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Ep 25: Lose 30 Pounds (or More) the Right Way and Keep it Off
What if you have significant weight to lose—around 30 pounds or more? In this episode, we cover how to lose mostly fat, do it sustainably, and have the knowledge to do it whenever you want for the rest of your life. We’ll discuss what happens when you lose weight through chronic dieting, what I would do with a client who needs to lose significant weight, and step through the entire process to get successful, long-term results.
What if you have significant weight to lose—around 30 pounds or more?
Most people have no problem losing weight . . . in the short term. What usually follows is a rebound, usually because calories or the diet itself were so restrictive that they were impossible to maintain for more than a few months.
In this episode, we discuss a completely different approach. Instead of “weight loss,” we want to achieve FAT LOSS. We want to improve our body composition over time and actually become leaner.
Our topic is how to lose 30 pounds or more the right way…and keep it off.
Not how to lose 30 pounds in 30 days, or how to lose weight now and then…good luck!
Those approaches to dieting are completely myopic. They’re short-term. Just cut calories and lose weight. Then you’ll be lean.
The problem is, every time you lose weight this way, usually without enough protein or resistance training, you lose some muscle and then regain mostly fat. This bodyfat overshooting phenomenon causes your body fat percentage to rise over time, even if your weight stays in the same range, but most likely you gain even more weight each time you rebound.
Does this sound familiar?
Here’s the reality. Losing weight is the “easy” part. The challenge is the 95% of skills, behaviors, and metabolic recovery we need to address BEFORE losing weight.
In this episode, we cover how to lose mostly fat, do it sustainably, and have the knowledge to do it whenever you want for the rest of your life. We’ll discuss what happens when you lose weight through chronic dieting, what I would do with a client who needs to lose significant weight, and step through the entire process to get successful, long-term results.
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:08
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable diet. I'm your host, Philip Pape. And in each episode, we'll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
Philip Pape 00:31
Hello, everybody, welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. And just like the last episode, we're gonna stream this, we're streaming this live on Facebook. So if you want to watch future episodes, and get access to a bunch of free resources, related to strength related to fat loss, nutrition, things like that, just join our group using the link in the show notes. I'm your host, Philip pape, I'm the founder of Wits & Weights Nutrition Coaching. And as always, if you enjoy this show, just let people know about it, submit a five star review, tell others about it, take a screenshot. And I appreciate your support as always, now what if you have significant weight to lose, we're talking 3040 50 pounds or more. Most people have no problem losing weight in the short term. What usually follows then is a rebound. Usually, because calories or the diet itself were so restrictive, that they were impossible to maintain for more than a few months. So today we're discussing a completely different approach. So instead of weight loss, we want to achieve fat loss. We want to improve our body composition over time, and actually become leaner. And this topic is a little different from the last one where we talked about cuts and bolts, because in that episode, we assumed that you had already gotten to a reasonable level of leanness today, it's what do we do on the other extreme, when we have a lot of weight to lose, even if you only have 15 or 20 pounds to lose, though I think this will be highly relevant. So our topic is losing 30 pounds or more the right way, and keeping it off, not how to lose 30 pounds in 30 days, or how to lose quite weight quickly. And then good luck. Those approaches to dieting are pretty myopic, right? They're short term, you just cut your calories lose weight, you'll be lean. But the problem is every time you lose weight that way, usually without enough protein, usually without resistance training, you lose some muscle and then regain mostly fat. I've talked about this before. It's called body fat overshooting. And this phenomenon causes your body fat percentage to rise over time, even if your weight stays in the same range. But most likely, you gain even more weight each time you rebound. So if this sounds familiar to you, it's because it affects a lot of people. And here's the reality, losing weight is the easy part. Right? The challenge is in the 95% of other things, the skills, the behaviors, the mindset, the physical and metabolic preparation, the preparation of our bodies that we need to address before losing weight. So today, we're gonna go over how to lose mostly fat, do it sustainably and have the knowledge to do it whenever you want for the rest of your life. We're going to discuss what happens when you lose weight through chronic dieting. So that's the first part, then we'll discuss what I would do with a client who needs to lose significant weight. So something that you can do for yourself as well. And then we're going to step through the process to see how we get successful long term results. So first thing, let's discuss what happens when losing weight through chronic dieting. Because I think people aren't aware of this for the most part, and don't think about it. And the first approach to dieting is just cut calories. So here's what happens when you lose weight through dieting, you eat fewer calories, that it decreases your body fat, and then your fat cells shrink. The fat cells shrinking sends a signal to leptin. Leptin is a hormone that regulates your metabolism. It regulates hunger, satiety your energy expenditure overall. And so that's controlled by the size of those fat cells. This sends a signal to your brain to the hypothalamus specifically, that there's an energy shortage. And then the receptors in your brain say, Hey, I'm not full, I'm not full anymore, so you get hungrier. Then multiple other hormones are downregulated, we're talking thyroid hormone, which regulates cellular metabolism, your basal metabolic rate, protein synthesis, leptin, as I already mentioned, but also insulin. And then, ladies and gentlemen, the reproductive hormones go down testosterone, and estradiol. And then on the other hand, ghrelin which makes you hungrier goes up. And cortisol, which is associated with stress goes up. So this cascade of hormones, results in increased appetite. You can lose muscle mass, you get a lower metabolism, and that's just a few of the problems. You also get all sorts of symptoms. Ah, crankiness, angriness, whatever you want to call it, that you've probably experienced with chronic dieting. So our goal is to offset some of these, especially the decrease in metabolism, and the loss of muscle mass. So we can take take control of this process to avoid that, and avoid what everyone else does. And they chronically diet and puts their body into this downregulated state. So now we're going to go over now that you understand what happens when we chronically diet, what I would do with a client who needs to lose at least 30 pounds the right way, so that it's sustainable, that's what I mean by the right way, is on the way down, as you're losing the weight, you're not suffering as much. And then you know what to do when you've lost the weight. So you don't just rebound because, hey, I can't stick to keto that long. So I'm just gonna gain all the weight back. So we want to make it maintainable for the long term. Alright, so it all starts with establishing healthy habits. These are skills, skills that we have to learn outside of dieting, right, we all want to diet, we all want to just lose weight. But there are a bunch of skills we have to learn before dieting, so that dieting itself is easy. And then when you lose weight, it's easy to maintain. So I'm going to go through a list of these habits, it might seem overwhelming if you struggle in more of these areas than others, but have hoped that the way to attack this is pick one thing at a time and work on it week after week, and start to improve each one. Some are more important than others for you as an individual. And if I was working with you, as a client, we would focus on the big red flags. But we would also take advantage of your strengths. So the first thing is tracking? How do you know what's going in your mouth? How many calories are in a particular food, how much protein how hungry a food makes you feel relative to the calories How do you know all that if you don't track your food. Now, there's a lot of controversy surrounding tracking, that it causes eating disorders or it's obsessive. The evidence generally shows that unless you had a prior issue, eating disorder an issue with tracking, that it's correlated with better adherence, and better results, bar none. Plenty of studies have shown this, that if you're to track versus not track, you're gonna achieve your results more than than if you weren't tracking. And by tracking, I mean tracking your food with some sort of log, generally an app these days that make it very, very easy. The one I always recommend is macro factor. I use it my clients use it, but whatever works for you. And what you can do is for two weeks, you track everything you eat, you track your weight, and you can tell based on the intake, what you're truly consuming, and how it affects your weight. So let's say you've been maintaining your weight for a while, and you decide to start tracking, don't change anything, just eat the same way you've been eating, I don't care if it's processed food, junk food, whatever binges on the weekend, track your food for two weeks, and assuming your weights still maintain is maintained, then the calories you ate are your maintenance calories, and they may be much less than you expected. That's that's often what happens, we usually overestimate or we underestimate the calories you're consuming. So tracking is a very important skill. I'm gonna go through all these skills today. And we could do an entire episode on each one. And I'm not going to get into the details of how to improve that skill necessarily. But just know that if you if you find a way or work with a coach, these are going to go a long way. Okay, the second skill is eating enough protein. Most people eat far less protein than they need. Even if you're sedentary. Even if you don't resistance train, you still need protein to preserve muscle. And you need more protein the older you are. If you're training though you especially need protein. And most importantly, our topic today is fat loss. Well, I talked about body fat overshooting where you lose muscle mass. That's because partly because you don't have enough protein. So we're looking for around one gram per pound of body weight. That's just a rule of thumb, anywhere between point seven to 1.2 is perfectly fine. For most people. My clients when they come in usually our half that most of them are eating, let's say 160 pound female might be eating 80 grams of protein a day. And we need to get her up much closer to 141 50. But I'm not going to do it overnight. Right? We're going to take time over the next few weeks to figure out how we choose foods and food quality and structure our day to be able to get that protein. Right. So protein is just so so important. And most of us don't get enough. If you track your food. Step one. You'll know how much protein you get. Step two. All right, then that leads us to kind of an even bigger picture with food, which is food quality and selection. So the idea here is to change our mindset about diet Eating and about food, we want to move past the idea of restriction where we cut out food groups, particular foods, you know, unless you have obviously an issue, or an allergy, I'm talking about pure choice. All the fad diets out there are based on the idea of restriction because in the short term that works, when you cut out a bunch of things that are usually the source of processed foods, then you will lose weight. But now you've gotten yourself in a bind, because you have to restrict more and more. And then eventually you get tired of it, or you compulsively overeat you binge something because you miss the things that you've cut out. Right? Tell me this doesn't sound familiar, you miss these things. I've been through myself so many times over the years. So what we want to do instead is use restraint, not restriction, and understand everything that we put into our mouth, how full they make us feel, how much volume they have, how many calories they have, what their macros are, understand that a tablespoon of peanut butter might have 100 calories, whereas a tablespoon of broccoli is almost no calories. Right? That's kind of a weird analogy. I know, a weird comparison. But the idea is that as you diet, and you if you have the skill of knowing how to select foods that make you fuller, without too many extra calories, you'll be able to scale more in that direction, as you're dieting more and more deeply. But without restricting anything. You know, if you still want that pizza on the weekend, or you still want that glass of wine, you still wanna enjoy ice cream. You know, unless you're a bodybuilder trying to get down to essential leanness, you can enjoy those things. But we have to do it in moderation with restraint, right? And understand that the majority of our diet has been made up of things that serve our goals. So this is going to help with fullness, this is going to help us scale our foods up or down depending on if we're losing or gaining weight. And it's a great skill to have to get us out of the mindset of restriction. Okay, then that brings me to meal timing, meal timing, I'm not talking about the complicated meal timing that athletes need to understand with pre and post workouts and things like that I'm talking about if you if you're tracking your food, and you know, you have to get so much protein. And you know, you don't want to get hungry or suffer through a diet, you want to plan your day out and structure it so that you have the right number of meals spread across the right timeframe. So for example, if you like intermittent fasting, but now you realize you need 160 grams of protein, but you only can eat two meals in that timing window, it's going to be tough to get 80 grams of protein at each meal. And you might decide, maybe I need to move away from intermittent fasting for this and have three meals and maybe I need an extra snack in there. So that I can space things apart, not get hungry, get my protein, etc. So that's what I'm referring to when it comes to meal timing. It's a skill. Mealtime is also associated with planning ahead. So if you were to look, if today's Tuesday or Monday, today is Monday, and you want to look ahead to tomorrow, and you have no idea what you're gonna eat tomorrow, because you live in the moment. Well, what if you sat down and just figured out what you were going to eat just for one day to hit your targets, calorie targets, protein targets. Part of that part of that planning is going to include the timing of the meals and you might surprise yourself, you might realize that, hey, this is why I'm not getting enough protein by 8pm Because I need to stick some other snack in the mid morning as an example. Okay, so that's meal timing. The next aspect of nutrition here, as a habit is hydration. Some people have no problem drinking plenty of water, others are woefully dehydrated. And I'm not going to give you a rule of thumb. I mean, most people say to shoot for three quarters of a gallon of water a day, I like to say just take your weight divided by two and add a little bit. And if you're very active, or you do something like CrossFit, you don't drink even more. There's a study that recently came out, I think I heard about it and stronger by science, where athletes when they were training to strength training, if they drink to thirst, they actually didn't perform as well as if they drink a little more than that. So we can't always rely on our thirst signals for this. Definitely if you're thirsty drink, but you might need to drink a little more. And so we work on that as a habit. Okay, so moving beyond food, the next two habits are related to sleep and stress. Okay, sleep, highly underrated, potentially one of the most important things for you, especially if you chronically under sleep. So by sleep we mean two things, we mean quantity and quality. I did a whole episode not long ago, all about sleep and various ways to use sleep hygiene to improve it. But two things number one, quantity. If you can get around seven or eight hours of sleep most days, you're pretty good. And especially if you go to bed and wake up around the same time. Quality is a lot of different things. But for most people, it's your pre bed ritual. How do you get the cortisol down get the melatonin So you're ready for bed, and you sleep through the night and you're well rested. And for some people, this is wearing blue blocking glasses, you know, not using screens, taking a shower, meditating before bed, whatever. And then stress, okay? Stress is also critically important because dieting is a stress training is a stress, and why add more and more stress and stack them on and make it harder on yourself to recover. And for your muscles to grow. And for you to feel full. Stress can cause issues with appetite issues with your hormones, so many issues. And the first step is to try to eliminate or reduce it. Easier said than done. Right? Many of us can't just change our jobs, we can't change our family situation. But we might find creative ways to reduce stress. If you can't reduce stress, you can at least cope with it. And this is making sure to find time for things that you enjoy that or not at all stressful. Things like walking, breathing, exercises, meditating, dancing, playing, singing, you name it. Okay, then that brings us to the last two behaviors that we need to put in place before we go and start cutting calories. And these are related to activity. So the first is steps. And I think I saw my dad join. He's a huge fan of walking. So am I ever since my back surgery last year, I fell in love with walking. And then since then, I've realized how much evidence shows us that increasing your step count, even even by three or 4000 steps a day, has massive benefits for mortality, diseases of aging, metabolic disease, perhaps even things like Alzheimer's, I mean, I'm not a medical professional. But there's correlations here that are undeniable. And then the short term impact of of walking is simply that it increases your metabolism. As we're going to die it, our metabolism is going to decline. And I talked about earlier that when we're chronically dieting, that's one of the things that starts to drop, because of the cascade of hormones, steps actually can counteract that. And they can do so to an incredible extent more than you could possibly imagine by hundreds of calories a day. And I've seen this in data. And I've seen it with my own clients. So there's a friend of mine who used to be a co worker, or I guess he still called her, but he's also a client. And I'm going to share his information on our group in a couple of days. He sent me two graphs from his macro factor screenshots. One was his weight. So he's consistently losing weight at a nice clip. But the other is his expenditure, and it's going up and up and up. And then last two months, it went up by 400 calories a day. So he's burning four and a calorie today more than it was two months ago, eating less, because he's training and walking. I mean, that is the clear correlation. If you were looking at everything he changed, he's eating more protein, yes, but he's also walking a lot more than he used to. So don't discount steps. And when you're deeper and deeper into a diet, increasing steps can be a good way to offset the calorie reduction. All right, and then the last behavior that's so important to all of this. And in fact, it's like a house of cards that will collapse without it is resistance training, you know, is going to talk about this one. I mean, that's the first word in our Facebook group of strength. It's, it's in the podcast, everything. I love strength training, not just because it's so much fun, and it makes you feel great. But it changes your life. Because it allows you to build muscle, and more importantly, allows you to preserve muscle and prevent muscle loss when you're dieting. So if you don't have this and you don't have the protein, none of the other stuff is gonna matter as much, because you're still going to lose some muscle when you die it and this is where most people go wrong. So I'm always very excited when someone who has never trained before starts training. Even if it's just some dumbbells or machines, cables, I don't care just start training. And it's going to just make a huge difference in your life. Okay, so I just spent a whole bunch of time talking about things that have nothing to do with cutting calories. And that's intentional. Because if if you if we were to hang out and I was in you were to say hey, how do I lose weight?
Philip Pape 19:15
I'm not gonna say cut calories, I'm gonna say, Well, do we have these other 10 things in place first, then it's gonna be easy to lose weight, keep it off. Alright, so while we're doing all this, and this process could take two weeks for somebody who's already pretty dialed in with most things, or could take two months if it if you've got a lot to work on. But you'll get there it doesn't take long once you focus on these Like any skill. Now during this phase, we are going to focus on what we call metabolic restoration, which is just what it sounds like you're restoring your metabolism. And what we want to do is take you from your current maintenance, meaning right now you've been maintaining your weight, probably at a lower calorie level because of all the dieting and we want to bring that up to a higher maintenance meaning we want to get to a point where you're actually eating more and still maintaining your weight. And you're like, oh, sign me up for that, right? That sounds great. But most people who've chronically dieted are always in an underfed state, or have never bounced back up above that, and given their body a chance to get to restore to what we call homeostasis, right, which is just just a form of balance for the human body where the stressors are, as as few as possible, you're trying to give your body the nutrition, it needs, the recovery, it needs, reduce stress, etc. And what this usually requires. So listen to me, if you have 30 pounds or more to lose, what this usually requires, is a reverse diet. A reverse diet is where you eat more food, okay, you eat more food, you titrate up by, say 200 calories a day, the first week, and then maybe another 200 calories a day, the next week, and you monitor your weight and make sure that it can take up a little bit, okay, I expect it to tick up. Because you've got more gut content, water, glycogen. But I expect your expenditure, your metabolism to come up at the same time. And so what should happen is, your intake goes up and your metabolism goes up together, and you're still maintaining your weight, but you're eating more food. And if this sounds like a revelation to you, or like something you never would have thought to do, because you thought you would gain all this body fat. It's definitely something that works for a ton of people. Because you're helping your body recover to the level of nutrition, it needs to be in balance. Alright, so I hope I hope that makes sense. So the way you can do this is if you're tracking, like we talked about rule number one tracking, and you're tracking your weight, then you can just gradually up the calories. While you're doing this, you want to start training and getting those steps in all of these go hand in hand to push and push and push your metabolism up to eventually it might start to plateau. Or in the case of the client I was talking about, it's still going up, which is awesome. So for him, you know, it kept going up and up and up. So we realized he was feeling great, and we were ready to go into fat loss. We weren't going to wait for it to go to some astronomical level first, we basically want to recover it to something that is enough so that when you cut your calories, you feel like yeah, I'm not going to suffer on this number of calories as I'm losing weight. So usually takes from two to eight weeks for most people. And you kind of know when you're ready when the biofeedback is all good. Like when when you're feeling good in the gym, when you are sleeping well, when you're less moody or you feel like you have more energy, those kinds of things are very important. Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, You'd be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story, or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful, and how I can improve again, and incredible. Thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode.
