is made with clean science-backed ingredients like reishi, magnesium, l-theanine, apigenin, and melatonin, all formulated to help you fall asleep fast, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. No grogginess, no crash, just deep restorative rest. And it actually tastes amazing. My favorite flavor is brownie batter, and it's like dessert before bed. I've been using Dream for months now. And I can honestly say I feel sharper, calmer, and more focused the next day. Sometimes I even add a scoop of protein powder to it to make sure that I hit my goals. And get this, Beam has already improved over 28 million nights of sleep, helping people across the country wake up and feel their best. So if you've been waiting for the right time to try Dream, this is it. go to shop beam dot com forward slash holly p and use code holly p and take advantage of my exclusive offer for up to 40% off Beams Dream Powder. So with my discount code holly p, you can get their best-selling dream powder for just $39. So seriously, think about it. How much would you pay for a truly great night of sleep? With my discount, it's just $1.25. per night. So go to shopbeam.com
forward slash hollypea today. So now that you can see weight gain can be normal when you're strength training right, let me give you some things that you can do to quote unquote fix it. And I put that in quotes because you actually don't need to fix anything. This is part of the process, but there are things to help recovery so that you don't notice or feel the weight gain if it happens to you. And there is one other thing to be aware of that we'll cover next. Here are six things you can do to address water retention from strength training. Number one, stop watching the scale for at least 12 weeks. It's not accurate anyway. Instead, I want you to close your eyes each day and scan your body. What do you notice or what do you feel about your progress? Let's shift the monitoring practice away from the scale. It's just a habit anyway. And start working on mindfulness. I know it might be comfortable in the beginning because you're so used to that immediate gratification and feedback, whether you're doing quote unquote good or not. But it's important in the long run to really start to shift your awareness so that you're in charge of determining your success rather than A number on the scale because it's not right anyway. Number two, stay consistent. And this is so that your muscles can fully adapt and adjust. The more consistent you are, the faster your body will change. This means that you stick to your three strength workouts or whatever you're doing every week and to also keep those workouts exactly the same week after week for at least 12 weeks. This allows your body to adapt. That is what's going to release any of the unnecessary water retention so that you can more accurately assess your progress. Number three, start to employ some recovery techniques. And there are so many out there. Do a little Google search or a little search on social media. But my favorites are hot Epsom salt baths to help. recover the muscles after strenuous workouts and to also reduce delayed onset muscle soreness. Gentle walking each day, massage, there are a number of things that you can do. This will help your body to recover, bringing healing resources to your muscles, and to flush the water through the cells of your muscles to then be excreted. Number four, and this one is really important, and that is to address your diet. Really take a good look at what you're actually eating. Are you intentional and confident that you're eating with intention, following a program? And are you eating in a calorie deficit or at maintenance? And that depends on your goal. If your goal is to release more than five pounds of pure body fat, you really do want to be in a calorie deficit. And if body fat isn't so much of an issue or a concern for you, you want to make sure that you're at calorie maintenance or slightly above. Because if you're not paying attention, it's possible that you're eating more. and actually gaining fat. That can happen if you're not paying attention to your nutrition. So let's just make sure that you're intentional about your eating so that you're not eating more as a result of muscle soreness. That can really cause hunger, food cravings, and sugar cravings. And or fatigue from the new workouts can cause you to eat more. So it's important to make sure that you aren't also just eating more. as a side effect of building muscle. And what I tell my clients is, if you're certain that you're eating on program following the strategy that you choose to follow, and you know it's not nutrition, well, then you can really forget about the number on the scale because you know it's not body fat. Oh, by the way, you need to eat an extra 3,500 calories in order to gain one pound of body fat. So if the scale goes up in a week after starting your strength training, you would have had to have been eating a lot for that to actually be fat. And that's rarely the case in my experience. It's also really important to put in some extra effort to eat to regulate blood sugar. This means that you're eating every three to four hours, especially if you're sore, and pairing your protein with carbohydrates. Because if your blood sugar is off, fat burning gets stalled, cortisol goes up, and there can be inflammation as a result of unstable blood sugar. Tip number five is to take a look at your cardio. Make sure that you are getting three to four steady state cardio sessions each week. Now, depending on where you are in the spectrum, it could be fewer than three to four steady state cardio sessions. I really encourage you to look at your programming. And if you are self-programming, this is where you're going to
