About Philip
Hi, I'm Philip. I host Wits & Weights, a podcast for lifters over 40 who want evidence instead of hype, and I'm a certified nutrition coach with an engineering background.
I didn't start out fit. By 40 I had tried Atkins, Paleo, keto, intermittent fasting and CrossFit, and none of it stuck. In 2020 I built a home gym, started reading the research on training and nutrition, and tested what I learned on myself. When it worked, people started asking what I was doing, so I launched the podcast in 2021.
Today the show has 500+ episodes and over a million downloads, and it ranks in the top 50 of Apple's nutrition podcasts. Each episode takes a popular piece of fitness advice, looks at what the research actually says, and gives you a fix you can use.
How I approach it
Your body is a system
I'm an engineer by training (MS and MEng in Computer and Systems Engineering). You measure, change one thing at a time, and watch the trend.
Trials over anecdotes
I put more weight on trials and meta-analyses than on mechanisms and anecdotes, and I'll tell you when the evidence is thin.
More food, heavier lifting
Most people I work with need more food and heavier lifting, not more restriction.
Where to start
Outside of work, I'm a husband and a dad, and I've been in Toastmasters since 2011 (public speaking used to terrify me).