Ep 140: The Freedom of No More Cheat Meals

Are you tired of the guilt and restriction of so-called cheat meals? What if you could eat what you want and still be healthy?

Today, Philip (@witsandweights) challenges the cheat meal mentality and helps you reframe the language around it. He talks about exploring a more balanced and sustainable approach to eating to help you say goodbye to food guilt and cheat meals and hello to a healthier emotional relationship with food.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

0:00 Intro
4:26 What is a cheat meal
7:53 Cheat meal as a reward
9:21 Increased cravings and binge eating
13:31 Flexible dieting
16:21 Manageable calorie restriction
17:45 Consistent tracking
24:23 Outro

Episode summary:

The episode challenges the traditional notion of cheat meals and the detrimental binary classification of food as 'good' or 'bad.' This podcast stands out as a guiding light for those looking to embrace a healthier, more balanced approach to nutrition, marking a pivotal shift in how we perceive dieting.

The concept of cheat meals has been deeply ingrained in diet culture, often leading to a cycle of restriction, guilt, and overindulgence. Philip argues for the adoption of flexible dieting—a methodology that empowers individuals to incorporate a variety of foods into their diet in a controlled manner. By doing so, the guilt associated with cheat meals dissipates, and the emphasis shifts towards sustainable eating habits that can be maintained long-term.

The conversation touches on the negative emotional relationships that can develop from rigid dieting practices. The 'all or nothing' mentality is dissected, revealing how it can undermine mental well-being and lead to unhealthy patterns such as binge eating. Instead, listeners are encouraged to view food through a lens of nourishment and enjoyment, breaking free from the constraints of traditional dieting paradigms.

The podcast episode doesn't just stop at critiquing the pitfalls of the cheat meal mentality; it also provides practical strategies for maintaining a calorie deficit without feeling deprived. Listeners are guided on how to manage diet fatigue through smart nutritional choices, like setting realistic macro targets and indulging in controlled 'refeeds'—planned increases in calorie intake that do not derail dietary success. This strategic approach allows for flexibility while keeping long-term health goals in sight.

Furthermore, the episode challenges the unhealthy glorification of overindulgent foods by social media influencers, advocating for a more nuanced understanding of what a balanced diet looks like. Philip emphasizes that a flexible diet isn't about strict avoidance but about how different foods can fit within one's nutritional goals. Consistent tracking, understanding one's body needs, and aligning diet with lifestyle are all crucial components of a sustainable diet, which the episode articulates with clarity.

In conclusion, the podcast presents a compelling argument for a diet free from the shackles of the cheat meal mindset. It paints a picture of a nutritional journey that is adaptable, stress-free, and in harmony with one's health and well-being. For anyone seeking to transform their relationship with food and achieve lasting dietary success, this episode is an essential listen.

Episode Resources:

• The Podcast Finder – easily search for any topic from all past episodes of Wits & Weights

• Join the FREE insider’s list to get EXCLUSIVE bonus content

• Book a FREE call with Philip

🚀 Click here to apply for coaching!

👥 Join our highly engaged, active Facebook community for even more support, live trainings, free challenges, and Q&As

✉️ Get access to the FREE Wits & Weights email list with insider strategies, bonus content, and conversations with experts on evidence-based fitness.

🩷 Enjoyed this episode? Share it on social and follow/tag Philip at @witsandweights

🤩 Love the podcast? Leave a 5-star review

👩‍💻 Schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🔥 Support the show for as little as $3 to keep it ad-free

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

Are you tired of the guilt and restriction that comes with so called cheat meals? Today, we are challenging the cheat meal mentality and exploring a more balanced, sustainable approach to eating and a reframe of our language. Say goodbye to food, guilt and cheat meals and hello to a healthier emotional relationship with food in today's episode Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights

Philip Pape  00:49

community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 139 Female strength resistance training hormones and muscle growth with Lauren Kilonzo simple, we dived into the latest research and strategies on female specific topics, including the menstrual cycle and strength training, satellite cells and muscle growth, low energy availability machines versus free weights and functional training plus bonus content on how to get started lifting with machine weights available only to our insiders email list. Just go to wits & weights.com/bonus. If you haven't yet, join that list, it's totally free, or click the link in the shownotes. Again, that's wits & weights.com/bonus to join the insider email list. Today for episode 140. The freedom of no more cheat meals we are tackling what is a pet peeve of mine, and that is cheat meals, both the concept itself and also the term. I think this term is used often and not always in the right context and sometimes in the right context. And we're going to explore both of those. We'll explore why moving away from the cheat meal mentality can be so beneficial for your physical and mental health and wellbeing, and how this ties into a flexible sustainable approach to dieting, like we talked about on the show. Now before we dive into the topic, I wanted to mention an awesome new feature that I just implemented on my website called the podcast finder. Right now we're at 140 episodes and counting. And I know it can be hard to find the exact episodes that you want to listen to. on a specific topic, we have new listeners joining all the time. As much as they want to binge all those episodes, there are a lot and cover a lot of different topics. And since those episodes, including the show notes, and the full transcripts are on my website, I decided to add a Google powered search feature. So you can quickly find what you're looking for. All you have to do is go to wits & weights.com/podcast, and then scroll down to the podcast finder. That's wits & weights.com/podcast for the podcast finder, or click the link in the show notes for the podcast finder. And then you can find any topic you want across all those episodes. Now we talked about cheat meals. And we talked about sustainable approach to dieting. Now when I say dieting, I understand that I mean a few things. I mean, either your diet, which is simply the food that you eat, or dieting, as in being in a calorie deficit with the intent of losing fat while holding on to muscle. Either way, it's still a form of restriction. Now, that restriction in the sense that you want to make smart balance choices about what goes into your mouth, to maintain that calorie deficit, not to mention all the non food decisions like your training, step count, or hydration, supplements and so on. All of these can have an impact on your mindset, and your psychology that ties into this idea of cheat meals. So I'm laying the foundation, the fact that we need to be in a calorie deficit, to lose fat. And that that calorie deficit is a form of restriction. And that sometimes we need relief from that restriction, or fatigue, right diet fatigue is sometimes called. And this leads to the concept of cheat meals for many. Now, I don't use cheat meals, I don't use the term cheat meals, and my clients don't use or need cheat meals to be successful ever. And that is what today's episode is all about and why I'm calling it the freedom of no more cheat meals. So first, I want to dive into what they are. What is a cheat meal? How does it impact our mindset? I saw real recently that said, you know, stop hating on cheap meals, you know, you've got to use them learn in our diet. It's just a refeed. But I think there's something insidious about the term itself that can be destructive. And again, if you're the five 10% of people who just use it kind of in a different way, and it doesn't have that meaning to you. Great. All right. I'm not who I am this you're not the person I'm speaking to. I am defining cheat meals today. As a meal that deviates from your nutrition plan, that is typically high in indulgence foods, which usually means more, you know, carbs, fats, sodium, sometimes sugar. And they're often seen as a way to indulge in foods that you crave, while otherwise adhering to a quote unquote, clean diet that is absent of those foods. Very important definition the way I defined it, that means most of the time you're eating in a way that is quite restrictive. And then you save up for this cheat meal, not save up, but mentally you're waiting. And the cheat meal comes in how you eat whatever you want. And it's all the things you could quote unquote, couldn't eat the rest of the time. Okay, this is the problem. The problem is with labeling foods, as binary as good or bad. And the word cheat is exactly doing that. Because when you cheat, it means you are doing something bad that deviates from something good, right? Just think of any other context of cheating. And you can't help but agree with what I'm saying. All right, now, there's a difference between cheat meals, and refeeds refeeds refeeds are controlled, pre planned increases in calories. As part of your overall calorie intake. That's all they are usually in the form of increasing carbs. You can do it for calorie cycling for psychological relief. But it's not the same as saying I'm going to cut and restrict certain foods, and then I'm going to indulge and binge on those foods for my cheat meal. Very different concepts. Both Yes, are intended to provide psychological relief. But refeeds they're usually at least a full day or multiple days in a row. And they are just a scaled up version of an otherwise normal day, usually by increasing carbs. But not necessarily by gorging on indulgences, or cravings that you've restricted on other days, mainly because you're not restricting those on a sustainable diet. So if you're doing this sustainably, you are incorporating indulgences regularly. Anyway, there's no need to quote unquote, cheat, but you may increase calories in a strategic way, for a refeed to different things. So when we when we label foods is good or bad, we're setting ourselves up for a negative relationship with eating right this is when people say I have an emotional eating problem or a negative emotional relationship with food. That's what they're talking about. This is a black and white thinking it's an on off switch. It's feelings of guilt and failure when you choose the food that is that is off limits, right that you're not allowed to have that is, quote unquote, bad. And this is completely counterproductive. It stranger moral conscience is the term that I think that was what Alexander Alan Aragon used in his book, flexible dieting. Because you are bad if you choose a bad food, right, and now you're putting a label on yourself. The other way that cheat meals are used is as a reward, right? It's a reward for like sticking to your diet or sticking to your training or exercise. And this is something called operant, conditioning conditioning, or misapplication thereof, because instead of getting the proper reward for your training, which is I'm stronger, I'm building muscle, I'm performing better, you're actually rewarding that action with something not related. And in fact, that not only not related, right, with a cheat meal, but as an opposition to the goal of your fitness program, which is, you know, to be consistent, to be strong to perform to improve to be an athlete to train all those things well, cheating, and indulging in whatever is and using that as a reward for fitness is perverse. You know, it's a perverse incentive, if you will. So just keep that in mind. Now, research has shown that cheat meals can lead to binge eating to excessive calorie consumption to guilt, shame, negative impacts on future food choices, to cancelling out your calorie deficit, right? Okay, I'm gonna have a cheat meal. I've been quote unquote good all week, and I'm gonna reward myself and all of a sudden you just wipe out the calorie deficit, because it's not a plan in strategic thing like we do with, for example, refeeds and calorie cycling in a sustainable diet. Research shows that cheap meals can increase cravings and make sticking to a diet more difficult because now, all those days when you're trying to quote unquote, stick to this very monk, like, austere, you know, eating pattern, you're just thinking about that cheat meal and your cravings go up. It's it's counterproductive for the very thing that it's supposed to help with, which is the psychological relief. So by strictly avoiding certain foods, you're now going to have stress related over eating. Anytime you get stressed, you're going to go hog wild, you're going to not be able to control yourself, right? And you're going to experience more psychological Stress and become more prone to binge eating. Now, does this sound familiar? Does this sound familiar we, we haven't really gotten into that much discussion on the show about all of those negative emotional impacts of rigid dieting, but it's there.

Philip Pape  10:14

It might seem that cheat meals provide psychological benefits similar to refeeds, because they give you a break from strict dieting and thus prevent binge eating. But the irony is they actually trigger binge eating episodes, because they are paired with absolute restriction of the foods in question outside of the cheat meal window. So I'm saying this in multiple ways to get it into your head, something that I didn't get for many, many years, it didn't understand this, I thought cheat meals were a way to make it sustainable, but it actually does the opposite. The use of cheat meals implies by definition, just think of the word cheat. It implies by definition that you're otherwise continuously dieting with a rigid level of restriction, or you've got food rules. And now you're cheating on those rules. Just like when you cheat on a game, or you cheat on a person, right, you're breaking the rules. And that is not sustainable. Whereas a flexible diet, we always talk about where you incorporate indulgences, you incorporate cravings, as part of the diet itself. Diet, okay. And by incorporate, I don't mean in an excessive amount, and you're always eating quote, unquote, cheat meal type meals, oh, you're including a little here a little there, you're planning it, and you're planning for the calories and macros, and therefore, you don't feel restricted. Right? Then you can combine those with other forms of psychological relief, like controlled refeeds. And these are going to be much more effective long term. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits, & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique, and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  12:43

So this concept of cheat meals, it's clear that it's widespread, right. And it's all over social media. And then it even gets skewed even more in a negative direction when influencers glorify the eating of over indulgent foods, as if that itself is healthy in some way. And then it normalizes it even encourages these unhealthy eating behaviors. It's just all wrong. It's all wrong. And we don't need that you don't need cheat meals, you don't need the term cheat meals. We don't need to glorify processed foods, you know, and say that, look, a healthy diet can just have unlimited processed foods, if you can use cheat meals. It's just wrong. So that's my opinion. But I think it's also supported by the evidence. And I wanted to lay out the case, before we get into what do we do instead? Right? So what do we do instead? Well, when we talk about flexible dieting, and those who follow this podcast know what this is, but it's always good to have a refresher. We're talking about balance, focusing on macronutrients and objective measures and outcomes and things that serve you and your goals, right? The micronutrients, the macronutrients, the energy balance, instead of off limit foods, right? It's not about whether you eat this or that. It's a sustainable approach where you have variety, and you have moderation, and you can stick to the long term. Now, I don't want balance and moderation to be confused with things like the food pyramid pyramid, or the government plate idea, or, you know, just just eat in moderation, quote, unquote, and these platitudes and these generic concepts because that's not the same as having something that is in balance for your goals. A good example of that is protein. Right? In my episode where I did about the dangers of low protein for longevity, I talked about how most people have like 10% in their diet is protein, and it really should end up being around 25 to 35 40% of your diet, if you have enough for muscle building muscle preservation, optimal health, but people see that as a high level of protein as opposed to just a balance level protein. So even the definition of balance can be skewed depending on your context. And the point here is it's not about eliminating foods, but understanding how different foods it into your nutritional goals, right. So we are going to have, for example, realistic macro targets, we are going to have realistic rate of loss when we're in a fat loss phase, we're going to have realistic calorie and carb cycling, if that's something you need for you, I just did a client check in today, a longtime client who typically has evenly distribute evenly distributed calories. And she had gone through my Rapid Fat Loss experiment a while back, just to try it out. And she liked the idea of having refeed days how you on days that are fairly routine during your week, where you can eat, you know, leftovers, and you've meal prep and meal planned. If you're in a fat loss phase, it's pretty easy to go with a lower level of calories on those days, and and sort of bank or save, quote unquote, those calories for the higher days. Now, again, we're not talking cheat meals, we're talking, reducing the calories and you're on your weekdays by let's say a couple 100 calories a day, which is not that meaningful to shift those calories and cycle them over to either your training days or the night before morning session, or to your weekends for your lifestyle, whatever makes sense from a psychological and a preference perspective, so that you can be sustainable with your diet. Again, that is totally different from cheat meals where anything goes where you've restricted, and now you're allowing any allowing things in having said that, when you're in a fat loss phase, you're still restricting something and that is the calories you are you are restricting the calories. But we try to make that restriction as manageable and least negative on you and your mind as possible. We do it. We do it through multiple ways we do it by, you know, going at a proper rate of loss. We're doing it by including high satiety and volume foods. We do it by making sure you do have indulgences planned in regularly, so that you never crave or binge or overeat or need a cheat meal, we do it by increasing your expenditure and your activity level as it makes sense. But not too much where you get too much stress. We do it by sleeping more, we do it by potentially reducing alcohol, all of those things to make it more sustainable, even during fat loss. But we never say you can't eat this, or you can't eat that to the point where you're going to now crave it so much that you get off the diet. By the way, this is probably the number one reason people jump off of their diet, they do crash diets, they go lose a lot of weight quickly. And all of a sudden they crave sugar, fats, carbs, sodium, and they just start eating everything in sight, or at least a lot of the things that they had cut out to get to that point, because they're like, I can't do this for the rest of my life, and compounded by muscle loss and all the other things that people do when they're not training that causes them to eat even more, and you get the idea. Okay. So another thing that we want to do is we want to have consistent tracking, right, if you regularly track your intake of calories, or macros, you track your food, you're tracking macros, in something like macro factor, which I can never shut up about, because it's such a great tool for the job. If you download macro factor, you use my code Wits & Weights regularly tracking your intake gives you awareness to understand your body's needs. Without feeling restricted. This gives you the ability to make informed choices. And you don't have to then have a set of rules that you would then be to cheat from makes sense, like cheating is only because you have restrictive rules that you're trying to get away from for a day or for a meal. We don't need to do that. Because you're tracking you know how much protein you eat, you know how much you know, fiber you're getting, you know, that on Saturday, I'm gonna have more calories, and I'm gonna plan in that cheesecake, or that pizza on a planet in, I'm gonna go I'm gonna do us a little bit of time restricted feeding to make it work, right, whatever way is sustainable for you. So consistency, flexible mindset, constantly reviewing what you're doing and gaining getting biofeedback, assessing your progress, making adjustments, ensuring that your diet aligns with your evolving goals and lifestyle, it's not fixed, that's the other thing. The next three weeks might be the same. And then week four, all of a sudden you go on a trip, or you change jobs, or, you know, the days get longer. And now you're going for more walks, any little change like that you change your training program, we'll all be back to your diet. And if you had rigid rules in place, it'd be very hard to adapt to that and it would feel even more stressful. But because we're using a flexible approach, it's adaptable, right? You can still be consistent. You're never trying to be perfect. You're trying to get it right 80% of the time, you can include a variety of foods in your diet with this approach. Okay, you can swap and substitute things it doesn't mean that you okay, if you love ice cream, like I do, put ice cream in there. However, you can always make a substitution and say, You know what, I'm gonna do a protein rich smoothie that's made like an ice cream, you know, and it's cold and put in the freezer and everything and it tastes like ice cream to me, but it also serves my goals and it doesn't kind of take up too much in terms of calories and other things. I don't feel restricted either, because it satisfied my craving for ice cream. So I'm not saying you can't do those smart swaps and substitutes, right? Cauliflower rice versus white rice, spices and herbs versus sauces. You know, you have a sweet tooth, you go for some grapes or banana instead of candy. Right? One of my client's his wife is a Keto. She's on the keto diet. And you know, I say I say stuff about keto, and all the other restrictive diets all the time. But what I what I like is, he takes advantage of the fact his wife is on keto, when he's in a fat loss phase, to use some of the amazing products that food science has given us for the keto diet, such as very low calorie bread. Okay, so there's this bread it's made with. It's made with wheat protein and wheat starch. And so they're able to give it like the thick squishy binding Enos of bread, like white bread, or wheat bread, but with less than half the calories. So it's like 45 calories, a slice instead of 110 calories a slice. And it still tastes like bread. So he's able to have a sandwich, not able to, but he has a sandwich with two slices of bread, and it doesn't hit his hard macros as much. That's smart. Like that's just a smart substitute so that he can still have something that tastes like bread feels like bread, it's pretty much bread, just food science has done wonders to make it less of an impact calorie wise. And that's cool. Like there's nothing wrong with that. That's smart. So anyway, I think you get the idea that having something adaptable and flexible, tracking, adjusting for your goals, week to week, takes the stress out, takes the guesswork out, and doesn't require cheat me. Right. As we wrap up. This isn't a super long episode. But as we wrap up, I hope that you have a kind of new and upgraded mental picture of how a flexible approach to dieting, free from the cheat meal mindset leads to sustainable and enjoyable mindset for nutrition, right? Making peace with embracing a lifestyle, that is something you can do forever for the rest of your life that is aligned with your health and well being does a cheat meal sound like it's something aligned with the health and well being to me a cheat meal is like going to the bar and having 10 drinks, right? It is not aligned with your health and well being. Maybe it's something you feel you have to do once or twice. But it's it's off. Does that make sense? So like me, you're a cheater. But if you're having a cheat meal, you're a cheater? How does that how does that resonate with you, when you are incorporating the things you like, anyway, on a regular basis to where it is not good or bad on or off, then you're not a cheater, in any sense of the word, you're your winner about that you're a winner. So we can reframe that. The idea of cheat meals being something we don't want to have to do, like if we feel that we need or have to have a cheat meal, something else, something else has an opportunity to be improved, then I think that's a more positive and more sustainable approach to nutrition. All right, if you're feeling overwhelmed by this, right by this concept that of cheat meals or but also by emotional eating, if you feel like you don't quite have the control that you want over your diet over your results. Don't just listen to this podcast and move on. Right I want you to reach out to me for a call. I do free calls all the time. I don't sell I don't Pitch Anything. All we do is we sit down, I asked you a few questions, we map out your nutrition strategy, we get you a roadmap for setting up your macros, getting enough protein, including indulgences as part of your plan, handling your social life with confidence, getting real results without feeling restricted, and with absolutely no need whatsoever anymore for the rest of your life, or cheat meals. So if you want to find out more, I invite you to use the link in my show notes to book a 30 minute results breakthrough session. And there we'll get to know your specific goals. And you'll leave the call with the best I'll say two or three next action steps for your nutrition strategy. No pitching no sales like I said before, just you and me having a conversation. Okay, in our next episode 141 Why I'm getting fluffy before I get jacked. I will be discussing the emotions that you might feel about your body when gaining weight to build muscle and getting a little fluffy along the way. I'm going unscripted to share my personal journey regarding body image and strategies to help you navigate these challenges yourself. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast.

Philip Pape  24:39

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then stay strong You

Ep 139: Female Strength, Resistance Training, Hormones, & Muscle Growth with Lauren Colenso-Semple

Do female athletes require an entirely different training approach? What hidden factors influence strength and muscle growth in women? Does your menstrual cycle impact your training approach?

Find out the surprising truth in today's episode!

Join our free insiders list to receive an EXCLUSIVE 10-minute bonus interview with Lauren on how to start training with machine weights, cables, and eventually free weights if you are new to lifting or intimidated by the gym!

Today, Philip  (@witsandweights) interviews Lauren Colenso-Semple, a researcher in exercise physiology and endocrinology who focuses on female sex hormones, resistance exercise training, and mechanisms of muscle growth. Lauren is also an expert fitness professional with years of practical experience and certifications in strength & conditioning, sports nutrition, and personal training. Lauren has published many articles and writes for the MASS research review, and in this conversation, they discuss some of the topics relevant to female athletes, such as the menstrual cycle and strength training, satellite cells and muscle growth, low energy availability, machines vs. free weights, and functional training.

Episode summary:

As we delve into the intricate world of women's strength training, it becomes evident that a one-size-fits-all approach falls short in addressing the unique physiological considerations for female athletes. Lauren uncovers the myths surrounding testosterone's role in muscle development and emphasize the importance of a tailored, evidence-based approach to training.

In the realm of athletics, energy availability stands as a cornerstone for peak performance. It's a critical balance that, if tipped, can lead to detrimental effects on muscle protein synthesis and overall health. For the competitive athlete, understanding the implications of energy deficits is paramount. As we discuss strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of low energy states, we underscore the necessity of a post-competition recovery diet and the potential of 'lean gains,' bringing to light the importance of a slight calorie surplus to stimulate metabolism without unwanted weight gain.

Strength training, a pivotal aspect of athletic development, often sparks debate on the efficacy of machines versus free weights. While both can effectively increase strength and muscle growth, they each bring unique benefits to the table. Machines offer safety and ease of use for beginners, while free weights challenge coordination and engage stabilizing muscles. The key lies in personalizing the training regimen, allowing for variation and specificity according to one's fitness goals and sports requirements.

Furthermore, the concept of functional training garners attention, as it pertains to the application of strength in daily activities and sports. We demystify the notion that functional training is a gender-specific requirement, reinforcing that strength is inherently functional, regardless of sex. Despite starting at different baselines, men and women can achieve similar relative gains from resistance training, demonstrating the universality of strength's functional role.

We also provide a platform for ongoing discussion and learning through the Mass Research Review community, YouTube Live sessions, and Instagram updates. The aim is to cultivate a continuous exchange of knowledge and support for athletes and fitness enthusiasts in their quest for physical excellence and understanding.

In closing, this podcast episode transcends the conventional narrative, offering a nuanced perspective on women's athletic performance that is grounded in scientific inquiry and practical coaching wisdom.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

0:00 Intro
1:59 Purpose of the questions Lauren is asking
3:26 The future of understanding female physiology and training
5:29 Female-specific performance and training assumptions
9:27 Menstrual cycle influence on training or the lack thereof
14:35 The role of satellite cells in muscle adaptation in training
21:32 MPS reduction during low energy phases in trained women
30:35 Comparing the effectiveness of machine-based training with free weights
39:45 The usefulness and definition of functional training in fitness
44:46 One question Lauren wished Philip had asked
47:09 Where to learn more about Lauren and her work
47:30 Outro

Episode Resources:

• Join our free insiders list to receive an EXCLUSIVE 10-minute bonus interview with Lauren on how to start training with machine weights, cables, and eventually free weights if you are new to lifting or intimidated by the gym!

• MASS Research Review

• YouTube (MASS Office Hours)

• Instagram: @laurencs1

🩷 Enjoyed this episode? Share it on social and tag me @witsandweights

🤩 Love the podcast? Leave a 5-star review

💪 Want to map out YOUR exact strategy for workouts and nutrition for the next 6 months?
Schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

🚀 Want to get 1-on-1 accountability, a personalized plan, and 24/7 access to a coach? Apply for 1-on-1 coaching

✉️ Join hundreds of driven individuals and get access to the FREE Wits & Weights email list with insider strategies, bonus content, and conversations with experts in evidence-based fitness and nutrition so you can achieve your ideal health and physique.

👥 Join our highly engaged, active Facebook community for even more support and exclusive live trainings and Q&As

📞 Want to ask a question? Send a Q&A voicemail

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Lauren Colenso-Semple  00:00

Having muscle and being strong is functional. So whatever you can do to promote hypertrophy and strength gain makes you a more functional human being. You don't need to be doing anything fancy.

Philip Pape  00:15

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Lauren Colenso-Semple, an exercise physiology and endocrinology researcher who specializes in female sex hormones resistance exercise, training and mechanisms of muscle growth. Lauren is an expert fitness professional with years of practical experience and certifications in strength and conditioning, sports nutrition and personal training. Lauren has also published many articles and writes for the mass Research Review. That's how I found her and connected with her. And today we are going to get into some of those topics relevant to female athletes, including the menstrual cycle and strength training, satellite cells and muscle growth, low energy availability machines versus free weights, and functional training. And we'll see if we actually get to all of those learn those on the Wits & Weights email list will also get access to a bonus episode with Lauren on one of these topics later on. Lauren, I'm really excited that you came on the show. Thank you.

Lauren Colenso-Semple  01:38

Thank you so much for having me.

Philip Pape  01:39

So I've heard you talk about how far behind the research is into female specific factors related to training and performance, you know, other episodes, even women's health in general. And I think you're one of the pioneers, the you know, the modern pioneers in this field. Whether you see yourself as that or not, but you're kind of pushing that boundary forward? What is your driving passion behind this? What's your what's your big purpose for asking the research questions that you're asking?

Lauren Colenso-Semple  02:05

I think it started from a sort of selfish interest in wanting to know what was the best thing to do for my training. And when I was working full time in fitness than it was what's the best way to approach programming for my own clients. And as I became more and more involved in the science, then it kind of evolved into the passion of really trying to understand the deeper molecular mechanisms of what and why. So some of which are not actually practical or actionable, at least, you know, as of now, but I'm really driven by both pursuits, one, meaning how should we train? And how should we train our clients? How do we be evidence based coaches? And you know, what's really going on here from a scientific mechanistic perspective, I

Philip Pape  03:02

could definitely relate to that. I love that it's it started with a passion of your own personal development and growth, and then helping people and then hey, how does soul work? And like you pointed out, there are some things where maybe we've gone down the rabbit hole of study, and maybe there's not a practical application yet, or like we're gonna find out today, associations we thought might exist, that maybe they're not as strong as we thought or don't exist at all, for most people. Where do you think the field stands today compared to like, 10 years ago? And then, you know, is there something we need to catch up on when it comes to understanding of a female physiology and training as we move forward? Yeah,

Lauren Colenso-Semple  03:39

I think I'm also really driven by just the ongoing pursuit of just the intellectual curiosity that's associated with being a scientist. And that's something that I think is really important to highlight, because what we might think we know today will continue to evolve based on additional data, or as we figure out better ways of measuring certain things, or we get access to larger samples or populations that are, you know, less trained, or more trained or younger or older. So I think we've come a long way, in even since I first became aware of the exercise science literature, in the sense that people are focusing more on the fact that we do need to study women, we can't just assume that all the studies that are done in young healthy men are going to apply to young healthy women, and certainly older women as well. So I think we're on the right track, but there's still a lot more work to be done. And I hope to make a contribution to that progression.

Philip Pape  04:49

Yeah, I think I think you are honestly by just the way you communicate and how often you communicate and be willing to come on shows like this. I think you even wrote a paper in one of the Earlier mass issues about, I think it was about male coaches not understanding female physiology or something and, and I take that to heart being a male and wanting to help my clients too. So we're all in this together wanting to like know as much as we can to help. I thought it'd be fun today we talked about before we recorded to go over some of your articles, and maybe some other topics you're interested in. And then I'll give you my best shot at summarizing my interpretation of what you wrote. But then I want to pick your brain on some of the deeper questions. So the first one was your systematic review in frontiers in sports and active living, called current evidence shows no influence of women's menstrual cycle phase on acute strength performance, or adaptations to resistance exercise training. So I think we just gave away the answer in the title. But there is a common assumption that women's fluctuating reproductive hormone levels across the cycle can influence training in some way. I think your review found limited, maybe inconsistent evidence to support that. And what I understand from your conclusions is that some studies have poor methodology. For example, not every woman has a 28 day cycle with ovulation on day 14, right. There's a lot of variability. And then some some may, but the ones that do don't seem to justify any recommendations to adjust training. So what do you think? First of all, what do you think the assumption that this is the case? Why has it persisted? Despite the evidence?

Lauren Colenso-Semple  06:26

I think we have really minimal evidence, it's at this point. And one of the reasons for that is this is really difficult to study, just from a logistical perspective. And I've I've learned that in the trenches trying to actually do this work. And whenever you're trying to, to time any kind of performance testing or exercise training with somebody's menstrual cycle, there's only so much you can plan for even if somebody does have a fairly regular cycle. If it's really important that you're testing in a particular window or on a particular day, then maybe you don't know until the day before, maybe it's a Saturday. So there's a lot of reasons why people either don't account for this or don't want to dive into this particular research question. That said, the the idea that sex hormones would influence adaptations to training, I think, probably comes from the idea that male sex hormones potentially influence adaptations to training. And for a very long time, there was the thought that your testosterone levels or the kind of post exercise bump in testosterone would influence you, and it was a driver of hypertrophy. And now over a long period of time and a lot of studies, we know that it's probably not the case. And as long as you're within a good normal physiological range, that your your propensity for strength adaptations, or muscle growth is fairly similar, or at least it's not tied to your testosterone levels. Or another way to say that is your testosterone levels are not predictive of your response, unless you are in a position of super physiological levels, meaning you're taking exogenous hormones. So we do have a fair amount of literature on the role of testosterone and you know, quote, unquote, anabolic hormones. But we don't have as much information on the female sex hormones. So I think it's a, it's a logical next step, if we're going to try to study more women. Well, hey, what are one of the major biological differences here? With between the sexes? Ovarian hormones are one of them. Right?

Philip Pape  08:59

Yeah. So a couple of things I got from what you said, first of all, it's just really hard, if not impossible to kind of track this stuff. And even if you're going to apply it into at an individual basis, you know, you may not catch it in time, right? It's what you said, or you'd have to have some more precise measure. I think you mentioned on another show how like, you know, men can't tell that their testosterone is high or low. So women can either with their hormones in general, other than certain symptoms that certain women have. And so speaking of the practical considerations, then, for women who do experience changes in their energy or motivation, or some other symptom, is there a practical advice that would help them or should they just not try to do that?

Lauren Colenso-Semple  09:43

Yeah, so I like to make a really clear distinction between adjusting training around menstrual symptoms which tend to occur either right before you start your cycle or during the first couple of days of your cycle, and typically lasts 24 to 48 hours. That, to me is one question versus cycle based training or cycle synched training or whatever the word that you'd like to use, that implies making pretty substantial changes to your program in the phase before ovulation and in the phase after ovulation. And as you mentioned, in the your kind of intro to this topic, the textbook cycle is 28 days, and ovulation happens sort of smack in the middle. So in that context, we'd be saying for these two weeks, you should do this. And for the next two weeks, you should do that. As you mentioned, that's really not the case for everybody. In fact, it's probably only the case for a small percentage of naturally cycling women. So but to bring it back to the menstrual symptoms, those are things like fatigue, or menstrual cramps, or bloating or changes in your motivation. And to the extent that those are affecting your training, I think it's perfectly reasonable to have a plan to adjust accordingly, whether that's skipping a workout completely, or adjusting the intensity, or maybe switching to a different exercise. I think having any sort of auto regulatory component is helpful. And I would say the same if you were up all night with your baby the night before, or, you know, if you were jet lagged, or you weren't feeling well. So I would approach that the same way that I would a lot of other real life scenarios because it's only one or two workouts. Yeah, that

Philip Pape  11:41

seems like the logical conclusion is it's like any biofeedback right? No matter what it is, it's a principle that you're talking about, of just being smart about going with your body and doing what works for you and not being fixed on on on some prescription. I mean, I think that honestly, we could I could ask you 10 More questions. But I think that covers the gist of that topic. To be honest. Is there anything else that comes up often related to this that the women are asking about that you wanted to address? Yeah,

Lauren Colenso-Semple  12:05

I'd say that the sort of ethos from this comes from the fact that you have one hormonal profile in one phase, and then another hormonal profile in another phase. And the assumption is that there would be an influence on either performance or adaptations exercise that are influenced by these unique hormonal profiles. But not only is the timing different between individuals, the hormone levels are dramatically different when you actually measure hormones, which in real life, we tend not to do, but in the lab, we do all the time. And so I've measured hormones in women throughout the cycle, surrounding ovulation, or both. And the the extent to which they fluctuate is highly, highly variable. So you might say, well, we might see online, because estrogen is high, or because progesterone is high, then, you know, insert whatever exercise recommendation or nutritional recommendation. But in reality, you see this huge variability in levels, whereas you might have a small spike in estrogen, but you don't have the huge spike that you would see in the diagram, if you kind of Google hormonal fluctuations across the cycle. So I think it's really important to, to understand that not only does cycle length and ovulation timing vary between individuals, the actual magnitude of the hormone fluctuations is highly variable as well.

Philip Pape  13:42

That's important. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of a lot of things where we tried to biohack our way to these precise it like with the glucose monitoring, or even even honestly, carb and calorie cycling where people do, they're trying to do more than they necessarily need, versus just being consistent kind of doing the average American system will work for you. So thank you for explaining to

Lauren Colenso-Semple  14:03

them. What works for somebody else is going to work for you. And in terms of your your macronutrient ratio, or your calorie intake, our you know, how did that person lose weight at that rate? And oh, can I do that too? Of course not. Because your maintenance calories are not the same as that person's maintenance calories.

Philip Pape  14:23

Exactly. Yeah, that's a key message. Yeah, we talked about that all the time is individualization personalization. It's a big thing. The next thing I wanted to talk about was satellite cells, the role of satellite cells, and I just don't know much about this topic, and I know, the conversation, maybe it's gonna surround the what's interesting about it, and what's practical about knowing that information. So I'm just gonna let you explain the role of satellite cells in adaptations and resistance training and where we go from there.

Lauren Colenso-Semple  14:50

Yeah, so when we think about how muscle hypertrophy occurs, they think about protein synthesis or the accretion of new Do proteins into the muscle that allows the muscle to expand or to grow. And as you first start training, that growth will happen fairly easily. But over time, you need more and more of the sort of machinery, if you will, in order to allow for that protein synthesis to occur. So satellite cells live kind of on the outside of the fiber, and they're not integral to growth, but they can donate their nuclei to assist in expanding the muscle fiber. So there's a little bit of a debate in whether they're necessary for hypertrophy, or they're only necessary for hypertrophy when you're in a developmental stage. So a lot of this work has been done in animal models. And when you study a younger rat, or mice or mouse versus an adult, rat or mouse, you see a little bit of a different response. So it does seem like the role of satellite cells in growth are important in an adolescent, but perhaps not so much in an adult, at least in the rodent models. But the other really important role of satellite cells is the response to muscle damage, which will occur, you know, to varying extents in response to exercise. But if you do a particularly damaging bout, like really high eccentric load exercise, where you do a really, really high volume workout, those are things that for you kind of do too much too quickly. If you're first starting out, and you're getting really, really sore, that is when we might be experiencing kind of high muscle damage post exercise. And that sense, the satellite cells will release other growth factors it to essentially assist with the remodeling and the repair. So perhaps they're not as essential for growth in adults, as they might be in a in a youth population. But they are very critical for remodeling and repair in response and muscle damage. And that can also be in the context of injury in a in a really extreme form, not just exercise. But one of the more interesting questions that is sort of yet to be fully elucidated in regards to satellite cells is it appears that we start to lose them when we age. And so one of the potential mechanisms for that, then is that, you know, they actually serve to maintain your muscle mass. And so as they decline with aging, then we see muscle mass decline as well. Okay,

Philip Pape  17:50

so is that why we I think we've seen a correlation between the increase in satellite cells per fiber and muscle fiber growth? Is that tied into what you're saying that? Is there a cause and effect, like the actual development and training of muscle mass contributes to more satellite cells? Or it's the opposite? That have, yeah, yeah,

Lauren Colenso-Semple  18:10

yeah. So with growth, for sure. And then you you actually, when you look at a really interesting study, people who are taking exogenous testosterone, even after they stopped taking it, they still have more satellite cells. So their potential rule and growth is, is the fact that they can donate their nuclei and then contribute to growth above and beyond what might be possible without them. So if you have more satellite cells, then you have the potential to expand that fiber above and beyond what might be the case. But as you lose them, then not only are you you don't have that potential backup for the high hypertrophic process. You also don't have that machinery available to deal with the repair on the regeneration that you need it from muscle damage.

Philip Pape  19:01

Okay, the transcriptional machinery, are you I'm looking at my notes, probably related to ribosomes and everything else I don't want to get into that. Does. So what's the practical takeaway, then, like, just train and you know, keep yourself strong and healthy? Or is there another takeaway of how to increase satellite cells? Yeah, there,

Lauren Colenso-Semple  19:19

there isn't much of a practical takeaway on this one. This is more of a kind of mechanistic question. But if I if I had to say something, it's really important to train, if you can, when you're younger, and you're in middle age, because when you start training, when you're much older, you still do experience muscle growth, but you're not set up from a hormonal perspective or from a satellite cell perspective to really accrue as much muscle growth as you might have when you were a bit younger. So if you can sort of put the money in the bank now if you will, by starting to training In your younger or middle age, then you will be in a better functional position later in life.

Philip Pape  20:06

Got it? So either get a time machine, right and go back if you if it's too late, or get started now and honestly, that's a great message for anyone, even if you are 65 Get started with strength training if you're not there yet, but it is.

Lauren Colenso-Semple  20:18

It's never too late to start and it's always beneficial. Yeah,

Philip Pape  20:22

no good stuff. Okay, cool. So that's, that's interesting. I always find these these fascinating because you wonder, okay, why why are we researching this, but then at some point, you get this link, that gives you an aha moment, right of maybe practically what to do. The next article I wanted to talk about was the high cost of low energy availability. This is a very, this is also a pretty hot topic, at least in the circle. I'm in here, we talk about it all the time, especially for female clients with the rampant you know, calorie restriction dieting overstress environment we have today. And the article you wrote reviews, a study that showed decrease in muscle protein synthesis and loss of fat free mass, after just 10 days of being in that state of and when we say low energy availability, we just mean decent calorie deficit. In this case, I think it was, I don't, I'm not gonna go through all the numbers, you can do that if you want. But you had them training, they were training and doing some cardio, and despite enough protein and training, because we always say like, you have to have that training stimulus have to have sufficient protein, the low energy availability state reduced both myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic protein synthesis rates and resulted in loss of fat free mass. So that tell us about that, why this is important for us to understand, and then how athletes can minimize, I don't want to say minimize those effects, because effects exist, but maybe minimize being in low energy availability state is probably the end goal here.

Lauren Colenso-Semple  21:46

Yeah. So really, they the effects that they observed in this paper, I think the major takeaway was that the effects are detrimental even in those really short term. And I would say that this is mostly an issue for competitive athletes because they have to be in a in a situation where their energy expenditure is incredibly high, because of all the physical activity they're doing. And they're also trying to be at a certain low weight, either for performance benefits, or for aesthetic physique benefits. And so that's the, if you think about a bikini competitor going on stage and competing, like multiple times per year, for example, or a really high level in endurance athlete, you know, long distance runner or cyclist, where being at a lower weight is advantageous for from a performance benefit. But also, the energy expenditure is just so high from from all the physical activity that you're doing.

Philip Pape  23:00

Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this guest interview on Wits & Weights. If you're finding it valuable, you can get a bonus conversation we recorded. If you're on our email list, just go to wits & weights.com/bonus, or click the link in the show notes. Insiders on our email list will get a link to the bonus conversation where my guests will give you the exact steps to take related to one of the topics in today's episode. Again, these conversations are only available, if you're on our free email list. To get the bonus exclusive content with today's guests, just go to wits & weights.com/bonus, or click the link in the show notes. Now back to the show.

Lauren Colenso-Semple  23:41

I think that what we see with when terms of the physiological disturbances really run the gamut from reproductive function, metabolic disturbance, increased risk of injury. So all signs point to this is not a great idea to be in this state for too long. So if you're somebody who has to be there for a competitive purpose, and there's no way around it, then we get it. But we want to recover from that as soon as possible. And what we don't know entirely is the best way to restore that or the from from a practical perspective. But the sooner that you can return to a state of homeostasis, then the better off you'll be because the detriment of being there for too long is pretty substantial. Okay,

Philip Pape  24:36

and just just so you know, I talked about macro factor all the time on this show, and reverse dieting versus recovery diet and the idea of if you know your expenditure, at the end of that dieting phase, you can at least come back to it pretty rapidly. Would you say that that is a reasonable approach, you know, if you know your dynamic maintenance, just restore to that or is it more complicated than that for some people,

Lauren Colenso-Semple  24:58

I think and this is another thing we don't know is the effects of being there chronically some, you know, in a simple example of you diet down really hard for a physique competition, or, and you're in that state for a couple of weeks, then yeah, if you can restore your, you know, to your chair maintenance or your new maintenance, quickly, then all of the physiological benefits will come. And there really isn't much of an advantage of staying too lean too long, unless you have a subsequent competition. But if you're somebody who is going there, and then trying to restore, but you don't really get there, and then you go back down, and you do that continuously over a year, for example, then what we don't know the kind of chronic effects of doing that over and over again. And so and I think, I would speculate that, it's actually going to take you a really long time to fully restore. Because what we will see with the kind of recovery diet literature in general, although that's pretty limited, that even if you return to your, you know, pre diet weight, sometimes some of the other parameters, like hormone levels, or menstrual cycle function don't return as quickly. And it can, in some cases take months and months for those to actually come back. So I would advise against spending too much time in a state where you're going to be disrupting your hormonal function, your reproductive function, and probably losing muscle mass as well.

Philip Pape  26:51

That makes sense. So in that case, is there is there a strategy of overshooting and just going into a lean gain as soon as you can to speed hasten the recovery? Do we see that happen at the risk of a little bit of fat gain? Of course.

Lauren Colenso-Semple  27:06

Yeah, I feel like the term Lean gain can often be interpreted as I'm going to stay lean,

Philip Pape  27:14

conservative calorie surplus? Okay. Yeah,

Lauren Colenso-Semple  27:19

I would, I would say that, because the and I think that's one of the biggest mistakes that female physique competitors often make is that they're, they get really tied to looking a certain way and a level of, of leanness that just isn't really sustainable. And you pay the price for that. And eventually, you will have to face the either health consequences, metabolic consequences, whatever, you know, what have you with in that situation. So you will have to accept assuming you are very, very lean, you will have to accept a certain level of fat gain, some of us just can't maintain in perpetuity, a super super shredded physique.

Philip Pape  28:03

It's funny because this is anecdotal. But I've gotten to the point with clients now where I have this phrase I use called the top side of maintenance where I've seen it time and time again, you recover and you're not quite recovered, and you just kind of stay there meta, like your rate, metabolic rate just doesn't come up. And he's bumped it up a little bit. And even without gaining much weight at all, or at all, because it's just so negligible, all of a sudden, the metabolism starts to climb. And that's that's people who aren't even as extreme as you're talking about. So just for people listening, it's, you know, like, don't be afraid of these things, know that if your body's not responding, there could be a solution for you. And yeah, is there? Is there anything else about low energy we should cover really just I don't know, the loss of muscle mass, or you mentioned injury risk as well. I think that's an interesting one. Yeah,

Lauren Colenso-Semple  28:50

when you're getting into these really low states of, of energy availability, then pretty much everything is tanking. And so you're, you're just surviving at that point, you're certainly not going to be able to improve your performance. You're not getting strength, you're not gaining muscle, you're potentially slowly losing muscle. And so the app it's not good for your athletic pursuits, it's not good for your health. And I'd say for your example, where people are not necessarily in a, you know, severe state of leanness, but they are kind of hesitating to eat more, or they're hyper focused on sort of even staying like photo shoot lean, if you will. What, what I push my clients to do is allow yourself the time to eat more, yes, gain a little bit of body fat, but really crush it in the gym, get stronger gain muscle and then the next time you diet down, you're going to see those physique enhancements that you're really going for, you know, whether it's a loop development or shorter development, you're not getting there, especially as an intermediate trainee, you're not getting there without being in a in a state of reasonable caloric intake. Yeah.

Philip Pape  30:13

Listen to Lauren, she is full of wisdom. This is great. It really is great advice that just take that time to build the muscle, and it's gonna pay off. And you're gonna enjoy that. I think I mean, in my opinion, just being in a surplus in training and senior lifts golf all the time, it's kind of a fun place to be for a lot of folks with the knowledge that you might get that little power belly and some of us like to call it. Okay, cool. So the next big hot topic that you've written about is machine versus free weights. And the article in mass was does machine based training, improve free weight, strength, performance. And I know this is huge controversy when you watch YouTube or whatever, you'll see all these debates about this. But there's always nuance. And your article discussed discussed a study comparing the two. And the exercises included barbell or machine, squat row, overhead press and bench press, they found a similar muscle growth in the quads, pecs, and abs, and then strength increase similarly on both trained and non trained exercise. And there's more findings, I don't want to just take away from you here, give us the big picture. Starting with novice lifters, we've got definitely beginners who listen and maybe intermediate and some advanced, but on the spectrum, what are the main factors that should I guess, drive someone to someone's decision? Assuming they have access to a full gym and whatever equipment they want? That's the assumption first, what drives them to include free weights and machines in their program? Yeah,

Lauren Colenso-Semple  31:43

so what this study showed that was interesting is they tested everybody at the beginning on all of the machine based exercises and all of the free weight exercises. And then they divided them into two groups. And they had them either train just machine or just free weight. And then they tested everybody again. So when you when you say that the trained or the non trained exercise, just just to clarify, that meant the regardless of whether you were doing machine based training, you had pre and post tests in previous training, as well, and vice versa. So what they found, and I would say is fairly consistent in the literature is that there is some crossover. So if you're doing barbell squats, then you're probably going to improve your strength performance on the hack squat and vice versa. With muscle growth, it's very consistent that you can get equal muscle growth, whether you're doing machine based or free weight exercise training. That said, Of course, if you are competing in powerlifting, or Olympic lifting, or CrossFit or something where you need to focus on the performance of a particular lift, then the principle of specificity is going to be important. You're you have to barbell squat in order to perfect your technique and get super super strong in a barbell squat. But I think for the majority of people who are either focusing on general health or hypertrophy or overall strength, you can feel comfortable including both free weight, or machine based training or kind of mixing it up as you change your program throughout a given year. And feel that you're getting benefits either way, and that those will well transfer to a pretty large degree. The other thing I would say is if you're somebody who is focused on optimizing your hypertrophy, there are some exercises that machines can target much better than free weights. So think about a leg extension machine trying to do that with a free weight really difficult. So if you if you are somebody who is really looking to optimize your physique on all fronts, then I think there's an argument for including some machine based training that perhaps free weight exercises are not optimized for.

Philip Pape  34:11

Okay, yeah, that was a good summary. So for strength, there's some crossover for muscle growth. It's almost anything, can crossover not anything, but I mean, the equivalent type of exercise for that muscle group. Specificity is still important for skill for, you know, performance based events. And it's good to include both I like your last comment about you know, sometimes machines are superior, depending on what your goal is. Is there a case where, what was the question I was gonna ask, essentially, is there a is there a detriment to being exclusive for a while? Or can that also be beneficial? Meaning if you're not a power lifter, you're just focused on general health, general strength of physique of just doing say barbells and free weights for a while just doing machines or some combination, like, you know, doesn't matter? Is it more of a matter of like, do it's kind of enjoyable and get to result Along the way, what's your message there?

Lauren Colenso-Semple  35:01

Yeah, I think there. If you're new, there are some exercises that are really technically challenging. And so you, like a barbell squat is a technically challenging lift, a leg press, not so much. And so if you're somebody who really wants to learn how to do a barbell squat, then great, I probably wouldn't start there, I'd probably start with a goblet squat, and maybe progressed to a box squat and then develop the the skill and the sort of kinesthetic awareness required to do a barbell squat. The same thing goes for a deadlift. It's not an intuitive exercise. And if you're someone who's a bit more intimidated about learning to lift or, or going to the gym, and kind of figuring things out, I think machines are a really great place to start. There's also safety consideration, if you're, you're more likely to have to have a potential accident in a barbell lift. If you don't have a spotter, and you don't know how to bail out than you would be on a machine, there's more just sort of safety things that are in place there. However, not all machines are great for everybody. And you might find that for your limb length, for example, like that leg extension or leg curl machine just doesn't feel good for you. And you just can't kind of get into a position that works. And in that case, I'd say don't use that machine. And there, that's true kind of across the board, people who are shorter can have issues with certain machines. Or if there's a machine locks you into a particular angle of with your shoulder, like you might find that overhead press machine just doesn't feel good to me. Whereas if you're using dumbbells, you have total control over how you adjust that angle. And so I think that's a that's really important and something else to consider. But oh, and the last thing I would say is, if you're tracking your weights over time, then the weights on one machine aren't necessarily going to translate to that, that of another machine. So if you're going to a different gym, or you're using a different machine of the same exercise, then you just need to be aware that you that it's not kind of one size fits all. But with those. That being said, I think machines are great. And free weight exercises are great. And you should really feel free to kind of incorporate whatever you feel comfortable with whatever you prefer, and switch it up over time. And machines do give you that flexibility to like there's a million different ways that you can do a chest fly like you can do with a dumbbell, you can do a cable crossover, you can use a pec deck machine like then that can be kind of fun if you feel like your training is getting stale.

Philip Pape  37:59

Yeah, no, I agree I'm fully on board with that I'm actually doing a bodybuilding program now been doing for four weeks, and it's great to have a little both in there, you know, it's just mentally, psychologically can be helpful, too, when you're trying to put in all that work. One of the one of the interesting tip that Andy Baker gave on our show was, you know, if you use a machine that locks into a certain plane of motion, it might help you with the mind muscle connection for that target muscle that can then transfer to a freeway, just just sharing, you know, because I thought that was there's a lot of benefits to everything. You also meant to mention cable machines, which for the listener, those are more like free weights, even though they're technically called a machine, would you agree or not,

Lauren Colenso-Semple  38:43

I would still call it a machine. Okay. But the the advantage of the cable is that you can adjust your kind of anchor point and so you you aren't locked in. And so you like you can put the cable sack low or, or high or mid range and everything in between. So I love the cable machine. I think they're amazing. And you're also like, the reason I call him machine is because you're getting resistance through the full range of the exercise. And there's really no free way to exercise where that's the case. So yeah, but it's by far the most flexible machine and that's why I love it. Because there's just so many you can make any exercise work for you with with all that flexibility on that.

Philip Pape  39:34

Awesome. So maybe what we'll do is for our little bonus talk after this for the email subscribers, we'll talk about some of your favorite exercises for maybe different body parts, something like that. Sure, yeah. Alright, so the last one is unfunctional training quotes in quotes, functional training. And I have to tell you, I did CrossFit for eight years. So I know the lingo. I came through the ethos like you would use the word of, you know functional training for, you know, natural movement, whatever it's called. And you wrote an article called functional exercise training useful framework, or frivolous fad, examining the term and how it's used in fitness, that there's not really an agreed upon definition of what it is. And that there's maybe a whole bunch of claims that, you know, being be more effective or not, can't be supported because of the terminology. I don't want to get too much into it, I'll let you explain. The term functional training isn't helpful. It's not helpful. What are your what's your thoughts on that?

Lauren Colenso-Semple  40:31

Yeah, this is a term that I've heard since I got my first group fitness or personal trainer certification. And I sort of found the concept a bit confusing at the time. But there were personal trainers in the gym, always doing everything on one leg or on a BOSU and, and then somehow that made it more quote, unquote, functional. So I was really interested to dive into the literature on this, because it turns out, there's really no basis for using this buzzword. And but it's been used for 20 years, and is still really, really popular group fitness classes, definitely emphasize it, private training gems, use that. And often the definition is, or the perceived definition is that doing these types of exercises will translate to your daily physical function. So your ability to walk up the stairs, or carry groceries or do things that are, that are part of your daily life in movement. But it can also be used to describe athletics specific training, like sports specific training. So if we do this, then it will translate to that task in sports. So there's really a kind of nebulous definition. And the words that are used to describe it include so many from from all sorts of exercise, so you see things like strength and muscle growth, balance, endurance, speed, core stability. So there's they're taking all of these components of other really well established types of exercise training, and trying to kind of combine them to develop something that's new, that isn't really new. So the two major components of this that I discussed in the article were core stabilization, and unstable surface training, because those seem like really synonymous with functional training. And the consensus really was, there's not a lot of evidence to suggest that core stabilization training is really that effective, because most core exercises, when you think about exercises that promote, quote, unquote, core stability, we're talking about variations of planks, or unilateral exercises, most of which you're either using no load, or you have to lighten the load in order to adequately perform the exercise, when in reality, what promotes core function or the transfer of force production in the core musculature is going to be load. So you accomplish that by just doing traditional resistance training.

Philip Pape  43:40

I love that that's a great message. I mean, it's got to be loaded. Yeah, you're right, these things are much lighter. And I've also Yeah, the use of functional training to apply to everything from, like you said, movement patterns to sport specific things. And you mentioned specificity in there. It sounds like all the fitness attributes, you combine them into this amazing new program. And for $497. Today, only, you can get your functional training, you know, game on. So anyway, we can be a little tongue in cheek with it. But I just wanted to put that out for folks, because I have heard people say, Well, what do you recommend for functional training? And I think it's good to be very clear with our language. So thank you. Yeah,

Lauren Colenso-Semple  44:20

the most important takeaway is having muscle and being strong, is functional. So whatever you can do to promote hypertrophy and strength gain makes you a more functional human being there, you don't need to be doing anything fancy.

Philip Pape  44:37

Be strong build muscle lift weights, everything we talked about today, and you'll get, you'll get swole and you'll get functional all the same time. So alright, so I like to ask this question of all guests, Lauren, and that is what question Did you wish I had asked and what is your answer?

Lauren Colenso-Semple  44:52

I would say, we didn't talk about sex based differences in response to training and so often there's an assumption that males are primed for strength and hypertrophy in a way that that females are not. And that that is due to their anabolic response, again, going back to the hormones that we discussed earlier, but what we see is that in the pre training, so kind of post puberty, men have more muscle mass than women. And that is because of a post puberty increase in testosterone. So it that's important in development. But when you actually start lifting weights, the rate of increase in muscle mass and strength is actually similar between men and women. And that's something that people really push back on and have a hard time hearing. But that's what the evidence suggests. So again, on an absolute level, women, men who who left are going to be bigger than women who left, because the starting point was different. But from a relative perspective, the gains are similar.

Philip Pape  46:07

That's awesome. Yeah. So you're saying that the, for the same? I guess, relative stimulus in calorie surplus during muscle building, you can gain the same amount per month? Regardless, or something?

Lauren Colenso-Semple  46:21

The same percentage? I mean, so let's say we had two people, but one of each sex with the same amount of muscle mass at baseline, if they train consistently, they will the rate of gain will be similar, regardless,

Philip Pape  46:41

in relative terms to their starting muscle mass. Correct. Okay, cool. No, that's good to know. Actually, I had not, I've always expressed it in absolute terms. And like you said, there is going to be a difference there, as we see and isn't even huge, really, I mean, if you're working at it, you'll get great results. It just may take a tiny bit longer in absolute terms, but women are smaller and have less muscle mass and higher body fat to begin with. So relative terms, it's still the same. Okay, very cool. All right. Where can listeners learn more about you, Lauren, and your work? The

Lauren Colenso-Semple  47:13

massive news research review, please check that out. Mass research review.com. We also do YouTube Live, which is available for anyone, whether you're a subscriber or not every Wednesday night at 7pm. And you can find me on Instagram at @laurencs1.

Philip Pape  47:30

All right, so the mass Research Review, which I'm a subscriber of as well, so definitely big fan of that YouTube Live and iG. I'll put all that in your show notes. Lauren, this was awesome. We covered a lot, but I think it was like super concise and right to the point where people can take it away and run with it. So thank you so much. Thanks

Lauren Colenso-Semple  47:47

so much for having me.

Philip Pape  47:50

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Ep 138: The Dangers of Low Protein for Longevity

Have you heard the claim that if you eat LESS protein, you’ll live longer?

In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) debunks the low-protein myth hitting the circuit that says if you want to live longer, you need to eat a LOW PROTEIN diet. Even if it tacked on a couple of years, a low-protein diet would destroy your quality of life and your health span in those years you do have left, assuming it doesn't kill you first, and that's enough to call it dangerous. Today you will learn exactly what these arguments are, whether a low-protein diet has any merit whatsoever, and the optimal level and sources of protein if you want not just a longer lifespan but a longer healthspan.

Episode summary:

The topic of protein intake and its relation to longevity and health has been a subject of much debate in the nutrition and fitness communities. While some advocate for low-protein diets as a means to extend lifespan, the evidence presented here provides compelling arguments against this approach, particularly for the aging population. The episode provides a detailed exploration of why adequate protein intake is not only beneficial but essential for maintaining muscle mass, immune function, and overall health as we age.

The dangers of subscribing to a low-protein diet, especially among older adults, cannot be overstated. As we age, our bodies become less efficient at synthesizing protein, which can lead to sarcopenia, the degenerative loss of muscle mass and strength. This condition not only impairs mobility and the ability to perform daily tasks but also increases the risk of falls and fractures, which are leading causes of mortality in the elderly. The podcast episode challenges the notion that a low-protein diet could contribute to a longer life, pointing out that any potential gains in lifespan would likely come at the cost of reduced health span, quality of life, and increased vulnerability to injury.

Furthermore, the episode dives into the importance of protein for various bodily functions. Protein plays a critical role in supporting the immune system, which is particularly important for fending off illnesses as we grow older. It is also vital for maintaining bone density, thus helping to prevent osteoporosis, and is a key factor in muscle protein synthesis. The episode highlights that higher protein intake is linked to improved metabolic health markers, such as insulin sensitivity, blood pressure regulation, and cholesterol profiles. These benefits are critical for reducing the risk of chronic diseases associated with aging.

When it comes to the source of protein, the podcast underscores the significance of quality. It encourages a diet rich in whole foods, which are the best sources of protein, whether for omnivores, vegetarians, or vegans. It also addresses concerns about protein supplementation, clarifying that while protein powders derived from whole foods can be part of a balanced diet, it's advisable to limit their consumption to no more than a third of one's daily protein intake.

In summary, the episode convincingly argues that adequate protein intake is paramount for a vigorous and healthy life, particularly as we grow older. It provides a thorough examination of the science behind protein and aging, debunking the low-protein longevity myth and advocating for a diet that includes sufficient high-quality protein to support robust health. The take-home message is clear: to maintain muscle mass, strengthen the immune system, and ensure overall well-being, one must not fall prey to the misguided notion that less protein equals a longer life.

The key to aging gracefully and healthfully is not in restricting protein but in embracing a diet that supports our physical needs throughout the life span. The insights provided in this episode are not just a call to action for those seeking to optimize their health but also a reminder of the power of evidence-based nutrition in shaping our understanding of what it truly means to live a robust, strong, and fulfilling life.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

0:00 Intro
2:09 Recent five-star review on the podcast
4:17 Protein is essential for overall health
6:20 Low protein arguments
10:38 The benefits of high protein
22:45 Broad and deep food matrix
29:09 Outro

Episode Resources:

• Join the FREE insider’s list to get bonus content from guest interviews (the first will be Lauren Colenso-Semple on training with machines, dumbbells, and barbells)

🩷 Enjoyed this episode? Share it on social and tag me @witsandweights

🤩 Love the podcast? Leave a 5-star review

💪 Want to map out YOUR exact strategy for workouts and nutrition for the next 6 months?
Schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

🚀 Want to get 1-on-1 accountability, a personalized plan, and 24/7 access to a coach? Apply for 1-on-1 coaching

✉️ Join hundreds of driven individuals and get access to the FREE Wits & Weights email list with insider strategies, bonus content, and conversations with experts in evidence-based fitness and nutrition so you can achieve your ideal health and physique.

👥 Join our highly engaged, active Facebook community for even more support and exclusive live trainings and Q&As

📞 Want to ask a question? Send a Q&A voicemail

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

Have you heard the claim that you should eat less protein and you'll live longer? Honestly, I couldn't believe it when I first heard this. And even if it did tack on a couple of years, which is highly doubtful based on the science, a low protein diet will destroy your quality of life and your health span. In those years you have left, assuming it doesn't kill you first. And that's enough for me to call it dangerous and put together this episode. So the low protein zealots don't send you in the wrong direction. Stick around. As we get to the bottom of the low protein hypothesis. One of the fresh new claims in the fitness industry to watch out for put on your skepticism hats as we dive into the dangers of low protein for longevity. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights

Philip Pape  01:08

community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In our last episode 137 Unlock abundance in fitness and every other aspect of life with Rebecca Whitman. Rebecca shared her philosophy of the Seven Pillars of abundance challenging us to rethink how we balance our lives, with an emphasis on physical abundance, and specific tips on harnessing your full potential. Today for episode 138 The dangers of low protein for longevity, we are debunking the low protein hypothesis or myth hitting the circuit that says if you want to live longer, you need to eat a low protein diet. You're either shaking your head in shock right now, or curious whether this claim has any merit whatsoever. Either way, today you're going to learn exactly what these arguments are, whether a low protein diet has any merit and the optimal level and sources of protein if you want not just a longer lifespan, but a longer health span. Now before we do this, I do want to share just one of the recent five star reviews today of this podcast that is relevant not just today's episode, but to the mission of the show, and it's from big jags. Very helpful and informative. This podcast is both helpful and informative because he uses science and experience to help you build both build muscle and lift properly, while maintaining a balanced and reasonable diet. And honestly I couldn't have said it better. myself a combination of science and experience. That's what we call evidence right. And building muscle lifting properly and maintaining a reasonable diet. That's really what it's about. So thank you big Jags for that review. And anybody anyone listening. One of the best things ways you could support the show is to do a five star rating and review on Apple or Spotify. Apple's the only platform where you can write in your review and that is very helpful when others are looking for the show. A good show to watch in the nutrition category and really any category and health and fitness. So I would appreciate if you go pause the episode and write a review on Apple, a five star review if you think it is deserved. All right. Let's put on our skeptic hats together, shall we? In today's topic, the dangers of low protein for longevity. Now I didn't believe it until I saw some let's just say not very well muscled fit flu answers. Sorry to be cruel maybe that's as mean as I get on the show, but look them up for yourself. I won't give them a platform by naming them here. But these these fit fluid answers the so called doctors, you know anyone with an MD in their name that uses that as a I'm gonna call it logical fallacy to to assume that they are an expert. They're making the claim that too much protein is a bad thing for older adults. Despite decades upon decades of research that paints a far more, I was gonna say nuanced picture, but I think it's actually a very clear picture about protein proteins effects on longevity. So I will state this unequivocally and with complete confidence, especially knowing how much it has helped clients of all ages of mine, but especially those over 40 and beyond. Protein is essential for muscle maintenance, immune function and overall health. Furthermore, as we age, protein needs actually increase because we want to prevent muscle loss what we call sarcopenia and copious researchers emphasize the importance of adequate protein intake in older adults for maintaining muscle mass and function, low muscle mass as we age, I am convinced at this point, it's probably the number one risk factor for injury and death because the leading cause of death and people over 75 is falling. We live in a world of physical hazards of other humans like our grandkids when we want to play With and carry. I mean, I don't have grandkids, I have daughters. But same ideas as we age, we want to be able to interact with people in a physical way. They need to haul large objects around whether we're grocery shopping, whether you're helping someone move, going on vacation, doing work around the house, working with your hands, all the things we want to do as humans into old age, simply avoiding joint pain and injury. So muscle is arguably far more important than weight management, in the long run, even for obesity as a cure for obesity, just having more muscle, if we're going to stay fit and avoid metabolic disease. So I'm very passionate about this because any message that says the other the opposite. In fact, going to an extreme like many fad diets have over the years of cutting something out or lowering it significantly, must be questioned on its face, the burden of proof is on them. When we look closely at the science, higher protein still appears clearly beneficial, not detrimental in any way for long term health, no matter your age, and even more so as you age. And there are some major problems with these low protein claims. In what is just an ever growing fringe, one of the new of many fringes of the fitness industry, and one of the message missions of the show is to debunk those claims. So let's get into it. What are the low protein arguments? Some researchers argue that excessive protein increases oxidative stress, inflammation, insulin resistance, and some other mechanisms that accelerate aging. And they often cite studies where rodents are fed isolated protein or amino amino acids, and they just live a shorter lifespan. Serious question for you, dear listener? Are you a rat in a laboratory whose diet consists solely of isolated casein protein? No. Now I know that's a that's a bait, a bait type question. Right? It's more sarcasm than anything. But the problem with these rodents studies are that we have studies and observations of longer living primate species. And I think humans are closer to primates, right, because we are primates than rats that show the opposite effect, you know, including studies in humans themselves, increased lifespan higher, but you know, increased lifespan associated with higher chronic protein feeding. And so this suggests pretty strongly that proteins effects likely depend on your overall diet composition, right, you're not just eating amino acids in high amounts while trapped in a cage. And it may differ between mammalian species. And this is actually a very common roadblock that we run into when we try to extrapolate the results of studies on rodents to everyday life as a human. Now, either that, or the researchers running these experiments, don't want those rats, or those mice to get too jacked and overpower them in the lab. And I guess that theory is equally plausible. So you pick the one you want. Alright? Conversely, there are studies like condo at all, which released just this year by this year. I mean, actually, last year when this episode is coming down to in 2023, which were also done on mice using what they call isocaloric, which is equivalent calorie diets at different percentages of protein, I think it was 1525 35 45% of calories. And they showed that intakes of 25 and 30%, or I'm sorry, 25 and 35% are associated with improved metabolic health into old age. And if you were to extrapolate that to human diet, it's right in the ballpark of the recommendations, we often talk about like point A to point one grams per pound, when you're eating, say 2000 calories, and you're an average sized person is going to put you around 2530 35% of your calories being protein. Now those that percentage goes up during fat loss. But fat loss is a short term period, if you're doing it right, it's at most a few months out of the year. And it puts it a little bit less if your calories are higher if you're in a gaining phase. But it's in the range. It's nowhere near what the low protein advocates are talking about. So go figure, right like whether you want to believe the rat studies or or extrapolate from them or not even they have disagreements. Okay, the other big area for the low protein advocates is a very narrow focus on certain pathways like mTOR and IGF one signaling and they attribute the harm from protein to activating these pathways. The problem here is that they ignore that protein supports many other vital health pathways as well. And proteins ability to build to repair to maintain muscle mass and avoid the significant longevity impeding declines that come with that, such as frailty, and weakness in older age, that's a big problem. Like if you don't think of everything in context and you just sit you know, pull out this one, these one or two pathways. So when you assess the entire body of current research, restricting protein intake does not To appear to provide healthy longevity in humans, right? And note the keyword they're healthy. You know, would you rather live a few extra years being sickly and weak, or live a normal robust lifespan, as a strong functioning rambunctious human who has their wits about them, see what I did there, until the day the Grim Reaper calls, that's where I want to be. Right? Now, when assessing the entire body of research, a low protein diet provides very little benefit at all to aging. And here's the worst thing, it can be downright harmful. So now I want to flip it around and say, Well, what are the benefits of higher protein because we have tons of data that show us the benefits of high protein. And by high protein, I really mean a sufficient amount of protein for building muscle and maintaining a healthy lifestyle that just happens to be higher and sometimes much higher than what the average person consumes. And I actually just got my hair cut today, my Barbara was talking about, you know, you know, a lot of people should just be eating a balanced diet, right, we just want a balanced diet. And I said, you know, I agree, what I would challenge about that is what people think of as balanced. Because I think in the modern, especially Western society, everything is so skewed by the food availability and the high, you know, processed food consumption diet, and we don't really understand what balance means. And so when I tell you to eat 150 grams of protein a day, and you're currently eating 50, and you're like, there's no way I can get 150, that's crazy, don't we want to eat a balanced diet, once you've made that shift and realize how it all plays together with the fats and the carbs and the the nutrients and the fiber and everything else, you realize that it is quite balanced, when protein is making up 25% of your calories, that doesn't seem imbalanced. To be honest, that seems pretty reasonable. For most people, protein makes up like 10% of their diet. To me that's imbalanced. So anyway, just that was a side tangent that I think is important. When we say higher protein, right, but way higher than these low protein advocates are talking about. So contrary to whatever outdated dogma they might be referring to, like, you know, it's gonna mess up your liver or something, or kidneys, I'm sorry, increased protein intake, we know improves numerous biomarkers associated with longevity and disease prevention in humans. So for example, research shows higher protein enhances insulin sensitivity, not the other way is we know this, because we also know that it enables more muscle mass. And guess what that increases insulin sensitivity. It enhances blood sugar regulation, blood pressure, your lipid profiles, right, your cholesterol, inflammation status, all of these, which you're probably aware of are crucial for metabolic and cardiovascular health. So higher intakes of protein, whether it's leucine rich animal protein sources, or a diverse plant based diet, as long as it's full of the essential amino acids, and you get enough protein, help preserve muscle mass and strength as we get older. And then this of course, minimizes the risk of sarcopenia. That muscle wasting that happens. We all know older folks, in fact, is the majority of older folks walking around, stooped over weak prone to a fall prone to breaking something, being in the hospital going on a bunch of drugs, getting pneumonia, I hate to paint that picture, but it's reality. And it's all because of muscle mass, it's all comes down to muscle mass. I mean, that's it sarcopenia sarcopenia, and osteopenia are kind of tied together osteopenia or osteoporosis, the loss of bone density, they're all tied together to a lack of strength training a lack of protein. Alright, so preserving more metabolically active muscle clearly outweighs any claim of minor oxidative damage from these pathways, you know from protein metabolism, that are very specious ly claimed in these from these studies. Conversely, having low muscle mass, as I just alluded to dramatically increases your odds of osteoporosis, frailty falls, remember the leading cause of death for those over 75 is falling, injury, and even your mental health, anxiety and depression. There's a correlation between lower muscle mass and higher anxiety and depression, whether it's a direct cause or a proximal cause because of all the terrible things that now happen in your life and your health because you don't have muscle mass. And that leads to anxiety, depression, whatever the reason, there's a very close correlation. Now my 65 year old clients, okay, and I work with people from 30s to their 60s Generally, my 65 year old clients who probably deadlift more than the strongest of these low protein researchers. Sorry, I know that's a low blow but I can't help myself today because it's probably true. If just look them up, please. They're not very well muscle. I think I mentioned that before. As these 65 year old clients are some of the most vibrant, capable, active alive individuals I've ever seen. They are building new muscle tissue for the first time in decades. And by the way, you can build muscle to pretty much the day you die, but there's recent research that shows in your 80s and 90s As you can build new muscle tissue, and that would not be possible without adequate protein, and the low protein level that these researchers are arguing for, is not going to cut it. Again, I would argue that these direct health benefits outweigh any claim oxidative changes or activation of signaling pathways. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. If we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  16:22

Now beyond being just a building block of tissue, protein provides many other essential benefits for health. higher intake supports immune function, antioxidant capacity, bone density, skin integrity, we many of you know the association between proteins and skin, right? It's why people take like to consume Collagen For Skin Health, hormone balance, enzyme production, neurotransmitters, gut microbiome diversity, without adequate protein over time, age related declines in all of these systems accelerate, why would you want to do that to yourself? Research suggests that the older we get, the more protein we may need. And fact approaching the one gram per pound of high quality protein daily. So when you hear about the recommendations for like point seven or point six to one gram per pound, and I always tell you, like just aim for the one you know, it's a little bit of a stretch goal for most people, if you get point eight or point seven, you'll be fine. But the older you get the the closer you actually may want to be to that one gram per pound. Because your efficiency and nutrient utilization and muscle protein synthesis ability declines, right. And so now you're trying to get more, or you're trying to, you get less from the same amount. So you need more of that protein to get what you got when you were younger. Now, omnivores versus vegans versus vegetarians, omnivores are going to have an easier time of this, right of getting a high quality protein and get getting enough of it because of the margin of error, you know, got animal sources, which just make it easy to get your protein, vegetarians who eat dairy and or eggs. Those can be a big source of protein along with plants. And then vegans have to just be very smart about their food selection, and probably have supplementation as well, to ensure the inclusion of all the essential amino acids and you know, good nutrient diversity. What are the benefits, okay, if you listen to this podcast, is there's two other reasons why I like my clients to increase their protein as soon as possible. The first one is satiety, we know that protein has a higher thermic effect of feeding, so burns a few more calories, but it also makes you fuller. So it's a nice benefit in when we're trying to regulate our hunger signals and change the volume of food we eat and the calories we eat. And number two, food quality and selection. You've heard me say this before, maybe not maybe if you're new to the show, if you go to the grocery store, and I tell you to buy protein dominant foods, even have a very hard time buying enough protein if you stick to the middle aisles where all the packaged foods are, you know, other than maybe maybe beans, right and some of the plant foods that have protein, but if you really want a lot of protein, you're gonna go out around the edges, you know, to the the animal sources to the dairy, to the the fresh fat produce, and so on to get your protein meat, meaning if I asked you to greatly increase your protein from say, 50 to 150 grams, you're gonna start eating more whole foods, you're going to take an additive approach to doing that you're not going to be thinking, Well, I'm on a diet. So I need to cut things out, you're gonna think, oh, I want to get more protein, because it's good for my muscle mass on my health and let me figure out how to do that. Okay, so that's the benefits of protein. If you needed to know that at all right? Preaching to the choir, perhaps here. The other piece of this is supplementation. I just want to address briefly, because some researchers worry that there's potential harm specifically from excessive amino acid or protein supplementation and you might say like, okay, maybe that's closer to these mice studies, where they're being fed like pure amino acids. But here's the thing eating whole food protein sources As part of a balanced diet does not carry anywhere near what if there were risks of pure amino acids? Right? Recall again, these key studies and little protein research use rodents fed pure amino acids. Now regardless, if you consume protein from primarily Whole Foods, you will get a balanced diet and nutrition that regulates the absorption of those nutrients properly. And guess what? Protein powders are also technically a whole food in this context, if you think of like whey protein, or pea and rice protein, because they're just a filtered ground up version of a food, right from their for milk, or they're from plants. They're not just amino acids right? Now, something like essential amino acids, or branched chain amino acids bought as a powder form for a pre workout. For example, when you feed, track, train fasted, those are pure amino acids, but you are not consuming very much of those at all, you know, a few grams, like 510 grams of those, you're not consuming hundreds of grams, or whatever it would take to match what these mice are fit. So yeah, having now having said that, we talked about protein powders, just real quick caveat on that, I still think it's a good idea to limit those to like no more than a third of your daily protein at most. If you're using them on a regular basis. Like for some people it may be, it may be a big portion of your daily routine, because you're just trying to get the protein. But then you want to learn that skill and develop those habits of okay, how do I get more and more protein from food? Right? I personally take one or two whey protein shakes every single day. And it probably comprises 15 or 20% of my protein, right? It's not, it's a small amount. It's it's meaningful, but it's not huge. Regardless, it's still from a whole food. So part of the matrix, let's say. Now, thinking of protein in that context of food, and not just as amino acids is important here, because food regulates absorption. And it combines or balances those amino acids with other compounds, other beneficial compounds, many of which we don't even track or label as part of like in the food industry, right? Well, we have our nutrition labels, and we identify ingredients and things like that. Lots of plants have helpful compounds that are just, you don't realize they exist, because we don't talk about them. They're not labeled as micronutrients. They're not put on ingredient, ingredients and on packaging. And yet without the whole food itself, you wouldn't get that compound. It's the same reason I prefer, you know, eating an orange to drinking orange juice or eating an apple to drinking apple juice, or eating vegetables instead of taking greens powders, so that you get all those other compounds. And that's why I also prefer a focus on nutrient quality, nutrient density, you know, eating both plant and animal proteins unless you're vegan or vegetarian, and fiber, right. If you think of all these in your diet, as opposed to just hitting macros, you know that you end up consuming a broad and deep food matrix, think of it as a matrix, like a whole bunch of food combining together to give you this beautiful potpourri of nutrients and compounds. So you'll not only get plenty of protein, but you're also going to support your health that way. And if we're going to get concrete about it, think lean meats, fish, eggs, dairy, beans, lentils, soy nuts, seeds, right, they all contain protein, grains, of course, oats, and quinoa, and, and all of those. So, you know, don't buy into the plant bashing in the carnivore crowd, right, such as the the claim of low protein, digestibility, and plants. And all of that, right, these are far, far outweighed by the many other benefits of plants. Although I still prefer they be part of an omnivorous diet, it's going to make it easier to get what you want and need, but not necessarily, let's just say, also, anytime you cut things out, you're just limiting the number of foods and recipes that you can choose from. And that inhibits flexibility and adherence to your diet. Right? Also the wonderful many ways and flavors to cook things. And then the fiber, the nutrients or compounds that are in plants. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent about food selection and quality and diet. But I think that's important. And if you're eating that way, and you have sufficient protein, you're golden. Okay. So when we analyze the full body of evidence, a low protein intake clearly and unequivocally worsens many health markers and accelerates aging. I don't see how you can make the argument otherwise, I just don't see it. And I know there's books been written on the topics. Please put your skeptic hat on. Okay, higher protein intake. We know from very well supported research. It preserves muscle it preserves function, resilience, your health, biomarkers, your quality of life into old age, with no clear upper limit of consumption from whole food sources, right? Unless you have a pre existing condition that precludes high protein intake, which is a very small percentage of population. You know who you are. I'm not speaking to you and I'm not a medical doctor. are okay, a daily protein intake of point seven to one gram per pound is optimal for supporting an active lifestyle for individuals who resistance train regularly. And I hope that's you. And if it's not you, if you're listening to you don't resistance train, what are you waiting for? You got to get on that on the on the resistance or resistance train train,

Philip Pape  25:20

okay? You guys are shaking your head. I'm corny sometimes, and I love it. So an activity that everyone should be doing, no matter who you are, until the day you die, is resistance training in some form or another. So consume a high quality omnivorous diet, you know, unless you're restricting your diet on purpose to vegetarian or vegan diet, with an emphasis on whole foods. Pay extra attention, if you know you have to restrict something. So that you get the quantity that you need, you know, high protein throughout your life should maximize your healthspan to match your lifespan, because of how powerful it is and keeping you strong and metabolically flexible. And I have no problem saying that. And anybody who listens to this, who's not eating enough protein, and they take it as their mission to get enough, because of this episode, I'm thrilled, I'm thrilled because I know how much healthier you're gonna be. And you're gonna be able to pack on more muscle and preserve the muscle you have. I personally would rather live a very high quality life by building a sustaining strength and muscle given muscles importance and healthspan so that I can look I can feel I can function my best well into my 80s and 90s. What about you? Is that what you want? Muscle is the answer. Muscle is the answer. And you can't do that without adequate protein. All right. As always, if you need some guidance on your training, on your nutrition on your protein sources, on just how the heck to make this all work. Because you want to get stronger, you want to build muscle, you want to improve your body composition, composition, or you want to lose 20 to 60 pounds of fat in about a six month period, which is a reasonable amount of time to do it the right way. And sustainably. I'm always happy to hop on a call with you. I call it a results breakthrough session. But who cares what it's called, it's a free 30 minute call. Where we just go over the plan we figure out the two or three things holding you back what actions you can take, not a sales pitch, not a sales call in any way. Just go to with go to wits & weights.com and click free call or use the link in my show notes. Again for 30 minutes, results breakthrough session, go to wits & weights.com, click free call or use the link in my show notes. Okay, in our next episode 139 Female strength resistance training hormones and muscle growth with Lauren Kalonzo sample from the mass Research Review. Lauren will be giving you insights into the latest research and strategies on female specific topics. Although men, you are going to love this episode as well, especially if you know women who you support and you want to understand women or you coach them or whatever. And we're gonna go over topics like the menstrual cycle and strength training, which might surprise you satellite cells and muscle growth. What the heck are those? Well, you gotta tune in to find out low energy availability machines versus free weights and functional training. Now check this out. It will also be the very first guest interview on this podcast where my guest and I so that's Lauren and I recorded special bonus content available only to subscribers of my email list. In the bonus video, I asked Lauren for her advice on strength training with machines than dumbbells, and barbells. And she shared exactly how to do that very simply over 10 minutes. She gave you step by step specific tips and things to do in the gym to do that. So if you want that bonus content in your inbox, go to wits & weights.com/bonus to sign up. Now if you're already on my list, which I'm calling the insider's list now, totally free of course, you'll receive a link soon after the episode comes out. It'll be a special email just with that information in it and a link to the unlisted video for you to check out. Again, just go to wits & weights.com/bonus to sign up ahead of time so you make sure to get it and or you can click the link in the show notes, wits & weights.com/bonus, or the link in the show notes. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Ep 137: Unlock Abundance in Fitness and Every Other Aspect of Life with Rebecca Whitman

What are the simple lifestyle adjustments that can have a profound impact on your fitness and well-being?

In today’s episode, Philip (@witsandweights) is joined by Rebecca Whitman, an International best-selling author and top-ranked podcast host. Rebecca shares her philosophy of the 7 Pillars of Abundance, challenging you to rethink how to balance your life, emphasizing the physical abundance pillar. From her unique approach to her personal morning routine, you will learn how to embrace abundance, build resilience, and reshape your self-identity to harness your full potential

Rebecca is a graduate of Princeton University with honors. She was awarded Life Coach of the Year and Empowered Woman of the Year by the International Association of Top Professionals. She was named one of the Top 7 Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2023 by “LA Weekly” magazine. She is also the host of the top 1% podcast, "The Balanced, Beautiful, and Abundant Show,” which won the Positive Change Award.

Rebecca, also known as the Magnetic Abundance Mentor, helps people find a harmonious balance among the seven pillars, unlocking more joy and freedom in their lives. She has transformed the lives of many women from burned out to balanced, beautiful, and abundant, including mentoring them to leave toxic relationships and magnetize their soul mates.  She also created the 6 Figure Side Hustle program, helping women exit from unfulfilling jobs to a profitable purpose.

Episode summary:

When we talk about living a balanced and abundant life, it's easy to focus solely on the material aspects – the wealth, the possessions, and the outward signs of success. However, Rebecca Whitman's appearance paints a much more nuanced picture, emphasizing the interconnectivity of various life aspects that contribute to a truly rich and satisfying existence. Rebecca presents the concept of the seven pillars of abundance, a comprehensive approach to achieving holistic happiness.

The seven pillars encompass spiritual, fitness, emotional, romantic, mental, social, and financial well-being. Rebecca eloquently explains that true abundance is not about having an excess in one area, but rather finding a harmonious balance across all aspects of life. The notion is that when we nurture each of these pillars, we create a foundation for a life that is not only prosperous but also meaningful and joy-filled.

One might wonder how such a life can be actualized. The answer lies in the practical strategies Rebecca and Phillip share throughout the podcast. For instance, they emphasize the importance of a morning spiritual routine, which may include practices such as meditation, journaling, or prayer. This not only sets the tone for the day but also helps establish a connection with something greater than oneself, providing a source of comfort and guidance.

In discussing the fitness pillar, the conversation turns to the transformative impact of weight training. Rebecca shares her personal journey, noting that incorporating weights into her fitness regimen was pivotal in achieving the best shape of her life at 52. This segment of the episode challenges the misconception that weightlifting is solely for bulking up, showcasing it as a tool for crafting a leaner, stronger physique.

Nutrition and hydration are not left out of the conversation. They are considered foundational to physical health, affecting energy levels, skin health, and overall wellness. Rebecca talks about her routine of drinking lemon water with electrolytes and the benefits of a Mediterranean diet. She also touches on the need for personalized health routines that cater to one's individual needs, especially during different life stages, such as menopause.

Mental and emotional health are deeply intertwined, and the podcast does not shy away from this connection. Rebecca points out that all emotions stem from love or fear, and by choosing to focus on emotions rooted in love, such as joy and contentment, one can significantly improve their overall well-being. She further discusses the mental pillar, highlighting the importance of continuous learning and engagement of the mind through various means, including listening to podcasts like Wits and Weights.

In the social realm, the importance of community is underscored. The support of like-minded individuals can be a powerful motivator and source of encouragement, particularly when pursuing health and fitness goals. Similarly, the romantic pillar is examined, stressing the need for a partner who supports one's ambitions and lifestyle choices, as this can greatly influence one's path to abundance.

Finally, financial well-being is discussed, not in terms of wealth accumulation, but as a means to achieve freedom and the ability to live life on one's own terms. This reflects a shift from a scarcity mindset, where one is constantly chasing money, to an abundance mindset, where financial stability is seen as a tool for enabling a rich and diverse life experience.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:31 Journey from scarcity to abundance
5:17 The 7 pillars of abundance
10:11 Priority or hierarchal order of the pillars
15:41 The HNM philosophy: hydration, nutrition, movement, and meditation
24:43 Your morning routine
30:18 Active mind syndrome
32:55 "Stacking" practices for different pillars of abundance
36:28 25-year break from tennis
40:10 Impact of other pillars on overall health and well-being
44:20 Building resilience against life's obstacles
47:31 Where to find Rebecca
48:47 Outro

Episode Resources:

• Journal Your Way to Abundance

• Fun events – Elegant Warrior Training

• Website: rebeccaelizabethwhitman.com

• IG: @rebeccaewhitman

🩷 Enjoyed this episode? Share it on social and tag me @witsandweights

🤩 Love the podcast? Leave a 5-star review

💪 Want to map out YOUR exact strategy for workouts and nutrition for the next 6 months?
Schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

🚀 Want to get 1-on-1 accountability, a personalized plan, and 24/7 access to a coach? Apply for 1-on-1 coaching

✉️ Join hundreds of driven individuals and get access to the FREE Wits & Weights email list with insider strategies, bonus content, and conversations with experts in evidence-based fitness and nutrition so you can achieve your ideal health and physique.

👥 Join our highly engaged, active Facebook community for even more support and exclusive live trainings and Q&As

📞 Want to ask a question? Send a Q&A voicemail

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Rebecca Whitman  00:00

I realized wow, you can actually get leaner and harder if you lift weights, it doesn't mean you're gonna like bulk up and be this bodybuilder if you lift weights and that really changed my whole physique when I started lifting weights and now I'm 52 and I'm in the best shape of my life because I have incorporated weight so that's why another reason I love the title of your podcast Wits & Weights because weight training really changed my life.

Philip Pape  00:29

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today I'm joined by Rebecca Whitman, an international best selling author top ranked podcast hosts a positive force in the world of personal development and empowerment. Rebecca will share her philosophy of the Seven Pillars of abundance, challenging us to rethink how we balance our lives, with a bit of emphasis today on the physical abundance pillar. From her unique approach to her personal morning routine. You'll learn how to embrace abundance, build resilience, be more consistent, and reshape your self identity to harness your full potential. A graduate of Princeton University with honors, Rebecca was awarded Life Coach of the Year and empowered woman of the year by the International Association of top professionals and one of the top seven entrepreneurs to watch in 2023 by LA Weekly magazine. She's also the host of the top 1% podcast the balanced, beautiful and abundant show, which won the positive change award known as the magnetic abundance mentor. Rebecca's approach is designed to help people find a harmonious balance among the seven pillars of abundance, unlocking more joy and freedom in their lives. Rebecca, welcome to the show.

Rebecca Whitman  02:03

Thank you, Phillip. It's great to be here. I love the title of your podcast Wits. & Weights.

Philip Pape  02:09

Yeah, a little bit of alliteration. It came to me while we were at my daughter's soccer game. And I was just like brainstorming in my head. And somehow, somehow it came to me. So appreciate it. So thank you for coming on. And we're talking about abundance today and what that means, what that means in general, but also in the context of health and fitness. So what I'm curious about is, for contrast, is there a time in your life where you didn't? You clearly didn't have abundance, right? Maybe scarcity, whatever we want to call it? How did that experience? How did it feel and how to lead you to where you are today?

Rebecca Whitman  02:43

Well, I was raised in a very competitive house. And by the time I was eight, I was playing national tennis tournament. So I was taught that I had to when my dad literally had a sign in his office, it says, wasn't winning isn't everything. It's the only thing. So that is a scarcity mentality. And that is very like hypervigilant, competitive fight flight. And I did get results with that. I mean, I was, I graduated from Princeton with honors, and I, you know, had some sales records in my early career, and direct sales, but I was absolutely miserable. And not happy, I was overweight, I was having toxic relationships. It was just not a good way to live. And then I hit a bottom in 2003. And I started studying the law of attraction with Michael Beckwith, Abraham Hicks, Wayne Dyer. And I started understanding that I can have a scarcity mentality, or I can have an abundance mentality. And then I combine that with my study of, there's seven different areas of life and then I realized, I have a choice to make and all these seven areas, I can either look at my fitness, my romance, my emotional life, my financial life and an attitude of scarcity or abundance. And that is, that is what I call myself now the magnetic abundance mentor, because I believe that you can raise your vibration and life and magnetize abundance in all seven areas of life. Yeah,

Philip Pape  04:35

I love that. So the zero sum competitive game is kind of that rat race a lot of us live in on a daily basis, especially people who are high achievers, right people who are looking to constantly grow, whether it's personally and professionally and it's this competitive thing. And we I think we put that on a pedestal sometimes right as a positive value and a virtue, whereas what you're suggesting is it's not sustainable, right? It sounded like it burned you out, you were unhappy. And it led to all these other things. So thank you for segue now into the pillars because I want to establish that framework for folks. I always love frameworks and thinking of life as okay. I'm very, like, you know, got the engineering mind, I can imagine these seven buckets, maybe overlapping circles or something like that. You mentioned the seven are most of them spiritual, physical, emotional, romantic, mental, social, and financial, so elaborate on that framework, and then we can dive into a few of those. Sure.

Rebecca Whitman  05:29

So the framework is an order of importance, and how I set up my day and my week in my life. So the first one is spiritual. I am a huge believer in having a morning practice. And that is where I stay, I drink my water, take my supplements, we'll talk about my philosophy and fitness. But it's really where I start to tap into my relationship with my higher power. And I have an amazing tool that I'm going to share with your listeners. It's an abundance journal. And there's a story behind that tool. I'll get into that too, in a minute. But writing in that abundance journal, prayer, meditation, they're non negotiables. For me, the second pillar is fitness. And I don't work out every single day, but I do work out probably six days a week. And it is a combination of tennis, yoga, weight training, and walking. And I really do like having my competitive edge on the tennis court. So I'm not saying there's no room for competition, because it is fun to compete. It's fun to win, and, but I don't want to think of everything in my life as a competition. That is exhausting. The third pillar is emotion. And I do believe that all emotions come from fear, love. If you look at emotions that come from love, and this isn't me, this is A Course in Miracles teaches this. It's appreciation, happiness, contentment, satisfaction, joy comes from love. And then resentment, fear, anger, jealousy, bitterness, it all comes from fear. So you could also call it scarcity or abundance. So all emotions are either in scarcity, there's not enough good to go around, or there's an abundance of good to go around, whatever that is energy, time, money, love. The next pillar of abundance is romance. And romance affects all the areas just like all of them affect all the areas. So if you're with a partner that doesn't support your health and fitness goals, for example, if they want you to order pizza every night and have donuts every morning for breakfast, it's going to be really hard to achieve your health and fitness goals. Same is true with financial, if you want to be an entrepreneur, and swing for the fences and go for wealth and legacy. And they just want you to have a nine to five job and you know, watch TV all weekend, it's probably not a good fit. The next pillar after romance is mental. And that is what we're doing right here on this wonderful podcast Wits & Weights with Philip. And we're working on our mindset and there's many podcasts audibles, it could be learning a new skill, learning a new language, learning a sport, chess, poker, anything to work on your mindset. The next one is social, Your vibe attracts your tribe and community creates immunity. Having a community of like minded people is so important when you have a goal. So if your goal is to be healthy and fit, having a community, whether it's a gym, a Facebook group, a class of other people that have the same goal is critical. And the same is true with money. Having people in a community that want you to succeed financially, and that are on the same path as you that is so crucial. You know, it's the average of the five people you hang out with. Those are the results you have. The final pillar is financial. And that is making enough money to have a freedom. I don't believe in just sitting on a pile of money and doing nothing with it. I believe that life is meant to be lived. And money gives you freedom to do what you want, when you want where you want, and with who you want. And if you don't have enough money, you don't have any freedom. You're like that hamster on a treadmill, constantly just chasing that dollar bill, and you can't think of anything else. So it's important to find a way to get paid what you're worth, and not trade dollars for hours. Because if you're trading dollars for hours, you have limited amount of hours in a week, weeks in a year months in a year, and you will be limiting your income.

Philip Pape  09:50

Great, super concise. Thank you and it is interesting how they do tie together like when you talk about emotion and mental. I've always loved that separation you know Because I think sometimes we tie them all together. But there's really a distinct difference there. And the community part is huge. I mean, it really is huge when it comes to relatedness and having the support to get there. So, with with all of these seven things to focus on, I'm sure you get the question all the time about balance and what to go after, when you mentioned on another podcast podcast that I don't know if it was you, or clients or whoever or women always tend to put love and money at the top of the list, I think you'd mentioned. So you talked about this being an order of priority, is that so you're saying spirituals is the most important? Or is this just for you during a given day, there's a reason you rank me

Rebecca Whitman  10:38

and my teachings, it's just in my opinion, but this is these are the building blocks to build a balanced, beautiful and abundant life. They're there in order of importance, because emotions are over romance and finance. Because if you're miserable, sad, suicidal, what kind of a partner are you going to be? Or we've seen, you know, many rock stars and movie stars and billionaires, OD or commit suicide. So they had their finances together, but they were not emotionally well, so having your emotions in abundance, and love and happiness, that that's important, more important. But I if you notice, I put fitness over emotions, yes. Because if you have your health, you have everything. And if you don't have your house, you don't have anything. You could make a million dollars a minute. And if you're in a hospital with an IV up your nose and you know something in your arm and you're tied to a hospital bed, then what good is it?