Philip Pape 23:08
Alright, so now we've done all of this pre work, it's time to lose the fat, it's time for fat loss. Acceleration, I call it acceleration, because we are going to be able to do it fairly quickly. Without the suffering you would do otherwise in a traditional approach. And it's going to be mostly fat. So even if it's the same rate as you went at before, the last time you dieted, you lost muscle in the process. Now you're doing what you're eating protein, you're training, you're getting steps, and you're going to hold on to that muscle. And by the way, I didn't mention when we were talking resistance training, I kind of went off on a on a ramble because I got so excited about it. I forgot to mention the the approach to resistance training without getting into a ton of detail should be one that requires progressive overload, meaning over time, each session or each week, you're adding weight to the bar to the dumbbells to the machine, or adding reps or tonnage. But usually when you're a newbie, it's its weight, you shouldn't be kind of all over the place just randomly doing exercises, you should have a good training program, usually three or four days a week for a newer lifter, that is focused on some key movements, that all work for you and your body and your mobility, and that you progressively overload over time because the goal here is to give your muscles the stimulus to actually grow. Okay, so having said that, let's talk fat loss. So remember, we have all these habits in place first. And all we're doing now is just turning the dial. As I mentioned before, this is actually the easy part once you set everything up. So what do we do from a numbers perspective? Okay, let's use an example of someone who weighs 250 pounds. I think it's a it's a good way you know if you're overweight, male, female, that's a that's a ballpark wherever a lot of where a lot of people sit. So the first rule of thumb I'm going to throw out there is to not try to lose more than 10% in one shot, meaning don't, you know, lose weight lose up to 10%. And then after that, we're going to take what's called a diet break, and I'll explain that in a bit. And then you're going to continue the fat loss. So let's say you're 250 pounds, and your goal is 200 pounds, you know, your final lean weight might be 190, or something, but just for the sake of simplicity, so I wouldn't try to just go all the way to 50 pounds, I would set the target at 25. So you're trying to go from 250 to 225. So we're going to lose 25 pounds. And we're going to do it in a reasonable deficit. And if you've heard my other podcasts, or you're familiar with the, what the science says, that's usually a quarter to 1% body weight per week, same as when I talked about bulking and cutting, it's the same range, okay, a quarter to 1% body weight per week. So in this example, for round numbers, we're going to go with point 6%, which comes out to one and a half pounds a week. Alright, so you weigh 220, or you weigh 250. And you're going to lose one and a half pounds a week. So that's going to take roughly 16 weeks. All right. And as far as calculating the one and a half pounds, that's going to have to do with the the deficit that you go into, which I wasn't going to get into details today. But just for simplicity, about a pound a week is 3500 calories. So one and a half pounds is going to be and now I don't have my calculator 3500 plus 55 5250, I think I got that, right, I don't know, it's gonna be
Philip Pape 26:39
that much divided by seven. So whatever that is, in calories, you have to eat that many calories below your maintenance. But I don't want to complicate it with all those calculations. I've got other episodes in the past that go into the numbers at nauseam. The point is, you're going to use an app or work with a coach or calculate the numbers yourself, and aim to lose one and a half pounds per week. Here's the thing, or the problem or issue or challenge. As you diet, your metabolism will decline, like we talked about earlier. And if you do nothing differently, then you're going to have to cut calories more and more as you get leaner and leaner. partly just because you weigh less, your body's burning less. But it's also starting to downregulate in general, because not that you're starving your body. But your body's not getting everything it needs for that full hormonal balance. So we've talked about, so how do we counteract that you got it steps and training, I'm gonna assume you're already training hard. So you can't really train harder on a cut. So the one thing you can do is increase your steps. So in a diet, think about how to structure your day, your week, to get an extra 2000 steps a day, or 4000 steps a day, whatever you can handle, whatever it is, you're going to have to adjust calories roughly every one to two weeks based on the rate of change. So you're trying to lose one and a half pounds a week, and you're going to weigh yourself and you're going to use the average weight, you're not just going to use the daily fluctuations. And after the first week, you've lost one and a half pounds Great. Stick with those calories. Next week, you lost only one pound. Okay, you might need to cut calories a little more. Next week, you lose two and a half pounds, okay, maybe a little more aggressive, you get you get the idea, right? We're just kind of eating it out over time. So the average is one and a half pounds a week. Okay. Now, how do we do that from a food perspective? Well, on a cut when you're losing weight, we often actually need to eat more protein than when we're gaining weight. But if you just went from very low protein in your past life to you just listen to this and you've brought your protein up to where it needs to be around one gram per pound. That's perfectly fine. I tried to push people to go to 1.2 grams per pound. The problem is that pushes out more fats and carbs. So for balance for flexibility for not suffering anywhere between point eight and 1.2 grams per pound is okay. And then the rest. The rest of the reduction comes from fat and carbs. And you might ask, Well, are we talking low carb? No, we're talking whatever you enjoy. So if you prefer fats over carbs, then the carbs will be lower. If you really like carbs, or you realize the value of carbs for energy when you work out, cut the fats. The lower the calories you have to work with and the lower fats and carbs you have to work with. It's just straight math. All right. So then what we're going to do is divide all those calories by the number of meals and snacks we need or want to have each day. So we're going to have three meals and two snacks. Well, and we've got 1800 calories to work with. Well, that might be three meals at 400 calories. That's 1200 And then two meals at 200 calories, for example. And this is what we mean by thinking ahead plus Planning and not being compulsive. And I can go off on a whole tangent about compulsive and obsessive and emotional eating, and it can be its own episode. But one of the experts in that area, I think his name is Dr. Glen Livingston. He talks about the concept of ordered and planned eating, versus compulsive eating. Meaning that one of the best ways to combat this emotional eating that a lot of us suffer from is just to plan things ahead of time. So making sure you have your day structured your meal structure, etc. To the extent you need to, right, I'm not talking about being obsessive about it, it's just what you need to execute your plan, versus just go grab what's in the cupboard. Alright, so I'm going off on tangents, hopefully, these are interesting, helpful tangents, but back to the calories, the lower the calories, the more you're gonna have to focus on high volume foods. So we talked about food selection, and we talked about restraint versus restriction. What we're talking about here is, the lower your calories are the hungry, or you're going to be if you continue to eat a lot of processed foods, for example. So I'm not telling you to cut all those out, what I'm saying is, you may have to incorporate more fruits, vegetables, when you eat dairy, like cottage cheese, or Greek yogurt, you might try the low fat version of that, you know, I know it's not as tasty. But you know, you don't have to get skim. You could get 2% Whatever, leaner cuts of meat, there's plenty of delicious meat that are lean. And by the way, chicken thighs are not as fatty as people think. So you can still have chicken thighs on a diet, trust me. Whole grains versus white grains. You know, if, if you're still gonna enjoy a bagel, fine, go get a whole grain bagel instead of weighed in and look at the difference in calories. It's a few, it's fewer calories for the whole grain version. And it might fill you up more. It's just kind of a smart decision. smart, creative decisions like this. Egg whites, egg whites are kind of disgusting in my opinion. But when you mix them with whole eggs, and you have an omelet, where there are whole eggs in there, the whites kind of just sneak in there and give you the extra protein and fewer calories, right. And then mostly unsaturated fats. So try using olive oil instead of butter while you're on a diet. Okay, I love butter as much as the next person, but you're not going to notice that big of a difference. And just try to be creative is my whole point here without necessarily restricting. Okay. So while we're going through this process, we need to monitor biofeedback, we're talking sleep, stress, hunger, energy performance recovery. I know it sounds like a lot. So like with my clients, I have them do a weekly check in. And there's ratings where they rate each of these and usually, they're all pretty good. But occasionally I'll see one come in at a three or four at a 10. You know, that's, that's a point that might be worth talking about. So you can do the same for yourself with a journal, you can do it with an app. And I would focus on the things where you have the most challenges, like for me, it's getting enough sleep. So I went out of my way to get one of those smart rings, and really have to go out of my way to to not work so hard during the day and then not sleep enough, you know, prone to get up at five and train and work and then stay up late just because I'm trying to get things done. But that's not good for my recovery, your issue might be something else, you might get super hungry at 3pm. And knowing that information will allow you to adjust things like to have more vegetables with your lunch, simple things like that, or drink more water in the afternoon. Okay, so we've talked about a lot of things, we're losing weight, we already have a really good system in place for food selection, meal timing, protein training. And by the way, if you're training and getting steps, a lot of this stuff is easier simply because you have higher calories. So don't discount that. Whereas the person next to you is just like, you know, dragging their feet, their legs feel heavy, they're cranky. They're doing all this cardio, or they're on the treadmill, and they're eating 1300 calories. You you're going and you're resistance training and going for nice walks, you're getting good sleep, and you're at 1900 calories, and you're losing more fat. That's what we want to get to. Okay, so now you've lost 10%, you're down to 225 you're feeling okay, maybe you're feeling a little bit, a little stressed or a little bit over overnighted, so to speak, because it's been 16 weeks, it's been four months. This is where we're going to take a diet break, right and a diet break is just a fancy term for stop dieting for a while. And we do that not just for recovery and for the additional calories, but for psychology. And the science actually supports the idea that the psychological component is probably the most important component because it allows you to mentally stop thinking about dieting and food and all these things and Just enjoy yourself for a while to a higher level of calories, and then continue with a fresh start. It's like when you have a vacation, right? Or when the weekend comes around, you've been working hard all week, the weekend comes around, and you get that break Monday comes around, okay, you're ready to go again? Well, most people, maybe not most people, you get the idea. It's like a vacation. So there are two ways to do a diet break. One is to do a reverse diet, like we did at the beginning, where you add a few 100 calories each week. But I prefer for a diet break to just go wham right away into what's called a recovery diet, where you just jump right up to your maintenance. So if you've been at a deficit of 600 calories a day, you're going to up your calories by 600, immediately that Monday, and you're going to stay there for maybe four to eight weeks. So we're talking about a decent amount of time, where you're going to stop your dieting on purpose, so that your metabolism can recover, you can start performing better in the gym, you're gonna feel better, everything's just gonna kind of feel a little better, and then psychologically, you get that boost. Now, if you feel completely great, after 16 weeks of dieting, and you want to keep going, and you're my client, we have that conversation Sure, we're gonna keep going potentially, this is more of a rule of thumb. Similarly, if after 12 weeks of the 16 weeks, you're just, you've had it, think about having a diet break, it could be a shorter one, it could be a one or two week diet break. It could even be what they call a refeed, which is just just a weekend. Not a binge, but a planned higher calorie weekend. Okay, but what we're talking about here is you've lost 10% of your weight, we're gonna go for a month or two at maintenance. And here's how we're going to do it. We're not going to start eating Pop Tarts, and kettle corn, although I love those things. Okay. Now, if you were already eating Pop Tarts, and kettle corn and some level as part of your diet, okay, then maybe it's not a big difference, but you get the point, we're instead going to scale up what we were eating. That's all we're going to do. So if we're going to add 600 or 1000 calories. And I'm looking at the comments, avocado Yeah, love avocado and a shirt that's taking some saturated, go for it. We're going to scale up our foods. So we're going to stick with the avocado oil, the olive oil, egg whites, the low fat, dairy, all these things mixed in with the delicious things. So it's a nice balanced diet, and we're just going to scale them up. So if you are normally having two eggs, you're going to have three if you normally have eight ounces of meat, now you're going to have 12 ounces of meat, so you get the idea. And this is to avoid completely changing
Philip Pape 37:39
our mindset in the middle of the diet where we still have more dieting to go. The the more process palatable foods, those will come later once you get to the leanness where you want. Those will come later when we talk about bulking and the opportunity for some extra indulgences. But the nice thing about a diet break is you scale up and you still have some room for these indulgences, you'll have some room for what I call planned indulgences. So this could be your glass of wine, or your ice cream on the weekend or that slice of pizza. If you know you're going to a party or an event or holiday event, you know thinking ahead and planning for what you're going to eat. And I like the strategy I like to use for example is if you know you're gonna binge not binge, if you know you're going to have a party on the weekend, and it's gonna be mainly fats and carbs we know it's gonna be then eat your protein in the morning, almost exclusively protein and save the rest of the fats and carbs for the night, or eat fewer calories during the week, and then scale up the calories on the weekend. Alright, but I digress. My point here is we're taking a diet break, we're getting everything back, excuse me back to normal. And that's going to take about four to eight weeks. So now we're 225 pounds, we're gonna rinse and repeat that entire process of the reasonable caloric deficit. And you might find, you might find that your metabolism is at a state now. And you're so used to dieting now that you could go more aggressively, you might be able to maybe not, your lighter, your metabolism might be lower, maybe not depends on the individual. So you do that again, and you get to 200 and boom, you're at your target weight. And notice how we got there. We didn't get there just by cutting calories right off the bat and suffering we got there by getting us into the healthiest state we could possibly get. And then quickly losing the fat holding on to the muscle. And now we are in a state where we can possibly maintain this 200 pound weight on more calories than we used to have at 250 pounds. And you can understand the logic of how we got there because of the training because of the steps because of the protein. So now you have think about this you have lifelong habits in place. You've lost mostly fat while preserving muscle. You're now training you know how to manage food quality food selection, timing meal timing intake, you have all these skills in place, so that you can just turn the dial whenever you want, you can turn it up or down. And then you can start having fun with advanced strategies like cutting and bulking. Okay, and I went through this myself, after years and years of chronic dieting, finally figured out, oh, there's a way to control this process, and make it not suffer and get to a level of leanness that you'd never really been to before. With more calories, a true state of health. Now, I can actually intentionally gain weight while building muscle, which is something most people never even consider. So normal normal rebounds, where you just gain fat, your body composition has improved. And best of all, you have confidence. This is really about skills and confidence, to have control of the process of what goes in your mouth of what your body looks like, feels like. And then now you can play with your kids play with your family, you know, do those things you want to do up into old age. And that's really what we all want. And And last but not least, you basically know what the heck you're doing in the world of nutrition and fat loss. So that is how you lose significant weight sustainably for long term results. So I hope that was helpful. I know there's a lot to cover. And there's probably a lot of other topics I didn't cover. So if you have questions or follow up, please reach out to me, I'm going to provide a short blueprint or pdf of all of these steps. In the Facebook group. If you if you're in there, just reach out I'll put out a post asking if anybody wants it. If you need someone to give you accountability, because I know this is a lot. And you want that external motivation. You want that guidance to successfully to sustainably lose fat using the process we just covered. Reach out to me reach out to me I do one on one nutrition and lifestyle coaching. But I'm happy to answer questions for free you know, I'm not going to charge you just to answer a question. Just DM me @witsandweights on Instagram or Facebook, or you can go to witsandweights.com/coaching. So if you're interested in coaching, it's a six month program, which as you learn today is kind of the timeframe we need to restore your metabolism, accelerate fat loss from a better starting point and integrate these changes into your lifestyle. So you what you get with that is one on one strategy calls, weekly check ins private group access 24/7 Direct Message access to me in our professional app, whenever you have questions or issues. I also offer a guarantee that if you don't achieve the results we want by the end of six months, I will continue working with you for free until we do because I'm confident we will get you the results if you also put in the work. So again, just DM me on Instagram @witsandweights weights or Facebook, or go to witsandweights.com/coaching. And if this training was helpful, or if you have questions, just comment on the video, click the link in the show notes or email me at philip@witsandweights.com And I wish you the best in your fat loss journey.
Philip Pape 43:04
Thank you so much for joining me today. Before you go, I do have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast, just let me know by leaving a review in Apple podcasts. This will help others find the podcast in search results, which makes a huge difference. Thanks again for joining me, your host Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.
Ep 24: Science Says - Protein Distribution to Increase Muscle Mass
In our first “Science Says” episode, we answer the question: Can we build more muscle mass by evenly distributing protein throughout the day (primarily by increasing protein at breakfast if it is low to begin with)?
This is our first "Science Says" episode, where we break down a single recent article relevant to the fitness (lifting, nutrition, health) industry and strategies you can apply right away based on what the science says.
Today's article is "Evenly distributed protein intake over 3 meals augments resistance exercise–induced muscle hypertrophy in healthy young men" by Yasuda, et al. (2020).
The main question is, can we build more muscle mass by evenly distributing protein throughout the day (primarily by increasing protein at breakfast if it is low to begin with)?
RELATED LINKS
Yasuda, J., Tomita, T., Arimitsu, T., & Fujita, S. (2020). Evenly distributed protein intake over 3 meals augments resistance exercise–induced muscle hypertrophy in healthy young men. The Journal of Nutrition, 150(7), 1845-1851.
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:08
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable diet. I'm your host, Philip pape, and in each episode will examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
Philip Pape 00:31
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. Today is the first episode of what I'm calling science says, where I go over a single research article relevant to the fitness lifting health nutrition industry, and break it down. We'll go over the methodology, the results, and how you can apply that to your life and gain value from what the science says. And I would like to give credit where credit is due. Because I will be referring with many of these episodes, to a research review being published by Dr. Bill Campbell. And he just started this a few months ago. If you're not familiar with a research review, it's what it sounds like an expert in the industry. And Dr. Campbell definitely qualifies as that breaks down a scientific article for you with a summary of the relevant aspects of the study. Like the participants, the methodology, the process, the results, the some of the statistical findings, and then what we can learn from it, what we can gain from it. And what I like about Dr. Campbell's review, it's called body by science is that he also invites two experts, these might be coaches, physique athletes, power lifters, what have you to break down the results and discuss how they would apply it to their clients and how you can apply it in your life. So today, I'm actually going over the very first study published in that review, and a study is called evenly distributed protein intake over three meals augments resistance exercise induced muscle hypertrophy in healthy young men, by your SUTA in 2020. And the main question it was trying to answer is, how should we divide protein across our meals throughout the day, most people who are not intentionally trying to get a lot of protein tend to have more protein toward dinner, he might have very little if any, at breakfast, some at lunch, maybe in a sandwich, for example. And then quite a bit at dinner, or at least the majority of the protein at dinner. But as we've talked about many times, we are trying to eat quite a bit more protein than the average person, something around 0.7 to 1.2 grams per pound. And so to do that, one of the basic ideas basic concepts is to just divide that across X number of meals. So if we have to have 160 grams of protein, and we're going to eat four times, we have to shoot for 40 grams of protein per meal. So the question this study was trying to address is, what if you have more protein at breakfast? What if you have a very high protein breakfast, can you build more muscle, and this was performed on as the title suggests, males in the early 20s. And they were not resistance trained. They were 26 Total in sample. So all of the all of the participants actually started resistance training as part of the study. It was a 12 week program. And they were split into two groups, one that had a high protein breakfast, and one that had a low protein breakfast, they log their food intake at the beginning and then at the end. And just to be clear, the group's ate roughly the same amount of calories around 2500. And about the same amount of protein about 90 to 100 grams of protein. And the only difference was the high versus low protein breakfast. And the researchers
Philip Pape 04:10
reported a fairly high adherence to this protocol. So I would say that they did a pretty good job of accounting for potential confounders, such that the variable of interest whether the high protein breakfast caused a difference in muscle gain, could be sussed out from the research and you could make a claim that potentially there's a correlation or causation there. As far as what the resistance training program looked like, it was a three day per week program. With three upper body exercises and two lower body exercises. It was two by 10. So two sets of 10 of each movement, and then one more set within AMRAP as many reps as possible. The researchers use DEXA to measure their change in body count.
Philip Pape 05:00
Opposition. And I've talked before about the the challenges with the quality of measuring body fat using just about any method. There's always a little bit of error that's there. But the idea is if you can control the environment, if you can control the conditions, from one to the next, use the same manufacturer use the exact same equipment, in fact, which they probably did in the study, that at least the relative change has some validity to it. So what were the results? Well, turns out that both groups gained a lot of muscle mass. All right, so good news. For those of us who want to resistance train and eat protein, you will gain muscle. Great. All right? Well, that's not the question the study was trying to answer. However, the question was, would you gain more muscle if you had a higher protein breakfast. And it turns out that the high protein breakfast group gained five and a half pounds of muscle mass, the low protein breakfast group gained 3.9 pounds of muscle mass. Now, this was a 40% difference. But according to the researchers, it did not pass the threshold of statistical significance, which in this case, was a p value of less than 0.05. For anybody who's familiar with statistics, but it was close to being statistically significant. And there's another statistical measure they use called the Cohen's d effect size, which was large in this study. And then the authors, the researchers interpreted that as the group of the higher protein breakfast, gain more muscle mass than the group of the lower protein breakfast. Now, does this mean you need to eat more protein in your breakfast, that's not what they're saying, what they're saying is, you should, if you don't get very much protein in your breakfast today, eating more, and having a protein more evenly distributed, could be better for muscle building, for those of us who already spread our protein out and eat roughly the same, it does not suggest that you can eat an even larger protein breakfast and have more muscle mass. So I want to make that clear. Basically, it's saying it's validating something we talked about a lot, which is you should spread out your protein and get a decent amount somewhere close to the average, do the best you can at your four or five meals throughout the day. Now there were some limitations of the study. And the one that I want to clue in on is the fact that the total protein that The participants ate was around point six, five grams, which is quite a bit less than we recommend. It's not even in that range of point seven to 1.2, that I often talk about. And despite that, they were still able to gain a decent amount of muscle mass. So imagine what they could have done with even more protein. This might raise one more question for you then, okay, if I have to distribute my protein evenly throughout the day, how do I do that. And I always recommend thinking of your of your meals as meals and snacks. Your Meals would be things like breakfast, lunch and dinner, where you have a decent amount of calories in each meal. And you can often include a Whole Foods source of protein, be it eggs, lean meat, dairy, and then you would have one or two snacks. And at those snacks, you can use more convenient forms of protein. And those would often be dairy like cottage cheese, or Greek yogurt. But it could also be protein shakes, or even a protein bar. But I prefer less processed forms of food if possible. So the rule of thumb would be three meals with protein, and then one or two snacks with maybe dairy or a protein shake. Now where people find this challenging, are in a couple of scenarios. One scenario is when you simply don't eat very many meals, maybe you come from a background of time restricted feeding or intermittent fasting, and you are used to eating twice or three times. And all of a sudden, I'm asking you to eat 150 grams of protein, well, it's gonna be very hard to have 75 grams of protein in two meals, versus having three or four meals at something like 40 grams of protein. Another challenge is if you eat too close to each other, if your meals are not spaced far enough apart, you may get full, you may not feel like eating that much protein. And then the solution is to space them farther apart. You might even have one snack that doesn't have protein, and then more protein at the other meals. So it's not as filling. And then finally, if you have too many meals and your protein target isn't exceptionally high, like maybe for a smaller female, my only concern there would be if you spread them out too thin and have too low of a protein threshold at every single meal. We'd like to hit that roughly 25 Maybe even 30 grams, and the older you get even a little bit higher at a single meal. So again, in that case, I would opt for one of the meals or snacks having quite a bit less protein and giving that to another so that you have the 25 or 30 grams and you can hit that muscle proteins
Philip Pape 10:00
synthesis threshold. So that's it for the first episode of Science says, Again the study that was reviewed is evenly distributed protein intake over three meals augments resistance exercise induced muscle hypertrophy in healthy young men by Yasuda 2020. I'll include the link in the show notes. I'll also include a link to body by science, the research review that I subscribe to, I highly recommend it. And as always, if you liked the show, please let others know. Give it a five star review. Reach out to me with questions, or just to say hi, and I will always get back to you with an answer or a high right back. Stay strong. Thank you so much for joining me today. Before you go, I do have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast, just let me know by leaving a review in Apple podcasts. This will help others find the podcast in search results, which makes a huge difference. Thanks again for joining me, your host Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.
Ep 23: How to Minimize Fat Gain and Get Lean with Cuts and Bulks
If you could be in a calorie surplus for three-quarters of the year and constantly get leaner, would that appeal to you? You’re going to learn how to periodize your nutrition with cut and bulk cycles to get leaner and leaner by minimizing fat gain while maximizing muscle gain.
If you could be in a calorie surplus for three-quarters of the year and constantly get leaner, would that appeal to you?
Today’s topic is something that ended my many, repeated unproductive cycles of crash dieting and changed my mindset to one of abundance, performance, improved body composition, a better relationship with food, and sustainable results.
You’re going to learn how to periodize your nutrition with cut and bulk cycles to get leaner and leaner by minimizing fat gain while maximizing muscle gain.
Why do we periodize our nutrition anyway? Why use so-called cut and bulk cycles?
Why not just lose a bunch of weight and then maintain? Or gain a bunch of muscle and maintain? Or gain muscle and lose fat at the same time (the holy grail known as body recomposition)?
Because our biology has thrown us a curveball. When you lose weight, you DO lose fat but you ALSO lose some muscle. Conversely, when you gain weight, you do gain muscle but also gain some fat.
Therefore, why don’t we focus intelligently on ONE GOAL AT A TIME and MAXIMIZE our results for that goal?
That’s exactly what today’s discussion is about!
RELATED LINKS
Join our Facebook community if you'd rather watch the video
MacroFactor diet sidekick (use discount code WITSANDWEIGHTS)
🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you shred fat, build strength, feel energized, and project confidence in your career and relationships without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions.
👉 Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to connect with me.
👥 To join our Facebook community for live training, free guides, free challenges, and more, just click here.
🙋♀️ HOW TO ASK A QUESTION FOR THE SHOW
👉 If you have any questions, just click here.
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:08
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable diet. I'm your host, Philip pape, and in each episode will examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition. Welcome to another episode of weights and weights. We are also streaming this live on Facebook. So if you want to watch for your future episodes live, just join our Facebook group using the link in the show notes. As always, I am your host, Philip pape, I'm the founder of Wits & Weights, nutrition coaching. And if you enjoy the show, if you enjoy the podcast or the videos and you find it valuable, educational, maybe mildly entertaining, please consider submitting a five star review for the podcast, or share the group to make sure others can find the show. And they could also benefit from the content as you have. Also, if you know someone who could use some of these strategies that we share, to work on their fitness goals, their health and fitness goals, you find an episode that they'll really enjoy, tell them about the podcast, you can take a screenshot of the episode, tagging it with some weights and post it to your story. Okay, let's jump into today's topic, which I'm very excited about, which is how to minimize fat gain and get lean using cuts and bulks. Now if I told you that you could be in a calorie surplus for most of the year for three quarters of the year, and constantly get leaner over the years, would that appeal to you? I know if I talk to my 20 something year old self, I would have found that unbelievable, but would have jumped at the chance. I just didn't know what I was doing back then. And I've learned a lot in the intervening years. So today's topic is near. And dear to me. It's something that ended many, many repeated unproductive cycles of Crash dieting. It changed my mindset to one of abundance, one of performance, improved body composition. I think it even improved my relationship with food. And of course it resulted in something sustainable that I could take with me the rest of my life. So today I'm going to show you we're going to learn how to periodize your nutrition with cut in bulk cycles to get leaner and leaner by minimizing fat gain while maximizing muscle gain. Now why do we periodized our nutrition anyway in the first place? You know why you so called cuts and bulks. Which by the way are the kind of the bro science terms that people are familiar with. I prefer to call them Fat Loss and Muscle Building phases. But cuts and bolts are easy to remember. So they're handy shortcuts that we can use. But why not lose a bunch of weight and just stay there, you know, it sounds easy, right? Lose a bunch of weight and just maintain it or gain a bunch of muscle and maintain it or gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. The Holy Grail that we call body re composition. The main reason is that our biology has thrown us a curveball. So assuming you're doing everything right, and you're past the initial newbie gains, when you lose weight, you do lose fat, but you also lose some muscle, it's just a cruel reality of life. Conversely, when you gain weight, you do gain muscle, but you also gain some fat. So again, this is if you're doing everything right, in terms of nutrition, training, and recovery. Now, this is one of the frustrating contradictions of the human body, that gaining muscle losing fat accompanies gaining fat and losing muscle. So therefore, here's the thing, why don't we just focus on one goal at a time and maximize our results for that goal. And that's exactly what today's discussion is about.