want anywhere from two to four cardio sessions each week. And in this phase, for the person who's concerned because you see the scale go up as a result of strength training, you're going to want three to four per week, and specifically steady state, moderate intensity. This is going to help improve recovery from your workouts. It's going to help to regulate blood sugar and flush nutrients through your system and your muscles to help release any water retention and inflammation. And when done right, cardio can be very healing. So if you see the scale go up and you know your nutrition is on point, the next thing you want to look at to assess and audit is your cardio. Now, I want to offer one disclaimer before I share tip number six, and that is My intention on this podcast is really to give you as much scientific insight into improving your health, improving your body composition. And if you're new to my podcast, you may not know this, but if you've been around for a while, you do. I take this very seriously, and I actually know that body transformation is kind of complicated. And I want to make sure that with the information that I share here, you're not getting overwhelmed or feeling like it's too complicated. The thing to remember is that anything is better than nothing. And at the end of the day, if the scale is going up because you started strength training, just stay consistent and forget everything else that I've said. Just stay the course and it will all work its way out. Now, because I know this can be confusing for people and because I do believe That for women over 40, improving your body composition so that you're more muscle and less fat is a bit complicated. That is why I offer coaching programs so that we can work more closely so that I can get to know your unique situation and your unique needs so that I can tell you, should it be two cardio sessions a week or should it be four or more? So if you're interested in getting that kind of hands-on guidance by an expert coach like me Mark your calendar because in March of next year, it feels far away, but it's around the corner. I will be opening doors to the Body Composition Project again, March of next year. If you want to be notified when that time comes around, just come over to my website, hollyperkins.com forward slash body wait list. That will add you onto my email list so that you'll know when the doors open. And tip number six to address water retention from strength training is to ease up on intensity for a week or so. This means you can lighten your weight loads, especially if you're experiencing chronic soreness. You can also slow down during your workouts, add more rest after each of your sets, or if you are really feeling puffy and fluffy and very sore, you can initiate a week, three to five days or so of active recovery just to let your body heal and reset and then begin again approaching your workouts at a lower intensity. Now there are some other things that you can keep in mind that are beyond things that you can do. One thing to note is that after about two to three weeks of being consistent with your workouts, you should not be getting regular muscle soreness. If you're getting sore, after every single workout, something is off. And the first thing I suggest is that you ease back on your effort or your weight loads during your workout. So you're lightening up the intensity and you're just going less hard. You want your goal to be to avoid soreness. And so it's a process ofGoing into your workout, watching soreness, and then adjusting your next workout. So if you show up for your workout on Monday and you're super sore on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, that is feedback about what you did on that workout on Monday. This is where keeping a journal is very important so that you can look back on that workout and say, oh, I remember I had extra caffeine before the workout and I went hard on those squats that day. Noted, it was a bit too much. It caused muscle soreness, and that is where I need to ease up. Soreness is not a reflection of effort or progress. In fact, I would say it's the opposite. When you really adapt to your program and you're in good flow and you're staying super consistent, you'll never be sore. You might be aware that you did a workout yesterday. You should feel something in your legs when you're going up and down the stairs, say, after leg day. But there shouldn't be overt soreness on the regular. And if there is, there's something off in your practice, usually around your workouts, but it certainly could be around your nutrition.
And that is going to cause the scale to go up because as I said, where there's soreness, there's water retention. The next thing to keep in mind is to start using clothing or measurements or photos to assess your progress, because those are actually a lot more. accurate than the scale. So if you are building muscle, but burning off body fat, the scale might stay the same, but your measurements are going to be smaller. Your photos will look different and your clothing will fit different. And so instead of using that scale as your measure, start to use these other things that actually do give you some good feedback. And then lastly, It's really diet. Beyond what I mentioned before, if you have any history of an autoimmune disorder, thyroid issues, anything along the line of gut dysbiosis or SIBO or any kind of gut-related disorder, it is important to take a look at the actual foods that you're eating beyond the metrics. And so I always say metrics are important. How many calories in versus how many calories out. really does dictate weight gain, fat gain, or fat loss, okay? But then we do have to look at the macronutrient balance because it does influence your performance. But then after that, you wanna look at the actual foods that you're eating because some foods are more inflammatory for some people. For me, grains and dairy are very inflammatory. And if I go through a week where those are getting into my diet more, I feel puffier and fluffier, and if I was weighing myself, I would know the scale was up. I don't weigh myself. I don't torture myself that way anymore. But I know as soon as I get up in the morning or when I put on my sports bra, I know if my body is holding on to water. So it's a good idea to just do a quick assessment of your diet. Are there any foods that you've been eating that you know don't serve your body? Are there foods that... you're unsure of. And if this is a whole new conversation for you, the place to start is by keeping a tracking journal. On the days when you feel fluffy or puffy or the scale is up, just do a quick audit to look back over the past three to five days. Were there any foods in your diet that your intuition pings you about that says, you know, I didn't feel so good after I ate that XYZ food item. Because it may come down to substituting some of your common