Philip Pape  11:44

It's exactly what I've come to find to and in my practice that like if you don't have your physical, sometimes we talked about people talk about three buckets, right? They'll say physical health, wealth, relationships, right? It's kind of really simplistic. And if you don't have your physical you, how can you pursue the others, especially as we age, but I want to focus on the spiritual just for a second, some because I know some people aren't as quote unquote, spiritual and as it could be a loaded term, right? Some people think religion, some people think you mentioned meditation and prayer, or just a, your morning practice, elaborate on that a little bit. So people understand like, why is this? Number one? What makes it number one? And how is that personalized to someone?

Rebecca Whitman  12:25

If you don't have faith in anything, but yourself, that is a lot of pressure, I was an atheist, up until my freshman year in college, and I had literally a breakdown, where I did a fake suicide attempt and took like a bottle of CO Tylenol, because I just couldn't stand the pressure. And think faith in anything greater than yourself is going to give you a peaceful life. I don't care if it's nature, because we're not the ones you know, raising and setting the sun every day, we're not the ones pulling the ocean tides, forward and back. Whatever it is, having faith in anything that's greater than yourself that you can trust that, you know, has your back is it's just amazing to have a partner to go through life with. And you could say, well, it's not scientifically proven, but quantum physics is proven that everything is connected, and there's some kind of order to the chaos. So yeah, having faith in something greater than yourself, I don't care if it's the law of gravity, you know, you're not the person keeping your feet on the earth. But just knowing there's something out there. And then I met this woman at an AAA meeting, her name was Janet. And she taught me how to write and then God journal, she gave me some life changing journal prompts. I started doing that every single day. I've added a few journal prompts of my own, I haven't missed a day for 30 years. And that journal is part of my morning practice because it helps turn my negative thinking to positive. And it helps me see like a bigger picture, like one of the journal prompts is how is God doing for me what I couldn't do for myself. That is opening up my mind that there is a benevolent force in a friendly universe. And that just that one journal prompt, changed my whole way of thinking. And I'm actually going to give this journal as a gift to your listeners.

Philip Pape  14:28

Yeah, no, I love that. And people people listening for me a long time. No, I've struggled with journaling myself over the years and I'm actually in the midst of using a journal again sociate with another friend of mine, he has a thing going on there. But what comes to mind with all of this spiritual thing because I'm very open minded is purpose, right? Like is someone's purpose. The same thing, like the fact that someone is trying to do something beyond themselves, and that drives them. Would you say it's the same thing or is that something else?

Rebecca Whitman  15:00

I think your purpose is different than a relationship. Okay? With a higher power, your purpose can be anything. And actually, I have a free guide on my website, Rebecca Elizabeth whitman.com. And that the guide is called Find Your meaningful and magnetic purpose. But yeah, purpose to me is what you're put on this earth to do what lights you up what your mission is, and spiritual. I mean, it could tie into your spirituality, but I feel like the two don't have to be connected this can be its own separate relationship.

Philip Pape  15:40

Okay, no, I love that. So let's focus on the second pillar, which which I know we wanted to get into today, the physical and your personal philosophy of fitness. I think in our we had a text conversation and you mentioned the term H and M, to refer to hydration, nutrition, movement and meditation. So again, frameworks, I love it, you know, the acronyms and letters and all that. So the fact that you start with hydration is very interesting. But just tell us more about this overall philosophy. And we get into details.

Rebecca Whitman  16:08

Yeah, I believe in h&m, not the discount store. Although I do love the discount store. Like you said, hydration, nutrition, movement meditation. So hydration is everything. I'm actually drinking my water right now. And it's got phytonutrients and electrolytes in it. That's another thing, I promote a brand for health and wellness. And I believe hydration is so critical for just everything. One of the things that I do, as soon as I wake up is I drink lemon water, at least 16 ounces, and I have some electrolytes in that. And then I will have I do I do participate in caffeine, I'm not gonna say, which makes hydration even more important. So I believe that we should be drinking half our weight in ounces of water. I don't think the water has to be plain, I'm all about like putting extra supplements to jazz it up. But yeah, 90 ounces of water is so important, especially if you are taking a lot of supplements. And especially if you're working out because the body needs that water to process everything through. I didn't even drink a lot of water, like growing up, it wasn't a thing. Now all these kids are walking everywhere with their water bottles, and there's water bottle stickers, and everyone's like be hydrated. But it does make a great difference to me and my health and just in my skin. How I feel. So that's the first Yeah,

Philip Pape  17:44

let's just focus on that for a second. The fact you put it first is is kind of innovative because most most people don't write it, they'll put it in, they'll kind of put it as an afterthought. And I have clients all the time who say, you know, I'm hungry this week, or, or a client recently and said, You know, I started drinking more like you suggested and my energy is better is that a thing and it's absolutely like your body needs water for everything it does every function you can imagine. And the electrolytes is also good because people do drink a lot of caffeine. And if they can maybe complement that with a glass of water with some lemon and salt or electrolytes, it's gonna make a huge difference. And then your skin right, especially for ladies, you know, I know, I know, everybody skin is important, but you know, women tend to focus on that. So starting with hydration, very innovative. I just wanted to point that out, and they'll let you continue with the nutrition.

Rebecca Whitman  18:29

Yeah, and I love putting electrolytes in my water because a lot of us are mineral deficient, because our farmlands are depleted of minerals. So even though they're doing the same crops year in and year out, there's less and less minerals that the crops are garnering from the soil. So yeah, I'm all about electrolytes in the water.

Philip Pape  18:51

Well, let me let me ask about that. Which electrolytes do you find is magnesium high on the list? Would you say like which electrolytes do we find are most efficient? And how do you address those with with the electrolytes and also do you get it from fruit for example?

Rebecca Whitman  19:06

Yeah, well, I actually there's a product. It's got all the electrolytes magnesium is one of them. Plus it has Silla jet. Do you know what that is? I actually don't. It's a new superfood. It's it's like resin that they scrape off of caves in the Himalayas. Interesting. gives you energy naturally. So it's got electrolytes and she loves it and it I also use a brand called trace minerals. I put that in my lemon water, and they have just a general mineral formula and then they have one with fulvic acid. I also put molecular hydrogen on my water sometimes too. If I'm at a restaurant, I have little molecular hydrogen pills that I'll drop in the water to just again, jazz it up make it more exciting. Electric molecular Hi Hydrogen is really good for just cellular function, energy clarity. The next is nutrition. I am a believer in the Mediterranean diet, which is the blue zone diet. It's a low inflammation diet. It's a lot of vegetables, fish eggs, and I don't eat meat. I don't eat gluten. I don't eat dairy. And I don't eat. I mean up their sugar and everything naturally. I don't eat things with a lot of sugar. Though

Philip Pape  20:35

the Mediterranean diet does have lean meats in there for just completeness. Yeah. Okay.

Rebecca Whitman  20:39

For those who want to eat lean meats, it is in there. Yeah, absolutely. So that diet has really worked for me. I didn't do well, on the high fat, low carb diet, I actually blew up my gallbladder and needed an emergency gallbladder removal, because I was doing like too much fat. So I don't think that works for everybody. So I don't like avoid fat, I have avocados. And sometimes I'll have gi but I don't like put fat on my coffee every day or do that. Yeah,

Philip Pape  21:18

and then we talk about nutrition all the time here, you've got to find something that works for you. And even though no one diet can be proclaimed perfect for any one person, the Mediterranean diet definitely leans toward kind of the whole food health matrix, you know, the whole food matrix getting all your nutrients in there. So it's pretty solid. Yeah.

Rebecca Whitman  21:36

And I like what Dr. Gundry says that food is just a delivery system for olive oil. So I think that is that is that is the healthy fat that I can tolerate. So the next M is for movement. I changed my workout. When I hit menopause, I was doing HIIT training that was like, cardio, two minutes of weights and two minutes is sprinting on the treadmill. And I would walk back to my car just like in a puddle of sweat. I you know, it was a lot. And I did that for a long time. And then I, I hit menopause. And I changed it up because I studied it. And it's like, you're not supposed to work out that hard as you did like, as a youngster like so now I do HIIT training, but it's, it's with a gym franchise that you probably know Phillip called f 45. And they have like more resistance training. And it's still hit, you still do stations with you know, a few seconds of rest in between sets. But it's I do more the weight resistance days. And then I do that three days a week, I also walk my dog every single day. My goal is 5000 steps. I don't hit it every day. But that's my intention to hit it. I do yoga, once a week. And then I play tennis a couple of times a week for cardio. It's a game called live ball where there's a lot of running around a tennis court. So I really believe for fitness, it should be a combination of strength, flexibility and cardio. And I feel like I'm hitting all those things.

Philip Pape  23:22

I agree we you know, people are listening, and they always wonder like, what's the best program for them? Or how should they do it and like you said it, first of all can change with your life. Like when you said you had menopause you know, the energy needs change, and your capabilities change and all this other stuff. But also, you got to enjoy it. I mean, you've gotta have to enjoy it. You know, if you're if you're walking, walk out in nature with your dog, if you you know, if you want to be flexible or have some mindfulness yoga, or stretching or whatever works for you. And then throwing in some fun activities in there like tennis is great. So it's a good reminder to folks to to keep it well rounded and do what works for you.

23:56

The most value that I got from this was the fact that I had someone that I could talk to about anything and that there was going to be no judgement, it was just Well, here are your goals, here's the best way that you're going to achieve it. And then let's work together to help you feel inspired and motivated to do that. And a lot of people out there trying to be coaches and not all of them have done the work and also just be a genuine person that is positive and coming from the heart in terms of wanting to help and Phillip really embodied all of those qualities I would recommend him to just about anyone that's looking to achieve goals in that realm of their nutrition and building new habits.

Rebecca Whitman  24:41

I am a big believer of ClassPass before I joined F 45 I call myself a gym slet because I had a DD and I didn't want to like just go to the same gym and do the same workout all the time. I used to do before I really studied and understood how important weight Training was, I was the I called it my super model workout, 45 minutes of cardio on this on the step mill, or the bike, and then 15 minutes of stretching and abs, and I was doing absolutely no strength. And then I realized, wow, you can actually get leaner, and hotter. If you lift weights, it doesn't mean you're gonna like bulk up and be this bodybuilder if you lift weights, and that really changed my whole physique when I started lifting weights. And now, I'm 52 and I'm in the best shape of my life because I have incorporated weight. So that's why another reason I love the title of your podcast Wits & Weights, because weight training really changed my life.

Philip Pape  25:44

I mean, Rebecca, we are all over that. And it's a message that has to get out there for men men know it kind of but but you're right women, it's like a different approach. And you just think about what it takes to get bulky, like a man to get bulky. It's a lot of work, it would be, you know, usually on drugs too. But not often women are not going to get bulky. Like if you if you have that lean, strong physique. That's where it comes from. And guess what you get to eat more food, you don't have to be dieting, you know, you can be more functional, capable for the other things, the list goes on and on. So I always love to hear that it's a great message.

Rebecca Whitman  26:16

And I do have a cheat day. Friday is my cheat day. I call it fun food Friday. And I can eat anything I want. But I feel like even though I can have a total cheat day, I still still doing like, my cheat will be like, you know, a vegan, gluten free piece of cheesecake. But it'll still be like within the parameters. But I could, you know, it's nice to know that on one day, I can eat anything I want. So that's the the fitness strategy. And if I don't work out in the morning, it's not happening. So I believe in doing it first thing in the morning. It builds my confidence. It gives me that cocktail of feel good hormones, serotonin, dopamine and endorphins. And it's just a great way to start my day.

Philip Pape  27:03

Yeah, you know, let's hold on that because it's interesting, I used to be very agnostic about that. You'll find out I'm the kind of guy who like, I want to please everyone. So you know, I'll just kind of be agnostic on things. The morning versus the evening training, you know, the evidence shows that ultimately, whatever works for you works for you. And that, you know, afternoon training was shown to be a slightly better for lifting. But it turns out that morning training has tremendous amount of other benefits, like you mentioned, related to your cortisol, other hormones, the endorphins, also your mood, like so many things that probably far outweigh any other little benefit evening training has, again, you have to do what works for you, right. But I do want the listener to know that if they haven't tried training in the morning, and they're like, oh, I don't want to get up early and just do it. Just do it for like a week or two and see, see how it makes you feel.

Rebecca Whitman  27:52

It used to be really hard for me to get up early and train, I would work out at like a 930 or 10 o'clock class. And then I married a morning person. And we work out together we lift weights three days a week, he likes to work out at 530. I like to work out at 930. So we met in the middle and now I work out at like 730 or eight. And because of that I can do intermittent fasting and have a fasted workout. And that's also very controversial. I know, some people say you should have protein first thing in the morning before your workout. But I feel like I do a pre workout drink. And that gives me a lot of energy. And then I go to the gym and lift weights and and then I have breakfast afterwards. That's when I have my protein. And it really, it's been really working for me. I really like having a fasted workout. Cool.

Philip Pape  28:40

Yeah, it depends on what works for you. So if it works for you, because I've had I've had clients who I'll have them try training fed. And they're like, this just doesn't work as well. I think I'll say like eight out of 10 people seem to do better when they start eating but then you know, others will find the other. So it really depends. I don't know. Yeah, really? Yeah,

Rebecca Whitman  29:03

it really depends. And if I workout later in the morning, I do need to eat because I get hungry during the workout. Good feeling. So that's the H hydration and nutrient nutrition, M is movement. The other M is meditation. And that is mindfulness. So you can get that during a yoga class. I really like a guided meditation app called Insight Timer. I'm sure a lot of your listeners have listened to it. There's millions of people on there. And on Insight Timer app. Depending on how much time I have if I have anywhere from one minute to 45 minutes, I can find a meditation that works within that parameter and just set up the meditation with my air pods and just listen and just relax and I really enjoy guided meditation because you can have some with affirmations for abundance or confidence or whatever it is that you're working on. And you can find that guided meditation and it's kinda like reprogramming your mind on a subconscious level. And I gotta be honest, a lot of times I just fall asleep. But that's okay too, because I know that it's working on a subconscious level.

Philip Pape  30:16

I was joking with people about active mind syndrome, right? A lot of us just, we cannot shut the mind off. Even when we try to meditate. It's like, we get distracted. Do you have thoughts on that? I know, I've always heard the advice is just just keep doing it. You know, you'll get used to it. And it's okay. Even if you do have thoughts, like, it's all okay, but what are your thoughts on that?

Rebecca Whitman  30:34

I think of our thoughts as watching cars drive down the highway. And if you can learn to like say, oh, you know, I'm thinking about, you know, what I'm gonna have for dinner, I'm thinking about what that person said to me at work or whatever, like, and just name it, then you can detach from it. But the whole point for me of meditation is detaching from my thoughts and realizing I am not my thoughts, you know, I have a soul that is connected to the divine. And it's tapping into that again that relationship which is the first pillar of spirituality, and not getting caught up in my thoughts because I used to think I am my thoughts, I am my emotions, but I am more than that. And so are you love it?

Philip Pape  31:21

I love it. So like cars driving by I've heard the leaves floating on the river, right? Kind of just going by and you look at them and you detach from them is what you're saying. So that's beautiful. You mentioned your morning training, both the spirituality and the journaling. You mentioned fitness, was there anything else in the morning routine that you wanted to share?

Rebecca Whitman  31:43

I do too. It's a lot. I do take my supplements in the morning. I take a liquid collagen, totally obsessed with it. It's liquid collagen and hyaluronic acid. And it has completely changed my muscles, my joints, my my strength. It's really changed everything. That product I take first thing in the morning I take glutathione

Philip Pape  32:07

does. Let me quit. Quick question about that one. Does it happen to have curcumin or anything like that as well? Or do you know

Rebecca Whitman  32:12

the collagen? I don't think it I don't think the version I take does just curious. I take a glutathione in the morning, I take NAD and I take d H E A in the morning. And then I drink my lemon water. And then after that I will have coffee or tea I go back and forth. And I'll while I'm having my coffee or tea I will do my morning practice which is writing in my abundance journal, reading from a couple of spiritual books and doing a little bit of prayer meditation and and then I'm off to the gym.

Philip Pape  32:53

Now what about people who say, Oh, I can't find the time, you know, and I can't do I can't devote every morning to this whole ritual. Because I'm sure.

Rebecca Whitman  33:03

Yeah, it doesn't take that much time. I mean, taking my supplements, a lot of people say I don't have time to take supplements. But really, it takes like two minutes once you get it as part of your routine. Making the lemon water takes another couple of minutes. I don't do the lemon like premade I actually squeeze the lemon. I don't think it takes more than 20 minutes to do everything. The supplements making my coffee or tea sitting down writing. I mean I've I've got it down to 20 minutes at the most so I don't have like a two or three hour elaborate morning routine because I'm I'm to Taipei I'm too busy. I want to get on to the next thing. And I also really love sleep. That's another thing that is really important to my fitness that isn't an h&m, maybe I should call it h n h and m s because that sleep oh my god, like when I have seven or eight hours of sleep. I can function at such a higher level if I if I dip to even six hours of sleep and I know everybody's different. I just don't feel as good. Yeah,

Philip Pape  34:15

that is massive. And it's true. Everybody's different. And some people make excuses for being different. Like you know what I'm saying? Like they'll say well, I'm the kind that can get by on five, five and a half hours of sleep. And I kind of call BS on that usually like we'll try getting two more hours. This even tells me that it doesn't make a difference. It's funny because I I was getting consistently six and a half hours and I knew it wasn't enough and I have an aura ring to that kind of helps. But then then after I had surgery for my rotator cuff in the summer and I started sleeping more just because I couldn't train as much and I shifted an extra half hour that's all it was. And to this day I kept that extra half hour and that made all the difference. Like you go from like 45 minutes a deep sleep to like an hour and a half of deep Sleep just from that little extra change. And the other thing is I'm a big fan of like sleep hacks. I don't know, if you have things like a sleep mask or blue blocker glasses or like blackout curtains, do you have any kind of hacks that you'd like to use for sleep quality?

Rebecca Whitman  35:12

The only hack, and this is a really tough one for people is not to bring my cell phone to the bed. That is a boundary that I set with myself. It's a hard one because I'm addicted to my phone like everybody else is. But I'm just like, I'm just not going to bring my cell phone into the bed. Because I don't want to look at the blue light right before I go to bed. And I turned my cell phone to airplane mode.

Philip Pape  35:41

Because there's like, yeah, all the notifications. Oh, you mean the EMG? Yeah, like some

Rebecca Whitman  35:47

frequency that's not good for your on a cellular level. Yeah, when the internet and everything and all the Wi Fi is going through your phone. I also keep my phone in another room. I don't keep it right next to my bed. So those are some of my you

Philip Pape  36:02

know, there's something to that with the electromagnetic waves, right? Because we got a new microwave like a year ago that leaks compared to our last microwave. And you could tell because it starts to interfere with Bluetooth and Wi Fi when devices near it. And you're like, Oh, this is good. You know, this is good. But they're all in the similar frequencies. So that kind of tells you something. We think microwave radiation is super dangerous, right? If you get exposed, right. So that's that's funny. Another thing related to fitness that you shared in the text we were talking about, I think was the hiatus you took from tennis. And then you wanted to talk a little bit about that. You took a 25 year hiatus playing? Yeah, okay. Tell us about that. Yeah,

Rebecca Whitman  36:37

I was really burned out on tennis. Because, again, I did not have a spiritual awakening until I was 20 years old. I thought that if I wanted tennis, I was a worthwhile human being. And if I lost a tennis I was not a worthwhile human being and hitting a second serve. And a third set, tiebreaker was like am my body the same as like, you know, jumping out of the way of a freight train, like it was just really putting my adrenals into overload. And it just wasn't fun anymore. And it was a really tough decision. But I got into Princeton to play on their tennis team. And then I quit after my sophomore year. And I went to Italy, and I realized they had a whole different philosophy of life. It was like a two hour lunch. And everybody was in a good mood. And they're living like to enjoy life, not just to get results and to win and to get accomplishments. And I was like, I don't want to play tennis anymore. So I came back from that junior year abroad, I quit the tennis team. And then I didn't pick up a racket for 25 years, I was just into working out taking classes. I was like, I don't want to do competition. I'm over it. And then a friend of mine asked me to hit with him a high school friend that happened to me living in LA. And I did and I had fun. And then I found out about this fun game of women playing in the park. And I had to remind myself like okay, this is like a bunch of middle aged women playing in a park I do not need to like get stressed out like this is the finals of Wimbledon or something. So I had to like really work on calming my my sense of competition down so I can enjoy it. And I made friends with everyone. And it's I've been playing ever since and getting better ever since. So I play like once or twice a week and, and it's been a lot of fun to have a fitness activity that I'm that I'm really good at. And I also feel connected to my younger self, you know, a teenage version of myself that I've kind of like left behind. I've reconnected with that part of myself. And it's been really healing.

Philip Pape  38:52

I love that story of rediscovery because you don't just because something you had a bad experience connected with something doesn't mean that that that thing was the cause of it, per se, right. It was other factors of how you approach that back in your younger days. I had another guest on recently was a runner, similar experience. He was like, burned out from running marathons. He was in the Boston Marathon, all that when he was younger, took a break came back to it older and wiser and was like, just gonna, like, take it easy. Have fun with it, you know, like, really enjoy it. So people can learn a lot from that. And I guess anyone listening who, who feels stressed out by something that they're doing doesn't have to be that way, right? You're saying it's

Rebecca Whitman  39:30

gonna be fun. Like, that's the whole point of fitness. Like, who wants to do it if it's not going to be fun? Yeah.

Philip Pape  39:35

And it's funny with lifting weights. A lot of people will say, Well, yeah, I don't really like lifting weights. And when you look at the mode that they lift with, you find that it may not be for them, like the way that they live. Let's say they're lifting, they're doing 10 movements, and they're doing a circuit style, and they're just sweating and hate it, you know, and they like, Well, why don't we just lift really heavy but you only have to do these three things and with all this rest period, and all that sounds hard to and then they do it like, wait a minute, this is fun, because it's not associated with the negative things about lifting that I had before. Anyway, I'm rambling here, but with the pillars, we talked about quite a bit about physical, which of the others would you say, contributes the most or you'd like to talk about relative to physical fitness. So once you have the physical stuff kind of dialed in, does it then really enhance one of the others more, or just one of the others, if you work on it really enhance your physical fitness?

Rebecca Whitman  40:29

I think the fitness really enhances the emotions. Because when you are feeling fit and strong, you are just happier you're confident you. And that affects romance, because you are going to be more attractive to the opposite sex when you're feeling fit and strong and comfortable in your body. So I would say those two and also I mean, they're all connected to fitness, because also money. You know, when you feel like you've done a really hard workout, and you lifted heavy weights, and you've really challenged your body, you're like, wow, that's the hardest thing I have to do today, like having that Zoom or having that meeting is, is going to be easier than lifting that heavy weight. So I feel like it really fitness affects all the areas. And that's why it's, you know, the second pillar, because it affects all the areas and I believe that you should schedule your workout on Sunday night, schedule your workouts and prioritize and make your your week work around your fitness and body before business. And if you don't have the money to go to a fancy gym or hire a celebrity trainer, like Philip, you can just walk. There's so many videos on YouTube, like during the pandemic, Amazon sold out of weights, because everybody was just doing weight training at home and on YouTube, there's so many ways to work out if you really, really want to do it. So whether you have the financial means or not, if you really want to do it, I mean, you could just do walking and push ups and sit ups like anything you can do to move your body is it's just so worth it. And another thing, a huge hack that I'm going to share with your audience that changed my life is having affirmations with your weight training. So if you're doing weight training, and you're bored, you can combine having affirmations with your weight training. Like I am enough, I have enough, I am willing to set myself free. And that is called an incantation. And that is something I learned from Tony Robbins that really reprograms your mind on a deeper level. When you combine affirmations with physical movement, there's so

Philip Pape  42:51

much that I love so first of all, you have a couple of what my friend Carla called notable quotables that I'm gonna mention here. One was, make your week work around your fitness. I love that. I love that so much. Because the biggest excuse is consistency in time. Like I don't have time for him. Like if this is the most important thing for you, you're gonna have time for it. And other things are much less important and shouldn't even exist. Not not shouldn't exist, but they won't exist without your fitness. The other thing you said is body before business. That's a good I'm sure you said that before because it came right off here. rolled off your tongue body before business. Not having financial excuses. Like you know, big box gyms are pretty dirt cheap. Like, I mean, maybe this is gonna sound inappropriate. But I've heard how homeless people will get a membership at a big box gym big ticket their showers, because it's the cheapest way to go. You know what I mean? Like, yeah,

Rebecca Whitman  43:41

yeah, 10 or 20 bucks a month. Yeah, so

Philip Pape  43:43

that shouldn't be an excuse. And then the affirmations are their weight training. That's an interesting one. My friend and former client, Alan and I always talk about how lifting is a form of mindfulness, especially if you turn off the music, right? If you're doing it like especially if you're in a home gym, and it's very quiet. Just getting under a heavy squat can be a form of, you can't think of anything else, the thoughts go away, and you're just focused on the activity and you're breathing and you're bracing. So the folks listening like this is kind of a form of habit stacking, right, doing multiple things at once and getting the most out of it. I love it. I just wanted to comment on that. But yeah, so you also mentioned resilience, like when you work out hard, you feel confident. I think that's a really important message too. So when we talk about developing resilience, because that's another topic you you talk about, is that is that one of the important ways to do it, or how does it align with the different ways we develop resilience against obstacles? Well, weight training

Rebecca Whitman  44:38

is resilience training, you have to break down the muscle before it can get stronger. So I think of certain people in my life that has that have caused me a lot of financial or emotional train pain as trainers, right? They broke me down financially and I had to figure out how to build my financial reserves. have backup or they broke me down emotionally, they hurt me. And they were like an emotional trainer for me. So it's a way to think of pain differently. I think. In the gym, we understand our relationship with pain, we know that no pain, no gain, if it doesn't challenge me, it doesn't change me. And we understand that there is some pain and getting in shape. But when it comes to life, we don't want to feel any pain. We will shop we will gamble, we will have sex we will, you know, do anything drink use drugs, not to feel pain, but it's the same thing in life. You know, pain is not to be feared. Because pain will teach you something and challenge you and it will, it will sculpt your soul the way the weights sculpt your body. So yeah, don't be scared of pain. And, and if you meditate, you know that you're not your emotions. So it's okay to feel the painful emotions, and then let them just pass through you. Bringing

Philip Pape  46:00

us back to spiritual, right? Like I love it. It all ties together. All right. So I know we're almost out on time here. But is there a question that you wish I had asked? And if so, what is your answer?

Rebecca Whitman  46:13

Oh, my God, you're so funny. I don't know you. This has been a very thorough interview, I think you've covered everything. I would just like to tell your listeners how lucky you are to be able to work out. Like you get to listen to a fitness podcast like Philips you get to learn about working out and diet and fitness. Because there's so many people in the world that physically cannot work out. They just don't have the strength or the wellness to be able to even work out. So the fact that we're even in this conversation is so like fortunate and we're so blessed. So I think if you think of your workout as a blessing, and something you get to do, rather than you have to do, it will change everything in your fitness like it is such a privilege to be able to move your body and workout that so many people would just only dream about.

Philip Pape  47:17

I love it your workouts a blessing. It's a privilege, something you get to do. This is this has been beautiful there. We did cover a lot. And I love where the conversation went. So I appreciate your time here. Where can listeners learn more about you and your work?

Rebecca Whitman  47:31

Yeah, so I would love to give you guys that abundance journal that has absolutely changed my life. And that will be in my link tree link. I also have a lot of fun events coming up. I have elegant Warrior Training starting mid January, right about when this podcast is coming out. We're starting a class where every week for seven weeks, we're going to do a deep dive into the seven pillars and give you tips, tools and strategies to get that area of your life to a level 10. We are going to help you overcome limiting beliefs and just slay all your goals for the new year. So I highly recommend that you message me or set up a breakthrough call. That's another thing. In my link tree you can set up a breakthrough call. I only open three spots a week in my schedule, and I give you free coaching for 30 minutes on how to get unstuck. And yeah, I would love to keep in touch with you through my website Rebecca Elizabeth whitman.com, or my Instagram clubhouse, Twitter threads. It's all Rebecca E. Whitman. And all of that will be shared in the show notes. So I look forward to staying in touch with all of you guys.

Philip Pape  48:45

You got it. It'll be in the show notes, even external the events, the website, the ID, all of it. And again, thank you so much for your time. super valuable listeners, I'm sure turn learned a ton from today. So thank you, Rebecca.

Rebecca Whitman  48:56

Thank you, Philip.

Philip Pape  48:59

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Ep 136: How to Maintain a Lean Physique Year-Round (Without Cuts or Bulks)

How do you transition out of a dieting phase to maintain your results? Do you keep cycling between cutting and bulking? Or can you live at maintenance for a while, and if so, how do you do it effectively?

In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) shares a proven blueprint to effortlessly transition out of a fat loss phase or an intense cut into a sustainable maintenance phase so you can recover from the deficit as quickly as possible, optimize your performance without going to extremes, and lock in your hard-earned lean physique year-round. 

Maintenance is a critical but often overlooked fitness phase, especially when transitioning from a fat-loss period. Even though cuts and bulks are often emphasized for those going after body composition changes, sometimes living at maintenance is the best option to sustain an optimal physique and performance level that has already been achieved. Maintenance allows for metabolic recovery from a calorie deficit. Athletes who rely on a particular strength-to-weight ratio should avoid the extreme changes that come with cuts and bulks, and sustaining an ideal physique year-round provides its form of consistency.

Episode summary:

Achieving and maintaining a lean physique throughout the year is a common goal for many fitness enthusiasts. It's an admirable pursuit that often becomes entangled with the complications of strict dieting and the frustrating yo-yo effect of weight fluctuations.

The discussion opened with an important focus on the transition from a dieting phase to a sustainable maintenance phase. This is a crucial period where individuals often struggle. The mindset shift required during this phase is not insignificant; it demands a psychological adjustment that acknowledges the importance of a balanced lifestyle over the allure of extreme dieting. It's not just about hitting your target weight but learning how to sustain it without the need for continuous cycles of cutting and bulking.

Nutrition and training strategies were dissected in detail, with an emphasis on metabolic recovery and performance optimization. Listeners were provided with practical advice on how to navigate the common pitfalls that can derail maintenance efforts. One of the pivotal aspects of this transition is understanding how to adjust macronutrient intake to support long-term leanness. It involves fine-tuning the balance of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats in a way that complements the body's energy requirements and supports hormonal balance.

One of the more technical discussions in the episode revolved around the concept of the 'top side of maintenance.' This approach encourages individuals to slightly overshoot maintenance calories to facilitate metabolic recovery and avoid accidental deficits. This strategy, combined with monitoring biofeedback and energy levels, ensures proper recovery and helps maintain an optimal body composition.

The psychological hurdles that accompany the increase in calorie intake post-dieting cannot be understated. The initial weight fluctuations due to water retention can be disheartening, but understanding the physiological changes that occur during this period can help maintain perspective. It's essential to trust the process and recognize that these changes are part of the body's natural equilibrium process.

Training strategies, including the pros and cons of fasted training, were also explored. The podcast provided nuanced advice on how to approach training during a maintenance phase, emphasizing the importance of protein intake throughout the day and discussing the benefits of supplements like creatine monohydrate.

In conclusion, the episode emphasized the importance of a holistic approach to fitness, one that incorporates physical abundance as part of a broader philosophy of abundance in life. It's not just about reaching fitness goals; it's about empowering overall well-being and living a balanced, strong, and abundant life.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

3:07  What inspired this episode
7:21  What is maintenance, and why is it important?
10:16  Psychological shift to maintenance
16:06  The physiology of maintenance
20:19  Setting calories and macros for maintenance
24:32  Jumping to your maintenance calories
27:41  Weekly adjustments
31:53  Structuring your nutrition around your workout
35:01  Two advanced strategies
38:44  Five common pitfalls during maintenance
49:34  Outro 

Episode Resources:

• Free Rapid Fat Loss Guide

• MacroFactor app – use code WITSANDWEIGHTS to extend your free trial to two weeks (and support me and this show!)

• Ep 96: Why Reverse Dieting Doesn't Work Like You Think (and What to Do Instead)

• Ep 116: 7 Lessons from My Rapid Fat Loss Micro-Cut (Aggressive Dieting is Not for Everyone!)

• Ep 126: More Carbs, More Muscle (Why Low-Carb and Keto Are Keeping You Skinny Fat)

🩷 Enjoyed this episode? Share it on social and tag me @witsandweights

🤩 Love the podcast? Leave a 5-star review

💪 Want to map out YOUR exact strategy for workouts and nutrition for the next 6 months?
Schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

🚀 Want to get 1-on-1 accountability, a personalized plan, and 24/7 access to a coach? Apply for 1-on-1 coaching

✉️ Join hundreds of driven individuals and get access to the FREE Wits & Weights email list with insider strategies, bonus content, and conversations with experts in evidence-based fitness and nutrition so you can achieve your ideal health and physique.

👥 Join our highly engaged, active Facebook community for even more support and exclusive live trainings and Q&As

📞 Want to ask a question? Send a Q&A voicemail

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

How do you transition out of a dieting phase to maintain your results, you finally reached your fat loss goal. And now what to keep that hard earned lean physique without overshooting and gaining a bunch of weight or fat? Do you keep cycling between cutting and bulking? Or can you live in maintenance for a while? And if so, how do you do it effectively? Today, I'll share with you an evidence based approach to help you seamlessly transition out of an intense or prolonged calorie deficit, so you can sustain your physique and optimize your performance. We'll get into everything you need to know including mindset metrics, nutrition, training, and common pitfalls so you can master maintenance with confidence. Maybe your goal is to stay photoshoot shredded year round, to maximize your strength to weight ratio as an athlete or just enjoy your results without going straight into a bulk and gaining more fat. Either way, you'll learn in this episode, How To sustain your results for the long term. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 135 The truth about testosterone for women's health with Karen Martel. Karen was back to chat about the role of testosterone and women's health and vitality who might benefit from testosterone therapy, common questions related to the benefits, safety, dosage and much more today for episode 136. How to maintain a lean physique year round. Without cuts or bulks. I'm equipping you with a blueprint to effortlessly transition out of a fat loss phase or an intense cut into a sustainable maintenance phase so that you can recover quickly from the deficit as quickly as possible. Optimize your performance without going to extremes and lock in your heart and lean physique year round. Maintenance is a critical but often overlooked phase of fitness. It's kind of sounds boring, just staying where you are. But it's very important especially when transitioning from a fat loss period. And even though we often emphasize cuts and bulks for those going after body composition changes, sometimes living at maintenance. What you've heard called the magic of maintenance is the best option when you're looking to sustain an optimal physique and performance level that you've already worked hard to achieve. Maintenance allows for metabolic recovery from that calorie deficit. And for example, athletes who rely on a particular strength to weight ratio might want to avoid extreme changes that come with cuts and bulks. And honestly sustaining an ideal physique year round provides its own form of predictability and consistency. Now, I'll be honest, I wasn't even considering doing an episode about maintenance because it's not that sexy of a topic. But one of our listeners, Neal reached out to me last month on Instagram at Wits & Weights and he inspired this episode, I'd like to read what he sent me because, you know, he made some good points. It inspired the episode and I thought many of you who listened to the show would relate to them. He said quote, hi Philip. I recently found your podcast and I'm really loving it. I have successfully used a high protein macro factor tracking flexible dieting approach to achieve about 10 to 12% body fat, and I'm 50 years old congrats me on that. I do strength training and nutrition to help achieve my athletic goals in rock climbing where I perform at a relatively high level. One thing I've noticed in the fitness industry is that about 70% of nutrition discussion focuses on fat loss, and 30% focuses on bulking however, pretty much 0% is focused on maintenance. This is unfortunate because the performance period of many athletes is best when they are consuming maintenance level calories. In addition, I imagine that most people find a body composition that they are happy with. But there's almost no information how to maintain this composition. Through combining exercise and nutrition over long periods of time. I believe many people would like to go from cut to maintenance rather than to a bulk. However, I found this is not easy. I would love to hear more discussion about what happens to the body after going from a cut to maintenance. How can we make this transition psychologically? How can we expect our body to adapt? Can we expect some weight gain or loss during this transition? What are people's experience with this? I would love to hear you discuss this on your podcast. I assume you have a lot of experience with maintenance periods and I think your audience would love to hear about how you program in maintenance for clients. Awesome,

Philip Pape  04:48

awesome question. I'm so glad you asked me that Neil. And that's what this episode is all about. And if you're listening thank you first of all for listening to the show and supporting it, but also for bringing this up and inspiring the episode. I just hope I do it justice for you and that you find it helpful. My personal experience is that there are often more psychological, more mental challenges than anything when it comes to staying at maintenance, especially for those of us who are always chasing that next goal. So I'll be covering all of those aspects today those in the physical ones as well. Of course, by the way, today's episode is brought to you by Wits. &. Weights nutrition coaching, yes, I'm promoting myself because this show is completely ad free. So why not? I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat, who want to look like they lift. And if that's you, if that resonates with you, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you live, just go to wits & weights.com/coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we aren't, we'll get you started this week. And by the way, I don't keep anything secret. I don't hide anything behind my program. If you go to wits, & weights.com/coaching, you can watch a video where I walk you through the entire process. And then when you apply I'll be fully upfront about the price. I'll answer any questions, you have no high pressure sales calls, no funnels, nothing like that, because I don't like that stuff. And I'll be honest, though, if you're new to this podcast, you might want to check out some of my other episodes first to get to know me and make sure I'm a good fit for you. Because there are a lot of nutrition coaches out there. There's a ton if you've if you follow social media, and you've got to like and trust the person that you are going to work with. One other thing you can do is step into our Facebook community and ask others what they think and get a vibe for the community and my style of coaching. And then the last thing is if you want a world class education in personalized nutrition, without the cost of going to college or dozens of courses, coaching could be perfect tea for you because I take a very education centric approach. So you'll learn a ton in the process. So if you're driven to learn if you have a high level of curiosity, if you love to take action to improve your health, I think you'll love working with me again, just go to wits & weights.com/coaching to apply or click the link in my show notes. Alright, with that, let's get into today's topic, the blueprints for maintaining a lean physique year round, without cuts, or books. Let's start with what is maintenance. And why is the maintenance phase. So important? First, if you don't know what I'm talking about, maintenance simply refers to eating the same amount of calories you burn, so that you maintain your weight, you don't gain weight, you don't lose weight, your maintenance calories. A maintenance phase, or what we might call living at maintenance for the long term, or even months or even years is meant to sustain the physique and performance level that you achieved during a cut. Okay, fat loss phase. So if you've never gone through a muscle building phase, and then a subsequent fat loss phase are cut to improve your body composition, maintenance probably won't be very helpful other than to achieve body re composition for individuals who are new to lifting or returning from a long absence or as a prep phase for a fat loss phase. So today's episode is not really about body recomp and maintenance for beginners, but rather shifting from cutting to maintenance so that you can sustain your results. Now, it's still relevant to everyone listening because all of you want to get to that point. And it will happen pretty quickly if you you know, follow the advice we talked about on the show. Other athletes like athletes, or other populations, like athletes might find this relevant as well for sure, just like Neil, who wrote in about, you know, being a rock climber. So really anyone coming out of a fat loss phase is going to benefit from this discussion. The question is, why is it beneficial? Alright, one reason maintenance is helpful is it prevents having to plan for and endure and constantly tweak and go through these constant cycles of cutting and bulking some people just don't want to do that and constantly be gaining and losing weight. Maintenance also allows you to consolidate your progress and kind of stay there and celebrate it and hold on to it for a while rather than what might seem like undoing your fat loss. So to speak during a subsequent bulk you're not you're not really going to undo your fat loss, you're going to use a bulk to build muscle but many people have that perception and if you feel more comfortable in it and maintenance first this could be a reason why it's also helpful like I mentioned before, for athletes who are in say, weight class sports or fitness competitors, models, actors, essentially anyone wanting to stay lean long term without driving themselves crazy with the big changes that come with cuts and bolts. And again, I don't doesn't drive me crazy to do those things. Lots of us love to go through that those cycles but many of you don't want to do that or don't need to or need to stay at maintenance for other reasons. All right. So to recap a maintenance phase avoids the yo yo effect of body composition. It prevents your metabolic adaptation from going Going up and down all the time, right. So you can say relatively consistent with your expenditure. It improves hormones and energy because you're not in a deficit. So this is really important when we talk about energy availability. And then it cultivates a constant or consistent diet and training lifestyle. So that's the that's sort of the intro to maintenance. Now, let's talk about the psychological shift to maintenance, because this is probably the thing that holds people up the most. Transitioning to maintenance, after you worked really hard in a calorie deficit, can be mentally taxing. In fact, I've had clients who work with me, for the sole purpose of getting to that point of what it's like to successfully come out of a diet into maintenance, really, like on the call when we talk, they're like, Yeah, I want to lose fat. But really, I want to learn what it takes to come out of fat loss and not be scared of gaining weight, or actually gaining weight, and repeating the cycle I've done in the past. So you listening to this, my dear listener may experience this fear of regaining weight, or too much fat if you increase those calories, especially after you've been in a prolonged deficit. And it almost feels counterintuitive, right after you've dieted down for so long. So what I want you to understand is that a calorie increase to get back to maintenance, combined with smart training is absolutely 100% necessary to sustain your long term leanness, because we don't want to stay in a diet, that's a fact. So the only thing that's not a diet is at least being back to maintenance. Now, remember, you are not going into a surplus by eating more, you're simply coming out of a low energy state of a calorie deficit and returning to a state where you will not lose or gain weight. So just wrap your head around, right is that you're not, you're not over eating, to come to maintenance, you are stopping the under eating, it's a difference. So give yourself permission to eat more, while trusting the process. And hopefully going through this episode and referring to it again in the future will help you do that. Avoid thinking in extremes or getting anxious over small changes. It's really about being patient, controlling what you can, the thing that's in your sphere of influence, hitting your macros training hard, and not getting fixated on skill weight. Because when you go to maintenance, it's very common to fear the scale weight increases, especially since you will, you will gain a few pounds initially from water weight, just accept that that is going to happen. Okay. However, you don't want to slow down your recovery by keeping the calories too low. I just spoke to somebody earlier today, whose expenditure was dropping after she went back to maintenance. And it's probably because she's still under eating even though it's more than when she was dieting. It's not quite enough. And so the body is not quite recovering. And so this could just prolong the effects of being in the deficit, which is what we're trying to avoid. Now, if you're using macro factor, you'll know your exact expenditure at any given point in time. And you can confidently increase calories. Immediately, literally the next day if you want to, to your post diet maintenance level, post diet maintenance level, not the not the maintenance level before you started the diet, the maintenance level you're at right now. And then that level, that expenditure should then start to rise as your hormones and energy recovering. And the caveat is if they don't, you're probably still under eating, if no other variables have changed. Like obviously, if you if your step count goes from 15,000 to 2000, that would be another cause of your expenditure dropping. But assuming nothing else changes, your hormones and energy should start to recover. And this is where it's important to trust the process and not react to short term fluctuations because you'll see things that happen that just may not make sense in the short term like with your scale weight, it may feel like you're taking a step back, because it seems like you're eating too much. For example, for some people, it's like wow, this just seems like a lot of calories, or the extra carbs make you feel a bit fuller or bloated because of the additional glycogen and water retention. But this whole thing we're talking about here is a transition period. All of these feelings are normal. And this is where that that mental resilience and patients are going to be your friend as you stick with it and come out the other side. So patience is required to get through this phase until you see from your longer term weight trend. Okay, we're talking three, four weeks and longer and your biofeedback right how you feel your energy, your sleep or stress. Based on all of that

Philip Pape  14:44

it will tell you that yes, you are indeed at a new level of energy and performance. And guess what, you're not going to all of a sudden gain a bunch of weight other than that small bump initially from water weight, you should more or less maintain your weight. And even the person I spoke about earlier whose expenditure started to drop her weight went up by maybe two pounds over two months since coming out of the diet. And most of that was at the beginning because of the water. The last tip I have for the mental side is track and measure those things that you can control, that should be moving in a positive direction. This could be the most important tip of all, because this is what gives you clarity, and awareness to know that your choices are causing a certain outcome. So this would include your calories and macros, your lifts, your sleep, the self care practices to help manage stress, all of those things, you should feel a whole lot better at maintenance pretty quickly if you fully recover to your current expenditure. So on one hand, if you're not, you know, something is not quite recovered. And then on the other hand, if you are, I want you to embrace that, embrace that, because that means it's working. Alright, so that's, that's the psychological piece of it, that there isn't a lot more other than trusting the process, being patient, and being aware of what's going on. And knowing that certain things are going to happen that seem counterintuitive at first, but they're really not. So now let's talk about the physiology of maintenance, right? What's happening to your body physically, because then this awareness can also further improve your mental perception of the situation. So when transitioning from a cut to maintenance, you're going to get this fluid shift in the scale weights going to rebound, as I mentioned before, and it could be by what I see with my clients, anywhere from three to five pounds, it's probably less than that, but I want to prepare you mentally for it. And if you're a little bit bigger, if you're a bigger man, for example, you might be up to four or five pounds on the scale weight of pure fluid shifts, okay, it's gonna be more or less depending on the relative size, but it's important to be aware of that. This is just glycogen storage, this is intracellular water normalizing back to their full levels. As you increase calories, also, this is a different thing that happens, hunger hormones, leptin gralen, those improve, so your satiety or fullness should increase. If you are experiencing hunger during a diet, that should start to dissipate and go away. Right, your appetite and hunger should go back to normal levels. Now, again, it may not the transition period is the period where you just trust the process and you don't react. After that after let's say, three, four weeks, the hunger should be back to normal. If you're still experiencing hunger, that's a possible sign that you're still under eating. Now, here's the other thing, your metabolism will definitely well, I'll say likely, but almost definitely have down regulated have decreased from the calorie deficit, right metabolic adaptation. This adaptation should reverse when you go back to maintenance calories, right. However, it may remain a little bit suppressed for a few weeks during the transition period. So again, transition period trust the process. And this is why there's a little hack that I like to use with my clients. And I've mentioned it before, called the top side of maintenance. So if you're using macro factors, this is really easy. Instead of just setting a goal to maintain knowing that a, you're going to actually gain a few pounds to be at the beginning anyway. And you don't want math per factor to be maintaining you an artificially low weight. But then be, you want to make sure to recover as fast as possible, what we're going to do is set the app to a goal of gain, but the rate of gain to as small as possible. So there's a little slider, you're gonna go left well below the green area to almost no gain at all. But it's still considered a gain from the apps perspective. And so the app will give you a calorie target to eat to consume that slightly overshoots your maintenance calories. And we're doing this with the expectation that your expenditure will start increasing quickly as it recovers, and helps you avoid being in an accidental deficit. And that's the guidance I just gave the person I mentioned earlier, is why don't we overshoot. And she's not doing it this way. She's she's set a goal to maintain. But she's over consuming by 50 to 100 calories every day, at my suggestion to see if that actually helps her recover fully. And she's in a kind of a suppressed state right now. But a nice easy way to do it a macro factor without having to think about it is just set it to a game with a really low rate, however you do it. The key here is to manage your expectations. Your body prefers homeostasis, right prefers to be at a stable state. So it will be regaining equilibrium through multiple adaptations. It's not a simple linear thing, right? There's a lot of hormones, there's a lot of complexity involved. And as you improve and as your energy improves, it cascades and helps other things improve as well. Like for example, you could sleep more or you can train harder, right and then these will all feed on themselves. So to recap physiologically during maintenance in the transition to maintenance. It is normal for glycogen storage and intracellular water to balance meaning you're gonna get a bump in weight. There are multiple signals at in your body that regulates homeostasis. So it's more complex than you realize you are not regaining fat, and you are not losing muscle. And your fat cells are filling with water during the transition. Very important understand all of that. So we don't overreact during that transition. Alright, so now let's move to some practical matters. First off, how do you set your calories and macros for maintenance? You might think that being a maintenance means you no longer need to track your food. My answer to that is maybe one of the interesting challenges that maintenance is that you are aiming to avoid going into an accidental diet, you know, deficit or diet, which would impede your energy and performance. But you're also trying to avoid gaining weight too quickly and producing unnecessary fat regain. So you could eat intuitively based on the skills that you've built so far. And I have had a few clients that take this approach that eat a lot of Whole Foods, they are in touch with their hunger signals. And they track when they gain and they lose, but they don't track on maintenance. I've definitely seen this work. My recommendation here, however, is continue tracking for a while until you're completely confident in those skills and intuition. Okay, I spoke about this with Dr. Eric helms on he was on the show. And even he It took years and years for him to develop that, right. And he recommends most people track in some way. It doesn't hurt to track and measure the things that you want more confidence in measuring, right and being aware of, especially, especially when you still harbor some of that, you know, fear about going to maintenance, whether it's fear of gaining weight or any other fears. So, having said that, what do those targets? What do those minimums look like? And here we go. As soon as you're done with your cut, I want you to increase calories as quickly as possible to your current expenditure, your current maintenance calories, not the maintenance calories before you started the diet, the ones you're ending the diet with, which means you would have had to track to that point to know what those are. And using a tool like macro factor or a spreadsheet, or some other way to estimate it. Right? Because Because apps like My Fitness Pal chronometer aren't going to do that for you. And or they'll do it. And it's actually completely wrong. I've talked about this before, I don't want to rehash all that. But be careful what tool you use. The trick here is that you must know your current dynamic maintenance to be able to do that. I did an episode I don't have the number with me right now. It was about reverse dieting versus recovery dieting. So you can go back and find it. I think the title was why reverse dieting doesn't work like you think. Right. And the idea is that a reverse diet is increasing calories slowly by let's say 200 calories this week, 200 calories next week, until your body recovers after diet. The problem with that approach is first of all, it's guesswork. Secondly, it takes too long. And third, it doesn't provide any benefits that people claim that it provides. For whatever. There are many benefits that it claims I talked about in the episode one of them being you can, you know, increase your metabolism and make dieting easier next time. For example, there's a whole bunch of claims that are just false. Whereas recovery dieting is simply going from your deficit to no deficit. That's all it is. It's going from a deficit up to zero deficit. And the rate, the way you know you're at zero deficit is your eating what you burn, you have to know what to burn. That's it. So if you don't already use macro factor, literally the only food logging app in existence that does this correctly. Pause right now download it from your app store, use my code Wits & Weights all one word, Wits & Weights, to extend your free trial by a week, give it a shot, you'll need to use it for about three weeks to get a good idea of your true maintenance calories. Now, hopefully

Philip Pape  23:42

you already used macro factor during your dieting phase, and now have the confidence to jump right to your maintenance calories. Okay, that's we're kind of assuming you've gone through that you've tracked you know where it is, and you can jump otherwise. It's hard. I mean, it's harder to know what to jump back to without overshooting or under shooting because if you undershoot you're not going to be getting enough recovery, and if you overshoot, of course, the fear of gaining weight becomes true because you could that's what happens to most people with a yo yo cycle throughout their life is a comeback. And they over consume. Not to mention they're not training, so they're losing muscle, and then they're gaining only fat and all that good stuff. Alright, so the the caveat with the macro factor thing of jumping straight to your dynamic maintenance is that if you were in a fairly aggressive diet, like 1000 calorie deficit or more, let's say the jump back might feel like too much to do in like one or two days. That's all it might feel like wow, I you know, your stomach can't even handle it. Your digestion, that's fine. It's okay to titrate it up over a few days, let's say two or 300 calories a day. Until you get there your body will adapt quickly. This is not a reverse diet. Reverse diet is like okay, we're just gonna shift by 200 calories this week. See what happens. All right now we're gonna shift by 200 calories next week. See what happens? Totally different. This is just quickly jumping calories until you get to what you know you want to be right now. It's like stair stepping up to creaminess. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today, I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. If we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. So that's calories. Now within the calories. You know, we talk about macros all the time, but we're going to reiterate, protein should be set around 0.7 to one gram per pound of your new body weight, fat, probably around 30% of the calories, maybe more, maybe less. And then the rest is carbs. So when you do the math, you'll see that the biggest jump comes from carbs, because protein should be around what it was during the diet. If anything, it might come down a little bit, excuse me. And then the fat comes up. Because it's scaled, it's scaled to calories, right 30% of your calories and lower calorie, it's going to be hired higher calorie, obviously. But then the rest is carbs. And so carbs will see the biggest jump. And that is where some of the fear and the feelings around weight gain and fat gain come into play. I know it, I hear it all the time. That's where the fear comes is like, oh boy, I have to I have to eat this many more carbs. Now. I look at it as I get to eat all these extra carbs and the energy is going to flood in. And hopefully you can shift to having that positive approach. And trust the process and enjoy those carbs for the added performance recovery energy that they bring you. We love carbs on this show. This is not a low carb diet show. Okay? Now you can consume a low carb diet, and I'll be your friend and you can get results. But we are not anti CARB is my point if you have no intolerances. And if you enjoy carbs, they are a beautiful part of a flexible lifestyle and will help tremendously when you're trying to build muscle. So here that was my car brands for today's episode. So once you've jumped up, you've got your protein, fat, and then carbs increased to where they need to be over the next say two to four weeks, you're likely going to make weekly adjustments in response to your metabolism, which may start climbing, though it may not everyone responds a bit differently. Okay, the key here is not to fall into an accidental deficit, because we want to at least ensure give us the best chance of that complete recovery as fast as possible. And by chance, I don't mean it's not going to happen for you, it will. But I've definitely seen cases where your body needs more energy than you think it does for the maintenance. And because you're still under eating a little bit, it slows down the recovery. So if you're using macro factor, this is super easy. Any other app will require a lot more manual calculation on your part to keep up with your expenditure. But either way, also track and monitor the things that you care about during this process. Okay, strength and progress and your lifts, circumference measurements, biofeedback, all the things we talked about track track track, you see, I'm a big fan of data and tracking and awareness. I have calls with people all the time who are looking for guidance, or you know, we have a results breakthrough session or they're interested in coaching. And I'm always No, I shouldn't say I'm surprised because I've been there and we've all been there. But I was gonna say I'm always surprised at how little they're tracking things that could have given them an answer weeks or months ago. For example, just tracking your waist measurement weekly, can reveal a lot of things if you hit a plateau on your scale way, like if you hit if you're in a dieting phase and your scale weight plateaus. And let's say it plateaus for three weeks, but your waist dropped by an inch and a half during that three weeks. You may be you may have been gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time. And that caused the scale way to flatline. However you are becoming leaner, right? Little things like that. And so that's not a judgment on anyone. In fact, it's why I want you to reach out to me and schedule a call and talk so we can go over what you're doing and say, Hey, let's audit you know what you're tracking. If there's a couple things you could just add to your tracking portfolio, so to speak, that are easy and give you a more awareness that's going to that's going to really accelerate your progress. So remember that your activity level also affects your expenditure. Okay, and you're going to have more Energy to lift. Now with the carbs in the calories, you're gonna be able to lift a bit harder a bit heavier, you're probably gonna be able to walk and move more consciously or unconsciously sub or consciously, or what's the word I'm looking for? Subconscious that Yes. And all of these things would further ramp up your metabolism. So it's very interesting. When you actually get all the energy, you need to recover from a cut to a maintenance, it starts to feed on itself. And your expenditure does not remain fixed. I mean, this is the big, the big irony of being at maintenance that to maintain your weight, you need to adjust your calories regularly and not assume there'll be the same. That's why I said tracking versus Intuitive Eating is going to be more beneficial for a lot of people.

Philip Pape  30:44

The rules of higher protein for building muscle of improving your body composition still apply. But now much higher carbs are part of the equation, especially if you're trying to build muscle. So you know, a low carb keto diet is going to make that much harder. It just is right and we're talking about going back to maintenance and be recovered and building muscle. Check out my episode 126 on that actually, it's called more carbs, more muscle by low carb and keto are keeping you skinny fat. I got a lot of great comments on that one, including some hater comments, which I always love, you know, people who they see the title, don't even listen to the episode. And it's like, Oh, can you tell people that you know, you have, you should eat all these carbs, it's terrible for your health, you're gonna get fat or, you know, no, you could build muscle just fine and a low carb. And it's like, listen to the show and listen to the full context, please, before we reach out, and for those who do and then offer criticism and critique, Oh, I love you guys. Like it's great. We need to have those dialogues and conversations because not one thing is going to work for everyone. And I never claimed that everyone should be eating moderate to high carb diets. what I claim is you should not cut out anything when evidence doesn't support cutting it out. Okay. Now that brings us to how to structure your nutrition around your workouts. So we talked about the calories and the carbs, the extra carbs are going to make it easier to fuel your workouts. Still, you want to shift a large part of your carbs around your workout. Well, we call parry workout, right? This maximizes your energy during your lifting sessions. It also maximizes the repair the hypertrophy response of your muscles, the protein sparing effect of of that and subsequent recovery. So not only do we like the carbs, we'd like to time the carbs around our workouts, put it in the numbers, the numbers are as follows. I recommend 25 to 40 grams of protein before and after training and about 30 to 50 grams of carbs pre workout, up to 100 grams of carbs post workout in something like a two to one or three to one ratio of carbs to protein. So I know he just threw a lot of numbers at you. But it's basically get a decent amount of protein before and after. Get a decent amount of carbs before and after. But definitely a lot of carbs after and maybe even more carbs than that. If you're a calorie support, I do not recommend fasted training. However, if you must do to your schedule, do your medications, or it works well for you. And you really love, you know time restricted feeding intermittent fasting, that approach and that works for you, then do it right, if I don't recommend it as a default is what I'm trying to say. I recommend trying both approaches. And don't assume that there's some extra benefit intermittent fasting. Now, I don't know if it came out before after this episode. I think it's after this episode, there's a conversation I had with a gentleman where we talked about intermittent fasting and he does it because it makes him feel good. Right and his body's used to it and great, that's awesome. Plus he has intolerances with a bunch of types of foods that contain certain carb sources. If you train fasted, you might want to gulp down some essential amino acids before we work out. That's the only scenario where I think they're probably helpful. Other than that, they're a waste of money and you don't need them. If you're not training faster. Definitely whoever you are, consider taking creatine monohydrate right unless you're allergic to it, which actually is a thing I had one client in all my time that was allergic to it. And I'd never seen that my entire life since before or since but it's possible. But yeah, creatine monohydrate five grams a day that can be taken post workout or really whenever it's convenient, hot cold with without caffeine, don't overthink it. And of course, space your protein throughout the day, across at least three meals, but more likely four or five, depending on how many calories you need. Now why am i Repeating lots of things that I've said before on previous episodes. First of all, this may be the first episode you've heard with me. Secondly, when we're talking about maintenance, I want this to be sort of a definitive guide of okay, your backup maintenance. We need to treat this seriously and take a solid nutrition and training approach. There's nothing you know, it's not like a cakewalk. It's still requires being in control and thinking and having awareness and making choices. But it can still be a very flexible liberating approach we can Take. All right, now I'm going to share two advanced strategies that I use with clients. Since Neil did ask about what I do with clients. The first is, I already alluded to it. And it's to use an extremely lean gain instead of pure maintenance. All right, now I mentioned setting macro factor to again, and going with a very low rate. What I'm talking about here is maybe a little bit more than that. So not quite a normal gain of like, point one 2.3% of your body weight, but maybe point 05 Or point 08. I know, it sounds like how can you be that precise? Well, again, if you're using manufacturer, or if you're working with a coach, we can be that precise. You know, within reason, it's close enough. Now I like this very lean gain, because it almost guarantees that you don't dip into an energy starving deficit, even the smallest one, even just for a couple of days that can impede your performance. And for Neil and others who are athletes, you know, who are worried about strength to weight ratio, I like this, because you're really not gonna gain much weight at all, it's gonna be over a very long period of time, but you're going to ensure that you have the energy flooding in, because you're effectively here in a building phase, not nearly the amount needed to maximize muscle gain. But the benefit is also you're not going to really gain much fat at as a trade off right as a trade off of also not really gaining much muscle because it's not a true muscle building phase, you're also going to ensure that you have a lot of energy flooding in and not be gaining fat as well. So you're trying to have your cake and eat it too, if you will, an actual cake you can have too, if you want. Okay, which leads me to the second strategy of micro cuts. So the first strategy is extreme lean gain, extremely lean gain, I should call it not extreme, just a an extreme lean, lean gain. The second strategy is micro cuts. Now I did an entire episode about this episode 116, titled seven lessons from my rapid fat loss. micro cut, aggressive dieting is not for everyone. Important to say the whole title there. And you can check that out since episode 116. And I have a free guide that goes with it called the Rapid Fat Loss guide. That explains the entire protocol. And in case I don't have the link in this show notes in the show notes for this episode, you can always go to wits & weights.com/free, okay, wits & weights.com/free. And you can find all those guides in there. So the Rapid Fat Loss guide is what it's called. And I bring this up, because if you if you indeed, slowly gain a few extra pounds by being in the Lean gain strategy, one I just mentioned. And that's going to happen over months, like that's not going to happen over days or weeks, it's going to take a long time, but you might actually start gaining very, very slowly over time, you can use this rapid, very aggressive fat loss phase of either a nine day phase, or 15 days, 15 days is the protocol I have in there, but you could cut out the last, it's three segments, you can cut out the last segment and do the first two segments if you want to have it even shorter.

Philip Pape  38:09

And that can cut a few pounds of fat while holding on the lean muscle and effectively reset your body composition back to the full leanness that you started with for the maintenance phase. That makes sense. So you can use a lean gain. And then after a few months, you know you've packed on an extra three pounds or something or four pounds and not much at all. That's beyond the waterway I'm talking about, we're talking about just a combination of some muscle and fat, you can then use a two or three a nine or 15 Day micro cut to just lop off a little bit of that fat. So think about that strategy. Okay, it's pretty cool. Last thing I want to address is some of the pitfalls I see. Okay, I came up with a list of five common pitfalls during maintenance, how to avoid them how to troubleshoot them, it is a given. Okay, it's a given with all of this, that you are continuing to train hard. If you did a proper fat loss phase where you are training hard, keeping the intensity variable high, right intensity, meaning percentage of your one rep max, right, the load on the bar, keeping that high during a fat loss phase you held on to most of your muscle, you're continuing that now back into maintenance, if not training even harder now. Maybe you're training, changing your programming, adding more volume, whatever it is, we should be able to train even harder. I'm going to assume you're doing that and not even put that on this list. Otherwise, that would be a six pitfall of just, hey, you're not training heavy enough. Okay, you got to do that. But here are the five things that I see number one, not tracking. He knew that was coming, not tracking and thus you end up relying on reverse dieting, and then that just takes too long or you overshoot your maintenance and you get unnecessary fat gain the thing that you're probably afraid of, you need to know your expenditure to return to it quickly and achieve full metabolic recovery, taking advantage of that high energy state as soon as possible. And if you If you do that a macro factor and you set your if you go back to maintenance, and let's say your metabolism has been suppressed by like 500 calories since when you started the diet. So you've gone from, let's say 2500 to 2000. And now you're in you were in a deficit below 2000, of course, and now you're coming back to 2000. It's okay to want to overshoot that just a little bit, when you first start consuming food, like overshoot it by 50 calories, or maybe even 100 calories, to make sure that you get that recovery, because your metabolism might be an over responder, and it starts to climb fast, and macro factor can't really like keep up with it, because it's just responding a little bit reactively to what's happening. Whereas you can be even more proactive by over consuming just a tiny bit. But because you know that number, the overconsumption is controlled, it's restrained, just just the right amount to push it along. Okay, so tracking is gonna help with all of that. Number two, the second pitfall is freaking out. Because the initial weight bump, and going back into a diet, in response, or even worse, slightly under eating and thinking, your maintenance, but still being in a diet. So this is more of an intentional thing, this is not the accidental one, this is you being scared, seeing the weight go up, oh, no, I must be gaining fat. And now you you step back, and you under consume, even though the target is telling you eat 2000 calories, you're like, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna try to stay lean, I'm gonna eat 1900 calories. You're shooting yourself in the foot by doing this because you're not trusting the process, and you're not getting the recovery and guess what you're doing, you're just prolonging your diet. And now you're not, you're going to mentally think you're not in a diet while you're in a diet. And you're not going to lose any weight either. Because it's so small of the diet, you get the worst of all the world, it's it's a lose, lose, lose. So even though you might freak out, trust the process. Number three, not increasing carbs enough and taking advantage of the energy and hormonal recovery. Or conversely, reducing protein and compromising your muscle retention and recovery. So I'm combining this all into one, protein should be about the same fats will come up a bit and carbs will come up a lot. That's what it should look like. Don't be afraid of carbs, embrace them. Again, unless you're on a specific protocol. That's a lower carb approach. And you're increasing calories by increasing fats and protein, like on a keto diet, for example, unless you're doing that, and if that's you, cool, do that. For most people, they want to have the extra carbs. But they don't want to have the extra carbs if you know what I mean. They know they need it. They know the target. The new targets say they need it. But something about it. eating all those extra carbs doesn't seem right to them. For some reason you know who you are, you're listening. And what we want to do there is think about carbs as the missing fuel that that we can finally introduce into our body. From that fat loss phase, it was one of the most critical fuel sources were missing. And now that we're going to get it back who watch what happens to our lifts, watch what happens to our sleep, watch what happens our hormones, watch what happens to our metabolism, your metabolism should go up faster once you have that recovery. So don't be afraid of carbs, embrace them. Number four. The fourth common pitfall I see is reducing your movement or your steps just because you're not in fat loss anymore. Right? Many of us we will ramp up our step count during fat loss, we'll go from like 8000 steps a day to 12 14,000 steps a day like yeah, this is great. I'm keeping that expenditure dry. And then you get out of the diet, you're like, Okay, I can go back to 6000 steps or 8000 steps. Well, that's going to blunt the metabolic recovery because you're reducing your energy flux. If the amount of steps you were able to get to in fat loss is sustainable, and it didn't feel forced. Keep that up, right, like keep that keep that consistent. Don't give it up just because you think you don't need it anymore. It can only help. It helps with cardiovascular health. It helps with metabolic health, your energy flux for your metabolism, your resilience, your digestion, your blood sugar, control, your sleep, it helps us all that stuff, hunger signals, right,

Philip Pape  44:10

keep it up. Now, if you were, let's say artificially bumping your step countering fat loss with some extra cardio or some extra walks that were not quite sustainable, but you were doing them for the fat loss phase. Well, I then naturally, I could understand why those would come down a bit, just know that that can cause a little bit of an offset in your expenditure. It may not right, it may not like I've seen plenty of folks, myself included, that you're lifting so much harder, and your body is so much more relaxed. Now because of calories coming in that even though your step count went down, it doesn't really make much of a dent in your expenditure. It's a very complex multivariate system we've got going on with our body here. The last the fifth common pitfall is adding in too much processed food instead of sticking with the approach that you developed during fat loss which is nutrient density, high protein, high fiber, right? Yes, we want to have flexibility. That's the whole point of something that you can stick with. But also we want to keep those current habits and the discipline you've developed, going. So what I recommend when the calories come up, and it's mostly in the form of carbs, just scale up some of the carbs you were eating and reintroduce some of the Whole Foods, sources of carbs that you've been missing, whether that's oats, rye, oats, rice, quinoa, you know, starches, fruits, you know, even breads and pastas, but just things you've been missing, they're mostly Whole Foods before you go to the processed foods. Now, having said that, the extra calories does give you a little bit more room for an indulgence or to beyond what you had before, right. So if that helps you stick with your diet, and you plan it in, please do that, like that is the point of all of this. And now you have more calories to play with. So for sure, but a common pitfall is going straight for those indulgences instead of just scaling up the whole foods first. Okay, I hope this was helpful. I think that covers everything about maintenance, that I wanted to address within a, you know, hour long app most podcast episode. And this is based on my experience with clients over the years, my education and nutrition, you know, researching for this podcast, and there's there's always more to learn. And one thing that I have learned is that living at maintenance can be deceptively simple. So as with any phase of your nutrition skills, like mindfulness, consistency, adaptability, these are going to be your big mental friends. Many of the clients in my program who get through this, not get through they they thrive and complete the three or six months and achieve their fat loss goal. And they usually lose between, let's say, 20 and 60 pounds of fat, it's pretty common, they then find that they want to continue working together because of the intricacies of this transition from the cut to maintenance and maintaining results. So again, Neil, thank you for bringing this up. Because it it is a common problem that we solve when we talk about nutrition, but I don't talk about it enough on the show. Maintenance is also a great time to assess to assess your future goals, your next phase, this can be very exciting. If you're a planner like me, it's a time to take a breath, let things stabilize, and then say, okay, I do want to build muscle, but I needed to take a break, I didn't want to like overshoot and gain too much weight too quickly. So I took my time I sat here meanings for a month, two months, three months, maybe I it allowed me to deal with some other things in my life that have nothing to do with my fitness. And now I can plan ahead and think very thoughtfully, mindfully, carefully, maybe talk to a coach, maybe reach out for a call or fill up a free call and talk about what is next. And let's map it out. So whether you're there or not, you know that I can help get there if you want to reach out as can our community. If you're not ready to apply for coaching, of course, I always have spots for those free results. Breakthrough calls with me. Think of it like an audit of your nutrition and training, where I help you get clarity on the most important two or three, maybe four, but probably two or three steps that you can take right now to get unstuck and move in the right direction. Like I mentioned before, maybe it's just something you're not tracking. And I can help identify that for you. These aren't sales calls, they're not sales pitches. Feel free to ask others in the Facebook community who've had these calls with me, and they'll tell you all about it. Their conversations to get you clarity, it's just a 30 minute zoom call with another human being just go to wits & weights.com and click free call or click the link in my show notes. Again, it's wits & weights.com and click free call or click the link in my show notes for the three three no for the free 30 minute results breakthrough session. Given that it is cost free and risk free, you have nothing to lose other than maybe speeding up losing fat. Ah, see what I did there. Okay, in our next episode 137 Unlock abundance in fitness and every other aspect of life with Rebecca Whitman. Rebecca shares her philosophy of the Seven Pillars of abundance, challenging us to rethink how we balance our lives with an emphasis on physical abundance. It was a great conversation if you've heard Rebecca before. She goes on a lot of podcasts and talks about these pillars but I really wanted to dial in on the physical abundance piece for you the listener who I know that's really what we care about on this show. From her unique approach to her morning routine. We talked about embracing abundance, building resilience being more consistent, reshaping your identity, all of those things to harness your full potential. So check that out. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights if you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up there Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then Stay strong

Ep 135: The Truth About Testosterone for Women’s Health with Karen Martel

Did you know that testosterone plays an important role in women's health? Are you curious about how hormones can help you achieve lasting weight loss?
 
In today’s episode, Philip (@witsandweights) welcomes back Karen Martel, a Certified Hormone Specialist and Transformational Nutrition Coach who has helped many women find new vibrancy through hormone awareness and optimization, especially throughout the peri- and post-menopause phases.

The last time Karen was on the show, way back in Episode 31, where listeners can also get her full backstory, Philip and Karen unpacked the complexities of hormones and weight loss during perimenopause. Karen is here today to uncover the truth about testosterone for women. You will learn the role of testosterone in women’s health and vitality, who might benefit from testosterone therapy, common questions related to benefits, safety, and dosage, and where all this is headed into the future.

Episode summary:

Hormone specialist Karen Martell returned to provide an insightful discussion on a topic that has long been shrouded in misconceptions: the role of testosterone in women's health. The episode debunked the common belief that testosterone is exclusively a male hormone, revealing its significant, yet often overlooked, impact on female vitality.

The conversation with Karen was an eye-opener, addressing the underestimated prevalence of testosterone in comparison to estrogen and progesterone. Testosterone, it turns out, is the most abundant hormone in women during their fertile years. This fact alone challenges societal misconceptions and paves the way for a better understanding of women's health needs. Karen elaborated on the benefits of testosterone therapy, emphasizing its role in maintaining libido, muscle mass, and insulin sensitivity, particularly during perimenopause and menopause when hormonal imbalances can significantly affect quality of life.

Furthermore, the podcast delved into the intricacies of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), highlighting the importance of personalized health solutions. Karen shared that individualized approaches to HRT could extend far beyond basic treatment, offering significant health benefits like reducing the risk of heart disease and Alzheimer's. This underscores the need for early testing in women's 20s and early 30s to establish a baseline for testosterone levels, aiding in the detection and management of hormonal changes later in life.

The episode didn't just focus on HRT; it also explored natural methods to enhance testosterone levels. The power of adaptogens such as ashwagandha, tongkat ali, and maca was discussed, with a detailed explanation of their roles in hormonal health and their capacity to harmonize hormone levels. Karen also emphasized the need for comprehensive testing, including blood work and urine metabolite testing, to customize treatment and support hormonal balance effectively.

One particularly compelling aspect of the conversation was the discussion around the broader landscape of hormone replacement therapy for women. Karen pointed out the lack of training among general practitioners in managing menopause and perimenopause, leading to a reliance on antidepressants or birth control as a catch-all solution. She encouraged women to take control of their wellness journey by seeking out specialists trained in hormone therapy and exploring over-the-counter options for hormone replacement.

The episode concluded with the introduction of Karen's upcoming line of over-the-counter hormones, promising to provide women with additional resources to manage their hormonal health. This represents a step towards greater accessibility and empowerment for women seeking to optimize their health and thrive.

Overall, the podcast episode served as a journey towards empowerment, arming listeners with the knowledge necessary to take control of their hormonal health. It provided a comprehensive look at the critical role of testosterone in women's wellness and offered practical advice for those looking to enhance their vitality through both therapy and natural methods. The conversation with Karen Martell was a call to action for women to redefine their approach to health and wellness through a deeper understanding of their hormonal landscape.

Today you’ll learn all about:

2:36 Testosterone’s role in women’s health
7:24 Debunking myths about testosterone in women
9:02 DHEA, adrenal health, stress/cortisol
11:38 Criteria for testosterone supplementation/treatment
17:44 When women should test for testosterone levels
23:01 Role in weight management during menopause
28:47 Integrating testosterone in holistic hormone therapy
34:49 Benefits for aging/vitality
46:07 Side effects and dosing of TRT
47:40 Long-term use and the future of TRT
50:03 One question you wish I had asked
53:26 How to connect with Karen
55:32 Outro

Episode resources:

• Ep 31: Hormones and Weight Loss During Perimenopause with Karen Martel

• The Hormone Solution Podcast

• Website: karenmartel.com/ 

• Instagram: @karenmartelhormones 

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karenmartelhormones 

🩷 Enjoyed this episode? Share it on social and tag me @witsandweights

🤩 Love the podcast? Leave a 5-star review

💪 Want to map out YOUR exact strategy for workouts and nutrition for the next 6 months?
Schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

🚀 Want to get 1-on-1 accountability, a personalized plan, and 24/7 access to a coach? Apply for 1-on-1 coaching

✉️ Join hundreds of driven individuals and get access to the FREE Wits & Weights email list with insider strategies, bonus content, and conversations with experts in evidence-based fitness and nutrition so you can achieve your ideal health and physique.

👥 Join our highly engaged, active Facebook community for even more support and exclusive live trainings and Q&As

📞 Want to ask a question? Send a Q&A voicemail

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Karen Martel  00:00

The research shows that women that replaced their hormones, as you know, mainly estradiol progesterone, and testosterone have over 30% reduction in all cause mortality.

Philip Pape  00:14

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip Pape. In this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today I am thrilled to welcome back the one the only Karen Martell, a certified hormone specialist and transformational nutrition coach who's helped guide so many women to find new vibrancy through hormone awareness and optimization, especially throughout the Peri and post menopause phases. Last time Karen was here way back on Episode 31, where you can also hear her full backstory. We unpacked the complexities of hormones and weight loss during perimenopause. She's here today to uncover the truth about testosterone for women. You'll learn the role of testosterone in women's health and vitality, who might benefit from therapy, common questions about benefits, safety, dosage and where all this is headed. And of course, you must check out Karen's top rated podcast, the hormone solution podcast, where she empowers women to navigate Peri menopause and post menopause with grace and knowledge. So many great topics and guests. Karen, I want to welcome you back to the show. Thanks

Karen Martel  01:43

for having me back. This is great. I was episode three. I didn't realize it was so because what are you at now you're at like 200 Or you want

Philip Pape  01:51

not not quite there. But we're in the 120s Yeah, we're in the 120s. When this one's out, it's probably be in the 130s. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So

Karen Martel  02:00

100 episodes,

Philip Pape  02:02

it hasn't back then I was using the TV tray in my closet. So I've upgraded a little bit since then. You wouldn't know. So it's good to have you back. I know a lot of my listeners love your show and what you talk about and you know, the stuff we do tends to complement a lot of what women are looking for, with the overall holistic approach to their health. So today, we want to talk about testosterone. Hot Topic, very important. I think it's one of those hormones that kind of flies under the radar compared to others like estrogen. But we know it's important. We know women want to know more about it. So let's start with the basics. What's the primary function of testosterone in the woman's body? And then we'll go from there, huh?

Karen Martel  02:42

Yeah, so women don't think of their testosterone, first of all, because we associated being the man's hormone. And it is it's an androgen, so it's falls under the category of the more masculine hormones. But what's interesting is we actually as women produce more testosterone in our fertile years than we do estrogen or progesterone, which are the two main female hormones that every most people have heard of, you know, estrogen and progesterone. And so they think that that's like our primary hormones. But actually, testosterone is our most abundant hormone. And so the ovaries will produce about 40% of our testosterone, and they produce that first, and then that's converted, or what's called aromatize into Astra dial, which is our main female feminine hormone. And so we without the testosterone, we couldn't be women, which I think is really interesting. It's like man makes women woman which, you know, maybe we go back to the whole Adam, Adam, wasn't a rib wasn't a rib that they gave or that he gave, I think it was the testosterone for actually had to give you testosterone so you can become a woman, which I just think that that's interesting. And what's with on the flip side of that, men don't think that they need extra dye all but in actual fact, it is extremely important for men and when men go on like aromatize inhibitors, which stops the conversion of testosterone to estrogen. They can get super sick and actually feel really bad and have bone issues. They can have depression, they can have low libido from not enough Astra dial. So we both need these hormones, but it's just not recognized in women and the mainstream medical system like men will have their testosterone covered by extended medical if they have it here in Canada. It's covered. We have Andrew gel, and it's in the States as Andrew gel and all the guys get it whenever they want it. There's no testosterone made by a pharmaceutical company for women. I've heard of one like last year. I have yet to see it, though. But I heard that there was going to be one coming for women. And so right now we can only compound testosterone replacement.

Philip Pape  05:19

And that's even even in the US. That's the case in in the US.

Karen Martel  05:23

Yeah, yeah. So right now, it's primarily compounded. I have yet to see anybody actually get this pharmacy brand of testosterone. So it's not covered for women. But men have it covered,

Philip Pape  05:35

which men just walk into a clinic like shoot me up, let's get let's get it. Yeah, there's just

Karen Martel  05:39

offering clinics on every street corner these days. And it's all about oh my gosh, don't, God forbid you have erectile dysfunction. And if you have one day without an erection, we're gonna hop you up on testosterone and whatever you need, so that you can have sex. And then these poor women whose testosterone is going down as their over ovarian function goes down to Cicerone goes down, and then their libido goes, but oh, that doesn't matter because we can still have sex even if we don't have a libido. So testosterone is number one really important for libido. It's also extremely important to, of course, maintain muscle tissue and to gain muscle tissue. Without testosterone, it's really difficult for women to put on muscle. So if your testosterone is dropping, and you're not able to keep up with your muscles and build that muscle, especially in perimenopause, and menopause, will actually become more insulin resistant, just from the drop of that muscle tissue, as you talk about loss and muscle tissue is our glucose sink. So without it, women become very insulin resistant. It's part of that puzzle and menopause estradiol also when we lose, it makes us become more insulin resistant. So we have this kind of double whammy happening, where it's, you know, that's one of the main causes of all the weight gain that happens for most menopausal women. Is that drop, and then that insulin resistance coming up? Yeah,

Philip Pape  07:10

I think that's that's a really excellent point, those three things so for people are listening, right? more muscle mass, more insulin sensitivity, easier to lose fat easier to maintain your weight, the opposite is the opposite, right? Easier to gain weight. And so this imbalance that occurs or this lack of testosterone, how much of that is responsible for these inability to gain or maintain muscle mass versus other factors? Like, is it huge? Is it the main factor?

Karen Martel  07:38

I don't know what the percentages per se, but I know that Astra dial is also really important for protein synthesis and building muscle. So there are other factors. Of course, insulin is a big one, too, you know, if you are insulin resistant, it does make it harder to put on muscle. So there's different factors when it comes to that building of muscle. We also know insulin, like growth factor has a lot to do with it, because that triggers growth hormone. And growth hormone is also really important for building muscle. So there's a few different factors, but testosterone is certainly a really big player. And I've seen a lot like countless women who start to replace their testosterone when it was low in menopause or perimenopause. And they're like, oh, my gosh, look at my body now and you see it on them, they suddenly have, like, they got muscle and all the work they're putting in at the gym starts to really pay off. I noticed that even in myself when I started testosterone therapy, I, mine wasn't even super low, but it was on the very low end. And soon as I started using it, it was like, oh, there we go, I can actually start seeing some muscle now when I'm working out and it doesn't seem like it's like, okay, why am I not? You know, why am I

Philip Pape  08:53

all that work? Now, what you talked about sir dial as a post cursor, or whatever you'd call it of sastra? What about the precursor DHEA. Where does that fall into this? Yeah, so

Karen Martel  09:05

we make about 40% of that testosterone inside the ovaries, but we also the other half is coming from the adrenal system. So we can make DHEA which is another androgen, but it's also a pre hormone, a pro hormone, so it helps us to make testosterone and estradiol. So and it's also an adrenal hormone. So it's important for our stress, and it's, you know, we want some of it, we don't want too much, because that tells us that we're too stressed out. If we go too high on it, we can also start getting really masculine features. polycystic ovarian syndrome, we tend to see high DHEA and high testosterone levels, and it's just pouring and that's because women will be missing that enzyme that converts that testosterone into estrogen aisle, so their estradiol tends to be low and then they're pouring that testosterone went out. And that makes them insulin resistant and makes them you know, get oily skin cystic acne hair loss. So too much testosterone is also not a good thing. And when too much DHEA is also too much like not a good thing as we age DHEA also will start to go down. So we have to make sure that we're taking care of the adrenal system because then we can, you know, 40% is made in the ovary. So without the ovarian function, we notice arousal is going to drop but we know then we have to really baby our adrenals in perimenopause and menopause so that our the adrenal system can continue to make that testosterone, but most women are super stressed nowadays. And so we rarely see DHEA in a good number in menopause, unfortunately. Okay,

Philip Pape  10:50

yeah. Because I think it's important to understand these different precursors so that you can get at the root cause, right, you can do the right testing and not overdo it with one thing, when really the other thing needs more love and care, right? Yeah.

Karen Martel  11:02

And there's ways to you know, it's really hard for women to get testosterone prescribe to them. But there's because only 40% is made in the ovaries. There's a lot of things that we can do supplement wise to help boost it unlike estradiol and progesterone, that once we stop ovulating, we just don't produce progesterone, we produce a tiny bit from the spinal cord and from the adrenal system, but it's never enough. So testosterone, you have a bit more of a chance by taking supplements to help boost it even in menopause. So we can talk about what some of those are that I

Philip Pape  11:37

like, Yeah, let's do that. I want to know how women can boost testosterone naturally, we'll start there. Yeah,

Karen Martel  11:42

so one is your favorite ashwagandha. We see that Ashwagandha is really great for the stress system. So it's actually in a lot of testosterone boosting supplements, which I appreciate that I like ashwagandha too. So stress supplementation, so things that are going to support the adrenal system, which is always you want to test that first test your adrenals test your cortisol test the DHEA let's see where it's at. Because some women are super low, some are super high, some just have dysregulation in the cortisol clock. So we really want to see where is it at so that we know what type of adrenal support that you need. Do you need something to help raise that cortisol and DHEA or do you need something to lower it because you're in that high stressed out state? So doing that first I think is super important because we can make so much of our testosterone out of those adrenal hormones. The other one is Tong get Ali which is a really popular one for men. And in the research of course it's only been I don't think there's any female studies yet on target le for women but it does work the same way and it does help to raise testosterone and in the research has been like really just showed such a great increase in testosterone in a very short amount of time for men. But it does work the same for women. Tongue get so t o n g a tea and then separate word a li Tangata Li and you want to try and get Indonesian tongue get anywhere between 204 100 milligrams a day take it in the daytime because it does give you a little bit of a boost of energy as well. The other one is for dosha arrest test and and there's been some good research on that too. For men that shows that it can boost testosterone. So you will find a lot of testosterone boosting supplements that actually have both those ingredients in it. Another one is maca that I just love, love love for both for all hormones really like it really helps to boost DHEA and helps to boost testosterone. It helps with Astra dial and my favorite company is one called feminine essence. And it has it's it's got I think it's four different types of maca that you choose from and one is just for men. Another one is for women in their fertile years. One's for Peri menopause and one's for menopause and they all have a different color in strain of maca that goes more with what's happening in that person's phase of life. So if you're in perimenopause and your testosterone is dropping, estrogen is dropping, you could take that feminine essence maca, and it can really help I've seen people reverse their their perimenopause and menopause and like go back to a regular cycle by just taking that, which is pretty incredible. specimen Yeah. Fascinating. Yeah, yeah, sorry.

Philip Pape  14:34

There's more. More on the element. Boron? Yeah, well, we're

Karen Martel  14:37

on the element at about 10 milligrams, actually. So that's a much higher dose than what you'll usually see in a supplement. And it only works if you're deficient in it, which is interesting. So you can take it, it's not going to harm you to take it necessarily. If you have lots. I haven't heard any adverse side effects. Um, it's a hard one to get tested, of course, I think you'd have to do probably like hair, mineral analysis or something. But boron helps us to lower sex hormone binding globulin. And sex hormone binding globulin is the protein that testosterone binds to, and carries it around your system. But it has to get like, become unattached from that, that protein for your body to use it. So I think of it as a bus sh VG is the bus that our hormones get a ride on. But they have to get off the bus for the cells to use it and for your body to actually get that hormone. So if your sh BG is elevated, which functional range, we don't want to see it for women above 85. And if it is, it means that you could have a lot of testosterone, but it's getting bound up by that protein. So your body is deficient in it in the free levels. So always get free and total testosterone tested, because you could have lots of total. But then you look at your free and it's all bound up by that sh VG and it's actually super low. So you're not you're you're having deficiency symptoms.

Philip Pape  16:09

Yeah, I want to get into testing in a second just on its own. So when women know exactly like how I should, they should get tested. But as we wrap up the supplement section, I think what, what's nice about these kinds of supplements being their herbal they're easy to access is you can do sort of an elimination diet or the reverse of that, right? You can try one at a time. I mean, if you try them all, it might one of those might one or two might work, but you don't know which one it is right. Yeah, do it

Karen Martel  16:35

that way. You recommend a good supplement that has all of it in there except for Okay, okay.

Philip Pape  16:40

Is it? So do you recommend doing that versus just trying like a few and then seeing if one is the big hitter for you? Or is it kind of a crapshoot, when it comes to that,

Karen Martel  16:49

I think you would get success with let's say, just using maca, or just using Tang Gat, those would be my two top favorites for boosting testosterone. But I think you would get more success with raising testosterone if you had them all in there. Because it's, you know, you're hitting all the angles, it's got zinc in it, it's got all the things. And so my favorite as of right now is called sigma. And it's by a company called gorilla minds. I'm not associated with them at all. I've just seen it work really well. And it's got the dojo restless has got Tonga in proper form, like improper levels, and it's got the zinc, it's got the boron in proper levels as well. And some other stuff in there. So it's got

Philip Pape  17:34

mines, yep. Okay. Yeah. Well, that'd be good. Yeah. I mean, again, as a coach with women with these issues, as well, I will be looking at that and suggesting it to people. So that's good. Let's go back to testing, right? Because testing is always a point of confusion, especially in the traditional healthcare system, where it's like, if you could even get them to give you a test, it's bloodwork. And usually that's not adequate, but it might be for testosterone. So let's, let's break it down. Exactly. That's one thing that makes it easy, right? So how should a woman get access, get tested, and then use the results properly.

Karen Martel  18:06

So once again, some really shitty man to woman things here, which is testosterone is the only one that they'll ever test free and total. Women when they won't do estradiol free and total or progesterone free and total. It's only testosterone, which is a little bit frustrating. But you that's a very accurate way to test your testosterone and testosterone. We have a little bit of a peak right before we ovulate, I think to give us that drive to go out and have sex and procreate. But pretty much we don't fluctuate like we do with our other hormones throughout the month. With testosterone, it stays pretty even keel we have that little flux on day 12. Right before we ovulate on a 28 day cycle. But you know, besides that, you can kind of just test whenever in the cycle, you probably don't want to test on that peak day, day. 21 is what I would recommend because that's where we test the estradiol and progesterone in fertile women so might as well do your testosterone then too. And so it is very accurate, but you definitely want to do both free and total in case your sh VG is too high. And then test your DHEA sulfate in blood test your sex hormone binding globulin so we see if it's elevated, because one of the things that's happening right now is that a lot of women are fasting and fasting like hardcore fasting one meal a day two meals a day and they've been doing this for a long time, or they've been eating a really low carb diet or and when they're fasting and not eating that much. They're also really low on protein. So low protein diets, low carb diets, too much fasting we'll all raise sh VG, because it makes sense. If we were back in hunter gatherer days and there wasn't a lot of food around so we're fasting right? Then the body is being told don't get pregnant. There's not a lot of food around So as hBg naturally would go up, because there's a food shortage, so it wants to bind up your testosterone bind up your Astra dye, and so that you can't get pregnant. And so too much of that starts to signal to the system, don't get pregnant, which is really the only reason why we're here. So your body's kind of compensate for this, whether you like it or not, it's aware of whether you want kids or not, or care about being fertile. This is what happens. So we have to be really careful with that. So testing, that's a good idea.

Philip Pape  20:31

So a couple of things, because I actually just put together a new episode about carbs coming out. And one of the interesting things about a higher carb diet was the increase in testosterone to cortisol ratio that they've seen, not, in addition to the increase in IGF one that you talked about, so the fasting and the low carb or the low protein. Are you saying that that, in general, for most women that's not recommended because of this? Or what are you saying there?

Karen Martel  20:54

It's a fine line is what I'm saying. Because we also become more insulin resistance resistant because of the drop in hormones as we age, which means intermittent fasting, can be a really, really important tool to start implementing, because we need help being insulin sensitive. It's that women are taking it too far. They get results. And then they're like, Oh, my God, and then they stop getting results. And they think I better do it harder, longer. Right? Like I bet, I'm eating two meals a day, I'm very one meal a day, oh, I should be doing a 36 hour fast or a five day fast. And you hear this from a lot of like, the big practitioners that are out there on social media saying that, you know, do five day fast once a month, you know, do 136 hour fast every single week. And I'm like, No, most women can't handle that, especially in menopause, it stresses the system out too much. So you have to find that balance, you have to know where your cortisol levels are, you have to know where your insulin that so testing, of course, is super important. And we don't, we don't want to guess what's happening in the body. So some women that are insulin resistant, their cortisol is okay, or let's say it's high, then I would probably say You know what, you need to be intermittent fasting more, but you still want to make sure you're getting in the protein. Because if not, then that sh VG will go up, and it'll bind up those hormones. The other thing that will raise it is thyroid hormones. So if somebody is on thyroid medication, which a lot of women are, they don't realize that that's actually binding up their hormones and sending them into menopause early, which is something that happened to myself and nobody told me. And I was like, why is what's going on my total levels of estradiol and testosterone are great, but yet I'm missing a period. I'm getting hot flashes, low libido. And then I finally heard Peter Atea, on who's huge. He was on Huberman lab podcast, and he was talking about thyroid medication raising sh VG and I'm like, Frick, why isn't anybody talking about this? Like how many women are on thyroid hormones? So many of

Philip Pape  23:01

you? Yeah, is this is why women are so frustrated, right? Because it's I can just imagine, like, a piano of keys. And every single key is like a different hormone. And as soon as you press one, the other one goes up or down. And they're also interrelated. Right? And yeah, even the thing about energy availability, which shameless plug that's what we talked about on your podcast, when when my episode comes out energy availability, is that you you need the energy there to support your hormones, but you don't want so much energy that you're gaining a ton of weight, right? And that's where it's like this balance for women.

Karen Martel  23:35

Like cannot be we got to get away from this one size fits all because even though we know that we're still doing it, majority of women are still going what's the next best diet out there? And trying it? And oh, everybody's doing keto. Well, I'm gonna do keto. And it's like, but is that a good fit for you? Like where's your thyroid hours? Your adrenal system, our your hormones, like you got to look at this full picture and then decide, okay, I'm, you know, inflamed. I've got PCOS, I'm insulin resistant. And yeah, keto could be great. And it could reverse all of those things. But then you want to, you know, start carb cycling and you know, there's there's a lot of nuances to it, and everybody has to find what's going to work for them. So

Philip Pape  24:18

going back to the bloodwork free, and total testosterone DHEA Soulfire. SP, Bg. What else just needs

Karen Martel  24:25

PG. Yep. And then of course, you want to test your estrogen progesterone as well. Because there is some some evidence that shows that women should actually be like if you're going to replace your hormones in perimenopause and menopause. There is some some research that shows it's actually better to replace estrogen and progesterone first for three months, then put in the testosterone. So I always want to see that full picture. The other way that I want people to test is through urine metabolite testing Now, oddly enough, testosterone is actually the least accurate on urine metabolite test dates. So you think, Okay, well, then why are you saying that we should do this, Karen? Well, in a Dutch test, which is dried urine hormone testing, we have testosterone on there, we've got the DHEA sulfate on there. But if you have a genetic snip, or you're missing these enzymes called the UG T enzymes, you won't pee out that testosterone. So it looks like you have none, when you actually have plenty. So I always want women to do bloodwork on the same day or the next day. So that we can compare the two just in case is more common in Asian backgrounds. So if you're, you've got, you know, if you're Asian yourself, or you've got Asian in your family history, then you may not have that enzyme. I don't have it. So I always look like I have low testosterone. But the other piece of the puzzle that we want to see on a urine metabolite test that bloodwork won't show is something called Five alpha reductase enzyme. And so there's a fan gauge on the Dutch test and there's five betta, and there's five alpha, if you are leaning towards a five Alpha pathway. So the on the fan gauge, if your way over to the five alpha, it means you convert your testosterone at a higher rate to what's called Dihydrotestosterone which is the most androgenic out of all the androgens and so that's where we'll see women if they go on to sauce from replacements, then the if that goes up the DHT goes up, they start having the hair loss the greasy skin, the acne and so that's not that's not pleasant when we can get whispers Have you know Korean start growing the cattiness as I call it so your your peed your clitoris can actually start to get longer. And you? Yeah. Which is not fun. And I've heard of women this happening to their voice cracking. And just from being on testosterone replacement, that's if

Philip Pape  27:09

you lean more toward the Alpha side. Yep. And does that mean you shouldn't be taking therapy if that's the case, we just have to modulate it be more careful the dosage.