Philip Pape 04:02
So let's get some assumptions out of the way. Alright, for the purposes of today's discussion, I'm going to assume you're not brand new to this, you're not a total beginner, and that you've already dialed in to areas tracking and training. Alright, we'll explain why I will explain that if you're not there, what we can do about it first. So tracking firt The first thing is that you know how to hit a specific calorie and macro target consistently on most days. And that includes knowing what it's like to eat enough protein, right, which a lot of people don't eat enough protein. If you've never tracked before. If you haven't quite developed your consistency with this. I would focus on that before anything else. So I would work on establishing your true maintenance, your true calories where you don't gain weight based on that number of calories that you burn each day. And then dialing in the right macro balance regularly and consistently until you try to get into these. Moreover, strategies. So you can go back and listen to earlier episodes of the podcast. Or you can even reach out to me about coaching and we can help you get there. So that's tracking, the second is training. So this assumes you're already resistance training or strength training, you know how to go to the gym three, four or five days a week, on an individualized program based on progressive overload. You know how to train hard to get the proper stimulus for strength and muscle growth, you're using the proper rest periods, you're getting enough sleep. Again, if you're not training or doing it consistently, or if all you do is something like CrossFit, or lots of intense cardio or high intensity endurance base work, without strength training, using progressive overload. Or let's say you only get four hours of sleep a night and aren't recovering, go back. And let's straighten these out and nail these down. As part of our habits before we go into cuts and books. And again, we you could reach out to me anytime, I'd be happy to get you on a path to success in these areas before going to this level. But if you are educated about tracking your macros and resistance training, then everything we talked about here regarding nuts and bolts, applies to you. And if it doesn't, that's all right, enjoy it soak in the information, so you know what the future holds. But make sure to cover the basics. So with that said, let's first outline what happens when we lose weight. And when we gain weight. And then we'll get into the actionable strategies. So first, when losing weight, which is what we're going to call cutting, from now on, to imply that we are intentionally trying to cut fat, not just lose weight. Alright, so when we lose weight, when we're cutting, we lose fat, but we also lose some muscle. However, we can bias that toward losing mostly muscle, or I'm sorry, toward losing mostly fat by doing everything possible to preserve or hold on to the muscle. And to do this, we have to prioritize three things, a reasonable caloric deficit, training, and protein. So as far as the deficit, a reasonable caloric deficit, that is not too aggressive, we're talking a quarter to 1% of your body weight per week, right, and we're gonna repeat these as we go along. But a reasonable deficit. Number two, you have to be resistance training, with enough sleep for recovery. And then number three, you have to have sufficient protein. And when you're cutting sufficient proteins around a gram, per pound of your target body weight, or a little bit more than that. So let's say you are 200 pounds, that's around 200 grams of protein, maybe a little more than that. If you weigh 250, and you're trying to cut to 200, I would still use the target body weight as your baseline around 200 grams. So it's simple, right? Just don't, don't lose weight too fast. Keep training as if you can still build muscle, eat lots of protein. Easy right? Now, we're going to come back to this. Alright, so that's losing weight. Let's talk gaining weight, which we're going to call bulking from now on. to imply that we're intentionally working to pack on or bulk on muscle to gain strength and size, we don't just want to get fat, right, we want to actually gain muscle. And for the for the women listening if you prefer the word toning to bulking feel free to keep that image in your mind because that is the end result, a more lean, defined figure, because you have improved body composition, even at a higher weight. And that's what we're going to get into here. So when gaining weight, we can either gain mostly fat, or a combination of fat and muscle. So just as a hypothetical, if we wanted to gain mostly fat, which is not something that I've ever heard anyone want to do intentionally in my life, but hear me out to gain mostly fat, we need to basically live our lives, like a typical American now I'm an American. So that's that's my frame of reference, but we're talking low protein, a sedentary lifestyle, no resistance training. Alright, and I wanted to start with this premise, because it's behind what Layne Norton termed body fat overshooting. So this is where every time you lose, and then regained weight. Without protein or resistance training, you first lose some muscle, and then you primarily gain fat back. So in other words, you get fatter and fatter at the same weight over repeated cycles of dieting, where you're not eating enough protein or straight train and when I say fat, I don't mean in size, I mean body composition, meaning your body fat percentage becomes greater and greater proportion of your overall mass. So now to flip this around, if we want to maximize muscle gain, even though we're going to gain some fat, but not nearly as much, we have to prioritize three things. First, a reasonable caloric surplus that is not too aggressive. So it's just the opposite side of the coin. And reasonable means point one to a quarter percent of your weight per week. So that's about 1% per month. So now when we talked about cutting, we said it was about 1% per week. On the upside. bulking is about a quarter that rate up to 1% a month, unless you're very new to this, and you could push it a little bit more up to maybe one and a half percent a month. So that's number one. Number two is resistance training with proper sleep for recovery. And number three is sufficient protein. So when you're, when you're bulking you don't need quite as much protein as when you're cutting. But still, we hover around one gram per pound of your target body weight. So I want to focus a little on the bulking side, because I think that that is maybe the most misunderstood and feared part of transforming your body. And I think a lot of this stems from the fear we have of intentionally gaining weight, right? It's a crazy notion for most people walking around this planet that you would intentionally getting away. Crazy, right? It seems to go counter to everything society's telling us, you think of the rampant obesity epidemic. And this incessant focus on thinness, weight loss, body image, the misplaced idea that somehow skinny is sexy, all of these kind of just topsy turvy notions we have. But remember, you as the listener here are not like the average American you are resistance training, or you will be you're eating enough protein, or you will be and you are into your intelligently gaining or losing weight at a reasonable rate.
Philip Pape 11:36
And I just want to take a quick pause and think and ask you to think why do we even do this? Why do we care? Is it all vanity? Is it to look good? Is it to feel good? And by the way? There's no shame in saying yes to any or all of these? Is it to improve your health markers, your cholesterol, your blood pressure? Is it to live longer and enjoy a more functional life? Is it to be able to eat more food and not have to restrict all the time? And the answer is yes, yes to all the above and many more reasons that you might be able to come up with. So if you go through reasonable cuts and bulks, you don't gain a ton of fat, or lose a ton of muscle. There's no disadvantage from a health perspective that I am aware of in improving your body composition, I can't see a disadvantage to this. It's pretty much upside, whether you're talking aesthetics, longevity, or performance. So let's explore what happens when we intentionally eat in a surplus while we train to gain muscle. So these are this is what's going on. So you have to be aware of these facts, and then you know how to make the decisions afterwards. The first fact of life is that you will absolutely gain some fat, okay, that's just we have to just be honest about it, you are going to gain some fat while bulking, it's unavoidable unless you use a very conservative surplus. And in that case, it's going to take you years to gain muscle, if at all, which is just a losing proposition. So my guess is that you want the results a little bit faster than that, you know, not, not two decades from now. But gaining a bit of fat is okay, because it's much easier to lose the fat than the gain the muscle. So remember that kind of like it's much, it's much easier to spend your money than to earn money, right? Building muscle requires enough calories to actually produce a muscle building or what we call anabolic environment. And I want to talk about this for a second. When you're going from a cut to a bulk, it's like turning a big ship around, it takes time for the increase in calories to signal to your body that it needs to start building back strength and size. And the first two, maybe even three months is just getting back to your original baseline. After that is when you start to get the momentum of additional PRs in the gym, additional muscle mass additional size we're talking months, four or five, six. Okay? So because it takes that long, you need to eat enough. But you also need to remain in that surplus for a decent amount of time, which is about six to nine months or longer. And if you're watching this, and you were that was the answer, you were looking for that you get to bulk and eat a lot of food for a long time, then I'm telling you that's the answer. None of this, you know, bulk for three months, I feel like I'm getting fat and I'm going to do a mini cut bulk for three months I'm getting fat mini cut, that is just a hamster wheel that's going to take you nowhere. So I give you permission to bulk for a decent amount of time, about three quarters of the year longer. Here's the thing though, the longer you stay in that surplus, the more fat you'll gain. So there's some contradictory forces at play. And we need to inject these short fat loss or cutting phases the cycles between or much longer bulking cycles to strip off that that, but without threatening too much muscle loss, because that's the other side of the coin people get caught in is cutting for too long. So based on how the math works out, that's about a two to one to four to one ratio of bulking to cutting, depending on how lean you want to get and how quickly. So if you're bulking for six to nine months, you would cut for about three months. Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story, or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful, and how I can improve again, and incredible. Thank you for supporting the podcast, and enjoy the rest of the episode. Alright, so now let's talk about a few mistakes people make. The first mistake I alluded to already is not bulking long enough. You know, you notice the belt getting a little tighter, you notice the pants are a bit tight, your abs disappear, you start to freak out, you look in the mirror. And of course, we're our worst critic, and we just absolutely don't like what we see. And we say we need to cut. But when you do that, when you cut prematurely, you just don't give your body enough time in that anabolic environment. And then you end up just wasting all those months to get basically no results.
Philip Pape 16:27
The second mistake is the other end of the spectrum, which is bulking too aggressively. So earlier, I mentioned that you have to bulk at a reasonable rate of about point one to a quarter percent body weight per week, which is half to 1% per month. And if you're less advanced, you can push it a little faster to maybe one and a half percent per month. But any faster than that. And you're just gonna gain more fat, pure and simple. You can't speed up the muscle building process. Some people try to do it things like dreamer box where you go on the seafood diet and you eat everything you see. Or, you know, the bodybuilding lore of quick gains. But a lot of these guys are taking drugs. So neither of those apply to us, we need to go to reasonable rate. So we don't add too much fat, but we maximize muscle gain. And then the opposite is true that if you try to do a lean gain, we've probably heard that phrase lean gain and you're barely in a caloric surplus, it's just going to take forever, we talked about that before. And then you're still not going to get results. So we've covered what happens when you cut in bulk. We've covered the importance of training hard, eating enough protein using a reasonable rate of change. So what do we do with this information? All right, I want to walk you through an actionable process that we can follow. So the first step is to pick a lower and upper body fat percentage, where you feel comfortable, that you're going to stay within for your cut in bulk cycles. So we talked about the fact that you should already be training and tracking. But let's say you're still quite a bit overweight, you haven't quite gotten in, in view of your eventual settling point for the weight you want to be at. Alright, so you you want to you want to eventually get there. Alright, so let's say you're 250. And you really want to hover between 150 and 200, we're gonna have to spend time cutting for a while doing maintenance phases to reverse out of that cut, cutting some more and continuing back and forth until we get down to that, that lean range that we want to be in. So that's kind of outside the scope of today's discussion, and it's a little bit more of a beginner thing. That's where I would start my clients who have weight to lose, I wouldn't get them in the cuts and books, they have that actually favorable store of body fat already to work from that allow them to get some body recomp going. But we're not talking about that scenario. So let's assume you if you're a male, you're in spitting distance of 20% body fat, which is kind of slightly fluffy, I guess we can call it or, you know, you're starting to get where it's maybe a slightly unhealthy weight, but not really. So and for females, we would add about 10%. And then you pick the low end that you'd be comfortable going to without getting to a point where you're starving yourself or feeling like you're suffering. And that's usually between 10 and 20%. For me again for males just add 10% For females, but you might want a tighter window like 12 to 18% So meaning first step is to pick the range of body fat you want to settle within. And if this is your first time don't aim for body builder level leanness don't try to go sub 10% if you're male, alright, just pick something like 12 or 13%. Now, what does this look like if you don't want to measure if you don't want to use tools like that or devices? Just pick the level at where you might see your abs. That that's a good Good point, right and that that's a good measure for most people. And then on the other end, it's the level where you just feel like you're starting to get a little fat. I mean, let's use subjective things. This is all about what works for us, and works within our lifestyle, and something that we think we can live with. So we're not trying to use DEXA scans and you know, bod pods and water dunk tanks here. Now, I would use progress photos first. But if you're into data and you're into measurements, I would suggest googling the Navy formula, where you can just use a few tape measurements to measure your body fat percentage, and then track it over time. And I wouldn't trust the number, but I would definitely trust the trend. So you know, when you get to the leanest you want to be, and when you get to the heaviest you want to be, you'll kind of have a good idea of what that body fat percentage is for you. So that's, that's step one, I spent a lot long time talking about it. But the goal is to pick a range, it might be 12, to 18%, that you want to live within.
Philip Pape 21:01
The next thing you're going to do is cut to your lower target. So if you're currently a 16%, body fat and your targets 12, you know, your target is I want to see my abs, then you cut to that point, okay, and again, not like totally ripped and jacked and striated with vascularity, but I can see my abs. And so what are we going to do? Well, we're going to use a rate of a quarter to 1% of your body weight per week, like we've mentioned multiple times. Now, depending on how fast you want to lose it, how long you want it to take, how much you have to lose, and how few calories you can handle in your diet within your lifestyle. So we're gonna go with a simple example. Again, this is all from a male perspective. But same thing applies for females, let's say you weigh 180, and you want to lose 10 pounds to get to that 12%. And we're gonna pick half a percent a week, kind of in the middle. So that's about a 12 week cut, three month cut, which is totally reasonable. So you're gonna lose 10 pounds over three months. Alright, so now you are at your baseline leanness, here's where the fun begins. And now we can begin the bulk. Right. And the bulk should be anywhere from six to nine months or longer at something like a quarter percent body weight per week. But there's there's a caveat I want to talk about real quick here. When you go from a cut to a bulk, and this trips, a lot of people up, you will gain around five pounds in the first few weeks. And if you've never done this before, you won't, you won't, you might freak out, right. And if you have done it, you'll be used to it. But you've got fluid retention, glycogen, gut content, just from all those extra calories coming in. Now, if you use an app like macro factor, which is the food login app, I use, shameless plug discount code, WITSANDWEIGHTS, go download it, the algorithm in that app is designed to accommodate these fluctuations, so you don't really have to game the system or anything. And you can use something like the moving average of your weight, and then push past your goal weight. So if your goal is to gain 10 pounds, you're really going to push to like 184 185 on the scale, where the average has gotten up to about 180. Okay, that 10 pounds, so I'm throwing a lot of numbers at you. But just to simplify, you've gone from 170. Okay, you're gonna bulk for 26 weeks, which is six months. And accounting for that initial weight bump, which you kind of ignore, meaning you're trying to gain 10 pounds on top of that weight bump, you'll be at around 184 pounds. All right, now think about it, we started at 180, we got down to 170. To start. Now we're back up to 184, it's a little bit higher than where we were before the cut. And really, it's about the same because you have that extra weight. However, a good chunk of that 14 pounds, maybe three to six pounds, maybe a little more, if you're newer is muscle. Okay, that's the key here you are training hard, you eat enough protein, most of that a lot of that weight gain is muscle versus the average person who just over eats in their day to day sedentary life, it's all fat. So now you've gained maybe three to six, seven pounds of muscle and then the rest of its fat. Now we go the other direction, we're going to cut for three months. Okay, and after you've cut for three months, you're going to be a leaner version of yourself and likely at a higher weight. And now this kind of blows people's want people's minds as well when you think of the math but if you are here to start and you're here afterward, but more of that is muscle, then the percentage of the weight that's muscle is higher, therefore the percentage of fat is lower. So you've you've actually gained some fat and a lot of muscle as you bulk. And then when you cut you don't really lose muscle but you lose some fat right. So your overall you know addition of the two gets you to be slightly heavier than you were before. But you're at a leaner body fat percentage. That's how you look leaner. So you started at 170. Over nine months, you went from 170, to maybe 175. But all that five pounds, or most of it was muscle. Right. So it's kind of like magic, it's waving a magic wand. And there you go. extra muscle on your frame. It took nine months, but it was a fun nine months, because most of it you got to eat, that that's the part I enjoy, eat and train and make progress in the gym, right? So throughout the nine months, your weight fluctuated by somewhere around 15, maybe 20 pounds. And if you do this slightly more aggressively, or if you're a larger person, you could fluctuate by as much as 20 to 30 pounds. But the end result. And this is what we're looking for. The end result is you're adding desirable health promoting muscle tissue to your frame.
Philip Pape 25:59
Pretty cool, right? Alright, some final thoughts and things to watch out for. Alright, so I'm just kind of doing a lessons learned here to make sure we've covered everything. The first one is that I wouldn't go much beyond the body fat level you feel comfortable with, and is healthy for metabolic markers like blood pressure and cholesterol. And this is probably around the low 20 percents for males. And you'll know this if you get regular bloodwork. And I encourage you to do that don't just wait for your annual physical or if you don't get an annual physical and it's been years, I would get bloodwork it's pretty inexpensive. Get it when you're at your leanest, and get it when you're heavier. And you will see how these numbers change. And why it's important to kind of stay in that healthy weight range. So I wouldn't go much beyond that unless you have a specific goal, like you're a power lifter, and you need to push it for performance purposes. But then you're going to cut it, I would stay around that upper limit, or no more than the upper limit. The next thing is, as we've talked about, on other episodes, metabolic adaptation, so metabolic adaptation sets in at the extremes of both cutting and bulking, right, so when you cut, and you cut, and you cut and cut, and you start to get really lean, your metabolism just starts to drop, no matter what I mean, you have to put in a lot of steps, maybe get more active, and it just keeps dropping, dropping, dropping to the calories are just unsustainable. Again, unless you're a bodybuilder. But the opposite happens when you're walking, your metabolism actually starts to climb, climb, climb, and you get eventually get to the point you're like, I can't even eat another, you know, piece of food today, how can I possibly 30 504,040 500 calories. So we're trying to avoid these points of diminishing returns again, unless you're an athlete with a specific goal. Now, if you like making gains in the gym, raise your hand. If you like making gains in the gym, it's much more fun to be in a nice long, steady bulk for three quarters of the year or longer. And then, and then you can get the cut over quickly. Here's a little hack. All right, to make this all work even better. Consider timing these cycles so that your bulk overlaps the indulgent part of the year the in the US it's the end of the year holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, my birthday happens to be in October. So bam, I've got three straight months of enjoyment when it comes to food within my plan and per my, my calories and macros and all that. But if I time my bulk at that time of year, it's it's less restrictive than if I were trying to cut it that time of year. And then you could have your cut coincide with the spring going into summer, or vice versa in the southern hemisphere for my friends down in Australia, right and that's if you're going for that six pack look or whatever, you just want to feel better for the beach. Again, no shame in that. And then there's a lot we didn't cover today. There's a lot of nuances like carbon protein timing, distributing protein throughout your day for muscle protein synthesis, a lot of nuances that we cover them in other episodes. We'll cover them in this community. And of course, again, a shameless plug a good coach can help with all of those as well. Alright, so let's recap to make a long story that hopefully wasn't too rambling and you found valuable. Let's make it short here. All right, number one, train hard. Always train hard, pretty much train hard the rest of your life. It's fun. Once you get used to it, you get good at it. You're just gonna feel great. And of course it helps you build muscle train hard. Number two, get enough sleep.
Philip Pape 29:43
This is like the most neglected aspect of nutrition in my opinion. Even I struggle with this a lot because we don't give it as much credit as it deserves. But getting enough sleep. Number three eat your protein. Roughly one gram per pound of your target body weight. You know you could you You can play games with this and find perfect numbers. But that's that's the ballpark number four. Cut until you're reasonably lean. Do you like what you see in the mirror? Are you comfortable with yourself? Are you at a level where the calories are okay, you know, whatever your goal is, get to that point of leanness. And then you start your bulk. So that's number five bulk for at least six months, at a quarter to 1% per week. Number six, you then cut for around three months at point one to a quarter percent per week, rinse and repeat, become strong, become lean, conquer the world. All right. So that's what I have for you today. Last but not least, if you are interested in getting accountability, and support to finally achieve, and not just achieve, but sustain your results. I do offer one on one coaching where we can develop an individualized plan just for you to help you improve body composition. Like we talked about today, with all the nuances for you. You can DM me on Instagram or Facebook and go to witsandweights.com/coaching. And the way it works, it's a six month program. Because we need that time to establish the foundation for success. We want to get you going on these periodized phases so that you can learn to keep those results for the rest of your life. It includes nutrition, and lifestyle coaching weekly check ins by recorded video, weekly live called Office Hours access to our Private Client Group live training calls and 24/7 Unlimited direct message access to me. So you can ask me questions whenever you need to. And then best of all, here's the thing I guarantee that if you don't achieve results by the end of six months, I will work with you absolutely for free until you do, because that's how confident I am. That we will get it done. We'll get it done together. So again, just DM me on Instagram at Woods and weights or Facebook, or go to witsandweights.com/coaching The process is quick and easy. I asked a few questions, see if we're a good fit to work together. Your situation has to work with the type of clients I'm able to help and if it is, I'll invite you to join my coaching program and we'll get started. If you found this helpful, if you have any questions, just comment on the video, click the link in the show notes or email me at Philip at witsandweights.com and stay strong. Thank you so much for joining me today. Before you go I do have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast, just let me know by leaving a review in Apple podcasts. This will help others find the podcast in search results, which makes a huge difference. Thanks again for joining me, your host Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.
Ep 22: How to FINALLY Achieve (and Keep) Your Fat Loss and Fitness Results
This episode is all about achieving LASTING results: finding that place where you no longer have to yo-yo diet, jump from one program to another, or feel like the only way to success is severe calorie restriction, excessive cardio, or short-term transformations.
This episode is all about achieving LASTING results: finding that place where you no longer have to yo-yo diet, jump from one program to another, or feel like the only way to success is severe calorie restriction, excessive cardio, or short-term transformations.
If what you’ve tried before just has NOT worked, maybe it’s time to engage the help of another person.
Someone who can hold you accountable, give you some extrinsic motivation to help you build momentum and develop new, sustainable habits, so you can finally achieve the weight loss, muscle building, and body recomposition goals you desire and MAINTAIN them for the long term.
Yes, I’m talking about working with a coach, especially one who understands nutrition.
We are going to make the distinction between effective and not-so-effective coaching and why you might (or might NOT) actually need a coach for your particular situation.
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🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:08
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable diet. I'm your host, Philip pape, and in each episode will examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition. Welcome to Episode 22 of Wits & Weights. Before we get started, as always, if you enjoy the show, if you find it valuable. If you find it educational, entertaining, maybe it's given you some clarity, some aha moments, just consider submitting a five star review on for the podcast on Apple. And anywhere else you listen to it, make sure others can find the show and benefit from the content as you have. Also, if you know someone who could benefit from some of the nutritional and training strategies we share to help them accomplish their goals. Tell them about the podcast, you can just take a screenshot of the episode, tag me at Wits & Weights and post it to your story. Now this episode today is all about achieving lasting results. Finding that place where you no longer have to yo yo diet, jump from one program to another or feel like the only way to success is something like severe calorie restriction, or excessive cardio or short term 21 or 30 Day transformations. If what you've tried before, just has not worked. Maybe it's time to engage the help of another person, someone who can hold you accountable, give you some extrinsic motivation to help you build momentum and develop new sustainable habits. So you can finally achieve weight loss, muscle building and the body composition goals that you desire. And more importantly maintain them for the long term. So yes, I am talking about working with a coach, especially one who understands nutrition because nutrition will drive your weight loss. But nutrition plus resistance training plus a correct approach will drive muscle gain, muscle preservation, fat loss, and transformation in body composition that you can sustain, maintain and tweak and manipulate through the rest of your life without all of these crazy short term fixes. So today, we're going to make the distinction between effective and not so effective coaching, and why you might or might not actually need a coach for your particular situation. So first, let's put on the table all those things that a good coach does not do. If you're looking for a coach or coaching program right now, these are the telltale signs to run the other way. All right. So the first sign of a red flag for a coaching program is someone who is a macro planner. Basically, they give you calories macros, and say go for it, I wish you well. And I'll check in every week or I'll check in every month and I'll give you new macros and you're good to go. Now you can get this online from a template, you can get them for free, you can calculate themselves, calculate it yourselves. But macros are maybe 0.1% of what a good coach spends their time on with you. It's a an important piece. But it's a tiny piece. When it comes to my own clients, for example, I have most of them using macro factor, which is a food logging app. It's my favorite app, I use it myself. And that crunches a lot of the numbers in terms of your macros and calories and calculate your expenditure so that neither they nor I have to spend too much time on something a robot can do and something algorithm can do. What's more important is what is the target weight, what is our rate of weight loss or weight gain? Right?