food items. If you're eating oatmeal in the morning, it might be time to change that to a different carbohydrate. If you're having dairy, it might be time to do a stretch of non-dairy. It really depends on your biology, but this is another place to look if the scale is up and it's not related to the metrics of your nutrition, which I talked about before. And moving on, now that you have some practical tools of what to focus on and what to do, the next suggestion might be the most important of all, and that's to work on your mindset. Once you've stayed consistent for at least 12 weeks, you'll start to see or feel that you're getting smaller, tighter, and leaner. That's when your mindset is going to naturally shift. You'll see the light and you'll quit worrying about your body weight on the scale. That will happen down the road. But while we're waiting for that day and you're putting in your reps, pun intended, here's some things that you can do to shift how you experience and see your progress. First, it's really important to know that it's normal to feel discouraged if you see the scale go up, especially if you started a program because you want to lose weight or you want to get tighter or smaller. And if your whole life up until now has been dependent on measuring yourself or judging or grading yourself based on the scale, it's really normal to feel discouraged. So I want you to just give yourself a hug, grant yourself some grace and also ask yourself if you could be open to thinking about this differently. Because the journey from where you are to the body that you want happens in stages. You know that, right? You're not going to wake up in two weeks at your goal. Oddly, the media has brainwashed us to think that if we put effort in today, we should be better tomorrow. That is not the way the human body works, and thank goodness, because that would be a threat to our homeostasis. Your improvement is going to happen in stages over a number of weeks, probably a number of months, and for some people, over a number of years, depending on your goal and where you're starting from. What if your best body ever, like a body and health and energy, of your wildest dreams that you've never experienced before? Like if you close your eyes and you're like, what's the
ideal scene? That. That. What if that was 16 weeks away? That means that you won't achieve that goal in four weeks or six weeks, right? You must go through the weeks, the months, and the stages. So if you have to go from point A to point B and it's going to take some time, you've got to focus on the end goal. Hold that vision every single day until one day you're going to wake up and you're there. If you look at it that way, can you see how the scale does not matter? Now, you do want to monitor your progress. to make sure that you're going in the right direction. I'm not saying disregard everything and just keep going because I also don't want you to wake up in 16 weeks in the same exact situation that you're in right now. You do have to track your progress and make sure that you're going in the right direction so you can make changes to your programming if necessary. So here is how you can ensure progress. Before you actually see the signs of progress, You first need to feel and experience progress first, okay? If the scale goes up after you start lifting, that is not failure, it's physiology. So instead, you want to start focusing on feeling improvements. Do you feel better? So if you were to wake up in the morning and close your eyes and just say, Do I experience some progress? Am I better today than I was last week? Can you experience and feel those signs of progress? And that could be you feel better. That might be you're sleeping better. That might be you've got more energy. You're in a better mood. You have more stamina. Maybe your body actually feels tighter. Maybe you've got fewer aches and pains. Maybe going upstairs is easier. See, those things cannot be measured on the scale. And this isn't just me candy coating it. It's actually true. I've been coaching people for 30 years. And I know that you have to have these signs of progress before you'll actually see it in photos. Or the scale is the last thing that comes around, by the way. That's like the last, last, last place that you'll see progress. but you will start to see see it in the mirror or in your photos, but these things have to come first. You're going to feel lean and stronger long before you see it. So you've got to focus on celebrating that and celebrating and acknowledging your effort. And experience of progress. That's what you focus on every single week. Am I getting better? Can I just celebrate my effort? In the first two to four, maybe even six weeks of starting a new program, all you can do is celebrate your effort. That is your progress. The fact that you showed up to your workout is the progress. Are you following me? Right? then after let's say four to six weeks of that Then you're going to start to feel and experience proprioceptively your progress. And then you're going to start to visually see it. Stack those days up while you're taking action week after week. And you're working through the stages from point A to point B. And eventually you will arrive. And how exciting is that? So once you've made peace with the bathroom scale, you might be wondering, okay, so what is the goal then if it's not a number on the scale? What am I targeting or should I be targeting as my goal? And this is super important because every day when you're keeping your sights on the destination, when you're focusing on the end goal, you need to know what that destination is, right? And if you don't know that, let me tell you. This is a game changer. So right now, I want you to listen to episode 83 of my podcast, Why 70% Lean Mass is the Target for Women. It's the episode just before this one, so that you know exactly how to monitor your progress in a productive way. And remember, in the end, if this feels a bit too complicated, anything is better than nothing. So I want you to just keep showing up. Keep putting your head down, giving it your best week after week, and soon you'll start to see the fruits of your labor. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And please stay tuned for another brand new one on Tuesday of next week. Stay strong, my friend.