Karen Martel  27:17

Exactly. And you have to possibly take something that's going to stop that conversion. So it blocks the five alpha reductase pathway. There's herbals that do it. There's also medication, finasteride and dutasteride that will block that conversion. So a lot of women will take the medication so that they can get the benefits of testosterone without having the masculine features. But there's lots of that like Saw Palmetto is really good for it. Pumpkin seed, there's a bunch of different things zinc that can help with that.

27:51

Before my coaching session with Philip, I was really struggling with staying consistent with my nutrition, Phillip really showed me the importance of being consistent day to day, he also helped me see that it's not a bad thing to take a rest day, he really helps me get in that more positive headspace of a rest day being something really good for me. I've been doing this for a month now. And I'm finally starting to see some progress and my numbers. And I'm really excited about that. And I just appreciate so much the help that Philip has given me. He's always willing to answer questions to offer resources that are totally free and very, very helpful. So I just want to say how much I appreciate that. Thanks, Philip.

Philip Pape  28:37

This is all fascinating. Let's continue the story here. Right. So we've talked about testing, we talked about natural supplementation. Now we talked about testosterone therapy in more detail. So we're what are the options women have then you do that.

Karen Martel  28:51

So we have pellets which are becoming very popular. There's a lot of pellet clinics now for both men and women. So pellets are these little tiny seed looking, they look like a seed and they get implanted into your butt. And then they're good. They will release testosterone for three months, sometimes six months. Not my favorite, and I'll explain why. But besides that injection, which is my favorite, we can do cream topical cream on the on the skin. And we can do tro keys and we can do oral so a TRO key is a little like you suck on like you put it down in stick it down in your gums and you just let it dissolve. And it's they they think they're going to tell you that, oh, we're just going to absorb into the saliva glands and go into the system. When actually you've you're going to swallow about half of that and that's a problem. So as soon as you start swallowing testosterone, so whether you're taking it as an oral capsule, or you're putting the tro key in your gum, then it's going to raise sh VG and that's going to then bind up The testosterone and estrogen so and it also can cause inflammation because it has to go through the first hepatic pass of the liver. So we, it's, it's the worst way to take testosterone is oral. So never ever do it orally, pellets. The problem with Palace is once they're inserted, you can't get them out, you have to wait for them to dissolve. And it takes about three months. And I have seen so many women who have done pellets who have a negative reaction. So maybe they go down that DHT pathway. And I see them lose their hair, they gain weight, they get greasy skin, cystic acne, we get super water retentive, and they've got to just sit and wait for it to come out. Which is horrible. And sound like I've talked to him in the game like 20 pounds in three months being on pellet therapy. Like that's how bad it can be. So if you're going to do pellet, I ask that you first do a different method. So you know how your body's going to react. Interesting. Yeah. Most people that are trained in pellet therapy, it's a bit of a cash grab so expensive. It's they're not trained to both female hormones like I have yet to come across a really good pellet. Doctor, I know they're out there. Don't get me wrong. I think they're definitely there's some out there. But there's a lot that are horrible. And they don't know anything about the female hormonal system. And it's all testosterone, testosterone, testosterone. And they, these pellets are in such high doses, that they're really androgen Ising women. And so you'll, you'll do their blood work a month in and it'll be hundreds, like top end of the range is 50. I've seen women in the 400 range being on pellets, and they're getting whiskers, they're your voice is crap. Like not, this is not good. We don't, we're not men, we're not trying to, you know, transition to men. So we have to be very careful. And these doctors, these Pella doctors, a lot of them, they won't give estrogen estradiol, or they maybe we'll give progesterone, but they they're very focused on that. Like, let's get your testosterone sky high. And I just don't agree with that. And so injection seems to be the best. I've worked with hundreds of 1000s of women. Now with testosterone therapy, I've seen I've run the gamut of each and each of these things. I've seen what what it looks like on labs, and injections seems to be the the best way to get your levels up to and to absorb it and take it into the system. For some reason cream. It does, it doesn't work as well. It still works. But I find you have to use a higher dose of cream to get the same levels that you would by using injection. So injection you do like a once or twice a week shot. And it really does seem to work well for raising a woman's testosterone. And if it's too much, then you can lower it like the next week if you want to, which is great. So if you're getting some negative symptoms, no problem. Let's lower it same with cream, we can reduce that dosage is great. Cream is awesome, too. It can be really helpful especially for sex. I always recommend to women that are having some sexual dysfunction and dry vagina. When women start to go through menopause and perimenopause, they can have really subpar orgasms when they used to have these great orgasms and then suddenly they're like, What the frick was that? Like? And so to start from rubbed actually on your labia includes Varas prior to sex can actually really help a woman to have a proper orgasm. And it's key to transfer that to your your your male partner. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Philip Pape  33:51

Okay, so stay away from pellets most likely, unless you test them out first. The turkeys is oral don't That's the worst way. topical cream could work. But you need more of it. And then there's libido aspect. And then the injections are the best. And these are tiny needles put in your muscle tissue, right?

Karen Martel  34:08

Yeah, yeah, you can do sub q, or you can do muscle. I personally do sub q because I don't know it's a bit bigger of a needle to go inter muscular. But most of you can handle it. I'm a bit of a chicken.

Philip Pape  34:23

Now, you know, I imagine people select these other options simply because they don't want to get to inject themselves. So we just had to try to assuage their fears that this is super, I imagine, right? Like yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so great. Now, we talked about treatment, going back to the symptoms and the testing, is the testing the exclusive way you're determining that you need it, or is there a symptom aspect to it? I know for men, it's definitely a combination of the two usually.

Karen Martel  34:49

Yeah, so what's interesting is some women come into this world being more androgenic and some are more estrogenic and this has to do with our DNA genetics, right, so when you get a genetic profile, you can actually see if you are more androgenic or estrogenic. And that means that your body will depend on that hormone more than the other than the average woman. So, I always use me and my sister as an example, I was born into this world very estrogenic. So I had a history of endometriosis. I've got ovarian cysts, I'm very curvaceous, I've got breasts, I've got hips, I gotta, but I'm always prone to weight gain. And then you look at my sister, and she's like this little tiny being pool that can eat as much as she wants and never gain a single pound. She's super wiry, she maintains muscle, she's got a great libido, and she just will never gain weight. Like it's crazy. And so when her testosterone drops, she really feels that when I lose my testosterone, I don't notice it that much. Okay, it's like, okay, yeah, you know, and so when I put it back in, like, I noticed difference in the muscle and little bit with the libido. And, you know, it's like, yeah, I can feel it a little bit. But for her, she takes us around, and it's like, oh, like, she just, you know, it's amazing, because she's more androgenic. So your levels could look like they're in range. But if that's low for you, and you're getting symptoms of low testosterone, and so somebody would maybe be gaining weight. Fatigue is a big one, foggy brain, testosterone is really important for our heart, our breasts, our bones. And so if you start to see these problems coming, and your testosterone is not, you know, in a good, it's not in that upper third quartile on the range, that may not be then not seeing that, that you probably don't have enough for you. And so you want to maybe start supplementing with a little bit of testosterone. So we want to always test but we also want to go by how somebody's feeling. And so if there's, if those symptoms are arising, and that person's not being able to put on muscle tissue, they've noticed a big drop in their libido. And, you know, they're really foggy brain, and they're super tired. And it gives a woman, I always say this, it gives you your, your, your balls, your lady balls. And when I say that, I mean, it gives you your drive. And that like I'm gonna go out there and get stuff done. And I'm gonna, you know, so for business women, and for women that are like in that kind of, go, go go. Lifestyle, it can be really important for you to have that testosterone at a good level. And even just stay at home moms. I mean, we all know how stressful that is, and how tired I think that's a harder job than being a high up businesswoman.

Philip Pape  37:46

No comment, I mean, all women in the world that are working hard at something or you know, to be valued, they're all working.

Karen Martel  37:51

Yeah. So so women can really notice it with their, with that fatigue, and just not feeling like they want to get stuff done in their life. And they just like, have that low self esteem and that there's just no get up and go. So that can be testosterone. Yeah,

Philip Pape  38:09

no, I wanted to ask, because there's there big differences between men and women and how they, how they feel these differences. Like for men, it's like, do you feel more like a woman than your testosterone is low? It's kind of like simplified like that. Are you crying? Or are you sad, or all these other things, but what you describe is a little more unique set of symptoms for women, given women have like a fraction of testosterone men and you're already not androgenic to begin with. So it's not like you'd necessarily notice that difference, right? Yeah. So combining the testing with the symptoms is a great strategy. Of course. Yeah.

Karen Martel  38:39

What about? Yeah, they do use it. Like some women will report like, absolutely incredible results. Like they're just like, they love their testosterone, because they're like, oh, my gosh, I feel like I'm alive. Again, I can get out there, I can exercise, I have energy, I feel amazing. And it also for women with breast a history of breast cancer, it won't convert into estrogen and the breast tissue. So you can actually use testosterone therapy safely. If you have a history of breast cancer, you will of course, want to talk to your oncologist about that.

Philip Pape  39:12

And how young, not how young is too young. But at what age should a woman get tested? Even if they don't have symptoms? What's a good like baseline age?

Karen Martel  39:21

In your 20s or 30s? Early 30s? Yeah, because we start to see testosterone going down typically in mid 30s. In women, sometimes in your 40s. It'll start but that's when we start to lose most of our hormones were returned, we tend to go into Peri menopause, which is the beginning of the loss of these hormones and ovarian function between the ages of 35 and 40. So we want to get a baseline when you're feeling good is is a great idea. So if you're in your 20s, early 30s And you don't have any symptoms of low testosterone, yeah, go get it tested now so that when you start aging and going into perimenopause and you start losing that libido and muscle tissue, you can then testing Compare and be like, oh, so it was 40 when I was in my 20s. But yet, look at it. Now it's at 14. And so clearly, I need to boost it and get it up to 40. So I can feel like I did when I was in my 20s

Philip Pape  40:12

is that it's relative to you? What? So let me ask you this question, when would a traditional doctor or GP recommend that you get this tested? Never. There you go. You got to own your health people got to take control of this stuff. Yeah. So true. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I know, that's what you're all about. And anybody listening knows that. But still, we got to do that. Yeah. I'll

Karen Martel  40:33

just tell you, Oh, yeah, you're in range. You know, the range for women is if they even get tested, if they even even get a test. It's like, no, no, you're

Philip Pape  40:41

30 you're too young. That's what they'll say.

Karen Martel  40:43

It's ridiculous. Like, you're free testosterone. If you're between like, point five and five, you're good. What. And then they like total testosterone. If you're between like 10 and 15. It's like, oh, like, we want to see you in that upper range, mid range and above, with total testosterone and free testosterone at around three or four. So keep that in mind when you go to get tested. Because your doctor is going to be like, you're great. You're in range, even though you're like point one away from being flagged as too low. They'll tell you, you're fine.

Philip Pape  41:16

Right. And there's so much of that in life with like the minimums, you know, it's like, we're not trying to just survive and get by here people, right?

Karen Martel  41:22

Yes, we're optimizing for? Yes. So yes, and I'm gonna just say to something that I, I really, really try to get across to women, is, once you lose ovarian function, which typically you'll start to really drop in progesterone first, you can start slowly dropping into dosterone, and then in your mid 40s, to 50, then we drop in estrogen dial. There's no amount of dieting, exercising, fasting, that will bring back ovarian function. So as even though testosterone is one of the one of them that we still will be producing a lot of the time out of our adrenal system, most women's adrenal systems are shot as we discussed. So you really want to like if the natural stuff doesn't work? Yeah, please keep in mind that there's no way to bring back ovarian function, you can come back to supplement your way out of not obviously, like out of the low of your ovulation and the low eggs like you can't bring back a cow, you can't bring back ovulation is going to end, we used to die at 45. That was the average age for women. So as we started going into menopause, we typically die. Now we're living longer than ever. And so without these vital hormones, you can only get so far with your health. Because you're missing all of these hormones that are crucial for so much more than just sex and procreation. We need these hormones for like I said, testosterone is super important for bones. And you know, if you have a hip fracture, you have a 50% chance of dying within the year. Like that's crazy. Osteoporosis, like you will get osteoporosis if you don't replace your hormones, we need them. And so the alternative alternatives is of course, medication, a lot of women will get depressed anxiety ridden from losing these vital hormones. And so I just want everybody to keep that in mind. The research shows that women that replace their hormones, as you know, mainly estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone, have a third over 30% reduction in all cause mortality. We know that heart disease can can be reduced by like 49%, which is the number one killer of women. It reduces cardiac mortality by 49%. That's crazy. So in Alzheimer's, we just a great study came out a couple years ago on like, I think it was like 400,000 women that show women that replaced estradiol for six years or longer had, you know, 75 to 80% reduction in developing Alzheimer's. So in testosterone is really important for the brain as well. So we just want to keep that in mind that it's not just about libido and there's just so much of that. The biohacking that we can do to bring back those levels and so just keep that in mind. Yeah,

Philip Pape  44:28

it's a it's like a battery that's capacity keeps dropping and dropping and dropping, you can only charge it's even if you do everything perfectly, it only charges 50% Then you can only charge it to 25% You need this extra battery I guess from the TRT and the replacement therapy

Karen Martel  44:43

to like yeah, for sure. men lose their testosterone like women, but you know, like we drop in hormones far more than you guys do. But there is menopause and that is the loss of DHEA you can lose your progesterone your estrogen or testosterone in Those are vitally important especially of course to sauce throne for men. And so you really want to watch that if you're not waking up with an erection in the morning if you're having poor orgasms if you're you know, have erectile dysfunction, just depression for men, high cholesterol, high insulin, fasting insulin and blood glucose. These are all signs that you could possibly use a little bit of a testosterone boost as well.

Philip Pape  45:25

For sure. I mean, in for men, it's like if you're training well for eating well get your blood tested, you've got the things covered, you still may need TRT and it's good to have that baseline no matter whatever age you are. Same thing with women 30 years old is great. Get it then every five years or so see what happens. Yes. And treat it and once you start treatment, you have to be on it for life. But that makes sense because it's not coming back. Yeah.

Karen Martel  45:47

And you know, your men think Oh, but if I start using it, then that's it. I'll never have to start trying again. But actually, it shows that in about a month after stopping TRT, your levels will come back to where they were they were Yeah. Which

Philip Pape  46:01

were probably inadequate. That's why you took TRT if there's no harm Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, what about, we talked about the androgenic symptoms, are there any other side effects symptoms women should be aware of that would be indicated by too high of a dosage or potentially misalignment with their therapy.

Karen Martel  46:20

Weight Gain is insulin can go up blood sugar can go up. That's like the common PCOS polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is the leading cause of infertility in women right now. That is too high of those androgens as we discussed, and so you could lose your period, you have blood sugar problems, not ovulating. And then with all the other ones on top of that, like the hair loss is a huge one, especially if you've got too much DHEA will cause a lot of hair loss and acne. Same with the testosterone loss. So, I mean, too much of the too much testosterone too much DHEA will cause the hair loss and cause the acne. You can get dark hair on your arms. Dark hair where you know, just in places you don't want it so more hair growth on the body but less hair on the head, which sucks. I think that's it. Yeah, that's a scary. Yeah, we'll we'll get swollen. Yeah. Which is very uncomfortable. So I have heard that from a few women when they're on too much testosterone. Very uncomfortable. They're everything kind of in gorgeous down below.

Philip Pape  47:31

So that the message is get tested and modify your dosing as appropriate. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. What, um, what's in the future for all of this? Like, is there are there any big changes coming in in terms of either the the approaches or the therapy itself?

Karen Martel  47:47

Not that I've heard of, unfortunately, it's still there isn't a lot for what to research for women. And to actually, it was just at a conference over the weekend, and a woman that would did one of the talks said that it wasn't till 1993 that women were even allowed to be in scientific research studies. Because we could get pregnant. And so the we're all we've only just been in studies for hormone. Like, it's crazy. For a lot of things, a lot of things. For everything. Yeah, true. Yeah. Not just crazy. Hormones. Yeah. Yeah.

Philip Pape  48:25

How do we know about myself? So it's changing,

Karen Martel  48:29

but very slowly. Yeah. And so it's just about educating women about the importance of their hormones, and that testosterone is one that you really want to watch, because it can really help with, you know, just overall vitality and beating well. It'll

Philip Pape  48:45

be ironic or maybe appropriate, if one day insurance companies realize, hey, if we had gotten on this sooner with hormone therapy, we wouldn't have such high costs of all the effects of you know, this added weight gain and stress on the system and poor health that are related hormones, but you know, they don't think long term

Karen Martel  49:01

make money. It doesn't make money. So yes, right. Yeah, that's right. Keep us sick. Yeah, it's unfortunate. Yeah, it's good to work with a good hormone practitioners, you know, not somebody that's in it just to you know, it's like the these pellet clinics or like the wars for just kind of how many people can we get through here? It's not, it's there's no holistic approach. You know, you want to work with somebody that's going to find what's going to work for you and be able to, you know, if you start getting these masculine symptoms that they know what to do, and that they're not forgetting about these other very crucial hormones, because they all work synergistically together. And so we want to look at everything.

Philip Pape  49:39

And Karen is and I know she wasn't trying to plug herself a carrot is one of these wonderful people in the world that do that. And I've

Karen Martel  49:46

I'm just trying to find me you just find somebody

Philip Pape  49:50

true and especially depends on where you live like in the US versus Canada, you might have different access to different things because I've heard some people here do get coverage for certain things that you might not in Canada and vice versus So yep, educate. Exactly. All right. So is there any other question you wish I had asked here, related to testosterone or anything else,

Karen Martel  50:08

I guess maybe how what I have to offer which we I do work with a team of doctors who run the ER, focuses on testosterone. And so we, we can prescribe in every state, which is really cool. We can prescribe in Alberta and British Columbia, and soon to be Ontario and Canada. Because and I want to say that not to plug myself but because testosterone is extremely challenging to get for women met normal medical doctor, your medical doctor doesn't know how to prescribe it for women. They're just like, oh, I have no clue what to do here. Like they're not trained in menopause. They're not trained in perimenopause. I've heard they get like, let like less than 7% of doctors are trained in menopause in med school. So you're gonna have a very hard time finding, finding a mainstream medical doctor who will properly prescribe you hormone replacement therapy. So I

Philip Pape  51:09

just I just have to back that statement up. I've never heard and this is anecdotally from so many clients and women in my life who have GPS, male or female GPS, but even males who just, they're 60 years old, and they've been working with how many patients all these decades. And it's like they they're clueless. It's crazy. It's there's no continued education, there's just nothing. So we have people

Karen Martel  51:34

to become educated in bioidentical hormone therapy, they actually have to pay for the course or courses. There's a lot of incentivized Yeah, no, it's not taught in med school. They they're all going by old studies that were falsely represented. And like, there's so much horrible things that are going on the medical system for women's health. And so what they will give you what they will give you is a depressant

Philip Pape  51:59

or the birth of general, when you're 14, they'll give you that. Okay, yep. Yeah, which causes

Karen Martel  52:03

way more risk for breast cancer. And anyway, like, it's, it's terrible. That's a whole nother episode.

Philip Pape  52:09

I talked about that last night, actually.

Karen Martel  52:12

You can go back and listen to that. But yeah, it's very challenging. And women need to realize that their medical doctor sure go give it a shot, because a lot of it's covered problems. So try. So it was good to try to see if they'll work with you. But if they don't, then let it go. And don't get angry at the medical system. And I had somebody recently message me and say, I'm so mad that I have to pay for this. And it's like, well, it but you have to realize that doctors aren't trained in this. So they're not the people that we should be going to for it. Unless they've said that this is their specialty, which our doctors are they specialize in hormone replacement therapy, they've properly been properly trained. I've been properly trained by nurse practitioners improperly trained, you know, so you want to find somebody that has been specifically trained in bioidentical hormone therapy. And it's likely not your family doctor.

Philip Pape  53:12

And like you said, Everything related to wellness versus sickness, everything related to wellness, you probably have to take into your own hands, whether it's your nutrition, your exercise, your hormones, you see, it's all starting to connect. Right. Cool. So then where can listeners learn about you? Where do you want them to reach out to you?

Karen Martel  53:31

Yeah, so we've got you know, we've we've made sure that we've been able to help any woman that wants to get the help. So we have different tiers, we've got, you know, high ends, four month packages, where you get that one on one, help you get your prescriptions, you get your hormones, etc. And then we also have group coaching, the group coaching program has been going for about six years, we've got almost 200 Women in it. And you can get a lot of help through that we have weekly group coaching calls, where we'll look at your labs and give you recommendations to take to your doctor or to your prescriber and say, Hey, this is what you know, they've recommended I need some estrogen, I need to assess your own and then we've also got, you know, nurse practitioners that you can book with and take the recommendations to and they'll prescribe it and then I'll also I'm coming up with my own line of over the counter hormones so that women can get them even even if they don't have a lot of money. Now you can't. You can't buy testosterone counter, right? You can estradiol and progesterone, which are very key for replacing when you're in perimenopause and menopause to mitigate those symptoms and to have optimal health. So I've created my own line so that women can just get it without the prescription. If they feel they need it. Is cosmetic cream. It's not Yeah, yes. Is

Philip Pape  54:52

that your website? katimorton.com. It's, it's coming. I

Karen Martel  54:55

don't know when this is being aired, but it'll be here by the end of the year.

Philip Pape  54:58

Okay, so this is A whole brand new place to find all this. Okay. All right, yeah, even even with coaching everything else, we're not using your website. There's another. No

Karen Martel  55:07

right now it's gonna just be on my website. character.com. Yeah. And then social media. I'm Karen Martell hormones and then the podcast is the hormone solution.

Philip Pape  55:15

Yeah. Right. And that was you renamed that few months back, right? Yeah.

Karen Martel  55:21

Their site of weight loss. And now it's a hormone solution podcast because it was just so much to do with hormones.

Philip Pape  55:27

Well, this episode comes out in early January. So if you have any updates, we can connect and put it in there, folks. Cool. This has been a pleasure. I'm glad we got to go really deep into this one area of testosterone. So important, not talked about enough. And it's been awesome to have you on so thank you.

Karen Martel  55:42

Thanks for having me on.

Philip Pape  55:45

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Ep 134: A Simple Tweak to Increase Your Metabolism, Hormones, Fat Loss, Workouts, and Sleep

Are you struggling to achieve your health and fitness goals despite following your diet and exercise routine? Do you feel like something is holding you back?
 
Happy New Year! In this first episode of 2024, Philip  (@witsandweights) talks about stress, its impact on health and fitness goals, and how to reduce or cope with it effectively. He gives a lot of attention to nutrition, training, and even sleep, and he talks about how sometimes stress can be the hidden barrier to unlocking a higher metabolism, more effortless fat loss, increased energy, and better health. Philip dives into practical, evidence-based strategies to identify and mitigate stress in the context of both physical and mental health.

Philip also created a free Stress Solution Guide to accompany this episode that you can download at witsandweights.com/free or click here for direct access.

Episode summary:

Stress is a universal challenge that often goes unrecognized, particularly when we pursue health and fitness goals. In a recent podcast episode, we take a deep dive into the covert world of stress, unraveling its subtle yet profound impact on our well-being. The episode isn't merely a discussion about stress but offers a treasure trove of actionable advice and strategies for resilience and management.

Listeners are introduced to the concept of stress as a hidden barrier to fitness success, learning about its capacity to derail metabolism, disrupt hormonal balance, and lead to counterproductive behaviors like unhealthy snacking. The episode acknowledges the different ways individuals experience stress, emphasizing the importance of understanding personal stress triggers and supportive strategies within relationships.

The episode delves into the physiological and psychological effects of stress. Listeners gain an understanding of how chronic stress can impact sleep patterns, dietary choices, and even gut health, which in turn affects gym performance and body composition. This knowledge serves as a powerful tool for listeners to begin recognizing and addressing their stress responses.

The podcast doesn't stop at identification; it provides a range of techniques for stress reduction. From engaging in creative pursuits and cultivating social connections to spending time in nature and organizing one's environment, the advice is practical and varied. Listeners are encouraged to pick one simple action to reduce stress, ensuring the approach is accessible and not overwhelming.

Nutrition, a key aspect of stress management, is also addressed. The episode highlights the role of maintaining adequate caloric intake and balancing macronutrients, with carbohydrates playing a significant part in managing stress levels. Real-life examples from the community underscore the personalized nature of stress management, showcasing unique methods like photography and heavy lifting as stress-relievers.

The episode rounds out with a discussion of advanced stress management techniques like yoga, cleaning, and Transcendental Meditation. These methods, while potentially more involved, offer additional tools for those looking to deepen their stress reduction practice. The host also touches upon the potential of supplements like ashwagandha and magnesium to support stress management, though emphasizing lifestyle changes as the primary focus.

The episode closes with a reminder to listeners to select one stress management technique that resonates with them, incorporating it into their routine. The provision of a free stress solution guide further extends the episode's resources, offering listeners a structured approach to tackling stress.

In summary, the podcast episode serves as an essential guide for anyone looking to improve their health and fitness by managing the omnipresent challenge of stress. It acknowledges the complexity of stress, provides a wealth of strategies for combating it, and encourages personalization and simplicity in approach, all with the goal of enabling listeners to achieve their fitness and wellness goals without the hindrance of unmanaged stress.

Today you’ll learn all about:

3:19 Recent 5-star reviews on the podcast
6:31 What is stress?
11:08 Acute vs. chronic stress
12:54 What creates more stress
14:41 The effects of stress
18:55 The physiology of the stress response
21:20 Pick one thing
23:18 Self-therapy
24:54 Social connection
25:39 Spending time in nature or outdoors
26:16 Planning or organizing
27:07 Optimizing nutrition and training
30:27 Ideas on managing stress from the community
38:52 More stress management ideas
43:53 Outro

Episode resources:

• Free Stress Solution Guide

• Mindfulness Special: Relaxing Guided Session to Manage Stress and Anxiety with Allen Friedman

• Shoutout to the Sam Miller Science podcast (inspiration for episode)

🩷 Enjoyed this episode? Share it on social and tag me @witsandweights

🤩 Love the podcast? Leave a 5-star review

💪 Want to map out YOUR exact strategy for workouts and nutrition for the next 6 months?
Schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

🚀 Want to get 1-on-1 accountability, a personalized plan, and 24/7 access to a coach? Apply for 1-on-1 coaching

✉️ Join hundreds of driven individuals and get access to the FREE Wits & Weights email list with insider strategies, bonus content, and conversations with experts in evidence-based fitness and nutrition so you can achieve your ideal health and physique.

👥 Join our highly engaged, active Facebook community for even more support and exclusive live trainings and Q&As

📞 Want to ask a question? Send a Q&A voicemail

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

Maybe you've dialed in your nutrition, training and sleep, but you're still not getting the results you want. It could be that one thing in particular is holding you back and you don't even know it. In today's episode, we are uncovering how a simple tweak can revolutionize your metabolic health hormones, fat loss workouts and sleep to push you past those plateaus. Stick around to learn what it is and what you can do about it. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode which was last year, Episode 133. Making fitness fun again through adventure with Kelly Howard, we talked about how the spirit of adventure can revitalize your fitness journey. You learn how to overcome common hurdles to staying consistent with your fitness goals, external versus internal motivation and how to embrace a sense of fun and adventure to reignite your passion for fitness. Today for episode 134. The first of 2024 a simple tweak to increase your metabolism hormones, fat loss workouts and sleep Yes, everything we are talking about stress, especially stress has impact on your health and fitness goals, and how to reduce or cope with it effectively. We give lots of attention to nutrition training and even sleep. But sometimes stress is the hidden barrier. It's just lurking there in your life. And it's the hidden barrier to unlocking a higher metabolism, easier fat loss, increased energy and better health. Today we're going to dive into practical evidence based strategies to identify and mitigate stress in the context of both physical and mental health. Now I do want to give a shout out to Sam Miller of the Samel or Science Podcast, who recently did a very detailed multi episode series on stress that inspired this episode. And I also want to give a shout out to many of my clients and members of the Wits & Weights Facebook community who contributed ideas for how to manage stress that we're going to include in this episode, so many creative ideas, including one of my own that I just discovered today that would be helpful that I will be sharing. And those are later on in the episode. Now, as you're listening to the show, don't stress. And by the way, listen to the show at 1x. Don't go faster. I know many of us, myself included, listen to it faster, calm it down, listen to it at 1x. And now you see what I just did there Right? Trying to help you reduce your stress, even as you listen to this podcast. But don't stress because I created a free stress solution guide to go along with this episode. And of course, you can download that at wits & weights.com/free or click the link in my show notes. Again, that's wits & weights.com/free Or just click the link under episode resources in the shownotes. Now before we dive in to this episode about stress, I wanted to share a few recent five star reviews from Apple podcasts. If you want your review featured on the show, it's very simple. Just screenshot it and tag me at Wits & Weights and I will make sure absolutely to give you a shout out in this part of the show. All right. The first review is from emotionally healthy legacy. Elizabeth says helpful resource for someone who wants to lose weight the healthy way and sustain it. This is a great resource for both men and women. The host really seems to know what he's talking about. Very knowledgeable. I'm glad I gave you that impression. Elizabeth I do try. And that is really the goal of this show is sustainability. So and for men and women, so I'm glad you liked it. The next step the next review is by careless down to earth knowledgeable, be new to weightlifting. I found this podcast to be straightforward, practical and super informative. The community is also fantastic, uplifting and positive folks, Philip is very responsive to questions and offers tons of tips for both beginners and more experienced weight lifters. This has become my go to podcast for all things fitness.

Philip Pape  04:31

You don't know what that means to me it really genuinely when I hear something like that I'm I'm still shocked a little bit of impostor syndrome. I'll admit that someone would make this like their main fitness podcast but that is where I'm trying to go with this. And also the fact that our community is uplifting and positive. If you join the Wits & Weights Facebook community that is exactly how it is. We will kick you out if you're if you're a meanie, but if you're helping people out you're positive you get to hang around Like minded folks that are trying to do the same. And then the last review is by Maggie de I think is how you pronounce it. Love the research and science as a guy looking to book Getting scientifically backed workout content is Big Love. The carbs episode might explain a thing or two. Winky face emoji was recommended through a website, but I'll be sticking around. Thank you so much. I always love again to hear someone who discovers a podcast, find it valuable, and wants to stick around. And of course, anybody listening, if you want to leave a review, just go to Apple podcasts. And it's pretty easy to do. Take a screenshot and tag me in definitely share this episode with a friend if you found it valuable. Alright, we're gonna get into today's topic, a simple tweak to increase your metabolism hormones, fat loss workouts, and sleep and we're talking about stress, the simple tweak is stress. Now I know it doesn't sound simple to all of us. Some of us have extremely full, busy, hectic, crazy lives, however you want to describe it. And I realized, as I'm recording this episode, I was walking the dogs, I was taking them for a walk. It's the very last day of the week before Christmas. And I thought this week was going to be less stressful than others. Now, my tolerance for stress is fairly high. Wherever that comes from, I don't know, I've had this sense my whole life that no matter how bad things get, they're gonna get better. And somehow that grounds me, and I'm grateful to have that inherent in me or training me or from my parents or whomever. But I can see the contrast between people and the amount of stress that they perceive. Now we're going to talk about what stress is how it impacts us, and then how to manage it. But I just wanted to connect with you, as a listener personally, that everyone's level of stress is different. Some people have way more stress anxiety than others, either naturally or because of their circumstances. It really helps. Of course, like in my case, my wife, she gets really stressed out by certain things that I don't and vice versa. So for example, you know, if you if I had to just all of a sudden do all the chores around the house right now, that would, that would raise my blood pressure, like I would get stressed about it. My wife loves doing that stuff, which kind of works out right, we she stays at home, and it works out for me. I do the financials and the business and a whole bunch of other things. And we have a shared kind of partnership. But that would stress me out. If her mouse stops clicking on her computer and doing what she wants. She just she she'll freak out, right? And she knows, this is the case, if she's listening to this, she'll come to me and be very frustrated, you know, express her frustration, like why is this happening now? I can't deal with this, can you fix it and it becomes this huge thing. But I understand that about her right. And so I understand I want to be calm and go over there. Alright, sweetie, let me fix it. Let me see what's going on. And I kind of keep her out of it, I fix it, hopefully. And then you know, she's back in the picture. And we're good to go. So everybody's stressed by different things. I realized this week that I had cleared my calendar a little bit, not as much as I wanted, but I cleared it a bit so that I could get caught up on podcasts and some stuff for my business take care of some fun, creative ideas I had. But you know, what always happens with me is as soon as I leave a gap in my schedule, even if I tell myself even if I put in my calendar and set myself a reminder that this is going to be downtime. I'm going to chill out on the couch and watch Netflix, I'm going to go for a walk, I'm going to just veg out do something fun. You know what happens? I fill in that time I just do I get a crazy idea as I'm walking around the house. Oh, I gotta do something about that. Forget the hour of downtime, I've got an hour now why don't I use it up. And so the weekends have been fuller than I expected. And so I know for a fact that this contributes to a higher level of chronic stress in my life than I would have otherwise. Now whether I can handle it cope with it, you know it whether or not it's affecting my health in a big way, that that's hard to tell. That's part of what we're gonna get into today of how can you even tell? And what can you do about it, but I want you to know that we all face stress, okay? And don't assume the person next to you because they have you know, more kids and more obligations or, or they're single and have no obligations that they have more or less stress, just know that it's all relative to you and your personal experience. And that as we age, the stress tends to rise simply because our circumstances get more complicated, right? We have children or we have more financial obligations, we have bigger bills, we're getting closer to retirement and thinking like getting worried that you know, we're not going to have enough money saved. You know, people in our family, you know, pass away they die. Our pets die. Like all these things happen more and more as we get older. And we take on more things and we are maybe wiser but busier right? And all that adds up. So I feel you right? If you're listening to this and you're like, Man, I'm just so overwhelmed. You know I've got I've got my business, my work my kids working 14 hour days. that might be where you're at. And it is where you're at right now. And that's okay. The question is, how much is that contributing to other things, we're just a little tweak here there could unlock a more positive road to better health. And that's what we're going to talk about. So we're going to discuss the interconnected physiology, right how your body responds, the hormones and such, and the psychology. So the mental side of stress, including how it impacts your brain, your immune system, your hormones, your sleep, your diet, your exercise performance, and more. Right, without hopefully stressing you. Alright, the goal of today's episode is to give you actionable advice toward the end, based on all that information gets you nice and educated, to better navigate stressful periods, and transformational and transitional periods. Because oftentimes, the stress comes from change, it comes from things that aren't expected. And it can come tomorrow, you could get in an accident, there can be a medical condition, whatever we know these things happen, and I'm not trying to stress you out mentioning them. But knowing that they happen, how do we build the resilience for that, okay, so let's define the difference between acute and chronic stress. Acute, acute is the here and now it's short lived, and oftentimes can be a positive, adaptive or helpful form of stress. My favorite one of those is the acute stress of exercise of training. When you lift heavy weights for an hour in the gym, you are stressing the heck out of your body, but in an acute way. And we see this physiologically, we see an increase in blood pressure. For example, if you took my blood pressure, right in the middle of a weight training session, it's gonna look like I have terrible health. It's gonna be through the roof, but that's okay. That's actually part of the process. And as soon as you're done with your, your workout session, everything starts to get back to normal, and the acute stress goes away. And we know that the acute stress like that can actually build resilience against chronic stress. So what is chronic stress? Chronic stress is that prolonged, frequent, difficult to control stress, and that's the important phrase here, difficult to control, stress things from things like your work, financial stress issues in your relationship, juggling all the demands of home life, including children, right, the list goes on and on. And they're difficult to control. Because, you know, like the Stoics, say, there are things in your life you can and can't control. And the chronic stress often comes from the things put upon us. Okay, not always right. There are definitely choices we make to be in the environments and situations we're in and around the people we are. But I'm not asking you today for one podcast episode, to just eliminate all those things. We're going to acknowledge them and realize that they exist, and many of them are right at this moment, out of our control. Okay. All right. Now, there are a few things. Key things three, in fact, that I'm gonna mention, that makes some types of stress, even more detrimental. Okay. The first is novelty. If something happens that we have no previous experience with, and we don't know how to handle that creates more stress than a situation we've seen before. Right? There are situations that happen to me that I've experienced before, maybe financial situations, for example, that I would be able to handle, because I've done through, I've done it before. Whereas somebody else, it's their first time, maybe they're 25, and all of a sudden, they get hit with some big bill or something. And it's like, oh, what do I do what I like, I'm just, I don't know what to do. Right? That's going to create a lot more stress for them than the one for me. So again, it's relative to your experience. Number two is unpredictability. And that's when things are unexpected or inconsistent. So there's some sort of some overlap with novelty here, right? But these are stressors that maybe you know, they're going to happen, you just don't know when, like, they're going to come up, and they're just random. And then the third dimension is lack of control, or lack of agency. And this is all those I mentioned this already, the external stressors that we feel powerless to influence are powerless to change. We just, we don't have control there they happen. And now we have a situation that we that we want to do something about or make a choice in the context of what we can't change the stressor. So chronic stress becomes problematic to your physiology. When it's constant, unrelenting, feels impossible to manage or to relieve. Right. And then it's ramped up and exacerbated by inconsistency, unexpectedness, and novelty. So you take all that together, and I'm sure you can identify some things in your life that fit the bill. So now the question is, what does this do to you and I know a lot of this is going to be quote unquote, negative might stress you out, just hearing what stress does do. But awareness is the first step. Right awareness of these things, I hope reduces stress in a way, because then you'll know where you can focus your energy and mitigate these issues. So the first is sleep, stress and sleep are intricately tied. Think we know that right? Cortisol, which we often call the stress hormone, and there are other stress hormones can impair your your ability to sleep. I mean, this is just thinking about your stressful things in your life can cause you to have insomnia, or it can cause you to disrupt your sleep or wake you up in the middle of the night thinking about it, raise your hand, if you'd have this happened. This hasn't happened many times, okay, happens to me a lot. When things are exceptionally stressful, I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night. And all I can do is find a piece of paper to write it all down so I can get back to sleep. So the sleep quality and your recovery and recharging from your sleep as affected by stress. And now you feel wired. But exhausted, right, you get these restless nights night after night. If you're wearing something like an aura ring, it's going to show you very little deep sleep. And yet you might be in bed for eight hours, but just not getting the sleep. And this is I put this in the top. Because I've said before how like just being sleep deprived alone can massively reduce your metabolism can increase your fat storage in the abdomen can increase your hunger, all those things. But oftentimes stress is the cause of the poor sleep. And any amount of sleep hygiene or sleep hacks aren't going to fix the sleep until you fix the stress. So if we can recognize that in ourselves, that sleep may not be the root cause but stress might be that can be helpful. All right. Second is the the effect that stress has on your nutrition on your dietary choices. Because chronic stress like lack of sleep drives cravings for high energy foods, high sugar, high fat comfort foods as well because there's an emotional component to it. And it also depletes nutrients in your body like it can actually reduce your absorption of nutrients to an extent like where your gut kind of malfunctions and your body becomes less efficient with handling, you know, processing B vitamins, zinc, magnesium, those kinds of things. So whatever your intake you have from your nutrients, the effective effectiveness of them goes down. And then between both the cravings and the nutrient depletion, now your quality dietary quality suffers. And that can lead to other impacts on many other things. Okay, then we have got health, all right. Chronic stress can inhibit stomach acid production. And that is probably tied to the absorption issue I just talked about. All right, B 12, iron, even protein, okay, protein absorption, it disrupts the microbiome, right? healthy gut microbiome, and we're just discovering now how important that is to your health overall, as well, it could affect your digestion to stress affects your training and gym performance. Right? This is huge. So when we talk about recovery, we talk about sleep, stress food, well, if the stress is high, it's hard to have get those extra reps in the gym, it's hard to feel energized, you may not be pre processing carbs and protein as efficiently, you're nutrient depleted, the list goes on, right? And then you have this elevated cortisol. Which guess what, ladies and gentlemen, elevated cortisol is catabolic over the long term, meaning it breaks down tissue, it probably has to do with your body trying to marshal resources to get close to homeostasis, because you're in this high stress state. And so it impairs muscle building or it causes muscle tissue breakdown. All right. The last effect of stress I want to talk about is your body composition overall. Okay? The increase in cortisol also induces further insulin resistance. And this contributes toward, you know, fat gain. Of course, as much as we talk about having high enough carbs and lifting helping all of this, the stress is counteracting that, right? Cortisol signals the body to store more fat, especially the harmful visceral fat. So if these aren't all reasons to improve your stress, I don't know what is. So now let's talk about the physiology of the stress response just to get a little bit sciency but not go as deep as like Sam did on his his multi part series. So this is the the fight or flight that you've heard about many times the sympathetic versus parasympathetic. So the sympathetic response right. When the brain perceives a threat, it signals the hypothalamus to activate the adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are what pump out stress hormones, cortisol, and adrenaline. By the way, cool, little side story. Adrenaline and epinephrine are the same thing. And they both mean above the kidney, add renal, EPA nephron, Latin Greek, if you found that interesting, share this podcast, okay.

Philip Pape  19:37

So the adrenal pumps out those hormones cortisol and adrenaline. Cortisol then affects everything, your whole body's physiology, immune health, metabolism, etc. Right? And here's another interesting thing, your brain structure changes with chronic stress. The amygdala enlarges and actually increases the fear and stress response the amygdala. Like the primal part of your brain, that response is a response to the fight or flight. So you're actually now you're effectively training your amygdala to be bigger and stronger, which is not what you want. And then the opposite happens with the hippocampus. The hippocampus is responsible for memories, and regulating your mood, guess what happens to it, it can atrophy. So Holy crap, like, I just learned this going to this research, I hadn't explored this specific phenomenon. But you're effectively strength training parts of your brain with your stress in the wrong direction, when you have too much stress, a bigger amygdala, a smaller hippocampus? I don't know. I think that's pretty cool. I'm fascinated by this stuff. I nerd out on it. But it's also scary in a way, isn't it? It creates this vicious cycle of greater reactivity, like you react more easily. And then you perpetuate the chemical response that's going on. So it's like it's this vicious cycle. And you probably know what I'm talking about. Soon as you get wired and stressful, and you're chronically stressed it, it just goes on and on and on. Even if you have a day or two of like, being able to relax and do stuff yourself. It's like, it's a temporary Band Aid, and everything's just ramps right back up. So what do we do about it? All right, I'm gonna throw a lot of you today, I realize that, but I like to be complete, and give you a lot of options. And so before I even go through my whole list here, my main action for you today, and I'm going to reiterate this later in the podcast, my main action that I asked you to do is pick one thing, pick one thing that's easy, and simple. Okay? If I'm telling you that having more sex will reduce your stress, and you don't have a sexual partner, that's probably not the one you're gonna go after. And maybe you're laughing right now. And that's the point I wanted to give you a little chuckle. But if there's something on this list, that is far from what you can do right now, don't worry about it. Don't even think about it. Pick one thing, that's easy, that you can give yourself a reminder to do tomorrow. Okay, this is the new year. I don't think I mentioned that this is the first full episode of the new year. So Happy New Year. And I'm thinking that we're all stressful this time of year. We're past the kind of high emotional high of the holidays. And now we're looking at the long path of our year, pick something that's easy to do. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits, & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you Lyft go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. Okay, so what are the options? First, we have lifestyle changes, and techniques. So these are all you can call them stress hacks. But these are all the very important things that I would recommend to a client, and usually would be more personalized to their life. But I want you to think about your life in which one of these makes sense. So first, we have anything that is creative or expressive. Okay, the this is like a form of self therapy. If you like art, if you'd like to paint or draw, or do Legos, or some sort of craft, if you'd like to play music, like I play saxophone, I don't do it as much as I would like. So that could be on my list. And my kids both play clarinet and flute, so I can play with them. And they play piano as well. Right? singing music, listening to me, not really the listening and this is more about expressing yourself. Okay, writing, creative writing. You like to write stories, or poems. This is not to be confused with like work writing, writing emails and social posts that you just don't like to do this is a more enjoyable form of writing. Maybe you want to use a quill maybe you want to do calligraphy, right? Maybe you want to write thank you notes to people. Dancing is another one. And dancing can be everything from just jumping around with your your wife or husband at home to meet not jumping around. But I mean dancing to music or dancing with your kids or just dancing on your own right, or going out and dancing somewhere. I'm sure you can come up with other ideas but different ways to express yourself. And by the way, after I give you this list, I'm going to share specific examples from the community and for my clients that might spark some inspiration. The next one is social connection not just once in a blue moon, but regular so also a connection. And this does include sex and intimacy with your spouse or partner, okay? In a real meaningful way, right? Not, we're not talking about random sex and one night stands, we're talking about meaningful connections here.

Philip Pape  25:14

But also connections with your friends, like if you have one or two or three close friends that you can meet with on a regular basis, and you find that a refreshing thing to do, whether it's go out for a drink, hang out their house, go do an activity together. This could also be groups and communities you connect with online, or through texting, or through WhatsApp or Telegram, there's so many ways, right? Find a group, there are many groups support groups out there if you need them. Alright, the third thing, spending time in nature, or outdoors, this can be going for a walk in the woods, killing two birds with one stone getting your gear steps in, so to speak, but doing it because it's outside, you get your Vitamin D sunshine, the birds chirping, there's something visceral about our connection with as humans with nature. And some of you in the community have posted how you live, you know, at the ocean, your rivers, near the woods, even in the city, there's so many beautiful places, and interesting places you can spend time in nature or outdoors. The next one is an interesting one, a lot of people resonate with this, especially in my community planning and organizing. So planning your day, your meals, your schedule, your vacation coming up your week, you know, it requires a little bit of intense activity and concentration, maybe gets you into a flow state. But for that half hour of work, so to speak, that probably feels pretty productive, and feels good to you not really stressful, so to speak, the reward is then your whole, you know, future for that thing is planned out. And now you don't have to make decisions in the future. And that takes away fatigue. And stress organizing is the same way some people really want to organize, whether it's their house, you know, cleaning, doing the chores, mowing the lawn, organizing your thoughts on a whiteboard, organizing things in a post it note, whatever. I mean, organizing means a lot of things. The next thing is all the stuff related to what we talked about on the show. So training, optimizing your nutrition, optimizing your sleep, so I think sleep and stress can kind of play off each other. So if if you feel that your sleep can easily be improved, not easily, but that improving your sleep can reduce your stress. And that's the main thing causing the stress. Because you just feel like you lack energy and everything else just builds up. And all you need is an extra hour of sleep, or a little bit better quality sleep, of course, I'm going to encourage you to try to do that, find a way to do that, and then see if it doesn't also reduce your stress. So it can go both ways. And then of course training and nutrition. I guess I'll just be explicit about that. If you're doing too much exercise, that can be stressful. But also if you're sedentary and you're not training at all, adding in resistance training in particular, but also walking are absolutely going to contribute positively to reducing stress, the resistance training does in many ways. One way is the acute stressor of the activity itself, which builds this physiological and as you realize brain based physical resilience to stress that carries you into the rest of your day and the rest of the week. But walking and endorphins from even other forms of cardio have been shown to reduce stress. Nutrition is just eating enough eating enough food. Like if you're dieting, that's going to increase stress just by default, by definition. So one way to increase to reduce stress, if you're in a calorie reduction reduced state is to not be in that state is to eat at least at maintenance or above. We went through this at the end of the year in our body recomp challenge where a lot of people, they said, we said together, we're not going to diet, we're not going to try to be in a surplus or be in a deficit, we're just going to stay where we are. But we're going to build good habits and eat enough food through the holidays and enjoy ourselves. And so many people did that instead. Wow. That was revelatory. That was that was life changing in a way because I realized I can eat more without gaining weight. And the eating more. reduce my stress helped me sleep better give me more energy helped me perform better in the gym. You see how this is all connected. It's all connected. So optimizing your nutrition is eating enough. It's also eating enough of the right macronutrients and micronutrients to support your health. So that's, you know, sufficient protein and carbs, carbs, especially a lot of you listening. If you're low carb or keto and you have a lot of stress, bumping up your carbs. It can help possibly I've seen it time and again happen. I talked about this on the more carbs more muscle episode because of the hormonal response to additional carbs. So they're all worth the all all things that need to be looked at. Okay, so that to a pretty good list of the big ones of how to reduce stress. Actually, I have more I have more, I'm categorizing these in different ways. So I'm going to talk about supplements. And I'm going to talk about more advanced stress management skills specifically, I'll get to that in a second. One thing mentioned is part of exercise could be really any movement that relaxes you. So that could include of course, a yoga, it could include stretching, like all of that in there. Okay. Now from our Wits, & Weights community and from our clients. Many of my clients contributed some ideas, as well as those in the Facebook community, which is totally free, you can join in the link in the show notes as always. And I'm going to shout them out by name, I think they wouldn't mind because they posted right in the community. I'll just give their first name. Just see this. Her idea she had two that I wanted to share photography. That's a form of art of creative expression. She also likes walks on the beach. Again, getting out in nature and the beach in particular, there's supposedly science not supposedly, but there's science that shows like the ionized water coming off of the ocean coming off of waterfalls has some positive interaction with our physiology. I don't know the details. I'm sorry, but look it up. It's pretty cool stuff that we are really attracted to walking near bodies of water being your body's water for our stress. Okay, Eric said he likes to relax, okay, I love that just saying relax, because relax, I didn't even mention it could just be veg and out. Just chillin, read a book, right? Watching TV, playing a video game. I can play a violent video game, and it will relax me, which sounds crazy, right? But it's something that I really look forward to. I enjoy it. I'm good at it. It doesn't take a lot of thought. And as a result, I get relaxed regardless of whether the content seems quote unquote, stressful because I know it's fake. And that's just me. Okay. Anyway, relax. And then listen to podcasts. And listen to podcast is great way to reduce stress if it if it helps you relax, for example, or if it's entertaining, but also even if it's helping you with your personal growth. And it solves some sort of problem for you as you're listening. And maybe it maybe inspires you to write down an action that you're going to take and then that gives you confidence and certainty as to your next step. Leanne says reprioritizing tasks. I love this one, this is related to the organization and planning. But this is saying let me look at all the things on my to do list and reprioritize them, which could include eliminating them. But it also is putting the most important and urgent ones at the top right, maybe getting some out of the way right now getting them done. Maybe delegating them. So that could definitely reduce stress. Shannon said I love this quote, lift heavy, heavier and heaviest I had to include in there. I just love the quote the idea of lifting heavy reduces stress, I can attest to that. And pretty much everybody I know who lives heavy states that that's the case, there's absolutely no negatives that I can think of to lifting heavy with good form. You know, so there you go. Chrissy says yoga and cleaning. So yoga, specifically, a lot of people love to do yoga, as a form of movement, and mindfulness. And then cleaning, this goes under the category of I guess organizing maybe being in control, right and being proud and happy about your space around you. Very important. Right? A lot of people get stressed just seeing a bunch of clutter lying around. Brianne said Transcendental Meditation. Now she mentioned a specific book in the group. I didn't write it down for the notes. So go into the Wits, & Weights Facebook community, and you'll see a post that I did about what's your favorite way to reduce stress. And she mentioned it in there. But again, if you can't find it reach out. We'll point it out to you. But that's a very specific skill called transcendental meditation. Josh said organize, prioritize, execute. So I like how we included all of those which go under the planning and organization. And it kind of combines with what Leanne said about reprioritizing tasks. So organize your tasks, prioritize them, and then execute them. And that's actually an important one too, like, just getting stuff done, can reduce stress. And one of my quick quotes was about procrastination. And for many of you, you may be stressed because you're procrastinating. And so if you can use one of those tools to reduce your to do list

Philip Pape  34:28

that can reduce stress. All right, Tony mentioned one that I really liked here, reminding himself of the big picture. Yeah. How often do we get in the weeds? And we get stressed? Because we think there are a million things we have to do. And when you take a step back, you realize you know what, it's not that bad. Like, all these are nice, but there's this one thing that's really superseding all of it. Actually, it's what Carl Carl Berryman would call it Have your big lifts, the metaphorical big lifts in your life? So yeah. Carol said asked for help. Yes, you know, I didn't really have that up in the top while I had social connection. But asking for help specifically, from that group, to reduce your stress, so not just waiting to kind of get together in a, in a normal, relaxed situation. But when you're stressed right now, and you know, somebody can give you that help reach out and be specific and say, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm in a tough spot right now, could you help me with this thing and be specific and ask for help. And then she also said, venting to someone who will listen. So again, that's, that's related to social connection, if you have someone who you tend to help each other out, again, what Carl calls, give a spot, get a spot, right? They're probably one of the easiest people to talk to, and share with what's actually going on and vent. And they'll be accepting of that, right, and be able to take on some not even take the burden to you, it's a burden that you're releasing to the other person, it's probably a privilege that they can on, you know, release the burden from you. And they're not really taking on a burden. By doing that. In fact, they're, they probably feel more fulfilled, at least that's how I feel about it, when I'm helping someone who wants to vent and they're doing it in a genuine way and looking for support. And then the one I have that I just came up with, on my way to recording this podcast was, don't always listen to your podcasts on high speed. Like I said to x, I never listened to that fast. But sometimes I'll listen to them at 1.25 or 1.5, just to speed them up a bit. I think it's okay to do that. Sometimes, like if it's the information is kind of superficial enough that you don't have to hear every word and you're just trying to get the general content in. And maybe maybe I'm making an excuse and rationalizing, but if you do it all the time, I feel like it's going to hype you up to kind of wire you up and get you anxious. I've done that. And then I go to have a conversation. And I feel like it's slow. I'm like, Oh, that's not good. Like it's a time dilation, you know, kind of gravity will phenomenon happening there. So anything that wires you up, that can be slowed down is possibly a way to reduce stress. Okay, so that was a whole bunch of like, things that you can try. There are supplements as well that can aid with stress and cortisol, in particular, such as the adaptogens, or nootropics. Now, the big one that you hear about a lot is ashwagandha. And I will swear by this for a lot of people. But again, I'm not as a nutrition coach, I can't prescribe anything, these are herbal supplements, I'm not recommending them specifically to anyone, I'm just putting them out there. If you want to experiment with yourself ashwagandha, rhodiola, Rosea, Panax. Ginseng, there's others. And for a lot of people, this fills a gap or addresses a deficiency that is related to stress, and then it reduces their stress, I'm not going to go into the mechanism behind them. Because I don't want to spend too much time talking about supplements when there are a lot of natural lifestyle changes that can be made first. But the other thing that comes to mind, we talked about nutrition and micronutrients. I think if you have a deficiency that can be easily checked, usually with bloodwork, like magnesium. Or if you're vegan, and you want to take B complex vitamins, you know, B 12. That alone could could be also causing stress if you don't have enough of a certain mineral, or vitamin. And then we have what I'm going to call stress management skills. And I left these for the end as a separate section because I think they're more advanced. And sometimes tell me if I'm not wrong in your head here. Because this is a one way conversation. Sometimes I get I don't know, if you do I get stressed out thinking about stress management, like thinking about, okay, now I need to do mindfulness, I need to do meditation and breath work. And all the things I'm gonna mention here, that's actually three of the six things I'm gonna mention. But I don't want you to feel stressed that you have to go do some advanced skill, some guided thing, something you have to like learn over days or weeks. And even though these are helpful, and a lot of people swear by them, I'd rather you take the simple, easy step first, and then put this on, you're like, Okay, that's my, that's my next level list. And these are mindfulness. And that means a lot of things. For a lot of people, that simply means being in the moment and being present. Right. Alan Friedman and our group did a mindfulness session recently. It was also alternate nostril breathing, which is a form of breathwork. That's available in the community. And I think I put out an episode on that recently, over the holidays. So check that out if you want to be guided through it in an easy way. But there are also apps like the aura ring has an app. There's breathe and breath and so many apps that have mindfulness meditation and breathwork type activities and they just have a calming voice that walks you through for one minute, five minutes, 10 minutes, some exercise to help you get in the moment and reduce your stress So I'm not against any of those, I just want you to be aware, there are a lot of other things you can do as well. So we have mindfulness, we have meditation, we have breath work, and breath work could be as simple as belly breathing, or the four second, or the box breathing technique, or the alternate nostril breathing. We also have cognitive reappraisal, which is a fancy way of saying, re framing. So this one I actually like a lot. But it's not like something you just do necessarily so much as you it's a principle, and a way of thinking, when you say or write something about yourself, of reframing the situation from a negative to a positive. And I use this with clients all the time, like this is almost every week with every client, there's something that they might say, that can be reframed to put in a positive light. And that can reduce stress, because now it takes you from thinking, your failure, stress to, oh, I just learned something. And now I can make a choice to do something different control, less stress. A few other things are guided imagery. I mean, I could add a whole bunch of things to this list. But the last one I want to add, and this is something you can do right now, if you have someone in the vicinity is hug someone. Can you hug someone right now? And you know, what if you can't hug someone in the vicinity, or it would be weird, because you're in the grocery store, and then strangers, hug yourself, like, hug yourself and just love yourself right now. I'm serious, hug someone or hug yourself. That's what I'm talking about with connection, and how that can reduce stress. And some of us are isolated. We're working from home. We are rarely out and about seeing people. Hopefully we're doing it more now with the world a little bit more opened up again. But some of us are oftentimes in a very isolated environment for long stretches. And if you can connect with someone in any way whatsoever, do it. I hope that this episode has connected with you in some way as well. I help my calm soothing voice has helped. Just kidding. And yeah, I think I think that covers stress, I could just go on and on and on. But this episode, I want to keep it less than an hour. So what I'm going to say here is that stress itself can be a big, overwhelming, stressful topic. So again, if there's one takeaway from this episode is this identify one lifestyle change, or stress management technique that we just mentioned in the show? That sounds fun and easy for you to implement. And then reserve time in your schedule this week. For that activity. You can use the timestamps in the show notes to go back to the last section where I explained all of those right, go back to the timestamps don't stress, it's easy to go find it, use the timestamp and just pick one. Alright, last thing. Just as a reminder, I created a free stress solution guide to go along with this episode. It's basically very detailed outline that mirrors the content of the show pretty exactly. I mean, I basically took my notes and I turned it into a guide for you. And you can download that at wits & weights.com/free, or click the link in my show notes. Again, that's wits & weights.com/free or click the link under the episode resources in the show notes. Okay, in our next episode 135 The truth about testosterone for women's health with Karen Martell, one of our most popular guests, Karen Martell of the hormone solution podcast is back and she is uncovering the truth about testosterone for women. You'll learn the role of testosterone and women's health and vitality who might benefit from testosterone therapy. Common questions related to the benefits, safety and dosage of TRT and where all this is headed into the future. As always, stay strong. Don't stress and I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Ep 133: Making Fitness Fun Again Through Adventure with Kelly Howard

How can the spirit of adventure revitalize your fitness journey? What concepts help you overcome common hurdles to staying consistent with your fitness goals?

In this episode, Philip  (@witsandweights) talks with Kelly Howard, a Fitness Consistency Expert with a touch of Adventure and the author of FIT: Active & Ageless for Life. Learn how the spirit of adventure can revitalize your fitness journey. You will learn how to overcome common hurdles to staying consistent with your fitness goals. The show explores the concepts of a ‘Fitness North Star,’ ‘Layered Accountability,’ and external vs. internal motivation. You can expect to expand your comfort zone, reignite your passion for fitness, and embrace a sense of fun and adventure.

Kelly has helped thousands of women prioritize their fitness for over 25 years to feel great and have more fun in this second half of life. She invites women to adventure out of their comfort zones by trying new experiences they may have only imagined. Kelly’s Fit is Freedom podcast, coaching, online courses, and retreats change lives daily. She currently calls Houston, Texas, home but can often be found kayaking rivers and traveling trails worldwide.

Episode Summary:

Embarking on a fitness journey can often feel like a daunting task filled with strict routines and challenging workouts. However, when approached with the right mindset and strategies, it can transform into an adventure filled with joy, motivation, and sustainable habits. This podcast episode with fitness expert Kelly Howard offers an insightful exploration into how we can mix adventure with exercise to cultivate a vibrant and steadfast health routine.

Kelly emphasizes the concept of finding your 'Fitness North Star,' a compelling vision that propels you forward and transforms mundane daily habits into a passionate pursuit of well-being. This idea serves as a beacon, guiding you through the highs and lows of your fitness journey, and ensuring that every step taken is one filled with purpose and enjoyment. By identifying what truly motivates you, whether it's the desire to be an active grandparent or the thrill of completing a challenging hike, you can align your fitness goals with deeper personal values, leading to a more fulfilling and enduring lifestyle.

A crucial aspect of sustaining a fitness journey is developing a robust accountability system. Kelly introduces a pyramid-like structure where each layer supports the next, creating an unshakeable foundation for personal growth. The base of this pyramid is personal motivation, followed by expert coaching, and finally, the collective strength of a community. This multi-layered approach addresses the shortcomings of relying solely on friends or partners for accountability and provides a more effective system that combines intrinsic drive with external support.

Kelly and the host discuss the importance of incremental progress rather than grand gestures. This perspective shifts the focus from achieving sporadic, large-scale goals to embracing small, routine steps that collectively lead to significant improvements. They explore how adventure, in its many forms, can be integrated into fitness routines to foster a sense of anticipation and engagement. From trying new activities to setting ambitious events like a 'misogi,' the inclusion of adventure in your fitness regimen can rekindle passion and commitment to your health goals.

Moreover, the conversation sheds light on the significance of rest days, the concept of 'body in motion stays in motion,' and the critical mindset of restarting versus giving up. Emphasizing the foundation built from previous efforts, Kelly likens restarts to muscle memory, suggesting that with an established base, restarts should be more accessible, enabling one to maintain momentum and continue progressing.

One of the most captivating segments of the episode focuses on the importance of fun and play in our fitness journeys. The dialogue reveals how incorporating playfulness can alleviate stress, broaden our perspective, and lead to better life choices. By being intentional with leisure time and creating a list of enjoyable activities, listeners are encouraged to infuse their workouts and daily lives with elements of fun, enhancing their overall well-being.

In conclusion, the episode leaves listeners with an invitation to visit fitisfreedom.com, where they can access further resources and connect with Kelly Howard for guidance on their fitness journey. The conversation underscores the message that fitness is not merely about the workouts but about embracing the journey, the challenges, and the joy of living an energetic and purpose-driven life. By implementing the insights shared in this episode, anyone can set forth on a more adventurous and fulfilling path toward fitness and health.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:07 What adventure means

3:51 Overcoming struggles with staying consistent

7:22 Create a schedule and aim for 80 percent

9:17 Finding and following your Fitness North Star

15:14 Building and using layered accountability

18:54 Where does community fit into the layer

23:22 Expanding comfort zones with new fitness activities

25:46 Making fitness fun and adventurous

27:55 Setting exciting fitness goals for the future

29:59 How adventure shapes fitness goals 

32:00 Expanding comfort zones with new fitness activities

35:09 Where the fun and positivity fit in

39:35 One question Kelly wished Philip had asked

40:33 Where to find Kelly

40:58 Outro

Episode resources:

• Website: https://fitisfreedom.com/ 

• Get a FREE digital copy of Kelly’s new book FIT: Active & Ageless for Life 

🩷 Enjoyed this episode? Share it on social and tag me @witsandweights

🤩 Love the podcast? Leave a 5-star review

💪 Want to map out YOUR exact strategy for workouts and nutrition for the next 6 months?
Schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

🚀 Want to get 1-on-1 accountability, a personalized plan, and 24/7 access to a coach? Apply for 1-on-1 coaching

✉️ Join hundreds of driven individuals and get access to the FREE Wits & Weights email list with insider strategies, bonus content, and conversations with experts in evidence-based fitness and nutrition so you can achieve your ideal health and physique.

👥 Join our highly engaged, active Facebook community for even more support and exclusive live trainings and Q&As

📞 Want to ask a question? Send a Q&A voicemail

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Kelly Howard  00:00

For me, like I've always said that my Northstar a couple of them. One of them is that I just want to feel as good as I possibly can as for as long as I possibly can. So I can do all the things that I love to do. And so it's just always looking for those things. It gets you excited.

Philip Pape  00:17

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. My guest today is Kelly Howard, the fitness consistency expert with a touch of adventure and the author of fit, active and ageless for life. Kelly and I met through the world of podcasting she had me on her show fit is freedom. So make sure to subscribe to her podcast and get notified when that one comes out. And today we're diving into how the spirit of adventure can revitalize your fitness journey. You'll learn how to overcome common hurdles to staying consistent with your fitness goals. We'll explore the concepts of a fitness Northstar layered accountability and external versus internal motivation. Get ready to expand your comfort zone reignite your passion for fitness and embrace the sense of fun and adventure. for over 25 years Kelly has helped 1000s of women prioritize their fitness so they can feel great and have more fun. In the second half of life. She invites women to adventure out of their comfort zones by trying new experiences they may have only dreamt of her fit is Freedom podcast, coaching online courses and retreats change lives daily. And she currently calls Houston Texas home, but can often be found kayaking, rivers and traveling trails worldwide. Kelly, welcome to the show.

Kelly Howard  01:58

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Philip Pape  02:01

I'm excited as well, I think we had a great conversation on your show. And I'm sure we will have another one today. I love your recurring theme of adventure in your work, fun and adventure. Let's just start right there. What does adventure mean to you? How do you weave that into the fabric of your fitness philosophy?

Kelly Howard  02:18

Sure. So I have noticed that there's so few things that women in general, and guys to don't really have to look forward to when it comes to fitness. It's like the next number on the scale. And it's so boring. Like, no one gets excited about the number on the scale when it comes down, I guess they do and when it goes up, they're tragic. And so it's no fun. So I thought, how can we change this narrative? And I thought, you know, what gets me going in life is adventures and its interest can be anything, okay? Adventures don't have to be trekking the jungle, they can be taking the taking the kids to, you know, a new park, they can be adventurous can be anything. But it's something that gets you excited, something that piques your interest, something that you have to look forward to. And it just makes to me a huge difference. Yeah,

Philip Pape  03:15

that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it really does. Because even when you do go after those boring goals, and they, they kind of go back and forth. It's like, what's next? You know, like, what? What do we push, and they're so fleeting, right? And we've heard the concept of enjoying the process or loving the process. But even the process itself can get a little mundane depending on what you're going after. So I know you're like a, you're a big fan of consistency and talking about how you can be more consistent. And that's one of the biggest struggles people say is I can't be consistent, and then it sounds like adventure can be a good way to get you on that path. What are the predominant reasons that people have a challenge with consistency? And then how does adventure come into that? Sure.

Kelly Howard  03:58

So consistency is one of those things that it's it's kind of like a unicorn. And also like something that is, is so mundane, that is part of us, but we don't really realize it because a lot of times people think that when they have to be quote unquote, consistent, it has to be big stuff. Right? Like, you know, the big workouts, the big goals, you know, all the big things. And so often what's very simple is that if we make it small, and that 1% A day kind of thing, it gets so much simpler and easier. So consistency. One thing people will say to me is, well, I'm not motivated, right? Consistency comes from motivation. Consistency actually doesn't come from motivation and motivation. We can talk about that if we want but consistency really comes from those little bitty routines. I'm not a big fan. You know, habits are a nice thing, but I'm not a big fan of the word habit. Because habit is it's a scary word, right? It's like oh, Oh gosh, I gotta change my habits. But if we just make these small little routines that we add in on a daily basis, and we find all the things that we need to do that will help it. Because there's so many pieces to it, right? Like you mentioned layered accountability, there's accountability, there's motivation. There's, you know, that Northstar of adventure. Those are all routines that allow us to become more consistent. So consistency itself, in the end, is nothing more than taking the right step every day, as small as it needs to be. Yeah,

Philip Pape  05:33

I love that approach. Right. Just recently, I was listening to someone talk about how habits, the H word that we don't like, we often make them big and complex, right? Like, okay, I want to get 10,000 steps a day. And when you're getting three, we'll go from three to 10. And think of that as a single step can be a big problem for people, because what does it take to get to 10? You don't just set a number and get the number, right. You have to now? Yeah, I need to incorporate a walk here. I need to change something here. I need to do this. And those are all maybe the little things that you're talking about that are individually achievable, right?

Kelly Howard  06:09

Yeah, it's such a good way to put it because we do we pick these arbitrary numbers that I don't know, we just make up like 10,000. I looked that up one day, I thought, why can't acid and although all I could find is that it was something that came from an arbitrary number that someone else made up and said, this is you know, the number of steps you should do every day. I couldn't find anything on there that said, this is you know, this is the number that's going to make us healthy. So a lot of these things are just like these arbitrary numbers we come up with, and then we think we have to do them. When in fact, if we just like, follow it, our body says, some days we push harder, so much easier. Yeah. The

Philip Pape  06:56

10,000 steps. It's funny, just like less than a month ago, I think I found a source for that. It was like a Japanese pedometer company in the 70s or 80s. And they actually called it like the 10,000, the 10,000 step meter or something. Anyway. Is that cool? Yeah. totally arbitrary. It might have been might have been an atom Bernstein's book you mentioned I'm not sure. But anyway, back to the consistency thing. One other related theme to that is, I think I saw an infographic recently and put it nicely where there were seven days, right, each day was a circle, and some days are fuller than others on that circle, right? And the idea that progress can be measured in different ways. That doesn't mean doing everything every day, or being successful with everything every day. What are your thoughts on that as well, they probably come in many forms. That's

Kelly Howard  07:45

the Okay, that's a big one for me. Like, I think that like one of the things that I suggest to people and I don't have a lot of shoulds. But this is pretty much a should, you should create a schedule every week. Because we both know this, when you have a schedule. It's real. Right? When you people will come to me, and they'll be like, Oh, I think I'm going to do three workouts this week and maybe a couple of hikes. I'm like, great. And when are you going to do that? Well, I don't know yet. So let's not do that. Let's

Philip Pape  08:14

let's figure it out by one day or exactly.

Kelly Howard  08:17

And so when you look at that, and you create that schedule, the next piece of it is that I like to go, can you hit 80% of it. 80% of it sounds kind of like I don't know, like you're not trying hard enough. But life happens. And if you can hit 80% of that whole week, all the circles 80% of them, then you're doing great, you can hit 90% You're like a rockstar. If you're hitting 100% You're probably not trying hard enough.

Philip Pape  08:49

Or your circles not big enough. I love the 80% too, because it I don't know if it has to do with like the golden ratio. There's something that humans are attracted to it that 8020 We see it in the Pareto Principle, right 20% of the effort gives you a percent the results. But I've heard that a lot. And it's probably comes down to the fact that most people are trying for 100% and falling falling away. We were short, and then it's this chasm of all or nothing. But I want to talk about your fitness Northstar for for a second, because I don't know what it is. First of all, you could tell us what it is. And it sounds well. Northstar to me sounds like having having a competence having a deeper purpose or meaning, you know, behind something that's driving you. What is it and how can someone find this Northstar?

Kelly Howard  09:36

Ya know, it's it's a little bit about what we talked about in the beginning. And one of one of the North Stars could be an adventure. But really what a North Star is, is it's finding that thing that gives you more purpose than just the way you look. Right like or just the way the cow just with the capricious scale. says, right? You never know like, what's gonna happen in the bathroom on the scale. So what a Northstar is is I thought, you know, what is the thing that really gets us going? And I'll give you a if you don't mind, I'm gonna tell you a quick story. This is somebody who came to me about a month ago. And she said to me, she said, I said, Why are you here? Why don't we want to work together? She said, I need to lose 20 pounds. Great. Why? She said, Well, my daughter's getting married. Okay, so why do you need to lose 20 pounds for that? Well, I gotta get into the dress. Okay, why? And you just keep asking that way. We know this one, right? We know that if you ask the why enough, you're gonna get to that point. And we got to that point, because all of a sudden, she said, Well, I don't look like I used to. And I don't feel like I used to. And I said, why? And so that's when, you know, her eyes got a little shiny. And she said, she said, Well, I just haven't felt good in years. I said, Okay, so what's it really about? She said, what it's really about is, I'm afraid of the next 50 years, or 40 years, or what I have. And I don't know what to do. I was like, Well, that's easy, right? Really, when you get to that point, you're really finding a Northstar. Because for her, what it ended up being was, she wanted to be there. For those grandkids, she always wanted to be like, you know, deep down inside, she wanted to be that cool grandmother, and the one that took them kayaking, and took them on trips and things like that, like those were all of that wants, but she was unwilling to admit it. Because she thought that, that life had passed her by too quick. And so when we pulled out the North Star that, you know, these are all the things that are gonna make your life shine. It changed everything. Like, yeah, it was she went, she's she's gonna looking great, right? She's already looking great. She because she hadn't, you know, you know, that plateau. She hadn't hit that plateau yet. So she's losing weight, and she's gaining muscle and she's having a good time. But at the same time, the end is going to be so much different for Yeah, and for me, like I've always said that, my Northstar, a couple of them. One of them is that I just want to feel as good as I possibly can as for as long as I possibly can. So I can do all the things that I love to do. Yeah. And so it's just always looking for those things that gets you excited. Yeah.

Philip Pape  12:27

And you said something there that she's that after she was after she started to make progress. She said it's going to be different. In other words, the the satisfaction she gets from that is going to be more long lasting, because it tied to the thing she really wanted. Exactly, even though it also satisfies these other superficial things that we all think we want. Right? Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And this why approach? So I mean, you know, I've heard that before, obviously use it with clients as well. Like why why why is it Is it as simple as that it may be right. Like I think sometimes we overcomplicate it, but people listening who just want to do this for themselves with a piece of paper right now? Did they just need to ask themselves why? And keep going down that path?

Kelly Howard  13:06

I think so. Okay. And there's one more piece to it, though is they have to be honest,

Philip Pape  13:11

honest with yourself. We lie to ourselves. I mean,

Kelly Howard  13:15

I'm good at asking questions that I'm really good at watching reactions with people, sometimes for people. When we get to a stage where we're where we're uncomfortable, we don't want to keep going. I just came back from a trip in Costa Rica had a group of women there, it was much more adventurous than I had anticipated. And one of the things I was talking to one of the women yesterday, we had a we had a little incident in a river, where we ended up getting our raft, stuck, gets rocking, it was sinking. And we had to get everybody off the raft, and bring in another raft. And she was unstable, not flexible, and didn't have the strength that she really needed. And she looked at me right in the face yesterday, and she went, I have my why. She said, I want to be able to crawl up on a boulder in the middle of a river and stand up and not be terrified. And there you go.

Philip Pape  14:16

It's so true. And I love that example. Because it's not it doesn't always it's not always easy. I'll say to find it. If you're just in a random moment, try to figure out right, like, it might come to you. Or you might even start to go toward one purpose, and then it can evolve, right, you can evolve Exactly. That think about moving the raft. It's funny, because years ago, not too many years ago, we had moved to our new house and my wife wanted a garden. And so I said, Well, we have all these tree trunks that were felled nearby. Why don't we just move them over? And I'm there and I'm like, Alright, here we go. deadlift that thing up and I'm like, I would not have been able to lift this a year earlier. Like that is so cool to be able to you know, your I could support my wife and I able to garden right? It's like little things like that make you appreciate life. So okay, that's, that's awesome. So now we know the Northstar is the deep purpose it can, it can be crafted through exercise through practice and exercise, or it can come to you with with these practices. There's also the accountability piece you mentioned earlier. And we understand how important this is to supporting someone, right? And even teaching people to hold themselves accountable through those daily practices you mentioned. But you talk about layered accountability. So can you explain what that is? So

Kelly Howard  15:31

with accountability, in the end, my end goal is for people to be 100% accountable to themselves. Like that's, that's it, right? If you can be 100% accountable to yourself, and you've just, you've just won, you've won the fitness lottery. But to get there, most of us have never had that kind of support. So I think of it as like a pyramid. So you start with the very, very bottom, and the very bottom of that layer of accountability is something simple. So first, accountability buddies are nice, but you need to know the ones not to use. There's the big bad three is what I consider. One of them is your best friend. Your best friend's job is to make you happy. It's not to keep you keep you on track. You know, when you're when you're in accountability. I have a very good friend, she does this to me every year. She's like, Would you be my accountability, buddy, and I'm like, Oh, gosh. And you know, the texts are flying. And then they start petering off. And then I'm like, how you doing? Yep, you meet. And you know, she's like radio silence because she can get away with it. Best friends know, life partners know, they know every thing, every button to push to get you on the on the couch with the remote control, watching Netflix and eating pizza. Like that's their job, because most of them usually don't want to do what you're asking them to do. And then apps, a lot of people depend on, you know, different phone apps to keep them in line. So I can work. But that can be like, start one that can be layer one issues in an app. Because you know, it works. So then you then you come up and you step in and you're like, what's next layer? Next layer for different people could be different things, one of them might be signing up for something that is a goal of 5k, an adventure trip, or wedding, whatever it is, right?

Philip Pape  17:28

Maybe a challenge, a challenge, right?

Kelly Howard  17:30

If you have that next step, then the next step up is, and you're doing all of these at once. That's why it's layered. It's not like what try one thing, try another thing, but just do it all. Some of it works, some of it won't, then maybe you need a coach, right? Someone needs to like, I've got a client right now she's like, I can't get to the gym, I might hire a trainer. Do not even want to hear from you again, until you hire a trainer. And so you know, a coach. And then in your North Star, you just, it's it's a pyramid. And it's using everything you have learning that motivation, like motivation always falls in there somewhere. It's a learned skill, something we're born with or not, learn your motivation, find the things, find your triggers, all of these things, just like you know, they pile on top of each other. And if you use them all, you actually end up creating a way of being who you are that then you don't need all of it, because you've got it.

Philip Pape  18:34

That is good. You don't need it all. Because you've got Ah, that's so good. Because what I what I was thinking of here is, is the support system raise what you're talking about, I think, right? And I haven't heard it put so elegantly. So I like that I'm going to be stealing this in the future. And I'll give credit where it's due. But because sometimes the way I put it is, is you know, you've got, you've got your community, you've got coaches, you've got yourself, right, like it's kind of what you're saying. And don't it's not like a pyramid of hierarchy of needs, where you have to wait for one to exist before the other. It's just kind of in parallel. You're starting to weave these in your life. Where Where does the community fit in as at the middle part where you said, it's all these different things? The event the challenges center? Yeah, I think

Kelly Howard  19:15

community is probably interspersed throughout, like one way you'd find with communities like right now, we just started an accountability group for the next two months. And we're doing I think there's five people in each group. And I'm kicking it off for you. I'm checking element in with everybody, but it's just starting to get traction. So now all of a sudden, you have these five people who didn't know each other a week ago, are starting to get to know each other. They're, you know, sharing things that matter. And it will keep them going. Right, that will definitely keep them going. And then there's community like your community or my community where you've got those friends that you need, but it is it's woven all in through. Yeah,

Philip Pape  19:57

I love it. So and if you don't have that to be Getting with it sounds like there's a big gap between now where you want to be with a self accountability because like you said, it starts there and then eventually you want to get to that. Ideally 100% accountable for yourself. Now, is that is that the intrinsic motivation we're talking about? Or what do you? What role does self accountability play? Yeah,

Kelly Howard  20:18

I think I think it is just like, it just is what you do. Right? It's like, it's for you, right? It's just what you do. It's who you are. It's what you do. In the story. You don't think about it. I mean, every so often, you might have one, like, this morning, I had one of those days. My timing was off. It was a, it was a wait day timings off. I'm, I'm thinking my first thought was, well, I'll just put this off till tomorrow. And then, you know, I'll do it. I'll do it Saturday, and I have less stuff going on. And then my brain my, the other part of my brain was like, Kelly, I call BS on that, because you will not do it tomorrow. And you know, so what's your options, and, you know, it's like, you've got the devil in the angel on your shoulders, and you negotiate. For me, I negotiate it, okay, I'll cut it shorter. But I'm going to do what I said I was gonna do, and ended up not even cutting it shorter. I just, my day just started a little later. But, but it is, it's that thing where you have to, you have to on this one, just be willing to have super awareness, super awareness of yourself. That that gets you where you need to be. For sure

Philip Pape  21:27

you hit it there at the end with self awareness. Almost anything you take emotion, emotional intelligence, you know, setting these goals, like you said, the deeper purpose, take some level of just intentionality and thinking about who you are what you're trying to get out of this. When you mentioned the giving yourself excuses with the devil on your shoulder. I like that it brought up two things to mind. One is where we, we know so much deep in our soul, we want to do it. So even though we're starting to make this excuse, we still find a way. And we find a way we want to find a way. And the other is it almost becomes the opposite of excuse making sometimes I know, at least for me, when I work out, I will make excuses to work out. Because I haven't I want to do it so badly. That it becomes the opposite problem, which is not a terrible thing to have. It's shows how much momentum you have built into it. Yeah, where some of the other person in the room is like, it's too cold. You know, the gyms too far. You know, it's like, other excuses. Yeah,

Kelly Howard  22:27

no, it's, uh, you're right, it is momentum. Yeah, because you know, a body in motion stays in motion, and you just have to figure out what's going to keep you moving.

22:37

Before my coaching session with Phillip, I was really struggling with staying consistent with my nutrition, Phillip really showed me the importance of being consistent day to day, he also helped me see that it's not a bad thing to take a rest day, he really helps me get in that more positive headspace of a rest day being something really good for me. I've been doing this for a month now. And I'm finally starting to see some progress and my numbers. And I'm really excited about that. And I just appreciate so much the help that Philip has given me. He's always willing to answer questions to offer resources that are totally free, and very, very helpful. So I just want to say how much I appreciate that. Thanks, Phil.

Philip Pape  23:22

So what happens when things get really tough then and life happens, life's going to happen? And it just pushes you past that brink of even the self accountability just not gonna carry through at that point? Yeah.

Kelly Howard  23:35

Perfect. The perfect question, because probably 99% of people that I work with, they've gotten to that point where they went, you know what? I've tried it all. It's not gonna work. I don't know why you think this is gonna work, right? And what that really is, is it's not that they've tried it all, and it's not gonna work. It's that they weren't really willing to restart when they stopped. And that's life, right? It's just restarting every time we have to, like, I mean, it's just the way it is. There are lots of times I came back from Costa Rica. It was an amazing trip. And I was like, Whoa, I am way behind. And what did I do? I just like dove in and started working good. And after three days, I went, Kelly, you gotta restart what matters? And it's not that I just went, Oh, well, I didn't start my workouts right away. So I might as well just give up, essentially, just start again, every time.

Philip Pape  24:38

That's good. That's good. I've seen this happen to me. And also I've seen clients who we work with them for a long time. You see what life brings in terms of cycles? Yeah, and if one bad thing after another can happen to people like within a span of days or weeks, and all of a sudden these things fall off for a decent amount of time, right and it may not be in your control but like you said What is your mindset? Is it okay, I'm done? And it's like starting over, or am I just restarting what I already have? So, yeah, that's a healthy way to think about it. You know, and

Kelly Howard  25:09

the thing is, is that if we're restarting, we have a foundation that we didn't have before. Every time like, people don't realize this, and, and then they'll say to me, oh, my gosh, you know, I was able to do XYZ. And I'm like, of course, you are, like, you have a foundation. You just might have missed some time. It's like

Philip Pape  25:29

muscle memory. I actually, that's a great analogy. It's like muscle memory when people lifted for years, and then they stop. Even if it's 10 years later, they started listening again, the strength comes back quickly. Right? Yeah, your brain just knows it's wired for it. Exactly. Good one. So it should be easier than is the point. All right. So the the whole thing about events, you talked about the middle part of the layered accountability. I had a gentleman on my show very cards recently talked about Miss Sogi. I don't know if you've heard the term. But it's having this big, maybe this scary, like annual event to look forward to? You know, like, for him it was this giant mountain climb. Right. And then you also mentioned the importance of having something to look forward to plans to look forward to so maybe dig into that one. How, what are some concrete examples of where you use that? Or people can do that?

Kelly Howard  26:15

Oh, yeah. So okay. I hope that people listening, your audience likes the idea of adventure, because I'm gonna just come back to this again and again. For myself, I will say that, every year, I go and meet some friends for about a 10 day, whitewater kayaking, I know that if I'm not able to carry that kayak, up and down for miles, if I'm not able to do all the things that it takes, I'm not gonna have as much fun. I am not about to ask somebody for help. So that would be, I guess, in the scope Muskogee for me is that I know that's coming. And by gosh, I'm going to make sure that I put it into my training. For other people, it could be something different. It could be for years, I did like mini triathlon sprint. And so that was always one of those things have always had this one particular one. That was the hardest one ever, like, nobody would sign up because it was so darn hard. And they'd be like, Why are you doing that? And like, it's so hard. You just feel so good when you get done. Right? So, and it can be different for all of us. Like, it doesn't have to be like the hardest sprint you've ever found or a Olympic trial you've ever found. But it can be something that you know is going to push you so far past your limit, that you never come back to who you were before. It's nice. Yeah, expanding that comfort zone. Yeah. Okay,

Philip Pape  27:46

so that that sounds great. I am inspired to think about next year and where that's gonna happen in my life since I had two little two girls, and they love adventure, too. So what does is that enough? Or is are there like quarterly check ins and plans that you recommend? Like what's what's your general philosophy on? Since we're talking about not losing weight and all the boring stuff went? How frequent is your cadence on these kinds of?

Kelly Howard  28:09

Yeah, that's a good question. So I think that, like having watched a lot of accountability groups, having run a bunch of accountability groups, what I've noticed is that people are usually pretty solid for except for let's let's take New Year's out because New Year's is an outlier, right? But if they get started on something, you're usually pretty solid for six to eight weeks, you know, that's they can hang, then things happen. Maybe they've been putting off the work that needs to happen next month needs to get taken care of, or the you know, whatever it is. So, somewhere in that six to eight week period, I always ask people just like, recheck in, you know, restart, almost recommit, then the other number is 90 days. And I like 90 days, because 90 days is such a, it's a quarter, it's like a friend of mine always says it's like 1% of the next 25 years of your life. I'm like, wow, actually, she's right, if you do the math, so that's just like 1% What's 90 days gonna give you and then stretch it way out once a year, like think of the changes that you could make in a year. And if you can look at those and then bring it back always I ask everybody to bring it back to what's next What's tomorrow? Right like what's really going on tomorrow because you can dream all you want but if you're not knowing exactly what's coming up next. Yeah,

Philip Pape  29:36

that's great. And otherwise it's just this black hole leading up to the future of overwhelm almost like what you know there's there's nothing that's there in a way from without those check ins. So it's interesting because I've heard different philosophy or science on on all of this how like having seasons and having holidays are really good for humans in terms of, you know, pushing you to do things Um, could a process itself and I'm kind of asking this selfishly, I lift weights, and I like to lift for a cycle, I like to go for maybe 1216 weeks. And so I think, okay, at the end of that, I'm going to do something very different. And those are going to drive, how I eat and how I sleep and do all my other things. That would that work for folks like just having their process kind of periodized? In that way? Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah,

Kelly Howard  30:26

I know exactly what you're saying. So when I have somebody who's going with me on a trip, usually those trips are a stretch, a big stretch, right? And so when we're training for it, what I asked him to do is to start out, and it's a little different than you because you have this solid foundation, right? So you can do 12 to 16 weeks, boom, you're on it. But a lot of people don't have that foundation. So I asked them to start out like the first week, it's kind of like a build week, you know, or a foundational week, and then the next week, we step it up, the next week, we step it up. And then that fourth week, we bring it back a little bit. Like it's an easier week. And then next next month, you know, step it up, steps up, but it's exactly what we talked about earlier, because every time they come back, they're coming back to a higher level in their foundation. And they're also paying attention to exactly what you said their sleep. Is this working with their sleep? Is it making it better or worse? Now, how's their nutrition? And it allows them to be really cognizant what's going on in their bodies, when in fact, a lot of them have never really thought about it before? And it's always been just kind of eat less calories and, and, you know, do more cardio to lose weight.

Philip Pape  31:46

Yeah, right? No, I like that approach. It's the analogies is be like progressive overload or taking the loads, and you're saying you're pushing and progressing each week, but then you're kind of resetting, taking a break, recovering, and then you're continuing to push. And that's that's a clever idea of people listening, think about how to apply that creatively to different things that they're doing. So that it's not always go, go, go, go, go. And push, push, push. And maybe just add to that thinking out loud. The things in your life that would normally interrupt what you're doing. You can naturally schedule those in that fourth week that put them off with that week. Yeah, exactly. Just planted like when people say, should I should I strength train for the week? I'm on vacation? I'm like, probably not. But like, why don't we think ahead and make sure that that week is the week you don't need? Right.

Kelly Howard  32:33

Right?

Philip Pape  32:35

This is good stuff. Okay, so you talked about there's the big event, and we talked about a little bit of the comfort zone expanding? And I know, Different people use different phrases, some some say, going out of your comfort zone. I like expanding it because because it allows you to kind of hold on to part of your comfort zone. How can I guess where was my question gonna be on? This is like how I how can women in particular because I know that your audience, try these new experiences, you know, to get out of their comfort zone.

Kelly Howard  33:04

So I'll bring it back in. And I'll tell you this, the number one thing I hear people say, when I mentioned anything like, like what we're talking about, like, you know, expanding, they'll say, I don't want to hold people back. Or the flip side of that is I don't know if I can keep up. So when you hear those words, to me, that's like, you know, somebody to stab me in the heart? Because Absolutely, you can. And so how do you do it? So using that, and then just figuring out that it's not as big a push as you think it is? Like, I'll use a little quick story, like I do a lot longest in cycling. I'm not a great cyclist. I mean, I can go but I'm not fast. And it used to drive me crazy, because all my friends would be up there and they get to the rest stop. And then here it comes Kelly right. And one day I started counting how far ahead of me are they really, they were like 15 seconds, maybe, maybe, maybe 30 seconds on a big day. Like I can see him up there. And it suddenly occurred to me that it's just not that big a deal. Right? It's just not that big a deal. And when you can start thinking that way, then it's easier to just relax and do these things. appreciate them and go for it. And and that comfort zone is becomes an easier thing to push. Because all of a sudden you're just realizing that it's just

Philip Pape  34:33

not that big a thing. Yeah, it's almost like you're saying that instead of focusing on the gap, this huge, whatever the gap is, it's more of just continuing to gain toward whatever

Kelly Howard  34:46

they are. Exactly. Exactly. What is the gap in the game. The game

Philip Pape  34:50

of the game. Right, right. Exactly. Did is that on your podcast? That actually sounds okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I feel like I've heard that before. He's either Listen to so many. Alright, so let's bring it full circle here. You know, I'm all about fun, positivity adventure, you know, where does the fun and positivity part fit into this? Particularly for people who made that may not be their natural tendency, let's just say, What are your thoughts on that? And the fun part

Kelly Howard  35:19

of it? Yeah. Oh, well, okay. I think deep down inside my absolute goal in life is to get everybody to go play. Like, I that's, that's what I've always been right? I can, no, I'm like this. And I'm not a good cheerleader, but I can cheer people on. So everybody should play, play gives us it takes our mind off of the pain. If, like, just recently a very, very long, hard hike, I was trying to be playful, because it was super painful, takes our mind off the pain. But more than that, it it gives us something larger to think about something bigger to play with in life. And play again, I don't think a lot of us have as much fun as we should. Really, like it's probably true. You know, we take things are very serious. Life is busy, and getting busier and busier and busier, the world has been probably even a little bit more crazy than it normally is. And we get consumed. And as soon as we get consumed in that our it's like our broad scope of awareness start shrinking. And when we can play more, have more fun. Our scope of awareness increases. When it increases, it allows us to see all the opportunities that are out there for us. And we have better choices, we can find new things to do. We can enjoy ourselves more. So it's probably a self fulfilling prophecy. The more fun you have, the more fun you have.

Philip Pape  36:55

I need to make sure to schedule that go kart I wanted to do with my kids, they just go for it. That's funny you say that because I know in my life with my two daughters, we I'm really busy. But we have we have we call daddy time every day. And there's always some little way to quote unquote play even if the rest of the day is just jam packed. You know, it could be putting Legos together or good for whatever. But but sometimes you're right, we get caught up and you know, maybe plays different for different people. And you could play on your own I suspect and with other people like doesn't matter. Is it more about the social aspect of players just doing something to amuse yourself?

Kelly Howard  37:34

Oh, yeah. So for me, I tend to be an introvert. Okay, actually, most of the stuff I do unless I'm on a whitewater river I'm doing by myself. And you know, like me, you have probably an unusual schedule. So I can go at certain times. So I do play by myself a lot. And when I can I reach out to friends and say, Hey, do you want to go do something? And keep asking until they can? Because there should be for me. It's like 8020 80% By myself. 20% social, and I love that social. And I love the time alone to

Philip Pape  38:13

cool. Yeah, I mean, there's that I encouraged people listening, just think about, especially as we go into the holidays here and so for some people, it gets even more hectic in different ways. How can you find time to play whatever play means to you? I imagine that could be that could be a board game that could be a sport that could be going for a walk at a fun place. You haven't been to believe there's million ways you can define it. Right? It's just something entertaining. Yeah. Okay, really,

Kelly Howard  38:36

if there's something that I have my clients do all the time, as I say, creative, listless. Okay, I want you to just write down if you could do something, what would it be, if you if there's something that you love to do, write it down, and, and keep writing until you've got a list of 2530 things. And some of them are going to be play. Some of them might be you know, reading, like for me taken off top taking time off during the middle of the day to read. That's like, that's like Sneaky, sneaky. But I love it. Right? So. So finding that thing, if you've always got that list, and you can pick from it when you when you have time where you forget. That's

Philip Pape  39:18

great. It's been intentional about it instead of when you're when you're exhausted at the end of the day, and maybe have a half an hour an hour. And now you just go watch TV, which again, watching TV could be a fun thing occasionally as well. But, you know, being intentional about is here. Yeah. I think yeah, no, this has been great. I think we covered a lot of what we wanted to but I do I do like to ask guests one this one question toward the end here. And that is, is there anything you wished I had asked? And what is your answer? Oh, I

Kelly Howard  39:45

love that. I love it. I always I asked people what I'm trying to get, you know, details out of them. Like coaching. Is there something you should ask let me think for just one second. Sure. Um honestly, I don't think so, like you're spot on when you do these podcasts. I love your podcast. Cool. I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, you, you ask the questions, and we covered a lot of ground. Yes. Yeah. Great.