Philip Pape 04:09
Those are the things we have to figure out to then plug into the app to get the macros. And then it's all the other 99% of things like accountability, consistency, special situations, and and the non food related items surrounding nutrition, including lifestyle changes. So if all you're getting is macros, then run the other way. The second thing that a nutrition coach is not is a meal planner. And this might surprise some of you but there's a distinction between nutritionists and dietitians versus nutrition coaches, which is what I am I'm a nutrition coach. There There are practical differences and there are also in some cases, legal or certification differences. Now a dietitian or nutritionist can prescribe you what to eat on Nutrition coach will suggest structures for meals and maybe give you sample meal plans. But more importantly, they're gonna help you decide what foods from all the variety that's out there can be put together in a way that fits your lifestyle that fits your goals, and at meats, your macros, and all the other things we're trying to satisfy. But without just saying, Here, eat this. And to me, that's a much more sustainable approach. One where you learn to fish rather than being given a fish. In this case, literally, since we're talking food. So a good nutrition coach is not simply a meal planner. The next thing you want to watch out for is a coach who they might seem like an expert, but they're always telling you to do something, because they're an expert, because they say so, you know, kinda like when you were a kid, and your parents said, Do this, because I say so. And he said, Well, why? And stop asking too many questions. Well, you don't want a coach like that, right? You want a coach who will explain why they're there telling you what to do. And more importantly, a good coach doesn't tell you what to do a good coach doesn't even try to convince you. A good coach says, Here are the options. And here's the science behind why these things might work for your situation. Now, what would you like to do? And and in some cases, and I do this with certain clients, who are, you know, a lot more educated in the space, I'll say, Well, what do you think you should do? And sort of let them grind through the mental gears and see if they can come up with an idea that might work because that results in a much more buy in accountability, consistency. So avoid the do it because I say so type coach, the next thing to watch out for is an extreme calorie restriction plan. If you just start with a coach, and in week one, all right, we're doing a 1200 calorie diet, we're going to lose a ton of weight. And we're going to have our before and after photo 21 days later, fat loss transformation posted on Instagram Client Testimonial, more business. Go out there and good luck. So you've seen them, they're all over the internet, the transformation type coaches, and usually they involve getting you right into a significant caloric deficit. And this is so damaging to so many people, because you don't know where the person is coming from in terms of their relationship with food, their dieting, history, and most most importantly, where their metabolism is today. Are they at a at a balanced state of homeostasis of their daily expenditure? And do they have all the other things in place that you need from a healthy balanced standpoint before you then stress the body with a caloric restriction or a caloric deficit? Which, hey, that is what is required to lose weight and lose fat. But at least for my clients, we first have to understand, are we getting enough protein? Are we getting enough steps? Are we strength training? Are we getting enough sleep getting enough water are the other stressors in our life that we can mitigate, reduce to an extent that supports a fat loss plan, all of these things have to be in place, so that you can then go into fat loss from a higher number of calories, a more balanced hormonal state, you know, the minimum stressors on your body as possible, because fat loss itself will be a stressor, and then we can manage it conservatively, over a reasonable length of time, and get you the results you're looking for. That can be sustained. Okay, the next thing to avoid is similar to that. And that is a coach that markets themselves purely on these short term transformations or challenges. Now I'm not I'm not against challenges, if they kind of motivate a group of people to do something over a certain period like a step challenge, but where the challenge is not individualized, and causes you to make decisions that are harmful to your health. That's where I have the problem. So watch out for those. Then there's the set it and forget it type of coach, the coach who says here's, here's your master grand plan, Here's your water, your steps, your nutrition, etc. Here's your training program. Now go forth and conquer. I've done my job. Good luck, right? A good coach should be there with you as a guide every step of the way, constantly making adjustments, so you can then hit your results, and then maintain them. And then finally, watch out for a coach who lives on templates. You know, the coach who has programs on their website and then when you sign up, they basically funnel you to premade downloadable templates, whether it's meal plans or training programs. No, I'm not against a coach having templates in their arsenal that can be pulled out for individualized As circumstances so like if you have a certain goal for training, and a coach has developed 20 different programs, well, they might select from one of those programs as a baseline for your training, that's different, that's an individualized approach still, and a coach just happens to be intelligent about running their business and efficient, and you want somebody who's on top of it like that, who has the experience, and has put that into writing, to help their clients. And we'll watch out for someone who thrives only on templates. Alright, so through that discussion, you probably have an idea of some of the things that a good coach does, let's get into how working with a good nutrition coach can help you. So you can decide whether coaching is something you need to achieve long term sustainable results. Now, this is in no particular order. It's more of a list that I put together based on what my clients have shared with me about their experiences. The first way that good coach can help you is when what you've tried before on your own has not worked. You've tried keto, or the carnivore diet, you've tried a bodybuilding program, you've tried cardio, you've tried steps, whatever you've tried, and it just hasn't worked either. Either it worked in the short term, and then you couldn't keep it up, because you're restricting a whole macronutrient like carbs, or the training was having you go to the gym seven days a week for 90 minutes doing bodybuilding programs, and you're just burned out, right, whatever you've tried hasn't worked. And what you're looking for, is to get lasting results, not just short term results, you want a system that you can apply, let's say a set of principles that you can apply, anytime, in any given situation for the rest of your life. And, at least that's my approach. I mean, when I work with clients, I want them at the end of our six months working together to basically be able to coach other people at that point if they wanted to, to have the amount of knowledge education, practical experience, to hold themselves and others accountable, if that's what they want, they can obviously continue working with with a coach if that's optimal for them. But I want them to feel that the results they got are just the beginning of a lifetime of applying those same habits and practices that are now in place that you don't even have to think about, and you'll be able to get results. So that's that's one of the biggest reasons to get a coach, you've been floundering for years, maybe going through yo yo diets, whatever it is. Maybe it's just you know, family has caught up with you work stress life, and like kind of lost, wondering what to do, a coach can just get you zoned in really quickly. And then within you know, a few short weeks to a few short months, depending on you know how many behaviors we need to work on, really get you accelerated to a point where you can take those forward for the rest of your life. Now, the next thing about a good coach is and we alluded to this in the beginning, individualized recommendations. I mean, that is that is huge, right? The reason you're going to a coach is the opposite of why you would just go by a program, a program is pre made, and is intended for you to hold yourself accountable. But also to somehow apply it to your situation. A coach is a human being who talks to you, who listens, who understands what you want, what you like, what you're able to do, what your environment is, who's supporting you, what your gym equipment looks like, what kind of food you do, or do not like what perhaps even some some medical conditions you have, but medical disclaimer, we are not doctors and do not give medical advice. But we do want to work around issues you have safely and productively. So a good coach is a human being who can provide individualized recommendations and adjustments and not just macros or a template.
Philip Pape 14:19
The next thing is consistency. Right? And you've probably heard it said that don't let perfection be the enemy of the good. That is if you try to do things perfectly, and then slightly missed that perfection for a day. Like let's say you're over on your macros by 50 calories. You say Ah, what the hell, I'm over by 50 Now, let me just go over by 500 and just you know, enjoy myself. And then the next day you wake up you say Well, yesterday was shot so the whole week is shot versus consistency, which is I'm going to do my best every day. And I'm going to get close. I may not be on target in fact with my clients I'm always trying to remind them that, you know, even though we have a macro target, I'm not looking for them to hit that right on point with zero delta, right? We're trying to get in the ballpark, in fact, within within 20% is fine. Because, you know, experience shows that just doing the tracking every day, or just doing the training program, you know, your three days a week, and showing up is 90% of the equation 95%. And that's consistency. Now, if you're trying to hold yourself accountable, this is where it's very challenging life throws curveballs at you all the time. And a coach is this person on your shoulder that can tap you every day and say, Hey, did you do what we talked about? You know, we talked about this plan, and you're not going to get results unless you do this. So I really need you to commit and do it. And if you don't find you didn't do it. Okay, what about today, it's a new day, it's a reset, are we going to do today. And then if if you have a string of these challenges, the coach is going to do their check in with you or they're live call. This is what I do with my clients and say, Hey, let's let's talk about this. What is in our way from being consistent, right, let's address that. Let's not talk about blame, or you know, your bad person or anything like that, let's understand how we can change the process the system, the environment, to make it easier for you to be consistent. So we don't have any excuses. And it's not all on us and our willpower and discipline. So that's consistency, which then leads to the next thing, accountability. Accountability is the idea of knowing that there's someone you have to report to or look up to, or you don't even you don't want to disappoint. And I hate to put it that way, right. But a lot of my clients have have used those words that, hey, if it wasn't for having a coach, knowing that a coach is looking for me to achieve something, I might not do it on my own. I might not, maybe I would maybe I wouldn't. And this is where it comes down to the guidance from a coach the consistency every day to the point where you develop internal habits, meaning the coaches and external force, right, the coach is providing external accountability. But the idea is that with enough external accountability, and repetition, and consistency, it gets converted into internal habits, not not internal accountability, per se, because again, that accountability implies that you're actively thinking about doing something to please yourself or others. No, it's more like this is just what I do. And to not do, it would take effort. And that's where we want to get.
Philip Pape 17:56
Okay, so along with that accountability comes the guidance of the coach. And a good coach will recognize when you're maybe struggling in a particular area, like I have clients who every single one of them has a different thing that they struggle with, even if they're on point with macros, and training and water and steps and everything. There's always something where I can nudge them in a slightly different direction. Okay, so the next thing about a working with a coach, why you may or may not want to work with a coach is the commitment, right? And I think this is tied in with accountability and consistency. But if you're accountable to someone who gets you to be consistent, you then build momentum and commitment toward these sustainable lifelong habits. All right, the next thing is an interesting one. And that has to do with food specifically. I've seen with clients who work with a coach myself included a improved relationship with food. I think a lot of people in in the western world particularly with the food environment, the what they call the obesogenic environment of hyper palatable processed foods, junk food, fast food, you know, even what seems like quote unquote healthy food but but it's made with a lot of fat and sugar or something because it's it's in a restaurant where they're trying to appeal to your taste. We put food into these buckets. We use labels, we talk about foods as good foods, bad foods, I mean, even the word junk food has that has that implication. We talk about clean, right versus dirty foods. And when you work with a coach, a good coach, something not someone who's just giving you a macro plan or prescription but who helps you understand the variety of amazing choices out there in the world. Everything from the whole foods to the processed foods, because yes, you can enjoy some processed foods in your diet. You can enjoy alcohol, you can enjoy candy. I mean, honestly, if there's something that you absolutely just love, and enjoy ice cream, you know, ice cream is my advice. It can fit into your diet in a small in small, reasonable amounts. And we talk a lot about restriction versus restraint, right? restriction is, no, no, no, I can't eat this, I can't have this macronutrient I can't eat this food, this foods, this thing is bad. And restraint is saying, I can choose from this whole cornucopia of foods out there. And depending on my goal, I simply learn to choose what serves my goal in the moment, if it's fat loss, if it's muscle gain, and I restrain myself from going crazy, right, I restrain myself from just eating massive quantities of foods because I'm tracking, I'm paying attention to quantities that satisfy me that that helped with my hunger signals that helped me feel good that helped me perform in the gym. It's all these things that footwear, food serves us they serve as fuel. And that relationship with food, we start to improve through coaching, because we allow for the flexibility to eat just about anything, but we learn restraint. We learn, you know, quantities, we learn balance, and things like that, that for the long term then gives us that sigh of relief that you know what I am confident that when I go to this party on Saturday, and when I go to the bar with my friends that I can prepare for this, and I know what I'm doing. And I know that I can have things that are indulgent, and that are part of my life that I enjoy. But I'm gonna have reasonable restraint, I'm going to track or I'm actually or I'm going to learn about, you know what works with my body. So a better relationship with food is a huge thing for some people and I know a lot of people are striving for, for getting past the dieting mentality. Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share to your Instagram story, or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful, and how I can improve again, and incredible. Thank you for supporting the podcast, and enjoy the rest of the episode.
Philip Pape 22:33
All right, the next reason that you might work with a coach is if you have specific needs. So specific goals like athletes, if you're a CrossFit athlete, or power lifter, or a marathoner, if you have physique goals, it could it doesn't have to be a bodybuilding show, it could simply be you're trying to improve your physique, you want to look better. I mean, there's no shame in that whatsoever. I think just about every human, I can say this safely, wants to feel and look good, just a matter as a matter of, of biology of being a physical human operating in a world that requires you to move and lift things and play with your kids. And, you know, hug your spouse and run in, you know, for an event, etcetera, right? Go swimming, all these things. And then as you get older, be able to get up out of a chair. It makes sense. So and you notice that I'm tying sort of the functional longevity and living with the physique, because a lot of these things are tied together, even if we don't pursue them. At the same time, we don't necessarily pursue aesthetics, at the same time as we pursue performance. They kind of spiral into each other. You might be a super busy working professional. This is a type of client that I often work with is somebody who's an engineer, doctor, lawyer, business owner, executive, who doesn't have a ton of time to figure all this stuff out to experiment. And they just want to understand how to integrate all this into their lifestyle. You might be a busy parent might travel a lot. So all these specific needs a good coach can help work around and help him be successful. All right. The next thing there are benefits about working with a coach is a safe judgment free environment. A coach is your advocate is supporting you, they are completely in your corner. And when you have conversations with them, you get into some personal things, right? You get into, you know, female clients, we might talk about their cycle we might talk about. We might talk about libido, we might talk about that not just female clients with males as well. Relationships, things like that, like things you wouldn't necessarily associate with nutrition, but they have to do with people goals they have to do with things that you experienced throughout the month hunger and perform changes in performance and the way you look and feel. And I'm not in a position to want to make you feel bad about any of that stuff. Whereas someone else, even a good friend, definitely people in your family may have I don't say ulterior motives, but you know, they're not coming to it from the same lens, they may have their own opinions and are strong and wording those opinions to you. Alright, so having a coach can get you an environment that you can just let go. Be honest, fully transparent. Reveal All your all the issues you have, and then try to come up with solutions to address those. All right, a good coach, another thing a good coach can do is help you cut through the noise and focus on the biggest thing first, you know, this is a form of triage or prioritization, with all the things that we have to think about for fitness and nutrition, and there are a lot of things, sleep, stress, hunger, training, you know, what you eat, when you eat, how much you eat, protein. All those things, a coach can say, You know what, let's, let's not worry about all of that stuff. Let's focus on this one thing this week. If you're not getting enough protein, we're not going to go ahead and pile on a new training program, a fat loss phase and all these other things until we get enough protein. So let's focus on protein. And, and it might be even more fundamental than that, maybe you just don't know how or what foods have a lot of protein. And so we work on educating you on
Philip Pape 26:45
you know, we go to the grocery store, let's break it up. Right, we have dairy, we have meat, we have eggs, and then we have some some process forms of protein as well. Let's structure that into your day and figure out what tomorrow looks like. Figure out what the some people call macro Tetris, how it all comes together, don't even worry about the calories, carbs, fat, let's just focus on protein. And if we can get you a good solid week, where you're say 100 grams protein a day, and your goal is 150. But you're at 100. And then next week, you average 125 Every day, and then you're at 150. For a few weeks all now we've dialed in that habit, and we can move to the next thing. So a good coach can help with that. And by the way, all these things that I'm telling you about sounds like a big sales pitch for a coach. But they're also things that you might consider in your own life. Like, if you feel overwhelmed, can you step back and prioritize the list of things you're trying to get done for your nutrition. And just pick the one that you can start with today in tweaking and moving toward the right direction, right before you go to the next thing. So it's, it's a very time tested habit building approach. Alright, the next reason you would want to work with a coach and when a coach can be helpful is expertise. A good coach is a subject matter expert, you know, you you are the expert in yourself, right. So don't let a coach think that they know you more than you. But a good coach will know a lot about nutrition, you know, good nutrition coach, and they're always learning, right? So look for a coach who has a passion for learning about these things, they will not have all the answers, that is a fact. Right. But the more they work with clients, the more they learn, and if they're immersed in educating themselves and helping you understand and learning to explain and coach you on things, then the more valuable they'll be to you over time. So ask questions of your coach, you know, test them a bit on certain areas, no matter how nuanced they are, and see how they respond, see if you know they are the type who acts like they know it all. But don't really have a grasp of it. And and won't say I don't know, versus someone who will say I don't know, and also seems to have a good grasp of, you know, basic and advanced nutrition concepts. All right. So another benefit of a coach that maybe isn't thought of as much is that you as the client, basically receive an education, it's like going to school for actually a lot less money than if you paid for tuition. Right? So this is one of those areas where, what is the real value you're getting out of having a coach now getting this as a good coach, a good coach over as little as a one month period working with them. You should you should learn more in that month than you probably knew learned in the past year, 510 years or maybe your entire life, about nutrition. And that is really one of the values of having a coach because after you know three to six months, you'll be really set up for success for the rest of your life just because of the knowledge you've gained. Eight, let alone the behaviors, actions and results. Okay. And that's the approach I like to take with clients is really helping them understand. That's why we have group calls, educational calls, this is why I'm going to have live trainings going forward. This is why we have, you know, office hours for my clients, whenever they want to have questions. This is why we have 24/7, direct message access, things like that, because I want them to understand what what's going on here. Okay, the next reason you might want to work with a coach is because you're lazy. No. And I mean that as a compliment. I consider myself a lazy person in the in the sense that I like to be efficient. I like to take shortcuts that work, right. And I think we I think we all do, let's just be honest, nobody wants to do things the hard way, even though some things are hard to get results, but we want to do them efficiently. So a coach can give you those shortcuts from day one. Right? You may have been struggling with something for months or years. And then the coach comes in and says, Hmm, well, you know, I see here, you really love your protein. And maybe we can shift some of that protein into carbs and get you the energy you need for your workouts that you're struggling with. Right? Because you've been feeling kind of sluggish, even though you're in a surplus. But it looks like we can give you some more carbs here. And I think that might help, you know, let's try it out.
Philip Pape 31:24
And then you're like, Oh, my goodness, I never even thought of that. I always thought I had to have all this protein. And you do have to have a nice amount of protein. Let's not forget that. But you know, I have way more protein than I really, really need. And now I can give some of that up to carbs and that kind of shortcut I'd never even thought about, right. And I could give a million other examples. But whatever your situation is, take advantage of a coach for that like on day one, come out with your your weirdest, toughest problems, and see if the coach has a solution for you right off the bat. Right? Couldn't hurt. All right, the next thing where a coach can help you is that they can cut through the complexity. And this is similar to some of what we've talked about, you know, with the shortcuts in the education, the expertise. But there's a lot because macros, stress, sleep hydration, timing, training, recovery, on and on. And it's very complex. And there's a ton of science, and there's a ton of bunk. There are fitness influencers, spewing things that are completely wrong. But every now and then one of them is right. And a good coach will break it down, will be on top of the research. A good coach listens to podcasts, read books, talks to other coaches goes to Coach trick coaching, training, and can break down any one of these topics for you. meal timing. Okay, let's talk about meal timing. Let's understand your goal. Are you okay? You're a marathoner. Excellent. We know we need to have a lot of carbs. And there's going to be a training protocol as we peak toward event. So here's how we're going to structure meals. And this is why this is what the evidence shows. And by the way, here's the research study, if you care, you know if a client wants that, right. And you might be surprised at what you learn, you might be surprised that the conventional wisdom has been out to lunch for years, or what all the bros have been saying is exactly what you should be doing. Alright, another thing about working with a coach, and this is related to the subject matter expert idea is that they have access to lots of resources, that will probably take you significant time to gather or find, you know, for example, I have access to lots of detailed manuals about gut health and hormones. Most people when they think, you know, hormones, what happens to hormones, when you lose weight, you'd have to do a lot of research, a lot of reading, read a lot of articles, and it's still very complicated information. Coaches have access to a lot of these resources, have access to other coaches have access to lots of groups, that they belong in a good coach at least, and they can bring that to bear to help you out. So you know, don't discount that value of a coach. And related to this, a coach can help you explore unique issues, okay, we're not talking medical issues. That's what a doctor's for, but we're talking about things like gut health and hormones, men's and women's health in terms of how nutrition can balance these things out. Right. Again, we're not diagnosing or treating conditions, we're just applying good nutritional practices, which may help with various issues you might be experiencing. Okay, this is a long list, I realized, but you know, it's long because it it is long, there are a lot of reasons that a coach can help. And you may be hearing all this and saying, you know, I don't need any of this. I can go on my own. And that's awesome. And if you do that, maybe you'd be a great coach. But the next thing about a good coach is that they help teach you sustainable practices. For fill in the blank, keeping your weight off, integrating healthy habits, behaviors, gaining muscle, you know, going through cut and bulk cycles if you're performance focused. And by sustainable, I mean just that things that you can sustain for years and for the rest of your life. And then the final thing I'm going to mention about working with a good coach is, they can save you a lot of money. Now, this, this sounds crazy, because a good coach is going to going to cost you
Philip Pape 35:34
a decent amount, let's just put it that way, right, depending on the coach, you know, unless it's a macro plan or a template type coach, but a good coach, if you consider the time that they're going to put in every month with you is going to cost a decent amount of investment. But this is an investment in yourself that avoids lots of other opportunity costs or, or, you know, money being thrown down the drain, think about all the things you've tried over the years that haven't worked, and how much money you put into those time and money, right. And time has a value as well. So and that money could have gone towards supplements that are ineffective books, courses, maybe previous coaches that were just not effective coaches. And, and they'll project that forward and say, Hmm, if I invested in myself for six months with a really good coach, and now I'm set for life, what is that worth saving in saving, have not been successful over the next six months. So I think there's a good argument to be made there. All right. The last thing I want to mention is that if you are interested in getting accountability, and support to finally achieve and sustain your results, I have a one on one coaching program, obviously, you guys know I'm a coach and talk about that. You can DM me on Instagram at Wits & Weights, or Facebook or you can go to wits & weights.com/coaching. Now, this is a six month program, because we need time to establish your foundation for long term success. And this is about keeping results. Right? We you can't do that in one month. And even three months is a bit sporty although we could we could accelerate for three months. But six months is the sweet spot to learn all the things you need to learn to restore your metabolism to lose weight or gain muscle depending on your goal. And come out of at the other end with something that integrates well into your life style for the long term. Now this includes nutrition and lifestyle coaching with yours truly, if you don't mind, listen to my voice and listening to this podcast. It's the same voice you're going to hear when we talk, weekly check ins by recorded video, weekly live call office hours, access to our Private Client Group and live training calls and 24/7 Direct Message access to me so you can ask questions when whenever you want whenever I'm super responsive. So again, just DM me on Instagram at Wits & Weights or Facebook or go to wits & weights.com/coaching. The process is really streamlined. I just asked a few questions, see if we're a good fit to work together. Because your specific situation has to mesh well with the type of clients I'm able to help. Right. I don't just take everybody because I can't help everybody. Most people though, would would qualify. So let me know we'll we'll chat and figure it out pretty quickly. And if it is that I'll invite you to join my coaching program and we'll get rolling. So I think you'll be amazed or even I dare I say shocked at how much you can achieve in six months. You know with a very effective strategy. You can improve how you feel how you look, the results you achieve when you have an attentive coach there by your side to guide you along the way. If you found this helpful and or you have any questions, just again, message me send me a DM on Instagram at Wits & Weights or email me at Philip at wits & weights.com and we'll talk soon. Thank you so much for joining me today. Before you go I do have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast. Just let me know by leaving a review in Apple podcasts. This will help others find the podcast in search results, which makes a huge difference. Thanks again for joining me, your host Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong
Ep 21: 21 Ways to Measure Progress and Crush Your Fitness Goals
We dive into 21 specific ways to measure progress toward your health and fitness goals, categorized into six areas: biometrics, biofeedback, nutrition, physical activity, behaviors, and self-awareness. We want to select the right measures for the job so we have clear, objective feedback that tells us whether we’re on track.
How do you know when you’ve reached your goal?
If you’re trying to lose 20 pounds, do you just instinctively change your eating behaviors and eventually magically arrive at your target weight? If you’re trying to build muscle, do you go to the gym without a program and randomly hit up different weights and machines, rep ranges, rest periods, and muscle groups?
Chances are, when you’re committed to a goal, you come up with a plan and then measure progress along the way. Otherwise, how do you “close the loop” between desire and outcome?
In this episode, we dive into 21 specific ways to measure progress toward your health and fitness goals, categorized into six areas: biometrics, biofeedback, nutrition, physical activity, behaviors, and self-awareness. We want to select the right measures for the job so we have clear, objective feedback that tells us whether we’re on track.
With these tools at your disposal, and strategies to use them that I’ll talk about, you can crush any fitness goal with the certainty that you know how and when to adjust course.
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🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you shred fat, build strength, feel energized, and project confidence in your career and relationships without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions.
👉 Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to connect with me.
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:31] Welcome to episode 21 of Wits & Weights. Before we get into the details. If you enjoy the show. If you find it valuable educational entertaining, or perhaps it's given you some aha moments, please consider submitting a five star review for the podcast to make sure others can find the show and benefit from the content as you have.
[00:00:51] Also, if you know someone who could better understand some of the nutritional and training gems, we share to help them accomplish their goals, tell them about the podcast. You can just take a screenshot of the episode, tag me at what's in weights and post it to your story. Now I wanted to share a five star review from one of our listeners quote.
[00:01:12] I started listening to wits and weights last week, and I've binged all the episodes in the last few days. Thank you for taking the time to create and produce this show. I'm not a beginner lifter I've been lifting for about 10 years with both a strength and conditioning coach and a nutrition coach. I didn't know if I'd learned anything by listening and I could not have been more wrong.