Philip Pape  40:18

And you made it easy. I mean, yeah, I think we meandered to all the things in that one topic. Of course, we can always talk about a million other things. But in that area, the fun the adventure, the consistency, accountability, I think we covered some really actual stuff. So thank you. Yes, thank you. So what where can people find you, Kelly, where do you want them to reach out to you?

Kelly Howard  40:37

Easiest place is just the website, which is that is freedom.com. It leads to my book, at least my social at least, finding me if you'd like to ask me questions. That's just the simplest place.

Philip Pape  40:49

Beautiful. Okay, fit is freedom.com. And your book is available as well. And I will put that in the show notes so people can can find you. And again, Kelly, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you

Kelly Howard  41:01

very much. And thank you for everybody listening.

Philip Pape  41:06

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Ep 132: The Elf Who Wanted to Improve His Health (and Get Jacked) - A Heartwarming Holiday Story

Today, Philip  (@witsandweights) tells a story about a little elf named Tinsel, to whom many of you may relate. As a father of two young daughters, he has learned how powerful stories can be to inspire us — sometimes just when we need to hear it. So sit back, relax with a cup of hot cocoa and even your favorite holiday treat, and enjoy the tale of The Elf Who Wanted to Improve His Health (and Get Jacked) - A Heartwarming Holiday Story.

Today you’ll learn all about:

1:55 Spotify numbers of the podcast
4:05 A holiday story
11:29 Outro

🩷 Enjoyed this episode? Share it on social and tag me @witsandweights

🤩 Love the podcast? Leave a 5-star review

💪 Want to map out YOUR exact strategy for workouts and nutrition for the next 6 months?
Schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

🚀 Want to get 1-on-1 accountability, a personalized plan, and 24/7 access to a coach? Apply for 1-on-1 coaching

✉️ Join hundreds of driven individuals and get access to the FREE Wits & Weights email list with insider strategies, bonus content, and conversations with experts in evidence-based fitness and nutrition so you can achieve your ideal health and physique.

👥 Join our highly engaged, active Facebook community for even more support and exclusive live trainings and Q&As

📞 Want to ask a question? Send a Q&A voicemail

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

In the snowy village of North Point, an elf named tinsel embarks on an enchanting journey of transformation. Discover how this unassuming little elf with a sprinkle of elfin magic and the wisdom of a friend finds his strength and inspires a whole village, join tinsel and a heartwarming tale of Health Resilience and the power of believing in oneself. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to a very special holiday episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. If you're watching me on video, you see that I have a little special something up on my head. And if you're listening on audio, you're still in for a treat today. In our last episode 131 Andy Baker on bodybuilding for hypertrophy and an aesthetic muscular physique, Andy joined me for his second appearance on the show to talk about bodybuilding style programming. Today for Episode 132, the elf who wanted to improve his health and get jacked, a heartwarming holiday story. I'm doing something completely different and telling you a story, a story about a little elf named tinsel, whom many of you may relate to. As a father of two young daughters, I've learned how powerful stories can be to inspire us sometimes just when we need to hear it. But before I do, you might have heard of the Spotify rap thing that's going around in the podcast world. It's kind of like a gift spot at Spotify is given to podcast hosts. And thank you to the listener this year 2023 has been one of growth and abundance for the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you to you. I'm grateful to you. And I wanted to share just a few of the numbers from the Spotify wrapped results just so you can get an idea of what kind of year it was. So one of the stats is that 95% of our listeners discover the podcast this year. So that's tremendous. That's almost everybody who listens to the show, discovered it this year, which just shows you how much it has grown. We had 859% increase in listeners 577% increase in followers. And in Spotify allows you to rank your podcasts as top, your top 10 podcasts. And we are a top 10 for 487 fans. So if you're listening, and you love the show, and you follow it and it's not yet in your top 10. But you think it should be go ahead into Spotify and put it up there. And I I'd love to see a screenshot tag me on social media. A lot of you are doing that already. So I appreciate it. 88% of listeners joined me for the first time this year. Thank you so much. That means so much to hear these incredible stats, I'm just going to leave it at that. I don't want to keep you hanging too too long here. But as we close out the year of 2023, I am so thankful to you for taking the time I know how precious time is. And you've taken the time to listen, to subscribe to share the podcast and the little bit of results that I just shared with you show that we are reaching even more people and making a huge positive difference out there. And of course, if you find the story that I'm about to tell you, inspiring educational hilarious, whatever it is to you touching heartwarming, please do just share this podcast with a friend so they can hear it as well. By the way, it should be kid friendly. So just giving that warning upfront that it actually is probably kid friendly. Now it's time to tell you the story of tinsel the girl sit back, relax with a cup of hot cocoa and even your favorite holiday treat. Remember nothing is off limits flexible dieting, and enjoy the tale of the elf who wanted to improve his health and get jacked. A heartwarming holiday story. In the magical snow kissed village of strong point. Nestled amidst glistening frost covered pines with Northern Lights often danced in the sky lived in elf named tinsel. Unlike his sprightly, energetic and nimble companions, tinsel often felt lethargic and out of shape his body lacking the strength and vitality of his peers. He longed to be as robust and lively as the other elves, who he watched in awe as they definitely lifted heavy sacks of toys and worked tirelessly in the vast expanse of Santos workshop, tinsel harbored a dream, a burning desire to be as robust and energetic as them. More importantly, he desired to be a better version of himself. One crisp winter evening under the sun glow of the moonlight Tencel shared history with his friend Whitney and weights and Whitney known for her wisdom and compassionate nature, not to mention strong points leading health and fitness podcast, listened thoughtfully for eyes reflecting the flickering flames of the fireplace. Tinsel when he began her voice as comforting as gentle as the gentle snow outside. The journey to health and strength begins with a single step. You have the power within you to make a change. And remember, it's not about what you remove from your diet, but what you add in. Let's start tomorrow. The next day. Emboldened by Whitney's words, tinsel set out with a newfound determination. He visited the village library and discovered buried deep among the dusty shelves in ancient pyramid shaped tome by Elric helm Shire and Andrew Moore Ganis elves renowned for their knowledge of nutrition and strength training. As tinsel devoured each page, he learned about the wonders of progressive strength training, a more flexible and personalized way to eat the importance of eating for satisfaction and satiety and how indulgences can be part of a healthy diet, including those delicious sugar cookies from the friendly Baker elves. Tinsel started applying these lessons, he began incorporating more protein and fiber into his meals. Noticing how they kept him full and energized. He learned to enjoy his favorite treats by planning them in understanding that restriction often led to overindulgence. Whitney supported him every step of the way, reminding him that real magic was found inconsistency, not perfection. However, tinsels initial steps toward transformation were fraught with fears and challenges. The bounty of sugary elfin treats was always present, especially during festive times. The biting cold have strong point often made him want to stay indoors. His muscles and his mind strained from the unfamiliar exertion of squats and deadlifts, and doubt frequently clouded his mind. But Whitney was always there. Her encouragement, a steady present, each day is a new opportunity tinsel. Each challenge you overcome is a victory in itself. Remember progress over perfection, she would say, as the festive season drew near. tinsel and Whitney embarked on a mission to transform traditional elfin dishes into higher protein alternatives. They experimented in the kitchen, creating recipes that were both nutrient dense and delicious. The other elves were pleasantly surprised by these nutrients, which were as satisfying as they were healthy. This initiative helped tinsel take a balanced approach to eating embracing proteins, fats, and carbs, and he soon inspired others in the village to do the same. His next step was to optimize his nutrition to make even more progress with his workouts. Tencel started to track his food using a magical handheld device for even greater awareness of his eating habits, shifting his carbs around his workouts and finding more opportunities to get steps in Santos workshop. And out among the frost covered dunes of strong point tinsels physical transformation became more evident with each passing day. His walks around the village turned into community events, and he became a fixture at Whitney's morning strength training sessions and compound lift camps. He discovered the joy of feeling strong and capable, who tinsel learn the value of consistency, personalized nutrition, flexibility, instead of restriction and the magic of rest and recovery. His confidence reached new heights and he became a source of motivation for other elves who struggled with their health. months into his journey. Tencel reflected on his growth. He had learned that health was about more than just physical appearance. It was about feeling good both inside and out. His was a path of self discovery, resilience and a newfound appreciation for wellbeing. He was grateful for Whitney's mentorship and unwavering support, as well as encouragement from the strong point community, which was essential in his journey. tinsels story had become a source of inspiration for many who now approached him for advice and motivation. The highlight of tinsels transformation occurred on Christmas Eve, Santa having noticed tinsels dedication and hard work, not to mention his physical strength and newfound confidence chose him to lead the team responsible for loading the sleigh with toys as tinsel skillfully and effortlessly lifted each heavy sack helping his fellow elves who needed it. Santa commended him tinsel Oh, Your journey is an inspiration. Your strength is a testament to your commitment and belief in yourself. The other elves looked on with respect and admiration. Their cheers echoing into the crisp frosty night, standing amidst the joy and celebration tinsels heart brimmed with a deep sense of pride and fulfillment. He had not only realize his dream, but it also become a symbol of hope and inspiration in strong point. His journey marked by a positive shift in his self identity, a balanced approach to life and cancer. sistent even if not perfect effort, became a cherished story told each holiday season, tinsel story from an elf who dreamt of being healthy and strong to one who achieved that and so much more was shared every year. It was a heartwarming reminder of the power of finding a sustainable approach for life that works for you attained with progress over perfection, a supportive community and a bit of elfin magic. The end, I hope you enjoy today's heartwarming story. And if you couldn't tell much of tinsels journey parallels my own and that of so many of you that I get to connect with on a daily basis. May it fill your cup with compassion, and hope, give you the inspiration to take that next step. And know that I and many others in our community are here to support you. All I ask of you is that you share this story with a friend who would enjoy it and spread the positive message far and wide. For our next episode. 133 making fitness fun again through adventure with Kelly Howard, we are diving into how the spirit of adventure can revitalize your fitness journey, you'll learn how to overcome common hurdles to staying consistent with your fitness goals, external versus internal motivation and how to embrace a sense of fun and adventure to reignite your passion for fitness. That will be the last episode of the year before I take a week off for Christmas and New Years. So if you and I don't talk before then, I wish you the happiest of holidays, a happy new year and a strong end to 2023. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Ep 131: Andy Baker on Bodybuilding for Hypertrophy and an Aesthetic, Muscular Physique

Are you ready to unlock the secrets of bodybuilding? Do you know the most effective way to build muscle mass? What is the most common mistake people make when trying to build muscle?

Philip (@witsandweights)  is thrilled to have the incredible Andy Baker back with him today. They discussed Andy’s programming philosophy, strength training for the elderly, coaching principles, and lifting techniques during his previous appearance on episode 60.

Andy, a famous strength coach, co-author of Practical Programming and The Barbell Prescription, and Baker Barbell Podcast host, owns Kingwood Strength and Conditioning in Texas. His three programming tracks in the online Baker Barbell Club include a bodybuilding track that Philip is running for the final three months of his building phase and plans to continue into a fat loss phase.

Philip and Andy thought it would be fun today to talk about bodybuilding, not the big B competitive physique sport but the little b method of hypertrophy-oriented bodybuilding-style training for aesthetic muscle development to improve one’s physique.

They talk about bro splits, the top-set/backoff-set approach, intensity and frequency, the interplay between hypertrophy and strength, and some of the techniques and philosophy behind this training style.

Episode Summary:

This episode is a gold mine for This episode is a gold mine for those eager to understand how to incorporate bodybuilding into their fitness routine for aesthetic muscle development.

We delve into the intricacies of bodybuilding, discussing the importance of intensity versus volume in training and how bodybuilding has morphed over the years. Andy shares his personal experience with bodybuilding and how it has influenced his coaching methods. His insights into the techniques and philosophy behind this style of training offer practical tips for everyone, irrespective of their fitness level.

The discussion extends into the world of powerlifting, where we explore the crucial role of muscle mass in strength. Modern powerlifting standards have evolved to emphasize not just the amount of weight an athlete can move but also the importance of maintaining a lean body fat percentage while carrying significant muscle mass.

One of the key points we highlight is the interconnection between muscle mass, motor recruitment, and intermuscular efficiency. These components are critical to an athlete's ability to handle heavier loads. Using John Hack, the current top powerlifter, as an example, we explore how athletes have achieved this fine balance.

As we dissect the rising trend towards lower body fat levels in powerlifting, we address the debate of whether athletes are shedding body fat due to a race in weight classes or if there are advantages to carrying less body fat. This insightful discussion offers a deeper understanding of the integral components affecting an athlete's capacity to lift heavier weights and how these factors can be manipulated to enhance performance.

This episode is invaluable for fitness enthusiasts, bodybuilders, and powerlifters alike. It is a comprehensive guide that covers the key aspects of bodybuilding and powerlifting, shedding light on the evolution of these fitness disciplines and providing practical tips for incorporating them into your fitness routine. It is a must-listen for anyone looking to expand their knowledge and elevate their performance with their lifting.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

(2:30) Why bodybuilding
(10:08) Muscle mass, motor recruitment, and intermuscular efficiency
(13:11) Advantage of having lower body fat
(26:42) Five-day full-body program
(32:56) Why Andy is running this program
(43:08) Tweaks for women or someone with weaker legs
(46:22) How to modify the exercise to focus on body parts
(50:25) The six-day program
(51:45) The split and top-set/backoff-set
(1:09:14) The mind-muscle connection for a new lifter
(1:19:25) Common mistakes
(1:28:50) Six-week progression
(1:45:26) Where to find Andy
(1:46:06) Outro

Episode resources:

• Ep 60: Strength and Programming for Maximum Gains at Any Age with Andy Baker

• Andy’s website: www.AndyBaker.com

• IG - @bakerbarbell

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching

👩‍💻👨‍💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.

📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Andy Baker  00:00

I think a lot of these guys have it backwards where if they believe that volume is the most important thing, if you believe that volume is the most important thing that you're going to reduce intensity in order to get more volume. But if you believe that higher effort training and progressive overload is primary, then volume and frequency become subservient to that.

Philip Pape  00:25

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. Joining me again is the super knowledgeable Andy Baker. Last time he was on episode 60. We talked about his approach to programming strength training for older adults, his philosophy on coaching and methods in the world of lifting. And he is a highly sought after strength coach, the author of practical programming and the barbell prescription host of the baker barbell podcast, which just came out with some fresh episodes, and the owner of Kingwood strength and conditioning in Texas. We thought it would be fun today to talk about bodybuilding, not the big B competitive physique sport, but the little b method of hypertrophy oriented bodybuilding style training for aesthetic muscle development to improve your physique. And he knows a lot about bodybuilding and training for muscle mass from years of real world experience coaching people in person and online. And in fact, one of his three programming tracks in his online Baker barbell Club, which I'm a member of is a bodybuilding track. And I'm personally running that for the final three months of my own building phase and plan to continue into into a fat loss phase. Next year, we're going to talk about bro splits the top setback, offset approach, intensity versus frequency, maybe the interplay between hypertrophy and strength, and some of the techniques and philosophy behind this training style. And he is great to have you back on again,

Andy Baker  02:09

thank you appreciate you having me.

Philip Pape  02:11

So let's just jump right in and talk about your personal experience with bodybuilding as a primary style of training. Because a lot of us know we know your history with strength and conditioning, we know starting strength, you know, a little bit of the CrossFit world. And then there's this idea, of course, that hypertrophy is sometimes a dirty word and some of those circles and, you know, inquiring minds want to know how and why do you incorporate this training style for yourself?

Andy Baker  02:34

Well, it's what I started with a mean, if you go way back in the day, from the first time that I picked up weights, when I was you know, 1213 years old. That was the I mean, at the time, if you if you want to if you go back through the history kind of of this stuff, you know, at that time in the 90s, that was the only information that was really available. There wasn't the Internet as we know it today. And so there was no there was no social media, which I know it's hard for a lot of maybe our younger listeners to, to understand, but there wasn't the only sources really out there the primary sources in which people got information at that time was through the muscle Max. It was through publications like flex magazine, and muscular development. Ironman, maybe had one powerlifting article, or Bill star article, but it was a bodybuilding back, you know, everything. All of the information that we had was was bodybuilding. You got publications, like maybe powerlifting, USA, or whatever, but it was obscure, and it wasn't on you know, you could go to any newsstand any magazine rack in the country and find flex magazine and muscular development. But powerlifting USA was very hit or miss for the most part, you just had to be subscribed to it through the mail. And that was it. That was really the only source of information. So when you got into lifting, it was just done bodybuilding style. I mean, pretty much everybody did, you know, unless you were maybe in the sports world, but recreationally. It was all bodybuilding. And then, you know, if you look at participation in sports, like powerlifting, with the time when I was growing up, you know, early 90s or 90s, and, you know, early 2000s, you know, powerlifting wasn't what it what it is today, and that there was one there was no social media. And there was just not wide participation in the sport of powerlifting. It was a very, very niche community. It was a very small sport. And the other thing, the biggest thing is it was all done in gear, it was all done in multiply and lifting suits. That's all powerlifting was done that way when you went to a meet in the 90s, there was no raw powerlifting everybody there were single ply and multiply. But everybody competed in gear and if you showed up to a meet and competed raw, they'd be like, What the hell are you doing? It'd been like showing up to a track meet and dress shoes or something like you know, it just, that's the way it was done. So there, there wasn't a lot of interest in that style. It was a much smaller, niche sport because of that and when things kind of converted over to raw powerlifting I attribute namely to the influence of CrossFit into the strength world, it brought more awareness to the barbell lifts than probably anything else. And by extension into raw powerlifting. Now that's flipped. Now that's flipped, where if you go to a meet, there's very little geared lifting, there's very little multiply lifting, it's all raw. And because of that, there's much more participation in the sport, I just think it's naturally more interesting to people to, you know, see what a guy can do and a singlet and maybe some knee sleeves versus multiply suits. That being said, the my point with all that is that my formative years as a teenager and early 20s, really the only information out there unless you just happen to stumble into a powerlifting gym was bodybuilding stuff. So that's how everybody trained, of course, all kids, all teenagers, you know, when you're 12 1315. So, I mean, everybody wants everybody, there's something about the comic book level development that's appealing, it just is, it's a representation, it's an art of, you know, what is possible of potato, you know, if you want to talk about it artistically of, of potential, you know, something like that. And there's just, there's a draw to it, I think that every young person goes through, then everybody trades that way, I happen to respond pretty well to that type of training. When I was a teenager, and in my early 20s, I found it, you know, I was highly responsive to that type of training, I found it fairly easy to get big, actually was people a lot of people don't know this, but I was actually, I had an amateur, probably the only starting strength coach around, it's actually been featured in Flex magazine when I was 19 years old. So I still have the it was the, I think the October issue of 1999, or 2000, something like that. So I put on muscle pretty easily. And that was not what the that was without the use of drugs or anything like that. So I think when you have some success with something you tend to gravitate to, and do more of it, study it more, put it into practice more. So there was just always kind of a fascination with that. I think what happens though, is as you get older, the fascination with becoming, you know, superfluously, enormous, starts to dwindle, and you start to see a little bit more value, or just get more interested in the performance side of things. And so that's where he's got, you know, a lot of guys follow that natural progression of starting with a lot of interest in the physiques side of things. And then there's a period of time where, you know, you you do want to start, you start becoming more interested in what you can do not necessarily what you look like, especially when you realize that there's a cap on how big you can actually get naturally, whereas theoretically, with strength, there's still a cap. But a lot of times, there's a lot of potential left to be developed. And so I kind of gravitated, you know, at some point in my early 20s, away from the physique development stuff, and into more of the powerlifting side of things, to which I've, you know, met Mark Rippetoe, and became more educated and actually, the performance side of things spent a good decade or more doing that, too, I still do a lot of that, but being more involved in powerlifting, and bodybuilding. But now as I've gotten older, again, just kind of a natural swing back to just part of it, it's just the interest of the customer base, potentially, there's more, again, depend on the pendulum kind of swung away from bodybuilding, into powerlifting, CrossFit, all that kind of stuff during the 2000s. And now you're starting to see the pendulum starts to swing back into the physique stuff. And I feel like now in my 40s, I actually have more to offer, maybe my clients than I did in my early 20s. I feel like, now I have a better understanding as a coach, I have a better understanding of how to put this stuff into practice, in a sensible, dare I say, more scientific way that you know, then I would have in my early 20s, when I kind of knew what to do. But I couldn't have articulated very well while I was doing what I was doing or why it worked. I'd kind of knew what to do. But I didn't really I wouldn't have had the ability to explain it, or put it into practice with more people like I do now. Yeah, I

Philip Pape  09:05

think a lot of us gravitate to your work because of that you're able to articulate it. We were talking before we recorded about how just with all that experience in the gym, talking with people doing this stuff, it comes together. That goal of getting so purposely enormous, a lot of us probably still want to beat the want to get there as a goal. But you mentioned a few things. First of all, the history of all this is fascinating how even the things we dump on like CrossFit had a critical part to play right in introducing barbells to folks that introduced me to barbells and then I came to starting strength and I never I never had had the bodybuilding stuff. Or if I ever did, like a lot of us we were just doing it wrong or you know, doing ineffectively. Yeah, so it's just interesting how it comes together. And you have this kind of open minded approach to, you know, incorporating all these styles, which is why I wanted to focus more on bodybuilding today, you know, instead of just the straight side, but you did mention strength and hypertrophy, and there's always this confusion about how do these Interplay what is the overlap I know sometimes you might get a little annoyed when somebody's like, well, I want to focus on this not strength, you know? Yeah. But it's all strength, right? Like, there's strength everywhere. You mentioned on I think two podcast episodes ago on Baker barbell podcast, three factors, you said muscle mass motor recruitment and inter muscular efficiency, implying that there's this overlap between them on they contribute to each other. Can you just summarize that here? I mean, people can listen to the whole detail episode, but just kind of summarize that. So that

Andy Baker  10:27

was, when you look at strength. I mean, strength is force production, right? It's the ability to, to displace a load or to you know, however you want to define it, but strength is force production, and it's in its you cannot divorce strength from load, you know, the, the person who squats 500 is stronger than the person who squats 400. So what are the elements that affect your ability to move greater and greater loads? What is What are the elements in place that are going to make you go from a 300 pound squat to a 400 pound squat to a 500 pound squat? And really, there's, there's three, and we're gonna we're gonna skip over things like mindset and consistency and determinate, like, yes, those are important, but they're not, we're going to just focus on the more physical side of things. The the primary way in which somebody is able to, well, it's hard to say what's primary and what secondary and all that because I think it changes with the development of the athlete. But by and large, the most important determining factor as to how much weight you're going to be able to move on a given lift, let's just say for one rep max, is the amount of muscle mass that you carry. I mean, in powerlifting, nine times out of 10, the guy with more muscle mass is going to win. You know, it's just you don't see people that walk into the gym or to a meet, you see some enormous big jacked guy with his, you know, traps are coming out of his ears and a big wide back and huge shoulders and big legs, he's going to be stronger, nine times out of 10 than the guy that doesn't look like that. So muscle mass matters. And I think for years, we always assumed it was just the heavier athlete would win. I mean, that was the say on mass moves mass. I mean, in general, the heavier weight classes outperformed the lower weight classes in terms of absolute load, maybe not based on a percentage of body weight, or whatever. But in general, the heavier the, you know, the three weights and the 270, fives are going to move more weight than the 220s and the 190, eights. That's just the way that it is now, is that just weight? Or is that because of the fact that the heavier guys have more muscle. And I think what modern powerlifting has shown us is actually it's not just the mass moves mass or whatever, it's just that when you're 308 pounds, you have the potential to carry a lot more muscle than the guy that's 198 pounds. But what we're seeing now is that if you look at the physiques and the body fat level of modern day raw powerlifting, they're far leaner, I think, and more muscular than what you saw maybe 20 years ago, with some exceptions. You know, there was obviously there's always been big Jack, guys, kirker, loskis, and all that kind of stuff. But there's a realization, it's not just about how heavy you are, but how much muscle you carry. I mean, you the best lifter in the world right now is John hack, in my opinion. And he's the guy is absolutely loaded with muscle mass, but he doesn't care. He's very little body fat, almost, you know, does

Philip Pape  13:11

that? And is was that a race to the bottom with hitting the lower weight classes that led to that? Or is there an advantage of actually carrying the lower body fat?

Andy Baker  13:19

Well, I think that there is I mean, I think that, I mean, I think more and more research has shown that excessive amounts of body fat is can be detrimental to, you know, the ability to build new muscle mass, I mean, things like if you're obese, you know, things like testosterone, and things like that tend to suffer. insulin sensitivity is poor, you know, all those sorts of things. And I think, you know, higher testosterone levels, better insulin sensitivity, those are all things that are good for being able to build muscle mass, you know, just being healthier overall, but it is harder. Most people know just, if they have any experience with this stuff, it's if you're trying to bulk without putting on any body fat, or really trying to minimize the amount of body fat, you know, this is a nutrition guide, if you're trying to gain muscle mass, and you say, Well, I'm gonna gain muscle, but I don't want to put on any fat, it's almost an impossible task. Or it'll take you seven years, yeah, it'll take you forever. But if you want to, like if you're wanting to move up in weight class or just get bigger, there has to be an acceptable level of body fat increase most of the time, unless you're there are a few cases, I think of just genetic outliers, that, you know, most IFBB pros would fit under this category where they just they are able to put on tons of fat free mass. But that's not most of us most, if you're going to want to put on 20 pounds of muscle mass. And you don't want to take 20 years to do it. You're going to put on a little bit of body fat, you know, in order to do so I think and if you're don't care about that at all, if you're willing to put on even more body fat, you can potentially gain muscle even faster. You know, it kind of just depends. It's I don't think that it's a good idea to and I think recent experience has taught most of us this is that, you know, just the seafood diet of I'm just going to pound as many calories as possible. And you know, fast food and pizza and just, yeah, you'll you are going to put on more muscle mass if you're in a massive caloric surplus like that. But even even in a massive caloric surplus, you could still only put on muscle mass so fast. And so you're still going to be accumulating more body fat than is necessary. So there's about it. I mean, you know, you can probably speak to this better than I can, there's a balance there, right? There's, there's a cut off point, where if you say, if you're not willing to put on any body fat whatsoever, you're going to struggle to build muscle mass. If you're doing the seafood diet, where you just eat everything in sight, yes, you're gonna put on muscle mass, but probably at the expense of putting on more body fat than you really want. So yeah, that

Philip Pape  15:45

that was my big turning point after running starting strength of like, needing to learn about nutrition and the folks in your barbell club. That's usually when they come to me, it's like, okay, I got a little bit too much do crazy than on the dreamer bulk. Yeah.

Andy Baker  15:56

Yeah. And so I don't know where I was going with that. Originally,

Philip Pape  15:59

we were talking about the strength versus hypertrophy and the factors you were talking about muscle mass,

Andy Baker  16:04

so So muscle mass, so yeah, okay, I know morale is going out. So item number one is, if you want to dramatically increase the amount of weight you can move, you probably need to get bigger, you need to add more muscle mass, that's going to be the primary determining factor. It's also the most long term solution to getting stronger, because the other two that I'm going to talk about are a little bit more transient adaptations. They are, you're talking about more of the efficiency of a system, which comes and goes, the building of muscle mass, but also the loss of muscle mass is a slower process than the development and or loss of neurological efficiency, neurological efficiency can be enhanced in a pretty short period of time, it can also be lost in a pretty short period of time. And so what were the when we talk about neurological efficiency, I kind of look at it in two different ways. One would be what we call the the, I always get these two confused, but the inch intramuscular coordination, or what we would call motor unit recruitment. So if we look at an individual muscle, like the quads, or whatever, on a squat and their role in the squat, training your ability over time for your body to recruit more of the muscle mass that it already possesses. Okay, so for an untrained lifter, and I don't know what these percentages are, but let's say for an untrained lifter, they're capable of this is a very, very simplified an exercise, fifth guy would rip me apart from my explanation of this, but I'm gonna keep it very, very simple all the time. All right, I think the simplistic version still works as as a way to understand this. So even if some of the nuanced details are wrong, or whatever, it's still, it still works. But let's just say a new lifter, that is, you know, has never been exposed to heavy weight, or whatever, let me say his quads are capable of motor unit recruitment at 30%. In other words, he's capable of recruiting 30 40% of the muscle mass that he has with training, the more that he trains, and in particular, the more heavy training that he does, say with reps, five and below, so the very heavy training especially, that becomes a trainable quality and that he his body will learn to recruit more of the muscle mass that he currently possesses, say in his quads from heavy squatting or whatever. So now, instead of recruiting 30% of the available muscle mass that he has, he's recruiting 40% and 50. And then 60 and 70%. So he's that's a trainable quality. So that's increasing his ability to to produce force without getting bigger in, you know, kind of the muscle mass, you're recruiting the amount of muscle that you have. And then with with motor unit recruitment, you're recruiting more of what you have, so you can increase

Philip Pape  18:45

the tap yes, like untapped capacity that you're gonna finally tapping into. And

Andy Baker  18:50

then you have the third element of it, which is the intramuscular coordination, which is the coordination between muscle groups. So this is why training, leg extensions, leg curls, the adductor machine, the glute machine, set ups and back raises, while doing all of those things individually don't necessarily lead to as big of a squat, as does squatting. Because it's not just each of those, yes, all of those individual muscles play a role in the squat, but they have to be trained to work together in order to optimize the efficiency. So you could have a guy theoretically, that could get that can increase muscle mass in his lower body through through a series of isolation movements, he could leg curl leg extension, adductor machine, you know, glute, whatever those called hip thrusts, or whatever. And, you know, he could take all he could train all of the constituent muscle masses used in a squat individually, would not have the same impact as just training the squat because not only is he working those muscles, but he's working them together and so that they become better at working in a coordinated Fashion, in order to do that movement, if you look at, and again, this is a trainable quality, the more squatting that you do theoretically, there's an upper limit for sure. But the more squatting that you do the more volume and frequency or whatever that you do, potentially, the better you get at it. movements that are highly demanding in terms of coordination and timing, and that sort of thing needs to be practiced more often. This is why Olympic weightlifters tend to clean and jerk and snatch daily. Why do they do that? Because they're they that's what why are they doing that? Why don't they just clean and jerk twice a week, or snatch because that's not enough to really fine tune that coordinate. Because that's those are very complex movement patterns that require its practice. It there's, I think practice could be looked at in two different ways. There's practice in you intellectually understanding what you need to do. So that's me teaching you how to do a clean and jerk, like, okay, you don't know that you need to, you know, brush your thighs with the barbell, or the jump and a certain like, I'm intellectual, like, you're intellectually learning how to do that, and then you're practicing that. But there's a deeper level of quote, practice. At the neurological level, it's your nervous system, learning how to do that. It's why professional baseball players take batting practice every day, even during the season. That's why they because at that level, when those guys develop their swing, it is so nuanced, and so individualized, and so timing oriented and coordinated, it needs to be practiced, almost daily, in order to be for those pathways to be maintained. Where, you know, I think a squat, you know, you could argue that's less, a little less technical, technical, but there's also some there's also some fears, physiological realities, and that there's muscle damage created in a squat that's maybe not as present, say, on a on a snatch or a baseball swing. So that's those are three elements, that if you want to maximize strength, those three things need to be addressed. Now what needs to be prioritized, kind of depends on the lifter, a guy that's been squatting for 20 years, may not need that much quote, practice, like though that movement is kind of ingrained in his body to where he doesn't need but a newer lifter, that's part of why they may only benefit from squatting three days per week, because that pattern is not yet embedded in their neurological system. It's like, you know, to a degree, it's like riding a bike, right? I mean, if you've spent a lot of time as a kid riding a bike, you can take 10 years, and often, you know, that's the same, it's just like riding a bike, you jump back on, and maybe you're a little wobbly at first. But, you know, within an hour, you're back to being able to ride a bike and not feel like you're gonna fall off. So

Philip Pape  22:46

yeah, and I know you see it all the time with the new lifters doing the squat, they're wobbling, they're unstable, and some people are more athletic than others that have kind of have that precision, ability to do it. And some are solid, but it doesn't take long to get at least that first step jump I think in in these elements, you definitely see

Andy Baker  23:03

it in the the effective programming that is used for power lifters at different levels. And guys that tend to focus if you look at the training programming for especially modern day, the guys that tend to benefit the most from high, very high volume, high frequency programming. So these are the guys that are benching four days a week, I've seen some guys that bench five or six days a week, but guys that bench four days a week, maybe squat in some form or another, you know, four days per week, deadlift here. So these higher frequency programs tend to be present much, much more in the lower weight class athletes, your your guys that compete at 165 181 98. You don't see it as much on the big heavyweights. And I think part of that is because if those lower weight classes, they're not building any more muscle. They're not getting bigger. And so what are so what, what lever do they pull will they pull the neurological efficiency lever? Because they are they have the amount of muscle mass that they have is more or less set, they're not getting they're not gaining any weight, they're staying at 165 or whatever. So the only way for them to increase their their total is by the goosing that are pulling that neurological efficiency lever. If that makes sense. They have to get better with the amount of muscle mass that they currently have. Guys that are moving up the weight classes over time, they're going from, you know, 165 to 181 to 198 to 220. As their their obviously as they're climbing up the weight class, they're building muscle. And they may not have to, they may not have to pull that neurological efficiency lever as hard as a lower weight class guy. Does that make sense? Yep, for sure. Right for so. Does that make sense? No. Yeah,

Philip Pape  24:49

it makes sense. No, it makes sense. And so now we're talking about we're for today I want to focus on intermediate lifters. gent general population, right, we're going to assume that the stuff about strength holds for rank beginner, just get stronger, do something like starting strength. You're good. Now the question is,

Andy Baker  25:05

let me let me give you real quick, I want to give it I want to give one more example of this, that this, this, this audience might be more familiar with. This is something that I've meant to point out in a couple of different places that I have it. But guys will notice, often, if they've been, let's say they're squatting twice a week or once a week, and you give them a new plug in a light squat day, somewhere in the middle, they will immediately start to see improvements on their heavy day. So let's just say they've been they've been squatting heavy on Mondays, and that's it. And they've maybe they're having a hard time progressing on their squat. And then you stick a light squat day, so something like three sets of five at 60%. It's not very heavy to medium amount of volume, you stick that in on say, Thursday, within two to three weeks, a lot of times they're heavy day squat starts to improve. Why is that? Well, they didn't get bigger by adding in three sets of light squats later in the week. That's not a very hypertrophy oriented protocol. But what did it do it immediately, that's why I'm saying this adaptation is transient, it immediately increased neurological efficiency. By having that added day, that increased frequency now they're squatting every two or three days instead of once, once every seven days, that that adaptation occurs pretty quickly, the system gets more efficient, really, really quick. And so that's why that, that even that added light squat day. That's why it improves performance almost immediately, because that neurological efficiency thing can be can be manipulated in pretty short order, if that makes sense. Yeah,

Philip Pape  26:39

it makes sense and actually brings up another question because you address this toward the end of your last show. You were talking about bro splits versus high frequency programs for intermediate lifters. And it kind of brings that question to mind of this is getting more popular now. Andy, right. You've probably heard it. Jeff Nipper made it popular three years ago when he was experimenting with it. And now I see it coming up. Again, my own community is asking about it, why not do a five day Full Body program. And you kind of addressed it on your show. But one of the reasons I hear the science guys saying it could be more effective is there's a diminishing point of return with heavy the number of sets. So like if you did, if you do a typical bro split, you're hitting say 15 to 20 Hard sets across that muscle group in one session. Whereas if you do high frequency, you might hit six to eight and eight is kind of that point of diminishing returns. And so therefore, you're able to get more effective reps across the week. What are your thoughts on that?

Andy Baker  27:32

Well, first of all, I don't think that some of it depends on how you define like a heart set, I kind of reject the idea that anybody responds well to say 20 sets per week, 20 hard sets per week, on any muscle group, somebody that, in my opinion, somebody that feels like they need 20 sets, the exception might be back, like back training, but you're also talking about, you're actually talking about different muscle groups. That's that's actually not one muscle group, it gets lumped in. But that would be the only case where I would say that somewhere close to 20 sets could potentially be effective. But say for like the quads, anybody that needs 20 sets of direct quad work in order to grow their quads, is simply not training. Okay, and, and so there's an assumption that you have to either accept or reject it when you talk about volume. And that is relative intensity, how close to failure is optimal. If you accept as I do, it's going to change your opinion on this. So some of it just depends on if we agree or disagree on this, we'll you'll have a different, you're going to have a different opinion on volume and frequency. But if you accept that higher RPE training, if we want to use that term, or training closer to failure is more effective for muscle growth than you then that is going to reduce the amount of volume that you're capable that you either can do or should do. And by extension frequency. So I operate under the premise that, and a lot of the the current research supports this. And I think, you know, most bodybuilders have always kind of known this or accepted this, that training closer to failure is the superior stimulus for hypertrophy versus training very far away from failure. So taking your sets right up to the point where you can't do another one is another rep is more effective than leaving three or four reps in the tank. And so it kind of depends on where you fall on that. But if you accept that, if you say well, training closer to failure is superior. Then you're going to have a different calculation for how much volume is optimal. You cannot like on the quads, you cannot take your sets to failure and also do 20 sets per week when Do you do it all in one workout or spread loaded out? It's just not going to work. And so that, that that's going to impact the volume calculation. So what was your question? I

Philip Pape  30:12

don't know. That was the I kind of wanted to get that out of the way, just because I know we I've had some questions on it as well. And you basically dress it. There's two other things you mentioned on that show I wanted to bring up one is it leaves no room for error, like you have to get everything perfect, right.

Andy Baker  30:26

Like, like when I say, Well, if you're doing 20 sets per week, you're just not training hard. And I'm not saying that because it's like, well, you're not you're just a policy. And it's like, it's not, it's actually because I believe that that that that harder training, taking your steps closer to failure is actually more effective. And I to the degree where I think that that should be primary, and then the amount of volume that you do is subservient to that. And so I think a lot of these guys have it backwards, where if they believe that volume, is the most important thing. If you believe that volume is the most important thing, then you're going to reduce intensity in order to get more volume. But if you believe that higher effort training and progressive overload is primary, than volume and frequency become subservient

Philip Pape  31:18

to that, does that make sense? To intensity training to failure? Yeah, yeah.

Andy Baker  31:22

So there can be a fundamental disagreement, depending on which side of the line that you fall on. But you know, one of the most fundamental rules of programming is that intensity, both absolute intensity, so load, or, or you could as expressed as a percentage of one RM, or relative intensity, which is more effort level. So your RPE, or our IR, however you want to do it, intensity is inversely related to volume. So as intensity goes up, volume goes down, and vice versa. So I tend to believe that progressive overload, and higher effort training is more important than the total, I do think there's a minimum threshold of volume that has to be met. But it's that but that I think, the volume and the frequency of some is subservient to the other factors.

Philip Pape  32:14

And you know, it's interesting, I believe, there, there have been a lot of studies, we want to talk about science and look at Fat Loss phases. And which ones hold on to the most muscle and it tends to be the ones with the higher intensity, right? Sure, it kind of gives you it gives you a good look of what's important when you're especially in an energy starved environment, if that's the thing that kind of keeps it going. Okay, so, go, I want to talk about goals for a second because I want to get into your bodybuilding style programming, some of the details of it, and the bro splits and backoff, top set back off and all that. But I was just talking to my friend, Tony on the way over here, and he's like, What are your goals for next year? And I'm like, you know, my goals are just to progress as much as I can on this bodybuilding program. Like I don't have PRs that I'm trying to hit necessarily having had surgery not long ago. But that does raise the question, Who wants your intermediate advanced? Why would you run this bodybuilding program? Right? What are the goals that you see from your clients? So people don't run the wrong thing for their goals?

Andy Baker  33:07

Yeah, so I mean, the thing is, with when you're trying to talk about like, and again, I'm talking bodybuilding with a small beats are not necessarily competitive. But But still, if you're, it doesn't do any good to talk about this. If somebody says, Well, you know, I don't really want to be that big or that strong, I just want to be fit or whatever, then none of this stuff really matters. Because the, you know, you can basically do anything with any modicum of effort. And it's that's going to satisfy those goals. But if you're talking about I want to be as big as possible, and have as well developed a physique as poss. Even if I'm not, obviously, if you're competing than that, that kind of goes without saying you want to be as big and as well developed as possible. Even if you're not competing, though, and you say, Oh, I just want to have the best possible physique out there. Then one of the fundamental differences between that type of training, bodybuilding training and powerlifting is that there's really no with powerlifting there's only three exercises that you have to do. Right, you have to but with bodybuilding, you have to train everything. Everything has to be trained, you can as a power lifter, you could go in your whole career, never do any work for your side. delts never do any work for your calves never do work for your biceps, there's a whole lot of stuff you could ignore completely, and still be a really good powerlifter as a bodybuilder, you can't really do that, like the and that's why like, there's really the whole concept of say assistance exercises, doesn't exist in bodybuilding. It's all important. Like your side delt work is potentially just as important as your chest work. If you've got it like if you want to be as big as possible and you you have like underdeveloped shoulders, like especially if you're going to step on stage, like you can't have underdeveloped side delts right. You can't have underdeveloped cows or no biceps or what so there's no body part or no area of your body that can be be ignored, which means everything has to be trained hard, and with, you know, with adequate volume. And it's really hard to do that in the context of a full body split. So training your full body, three days per week, or even like an upper lower split. It's so energy intensive to do the type of bodybuilding training that you have to necessarily just, from a practical standpoint, even have just time management, that those things have to be split up into their own, let's say their own days, or at least they have to be given adequate amount of time and energy. In the workout, if you're doing a full body split. And you do, you know, you do squats, and then you do bench presses, and then you do bent over rows on Monday, you're kind of at the end of the I mean, by the time you do all three of those lifts, and you do all three of them with, you know, the amount of volume that they need and the amount of effort and intensity, the amount of effort that they require. The progressive overloading over time, like it doesn't leave a whole lot else in the workout, there's not a whole lot of room for other stuff. And to the extent that you will do other things, they're going to be half assed, like for most people, if you do it, especially as you get stronger, squatting, benching, and bent over rows, all in the same workout, I mean, you're probably pushing an hour and a half, right. And so whatever you do after that is, even if you're trying to push hard, you're just not going to be able to devote the amount of energy and effort level into those sessions in a in a practical way. So it makes some sense to at least split things up, say, into upper body, lower body. But even then, again, as you get stronger, and you develop, as you get stronger and more advanced, you also develop the ability to fatigue yourself a lot more. And so it may be difficult to bench, then over row, shoulder press, dips, you know, five or six different movements, all with the all for different muscle groups, those workouts become both very long, because you have to say warm up new new movements. So you have to move from benching to rowing, there's a whole warmup process for moving to that completely different muscle group. And that just the time and the energy spent just on an upper body workout may not allow you to give adequate attention to all the areas of your body that need development. And so there's a natural progression, I kind of went over this in my last podcast episode of, you know, what that progression might look like if a guy Yeah, even if he wants to be a bodybuilder, let's just say we take some kid who wants to be a bodybuilder on day one, but he's never been in the weight room, I'd still probably start them out with like a three day or week full body program, because he doesn't necessarily need at the beginning to have a dedicated arm day, or whatever he can, he can just kind of hit those big rocks and get stronger on those. And he's going to see progression in his physique. But then as he gets stronger, and he wants to continue to put on even more muscle, he's probably going to have to split things up into like an upper body, upper body, lower body. And then at a certain point, he may have to split that up into like a legs push pole. And then at a certain point, he may have to split up, you know, it's It didn't used to be common, but it's becoming more common now to say split up quads and hamstrings. You know, if you've got a squat, leg press and leg extension, it's hard for to move from that into stiff legged deadlifts, and be able to put in the you know what I'm saying. So a lot of guys will wind up splitting up their lower body work, you know, and then you get to the point where, okay, my arm development sucks, well, you're doing triceps after chest and shoulders, and you just don't have the time or the energy to devote enough volume and intensity to those movements. And I think if you're going to be if you're going to really maximize physique development, you have to treat all of your movements, even the little movements, the tricep extensions, the curls, the side delt work, those have to, those have to be trained with an adequate amount of again, volume and effort level, and progressive overload. And it just, it becomes a matter of resources of time and energy. How do you do that without splitting it up? And so I think that that's where bodybuilders naturally over a course of a couple of years are going to evolve into some sort of body parts split by by necessity. Yeah,

Philip Pape  39:18

it makes total sense. And your your specific program of six days when I first saw it, I was thinking, Man, that sounds like a lot. And then once you run it, you realize makes a lot of sense, especially for us older guys who have less recovery. It actually worked out really well for time management as well. So I'll give you an example for me. My rest day is Wednesday. Right? Your program is a six day program. For me that's four days a week training just like I was always doing on something like a conjugate or upper lower, and then I can work on the weekends and many of us have flexibility to do that on the weekends. You also only have three or four movements so like this morning doing flat bench, incline bench, cable fly, and then I think I threw an ABS or something. You know, you're over in 4560 minutes. It doesn't feel crazy, but you're able to be fresh. for each of those movements, or even the cable flies, you

Andy Baker  40:02

know, I was able to be fresh for those. So yeah, it's, it's a great strategy, the workouts are shorter. And they're also less systemically stressful because you're all of the stress is being directed at one, one area of the body. I mean, when you do a squat, a bench press and deadlift or a squat a bench and a barbell row or something like that, there, you're working way more of your body, the workouts take longer. And I think there's a trade off there between the you know, the the length of the workouts, and your ability to recover that even if you're training more often say five or six days per week, if the workouts are shorter, and less energy intensive, it's actually quite sustainable. And I get like that, that's why I have like in my primer, like, Okay, I know, there's going to be a good portion of you guys that can't do six days per week. But here's an option for five, here's an option for four, that still kind of holds to the same principles, I mean, you don't necessarily have to do six, I lay that out, it's here's the, here's the way to split it up, you know, maximally, and then you can kind of condense that down as needed. And some of that's going to be based on you, and certainly with advanced bodybuilders, all of those guys will train based on weaknesses, you know, most guys and weaknesses and strengths. So certainly, it's like at the higher levels, like guys that are going to compete in bodybuilding, they're going to have a certain, you know, there's going to have a certain amount of genetics that predisposes them to be good in that, and part of that is, most guys will have one or two body parts that are pretty well developed with a minimal amount of work. And so they and, and certain, one or two body parts that don't develop as well that require more work. So to some degree, you're the split that you derive is going to be based on your own individual weaknesses, or just areas that you want to prioritize. So your your movements, if you've got an awesome lower body, than maybe you'll have to split up quads and hams, like if that's if you if you you know, or you just don't care that much about it. Or if you've got, if you've got kids like me, I've I've got, I still train my arms directly. But I've got genetically, probably a fairly gifted set of arms, that if I didn't, I wouldn't necessarily have to train them by themselves, I could tack on triceps at the end of chest and biceps at the end of back and still have reasonably good develops at arms were but somebody that doesn't have that, that really, you know, especially if they're going to compete and they've got very small arms, they're going to need the weight, they're not going to be able to get as good a result to do and triceps. After they do chest and shoulders and doing biceps after back. Like they're going to benefit from having their own day dedicated to just direct bicep and tricep work where again, an adequate amount of volume, effort and load can be dedicated to those muscle groups.

Philip Pape  42:44

So let's continue on that with a specialization, then if you if someone were to run your 60 program, which is I'll call it a balanced program, right. And I know women, I don't know if it's geared toward men or women, but women tend to like more lower body work in their program, and yours has to, you know, to lower body days for upper body, which I kind of like about it, because as a percentage of the week, the dreaded days are smaller. Yeah. But if somebody had weaker legs, or women or whatever, how would How would you make a tweak to this? Well,

Andy Baker  43:13

part of that is part of that is women tend to recover better than men, you know, men, and that's not that they have some superhuman ability to recover. Women are not as good as men at generating the same amount of stress men, generally, because of that higher level, we have higher levels of motor unit recruitment, we have more ability to fatigue ourselves then do women. So it's not that they recover better. They create stress, not as well as we do, if you want to express it like that. They don't, they don't, they don't create as much stress. So they tend to recover like women can operate at a far higher like on strength work, they can they will do their volume work on a strength based program and a far higher percentage of one our end, like women can do volume work at 90% of one RM men can't do that. And it's not that they recover better. It's just that they're their one RM it's not as because they lack the neurological efficiency, that same thing happens, honestly, and this is this is one thing I've and I know like your audience here in mind, too, is not into the drug use and all that kind of stuff. But the same thing happens with guys that are taking a lot of anabolic steroids. Steroids actually don't make you recover faster. They make your output in the workout that much more like your neurological efficiency goes through the roof. So you actually generate a ton more stress during the workout. And I think that's part of the reason why you don't see IFBB pros, training their legs three days per week, or training their chest three days a week. People say well, they recover better, they can do much higher workloads, that's actually not true and they don't actually do more volume. They generate more stress, they create a more significant stress with their training and their adaptation to that stress. It's more profound. Does that make sense? But But But, but their recovery is not is not bad. If you take a steroid user and have them trained legs heavy three days per week, you won't be able to recover from that. So actually someone who's less neurologically efficient could get away with training their legs three days per week. Does that make sense? Yeah, I see. If you have that spectrum, if you want to, you know, if you like, if you wanted to have like a three part spectrum, at one end of the spectrum, you would have this is a very oversimplified version. But on one end of the spectrum, you would have, you know, women on the middle, you would have non enhanced males. And then at the other end of the spectrum, you would have enhanced males. In terms of neurological efficiency, the closer you are, to the female side of that spectrum, the more volume and frequency you tend to be able to do because you're generating less stress in every workout. Does that make sense? Yep, for sure. Yeah. And so that's, I don't know where I was going with that. Oh, for women. Yeah. So women, you might be able to put in, you know, three leg days or, or instead of splitting up, say, if they kept two leg days in there, which I would probably do, I would probably keep two leg days in there. But you might hit quads and hams hard on both of those days, like they might, they might, instead of splitting up quads and like you could maybe they could get away with a higher volume leg workout twice per week as opposed to splitting things up.

Philip Pape  46:19

Got it? That's, that's good to know. So

Andy Baker  46:22

that if somebody like let's say, a guy wanted to specialize in any particular body part, is that a similar approach where they would take the day that's focused on that part and just add, are they adding intensity? Are they adding another movement in there? So I the way that I do, it is like the way that I have my I have two specialization programs. On my website, I have an arm specialization program, and a shoulder specialization program, I'll probably write some other ones. But those are just the two that I started with. Because I have a little bit more familiarity with designing those. So I've got some, I've got more feedback from customers and clients and stuff with those. But what the first thing that I do is I don't look, I don't look at saying, Okay, how can we just blow up the amount of volume and frequency that we do? I don't, that's not again, that's not my primary. My primary, actually, let's say with the arm specialization program is with the training stimulus itself, how can we optimize the amount of stress that this person can put onto their biceps and triceps, so I prioritize that during the week. One is I proceed that day with rest. So I might, so I may give them those Saturday and Sunday off, right, what I do is I bracket the area of the body that we want to prioritize, I bracket that on both ends with rest. So let's say Saturday and Sunday, I'm gonna give them an off day. And then Monday, we're going to hit their arm training. And we're going to do it so that way, they're they are fresh, they're not coming to that workout sore, tired, they're fresh, so that they can maximize loading, effort, level enthusiasm, even volume into that workout. And then the next day, I would do legs, followed by another rest day. So they actually get to two rest days on either side of that workout. And then later in the week, let's say Thursday, we would do like chest and shoulders, and maybe one other tricep movement in there. So I do I goose that frequency a little bit by giving them one really, really hard day of tricep training, say on Monday, and then touch it again later in the week. And then the same thing like we do like a back day on Friday with a little bit of bicep work.

48:30

My name is Tony from a strength lifter in my 40s Thank you to Phil in his Wits, & Weights community for helping me learn more about nutrition and how to implement better ideas into my strength training. Phil has a very, very good understanding of macros, and chemical compounds and hormones and all that and he's continuously learning. That's what I like about Phil, he's got a great sense of humor. He's very relaxed, very easy to talk to. One of the greatest things about Phil, in my view is that he practices what he preaches, he also works out with barbells, he trains heavy, not as heavy as me, but he trains heavy. So if you talk with him about getting in better shape, eating better, he's probably going to give you some good advice. And I would strongly recommend you talk with him. And he'll help you out. Thanks.

Andy Baker  49:14

And I think where a lot of guys go wrong, as they say, Well, I want to develop my arms. So I'm going to, I'm going to have three dedicated or I'm going to train my arms heavy and hard and high volume Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So I'm just going to go apeshit with volume and frequency effort like and I'm going to just going to annihilate my arms. One, it doesn't work that well, because recovery is not going to be good, too. There's going to be interference effects on the other the other upper body work that you do. So when you do chest shoulder, work backward. Where are you going to put that in? If you're training you're it's like you're going to be now instead of like letting your arms rest and recover after you bomb the shit out of them. You got to go right into like a chest day or a back day or whatever. So you're training alarms. Yeah, yeah, you're training those damaged muscles and I think Like in order for a muscle to grow it, it needs adequate stimulus and it needs adequate rest. You don't the way to do it is to is to maximize the, what I was saying before maximize the stimulus, but not necessarily through just bombarding that muscle with more volume and more frequency. Does that make sense? Yeah,

Philip Pape  50:20

makes sense. Yeah, I was wondering the context, even though of the Six Day Program, is it already? Are you already maxed out effectively? And you're talking about now substitutions for specialization? Or do you take take the day where you're focusing on that one body part, now you have two days around it that don't have that body part. And you can still apply the same approach?

Andy Baker  50:40

Well, if you do this, like if you do the six day, like you said, the six day program that I laid out, it's very well balanced. Like if you just take it, if you just look at it, you know, on paper, it pretty well balances everything. But if you want it to maintain that six day program that you want it to prioritize, say your arms, what I would do, you've got the arm day on Friday, on Monday, on your chest day, I would just add a tricep movement after you do your chest work, and then a bicep, one bicep movement after your back day, and then just keep your arm day in there. So I do I do move that frequency lever a little bit, but not a ton. Does that make? Does that make sense? I

Philip Pape  51:20

guess no, you're not interfering with the body parts day itself. And you're putting it far enough away from that day to kind of just hit it a little bit more. And that's

Andy Baker  51:27

the way that that six day program is laid out. It allows you to do that with just about any muscle group. I mean, you could do I think it might be a good idea to let some people know what we're talking about is to actually lay out the six day split. Yeah,

Philip Pape  51:41

let's try to I'm jumping all over the place to the split. And then I want to get into things like top setback offset, which I think is pretty cool. So that's

Andy Baker  51:48

the split. And you know, it kind of the joke is Monday is chest day, like Yeah, you know, like everybody, but yeah, Monday is chest. Tuesday is back. Wednesday is quads and calves. Thursday is shoulders and traps, Friday, biceps, and triceps, and Saturday hamstrings and then calves again, and then Sunday is an off day. So there is that's pretty well balanced, like every major muscle group has its own day. But again, the idea though, that like the criticism of a split like that is well you're only hitting muscle group, once per week. Well, there's two reasons why that's the well, there's a main reason why that's not true. And that's because the effect of overlap, like overlap is a real thing. Like there's a natural overlap of and this is influenced mainly by your exercise selection. So let me let me lay that out a little bit. So people can see that, even at if you're worried about frequency of oh, I'm only you said I'm doing shoulders on Thursday, like I'm only hitting my shoulders. Once per week. Well, that's not really true. If you look at your chest day, I always have a move an incline movement. On your chest day, it may be the first movement, it may be the second movement, but there's always an incline press on your chest day. All your EMG studies will show that inclines hit the front delts just as well as overhead pressing does. So right there. If your overhead pressing on Thursday with a machine or dumbbells or a barbell, whatever and then hitting inclines on Monday as part of your chest stay right there, you've got two direct stimulus stimuli for the front and the side delts. On your back day, any rowing movement that you do, especially rows where you've got, you know, elbows high, you're pulling in line with the chest, if you're, that's gonna, that's a tremendous rear delt movement, like you're going to get a lot of rear delt stimulus from basically all of your rowing movement, and then you're hitting them again, in isolation on your shoulder day. So rear delts are getting hit twice per week, traps might get hit three days per week, because I would generally have people do like, say a shrug on Thursday. But most of your rowing exercises that you might do on your back day are going to incorporate traps. And then on your hamstring day, I usually have some sort of deadlift variation, the stiff leg deadlift and RDL, or even a conventional deadlift, all of which are also going to hit the traps. So even though we've got quote, one on paper, we've got one day for doing traps, they're actually getting stimulated three days per week, triceps are going to hit Get hit as many as four days per week. You have a direct tricep, you know, workout on Friday, but when you do overhead pressing on your shoulder day, when you do all of your chest pressing movement on Monday, those are those are hitting your triceps. And if you do, certainly things like pullovers but even things like chins where there's a lot of shoulder extension work that actually hits your triceps. So your triceps are actually getting hit four days per week only once really hard and really directly but that whatever need there is for more frequency is more than covered. Yeah, with something like this, you know, and then the leg days the same thing like if you lost if you know if you do a quad workout that has squats and leg presses and things like that there's going to be some hamstring and adductor overlap in there and Then you know, and again, you can be intentional with this by through your exercise selection, if you say, Well, I really want to hit my chest a little bit more, alright? Well, when you do your, on your tricep day, make sure you're incorporating things like close grip, bench pressing, and dense, like you're gonna, those are effective tricep movements, but there's a ton of overlap on the chest. And so you can very, very easily create a scenario where every muscle group is getting hit a minimum of two times per week, even if on paper, it's really only one day. And I actually think that's a better way to do frequency than is trying to annihilate every muscle group two to three days a week, actually think recovery is better. And the idea that you're somehow going to atrophy, or lose muscle mass by, you know, only hitting it hard once per week is not true, like your your triceps are not going to atrophy, when they're getting stimulated four days per week, even if, on three of those four days. It's quote, indirect,

Philip Pape  55:59

for sure. And I'm feeling it. I mean, I'm walking in right now, where as soon as something gets hit, maybe two, three days later, I feel it again, you know, I feel it again. So it's kind of coming back, but not so frequently that you're training through soreness. And for those of us guys who have like the low back fatigue, I've found this program extremely great for that kind of recovery, even during fat loss, like and we can talk about that. But just it which is counterintuitive to a lot of people, because we're thinking six days a week. So part of part of the movements, let's talk about the top setback offset approach they incorporate because I think that's pretty cool. And the fact that not everything is you know, three sets of eight to 12. Right, right. What's what's behind that?

Andy Baker  56:36

Well, it is six days a week still. So you do run the risk is if even even though like I said the workouts tend to be shorter, they're less systemically fatiguing, it's still you're still in the gym six days a week. And if you overdo things on the volume side of things, it is going to wind up being a whole shitload of work that's going to be hard to recover from. And so you really can't bombard you really can't do, you know, 15 or 20, even if it was more effective, which I don't think it is, but even if it was, it still would be very hard to do say 15 to 20 sets per muscle group, like you will wind up still overtraining to do that. And so, again, you have to look at, you know, if you're gonna be in the gym six days per week, the idea is, yes, you're in the gym six days per week, but basically, all of your workouts are under an hour. You know, I mean, it is possible to run them up a little longer, especially if you take more rest time, or you just bullshitting around or whatever. But it's the main reason around that Sunday Ticket is it is. But if you're really focused, and you really get in there, you get to the warmup sets, you time, your rest periods, and you don't have to rush and rest periods, but you keep track of your rest periods, you stay off your phone, you know, all that kind of stuff, you can get all of these workouts done in under an hour, you know. And so that's really the only way that that six day a week program is sustainable over a long period of time, is to keep that volume minimal. And again, if you operate under the notion, like as I do, that your effort level, taking more of your exercises to failure is an important component of muscle growth, then it limits the amount of volume that you can do in a given workout. You can't, you can't do you know, 20 sets of quads and push you're going to be having way too many of your sets be just submaximal junk volume is what I would consider so. So it winds up being, you know, what I have found, as I've gotten both older, but also stronger, and also better at delivering a stress to a given muscle. And that comes through a lot of different things when it comes through just mindset like Do you have the mental toughness and the grit to really push hard and not rack the bar, as soon as it gets hard? Or do you have the grit to really push through that. But I also think that there's a, you know, as you get stronger, and the load increases on all of these exercises, that influences the amount of volume that you can do. But also things like mind muscle connection, and really understanding how you know how muscles work, and how things are supposed to feel and really getting good at like all of those lend themselves to being able to generate a high high level of stress with less work. And the analogy that I always use and also exercise selection. Also pick picking and choosing the exercises that deliver the optimal amount of stress to that muscle group through taking it through a full range of motion. Having a longer eccentric component, limiting the amount of limiting the amount of work that other muscles like this is where you might consider you can make the argument that a hack squat is actually a better quad developer than say like a low bar squat because of the fact that you did it. Other quads are doing all of your taking the quads through a full range of motion and it's really only the quads that are doing the work. So when you take that to failure, let's say or right up to failure, it is your quads that are failing verse is when you take a deadlift, this is the I've made this. I've played devil's advocate on this for a couple of years now. And just to try to get people to think when you take a deadlift to failure, what is failing? You don't know. Right? You could be any number of things. Could when you take the Romanian bottleneck, when you take a Romanian deadlift to failure? What's failing? Yeah, probably. So you take a leg curl to failure, what's failing, you definitely it's the hamstrings, right? When you take a hack squat to failure, what's failing the quads. So that starts to get into that the whole Mike is retail concept of the stimulus to fatigue ratio, the stimulus is increasing on that muscle group. But the overall amount of systemic fatigue is less. So by choosing better exercises, doing the exercises in the right manner, from a from a mechanical standpoint, you know, when you do a hack squat, having your feet low and narrow on the platform versus high and wide on the platform, makes it harder on the quads. So doing when you when you start to manipulate your exercise selection to be more stressful on the muscle that you're trying to target, you're going to need less volume. Make sense? Does that make sense? Yeah, and excited. And then you couple that with extremely high effort level, you know, you can you can do one all out set Hack Squats, is potentially more. here's the, here's the even better comparison, a hack squat versus a front squat, a Barbell Front squat, like people love to point at front squats is like the preeminent quad movement. I don't think that it necessarily is because most people fail the front squat because of their inability to hold the bar on their, like, it's not their quads that fail, it's usually their abs or their low back or their upper back, like you're so limited by something that doesn't have anything to do with the movement, that it makes it not not as good of not as good of an exercise. So you, you probably can't do just one all out set of front squats and get the same stimulus as you would to one all outside of Hack Squats. If that makes sense.

Philip Pape  1:02:09

Yeah, it makes sense. And as you're saying, as I'm thinking of all the different techniques you have programmed in, I was looking at just the last week alone, on squat day, after some sort of front squat or safety bar squat, you had a single all outset of I don't know, it was programmed in there. I did a Platts squat, but it was the same intent it was to hit your quads really hard just for one set. You also have almost every day, the the top setback offset was just two sets, but you're doing it in a heavy range and the more of a hypertrophy, like you know, higher rep range. So then there's the DC method, there's all these things that you incorporate that Keep it keep the session short, but really let you hit the the muscles.

Andy Baker  1:02:46

Yeah, that's so that's, and that's part of the reason that that works, when coupled with the right exercise selection. So when you're, when you're doing movements that really allow you to target the muscles that you're trying to work, you take the muscles to a full eight range of motion, they can be loaded progressively over time, they have a longer eccentric component, all of those sorts of things that put a ton of, they're not limited by other muscle groups, all of those things are going to reduce the amount of volume that you're going to need. Because it's a better tool, it's a more stimulative tool. And so that's, I think that's a part of where, you know, that comes from, is, is and I found that with those types of movements, you can generate more than enough stress with to all outsets. And I typically will do, that's just one of those things that it just comes through trial and error of, you know, you do one kind of heavy, you know, one set to kind of maximize loading that like four to eight rep range, and then strip some weight off and do a second set like maybe an eight to 12 rep range. And you put push both of those sets maximally, you're pretty well done with that movement. After that. It's

Philip Pape  1:03:54

you It's It's hard man, you know, it's hard, you think it's easy on paper, or some people do, but it's if you're pushing the right load, it's it's tough.

Andy Baker  1:04:02

And part and part of that is you look at I look at this, and this is something that you kind of I borrowed kind of from the sprinting world, is, when you're looking at how much how many sets to do on an exercise, it's how much performance drop off is there from one set to the next to the next. And if you're losing a significant amount of performance ability from one set to the next, you're really pissing in the wind or just piling up fatigue with less stimulus. So like if you put on three plates on a hack, squat machine, the four plates, whatever it is, and you push, you know, one all out set of, say 12 reps and it's just you know, that 12th rep you could just barely get it, you know, you took that you could not have gotten a 13 throughout. If you do if you rest say three to five minutes and do another set at that same load. What's going to happen to your reps, well, they're going to drop down to like six or seven like you're going to have a massive so I look at that As I'm not really creating any new significant stress without additional set, all I'm doing is compiling fatigue. And it's the same way sprint coaches tend to look at track workouts is that what speed drops off at a certain amount of repetitions, let's say you're training a guy for 100 meter sprint or whatever, once the speed drops below a certain threshold, they're not training speed anymore. So they have they're going to cut they're going to cut the workout off. Does that make sense? So that's it's not an exact, perfect analogy. But it's something I feel like carries over to the bodybuilding or strength world or whatever is like a certain amount of performance drop off is a good a good way to learn what your cut offs should be volume wise. So I like like to, that's why I like the one heavy top set, followed by the one lighter back offset, take both of them maximally. And then that's it like you've you've pretty much it's time to move on to a different exercise like I've, I've extracted everything that I'm going to get from that particular movement. And I'm going to get more benefit from just moving on to a different exercise.

Philip Pape  1:06:04

Yeah, and just how much more time do you have? By the way? I got? I got plenty of time. Good. Yeah. And it's not like everything is like that, because you'll have pre exhaustion, I guess is what you're going for. When you start with a lighter movement, let's say lateral raises on shoulder to you might start with that. And it's it might be three, four sets. And then you might even have, say pull ups or chin ups on backdate, you might have five sets, it's some places it makes sense right to have.

Andy Baker  1:06:30

Yeah, because their volume. And that's just like the pull up thing like that's just that comes directly from my own kind of training experience is this funny thing happens to me on pull ups is like, let's say the first set that I do, I get like 10 or whatever. And then I do a second set. And I might get like seven. But then I can do a third a fourth offense of a six. Yeah, it's never drops off. And I think again, that's not that the back has some superhuman ability to recover better, it's that certain, it's harder, it's harder to generate the same level of stress on say, a pull up, like you're not actually taking that muscle to absolute and complete failure in the same way that say a half squat does to the quads. Does that does that make sense?

Philip Pape  1:07:16

Like it doesn't, I've always wondered that too. It's like, am I not training hard enough and previous sets? Or is it just recovering that that much, it's

Andy Baker  1:07:23

the same like with a lateral raise or something like that, like you, you can't one you can't load those things up very much less. So there's like an inability to just progress and load. And there's also because they're so mechanically disadvantaged, is that it's actually hard to really create a ton of stress where that where that, that that muscle group is just done like it's exhausted, like you can do, like on the pecs, the quads, even the hamstrings to some extent like, like, not all muscle groups are the same, like it's not that the muscle groups are different, it's just that the movements themselves are harder to generate the same amount of fatigue or like, even like with back like a barbell row or something like that, like, like you don't actually really hit like true failure becomes like technical failure, like they just get really really sloppy, whereas like on a bench, you know, your chest pressure go in, and then like all of a sudden boom, like, it just stops, like no force can be generated from that like and part of that's just your positioning, like the way that you're locked in, you can truly take that muscle to failure. So like pecs, quads, things like that tend to be easier to actually take to like true failure. Whereas other exercises, pull ups, lateral raises certain other things, you just can't, you can't generate enough stress with a low volume. So I tend to operate at a little bit higher volume there to get this equipped, same equivalent amount of work in.

Philip Pape  1:08:45

And let me ask you about that for a newer a newer lifter, newer lifter, but a lifter new to this style of training. There's the mind muscle connection, there's the temple, there's things like that when I think of a lateral raise. Sometimes I have to remind myself just to slow down, take it easy and really pull with adult like Don't you know, don't get too much of the traps involved. Don't like use too much momentum. And then you realize you don't have to go as heavy, either. Like what are your thoughts on helping someone get to that point through their training, so they're really lifting want, it

Andy Baker  1:09:16

takes time? Like mind muscle connection takes time. I do think that it matters. Like a lot of people say well, that doesn't really matter. It absolutely matters. Like, like you're gonna get like if you come off of a set of lateral raises, and your side delts are just blown up and they're, they're pumped and they're burnt, like you're gonna get better growth than the guy who comes off a set a lateral raises that's like, what is this work? Like? I don't know, like, you know what I mean? And that's how most like beginners are especially like backward, they'll come off of a pulldown machine. They have no sensation whatsoever that their lats were worked it's all forearms or biceps or anything other than the her laughs Yeah, right. And it but a more advanced guy. He's going to come off of a pulldown machine or Whatever he's gonna come off of that and his lats are going to be burning and blown up like, it's, it's easier on certain muscle groups like you don't have to teach mind muscle connection on a leg extension, like you put somebody on a leg extension machine and have them beg out 10 or 15 reps, whether they're more gifted athlete or not, their quads are going to be burning, right, they're going to be pumped, they're going to be burning, like, there's no doubt, like what muscle group is doing that work. But that's just because of the mechanical nature of that lift, it locks you in to the point where there is no other muscle group that can contribute to that movement other than the quads. And so it's easy to establish that mind muscle connection on that when it's something that's really, really formed dependent, like a lateral raise, or most of you like most of your rowing exercises, or pull downs, guys do those for years and never really feel their back. And it takes time to do that. And then once, once you start to develop that mind muscle connection, and then you you pair that up with loading and effort level, and all that sort of thing, then it becomes even more effective, because you're really, really aware of like, what you're targeting, and how to how to slightly manipulate your grip, or your back angle or the touch point of the bar, so that you can really, really feel the muscle that you're trying to work. And that is I don't think that's an unimportant thing. Because if you're trying to do a movement, like, are we just trying to row or are we trying to hit the lats or the upper back or whatever like, and you need to learn those types of one is just time. But two, I think, like machine exercises can be really helpful on this, like, you're going to learn like on a like a chest supported seated row machine, you're going to learn how to feel your back on that, more so than you will on a barbell row like you're going to, and then you can take the lesson that you like how to really squeeze the scapula and like really feel all the musculature of your back and your lats and stuff working on that chest supported machine row, which is a more simple movement. Now you take that mind muscle connection that you've developed there and try to translate that into a more complex movement like a barbell row. So sometimes, like just stepping back and going to we think of like a barbell row was like a basic movement. But really like a, like a chest supported, machine row would actually be more basic in that regard in terms of it will really teach you the proper mechanics of rowing. Like you'll develop that mind connection faster on that. And actually like on like lateral raises or something like that, like one of the better like the one of the best ways to kind of learn it's like on one of those seated lateral raise machine, where it teaches you to hear Yeah, like your your, because most guys like on a lateral raise, if you watch them, they're focused on the dumbbell. So they're focused on the dumbbell getting up high, but not their humerus, and the job of the side delts is to actually elevate the humerus up. So like learning how to do that, but with a dumbbell held out in your hand. So you're not just swinging the weight around, you're actually using the side delt to abduct the humerus, like that's like so just like they learned some some of it is just intellectual understanding of anatomy and muscle function. Like what, what is this muscle? What is it actually trying to do like on a like, like on a chest, like your chest, like, the role of the PEC is not to press the bar out. It's to add up to the humerus, it's actually sort of like a fly is actually technically a more direct pectoral stimulus than, say, a benchpress. But if you understand that, what the pecs role in the benchpress is to I don't know if people can see but like, if your arm is, you know, abducted out here, and you're trying to draw it closer to the midline of your body, like that's the role of the PEC. So if you can think about that, while you're bench pressing, it's going to enhance that mind muscle connection and in your chest pressing movements, if that makes sense. Yeah, like

Philip Pape  1:13:48

probably better for the shoulders too, because you're not trying to like fooling the shoulders forward.

Andy Baker  1:13:51

Yeah. Or like even even certain things like, like, I've made the argument before, like, I actually think bench pressing is a good PAC developer, but not in the same way that a power lifter might benchpress like power lifters guard Yeah, power lifters are focused on moving the most amount of weight from point A to point B not not to try to stimulate the packs. And so a powerlifter might take a really wide grip, have a big arch, and lower the bar down low onto the torso and hit even like in the upper abs, like if they've got a little belly like actually hitting in the upper abs, or like far below, you know, the the, like the sternum like might actually be a stronger bench. But if you look at what is the peck doing in that movement, sometimes it's not doing that much as if you were if you lowered your arch a little bit, touch the bar up a little bit higher and focus more on the actual function of the chest like that actually makes for a better that's the argument that like a hammer strength chest press machine is better than a barbell bench press. That would be the argument because it actually takes the PEC through, it's more a fuller and more natural range of motion then does a barbell, but if you're aware of muscle function, you can kind of manipulate those movements a little bit to get better contractions out of them. And so that's, that's, that's a part of that as well. So I

Philip Pape  1:15:08

think it's very important all of this because you know, people listening, I think a lot of people treat accessory and are no, we're not calling them that. But these isolation movements as easy, right? It's just, you just go through the motions, treat them as technical as as low bar back squat, and really learn the anatomy, what

Andy Baker  1:15:25

actually almost almost even more so like, I tell my guys that, like, when I have an online client, you know, that's more interested in hypertrophy, I'll be like, alright, this is our first week together first couple of weeks, like, I want you to send me videos. And it's like, what the videos that they send me are like the squat, the bench and the deadlift, right, like the big movements, but I don't see videos of their lateral raises, and their curls and their triceps stuff. But I'm like, No, I want to see that too. Because actually, the technical execution of those movements is just as important, if not more important than the big lifts, like, like on a squat, I don't teach my muscle connection on a squat, like I teach mechanics, right? Like, but on, you know, you know, some other movement, I'm going to be more focused on like, learning, like making sure that guy is really, really technically executing that movement well, and feeling that movement, where he's supposed to be feeling it. So it's, it is like mechanically, the little, the quote, the little stuff, it's just as important, if not more important than the big stuff. And that's where, again, yeah, the idea that, and even for a powerlifter. Like, if you're going to be doing these bodybuilding style accessory movements, to support your squat bench and deadlift, you still need to do them almost with the same mindset that a bodybuilder does. Like, it's not less important for them, because the idea is still you're doing tricep extensions to what to build muscle in your triceps. It's the same reason a bodybuilder would do it. So like the technical execution definitely matters. And I think the better you get at the technical execution, and the more mind muscle connection you can develop. And again, you couple that with increased strength, more mental toughness, or crit or whatever you want to call it, more of a comfort level pushing to failure and beyond, then that starts to cut down on the amount of volume that you would need to do.

Philip Pape  1:17:12

Here's more for the work. Yeah, yeah, here's

Andy Baker  1:17:14

a great analogy that I love to use, okay. In terms of, if you have a guy, like, let's say we have a board, we have a two by four, and the object is to hammer the nail into this two by four. And I give you a nail, and I give you a big ol heavy crescent wrench. And I say, alright, hammer that nail into that. Can you do that? Yeah. And how many times do you need to hit the nail to drive it all the way into the board? Maybe 70 times, right? And so if you're using a bad tool, for this task, you may come to the conclusion, well, it takes 70 strikes to drive a nail into this board. But what if I take the crescent wrench away and I give you a hammer? Well, now you just drove it in and 15 hits, right, maybe you're not a good craftsman, right? So you still have to hit this nail at times, but you have a now you have a better tool, right? Just in this is exercise selection you're taking you're have a better tool, it takes less volume, less number of strikes to accomplish the same exact task, because you'd have a more efficient tool. Now, give that good hammer to some guy that's been a carpenter for 20 years. You ever see those guys driving nail? It's like my dad, like, yeah, it always pissed me off, because like, we would do be doing fencing or something and heat, my dad would take it and Bobo, you know, two hits, and the nail is driven. And it took me eight times, you know, to drive that same nail, because of the skill. He's and that's the same thing if he's using a better tool, but he has more skill. And so in the hand, the the right tool in the hands of a more skilled person, it's going to take less strikes or less volume, if you want to call it that to accomplish the same task. And I think it's exact same thing with trading is that a stronger, more efficient user of a good tool can do the same, it can get the same benefit from a hell of a lot less work.

Philip Pape  1:19:08

Yeah, and this is training like that's the point even the bodybuilding stuff is training. So treat it like that skill. And it's good reminder to me to you know, get up and go to go to in tomorrow really make the most out of my time. But So besides that, what are what are some of the other mistakes you see people making on this style program?

Andy Baker  1:19:27

I think I think, like, I don't, I don't want to call it a mistake. But learning opportunities. Well, it's a mindset shift. In a way I think it's very it can be very difficult for guys who they, they maybe they're they're coming from a strength background, or whatever they've put a certain amount of time into their say their squat bench and their deadlift, their one of their one RMS and these lifts and they don't when they make a shift, they say okay, well now I want to do hypertrophy or bodybuilding or whatever You Your one Rm is not a get because of the things that we talked about in the beginning of this episode, which was the neurological efficiency, your one Rm is very much going to be influenced not just by the amount of muscle mass that you have, but also the amount of volume and frequency that you do on that particular lift. So you're, if you reduce that, if you already and you switch to a slightly different style of training, like, it is possible that your one rep max is going to go down, because you're not training in a way that prioritizes that because you're not focused on that that neurological development of, of just a given lift. And so there's sometimes can be a mindset shift of it. It's not that strength doesn't matter in a bodybuilding site, it does. It's just one RM strength and the squat bench. And deadlift is not the key component for developing more muscle mass like and so when I talk, like when I say strength is still a part of muscle building, like you have to get bigger to get stronger. But you also have to get stronger to get bigger. Like it's a it's a loop that feeds itself. And so, but what we're what we're now talking about is that maybe your five to eight rep max, in a hack squat is actually more important to quad development than your one rep max low bar squat is. Yeah, does that make sense? So it's the focus

Philip Pape  1:21:28

on these new lists. And we're missing.

Andy Baker  1:21:31

It's Yeah, so there's still the progressive overload is still there. It's just, it's in a different manner. Like if you start on day one of it, you do eight reps on the hack squat with two plates on each side, like that still has to go up, like you still need to be able to progress to eight reps with three plates and eight reps with four plates or, you know, like, you're still have to focus on progressive overload and trying to add weight to these movements as often as possible. But that is different than saying, I need to work on my one rep max, on squat bench and deadlift, because there's an element to one rep. Maxine, that's purely neurological right, does it factor into bodybuilding, just like 20 rep sets. On squats, there's a cardiovascular or component and a muscular endurance component to getting good at 20 rep sets, that has very little to do with muscle growth. So that you you don't need to worry about that. So that's why I like that middle range is the bodybuilding rep range. Like you talked to most bodybuilding coaches, the guys that I respect the Dante true Dells and Matt Janssen, Justin Harris's, all these guys that coach bodybuilders. So I'll tell you the same thing. Like if you had to sum up bodybuilding, it's progressive overload on those middle rep ranges, that five, five to eight, five to 12. Some of its exercise dependent, like certain mood, like you're not going to do five reps on lateral raises, but like, it's your let's just say, five to 15. You know, again, that depends somewhat on, but it's really about building strength in that rep range. Because you get below the five rep range you get into, especially with singles and things like that there's a neurological component there that is enhanced with methodologies that don't really have that much to do with building muscle. Right?

Philip Pape  1:23:24

If that makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Right. Like you don't

Andy Baker  1:23:27

need to have like, you don't need to enhance muscle mass, you don't need to have light and medium squat days. Right? Like that's a strength product that those light and medium days are there to enhance neurological efficiency, but aren't going to do that for the singles. Yeah, yeah, they're not, they're not going to do all that much in terms of building muscle mass. So the the way that you're going to train for more muscle mass is that progressive overload in those medium rep ranges pushing to failure and then exercise selection just divorcing yourself from the idea that you that you have to low bar squat bench press, and deadlift and that even if you are you may be performing those movements in a way that actually is like, like bench pressing, you're going to be able to benchpress more weight in a powerlifting style bench laying arch, wider grip, lower touch point, you're probably gonna bench more like that, but you're gonna have less stimulus on the pecs. You know, it's, it's progressive overload but done in a certain manner.

Philip Pape  1:24:25

And there's still plenty of big lifts on this program. I mean, compound lifts every day regardless, and

Andy Baker  1:24:30

I put them in there because partly I put them in there because one of the equipment selection for the mean, most guys are not not necessarily trading in Gold's Gym Venice, so they don't have a pendulum squat and Sunday guys do. But I'm trying to set the program up that is in line with most people's equipment situations. I mean, most people that are doing this program and I say, like don't do this, if all you have is a as a barbell and a rack, you're gonna struggle with this program. It's hard to shoehorn all that stuff in like you You need but most of the guys that are doing this program have a pretty well equipped home gym, or are training in a commercial facility where they have access to machines and cables. And things like that. Because it does, it does make it easier because the systemic stress is lower with machine type stuff, but the local stimulus can be higher. And so you need to have access to some of these tools that allow you to really, really highly stress the individual muscle groups but don't create the same level of systemic fatigue. An interesting observation I talked about this with Dave Tate, actually, a couple days ago when I was at Elite FTS, was that when you saw during the pandemic, when everybody was kind of all at once all these body builders were forced out of their commercial gyms and like, into their home gym, like maybe they had something set up in their garage like just their old barbell and rack that they haven't used in 20 years. Like they were kind of forced into using, like a more basic setup. And they tried to recreate their training program with just barbells. Like a lot of them got injured, or overtrained like, like even Matt Janssen, who's like the top bodybuilding coach in the world, like towards PEC, you know, and I think part of that is they're trying to recreate these, these, these bodybuilding type splits using nothing but a bar with a barbell, and it's not the same thing. Like it's, it's more highly stressful to try to do everything with a barbell, and it's going to be difficult to do, you know, six days a week with all the different exercises and everything trying to recreate it on a barbell. So you need some of these movements in order to do that. And I think so, part of it is if you want to do talking about mistakes guys make is if is if you really want to get into bodybuilding, or you know, maximal physique development, whatever you want to call it, you're gonna have to invest in the appropriate equipment, like you can't just like so either, you're gonna have to get a gym membership, or you're going to have to spend some money on developing a really good home gym, or whatever. But you can't just say, Well, all I have is a bar, how can I do this program like, that doesn't work. And then the other thing you're gonna have to do is divorce yourself from the idea that one rep, Maxine, and squat bench and deadlift is still the primary goal of the program. Because it's not like there may be there's going to be like you've seen it, like, there's going to be periods like I do the six week blocks, where we don't squat bench or deadlift, in any on any of the days like that, usually, we'll put them in there partly because I know guys want to do it. And if I go, if I go too long without letting a bench or squat or deadlift, like they're gonna wind up, go into something else. But part of that is I'm trying to show guys that yes, you can actually build muscle, and maybe even build muscle better. Getting away from these lifts. Like I'm still a fan of, like, I make a lot of arguments that I make about not squatting, benching, and dead lifting. Some of that is Devil's Advocate, stuff, as I'm trying to get people to think about why you might not do that. Like, I still think those are good movements, like I still think deadlifts are probably need to be in the program, at least part of the year. You know, for maximal development of the back, like it's just too good of a, like the loading and everything that you get from deadlifting is hard to replicate with other things. But it's getting guys to think about why we might not deadlift because I think once you kind of understand that you're going to have, you're going to understand the program that you're doing better. And that's better. Yeah,

Philip Pape  1:28:24

I like the variety. It's funny, it took me about three years of telling my wife what to get me for Christmas to get my home gym to where I could easily do a body but because you know, you need some sort of leg develop or some sort of hack, Squat leg press something or other, all the extra bars, you know, the dumbbells and it's quite a bit, you know, but but, uh, yeah, so the last, the last thing I want to talk about, because you alluded to it is the progression. And I'm kind of going to switch two or three topics in one here, but you've got your six week progression with the pretty much the same movements on, you know, you got the six days, and then those movements are repeated over six weeks, maybe a little bit of shift in rep range, but you're progressing them, then you have the week D load and then you go into a new cycle with new movements. Just talk about that a little bit in terms of autoregulation and also why it works well on a cut because this is like usually say this is your number one program recommended on a cut? Well,

Andy Baker  1:29:12

it is auto regulated in that, you know, one of the things I think you can make a mistake on a cut is that you alluded to it earlier in the podcast, which was that, you know, the studies have shown that like the higher IR or higher RPE training, lower volume is actually better at preserving muscle mass than doing like a bunch of like low weight volume or whatever. And I think you know, during the cut that one of the big mistakes that you can make is trying to do a bunch of volume you don't have you don't have the energy reserves to do that for one. So doing a ton of volume. You know if you're if your calories are low, your carbohydrates are lower. Like you have to make the most out of what you have like, like neither one of us believe in like no carb diets but But But typically, in a caloric deficit, your carbs are still going just because you have to cut calories, the cart, and you have to keep the protein up, right. So that doesn't, it doesn't leave a huge budget for a lot of carbohydrates. So you're going to have a limited supply of carbohydrates. And you need to utilize the gas in the tank that you have, right. And you don't want to burn that up. That's why I don't like, like hit protocols, necessarily, because I think it burns up too much glycogen. And the same thing happens with with like really high volume training, you're burning up too much energy without actually doing the real stimulative work on the muscle mass. So I think there's that one, it's just a question of energy resources and trying to be efficient with that. But then also, one of the mistakes that guys make during a cut is you, it's very difficult to preserve maximal strength on a cut. And that's not really the goal, you're trying to preserve muscle mass, not top in strength, top end strength is I mean, even there's, you could probably speak to this better than me. But being topped off on carbohydrates has an effect on the nervous system, like you're going to, you're going to have better nervous system activity in the presence of more carbohydrates, like your nervous system is not going to operate as well in a caloric deficit. So trying to focus too much on preserving maximal squat bench and deadlift, strength, let's say for one rep maxes is kind of a fool's errand. One, it's very hard to do. So you're going to wind up getting overly fatigued, overly frustrated, and worse, potentially opening yourself up to injury. You know, especially if you're late stages in a diet where like in bodybuilding, where you're really low in carbohydrates, because you're trying to pull water out and that sort of thing, you like you're more susceptible to injury, like that tissue is not as pliable. And so you don't. And that's typically where the injuries come from is maximal loading, especially on things like a squat or something like that. So you want to be careful about trying to get too wrapped up in a diet about preserving top end, like top end strengths. Because it's one, it's just not possible and the risk is high. So you want to say, I want to preserve the maximum amount of muscle mass that I have. And that's easier to do with a program like this, because it doesn't take as much to preserve muscle mass, like if you're working the muscle, hard, even at a low volume, you're not going to lose muscle mass like you're going to you may not gain a lot. And you certainly aren't, may not gain as much top end strength. And you may even lose a little bit of strength, but you want to you want to fight to to keep as much strength as possible. But on in those medium to higher rep ranges. You know what I'm saying? And so this a program like this tends to allow you to push as hard as you can at any given workout, but kind of allow whatever happens to happen in terms of I don't know if that makes sense. So, yeah, yeah, no, no, it does. And it's just working within a range. Like I may just say, I want you to perform one all outset in the four to eight rep range on a pitch. Like that's like as long as you if you do that, regardless of what the load is, but you take as much load as you can, and push hard in that four to eight rep range. And then you take a little off the bar, and you want additional set as hard as you can right up to failure in the eight to 12 rep range, you're not going to lose muscle mass with that type of approach, it may not gain that much strength, but you're not going to lose. And that's when you're dieting, the idea is to trim as much fat off as possible, but preserve as much muscle as possible. And so a protocol like this helps with that. Also, there's some some evidence, I think both in the literature as well as just anecdotal. And this, this is really into whether you're dieting or bulking or maintaining or whatever, the harder you're pushing on your exercises. So the more the more you're pushing your sets to failure, and that sort of thing, the quicker you're going to plateau on those movements, like you're, you're going to hit a wall faster on those. And so there's a need to rotate out to different movements. Whereas if you're training more powerlifting style, and you're doing much more of your your work sub maximally like you can because a lot of like my powerlifting programs, and it seems counterintuitive, but a lot of the work is submaximal work, more sets and that sort of thing so maximally and you can actually sustain that's that's actually the only way if you want to train squat bench and deadlift year round, like most of your work is going to actually wind up being submaximal that's the only way to sustain it. But if you're pushing your your exercise, if you're pushing to failure on these movements or right up to failure, you'll actually find that you hit plateaus and burn out those movement patterns faster. And so that you need to rotate out to new exercises. Body builders have been doing that for decades. Some guys will do it physically. So they'll do it in phases they'll do they're going to You know, start their chest day with an incline press and they're going to do that as long as possible until it kind of burns out, they're not making any more progress and then they'll switch over to a flat bench or to incline with dumbbells or something like that. Or, you know, what is more common in bodybuilding programs traditionally, is guys switch out all the time. And sometimes it's just completely auto regulated. So this week I went, I started within client the next week, I started with bench the next week, I started with dumbbell inclines, or whatever. And that looks if you're familiar with like the conjugate method, that's, that's the same exact principle, like most like the most bodybuilding programs are the is the conjugate method. I talked with Dave Tate about this last week, it's going to be on the podcast, but they don't call it that in bodybuilding. But it's the same principle. And when you do the conjugate method, you're what we're, this is a powerlifting program. But what we asked you to do is say every week, you're going to max out for a one rep max on a benchpress variation. Okay, now, why do we use variation? Why don't we say every Monday, we're just going to max out on the benchpress. Because if you max out on the bench press every week, you're going to regress, like you cannot do the same movement pattern. Yeah, you can't do the same movement pattern every single week for a max. But if you slightly alter it, and one week is bench the next week is close grip, the next week is incline the next week is pin presses, you actually can max out every single week, just by that slight alteration in exercise selection. And the same thing happens in a bodybuilding program, because you're pushing, you're not pushing to one rep max, but you are pushing to failure, you can't stay with those movements that long before they need to be rotated out for something else. And so it's because there's similar things that happen, say in a one rep max versus a five rep max or an eight rep max, and that it's very demanding. And you basically burn that movement out. So there has whether it's six weeks, or every other week, or however you're going to do it, there has to be some mechanism in there to rotate the exercises out. Because if you do the same exercises, to failure, or for one rep maxes, or whatever, every week, you're going to wind up actually going backwards. So that's even more true. Again, the more advanced that you are, the more this is going to be true. And so for like a brand new guy that's doing this program, if after six weeks, he still feels like he's progressing on the six week block that he's in, I would actually tell it Yeah, you could actually keep going with that six week block, and then just extended out to eight weeks or 12 weeks or whatever, until you start to see diminishing returns and then switch. So you don't necessarily have to switch every six weeks. I encourage people to push hard enough and load aggressively enough so that in six weeks, you're ready to switch movements. Yeah, yeah, where you've probably reset once during that time, maybe it's really hard when you start at the top of the rep range move down maybe have to set well that's that would be ideal. Like it's like in the program, it might say, okay, you know, first set on Quad Day as a safety squat bar for four to eight rep, you know, one set one all out set of four to eight, like it I don't always say but it is implied that all of those sets are basically max effort, not nuts, like on squats, I'm not necessarily saying you have to fail, like you have to wind up like on the floor, like failure. But basically, you're going to push those sets as hard as you can so that at the beginning of the six weeks, let's say you start off at eight reps at 315. You know, by the end of the six weeks, you want to be down, you've you've wanted to load aggressively enough so that you're safe, barely getting four, you know, so and then you can either reset the way or switch to a different exercise. And that's the thing with hypertrophy is that there's a much much wider range of movements that are available to you like as long as you're pushing maximally whether you're doing a safety squat bar, or a cambered bar or a hack squat or a leg press like exercise selection is as long as they're all kind of check all the boxes, there's there's nothing that you have to do. And lots of movements can be equally effective. And that's one of the big differences between bodybuilding and powerlifting is in powerlifting, you have to squat bench and deadlift.

Ep 130: The Hardgainers Guide to Outsmarting Your Metabolism and Maximizing Muscle Gain

Are you trying to gain muscle but still struggling despite being (or thinking you're in) in a calorie surplus?

Today we are tackling the hardgainer's dilemma: How do you eat enough to build enough muscle without putting on too much fat when you have an overactive metabolism, whacked-out hunger cues, and potentially years of trying to build without success?

Hardgainers can indeed create the conditions for muscle growth and overcome their genetic limitations. They can make impressive gains that they never thought possible.

Episode summary:

We delve deep into the challenges hardgainers face when trying to pack on muscles. Often, hardgainers feel like they're fighting a losing battle with weight gain, but with the right strategies, they can overcome these hurdles and achieve their desired physique.

One of the key factors that impact a hardgainer's journey is the misconceptions and myths surrounding weight gain. A scientific understanding of weight gain can go a long way in helping hard gainers overcome their unique muscle-building dilemmas. It's important to understand that the body's response to calorie intake and expenditure can vary widely from person to person. This is why some people may gain different amounts of fat for the same increase in calories, which can make muscle-building a challenge for hard gainers.

Another critical aspect we discussed is the power of a positive mindset. Building muscles is not just about physical effort but also about mental resilience. Having a growth mindset, setting realistic goals, and staying motivated are key factors in turning small wins into massive gains. We emphasized the importance of celebrating every little stride made towards fitness goals and reframing the thought process to focus on progress.

A large part of the discussion was also dedicated to nutrition. Achieving a calorie surplus through strategic meal planning is vital for muscle growth. We addressed the fear many hard gainers have about gaining fat and emphasized the role of macronutrients in stimulating muscle growth. Eating more calories than you burn, getting those calories from nutrient-dense foods, and fueling your workouts with enough carbs and protein are all essential strategies for muscle gain.

We also touched on the role of training in muscle building. Hardgainers need to follow a challenging training program that includes heavy compound lifts, progressive overload, and adequate recovery. We discussed the importance of supplementing with protein and carbs and encouraged listeners not to be afraid of incorporating their favorite foods into their diet.

Hardgainers can indeed overcome their genetic limitations and build muscles successfully. It might require a little extra effort and planning, but with a positive mindset, strategic nutrition, and a challenging training program, muscle-building is entirely achievable.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

(2:04) What is a hardgainer?
(5:21) Strategic nutrition and training plan for muscle gain
(6:54) Metabolic adaptation
(9:25) Mental obstacles
(12:19) Four practical positive mindset shifts
(18:48) Consuming more calories than you burn
(20:16) Strategies to stay in the surplus
(30:08) Training for hardgainers
(36:47) Outro

Episode resources:

• MacroFactor app – use code WITSANDWEIGHTS to extend your free trial to two weeks (and support me and this show!)

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching

👩‍💻👨‍💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.

📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

hard gainers may struggle to put on muscle, but they can still achieve their goals with the right approach. Whether you have a fast over responsive metabolism feel like you can never eat enough or are worried all that gain is going to fat. You'll learn how to finally maximize your muscle gain in this episode. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 129 Why passively consuming my podcast is getting you nowhere. With Carl Berryman, we discussed how to implement the content you're consuming to integrate it into your life rather than being a bystander and constantly binging podcast without taking action. Carl walked us through his simple but effective mental muscle up mmm you today for episode 130. The hard gainers guide to outsmarting your metabolism and maximizing muscle gain. We are tackling the hard gainers dilemma. How do you eat enough to build enough muscle without putting on too much fat when you have an overactive metabolism, whacked out hunger cues, and potentially years of trying to build without success. hard gainers can indeed create the conditions for muscle growth and overcome their genetic limitations. I work with hard gainers all the time, and we are doing this every day. And you can as well, they can make impressive gains that they never thought possible. And that is what we're diving into. On today's topic, the hard gainers guide to outsmarting your metabolism and maximizing muscle gain. What is a hard gainer? A hard gainer is simply someone who has difficulty or believes that they have difficulty building muscle and struggling to gain weight, despite their efforts to eat more or again, believing that they're eating more. So there's a lot of mindset and psychology here. And so we have a mix of science and reality, a mix of genetics, along with some science and mindset. And we're going to cover both today. And you can kind of identify which one you fall into, it might be a mix of both, as a self described, quote unquote HARDGAINER, you are likely to relate to a certain set of beliefs. So one of those beliefs is that no matter how much you eat, you don't put on weight. And you'll notice some of these are the opposite of people who struggle the other direction and say no matter how much I diet, I don't lose weight. So hardgainers have the opposite approach, which can be just as annoying for folks. So that's one belief. The second belief is that you've quote unquote, tried everything. But you can't gain lean mass, oh, I've tried all the programs I've lifted heavy, I've lifted high reps, I've done different volume, I've done all the diets that it added up, and you can't gain lean mass. The third belief is that you have a fast metabolism. And it's so fast that you just it's impossible to gain muscle. And then the fourth belief is that bulking just makes you bloated, whether it's just bulking in general or eating a certain amount of carbs or whatever. But it doesn't actually make you bigger just makes you bloated, right? Just just big fat bloated, whatever. Now, the only study that I wanted to mention today because the science is kind of sparse in this area. Eric Trexler actually wrote a great article about hardgainers A while back, and he references the article I'm going to mention here as well by who at all in 2022. So it was just a year or two ago. And in that study, which was titled higher than predicted resting energy expenditure and lower physical activity and healthy underweight Chinese adults. They found that different people can gain different amounts of fat for the same increase in calories. And that this was directly linked to how their energy expenditure increased in response to overfeeding, I think to simplify it, this study and several other others, what they basically show is that yes, some people will when they eat more when they overfeed, right? So they eat beyond their maintenance calories, and their metabolism will start to catch up. Not all the way not a one for one relationship. But their metabolism will increase at a much greater rate than someone else. Right. If you think of the population. If you think of a normal curve, a bell curve, we're all going to find we're all going to fall in different areas. Everybody's metabolism is a little bit different due to genetics and other factors. And some people when they add 500 calories a day to their diet, their metabolism ramps up by 250 calories, and now they're really only in a two 150 calorie surplus. And then they wonder why they can't gain, you know, the half pound or pound or the pound a week that they're going for. And they're only gaining half a pound or not or less. That could be why. So there is a genetic component. But as with all of this stuff, whether it's fat loss, building muscle, whatever, you can't change your genetics, all you can change is how do you express those genetics and what you do about it, given your genetics. So the truth here that we just have to acknowledge right off the bat before we go to the rest of the episode is, if you have a strategic plan, strategic meaning you've thought about it, a nutrition and training plan that is tailored to you, building muscle is 100% achievable. Even if you are a genetic, hard gainer. And many of you listening to this episode are not even genetic hardgainers you just haven't taken the right steps and put it all together, or some sort of fear or limiting belief is holding you back from making those steps. So it may require a little extra effort, a little extra planning a little extra know how, definitely something that we help you with on this podcast. And today I'm going to address specifically. Now once you understand why you struggle to gain weight, and then how to fuel and do those other things appropriately for that, why then packing on lean muscle again, is 100% within your reach, just like when someone says I can't lose weight, or I can't lose fat. absolutely not true. Everyone can it is within your reach. You just have to know how might be harder for you than for others, but it's definitely possible. And even if it is harder, it's not going to be monumentally so. Okay, so I'm gonna iterate reiterate that the the reality here is with a strategic plan that's tailored to you HARDGAINER or not, you can build muscle successfully. And you just have to know what to do. All right. Well, some of the things that we have seen confirmed for what would be a typical hard gainer is, first what I just mentioned that you may have a rapid ramp up of your metabolism in response to calorie intake. So either when your activity goes up, your metabolism adapts quickly. And so either that or when you eat more, your metabolism adapts quickly, right. And your neat might go up quickly, whatever. Regardless, what it means is you're burning, you're eating a bunch of food, you're eating a bunch more food feel like you're stuffing yourself every day. And your body's like whoa, I've got this great food environment, I'm just gonna go burn all these extra calories, because you're giving me a feast every day. And like, really, I wanted to gain weight on purpose. And now my body is fighting me. Okay, so that's one thing. The second thing is that a hard gainer may just be and this might be you may just be someone who is moving a ton outside the gym. And this might be because you just love all sorts of sports and cardio and obstacle course races and all that kind of stuff, CrossFit, whatever, or you have a physically demanding job. I mean, if you're a construction worker, if you do something with your hands where you are burning, like you know 2000 extra calories a day just from moving around. That's very possible, right that you just have a high NEET right non exercise Activity Thermogenesis and are going to have to offset that with with your food, or with some conscious reduction in activity elsewhere, it is kind of the opposite of when we're in fat loss when we're trying to ramp it up, you may have to try to find ways to ramp it down. And then the only other thing that I've identified in the research is the potential for fast gastric emptying, that food moves rapidly from your stomach to your intestines, and so you have less time to absorb all the nutrients. And so you're actually more food more you know, foods coming out than for someone else. But I don't know if that I don't know how big of an impact that can be. Because we know that the vast majority of our energy is lost through our breath through our co2, you know, very little is lost through things like urine and feces and whatnot, you know, hopefully you're not eating when you listen to this. But anyway, those are those are three factors that could make it challenging for someone who is trying to gain muscle by by just eating more and gaining gaining weight, right because these things are out. You can't out eat these things. I mean, you can but you feel like you can't. So let's start with the mindset right? Let's just start with the mindset because a lot of you this is really where it's at. Okay, tell me if one of these or not, you know in your head, tell me through the ether, or do tell me by sending me an email or something a note on IG whether any of these hit home with you the first one are you a perfectionist, and someone who gets frustrated by slow progress you have these perfectionist tendencies you try to plan everything out. I mean, I've got this some in mind as well.

Philip Pape  09:53

I did a quick wits recently about procrastination and one of the types of unmet needs is your perfect Accidents and you wait for everything to be perfect. And if it's not just changing now now now you get frustrated. And this, this may come in the form of, hey, I want to build muscle, so I'm bigger. And then when I lean out, I'm like more jacked. But I also don't want to lose my six pack as I'm building muscle because now I'm building fat. And, and just after a few weeks, my six pack starts to get soft, and then it goes away. And now I'm frustrated because my end goal is to be this lean, jacked person, right. So it could come from that you may just be demotivated because you've tried to gain weight many times in the past and failed. And you're like, okay, it just doesn't work, right? Same thing as the opposite where people, they've tried to lose weight many times and they fail. The the third mental obstacle is just a lack of knowledge, you may not know how to customize your nutrition or your muscle building strategies like your training for you specifically, you might be a high volume type responder, maybe you're younger, a younger male, or maybe you just need that extra volume, or you're female. Sometimes females need more volume than men. And I know this episode is going to sound like I'm talking almost exclusively to men, because they're usually the ones that have this problem. But there could be some women that want to build muscle and are struggling as well. Especially very athletic, maybe very active. So you just may not know what to do. Right, you may be training a certain lift not frequently enough, and not getting the stimulus you need. So even if you're eating, you're not really building much muscle, and so then you gain fat and you're like, Okay, this doesn't really work. So maybe your problem is not that you can't gain weight, but you feel like you're gaining mostly fat. And then the last thing is, I just alluded to it, the fear of gaining too much fat and losing the lean physique, or the visible six pack or whatever it is this muscle definition you've had, knowing deep down inside, that it is in your best interest to spend that time building muscle along with a little fat, knowing that that's the only way to add that tissue to your frame. And so it's a temporary state you're going to be in where you're not going to look like you do it your leanness, but eventually you'll look even leaner and more jacked and ripped, which is probably your goal, right? Or most people's goals to improve their physique, in addition to the other things like strength and function. So as far as cultivating a more positive mindset, because at the end of the day, if we can think positively, and reframe the situation, it's going to go a long way toward then taking the practical steps. So I'm going to give you four things to try. Number one, is having a growth mentality, growth mindset growth mentality focused on the long term gains. If we focus too much on the end result, we're just gonna get frustrated. But if we focus on the things day to day that get us closer and closer to that result, such as getting in your workout, hitting your PRs, or your your maxes or lifts, or whatever it is, you know, your sets and reps pushing the weight up, pushing the reps, whatever the volume is to progressively overload because again, we're talking about being in a gaining phase where you should be able to make continual progress, that focus on the process, that growth mentality will give you lots and lots of wins along the way to know that this is worthwhile. And at the end of the day, you might find that that is really where the fun is, I've discovered now, even even if I sit sit around for three or six months, with a little bit of a soft belly, that I don't mind, in the least I am proud to wear that little bit of fat on my belly, because I am my lifts are going up, I'm going to the gym feeling energized and strong and being able to lift and you know, I still have some muscle popping out through the arms and the shoulders and everything. But I know there's some fat covering whatever else is in there, but I'm really loving that process. So if you can do that, it's gonna go a long way. And then it serves the other choices you make, like the fuel, right, what you eat, and having carbs and things like that. So that's one, adopting a growth mentality. Number two, is celebrating the small wins. So I alluded to that already, but every day you're gonna have wins like PRs, you're gonna have strength increases, you're gonna have increases on your circumference measurements. Even when you gain body mass that can be a win. Now, we talked about in fat loss, not focusing on the scale, but scale scale is one of many metrics. And if you see it slowly trending upward over time, that itself can also be celebrated. Of course, the third thing for a more positive mindset is to go ahead and set mini goals. So this is again, we're tying or integrating these ideas, but instead of just having that six or nine month or 12 month goal to gain a certain amount of weight, because that's how long it's going to take much longer than fat loss. Okay, set many goals to stay motivated through that time. And for me, the mini goals are going to be every strength training session I have, I have numbers that I want to hit. And so I do everything in my power to make sure I'm free Pair to hit those numbers, I don't think, Okay, I hope those hit those numbers. No, I say, all right, did I get enough sleep? Am I eating enough? Am I fueling enough carbs and my heart hydrated, I'm getting enough sleep, am I you know, is my workout plan appropriately for the volume, and on and on. Like all those things, I'm setting myself up to achieve that mini goal that's going to happen tomorrow. And then the next day, and then the next day. And the days that you don't go to the gym, you may have other goals related to your food, or related to recovery or self care. So many goals are a huge tool in the toolbox for anyone, but especially in this case, what we're talking about with hard gainers, because it's a long process to build muscle. The fourth mindset strategy is to understand that results require what I'm calling aggressive consistency, over time, aggressive consistency over time. And it sounds kind of like a catch 20 tour Contra, what am I trying to say contradiction a little bit. By consistency. I mean, you know, you show up every day, and you get about 80 or 90% of the things done you intend to do every single day, you're gonna achieve massive results that way, because most people either don't show up, or they show up very sporadically, or they show up and they try to be perfect for a day. And then they don't show up at all for three days, you're going to be aggressively consistent. So that means if you go to the gym four days a week, you go to the gym four days a week, maybe they're not perfect sessions, but you went to the gym and you try it and you you didn't just give up and not do the lift, you try the lift, maybe you didn't get all the reps because you didn't sleep well the night before having a food the night before. So aggressive consistency over time is where it's at. And if whatever you're doing is not allowing you to be consistent. This is where we rewind, and we say why not? What is preventing the consistency? Are we trying to do too much? Do we need support countability coaching? Do we need to focus on just one thing at a time, whatever. Okay? So just like training a muscle requires some sort of stress to kind of break it down to tear it down. Not not not muscle, tear him so much. But just to kind of over stress it so that it can come back stronger the next time. Right. Training your mind in that way of progressive overload is important overcome these beliefs. So hopefully that was helpful. I do want to get into the nuts and bolts now because you know, that's often where a lot of what I talk about lies. But if you are struggling with the mindset stuff, definitely please reach out to me and say, Hey, here's this thing struck a chord with me. Let's talk more about it. Let's dig into details. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  18:46

All right, so hardgainers. Gaining Muscle Gaining weight requires a very simple thing, consuming more calories than you burn. But just like energy balance in the other direction, consuming fewer calories than you burn to lose weight is simply the outcome. We know that there are million things standing in the way of us doing that that we might need to figure out hardgainers must eat substantially more than expected. And if you're a true hard gainer, it's more than the the person next to you to gain the same weight. Because your metabolism is probably ramping up more quickly. Now, here's the reality. Do hardgainers exist? Yes. But it's very individual. And it also shifts. And what I mean by that is I've seen one single person be a hard gainer at one point in their life and not in another. I've been in that situation where my metabolism has just been skyrocketing. And I'm like, Whoa, I have to just eat way more calories and other muscle burning phases where that didn't happen. And so then the question is, does this just change with our lives and our situations? Is this more epigenetic than simply genetic? And at the end of the day, then maybe we shouldn't worry about all that stuff and just fall Guess on understanding our metabolism right now. And what surplus we want to be in and identify that number. And if that number is climbing quickly, we're going to have to ramp up the strategies that allow us to stay in that surplus. And we're going to talk about those. Okay, so the first strategy, you've got to be tracking, you've got to be tracking your food, and your expenditure. So here's where I'm a stickler for an app like macro factor. And I've had, I've had some arguments with people recently about other apps like chronometer, and my fitness pal. Look, My Fitness Pal is junk, in my opinion, because the database is unreliable. The features are terrible, it doesn't do anything for you. It's just a it's just a database to put numbers in. And you have to figure out what numbers to put in there. And what targets you want to go for. It's Chuck, so don't use my fitness pal. chronometer. Okay, I like chronometer I used to like chronometer, I mean, it's got some nice nutrition features and a decent database. It's a verified database, like macro factor, but it doesn't calculate your expenditure automatically. It calculates your expenditure, but it's not accurate. Do you know why, if you go look up the Help Page of how it works, all it does is it takes the one of the standard formulas that you can just plug in, and then it adds in your activity. That's one of the most inaccurate ways to do it. Because first of all, the formula is, can be off by several 100 calories, it doesn't know you and how your body responds. Secondly, using your activity from a device, we know is terribly unreliable, up to 80% inaccurate, and it's just all over the place. totally worthless. So it's junk. And so definitely go and use macro factor. Yes, I'm an affiliate proudly. So because I use it all my clients use it. And it's the only app that does what it does. And that is it auto adjusts your weekly, calorie and macro targets to your true expenditure. And it calculates that expenditure in a very elegant way, by looking at how your body adds or gains or loses weight over time, and looking how much you're eating every day. It needs two things, your weight and your food. That's it. And then it has a nice, elegant, probably slightly complicated algorithm in the background that says, Okay, this week, you're burning about this many calories a day. And it's pretty darn accurate. Pretty darn accurate, I would stake my coaching business on it, because I do I have my clients use it for that very reason. So track using macro factor use my code, Wits & Weights, all one word Wits, & Weights, when you download it for the first time to get an extra week in your free trial. And then yes, it is a paid app, it's something like 72 bucks a year. If if that is too much for you, then I'm sorry, your health is not worth it for you. That's just I'm sorry, that's just my take on that. Alright, so track your food and track your expenditure over time. And by doing so this, this honestly is probably the most important step of all the ones I'm going to tell you. By doing so you will know that your metabolism is ramping up like a rocket like you think it is as a hard gainer. It may not be you may you may discover it's not, you may discover that you're just simply massively under eating. And you're not even eating that much you maybe your metabolism maybe around I don't know, say 2800 calories, and you've just been eating 2400 thinking that you're eating a lot because maybe you eat a lot of protein, maybe eat a lot of Whole Foods and they're just filling for you. Right maybe you drink a lot, maybe move a lot you just are and you don't have good much hunger signals. That's the awareness that you get from it. So track your food and expenditure over time using macro factor that is number one. Number two, this is the food part. How do you just eat more food? Okay, very simple strategies. First, you need enough frequency throughout the day, I would aim for five to seven feedings instead of what I'm sure a lot of you hardgainers are doing right now you're probably only eating three or four times you eat four times thinking yeah, meaning four times three meals and a snack that's that's a whole bunch of times, split it up into like five to seven, you know, first thing you get up post workout mid morning, lunchtime, mid afternoon dinner, and then dessert or a pre bed snack, there you go, that's 678 times right there, you'll be able to eat more, okay, your stomach will never get fully empty and never get fully full. And you'll be in this kind of consistent state of just being able to continually feed yourself and you won't feel stuffed and you won't feel hungry either. So it's kind of in between. You also get a constant influx of nutrients, you're gonna feed your muscles with the protein, all that good stuff, muscle protein synthesis, making sure the protein is spread out throughout the day. You're not going to have these long fasting periods, which could be affecting some of what's happening to you, right, other than when you're asleep, you're fasting. I wouldn't train fasted either like I wouldn't make any drastic changes in your, your workout or nutrition relative to each other. I would just kind of have a nice continuous feeding throughout the day every day. I think this frequent higher calorie meal approach is one of the main reasons one of the main things that unlocks success for hardgainers Yeah, okay, so that's what that are. That's number two. Number three, having your carbs around your workout, I think this is great no matter who you are, right carbs, carbs replenish your muscle muscle glycogen after post exercise, I would, I would have your higher carb meals before and after your training, you'll probably find that you have more hunger for them, then your body needs them, your body wants them, and you'll just be able to fit in more food that way. Okay, if you have to use something like highly branched cyclic dextran, it's a simple digestible powder form of carbs, use it, use it, put in a scoop and get 100 grams of carbs that way, you know, that's easy. If you need four grams of carbs, that's a quarter your carbs right there, and you hardly will feel it in the stomach. Number four, I want you to optimize your protein distribution. And this should be super easy. If you're eating five, six or seven times a day. I'm just gonna leave it at that do both and you'll be fine. Number five is the calorie density now is the opposite of what you do in fat loss. Now you want higher calorie dense foods. But, but still nutritious Whole Foods for the most part, for the most part, okay? You can still or not can I still want you to have 10 20% of your diet reserved for things that you just want to eat. I don't care if it's ice cream, pizza, doughnuts, the things that you love. This is great when you're trying to gain and you need more calories. Actually, those become even easier, like a donut is just a fairly fat dense piece of carbs, right that has the fats and the carbs in there, hardly fills you up and give you a lot of calories, which is a good thing in this case. But but let's let's take a step back to what I was starting with here and that is eating foods that are higher in calorie density, which usually are things with more fat, so eating salmon instead of whitefish eating ribeye instead of sirloin eating whole eggs don't even think about a whites you don't need them. eating cheese. I mean, have you been avoiding cheese, now's the time to enjoy cheese, nuts. Oh my goodness, handfuls of nuts will go a long way toward giving you calories nuts and nut butters. For example. Have your starchy carbs. Now I know some carbs like potatoes actually are kind of filling. But you still need the carbs. So it's good to have Whole Foods sources of carbs like rice potatoes. This is where you bring in the beans and lentils you know Beans are high are fairly calorie dense actually do get the carbs and some protein. You can add oils, nut oils, coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, like dump them in stuff, have your salad and just go crazy with the oil this time make sure to track it of course, right make some homemade blue cheese dressing. If you got oil and cheese together, you can see I'm just like working up an appetite myself because I'm in a gaining phase right now. So great time to do this podcast. Number six, if you still need more calories, supplements, okay, not not just protein shakes. I don't even think I mentioned it. But obviously, liquid forms of stuff is going to be easier than solid to fit it in your stomach like liquid protein shakes the liquid carbs that I already mentioned, or even making smoothies and taking fibers things and mashing them down into the where they're effectively pre digested. But I'm talking about like, I don't know, meal replacement shakes like first form has a meal replacement protein shake that has the carbs in there as well already, so they're more convenient. They're things like weight gainers, I'm not a big fan of all these, like, you know, kind of overly marketed stuff used to get a GNC type type thing. But like the higher quality meal replacement shakes or meal replacement bars, there's actually a bar made it here in Connecticut called the muscle up bar that is made from sweet potato and it's it's like 260 calories in a really densely packed bar with very simple ingredients. It's got whey protein isolate, it's got sweet potato,

Philip Pape  28:44

maybe dates, maybe some nuts, maybe some monk fruit or stevia or something and sweetened and stuff like that, right, maybe some chocolate, maybe peanut butter, and so on. And if you're getting hungry, listening to this and your hard gainer, take advantage of it, walk to the kitchen and make some of this stuff right now, right now and eat it, enjoy it, track it. Number seven. Okay, so when you have days of the week, this is another big challenge I see you will have days a week when you're not training, maybe you don't walk as much. Maybe you're sitting around the couch all day because it's a weekend you're watching football, or it's the holidays. This is where you have to watch out because you can do kind of the opposite of what some people in a fat loss phase worry about. They worry about overeating on some of these days, you might actually be under eating. Because you don't have that routine, you don't have the training sessions kind of pushing you the days that I don't train, I have to intentionally get that extra feeding in because I'm not training where I would have the before and after. So now it's just one feeding when I had to fit in another one not have to but I choose to fit in another one to get the same calories for the day. I'm not a big fan of cycling calories, especially when you're in a surplus because you've just got all these calories coming in anyway. There's no need to go like really high on Sundays and lower on others. So the goal here or the moral the story here is meal planning like to plan ahead and make sure you know how you're tackling the training days versus the non training days to make sure that calorie surplus is nice and high. So I'm going to mention one last thing. I know some of you are worried about gaining too much fat. But muscle gain requires being in a surplus. And the main variable that's gonna cause you to build muscle with that surplus is your training is your training. So there's the mindset side of it, of course, we have, we have to celebrate the wins, do all the short term, focus on the process and so on that we talked about focus on non scale metrics, like your circumference measurements, and maybe getting some new shirts that like where you fill them out, because you have these nice big traps and big arms. Now nice, big broad back, even though you have a little bit of a belly, you're going to look big and strong out in public, you know, if you're not walking around with your shirt off all the time. Okay, so great time of yours is winter to do this. But training is the most effective part of this whole thing to actually build the muscle and not just gain fat, and offset the fear of gaining too much fat even though I'm sorry to say you're gonna gain some fat. And it depends on the rate again, you go at and I did an episode not long ago, called like, oh man was it called it was like the best way to gain for building muscle or something. Just to summarize, point, two 2.3% of your body weight per week is a decent rate of gain. Okay, so that's a super good rule of thumb. For most people, even a hard gainer, it's just a hard gainer might find it harder to get to that surplus because of these other factors we talked about and are going to have to just eat more food. And if you track it with macro factor, it's going to tell you to eat more food. Okay, so how should you be training, just like anybody else should be training, heavy compound lifts, progressive overload principles, like adding weight, or reps or set or some other form of volume, having enough recovery, right, having enough frequency using intensity techniques as needed, right. Supplementing with with, you know, protein and taking creatine, you know, whatever other supplements you need, getting enough carbs, getting enough protein around your workouts, all of that. That's it. Like that was the entire section on lifting for today that I wanted to cover, because I've done plenty of other episodes, specifically about training. And today was more about the distinct challenges that hard gainers face, which is trying to eat enough food and having and struggling to do so. And by the way, I have clients who go through this all the time. And I can I see them struggle for a few weeks, but because they're getting feedback from me where I say, look, we've got the data you're tracking with macro factor, you're just not eating enough. Here's why. And then it gives them ideas. Okay, what do you like, oh, you love peanut butter? Well, we'll go crazy on the peanut butter. Oh, really? I can do that. Yeah, absolutely. You like this particular process food because it's just delicious. And you've been avoiding it, or cutting it out because of some low carb diet, Iran, put it back in, it's fine, put it back in if it represents 10 or 20% of your calories. Go for it. All right, you have my permission, and you have your own permission to do that. Alright, so and then there's the lifestyle component, which again, really applies to everyone to make sure that you're optimizing your recovery and your growth, and that is the seven to nine hours of sleep, right? You've got to get those muscles to, you know, to have the right environment to get built and repaired. And to have optimal hormones. You want to keep that stress low, keep the cortisol low, the anxiety low because all of those, believe it or not, could come into play with you, not having regulated hunger signals and thus feeling like you're to fall. More often than not, it's the other things we've already talked about. But sometimes it is, you know, you're just too stressed. And we talk about stress going the other direction and like making you overeat but but when you're trying to eat a lot of food, having too much stress could maybe suppress your appetite as well. So, adequate sleep, you know, adequate stress management, sufficient hydration and electrolytes. Yes, even though we don't want to, you know, be so full on water that we're hungry. We do want to have enough hydration. So it's it's quite a balanced. Alright, I think I covered what I wanted to cover. What we've learned today, basically, is that true hard gainers definitely have challenges because of things like an overall response and metabolism. misfiring hunger cues, potentially years of being discouraged by slow gains. But if you have the right fuel, you train smart. You have a constructive growth oriented day by day celebrating the daily win mindset and you support things like recovery. Even if you are a true hard gainer, you can just as easily just as easily make progress as anyone else. You may want to do some things more precisely, and think ahead and have a plan and maybe have some accountability or a coach. You want to monitor your energy intake and expenditure. You're going to obviously eat more calories than you burn and the only way to know that is know how many calories you're burning. You want to get those calories from dense foods but still mostly whole nutritious foods. But now it opens up the palate to things like nuts, beans, all the other stuff. We talked about oil. You want to fuel your workouts with enough carbs and protein don't Train fasted, you know, don't do long fasting periods, eat healthy fats, follow a challenging training program that has progressive overload, and rest and recover and keep the stress low. This is the way to gains all of my HARDGAINER friends out there. And here's the thing, if you want to explore what this entire process might look like specifically for you, because as I've alluded to this entire podcast, it's got to be tailored to your needs. If you want to do that, I will go over the strategy that I use with all my HARDGAINER clients, but personalized for your situation. So I have a call called a free results breakthrough session call. It's just a 30 minute zoom call. I don't sell I don't pitch. It's just a conversation between two people who are looking to solve what seems like a pesky problem, but absolutely has a solution. We'll make it happen. Just use the link in my show notes. Schedule a free call. Again, it's called the results breakthrough session. You should see it in my show notes. I always leave a few spots open on my calendar each week. So let's do it. Alright, so our next episode 131 Andy Baker, on bodybuilding for hypertrophy, and an aesthetic muscular physique, Andy the man, he's my coach, he's one of the best programmers out there, and strength conditioning coaches, he is back to talk about bodybuilding style programming. Last time we talked more on the strength side today. In this episode, we're gonna get into bodybuilding. We'll get into techniques like the top set back offset approach, training up to six days a week, the contribution of hypertrophy to strength, the methods like the DC rest pause method, and lessons that Andy has learned from coaching people through these programs, including yours truly, who is one of his, you know, barbell club coaching clients. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Ep 129: Why Passively Consuming My Podcast is Getting You Nowhere with Carl Berryman

Are you an avid podcast listener who binges on shows but struggles to integrate the information actively into your life?

In this episode, we have back on the show—for a record third time— Mr. Carl J. Berryman, the host of the Inspired by Impact podcast and one of my closest brothers from another mother.

Carl had me on, along with Paul Salter, on his show, and we discussed the very important concept of INTENTIONALITY—of being intentional, deliberate, and directive with your actions after you hear something notable, helpful, inspirational, or profound in some way.

How are you using all this content you consume? If you're a podcast listener like me, you've probably binged shows, even Wits & Weights, which I'm happy for, but are you actively applying that information to your life?

 Carl listens to this program and is an expert at implementing information, and he will demonstrate the Mental Muscle Up (MMU) approach to show you how to accomplish this yourself. All I ask is that you attempt it in this episode.

Episode Summary:

Content consumption has become an integral part of our daily lives. However, it's not just about passively consuming information; it's about actively integrating valuable takeaways into our life fabric. In this episode, we dive deep into this concept with expert Carl J. Berryman. He shares his unique method, the Mental Muscle Up (MMU), a potent tool for personal growth.

The key to personal growth is intentionality in content consumption. Instead of being a passive observer, we must engage actively with content and use it to improve ourselves. This process involves being intentional about the content we consume and integrating the information actively into our lives.

Transforming thoughts into actions can seem like an elusive concept, but it can be simplified by using potent tools like quotes. These nuggets of wisdom can effectively drive your self-improvement journey. By turning a quote or idea into a question that represents a challenge you are facing, you can harness its power for personal transformation.

It's essential to define your situation and the desired transformation to make the most out of these quotes. A useful technique is to list four things you don't want and four things you do want in your transformation. This process can help clarify your goals and provide a clear direction for your personal growth journey.

An integral aspect of personal growth is physical health, productivity, and relationships. Being organized and productive, coupled with nurturing relationships, can significantly enhance your mental and emotional health. For instance, MMUs can be a transformative tool. By tracking your energy levels in relation to carb intake, you can improve your physical health.

Ultimately, achieving personal growth is about taking action and getting results. It's about knowing what you want and being committed to achieving it, rather than just being aware of it. It's essential to be clear on our values and targets, and establish specific behaviors that will lead us to our goals.

Active content consumption is a powerful tool for personal growth. By being intentional, taking action, and utilizing tools like quotes and MMUs, we can drive our self-improvement journey.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

(3:32) Importance of being more than a passive content consumer
(5:50) Role of intentionality in daily life
(8:25) How Carl curates what he listens to
(11:58) Process for active improvement from passive listening
(13:36) Applying and refining the MMU process to Wits & Weights episodes
(34:09) Unexpected actions resulting from podcast listening
(35:51) Advice for those overwhelmed by information without change
(37:34) Managing and prioritizing content takeaways
(40:27) Accountability in the MMU process and involving others
(48:18) Examples of behavior or mindset changes from podcast takeaways
(52:53) Learning from unsuccessful podcast takeaway implementations
(54:54) Aligning actions with core values and avoiding reactionary changes
(1:02:12) Carl's biggest regret with his health and fitness
(1:07:34) Outro

Episode resources:

• The Brotherhood Bootcamp Training Manual (free digital copy)

• Inspired by Impact – A Podcast for Men

• IG: @ignitetheimpact

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching

👩‍💻👨‍💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.

📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Carl Berryman  00:00

Let's say I'm listening to your podcast and it's just notable, quotable, after notable chordal after notable quote a while I'm like, You know what, as I'm listening to this podcast, I'm limiting myself to four. That is it. So then once those four are done, every other piece of content that you say that really triggers something in me and inspires me, I now have to compare it against one of the other four to see which one I'm going to ditch because I've maxed myself I've made my overwhelm limit, four.

Philip Pape  00:29

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry. So you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. We have back on the show for record third time. Mr. Carl J Berryman, host of the inspired by impact podcast and one of my closest brothers from another mother. Karl recently released a series of episodes about men's mental health month for November, covering everything from purpose to relationships to fitness, and lots more. So subscribe to his show to check those out. And in one of the shows, it was on November 16, titled, what are the best ways to use physical fitness to strengthen your mental health? Carl had me on along with Paul Salter, and we discussed the very important concept of intentionality, of being intentional, deliberate and directive with your actions after you hear something notable helpful, inspirational or profound in some way. What exactly are you the listener? Yes, you the listener right now dealing with all this content you consume. If you're an avid podcast listener, like I am, I've got dozens if not hundreds of my feed, perhaps that you've you've been shows before even Wits & Weights, which I'm grateful for, but then are you integrating that information actively into your life, not just passively. And then moving on to the next episode, or video or distraction. Today, we are going to help you out. Carl is a master at implementing information, and is also a regular listener of this podcast. And he is going to give you concrete examples of how he used the takeaways from a few of our earlier episodes and took action, Carl is going to demonstrate a very effective method he calls the mental muscle up or MMU to give you the exact steps you can take to do this yourself. And all I ask is that you try it with this very episode, Carl, my brother, I'm always excited to have you back. Welcome. Welcome back.

Carl Berryman  02:47

I'm excited to be here as well. And I wanted to pick apart that intro a little bit, but of course, you've just completely blown it out of the park. So thank you for that. And thank you for putting just a tiny bit of pressure on me for the for the MMU, because I didn't realize I signed up for a workout here, but actually yeah.

Philip Pape  03:07

I mean, coaching this process, man, you're not gonna get away from it. You are you are, I love it. I love it, who also learns from you every day. And I'm really excited because you're you're running a challenge. Now in parallel with our 21 Day Challenge, you're doing a 24 day challenge. And I want to get into the drivers behind that in the process and the steps. But before that, as always, let's go back to principles, right first principles. Why is it why should we care? Why is it important? Why is it necessary to be more than a passive consumer of content? You know, and I ask that seriously, because there are people who listen to content for entertainment, for information for learning, maybe a mix of all three, I mean, I have stuff in my feed that has nothing to do with fitness. It's you know, science fiction, or news or just entertainment stories or true crime? Why is it important to be an active consumer?

Carl Berryman  04:01

Great question. I'm going to play both sides of fence. Number one, it's not if your goal is not expansion. If your goal isn't to get better, then it's not important at all. Like listen to like there's some times say for example, when I'm when I go in the sauna, I don't like like after every one of my workouts, I don't like taking notes on the stuff that I'm listening. So to so that's when I'll listen to like a modern wisdom podcast, right, because I can. While there's a lot of good takeaways there. I'm not going to apply anything specifically to the MMU unless something really jumps out at me in that case, like, one thing that I've learned over the years is that the good ship sticks, so I'll remember it anyways. Or I'll just quickly take a timestamp but I I consume that more so for relaxing purposes. Whereas if I'm listening to your show, you're specifically because I don't listen to every single episode. I go through the ones and it seems like more often than not now. They're very applicable to specific goals. And I think that kind of goes hand in hand with how much more intentionality you've given me with regards to my my physique transformation and in nutrition, but, so to put things into context, it's not important. Unless you are consuming content for the sake of getting better in a specific way, then it's important to make sure that we're going from passive to active.

Philip Pape  05:24

I like that you mentioned, you pick the topics out that are relevant to you. And also notice that they are specific, I occasionally will come across a new podcast that looks interesting. And then I start going through the episodes, and I'm like, What is the purpose of the episode? Like they'll they'll even have a big name guests on this Olympic medalist who experienced all the success and this podcast is all about success. And like, what are they getting at? And the questions are just kind of rambling. And, and so you're right, that is an aspect of being efficient with our time and being intentional is the content itself, not even what you do with it has to be worthwhile content. Right.

Carl Berryman  05:59

And so the thing, the analogy that just came up there is like, you and I, I know you, you phrase it in terms of going from exercise to training, and I like to think of it in terms of going from working out to training. And this just to me, I look at podcasting or sorry, consuming content, no differently. Like when I go into the gym, the next time I go in the gym, I just have to look at my journalist See what I did last time. If for whatever reason I forget, which I won't, but just to confirm, Kay, what is today? Okay, today's legs. Okay, so what am I doing for legs? Okay, well, today is leg day one, because I have a two day option now. So I know I'm doing squats, dads, and ham curls. Like, those are the three exercises I'm doing. I'm not guessing I'm going in specifically to do those things to accomplish a specific target. So when I'm consuming content, relative to old Carl, who would just I'd be the guy who essentially mentally went to the gym and just got on as many machines as I possibly could and pounded out as many reps as I possibly could without really thinking about okay, is this actually taken me where I want to go? Like, it doesn't make any sense for me anyways, and the reason why it didn't make any sense, because I noticed finally, when I had a hardcore wake up call, that all the time I was putting into the gym wasn't doing anything. And then when I found when I looked at that I was like, all this time and literally 10s of 1000s of dollars, I'm investing in coaching and programs and communities like, my life hasn't changed. And yet, had asked me throughout the day, oh, yeah, man, I got this great idea. This is so good. I'm gonna do it. And it's like, no, no, what you're doing isn't working. Like when are you going to stop and wait the fuck up? Like, oh, you know,

Philip Pape  07:46

that's like so many workshops and seminars and Guru like speeches you go to and you're all fired up, you might even get some material and then it just goes on the shelf and you're done two days later is back to normal. Okay, so you're talking about intentionality, I want to I want to address again, how, okay, let me give you my personal experience, I've got a lot of podcasts in my feed, and I try to whittle them out, you know, when they're relevant anymore, but I do notice that some shows will build up and others immediately when the episode comes out, I want to watch I want to listen to it. Right. And that's, that's a form of intentionality, in my opinion, right? Where I know that there are things that are serving me, but it's not as rigorous as what I'm hearing from you, which I'd be curious about, how do you curate what you listen to? And when you listen to it without it becoming? You know, some people might say, Well, I'm not gonna have a calendar for like, what pocket pack has listened to win? How do you do that?

Carl Berryman  08:39

Another awesome question. Phillip, thanks for that.

Philip Pape  08:42

That's what we're here for man. Exactly. Awesome questions.

Carl Berryman  08:47

And mediocre answers. Okay. So how do I curate it? There's a couple different ways. So specifically, when I'm doing my mental muscle ups, like in the morning, that journaling experience, I have to make sure for me that I'm not just spending every single morning focused on purpose, because purpose is the one thing that I can't stop ever thinking about. I just can't like the podcast, the training manual, everything like that, right? So because when I was younger, I hated doing legs at the gym. But I don't want to be one of those guys who's got a jacked upper body and just these ridiculous chicken legs, like you have to train every single muscle group you have to. So that's how I develop intentionality in terms of I'll go back in my journal and I'll just look at all man, you haven't done ironically enough physical health and fitness is the one that gets skipped the most for me. And I say that because my physical health and fitness is probably the aspects that I'm least concerned with at this point. time because of your help. And my intentionality, I've gotten myself to a point where I'm content but not satisfied, because I definitely want to achieve more. Yet at the same time, if I have to allocate my time, which is limited to other areas of the prep work, say, for example, relationships, or my mental and emotional health and fitness, those are going to take a priority. So really, it boils down to what haven't I been training? Or where does it hurt the most? Okay,

Philip Pape  10:38

I like that, because you in your training manual, which I'm showing on the video here for YouTube. This is the Brotherhood boot camp training manual, you've got the prep work, as you call it, the P R EP, right purpose relationships, emotional and physical. And you're saying that you can choose on any given day, which one you're going to focus on. And sometimes you just don't focus on something for a while. Yeah. And maybe you need maybe you need or want to. You also mentioned though, sometimes you do that intentionally because it doesn't need that right now. There's all these things to balance, you only have so much time in the day, you kind of go between them, and maybe one can uplift the other when you know when you focus on it, right? So people listening, like Carl's really good with the analogy of taking the gym and applying it to life. Like he said, the chicken legs versus the strong upper body. Which is like the opposite for women. Right? Big legs. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So all of this aspect of intentionality is really important. And you're wondering why the hell do I have Carl on here to talk about this on a fitness show? Besides, you know, he's, he's one of the best dudes in my life, and you learn a lot from him, is when you're listening to this show, I put out two episodes a week and two short episodes a week. And if you're listening to every single one of those, that's a lot of time commitment. And I thank you for that. But I want you to take action with that. Right. And so I want to understand, Carl, you're now let's drill down a little bit more. With your focus on integrating lessons from podcasts in your life, what are the steps that somebody can take without being overwhelmed? Right now?

Carl Berryman  12:06

Okay, so really, really quickly. Inside the gym, again, I really like to as I'm teaching classes, or working with clients, I really like to use the scale of level 123. and So level one is taken nice and easy. Level two is dial up and you can dial back when you need. And level three is give it everything you got. So as it relates to, sorry, remind me the question so I can make sure I dial this in. Right. The question

Philip Pape  12:35

is, when you are listening to podcasts, how do you take the next step from that to action? Okay, excellent. So

Carl Berryman  12:42

when I first started, like the the training manual that you're holding in your hands, that is the level three, as far as I'm concerned, like, those five questions are level three. So it might be a little bit intense for everybody, because or not everybody for some people because it requires a lot of introspection. And if you're not used to introspection, it's gonna be a bit much. It's like putting too much weight on the bar. So the first level is just kind of contemplation. So you hear something and man, like, just kind of sit there with it for a minute. Like you don't have to do anything, just let it sink in. Because eventually, what I found, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this, is it's going to come back in some way, shape or form. And there'll be something that happens in your life where you can apply what you were contemplating on. But I don't really want to leave it to chance like that. So level two,

Philip Pape  13:32

let's address that though the contemplation when he says it, when you say it comes back, do you mean because you're continuing to consume content that the theme reemerge is because it's relevant to you or something else? You

Carl Berryman  13:43

know, something else? I'm glad you asked for clarification on that. So for example, I can't think of a specific No, I can't think of a specific example. So day one of our challenge like the 24 before 2024 challenge was all about values. Right? So this morning when I'm going for a walk, I actually it was something that happened later in the day. I was in Instagram and I saw Chris Williamson from the modern wisdom podcast post a post that he got 1.5 million subscribers Okay, so instantly that triggered a little bit of an like just insecurity in me like man this guy's so far ahead of me right? So but now since values is top of mind for me, I immediately asked myself the question Question Carl, what do you truly value like what do you really value do you value the number of subscribers or downloads you have? It's like no, what I truly value is the connection I have with the people that I love the most and the video you sent me today and then Alan sense and then Dennis text me as well like, that's what I value. So am I going to feel horrible about something that means nothing to me, in this case, subscribers, or I'm going to feel amazing about what means the most to me. And that's connection with For the guys in my life. So that's what I mean by if if you're just contemplating something, now you're kind of putting it into into your RAS so that you can start keeping an eye open for it more. So that's it. That's level one. And then level two, which is what we're doing in the challenge right now for part of it is just answering a question that's relevant to what you're consuming. So for example, if I hear from your podcast, like the one with Mike Milner, what was that? 126? Oh, geez, no, no, was 123 123. So there were a lot of gems in there. But the one that I that hit me the hardest that I did an MMU on, was this idea of depositing trust money into your bank account, like self trust, right? So now I'm asking myself the question, How can I continuously make deposits into my self trust bank account? And then I'm literally writing down and finding an action step that represents me putting those words that inspired me into action? So That's level two. So that's inspiration? Yes. Okay, level three, the difference between level three or level two, and level three is the difference between exercise and training. So it's all good to hear really, really good stuff and implement it right away. But that's like going to the gym without a plan. It's better than sitting on the couch, but it still might not get you anywhere. And even if it does, you're going to hit a plateau, and you'll probably stay there. So what really helped me go from level two to level three, in other words, exercise to training was making sure that those steps I was taking, were linked to a very specific outcome that I was wanting. So for example, with you. The goal is to gain muscle, right? Like I want to add some muscle. So if I'm listening to your podcast, and I'm like, oh, man, that's a really good idea. I should start tracking my calories. Okay. Yeah, that's good. And everything like that. And this is a really good example, because you know, better than anybody I, I hated tracking calories. And now I love it. The reason why I hated it before is because it wasn't linked up to a specific target. I knew I should do it. I knew there was benefits to it. But it wasn't linked up to something specific that I was measuring. And this is where I used to go wrong big time. I would have goals like I want to get bigger, I want to get stronger, I want to be in better shape. Those aren't goals. Like those are just words. Like what is what does that even mean? Like? What does that look like? So what do I want to look feel and perform? Like if I can define those to the point where I can measure them? Now I'm going from exercising to train? Does that make sense? Makes

Philip Pape  17:53

perfect sense. So you can either contemplate That's level one, right? And one of the things you talk about in your manual and on your show all the time is no level zeros. So at least doing something here is but way better than nothing. It's kind of like going from from zero to 80% Then you go from 80 to 90 and then 90 to 100 level to answering the relevant question getting inspired putting it what you've heard into an answer a question to yourself that you then answer and then level three linking that to specific outcomes that you are measuring. And in your challenge you're doing kind of an escalating approach to get there for the brothers in that because people might feel overwhelmed doing it all on day one just like I told you you need to train need to sleep needy do this this all on day one. Forget that. I'm gonna go back to keto again keto. That's the boogeyman for

Carl Berryman  18:46

the boogey man, I like that I like that the Keto boogeyman

Philip Pape  18:51

it's the trigger. So alright, so you gave a little example there from the episode 123 with Mike Miller, I don't know if you want to dive into more of that. Or another example that's specific to this show. So people listening to me like okay, that's how I can do it. Yeah,

Carl Berryman  19:04

we'll do another we'll do another one. And actually, I'm not going to do so I sent you the three this morning. But I'm going to I'm going to skip the one or I'm going to call an audible on the one from your episode. 100 Do you happen to have that handy what the quote was that I got from you there? I don't remember off hand if you don't take it

Philip Pape  19:23

away. You sent me there this morning with Okay, I

Carl Berryman  19:25

got it Okay, which means I can pull it up right away. Give me two seconds. Yeah, go for is the one with all the photos. Yes, it is so Okay, so I got it right here. Okay, so, this is what Philip said in Episode 100. He said quote, skepticism is not just questioning everything that comes at you. It's questioning everything that comes from you. And quote, I remember specifically when I was in the gym listening to that I had to stop what I was doing, like, Ah, that was gut wrenching. It was a gut wrenching aha moment. So I'll I'll just you know what Yeah, I'm going to call an audible on this one and pull it through the MMU. So the situation that's so the first question in the in the MMU is what is your situation? And essentially, think of that, like you're determining what you're going to be training inside of the gym, like what is, what is the outcome that you're kind of going towards? So you define what the situation is. So if you're going to the gym, oh, I want to increase my bench by 20 pounds. Okay, well, that's the situation. In this case, I'm realizing that I have some stories and some beliefs when it comes to my physique that probably aren't serving me. So what are those beliefs? And how do I change them to ones that are serving me? So that's what I would put as the situation. So

Philip Pape  20:47

let's, let's break that down real quick. So you took a quote that I said, and by the way, this is really cool that you can talk to the person who said the quote, right, because is sometimes the things I will say at a podcast, and I'm sure you've seen this the same, they just come out. It's not like some profound thing. Yep. And it hits somebody else. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to diminish that at all. I'm not going to say, oh, you know, that's I didn't mean anything by it. When you took something from that. That's, that's awesome. So the skeptic skepticism, not at you, but from you. You heard that that's your notable, quotable that the phrase you use. And you turn that into an interpretation for you of limiting beliefs. Yes. Which is extremely profound concept in everything we do to approve. And then you said, Okay, that's the beginning of my inspiration. Right? Yeah.

Carl Berryman  21:35

Right. So that's like, that's where you then link it back to the situation. And side note here, when I do, you can look at it a couple different ways. It's like if you go to the gym, and it's leg day, and you normally like say, for me, it'd be squats, deads. And then like curl, right? Well, let's say all the squat racks are taken. And for whatever reason, there's no Olympic bars, well, I don't want to do leg curls first, for sure. Because like, that's definitely going to limit my squats and my dad's. But at the same time, I don't want to wait half an hour to start my workout. So unfortunately, I'm gonna have to go there. So there's flexibility in the way that you do the exercises. Same thing with this in the mornings, I always start off with the situation, because I want to, I'm lucky that I have access to hundreds of quotes that I've gotten in my podcast that I have readily available on my phone. So I know who the author is. And it's like, Okay, so today, if I'm working on physical health and fitness, I'll just go to all the Philip Pape quotes that I have, and I'm going to pick one that is relevant to whatever I've defined the situation and be. And so then, but if you get your notable, quotable first, chances are it hit you for a reason. And that reason is something that you can probably put in the form of a question. That is a challenge that you were facing. So applying the notable, quotable, and then defining your situation in the form of a question that represents a challenge you're facing. makes it so much easier that you're going to are much more likely that whatever you took from the podcast is going to serve you well.

Philip Pape  23:13

Okay, okay. I like that. So you take a quote that you hear, turn it into a question, I would expand on that. And I know you have as well that it doesn't have to be a verbatim quote, if you hear a general idea concept, some of your paraphrase. Maybe it was half an hour ago on the podcast, and it's been sticking with you. And now you just want to get it out. You don't necessarily have to find the timestamp. We want to make this easy for people to get what you want out of it. And and there you go, okay. Yes. No,

Carl Berryman  23:39

no, that's perfect. Because then in this situation, if I didn't have the timestamp, I'd have been like, Oh, what did Philip say? It would have been something along along the lines of Don't believe everything you think, okay. And then I just write down Don't believe everything you think. And that would be my, quote, unquote, notable, quotable. And so then, the next question inside the MMU is what is your transformation? And this one really, really helped me i? Where did I hear it first? I think I can't remember. I think I read it somewhere, actually, where you hear about this couple, and they're looking to go on vacation. So they go to the airport, and they're talking to a travel agent, and they're like, Oh, well, where do you want to go? They're like, we're not quite sure. It's like, Well, what was the last vacation? You went on? Oh, we went, we went to this place. We went to that place. Well, what did you like about it? Well, you know what? I'm not really sure. But then so he's had enough of this, like just going around and around. So he says, What didn't you like about the vacation? Oh, man, the food wasn't really that good. Oh, the hotel was not that clean, and people can just rattle off what they didn't like about it, right? So he's like, Okay, so now he makes a list. He has a list of all the things that they don't want. So it's like, okay, so then a vacation that you wouldn't be looking for would be one that has great food, one that has pulsar, one that has whatever it is they listed, right, so we just list off like five things. So I found that for me, what really helps to get me clear about what I do want is to first list out what I don't want, which is why What is your transformation, you look for things that you don't want versus for things that you do want. So in this case, this case, if I'm looking to be a skeptic for myself, and keep in mind, I'm just doing this impromptu. If I'm looking to be a skeptic of my own beliefs, what I want to make sure is that I'm not letting my limiting beliefs guide my behavior. So what I would want on the opposite that is I want empowering beliefs to guide my behavior. And then I would keep going down list just saying the opposite of what I don't want to get very clear about what I do want, because now it's going to be dialed in to what I want at the end of the day, right? Yeah, it

Philip Pape  25:36

makes a lot of sense the way you explained it, where, because of psychology, we love to criticize, we love to say we don't like, you know, if everything goes well, we tend to be it's like going to Amazon looking at a product you're gonna see the one star reviews and the five star reviews and five star reviews are probably all bought for one star reviews are the all the honest reviews, and nobody reviews in between, right? So and that just for listeners, right? Again, in your training manual, that is the next section, what is your transformation, and it is just four lines that say don't versus do. And what Carlos said is, if you can't think of what you want to do, think of what you don't like, and then turn it into the opposite of what can serve you.

Carl Berryman  26:17

And so as it relates to our physical body, right, like, for me, if I say, You know what, I don't want my arms to be small, I don't want to have a flat chest, I don't want to not be able to see my six pack. Okay, well, what do I want, I want jacked arms, I want a full chest, I want to rip six pack like it's just, it comes so much quicker. If you're stumbling upon the things that you do want if you first list things that you don't want. So anyways, not to be no

Philip Pape  26:46

and and Carl probably notices me looking down a lot. But again, I'm just admiring his training manual, as we go through today, like cover fields, I like the way they come. That's nice. It's but it's structured. You know, it's like you've got it all listed in here and the whole first like 30 pages, explain this whole process and give you a bunch of examples. So alright, so that's the transformation. You've got your situation, your notable quotable, your transformation. And then what's next?

Carl Berryman  27:13

The next one is what is your inspiration? And what I found with this one, and this actually ties back to what you said. Because what you said is that sometimes you say things on your podcast that become aha moments for somebody else that weren't necessarily what you meant. So what I found for me, is that the the fourth question, what is your inspiration that allows you to make this really personal and customized to you? So it's where you're essentially, what I do is, right before I'm about to write out, what is my inspiration? I go back, and I just really quickly review. Okay, what was the situation? What's the notable, quotable, and what's the things that I don't do want? And then I'm trying really to come up with an answer for what is the situation, and I'm just kind of word vomiting on the page to let my own inner wisdom come through. Like what does this mean, to me, it might be a place where I let out some more frustrations about the way that in this case, the way that my limiting beliefs have been holding me back. Why I need to let them go, how it's not serving me. So this is kind of a free for all. But it's where you you kind of bring everything together and put it into context before the final and what I would say is the most important step so

Philip Pape  28:22

that makes sense. So you've taken this these pieces, you're now putting them together in freeform, it kind of reminds me of the classic classic like journal I know I know. You don't necessarily want to use the word but that's like to me is kind of putting it together which is nice because then you get you get the brain dump away from the all the initial information you wrote down. You're synthesizing it right? It's kind of like when you have all your notes and you need to write a paper or do a podcast now you synthesizing it together and then what comes after that?

Carl Berryman  28:50

So before what comes after that, though, I just to give an example. I want to demo whatever is down for this one specifically in today's MMU. So what is your inspiration? I put what if I'm completely wrong? I love and hate this question, because at first glance who wants to be wrong, yet isn't being wrong? Typically the first step to being right. So what do I want to be right about as it relates to my body? And what does right look and feel like both tangibly and intangibly? So now I'm just I'm really just asking myself more questions to help me get clear on the next step, which is, what is your integration? And this one? Oh, man, if I were to show you the different pieces and versions of the training manual, that's this is this is the one that's given me the most headaches because like I've been doing this since 2017. And it for such a long time. I was doing the I was doing it used to be called implementation. I was doing the implementation, implementation implementation, but nothing was really changing. And there would be times where I didn't do what I was supposed to do. You won't, I wouldn't realize it until the next morning, I opened up the training mountains. Um, and yeah, that's right. I was supposed to do this. And I just, I just forgot. So there's five extremely critical steps there. Because the question, what is your integration, the whole, the whole idea behind that is to get you to take one small, specific and simple action the next 24 hours, whatever that is. So the first three of those five little check, like literally checkboxes in the training manual that you want to check off to make sure you're doing the right thing. There you go. Thank you, Philip. That's awesome. So are small, specific and simple. But then I added to, that made a huge difference number one was scheduled. So I had to, like literally set an alarm in my phone to remind me when I was going to take the action that I come up with, and then shared. So I shared I might change in the next version of the manual to either say spot so that I can ask somebody for a spot with that, or shout out because if you were the one who inspired me with your notable quotable, I want to give you a shout out for helped me take this action.

Philip Pape  31:11

So that's the that's the community slash accountability slash brotherhood aspect of that.

Carl Berryman  31:17

Yeah, you know what you're gonna count. I'm not a huge fan of that word. Accountability

Philip Pape  31:21

beyond Okay. Support Community says, you know, whatever you want to call it friends. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I liked the scheduled, right, because I think I don't know if any of this was inspired by the SMART acronym. Which specific, measurable action or whatever it is. There's a million versions of measurable actual, realistically bound. Bound.

Carl Berryman  31:40

Yeah. time bound, even realistic. Like,

Philip Pape  31:44

I know, that's realistic.

Carl Berryman  31:46

That's why yeah, anyways,

Philip Pape  31:48

the schedule part is important, though, because sometimes that comes up a lot with I know, with my clients where it's just add a reminder to your phone like that, if you do nothing else, just put this reminder in your phone. And like you said, it might be a reminder to remind yourself or something like it may not even be a thing itself. Because you don't know when you're gonna do that thing necessarily, right? Yeah.

32:08

My name is Tony from a strength lifter in my 40s Thank you to Phil and his Wits, & Weights community for helping me learn more about nutrition and how to implement better ideas into my strength training. Phil has a very, very good understanding of macros, and chemical compounds and hormones and all that and he's continuously learning. And that's what I like about Phil, he's got a great sense of humor. He's very relaxed, very easy to talk to. One of the greatest things about Phil, in my view is that he practices what he preaches. He also works out with barbells, he trains heavy, you notice that he has made but he trains heavy. So if you talk with him about getting in better shape, eating better, he's probably going to give you some good advice. And I would strongly recommend you talk with him, and they'll help you out. Thanks.

Carl Berryman  32:53

Yeah, another piece of that though, the that I got from James clears book atomic habits. And that's why the first part of the integration is your I Am statement. So I found for me that linking behaviors to the type of person I know myself or that I want to be, and he talks about this and atomic habits is extremely powerful for getting us to follow through on the things that we have difficulty following through on. So linking it up to an identity statement. So in this case, my identity, my identity statement for physical health and fitness because I have one or two for each area of prep work that are just standards that when I say them, and I think them they generated a very, very empowering feeling in me. And one of my I am statements for physical health and fitness fitness is I am one jacked, motherfucker. And as soon as I as soon as I read that, it's like, yeah, whatever this action is, it's getting done.

Philip Pape  33:56

That's like a vision board, man. You know, it's like, hey, Arnold, and like Ronnie, and all these guys on the vision board, like that's cool, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. self identity. Yes. Yeah,

Carl Berryman  34:09

the integration is easily the the most important part in terms of making sure that Listen, you're listening to brilliant guys. Like, Philip, let's, let's put their words to some actual action. And the reason why I switched it from implementation to integration is because I wanted to get myself to start thinking about rather than just like, one hit wonder steps, because that's what I was doing all the time. I like to think about little, like the atomic habits thing where little tiny habits that I can start developing into practices,

Philip Pape  34:39

right. Rather than are part of your new routine. Yeah. Right. So say for extended comfort zone. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Carl Berryman  34:45

Like the other day when Derek had that whole thing on gratitude, right. So one of the things that I this was just a conversation with a friend of mine that when I had him on my podcast, and he mentioned how gratitude for him is the first step to self awareness. Somebody Okay, I'm going to start practicing gratitude a bit more about how am I going to do it. So now, since I'm going for walks everyday things to fill up, I have two different types of walks, I have a walk with the block, which is, the block is my inner enemy. Let's call him that. So I give him some airtime and let him come out and tell me why he's doing, what he's doing, and what he needs from me. And then I do the same thing with gratitude. So I'll go for a gratitude walk where it's like, Hey, what is the one thing I'm really going to be grateful for during this walk and just giving that some emotionality? So what what are the practices that I can potentially make into an integration that way it is actually integrated into my life, and therefore has a much more likely chance of sticking?

Philip Pape  35:44

Okay, so then I have a follow up on that. And it's actually two parts. One is, how do you avoid getting overwhelmed because you're doing this every day, and now you're coming up with a new action every day, where those would stack up? If they were all new habits every single day, five days, seven days a week, you're starting something new? And you could you could just imagine these layering on top of each other. There's this overwhelming set of things you're doing. If they're not one hit wonders. That's, that's one. And then the other piece is how do you close the loop? You know, you've written it down. How do you hold yourself? I guess I will use the word accountable, but it's self accountability to that.

Carl Berryman  36:19

Okay, are you gonna remember both those questions? Because yes,

Philip Pape  36:22

I will. Outside. That's what media does, right to the politicians. Questions and once Yeah, okay.

Carl Berryman  36:30

So the first question is, how do you prevent overwhelm? Yeah, how do you prevent Okay, so let's say in the gym, right now, there are so many different principles that I could be using during my workouts, right? Like, I could be super setting, I could be doing five by fives, I could be doing German volume training, I could be doing long range partials, which I am right now. What I'm going to do is I'm going to pick one, and then I really have to decide, okay, how long am I going to test this for? Because I don't know if it's going to work, but I want to test it. If I'm coming upon new stuff all the time, I then have to compare it to say K. Number one, have I given my previous thing enough time to actually see if this works? If these answer's no, then I just discard it. And if the answer is yes, it's like, Okay, we're gonna move on to this something new or do I really, really like long range partials? I'm getting great results. So there's no need to change it. So how long have I been doing it? Have I given enough time to test and then another really, really simple way thing that helped me? Oh, man, you should have seen my notes before, whenever I was doing. Let's say, I'm listening to your podcast. And it's just notable, quotable, after notable cordial, after notable quote a while I'm like, You know what, as I'm listening to this podcast, I'm limiting myself to four. That is it. So then once those four are done, every other piece of content that you say that really triggers something in me and inspires me, I now have to compare it against one of the other four to see which one I'm going to ditch because I've maxed myself, I've made my overwhelm limit, four, which means if anything else comes after the four, it's either replacing one of the four, or it's not making it to the list, just like exercises, like how many exercises do I have time for in the gym today? Well, I'm going to be there for 45 minutes. I know, given how I'm doing it. Three exercises good for me. But what if I want to do five? Too bad? You've got time for three? Yeah.

Philip Pape  38:23

Let's get more specific, though. If if you're doing your prep work every day in the journal, yeah. And you're writing down a integration action, because you have the statement here. I am committed to doing something by some time. Yep. Right. And and generally, I'm guessing like, it's what you said it's within 24 hours. Yep. Is that action? Something you can do once? Or is it sometimes an action that then becomes a repeated action? It's both. Okay. And the ones that repeat, repeated actions couldn't get overwhelmed every day by adding a new one? Or do you sometimes repeat the one you did yesterday? And if I'm overthinking this, let me know.

Carl Berryman  39:00

You are not overthinking us. This is a brilliant question. And it takes us into IBI principle number one, right quality versus quantity. So a lot of the times when I'm doing it's like it, so when I'm doing the MMU Now I've done it so many times, it's like, if you're doing a squat, for example, I found one of the things that really helps me add weight to my squat is if I focus on at the bottom of the squat, forcing my knees out, like really thinking about forcing my knees out in order to get up faster. Like that's just a, that's just a cue that works for me, doesn't have to work for everybody. But what I found with the MMU is, is at some point in time, those cues, you're not gonna have to think about them, they're going to become unconscious, because you've done them so many times. So now when I'm going into that fifth question, what is your integration? I'm automatically thinking of quality over quantity. So I'm probably going to ask myself a question that will represent me doing something that I'm already doing with a higher level of quality. Okay, so that way you're not really piling on more and more things to do. You're going for depth instead of with like

Philip Pape  40:11

it. Okay. Yeah, that's actually a really good answer. And, you know, I might, I might throw that in our group later as like inspiration, right as like, okay, that's my action.

Carl Berryman  40:25

And then the second question, what was it again?

Philip Pape  40:26

The self accountability. So now you have that the next day comes along. What if you didn't do it? Like, there's a chance you didn't do it? So yeah, what does that? Yeah, yep. Oh, okay.

Carl Berryman  40:35

So there's a couple things that happened there. Number one, is I scheduled it. So in my phone, I have a standard alarm that just says MMU. And then I change it to whatever time I've designated during my morning routine that that is gonna be the time that I do my MMU. But sometimes stuff comes up, and I can't get to it. So there's a couple different options that I do. Number three, if you think about it, number one, well, if I didn't do it, maybe it wasn't important enough to be done. So then I'm really gonna evaluate if I needed to do it. Maybe I just got lazy, maybe, maybe I got busy. So now it's like, okay, well, do I need to put this on top of the thing that I that I'm planning on doing today. So again, now it's like going back to that thing of where I have four notes, but now it's really two. So but what I usually do is most of the things that I come up with in terms of integration steps don't take very long at all. And there are things that I can do in really a few minutes. So what I do is, every morning, I go to my previous pages, and I don't have this in your current training manual, but at the top where it says PRP, I'm rating myself out of three in every area of prep work to give myself a daily score. Okay, so then I do that before I start a new MMU. So then if I'm going back and was like, Ah, I didn't do that thing for physical health. Now, it's like, did it need to be done? No. Okay, we'll move on. Yes, it needed to be done. So say, for example, your latest not your latest episode, but Episode 126, where he talked about the importance of carbs and making sure that I'm not going to like, I'm not ripping down my muscle and using it as fuel, essentially, that's an important one for me. So if I didn't do yesterday's MMU, and today's MMU was based on that from your podcast, guess what? Yesterday's, it's gone. I'm forgetting about it. Because focusing on my carbs, which is essentially what I did this morning, really long story short with that MMU, I realized I'm not thinking macro factor, I'm hitting my calories, I'm hitting my protein by hitting my fat, but I'm not hitting carbs. And I've noticed that it's really affecting my energy throughout the day. So what I came up with long story short for the integration, is going into macro factor today in advance making sure that my day hits my my carb targets. And then, at the end of the day, and I set alarm for this, is I'm going to give myself a rating for my energy as it relates to my carbs. So I'm going to write down what was your energy out of three? What was level three in the evening? Okay, well, what was your carb count? Well, your carb was 367. And that's what it's supposed to be. Okay. Awesome. So now, over a couple of weeks time, I'm going to be able to see, does the does the amount of carbs that I have actually affect my energy in the evening? Because that's what I want to know. So I'm going to do that for a couple of weeks.

Philip Pape  43:28

Everyone listening should do that. Really good. This integration

Carl Berryman  43:33

step, how much? How much time does it take me to write down my energy level and compare it to my carbs? Like, that's 30 seconds. So a lot of these steps? Sure, there can be a lot of them. But they'll take like 1530 seconds, and some of them are dynamic.

Philip Pape  43:46

And that's, that's actually part of the answer right? There is just keep them short and simple, because you aren't gonna get overwhelmed if it's like, make a list of 100 Blah, blah, blah, and then do this and do this and do that. It's funny, because I, I am a little bit well, I'm organized in a different way. But like, I will keep emails unread. In my inbox, I have a very small inbox, I'm a zero inbox type of person. I like to just take care of things, or file them away if it's just information or leave them unread if I'm going to get them done. But those lower they get on the list that I realized that they must not be that important. And eventually it's like, they go. Yeah, so same kind of thing. You just never know. Because in the moment, you're all excited, you're like, Yeah, I got to do this thing. And then you realize, you know, time is an interesting moderator.

Carl Berryman  44:28

I do that with a lot of your text messages. Actually. I'll read them and I'm like, this isn't important. I'll make it unread. And then I just completely delete it all together. So

Philip Pape  44:37

that explains it explains a few things. All right. So if I haven't lost the audience with getting too much technical about this, hopefully not. I think it's pretty cool approach no matter what like, what do you have Karl's journal The principles are, you know, time tested and you've referenced things that you've borrowed from right like atomic habits and behavioral psychology and all this stuff. You know, Carl's The man reached out if you have questions about this, I want to get into some follow ups on this outside of the specific application, for example, doing this process, is there something that has really surprised you, you know, over the years after listening and then going through this process?

Carl Berryman  45:15

Great question. And it already makes me think that I can't believe I haven't thought of an answer in advance to what your last question is going to be. But yeah, the thing that surprised me, and this may sound like it's not gonna sound like a broken record to your audience, but it sounds like a broken record to me. One of the reasons I first started doing this journaling process, if you will, was because when I hit rock bottom back at the end of 2020, beginning 2021, I really wanted to evaluate and figure what the lead domino in my life was, as it related to the prep work. So is it my physical health or fitness? Isn't my emotional health and fitness, my sense of purpose? Like, what is it that if I take care of it, it's going to take care of everything else. And it made sense to me that it was my emotional health and fitness, because I'm like, Man, if I can, if I can become the master of rather than the slave of my emotions. And despite how I feel, I can take the actions that I know I need to take. That, to me is like the lead Domino. So I followed that for a long time. And nothing changed. In fact, it got worse, because I was putting so much pressure on myself. So then I just asked myself that, again, at that point in time, I was being skeptical of my own beliefs. So saying, okay, Carl, what is the thing? I kind of pulled a George Costanza, in that I did the opposite. So if you don't know who George Costanza is and what the opposite is, then just stop listening if you're not in the Seinfeld, because I don't want to talk to you. Anyways, so relationships was the bottom of the prep work for me, like the bottom, hence why Jenny Lee and I had our three months separation, and just Yeah, I had you asked me if our relationships were important. Mavenlink Yeah, they are. But if you look at my actions, they're not because I'm canceling on friends. I'm not returning messages. I'm not returning calls. I'm not spending time with Jenny Lee. So I said, Okay, well, what would happen if I did the opposite? What if I made relationships like the lead Domino? And wouldn't you know, that changed? Everything? Absolutely. Everything. So what surprised me. And this has become a fundamental belief of mine is that if I wanted to improve any area of my life, whether it was my body, my sense of purpose, and especially my mental, emotional health, It all depended on the quality of the relationships I have with the people I cared the most about. I was not expecting that. And

Philip Pape  47:47

that has carried forward into your mission today. I mean, it shines in everything you do is connecting, connecting people to each other and connecting with them. So if someone listening feels like they are struggling, and they're like, why, like your idea, but I'm overwhelmed, and I'm not sure where to start, and maybe it's a mental health, maybe it's something else, like you said, emotion sounded like the obvious root cause because it was tied into mental health, but something else was holding it back. Even if you had, quote, unquote, leveled up your emotion as best you could. How can someone figure that out? Well,

Carl Berryman  48:19

to me, it's like, I didn't figure out what the squat, that's my knee that if I focus on doing my knees out and tell, I'm gonna say this was within the last 18 months, and I've been a personal trainer for 12 years. So it's going to be a matter of taking in testing, taking and testing, taking and testing. So consuming something that works or that you think is going to work and testing it out. The hard part is, you got to figure out okay, how long do I need to give this but it's like a diet, right? So if people are going to try, say, for example, shred tilbyr. Okay, well, if people are going to do that, you got to stick with it for the two weeks to see if it actually works. You can't you can't do shred Tober for a week, and you can't do it for six weeks, you got to do it for the specified amount of time. So you got to figure out okay, well, if I think this is really going to help me, what's a realistic amount of time that's, I need to give this to see if it actually works. And more importantly, this is one of the this is one of the questions. It's called the Miracle questions from the book switch, which is a phenomenal book on habits. miracle question that therapists would use with their clients. Say, for example, if they're an addict, and or an alcoholic, say, Hey, you work you wake up tomorrow, and your problem is 100% gone and you're like, you're just a new person. What would be the first sign that you know it's gone? So when it comes to our goals, and changing them from goals to targets, if we can get clear about what the first sign is that what we're doing is working, then we'll be able to really tell if we know what we're doing is working. So for example, like I've got a client who had to come decision with him the other day about macro factor he went in, and he changed his goals to weight loss because the scale wasn't going down. And we had a very interesting conversation. So he changed it back. But I said, dude, like, what are you measuring? Like, what specifically are you measuring? He's like, Well, I'm measuring my waist circumference and a measuring how my clothes fit. Like, I want to lose weight, because and then I asked them why? Because I want my clothes to fit better. I want to feel stronger. Like, do your clothes fit better right now? Yeah, they're looser. Do you feel stronger right now? And do we have the numbers and the evidence to support that? Yes. So then why are you changing your fucking targets? Because he lost sight of what his targets actually work? Well,

Philip Pape  50:40

that's okay. I'm processing this, because I'm trying to think of what the people who are listening, you just gave them a few different ways to approach this one one way sounds like first of all, the prep work has has different areas, right. And if you can identify the different areas of your life, at least spending time on all of them, to some extent, would help versus neglecting one completely. Right that that comes to mind. And then the second thing is testing, measuring, and then going by the things that are improving, that would have improved if you knew the problem was gone. Yeah. So I had a client recently who long term client. And it's similar situation, you said, like she knew what to do, and wasn't doing it. And it was showing the results, right. And as soon as she, for example, started eating more, whatever it was, in the next day, hey, feeling great. I was scared about regaining weight, for example, but I'm not anymore. Because I realized that what's more important is this other thing, and I was, you know, way worse off with that. And I'm not going into details here, but it's good, Carl. Okay, so

Carl Berryman  51:49

one thing I want to add there, that shirt really, really important. Yeah, we don't give ourselves enough credit when it comes to looking at our past experience. So for me in terms of training, for example, I, I knew what I like to do for training before I was as consistent as I am now. And I deviated from that. So when I had my wake up call, I'm like, Carl, just what do you what do you like to do for training that, you know, gets you results? And so that's why I'm doing the style that I do now. So if we can get quiet and reflect on once upon a time, when we were experiencing the opposite of that, which we don't want to be experiencing right now and put the pieces of the puzzle together of what was different than its compared to now hence, the second or the third question, don't want versus do want it, it becomes pretty clear that you already know the answers.

Philip Pape  52:36

So that's interesting. That brings up the also the idea of if you are testing and measuring and taking action, and things are not going as planned, right, what what how you learn from that experience. I mean, that's that's what comes to mind to me as well, because I'm sure you've done your prep work, and you did some integration. And it's not. It's not giving you what you want. Right, right. Yeah. And, yeah, yeah, no, no, go ahead. No, no, no, you go ahead. Just

Carl Berryman  53:05

that, to me. This is where the 8020 rule really applies. Like, I know, my results are going to come from 20% of the work. But typically speaking, if I'm not getting results, from the integration steps that I've been dedicating my time and energy to doing, there's really about 20% of my excuses, or reasons that are going to be why. And one of them is going to be you haven't been doing it long enough. Plain and simple. So say, for example, my podcast, right, like, I don't have the quote unquote, amount of followers and downloads that I want right now. And why is that? Oh, well, there's 1,000,001 reasons. But the main reason that I am choosing to entertain, I just haven't been doing it. I haven't gotten in the reps yet. I need to get more reps. I am convinced because this is what so many successful people in front of me have told me is that you just need to get in more reps. So I am committed to getting in the reps. So if if ever anything's not working, it typically boils down to have I really given it a chance. Sure. I mean,

Philip Pape  54:18

we talked about consistency, and it's become a buzzword. But really, it should be replaced with commitment. Yeah. Commitment. Yeah, right. Getting doing something for repeated basis over time. Not perfectly and not necessarily every day, continuously over time. You can miss a podcast episode, but you do the next 10 years. You're still golden. As soon as you drop off that's that's where the challenge comes in. All right, one or two more things you got time. A couple couple minutes. Yeah, okay. You and I had a I think was a conversation over text not long ago about not being reactionary or conversely being reacting too quickly when you hear something on a podcast and be like, Oh, that blows my mind and you know, it just opened my mind and changed my mind. Whatever, you probably know what I'm talking about. Right? Almost like, sometimes the what might be a notable, quotable is really just a soundbite that just sounds great in the moment. Yeah. And then you and you're like, you want to take action on it, but maybe you shouldn't maybe step back and like, just wait and sit with it. So what are your thoughts on that?

Carl Berryman  55:23

It because, okay, so I'm trying to think of who quoted this on my podcast? Oh,

Philip Pape  55:32

it was actually I think we're not saying yeah, weird, or, or was it the awareness and either last step is not awareness or whatever. You know, I'll

Carl Berryman  55:41

summarize it right now. But di talked about when you know, your values, it gets really, it's very easy to say yes or no to things. So if you know specifically, what your targets are in a specific area, say for example, your physique, okay, well, I know what I'm eating today and macro factor already, because it's programmed in there. And I've left some room because it's Friday, so I'm probably going to have a cocktail. So there's room in there for that. But if something comes up, and I want to Jenny Lee wants to go somewhere, something's like, Ah, it's not part of the plan right now. Like, it's not macro factor, we're going to do this. So when I'm crystal clear on what my macros are, it's easy for me to say no, I can't have that. So what if instead of macros, whatever area that prep work you're talking about, you are so crystal clear on the behaviors that are taking you to where you want to go, that you do only those behaviors. So say, for example, with my podcast, right, like the podcast, I'm not gonna say it's my life. But in a way it kind of is, like it kind of is. So I know, actually, let me put it this way. In my phone, I have an app called done. It's a free app, it's a habit tracker. And inside of there, I've established what my big lifts are, for each area, the prep work. So what is my squat, my bench, my dead? For my purpose? What's my squat, my bench, my dead for my relationships? I forgot, I have one thing for each area that prep work. But I know what those three lifts are for me. So those are the things I'm focused on on a daily basis, I have to hit those things. If I get other things in Sure, that's fine. But I don't need to because I am crystal clear on what is most important. And the less clarity you have on what's most important to like, the more likely you are to do that, which is not important. Okay, I get that.

Philip Pape  57:36

So what about the situation where you haven't been able to crystallize that yet? Because there's so there's so many angles, and potential, quote, unquote, facts and evidence and things and I'll give you I'll be very concrete, somebody, one of my followers, reached out by email and said, You know, I really trust your opinion. But um, here are 10 things that are all different and conflicting, that I'm hearing from influencers, and this doctor and this person, this person about all sorts of things, whatever carbs and keto listen, and they all conflict. And it's like, she, you know, she felt that a lot of them were trustworthy sources. And she's not sure which one to go with. And that's just an example. Like, I gave her clarity. Give me my strong opinion, on which way to go. She's like, Alright, cool, I'm good. But when people are just not sure, from the from day one, they haven't gotten to that point, like I was for 20 years, and the health and fitness space, just didn't know what to do. How do you get that clarity? Right? That's like the premise. Yeah. Okay. So

Carl Berryman  58:40

I'll address two things. The first one, this is what I would say to Carl. Okay, so I'm not necessarily going to say this to your listeners. But I would be sharp. And for me, I would really appreciate it if somebody if I came to you. And I was listing all these things, I would really appreciate because I know myself well enough that this is what I'm doing. I'd appreciate if you said Carl, why do you keep using this as a as an excuse to not take action? Like why are you so afraid to fail? Because I know if I'm const if I'm skipping from one thing to the other? It's because I'm afraid of failure. If I'm if I'm making excuses and finding all these things is too. Now I know which one I don't want to do. It's because I'm just uncomfortable with uncertainty. So I would ask myself, Carl, when are you going to allow yourself to be okay with uncertainty, because we don't know which one of these is going to work like Philips, a brilliant guy, we can take his advice. It might not work for you. But at some point in time, and that time is right fucking now. You're gonna have to make a decision to take action. So ask yourself which one of these feels the best and then be okay. If it doesn't work out, like cool.

Philip Pape  59:50

That's good. Yeah, I agree. But

Carl Berryman  59:54

then the clerical piece of it right? Well, wait, wait

Philip Pape  59:57

so and like you said, if it doesn't work Get out. So all it really comes down to is take action on something, do it test, see if it goes if it doesn't off the list go to the next thing. Yeah. Right. I mean, I mean, granted, you know, you can get complicated and say like certain things are going to be more out there than others and blah, blah, blah. But I can tell when I when I got to 2020. And I started and I found like starting strength and muscle strength pyramids and all of that. And I'm like, Oh, this this new way to lift for me. I also didn't know if it would work. But I'm like, it seems like it should based on what all these people are saying like, these are smart folks. I'm just going to do it. And it worked. And so I stuck with it. Anyway, continue.

Carl Berryman  1:00:35

Know that and that's that's exactly how it goes to. It's like, it's interesting. I was having a conversation with a brother of ours yesterday. And it it had to do with relationships. And what do you do when there's a recurring conflict in your relationship? Like, when do you sweep things under the rug? And when you say, Kay, I know, we don't want to have this conversation, but we need to have it. And the bottom line is, how much does it hurt? Like, how much does the pain of continuing down the path you're going on supersede the pain of taking action to potentially change your trajectory? And the answer to that question will give you the answer that you need. But you don't want to hear. Because we all know we like if you're contemplating taking action on something, you're already at the point where you should have taken action a long time ago. And that's like, that's the way that I look at it's like, Oh, should I have done this? Yeah, of course, you should have done it sooner. So like, they like we always hear better late than never. But let's, let's not even make never an option. Like Jake action.

Philip Pape  1:01:41

Coleman. Good. No, I just wanted to put it out there for people this this is this whole episode, this whole discussion is about that. It's about taking that action. And the only way you do it is identify do it. Identify, do it and then test it. Alright, cool. So you know, you know, you could ask yourself the next question, which is, is Is there anything else you wanted me to ask? That you did cover? Ask?

Carl Berryman  1:02:02

Yeah, I you know, it's funny, as we were talking, I had a good one in my mind. And I should have written it down because I forgot it. Here's a question that, yeah, this is this is coming to me right now. So I'm not sure where this is gonna go. But I'm curious what I would have said, if you asked me, What is the biggest regret you have right now as it relates to your health and fitness? The biggest regret right now in year half of this? Okay. Yeah. And the answer was in my head, before I was even done the sentence, I would have gotten a coach a lot sooner, I would have gotten a coach a lot sooner. Because the transformations that you and again, I'm not Philip didn't sponsor me or anything. This is just what came up the transformations I've been able to make on a multitude of levels as a result of our our friendship, the bond that we have, but then your coaching and your willingness to press me compassionately, have changed, not just my physique. But my relationship with food, my relationship with fitness, like food I, I do food prep almost every single day now, like every day, like it's all I'll do food prep before I go to the gym. And not like schedule wise. But if I have to pick one or the other, I'll do my food prep. And that was like pulling teeth before. But now as a result of tracking my calories, I realized just how important that is. But sure, I can see that my relationship with food and my relationship with fitness is so much better. And I'm enjoying those. And that is not a small feat at all. Because even being a trainer, I would have to drag my ass to the gym a lot of the time now I can't wait to go. But like all that has translated into my relationship with you and my relationship with Jenny Lee specifically, like, I've got Jenny Liam macro factor, she's a lot more conscious about what we're eating. And as a result of me feeling and looking a lot better. That's translated into me being a better podcaster and a better partner for Jenny Lee. So it's stuff that I would tell myself I could have done on my own before, but if I could have done it on my own, I would have done it on my own. So it wasn't until I got a coach.

Philip Pape  1:04:20

It means a lot to me, man. And, and for folks listening. I think they hear this message a lot. And don't take action on it. Do you agree?

Carl Berryman  1:04:30

There's a lot of people like yeah, because I'm the same way like how long did it start me to take me to start doing the shit that you told me to do forever and a day ago and that I already knew I needed to do but then also from from other areas of life as well like I know and there's still places like I could I could be investing way more in a in a business coach. I could be investing way more. Yeah, it would never hurt to have a relationship. Coach like Jalen I really good so I don't know if that sucks. cost benefit ratio would be there. But yeah, if you're constantly on a treadmill to nowhere, and you don't have a coach, the coach is going to tell you to get your ass off the treadmill. And let me show you the real way to walk. So, yeah, yeah,

Philip Pape  1:05:15

it's true. And I think we can't deny that having other people of some kind in our life that are supportive, is kind of where it starts. Right and you have to the coach is that's what a brother is. That's what a friend a really good friend who, who isn't sabotaging you, right, who's positive and with you on that is, that's what a online community could be too. So, you know, because sometimes people hear all their that they are selling a coach and I can't afford a coach. First of all, I would say like, you'll find a way when it comes to money to do things that are the most important in life, and that are going to change your life compared to all the other junk we spending things money on. But besides the money is just don't do it on your own is really the key message. Exactly. Don't do it on your own. Yeah. Cool, man. Well, this has been a pleasure it was every time we meet on this show. It's like it's a very different kind of feel and topic that I think is super valuable to the listener. And I hope everyone listening will take Karl's words and, and actions and thoughts to heart. I want you to reach out to him. I'm definitely going to include Carl's IG, which is at Ignite the impact because remember that the podcast is, hold on. Oh, man, no, because your IG is different than your podcast. So

1:06:28

tell it tell the audience the difference. And so we can be clear, inspired by impact as the podcast is the podcast. I tried to get inspired by impact from my IG and it was taken so it's ignite the impact because when

Philip Pape  1:06:40

I went to IG, you I started typing inspired. I'm like, just type Carl and I

Carl Berryman  1:06:45

should I should have come up with this idea like 10 years ago.

Philip Pape  1:06:47

No worries.

Carl Berryman  1:06:48

Is that where you want people to reach you from this? Yeah, definitely reach out on there. Or you know, what would be kind of cool to see too. I know, at least on Spotify, they have that area where you can like it pops up and you can leave some feedback right there. Right. Like when you're listening to the q&a. Yeah, yeah, q&a. Thanks. So yeah, just ask a question. And if you want, like, I've got the MMU blueprints, if anybody's interested in that, like it's a digital download, just shoot me a message and I'll send it to you. It doesn't cost anything. So we really we have to we have a link for that. Yeah. I'll send you the link for that. Yep. All right. Because people want to know where do I get this this incredible format that they can guide guide them to this exact process? The physical training manual?

Philip Pape  1:07:27

are that the five physical you said you have a digital one? Yeah, yeah, that way I just give it away for free. I don't care so yeah, for sure. So we'll include that we include Reggie will include the link to the podcast as always, you guys know where to find me where to find Carl and man. Thanks again for coming on.

Carl Berryman  1:07:42

Thank you, my man. This was beautiful. As always.

Philip Pape  1:07:46

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Ep 128: My Favorite Gym Things (7 Gifts Under $100)

Are you ready with your gifts for this holiday season? Whether you’re shopping for a fitness enthusiast or someone just starting their fitness journey, I have you covered.

Today, I’m answering a question I get all the time about what equipment is most useful in your gym bag or your home gym, so rather than focus on the big stuff like a power rack or barbell, I put together a budget-friendly list for you just in time for the holidays or any occasion where you’re looking for a gym-related gift or toy to buy.

Stick around for the entire episode because I might have one bonus idea near the end.

Also, I’m not including affiliate links or anything like that because this is more about the equipment itself, the benefits, and how and why you’d use them. But if you want to know what I use in the gym or ideas for you or someone you like, just hit me up on IG  @witsandweights or by email at philip@witsandweights.com.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

(2:58) Dip belt (dips, calf-raises, belt squats)
(5:32) Lifting straps (deadlifts, rows, shrugs, pull-ups)
(9:38) Any power rack attachments [multiple in one]
(14:21) 12” box for box squats, step-ups, and others
(16:27) Microplates (BB and DB types)
(19:19) Deadlift jack
(21:15) Wrist wraps (wear them properly!)
(24:15) BONUS
(26:59) Outro

Episode resources:

• Say hi to Philip on IG @witsandweights

• Email at philip@witsandweights.com

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching

👩‍💻👨‍💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.

📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

stick around for the entire episode because, in addition to the seven gift ideas, I might just have one more bonus idea near the end has a little twist on it and you'll see what I mean when I get there. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In our last episode 127 Five fat loss mistakes women need to avoid what to do instead, we talked about why women should think twice before jumping right into a fat loss phase, the five most common fat loss mistakes women make and how to set yourself up for a successful healthy and sustainable fat loss phase. Today for Episode 128, which is going to be a fun one. It's titled My favorite gym things seven gifts under $100. I'm answering a question that I get all the time about what equipment is most useful in your gym bag or your home gym for maybe a gift idea or just something you want to buy for yourself. So rather than focus on the big stuff like a power rack or barbell, which I talked about many moons ago in one of my earliest episodes about setting up your home gym. For today, I put together a budget friendly list for you just in time for the holidays, or any occasion where you're looking for a gym related gift or toy to buy. And I'm wearing my Super Mario shirt that my girls got for me. Because when I was six back in the mid 80s. That was one of the most exciting gifts I got was a Nintendo Entertainment System. For those of you who are into games at all. I'm still a gamer. It's one of the fun things I do for fun on the side to relieve stress, but definitely getting in the spirit of gift giving right now. So stick around for the entire episode because in addition to the seven gift ideas, I might just have one more bonus idea near the end has a little twist on it. And you'll see what I mean when I get there. Also, I'm not including affiliate links, or anything like that in my show notes because this is more about the equipment itself. What are the benefits, how and why you would use this equipment. These are the most useful things that I found among the most useful things in my gym. If you do want to know what I personally use exact brands and Amazon links and stuff like that, or other brands that I use for ideas that you want for yourself or someone who you like or even don't like just hit me up on IG at Wits & Weights or by email at Philip at wits & weights.com all those links are always in the show notes. Alright, let's not waste any more time. Let's get into it. Here are my favorite gym things seven gifts under $100. Gift number one, a dip belt. What I'm talking about here is a what looks like a canvas or sometimes leather strap or belt that you can put about around your waist and it will have some way to cinch it up. And then hanging from that belt will be either a chain or some sort of strap with a hook that you can put into a plate and hang that plate from your body. And so it's called a dip belt because it's designed to add weight while you're doing dips, or dips are the most effective exercises you can have in your routine for your both for your chest and your triceps, there's different angles you can hit them with. And doing loaded dips is a fantastic way to progress the movement when you're working in say the anywhere from eight to 15 rep range and you want to push your press for example is really good at pushing the overhead press for a lot of people when you get plateaued on that movement. So dips are fantastic.

Philip Pape  03:54

I regularly have them in my routine. And you can't go wrong with a dip belt. Now be careful especially for the guys, the the cheaper belts, they might be effective. But sometimes they'll have hooks or chains that hang in the wrong places if you know what I mean. And you got to be careful to avoid pinching in that in that area. But even for the ladies, you know you gotta watch out how it interacts with your clothes if it pinches your clothes and stuff like that. My brother got me one and again, I'm not including specific links, but you can find ones designed like this that the belt straps tight together. And then there's a long Canvas strap with a hook that connects to the other end and so that strap goes into the plate and there's really no chance of pinching whatsoever with that design. So I love it. A dip belt can also be used for things like calf raises. Yeah, if you want to get creative, this is where this stuff I love multi uses for these things. You can hang a bunch of weight from your body and use a power rack and just a calf block or box or whatever wedges and do calf raises with that weight hanging down from you You could even bend forward and do like a donkey Caffrey style movement with a dip belt. The other thing that dip belt is good for is belt squats at home. So if you have two platforms that you can stand on on either under either foot and hang the weight between, you can go down into a squat and have it loaded in a different way in a way that doesn't give you as much low back strain as a typical back squat. Okay, so that's number one dip belt. See, I told you this would be useful episode, it's not just telling you what to get, it's telling you how you can use them. Okay, gift number two lifting straps, and I'm talking about deadlifting straps. Now, there are different types out there, there, everyone has an opinion. When I first started, I got the ones that were figure eight shaped, but quickly found those were not the most effective. So I then moved to the kind that has a single loop. Now you can get the single loop deadlift straps, or you can go even all the way to the kind of hardcore, just a pure strap. And then you have to learn how to wrap it around your hand, which is a little tricky first few times. But there's plenty of videos on that. And honestly, if you're just kind of the average home gym goer, let's say or even if you go to the gym, the kind with a loop can work perfectly well. The way I like to use the lifting straps, and then I'll tell you what I use them on is I will send them to my non dominant hand first and use my dominant hand tighten it, and then tighten it around the bar. And then I'll use my dominant hand and tighten it around the bar, looping the strap with the same hand. So it's hard to describe on a podcast, I know I have video here too, but I'm not going to show it show that to you. You can just reach out to me or again, there's plenty of videos to show you how to use them. If you buy one from like Amazon, for example, there's usually videos that show you how to use a lifting strap. But why I like lifting straps. And again, some people you will hear I think even like the mind pump guys, for example, will say like Yeah, you never really need to use them. I liked them for a few things. First, I liked them for deadlifts when there's a lot of volume involved. So I'm a big fan of not using lifting straps when you're doing your novice linear progression when you're deadlifting for the first time, and trying to build that grip strength. And keep doing that as much as you can like to this day when I do very heavy deadlifts and lower reps, I will do at least one or two sets without the straps. But if I get into like testing my one RM, I might throw the straps on. The other time I would throw on straps is high volume work. So I'm doing if I'm doing you know, 10 sets of four or something like that. I'm not as concerned about the grip strength as just getting in the volume for the deadlift for my legs for my back and so on. So there's no shame in using them. And if they help you avoid the bottleneck of your grip, use them. Now, the caveat to this is, I also encourage you to learn the hook grip. Some people like an alternate grip as well, but I don't like the asymmetry of that. So for me, I like the hook grip, the front facing hook grip for deadlifts, but doing it the right way. And there's a special way to do that. I think I put a YouTube video about this like a couple of years back, but it involves having your thumb out at kind of a parallel to the bar as opposed to up and more across the bar. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent has nothing to do with the straps themselves. I'm just saying that these are the things that you don't want to just give up and use straps too early. Okay? So lifting straps are good for deadlifts. When you're doing high volume or you know on your second, third, fourth set, whatever. They're also good for movements like barbell rows, for example, anything where you're lifting a heavy bar and you don't want the grip to be the bottleneck, you're actually trying to get back work done. And you don't care about the grip, you're just trying to get all those reps in and really focus on the mind muscle connection and contracting that back and getting the squeeze and, you know, pausing at the top for a split second things like that, that can get bogged down or be harder to do when you're just trying to hold on to the bar. shrugs are another great example both with a barbell and dumbbells or trap bar or whatever you're using for shrugs where you just take the grip out of the equation, you're you're trying to load up as much as you can for those traps. And then the other. The other place I use lifting straps all the time is pull ups. Okay, I don't use them for chin ups, which is the supinated grip palm facing you. I use them for pull ups which is the pronated grip with the palms out right where you just have a wide grip and you're pulling yourself up, classic pull up. I like lifting straps there again, so that the grip doesn't give out before my back is fatigued. I want to fatigue my back when I'm doing those. So there you go. Number two was lifting straps. Number three is this is kind of a multiple gifts in one idea, any power rack attachment. So this is generally going to refer to a home gym. I suspect if you go to a regular gym where you know what the rack dimensions are and they allow you to bring in some sort of attachment great, but this is mainly for a home Jim. And what I'm thinking about here are things like J hooks. So a J hook is the hook that holds the bar when you rack the bar. And, you know, when I first got my power rack, I had one pair that wasn't enough because I wanted to have a couple bars on at a time or I wanted to leave hooks in place. So I didn't have to kind of figure out where they go. And so I might have two or three pairs of hooks all over my rack. So those are J hooks, and there's different designs of those, there's the kind that are just like a small piece jutting out and then they have ones that have like a big back piece against the rack. So when you slam it into the rack, you're not scraping the racks, metal, you're putting it right on the hook, etc. So J hooks, a landmine attachment which can go on the bottom of your rack, right your rack is this big, heavy thing so it can hold the landmine in place. And, you know, a landmine is where you can put the barbell in the in this cylinder down on the floor and then it pivots in all different directions. So you can do things like landmine presses or landmine rows, landmine calf raises whatever. Okay, spotter arms are another great power rack attachment if you if you have say, you know spotter arms or spotter pins depending right like pins are good, because they go kind of inside the rack but spotter arms can be put outside the rack, giving you more versatility. Again, for safety, you want to have spotter arms, whenever you don't have a human spotter and there's an opportunity, you might miss a rep and you need to set the weight down. And then another one I love is dip attachments, you can get either the separate attachments, those are the ones I have that I like because when I say separate I mean there's there's one for the right one for the left, and they kind of go at a diagonal angle so that you can pick the width of your dip grip, because everybody has different anthropometry, right like your fit your body is different. So like a smaller a petite female might need to go up to where it's really close together. And then really big guy might need to go where it's farther apart. So I like that now, a less flexible version of a dip attachment is called a matador. And that's a single attachment where it comes out at a diagonal, and you can do your dips inside the diagonal, I find that it doesn't have quite as much width outward for me. But that's just me. So this was number three is pretty much any attachment that goes into power rack. The caveat here is you got to understand the size of your rack and the spacing of the holes. So for example, I have a small two inch by two inch, right, I wish I had a bigger one or rogue or something. But it's the one I've had since I started lifting and it works just fine. But it's two inch by two it so I need to buy two inch attachments. And if I buy one that isn't made by the manufacturer of my rack, the hole spacing may not work. And so some attachments, it doesn't matter. Like it just has one peg that goes in one hole, then it doesn't matter how it spaced others though, might have two pegs, for example. And then of course, it won't fit if it's not designed for that space. So if you have a well made rack that has their own brand of attachments, that's always a good approach. So think ahead when you get your rack but otherwise there's there's plenty of generic attachments that will still work with most racks. So I think yeah, that's those are the ones I can pick up for that.