[00:01:31] I learned so much here. I had a mindset. I don't need to know this stuff. That's what I pay my coach for. Wow. I feel like I've missed out. I align with a lot of the habits and values that Philip discusses on the show. Great content end quote. Uh, I really love to hear reviews like that, and I would love to hear more if you enjoy the show.
[00:01:51] So, um, get out there and spread the word now onto the show. How do you know when you've reached your. If you're trying to lose 20 pounds, do you just instinctively change your eating behaviors and eventually magically arrive at your target weight? If you're trying to build muscle, do you go to the gym without a program and randomly hit up different weights and machines, rep ranges, rest periods and muscle groups.
[00:02:17] Chances are when you're committed to a goal, you come up with a plan and then measure progress along the way. Otherwise, how do you close the loop between desire and outcome? In this episode, we dive into 21. Yes, 21 specific ways to measure progress toward your health and fitness goals. And I categorize them into six areas.
[00:02:42] Biometrics. Biofeedback nutrition, physical activity behaviors, and self-awareness we want to select the right measures for the job. So we have clear objective feedback that tells us whether we're on track with these tools at your disposal and strategies to use them that I'll talk about. You can crush any fitness goal with the certainty that you know, how and when to adjust course.
[00:03:09] Let's start with biometrics. Number one. Body weight, body weight is one of the easiest to measure metrics on the entire list. Everyone's familiar with it just about everyone has a scale and if not, they're easy to get access to and they can tell you pretty quickly what kind of trend you're experiencing toward fat loss or muscle gain if you're training.
[00:03:36] So if you're training and you're losing weight, you're probably losing. More fat and muscle. If you're training and you're gaining weight, you're probably gaining some muscle along with some fat. Now, of course, this all depends on the rate of change. If you're going more aggressively, you might, um, gain more fat or.
[00:03:56] Lose more muscle, for example, but body weight is a very easy metric to measure. Now I've talked about this on the program before I like to weigh daily and I like to weigh daily because when you do that, number one, it becomes a habit. Something you really don't think about too much. Number two, it becomes a data point where it's, it's not an emotional thing anymore.
[00:04:16] It's. A number that changes every day. And number three, you start to get comfortable with the fluctuations that happen from day to day, especially when you're gaining or losing at a rapid clip. You might see wild fluctuations from day to day. And when you get used to the fact that that's happening and realize that it's the average over time, that really indicates what's happening to your body composition and your overall, you know, weight towards your goal.
[00:04:44] Uh, it, it just kind of, um, Object, you know, makes it an objective measure and a data point rather than an emotional one. So I like body weight. That's number one. Um, we can use it for a lot of reasons. Uh, when we're measuring progress, number two body measurements. Now this encompasses a lot of different things.
[00:05:04] The first and most, I guess, useful and accessible would be circumference measurements. And these would be things like your waste. Your neck, your hips, your chest, your biceps, your thighs, perhaps your calves, perhaps your shoulders. Now you can, you can measure all of these things if you'd like, if you don't mind the sliding convenience of it, and you want as much data as you can, but let's break it down to the minimum and then kind of an optimal middle ground in my opinion.
[00:05:40] So the minimum would be measuring your neck. And waste if you're a male and then also hips, if you're a female and that is because those measurements are used for the Navy body fat calculation method, it's a way to calculate body fat just with tape measurements, without the need for cappers, any special scans, these special skins.
[00:06:05] I, I wouldn't trust the absolute number very much, but the trend in the number is highly reliable. So if you are a female and you measure your neck and your waist and your hips, you plug it into a calculator for Navy, the Navy body fat method. and you come up with, you know, 35% body fat. Well, you might in reality be 30% or 38%.
[00:06:29] Uh, but then you do it again next week, the week after that, the week after that. And meanwhile, you're training and you're, you're watching your diet and it goes from 35 to 34.5 to 34 33. Well, that trend is a pretty good indication that you are losing body fat. So that's why I like those circumference measurements.
[00:06:49] Additionally, if you want a middle ground for additional measurements, I would include chest. Biceps and thighs, those are good data points for, um, body composition, change and muscle growth. Now keep in mind that everybody gains and loses fat in different areas, but generally if you're waste, circumference is coming down, you're losing fat, but you know, again, some people may, it may take longer to see it in that spot.
[00:07:17] So having a few different measurements, um, helps you triangulate. What's going. now some other body measurements as part of this, uh, this second metric biometric would be, uh, skin fold measurements using calibers. And you can get the, the simple ones online that you do at home. They come with a little chart and a guide on how to use them.
[00:07:39] And there are all sorts of caliber measurements. There's a single measurement. There's three site, five site, seven site measurements where you pinch. At various areas of your body, you know, your abdomen, your chest, your thigh, et cetera. And then you plug it in a calculator and it tells you what your body fat is.
[00:07:56] I would say that this has roughly the same, uh, accuracy as the Navy method and similar reliability when it comes to following the trend. So again, you wouldn't rely on the number, you would rely on the trend. Um, so if you wanna try that, that's an, that's an extra tool. Um, then there are body scans, which are less accessible, more expensive, more inconvenient.
[00:08:19] And in my opinion, you, you really don't get a lot more for all of those costs, unless you're say an athlete or your performance focused and you just want every data point you could possibly think of. And those would be body scans like DXA. And bod pod, and I've done the bod pod a few times. It's, it's not that hard.
[00:08:37] You, you know, you, you wear, um, skintight clothes and you jump in this egg shaped machine for a minute. Um, and they give you the data on your body composition, you know, fat, free mass fat mass. But again, if you look at the, uh, if you look at the error percentages from the literature, they're really not much better than.
[00:08:58] Skinfold or circumference measurements. So you, you choose a, and then the last part of body measurements would be these, uh, body scan or impedance devices, I should say. Um, I would avoid those. Those are highly inaccurate. Generally. The ones that use only the feet or only the hands where you hold the, the device with the electrodes or the metal like metal plates or metal contacts or the ones that are built into, uh, bathroom scales.
[00:09:27] I wouldn't rely on those. I have heard that the trend on those can also be something you can use, but I would rather use circumference measurements or skin fold CAS. All right. So that's number two, the third and final biometric. I would use is progress photos. Um, and I call this a biometric because it's a, it's sort of an objective data point, uh, measuring your body via imagery.
[00:09:52] Right? So taking progress photos, you could do this in a couple ways. The way I suggest is simply a neutral, relaxed hands to the side position, take one from the. Take one from the back and take one from the side full body, um, take them wearing, you know, briefs or briefs, underwear, um, yoga pants, bras, things like that.
[00:10:15] So you can, you can see the, the parts of skin that are relevant to you for tracking over time. The second way to do it is to do poses, right? So if you're more focused on muscular development and you wanna do some body building style poses, you can throw those in. the key is to be consistent each time you do them under the same lighting, the same time of day.
[00:10:36] Um, usually preferably in the morning when the same time you'd weigh yourself, you know, after going to the bathroom, um, while not wearing very much clothing before you've eaten anything at a minimum, get, take these monthly, I would say, um, if you don't mind take them every week, sometimes you'll see more change than, than others.
[00:10:52] And it's nice to have that. Uh, but this actually gives you a couple things first. It can motivate you as you see your body changing as you're transforming over time. It is just self-motivating to see that, uh, we all like to feel good and to look good. And it's a perfectly valid, uh, driver of our goals.
[00:11:14] The other aspect is for muscular development. If you are working on, um, your muscular size, your mass, your symmetry, any of those things, even if you're not a bodybuilder, you just want to make sure certain areas are coming along and. you can take photos to assess the weak spots. All right. Now we get into biofeedback and I actually have seven of the ways to measure progress categorized under biofeedback.
[00:11:41] The first one. So this is number four. Overall is stress stress by some measures is potentially the biggest indicator of. Your performance of your recovery, of your ability to grow of your ability to meet your goals. Uh, it affects your diet, affects your hunger. It affects all the other biofeedback we're going to talk about.
[00:12:04] I'm not gonna get into hormones like cortisol, which is the stress hormone. But when I talk about stress here, I'm not necessarily referring to acute positive stressors like training. You know, when you train in the gym, that is a stressor I'm referring to the chronic stress that comes from. A lack of sleep or having to work long hours or having situations in your life that just make it difficult to cope with everything going on because your body's resources and your mental resources are being stretched so thin by biofeedback here in terms of progress.
[00:12:40] Understanding and being aware of your stress, your chronic stress on a day to day basis can be a great tool to say, Hmm, is there something in my life that, that needs to change? Is there something that I need to eliminate reduce? Do I need to evaluate my priorities? And if I cannot change certain things, if I absolutely can't change them, right.
[00:13:01] How do I cope with that stress? Can I. Breathing techniques, meditation, yoga going for walks, right? There's a lot of different ways to cope with stress, um, dancing, you know, fun hobbies. Now I would argue that there are a lot of things we think we can't change, but in reality, we can, like, we can say that, Hey, I have my job.
[00:13:22] It is what it is. It pays really well. It's got really long hours. It's super stressful, but you know, I, I, I can't change my. but really ask yourself if you, if you had a gun to your head and this was the only way to reduce stress, could you find an alternative that, that I'm just putting that out. Um, as something to think about, always reassessing those things in your life and their priorities.
[00:13:46] So that's stress, that's a, an excellent form of biofeedback. The next one, number five is sleep, both quantity and quality, quantity of sleep. Is important. If you're only getting five hours of sleep a night, that right there is just gonna be a drain on the rest of your day and your recovery and your energy, everything, uh, it affects your hormones.
[00:14:05] It affects your hunger, but let's say you're getting the requisite seven or eight hours of sleep, maybe even six and a half seven. The question is, is the sleep quality optimal sleep quality, meaning. You sleep through the night, right? You don't get up multiple times. You fall asleep fairly quickly. Not instantly, because that could be, that could be a negative sign right there, but you know, fairly quickly do you feel well rested when you get up?
[00:14:30] So I have a, I have an entire episode about sleep that came out, uh, not long ago. You can look it up in the, the feed. But sleep is a form of biofeedback that like stress, cascades and affects so many other things that we do. And for lots and lots of people addressing sleep, all of a sudden magically, uh, makes lots of other ills diminish or disappear.
[00:14:58] I put it near the top of this list because of its importance. And there are a lot of ways to improve sleep quality, sleep hygiene, using a pre-bed sleep. all of that's covered in the other. Okay. Number six is energy and energy's kind of a nebulous term, but it basically refers to your, get up and go your ability to be motivated and feel like you want to be productive and do things throughout the day.
[00:15:25] We're really talking about just your, your baseline versus your, um, current, current energy. So if you normally can make it through the afternoon and all of a sudden you are just feeling wiped. By the afternoon, that could be a sign of something else. It could be a sign of poor sleep. It could be a sign of overtraining.
[00:15:43] It could be a sign of lack of recovery. It could be a sign of being under fed all of these things interplay. And the reason I'm listing them out independently is because each one of them can be assessed objectively. So energy's a good one. The next one is number seven and that is mood. All right. So energy and mood, they kind of go hand in hand for some people and mood, uh, seems kind of subjective, but again, it's relative to you.
[00:16:10] If you notice a change in your mood, if all of a sudden you're a lot more grumpy or more hangry, there, there could be. An issue related to your energy or your sleep. It could be hormonal, uh, changes in hormones can absolutely affect mood and hormones are intricately tied with your nutrition, with your training and potentially some other, other, other line issues and medical things.
[00:16:35] But, you know, if we're, if we rule those out. Then we're really just talking about the other factors in your, in your life, regarding your nutrition training, et cetera, and how they, um, can affect your mood and hormones. All right. Number eight, hunger. All right. I love hunger because depending on your, in a fat loss phase or a muscle gain phase, you could experience hunger in both cases, but for different reasons.
[00:16:59] So if you're losing fat, if you're in a deficit, you're going to experience hunger even. Unless it's a very quick, you know, three or four week diet or something, but generally you're going to experience more and more hunger simply because you're depriving in your body of the calories. It needs to remain in balance, remain at homeostasis, you're adapting downward and you're eating less food.
[00:17:20] So now all of a sudden you're telling your body, there's an absence of nutrition available. Anybody saying, I want more food, so I'm gonna send you a stronger signal that I need more. That hunger is a good signal because it can tell you maybe, Hey, I've gone a little too far into my cut, or maybe I need to eat more fruits and vegetables or drink more water.
[00:17:42] All of the things that could reduce the symptoms of hunger, but allow me to stay on my plan. I need to eat more, um, less calorie, dense foods, you know, more. Foods have more nutrition, but less but fewer calories. I need to change the timing of my meals. Maybe I need to reserve some calories for right before bed.
[00:18:01] Maybe I need to eat before my workout, rather than going fasted or vice versa. All of these things, hunger can tell you. And then another interesting thing is hunger on the way up. So if you run a building phase and one of my clients recently talked about this and I've experienced it myself. I, I, I do occasionally right now because I'm on a building phase and that is that you.
[00:18:21] Sometimes you start cranking up the calories, you know, I'm up to 2,600, then twenty nine hundred and thirty two hundred. I'm up to 3,500 calories and you're still getting hungry. Throughout the day, and it's such a weird phenomenon, but you know, lots of things are changing. You're probably eating a lot more carbs.
[00:18:36] The protein's more or less the same, if not even slightly less than when you were in a cut, but you're eating a lot more carbs. You're probably training harder. You're probably more active, right? Your meat is going up. Your TDE is going up. So all of these mess with your hunger signals and your, your hormones generally, I mean, I would say from experience.
[00:18:55] A lot of this will go away or you kind of, um, you know, push through it. But if the hunger is so stark, It surprises you. That is a that's good biofeedback. Uh, you know, maybe something has to change in the types of foods you're eating, you know, similar to when you're in a cut, do you need to eat more for fewer vegetables, more water, right?
[00:19:16] Do you need to space out your food? Are you eating too much? All at once too little, all at once. Hunger's great indicator of biofeedback. All right. Number nine is digestion. Digestion would be things like gas. bloating, you know, just some of these are experienced acutely. For example, if you start taking creatine maybe, or you start, um, taking a new probiotic, uh, but I see a lot with.
[00:19:39] Things like sugar, alcohols, artificial sweeteners, a lot of protein. When you start eating more protein, let's say you were, uh, an 80 gram a day protein eater. And now you're trying to push up to one 50 to get enough protein. Well, all of a sudden you might have digestive distress or maybe you are eating meals that are just.
[00:19:58] A little bit too large all at once. And you wanna space out the meals. Um, so you have fewer calories per meal. Again, all these things are just your body saying, eh, something's a little off. I need to do something here. I need to change what I eat when I eat, how I eat all of those things. Number 10.
[00:20:15] Recovery. So this is the last part of biofeedback. This is related to physical activity, which we'll talk about a little bit later, but the recovery piece of it is a form of biofeedback and by recovery it's things like. How sore am I the next day? How beat up do I feel, you know, are my muscles tight? Uh, do I feel like I'm gonna have trouble?
[00:20:37] You know, I'm gonna have to limp up the stairs. uh, you know, I'm thinking of myself here right after heavy rack poles the next day. Now a lot of these symptoms are perfectly normal and expected. If you're training hard, right? You expect to have a little soreness. Sometimes not always, but sometimes. And you expect to feel kind of beat up, but if it starts to build, if it starts to get where you feel, sluggish, if your legs feel heavy in the gym and not only do they feel heavy, but you are as a result, not performing.
[00:21:11] Okay. And I wanna make that distinction because sometimes you just don't feel great and then you perform fine and you realize it was mainly in your. I'm talking about where you literally start to regress in the gym. So that is a, a sign that you either need an extra rest day, potentially need a deload week.
[00:21:30] Or maybe even rest for a week or longer or a complete change in your programming. Right? If you are trying to do the Texas method as a 55 year old, if you're trying to do a six day a week body building program, that's 90 minutes a day, or if you're trying to do two a days and you're not on steroids, all of these things could be potentially over training you and you will feel it in terms of your lack of recovering your lack of performance in the gym.
[00:21:57] Hey guys. I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again.
[00:22:17] An incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the. That brings us to nutrition. Number 11 is how adherent are you to your diet? So this is a metric in and of itself. And if you track in any way, you know, track versus intuitive or instinctive eating. So if you track in any way, you have a good sense from day to day of whether you are being consistent.
[00:22:48] There's different ways to track, right? There are there's full tracking where you're tracking your calories and all your macros, your protein, fat carbs, and you're tracking against targets. There's tracking where you only track your calories and protein. Maybe you just track your calories or maybe you track something like portions, you track how many portions of protein, fat carbs you have, or maybe you track using photos.
[00:23:10] Whatever it is. You have an objective way to measure from day to day, whether you are in the ballpark of your intended target. The reason you have an intended target is because you have a goal. You have a goal to gain weight, to lose weight or to maintain weight. And this is an input to that process. How many calories you're consuming, right?
[00:23:28] The output being things like weight and body photos and all the other things we talked about. Did you get close to your target every day on average? So that for the week, your weekly average. Where do you want it to be? Uh, it's a simple thing, but we have a lot of, uh, folks who feel okay, I'm, I'm gonna reach my goals, but I don't like to track that is I don't wanna say a losing proposition that works for a lot of people who are in tune with themselves and understand portions and can eat intuitively because they have the experience from past tracking.
[00:24:00] But if you've never tracked and I've talked about this before, it's gonna be very, very hard to objectively stay where you wanna be. And meet your goal. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible. If you go by feel and you eat every day and you eat till you're full, but you're not stuffed. And at the end of the week, you've maintained your.
[00:24:18] And you have a good sense of how you felt all week. And you just repeat that every week then. Yeah. Maybe you can meet your goals. It's just a lack of fidelity. And so diet adherence, consistency and tracking in some shape or form is a helpful way to track. It's a helpful measurement. So that's number 11.
[00:24:36] Number 12 is protein. Now I'm not gonna go through all the macronutrients. I only have one devoted to one macronutrient and that is protein. I would say it is the primary macronutrient for growth for anabolism, as we say, right. For muscle growth or also for anti metabolism. So avoiding a situation where you are losing muscle, especially while you're losing weight.
[00:25:01] In that case, we wanna lose fat. We don't wanna lose muscle. And it's the one macro where you generally keep it consistent, whether you're gaining or losing weight and you adjust the fats and carbs. Most people do not get enough protein. If they're training, if they have a goal for, for body composition or for fat loss, most people do not get enough.
[00:25:22] And by enough, I mean around 0.7 to 1.2 grams per pound of your body weight, or if you're, if you're quite overweight, then it's of your target body weight. So if you're 150 pound person, it's around 150 grams, if you're 300 pounds, but you wanna weigh 200. Then it's 200 grams. The thing with protein is it has so many benefits, right?
[00:25:44] Improves satiety. It's the backbone of muscle building. It's the backbone of muscle preservation. It has a higher thermic effective feeding. So you actually burn more calories eating it, and it helps actually helps displace the other macronutrients. If you prioritize it, meaning from the time you get up and eat breakfast and each feeding and food choice thereafter starts with protein.
[00:26:07] To get to that target evenly distributed throughout the day, more or less, it's going to shape what your meals look like. They're gonna be protein focused protein first, and then you're gonna fill it in with the rest, right? With your veggies and with your starches, with your fats. The point here is, are you tracking your protein?
[00:26:24] Because if you're not, that could be a helpful measurement of your progress. Number 13 fiber. Now fiber's something. I think a lot of folks don't really track it, but if you start tracking it, you might be surprised. I know myself personally, this is one of my small areas, not small, but one of my specific areas that I need to keep working on.
[00:26:47] Okay. And it's because I grew up not eating very many fruits and vegetables, like many of us, and I've graduated over the years, added more and more now tracking fiber will tell you basically what kind of diet you're. The benefits of fiber are many. They help with hunger. They help with digestion. They help with bowel movements, but then also the amount of fiber you're eating tells you how nutritious your diet is in general, because you only get enough fiber from having enough fruits, vegetables, whole grains, the appropriate types of seeds and nuts, et cetera, lot of great foods.
[00:27:25] So they kind of go hand in hand, which is why it's a good metric. The recommendation is generally to consume 14 grams of fiber for every thousand calories you consume. So if you're on a 2000 calorie diet, 28 grams of fiber, and you might be surprised at the fact that you are not getting that amount, if you start tracking it.
[00:27:46] So by logging your food in a tracker like macro factor, You can see every day, oh, I'm only getting 20 grams of fiber. What can I change? Oh, maybe I can start having a banana here and some nuts here, some fruit, some, some more roughage or, or salad here. And then that starts to displace maybe more processed food choices.
[00:28:04] And again, you improve your diet overall and it's easier to meet your goals. It helps things like hunger. So that's fiber fiber is really important. Number 14, this is the last one under Nutri. Would be hydration. I include water under nutrition because it helps with everything else. Getting enough water is so important.
[00:28:24] And again, most people don't get enough. The amount of water you need is roughly half your body weight, plus 15 ounces. So if you weigh 200 pounds, that's about 115 ounces of water, which is almost a gallon of water a day. Now ask yourself, do I get anywhere close to a gallon a day between water, diet, soda, tea, even coffee.
[00:28:45] I know people say, oh, coffee's a diuretic, but it's a net. High hydrator. Alcohol's definitely not on the list. Okay. so don't, don't take it that far, but fruit, this goes back to the previous metric. If you start eating more fruits and vegetables, but especially fruits, you'll get more water in your diet as well.
[00:29:03] All of these things are tied together. So hydration is really important. Ask yourself if you're getting enough water. If you're not sure start tracking it, just to see, and then take half your body weight plus 15 ounces or even more if you're active and try to get that much water every day, that brings us to physical activity.
[00:29:20] Number 15 is steps. Are you tracking your steps? I'm a huge advocate of steps. You know, this, if you've ever heard any of my podcasts, I go Gaga over walking, something that changed for me after I had my back surgery last year, I didn't use to like to walk. I love walking now because I see all the benefits for your resting heart rate for your.
[00:29:42] Metabolism for your mortality for avoiding disease for your joints, for your recovery? Uh, just as a, an enjoyable activity, basically steps are, I would place them up, like in the top five of things to, uh, increase if you were to get onto a solid plan for nutrition and training, because they're the quickest, easiest, one of the most human ways to simply be more active and increase.
[00:30:11] Total daily energy expenditure. If you're not tracking them though, you don't really know if you're getting enough. Once you start tracking, you get a feel for, Hey, this is what 2000 steps is like. This is what 10,000 steps. This is 15,000. You get a feel for it. And then you kind of know where you wanna fall on a daily basis.
[00:30:30] So what I recommend doing is getting some sort of wearable. It can be a very inexpensive one because the speedometer function on most wearables is just fine. Even the heart rate is usually fine. Anything else? I wouldn't trust like calories burned. Totally useless based on what the, the evidence shows, but steps are pretty close.
[00:30:48] So you get a speedometer of some sort, you know, apple watch fit, big Google fit, whatever, and you track your steps and see where you are just naturally. If you're, let's say you're 4,000 steps a day because you have a desk job, you, you maybe pace around a little. You don't really go for a walk. Maybe you work out and that counts towards your steps.
[00:31:06] And now you wanna add 2000 steps. Well, 2000 steps is about a mile. You go for a walk after a meal, you go for a walk after lunch, you go for a walk after dinner and a mile is what? 20 minutes of walking in a reasonable pace. You don't even have to go to briskly. You get a mile that's 2000 steps. You do that a couple times.
[00:31:25] That's 4,000 steps. Now start doing that for several weeks, several months and see what happens in your metabolism. I can almost guarantee that it's going to go up all things. Right. Like if you're in a cut, your metabolism starts going down. Now I'm not talking about the gross change. I'm just talking about the net change.
[00:31:41] So adding more steps in when you're on a cut, for example, should blunt the decline in your metabolism. Um, but in general steps at increase, there's so many benefits of it. Make sure to track it. It's a great measure of physical activity. Number 16 is your training progress. And by this, I mean, do you log your workouts?