Philip Pape  13:17

Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com and click on coaching or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. Gift number four is getting a 12 inch plyo box plyo meaning plyometrics meaning jumping, but this is not for plyometrics. I'm not going back to CrossFit here, a 12 inch box I like 12 inches and not 18 inches, for example because 12 inches for most people will allow you to get into a below parallel squat when you're doing box squats. So if you haven't progressed to that point, if let's say you're brand new and you have mobility issues and you're using boxes to progress to your squat, and you're at a high box now and you're eventually going to get to a low box. The 12 inch box is the ultimate goal. right to get you below parallel, and it's also low enough that if you need it a little bit higher, you can always put it on a 45 pound plate, for example, or put it on a mat to bring it up a little bit. But if it's too high, if you buy too high of a box, you can't lower it, right. So definitely get that 12 inch box, I have one that's metal, and it has like a rough textured, kind of reminds me of like sandpaper or stucco or it's very nice, high friction, textured top, which is you know, no, no slip top. And I use it for box squats. I use it for step ups. So like if you do barbell or dumbbell step ups, you could do it for CAP music for calf raises. So think of a step, but now you're up, you know, decently high height. So you've you can go deep in the stretch at the bottom. And then you could use it as a platform to get up onto things. So if you if you're kind of short, and you need to get up to the pull up bar, you could use it to get yourself set up or to get up and do you know hanging leg raises, or I don't know anything, just use it as a step, right. So I really love having a box. Now if you get a second box, you could then do the belt squats that I talked about with your dip belt. Okay, I actually don't even have a second box, I keep thinking I should just get another box. So I have that option. So maybe that's that's a gift that I will be asking for here. All right, so that's the 12 inch plyo box. And I like the trapezoid shape. By the way, I feel like it's just more structurally sturdy, like it's not going to tip over. Alright, gift number five is microplates Oh, these are super useful, okay, microplates, both for barbells. And dumbbells. Even if you go to a gym, there's a decent chance they will not have these, they might have the two and a half pound plates, which are def a definite must, okay, in any gym so that you can go up by five pounds. But what I'm talking about are the little plates that are in increments of a quarter a half, three quarters and one usually maybe also one and a quarter pounds. So that you can get you know, when you double it, you get, say a two pound jump or two and a half pound jump or a one pound jump. So it's a way to increment and progress on a barbell in much smaller increments. That's the barbell microplates. And those are simple. They just look like you know, smaller disks, small plates with the two inch hole in the middle dumbbell microplates. There are a lot of different types of those. I've talked about these wax I don't know if I have on the podcast, I did a video long time ago. But you could get either the magnetic type that will go on a cast iron dumbbells and they just snap on, or the ones I like are the thereby micro gains. And I have no affiliation. And I think Gaines has a z there. These discs that look they remind you of like Pac Man, but they actually don't really have as open of a mouth as Pac Man. And they snap right on to the handle of the dumbbell. And so you could get two pairs of one and a quarter pound each. And if you do the math, one and a quarter plus one and a quarter is two and a half pounds. Now you can take a dumbbell add two of those plates and you get an increase of two and a half pounds. Since in the gym, most dumbbells go five pounds at a time, right? You go from 10 to 15 to 20 to 25. Well, if you are going from 10 pound dumbbells to 15 pound dumbbells, that's a 50% increase. That's a lot. Even though you know you can say oh, they're only 10 pound dumbbells, but it's all relative. So adding those microplates will let you go up from 10 to 12 and a half, and then eventually to 15. And they snap right on. And if you have adjustable dumbbells, some people find that when you put these microplates on the handle on the inside of the weights, it's too tight of a squeeze for your hand. Like my wife tried this out and she was fine with it because she has smaller hands, but for me it like squeezes both sides of my hand. The trick there is to simply snap the microplates on to an empty part of where the discs are. So again, we're talking adjustable dumbbells, you're going to have like empty slots when you take the dumbbell out. Unless you're at the max weight in which case you're probably not going to need the microplates you can use you can snap it right on to the to the spindle if that makes sense. Where were the one of the empty slots is that's the way I've done it. So microplates can be hugely helpful in not making excuses about why you can't progress your weight. Okay, number six is a deadlift Jack now I think I heard about this first from Juji MUFA right crazy guy you don't know who that is look him up but anyway I think and the one he used was this fancy name brand one that looks like a hook and everything I was cheap I just went again online and just like googled it and found a cheap deadlift Jack whatever works folks right like it perfect is always the enemy of the good. So if you want the whiz bang more expensive one and it's a little more convenient, go for it. If you've got the money great if not any deadlift Jack will work the way a deadlift Jack works. It's very simple. You can position it under the barbell and just push it flip it up in kind of angle it up just like a jack like as if you're jacking the car up to change the tire, but it's not hydraulic or anything, it's just a simple wedge, if you will, that's at an angle that when it's under the bar the bars just above the ground. And now you can put the plates on the bar without having to shimmy them on, or, you know, all the fun dances that we do trying to get a plate on the bar for deadlift, we're like scooching, and holding it with one arm and kind of jimmying it on. This just holds it up in the air, you know, few more inches clears it from the ground, so you can slide plates on. And then you can bloop. Like, you know, drop the jack now, you know, get your foot out of the way, drop the track down, do it on the other side, same thing. And then when you're all done now when you've got your four or five or 495 pounds, right, because you've been progressing your deadlift, and you've got 440 fives on each side, you can just stick that Jack in again, and then slide him right off without all the the crazy dancing. Okay, so deadlift Jack, you might find you might not have ever thought of it before, but it can be an extremely useful piece of equipment, anytime you have to load up a heavy barbell on the ground. Okay, give number seven. Now this is the last gift, but then I didn't I hinted before, I'm probably gonna have a little bonus gift in here. Gift number seven is wrist wraps. So this is different from lifting straps when we're lifting straps. I don't know if I thoroughly described what the heck they were earlier. But lifting straps allow you to put straps around a bar and have a better grip, you know, with the bar. So you can avoid slippage wrist wraps, they actually wrap around your wrist just like they sound and most of them have a little loop that goes on your thumb. And then you can start to wrap it around. Now the biggest mistake people make and I made this myself for a long time is they will wrap it around their wrist and you're like wasn't at the point, well, where on your wrist are you wrapping it, most people will start to wrap it where the base of their hand meets their wrist, you actually want to wrap it where part of the wrap is over the base of your palm. So it should clamp practically clamp up your thumb to your hand when you wrap it nice and tight. Where it's like a little cast so that it's connecting your hand to your wrist. And they cannot pick they cannot bend like you don't want to be able to bend your hand. That's the whole point of wrist wraps, wrist wraps, keep your wrist neutral beach from your you know your fingers all the way through to your forearm. So when you wrap them, and again, you could probably Google this, but there might be a lot of people that are telling you the wrong way to do it, you want to you want to wrap nice and tight up a lot higher than you think. So that it kind of closes in your thumb against your hand. And now you've got these leg, okay, you can move your fingers, we can't really move your thumb type of deal. And so what that lets you do is when you get under the bar for a bench press or an overhead press, let's say or even dumbbell bench presses, you know, you you keep a nice neutral angle, so that all the load is transferred through your arm to where it needs to go. Instead of extending your wrists like a lot of people mistakenly do. And now you're putting force, you're creating a moment arm that makes the lift much harder, increases chance of injury, it puts the load in the wrong place. Okay,

Philip Pape  23:17

so the neutral wrist with wrist straps really help you kind of get a feel for okay, this is how I do it. And then you're going to find like in the bench press and overhead press that your fingernails are now facing more forward. That's one of the cues I learned early on when I was overhead pressing is fingernails, looking at the wall, like fingernails staring at the wall. If they're staring at the ceiling, your your wrist is probably to extend it. For some people this is going to feel like the bar is going to like maybe slip forward but there's a sweet spot where it's sitting right on the base of your palm and transferring that load where it needs to be. So it's wrist wraps can help with that proprioception as they call it. Like I said that right? And I still use them. I like the feel of them. I like to feel like it's just the solid structure. And I feel like I can get just a tiny bit more weight on the bar that way. Okay, so that's number seven. So we had number one dip belt, number two lifting straps, number three power rack attachments number 412 inch box number five microplates number six, deadlift, Jack, number seven wrist wraps. And now I have a bonus number eight for you and it is a food scale. You're like really had to do it right you had to go there a food scale only because only to imply that nutrition is always a big part of your strategy here when it comes to strength, muscle health, fitness, physique, body composition, all of it. And we just never want to forget the fact that what we put in our mouth has a huge impact on our results in our performance. And if you don't have a Food Scale. And you've been listening to me and you know the importance of tracking and awareness. What are you waiting for this is the perfect time get it as a gift. They run the gamut in terms of price, he gets super duper cheap Home Depot food scales, and you get big fancy ones that have removable displays and special bowls and whatever, you know, have fun with it, right like experiment get to get three, I have three food scales, I have a big fancy one. I have a little one for kind of the the table to the side, like the snack table, just for convenience. And then I have a tiny travel food scale, which I rarely use, I'll be honest, but if I ever want to pop it in my jacket or pocket, it's there if I need to use it. So food scale is the bonus item for your gym. Because again, the gym, you know only means so much when you are not fueling properly and when you are fueling properly, then your results go through the roof. Alright, I hope you enjoyed the list that I put together for you. And as always, you can reach out to me anytime at any of the links in the show notes if you have questions about these. Any other questions for the podcast? I do occasional q&a episodes. Or if you just want to chat about what's going on with your health and fitness journey. I love meeting people I love having honest authentic conversations. So if you just want to bounce ideas off me if you want to share what you're going through, I'm all ears. I'm here for you anytime you need it. In our next episode 129 Why passively consuming my podcast is getting you nowhere with Carl Berryman. Carl is back for his third appearance, this time to talk about how to implement the content you're consuming to integrate it into your life. Rather than being a bystander and constantly binging podcast without taking action and you know who you are. So many of us do that. He'll share his mental muscle up formula that I will be using myself over the next few weeks. So you can do this yourself. As always stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then stay strong

Ep 127: 5 Fat Loss Mistakes Women Need to Avoid (What To Do Instead)

Are you struggling to achieve your fat loss goals? You might be making one of these common mistakes!

Today, we will go over why females should think twice before jumping right into a fat loss phase, the 5 most common fat loss mistakes women make, and how to set yourself up for a successful, healthy, and sustainable fat loss phase.

Two-thirds of my clients are female, and most of them are over 35, putting them squarely in the peri- and post-menopause phases where hormones become an even more sensitive factor during fat loss, though it doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker.

I wanted to create this episode to focus specifically on aspects like low energy availability, carbs, and even the discomfort of change that comes up most frequently with my female clients and listeners.

You can grab my totally free guide called “FEMALE FAT LOSS” now available HERE or at witsandweights.com/free. It’s a nicely organized summary of all the topics discussed on today’s show as a reminder of what’s important, mistakes to avoid, and how to approach successful fat loss.

Episode summary:

In this podcast episode, we delve into the world of sustainable fat loss, specifically tailored for women. Many women fall prey to the common misconception that drastic calorie cuts and quick-fix diets are the answer to weight loss. We're here to debunk this myth and show that a sustainable approach to nutrition is the key to successful fat loss.

The journey to sustainable fat loss starts with a body recomp phase, focusing on muscle building and boosting metabolism before fat loss even begins. This counters the typical dieting pitfalls many fall into, opting for quick fixes rather than embracing healthy change.

A crucial point we cover is the danger of extreme calorie restriction. While it may seem logical that less food equates to weight loss, extreme calorie restriction can do more harm than good. Instead, we guide you towards a healthier approach, focusing on foods high in nutrient density.

Micronutrient deficiencies are a common problem during a fat loss journey. Incorporating a range of nutrient-dense foods into your diet can help combat this issue. But it's not just about what you eat; addressing potential underlying health issues, like hormone imbalances, is crucial before embarking on any fat loss plans.

Hormones play a vital role in fat loss, and we dedicate a significant portion of the episode to this topic. The Macro Factor App, which we discuss, is an excellent tool to help you track your food intake and optimize hormone production. In addition to using tech aids, we explore natural approaches to hormone optimization, such as stress reduction and improved sleep quality.

We offer a free guide to female fat loss, to help you redefine your relationship with food and set the stage for successful, sustainable fat loss. This guide complements the information provided in the podcast, making the process of sustainable fat loss easier to understand and implement.

Remember, the path to successful fat loss has nothing to do with drastic calorie cuts and more to do with a sustainable approach to nutrition!

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:47] Low energy availability
[8:01] Training fasted
[12:28] The 5 nutrition mistakes women make before  a fat loss phase
[26:06] How to have a successful fat loss phase
[42:55] Hormonal imbalances can cause fat loss plateaus
[45:34] Proper food tracking
[49:19] Get a coach or join the community
[53:27] Outro

Episode resources:

• Female Fat Loss Guide (free)

• Jeremiah Bair's podcast: Living Lean

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching

👩‍💻👨‍💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.

📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

This is maybe the most important for getting a setup for fat loss for everybody really, but females especially, is doing a body recon phase, doing a primer phase doing a prep phase, a pre diet, maintenance phase, whatever you want to call it, spending about four to eight weeks before fat loss on a few key behaviors and routines or habits or systems, whatever you want to call them. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights

Philip Pape  00:51

community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 126 more carbs, more muscle why low carb and keto are keeping you skinny fat. I discussed all the reasons a moderate to high carb diet is essential. If your goal is to build muscle get stronger, improve your body composition get leaner and make fat loss easier. Today, as promised, for episode 127 Five fat loss mistakes women need to avoid what to do instead, we will go over why females in particular should think twice before jumping right into a fat loss phase. The five most common fat loss mistakes women make and how to set yourself up for a successful healthy and sustainable fat loss phase. Now two thirds of my clients are female. Most of them are over 35 Putting them squarely in the Peri and post menopause phases where hormones become an even more sensitive factor during fat loss, though they do not have to be a deal breaker. And I wanted to create this episode to focus specifically on aspects like low energy availability, carbs, and even the discomfort of change that come up most frequently with my female clients and listeners. Last thing before I jump in, I did create a new and totally free guide called female fat loss now available at the link in my show notes or at wits & weights.com/free. It's a nicely organized summary of all the topics discussed on today's show. As a reminder of what's most important, what mistakes to avoid and how to approach successful fat loss. Again, just click the link in my show notes, or go to wits & weights.com/free, to download the female fat loss guide. With that, let's get into today's topic five fat loss mistakes women need to avoid and what to do instead losing body fat. It's often seen as an aesthetic goal. But we have to understand that for women especially there are additional considerations here regarding your health, your hormones, your performance that needs to be factored in, I'm all for going after the physique that you want the dream body, whatever it is. And at the end of the day, we all want to have a healthy level of body fat. We want to look and feel our best. But we do have to understand the unique considerations that come into play. Now every individual is different regardless. But there are some differences between men and women. I wanted to focus exclusively on women today. So approaching fat loss with realistic expectations. And a plan. An appropriate plan is really the key here. And before I dive into these, I do want to give a shout out and give credit words do I want to give a shout out to Jeremiah bear of the living lien podcast for inspiring this topic because he had Brandon to cruise on who by the way, was on the show twice before. And they did a female fat loss series it was something like six or seven episodes very detailed if you want to go check those out. And I definitely borrowed generously from some of the key points, as well as my own experience and working with female clients. But I wanted to give a shout out to them. And I'll include a link to that. I'll include a link to Jeremiah's podcast in this episode. And I'll go ahead and tag him. So he knows, give him a shout out. All right, let's start by talking about how fat loss especially when done aggressively affects women in particular, and why you should avoid just jumping into a fat loss phase before you're ready. We want to be ready for fat loss. So it's not just another crash diet. So there's really three big things here that I want to talk about. The first is that females you know women are more susceptible to the negative effects of low energy availability and calorie restriction. This is probably the biggest one. Many women are walking around for years and years and years in a state of low energy availability. I just talked to a client this morning on her check in a longer term client who she told me you know After, after she was done with her fat loss phase and she went back to maintenance. I was asking her to eat a little bit more than that, like, not just exactly at maintenance, but a little bit more, because I felt like her body needed to recover, and wasn't getting the opportunity to do that. And she's like, Well, I really want to maintain my results, I don't want to gain too much weight, I'm just going to kind of stick around maintenance for a while I said, Okay, you can do that. But just just understand that I think you'll get better performance and quicker recovery, if you just kind of pop above that threshold for a bit. And recently, she did that. And lo and behold, everything just started to improve, right? Her performance, her hormones, her even her menstrual cycle, her sleep, stress, just the psychology of it, everything. And you may be walking around in a state of low energy availability, not even knowing it thinking that, okay, because I've maintained my body weight, I'm eating what I need. No, it could be that your body is simply in that purgatory, and that no man's land in between, you know, full energy availability and a diet where you're losing weight, we're actually what's happening is you are in a very, very, very, very slight deficit. And so it doesn't even look like you're, you're losing weight. And every time you get a pop on the scale, because of a little extra carbs, you freak out, right, tell me this doesn't sound like a familiar story. So being in that state of low energy availability, it's going to cause a perpetual disruption to your hormones, it can cause issues with your cycle, it can decrease your bone mineral density, everything gets downregulated. Because your body says, well, you're giving me 90% Of what I need, but not 100%. So guess what, I'm gonna dock everything by 10%. And I might dock certain things more than others. And you have a higher risk, the deeper you go have what they call red s right, which is relative energy deficiency syndrome. In all honesty, that tends to be in the more extreme cases, when you're severely in a deficit, I'm just talking about being in an unintentional deficit constantly. That's the big thing. So if you are in that state, if you feel like things are not right, things are foggy. Maybe it's my hormones, maybe it's because of my age, whatever reason you tell yourself, and you're doing a lot of other things, right, like your strength training, for example, and keeping the stress moderate, it could simply be that you're not eating enough. And I know, I know, it's a simple thing. And you've probably heard people say, Well, you need to reverse diet and eat more food. I'm not a fan of reverse dieting, I'm a fan of knowing exactly where your metabolism stands, and then eating just slightly above that level. So that you have all the energy you need, and you feel great and you perform great, but you don't really gain any weight. And if you do gain weight, it's going to be the most infinitesimal amount of weight over many, many, many, many months, which is easy to cut off in a very short period of time with a fat loss phase. Okay, so that's the first one is understanding that you may be in low energy availability, and that females are even more susceptible to this because of your hormonal situation relative to men. The second thing is training fasted. All right, a lot of your training fasted. I'm going to suggest that you try training with some food in your stomach and seeing what the difference is, I'm not going to say oh, it's better. We're gonna say let you decide that for yourself. But training, fasted does a number of things, it increases your cortisol, believe it or not, it increases your cortisol, okay, it increases muscle breakdown, it can impair your workout performance and recovery, you definitely have the risk of other hormonal issues down the road if you train fasted for a long time, and training intensely while fast, it seems to exacerbate these effects. So before you even go to a fat loss phase, I would want you to evaluate how you train when you train and the timing of your food. Sometimes when people ask me about meal timing, they're looking to optimize and I'll tell them, you know, that's not as important as getting enough protein and getting enough food. But in other cases, if you're for example, training fasted and you literally are just not eating around your workout, that can have a much bigger effect. Like even if you aren't getting enough food and protein the rest of the day, the training fasted piece, especially for females can be detrimental and backfire before you've even gone into a fat loss phase. So I want you to strongly consider that it might be more beneficial to have a banana and a protein shake an hour before you workout, right? It doesn't have to be anything huge. It can be a bowl of oatmeal, right? Mainly protein and carbs and little to no fat and you're good. Um, the third thing that I wanted to mention here with regards to why women would avoid aggressive fat loss or going into a fat loss phase before you're ready, is and this is maybe the most important for getting a setup for fat loss for at for everybody really but females especially is doing a body recon phase, doing a primer phase doing a prep phase, a pre diet, maintenance phase, whatever you want to call it. I'm spending about four to eight weeks before fat loss on a few key behaviors and routines or habits or systems, whatever you want to call them. And they include the following number one, building some muscle. Now this could be building muscle and body recomp phase, or this could be spending a longer period of time actually building muscle, even in a surplus. But, but best case, or worst case, doing it at maintenance calories in what we call a recomp. And for those of you interested, we are doing the let me see what does this episode come out, it might already be happening, but we're doing our body recomp challenge in December. But regardless, that's just like a kickstart. For three weeks, a real recon phase should take anywhere from like four to eight weeks, sometimes longer. And that's definitely the phase that I take my clients through first, before we do a fat loss phase. You're trying to address the metabolic issues, the hormonal issues, the the lack of fuel, the things like fasted training, you want to make sure you're lifting heavy that you're lifting the right number of days per week for you and not doing too much, not doing too much cardio, making sure you're getting enough steps, making sure you're hydrated, making sure you're getting enough protein. It's all of those things, right. And I don't mean to overwhelm you by saying like, you've got to fix 20 things all at once. What I'm trying to suggest here is taking that four to eight weeks to slowly add in one to three of these tiny habits a week so that by the end of the 40 weeks, you're in a great state for fat loss, rather than jumping right in, they want no I gotta lose a fat, what do I do? Oh, calorie deficit, let's do it. And then all these things are way off where they need to be. The fat loss phase is not going to be successful. And it's just another crash diet. Just give me another yo yo diet. All right. There's things like improving your relationship with food, thinking of food as a fuel that serves you that aligns with your goals that that helps your performance. Eating for satiety, like all of all of these skills that we've developed in a body recomp, or pre fat loss phase are extremely important to address before we go on to fat loss. Okay, so I just wanted to lay all that out first, just so you know that this is a long game, that we want to take this the right way we want to do it sustainably. And if you work with me as a coach, or if you're one of my challengers or even in the Wits, & Weights Facebook community, you'll see these themes come up time and again. And we can help you get to that point we can put in place some of those foundational habits. All right. So now I want to cover the five big nutrition mistakes that most women make. So you can avoid these when you're setting up your fat loss phase. Now, we all love odd numbers. We like fives, we like lists. Could I have done seven? Could I have done three? Could I have done 10? Of course. But I spent some time on this. And I think these five come up the most often? Or could be the most helpful. All right. So you know beyond what we just talked about, like not taking this overly aggressive approach and just jumping in? What are the common pitfalls that women run into? All right. The first one is really about behavior, psychology, it's getting stuck in old habits and being unwilling to change and accept the discomfort that is inevitable. When you're going after a transformation like this. Yes, this is the long game. Yes, this is your life. But you also have been stuck for years doing something that hasn't worked. And even when it quote unquote, worked in the short term like you lost a bunch of weight, you gain it back, didn't you? And when you lost the weight, did you have the physique and the health that you wanted? I'm pretty sure the answer is no, you probably lost muscle. Right? Doing it the right way is going to get you the results. But it requires a little bit of discomfort. And so I actually talked recently in the podcast about getting about pushing your comfort zone into the expanded comfort zone and being willing to change. But you don't have to change so much that it feels overwhelming, right? None of these diets you've done in the past work. They don't work for a reason. They don't work because they're not sustainable. They're not flexible. They don't work with you and your lifestyle. Wouldn't you rather live in the identity of a person who enjoys her life and enjoys what you eat, and never feels guilty about it? Right? And so accepting that change is inevitable, but also realizing that the cost of that change is far less. In fact, it's a basement bargain, compared to the cost of not changing and continuing to do what you've always done. So for some reason, especially, there's a difference I see between men and women when it comes to this kind of thing. I you know, not sure what it is. And I'm not going to dissect that because every individual is different even within that spectrum. But I think this is maybe the number one pitfall is just not being willing to accept change. Now if you're working with a coach like if you work with me, you've already shown that you are open until that kind of change and are willing to listen and an experiment, I've seen many people who don't work with a coach, or they're looking for a quick out, or the answer, right? They'll send me a question like, What do I do for this? I just want the answer. And then even if I give them a suggestion or an answer, it's like, well, I don't want to do this. Because this, this, this. And there's always excuses, right? If you are making excuses, step back and ask yourself, whether it's an excuse, or just a reason not to change. Okay, two different things. All right. So that's the first one. All right, I told you tough love today, a little bit of tough love. Because we all we all want to hear this sometimes. And we know we know what it takes. And it's, it's not that hard, it just takes a little bit of a little bit of change and discomfort. Alright, number two, the second big pitfall or mistake is the yo yo dieting, which is yo yo dieting on the large scale weekend dieting on a short scale. And either way, it's a form of a Yo yo, it's an up and down pattern. And this up and down pattern results in what I mentioned earlier, have low energy availability. So it's this metabolic whiplash, where you think that when you're on the downside of it, right, when you're quote, unquote, in the diet, the dial is turned on, I'm going all after I'm using my discipline and willpower, you think that, okay, now I'm going to be losing the fat or the weight or whatever. And it might happen in the short term, and then you gain it back and then have the short term gain back and then you hit a plateau. And you constantly feel like you're dieting, and yet you get nowhere, and things get worse and your body composition gets worse, and you get weaker, and the hormones get worse and the sleep gets worse and sleep gets worse. Does this sound familiar? Does this sound familiar? And so on the short scale, what might be happening is very simple. You may be Monday through Friday, sticking to that diet, Saturday, off the rails, and I'm using terms that are kind of the standard conventional terms. And when you are taking the right approach to fat loss, and you're taking a sustainable approach, no longer are you going to have, you know, sticking to it, stayin on track, getting off track off the wagon, none of that, because it's not so rigid. But what you've done before is rigid. And so Monday through Friday, you're like a machine, you're rigid, you're perfect, quote unquote. And then Saturday, I'm not going to track today, I'm going to go out with my friends, I'm going to have just everything right, the alcohol, the appetizers, the deserts. And before you know it, you've over consumed by 2000 calories. But because you're not tracking, you don't know what your metabolism is, you don't even know what your exact, you know, weekly calories need to be to get where you want to go. You're not in touch with their hunger signals, because you eat like a monk during the week. And then you eat like, you know, a queen or whatever. I was trying to think of like, kind of a gluttonous I was thinking of a king really. But then I thought, Okay, this is about women. So what's the analogy, but you get what I'm trying to say. So that happens on a weekly basis. And then on a monthly or yearly basis, you're doing these like strict diets for three months. And then you're just ravenous for carbs and sugar and fats and you over consume and you binge and you get it all back. And before long, you weigh more than you did before and more of it as fat than muscle. And the irony, I guess it's ironic is that you have been in a low energy state the vast majority of that time, and yet it still hasn't gotten you anywhere. Because the net energy balance has not been favorable. But the majority of the days you've been suffering in this low energy state. Right? Does that make sense? So when you're hearing this, you're like, Oh, you're speaking to me, like, I'm constantly feeling like I'm dieting and I'm not making progress is because you're not actually in a consistent energy deficit for fat loss. You're probably not doing a lot of the other things to him, but that's okay. We'll talk about that. And you're offsetting those.

Philip Pape  18:52

Any progress you do have with the yo yo aspect of it. So we're gonna stop doing that. But that's number two. Number three, cutting calories too aggressively. Very simple. Most of these diets whether it's keto, carnivore or whatever, even Weight Watchers doesn't matter. Are the really bad ones like Octavia Octavia? Yeah. Really rely on the simple energy balance equation, right calories in calories out. And yeah, you're gonna lose weight if you just starve yourself. But you're gonna get a lot worse than that you're gonna lose a bunch of muscle, you're going to dramatically slow down your metabolism. You're gonna ramp up your cortisol and get super stressed, you're gonna shoot down your performance in the gym, you're not even be able to build and hit your lifts. You're not going to feel like going to the gym, right? And you're gonna do what's called a crash diet. You're gonna lose muscle, you're gonna get hungry, you're gonna binge it all back. Same idea. It's kind of tied in with the yo yo, yo yo dieting. And so this is why we want to understand our calorie intake. We want to understand our metabolism. And we want to understand how much weight we are losing every week like body fat and Body Weight wise, so that we can stay within a reasonable rate of loss, which you've may have heard me say before, but I'll just reiterate is 1% of your body weight per week, that's the maximum you would want to lose. And most of these crash diets, you'll, you'll, you'll lose 40 pounds in a month, which just do the math and based on whatever you weighed before, that's probably like, you know, three or 4% of your body weight a week, it's insane. You're losing so much muscle doing that, actually, a lot of what you're losing initially is just fluid, but then you're losing a bunch of muscle, it's not what we want. Okay, number four, mistake, mistake number four, avoiding or restricting carbs. Yes, you know, I was gonna say this. So number, the earlier things we talked about related to just restriction overall, and, you know, not being willing to change cutting calories too aggressively. And I'm not even mentioned protein, as one of the five Believe it or not, believe it or not, I'm not, because for some reason, that ends up being something a lot of women get, find out pretty quickly that they need to do and then they start to increase it. If they are focused on it. We're talking about carbs. Okay, and I talked all about this on the last episode, so I'm not going to rehash everything. But by eating too few carbs, you are impairing your, your performance, you are impairing your muscle growth. Yes, carbs are needed for muscle growth, not just protein. For a lot of reasons that I talked about in the last episode. Carbs are protein sparing in so many amazing ways. Not having enough carbs means you're going to disrupt your hormones, you know, increasing your carbs, I've seen time and again, have improved hormone production, testosterone, for example, reducing cortisol helping with your insulin sensitivity, believe it or not, okay, it sounds counterintuitive. You increase carbs, you get more insulin, you combine that with strength training, better utilizing the insulin, you're more insulin sensitive, and now easier to lose fat because you have more carbs. And now if that's not the opposite of what so many influencers are saying, you know, tell me I'm wrong. Right? That's that's exactly the opposite of what a lot of these influencers, say when they say carbs will make you fat, carbs from ride fuel, they help with recovery, they support muscle growth, muscle building, optimize hormones, all the things. So that's Mistake number four is just not having enough carbs. We all have these have an asterisk behind them. And that is, if it's right for you. But what I'm sharing here are the pitfalls that affect the vast majority of women who are having trouble with this. And I will never say you have to do this or have to do that. What I'm suggesting is that many women are restricting carbs unnecessarily, and having more carbs would help them with all these things. And once they introduce the carbs, voila, a lot of these problems go away. Okay, mistake number five, is neglecting nutrient density. So we talked about flexible dieting, and we talked about diets or good and bad foods and these restrictive diets, and it's always about the foods themselves. The thing is, you can eat any food, if it serves your goals. The question is, will it especially for fat loss. Also serve your health, serve your satiety, serve your digestion, serve your performance, like once you add all the list of things where we want to improve with what we eat, we realize it's not about specific foods. It's about the density of those foods, the nutrient density of those foods, which ends up being primarily Whole Foods, but not a restrictive list of Whole Foods, all Whole Foods, meats, you know, eggs, seafood, dairy, all the plants, grains, starches, right? Fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, all of it is okay. Right? Unless you have an intolerance or something like that, or just don't like it. It's all okay, and having a diverse food matrix. A diverse diet will improve your chance of not having micronutrient deficiencies, and improving all these other things, hormone production, thyroid function, metabolism, digestion, and the list goes on and on and on. Right. So instead of like cutting out carbs, and now all of a sudden you're eating just meat, and you're missing out on all these other nutrients and dense foods that will fill you up and so on. Have a diverse diet. Okay, so we're going to talk about that. Some of the details when we talk about specifics for fat loss at the end, or actually shortly. But what I wanted to do here was establish you know, when it is appropriate for women to consider fat loss and in the mistakes women make so you can look for those as you're going through this process. Now, I want to lay out exactly how to execute a successful fat loss phase, the moment you've all been waiting for. And remember, you don't have to write all this down because I created a free guide called female fat loss that covers everything in today's show. Just click the link in my show notes for the free female fat loss guide or go to Wits. & Weights dot dot com slash free. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  26:06

Okay, women, you are looking to drop fat in a healthy sustainable way, what do you need to do. So I have a decent list here of things and again, so that you're not overwhelmed, you may just want to go download the free guide where I summarize all of this stuff kind of in CliffsNotes style. And you can re listen to the episode along with it, make notes, all that good stuff. At the end of the day, what's important is that you take action, whatever that action is, I would take one action today based on this podcast episode, that is based on how you were inspired by the show and what you are not doing that you want to do. Okay, first. So this is gonna sound What is this gonna, this is gonna sound counterintuitive, or a cop out. The first thing to do for successful fat loss phase is don't do a fat loss phase build muscle first. That's the first thing. I'm not even talking about the prep phase, I'm talking about the opposite of a fat loss phase going into a very slight surplus, a lean gain phase, where you just pack on your first you know, 1015 pounds of muscle over the next six to 12 months, having more muscle is going to boost your metabolic rate. You're going to be lifting heavier, you're going to be building that strength, building that muscle, improving your hormones, improving your insulin sensitivity, all these things, it's going to basically shift everything toward a metabolically healthier state so that when you do fat loss, it's even easier. Yeah, you're delaying the fat loss. But you're going to thank me for it, you're going to be thankful that you went through that process of building muscle first. So that's the first thing but now I'm going to get the rest of these are okay, fine. I got it. Philip, I need to build muscle. But I really damn, I just really want to build lose fat right now. Okay. So again, assuming you've done all the other things we talked about and are not making the mistakes, what should you be doing? First we have protein. All right. Protein, you know what? Hold on, I got to look at my list here. Because the one thing I wanted to add to this actually don't actually didn't have in my notes, which is kind of silly is is training strength training. And that's primarily because today I wanted to focus on the nutrition side. But even if you aren't going to build muscle first, you need to be training as if you're building muscle before you do a fat loss phase. And this can happen in the body recon phase. So training for progressive overload, lifting heavy and all that. I recently did an episode on progressive overload Look, isn't this so nice? Every one of these topics, I've got like a full episode that goes into details on it. And you can always reach out to me on IG at Wits & Weights and say, Hey, what was the episode about this? What was the episode about that? Do you have a video training on this and I will send it to you. Okay, so training. But assuming you're doing that the next thing is prioritize protein intake. can't say it enough. In fat loss protein becomes even more important than when you're not in fat loss. Because this is going to help you preserve and repair and regrow your lean tissue, your muscle mass, this is how you hold on to it. So that your body will be really stingy with the protein and instead it's going to go to the next source of energy which is fat. Okay, it's gonna go to fat. If you don't have enough protein, then it's going to your body is going to break down that muscle protein tissue because you also don't have very many carbs coming in and let's be honest, the calories are low, and you're going to lose muscle. We don't want to do that. So what's the target? I would shoot for the full one gram per pound of bodyweight, which is like 2.2 kilograms, grams per kilogram, or even a little higher like 1.1 Give yourself a little bit of a stretch goal 1.1 grams per pound, which is about 2.4 grams per kilogram. And how do you do that? Okay, that's the big challenge. You want to consume high protein foods. So eggs yes are kind of in that category, but you got to be careful for the with the fat in the yolk. So I would supplement holy Eggs with egg whites during a fat loss phase. Chicken is always a good option in Turkey fish, low to emit low to moderate fat or even no fat dairy are all good options. And of course, you can supplement with protein powder if needed. And most people do need to like the amount of protein you're going to want to get usually requires at least one protein shake for most people just to kind of get through the day with with everything intact, and then distributed evenly throughout the day is the best advice I have in terms of how to fit it in. A lot of people say well, I'm too full, or I can't fit it in or, you know, I can get my calories, but I never get my protein. Plan ahead, look at your day. How can you get three feedings, maybe two feedings, three feedings, four feedings, depending on what it is. And just divide just subdivide the protein. If you need 120 grams, and you eat four times, that's 30 grams per meal. Now one meal might have 50 And one might have 20. And one might have 15 or 35, but just distributed throughout the day. So you can you can get it. Okay, prioritize protein. Second, I'm gonna I'm not gonna use numbers because I have these bullets on my notes. So the next item is ensure adequate carb intake. Okay, so again, we're just focusing on macros right now just to start simple. The thing in fat loss is your calories are low, right? So and your protein is high, and your fat needs to be at some certain minimum level. We talked all about the benefits of carbs for muscle in the last episode. But I also suggested that it gets really difficult or gets to be more of a trade off during fat loss because you only have so many calories to play with. Carbs are anticon up catabolic, they prevent the breakdown of muscle protein, they provide fuel for high intensity exercise. So my suggestion is after the protein needs are met, let's say it's 1.1 grams per pound. You can experiment with different fat and carb levels, mainly to ensure you have enough carbs. But some women respond better to higher carbs versus fats and vice versa. And I've had female clients who the carbs are pretty low, the fats are pretty low, we increase the carbs not much difference, we increase the fats and all of a sudden the the started to perform better. So you just never know until you try it yourself. But I wouldn't just pick a fixed number and go with it. As a one size fits all. I would experiment with different levels. So for women, the fat can come down to as low as like 15, even 10 grams. I mean 10 is getting sporty, I think Eric Trexler mentioned seven is like the rock bottom. But I would give yourself a little buffer and say 15 and all the rest, go to carbs, anything that's not already reserved to protein, and give it a shot right now, part of it for a lot of women. It's the timing of the carbs. And here's what I see. For example, let's say you train in the morning. First of all, don't train fasted or at least experiment with training fed to see how it feels. So that's that's one problem is training faster. But let's say you're not training fasted, and you are eating, you know, three meals a day, and you trade. If you are not shifting those carbs toward your workout, you may experience a performance degradation. And so time, the most carbs around your workout, if you work out in the morning, get like 60% of your carbs or even 80% of your carbs around the workout. If you work out around dinner in the evening. Same thing, if you work out in the middle day, same thing, shift your carbs so that they are parity workout pairing meaning in the vicinity of your workout. So that's the second thing, especially important for women, especially cuz you're gonna have lower calories to play with and most men, sorry to say it's just just reality, right? You're smaller, your metabolisms are lower, you have less muscle mass, etc. That's one of the differences. Okay, next is the

Philip Pape  33:49

the wealth, nutrient timing around the workouts I think I already covered. But the last one was carbs specifically than I wanted to talk about nutrient timing, specifically around training, both carbs and protein. So in addition to shifting most of your carbs to around your workout, also make sure to have protein before and after. And by before I mean, two hours, you know, before or less doesn't have to be half an hour before and after. I mean, like within an hour to have protein. So again, you're kind of shifting a lot of your calories, you're really important calories to the workout period to maximize the muscle preservation and the use of that training signal. Okay, the next thing for successful fat loss is eating high nutrient density foods. So the very simple approach here is the 8020 or even in fat loss might be 9010 approach, where 90% of our foods are Whole Foods. The other 10% is indulgences, whatever you want, right and so it's a little tighter during fat loss than if you weren't in fat loss. So you're going to focus on whole foods, lean protein, fruits, veggies, dairy, whatever Whole Foods That fill you up to have a lot of nutrients. So I have a preference or bias toward more green veggies, more salads, more steamed vegetables, roasted vegetables with your dinner, like putting vegetables wherever you can. As well as fruits that are lower in calories like strawberries, a huge bowl of strawberries can really fill up your stomach, at the cost of like 100 calories, you know, very few calories, but it fills up your stomach. But don't discount other things like even in your indulgences, if you like popcorn, I mean, you can eat a huge bowl of just lightly salted popcorn, air popped popcorn. And that's very few calories, compared to like a tiny bowl of you know, chips, which are which are cooked in fat, right, they're gonna have a lot more calories. Again, I'm never saying anything's good and bad. What I'm saying is during fat loss, nutrient dense foods are going to be your friend, because they are going to have more fiber, they are going to fill you up, they're going to take up more space, okay. And they ensure that your diet includes some, at least the minimums of certain things of certain nutrients like magnesium, zinc, iron, chromium, all those things, which leads me to the next item to address micronutrient deficiencies, which become way more common during fat loss because you simply can't consume as much food. So even if you are focused on nutrient density foods, you just may not have enough mass of it coming in to give you optimal levels of all the different vitamins, you know, vitamin D, iron, zinc, and so on. And this is where you could use bloodwork, like if you want to if you want to take this to the next level and be totally sure get bloodwork done, you know before the fat loss phase, and then maybe halfway through, and kind of an even at the end, and you can see what you are susceptible to in terms of deficiencies, correlated with the calorie deficit, right, not just in general, because everybody has certain deficiencies, because they eat a certain way, or genetics or whatever. And this is where you would use supplementation strategically. So the common supplements I recommend for most people in most of my clients are going to be a multivitamin of some kind. Magnesium for most people, vitamin D, for some people, fish oil. For some people, it depends on if you're deficient and really need these, if you get a lot of sunlight, you may not need vitamin D, if you eat a lot of fatty fish, I mean, the fish oil, but in a fat loss phase, you might be eating super lean fish or white fish, and not getting very much of the Omega threes, right? So in fat loss, it becomes even more important that you're addressing your micronutrients where you can't, okay. And the reason I say that is because these minerals and these vitamins cascade into lots of performance related aspects of your life, how you feel how you sleep, your stress on and on and on. And it could be the simple remedy, you need to for example, get a better night's sleep, like you may be deficient in magnesium, you may be getting migraines, you may be whatever. And it can be a nutrient deficiency. And this is more common in women, because you're eating fewer calories than men. All right. Next is improving your relationship with food. Now I'm not just going to say do it. Like, okay, improve your relationship with food go. It's more complicated than that. But it doesn't have to be. So the big rule I hate to call it a rule because we're talking about getting away from rules and rigidity. But if I had a rule of be don't view foods as good and bad, it is what it comes down to eat foods because they satisfy you. Because they are important in your lifestyle for who you are, what your schedule is what you do what you like your preferences, your social calendar, your you know, the things you do with friends and family plan in the indulgences because we don't want to binge eat, we don't want to emotionally eat, we want to be able to have the things we enjoy occasionally by choice. And then part of that is learning your hunger and satiety cues, you know, physical versus emotional hunger. And I know I'm throwing a lot at you here. But the overall the overall picture here is we want to be consistent and be able to add here to our diet during fat loss and not feel like we are suffering. Like we're miserable. Like we can't eat things. Instead, I want you to take one or two indulgences that you enjoy and plan them in. plan them into Saturday plan them in every day if you if you want to write like if every single day you want to have a cookie, this this awesome cookie that you like and it satisfies a sweet tooth and one cookie we'll do it or two cookies or whatever. Plan it in, look at the macros calories planning in and work the rest of your diet around it. As far as hunger, you're going to have higher hunger during fat loss. And so this is why going back to nutrient dense foods high fiber foods high volume foods is going to make a big difference. If you can drink a lot more water and eat a lot more veggies and eat more strawberries and watermelon and whatever and things that fill you up in addition to the things you need for protein because protein is also satisfying and filling. Then you've got it covered. You can still fit in okay white potato white potatoes are the highest satiety food because they are resistant starch. A lot of people don't realize that, right? They're more way more satisfying the sweet potatoes, people think of sweet potato is this amazing nutrient food, dense food and potatoes. white potatoes is bland, inferior cousin over here. Not true. white potato has a ton of nutrition. And it's extremely filling. So slice it up, put some seasoning on it, and cook it you roasted in the oven and have that with your dinner. Right? Okay, so being consistent rather than perfect. Eating for satisfaction, planning in indulgences, not viewing foods is good, bad, all of that stuff related to your relationship with food. If, if you are not there yet, before you start a fat loss phase, it's just gonna get worse during fat loss. This is why the body recomp or the prep phase is important because at least there we can say, okay, all these things are in place. I know how to eat like my 8020 I know how to plan things in I know how to do meal prep, I don't eat with guilt, I know that I can enjoy my indulgences, I understand why when I'm physically hungry versus emotionally hungry. All that. And this is where we're working with a coach. I know I say this a lot. And it sounds like I'm plugging my service. But I got into this, because I saw these problems and I had them myself. And when you can help somebody and guide them through and take the stress off in this area, a lot of the other stuff just gets easy. So it's very important. And especially for women, I just see this way more with women than with men, for whatever reason, okay? And it's probably the pressures you put on yourself, the pressure society puts on you. It's the body image. It's the dieting, it's the this this this, okay? Okay, the next thing, hormones, we want to make sure hormone production is optimized as best we can with the natural approaches. And by natural I mean, your lifestyle. Yes, supplementation to an extent or even herbal supplementation in some cases, and then some form of hormone therapy or treatment if needed. Now, if if you've got a dysregulation or an imbalance in your hormones, whether it's thyroid or testosterone, DHEA, whatever, right? You're perimenopause, menopause, whatever. And you haven't addressed that I would not want to be, I would not want to have you do a fat loss phase until you do. So, I'm going to make the assumption that you've gotten bloodwork you've gotten urine metabolite testing, or saliva testing, you're working with maybe a hormone specialist, you've gotten your free testosterone checked through bloodwork, you've got your progesterone, estrogen, estradiol, all that stuff checked. And you've taken steps during the body recomp of the pre fat loss phase, to improve your training, your stress, your sleep, all that stuff, naturally, to get it to the best level possible. And then, if you need replacement therapy, you're getting that as well. But for you do a fat loss phase, I know not everyone can do that, I realized that it's sometimes a longer process. But just know that during fat loss, if you hit plateaus, or if your body isn't responding, or your metabolism drops, like a rock, it could be related to some hormone imbalances that are not lifestyle derived, you know, your ovaries produce testosterone, while your ovaries produce less and less until they produce zero testosterone at some point. And if your stress is through the roof, that also affects your testosterone. Well guess what testosterone is a huge player in all of this. I'll actually be covering that in my first one of my first episodes in January with Karen Martel, we talked about that. But anyway, my point here is, hormones for women are extremely critical. You know, I don't You don't need me to tell you that. natural ways to improve it are going to be the big one is reducing stress, and getting better sleep quality and quantity. If you're getting five hours of sleep. If you're running around constantly with a busy schedule with no time for yourself whatsoever, that is going to be

Philip Pape  43:52

that is going to make fat loss a lot harder. And the reason is, is those hormonal imbalances lead to a downregulation your metabolism that's really what it comes down to, you're simply going to burn fewer calories, and that means you can't eat as much. And then if you can't eat as much, you might be in low energy availability, and guess what happens? It all gets worse. And it's a vicious cycle. So reducing stress by improving your adrenal function, improving your sleep quality and quantity. Okay, and I have a lot of resources in past episodes where I talked about some of the stuff so reach out if you need specifics, make sure you have normal menstrual function. Make sure that you've gotten things checked as needed, like thyroid and cortisol, your reproductive hormones, testosterone, estradiol, DHEA, estrogen, progesterone, all of that. And if you need to be taken therapy under the guidance of a specialist or doctor, go for it. One more thing is adaptogens. I'm a big fan sometimes of certain adaptogens like ashwagandha I just came I just found out about something called gorilla mind sigma as well for women to potentially boost your testosterone. Now again, these are all herbal, supple Since I'm not a medical doctor, I'm not dispensing advice, I'm just saying that those options are out there. And if you want to experiment with them, go for it. Okay, so this is really important during fat loss because if you don't have your hormones optimized, you're just shooting yourself in the foot by down regulating your metabolism by potentially hundreds of calories. And not only that, it could be to such an extent that as you cut calories, your body just further down regulates to catch up, and you just stay in a plateau. And that's why we want to address these issues first. Okay, almost done here. Second, the last item here is setting up and running your fat loss phase with proper tracking. Okay, so now we're talking about the nuts and bolts of the actual fat loss phase. Here's where I'm going to suggest using macro factor to log your food. I don't like any other food apps on the market, food logging apps, they all suck this is the only one that I think works really well because it is adherents neutral. It doesn't punish you doesn't give you flash ups you know read numbers because you were over on your on your calories. It simply says, hey, here are your targets. Here your minimums here targets based on how many calories you're burning this week. And then next week, your your new targets next week. Are you new targets, oh, you changed your goal. Okay, we'll give you new targets. very objective very neutral. And what it does is it calculates your expenditure. Go back and listen to episode 98, episode 98. If you want to learn all about food loggers, but definitely go get macro factor use my code, Wits & Weights all one word Wits & Weights to get an extra free week on your trial. And reach out to me for help. If you need help setting it up, definitely have to log your food for one minimum reason alone. And that is awareness. When you're in a fat loss phase, if you don't know what's going in your mouth, from a calorie Mac and a macro perspective, you're going to be all over the place, you're gonna go back to yo yo land, and you're going to be over consuming on the weekend, or you're gonna be grazing and not realizing you could be snacking, and you're gonna have alcohol, and you're going to just have lots of uncertainty floating around. But if you can just track your food, you're gonna have that awareness. And if you've been tracking food and use it for targets because the food lager knows how many calories you're burning, even better. All right, so then once you've got that set up, you're going to go at a reasonable rate of loss. Remember, before I said one of the biggest mistakes is cutting too aggressively. And the most you want to go is the most you want to cut is 1% body weight per week. But I found that most women because of the tighter calorie budget are better off at around half to maybe point seven 5% body weight per week, so that you're not restricting those calories too low and causing all the other issues we talked about. Yes, it's going to take a little longer. But wouldn't you rather it take longer be able to get through it successfully, and not have to feel like you're suffering on low, you know, lower and lower calories. Probably most people would take that trade off, you can shift calories around within the week to work with your lifestyle. So if you're a big weekend partier and you'd love to go out to eat on the weekends, shift the calories a little bit toward the weekend. Now the more you do this, the more extreme you get with this, the less consistent your schedule is, and that actually could backfire with your metabolism. So I wouldn't go too much, I wouldn't do that too much. I would shift a little, you know, a few 100 calories here and there not like 1000 calories where you save them for the weekend. And then you can as you go through the dieting phase, the fat loss phase, you can use tools like refeeds and diet breaks, to give you some psychological relief as needed, or to fit within your lifestyle. Like if you're going on a trip, right? A refeed is like a one to two day period where you eat up at your maintenance calories and take a little break. Worst case, it's just going to pause your fat loss for a few days. Diet breaks are just longer versions of that where you might go for a week. Like maybe you're going on a cruise, maybe you're going on a trip you go for a week. Now, if you're if you still log during that time, you'll at least know where you stand. If you don't just be aware of all the other things of selecting protein you didn't right amount of carbs, you didn't nutrient density and like stick close to that when you're on your cruise, so that it doesn't completely backfire progress, but it is still just one week. And so we've got to enjoy life, right? It's fine. Sometimes you just need the break and that's fine too. So whatever works for you. Last thing is if you want to get the best results possible, having accountability from another person or community is going to make a huge difference. It just is every time I look in my life where I you know wanted to go after a goal and I floundered around and I experimented and I tried to do it myself, you know, DIY and I read podcasts and read books, is just fits and starts and fits and starts and sometimes going down the wrong path but then kind of reconnecting and back and forth. And then I'd hire a coach and it was like boom, one month done or whatever whatever you're trying to achieve. You know, you would you would do it. You kind of take a shortcut right to that direct path. So a free The way to do this right if coaching is too expensive is to join our Wits & Weights Facebook community in there, you have the opportunity to ask me questions that I answer live, you have the opportunity to ask a whole bunch of smart people in the group questions about your training your nutrition, recipe ideas, just to share your wins, share your frustrations, talk to people, you know, have that support people who are positive by the way, our community is positive, and not in a delusional way, in a genuine, we all want to help, we've all been there kind of way, there is no room for people who try to bring others down, people are toxic, I've only had to kick out like two people from the group the whole time it's been open. So we invite positive people and generally have positive people, you can gain a lot from that the Wits & Weights, Facebook community, link is always in the show notes. And then the other way to get accountability is working with a nutrition coach. I am a Nutrition coach. But there are many others out there. There's lots of different levels of service people provide. And you know, you've got to find what's right for you. If you like what you hear on my show, if I sound like a decent enough guy that you could stand listening to giving you feedback on a weekly basis, so that we get you that result, please reach out. And if not, you know maybe I can refer you to somebody else. Or at least join into the community and say hello. Alright, so accountability is the last piece. That's quite a list. I hope it wasn't overwhelming. And again, there's this free guide that will go through it all again for you. Hopefully it is clear, it is crystal clear that losing body fat requires some strategy. It requires some thinking ahead, some patience, and some special considerations, especially for women, we want to support your body's needs your hormones, we want to have realistic expectations. We want to adhere to an appropriate for you nutrition and training plan. So you get there the right way, and avoid all these other mistakes that so many women make. So if you are ready to chat about your specific situation, and how to go through a proper body recomp prep phase, you know the primer, the prep phase we talked about if you want to avoid the negative effects of low energy restriction, if you want to train properly for your body to improve your health, your physique, hormones, and execute a successful fat loss phase. And if you want to lose some more like 20 to 30 pounds of fat the right way. Just reach out to me and set up a free results breakthrough session. Totally free every week, I clear spots in my calendar to chat with women about their nutrition and training strategy. And what we're going to do is just map out here are the top two or three steps to take right now to get unstuck and make real progress. And that's it. No selling no pitching none of that simply a strategy that we work out together, click the link in my show notes for the free call. Let's make it happen. Okay, in our next episode 128, my favorite gym things seven gifts under $100. I've put together a fun but highly useful list of equipment and accessories that I recommend for your home gym or gym bag, just in time for the holidays, or maybe your birthday, or just a gift to yourself to celebrate a recent win. Make sure to subscribe to the show, please subscribe. It's one of the best ways that you can support me is just tap the little toggle in your podcast app right now that says follow or subscribe so you get new episodes. And you'll get all these new episodes as soon as they drop. If you don't want to listen to them, you just delete it. But please subscribe and you'll get notified. And I really thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting the show and for listening and I always welcome your feedback. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast.

Philip Pape  53:42

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights if you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then stay strong

Ep 126: More Carbs, More Muscle (Why Low-Carb and Keto Are Keeping You Skinny Fat)

Are you scared that carbs will make you fat and avoid them completely? Did you know that a balanced diet rich in carbohydrates is not just good but essential for building strength muscle, and shedding fat?

Today, I will be going over all the reasons why, 9 reasons in particular, eating a moderate to high carb diet—or what I like to call a balanced and healthy amount of carbs—is absolutely essential if your goal is to build muscle, get stronger, improve your body composition, get leaner, and yes even make fat loss easier.

Let’s call this the “I love carbs, and you should too” episode. You’ll definitely want to share this with a friend, especially if they’re a low-carb or keto zealot who loves to brag about how they haven’t looked at, let alone eaten a potato or bowl of oatmeal in a while. They are leaving massive gains on the table, and this is a very fast road not only to skinny fat but to a miserable existence in terms of enjoying your food.
If I sound a bit sarcastically aggressive today, it’s because I lived the low-carb delusion for an entire decade and paid the price. Now that my bloodstream is flooded with nature’s sweet glycogen drug 24/7, I look back and feel sorry for my carb-deprived former self and want nothing more than for YOU to put that person in the rearview mirror, too.

Episode summary:

Carbohydrates have often been misunderstood and maligned. There exists a widespread misconception that carbohydrates, or carbs, contribute to weight gain and are therefore detrimental to achieving a fit and lean physique. This misleading belief has given rise to various diet trends such as low carb or keto diets. However, in the latest episode, we seek to debunk these myths and illuminate the crucial role that carbs play in muscle development, recovery, and overall performance optimization.

Carbohydrates serve as the body's primary source of energy. When consumed, they break down into glucose which fuels our cells, tissues, and organs. For individuals who engage in high-intensity workouts, such as weight lifting or resistance training, carbohydrates are particularly important. This is because these activities deplete muscle glycogen, the storage form of glucose. Consuming carbohydrates helps to replenish these glycogen stores, providing the necessary energy for muscle contractions during workouts and promoting faster recovery post-exercise.

One of the major points discussed in the podcast is the protective role of insulin, a hormone released by the body in response to carbohydrate intake. Insulin is often misunderstood and vilified due to its association with diabetes. However, insulin serves as a powerful anti-catabolic, protecting muscle tissue from breakdown and driving nutrients into muscle cells. Additionally, carbohydrates play a vital role in preventing muscle protein breakdown, a common concern for athletes and fitness enthusiasts striving for muscle growth and retention.

Another important aspect of carbohydrate consumption highlighted in the podcast is its influence on the testosterone to cortisol ratio. Proper carbohydrate consumption supports a favorable testosterone to cortisol ratio, which is beneficial for muscle anabolism and recovery. Testosterone is a hormone that promotes muscle growth, while cortisol, often referred to as the "stress hormone", can lead to muscle breakdown when levels are too high. Therefore, a higher ratio of testosterone to cortisol is desirable for those seeking to build and maintain muscle mass.

Furthermore, the podcast episode stresses the importance of maintaining a balanced macronutrient intake. While carbohydrates play a pivotal role in muscle development and recovery, it is equally important to consume adequate amounts of protein for muscle repair and growth, as well as healthy fats for optimal hormonal function. It is also crucial to dispel the misleading belief that carbs invite weight gain. Weight gain is primarily a result of consuming more calories than the body burns, regardless of whether these calories come from carbohydrates, proteins, or fats. Therefore, rather than demonizing carbs or any specific macronutrient, the key to a healthy diet lies in balance and moderation.

This episode debunks common misconceptions, advocates for a balanced and moderate carbohydrate intake, and emphasizes the multifaceted benefits of carbs for muscle building, recovery, and overall performance.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:44] Carbs are beneficial to muscle growth
[7:34] Energy for high-intensity workouts
[8:52] Glycogen replenishment
[10:16] Protein sparing and mTOR activation
[11:56] Insulin release and hormone balance
[15:45] Prevent muscle protein breakdown
[18:05] Carbs optimizes testosterone to cortisol ratio
[20:02] Reduce muscle soreness post-workout
[21:18] Support muscle retention
[23:58] Improve overall performance
[27:13] Outro

Episode resources:

• Ep 124: How to Use Progressive Overload the RIGHT way to Build Strength and Muscle (Even in Fat Loss)

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching

👩‍💻👨‍💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.

📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

When it comes to carbs, you fall into one of three categories. You're scared they will make you fat and avoid them completely. You're testing the waters but whether they will make you fat, or you've realized that a balanced diet rich in carbohydrates is not just good, but essential for building strength, muscle and shedding fat. My goal today is to help you find your way into this pleasant third category. Stay tuned as we uncover nine compelling science backed reasons to embrace carbs for a leaner stronger you. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our latest episode 125 peptides, hormone therapy, medical esthetics and personalized wellness with Kristin Jim. We discussed peptides, hormone therapy, medical weight loss, and other ways to complement lifestyle interventions to optimize your health today for episode 126 more carbs, more muscle, why low carb and keto or keeping you skinny fat? I will be going over all the reasons why nine reasons in particular, eating a moderate to high carb diet, or what I like to call a balanced and healthy amount of carbs is absolutely essential. If your goal is to build muscle get stronger, improve your body composition, get leaner, and yes even make fat loss easier. Let's call this the I love carbs and you should to episode you'll definitely want to share this with a friend especially if they're a low carb or keto zealot who loves to brag about how they haven't looked at, let alone eaten a potato or bowl of oatmeal in a while they are leaving massive gains on the table. And this is a very fast road not only to skinny fat, but to a miserable existence in terms of enjoying your food, at least for 99% of people. If I sound a bit sarcastically aggressive today, it's because I've lived the low carb delusion for an entire decade. And I paid the price. Now that my bloodstream is flooded with nature's sweet glycogen drug 24/7. I look back and feel sorry for my carb deprived former self. And I want nothing more than for you to put that person in the rearview mirror too. So let's get into today's topic, more carbs, more muscle, why low carb and keto are keeping you skinny fat. So as often is the case, I love to look at the science look at what the studies say. And I'm going to reference one in particular. But I will say that there are multiple studies that support the idea that carbs are beneficial for building muscle. And there don't seem to be any, there was one that was retracted that support the opposite. So there's a plethora of evidence in support of this case, not to mention, my clients, the very vast majority of them come to me not eating enough carbs, we increase their carbs, lo and behold a lot of the issues they had before not just related to muscle building, but energy recovery, sleep, which all contribute also to muscle building. just magically go away just from having more carbs, hormones, etc. You name it. So I want to get into the exact reasons why this is a beneficial thing. But let me mention one study that Bill Campbell reviewed in his research review, I think it was back in Issue two in the study is by Paoli at all 2021. So it's just a couple years old. And the title is effects of two months of very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet on body composition, muscle strength, muscle area and blood parameters in the competitive natural bodybuilders. And the study looked at the effects of a keto diet, you know, a keto diet versus a normal Western diet, which we're going to call moderate or high carb throughout this episode, but frankly, we can just call it normal carbs. But this is all in the IODP eye of the beholder. If we think of how language works, we've gotten so used to the idea of low carb and keto being somewhat of a norm that the any contrast to that is considered high carbs. By the end of the episode, I hope you'll come to the conclusion that moderate high carbs as we call them, are really just balanced, diverse and balanced diverse diet and a healthy level of carbs. Okay, anyway, they looked at keto versus normal on body composition and strength in 19 Male natural bodybuilders so people were already knew how to train they already knew how to eat control their macros and so on. The keto group consumed very low carb, very high fat, moderate protein, the normal diet group ate higher carb lower fat and that same amount of protein so same calories, same Protein Protein equated diet very important. After eight weeks, the normal diet group gained significantly more muscle mass five pounds of muscle, compared to the Keto group, only 1.2 pounds. That is a 5x difference. The keto group gained very little for all that training and all that work. And they still gain the same amount of weight. So what does that tell you? If they didn't gain muscle mass? What did they gain? Okay, so now we're already seeing one of the differences. Both groups increase strength similarly, right, but muscle wise, the non keto group gained a lot more. The researchers did confirm that the Keto group maintained ketosis based on their ketone levels. And so overall, the studies suggest that a normal higher carb diet may be better for maximizing muscle growth in people who lift. And this is actually one of the first studies on keto diets in bodybuilders that also should, you know, that also show that lower carb intake impairs muscle building capabilities, compared to a more balanced diet that can has adequate carbs. I think Brandon Cruz covered this topic in a recent episode of chasing clarity as well. And he mentioned another study, I didn't get time to verify it. But it showed that women in particular, also experienced a performance hit a performance impact when the carbs are lower, even more than men did. And there's probably some reason for that a validity for that, that I'm going to be covering in I think my very next episode actually is going to be covering female fat loss, specifically for females, because there are differences between men and women. And I think it's important to talk about those differences, both physiologically and also in terms of stigma and society and kind of the the culture as well. So I'll be covering that in the next episode. But for today, let's get into nine reasons. The carbs are just awesome. Like that, you should just eat more carbs, period. All right.

Philip Pape  06:59

By the end of this, if you're not convinced, nobody's gonna convince you. And honestly, I'm not even trying to convince you so much as enlighten you as to what the evidence says. Because I am so excited by the fact that I could always eat way more carbs than I ever used to. And every day I wake up thinking, here's another day, I get to just eat a bunch of foods I love and I just have to balanced approach. That means by goals, it isn't that what we all want is that like rule number one with sticking with it. I feel so bad for the people who are just cutting out entire food groups thinking that that's going to get them results, I just I feel sad for them. And if you know someone like that, please share this episode with them. All right, number one, energy for your workouts. Alright, we're not even talking about strength training here, I wanted to get this one out of the way. High intensity and Glagolitic workouts, glycolytic aerobic workouts like high intensity interval training, cardio, even CrossFit, okay. Carbohydrates are the crucial energy for those modes of movement. And these movements may be part of your overall programming, they may be part of your, you know, muscle building repertoire, even though we often I don't want to say I denigrate cardio, I think cardio is very important for just general conditioning and cardiovascular health. But if you're doing any sort of glycolytic movement, just know that having carbs is also supportive of this. So I just wanted to mention that muscle glycogen is the predominant fuel source during moderate to high intensity exercise. And its availability can make or break the performance you gained during that. And so if you don't have it, it can really wipe you out. And that could actually impede your recovery for other things like you're lifting even more than if you didn't. And so a high carb diet gives you a ready supply of glucose for glycogen synthesis. And this keeps your muscles primed and energized even for those types of workouts. Okay, so that's it energy for high intensity workouts was number one. Number two, glycogen replenishment. One of the most important things we have when it comes to cars, post workout, carbohydrate consumption, replenishes your muscle glycogen, we can drain as much as something like 40% of your glycogen during a heavy lifting session. And if you train frequently, you know, if you're working out four days a week, maybe five days a week, this is a daily thing almost right? And having a more optimal glycogen storage meaning you're filling up the tank, you're having the the carbs around your workout, not necessarily just after but also before just kind of around your workout will improve the it's effectively a form of endurance is it not? Right even though you're you might be lifting very heavy weights, you might be doing singles or triples, you're still draining this, this energy tank. And once it's drained, you're gonna feel wiped out you're gonna feel like you can't quite get enough reps. You might feel like you have to cut the workout short, or you just may feel like you're dragging and this also doesn't make it as enjoyable either you because next time you're like, I gotta go back to the gym and I'm going to feel like that again. Right. So, the carbs for glycogen before and after are important now. After New York out, you've, you actually have greater insulin sensitivity. And so you're gonna be able to make really good use of the glycogen coming in, you're gonna be able to replenish that tank even faster. So that is a really nice synergy there. Alright, so that's number two, glycogen replenishment. Number three very important one, this one comes up a lot. And I think it confuses people, or they don't even realize that this happens. And that is the protein sparing, and mTOR activation. So a couple of mechanisms here, I want to explain. By consuming sufficient carbs, you're effectively telling your body, here you go, here's the easiest, most ready source of carbs or energy for you. And and you're good. Without the sufficient carbs, you're going to start to utilize muscle protein for energy. But when you have carbs coming in, well, now your muscles didn't get repaired and built using your protein directly. It's very efficient. All right, and part of this process is called the mTOR pathway. The mTOR is considered the master regulator of cell growth. It's influenced by nutrient availability. So this is why we want to have protein, protein and carbs coming in. So we get this optimal muscle protein synthesis, right? The carbs enhance the body's anabolic response by activating mTOR. When paired with adequate protein intake, this is probably a very key mechanism as to why carbs are anti catabolic, why increasing carbs helps with the use of the protein to build muscle. Does that make sense? So carbs are protein sparing, partly because they activate the mTOR pathway. I forget what mTOR stands for. It's like mammalian. Oh, man, don't I forget, but a mammalian something of Oh, don't forget, I'm not even gonna I'm not gonna say here. I could look it up and I'm gonna move on. Alright. mTOR pathway, MTR. Alright, number four, insulin, insulin release and hormone balance. All right, so carbs stimulate insulin release, it's one of the reasons they have a bad reputation. People, oh my god, if you eat too many carbs, you're gonna spike your insulin. Now, if you're sedentary, and you're over consuming calories and gaining weight, and you're not training, and most likely the majority of calories are coming from carbs and fat, you probably don't have much protein, then yeah, you're gonna gain a lot of weight, you're going to head toward that pre diabetic, by pre diabetic, eventually diabetic state of metabolic disease. And it's correlated with higher insulin and insulin resistance, but not because of the carbs in and of themselves, because of the carbs being consumed in a hyper caloric environment, right, you're over consuming. You're not training you have in your, you don't have any muscle mass data, data, that right the whole thing, ties together. unhealthy lifestyle means more carbs, and calories are not going to be good for you. But when you are working out when you do eat, the appropriate amount of energy for your needs, carbohydrates stimulate insulin. And this helps with things like nutrient transport into your cells and also modulating other hormones, right? Insulin can reduce cortisol. So there's a reason when you work out, you feel a little bit calm down, like you might feel ramped up mentally, right, like in terms of you're energized for the day. But you've also, quote unquote, burned through some cortisol, because the insulin spike has reduced the cortisol levels. Guess what that does? It mitigates muscle protein breakdown, it increases growth factor, IGF one. And all of this helps with the recovery and the muscle building. I mean, it's a beautiful cascade, I say beautiful a lot I know. But it's a wonderful cascade between carbohydrate, insulin, and the other hormones that are synergistic with building muscle and avoiding muscle protein breakdown. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com and click on coaching or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. So insulin is a powerful anti catabolic Like, it protects muscle tissue from breakdown, right? And elevated insulin post carb intake then drives nutrients into muscle cells, which supports growth and prevents catabolism. So we love insulin. If you're a lifter, if you're lifting weights or training heavy progressive overload, you're getting the calories you need to get the protein you need. Embrace that insulin release, we want it. We want it because it does all these wonderful things to anti catabolic. All right, you're actually becoming more insulin sensitive, because you are lifting weights. All right, number five. This is the fifth out of nine beautiful reasons. Again, beautiful Saturday, again, sorry, that carbs are worth having as one of your best friends. Okay, number five,

Philip Pape  15:46

preventing muscle protein breakdown. So again, we're talking about the anti catabolic effects, right? Anti catabolic, catabolic is breakdown of tissue. Carbs are anti catabolic. Alright. Now, when you are in a low energy availability state, which is common when you are on a low carb diet, right, or when you're in a calorie deficit, the body is going to accelerate muscle protein breakdown to use those amino acids for energy. Going back to the protein sparing thing, this happens both during fat loss and in a surplus. Now, we're not talking too much about fat loss today, because with fat loss, all of us experience some of the challenges of low carb, because we have to keep the protein relatively high, we need a certain essential level of fat for health. And we're left with kind of a limited level of carbs. So my limited, I mean, oftentimes around 100 grams or less, which I'm going to call low carb slash keto territory. Whereas something like 150 grams or higher, gets into more normal moderate to high carb levels. And a simple formula for that is one gram per pound, very much like protein, right? So if you weigh 150 pounds, and you're getting 150 grams of protein, consider that moderate. And then it can go up from there. Anyway, what I was saying is that when you're losing fat, when you're in a fat loss phase, we know that one of the hardest things is to hold on to muscle. And that's because the body is going to break down the muscle protein and use that energy, because you just don't have much energy coming in. But here's the thing, when you're at maintenance, or when you're in a surplus, you get the same negative effects by not having enough carbs. That's the powerful thing here. That is why the bodybuilders in that study I started with could barely put on new muscle when they were deprived of carbs and the ones had the carbs flowing in. They're like, yeah, pack it on five pounds of muscle. Let's do it. And so adequate carb intake prevents that scenario, right? Here. Here's how the body uses its energy. But just to simplify it, I realized it's more complicated this, the body's energy hierarchy is going to use carbs first, fat second, and proteins as a last resort, adequate carbs adequate consumption, right dietary carbs, ensures that protein is reserved for its primary function that we want it for, which is muscle repair and growth. So carbs prevent muscle protein breakdown, super important. Number six carbs can optimize the testosterone to cortisol ratio, or this is one of those that I was refreshed in my if I even remembered it to begin with for my nutrition education. When I was researching this topic, proper carb consumption supports a favorable testosterone to cortisol ratio. And this is also favorable for muscle anabolism. And recovery. just intuitively think about it, the more testosterone the more anabolic you are, the less cortisol, the less stress the better recover, you have men and women, right? Even though men have multiples the amount of testosterone has women. You know, it's still important in both. And we mentioned before that carbs also help balance hormones. Well, conversely, a low carb diet can lead to hormonal imbalances that can impede your muscle gains. And in this case, the testosterone to cortisol ratio is one of those balances. So whenever somebody tells you like, you know, women over 40, they need to keep the carbs low. Watch out. I honestly that that's pretty terrible advice, just as generic advice, because at the end of the day, the right advice is you need to eat for you and your goals. And he's tested out and experiment with yourself. But also don't just assume that cutting something out to an unnatural level of aloneness. I just awkwardly worded that. But you know, what I mean, would somehow benefit you, right? Whereas a moderate to high carb diet is not moderate to high carb, right? It's a balanced level of carbs. And that actually maintains hormonal balance. So again, women over 40 Way more often than not, in my experience, and two thirds of my clients are women, and most of them are over 40 are going to thrive on higher carbs, their hormones are going to just balance the heck out of each other generally, right generally, unless you have other issues, but I'm just saying relative to a lower carb approach for most women, and And also for most people, all right, number seven, recovery, okay, and soreness. So these are very important aspects, carbs will reduce muscle soreness after your exercise. And they're going to speed up your recovery. I mean, we talked about glycogen, right? But even during and right after the workout, and up to like a day or two afterward, a higher carb diet will decrease the perception of fatigue. And they're going to lower the markers of muscle damage. cart. And the reason is, this is so cool. Carbs enhance the repair and rebuilding process of muscles. And I think that's because of the mTOR pathway. It's because they're anti catabolic is because they allow protein to be used for what they need to be used for just building muscles. You can see this is all related. It's all related. So carbs enhance all of those things. And guess what that means? You don't feel as sore you don't feel the tearing of the muscles as long they recover better. Also, who you know what else that means? Sar stress adaptation recovery I talked about in my last solo episode, progressive overload, this means you're gonna have better adaptation and growth over time. This is why you're gonna build muscle faster. It's so cool. I mean, improve recovery, less soreness, more energy, more anti catabolic, the list goes on and on. Alright, now we get to number eight. So carbs support retaining muscle in a calorie deficit. Okay, I alluded it to I alluded to it earlier, but we have to address fat loss. What does this all me? All right, especially for women, okay, because women apparently will see it and even bigger performance drop with low carb intake. But either way men and women need sufficient carbs to preserve muscle mass during calorie restriction. And I know that's hard to do, because we're also trying to keep the protein high. So if I were to prioritize that, I would say, hit your protein minimum. And that might look different for different people, but it's usually around point eight to one grams per pound, hit the fat minimum, this is where you have a little bit of a lever to play with, because a lot of us might just be consuming more fat than we really need relative to carbs during fat loss. And sometimes just dialing that fat a little bit down from say, 30% of the calories to 20%, or 25 to 15% of the calories and saying keep it pretty tight, gives you that extra room to crank up the carbs a little bit. Now I've also seen cases where just a small drop in protein can go over to a slight increase in carbs, and like these are like dials on a machine. And all of a sudden,

Philip Pape  22:30

the stress response gets reduced, right? Your expenditure starts to climb back up, or at least not drop as fast. And you're still able to retain muscle. It's a fine balance between multiple various variables. And I know it's tough. And this is why it really helps to have a coach like when I'm working with clients and fat loss. It is not just about the calorie deficit, it's about so much more than that. It's about how are we playing with the protein, fats and carbs for you, to give you enough energy to hold on to muscle, as measured by your lifts, and how you feel in the gym and your strength and all that. To give you enough energy, I think I said an energy to help with your sleep topple the recovery, it's all this balanced with the end goal to number one, get through the diet. That's number one, because you can't even do that you're gonna you know, you're not going to be successful. And then number two, hold on to as much muscle mass as possible. Okay, so it just remember even though the carbs might be down to like 100 grams, 80 grams, even 50 grams Aikido territory, do you have some dials to play with on the fat protein side give you a little bit more carbs if it seems to be affecting you. Otherwise, the only other options are to reduce the aggressiveness of the diet. So you eat more food, or, and or to increase your expenditure in other ways, like a higher step count, for example, or maybe you need more sleep or whatever a number of other areas, right. So it's all this kind of budget that we're playing with. All right, number nine, for why carbs are so important. Beyond muscle building, carbs improve your overall athletic performance. And this is this is different than recovery. And this is different than glycogen, this is just that just everything about how you're able to push the weights, you know, handle the intensity of from one rep to knock another and one set to another, to be able to ability to handle smaller rest periods, your work capacity, like all of your athletic markers, during a training session, whether it's lifting or cardio, both. You can have higher quality, more intense workouts in general, by having those carbs in your bloodstream, period. This is why I don't like fasted training, right? When people ask I say just don't do it, unless you've want to compare the two and then see which one works better for you. And 99% of the time it's going to be having the carbs in your system or having the food in your system. So if you only have a little bit of time before you work out out something very fast digesting like banana is a good option. If it's a little farther out, you have more options, it could be a slower digesting carb, like a grain like oats. And if if you have to fast train at all, I would eat a lot more carbs as my dinner the night before and have the dinner a little bit later. I mean, not so late that it impedes sleep but late enough that it kind of carries over into the next day, but it's still suboptimal in terms of the glycogen in the tank when you work out. So sufficient carbon take ensures that the muscle and liver glycogen stores are optimized like we talked about before. And this helps you with your training performance. So a lot of what I said today, these nine things inter weave, right like there's dependencies on each other, so they're not like completely isolated in a vacuum. But I thought it was important to bring up the whole picture so that you understand why carbs are so important. Now, we're gonna go over the negatives of a moderate to high carb diet and they really are not okay, so that was that section. And if you enjoy fruits, rice, pasta, oats, potatoes and the many other sources of carbs in a diverse balanced diet, please, by all means do enjoy them. Okay, so if you found this trip down carb lane, enlightening, or even just entertaining, I don't know. I'm gonna I'm in a good mood today. For some reason I'm always in a good mood but but a little bit more of a cheeky mood today, I guess, as my friends would say. share this episode with a friend please if you found this enlightening entertaining helpful in any way whatsoever, please share it with a friend, especially a low carb keto zealot who thinks that carbs make you fat, please share it with them, and then share it with them in the hopes that we can save one more soul from the misery of constantly cutting out carbs. I mean, that would do a huge service in the world. And it would probably help you know the agricultural industry as well. Anyway, in our next episode 127 Five fat loss mistakes women need to avoid what to do instead, we will go over why females in particular should reconsider jumping right into a fat loss phase. The five most common mistakes women make and how to set yourself up for a successful fat loss phase instead. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Ep 125: Peptides, Hormone Therapy, Medical Aesthetics, and Personalized Wellness with Kristin Gemme

How safe is hormone therapy? What are peptides, and how can they help you improve your health and wellness?

Today, I am joined by Kristin Gemme, a board-certified physician assistant with over ten years of experience as a PA and 16 years in the medical field. She is the owner and operator of Ethos Medical Aesthetics and Wellness in Avon, CT, and we connected through my coach and recent podcast guest, Andrew Romeo. Iwanted to bring her on my show to discuss peptides, hormone therapy, medical weight loss, and other ways to complement lifestyle interventions.

Kristin is passionate about helping people achieve optimal health through personalized holistic interventions such as skincare, injectables, lasers, PDO threads, and wellness programs. As I mentioned, she is also the host of the Just a Pinch podcast, where she discusses the good, the bad, and the ugly side of aesthetics, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

Episode summary:

I was joined by Kristin Gemme, a board-certified physician assistant and owner of Ethos Medical Aesthetics and Wellness. Kristin brought her vast knowledge to the table as we delved into the fascinating world of peptides, hormone therapy, and aesthetic medicine.

Peptides, short chains of amino acids, play a crucial role in our body's functions. They can mimic hormones and neurotransmitters, helping optimize our overall health. Peptide therapy is a growing field, with extensive research supporting its safety and effectiveness. Kristin shared how peptides can boost natural growth hormone levels and support lean muscle growth, leading to improvements in weight loss and fat reduction.

Next, we ventured into the complex world of hormonal health. The importance of hormone balance cannot be overstated, as imbalances can lead to various health issues. Kristin emphasized the importance of personalized treatment plans and accurate testing methods for hormone replacement therapy. We discussed testosterone levels in men and their impact on men's health.

We also touched on the controversial world of medical weight loss, discussing the potential misuse of certain drugs and the importance of incorporating lifestyle changes such as sleep and exercise. Kristin warned against relying solely on medications for weight loss, emphasizing the need for careful titration and gradual tapering off once weight loss goals are achieved.

Moving on, we explored the realm of aesthetic medicine. Aesthetic treatments can have a profound psychological impact on patients. It's essential to address body dysmorphia and promote body positivity and self-love. Kristin also shared valuable tips on skincare routines, highlighting the importance of sun exposure and using high-quality skincare products.

The episode concluded with a discussion on the importance of sun protection and blood work in skincare. Regular check-ups can help identify potential skin issues early on, and sunscreen is vital for preventing skin damage from the sun. Kristin also emphasized the importance of using products with antioxidants and peptides to promote skin health.

The episode provided a wealth of knowledge on peptides, hormones, skincare, and overall health optimization. The importance of personalized treatment, accurate testing, body positivity, and high-quality skincare were key takeaways.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:03] Becoming a PA in aesthetic medicine
[4:33] Guiding principles in aesthetic medicine and personal wellness
[9:07] Peptides and their role in health
[13:20] Identifying candidates for hormone therapy and testing methods
[20:49] Integrating medical weight loss with holistic health strategies
[23:01] Benefits of peptide therapy and the evolution of the field
[30:11] Using lab tests to craft personalized health interventions
[38:15] Testosterone replacement therapy
[44:15] Hormone replacement therapy for women
[48:41] Adaptogens and nootropics
[50:18] The future of medical aesthetics
[1:00:51] Psychological effects and misconceptions with aesthetic treatments
[1:12:47] The benefits of getting your bloodwork done
[1:14:49] Where to find Kristin

Episode resources:

• Ethos Medical Aesthetics

• Just a Pinch podcast

• IG: @injectorkristin

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching

👩‍💻👨‍💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.

📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Kristin Gemme  00:00

peptides are really running the show with our physiology and how our bodies work. And as technology has moved throughout the decades here, we as a scientific community have really figured out how to harness them and utilize them synthetically, to kind of biohack our bodies and make it do the things that we want it to do.

Philip Pape  00:24

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today I'm joined by Kristin gem, a board certified physician assistant with over 10 years of experience as a PA and 16 years in the medical field. She's the owner and operator of ethos, medical aesthetics and wellness in nearby Avon, Connecticut. And we connected through my coach and recent podcast guests, Andrew Romeo, I had the pleasure of being on her podcast just to pinch to talk about nutrition and wanted to bring her on my show to discuss peptides, hormone therapy, medical weight loss and other ways to complement lifestyle interventions. Kristin has a passion for helping people achieve optimal health with personalized holistic interventions such as skincare, injectables, lasers, PDO, threads and wellness programs. And as I mentioned, she's also the host of the just a pinch podcast, where she discusses the good, the bad, and the ugly side of aesthetics, fitness, nutrition, and wellness. Kristen, welcome to the show.

Kristin Gemme  01:49

Thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited to be here.

Philip Pape  01:52

I'm excited as well, because it's been a while since we talked and I want to get a little bit into your backstory first and then dive into some of the specifics here people want to know everything about so you know what inspired you to get into this field to become a PA but also specifically pursue a career in aesthetic medicine.

Kristin Gemme  02:09

I so my road to becoming a PA was a little bit complex, but I don't think outside the norm. I was in my undergraduate education over at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts, and I was in the nursing program. And while I was going through so in my clinical rotations, I found myself being very much so drawn to what the doctors and the PAs and NPS were doing and drifting away from my nursing care plans and IV drip titration. So, I had a real kind of come to Jesus moment with myself and my advisors, and said, You know what, I think I want a little bit more than I think I want more of the science, I want to be the one making the decisions and making the calls, as opposed to implementing the plan, the way that nursing typically goes. So I jumped ship, I switched my major in the middle of my education into biotechnology with a biology concentration, and pre med. So I wasn't sure at that point if I was going to go through to medical school or what I was going to do. But I had some friends and family members that were going through the medical education and really recommended that I investigate physician assistant as as a career versus an MD, and I am so happy that I did. And from there, I went to Springfield College and did their graduate master's program to become a PA. And it was during that time that I really found a love for aesthetic medicine and skin. But I wanted to do a little bit more than just classic dermatology. I love skin. I love the science of it. But I like to do stuff, I'm a do stuff kind of girl. And I like to do procedures, I like to use my hands as well as my brain. So I found the aesthetic side of dermatology and skincare to really be where I would thrive. So all day I am using my hands I'm you know creating these treatment plans in my head and using the science and then implementing that with my hands, whether it's utilizing laser technology, doing a lot of injectables, placing IVs, all sorts of different things. So it was just kind of the perfect blend for me. Okay,

Philip Pape  04:25

and I liked that combination of doing and coming up with a plan but also using your hands and brain aesthetic medicine. Tell us just a little bit more about that because we don't get into that on this show as you would imagine as much because I want to be able to tie it in a relevant way to you know the listeners thinking where does this fit into an overall nutrition or fitness plan? Absolutely.

Kristin Gemme  04:46

And so I mean a lot of that comes from my my personal background so I did not enter the PA space directly into aesthetic medicine. I always knew it was something that I wanted to do. But it's not where I started because I know that it's I needed a good base, I needed a really strong medical base. And I love medicine, I love all of it. So I worked for several years in primary care, treating ages five to 100 plus. And from there, I worked in the surgical trauma critical care unit in Hartford and took care of critically ill patients, you know, going through some of the worst days of their life and their family's lives, I did some part time and full time work in urgent care. So I've kind of seen it and done a lot, I've had a lot of exposure to medicine, and especially to primary care, because I, I like the concept of being able to take care of somebody across the lifespan, but I was really, really disenfranchised, truly being directed by insurance companies. And I mean, that's a huge conversation to get into with just the current state of medicine in America. But it made it really difficult to take care of people the way that I wanted to take care of them, and to be able to give them the time that they deserved, and to investigate and utilize tools that aren't readily available in the primary care world. So from there, I was able to transition into aesthetic medicine where I got to do the stuff. And I got to learn the skincare even more. I studied under a facial plastic surgeon in Massachusetts and was able to see things from the inside out assisting in facial plastic surgery, which I think was really imperative in my knowledge today, of skin and anatomy. And what aesthetic medicine ultimately is, is we're utilizing medicine, technology, biotechnology, for elective interventions. Now a lot of what we do is truly taking care of the skin, but it's nothing that insurance companies are going to be covering. So this is all out of pocket costs for the patient, trying to improve the health of their skin. You know, you can, you can go I mean, the gamut of aesthetic medicine goes everywhere from purely aesthetic, you know, reduce my wrinkles, I want a brow lift, I want bigger lips, I want all of these things to make me feel and look more beautiful, all the way to treating burn scars, acne scars, surgical scars, helping erase trauma from people's skin and helping them on different levels. So there's a real wide range of aesthetic medicine. So aesthetic, dermatology, aesthetic medicine, it's all there's a bunch of different terms out there for it. But I do everything from you know, plumping the lips of 25 year olds to helping erase domestic violence scars off the bodies of women and everywhere in between. And when I opened up ethos, not only was aesthetic medicine important to me, but wellness was to where I kind of circled back to my primary care days, and even my critical care days. And I really wanted to integrate total body optimization. And that's kind of my tagline for ethos is total body optimization. Because it's not just how we look on the outside, it's truly we need to be healthy on the inside and feel good. And that's kind of how I define wellness too is it's you're not just not feeling bad. You're feeling good. And that is what we're looking for with wellness.

Philip Pape  08:14

I love your answer I think a lot of people can relate to you call the disenfranchisement disillusionment, whatever of the GP and primary care industry as well as the lack of options or the even the gaslighting, whatever phrase you want to use when it comes to hormone issues, women's health. I mean, I've seen it all with my clients with my wife, you know, with so many people. Yeah, and the idea of pursuing wellness for its own sake for you, whatever that comes in whatever form is a positive thing. Like, it doesn't matter if it's everybody has different reasons, right? And there may be a physique or physical reason there may be a an underlying tie in between something that happened to you, like you said that domestic violence scar and, and trauma or how it makes you feel all that. So I'm fully on board with that. And the total body optimization approach is really cool. So why don't we get into some specifics? Because there's areas here that I may have talked about on the show once or twice, but you can really shine a light on it. The first one is peptides, right? Yes. They what are they? I know they're proteins. I talked to Dr. Ron Maclean a long time ago on the show about it. What are they? How do they work in the human body just so we can start the conversation there? Oh, I mean, we

Kristin Gemme  09:24

are we're made up peptides. We function with peptides. peptides are nothing more than short chains of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. And these peptides are doing, I mean countless different functions in our body. It's also part of a lot of medications such as like insulin, insulin was really truly I believe it was the first peptide based medication available. So peptides are oftentimes signaling they're mimicking something, they're turning something on, they're turning something off. You're going to work in our body and either mimicking Have a hormone, or a neurotransmitter, or they're just helping your body function better. There's certain peptides that get released by your body naturally to say, hey, release more more insulin release more glucose, release more of this neurotransmitter, release more of the serotonin, all of these things are signals. So peptides are really running the show with our physiology and how our bodies work. And as technology has moved throughout the decades here, we as a scientific community have really figured out how to harness them, and utilize them synthetically, to kind of biohack our bodies and make it do the things that we want it to do. And peptides, for the most part are extraordinarily safe as well. There's a lot of research behind them. They've been being used for decades across the world. And there's a wide range of them. Now, within peptide therapy for what I do, we're really focusing on the growth hormone releasing peptides or stimulating peptides. So these are products such as Sermorelin, ipamorelin, CJC, 12, nine, five, those are some of the more common ones, but there's a whole bunch of them out there. And what these are doing is you're injecting them into your body about five, three to five nights a week for cycles of anywhere between three to six months. And what you're doing is right before bed, you're injecting it so that your own natural growth hormone that's getting released by your brain at night, when you hit that deep sleep cycle is boosting up more. So growth hormone really peaks when you're about 20 years old. And after that time, all it's going to do is your natural production, is just going to slowly go down. Like with everything in our body, we just stopped producing as much. So we want to give it a little boost. So what's the alternative to it? HGH? Everybody's pretty familiar with that term? And is it an option? Yeah, it's an option, it's not an option that I offer. Because it's a little bit more dangerous, there's a lot more side effects that come with it, you're supplying an exogenous outside hormone. So when you do that, your body's going to stop making your own. So it becomes a lot more of a chronic thing that you need to stay on. Whereas peptides, all we're saying is, Hey, make a little bit more, but it's staying within your body's own natural feedback mechanism. So it's almost impossible. I never say impossible with anything with the body. But it is almost impossible to overshoot your target and to start cranking out so much growth hormone that now your heart's enlarging, your organs are enlarging. And we're creating, you know, situations that could even give you diabetes, that's those are things that we see more so with HGH that we don't see with peptides. So peptides are a safer alternative to helping boost your own natural HGH while staying within your body's own safety parameters. Okay,

Philip Pape  12:55

so I want to explore that a little bit specifically, if someone want to understand which populations this is for, because it sounds like there's an aging component to it because of the loss of your natural production. But also, you know, I'm a big fan of understanding like the before, after, like, what kind of data what kind of tests do we get to actually see that it worked? And it's not, you know, some magical elixir that because people are going to be skeptical of this stuff, especially if it's newer on the market. How do they know that it actually made a difference other than that, and how they feel? So I want to, let's talk about that. Yeah, so

Kristin Gemme  13:25

for me, the way that I practice medicine and utilizing peptides is safety always first, we always start out by doing some blood work and blood work, we can either have you go to a lab or my preference is I draw right from you right in my office in my chair during our consultation. So when we look at your blood work, we're really trying to look at a snapshot of your overall health. So we're looking at your metabolic health. We're looking at your thyroid function, we're looking at your hormones, especially with men. bloodwork tends to work best for hormones. So looking at testosterone, free and total sex hormone binding globulin, estrogen, ultra sensitive estrogen at that, we're looking at C peptide, we're looking at a fasting insulin level, your hemoglobin a one C, which is kind of your average blood sugar over the course of three months, I'm going to look at how your kidneys, liver, electrolytes, a complete blood count all of it. We may even dive deeper into some other things too. And one of the most important markers that I like to look at when looking at peptide therapy is an IGF one level, which is an insulin insulin like growth factor level. This is ultimately what we're trying to target when it comes to growth hormone. And with these peptides, so we want it within a certain range. We like to see high normal we can even see outside of high normal but only for short periods of time. If we were to have that level be too high too long. That's when we can look at some some studies that show that it can affect your cardiovascular health or your your your glucose metabolism and Things like that. But that's why we have all of these safety parameters set already with how we do peptides, there's really safe protocols. And if you follow the protocols and you're monitoring these things, they're extraordinarily safe. So we always start out with that bloodwork. When I draw it in my office, I get results back, typically within 48 hours, which is faster than any any lab that you're going to see around here. If you go to quest, we're waiting two weeks before we get results back. So love to see you in my office for this. So once we have your baseline health, we look at everything we say, all right, are you a candidate for peptide therapy? What is your IGF one level look like most adults that are over the age of 40, I'm seeing their IGF one levels, pretty low, either remarkably low or low normal. And these are people that are going to benefit honestly the most for peptide therapy, because they are deficient. And we know that they're not producing enough of their own natural growth hormone. Now even people that are completely normal within their IGF one levels, or even high normal, you're still a candidate. As long as you're not off the charts high at baseline, you're all of your organ functioning is good. You have no major chronic medical problems, like big things that are affecting your organ function, we can go ahead and get started. And with that, I always start slow and low. So we're going to start you off at an introductory dose, we're going to see how you feel, see how things are going for you see if you're having any side effects or not. If you're doing good, each month, we're gonna bump you up a little bit until you're going to really feel that difference. And so far, the results have truly been amazing. And by results, I mean subjective and objective. So subjectively, people feel great, you feel better and better every week with peptides, typically week one and two, you're just gonna be sleeping better, it can tend to make you a little bit sleepy, which is awesome, because that's what we want, you're injecting it right before bed. So you're gonna be sleeping deeper than you ever have. If you have any of the wearable biometrics, like I have an aura ring that I like to wear. This showed me after two doses that I was getting much, much deeper sleep and for longer periods of time. So my restorative sleep was better than it was by itself with just my own body here. And for for reference, I am, you know, 36 years old, so, okay, got much, much better with just that. As the weeks go on, I start noticing at the gym, it almost feels like when you first start taking creatine where you feel like oh, I've got a little bit more in the tank that I used to, you know, I can tap into that extra gear that I couldn't really get to last time. And I'm recovering better, I'm not as sore as I was. All of those things that make your your gym going experience better get better. As time goes on, aches and pains start to go down kind of that chronic, oh, I have that tendinitis that I just can't get rid of. All of a sudden you wake up one day and you realize that like, Oh, um, it doesn't, it's gone, it's fixed, it's better. And then from there, your energy levels get better, your energy levels get better. Also, because you're sleeping better, you're more restorative, you know, we all know top to bottom that sleep is the most important thing that you can focus on when it comes to your own wellness, wellness and well being and being able to get over illnesses, injuries, and get those gains in the gym to you have to sleep. You know, sleep is more important almost on your training session itself. From there, it's going to help improve your metabolic health. Everybody that I do repeat bloodwork on, which if you're on peptides, we're going to do repeat bloodwork at the end of your first three months cycle. And it's amazing people that didn't have metabolic issues, you know, their cholesterol was normal, their blood sugar's were normal, nothing that any doctor would ever look at and say there was a problem with still improved people's a onesies that were normal, or even better normal. Cholesterol was good. It's amazing now, so we're seeing real improvements in metabolic health. And as we're seeing those improvements in metabolic health, we're seeing changes in body composition as well. body composition with peptides does take a little bit longer to happen. That magic really happens between months three and six, just a longer, longer exposure to the medication. And you're going to support lean muscle growth. So it's going to be easier for you to put on lean muscle, you're not going to bulk, especially for women like you are not going to just get swell off this stuff and feel like you're getting bulky and big. It's not HGH and I can't repeat that enough.

Philip Pape  19:35

And the women listening to this podcast by now should know that muscle is the best thing in the world.

Kristin Gemme  19:39

It's good athlete. So and we also know here the more muscle that you have, the more fat you burn because we are increasing your basal metabolic rate. So we see weight loss, we see fat reduction because of all of these health metrics. It's not a magic pill for weight loss. It's not something that you take and all of a sudden you should All this body fat, it's a long term, long term thing, you know, and it's it's fixing you from the inside out. Now, the reason that we take you off of it at six months, is ultimately not because it's dangerous to stay on, but because we want you to be able to utilize it long term in cycles. And if you were to continue to use this without breaks, there's a chance that your body just gets used to it, and you're not going to get those benefits from it anymore. So we give your body a break, everything goes back to normal, there's no withdrawal, I just came off of a six month cycle myself, I am about a week off of it. I feel no different. I feel no different. There's no withdrawal whatsoever.

Philip Pape  20:40

Yeah, I'm on board. So that's that sounds like, you know, a lot of the benefits people hope to get from testosterone or anabolics or other things. And it sounds a little bit safer than that. Well, how do you separate that from natural intervention? So for example, IGF one, you know, we've talked about here can also be increased by increasing in protein, you know, a lot of people are deficient, also by strength training itself. How do you divorce the two? Because, you know, we want to understand that that is giving you the impact independent of those factors, do you, you start somebody on lifestyle changes? Where does it come into play.

Kristin Gemme  21:12

So I mean, I always promote lifestyle changes, if we are if we're doing an intervention, like peptide therapy that you are committing to, and you're investing in, I mean, sure, you can sit on the couch and change nothing about anything that you're doing and decide to not work out and not eat right and not do the things and you're still going to get some benefits, because you're still going to boost your own natural growth hormone. But it's a waste in my opinion. So anytime that we're starting these things, we're also discussing the need to do some weight training, to exercise to dial in your nutrition to make sure that your your lifestyles including good sleep, you know, I don't want you, you know, injecting yourself at 3am with this stuff, when you're getting into bed to get up at 630 for the day, like we're kind of defeating the purpose of it. Now, how do we differentiate between what's coming from the peptide versus what's coming from the other parts of your lifestyle, you cannot, you cannot unless you were to do a controlled study where you are doing nothing other than utilizing your peptide and not doing the other things. And ideally, I don't want you to do that. So it's all a cumulative effect. And one thing I didn't mention with peptides too, especially with men, if men are a little bit on the low side of their testosterone, because like I said, I like to look at that when we're looking at peptide therapy, too. If you're a little bit low, we don't necessarily need to reach for testosterone right away, either. I do you typically see testosterone levels boost, you know, mildly, it's not going to shoot up into a huge range. It's not testosterone replacement. But because we are dialing in your body and your metabolic system here, I do see nice modest boost in your testosterone level as well with peptide therapy.

Philip Pape  23:00

And you mentioned the increase in lean mass and improvement in body composition, which which we know comes from both adding muscle and losing fat, usually through diet. Is this because of the additional performance you can gain in the gym? Or does it is it somehow directly making it easier to synthesize muscle? Right? Well, what's the mechanism there? All

Kristin Gemme  23:17

of the above all of the above. So if you look at things like HGH and growth hormone, those are the benefits that you're getting from peptides, you're just getting it in a smaller pulse. So every thing that you are doing is augmented, you know, think of like every rep that you're doing every squat, every curl, everything that you're doing is augmented and almost on steroids, right? So you're getting more out of each of those things.

Philip Pape  23:45

Yeah, I'm gonna have to come in and experiment with this. And to talk about it on the podcast in my next next cycle of my building phases. Let's talk. Yeah, because I'm curious about that to see the differences and get some blood work or whatever. How do you see this evolving over the coming years and decades is peptides? I know you said certain peptides like insulin is have been around for a while. But I've heard the term used more often in terms of these specific types. Yes, yeah. Tell me more about how the field is evolving.

Kristin Gemme  24:13

So it's, there's a lot up in the air, honestly, with how it's going to evolve. Very recently, if you were to do a Google search right now on peptides, specifically ipamorelin, CJC, 12, nine, five, I butum. Morin, any of these, you're going to see a big pop up all over Google saying FDA shut it down. And these are illegal and we can't use them now. Yes, and no. peptides, the ones that I'm talking about have never been FDA approved. That's an all of my consent forms. That is what we talk about with patients. These are not FDA approved medications. They are not FDA approved, mainly because they are not as efficacious, as he Ah, and for something to get FDA approval, it has to prove its place, it doesn't matter that it's safer, it doesn't matter that it's doing very similar things in a safer manner. The end results of studies obviously, are not going to be as potent as HGH. So that is one of the main reasons why they're not FDA approved. Now, the memo that went out several weeks ago regarding taking these peptides off the market, it's not that they're illegal, it's not that you cannot use them, what they did was they made it so that compounding pharmacies, which is where we get them from, can no longer obtain the raw materials to synthesize them. And now what I'm about to say is going to be nothing more than my opinion. You know, nobody truly knows the nitty gritty, you know, backdoor deals going on here. But I've spoken to many providers that do similar things that I do here with peptide therapy. And we're all pretty much in agreement that the wrong people were making money off of peptides. And the powerful people were not so well, because they're not FDA approved, big pharma companies are not able to synthesize them, they are not able to put their price tag on them and a brand name and put them on the market. So they're not getting paid off of it. And unfortunately, a lot of those companies also have their hands on the FDA. A lot of high ups in the FDA, are old executives of these pharmaceutical companies. So there's a lot of conspiracy opinions about all of this, the memo that I read from the FDA that went out to the compounding pharmacies, it just shook my head. You know, they're saying, Oh, we saw safety issues with this medication when it was administered intravenously? Well, it's a good thing that we don't administer them intravenously. I mean, if you grind up carrots into a puree and inject it intravenously, you will die. Does that mean that carrots are unsafe and should be taken off the market? No. So there's a lot of drama around it. But in all of our opinion, for the providers that have been using these for years, and have seen incredible changes in their patient's health coming off of, you know, chronic medications, sometimes being able to come off of, you know, lifelong medications to treat metabolic conditions, or even anxiety, medication, depression, mental health, all of these things, people are taking less pills, because of peptides. And, you know, to not sound like a conspiracy theorist, I think that has something to do with all of a sudden the shutdown of those specific peptides. Now, there's just a couple of them on there. So not everything is on there. And we can still get them completely fine from all of the pharmacies that we've been getting them from, you know, ipamorelin, which is my personal favorite, it has a very low side effect profile, it's very safe, it's easy to dose, it's very reliable, that one, I'm no longer going to be able to get believe me, when I got that memo, I stockpiled it. So I have a hefty pile of it in my stock here. For all of my patients that are currently on it, they need to be able to continue their cycles. But Sermorelin was not taken off the market, which is crazy, it does the exact same thing as ipamorelin, the exact same thing. So that's just the one that I'm going to be transitioning patients on to. So there's a ton of research about a lot of different peptides out there right now. And some of the biggest players in the world of peptides in medicine, some of the physicians out there, I mean, they're using peptides that like we've never even heard of. So the technology is there, the advancements are there. So I think over the next decade, we're going to see kind of a whittling down of peptides into ones that are, you know, really tried and true, are safe, have a lot of data behind them. And that we can trust because that's the main thing, especially when we're working off label, you know, or non FDA approved procedures or products is you as the provider really need to feel confident with what you're offering patients what you're doing. Yeah,

Philip Pape  29:14

a lot of what you said, makes a lot of sense. When you look at the health care industry as a whole and how, you know, the sick care versus health care paradigm the you know, the money is definitely made from keeping people in a certain state where they're gonna buy meds, I mean, we know it and I don't even call it conspiracy. It's just truth. You see it out there. Now

Kristin Gemme  29:31

we're a Sikh culture. We're not a well culture, you know, no, makes money when people are healthy. Yeah,

Philip Pape  29:37

and I think the same thing for hormones because this is a good segue hormone treatment. I've seen it with so many women in my life, that it is like pulling teeth to get I pretty much say don't talk to your primary care like your PCP anymore about hormones because they're not gonna help you like I just seen that 90% of the time. There could be a few good ones out there. But both access to treatment, the types of testing you know, Oftentimes the testing that's performed is inadequate, because it's, you know, maybe it's not the free version of the hormone. And maybe they need, I don't know, saliva or metabolite testing and all this. So let's get into hormones laid on me, you know, the testing side who benefits what kind of therapy men and women, you know, all of that

Kristin Gemme  30:18

there's a wildly wildly diverse range of, of hormone therapy out there. And most of it is being done. Now, by these wellness centers, you basically, in order to truly take care of somebody's Hormonal Health, not just testosterone, not just estrogen, I mean, just about any hormone in your body. You can't involve insurance companies, insurance companies have these really bananas standards. And like just numbers that say, if you are this number, we will cover this medication. If you are this number, we will not they're not treating the patient. They're not insurance companies don't allow you to treat the patient, they're just treating a number. And they're not covering a lot of the testing and the testing is done incorrectly for men. Yep, we can pull blood, we can see some really good results easily with blood with women, bloodwork for hormones, depending on what we're looking at is relatively useless. You know, it will tell you if there is a massive problem with a hormone, but it's not going to give us the information that we need to know to be able to determine really your hormonal replacement levels, and saliva testing dried saliva is truly the best for that. And as we know, women's hormones are wildly complex, and are so different than men. Men are simple. They my men treatment in many ways. One equals two, here we go here, like here's our algorithm, this is great, easy to treat, you give me a female, and it's like, Let's put on our thinking caps. Let's stare at this for a while. Do a ton of physic physical history, we need to know exactly where you're at in your menstrual cycle, what day you're on. If you are Peri menopausal and irregular or you are postmenopausal. Yay. Now we get to figure that out too. So it just makes it a lot more difficult, but it can absolutely be done. Now there is a lot of weird distorted old studies when it comes to hormone replacement as well, specifically, the sex hormones. So estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. And if you look at some old studies, they were saying, oh my gosh, this gives you testicular cancer. This gives you all sorts of different types of cancer, it's going to give you blood clots, it's going to make you have a heart attack and die. And unfortunately, a lot of physicians and providers in the space, whether it be primary care or urology, OBGYN, they read those studies and then just said, Okay, we're not doing hormones, we're gonna wipe our feet of that we're not touching them, because it's not worth it. And it really comes down to those studies were flawed design. Testosterone will not give you testicular cancer, if you have testicular cancer, testosterone replacement can potentially expedite it, it can make it advance faster. However, recently, there was another study that just came out that showed that now some forms of testicular cancer are actually being treated with testosterone. So there is a lot of combative data out there. And when it comes to cardiovascular risk, with testosterone therapy, the thought was always it's bad, it's gonna give you a heart attack, it's not good for your heart. It's actually very false. If you have you are causing so much more damage to your cardiovascular system, being deficient in testosterone than being on it. So you're actually boosting your cardiovascular health when you are on replacement. Now from a medical legal standpoint, this is where it gets really kind of into uncomfortable territory for some providers and people and it really depends on your providers. Comfort level, some people will say, Listen, I don't care if you've had a cardiovascular event, you're really low and I think that you're going to benefit from going on therapy. Absolutely. And they're gonna go on it. Other providers are gonna say, Oh, you you have a personal history of a heart attack 10 years ago. I'm not taking that risk and

Philip Pape  34:40

somebody else's same reason, right? Yeah. No, it's

Kristin Gemme  34:45

It's tough. And it's it's really personal preference on that. Now, when it comes to female hormones and those studies, those ones are also a little bit complex to a lot of the poor data that was coming out of those was were based on synthetic hormones. Progesterone especially right? Yes, exactly coming from like the pregnant pregnant marier and the PMU, foals, all of that so coming from synthetically made hormones that data is not supported by bio identical hormones bio identical are exactly what they sound like bio identical, they are molecularly identical to the ones that your body makes on their own. So those kind of let

Philip Pape  35:29

me stop you. So the synthetic progesterone, is that also in the pill, or at least one variant of the pill? Yes. And doctors have no problem prescribing that to women of all ages, for whatever reason, instantly. Okay, continue.

Kristin Gemme  35:42

Welcome. Welcome to Oh man. No,

Philip Pape  35:45

I've heard it. I can empathize against so many women I know after this.

Kristin Gemme  35:50

Okay. Absolutely, absolutely. So now when it comes to replacing hormones, there are a ton of different ways to do so. And your local compounding pharmacy that is of high quality standards is going to be your best friend. Because going to your local CVS to pick up your prescription is likely going to be not covered by insurance and take your hat off when we go through compounding pharmacies to get either an injectable form of testosterone, which is my personal preference. Or you can get compounded creams or lozenges or pills there. I mean there are you name it. If you need a way to get a hormone or substance into your body, your compounding pharmacy is going to be the one to do it and to do it well. Now with that being said, not all compounding pharmacies are built the same. You really need to be careful about who you're going through making sure that they are third party tested and vetted and have a very good reputation for for standards of quality. I have a handful of them that I use. And I trust them and they're wonderful and they are affordable, which is the main important part here. So with testosterone, I really like it injectable form testosterone cypionate is one of my favorites. There are different ways that you can play with it. You can use different testosterone blends so that way they have different halflife. So you're, you're missing big peaks and valleys. If somebody's really sensitive to that, but testosterone cypionate is my favorite go to to get men on it and to get it just started and then we go from there. Start simple. I like to keep things as simple as possible for people.

Philip Pape  37:24

Yeah, the minimum minimum minimum effective dose.

37:27

Yes. Hi, my name is Shawna and I want to give a big shout out to Philip Wits & Weights. I discovered his podcast just a few short months ago. But I quickly realized how valuable this content is. With all the many fitness and nutrition influencers out in the world today. I often suffer from information overload. But Phillip poses careful questions to his guests that get to the meat of the subject matter. While most everyone offers free guides to this in that what I found most unique about Phillip is his live training and weekly q&a sessions. If I can't make it live, I can always catch the replay. I am very grateful to find someone I feel is so passionate and genuine to His purpose. while also being hands on within the Wits & Weights online community he is truly only a click away. Thanks Phillip for all you do.

Philip Pape  38:16

Let's talk let's assume for a second while we're testing men, because I've heard so many different so many different guidance on the ranges of values, right we have the population range that doctors use, yeah, then we have the symptom centered kind of approach of like, it almost doesn't matter if you have symptoms. And then we have kind of different ranges in between what what is what's your guidance.

Kristin Gemme  38:38

So my personal philosophy on it is is a blend. So you need by law, you have to have a symptom. In order to go on testosterone, you have to have a documented symptom. The crazy thing is that it can be as simple as I have chronic fatigue. I am tired all the time. I don't feel like myself. I feel depressed. I'm not sleeping well. I am not getting morning erections anymore I'm having difficulty with with sexual activity, I have decreased desire, you know, my wife hates me right now because I'm not acting like myself, I just feel like a lump on a log. This is kind of the chronic condition that we see with men with low tea, at least on some level. So you need to have at least one symptom. From there. You don't need to be real low, but you need to be suboptimal. You know, if you have a testosterone level naturally when we pull it of, you know 900 You know, you're you're you're flying high you are a high tea king here as I like to call them. And, you know, you're just like, Yeah, I'm tired from a little depressed. We're not we're not going that route. You know, I don't think it's the most appropriate because for the most part once we start testosterone you're on it, you know, we're we're replacing it. We are Replacing a hormone. So your natural production of it is going to kind of come to a halt to some degree. So it's not something that I take lightly. So when somebody wants to start testosterone, you know, we have a real conversation about this being lifelong treatment the same way, if you need thyroid replacement, you know, I gotta take my thyroid pill every day, I gotta do my thing got to replace what's what I'm missing. This is that too. So my personal ideal ranges for testosterone when I'm replacing somebody, if they are symptomatic, and on the lower end, my goal, as long as they are tolerating a well is to get their testosterone level between 700 to 1100. You know, that is that is like optimal functioning. And as long as they're not having any sort of crazy side effects from it, you know, again, I'm not just cranking it into people trying to just like, you know, ramp up. Yeah, you know, we're not using it in that way we're doing it, we're titrating your dose based on your symptoms and your levels and your side effects.

Philip Pape  41:00

If someone is like, let's say, a moderate case, like in their in the five hundreds, and symptoms are minimal, but again, like you said, you have to have at least one symptom is that is that still in the range? Because you said you currently have 711, but I've always thought of like four or 500, as probably enough at the low end. But yeah,

Kristin Gemme  41:19

so we have it in, I would say, probably not just this country, but in the world right now we there is a I'm gonna call it a pandemic of low testosterone, and hormonal imbalances. You know, our world is just saturated with endocrine disruptors, between all of the chemicals and plastics and toxins that we are exposed to, across our entire lifespan. You know, being the age that I am, I grew up in the plastic world, everything that we touched as kids was plastic and artificial, you know, everything was just plastic, you know, I only imagine how much plastic is sitting in our bodies now. And it's been there since we were, you know, infants. So all of these things disrupt our hormones. And so there are far more men almost of all ages now that have lower testosterone levels than what they should have, you know, based historically, a lot of things can play into it, the endocrine disrupters, chronic stress, sometimes even people that work out a lot, you know, you can literally train your testosterone. So there's a lot of different things that can play into it. But post traumatic stress, a lot of military vets come back from overseas, and they will have chronically low testosterone and feel symptomatic from it all because of that PTSD and the trauma that they sustained over there. So there's a lot of different scenarios that cause that. So if somebody is, let's say, 35 years old, and otherwise healthy, you know, works out takes care of themselves, no real reason why they should have low tea, their tea should be higher than 500, then especially if they are feeling symptomatic at all, you know, and when you go through my questionnaire of symptoms, people are oftentimes alarmed of being like, I didn't even think that that could be a part of it. You know, a lot of people think, Oh, my, I'm just depressed, you know, and they reach for their SSRI take the Prozac take the Paxil. And it's not a primary depression issue. It's a low testosterone issue. So I do think that people with mental health issues do need to have some some endocrine and hormone testing done before just immediately reaching to some of these other drugs as well. Because it could be very easily fixed primarily from that. That reason there.

Philip Pape  43:36

I'm with you. I'm with you there. Yeah. For folks listening for the men listening definitely just get it tested, at the very least have a number there have a baseline. It's so easy. It's done. Now, women Okay, so now we get open up Pandora's box of all the potential, you know, DHEA and testosterone and estrogen thyroid. And I have clients that are a lot of my clients are perimenopause, post menopause, on treatment or need it or in some cases, they you know, the dosage has been able to bring brought down once lifestyle interventions come into play, which is Yeah, I think yes. But inevitably, with age humans weren't, like you said they weren't designed necessarily live this long, but also the endocrine disruptors. So what does the profile for woman look like to somewhat simplify it? So it doesn't get too complicated? Oh,

Kristin Gemme  44:19

my goodness, there's really unfortunately, no real simple way to simplify women's hormones.

Philip Pape  44:26

Like what's step 123. For women, step one is

Kristin Gemme  44:29

going to be let's get your let's get your testing done. So we're gonna draw some blood, we're gonna get a saliva sample, we're going to send it off to the lab, we're going to see where you stand. You know, ideally, you're going to come in and you're going to be able to tell me that like, this is where I'm at. This is my day cycle. This is where I'm at in my menstrual cycle. So we can kind of pair things in or Nope, I haven't had a period for a year. So now I'm technically postmenopausal. So we need to know some of that we need to know your medical background. So we need to know your medical history, what medications you take you You know all of it, it's all super important because this is all prescription medication. Now from there, I will say that most women are going to they find that they do have a deficiency in something a lot of it is estrogen creams these days are doing bioidentical creams. Most women will have vaginal symptoms, they will have vaginal dryness, pain, decreased sensation, decreased lubrication, just everything. And so now they don't want to have sex either. And that's now going to put a huge stress on things in their own life and with their partners. So estrogen creams can be very commonly used there to help improve vaginal health. Testosterone is oftentimes low too. And sometimes that is also a cause of decreased libido, poor mood depression, kind of overall, crankiness almost. And testosterone for women can be done with creams with pellets. Pellets is a super common way to treat. And that is a like to call it a set it and forget it procedure. So with that, there's really little to no titration with it. And pellets are literally tiny, tiny, tiny little pellets, little pearls of medication. And what you do is it's an in office procedure, we bring you in, we inject a little bit of lidocaine for numbing in the upper part of your of your butt, your butt cheek pick aside, and then from there, we take a little tiny scalpel blade, we poke a little hole. From there, a sterile trocar gets introduced into that you don't feel anything but pressure at this point. And then we put those pellets into it. So those pellets are gone now going and they're living in your tissue in the butt cheek ultimately. And then it's just closed with a little steri strip, and you're going to get a steady release of that testosterone, or sometimes even a blend of other hormones to it's not just t. And that's just going to be a slow release. And a lot of women really like that, because they don't have to do any maintenance with it. They'll come in, you know, once every six months to a year for a little top off. But again, app before you do any dosage changes with any of these medications, you're always doing bloodwork and saliva testing to see where people's levels are at. Right?

Philip Pape  47:10

That actually simplified. Pretty well, pretty nicely. What about what about DHEA? Is that a precursor to testosterone? Was there any benefit.

Kristin Gemme  47:17

So that is a precursor. I mean, you can it's not one that I personally reach for that often. Usually, if people are coming to see me, they're like ready to do something a little bit more aggressive about it. But DHEA is always a potential thing that you can look at, you know, also sometimes looking at cortisol to cortisol is, that one's a little bit trickier to do testing on because it's not just a one time thing, and it's not a blood test, you do a blood test for cortisol, we can tell if you have a gross disorder of it, we can tell if you are non existent, you know, with with your cortisol or if it's wildly high, but what we want to see is your your daytime curve, so we need to have you do a test, kind of within the first hour of waking, and then we need to see it again towards the end of the day. And there is a cortisol curve that we try to follow with that. And if your cortisol is off, it's, it's a little bit of a thief. And it can actually steal hormones from other parts of your bodies, because hormones are kind of transfer. They're not just all separate molecules, they will borrow from each other and transform into each other. So if one is low, it may steal from somewhere else too. So that's why it's important to look at all of your hormones, because they will steal from each other. If you have one problem somewhere, there's a chance you might have another problem.

Philip Pape  48:40

Yeah, I did have a question about adaptogens and nootropics. Why don't we start there? I mean, what what do you what are your thoughts on those like Ashwagandha or holy basil, etc. So

Kristin Gemme  48:50

there, I can kind of take them or leave them. You know, I don't think there's any problem with them. Ashwagandha I find is really just kind of good for mood. So if you feel like your mood is just a little bit miffed, then it's good to do you know, you're it's, I'm not gonna say you're not going to hurt yourself with adaptogens and herbs because medications come from adaptogens herbs and plants. So but I mean, it's if it's something that you want to play with and try out to see how you like it first, by all means you absolutely can even with testosterone, some men, they're just like, Okay, I got my testing done. I know where I'm at. I'm not ready yet to take the jump into actual testosterone replacement. What else can I do? So those are the cases where first and foremost you gotta sleep. If you're not sleeping, your testosterone is going to be in the toilet. So really dialing in lifestyle, so you need to work out but not overdo things you need to eat right? You know, you need to hit all those lifestyle markers first. And then you can look at some supplementation. There's like Tangata Li. There's a couple of different supplements out there that are kind of pro hormones or precursors to some of these things. And it's all anecdotal. Some people find that they work really well. Other people are like, didn't do a darn thing. So, okay, yeah.

Philip Pape  50:07

Yeah. And real quick, the Dutch test. What do you think about that?

Kristin Gemme  50:12

Honestly, I don't use it mainly just because it's wildly expensive. Okay,

Philip Pape  50:16

got it. So you talked about lifestyle. This is a good segue into talking about medical weight loss. Super hot topic right now controversial. Yep. They just FDA approved yet another one the Manjaro I think, yeah, that gave

Kristin Gemme  50:28

me Manjaro. Yeah, exactly. So they're now saying you can use it just for weight loss, and they're gonna slap another fancy new name on it. Make more money? Yeah.

Philip Pape  50:38

So we have ozempic. We have that we have GLP one agonists agonist is some magnetite. There's a lot of strong opinions all over the place. And my opinion is still forming, because it really depends, right? And context. And these are peptides as well. And then peptides as well. Okay. Because they signal that hormone, right? We're talking about the appetite hormone or the suppresses appetite.

Kristin Gemme  51:00

ones are glucagon like peptide. Yeah, exactly. Fair point.

Philip Pape  51:05

Yeah, fair point. So, so where does this fit into a holistic approach? Then let's talk

Kristin Gemme  51:10

about that. So I personally have a lot of feelings about them. Do I offer them? Technically yes. Do I have some patients on them that I am helping lose weight and monitor and doing their thing? Yes. Do I tell more people know than I tell people? Yes. Also, yes. I think that these drugs in general are being I don't want to say abused but overused. They're being used by people as a quick fix or a crutch. I think that there's a lot of providers out there especially in the med spa and wellness fronts that are using them as a money grab. And I don't agree with that. Anybody that walks in that says I want to lose 10 pounds, as long as there's nothing wrong with their their health history are getting put on these compounded versions of you know, semaglutide or chews up the tide.

Philip Pape  52:16

I've even seen bodybuilders using them like Yeah, crazy. Like just to get that last shredded, you know, yeah.

Kristin Gemme  52:22

And so from a business standpoint, this is my warning to all of these, you know, businesses that are like building themselves on these medical weight loss just cranking out you know, buying vials and vials of semaglutide interest appetite from these compounding pharmacies, because right now you can get them from there. You don't have to get brandname ozempic Are we go V or Manjaro. The only reason that you can obtain these medications right now from a compounding pharmacy is because they are on the FDA shortlist. So they are on shortage because they are unsure rootage these compounding pharmacies are legally able to compound them and offer them. So that's why they're able to be bought a lot more affordably from clinics like myself, I do get it from compounding pharmacies, ones that I actually think are good quality, because you can buy semaglutide almost anywhere. And that's terrifying because this is this is an endocrine medication. So once the FDA takes these medications off of the shortage list, now, poof, you are no longer going to be able to obtain them from compounding pharmacies. And if you want to utilize them for a patient, you are going to be sending a prescription to the local CVS or Walgreens. And the patient's going to go there and pick it up. Does their insurance cover it? Unlikely. So they're going to be paying out of pocket and they're going to pay out of pocket more than what they're paying your clinic right now for it. So the run of these things is going to be short lived and because of that, I don't base my business off of a medication that is on a temporary list of availability. Yeah,

Philip Pape  54:07

that's fair enough. Yeah. And I know I would really like to do a podcast episode on this because the more I hear about it, if there are aspects of this we have to be careful of like the ability to maintain results long term. Yes. You know what it does for some level of dependency when you're not quite fixing your lifestyle or even when you do what happens when you come off of it? Or can't get it? Yep, absolutely.

Kristin Gemme  54:29

Yeah. So I mean you you have to titrate on to it so you're not just popping in and you know, cranking in a 2.4 milligram doses semaglutide On day one, you are going to be hospitalized and ill if you do that, so it's a titrate up and it should be a titrate down. Once somebody has lost the weight that they are looking to lose they are now in a healthy BMI they're in a healthy you know, body fat percentage they've they've achieved their goal. Now what we do is we start to slowly back them down off of that dose. And I do it slowly, so that we can see how they feel. Because odds are, they're going to gain some weight back on average, people gain about 25% of the weight loss back. So if you've only lost 10 pounds, let's look at that, you know, so this isn't for the person looking to lose 10 pounds, this is for big weight loss. This is for meaningful weight loss. This is for people with metabolic risk factors that maybe have high cholesterol are pre diabetic or diabetic, you know, have all of these risk factors. This is kind of like who I'm saving this medication for. You know, I have somebody on turns appetite, right now, does he need to lose a little weight? Yeah, he does need to lose weight, his triglycerides were through the roof, his cholesterol was awful. And he was already taking prescribed cholesterol medication to his appetite works on two different pathways. It's the GLP one, and it's a gf gap. So what that's going to do is it's also going to help with a Dipa lysis. And it's going to help break down some of those fatty acids. So I put him on that primarily for his metabolic health, and not just to shed weight to aesthetically look better, you know, it was truly to get these metabolic markers down. So there was a time and a place for them, they have to be used judiciously, they have to be titrated down, I think that it can be used as a lifestyle modification tool, because it is decreasing your gastric emptying when you eat a meal, now that meal is going to sit in your gut for at least seven hours before it transits through, you're not going to be able to eat as much, you're not going to be able to eat trash food, if you eat a high fatty meal or ton of sugar or something that's really truly not good for you, you're gonna pay for it, you're gonna feel terrible, you know, you're gonna get that negative feedback. So in that sense for people that don't necessarily have a great relationship with food, and overeat, or make really poor choices, and like aren't doing the right things, that can be a good tool to help get them through that. And to help break some of those habits, while they're losing weight. Kind of just help reinforce some of those habits, teach them how to eat correctly, teach them how to eat smaller portions, all of that can be really beneficial. But it also has to come without warning that you're you're likely going to gain some weight back. Some people, especially if they have all those metabolic risk factors already, they may need to stay on it long term, it D this very well needs to be a lifelong medication. When used for diabetics, type two diabetics, it's a, it's not a short fix for them, you know, they're not using it for six months and coming off. It's a long term medication. So I mean, have have some people had life changing results with weight loss. And now they don't have to worry about those risk factors of type two diabetes. They've come off of cholesterol medication, they're awful blood pressure meds, everything else in their life got good because of this medication. Yes, there are tons of stories of that. And it's great for that. But my problem is more so with the providers that are prescribing it really irresponsibly, the bad apples out there. Yeah, yeah, it's a complex money, money grab, you know, and it's not without risk, you know, these medications all have risks. The main, the big, big one here is pancreatitis, and pancreatitis can kill you. So you have to really, you know, weigh your your risk factors out here, you know, looking at the, the thyroid cancer, you know, that was only in mouse studies that wasn't shown in human studies at all. I'm way more concerned about somebody's risk of pancreatitis than I am about thyroid cancer when it comes to these meds. It's

Philip Pape  58:44

a complicated topic, because I know that even the marketing says, you know, you, on average, lose X amount of weight. Yeah, in combination with how, you know, lifestyle, positive lifestyle. And of course, what immediately comes to mind. Whether I'm being judgmental or not, is why don't we try that Heil healthy lifestyle on its own and see if I can make the change. And I understand that people, some people are, you know, have an excessive unhealthy amount of weight that they need to deal with right now. And there's a lot of emotional and environmental factors involved. So yes, all right, let's, let's move on. Okay, go ahead.

Kristin Gemme  59:13

This is one important thing that I think a lot of people don't also know. You're seeing the scale go down. Unless you're doing in body scans or some sort of body composition scanner, you're not seeing what I'm seeing. And what I'm seeing is that most of the weight loss is coming from muscle breakdown. It's not coming from that. So we are taking you and we are turning you into skinny fat. So most of I've actually seen people gain body fat percentage and decrease their muscle mass. So they're like

Philip Pape  59:44

I'm losing weight. That is a great point. Loss Yeah, at what cost

Kristin Gemme  59:49

and so a lot of my older women will come to see me and they want to lose weight, but they're like by I need to healthy muscle mass because I'm starting to get to that age where I need to worry about osteoporosis and falling and breaking a hip, I'm not putting them on that that's not appropriate for them, you know, we're gonna go more of the route of peptides, let's help you with your lean muscle mass. So that's something to take into consideration with these GLP one medications is you need to be really, really careful about muscle wasting, because you're not taking in enough calories to support your muscle and you're just breaking that down.

Philip Pape  1:00:22

It's true. Because even we know even when you exceed something like 1% of your body weight a week, you're gonna start losing muscle mass. This is an extreme crash diet version of that, just like any other even if you did a normal crash diet, you would see this a similar result. Yeah, and I wonder if this medication even accelerated further, right. So yeah, for sure. I know, we only have a few minutes left. Do you have a hard stop? Can we go a little bit past?

Kristin Gemme  1:00:46

I'm good until about 320 or so.

Philip Pape  1:00:50

Okay. Okay. Just Just a couple more questions, because I want to tie it back to the very beginning with with how you got into this field of aesthetic treatments. And the psychological impact of that, I guess what I'm curious about is how do you work with clients to make sure it's appropriate for them and that there are not, you know, negative aspects of body image and history there. And I know you've talked about this before. So I want to understand the nuances there.

Kristin Gemme  1:01:15

Absolutely. So Body Dysmorphia is real. And it's a huge thing. I actually had a conversation about this exact thing with a patient of mine, I think it was last week. And the way that I look at body dysmorphia, it's not you have it or you don't it is a spectrum. And I think that we all fall onto that spectrum of body dysmorphia, we all see ourselves a little bit different than how other people do, we may see something that bothers us every day that nobody else sees. When Body Dysmorphia becomes pathogenic or becomes a problem is when it's interfering with your daily life. And it becomes an obsessive thought, it's now interfering, you're now doing things irrationally, or doing things outside of your norm to deal with it. Let's say for example, you know, you have this, we're going to go super simple, you see a wrinkle that nobody else sees. And you see it when you squint an eye and you turn your head to 75 degrees, and you're looking at it from upside down with a light just in the right angle. And in this one particular mirror. I'm not kidding when I say that, I hear that, you know, that's not me being crazy saying that as an example. Those are things that people do. That is disordered thinking. And those are patients that you should not be treating, and that you should be referring to mental health services, because they need some help, or you need to take them under your wing, not treat them do other things that are just basic healthy skin care. And you need to be able to counsel them and talk about it and have a real conversation about it. This is a medical problem. It's nothing to dance around, you're not going to offend somebody, maybe you will. But you know why? It's for their benefit. It's a medical condition, it is diagnoseable it has an ICD 910 code for it. Like it's something that needs to be addressed. It's like seeing a medical problem with a patient and just not addressing it because it's uncomfortable to talk about. So you need to be aware of where everybody falls on that spectrum. With esthetics people are coming in because they want to feel better about themselves. They want to boost their their, you know, personal image of themselves. They want their outsides to match how they feel on the inside, or they have something that they've been insecure about for a while that they want to fix. And that's okay, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. It's like saying, you know, I have really weakened small muscles, or you know, my glutes are really small. I'm going to go to the gym, and I'm going to really work on building up my glutes. And I'm going to do that because I want it to look the way I want it to look. And I'm going to be healthy about it too. There's nothing disordered with that. And that is a normal, healthy thing. We all want to be our best versions of ourself. And that also falls into aesthetic medicine. But hearing the way people talk about themselves, are the only things coming out of their mouth negative, can they not give themselves a compliment? Something that I started implementing this year during my consultations is before we talk about what the problems are, tell me what you like about yourself. Tell me what you love about your face. What's your favorite facial feature or your favorite body feature? You need to be kind to yourself, and you need to recognize that we're not all perfect, and it's okay. So listening to red flags. I've seen six providers this year, and nobody's been able to make me happy, but I know you're going to be able to make me happy, not touching you with a 10 foot pole. That is such a huge red flag. It's unbelievable. So it's really just having conversations and that's why you need to talk to your patients. You need to really get to know them. You need to understand the drive and force behind why they're asking for these things, why they want to have procedures or interventions done. And you need to, you know, be educated about body dysmorphia to know, is this appropriate, if I start treating this person, am I actually adding fuel to the fire? You know, if some people you don't know, some people definitely have have duped every provider that does what I do has been duped, where somebody you know, keeps it together until you start treating, and now all of a sudden, they're becoming angry, they're becoming combative. You know, they're they're pointing fingers blaming you that you didn't give them what they want, but theirs did. And they will never see it for what it is they can't see it for themselves. They think they are just ugly, and are never fixed. So mental health is huge. It's absolutely huge. And if you're not addressing it in, you know, your aesthetic practice, you are doing such a disservice to your patients.

Philip Pape  1:05:59

Yeah, I like how you ask your patients what they like about themselves, right? Because kind of leaning into their strengths and making sure it's, it's a filter for that. And then also understanding why someone wants to do something, like I just came out with a mini episode called, it's okay to want to look better and improve your physique. And it was around that whole theme of like, there are many reasons we do things. I don't envy how, how different, how much more difficult, it might be in your type of practice, like, you know, nutrition coaching, it's, it's, it's a little bit easier. But even there, you see people who the red flag is they just want to lose weight at all costs, for example, right, and there's a red flag there. Are there any misconceptions people have? I'm sure there are but like, what are some of the big misconceptions people have about medical esthetics? And how do you work to educate them on those? Sure. So

Kristin Gemme  1:06:42

I mean, a lot of misconceptions, you know, come from people that just genuinely have no idea what we do. And all they do is they see examples of celebrities with bad plastic surgery, and they just think it's Botox. It's always lips, Botox is always just the go to our bad Botox, you know, and it's, there are people out there with bad work. Yeah, There absolutely are. You know, unfortunately, there's there's very little regulation when it comes to aesthetic medicine, if you have a medical license, you can, you can do it, you know, there is no governing body for anybody other than dermatologists and plastic surgeons. And even then there's, there's little standards with it. So there are plenty of places out there that Roque will give you botched work and you know, give our industry a bad name. And they don't have ethics and they're just going for money grab somebody comes in and says make it bigger, I want my lips bigger. And now they're you know, out to here and just look distorted. You know, there's always going to be somebody out there that will do the thing that you ask them to do. And it's unfortunate, but I mean, that's just about in every industry, you know, and ultimately I look at it, it's skincare, it's your skin, it's your biggest organ, and we're taking care of it. When I speak to patients about you know, the reality of aesthetic medicine, doing in office interventions with lasers or injectables is hands down the least important thing that we're going to be focusing on first and foremost, we're looking at your lifestyle, we're looking at your sun exposure, we're looking at your skincare products, you know, not using good quality skincare products to take care of your skin on a daily basis. But coming in for you know, one or two lasers a year or your Botox is like going to your dentist for a cleaning and then not brushing your teeth at all at home, you know, it's that same thing, we're taking care of skin. And when you have healthy skin, you have beautiful skin, you know, you don't need to be augmented and have cosmetic interventions, it can be more restorative and I like to look at it in those two, two realms here. You know, restorative medicine, we're restoring you back to the way things should be you have volume loss from from, you know, fat atrophy and your cheeks, we're replacing it, we're not augmenting you and making you look deranged. We're just restoring it. It's like restorative dentistry, you know, they're not giving you you know, crazy looking teeth, they're restoring it back to a natural looking form. Whereas more cosmetic medicine, we're taking somebody that there's nothing wrong with them, they're young, their volume is perfect, and they want something a little bit more dramatic, a little bit more augmented for just an aesthetic cosmetic outcome. So those are the kind of two ways that I look at it, but the best injectables truly should be undetectable. You know, nobody walking down the street that doesn't know you should be able to point out what you've had done. Okay,

Philip Pape  1:09:36

and there are gender differences for a fact and I am clueless about all this stuff. I don't use any creams. I don't use product and I'm probably like 95% of men, I'm guessing what what are what are some what's some interesting differences and I'm sure you work with men, but like, what are your thoughts on the matter?

Kristin Gemme  1:09:51

So first off, it's easier to get a man in the door to do Botox than it is to get them to put any sort of cream on their face at home. Hands down, stop washing your face with shampoo, I'm speaking to all of you stop doing it. So I mean, basically, if there's one thing that you're going to put on your skin, and I tell this to all of my women who are trying to get their men to start taking better care of their skin is you need to wear sunscreen. I mean, you just do you need to wear sunscreen as the most important thing that you can do to help prevent poor aging and help improve skin health and also fight skin cancer. So the basics of wear sunscreen, you know, you don't need this crazy 12 Step skincare regimen to take good care of your skin. If we're giving you daily antioxidant protection, taking all those free radicals that you're exposed to, you know from from blue light, from pollution, from the sun from intrinsic factors inside of your body, all of it, you need to be fighting those with antioxidants, vitamin C's are really good one to utilize with that. We can even use topical peptides to help with that to helping support collagen. Collagen is what gives us our nice firm skin. It's what makes it elastic. That's why kids skin is so bouncy and tight and looks good. And as we get older, we get kind of saggy and thin and wrinkled. You know, that's from loss of collagen and elastin. So for using some peptides or growth factors to help stimulate that help keep your skin looking youthful, wear sunscreen to protect you from the sun. I mean, we're done there. And a lot of these skincare companies have really gotten smarter when it comes to men's skincare. Knowing that we'll be lucky if we can get you to put one thing on, they have made combination products to where you can grab one bottle, and it is your skin treatment. It is your skinny antioxidants, and it is your eight hour long sunscreen. My favorite one that's come out comes from a company called police. It was developed by a What was she she's a chemical engineer, either Harvard or MIT, I'm screwing that up. And basically, it's a sunscreen mineral based sunscreen that you put on your skin once a day stays on for eight hours, so you don't have to reapply. And it also contains anti aging elements and antioxidants to help take care of your skin. So I'm really pushing that for men to make it easy, it's not going to make you shiny, it's not going to make you you look literally and shimmery. It's going to make you look good. You know, it's going to make your skin look healthy. And really at the end of the day, for me, it all comes down to skin health, we want your skin to be healthy, like the rest of you.

Philip Pape  1:12:27

I mean, even just the sunscreen alone is definitely important if you're concerned about skin cancer and things like that, but I these are some great tips that I didn't think we'd get to talking about, you know, skincare advice for men, but it's awesome. For so I'm gonna look up that previous myself, I take high dose vitamin C, but not really any of the other stuff, though. Yes, I used to I just use the touch up feature in zoom. And that does it. All right. So I like to ask this of all guests, Christina. And that is what questions did you wish I had asked? And what is your answer?

Kristin Gemme  1:12:59

Oh, boy. What did I wish you asked to? One? I think you've asked really great questions. I think that we've really covered everything well, I don't have anything else burning inside of me that I didn't get to get out here. You know, I mean, I guess really my main takeaway point for listeners, especially in the wellness front is get your blood drawn, like don't stop being scared of what your bloodwork is going to show and get it done. The best thing that you can have is knowledge and to know where you're at. And if you get bloodwork done, bare bones minimum once a year, if you can get it done every six months, you are so ahead of the curve. And we can really identify early issues with you. You know, just recently I had a patient come in, she was interested in starting peptide therapy, and we pulled her bloodwork, I'm looking at things that your primary care is not I'm looking at fasting insulin, I'm looking at C peptide, those levels on her were triple what they should have been. So we may have identified an insulinoma in her which is a tumor that secretes insulin. And if she had just gone to her primary care for her basic yearly screenings, they would have looked at her a one C which was totally fine and been like, Oh, you're good to go. Your metabolic health looks great. While lying underneath is a potential huge problem. So we look at things that your primary care will not and does not. Because insurances either not going to cover it or they just don't have the time to look at it.

Philip Pape  1:14:35

There you go. So if you're listening, get the blood work and the saliva test if that's indicated. Talk to Kristen, you can we're gonna I'm gonna ask her now where people can reach you but reach out to her even if you're not in Connecticut. I'm sure she can help you even with a discussion online and actually, why don't you let us know where people can find you and then for people who are remote versus people local to the area,

Kristin Gemme  1:14:57

so you can find me first foremost ethos medical esthetics in Avon, Connecticut, we're located at 51 East Main Street. From here ethos, ethos, medical esthetics.com. From there, you can look at my full list of services. And there's even a book online function. So if you want to book a consultation or any services, you can do it right from there. On Instagram, most you're going to find me is injector Kristin, k, r i s t i n Scandanavian. I n on that one. So you'll find me on there everything is also over at ethos aesthetics, that's the best way to find me is truly on Instagram or make an appointment, I do have some virtual options as well. However, if you are interested in testosterone replacement, or hormone replacement therapy, those are controlled substances. I need to physically see you in the office once you need to come in and sit in my chair and face me and have a conversation so that we can do our examination. One time and after that, if you're a candidate for treatment, we can do everything virtual, we can do virtual follow ups, all of that medications can be sent right to your door. Depending on states, I don't have it right off the top of my head, some states, I cannot practice telemedicine and you can't have certain things shipped to. But for the most part, we cover most of the country. So peptide therapy, you know, ordering bloodwork, all of that we can do remotely. So there's a lot that we can do

Philip Pape  1:16:22

there. That is great to know actually that distinction. You can find Kristen at ethos, and Avon, I'm gonna include all the information in the show notes, if those medical esthetics.com at injector, Kristen at ecosystemic. I know it's a lot. I'll have it in the show notes. And then also the podcast, which is going to start up again for another season. And just a pinch podcast. So go follow that. And what was a was one more thing I was gonna say. And I can't remember what it was. But it's been awesome. Oh, I know what it was. For folks listening. I definitely vouch for Kristen. I mean, I met her through another man a very high standards and ethics and Andrew and that's how we find people we trust. And again, Kristen mentioned this, this industry is rife with charlatans. And so you've got to be careful and find good people. And Kristen is one of them. So Kristen, thank you so much.

Kristin Gemme  1:17:05

It was an open book and is more than happy to talk to anybody about his experience with both testosterone and peptide therapy, everything that we've been doing. I mean, if you go on to the Instagram, you'll see he's written out like how it changed his body, his body composition, his blood, work, all of that. So if you have any questions, you can also seek him out. He'd be more than happy to give anybody a personal testimonial for how his experiences been awesome.

Philip Pape  1:17:31

And I'm declaring right now that I'm going to set something up with you and talk to you about it. And then hopefully I'll be able to talk about on the show of depending on what happens from there. So absolutely,

Kristin Gemme  1:17:39

knowledge is power. You just got to know where you stand. All right.

Philip Pape  1:17:43

Thanks so much for coming on.

Kristin Gemme  1:17:44

Thanks so much.

Philip Pape  1:17:47

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Ep 124: How to Use Progressive Overload the RIGHT way to Build Strength and Muscle (Even in Fat Loss)

Are your workouts actually making you bigger and stronger? Why do some people gain muscle and strength so much faster than others?

Today, we’re diving into the concept of progressive overload—what it is, why it’s important, and how to implement it in your training program.

I’ll explain the science behind how it drives muscle growth and strength gains and then provide specific methods for progressively overloading your workouts by increasing weight, reps, sets, intensity levels, and other creative approaches. These strategies apply to all training levels, from beginner to advanced. Finally, I’ll go over how you can use this principle even during a fat loss phase.

If you want my free detailed guide on progressive overload that you can download and reference whenever you want, just use the link in my show notes under Episode Resources or go to witsandweights.com/free.

Episode summary:

Progressive overload is a term that holds significant importance. As the principle that drives muscle growth and strength gains, understanding and correctly implementing progressive overload is essential to achieving physical self-mastery.

The principle of progressive overload refers to the gradual increase in stress placed upon the body during exercise over time. This stress can come in the form of increased weight, reps, sets, or intensity. By continually challenging the body beyond what it is already adapted to, we stimulate muscular enhancements and increase bone density.

An often misunderstood concept in the fitness realm is the Stress, Recovery, Adaptation (SRA) model. This model explains how the body responds to stress and the critical role of recovery in reaching new fitness levels. In the stress phase, the body experiences challenges to its musculoskeletal and nervous systems. The recovery phase then sees the body working to repair and adapt to these stresses, with adaptations occurring in the form of neuromuscular enhancement, hypertrophy, strengthening of connective tissue, and increase in bone density.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of progressive overload is the idea that it's impossible to build strength and muscle during a fat loss phase. This misconception often leads many to miss out on the benefits of progressive overload during their cutting phase. It's entirely possible to maintain, and even build, strength and muscle during a cut, as long as consistency and optimal recovery are prioritized.

Adding to the complexity of progressive overload are the various techniques used to increase weight and reps in weightlifting routines. One method involves adding increments or basing the increase off a percentage of one's maximum weight. Another strategy involves manipulating rep ranges, either by increasing reps each session or using a pyramid approach. All these techniques aim to stimulate muscle growth and help individuals progress in their weightlifting journey.

Moreover, the episode delves into different techniques for increasing intensity in workouts. One such technique is top set back off, where the first set is heavy and the following sets are lighter. Alternatively, you can perform multiple sets and then increase the weight for one final heavy set. The use of intensity techniques such as reducing rest periods, drop sets, and rest pause sets can also help save time and add variety to workouts.

In conclusion, understanding and correctly applying the principle of progressive overload can significantly enhance your fitness journey. Whether you're a novice or an experienced gym-goer, this episode offers valuable insights and practical strategies to help you reach your fitness goals.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:20] What is progressive overload?
[4:01] Stress recovery adaptation
[10:06] The four things that occur during adaptation
[14:23] The relationship between strength and hypertrophy
[18:14] Progressive overload for beginners
[23:30] Programming for progressive overload
[29:00] Progressing by weight
[30:42] Progressing by reps
[35:16] Progressing by sets
[38:48] Progressing by intensity
[46:16] Mind-muscle connection
[48:43] Post-activation potentiation
[49:30] Accommodating resistance
[51:31] Combining the progression variables
[53:29] Training during a fat loss phase
[59:15] Outro

Episode resources:

• Free Progressive Overload Guide – https://witsandweights.com/free/progressive-overload-guide

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching

👩‍💻👨‍💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.

📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

Are your workouts actually making you bigger and stronger? Or are you just going through the motions and spinning your wheels? Why do some people gain muscle and strength so much faster than others? If you want to learn how to use the highly misunderstood and misapplied principle of progressive overload to actually build strength and muscle, even in a fat loss phase, you'll love today's episode. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 123 Why you're not achieving your fitness goals with Mike Milner, we unpack the DNA of success. To understand why so many of us failed hitting our health and fitness goals getting deep into the mental game. Today for episode 124. How to use progressive overload the right way to build strength and muscle even in fat loss. We're diving into the concept of progressive overload what it is, why it's important and how to implement it in your training program. I'll explain the science behind how it drives muscle growth and strength gains, which is one of the most misunderstood pieces here. And then provide specific methods for progressively overloading your workouts by increasing weight rep sets intensity and other creative approaches. These strategies apply to all training levels, from beginner to advanced. And then finally, I'll go over how you can apply this principle even during a fat loss phase buckle in because this is going to be an epic, all encompassing episode on this topic. And if you want my free detailed guide on progressive overload, that you can download and reference whenever you want. Just use the link in my show notes under episode resources, or go to wits & weights.com/free. Alright, let's get into today's topic, how to use progressive overload the right way to build strength and muscle even in fat loss. Oh, I took a lot of time to research this topic because it is so important. It's probably progressive overload is probably the most important principle for building strength and muscle, and also one of the most misunderstood. Progressive overload refers to the gradual increase in stress placed upon the body during exercise over time, this stress can come in the form of increased weight sets, reps intensity, the key is that the body is continually challenged beyond what it is already adapted to. Now our muscles have a remarkable ability to adapt to whatever demands we place on them. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. I talk about muscle first health and a muscle centric approach. Muscle is an organ, and it is the organ that we have the most control over we can change we can add to it skeletal muscle is just a beautiful thing. And it elevates everything in our health and fitness. But in order to become bigger and stronger, we have to force further adaptation by providing a new overload stimulus. Now real quick, the term overload, I think is a misnomer. Because you are not actually going past the point of your your ability, you are pushing the very limit of your ability, thus causing the adaptation. So just want to get that out of the way, in case the term is misused. Now, if you don't have progressive overload in your training, your results are going to quickly plateau. And so if you've been in the gym for years, hitting the same weight, not making progress not getting stronger, not building muscle, maybe not using fat either. This is likely very much the reason why. Now I've heard progressive overload explained in many different ways. And I'm going to share the one that I find the most helpful today. And that is through the stress recovery adaptation model Sra. Now you might see it referred to as the stimulus recovery adaptation model as well, same thing, we're going to use the word stress, it gets the job done. So progressive overload is the gradual increase of stress placed upon the body during exercise over time. And this stress pushes the body out of homeostasis. And this force is a physiological adaptation during the recovery in order to return to homeostasis. So that's 30,000 foot view. Now let's get down to the 10,000 foot view here. Let's start with stress. The stress in this case refers to the challenging of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems through exercise induced fatigue. Now as to the mechanisms of how this occurs in the body, I want to clarify something here. Because the old theory was the muscle tear and repair model, also known as the muscle damage hypothesis, and this has been challenged in recent years. This is the idea that, you know, muscle hypertrophy occurs because your, your muscles get torn up and damaged, and then they have to repair themselves. And while it is clear that hypertrophy can occur can occur with some of that muscle damage existing, it's not necessary for growth, that's a key distinction. And so you might see them happening at the same time. But it doesn't mean that it's the cause of it. In fact, too much muscle damage can be detrimental, right, because they can impair your recovery and impair your performance. And this is why one of the things I say is don't chase soreness, soreness is an indication of tearing, but it has nothing to do with hypertrophy, it may be an indication that you're doing something new for the first time, it may be indication you've torn muscle fibers. But those are independent of the stress that we need for progressive overload. So key point there. What the evidence does suggest is that two things mechanical tension, and metabolic stress, okay, mechanical tension and metabolic stress are the critical drivers of muscle growth. Mechanical tension is simply the force that you put on your muscles during lifting, especially when they are stretched under load. Right, so you think of going into a full range of motion, the full contraction and he centric loading of a muscle that involves mechanical tension. Now, metabolic stress results from the accumulation of byproducts of anaerobic metabolism, things like lactate, when you're doing more high intensity or high volume exercise. So this would be more higher higher rep type movements or pushing to failure or fatigue or whatever. But it still occurs when you are undergoing a high level of mechanical tension. So these mechanisms, what they do is they induce muscle protein synthesis and hypertrophy, the growing of muscle size, without necessarily causing muscle damage. So that's the distinction. So again, while muscle damage may contribute, or may be associated with hypertrophy, it's not the sole or even primary driver, and it's not required for muscles to grow. So regardless of all that, because I am getting somewhat into the science here, by progressively increasing the demands we place on our body, again, whether through increased weight sets, reps intensity, we cause this greater disruption to homeostasis from that stress. So that's stress, then we have recovery, talk about the recovery aspect of the SRA model, the body has to work harder during recovery. Okay, that's the time between your workout sessions where you eat sleep rest, it has to work hard to return to that baseline, get homeostasis, so that it can supersede the previous level of fitness. So your level of fitness will remain static unless you've got the stress. And then during recovery, your body works to get beyond that previous level so that it can handle the stress that's similar to what you just placed on it. So after a workout, the body does four things. All right. The first is muscle protein synthesis. probably heard this before MPs. This is where the body repairs, debt, repairs damaged proteins, and it builds new muscle tissue. And this is the process behind muscle growth. And this is why we need our protein

Philip Pape  08:36

and our energy overall calories. The second thing after workout is it replaces your glycogen stores your energy, which gets depleted during exercise. The third thing your body does, it removes metabolic byproducts, substances like lactate that accumulate during exercise, these are cleared out. And then fourth, it restores hormonal balance. So catabolic hormones like cortisol, the stress hormone, and anabolic hormones like testosterone and growth hormone are restored. So like IGF one right, these get restored these are all important things that your body are doing during the recovery phase. And you need sufficient recovery to then enable the final part of this model of this process adaptation. So again, stress recovery adaptation, adaptation refers to the body's process of becoming stronger and more efficient. Following recovery, TIG those are important points stronger and more efficient. Now, you may also have muscle mass that goes along with that to to enable those increases in strength and efficiency, but that is more of a byproduct. Okay. Remember, the body tries to maintain a stable internal environment what we call homeostasis. When stressed, it not only returns to baseline, but then adapts to better handle future stress. Right higher level of fitness, also known as Super compensate Asians. This adaptation phase is where the gains in strength and size occur. And so I want to mention four things that occurred during the adaptation phase. The first is neural muscular adaptation. This is a very important concept. So listen up, this is where you have improved efficiency in your nerve signals that cause muscle contractions. Right? This leads to an increase in strength early on, especially when you're beginner or when you're doing a new movement, even if you don't have noticeable muscle growth. So this is a this is a leading mechanism that's very important neuromuscular adaptation. The second thing that occurs during adaptation is hypertrophy. So this is simply your muscle fibers growing in size. The third is the strengthening of connective tissue. All right, for the older folks out there, if you're in your 40s, you're in your 50s, this is really important too. Because this, these, these things start to get a little bit worn down with age, let's say, your tendons and ligaments will become stronger in response to the loads placed upon them. This is also why we don't want to overdo it, especially as we age, right, we don't have the right amount of volume, right amount of stress and progress over time and not overdo it. And the fourth thing during adaptation is an increase in bone density, bones become denser and stronger in response to the stress of resistant strain. So we, we can see here already that this process is creating a lot of changes in our body that are super beneficial for our health, for our strength for function, for longevity, for for everything you can imagine, it's all all good. It's all benefits. And so for these adaptations to occur, what I'll call optimally, the body needs, what adequate nutrition, okay, so it's not just about the lifting, we need enough protein, we need enough calories for the muscle protein synthesis for replenishing your glycogen stores. And we need the rest and sleep that goes along with it. To facilitate the maximum recovery. Now I'm going to talk toward the end of the show about how you can still train with the principle of progressive overload during fat loss when you don't have enough energy coming in. I'll talk about that. But to maximize it, you need to be in a maintenance or in a surplus. So the most critical piece of all of this is that this adaptation allows us to subsequently handle greater workloads and demands. But then you need an even greater stimulus the next time and a greater one after that, right. You can't just keep building without the added stimulus. Because you need to keep driving these new adaptation upward to support continued gains in size, strength and power. So this is why beginners can squat three times a week, and can make very rapid progress. Because the the stress just isn't that high in absolute terms, but it's high enough in relative terms to cause the adaptation and cause a very quickly. So you can recover in two days, you can repeat the same movement at a higher level of fitness you were two days ago. And you could repeat this for several months before the stress starts to become too great to be able to apply that frequently. Right. And so beginners can really take advantage of this early on. Take advantage, the neuromuscular adaptation and the frequency of these movements. Once you get to intermediate and advanced stages, you're going to have way more stress on the body because you're simply at much higher loads. So even though you've adapted to it, they still place a great stress on your body and it takes longer to recover and to adapt. But if you wait too long, like if you wait three or four weeks, let's say between movements, the adaptation adaptation will regress back to the previous level. And so you can either have find the sweet spot in frequency, or use techniques to maintain strength between the higher stress, bouts, you know, between your heavy lifting sessions. So that's where programming gets a little more complicated. The key takeaway to all of this remains that progressive overload through managing training, stress and recovery, right sleep, rest. Food is the driving principle behind improved performance over time, you need enough stress in your workouts to cause the adaptation, you need enough recovery but not too much. And then rinse and repeat this for massive increases in strength and muscle early on. And smaller but ongoing relative muscle and strength increases as you get more advanced. Okay, so that's the principle of progressive overload probably could have been its own episode. But the next topic we need to understand is the relationship between strength and hypertrophy, especially when discussing training outcomes. So we're gonna start with strength. Strength is largely a product of neurological adaptations. That's one muscle cross sectional area. That's too and the specific skill of the movements being for for performance, also called specificity. That's three. Alright, so neurological muscle size, specificity, When someone starts training effectively for the first time, rapid strength gains occur without substantial increases in muscle size yet, but they'll happen, they'll happen pretty quickly afterwards, you know, within weeks, they'll start to occur. And this is due to improvements in the efficiency of the nervous system, right? Think of it as as your brain, your mind, your mind body connection. finally waking up and realizing that you want to put this demand on it for this movement pattern, and you need to become more efficient at it. And your your latent or inherent capability is there, you have the muscle for it, you just have never recruited it before. So now your brain starts to better recruit your motor units, it increases the firing rate of those movements, it improves the coordination of your muscle groups like the whole system just starts to come together in this beautiful ballet of movement that makes you an efficient machine for that training for that pattern before you actually need to build more muscle tissue. So that strength hypertrophy, on the other hand refers to the increase in muscle size. So while larger muscles have a greater potential for strength, muscle size alone does not directly translate to maximal force production. I've mentioned it before hypertrophy is driven more by metabolic stress, it's the mechanical tension and then a little bit of the muscle damage. But I always like to say that strength leads muscle, focus on the strength, build the patterns, and then you'll start to build the muscle. And then that increase in size and the ability to move more weight will allow the hypertrophy piece to become much, much more efficient and effective down the road. So for beginners, the initial phase of strength training is dominated by neurological adaptation. And that's why you can get significantly stronger, right, you can double or triple your squat, your deadlift, your pressing your bench within months, without necessarily seeing a huge change in muscle size at first, and then over time as your body becomes more efficient. And then you lift the heavier weights, you've caught up to your latent ability. And now the stimulus for muscle growth becomes more pronounced. And then hypertrophy starts to contribute even more to strength gains, and they're kind of working together at that point. So the relationship between strength and hypertrophy gets more complex as you advance in training age. And then things like genetics, your training style, your specific programming, how consistent you are, have a much greater influence on whether you gain more strength or size. So again, beginners, if you're listening, or if you've not ever done this effectively, before you're a beginner, you can focus on a general strength training program. And I highly recommend one that uses barbells, with the big compound lifts in the four to six rep range, very simple, very effective, very time efficient, this will lead to low strength gains, and then over time I purchase a fee. And then as you advance, you may need more specialized programs to target either of these depending on your goals, right, you might be doing some power building or upper lower splits, or, you know, conjugate type program, you might do bodybuilding program, the sky's the limit in the future, but start with general strength. Either way you go like whatever your programming looks like the volume and the nutrition have to be sufficient for you to keep growing. Now, I want to give you the big picture of how do we implement this. And then I'm gonna dive into specifics on different methods. Like I said, this is going to be, this is an epic episode, you're gonna have everything in here. So let's start let's talk beginners first, okay, for beginners who are new to strength training, and that includes all of you listening, who the light bulb has gone on. And you realize you have not been trained the right way all these years. And that's a lot of people, I'm sure listening to this podcast, that was me about four years ago, when the light bulb went off. If you were in that category, progressive overload follows a linear, straightforward progression, we actually call it a novice linear progression for that reason. And the most basic approach is simply add weight to the bar, or dumbbells or whatever you're using, add weight each session, same number of sets, same number of reps, just add weight. That's all you need to do as a beginner. So if you, if you squat at 95 pounds on Monday, you'll squat 100 pounds on Wednesday, then you'll squat 105 pounds on Friday, right? Or maybe you'll go up by 10 pounds initially, and then it'll lessen to five pound jumps, and then maybe you'll do two and a half pound jumps. The point is to go up in weight, right, and I know I get that that's not exactly linear, but linear, meaning all you're doing is changing one training variable. Now there are some other movements for beginners that you might incorporate, like chin ups, right after a few weeks or so you might incorporate chin ups where the overload, you can't just add weight to chin ups, right. You're either going to gain weight in your body and that's going to make the chin ups harder. But you should still be able to get the same number of reps as you increase in weight. Thus, you are progressively overloading or you can add more reps like you're getting stronger so you're able Get more reps. Or you can even add weight using something like a dip belt. So I'm going off on a little tangent, but beginners often ask this because early on, you might end up doing something like chin ups. And it's kind of an oddball movement compared to the other loaded movements. As a beginner, you're gonna prioritize form and technique above all else. But don't let it be an excuse, not to progress. Get it Get this all the time, hey, I haven't been progressing in three months, why not? Well, I've been focusing on my form, you don't need three months to focus on your form, you just need a few sessions, get some feedback early and often use form videos, get a coach posted in the Wits, & Weights Facebook group, you know, reach out to me, don't use that as an excuse, even though it is important. So it's a fine balance. Another thing for beginners that's really important, I think, is to train through the full range of motion. This is not the time to be doing partials or, you know, you know, rack poles instead of deadlifts or spot presses instead of full bench presses. This is the general strength adaptation phase, you want to be doing full range of motion, that means below parallel on the squat, that means the full shrug at the top on your overhead press. That means touching your chest on the bench and then blocking it out at the top. Right. And you know, if you're not doing these things, right, you know who you are, it means you're not training training through the full range of motion, right? Partial range of motion, yeah, you can lift more weights, but you're not overloading the full, you're not loading the full movement. And when we talk strain, and we talk specificity of movement patterns, neuromuscular adaptation, you have to train through the full length of the muscle to get the benefit. So just FYI, on that. Last thing for beginners, I want you to log everything, like log them in a notebook, or an app doesn't, it doesn't matter, well, whatever works for you, whatever works for you. loads, log, your exercises, your movements, your loads, you set your reps, add any notes about how it felt, right? Just see, or what are you going to do next time? What did you learn about it anything special about the conditions of your training, start logging everything, get into a habit of doing that? So that's it for beginners, right? And again, we're gonna get into specifics, much more specifics on various methods in the next section, but hold on for that. I want to mention intermediate trainees for a brief while here, because a lot of beginners wonder, what do I do after I've run out for like, 346 months, I've started to plateau on my big lifts. I'm increasing the weight every session, but I'm starting to plateau. Right? Initially, I'm gonna say, Well, can you get creative? Can you instead of doing three sets of five, can you do five sets of three? Can you do a top set, and then a back offset like things like that, which kind of still let you increase by weight and not really change much else. But eventually, you're going to truly plateau. And that's because you're at the point where the stress is so high that you can't recover quickly enough to adapt and increase it in the next session. And so now it stretches out, now you might only be able to go up each week, right? Or even longer than that. And at this stage techniques, like heavy versus light days, where the light days don't place too much stress, but maintain your strength, or top set back offset, or rep ranges, and other advanced methods. Those are what are going to allow you to continue with that progressive overload. And we're gonna get into all those in a bit. So stay tuned for that. This is just a high level kind of public service announcement for intermediate lifters.

Philip Pape  23:31

I want to take a quick detour on the programming and then we'll get into the methods. So when your lifts start to plateau on a three day per week program, I think you have two really good options. The first is heavy light medium. And the second is a four day split. So heavy light medium is if you want to continue working out three days a week. And what you're going to do is fluctuate the intensity, that's the weight on the bar, and the volume of your sessions throughout the week. And so instead of like squatting heavy three days a week, you're going to do for example, a heavy day, where the volume is low, you might have three sets in 85 or 95% of your max of your one RM we call it a load, right, and lower reps, like three to five reps. So this might be your three by five day, for example, then Wednesday might be a light day, this is where you're going to have maybe an extra set or two but at a moderate volume, it still might be three sets but it's going to be lighter weights, it's gonna be like 60 to 75% of your one RM little bit higher reps, let's say eight to 12 reps. And then you're going to have a medium day on Friday, which is kind of splitting the difference this is maybe maybe four sets and like 780 5% of your one hour for like six to eight reps right and and you can look this up you can google HLM heavy like medium. There's a million ways to do this. It was described really well in practical programming, which is like the sequel to starting strength. Look up any of Andy Baker's articles on the subject. The point is that By rotating these parameters, these training variables, it allows you to continue pushing on a weekly basis, but then maintain your strength on a session by session basis. And then it allows for more recovery. That's the point. So that's option one. The second option when you have to, when you've plateaued, is a four day split. And this is probably the most common thing that people do, it spreads out the fatigue a little more, it basically splits your body in half, usually like upper lower upper lower, so you do upper body on Monday, lower body on Tuesday, upper body on Thursday, lower body on Friday, that's the most typical, there's a lot of different ways to do it. But this now hits the muscle groups multiple times, but it's not like you're squatting every session. So you can technically add more volume to certain movements, because you're spreading it out. And the frequency ends up being two times per week for each muscle group. So an example of that would be on the upper days you would do maybe one that's focused on, well, here's the approach I like take the four big lifts, and just split them up across the four days as your main lifts. So bench on Monday, squat on Tuesday, press on Thursday, deadlift on Friday, that's just one example. You can arrange them however you want. But but make sure to have like, upper lower upper lower, lower, lower upper lower upper. And then you would have accessory lifts and direct or isolation work after those main lifts. So on bench day, you might then do an incline dumbbell bench after the flat barbell bench, and then have a couple other movements for your shoulders. And then maybe biceps, right. So I'm not going to get into more detail than that. The point is that now you can progress, continue to progress all your lifts while managing fatigue compared to the full body. And because you are for example, benching on Monday, even though you don't bench again to the next Monday, you are pressing on Thursday, and you're probably also doing some chest related work on both days anyway. So you're kind of maintaining your strength between the weeks right between the sessions. Okay, that's, that's more than I even wanted to get into on programming. Because even though programming is important, I think the principle of progressive overload, we want to focus more on the specific session based strategies, right that to provide that overload. And I'm gonna do that now. But before I do, I mentioned it earlier, friendly reminder, I created a detailed guide for you on progressive overload. To go with this podcast, just click the link in my show notes under episode resources, or go to wits. & weights.com/free. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique, and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. If we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. Here we go. So this is going to be organized by the types of ways you can progress. You can progress by increasing weight, reps, sets, intensity, or some combination of these variables. So I've got a lot in here again, this is an epic episode. So listen through all the way and you never know what you're gonna learn. How do we increase by weight? All right. The easiest way to do this with what we already talked about, just increase the amount of weight each session for your movement, add some increment, it might be two and a half 510 pounds, maybe it's 20 pounds when you're just getting started. And that's it. Simple. Okay, if you're a beginner, that's all you've got to do. You can almost not even listen to the rest of this episode, and you've got your game plan. Okay, another way to increase weight is to if you are logging your lifts, and you know what your last maximum was your last, let's say five rep max, which we would call your five rm and now you're doing another five, like three sets of five, for example. And your last three by five RM was, you know, 200 pounds now might maybe you aim for 205 pounds, even if it was several weeks or months ago, because you've been for example, rotating through different lifts and maintaining your strength on all those muscle groups. But now you want to come back to this specific lift and you Want to try to beat your, your weight from last time? All right. So that's another way to do it, that's more of an advanced strategy. But another way to increase weight is to base it off your percent of your one rep max. So if you know what your max is for the training cycle, right, let's say it's 375, on the deadlift, all right, and you want to do 80%, on RM, then you can do 80%. And then next time do 85%. And that next time 90% of the reps might change. And that's where we get into multiple training variables. But the idea here is that you can increase the weight based on a percentage, okay? That's really it for weight, it's kind of a simple variable, if you're gonna leave it at that now I'm gonna get into reps, this is where we start to make it more flexible. Yeah, more complicated, but more flexible. All right. Generally, when we're talking reps, we're talking about rep ranges, like if you are working in a range of eight to 12, very common rep range, all you're going to do is you're going to do, let's say,

Philip Pape  31:01

three sets of 10, this week. And then next week, if you kept the weight the same, you can hopefully do three sets of 11. That's, that's a simple way to increase reps. That's not typically the way that I do it. But that's one way to do it. The way that I do it is a rep range method, where you drop the load during your workout set to set to stay in that rep range. And then next time you work out, you increase the load, and you keep doing it until the reps fall so low that they're out of the rep range, and then you reset. So let me explain what I mean. Let's say you do three sets of eight to 12. And you 100 pounds, I don't know what a moron, I'm gonna say what movement we're doing, let's say you're lifting 100 pounds. And on the very first set, you're able to get 10 reps. And it's it's very hard to get those 10 reps, that's what we're talking about, right? It's very hard to you couldn't get an 11th REP. Or maybe you could have gotten 11. But we're talking direct isolation work here, for example, like bicep curls, you just max out and you get 10 reps. And then you take your rest period, let's say two or three minutes, on the next set, you should be able to get no more than 10. And probably you should only be able to get nine, eight or nine at that same weight. All right, so you do it, let's say you get eight. Now on the third rep, you have a choice. Since you're in the bottom of the rep range of eight to 12, you can either stay at that weight again, and you're not going to hit eight, you're going to hit like maybe six or seven. And that's okay to do if you want to do it that way. Or you drop the load by about 10%. So that you can stay within that eight to 12 rep range. And it's as simple as that then, next session, right, maybe it's a week later, the same movement, you increase the weight to let's say, 110 pounds, right 5% 10% depends on getting what movement we're talking about. So you get 110 pounds, and now you're able to get, let's say, nine reps. And then on the next one, you get seven reps, oh, now you're gonna drop the load to 100. And now maybe you get eight reps again. Alright, but you still got within that eight to 12 on the first set. So we're gonna increase the weight again next time, now we're gonna go up to 120. On the next session, you do 120. And that first set, you're only able to get seven reps. All right, you're going to drop the load to 110, try to get between eight to 12 Drop, drop it if you need it again to say it's 12. But that first set tells you it is time to reset. And so the next time you do the movement, you go back down to some weight higher than the last time you started the cycle between eight to 12. And that might be going back that might be going to 105 pounds. Remember, when we started this example, we were at 101 10 and 120. Maybe when you reset, you go to 105. Last time you got 10 reps at 100 pounds. This time, you're trying to get 10 reps again, at least, but at 105 pounds. So you see how it kind of rotates up and down and up and down. But generally trends upward over time. That is my preferred way to use rep ranges. So I wanted to spend a decent amount of time on it. Now, some other ways to use reps are for example, you can do your normal workout. And then on the last on the last set, you just go all out and do as many reps as possible to failure even if you weren't necessarily targeting failure on the first few sets, right? Another way to do it is to do ramp up sets actually increase the reps, when I already said that you're dropping the load and you're increasing the reps. So increase the relative intensity of the sets. So scratch what I just said. Okay, what I wanted to say here, let me be specific is you can keep the sets the same, but reduce the rest periods. That's what I wanted to go with this. So let's say three sets of, of 10. Right? But you reduce the rest periods between them from two to three minutes down to maybe 30 seconds. And we're going to talk about some of these intensity things later on. But when you do that, what's going to happen? Well, the reps are going to drop. So you can Drop the load to keep the reps the same. And you might have to drop it more than you would otherwise, knowing that you have less rest, go to them saying. So, intensity techniques we're going to talk about in a second. But I wanted to talk about reps. And I mentioned that rep range method I prefer, okay, hopefully I didn't lose everybody there. Let's talk about increasing now, by sets. Okay, sets is an interesting one, because you can't keep increasing sets forever, right? For for practical reasons, mainly, but also volume and fatigue, meaning if I'm doing three sets this week, then four sets, and five and six, I mean, if you get to 10 sets of an exercise, you're gonna be in the gym for three hours. And that just might be completely exhausting, right, but let alone the stress that you're trying to add. So however, I have run programs, where I will cycle for like four weeks, on an increasing set basis, and leave everything else the same. And then I will reset back to the original number of sets, but at a higher weight. So you might do three sets at whatever weight and reps, next week, same weight and reps, but just add a set the following week, add a set the following week and a set, and then you reset back to three sets but at a higher weight. So that's one way to do it.

Philip Pape  36:16

Another way to do it is to add extra sets at the end of whatever sets you have as like a top off at a higher weight. Now this is kind of the opposite of top set back off, which I'm going to talk about in a minute, this is actually doing like two or three sets, and then increasing the weight. And doing one more set really heavy. This came up in my research on this topic, this is a way to program it, it's not something that I personally like to use, I actually prefer the opposite. And that is the first set being heavier, and then a back off set being lighter. So let me explain how that works. And I really love this with bodybuilding programs, because it's very time efficient. And if you are training to failure effectively, like if you're really getting all those effective reps in, you may not need a third set. That's that's the goal here. So the idea is to follow your heavy top set with a lighter back offset. And the way this looks like is you would perform a, let's say you're doing barbell rows, right, you would do your work set at like three to five reps, at whatever weight it is to get three to five reps. So it's gonna be pretty heavy. And this targets strength in neuromuscular recruitment, all the stuff we talked about, then you take your rest period, maybe it's three minutes, maybe it's five minutes, and you reduce the weight by say 10 to 20%. And do it for like six to eight or eight to 10 reps, whatever makes sense for the load. And you might just have to do one back offset, maybe you do too, right. So maybe it's not just top set back off, it might be top set, multiple back offsets. I also like this approach, when there's a lot of fatigue from the movement. Like for example, if you've got a history of low back fatigue from your deadlifts, or your squats, but you want to keep pushing the top weight on the first set, you can do that and then use back offsets to manage the fatigue that way, you're you're hitting the stimulus, you're hitting the strength, but then you're still getting in some volume. So the intensity of the top set, combined with the kind of the metabolic stress of the back offsets gives you a nice stimulus, right. And this can be done for main lifts, or big compound lifts, for example. The only other way I can think of in terms of adding sets and progressing with sets is if you add like a a supplemental isolation movement, right after a compound lift, to just throw in some extra volume, but I mean, then you're just talking about you're doing another workout, you're just doing another exercise, but you're kind of building that, that muscle group, so to speak, in a way that where it's already warmed up. And now you're just kind of throwing in an extra set. Okay, so that brings me to intensity techniques, okay, and there are a lot of these, there are a lot of intensity techniques. And by intensity, I'm using it in a little more loose sense, not just weight on the bar, but actually overall stress. So one easy way to do this is to reduce your rest periods. And there are definitely advocates have who point to the science and I've seen kind of a mixed bag here, of why don't we just reduce all our rest periods go toward failure. And on the second and third set, we're gonna get way less reps, but we're getting effective reps, if you subscribe to the effective reps theory. Now others will say well, that's not the that's not the whole picture. There's something to be said by those earlier reps that contributes to hypertrophy. And so we should take full rest periods. My take on it is do a little both. Just have fun with both and add some variety. It's fun. If time is a big concern, then yeah, you can reduce your rest periods knowing that it's going to eat into the amount of reps you can get in the subsequent sets. Okay, so anyway, this is a variable that you can change. Most people I'm in my pay And don't rest long enough when they're when they're beginners and they're doing compound lifts, they're just not resting long enough. But later on, when you get into advanced techniques, this is a way to toggle the intensity. Another one is drop sets. Alright, so drop sets are simply doing a set, and then decreasing the weight, and then immediately doing another set without any rest, and then decreasing the weight and keep doing that. And you get like a huge pump that way, it's another way to kind of increase the intensity. Another one that I kind of alluded to already is called rest pause sets. And all this is is you do a set, you pause for no more than 15 to 20 seconds, and then you do your next set. And the idea is you shouldn't be able to do more than like half the reps of the last set when you do this. And the principle is, you've already exhausted the muscle or pre exhausted it, and now you're hitting just the effective reps. This comes from the dog crap. Yep, you heard that right, do G GCRA PP training method by Dante Trudel. And my coach, Andy Baker likes to use these and I find them a lot of fun, and they actually save time. So in some of your direct isolation work, it could be a good technique. Now there's a similar technique called Myo reps that you may or may have heard of, and seen on social media and bodybuilders and everything. It's a bit more complicated, you basically, you do an activation set, they call it and you go, just shy of failure, not quite failure, but then you rest for five seconds, but you rest for five seconds per rep that you were able to do. So let's say you did 10 reps. And it's like, you could have done 12. So you're just shy of failure, you would rest for 50 seconds. And then you would do many sets of like two to five reps with very short rest periods. And you just keep going until the performance just drops off a cliff and you're done. That's my rep said, that's the best way I could describe it. Again, I don't think it's too complicated. I just like rest, pause sets, just do a set, wait a short amount of time, do another way short amount of time do another easy. Okay, another way to increase intensity is very, it's controversial, I think because some people love it. Some people hate it, some people are like whatever. And that is an RPE, or an IR, our IR based approach. All right, RPE is rate of perceived exertion. And so it's on a scale of one to 10, a 10. RPE means you have no reps left in the tank, that's the most exertion exerting the set could be. The inverse of this is our IR rate reps in reserve, it's simply the opposite of RPE. So like, if RPE is one to 10, ar AR is 10 to one. So a 10 RPE is a zero, AR AR, you've got zero reps left in reserve in the tank, an eight RPE is going to be a two AR AR, you've got two reps. So you get what I'm saying. If you are very attuned to your body and your exertion level, and your ability to hit these numbers based on RPE, I guess you can use it like some of the some very skilled, effective, you know, bodybuilders and power lifters use this and some big names and people that I follow, including, like Dr. Eric Helms and others, have used these, you know, talk about these approaches and recommend them. So who am I to say, like, it's not going to work for you, I would say the big challenge here is that it's subjective. And I prefer things that are objective and repeatable. And so, you know, if, if the idea with RPE, and AR AR is to make sure you don't leave gains on the table, I like it for that, right. Like, if it pushes you, I kind of like it for that. But I think for a lot of people who use it prematurely, it does the opposite. It makes you think like, oh, okay, I'm gonna eight RPM done. And if if your coach or an experienced person saw you on video doing that, they say, Huh, that's like a six RPE, you probably had like two or three more reps to go. So I'm just putting it out there. If you're following that such a program, just make sure it's appropriate for you, and you're using it for the benefits that it provides. Okay. Another way to increase intensity is focusing on bar speed, right on velocity on power. This is focusing on faster contractions. So that's like on a bench press the contractions when you push the bar up. So for a benchpress continue with this example, you might lower the bar to normal one or two seconds rate, pause at the bottom for a second and then explode up. I actually use this approach on my what's called dynamic effort days for the Westside style conjugate program that I'm following, where we use a lot more sets, like eight or 10 sets of just a few reps, let's say two, three or four reps at a lighter weight, what you focus on pushing the bar really quickly in the contraction phase. So yeah, that's all I have to say about that. Again, there's there's controversy about how effective this is. If you're not very strong, how effective is it? Should you be measuring the volume with like apps and sensors and all that, if you want to get into all that go for it? I think it's very limited application to people who know how to use it, and I will do Then at that, okay, then we have tempo work, right? This is where, okay, so I'm not necessarily a fan of like going super slowly, in the full range, like, for example with a squat, going down slowly. And then I mean, I'm sorry, I'm not a big fan of slow, concentric. That's what I meant to say.

Philip Pape  45:22

The and I think I said contraction. In my last example, I meant to say concentric, but you know what I mean? I'm a fan of a slow eccentric with a pause, and then a fast concentric, if you're going to do tempo work, the pause, especially I think, is where the magic is because you stop the stretch reflex. So for example, pause squats with a squat safety bar or front squat, really good for a quad dominant pump, right? Like, if you want to really hit the quads hard from a hypertrophy perspective, you do a safety bar, squat down slowly, you pause for good, like second are to where all the momentum is taken out. And then you push up as fast as you can, as you know, and that's where you're kind of combining bar speed and power with tempo work to get a little bit of extra intensity. This, this could also work if you have dumbbells, and you just don't have heavier dumbbells, you could slow it down, right? Put a pause in there, slow down the E centric and then explode up. Okay, continuing on mind muscle connection. The mind muscle connection is one of these bro science things that I think has a lot of validity. The idea being that if you just turn off the music, turn off the podcast, sit with your thoughts and listen to your body and look at them muscle and really think through the full range of motion of the eccentric, and the concentric of the movement and contract throughout the movement, tighten your muscle, I think of bicep curls, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, right talks about that all the time, like looking at your muscle and imagining that it's growing right before your eyes. And I've seen plenty of guys, women too, who they'll do a bicep curl. And it's like, they don't even go all the way down. And it kind of just flinging it up and down. What I want you to do next time you do a bicep curl or anything like it is slowly go down to the full almost where you're locked out, but not quite that full lengthened movement in the bicep, look at the bicep, and the whole time, I want you to be contracting the bicep on the way down and on the way up, not just on the way up. In other words, don't become soft on the way down, contract all the way down, hauled in nice and bring it up. Okay, that mind muscle connection approach you might find greatly increases the intensity of how you were doing it before. And now you get more out of the movement for the same load. So that's my muscle connection as a whole. That's a whole topic in and of itself. Alright, then we have pre exhaustion techniques. And this is where I'm not talking about warm ups here. Like if you do a lift and you warm up the lift to the point where you're ready to go. I don't think of that as pre exhaustion, I think of that as like getting getting ready to where you can get the most out of it. Pre exhaustion is where you do something like an isolation exercise, right, like let's say a tricep exercise, before you do a compound lift, like bench press. So now you've exhausted you've pre exhausted the triceps, which is a key muscle involved in the bench press. And now the bench press is more challenging. And the the stress moves to a different part of the benchpress. Right, because now for example, your triceps become the bottleneck. And so and maybe it's not the triceps that you want to do it maybe you want to pre exhaust the your pecs with like flies or something. There's a lot of different ways to do it. But it could make the compound lift more challenging and in a different way, so you get something different out of it. Okay, the next one is called post activation potentiation. Okay, now this one's a little bit weird, but not weird, but I mean, it sounds technical. All it is, is performing a heavy strength movements, before you do a similar explosive movement. I mean, honestly, the easiest way to think of this is like overload. So do heavy strength movement, that's maybe two or three rm and then go much lighter, like a top set back off. But another way to think of it as doing a for example, rack pole, which is a partial range of motion deadlift, very heavy, but then do a lighter deadlift or power clean, and see if it enhances the performance of the ladder because of the increased activation of the former, just one of those things that are out there. Okay, just a couple more in this in this group, I told you this would be a lot accommodating resistance. This is where you add bands or chains. And what this does is it changes the resistance curve, it makes the lift more challenging at the points where the muscle is typically stronger. So for example, if you put bands on a barbell and connected to the bottom pegs of a power rack into a squat, it's going to be the the band is going to stretch and be really tight at the top of the squat. And that's where you're usually stronger as well, right? The sticking point is down at the bottom. So now you're adding challenge we're going Normally, it would be less challenging. That's the idea with bands or chains. There are arguments as to whether this is even effective for people who are not that strong. So this comes from the west side, you know, conjugate method, look into it, if it's something you want to try, there's, there's all sorts of ways to do that, with your deadlifts, with your bench with your squat. And then the last one under intensity techniques is intentionally overreaching. If you're feeling it, and overreaching, I'm using that term carefully, as opposed to overtraining overreaching is, if you know your body really well, if you're an advanced trainee, and you've been doing these lifts for a while, and now all of a sudden, you just feel extremely ahead of it ahead of it this week, like, I don't know you've over adapted, you just feel stronger, intentionally doing a little bit more, right? Maybe more on the weight depends on if you're like, in a program where you test your one RM that day. Because if you're not, I would just stick with whatever was programmed, but you know, getting an extra rep, even adding an extra set, these are options are always on the table. Like if I feel if I'm doing three sets of whatever, and I do the third set, I'm like, You know what, I'm gonna throw in another set in there, I feel that that's gonna be really helpful to me today. And I'm feeling fresh and ready to go, I'm gonna do it. So that's all, that's all that is. Alright, so some of these training variables can be combined in different ways as well, that I wanted to mention. So we're going to do that now. And then we're going to conclude with talking about fat loss. So stay tuned for that. So one, one method is called double progression. And I already alluded to this, basically, where if you're doing a rep range, you can, you can either increase the reps, or increase the weight, and lower the reps. And so you've got two variables going on. Honestly, there's so many different configurations where you can do that. And each coach will tell you something different. The way that I described earlier is the way I like to do it. But again, you can progress however you want. The second thing is called pyramid sets, or ascending sets. And this is actually increasing the increasing the weight each set, while the reps come down. Now, as I mentioned before, I like to reduce the weight and keep the reps in the range. But there is a technique where you increase the weight and the reps come way down. For straps, let's talk about this. These are cheater reps, okay, there's, this is a controversial area as well, in something like bicep curls, where you can just go to failure and then do one more rep with a little bit of momentum. I mean, is it going to hurt you probably not, isn't going to be effective, and maybe not. But maybe. And so there's, there's mixed evidence on whether like, it's even worth doing the cheater reps given the chance of, of injury. And, you know, like the cost benefit isn't really there. So they're, they're even forced reps in the context of having a spotter or an assistance, where, like on benchpress, you know, you do your last rep, and then you're on your last rep to failure, and you can't get it up and your spotter kind of helps you get it up. Again, I'm not sure there's much of a benefit to that. But I wanted to mention it because it is out there as an option. We talked about drop sets, so I'm not going to repeat that. And then there's something called stripping sets where you reduce the weight, you reduce the weight between sets. So it's kind of like drop sets, but you keep the reps constant. I mean, it's basically drop sets, trying to keep the weight constant. So you'd have to drop the right amount so that the reps stay the same. That's hard to do. So I would just go with normal drop sets. Okay. That's it for all the methods I hope that wasn't like ridiculously long or detailed. But what I want to do now, the last topic I want to address is, how do you train during a fat loss phase, aka, I'm gonna cut bro. Training for progressive overload during a calorie deficit is achievable. And I would say it's essential, like the principle of it is essential if you want to maintain your muscle mass. Now, if you're a rank beginner, you might be able to gain strength and muscle during a cut. Right? It's not optimal, you're better off being at maintenance or in a surplus. For most people, we're just trying to hold on to what we've got. And so the strategies might differ a little bit from those used during maintenance or bulking phase because of the reduced energy. But they're not that much different. But I am going to talk about the differences right now. Regardless, you are still training as if you are able to build muscles. So the the mental state is still geared toward progressive overload, alright. The primary goal during a cut is to maintain strength, and this preserves muscle mass. And strength tends to be the first thing to go followed by muscle mass. So even if you're not increasing your lifts, if you can keep them where they are, if you can keep them consistent, that is a form of overload relative to your bodyweight because you're losing weight. So don't forget that some people forget that like, Oh, my goodness, my list have stalled. But I lost five pounds or I lost 10 pounds actually, in that case, they in relative terms, they really haven't stalled you've actually gotten you've actually maintained or maybe gotten a little stronger relative to your weight. The second intensity, this is a big misunderstood area of cutting of training during a cut. And that is we want to focus on maintaining intensity, the weight on the bar. Rather than trying to increase volume during a cut. In fact, you may end up having to reduce volume, maybe not. But recovery is impaired because you don't have the calories coming in. So intensity is the most important rather than volume. Okay, the next thing during the cut is something called autoregulation. And we've already talked about different methods of autoregulation. But this is you being able to adjust your training intensity and volume within the session based on how you're doing that day. So that you don't overreach or overtraining, right. So like rep ranges are already a way to auto regulate in a way, because it's not, you're not just going for fixed sets and reps at a particular weight, you got some flexibility there, you can change the load between sets, right, that's one way to do it. Another way to do it is to find your max for that session on a lift, and then base, the remaining sets on that Max and the max might be lower than it was last time, but relative intensity is still there. Another thing I want you to focus on during the cut, because you don't have enough recovery capacity is efficiency in your workouts, quality over quantity. This is where you can experiment with some of what we talked about, like the mind muscle connection, or shorter, more intense sessions, or just having two compound lifts. And one accessory instead of you know, two compound lifts and accessory and two or three direct movements, right just kind of shortening the number of exercises, but really focusing on quality. We talked about progressive overload as being not just about the stimulus or the stress, but also about the recovery. So you get the adaptation. And during a cut recovery becomes a harder resource to come by. And so it's even more important that you get enough sleep, that you manage your stress that you're hydrated enough, right? To maximize that recovery, you should be doing those things always. But it becomes that much more crucial during a fat loss phase. And then the last thing is even small progressions, like adding a rep, or slightly increasing weight can be significant when you're in a deficit for some of the reasons we already talked about. So when you're cutting, it's important to have realistic expectations, right? The rate of progress is not going to be the same as it is during maintenance or a surplus. So the focus is more on intensity, quality, and maintaining as much lean mass as possible. And of course recovery. It's like finding that sweet spot where you're providing enough stimulus to maintain muscle without over taxing the system. Okay, I think we're on coming up on an hour. Now, we covered a lot of detail today. But I think it was necessary to thoroughly explain the what, why and how of progressive overload. And here's the thing, if you're a beginner, don't be overwhelmed, you have the easiest job in the world. And that is just push the weight up session after session in a linear fashion to get much stronger in a matter of months, and pack on your first five to 15 pounds of muscle. And then when your list start to plateau, you'll be able to expand your programming, do more techniques as an intermediate lifter to keep the gains coming. And here's the thing, you've got this beautiful epic episode that you can always refer back to, for the many ways to do that. Or you can always reach out to me, you can schedule a free 30 minute results breakthrough session using the link in my show notes. This is a 30 Minute totally free call no selling or pitching you on my coaching whatsoever. We're just going to map out your specific strategy for nutrition or training whatever you need the most help with. And I can point you in the right direction when it comes to training effectively using progressive overload so that you can make progress. And again the link to schedule a free call is in my show notes. I always have a few slots each week. All right in our next episode 125 peptides, hormone therapy, medical esthetics and personalized wellness with Kristin Jim. We discuss peptides, hormone therapy, medical weight loss, and other ways to complement lifestyle interventions to optimize your health. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast.