[00:32:06] Do you plan for your workouts? Do you write down what movements you're doing? The sets, the reps and the weight on the bar and then do the same movement next. And use more weight or use more reps. Aren't you doing that? Because if you're not doing that, you're missing out on the biggest benefit of strength training and the most effective approach, which is known as progressive overload.
[00:32:29] And that is simply stimulating your muscles basically to their limit. Then allowing them to recover and come back stronger through adaptation so that you can then lift more next time. And that is how we grow strength. And that is how we grow size. But you can't do that unless you know what you are progressing, having a log, a notebook, an app.
[00:32:51] I really don't care. Just do it doing basically the same movements from session to session. And I mean, you might have four sessions in a week and they all have different movements. And then the next week they have the same movements, but you do them all a little heavier. Or you're rotating through movements over a few weeks, and then you come back to those same movements three weeks later, and you're still progressing.
[00:33:12] The point is you're progressing over time, over some period. So that's number 16 is training progress. Are you measuring it? Are you tracking it? Are you using progressive overload? Number 17. This is the last one under physical activity is your performance in the gym. So the last, the previous one was about the, the numbers.
[00:33:29] This one is about how you are not, not really how you feel though. That's part of it, but are you able to progress your numbers? Are you able to build strength? Are you able to get more reps or higher weight and feel like you're actually making progress. Now the big caveat here is if you're on a cut, if you're on a fat loss phase, you will inevitably lose strength and lose muscle mass.
[00:33:54] And so you, you will reach some plateaus in the gym. But you still should train hard as if you are building, but I'm just talking about, let's say at maintenance or in a building phase, if, if you're not making progress, then that is a clue about your sleep, about your recovery, perhaps your diet, perhaps the timing of your food, perhaps the rest period you're taking.
[00:34:19] So track your performance in the gym and you can do this by taking notes in your log. If you're tracking. Your weight, your sets, your reps, those numbers themselves, that they start to stall is part of the performance metrics that I'm talking. So that's number 17. All right. Our fifth category is behaviors.
[00:34:39] I just have a couple here and then there's two more in the last category. So number 18, what's your relationship with food? Like, has it improved? Do you have an improved relationship with food? I know with my clients, we often have situations where. You haven't been tracking and there are certain behaviors.
[00:34:58] It might be binging. It might be social events. It might be too much alcohol. It might be that you really love carbs, whatever it is. When you have a plan toward a goal, and you realize that you want to start tracking and measuring and understanding your progress and taking control of the process, then all of a sudden you start to say, Hmm, okay, I need more protein.
[00:35:21] So I'm gonna, I'm gonna eat some more meat here, maybe some more eggs and well, that's gonna, it's gonna reduce the amount of Poptarts I eat and this and that. And all of a sudden, you start to. Nudge yourself toward a, a more well rounded diet that meets your goals, but it tends to improve your relationship with food as well.
[00:35:38] Cuz you realize that there, the food is a tool. It's a tool that you have control over. You can make choices with and you can also have flexibility around. You know, with my clients, we talk about how do we plan for social events? How do we plan for parties? How can we get our alcohol in all these things we enjoy not how do we get them out, but how do we get them in and still meet our goals?
[00:35:58] So think about your relationship with food. And if there are red flags, then that is a clue that something might need to change. If you notice that it's improving, then that's a clue that, that you're probably going in the direction you wanna. Number 19 under behaviors here is, do you have a newfound confidence with your behaviors and habits?
[00:36:22] Meaning are you able to handle situations today that would previously have. Made you go off the rails. It's an important question. This is now we're getting into mindset here. I heard one of my clients recently say, you know, I feel like I now have control. I have more control. And I truly believe that that comes from having knowledge, information, certainty that you gain from a lot of these metrics.
[00:36:52] We're talking about, basically understanding more about yourself. What you're doing, what the outcome is, what each toggle each dial does to the outcome gives you the certainty that now I can choose to have whatever outcome I want by just changing some, some things here and there. So do you have a newfound confidence with your habits?
[00:37:16] That's an indication of progress. The last category is self-awareness. I have the final two measurements here. Number 20. How do you feel in your clothes? We talked about photos. We talked about circumference measurements, but how do you feel, right? How, how does that pair of short? So that shirt feel today versus how it did a month ago.
[00:37:40] And I'm not saying you're gonna necessarily feel quote unquote better, even if you have made progress. And let me explain if you're in a muscle building phase and your biceps are starting to get bigger. , but you're also getting a little bit of fatter on the waist at that shirt that fit you find on the beach in the summer may feel a little bit tight, but that's not necessarily a quote unquote bad thing.
[00:38:04] If your goal is to start building muscular size, that's just an indication of progress. So you have to look at the data and say, okay, is it going in the direction I want it. so if my clothes feel tighter, is that because I'm gaining muscle as I'm gaining a little fat along the way that I'm gonna cut later versus, okay.
[00:38:24] I'm feeling tighter because I'm gaining unwanted weight and then vice versa. Do you all of a sudden, let's say your scale weight hasn't moved, but all of a sudden you have to tighten your belt, another hole, another notch. Well, that's an indication that you've probably lost some fat, right? You're getting trimmer and you're probably gain some muscle, little recom going on.
[00:38:44] But if you had only relied on the scale weight, you wouldn't have had that data point. So how do you feel in your clothes and the last measure? Number 21. Do you love your body? This is a loaded question, but I want you to ponder it. Do you love your body? And my implication here isn't that you can't love your body.
[00:39:08] If you are overweight, that is not my implication here at all. It's do you right now with all the choices you're making with the control. You're taking over the process with your ability to see how you are arriving at your goal day by day, because you are in control and you're making choices. knowing all of that.
[00:39:28] Do you love your body? And if you do, that's wonderful. That's we all wanna be there. And if you don't, then that simply raises a question of why, and it helps you examine some of these other factors and really that's, that's up to you to examine and explore, but I want to leave you with that. Do you love your body as the last measure of progress?
[00:39:50] All right. That is the list of 21 ways to measure progress so that you can crush your fitness goals. Now you don't have to use all of these at once, but you can prioritize and choose the ones that make sense for you based on what you're trying to accomplish. And if you're looking for a good coach who can help you stay account.
[00:40:11] By monitoring these with you and making adjustments along the way, just go to wits and waits.com/coaching to connect with me so we can help you get there together. I wish you the best in crushing your goals. Stay strong. And thank you.
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Ep 20: How to Stay On Track with Meals, Fat Loss, and Fitness No Matter Where You Are
Should you continue my current health and fitness behaviors when you’re on vacation? If so, to what extent?
In this episode, we’re talking about what to do with your carefully-honed, consistent, so-far-successful training and nutrition plans when you go on vacation!
Summer’s here, and despite exorbitant gas prices and airfare, we can’t help but get away from it all, even for just a week or even a long weekend. Vacations are the perfect time to shut off those devices, relax with a drink in your hand, and enjoy that well-deserved leisure.
But that raises the question, should I continue my current health and fitness behaviors when I’m off jetting about in faraway lands (or even a road trip to the next state over)? If so, to what extent?
What do I do on vacation?!
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:31] Welcome to episode 20 of Wits & Weights today. We're talking about what to do with your carefully honed consistent so far successful training and nutrition plans. When you go on vacation, summer's. At least in the Northern hemisphere and despite exorbitant gas prices and airfare, we can't help, but get away from it all even for just a week or even a long weekend vacations are the perfect time to shut off those devices, relax with a drink in your hand and enjoy that well deserved leisure, but that raises the question.
[00:01:07] Should I continue my current health and fitness behaviors when I'm off jetting about in far away land. Or even a road trip to the next state over. And if so, to what extent, right around the time we were packing up for vacation down the Florida for a family reunion on the beach, no less a listener wrote in with that exact question, what to do on vacation.
[00:01:30] Let's talk about some ideas I had from one side of the spectrum to another, whether to stick with or partially put on hold your habits without being that weird visitor who carries their food scale everywhere they go. Um, and I'm kind of pointing at myself because I did that when I visited my parents last year, they were cool with it, but not everybody is.
[00:01:53] First up, we have a shout out to listener Dina who writes quote, I started following your podcast and love it. Your information is explained so well, and I've seen a lot of positive results with my weight loss and starting to see gains in muscle development. Macro factor has been an excellent suggestion.
[00:02:12] So here's my question. I'm about five weeks into my weight loss and seeing great steady results. I'm five, two and was 138 pounds. And now, after not being obsessive about cardio and tracking macros, I'm down to 1 33 over the last five weeks. I have a vacation coming up in two weeks and I'm developing a lot of anxiety about it.
[00:02:34] Gaining weight, losing progress, being unable to track food and losing current momentum. Do you have any suggestions for vacation things to keep in mind, ways to adjust goals, et cetera. End quote, thanks, Dina for the question and the positive feedback about the show. I love hearing this. I love hearing from listeners.
[00:02:53] Uh, it warms the cockles of my heart. When any listener gains value from this podcast, especially when it improves your health and your life. It just so happens that I thought about this topic quite deeply before our recent vacation to Florida, the quandary was, should I. Find a gym and train. Should I bring bands?
[00:03:13] Should I do body weight exercises or just not worry about it at all? Similarly, should I estimate and track my food? Should I stick to my macros? Should I plan for binges and events or just eat whatever I want and stop tracking the answer is yes. Any of these can work depending on your goals, your needs and what you can tolerate from a psychological stand.
[00:03:39] For some people giving it all up for a. Is a break. They need it's it's that break. They need to stay sane to stay refreshed. Just enjoy it, forget about all this, and then come back firing on all cylinders. But for others, any derailment from their carefully crafted process could be the slippery slope to further lapses.
[00:04:00] So, therefore I wanna lay out some strategies on this episode today, so that you can think about this ahead of time, and then I'm gonna tie these options to together for what you can actually do when you're on vacation. First and foremost, if you're not consistent yet at home, if you don't actually have a routine that's working for you right now, before you even think about vacation, it's going to be tough to carry any sort of routine or discipline to your vacation.
[00:04:30] just logically speaking, in which case it's probably not worth sweating over it and worrying about what you're gonna do on vacation. So if you have a few weeks or more before the trip, this is the time to take advantage of setting up good behaviors at home. So when you return, you have something that you've already established that you're used to, and then you could just pick right back up as if nothing ever happened.
[00:04:56] Another thing to think about beforehand, before you go on the vacation is potentially timing your nutrition, your training, your fat loss, your maintenance, your building phase with your vacation schedule, if possible. Um, it's a lot easier to eat beyond a high calorie plan. Let me tell you when you're on vacation, uh, then on a diet.
[00:05:19] You avoid strain too much for your goals that way, just by default, because you're able to eat more. Speaking of nutrition, let's get into some of the details there. You've heard the expression that food is fuel and that's true, but also we're human beings who enjoy. Eating food. We enjoy it in social settings, especially when we're on vacation.
[00:05:41] This is the time when people want to go out. They want to hang out, hang around. They want to have some drinks. They want to have some, maybe some dessert or nice dinner. So think of planning ahead for specific meals on your vacation, that will be special experiences. They can be considered treats or feasts, whatever you wanna call them.
[00:06:02] I wouldn't call them cheat meals because that implies you're cheating or strain from something. Instead we want to plan these in these are thoughtfully forecasted, higher calorie events. That's all. And then when you're actually there, so you've done your planning. You've said. I'm gonna pick a few dinners, maybe lunches, maybe going out for ice cream that are planned in.
[00:06:27] So I know that at other times I may have a little bit less or eat a little bit more protein, knowing that there'll be, uh, high, fat, high carb options at the event. And I'm gonna get my protein ahead of time when you actually get to the event and that food is staring you in the. uh, this might be the event or it could even be the continental breakfast at your hotel.
[00:06:47] I mean, really anywhere where somebody else is providing food. Ask yourself this question. Would I eat this as part of a normal meal at home? Would I eat this at home? If the answer's yes, then go ahead and make the choice and eat the food. If the answer's no, which is probably more often the case on vacation.
[00:07:07] Ask yourself why you wouldn't normally eat it at home and then make your choice. You can still choose to eat it, but you've taken a breath to consider the why behind it. Now if the place where you're staying on vacation has a refrigerator or better yet a kitchen, maybe it has a microwave, a stove oven, things like that.
[00:07:28] Go ahead and stock up on groceries for a few of your meals each day. I mean, I know it's kind of a bummer. You're on vacation. You don't wanna get groceries, but it actually might make it more convenient and save you a little bit of money and you could make a few meals every day as if you were at home pick easy meals like breakfast.
[00:07:46] You're perfectly fine. Just having the same thing every day, being consistent. And they're also not associated with big events or social gatherings. Those are usually later in the day, like dinner. So if you know, you're gonna have your oatmeal every day with some blueberries, pick it up at the grocery store and just have that for your breakfast.
[00:08:03] Uh, also don't forget to pack your. Protein powder or snacks like protein bars. For example, these are just nice to have in reserve as an easy way to get your protein while a vacation. Cuz sometimes it's hard to find enough protein when we're not making all the same choices. and it gives you an option.
[00:08:23] You know, if the choices aren't there, they're not optimal, or, you know, you're gonna go to a, a big feast that has a lot of high, fat, high carb foods, but not much protein. Well, there you go. You've got your protein powder. You could take a nice two scoop shake earlier in the day. Good to go. And then when you go to restaurants and this applies, whether you're on vacation or not, Always think about the simpler, the better, the fewer ingredients, the better.
[00:08:48] And I would look for things like lean proteins and vegetables, maybe salads, but, you know, sauces, dressings, oils, fats, that's where all this calories kind of sneak in, but you could still have a great steak that's, you know, charbroiled or grilled with some steamed vegetables, with some seasoning. Delicious.
[00:09:09] So those are some strategies, some ideas to think about before you leave and while you're on vacation, but let's talk a little bit about tracking. If you are currently tracking your macros, if you're using an app like macro factor, um, there's a few big options. I'm gonna break it down into maybe three options.
[00:09:29] The first option is just enjoy your vacation and don't track it all. I mean, you can enjoy it either way. I know. You know, don't worry about it. Just try the intuitive approach and go by how you feel. Now, if you've been tracking for any length of time, let's say a few months, at least you probably have a better idea than you realize of.
[00:09:51] Roughly where you are for your calories, your macros for the day, how much a portion size of protein is, and a starch and vegetables, you know, how much, few tablespoons of oil or butter might be. So you can get within, within spitting distance of estimating with your eyes intuitively that that's what they say without tracking.
[00:10:14] And then you could just resume tracking when you get back on. You know, previous macros, when you get back home from vacation and let everything catch up again now. Pros of this approach is this extra freedom while you're on vacation, you just don't have to think about it. You don't have to track food.
[00:10:32] You don't have to have a food scale. You know, even if you're tracking, you could track without a scale, of course, but you don't need any of this stuff. And you might learn something about your ability to estimate and eat intuitively for. The future, you know, because this is a lifelong thing we don't wanna be tracking forever.
[00:10:50] Tracking is an awesome tool. It's great to use. You can use it for long stretches of time, but we don't wanna be so dependent on it that we couldn't, uh, succeed without it. The cons of this approach of. Not tracking at all is you might be the type of person that gets stressed out, thinking that you're falling behind on your goal.
[00:11:10] You might get a little setback because you know, sky's the limit. You could eat, whatever you want. The tracking is the thing that kept you grounded and, uh, making certain choices. And now you just have everything at your whim, and that could be a negative depending on your psychological approach to. So that's option one, don't track, option two is track your food, but just estimate, you know, plan, plan to have meals in a certain way.
[00:11:39] So that they're similar to what you have at home, even when you're eating out. You know? So even if you go to a restaurant or do takeout, or what have you, you're still going to eat the lean protein and the vegetables and the things you normally. , but you're gonna leave room for those fun family, feasts, those social events, or even drinking alcohol, if that's what you enjoy.
[00:12:02] So for example, you could have a light breakfast and lunch and then skip a snack and then have a giant dinner at a restaurant. Enjoy yourself. You could log that based on what you estimate get within about 30%, but don't sweat being too precise. So the pros of this approach where you are tracking, but you're just estimating everything is it does keep you closer to on track for your goals.
[00:12:26] And the negative is probably that. Now you still have the inconvenience of tracking. Now, granted tracking has become habit for you most likely. So maybe it's not that inconvenient, but the fact you don't have a food scale and you don't have the same control or choice over your food options. Um, don't get me wrong.
[00:12:45] You choose what you put in your mouth, but you don't necessarily have a choice of what's available to choose from. And then the third option is really to change your goal on vacation. So if you're dieting, um, this kind of ties to what we were talking about earlier about aligning your schedule, but you can say, Hey, I'm going to vacation.
[00:13:05] I'm just gonna change my goal to maintenance. When I'm done, I'm gonna go back to dieting. Now this is essentially a diet break. I mean, that's the term we use, right? And, and nutrition is a diet break. That's when you just stop dieting for a while, it could be a few days, a few weeks, maybe even a few months so that you have more calories to work with on, on vacation.
[00:13:26] and then go ahead and either track or don't track, but you're doing it with more calories available to you. So the pros are obviously less restriction on the amount of food. You can eat less restriction on maintaining your weight, and this could actually be a breather for you. This could help your metabolism recover a bit.
[00:13:45] It acts as a feed. It's a diet break that pushes your daily expi. The cons of this approach of going to maintenance is it's of course gonna slow down your progress toward weight loss. If you were in a weight loss or fat loss phase, it's gonna slow it down. Just a tad. We were talking about a week or two of vacation.
[00:14:03] You might even gain a little bit of weight. So what you resume when you get back, you don't try to make it up. You don't try to undereat when you get back, you just continue where you were before. Now, as far as measuring your body weight. Since we're talking about tracking, I would say don't worry about it on vacation.
[00:14:20] If wherever you're staying actually has a scale in the bathroom. Maybe it's a friend's house and they have a scale or a nice hotel that has a scale. I mean, it's really up to you if you want to track, if it's part of your routine anyway. now keep in mind that, uh, another person's scale might not have the same accuracy or calibration as your scale at home, but it's probably close enough.
[00:14:41] Uh, but I don't think it's a big deal not to track your weight. So you could just resume weighing yourself when you get home.
[00:15:02] Hey guys. I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again.
[00:15:21] An incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. Let's shift to activity and training since you're on vacation. I just want you to enjoy being active, being in a new place, enjoying the experience, the adventure, and even walking more, if it fits with your plans. Now, when we stayed on the beach a few weeks back, I did plenty of lying around, but then I'd play some Frisbee with my brother or I'd go for a swim.
[00:15:52] Or I remember one day walking down the beach all the way down to this nice pier, walking back. And if you've ever walked through. Thick wet beach sand, because it had rained recently, as it does in Florida in spring every afternoon, then, you know, you have to fight for each step. Uh, it's kind of a calf exercise in a way.
[00:16:13] So that's, that's just general activity. I would say, enjoy yourself. And if you have the opportunity to get the steps in the activity, Go for it, but don't force yourself to, uh, but then we get to discussing training specifically, you know, weight lifting, resistance training. If you really enjoy training like I do.
[00:16:30] And you think it will be. Relaxing fun. Just natural part of your vacation. Feel free by all means, go to the local gym once or twice during the week and do a deload style program. You know, if you're going for a week and you normally do a five day program, I don't think you're gonna wanna spend five days in the gym while on vacation, but it's really up to you.
[00:16:54] My recommendation is make this a de-load week. Keep the session short, maybe 45 to 60 minutes and do maybe three to five movements at a high intensity. And by intensity, again, going back to basic definitions, we mean, wait on the bar, not, you know, oh, um, it's CrossFit. I intense. And I'm sweaty. Wait on the bar.
[00:17:13] without too much volume. So for example, if you normally do a, um, let's say a three day full body routine, or a four day body part split where you have one or two big compound lifts and two or three accessory movements. On the vacation pick two days that are spaced apart. And on those two days, do a short session of maybe two compound lifts.
[00:17:37] Keep the weight high, the reps low, and then maybe one or two accessories, just to add a little volume, get, get a pump, you know, a little extra activity, whatever it is. Now, if you feel like training will be a chore on vacation or highly inconvenient, or you just can't access a facility, then don't do. Just take the week off and you might actually find that the rest is what your body needed to recover.
[00:18:01] And to set you up for bigger batter gains with a Z, when you get back gains with a Z multiple Zs. Now if you wanna train, but you don't have access to a facility, then you do have a few other options, right? Cause we're, we are not the type of people to make excuses on this podcast and you, the listener is not that type.
[00:18:22] So I know that if you wanna train, you're gonna find a way to do it. So I'm gonna give you three options to do that. And I'm sure you can come up with more. The first is just to stay active, so play some sports. Go for a swim walk, a lot hike, hang out with your friends and family, do something adventurous and that'll keep you active.
[00:18:41] That'll give you, uh, you know, maybe not the same training you're used to, but a different stimulus and it'll be a lot of fun. The second option. is body weight movements, the classics, pushups, chin ups. If you can find a bar or, you know, a, uh, door frame that can hold your weight, that's not gonna break. Um, or maybe the side of a Tiki hut squats with a big rock in your hand.
[00:19:04] Hey, maybe this is a good opportunity for strong man training. Get creative. Uh, the third option is to bring some resistance bands, either the kind with handles or the, the classic, um, like mini bands or the weight lifting or CrossFit bands. And these give you a ton of ways to hit the same movement patterns you would with your weightlifting routine.
[00:19:25] And there's ton of guides online. Just Google it for movements and routines to use resistance span. last but not least. I wanna share what I did on our trip to Florida. This was in June. So it was a little bit warm there. It's it's nice. You know, nice time of year for nutrition. I just didn't track. At this point, I've been tracking long enough that I could eat intuitively I could get pretty close to what I want, but here's the kicker.
[00:19:53] I deliberately timed my last fat loss phase to end two weeks prior so that I could go back to maintenance ahead of time and up my calories. And this gave me some flexibility to enjoy myself and I did. I had to have Cuban food at least twice while I was there. Uh, and of course, ice cream, a few times, that's my vice and ice cream in Florida is, you know, match made in heaven.
[00:20:19] And I knew that I might gain a few pounds over that week. And in fact, on the scale, I probably gained about six or seven pounds, but a lot of that was glycogen and water cuz it quickly came off and I just simply resumed where I left. I switched to a building phase when I got home. So it was actually ideal, right?
[00:20:37] I went from a, a 16 week cut to a two week maintenance, upping my maintenance calories going on the trip, eating whatever I wanted, but, you know, I knew how to restrain myself and then going to a building phase when I got home. So it naturally trended into the new phase. Now I could tell on the trip by my hunger signal.
[00:20:58] Or, or lack thereof let's say, and the occasional feelings of bloat and digestive distress when, when I'd eaten or drunk more than usual. Um, and when I did that, I sort of tapered off the next day. Took it a little bit easy. um, or if it was my choice, I continued my hedonistic ways, but rest assured I didn't abuse this freedom and I just had a few select, very high calorie meals during the week.
[00:21:24] Um, planned it out, thought about it ahead of time, made sure to have enough protein on hand, et cetera, things I talked about before. For training. I coaxed my 70 plus year old dad and my younger brother just younger by a few years to go to the local big box gym on two different days, one upper body, one lower body.
[00:21:44] I just wanted to show them the barbell lifts. Hey guys, you do machines. Let's, you know, try something different. Um, And I think how did we do it? We used the free three day promotional pass they had, so we went one day and then two days later within that window, of course, then we're on their mailing list AF after that point.
[00:22:01] But, uh, as expected. Okay. I totally expected this. There was literally only one squat rack. There were a couple Smith machines. There were a million cardio machines and body building machines. It was a good dumbbell rack, but one squat rack. And it wasn't even the traditional rack with the vertical. Um, the vertical steel rod rods.
[00:22:23] I can't speak right now. It was one of those, uh, like triangular trapezoidal, contraptions. I can't really explain it other than it was not ideal for unring for a squat. You really had to be a little bit careful. But we spotted each other and we used good form and technique to be as safe as we could. We got it done.
[00:22:43] So we spent about a solid hour slinging, barbells, dumbbells, and trying some of the machines. What's fun about being on vacation at a different gym is you get to try some other machines you don't normally have. I mean, simple things that I. Wouldn't take for granted like, um, a seated leg curl, you know, I have a line leg curled home, so I said, well, now I can do it seated.
[00:23:03] That's great. Or a cafe machine, something like that, you know, just for fun. So we felt energized for the day. We had a great time. Well, at least. I did. I think my dad and brother maybe have regretted the decision, but we'll have something to talk about for years to come. Okay. That that's it for me. I think that covers the solid list of some of the unique challenges that I could think about when going on vacation.
[00:23:27] Uh, and I hope it answered Dina's question as well. I think it did. I hope some of these ideas and strategies are helpful for you the next time. Adventure calls.
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Ep 19: Functional Strength, Longevity, and Martial Arts with Ken Caputo
Ken Caputo is a lifelong athlete who eventually found his way to strength training in his late 30s. I invited Ken on today because of his passion for lifting and nutrition, and how they can keep someone healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally, as well as recover from injury.
Ken Caputo is a lifelong athlete who eventually found his way to strength training in his late 30s—something he and I have in common!
From an early age, he competed in swimming, track, cross country, and even pole vaulting and spring board diving at the University of Connecticut, eventually becoming an expert in martial arts.
I invited Ken on today because of his passion for lifting and nutrition, and how they can keep someone healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally, as well as recover from injury.
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:26] Welcome to episode 19 of Wits & Weights. Today, we have another special interview guests. Ken Kaputo is a lifelong athlete who eventually found his way to strength training in his late thirties. And that's something he and I have in common, uh, from an early age.
[00:00:47] He competed in swimming track, cross country, even pole vaulting and springboard diving at the university of Connecticut. Eventually becoming an expert in martial arts. I invited Ken on today because of his passion for lifting and nutrition and how they can keep someone healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally, as well as recover from injury.
[00:01:07] Ken Kaputo. Thanks for joining me on the.
[00:01:10] Ken Caputo: Glad to be here. Um,
[00:01:13] Philip Pape: you've been an athlete since you were a teenager and you've dabbled, recreationally and competitively in probably more sports than I've ever even thought of. Um, tell us, tell us more about your fitness background and your current approach to training and nutrition.
[00:01:30] Ken Caputo: Yeah, so I really, I think. I would say I became an athlete in my mid teens, you know, like around high school age. Um, prior to that, I was the skinny kid who couldn't, you know, I did little league and stuff like that, but did all of it poorly. And, um, and, uh, I was became attracted to more like endurance.
[00:01:51] Activities. So running. I did really well with swimming, uh, embody controls stuff, and I found that it just it's, it was a joy. It was like, I think the main thing, especially younger was it was a way to decompress, relieve stressors that, you know, all the teenagers are feeling. I think the hormonal highs, especially from endurance activities, with something I became kind of addicted to.
[00:02:17] Uh, so that really was. The start was, you know, and I think the other thing that attracted me to these kinds of individual, um, physical activities and sports was just, it was really just you against the clock, you know? And it was just kind of, you know, this time yeah. You know, a time where you're testing yourself and you know, that kind of fit.
[00:02:39] Personality and style early on. I think now where
[00:02:42] Philip Pape: you, were you encouraged to do this or did you find it on your own? Do you say you're a little skinny kid? Cause I was like the little fat kid who stayed out of sports when I was young. So nobody you'd have to, you know, pay me to do it. So, you know, how did you get into it that.
[00:02:55] So
[00:02:55] Ken Caputo: it's kind of funny because my, my dad, um, is a, he was like a big time football based, Paul, you know, he was into more of the traditional kind of team sports and he always really encouraged us to do those things. So I tried them all and that was just terrible. It just wasn't good at any of them and,
[00:03:13] Philip Pape: you know, something physical, just not those sports.
[00:03:17] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah. And I really just, you know, I mean, I, I remember just as a, like a 12, 13 year old, pretty much. Reading a lot of books and hiding in the basement and just kind of, you know, just nothing was working out that way. And it was, uh, a good friend of mine in high school who had joined up on the swim team to become a springboard diver.
[00:03:37] And he was like, you want to try. I said, I knew nothing about diving and neither did the coach, honestly. I mean, this is like a high school team. There was a board there, so it was me and him. And they literally showed us this eight millimeter reel of the required dives,
[00:03:53] Philip Pape: poems, or trays. Like you ever see Dodge ball.
[00:03:55] Like, I don't think it up now, this the springboard. So versus the, I don't know what you call the other one that's doesn't spring, but is this very high or is it pretty close to the water?
[00:04:08] Ken Caputo: It's pretty close. So one meter. So at the high school level, it's all one meter. Once you get into the collegiate level, uh, there is no one meter it's three meter.
[00:04:17] And then, especially as you get into the higher levels, you've got platform, usually, uh, a five meter and 10 meter platform. So, you know, starting out of this one meter and, um, you know, and I just, I loved it. And. As I got into it, I also started swimming because you could do both so you can compete. So I started competing in a hundred free and breasts and stuff like that.
[00:04:39] And, um, so this was my freshman year of high school. And what happened was that spring, they were looking for pole vaulters and the track coach said, Hey, you know, you diverse your, these skinny light guys who have good body control. Why don't you try out for the track team and see if we can pull all, okay.
[00:04:58] Philip Pape: Okay. I was going to say, it sounds like a totally random sport, but you've got, yeah,
[00:05:04] Ken Caputo: yeah, exactly. And I'd actually tried out for track when I was in junior high and got cut. Cause I didn't know what I was doing. I couldn't run. I was just not athletic. So, uh, so anyway, so I tried pole vaulting and, and again, as part of that, decided to try running again and got hooked on the 3,200.
[00:05:22] Which is basically two miles on the track. And that that fall I did cross country can take you to swim, dive and became a three sport athlete right through all of high school. Um, and then that carried over university of Connecticut. I was actually, um, recruited to be euphoric. But didn't get enough money to actually go there.
[00:05:45] So I walked on to the swim team at Yukon and, uh, made it as a diver and a dove for a couple of years there. Um, that's pretty cool.
[00:05:55] Philip Pape: What were you Yukon for? What was your major?
[00:05:57] Ken Caputo: Uh, actually I went in for psychologists. Okay. And, um, and ended up, uh, just not doing well. Um, you know, I was doing a bunch of stuff.
[00:06:06] I was, you know, kind of working my way through. I actually had joined the national guard to pay my tuition. So I was doing that once a month, you know, doing a army infantry men type thing. And, uh, and eventually just kind of ran out of money and motivation for the whole college thing. So. You know, so I left campus, I was still doing some classes part-time working nights and was looking for something physical to do, because at this point I understood the value of physical activity and just was looking for something that would kind of hit that body control part, but also something that would bring in a little bit more of a, I guess you would say a mindfulness, although I didn't really have those words at that time.
[00:06:47] So another friend said, Hey, there's a karate school in town. Check it out. So I went in, you know, so this is probably around 20 at the time. And, um, went in, try to class, fell in love with it. And. About a year later realized that I loved it so much. I actually came in a little early and saw Southern working with the kids and I was thinking, oh my God, I, I could see myself doing this with my life.
[00:07:14] You know, I mean, it's, it's, it's healthy for me. I could really transform a lot of lives. So I started teaching, volunteering my time and eventually took over a school that was failing and, um, It's still going strong 30 plus years later. Well,
[00:07:31] Philip Pape: that's amazing how opportunities come out of nowhere. Right? We seeking that a kind of individualistic pursuit, right.
[00:07:37] Of something that would channel your energy. So it wasn't even for self-defense or anything like that, which is probably why I would think to take martial arts and then you fell into it found that you could teach kids. And that was another passion of yours kind of combining the two.
[00:07:50] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah. And I had actually, uh, because of the swimming, I had, uh, been a lifeguard through high school that was kind of my job.
[00:07:56] And I taught swim lessons and loved teaching the kids. So there is, so that kind of came back, bubbling out to the surface when I saw this, this opportunity with the martial arts and it all just kind of came together and, you know, so I started doing it professionally and Doug, you know, really dug into that and competed in tournaments and, you know, Six days a week and you know, really just became a lifestyle.
[00:08:22] Philip Pape: That's pretty cool. My only foray into karate. Well, there's two first is I tried it as a kid and I was too scared to actually go up in front in front of everybody for the first demonstration. And I told my parents, I don't want to do this. Um, and then the second is, is my love for Cobra, Kai, which I know is completely realistic.
[00:08:39] Uh, the show on Netflix, right? And that's about it. It's hilarious. It's very entertaining, um, tongue in cheek and all that, especially if you grew up around that time. Um, but so I've wondered, I understand you've taught. So this is Shalon. Kempo is the style that from your email, hopefully I pronounce that.
[00:08:55] Right. Um, and you're a seventh degree black belt. And again, I don't know anything about martial arts in general. So why that style? What, what excites you about.
[00:09:05] Ken Caputo: Uh, it was really the first one that I stepped into and, you know, and what I tell people all the time there's, there are so many different styles and it really just comes down to, does the, does the way the system is set up, compliment the way that you kind of move.
[00:09:24] And does it feel good to you? And more importantly, do you like the environment? Do you like the teachers? Do you like the students that are with you? It's really a community. Uh, so as long as those things, the actual name of the style or the specific of the style never really seemed as relevant. Um, they all have advantages and disadvantages.
[00:09:43] Um, like you said, I was more interested in being a balanced human, so I wasn't really into Intuit for like a con. Type of, you know, hardcore. Yeah. You know, and it, it just, it wasn't. And, you know, and if I was, I probably would've picked a different style, although there's, you know, the style I'm in is very, um, there's obviously self-defense application there always is, but what it's really about is living a long, healthy life, you know, and that's, that was what really appealed to me.
[00:10:15] Not only for myself. Teaching that you know, to communities and, you know, here I am at, I literally trained multiple generations, you know, so watch kids become parents and have kids and, you know, live healthy, abundant lives with this martial arts system being kind of, part of that. Part of that experience for sure.
[00:10:37] Philip Pape: Yeah. And I think this, you hit on the community aspect. I think that's attracted a lot of people to all sorts of pursuits. Right? CrossFit is a big one I can think of that took off 15 years ago. Um, you also mentioned longevity and health, and I want to get into some of that with this discussion because.
[00:10:55] You know, so sometimes goals are contradictory, right? There's the performance goals, there's strength, goals, longevity, and health. They don't always align perfectly if you're trying to build and you need to cut body fat and, you know, be hungry and suffer through all that. And you're messing with your hormones.
[00:11:13] And so on that doesn't necessarily translate to living to 110, if that's what you meant by long, but you know, you get the point. So, I mean, what's your take on balance. Yeah,
[00:11:25] Ken Caputo: it's, it's really an interesting thing. And the funny part, I, I, I trained as a lifelong athlete. It was all, it was, it was pretty well balanced just because I wasn't looking to be like some crazy.
[00:11:38] You know, MMA fighter, whereas taking a lot of hits, like even competed in tournaments, but there's, what's called point fighting. So there's contact, but it's, it's like tag, you know, when someone hits you, everything stops and you're accumulating five points and then you advance. So. You take some shots, you know, but it's not the sheer abuse that like an MMA fighter or a boxer, you know?
[00:12:01] I mean, they're like taking such a pounding. So I didn't have that element. What was interesting is, you know, by the time I was in my mid thirties, I had reached, uh, a rank in these, in the system that I was training where you really couldn't compete anymore. I started racing mountain bikes
[00:12:19] Philip Pape: and, uh, had the bug.
[00:12:21] And yet somehow
[00:12:23] Ken Caputo: I've always needed to do something competitive. And this was cross-country. So, you know, so you start off as a beginner and, you know, it's like maybe like a 45 minute, uh, you know, race. And by the time you reached back then what was the expert level? What's now cat one. These are two, three hour races.
[00:12:39] So they're very demanding. Um, doing point series. So you're talking 14 races between like April and October. So that's where you start seeing what you're talking about. Like balancing that level of training and conditioning, um, against the demands of the sport. Can really throw you out of whack. And I remember very vividly, uh, when I first started racing, you know, I got like blown out my first year.
[00:13:07] I did terrible. And it was just part of the learning curve, um, led to a lot of nutritional insights we can talk about, but there were posters up for dealing with. And a lot of, a lot of these racers were pushing themselves so hard, physically logging so many hours to be competitive, that it was creating damage emotionally, you know, not enough time committed to their relationships.
[00:13:31] So, so I learned a lot about that and really, you know, my goal was doing this because the best way for me to stay healthy was to have some kind of a physical event to train for in a cyclical way. You know, so, and that's when I started really thinking about all right, what's the best way to be efficient and to be smart.
[00:13:53] So. I, I feel imbalanced. I'm not like getting moody or, you know, eating things that are leaving me all doubled over and cramped up after a race or impacting my, my business. I mean, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a business owner, so I had to invest all of that. So I learned, I think, more from the mountain biking experience and did that for about a decade.
[00:14:15] Um, did I did from anything I had done previously to that, you know?
[00:14:19] Philip Pape: Yeah. So it sounds like what you're talking about is the need for period of. The need for, I guess, seasons in your training and your competitions. I mean, CrossFitters learn this over the years of the open and the games where the organization, I guess, added more and more competitions.
[00:14:34] And the top ranks guys wanted to compete all year and they found they couldn't do it. And, you know, because you get over-trained, you get over fatigued and you really need to peak peak for that. Right? You need to have a building phase, you have to have an off season, et cetera. It sounds like what you're talking about now, could these bikers.
[00:14:51] Just skip a bunch of competitions and choose the ones they wanted or did they have to compete in all of these
[00:14:56] Ken Caputo: it's upended. So, you know what, for those of us that were into it from a point serious perspective, it was, you could miss one race, which usually was going to be a DNF. Like you went to race and something broke on your bike or you crashed and broke yourself and that kind of thing.
[00:15:14] Yeah. But I mean, you really, you had to, you know, the ones that would win. I won states. I won new England. So I took it as high as I could go at the expert level. Um, and it was really attrition. It was who could raise consistently pretty much top five race after race, after race, through the whole series. So, yeah, it was very challenging because you really couldn't, you know, and you found yourself like during the training season balancing, like your, your main physical effort was the race and then everything else was kind of recovery, maintaining fitness.
[00:15:48] You know, you could sustain it. And what's interesting is there's this, and you see this a lot in athletics. There's this. Tough guy culture. Like, you know, one of the things we used to say is, you know, the one who breaks last wins, you know, the one who could and, and cycling is sustained pain, like mountain biking, especially cause it's very anaerobic and aerobic.
[00:16:13] So, you know, you're, you're going up and up Mount snow with your heart rate at 180 5 for 15 minutes, and then you're exhausted and trying to traverse and go back down and do it again. You know, so you, you almost didn't recognize how important it was to take care of yourself and focus on recovery because the tough guy would just take it, you know, and not break it.
[00:16:40] No, it really was. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:43] Philip Pape: Wow. That's cool. So w so we, we touched on balance and periodization then, so then that brings me to. I know you're doing OTRs now, but, um, you, you also do strength training and that's, that's my passion. Right? You came into that, I guess, in, around in your thirties, sort of similar timeframe that I did.
[00:17:00] Um, I guess my question is, you know, how did you fall into this?
[00:17:05] Ken Caputo: So, yeah, so it was really interesting. So with the cycling, you know, one of the things, especially road cyclist, they'll tend to, um, you know, there's a lot mass amounts of cardiovascular fitness and they're there, you know, your legs just get huge, but your upper body on a mountain bike, you need a lot of upper body strength, but it's hard to actually work.
[00:17:27] On the bike, you know what I mean? It's to, to actually get like, kind of balanced musculature and it was also starting to, you know, there's a lot more research I had. Um, my first started racing, um, I was just pumping calories, you know, five, 6,000 calories a day, and I'm doing it with feeding anything, hot dogs, ice cream, whatever I could, I didn't know, you know?
[00:17:48] Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, so I'm starting to get like cramps. So I started studying nutrition and started learning about, you know, how it's not just the calories, the macronutrients, the types of foods, all of that started coming into play. And that led me to understanding a little bit more about body composition and the value of maintaining muscle mass.
[00:18:14] Not only for just strength, competitively, but overall health and longevity. And at this point, Almost 20 years ago. So the research wasn't even really that strong, like now, I mean,
[00:18:26] Philip Pape: science phase still.
[00:18:28] Ken Caputo: Yeah. You know, and I, I was really kind of turned off by the idea of muscle building, like bulking up because as a martial artist, who is all about everything being balanced and functional strength.
[00:18:40] So, you know, I mean, Fighting. I, I weighed 150 pounds, you know, and it was about hitting, like you weighed 250 pounds sure. Through structure, not necessarily too big. So, so I had kind of, I was misinformed about what resistance training could actually do for you. And as I started reaching it, uh, researching, and I was like, okay, now this is starting to make sense.
[00:19:05] And I recognized that I had worked a lot on. The other cornerstones of fitness, there's like five things that I think about, uh, conditions. Um, flexibility, which you do a lot in martial arts stability, which you do a lot in martial arts is just so much balance and mobility movement. But what I missed was strength and
[00:19:29] Philip Pape: which you could argue, could bring all these other things up another level.
[00:19:33] Ken Caputo: Exactly what happened. So, so I, and I found that I just had, um, I was doing a lot of upper body, uh, not upper body. Um, just like, uh, Strength training always had tons of pushups, pull ups, just explosive movements with the body, but not adding in actual weights. And when I started adding in the way. All of a sudden, like it was kind of scary, like how much more energy I had.
[00:19:58] I started hitting like a lot harder. Um, I was moving more exclusively when I was training in the arts, my, uh, ability to perform my mountain bike racing got better. It just, it just brought everything together. It was like the glue that brought all these different things together.
[00:20:16] Philip Pape: Um, I'm not surprised at all.
[00:20:18] What I'm curious about is what, what style or what focus of strength training that you've found most effective, you know, is it the big compound lifts or was it just adding weight to, to anything or what was it.
[00:20:29] Ken Caputo: It was, it's kind of funny. I think, um, I, I just started reading books on it. Um, and there were a few good ones that, uh, um, I think there's one body for life, uh, early on.
[00:20:40] And there are a few like that. And, um, and so I was just kind of learning. How to lift and, you know, the difference between low rep high rep, figuring out what your one lift max was and just the basics, you know, I mean, bench, press deadlift, squat, you know, that kind of stuff. Um, but I actually found this guy is probably still around his name is shin or talkie and he, he was big on.
[00:21:05] Understanding how to do compound movements. And he was like doing a lot more of like the Olympic lifts, like Queens and you know, that kind of stuff. And, but all the dumbbells. So I really got kind of fascinated by that. It made a lot of sense, as far as working through connect kinetic chains of movement, like you do much more bilateral.
[00:21:27] Yeah. Yeah. So, and there was just, and also the core state of stabilization. So I felt like it, it was causing me to use my body the way I trained it to work for two decades and all these other things I did. So, so I kind of started digging into his stuff for a while. Um, and then, so a few years after. I think it was when Jeff cavalier showed up on the scene with YouTube and he
[00:21:55] Philip Pape: just really, yeah.
[00:21:57] Athlete next.
[00:21:58] Ken Caputo: Yeah. And that's what I use to this day. I just use various of his programs because I like the way he kinda, you know, he, he varies it up. He, he sets you up on, you know, a training regimen. That's not too time intensive, but you know, it doesn't leave any gaps. It's smart and intelligent. And now I just kind of cycle through a bunch of his different programs and, you know, that's what I've found has been most effective for me.
[00:22:24] Philip Pape: I mean, that. You know, you came through with the compound lifts and also the dumbbells. I mean, I I've heard it said that if, if you had no problem lifting any weight dumbbell, it would be the most effective, you know, implement. Um, but when you get heavy enough, you just can't wield them. You know, they're just too, and that's why you tend to use both.
[00:22:44] Um, if you have the training volume and you have the time, but, um, Consistency. Right. When did you say, like, I know a lot of folks, they can pick up fairly mediocre program. I'm not saying, um, Cavaliers program is that, but you could pick one and as long as you're consistent, you're gonna have, you're gonna be in the top 90% of people in terms of your
[00:23:02] Ken Caputo: progress.
[00:23:03] Yeah. Yeah, no. And when people ask me, you know, I mean, that's, that's, I'm, I'm always very clear. There's a difference between like I'm choosing to live my life. For as long as I possibly can as a high performing athlete. And obviously what high performing is, is relative to, you know, the event, the time I put in age, all those other things as they just naturally occur.
[00:23:27] Um, but for most people tell them, look, I mean, just if you stress the muscles, you know, two, three times a week, it's just, it's all good for you. You know? So find something you can do safely and smart that you can commit to. And, you know, and if it's just body weight and you just want to pull a bar and do pushups and you know, that's going to be what it is, it's, it's definitely better than nothing.
[00:23:51] And you may find that over time, as you get stronger, you get curious and you know, and now you do sign up for the gym and get a couple of personals and. Learn a few things about how to lift safely and smart and that kind of thing. But, um, but yeah, I just tell people, look, it's just the act of strength training on a regular basis.
[00:24:12] Like you said, consistently. Is going to have a tremendous impact on your overall health and wellness over time period.
[00:24:20] Philip Pape: Yep. Totally agree. Preaching to the choir on that, you know? Yeah. You know, and it's funny. I don't know. Let's see. Did it come out? Yeah, I did an episode on injury that just came out. And then you had mentioned that you suffered, um, at a grade three AC tear the lout three ligaments, but, but.
[00:24:39] You were, had gotten stronger up to that point and you believe that that helped you through or help the recovery process versus if you hadn't.
[00:24:47] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah. When Fe, so that happened in 2015 on Thanksgiving morning. So we're talking, you know, almost seven years
[00:24:56] Philip Pape: ago.
[00:24:59] Ken Caputo: This was so basically that morning before going to do all the family stuff, I just went for a run, um, as soon a trailer.
[00:25:06] With my golden retriever. So I had her on my leash and, you know, and we ran this trail. It was very clear and everything just kind of like a gravel road bed. So, you know, so it's doing some sprints and she, she saw whatever squirrel type thing cut across my legs. So I went over the top, which was fine. One of the things I really good at is rolling out.
[00:25:27] You know, I've gotten over the type of bicycles and all that kind of stuff, but she pulled the leash. Exactly when I was upside down and I came down on the top of my right shoulder, the ortho guy said it was perfect. Like there was no fracture in my collarbone at all. Like I hit exactly on the top of the joy and basically your arms held to your collarbone by three ligaments.
[00:25:52] Uh, and I sheared right through all three of those ligaments. So, you know, so like your collarbone. Like 3g and see it right through a t-shirt even it's like, it was like almost an inch, you know, raised up and, you know, so,
[00:26:07] Philip Pape: so also you said, so are you saying that was preferable to having broken your. Well, the
[00:26:13] Ken Caputo: vantage to it, not
[00:26:14] Philip Pape: preferable
[00:26:16] Ken Caputo: vantage was, I didn't need like surgery and things.
[00:26:19] So no pins in the collarbone, nothing like that. But basically you have two choices with a grade three tear, cause there's not a sprain or a partial tear. There's literally nothing holding your arm attached to your collarbone other than muscle and skin at that point. So you can either, uh, let it heal up naturally.
[00:26:37] And it'll do what's called scar. And scar tissue will basically replace the ligaments or they go in and they string up piece of wire around your collarbone and they just kind of cinch it up. So, so I decided to let it heal non-surgically and, and the doc had told me, he said, look, you got nine months. Uh, if at the end of nine months, it hasn't healed.
[00:26:57] Well, we can go in and we can do the surgery and do that. So, so basically you spend about six months holding your arm in your. And like you can't pick anything up, you know, at all, because you'll tear all the scar tissue. Um, so I lost, probably close to, at that point, I, I was probably like one 60 somewhere in there.
[00:27:19] Um, you know, a decent amount of muscle mass. I lost about 12 pounds of muscle mass, my whole right side atrophied. I had done so much work to strengthen and build muscle that I healed completely and asymptomatically and have absolutely no limitations. Now it actually, the doctor even was a little surprised at how well it healed.
[00:27:41] Um, and he said you have years of prehab. Yours. And especially the resistance training doing these, these complex lifts and everything. I had strengthened the shoulder, all the support muscles were balanced and in good shape. So my body was naturally trying to bring everything back into alignment, which gave me a better opportunity for it to scar up and heal.
[00:28:03] Right.
[00:28:04] Philip Pape: Um, it was sort of like a muscle memory in a way everybody's trying to get back to that point.
[00:28:09] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah. And it took me. It was two years from the injury before I regained everything that I had lost as far as strength and mobility and everything. But now almost seven years later, I'm doing everything I could do and more priors, incredible jury.
[00:28:26] So, yeah. And I think what really struck me about just maintaining your, your, you know, just to exercise fitness, lifting, all of those things is there. You're putting money in the bank. These are investments that will pay dividends if and when something happens, you know, and so many people, you know, I was talking to him and he was showing me pictures and he said, a lot of people don't recover well from this injury because they've been sedentary.
[00:28:54] So, you know, so now they're trying to actually develop muscle. To protect and help them overcome the damage they did. But it's too late. It's like learning to defend yourself after you got mugged. Right. It doesn't
[00:29:10] Philip Pape: get insurance after you don't need it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Have you ever seen the, uh, there, this cross, the cross-sectional pictures.
[00:29:18] Of somebody's thigh as they get older on, if you've ever seen something like that, where you see the diameter of the thighs the same, but the muscle area just shrinks and shrinks and shrinks because of the as you get older. Right. So it's just, like you said, you, you basically waste away, especially as we start getting into your fifties and sixties.
[00:29:37] I mean, it's never too late to start strength training, but like you said, injury wise, the risk of not being able to recover goes yeah. The older you are. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you'd be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media.
[00:29:53] Just take a screenshot, share to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful in how I can improve again, an incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the. And
[00:30:09] Ken Caputo: what's cool though, is from my understanding your body responds really well.
[00:30:12] I mean, you can start lifting when you're in your sixties and you're going to regain muscle mass and, you know, and it's gonna it's and there's just this whole, like kind of domino effect of benefits that come from that, you know, the big thing is making sure that you're safe.
[00:30:30] Philip Pape: Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. What the answer doing the right forum.
[00:30:33] My dad is in his seventies and has finally picked up weight training for the first time. And he's seen the benefits. I agree. You can build additional muscle even in your seventies. It's crazy.
[00:30:44] Ken Caputo: Yeah. And you're talking like the, and I know you've talked about on some of your episodes, the metabolic. Oh, of course, you know,
[00:30:51] Philip Pape: that testosterone and
[00:30:54] Ken Caputo: yup.
[00:30:54] And the proportion of muscle to fat, you know, the ratio and it's, and I don't care what age you are. That is, that is going to be good for you. Oh, absolutely.
[00:31:03] Philip Pape: Just having a higher metabolism for sure. Yep. Um, all right. So. OCR. I want to get back to that. Cause I, you seem like a guy who is high energy always has to be busy doing something, and you're trying to balance everything and not get injured.
[00:31:18] You want to live a long life. You want to perform, you want to go out and win. So that sounds like a good outlet for that. Is that how you got into. Yeah.
[00:31:25] Ken Caputo: Yeah. So, so it's kind of funny. And again, you know, these things are so random. It was, uh, uh, someone just asked me if I wanted to go do one of a rugged maniac, which was, you know, and, and at that point, um, I wasn't really doing anything competitively.
[00:31:40] I had kind of retired from the cycling, you know, I was doing it recreationally. Um, but it just kind of ran its course and I wasn't interested in continue to compete. You know, I kind of took it to. You know, as high an amateur level as I could. And it was just, I lost my interest in it. So I was kind of in between interesting athletic things to challenge myself.
[00:32:02] I hadn't already done. Um, you know, when skydiving, when I turned 50, that was fun, but I, it was an adrenaline kick, but it's not really a sport. It would
[00:32:12] Philip Pape: be a skydiver. Yeah,
[00:32:14] Ken Caputo: it was, I loved it. I did it a few times. It was such a blast, you know, but, uh, but anyway, you know, so. So they invited me to go do one of these rugged maniac things and it was a blast and the culture was very celebratory.
[00:32:29] It reminded me a little bit about, uh, um, how mountain biking was when I had done that. Just the, the type of people that would show up and, you know, so, so I did, let me stop you there.
[00:32:39] Philip Pape: Did you do the one. Yes. Okay. Because I did that twice. It'd be interesting to know if we competed the same years. Was that like within the last 10 years or was that much more recently?
[00:32:48] Yes, I did
[00:32:50] Ken Caputo: it. So I want to say the first year I did, it was probably 2017. Cause it would have been, I wouldn't have been able to do it the year before that because I, I wasn't healed enough yet. I was less than a year off of my injury. So I think it was, I think it was 2017 and I was really just at a point where I was starting to get back.
[00:33:10] Physically to the condition I was used to operating it. Um, that's a good way to say it would've made sense. Yeah.
[00:33:17] Philip Pape: So like tough Mudder or something like that.
[00:33:20] Ken Caputo: Yeah. And of course, you know, so I tried it. I had a blast. I think I went back, did it the next year. Yeah. So that would have been 2018 and I'm started looking into the fact that they would do an elite heat.
[00:33:33] Um, so which the first heat in the morning, you could actually have a timed race. You could key in it. So I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. And of course I was going with a group of people and they weren't interested in that. So, so I ended up running the course in 20, 19 3 times and I did it, uh, once competitively, um, did okay.
[00:33:56] You know, like I didn't, I didn't win or anything, but I get relatively well. And then I did it with a small group and then I did it one more time with a big group and just was really, it was a lot of fun. So
[00:34:09] Philip Pape: for the listener, this is a 5k with like 20 or 30 obstacles. Yeah. So a good time is, is somewhere in the upper twenties maybe or low thirties,
[00:34:22] Ken Caputo: low
[00:34:22] Philip Pape: thirties.
[00:34:24] Ken Caputo: There's times where, depending on the course for the 5k, um, and how muddy it is that day, um, anywhere between 30 and 35 minutes. Uh, and the, so the first year I did it competitively, I did it in about 38 minutes. Um, you know, so I, I did it well enough. That it seemed like something that was interesting to pursue.
[00:34:44] And then of course, 20, 20 the pandemic. So it didn't happen. Uh, so, so last fall, you know, so I kind of trained, I decided last fall in 2021, I was going to train for this thing and try to do well. So, and they actually have, um, competitively, they have, uh, a 50 and up division and then they have just an all age division.
[00:35:06] So I ended up winning the 50 and up and finishing third overall. Two metals. Yeah. No. And it was, it was fun, you know, and it was what I really enjoyed was the preparation because it, the process. Yeah. You know that the endurance part of it. So you gotta be running, you know, Hadn't run. I'd been focusing on cycling.
[00:35:29] So it's kind of cool getting back to running. It's very pure. I love trail running. Um, but then, you know, you need a lot of body strength and a lot of body coordination because of all the obstacles. So, so I did that placed high enough that I got an email about OCR world championships, which happens every year.
[00:35:50] It's strategy. It's at Stratton this year. Um, I was like, Why not. So, so I decided I was going to train for that. And as part of that, um, I started researching the different OCR, like kind of circuits going around and found Spartan racing. Really like, you know, the way that looked. So, uh, so signed up for a trifecta, which is basically doing the multiple distances.
[00:36:19] Um, worlds for OCR is a 15 K race. So, you know, so long, get a little
[00:36:25] Philip Pape: more hardcore here. Yeah,
[00:36:27] Ken Caputo: yeah, yeah. More endurance. And, uh, the, the really fascinating thing about it is they basically, they give you a risk. And, um, if you don't clear an obstacle, they cut your wristband. You're done so you can finish the race, but you're disqualified.
[00:36:40] So you've got to be able to clear all the obstacles and you can try it more than once, you know, like if you slip off or whatever, but, um, oh,
[00:36:48] Philip Pape: okay. You can try them on. What, what what's is that not the one where they make you do a bunch of burpees if you miss it, or is that like at the non. Oh, that is fine.
[00:36:55] Yes. Spartan does that 30 burpees or something? Yeah.
[00:36:59] Ken Caputo: 25 burpees. So yeah. So if you miss an obstacle, you got to go to the penalty box and they actually, for the competitive, you can do Spartan, just recreationally. But if you know, the, the preparation and how it relates to this idea of being an integrated athlete, that's really.
[00:37:16] Kind of focus off of all of it. So,
[00:37:19] Philip Pape: yeah. So, so let's talk about the, the terms here, right? You've used the terms, functional strength, um, integrated movement, integrated athlete. The first time I came across functional movement was CrossFit again, back back in the day, um, where I get introduced to barbells and, and power cleans and such.
[00:37:35] Um, I guess, what do you, in your words, what does that mean? What does functional strength mean?
[00:37:41] Ken Caputo: So for me, I mean, there's a lot of different ways that people think of it, but it's, for me, it's being able to do the things that I love to do. To live the life of my choosing. So, you know, and for some people that could be hiking with their grandkids or being able to go to a waterpark and actually go down the slides and climb up the stairs, um, it could be being able to do yard work in your nineties.
[00:38:07] You know, it's just, you know, to me that the, the, the preparation for athletic events. For me has always been in service to being able to do the things that I want to do. Not only physically, but mentally and emotionally keeping my energy levels stay strong. My mind is clear. I'm on zero medications, you know, I mean, it's.
[00:38:34] I stay healthy. I get to live the life that I want to live. So, you know, so to me, what I think functional strength, it's like even this, uh, you know, this OCR stuff, it's, you're pushing, you're pulling, you're crawling, you're climbing. You're you're doing like actual movements that, you know, show up in your life.
[00:38:54] It's funny. One of the things I would tell people in martial arts is the one skill I guarantee you will use that you'll learn in a martial arts class is how to fall safely. At some point, you're going to fall down, you know, and most people that's how they, especially as they age, you break a bone, you dislocate a hip, you get.
[00:39:12] Because, you know, two things, number one, falling is a skill. It's a skill develop. Um, let me down when I blew up my AC, but Hey, no, there's no guarantees. Right. You know, but then the other thing is how well have you practiced your body being functionally sound and structurally sound. So. It has a higher tolerance for the unexpected things that happen in our lives, you know, and if something does go wrong, you can recover from it better on the other side.
[00:39:42] So,
[00:39:42] Philip Pape: yeah, it's just, it seems like there's a spectrum because. For example, if, if somewhere to come to someone where to come to me and say, I want to get stronger, I'd say, all right, we're going to start with the very basics. Right? We're going to squat. We're going to deadlift. Cause squatting is bending down, right?
[00:39:57] Like you would do if you were sitting, if you were outside with your tribe or whatever, um, deadlifting is picking stuff up, you know, overhead pressing is reaching over your head. And Ben's pressings kind of the odd man out, even though we all love it, but it's kind of pushing, you know, being able to push something heavy forward in a way.
[00:40:13] So those are functional movements and they develop stability, mobility, et cetera, but you are still lacking some, like I couldn't do a back flip and I haven't really learned to fall properly. So things like that, um, would expand the repertoire, I guess if I, you know, focused on those skills. So it it's an interesting perception.
[00:40:31] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Like we went to a trampoline park and I'm out there literally doing backflips and bouncing all over the place. You know, like I'm a teenager and you know, and I'm not sore from it the next day. Like I train trampolining is part of diving and you would not believe how sore you can get if you're not used to doing.
[00:40:52] But, yeah, so it's just, you know, for me, it's, it's that, and you know, in the idea of being an integrated athlete is actually kind of these five components. Um, you know, we talk about move, think connect, fuel, empower, uh, with the idea being every day, make an investment in your ability to move somehow, you know, every day do something that's good for your mind.
[00:41:15] You know, and, you know, learn something new, read something, listen to something and get the blood going, you know, get the blood into your brain, oxygenate your brain through. So the movement helps with that. Fuel is obviously the nutrition, you know, the nourishment you bring in connect. This is the relationships that you've.
[00:41:35] Through all of this, you know, so, I mean, going for a walk with, with a partner or a friend, that's powerful on a lot of different levels, you know? And then, um, through the martial arts, I do a lot of, uh, cheat dog, meditation, mindfulness stuff. So empower is just, you know, being present in whatever it is you're doing.
[00:41:54] And when you do all those, all those things a little bit every day, it kind of, for me anyway, it helps keep everything. And balance. So you don't get caught up in lifting for the sake of lifting. You're lifting for a purpose that adds value to your life over the longterm. And if your body changes or your environment changes or something changes professionally, you don't feel like you're losing something because it will just adapt to the needs that you now have, and it will grow and evolve with you over time.
[00:42:26] Instead of, you know, ah, I used to be able to run a mile. Five 15. I can't do that anymore. I shouldn't be running. Yeah.
[00:42:36] Philip Pape: Yeah, no, I, I like it. I like where you're going with that too. You have to have a goal and you can have intermediate goals. You could have long-term goals, right. And then you break it down to the process.
[00:42:46] Um, don't, don't. Either extreme. In other words, like you said, don't just do the process for its own sake. Cause then eventually you might not have purpose and don't just focus on the end goal thinking that's all there is. So that's a good balance. What would you say to people who are listening, who either want to get started in what you do, maybe with the martial arts or somebody who's not as active because you threw out a bunch of things, right.
[00:43:11] And you develop these over time, but what are the big priorities? The big rocks for people.
[00:43:18] Ken Caputo: Uh, I think honestly, the very first thing is understanding the value of recovery. Right? I think you almost have to start there. You know, understanding how much sleep you need. Um, I I'm like a geek when it comes to the technology.
[00:43:33] So like I use whoop, you know,
[00:43:36] Philip Pape: which is that the mat, the mattress, or is that the device in your wrist? That's
[00:43:39] Ken Caputo: the device. Yeah. And it's basically that same thing as the exact same, well, different companies. Same thing, you know, and it helps you understand how well based on the effort you put in how well you're sleeping and recovering based on that understanding of hydration needs and understanding the nourishment of the foods you bring in and how it's really just.
[00:44:07] I think, uh, the confusion I see in a lot of people that I've worked with over the years is they get caught up in the output and, you know, I need to, I need to do my 10,000 steps or I need to get to the gym three days a week. And yes, there, there is all of that, but that's just stimulation, you know, that you have to create the space in your life to receive the benefit.
[00:44:29] And you know, and sometimes the best thing to do is stop. You know, like I definitely, I, I go off every Finn, you know, I do like little supplementation, like created and then sure. You know, omega stuff like that, but I stop everything, stop lifting and just walk for a week and just stop.
[00:44:49] Philip Pape: You can, you know, you can say it's de-load, but you, you really just unplug and disconnect and, and let your body fully
[00:44:54] Ken Caputo: recover.
[00:44:55] Yeah. And I'm actually thinking about that. I'm thinking about muscle repair. And how much better I'm going to feel on the other side of it, you know, and that kind of thing. So, you know, so that's the first thing. And then, um, the second thing that I always recommend to people is find movements that you enjoy, you know?
[00:45:16] So, cause that's the first thing. If you're, if you're doing something that makes you and you hate it every time you think about doing it, they're not going to, you're not going to stay with it. You've got to find things that you now. Yes. You know, an exercise. Isn't always fun. I remember, uh, an adult saying to me a few years ago, he's like you saying, I'm gonna have to do this for the rest of my life.
[00:45:38] And I'm like,
[00:45:42] if you want to be healthy. Yeah. So, you know, gotta do
[00:45:46] Philip Pape: your squats, but maybe you don't want to do back squats. Maybe you want to do front squats. They either do it with a dumbbell, whatever leg, press, you know, do something.
[00:45:56] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Maybe it's resistance bands, you know, or, or maybe it's, you know, putting your kid on your back and doing squats with them, feedbacks, you know, or just.
[00:46:08] Grab a dumbbell walk up and downstairs, you know, the farmer, Hey, asymmetric, farmers carries. Those are great. So, you know,
[00:46:15] Philip Pape: so no excuses, what you're getting at. It's like, if you don't like something, you find something you do. Like at the end of the day, it's going to be hard at some point. Right. And that's part of, part of the fun really is when you do hard things and you see the results can be funded,
[00:46:28] Ken Caputo: but, and you're looking forward to the result.
[00:46:31] So while you're engaged in the activity, you're thinking about the value you're creating, you know, and what that means to you. And. I think I've been fortunate in that, um, like physically, what it does to me has been symptomatic. So like, you know how ripped my abs are. Yeah. The reason I work out. It's just something that you notice as you're going through the training cycles and you know, my body composition, you know, I weigh myself every day and use an impedance scale just so they can kind of monitor how I'm doing and you know, but it's not, I'm not obsessed with how I look.
[00:47:07] I'm just thinking about the value I'm Korean. So, yeah, I
[00:47:11] Philip Pape: agree. Like if, if, um, for new nutrition coaching, you know, I talk about the using biofeedback and data and measurements. It's just that just data it's. In fact, when you do it regularly, if you weigh yourself every day, it, you almost stop thinking about it and you stop obsessing about it.
[00:47:27] Yeah. But it's easier said than done because people have there's, there's all sorts of emotional, mental issues people have, and there's disordered eating and things like that. Um, but I, I love where.
[00:47:37] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Oh, sorry. I was just thinking that could be so hard. Like, you know, especially when I've worked with younger people, they're, you know, they're on Instagram and they're, you know, they're seeing all those visuals are kind of hitting them.
[00:47:49] And it's really hard to balance that, you know, against doing what's best for you and not getting caught up in, you know, these kind of unrealistic images or. Whatever, maybe they are realistic, but if it becomes and in and of itself, it's all very impermanent. You know, anything you win, any metals, you get any picture you take, you're not going to look or be able to do that.
[00:48:14] It's a new world,
[00:48:15] Philip Pape: social media. It's crazy. Yeah. This is all. This is all great stuff, man. I mean, recovery and, uh, you know, food and fuel and finding something that you like for sure. Is there anything else you want to share with the listener before? Wrap it up.
[00:48:33] Ken Caputo: Yeah. I think the last thing that has been helpful is understanding how to lower resistance environmentally.
[00:48:40] Um, and one of the things I'll help people with, we call it the swapping grid. We look at. Rather cause a lot of people, I think they're thinking they have to add more to more, you know, I've got to now get up an hour earlier to get into the gym and they're, so their approach is something that can lead to being out of balance because you're trying to find more time and especially
[00:49:02] Philip Pape: stressors by trying to do exactly.
[00:49:04] Ken Caputo: Exactly. So, so we talk about looking for, um, things that you already have built into your life. That maybe aren't serving you and then swapping them out. So, you know, so a simple example could be, um, like what I've had a lot of people have success with is they, you know, they're trying to cut down on like soda nutritionally, because it's just a lot of junk carbs and not good for him.
[00:49:29] So either they stopped buying it or they put it in the back of the fridge and they put a pitcher of water in front of it. So, so you're just trading out the choice to drink the soda. For drinking water. And sometimes they'll do that. Sometimes you won't, but a lot of more. Pretty quickly, they've reduced their intake by 50% and that has all kinds of effects they can experience.
[00:49:54] So, you know, so maybe you're, you're tired at the end of the day and you like to decompress with half-hour and Netflix and, you know, you just go for a walk instead, you know, or maybe you find like a podcast that you like and you listen to it and walk. So it's, how can I find. Time that's already there and reclaim it by swapping out something that fits with my long-term goals instead of just these habituated patterns.
[00:50:22] Are just kind of there that I don't even think about anymore. And
[00:50:25] Philip Pape: I like that, Ken. Yeah, that reminds me of a, I don't know if it was a Freakonomics episode, years ago, talked about how I think it was Angela Duckworth, maybe that you know about the habits that show. Yeah. And it was, it was sort of rewarding.
[00:50:38] By doing the activity. And the example they gave was being on a treadmill while watching Netflix, you know, like I only allow myself to watch Netflix while I'm going to try them on and sort of, uh, you're, you're leveraging that same time, but now you're doing something, you know, I got a treadmill, a treadmill for, to work with now that I work from home, mostly for that same reason, like, well, I gotta, I gotta get my steps in and I will go for a walk, but yeah.
[00:51:01] Walk all day, so I can walk all day now while I'm working, you know?
[00:51:05] Ken Caputo: Yep. Yeah. And you just, you find ways and yeah, I've done that for years. Like audio books have been my best friend cause I can do them while I'm doing cardio. Right. You know? So whether I'm on a run or a bike ride. Yes. So I'm nursing my mind at the same time.
[00:51:22] Training my body and, you know, and it's helped me reach my goals for how many books I want to read each year and, you know, stimulate the brain. So, yeah. And it's, it's interesting. Having talked to a lot of people, they, they, once you pointed out. They come up with these amazing like solutions for their own lives.
[00:51:41] They just hadn't thought about it. They just needed someone to say, Hey, have you thought about this? And then they're like, no. And then they do. And it's like really cool. I've had some people telling me some really wild things that they've done that, you know, not only added to their own physical wellbeing, but improve relationships, like, you know, all of a sudden they're doing things with their kids.
[00:52:00] You know, when they never felt like they had enough time and then they, they found this new solution. That's better for everyone, you know? So yeah. It's been really helpful. Um,
[00:52:12] Philip Pape: that's awesome. All right. Well, very cool stuff. Um, where can listeners learn more about you or.
[00:52:18] Ken Caputo: Uh, my goodness. Um, so I'm doing a lot of, uh, projects right now.
[00:52:25] Um, but nothing really. I think that would be of much interest to anyone, uh, that will probably change in a few months if it, if they wanted to contact me, you know, email is probably the simplest thing. To do. And, um, that's just ken@questersway.com and
[00:52:46] Philip Pape: I'll put it in the show notes. Sure.
[00:52:48] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and that's question's way is one of the, it's actually a business we created, uh, ran for four years and now we're ready to relaunch it.
[00:52:56] Post pandemic here that it's basically an entire center built around this idea of moving connect, fuel and power
[00:53:04] Philip Pape: all about
[00:53:05] Ken Caputo: it. Yeah, yeah. Yep. Yeah. So that's a really cool. Project. So, but right now, you know, I just kinda, you know, I, I, I work with different people in different things. We're going to be working with, um, actually the Yukon football team this summer, helping them out a little
[00:53:20] Philip Pape: bit.
[00:53:20] Oh, that's amazing. What are you doing with them? Yeah.
[00:53:23] Ken Caputo: Yeah. A combination of things, but a lot of it's going to be, um, helping there. They're defensive and offensive lineman with, uh, getting a little bit more of a competitive advantage, especially with the way they use their hands and just where their heads at, before the snap of the ball.
[00:53:42] So, yeah, it's just gonna be a lot of fun. We're looking to work.
[00:53:45] Philip Pape: So we're going to see them in the top 10 before long, huh? Oh
[00:53:48] Ken Caputo: boy. That would be really cool. I'm sure they would love that. They've been struggling for a few years, but they've got a new head coach now and, um, they're making some. Significant changes.
[00:53:58] Like even just, they redid the whole locker room and it's like amazing. They gave us a cool tour,
[00:54:03] Philip Pape: Jackson, better recruits, but Hey, w what you're doing with that, you know, could have a big difference. You never know.
[00:54:08] Ken Caputo: So, yeah. No, and that's exactly it. So, you know, so they reached out and we had a little conversation with them, and there are some ways that we could kind of apply some of the principles that we've learned over time to help them out.
[00:54:19] So, uh, you know, so that's what I kind of do, but it's nothing super formal. I'm kind of at a place of picking and choosing. Projects and who I work with and stuff like that. So. Awesome.
[00:54:30] Philip Pape: Well, Ken, thanks for coming on the show. It was really cool to, with you learned a lot of, a lot of really neat stuff here today.
[00:54:35] So thanks again. We
[00:54:36] Ken Caputo: learned a lot. I've been following your podcast and it's just been super helpful. Really good information. Keep it
[00:54:43] Philip Pape: up. Yeah. If there's anything you want to hear on there, you think I should talk about, let me know or anybody who wants to come on, let me know. So great talking to. Take take it easy.
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