Philip Pape  59:23

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Ep 123: Why You're Not Achieving Your Fitness Goals with Mike Millner

What's REALLY holding you back from achieving your fitness goals? Is a short-term focus on "weight loss" setting you up for long-term failure?

Today, I'm extremely excited to welcome to the show Mike Millner, a high-level nutrition coach and a business coach who has a gift for understanding the personality-based needs of his clients and where people are in their journey.

In this episode, Mike and I unpack the DNA of success to understand why so many of us fail at hitting our health and fitness goals. Transformation goes beyond calories in and calories out, all the way to the hidden barriers that hold us back. We're talking about the mental game. This is a 'how-to-crush-your-goals-and-redesign-your-identity’ conversation.

Coach Mike has experienced the highs and lows of dieting and fitness and has learned how to overcome the psychological barriers and challenges that prevent most people from achieving their goals. He is the founder of Peak Optimization Performance or POP and the voice behind the top-rated Mind Over Macros podcast, where he shares his insights and expertise on nutrition, training, and, most importantly, mindset. He aims to help as many people as possible navigate life as healthy individuals in a sustainable and enjoyable way.

Episode summary:

When it comes to physical transformation, most people focus on diet and exercise. But, as our guest, Mike Millner, a seasoned coach talks about how mental evolution plays a critical role in achieving and maintaining physical change.

Mike brings to the table his wealth of experience in fitness and dieting, along with a deep understanding of the psychological aspects involved in the process of transformation. He delves into the often overlooked aspect of mental evolution that accompanies physical change. Understanding and addressing the mental aspect can make the difference between a temporary transformation and a permanent one.

He also shares his personal experiences with the diet industry's messaging around weight loss. Often, these messages focus on quick fixes and extreme methods, which, while they may bring short-term results, do not lead to sustainable weight loss. Mike stresses the importance of looking at the big picture, such as understanding energy balance and having a long-term plan for success.

Sustainable weight loss is a challenge that many people face. Mike addresses this by explaining the importance of viewing weight loss as an infinite game. There are no set rules or end score. Instead, it's about creating lifelong habits that are sustainable and enjoyable. He also discusses the importance of resource allocation and how unnecessary spending of finite resources, like willpower and time, can hinder our progress.

Another key topic that Mike delves into is the importance of recovery for mental health. Stress is an inevitable part of life, and without proper recovery, it can take a toll on our mental health. Mike shares his insights on recognizing when our bodies need more rest and how different modalities can aid in recovery and relaxation.

The psychology of goal achievement is another area that Millner explores. The fear of success can often hold us back from achieving our goals. Mike shares his thoughts on this fear and how to overcome it through mental reframing. He discusses the importance of having a support system in place, expressing gratitude, and making decisions that align with our desired outcomes.

Mike’s insights into the mental aspect of physical transformation are invaluable for anyone looking to make lasting changes. His focus on creating sustainable health habits, understanding the role of mental evolution, and exploring the psychology of goal achievement provides a comprehensive approach to mastering physical transformation through mental evolution.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[3:01] The moment his mindset shifted to confidence
[5:25] Mental vs. physical transformation
[8:17] Energy balance and CICO in long-term goals
[13:18] "Grit" vs. willpower in goal setting
[16:01] Top psychological barriers to fat loss
[18:21] Use of SMART goals and other theories
[23:23] Mental cycles, like training cycles
[26:35] How "mental diet" affects physical health
[30:01] Fear of success in fitness
[34:59] Power of language and self-talk
[39:16] Gratitude and positive psychology
[42:30] Short-term wins vs. life-long habits
[45:35] Mindset in muscle building
[48:21] What would Mike be doing if he didn't become a fitness coach
[50:33] Where to learn more about Mike and his work
[51:21] Outro

Episode resources:

• Mike's podcast – Mind Over Macros

• IG - @coach_mike_millner
  

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching

👩‍💻👨‍💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.

📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Mike Millner  00:00

You're not measuring success against, did I hit my macros perfectly? Did I work out seven days this week? Did I follow this, you know, supplement routine, like it's not 10 different things. It's just very basic three things. And now you give yourself credit. When you complete those three things you follow through on your commitment card. And what that does is it solidifies the behavior because you get a dopamine response when you complete the task, and it builds self trust and every time you follow through on those commitments that you make to yourself, you're just making little deposits into that self trust bank account.

Philip Pape  00:34

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today, I'm extremely excited to welcome to the show Mike Milner, a high level nutrition coach and a business coach of mine who has a gift for understanding the personality based needs of his clients and where people are in their journey. He was gracious enough to have me on his show mind over macros, and I wanted to bring him on to share his vast experience as a coach. In this episode, Mike and I are unpacking the DNA of success. To understand why so many of us fail at hitting our health and fitness goals. Transformation goes way beyond calories in calories out all the way to the hidden barriers that hold us back. And so we are talking about the mental game. This isn't just another how to lose weight talk. This is a how to crush your goals and redesign your identity kind of conversation. Now imagine being on every end of the spectrum when it comes to dieting, overweight, insecure, skinny, fat and embarrassed to step foot in the gym. How would you feel? How would you cope? How would you change? That's exactly what my guest today has gone through in his own personal journey. Coach Mike has experienced the highs and lows of dieting and fitness. And he's learned how to overcome the psychological barriers and challenges that prevent most people from achieving their goals. Mike's the founder of peak optimization, performance or pop, and the voice behind the very popular mind over macros podcast, where he shares his insights and expertise on nutrition training. And most importantly, mindset. His goal is to help as many people as possible navigate through life as a healthy individual in a way that's sustainable and enjoyable. Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike Millner  02:35

Thanks so much. That was definitely the best intro I've ever received on a show. So

Philip Pape  02:41

that's the goal here, man, and it's well deserved. And you've talked about that journey a lot on your podcast, you know, not just being overweight, but also feeling ashamed dealing with orthorexia trying and failing over and over again, and then eventually finding, you know, balance some sense of balance, right, and empowerment over your health to the point where you can help others. So what was the pivotal moment that to use your words shifted your beliefs, from uncertainty, from insecurity to confidence in achieving your goals? Yeah, really,

Mike Millner  03:11

if I had to distill it down to one moment, it would be actually asking for help and getting the support that I needed. I tried, you know, I think I was very driven by my own ability to figure things out, almost to the point of stubbornness. And maybe you could call it just, you know, ego, because I felt like, you know, I, I grew up an athlete, I was very competitive, you know, I like to win. And so it was like that mindset, like, well, if I fail a diet, it's my fault, because I just need to try harder, I just need to be more disciplined, I just need to have more willpower. And I know that I can do this, I know that I can, can quote unquote, win. And it just kept me in this perpetual cycle of failing and blaming myself and being like, why can't you do this? Why can't you be successful? So it really was a moment of just, why do I feel the need to just continue to struggle and put myself in a position where my life was literally crumbling around me, where I was impacting relationships that were important to me, where I was losing people that I loved, because of my obsession with trying to lose weight. And I had a horrible relationship with my body had a horrible relationship with food, horrible relationship with exercise. And I was, quite frankly, just alone. And it was just me and my chicken and broccoli, and I was watching everything else fall apart. And yeah, it was it was really that kind of rock bottom moment where I was like, I got I need, I need some help. So the pivotal moment for me was really asking for support and finding a coach and mentor that actually poured into, to me to give me the belief and the permission to to fail and to try again and and to recognize that, you know, even though you know, maybe it wasn't my fault that a lot of those diets were unsuccessful. It was it was my responsibility to do things differently if I wanted a different outcome and it was really that shift of, you know, belief and support and accountability and permission to be myself and to do things my own way. That was was the catalyst for the change that I needed to make. Yeah,

Philip Pape  05:12

so what I'm hearing from you it's not about the process necessarily the How're the nuts and bolts, the nitty gritty it was the accountability and the support. Like you said, ego and stubbornness. I talk all the time in this podcast about how just just seeing a coach for one session can can blow your mind in terms of what not only what you learned, but the different perspective and how somebody can help move you forward. Would you say that your How did your mental evolution mirror your physical changes? Did they go hand in hand really was did one come first in this mental shift? Did this accountability and finding help really drive the physical changes eventually?

Mike Millner  05:48

Yeah, it's a good question. I think when you know, the the first time I had a two hour Skype session with Kristian Thibodeau. So he was my first mentor, that really, really opened my eyes. And he did not charge me anything for it. He, you know, I followed him and read his articles on tea nation, and a lot of like, the psychology based work that he was doing just resonated with me, because that's, that's the way that my brain works. I love to know the why and the how behind things, why are humans the way that we are? Why do we do the things that we do? And he explains a lot of that in his writing. So I reached out to him on a whim, thinking there's no way that this guy's you know, big shot T nation writer has lied to me, not only did he reply right away, but he's like, Hey, here's my Skype, you know, message me, or let's set up a Skype call and sat on the call with me for two hours. And the first question, as I'm going over my journey, the first question was, have you ever considered that all the things that you've been trying, like, weren't actually built for you? And I was like, No, I actually have not considered seems so obvious when you say like, yeah, of course. But I was like, the classic, like, just tell me the rules, and I'm gonna follow the rules. But he's like, Have you ever considered that those rules, like weren't actually meant for you? And I was like, No, truthfully, I haven't. So is, it was that just a little shift in perspective to be like, Oh, my God, there's this whole other possibility out there that I didn't even consider that maybe I've been barking up the wrong tree, that I need to actually understand what my body responds to what fits my disposition and my personality and my unique characteristics and values and traits, and, you know, everything from from the physical to the mental. And so it was really that belief shift that opened my eyes. So I think that, if I didn't have the belief, I don't think the physical acts would have followed. But it was just that little bit of hope that there was a light at the end of the tunnel led me on the path to changing some of the things that I was doing physically and, and looking at it through the lens of sustainability and permanent results in a lifestyle shift and identity shifts. So I would have to say that the the mental frame had to come first before the physical frame could follow.

Philip Pape  07:51

And that makes a lot of sense, because you've talked about how you went through physical transformations in the past, they just didn't stick. Right. As we all have, we might know exactly what we think we need to do, and even take the action to do it. And still, somehow, it doesn't stick. So I'm just gonna repeat what you just said, quote, have you considered all the things you've been trying were not meant for you? Right? I think that's really important. So let's talk about kind of distinction between what people think works fit in the physical realm, versus what what the big picture really says, let's talk about energy balance, right? We know that calories in calories out is the physics behind weight loss behind fat loss. But we also know from coaching real human beings. And like you just said that that's just a tiny piece of the picture when it comes to getting your goals. And a lot of this stuff is unhelpful, without context. Where does it fit in here? What's the bigger picture when it comes to actually achieving your goals for the long term?

Mike Millner  08:48

Yeah, I think the problem with energy balance in that conversation is it really does present things through a short term lens. And I don't think that there's ever the context of like, what's what's the Forever plan? I think we're so I think the biggest shift that needs to be made as a whole for somebody to really be successful. And when I say success, I mean, you reach your goals, and you stay there. Because we typically don't have weight loss issues. We have weight maintenance issues. And I think a lot of the things that are perpetuated in social media on the Internet, wherever you're getting your information is it's a very short term lens. It's a very, you know, it's six week challenges. It's 30 day detoxes, even the calorie balance equation, you know, factually speaking, yes, we have to be in a in an energy deficit in order to lose weight, but it just don't. It's not it's not the type of thing where you eat less, and then you just ride it out forever. And that's, that's the Forever plan. So nobody ever talks about that, like, this is a very short term intervention. And I find that message to be more damaging than helpful. Because what most people do when they hear that message is they start trying to eat less, and then they try to eat less and less and less and they try to extend the timeline of eating less and Annette and a inevitably they break and they reach that tipping point because they don't understand, like your body is trying to survive, your body's trying to adapt to the signals that you're sending it. So when you start moving less, because you have less energy, when you have more cravings when your hunger is through the roof, when you're fatigued, when you have hormonal imbalances, when you lose your sex drive, when you're getting sick more frequently, all of those can be a product of putting too much stress on your system. And eating less is a stress on the system. And I just don't think that we paint enough context where we deliver that message to say, what's the long term plan, if somebody, I think it should be a requirement that if somebody is going to put out the message of calories in calories out, it has to be followed up with the caveat of this is a very short term intervention. And if you don't know how to transition out of that, into maintenance, to restore homeostasis, to give your body what it needs to thrive long term, then we're really doing everyone a disservice.

Philip Pape  10:52

Yeah, and I think if you put it before that, you know, a fat loss phase is not fun, you know, it's not meant to be this enjoyable thing that you stick with forever. But I do what I want to peel back the onion a little bit on the weight loss messaging overall, like on this show, I've tend to use the term fat loss more than weight loss these days. But I know it's prevalent in the industry. And I know it helps with marketing and things like that. What are your thoughts on the phrase in general, and the fact that people put so much importance into weight loss? Yeah, I

Mike Millner  11:20

think, you know, again, it's the diet industry is very smart. Like you have people who are marketing geniuses, really. And that's why the industry is up to I think 80 billion annually. So they're doing something, quote unquote, right, depending on your definition of right, if you measure it by financial success, then sure, but if you measure it on permanent results, then I would say that it's pretty harmful. But as long as people keep feeding into that message, meaning when we talk about weight loss, we make promises about how much weight you can lose in the shortest amount of time, I was the most susceptible person to that marketing, when I was in the depths of my dieting phases and years, it was the, the quicker the results, the more bold the results, because again, like it fed my ego of oh, I can do that, like I can win in the next six weeks and lose, you know, 3040 pounds, I'm gonna get after it and be perfect. And you know, it does, it creates a disordered mindset, it really does. And it and it's almost a guarantee that if you take that, that approach, you're going to gain the weight back, and you're going to feel worse, and you're going to set yourself up for a more difficult road ahead. Because the more that we lose weight and gain it back, the more that we restrict and deprive ourselves, it does make it harder in the future to improve your body composition. So I think that, you know, the difference between weight loss and fat loss, obviously, there's a major difference. Even the fat loss messaging, I think, really what we should be talking about is permanent results, sustainable results, enjoyable results, lifelong results, however you want to frame it, whether we're talking weight loss, or they're talking fat loss, we're talking about getting leaner, more tone, looking more athletic, like whatever phrase resonates with you. And you're like, Yes, that's what I want. Let's make sure that we package it in a permanent sustainable way.

Philip Pape  13:09

Yeah, no, I love that. And like, the phrase I use is looking like you lift right. And it's okay for it to be about physique. But like you said, it's got to be something that's sustainable. Some people hear that and then they think, Okay, does that mean, I have to have willpower discipline in those things forever, right. And I know, you're probably familiar with Angela Duckworth and her work on grit, that grit and perseverance stick with it. And this is important for achieving a goal. What are your thoughts on that? And maybe it's distinct from willpower and discipline. But just just tell us about your thoughts there?

Mike Millner  13:43

Yeah, I think a lot of times, there's characteristics that get thrown around that we do need. But I think that sometimes we unnecessarily tax those systems. And like, any resource is a finite resource. And so whether we're talking about energy, attention, time, money, you know, there's always a trade off. And there's always a limited amount of that given resource. So where I'm putting energy to where I'm putting attention to, it's taking away from something else. So it better be something that's important and meaningful. And the reason why I say that is because, you know, I have this concept of resource allocation. And I think a lot of times we don't even look at, where are we spending unnecessary resources that could be put to better use elsewhere. So if you're, if you're, you know, signing up for a program, and it requires 24/7 willpower, that's a horrible use of the resources willpower, if it requires you to, you know, you know, kind of grit your teeth and white knuckle, your way through it, eventually, you're gonna run out of that resource. So if we look at everything through that lens, it's like, you know, going in with a full tank of gas, like if I can get to my destination, using less gas, why wouldn't Why wouldn't I choose that path? So that's the way that I perceive discipline willpower. Do we need them absolutely But we all have them and we can all build them. And we can find ways to not rely on them. So one of the most effective strategies for willpower is to not need it as frequently. And if you don't need it as frequently, you have it in the moment you have a full tank of willpower guess when you really need it, in those friction point moments that oftentimes we struggle with, we struggle in those stressful, hectic, quote unquote, life got in the way situations, oftentimes, because we unnecessarily drained that willpower battery, and we had nothing left when when that friction point hit.

Philip Pape  15:33

Yeah, finite resources. And that's interesting, because a friend of mine texted me the other day. And, you know, I challenged the notion that we needed we needed to do everything really hard and grind all the time. He's like, Well, isn't that what it takes to succeed? I'm like, You're gonna, you're gonna hit a wall, right? If you have to do that constantly. I think if you if you're right at the edge, if you expand your comfort zone, you can find that sweet spot to doing that. So I love that message. And when you think about people who are successful, what would you say is the most common barrier here psychologically, to whether X, you know, trying to lose fat, keep it off, whatever it is this sustainable long term results? Yeah, it's

Mike Millner  16:14

the biggest barrier is viewing it as an infinite game. It's viewing it taking away the finish line, taking away the, you know, oh, this is a means to an end. If I just do this for x amount of time, then I'm gonna live happily ever after. It's, you have to truly view this as like winning the game is just by continuing to play the game. There's no set rules, there's no, there's no end score, you know, there's no finish line. And I think that's the biggest mental roadblock, I think so frequently, we're like, alright, well, I'm going to do this thing for a short amount of time for a short term result, because I'm, I'm really frustrated with how I look. And I don't like the way how, you know, my clothes don't fit well. So I'm gonna rip the band aid off for six weeks, I'm gonna get this fat off. And then I'm gonna go back to doing me, and unfortunately, going back to doing it is what got you in a position where you're uncomfortable. So unless we change the lifelong habits, and it was funny, because I was interviewed on a podcast yesterday, and the interviewer was asking about my own routine, and how how I incorporate balance and flexibility. And I totally like, it didn't even cross my mind about all the foundational habits that are just second nature, because there's such like, it's such routine for me to get 10,000 steps a day, it's such a routine for me to drink water. It's such a routine, eat quality food, and I don't even think about it. So like my mind didn't even go there until I was like, wait a minute, I feel like I missed all of this context, that's really important. So that long term, like I have to become the person who values intentional movement, I have to become the person who prioritizes quality food, I have to become the person who cares about sleep and stress management. And it's that long term lens, that is the biggest roadblock for most people.

Philip Pape  17:57

Yeah, and it sounds like the balance is not necessarily that you've learned to balance everything per se, it's just that you've built up each habit, piece over piece over time to where it's just your routine. In fact, it's within your comfort zone, it sounds like at this point, whereas for others, it's you know, if they're starting here, they hear that you do these 20 things every day that they don't do, you don't just jump there, right? He takes small, small steps. So just in concrete terms, what are some strategies or methods people can use to put in place these habits, right, and I know there are a lot of leading theories that you hear about all the time, there's SMART goals, their self determination theory, tiny habits, nudging you name it, and it can be overwhelming. What's helpful for folks,

Mike Millner  18:41

so my, my philosophy is, every process of change has to start with awareness, awareness precedes change. And if you're not aware of the gap that exists, then it's going to be really difficult and you're going to find yourself making those mistakes, like you mentioned, trying to do everything at once, which is another one of the biggest mistakes that people make. It's the classic New Year's mindset, like well, I you know, I didn't eat well over the holidays, I gained 10 pounds, new year new me, I'm gonna change everything all at once, because we vision, this perfect version of ourselves. And that creates a dopamine response in the brain, it's really exciting to think about how fit and happy we're going to be and how lean we're going to look. And you know, the summer is going to roll around, I'm going to rock my favorite bathing suit. All these things play out in our brains and just the thought, and the visualization gives you that dopamine hit that our brains crave. And so it's really exciting to be like, alright, well here we go, I'm gonna, you know, I'm going to cut my calories, going to eat more protein, I'm going to go for walks, I'm going to lift weights, I'm going to be in the gym every day, I'm going to take my supplements, drink my water, get my sleep like all at once, but that is impossible to sustain. And so the first part of that is creating awareness around the gap that exists between where you are and where you want to be. And an easy way to do that is just think about the person that you want to become like we have that vision of the person that We want to become and that's all the The nice part about it is it's through your own personal lens. It's a vision based off your own value and you know, value system, your value hierarchy. So when you think about that person that you want to become like, what does that person do? What are their habits? How would they handle stressful situations? What is their nutrition look like? What physical appearance like? What are all these things and characteristics that exist within the person that you want to become? And now that we have that list, now we can look at what are you doing now. And now we have a clear gap between the person you want to become the person you are now, the key here is that you have to be the one to decide what's the most doable, because that's going to be different, I could take the same exact list for 10 different people and say, Hey, of this list, like what's the easiest thing for you to improve upon what's the easiest habit for you to instill. And I might get 10 different answers. For some people, it might be really overwhelming to think about getting to the gym four days a week for other people, that might be easy. For some people, it might be really difficult to think about, you know, daily walk, because they have a really sedentary job, or whatever the case may be. But for other people that might be like, hey, you know what I can, I can set an alarm and walk for 10 minutes every day, no problem. So the key is, you're the one that's choosing, which you know, maybe one two, at most three action items you want to start to instill. And then actually put it down, like, create a little commitment card for yourself, put it down on paper, grab a sticky note, put it on your computer, something that you can remind yourself of like, this is this is what a successful day looks like. For me, it's two to three things, you know, maybe it's one nutrition thing, one mindset thing and one training thing or movement thing, it's like, I'm gonna eat protein with breakfast, I'm gonna get a 10 minute walk in, and I'm going to, you know, have a moment of gratitude every single day. And those are my three things. And that's what success looks like. And that way, you're not measuring success against, did I hit my macros perfectly? Did I work out seven days this week, did I follow this, you know, supplement routine, like it's not 10 different things. It's just very basic, three things. And now you give yourself credit. When you complete those three things you follow through on your commitment card. And what that does is it solidifies the behavior because you get a dopamine response when you complete the task. And that's how we solidify new habits. And it builds self trust. And every time you follow through on those commitments that you make to yourself, you're just making little deposits into that self trust bank account. Because we're all too comfortable with breaking promises that we make to ourselves. And the more that we do it, the easier that it gets. And the less that you believe yourself when you say you're going to do something. So we've got to reverse that we have to continue to build self trust through following through on those commitments that we make deposits

Philip Pape  22:48

in yourself Trust Bank account. I love that because you're right, a lot of times we're maybe trying to please someone else, or maybe trying to meet some standard that isn't right for us at the time. And you said that it starts with awareness, awareness precedes change. Where do you want to be? You know, Adam Borenstein, he came up with a book recently where he talks about the comfort zone and the expanded comfort zone and then the extreme comfort zone and it's like, you know, you're trying to jump over here instead of here. So a guy somebody comes in, and they they're eating 50 grams of protein, they want to eat 150 And they want to do it every day. You can't just jump to that. And you got to take the tiny step. So I think that's great, Mike, I like analogy. So you know, how we use new, we use nutritional periodization. Right? And, and that's part of a way to take stress off the body to recover to focus on extremes for a short time, like you said, with fat loss and then take a break. Is there something like that for the mind, right, like, psychological periodization model, right, where you go all out developing and growing your mental skills, then you take time to recover, take some stress off. Just curious if you've thought of it that way?

Mike Millner  23:50

Well, any any, anything that we want to improve upon it actually, the process of improvement happens through the rest and recovery period, you can't just kind of like push the gas pedal and you know, reach the finish line or acquire a new skill. So like, when you try to learn an instrument, it's very mentally tasking, taxing, you know, you're, you don't know your brain and your muscles aren't quite firing or like, this is a whole new thing. You're trying to learn how to read music, you're, there's a lot of mental energy that's being expended in that process of learning. You don't learn it, when you're sitting there playing, you actually learn it when you're sleeping, when you're recovering. When you give your brain the time to assimilate all that information that was just overloaded. And it's like, Okay, let me file this stuff away. And then we can retrieve it easier the next time. But that process takes time. So like everything, everything that we do, there needs to be a heavy dose of recovery. And it's, you know, sometimes it's a little bit intangible, because certain things can be a stressor on one individual and distressing for another individual. So, an example is if I am taking a walk, and I'm in nature I'm admiring. Oh my God, look at how beautiful the trees are. Look at the sky, this is wonderful. That's going to be very calming and soothing. It's going to put me into that rest and digest state. Another individual is walking, and they're thinking, Oh my God, I don't know if I paid this bill, oh my god, I have this deadline that's due, I have so much work on my play. Oh, what am I kids up to, I got to check in I got to do it like, that's going to be very stressful, same exact activity, just different thought process, one's going to be a stressor, one's going to be stress relief. So it's sometimes a little bit intangible but but an easy thing to consider is that any period of stress should be followed up by an equal dose, or an extra dose of recovery. And if we can at least try to process things that process things through that lens, it becomes a little bit more actionable. Because you might recognize that you need, maybe you need to journal a little bit more, do some breathing exercises, just, you know, listen to music, and unwind and do things that are good for your mental state. And again, this this applies mental physical, it doesn't matter, any skill, anything that you you know, self development, you're trying to improve physically, you're trying to improve mentally, the same principles apply across the board, you still, it's 100% imperative to have that that dose of recovery with every dose of stress, I

Philip Pape  26:17

can really relate to this, and I know you can do is a really busy guy. And there's a lot of busy people listening here who maybe have multiple businesses, multiple things that they're doing. I don't know about you, I could just get into a zone for hours and hours and days and days, you know, trying to get stuff done. And before long, you know, the stress is gone, maybe past that point. How does somebody recognize that? And then how can they find something that works for them? If it isn't the walking like an example, you said, where they can just recognize it, and maybe block it in plan for it? How does that look?

Mike Millner  26:47

Yeah, so it's reading the symptoms and listening to you know, the inputs and outputs. And sometimes that's, that's hard if you have been accustomed to just, you know, being on overdrive all the time, which I can certainly relate to, but you start to learn through experience, you start to learn little subtleties. I know that for me, typically, to two cups of coffee in the morning. And that's my routine. I know, when I'm overly stressed, and I'm not getting enough sleep, I'm not getting enough recovery. It's just this like instinctual pull, that's like, go get a third cup, go get a third cup, and like that usually never happens. Normally, I have my two cups, I'm perfectly content, and I'm done. But for me, I know, when when that little subconscious pull is telling me like go get another cup, I know that I've been on overdrive, and there's little, you know, you'll start to notice maybe some brain fog fatigue, you might notice an impact in like sex driver, or you might be getting a little bit sick more frequently. So there's, there's always little subtleties that your body will communicate when it needs more recovery than anything else. And, you know, sometimes it can be performance in the gym strength, you notice that you just don't have it like you normally do. So all of those can be signs that something's off in terms of the recovery, you know, kind of modality that works well for you. Trial and error is the best way. So you know, come up with some different things that you think would be interesting, like, what are some activities that you love, things that are just for pure enjoyment hobbies that you might have, you know, for me, it's walking, you know, journaling, doing some, like getting in the sauna. If I'm really struggling, like I'll book a massage, you know, doing things like that, listening to music, unwinding, listening to a podcast, you know, whatever it is for you. Just play around with some different strategies and and see which one feels the best and then start to implement that more frequently. And that's, that's really trial and error is the best way. Yeah, it's

Philip Pape  28:45

good advice.

28:47

The most value that I got from this was the fact that I had someone that I could talk to about anything, and that there was going to be no judgment, it was just Well, here are your goals, here's the best way that you're going to achieve it. And then let's work together to help you feel inspired and motivated to do that. And a lot of people out there trying to be coaches, and not all of them have done the work and also just be a genuine person that is positive and coming from the heart in terms of wanting to help and Philip really embodied all of those qualities, I would recommend him to just about anyone that's looking to achieve goals in that realm of their nutrition and building new habits.

Philip Pape  29:32

I know you've probably seen clients and I do as well, who having third party perspective with somebody who knows you or maybe somebody in your family or who loves you or whatever to help you there because I do get the sense some people get caught up in their stressful routine, where it seems like the normal and all of a sudden you have a third party who might be able to look in and say, Well, based on your biofeedback or based on your experience this week, something might be happening and we want to address that. Going back to the very original answer about having In support. So another thing that comes up and we talk about psychology of goal achievement is not only the fear of of not hitting your goals and your failure, but what about the fear of success. This comes up a lot when I talk to people who are very successful in their lives in multiple areas, maybe not in fitness, but in lots of other areas. And they're maybe afraid of what life will be like once they achieved their goal, right, like their relationships might change their self image might change, the pressure to maintain the new weight, the fear that after they lose the weight, they're still not happy. So how, how often you encounter this and what can be done about it

Mike Millner  30:32

the same route, it's, it's, we don't know what what's going to happen, we start to play out these narratives and the stories that feel very real. So anytime we have like anxiety, fear, it's all future based thinking. So we think about, you know, and a lot of times, it's subconscious, if you have somebody who's been, you know, kind of, they didn't get a lot of attention, that kind of stayed under the radar. Never, ever were the center of attention or didn't get noticed that often. And then all of a sudden, they start to improve their body start to work on themselves. And then they start to get some compliments somebody else, somebody at the gym, mentioned that I'm doing a good job, somebody at the gym said, you know, oh, have you have you lost weight, like, that's weird. And it just starts to plant this little seed that then creates a story of, you know, this, this is this is scary, because we've never been here before, we don't know what's going to happen, like, we've never been that person to get noticed, we've never been that person to get attention. So it's the fear of the unknown what's going to happen, if this continues, if I start getting more attention if I start, right, and it's just your, your brain is really smart, and really only cares about survival. And so things that were unknown and unpredictable from from an evolutionary standpoint, were a threat to our survival. Like if you know, when we were hunter gatherers, if I if I knew, you know, there was a saber toothed tiger that always hung out at this particular watering hole, like I could stay away from that place and increase my odds of survival. So predictability is a strong desire for your brain. So anything that's uncertain, anything that's new, that's why it's often met with this first initial dose of fear and anxiety. And sometimes we sabotage and pull ourselves back into a known predictable situation. One of my favorite quotes is from Virginia Satir. And she says, most prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty. And, you know, it's the reason why some people will stay in a toxic relationship, because I would rather the known comfortable, certain misery than, than to leave and go into this place of unpredictability. So it's the devil, you know. And that's really where it comes from fear of success. It's a similar kind of mental trick that your brain plays on you. Now, fortunately, we've evolved and we've expanded, you know, we have this thing called the prefrontal cortex, which allows us to think long term, think about delayed gratification, think about what we truly want, and, and our desires and our dreams, and we get to think about the future. And we're no longer just this like, kind of primitive, you know, lizard brain creature, we actually have the ability to pause and plan and make long term decisions, although there's kind of this battle going on, because we still have that DNA, that hardwiring, that tells us to survive in the moment. But we also have this brain that has evolved to think long term. So sometimes those can be competing. So it's like, Who do I listen to? I listen to the survival based brain or the long term, you know, the the long term delayed gratification brain. And that's where being able to sit with those those feelings and those fears and emotions, and really ask yourself difficult and uncomfortable questions like, what does happen if I continue to get more compliments? What does happen if I continue to get noticed? What what does happen if I become this new person who does stand out in a crowd? Because they have more muscle or they're leaner or whatever? What does that mean? What is the story that I'm telling myself around this? And what is it that I truly want? What is it that what are my highest priorities? What do I value? What do I really want out of this journey, and then hopefully, we can make a decision that's more in alignment with that outcome that we desire versus just a reactive self sabotaging pattern, because we let that survival based brain win and tell us that, you know, it's, it's scary, it's unpredictable, it's uncertain. So it's, it all dials back, or it all circles back to kind of that same root cause of fear of the unknown.

Philip Pape  34:22

It's an interesting concept, because change is always going to be there. Like we're always going to be improving, always growing and always changing. And I know for my clients, we get to the point where they've embodied that identity of an athlete, because that's the language that I like to use, like, we're trying to be an athlete, and they still want to accept it sometimes. Hey, you are and that's why people are complimenting you, and you've done the hard work. And, yeah, it's easy to eat food now because you're not, you know, caught up in in the short term. So it is it is important, and I like that you brought it back to psychology and the brain and like we have control over this stuff. We just have to sit with them and think about them. So Another aspect of psychology that comes up a lot is framing, right language and framing, like the the, the phrase falling off the wagon, right getting off track, you know, the all or nothing. Or even what I hear all the time, especially with with earlier client, newer clients is like I can't do this or I had to do this like these out of control, framing versus something that you chose to do. And then self labeling, which we've already covered a little bit. So what are your principles on language, internal dialogue, framing that can help people? Yeah,

Mike Millner  35:31

it's always again, going back to awareness. Mental reframing is probably the most powerful might be the single most powerful tool that we have in the toolbox that everybody has the ability to use at any moment. And it can literally change your whole life in a very short period of time. And what reframing is, is just changing the lens through which you view the situation or changing the narrative that you have around the situation, I think, so often, we get caught up in believing every thought that we have, as fact, we have 10s of 1000s of thoughts every single day. So it's unreasonable to think that they're all based in truth, and in fact, most of them are not. And the other problem that we often run into is that we, we use emotions as reasons to react or act immediately, instead of sitting with those uncomfortable emotions. And I say uncomfortable, in particular can be any emotion, but a lot of times we look at emotions as Okay, I have to immediately respond to this because I feel something so let me do something about it. Instead of sitting, and just processing and, and like kind of being the detective. What is this trying to tell me? And what's the story that I really want to create. So the the mental reframe is where you don't believe all of your thoughts is fact. So when you do have a thought, and you do catch yourself saying, you know, I, I can't be consistent, or I'm a people pleaser, or labeling or however you're trying to frame a specific situation. It's first awareness and being able to shine a flashlight on that. Now, again, coming back to kind of a recurring theme here, it really helps to have somebody who's an objective kind of perspective on the way that you're communicating with yourself. Because if you're not aware of it, we need to go from that unconscious belief to bringing that to the forefront and showing you like, Hey, this is what you said about yourself now like, let's, let's digest it real quick and break this down. So having somebody to help you through that process. But once you're aware, and you start to catch yourself in those moments of labeling and saying I am a people pleaser, I can't do XYZ, it's catching, having that red flag, like anytime I hear the word can't, it's going to trigger it's going to be a trigger word for me. And I'm going to explore it like why did I just say I can't do let me let me reframe it in a way that's more productive. So the reframe is, let me just shift the lens through which I see this situation. I'm not a people pleaser, I have the tendency to people please. And I'm actively working on it like what a better frame. So more more productive, more effective. And then. So those are the things like you can you can change the frame on any situation. I've I've listened to therapists, some of them who I've, who I know personally, some of them who have just listened through courses, and through lectures and podcast, talk about helping people overcome serious trauma addiction, you know, toxic relationships, things that you would think typically would take years and years and years of work. And I've listened to them talk about a mental reframe that completely pulled them out of that situation, and in as little as minutes. And I know that can seem extreme. But that's the power of being able to reframe certain situations and perspectives to better suit the narrative that you that best serves you. Yeah,

Philip Pape  38:46

I think it is a powerful tool. You're right. And having I think part of the way I use it with clients, I learned from you having listened to your your podcasts as well that you hear it all the time, when there's any sort of quote unquote, failure, right? When you fail to miss some target or do something that you intended to do. And all of a sudden, I couldn't do that, or I'm not able to do this or I am this and reframing it, like you said, I have a tendency to, or simply saying that I choose to do this because right I choose to do this, because can be very powerful. What's it going to say about that? Oh, and the other thing that comes to mind is relationships, right? Like, if, if I told my wife some of the things I tell myself in my brain, I wouldn't I wouldn't actually want to say and I wonder, you know, we were toughest on ourselves. Sometimes we show ourselves the least love sometimes. And kind of thinking of that context of would you tell your spouse or someone that they are this or do this all the time? And how would that make them feel kind of putting it back on you? It just a thought that came to mind? Another aspect of that is gratitude. Mike like is that part of this where expressing gratitude either to yourself or others can come into play here? Yeah,

Mike Millner  39:54

I think of course, you know, we want to be kind to ourselves and there's a lot The things to be grateful for. And I think sometimes we lose sight of that. It's again, it's a, it's a reframe, you know, I think a lot of times we look at it again, this is this is another kind of cognitive distortion that we all have, that we're all born with, that we can't get rid of negative thoughts are more powerful than positive thoughts. And again, this is a survival based mechanism. So instead of being like, Oh, my brains broke, my brain is broken, I always focus on the negative is to keep you alive. And so we remember negative things more because of survival. So, and I've heard statistics that it can be up to seven times more powerful. So if you hear, you know, six positive things, and one negative thing like that kind of balances out, you might focus more on that one single negative thing than the six positive things that happen. But you know, it's one of those things you have to actively work on. Understanding that it is a cognitive bias, it is a cognitive distortion. And I can actively work on focusing on things that I'm grateful for. So even in the moments where it feels like how you know what like this this day is just like, it's not going my way. There's probably things in that moment that you can can reframe. Now, with a caveat of trying to immediately like change a negative situation into a positive can actually be a negative, instead of just letting yourself feel that, like, you know, what, yeah, this day does suck. And that's okay. Like, I'm allowed to feel, I'm allowed to feel sad, I'm allowed to feel down about this day, I'm allowed to feel frustrated, and giving yourself permission, I think sometimes, we immediately tried to, like, get out of it, we're like, oh, no, I don't want to, I don't want to feel sad, let me like fix it arbitrarily. And like your brain is like, we're not going there. And then you have this kind of internal battle, instead of just letting yourself feel the feelings and letting it pass, like, treating the, like, your feelings are all transient, they're gonna pass, they're gonna go away, they're gonna, you know, it's like the clouds, let's just, let's just watch them float on by. And that's like one of the most effective things you can do. And then when you are feeling a little bit better, maybe then is a good time to bring yourself to a place of gratitude.

Philip Pape  42:06

And your emotions are like clouds floating by a river flowing by I've heard that analogy. And it's true, because it's okay to feel disappointment, right? You want to be disappointed in the moment, that's okay. And let it and let it sit. Because that also might drive you later on. I know, for many, many times personal experience, I can look back and say, I don't really want to feel that way in the future when that happens. So now I'm going to choose to do something different. And that's an important way to let that fuel you. So earlier, you talked about short term versus long term, right? Short term being something like a specific phase, let's say a fat loss phase. How do we balance celebrating, like the mission accomplished and the when, you know, even if it took us three months, and now we have that win from the lifelong endeavor, the principles and practices behind it being sustainable, like how do you balance those two things?

Mike Millner  42:51

Yeah. So ideally, we would be more focused on the process based wins and not the outcome based wins. Because the outcome based wins are largely out of your control. When it happens. Sure, celebrate, by all means, like, if we if we reward ourselves and we, and we celebrate, you know, I follow through on these three commitments today. And then, you know, I was at the gym, and I hit a PR amazing, like, let's, let's celebrate the process based goals along the way, but then you're gonna wake up and you're gonna be like, Oh, my God, I don't even notice I'm actually down 10 pounds, I hit my 10 pound, like, Great, let's celebrate that. But let's not make that the target of like, hey, when we get to this 10 pound, like, let's, let's run to this checkpoint, so that we can celebrate, what we really should be focusing on short term is process based goals. And if we can do that, the outcome will happen as a byproduct. But you can't like when the outcome happens, how long it takes to get there, the exact number like a lot of that's largely out of our control. So let's let's focus on the things that we can control. And, you know, i Another concept that I talked about frequently is, you know, celebrating like neutral days, like we always celebrate the big milestones, but we, we celebrate when somebody loses 100 pounds, it's just amazing, like, what an achievement, but we don't ever celebrate the person that didn't gain 100 pounds to begin with, that they had to lose. And it was like, when neutral things happen. And it was just, you know, I just maintained and I just, there's nothing sexy about that. There's nothing flashy about that. But like, why don't we celebrate that? Why don't we celebrate the neutral days where, hey, we didn't I didn't blow myself up today. I didn't, you know, go off the rails today. That's a win. And even no matter what that looks like, even it was just like, you know, I did the bare minimum. I just had protein with breakfast, and then I didn't really eat much protein after that. And I I got a five minute walk in, but I couldn't get to the gym today. All right, that's a win, you know, horrible. It's not a 00 something. But so I find that celebrating neutral days and celebrating when bad things don't happen is really important and like focusing on the process more than the outcome. Yeah, that's

Philip Pape  44:54

really important. I mean, you think of clients who check in and everything was fine. and nothing has to change. Like, how do I? How do I keep motivating this client and part of is just celebrate the fact that all the things you worked at this point have continued? You know, that's a good thing. And then as far as the process based wins, you know, I've heard this a lot. And people people ask, well, how exactly do I do that? One thing you've already mentioned today is if, if you if you only focus on two or three things, or even one thing that you're trying to improve, the win from that is, is the process, right? It is ingraining in yourself this routine and discipline from that process for the process based win. So just throwing that out there. Curious, very specific thing here. I know you work with a lot of clients who want to lose fat. And I don't know how many people you work with, who are built on the other side who are regaining and building muscle in a calorie surplus. But they also face certain psychological limitations that are not symmetric. Let's say there's like different things that they have to focus on. What what are you what's your experience on that side of the journey?

Mike Millner  45:58

Probably the hardest year of my life was where I decided to actively build muscle for a year, I was like 12 months, I'm going to have, I'm going to follow up, my coach says, and I'm going to because my my pattern up until that point was like, You know what, I really want to build some muscle. So I would start to increase my calories, I would start to see the scale go up. And I'd be like, Oh, that that's uncomfortable. Let me just cut my calories again. And a lot of people fall into that pattern. Yeah, because you know, you don't, it's scary, you're like, Oh, am I going to gain a bunch of fat, like, I really want to build muscle, I don't want to get heavier, I don't want to go back. Like we all have that. That panic number that we see on the scale. And so I think that mentally, it can be more challenging to really commit to a building phase where you're, you're, you're feeling a little bit fluffy, you're seeing the scale go up, it's you know, you're eating more food than you thought you had to it's, it's not easy, it was the most difficult and probably the most rewarding here, because it helped me in so many ways with more flexibility, because I had more muscle, I could eat more freely because I had more muscle, I looked better at a higher weight, like there are so many things that were just really rewarding. But the process of building muscle is slower than the process of losing fat. And fat loss can be a slow process, depending on you know what type of approach you're taking. Building muscle is even slower. So you're looking for like really small, incremental improvements. And it's almost one of those things where again, we kind of have to do like a little sleight of hand trick like, Hey, look over here at how much strength you're building in the gym. This workout instead of like, really dialing in on on metrics and body composition. Because that process, we really have to look at that over months, and then be like, Hey, look at this difference in muscle definition and look at how much you know more filled out your chest, your arms, whatever it may be. So yeah, it can be it can be mentally, very difficult. And I think that again, have a support system have a coach to take some of that burden off of you. Yeah,

Philip Pape  48:02

yeah, totally agree. And you may not even notice some of the muscle definition for a while as the fat is building. And that adds to the challenge. But you're right, focusing on other things, sleight of hand sort of. There are many, many metrics. It's kind of like the non-skilled metrics during fat loss. And there's also non, you know, let's say body comp or physique metrics while you're gaining this weight. All right, I'm curious about this. If you had never become a nutrition coach and got into this space, what would you be doing instead?

Mike Millner  48:29

That's a great question. Well, considering I tried a number of different things, and none of it stuck, like I never imagined that I would be a nutrition coach, I never imagined that I'd be doing what I do. So I bounced around from like, I did, I bartended. For like, 10 years, I tried HR, I was in sales for a little bit. And then I started a company that was kind of like a, an internet company that was based around the same concept of like Groupon. But I did like a local version of that, like, I tried everything. And it was not until I found my passion that I you know, was like, kind of just by dumb luck that I that I landed in a role as a personal trainer, and then found my passion and nutrition and then did that. So if I had to like start all over again, I think what I would do is I would probably get a law degree, which my grandfather, who I named my company after, begged me to get a law degree and I was just done with school. At that point. I did not want to do any more after college after I graduated. I was like, I've done enough schooling. So I'm out on that. But I probably have gotten my law degree and maybe go into something in like the, I don't know, I love sports. So I like what want to connect the dots there maybe go into like, you know, I don't know, an agent or something for something that I could use my legal background in the sports world and marry those two and do something along those lines by for sure.

Philip Pape  49:58

And a lot of these sites The logical skills you've learned seemed like they would fit right in there. That's pretty cool. So I like to ask this question of all guests, Mike. And that is, is there a question you wish I had asked? And what is your answer? Oh, I

Mike Millner  50:13

think you covered it all. There's nothing that that stands out to me about any kind of missing question. Normally, if there's something I'm like, Oh, we could have gone in this direction then I'd I'd bring it up. But I feel like you kind of nailed everything that was on my mind today.

Philip Pape  50:29

Cool. So it was a solid interview with with with an amazing guests. I want listeners to know where they can learn more about you and your work.

Mike Millner  50:37

Yeah. So best place to listen to me is on the mind over macros podcast. So anywhere that you listen, you can just search mind over macros. You can find me there. If you ever have questions or need anything I do personally respond to all of my Instagram DMS. And it's not where I say that I respond, and then it's somebody else. It's actually me. So if you message me on Instagram, it's at coach underscore Mike underscore Milner. Nothing is off limits. I'll send voice memos. Sometimes people ask me, like, you know, hey, if you were my coach, what would you do? And I'm like, Well, you could either hire me or you could take this feedback and run with it. And so I answer everything. And I try to provide as much context as possible for any questions. So those are the best two places.

Philip Pape  51:20

Cool. So I'll add your IG to the show notes. Mike is a super accessible responsive guy, like he said, very friendly guy. And his podcast mind over macros actually has two types of episodes. Now one focus on kind of the nutrition coaching, training and all of that, and then the other more for coaches in the space, but whoever you are, they're both fascinating, and you're gonna learn a ton, so definitely follow mine over macros. Mike, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Ep 122: Cholesterol for Building Muscle (Eggs and Gains)

What is the link between cholesterol and muscle growth?

Today, we will explore whether increasing dietary cholesterol can promote muscle growth and strength gains. In several studies, higher cholesterol intake has been linked to increased lean mass and strength, potentially by improving muscle cell integrity and boosting repair signaling pathways. We know that dietary cholesterol does not negatively impact blood cholesterol or heart disease risk, though stay tuned for one thing in your diet that might. Today is all about the muscle-building side of cholesterol.

Episode summary:

The world of nutrition is often shrouded in myths and misconceptions. One such misunderstood nutrient is dietary cholesterol. For years, it has been villainized due to its alleged link to heart disease. However, recent studies suggest a different narrative, especially in relation to muscle growth and strength gains.

In this episode, we sought to demystify the complex connection between dietary cholesterol and its real impact on your health and fitness journey. Sweeping aside common misconceptions and outdated beliefs, we dove deep into studies to bring you the truth about dietary cholesterol's role in muscle cell integrity and repair.

Our exploration began with the often misunderstood link between dietary cholesterol and muscle growth. We delved into the scientific research on the topic, including the impact of dietary cholesterol on blood cholesterol levels. The myth that dietary cholesterol increases blood cholesterol levels was effectively debunked. Furthermore, we explored the lack of a proven link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease in epidemiological data.

One of the fascinating revelations was the potential for dietary cholesterol to promote muscle growth and strength gains. Several studies have linked higher cholesterol intake to increased lean mass and strength, potentially by improving muscle cell integrity and boosting repair signaling pathways. Notably, we discussed three key studies that demonstrated a link between dietary cholesterol and muscle growth.

A significant part of our discussion centered around the advantages of dietary cholesterol, particularly egg yolks, on muscle growth and strength. We examined the concept of the food matrix and why a varied diet may offer concealed advantages. In particular, egg yolks emerged as a beneficial source of dietary cholesterol due to their impact on muscle protein synthesis.

The discussion also touched upon the use of statins, medications commonly used to lower cholesterol levels, and their potential negative impact on muscle function and repair. Interestingly, this led to the hypothesis that dietary cholesterol could, in fact, enhance muscle function and repair.

In conclusion, this episode successfully shattered the misconceptions around dietary cholesterol. By focusing on scientific evidence, we were able to present a fresh perspective on this often misunderstood nutrient. The takeaway message? Don't fear cholesterol. Instead, understand its role in muscle growth and strength gains, and use this knowledge to optimize your diet for your fitness journey.

The world of dietary cholesterol is much more nuanced than it appears. As we continue to learn more, it's clear that dietary cholesterol plays an essential role in muscle growth and strength gains. Therefore, it's time we redefine dietary cholesterol and understand its undervalued role in our fitness journey.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:37] Myth on the effects of dietary cholesterol
[5:12] Dietary cholesterol and muscle gain
[13:40] The effect of higher cholesterol intake
[15:01] The effects of statins
[16:01] Lower cholesterol intake of vegetarians
[17:45] Sources of cholesterol
[23:30] Outro

Episode resources:

• Join the Wits & Weights email list

• Meno Henselman's article “Is cholesterol the forgotten anabolic?”
  👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching

👩‍💻👨‍💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.

📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

In several studies, higher cholesterol intake has been linked to increased lean mass and strength, potentially by improving muscle cell integrity and boosting repair signaling pathways. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip Pape. In this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights

Philip Pape  00:40

community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 121 excellence consistency and getting ripped through nutrition and training with Eric Helms. I talked with Dr. Holmes about his recent exploits in the bodybuilding world, fresh off his WWF procard. And then we dived into some of the nuances of nutrition and training. From levels of tracking and flexible dieting, to the value of very high protein to mini cuts. We discussed training, volume autoregulation, and many other topics. Today for episode 122 cholesterol for building muscle eggs and gains. We're going to explore whether increasing dietary cholesterol that is eating more eggs, especially holy eggs can promote muscle growth and strength gains. In several studies, higher cholesterol intake has been linked to increased lean mass and strength, potentially by improving muscle cell integrity and boosting repair signaling pathways. Now we know that dietary cholesterol does not negatively impact blood cholesterol or heart disease risk. And we'll get into that. Stay tuned for one thing in your diet that might but today is really all about the muscle building side of cholesterol. Before we get into the episode, did you know that I have an email list where I share tons of free content related to nutrition and training, Fat Loss and Muscle Building physique enhancement and mindset. If you want to get those hot off the press plus early access to master classes podcast episodes, promotions and other free goodies. Just go to wits & weights.com/email to join the list that's wits & weights.com/email or click the link in my show notes. So let's get to today's episode cholesterol for building muscle, eggs, and games. Now before we get into the muscle side of things, I want to dispel the myth that dietary cholesterol impacts serum or blood cholesterol your lipids your HDL LDL cholesterol numbers that you get through blood work, which are correlated with heart disease risk with cardiovascular disease. The body is really good at regulating blood cholesterol levels, regardless of dietary intake. It uses absorption and synthesis to do this. In something like 20% of people are what we call hyper responders who absorb or produce excess cholesterol in response to high dietary intake. And in the hyper responders, HDL and LDL usually increase proportionally. So the ratio stays the same. That's the quote unquote good to bad cholesterol. Now, epidemiological data does not support a link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease. There have been studies and in fact, there are even recommendations that say you can consume multiple eggs a day as part of a healthy diet without any increase in your heart disease risk. Even if you have diabetes, even if you have such current conditions. There is one thing though, that I work with my clients on that does have a correlation and an influence on serum cholesterol levels, and that is saturated fat. And the general guidance there is to limit your saturated fat to about 10% of your calories, or about 1/3 of your overall fat intake. And with some small, simple, flexible adjustments to your diet. That's pretty easy to do. Today's episode isn't really about that. But I did want to make that clarification that saturated fat can influence your cholesterol. And with my clients who have a history of high cholesterol, we look at that and we bring it down and it generally causes a reduction in their blood work. I've seen this with my own experience as well when I reduce my saturated fat intake because I used to love those bulletproof coffees I used to use I used to not use filters my coffee, for example. And a lot of saturated fat was getting in my diet when I reduced it. Lo and behold my cholesterol numbers went down now whether you want to argue how impactful that is when you're already living in otherwise healthy life, that's a whole different topic for the majority of the population. However, dietary cholesterol the cholesterol you consume does not negatively affect blood lipid profile. or CBD cardiovascular disease risk based on the current evidence. So any concerns are overblown. And you can go ahead and eat your cholesterol rich foods. So what I want to talk about now is the research on dietary cholesterol and muscle gains. Now, a lot of these were covered, these have been covered on other episodes. And there's a particular article that I referenced by mineral hunt gentleman's that I will include in the show notes, in fact, I'll give you the title now it's called is cholesterol, the forgotten, anabolic, and I think I heard him talking about it on a podcast. I also heard back in 2020, Greg knuckles talking about this on a segment of stronger by science. And some of what I'm going to say either repeats that, or, you know, shares the same kind of, it's not really skepticism, it's more of, hey, this might be a relationship you want to look at. And go ahead and try it for yourself. Like that is my position on most things. If there isn't a super clear link, but there might be a link. Try it for yourself. If there's no downside, try it for yourself. But we are going to look at three studies. Now, just real briefly, if you wanted to look them up that have shown some sort of lick. Now, Greg made the point on his podcast that oftentimes with science, if a study comes out if the first study in an area comes out, and has an extremely clear relationship, even if it's later found to be overblown, it often then leads to more studies in that area. And there's this bias towards studies that show a positive result versus ones that reject the null hypothesis and just don't show the link at all. And so always take this with a grain of salt. But here we go three studies. The first one is in chronological order. The first one was 2007, showing a linear dose response relationship. This study was led by reichmann at all, and it showed that when you increased dietary cholesterol, there was an increase in lean body mass. This was done among 49 elderly individuals using a 12 week strength training program. So that's one study the second one and again, I'm not diving into these in great detail. I think again, the stronger by science episode did that back in 2020, if you want to check it out, the second one was on the myofibrillar protein synthesis rate. So this is muscle protein synthesis. Lee at all in 2011, compared high and low cholesterol diets in young, healthy adults. And they found a nearly three times higher myofibrillar protein synthesis rate in the high cholesterol group 22 hours post intense resistance exercise. And then the third study is whole versus a whole eggs versus egg whites. VanVleet at all. 2017. So this is six years ago, I discovered that whole eggs stimulated more myofibrillar protein synthesis, compared to the same amount of protein from egg whites, hinting at the muscle building benefits of the cholesterol present in a yolks and we know that egg yolks are one of the best ways to get a lot of a lot more cholesterol pretty easily. And I'm going to share later in the episode, how different foods compare in terms of their cholesterol levels. Some of the comments I've heard and others analyzing these studies are that either the protein was not equated like the egg whites versus holy eggs. I'm not sure which one to be honest. But protein wasn't equated meaning once they added in the cholesterol, they also increase the protein. So now you got two variables going on. Right? That was one or there were questions on methodology and things like that. But there's some link. And it's not to be discounted, right, there's a possibility. There's also plenty of anecdotes over the years of people who eat more eggs, and they just feel better in the gym, they feel like they can perform better. In fact, Craig said that himself, I feel like I perform better when I have eggs, I'm actually in the middle of experimenting with it right now. Increasing, I'm trying to eat like four or five eggs every day, we have chickens, so we have like an unlimited supply anyway. And my concern in the past was trying to balance the calories because there's a lot of fat in a in eggs. So I just make sure that the the fat in the eggs is a decent portion of my fat for the day. So I just kind of moderate my fat in other areas, and it all works out nicely. And then I have plenty of protein from other sources because you can't just rely on whole eggs for protein, you might have to add egg whites or you have to have other sources of protein to get enough without the fat going through the roof. And I'm by no means recommending that you down a dozen raw eggs, or even a dozen egg omelet every day. Okay, I'm talking three or four eggs. That's what we're gonna get to by the end of this discussion. Now, why this potentially could work from the cholesterol, even if it's a small impact. There seem to be two mechanisms, two potential mechanisms. And then there's another mechanism that is probably not responsible. Okay, that one just to get it out of the way is anabolic hormone production testosterone because cholesterol is a precursor for anabolic hormones. And but the problem is that The increased dietary cholesterol doesn't directly lead to that elevated testosterone, or more lean body mass in and of itself, right? This probably goes back to the same reason why dietary cholesterol doesn't increase blood serum cholesterol rate the body auto auto regulate. So let's take that one off the table. The other two mechanisms are interesting, and they're a little bit technical sciency. So I'm gonna just, I tried to summarize them as best I can. So if you are a biologist out there, who actually understands this stuff, I apologize if I get it wrong. It doesn't matter so much at the end of the day, because my recommendation for this whole podcast episode is try it for yourself, just try it for yourself. Okay, this is where science and practice meets in the middle. So the two mechanisms The first is muscle cell integrity. And we know that this happens that cholesterol, increases membrane viscosity. So the viscosity around the cell membrane viscosity, if you think of it like water is not very viscous. Oil is a little more viscous molasses is even more viscous, right? So the more viscous you get, the more thick and kind of resilient it is. And if you subscribe to the theory of muscle damage from exercise, the subsequent inflammatory response and then the repair being a key mechanism in muscle growth and hypertrophy, then you could argue that, that more viscous resilient cell membranes would then lead to, you know, more efficient repair and thus faster muscle growth. Okay, so that's one. The second one is called lipid raft formation. And this is where cholesterol facilitates the assembly of signaling pathways that are crucial in muscle hypertrophy. Like and you've heard of these, the growth factors IGF, IGF one or IGF if given how you say it, and mTOR. And the activation of mTOR aligns with the observed increase in protein synthesis. And I know that the jury's out on a lot of this stuff, right? The evidence is kind of mixed how valuable mTOR really is, and all of this, it's kind of like P E ratios used to be a big thing, and now they're not so much anymore. So again, the mechanisms do you really have to understand them? No, we just want to see if there might be a link and then try it out. Okay. So I want to summarize what this message is about cholesterol. The research suggests there may be a link between dietary cholesterol and increased muscle growth and strength gains by those two mechanisms, cell integrity, and boosting muscle repair pathways.

Philip Pape  12:37

Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits, & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. If we are, we'll get you started this week. Now factor the show. higher cholesterol intake has been linked to greater gains in lean body mass and strength in some studies. It's also been linked to higher testosterone but may not have a direct impact on that. So that may be confounded there. egg yolks, in particular seem beneficial when compared to egg whites. Now, you could just chalk that up to the fact that egg yolks have cholesterol. But others might argue that egg yolks are extremely nutritious in multiple ways. And this takes me back to the theory of the food matrix. Not the theory. But the idea that we we think we can understand food based on its constituent parts, its macros and its nutrients. But there are other things in food we just either don't understand, don't see don't know or don't measure that can be beneficial. And this is why a diverse diet is often the most logical approach for a lot of people because you get the benefits, the hidden benefits and all these things right and some people like to call eggs a superfood. I think all foods are superfood, and the most the biggest superfood is a balanced diverse diet as a whole the entire thing. So egg yolks may be helpful for other reasons and I'm going to recommend egg yolks as the source of cholesterol if you're going to increase your cholesterol just because it's the most efficient way to get there. And it may have other benefits. Okay, Continuing. So, you've heard of statin, statins are used just probably abused even in the medical industry. At this point, everybody with the tiniest hint of high cholesterol is given a statin, I was offered a statin in my as early as my 20s When, when my total cholesterol would spike just over 200, right. And I routinely routinely get my blood work. When I've gone through a cut, or when I'm in a lower weight, my total cholesterol is like 150. When I'm a little bit heavier, it's like 220, and it always vacillates between there. I'm perfectly healthy, right? That's my range. So these absolute numbers and these population ranges are just just be skeptical. Anyway, my point is, statins, lower cholesterol, we know that they do. And they also cause muscle side effects like weakness and inflammation, we know that as well, which could hint in the reverse, you know, by reverse engineering it that cholesterol, AIDS and muscle function in some way. That's all. Take that for what you will. Now vegetarians, let's talk about them for a second. vegetarians tend to on average gain less muscle than omnivores. And some people think this could be because of the lower cholesterol intake from plant based diets because now we're talking about cholesterol from all sources. Not just eggs, but butter, cheese, dairy products, red meat, poultry, Oregon's fish, all of that is where we get cholesterol. So if you're on a plant based diet, you're pretty much not getting any. Now, you could argue that vegetarians also may not get enough protein if they're not really careful about it. And so again, we have to avoid confounding the two variables of protein versus cholesterol and I'm not sure I'm not aware of a study maybe Hey, Coach Lambie, Dustin Lambert, if he's listening can point me to a lot all this in fact, you can correct everything I'm saying this episode if you'd like and, and doing your own of your own on the working weights podcast, which would be awesome. So vegetarians, there you go. Okay. Cholesterol does help produce steroid hormones like testosterone. It also assists muscle repair and growth signaling pathways. But again, how much of this is impacted by the dose response versus like having a minimum having having a normal minimum amount in your diet? In other words, if you eat a couple 100 milligrams of cholesterol, is there much of a difference between 208 100 versus the difference between zero and 200? Right? It's always good to keep those in mind. Like sometimes you just your body just needs a certain amount of something and you're deficient. Once you address the deficiency, you're good. Beyond that there's not much of a benefit could be the case of cholesterol. Again, try it for yourself. We talked about how dietary cholesterol does not has little to no impact on blood cholesterol for most people. Again, unless you're a super responder doesn't raise your heart disease risk, and the foods that you get cholesterol from I want to list them right now just so you have a good idea of why eggs are so huge. egg yolks, one egg yolk 18 grams, the egg yolk itself has 195 grams of cholesterol, the whole egg so the egg yolk plus the egg Why is 222. So 195 Out of the 222 milligrams are from the yolk. So right there, you can see that if you just eat three eggs a day, you're over 600 milligrams of cholesterol. So that's why I say three to four eggs is like a good sweet spot. If you're trying to make sure you get a minimum amount of around seven or 800 a day because you'll probably get cholesterol from some other sources as well. Butter has 30 milligrams and a tablespoon. Cheese has about a one to one milligrams to grams. So like 100 grams of cheese has 114 milligrams of cholesterol. A whole milk has a little bit of cholesterol so like 10% by volume, so 100 mil 100 milliliters of milk will have 10 milligrams of cholesterol. Yogurt has a little bit red meat has a decent amount. Poultry has a decent amount, but the leaner it is the less you're going to have. So you want to eat the fattier cuts to get more cholesterol. Oregon meat has a lot so that's the other one besides egg yolks actually organ meat like kidney and liver has a ton of cholesterol. How many of you listen to this podcast, we're gonna go and start eating liver every day. I thought so. Back to eggs, okay, and then fish. So the more fatty the better. But fish also has a little bit less than poultry. My red meat has the most of all of these besides organ meats so but egg yolk is the clear winner. So if you're trying to build muscle, if you're in a gaining phase, if you've got the calories to work with including the fat and you want to try this out and you currently eat maybe a couple eggs a day or maybe you eat a couple eggs every now and then a protocol would be don't change anything else and just make sure you get four eggs a day for a few weeks and measure your lifting progress, how you feel in the gym, how you're performing, how you recover your energy, all of that, okay. Try to equate the macro Use otherwise, what I mean by that is if you're going to go from 0x to 4x a day, that's a decent amount of fat, or offset it with other fat, so that the overall macros are still around the targets you would normally have anyway. And if you're tracking, you would do that, because you're gonna have to meal plan it in. But just to keep the different variables from changing so much, that's what I would suggest. include other foods like you normally would. So if you normally eat dairy, meat, fish, they all have clusters anyway, that kind of get to that baseline. If you're using macro factor, go back right now and look at the history, you can actually look at the nutrients. And you can look at it for different time periods. So it's really cool. This update came out in the last few months, you can go into your day, how do you do it? Yeah, you go into your day in review. So go to the top macros, tap it, look at your day, and go down to nutrition. And then at the top, I think you can change it to like a week, a month, a year, something like that and see the average intake of something and cholesterol is on that list. So if your average intake has been, say 300 You know, you can have a new target that's decently higher than that like 900, let's say or if your average is 100, you can go up to 700 I would go buy like, you know, 600 milligrams, something like that, to have a meaningful difference and then compare it to, to your biofeedback. Vegans, if if you're vegan, you're going to want to increase your saturated fat intake to support cholesterol production. And this is totally off tangent, but I had it in my notes. So we're talking coconut oil, nuts, avocado case, you are wondering.

Philip Pape  21:34

The big message here is don't fear cholesterol, that's definitely not a concern. It's not going to impact your blood levels negatively or your heart health. Talk to your doctor. If you're using a statin and you get muscle weakness or pain as a side effect rates just good to know that get your bloodwork done before and after if you'd like or if you want to know if you're a hyper responder, and enjoy your eggs like enjoy eating more eggs I CERAM eggs are delicious. If you have your own chickens, they're especially so but honestly any you can get that are to have nice, rich orange yolks that tastes good and you can tolerate and enjoy. Go for it. I like them scrambled just quick and easy to make. I also do some hard boiled. Some of you fancy types out there my like and poached. There's of course over easy sunny side up. Medium easy. A Million Ways to have eggs. It's great. Okay, that's it for today's episode on cholesterol and gains. When in doubt, try it out. Then reach out to me to let me know whether more eggs means more gains for you. I would really love to know. And remember to join my email list at wits & weights.com/email for more content like this straight to your inbox, that's wits & weights.com/email or click the link in my show notes. In fact, you know what else you could just go to my website wits & weights.com and click Email in our next episode 123 So 123 why you're not achieving your fitness goals with Mike Milner. we unpack the DNA of success. To understand why so many of us failed hitting our health and fitness goals. We get deep into the mental game. Mike is a fellow coach with tons of experience in the psychology of goal achievement. So make sure to subscribe to Wits & Weights right now in your podcast app go ahead click follow click Subscribe so you get that episode. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights if you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then stay strong

Ep 121: Eric Helms on Excellence, Consistency, and Getting Ripped Through Nutrition and Training

Do you know how to adjust your diet and training based on your needs and biofeedback? Do you know the role of protein in body composition?

Learn more about this and more from today’s guest, Dr. Eric Helms! Fresh off of earning his WNBF Pro Card, he joins me for the second time despite his busy contest schedule. The last time Eric was on the show, we discussed balancing strength and physique goals, programming for lifters at different experience levels, self-determination theory and motivation, and optimal protein sources.

Eric Helms is a titan in the bodybuilding and nutrition world. He is a researcher, author, and coach specializing in physique and strength sports. Eric has a PhD in strength and conditioning and is a competitive natural bodybuilder and powerlifter.  He co-founded MASS Research Review and is the Chief Science Officer of 3D Muscle Journey.

Today, we’re going to get caught up on his recent exploits in the bodybuilding world and then dive into some of the nuances of nutrition and training, from levels of tracking and flexible dieting to macro splits to mini-cuts. We’ll also get into training volume, autoregulation, and whatever else we have time for.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:09] Update on contest season
[16:08] Levels of diet tracking from beginner to advanced
[26:33] Tracked approach towards a fat loss journey
[32:36] Diet tracking from intermediate to athlete or competitor level
[38:20] Very high protein and low carb strategy
[45:52] Two-year nutrition cycle structure for moderate experience 
[52:30] Ratios for cutting or maintenance
[55:56] Evaluating training to optimize for muscle gain
[58:21] Finding the individualized training volume
[1:02:47] Where to find Eric
[1:04:01] Outro

Episode resources:

• Ep 72: Balancing Strength, Physique, Recovery plus Animal vs. Plant Protein with Eric Helms

• 3DMJ Vault –Bodybuilding Program Design to learn how to build your own customized training split

• IG – @helms3dmj

👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING

https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching

👩‍💻👨‍💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.

📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail

🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Dr. Eric Helms  00:00

If your overall goal is this progress and growth, you do want to assess your training logs in over a reasonable timeframe. You should be seeing performance trending up in the stuff you're focusing on. And let's say you really missed a general intermediate you're not specializing any muscle group yet you're still running let's say an upper lower split. And you want generally everything to grow.

Philip Pape  00:21

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. He is back Dr. Eric helms fresh off of earning his wn BF procard joins me for the second time despite his very busy contest schedule. Last time Eric was on the show. We discussed balancing strength and physique goals, programming for lifters at different experience levels, self determination theory and optimal protein sources. So check out episode 72 for that conversation. I'll keep the intro a bit shorter this time around. Eric helms is a titan in the bodybuilding and nutrition world. A researcher author coach who specializes in physique and strength sports. He has a PhD in strength and conditioning is a competitive natural bodybuilder and power lifter, the co founder of mass Research Review, and the Chief Science Officer of 3d muscle journey. Today, we're gonna get caught up on his recent exploits in the bodybuilding world and then dive into some of the nuances of nutrition and training from levels of tracking and flexible dieting, to macro splits to mini cuts. We'll also get into trading volume and whatever else we have time for. With that said, Eric, welcome back to the show.

Dr. Eric Helms  01:55

Oh, man, what an intro. Thank you so much, brother. It's it's an honor to be back.

Philip Pape  01:59

I don't know if you remember how long the lesson was. But like I said, people can check that out if they want to hear it. First of all, I want to congratulate you, man, you've been, you've been up to a lot lately. A lot of achievements in the title WNBA if New Zealand think it was right second at Battle debate. And then most recently, earning your pro card at WMF. Australia. Tell us some of the highlights. You know, not just the placings, but your experiences with the other competitors, how you've handled the demands of the schedule, that kind of thing.

Dr. Eric Helms  02:31

You know, to be honest, some of the highlights were some of the personal connections that I made to people backstage. You know, I appreciate you highlighting the show, I won the show, replace second, skip in the one right place third, and then and then and then my. But the Washington State was a really, really cool experience. That was a four person, middle weight class. But it was really, really, really stacked. The winner of that ace filming Shawn, he came from Hong Kong to compete, which is really cool. And he just him and his coach, they just expressed so much respect and honor for me as a competitor. And just as a practitioner that I was, I was just it was so cool. And then I also got to meet Josh D. Bradley from he's actually doing, finished his bachelor's degree and he's going to go into his PhD. He works with Chris Bearcat. And he is this is a really stacked line that would mean to say like placing third in that class is something that I'm equally as proud of as everything else I've done. If you looked at all four of those guys, Ryan, who plays second actually is already a men's physique Pro. And he was jumped. He competed in the pro show earlier in the day and then jumped in because he wanted to get his bodily procart as one and he has some of the most ridiculous quads, top about Australia glutes I've seen insanely he didn't even go to winter. They overall it was just a really, really stacked competition. And then myself and third. And then Josh was mentioning at fourth and one of the personal connections we had was he shared with me and it blew me away. Because he's a relatively young man compared myself I turned 40 This year, how his track coach in high school, put him on to the muscle and strength pyramids is his first kind of entrance into training for bodybuilding. And it like made my brain skip like that. That could be the first entrance and I was both honored, humbled, and so jealous. Because I was like well you're so you first started training and like 17 you had the collective wisdom I had and research like stuff that I've had that I worked on for over nearly two decades you know, and I was like, Man and then I thought oh shit like that's there's there are people out there who their first entrance into this is that and it it was a mixture of like fear imposter syndrome. And like, that's really cool. And I guess I'm a leader like odds too. I'm too big. Like I shouldn't be a leader. And then yeah, you can imagine that all that on top of show day. So I had that kind of experience at the Washington which is really cool. That was one awesome moment. The Washington itself is also really cool because that's where Jeff won his pro card. So being in the audience and getting to see him compete as a pro at 52. And just knowing him personally, like we both there's a lot of insecurity that goes on with bodybuilding when you're exposing yourself to that degree, and you have these high level goals. And you know, Jeff and I have different ones, he's a lot more naturally talented, I'll say, for the sport, that he might go Pekinese taking it further and probably will be able to take it further than I have in my career. But he's also just turned 52. And he's not sure if he's still at his peak. And this show when he looked at pictures, and he started to see because you don't know until you're sure to be in shape. He was like, I'm just as good if not better than I ever have better. This is a warm up show for me, you know, like I'm not in good shape. And he took second place in a very stack, you know, pro show. And I think it might have been you know, I'm probably it's probably the best he's looked at this level of leanness at the very least, I think you can say that. And to get to see him do that the same show or 14 years ago, he got his pro card. And I competed in the overall against him. I want the light heavyweights and we took a two day trip driving up from his house in Stockton, stopping in Grants Pass all the way to Washington. That's six hour drive than the seven hour drive. And just getting all that time to connect, it was a really good way for us to connect with our roots, because 3d muscle journey was formed in those backstage conversations. So those are those are some moments around other of that show that were really really awesome. But each each show had connections like that. And the one that I just didn't Australia, it was just incredible. I mean, I've been working to get my web of pro card for a bit of wanting it since I went to my first bodybuilding show, which happened to be at aNbf show in Augusta, Georgia. And it's iron Eagle classic that many time heavyweight, mid 2000s Of late 90s Pro natural bodybuilder Rodney Hilaire puts on I got the opportunity to guest judge and view that and just be like, oh shit like this, this is Natural Bodybuilding. And then I did my first show in oh nine so this is something I've been pushing towards for my almost my entire lifting career sometime in 2006. I was like, Oh, this is this is a goal but it's taken me 17 years to achieve it. So yeah, to get it is not so good fully.

Philip Pape  07:18

Yet only the muscle and strength pyramids existed in 2006. But I could

Dr. Eric Helms  07:23

go back and tell myself the key because I'm

Philip Pape  07:27

older than you and I wish I could do the same you know, but we are where we are and it's fun to hear behind the scenes, right because I mean, on the surface you know, we see the accolades but as you know the process behind that is where where the magic happens and to hear you talk about the psychology of it predominantly right and the imposter syndrome and kind of the I know that comparisons are inevitable and you know one year you might go up against a certain group of individuals and and you're the best and the other in the next time you you yourself feel at your top and yet the competitors are stacked you know it's sounds like a big mind game

Dr. Eric Helms  08:04

and that's exactly what happened you know, I I basically just dropped the placing each show I did you know, so I went from winning the the overall New Zealand title to then placing second and placing third but objectively not subjectively, objectively the feedback I got everything I saw all the indicators were that I improved from show to show to show but I also went from order show like I went from our second inaugural the New York New Zealand show where we do have high quality competitors but it's a small number. It's part of the reason why I went in the overall the panel decided you know, you're not quite ready for a pro card at the show. And I wasn't at my peak, which is also part of that decision. And then the next weekend you know, I I was at a very tight battle for for the number one spot. There was, I don't know if it's a split decision. I didn't get full judges feedback, but everyone was like that could have gone either way. It was really cool to watch Lorenzo elder get his WTF pro card. He's one of our 3d MJ athletes and he very, very, very good competitor already he's made noise as an NBA Pro. So I play second there. And I was like, Okay, it's still right there, still right there and then to ship third. It took a little bit of like, alright, recalibrating Mrs. Bodybuilding, so I'm getting better. I placings are getting worse, and a little delayed satisfaction you wait a couple of weeks and then boom, you know, you you win the pro card. So it's if you don't have a firm sense of why and also being able to be objective about yourself and primarily prioritize and value self improvement and the other lessons you get from it. It can be an emotional roller coaster because it is subjective and it's very dependent upon who shows up on the day. And one of the choices I made this season was listen, one of my one of my goals is and I'm gonna put it out there and I'm gonna value it and be honest with myself at all. This what the world about it is I want to get my card, and I'm coming to compete that when you do that you give up a little power over your own little state. And I think that's a reality. But what people don't realize is that once you have a goal that is not only dependent upon your will and efforts, you know, beat your former version yourself and prove, you give up a little power. You put yourself out in the world, and you say, well, there's other people who want to win first, and there's judges who, you know, probably are less biased than I am looking at my own physique, and they're gonna rate it a different way. So you also are giving up your ability to fully celebrate and enjoy a day even if you did your best. So I'm relatively proud of myself that I meant, like, I did have my moments like when I placed third or when I was inches away for like, the 10th time in my career for getting a pro card and I play second vote Renzo and my class. But, um, but I also knew that's what I signed up for it. I'm big enough boy, I can I can handle it. And, and that if I just kept pushing into what happened, and here we are,

Philip Pape  10:57

yeah. And then you have the worlds coming up, too. And I think originally that was your, that was the place you were expecting to go for the pro card. Right? I don't know if the Australia was a surprise. I mean, obviously, like you said, you hope and, and plan to do your best at all of these. But was that was it a little bit of a surprise, or you are just having an aggressive goal and got there early.

Dr. Eric Helms  11:16

So I thought my best shot would be at the New Zealand show. And because of the size of it, and then from there, I would just do the Washington, I mean, I didn't expect to get a pro card at the New Zealand show. But I just knew based on the side of it, size of it, you know, you tend to get a crop of competitors compete one year, and then the next year, you get a different crop. And I just didn't know of any New Zealand, male bodybuilders who were competing that year? Who would be like, Yeah, who else is going to come out? And who's who's just going to have a high caliber physique? That's going to be the battle for the pro card. And then, of course, people who showed up who I didn't know, and, you know, like, it was, it was, it was still good. Like, I mean, I wasn't like, I just walked away with it. But yeah, I also knew that there'd be a potential with the panel, the number of people that I would get. So that's a question mark here. But good, this is my best shot at winning the show. And that is what happened, and that I knew that both the battle Bay, and the Washington would be very hard fought. So we'll see what happens, I go to the States, you know, these are basically this business on a circuit that I've done before, did it compete in the US in 2009 2019, like the Bay Area, and like the West Coast shows are just very, very competitive, as are the East Coast shows not to take anything away from the new US. So I knew that if I didn't get it, and New Zealand, I need to do like a proof, get tighter, and then just keep chipping away. At that I knew that the Australia show was going to be very big. And that would be hard as well. And I thought I knew that, okay, there's a very real possibility that I'm going to have to just keep going all the way to worlds. And then that's gonna be the hardest one, actually. So I, but I'll be at my best. So it was this interesting scaling component where the shows got harder as I was getting better. So I kind of thought like I had a relatively flat chance throughout, and it could happen at any of them. And, and I actually think world's probably the hardest to get your pokedex at amateur worlds is. It's no joke bad people who win their class, and especially if they win the overall in the amateur WTF worlds are typically immediately competitive as a pro, like when they do their first pro debut there. They're winning money. So so

Philip Pape  13:24

I don't know entirely how it works. But do you now compete on the 19th? In the in the pro? Wrecked Okay, yeah. All right. So does that change the game for you or your prep?

Dr. Eric Helms  13:33

It's led in some ways, no, because I was gonna bring my best and do what I had to do. For worlds. So the timing, what it does change is it's it makes the day a little less complicated. Like if I had turned pro on at Worlds, that's a trade route to compete the next morning is after being in overall in the evening that I prior. So that's a bit of a challenge to peak for across two days. You know, a lot of people struggle is to peak in the morning in the evening in the same day, if they do a crossover, or if it's a two full two day format show. So that would have been it would have been cool. And let's be honest, like, it's taken me this long to be pro caliber to be pro competitive at the world level, is going to take something monumental, which I'm really, really excited to chip away at. It's awesome. But I'm mainly I'm going to worlds to take picture, take pictures of LeBron as he dunks on maybe like garlic, you know, so, and there is a rule. I don't know if it'll change in the future. I do hope that it does. But there's a rule where you have to compete within the same. It's an one year of getting your pro card to kind of like activate and keep it and then there's a two year unless there's life extenuating circumstances where you have to compete. I think there are some issues with what that forces competitors to do, especially in the bodybuilding divisions, we have to be so lean. And the timing of shows can put you at a really rough spot where you don't get to fully recover or you have to just keep dieting. So I'm actually very fortunate But there's a purpose. There's a reason why I decided I want to go to Worlds. So I basically back loaded everything. You know, if you look at all the shows that I've done, I will have done five by November 19. But the first one was September 30. So we're talking like, five shows, and in eight weeks, you know, okay,

Philip Pape  15:17

so you're saying bye, bye beat compete pro right away, it gives you this longer clock to the next one. Correct?

Dr. Eric Helms  15:23

Exactly. So I'll be able to take all of 2024 as an offseason and then, you know, looking at potentially competing end of 2025, or maybe early 2026, depending upon just dates, things like that. So technically, I'd have to be on stage by world's 2025. Again,

Philip Pape  15:40

it's exciting, man. I mean, I mean, it's, you know, I'm not in that world. And I know a lot of people listening are but we find it fascinating. And what it takes to get to where you are, the principles are still something we all aspire to both the psychology of it, but even the practical matters of, you know, leaning out and building and all of that, because you are at the limits, learning about this. So why don't we jump into some of that right? segue here, nutrition topics first, and maybe some training. I've heard you talk about how you're not tracking this time around, right, you're not tracking or logging food, you're taking a more intuitive approach, based on years of having done that before and develop that skill. What I'm curious about is, if someone listening wants to understand the different levels of tracking, right, from a rank beginner to very advanced athlete who has ambitious physique goals, how would you map that out? For them? What are the three are different ways we can track when we're using flexible dieting, do you think are appropriate?

Dr. Eric Helms  16:36

Great question. So the way I would frame the way I used to frame this, so this is some some hot hot off the presses changes to the next edition of my books, Philip was that there was good better and best. So to give more flexibility to people good is just hit it with a calorie range. And typically like something like plus or minus 100. And there's a lot more to us to that, that we'll get into before someone just starts doing that. And then better is a protein intake, and then calories. And that best is macronutrient to get us to that range. Because now you're you're making it more dialed in for the individual. And you're assuming that you've you've gotten the the macros down customized to the individual. And, you know, I presented this in my, in my books as all positive framing, because it's all well and good. And even saying that, hey, in the offseason, it may not even be best to do macros, you might just always do calories and protein or even a habit based tracking system. That was the evolution from the first edition, the second edition. The evolution of the third edition of my books that I'm that I'm working on, is basically coming from the repeated data and coaching experience and personal experience I've had where I really struggled to justify having relatively tight macro rages. And that being that different for people, like if we were to shift your fat up or down 20 grams, and trade that for 45 grams of carbohydrates, except when you're like, down and like the very, very lowest intake and brushing keto ketosis or brushing a very low fat diet, you know, like, Oh, I'm currently on 40 grams of fat. And I want to do that or like any, you know, maybe that that, or a lot of 100 grams of carbs, and I want to increase my fat. So okay, so we are going keto, we didn't think about this, and we'll modify some of the things right? Outside of those circumstances. I just couldn't really justify why am I telling people it's, it's better or best to only be within let's say, a plus or minus 10, or 15 gram range on these macro targets. And it's same thing for protein, kind of having more of a minimal threshold intake that's appropriate. And knowing that if you go over it, it's fine. But it's not going to necessarily help you. Except on individual cases where he noticed more satiety or what have you. It's basically an unnecessary level of rigidity. So moving forward, I think the way or the eventual endpoint that I want people to get to once they build some skills, which I'll talk about a second is that we have a calorie range that's appropriate. And then we simply have a minimum intake for fat carbs and protein. So what that might look like, would be hate, you know, in a hard, hard, hard dieting phase with minimal intake. And this is temporary, because it's only while you're really trying to get lean in for extreme goals, and 20 to 30 grams of fat to get our minimum fat intake, right? That most of the time, we're gonna bump that up to something higher, at least like the equivalent of 20% of calories, but I'd probably expressed an absolute about to make sure we're covering our hormonal bases, you know, transport of fat soluble vitamins, making sure everything's functioning well. And maybe that's like 1460 grams. So that's kind of our minimum intakes and different scenarios. And then for carbohydrate. Okay, what type of training do you do? Are you bodybuilding or powerlifting powerlifting. You know, like we have some data suggesting that ketogenic diets and certain styles of products and trade without a whole ton of volume You probably find you're not making it may not be ideal for strength gain. But it's it's, it's those allow allows it. So maybe we have a minimum intake of one gram per kilogram, if you have like strict like low volume parallel singles. And then as we move up to kind of the volume ladder, you're a bodybuilder you're doing a lot more, maybe we'll put that around like two to three grams per kg, right. And for the Americans, we're talking about a gram to a gram and a half for Babish. Right. And then for protein, you know, when you're in the offseason, when you're not being stressed by a killer caloric deficit, there's no theoretical reason to pitch to be higher 1.6 grams per kg point seven gram per pound, or right around there were higher. And then if we're dieting, and we bumped that up to point 8.91 gram per pound, perhaps. And then after that, distribute your calories as you want. And now all of a sudden, many of the questions that people have, and the flexibility issues and logistical challenges, and the issues with holidays, traveling etc, get taken care of, you know, I just thought, oh, man, like I don't, I don't have to be set into these things. And I find also as a coach that it makes people in different regions, different environments and different social structures, especially when you look at American Coach the first time they get like an Australian client, like, I don't know how to get that, like, what is that? Well, the first time they have a client for the UK, or someone from a very, very non westernized country to speak, speak English, that's also very, very challenging, you know?

Philip Pape  21:27

So they don't know how to get the food to meet macro, what are you saying they don't have to get what?

Dr. Eric Helms  21:32

So what would inevitably will happen at early stages, if someone learned to track macros is they'll ask for some food advice, like, okay, yeah. How would I keep my fat low, putting my carbs high. And that looks very different at Singapore than it does in Australia than it does in Jersey, right. And that's something that I learned from moving overseas having to do that myself and also, to some degree working with athletes overseas. And being able to just automatically allow someone to fit into that. And with that structure, I think is a much improved step. And it's just hard to justify anything else in my mind these days. So that's one big structural change to where we want to get to. But I think getting to there is important because you were talking about different levels of skill and different types of tracking. There's a big difference between the how the average bodybuilder or person in the fitness body composition world thinks of tracking when you say the word versus, say a dietitian, or just a general person, kind of a broader health and fitness space. If you say, someone in our community, like, Hey, I'm doing some macro tracking, they think you have three targets, and you're trying to hit them on a daily basis. But he talks with other people, it could simply mean, I'm eating what I want based upon habits and kind of healthy things. And I'm just writing it down, but I don't have a target. Sure. And there's and so the conversations about the issue, the potential problems with these are the pitfalls, the side effects, I'll make you an erotic all those things start to fall away, when all you're doing is eating as you normally would, but tracking as kind of a mindfulness practice or an educational tool, which I really like for newbies, so people who are wanting to get more nutritional literacy, understand their diet, look for areas where they can improve or that we can kind of incrementally make more qualitative changes to their diet. Rather than giving them prescriptive three numbers. I think the best thing they can do is start reading food labels you know writing things down taking pictures of food of their phone but not not eating out not making sure everything gets weighed to the gram you know, eyeballing things learning about some of the portion sizes like weighing when you're at home after you've gauged Okay, I think that's a cup, then see is it a cup, they Oh, shit was the cup is a cup and a half, like, Oh, I think that's about 100 grams of banana was 150 grams, you know, those are really important lessons. Looking at the back of your, your food label for the almonds, so they already have a protein, they grabbed some almonds, you'd look at nearly? Well, I'll be damned almonds are mostly set, you know, like things like that are then auditing what you've tracked for the whole week. And you know, some things but we haven't actively tried to change it. And you know, you want to have a moderate fat, moderate protein, sorry, moderate carbohydrate, high protein intake, and you look and you've actually got like, moderate, moderate, moderate, and you're like what I need to do here? Well, I can switch this to low fat dairy, I can go from chicken thigh to chicken breast or to Turkey. All of those swapping and decision making games are or rather, this plug and play. Opportunities are great to learn. And then you really start to understand how to turn food into into numbers and vice versa and how to make useful swaps. And that process can last a couple of weeks before you even decide to try to hit certain targets. And you may not even decide to do that. You might just make these qualitative changes. You might just develop habits you might create some meal structure and make sure I have a veg F route, it'll lean protein three times per, per day. And then, you know, I have some reasonable eating out options on top of that, and a protein shake after I workout. And I know that I'm going to eat to a three out of five satiety level at most at any meal, and do a few other things and get x number of steps. And it's all habit based, right? So that I think, is a really, really critical phase that someone goes through before they even start entering the world of lemme have target macronutrients, start weighing myself, look at my two week average. And you know, wherever they are, on the scale, eat out minimally and improve my accuracy and all those things. So I can go a macro based food blast, a weight loss plan.

Philip Pape  25:39

Yeah. And I'm laughing inside because I must listen to you just too much. Because this sounds this sounds exactly like the journey when I have a new client, if I ask them to just track their food, and I forget to say, but ignore the targets. You know, then on day two, it's like, how do I get this? How do I hit? Oh, wait, I forgot to tell you just ignore the targets and track and learn. And then you'll see, the other thing you mentioned was, you know, different countries. I don't know about what you think about this strategy. But I found what successful is just looking at a past day that just happened to get close to the target you intended even if you didn't, what did you do then? Right, just kind of replicate that day. So you're talking about the learning, the awareness, the qualitative changes, satiety. I love that approach as well, satiety. So this would be somebody just getting started, either using a food log or food journal, but not caring about targets. Okay, so now we're there were just a few weeks in, you also have a better understanding of metabolism and expenditure from doing that if you want. What's next. Right.

Dr. Eric Helms  26:40

So let's let's make the assumption this person wants to take a track approach towards a fat loss journey, right? Then from there, once they got comfortable with that can audit that we sit down and go over their meal plan together, we would actually go Alright, so let's set up let's set up some, some targets. And they would be a calorie range and a minimum for all three macros, like I discussed earlier. So okay, then we go, all right, based upon your energy intake, and your change in body weight over the last two weeks, here's a guesstimate at what we think maintenance is. And therefore, we're going to drop X amount of calories and appropriate size deficit for you. And now we have a calorie intake goal and minimum intakes for fat carbs and protein. The next thing I'd have them do, and this is a really useful tool, I want you to write your own meal plan or three, for what that would look like. And think of plug and play options. And each one of those meals slots. Right, so beautiful. Now we're creating what I call a default diet for you. So this is kind of like, I know what I'm doing on a day to day basis. If you're someone who really likes to play and prepare, you can do Sunday cooking and make versions of this, where you can just do that when you're at home, you can have a version when I'm at work, and I need to go to lunch. And I'm gonna have something on the go and only have one meal at home, or you get a version when you're at home, eating three meals. And you can have a weekend version, where you're doing this socially out one meal, and then we make eating two or three meals at home, right. And you have a workout data non workout day version, but I help the person actually write their own meal plans, because then they take the skills they develop just tracking with that targets. And they put them to work immediately. And it's Deb writing the meal plan and with me kind of guiding over their shoulder. So they're getting even more experiential skills learned. And that can pick up things you actually know that you got to count that coffee or whatever, you know, the creamer. It's something you know, and then we start running them. And they go through that process we're checking in, and then you're gonna build even more skills there. And we can also start observing, how do they do with the level of precision, rigidity? What's the important amount? Does it create stress? Is this a good fit? And, you know, we adjust from there Was it too aggressive, you know, maybe you're, what will sometimes happen is they're actually eating more than they think they are during that self track period. They're eating more accurately next. So we end up having this larger deficit that attended, and you lose a lot of weight immediately, which is not a bad thing. People are motivated and have higher body fat. But then we go, hey, guess what, let's let's bump in calories a little bit. Right? So it's a very rewarding process. And that's kind of like your novice to intermediate stage. And then the main thing is to really work on the transitions and assess with them. How sustainable is this feel all the time? And can we eventually we want to get to having this as the way we eat without necessarily having to write it down or log it if we develop these habits, right. So I think sometimes people get too caught up on the fact that they logged it, rather than the fact that they did it. And it's not like you're not going to be at a deficit or not having good macros or not hitting, you know, target calories if you don't write it down. You know, right, exactly. And one of the one of the rubrics that I have for people, it's an easy way to do this. That's one of the skill that teach in this early stage is you know what you've got to do basically follow this more or less habitual play on this kind of default diet, and you have just your last meal left, which is often going to be like a protein based meal at eight or something like that, if they're kind of bodybuilding centric, you know, maybe it's a Greek yogurt or something equivalent of a nice dessert. But it's also protein dominant, not high carbs and fat, hopefully will help in some way lighter. If they don't, I don't force them on people. But that's a nice way to fit some more protein in as we go. Okay, let's do an audit. Now, like you, you don't need to track throughout the day, you can take pictures, you can write it down, or whatever. And I've encouraged you to not have to constantly be tracking because it's a distraction from your life. And you look at okay, what's left, right? And that's kind of the thing, you check your balance budget, like, Oh, I got 20 grams of carbs, 10 grams of fat and 40 grams of protein. Okay, cool. So I can actually put a little bit of peanut butter and some, some blueberries and with my non fat, low carb, sweetened Greek yogurt, right? Do you need to track that? Do you need to write it down? You know, because you know exactly what you have left? It's 1020 like, 40, right. And when people feel like that, it's, it's wrong. If they don't write it out, if they don't track it, that is an indicator to me that they kind of have a little little bit of OCD going on. They're like, No, I gotta write it down. Like, well, well, I mean, you know, you hit it. And you did you checked, you know? So that's one of those opportunities, right? Just

Philip Pape  31:18

so you know, The Completionist in the world, exactly. 100%. Right.

Dr. Eric Helms  31:21

That's right. Well, items really 98% and I got all else. So yeah, exactly. So I mean, I'm okay with people who get a lot of satisfaction from doing that. But I also want them just to be aware of, of where it is, is the tail wagging the dog, you know, and, and make sure that it's not causing stress as well. And making sure that I at least give them the skills if they choose to, to do a non tracked version of this or a non logged version. Before

31:51

my coaching session with Philip, I was really struggling with staying consistent with my nutrition, Phillip really showed me the importance of being consistent day to day, he also helped me see that it's not a bad thing to take a rest day, he really helped me get in that more positive headspace Have a rest day being something really good for me. I've been doing this for a month now. And I'm finally starting to see some progress and my numbers. And I'm really excited about that. And I just appreciate so much the help that Philip has given me. He's always willing to answer questions to offer resources that are totally free, and very, very helpful. So I just want to say how much I appreciate that. Thanks for

Dr. Eric Helms  32:36

now, whatever that inevitably happens, if we probably can preempt your question of how do you get from intermediate to kind of where I am isn't where you want to go, Phil? Sure. Go ahead. Okay, cool. Is okay. Well, Eric, well, you're not tracking at all how does that work? And in reality, I am tracking because I cannot track to some degree, within two seconds at any time of the day, I can be within 90% accuracy of what my nutritionist because I tracked religiously for seven years straight. So that's something that is just an experiential skill that I've developed all the time. That's not the case is what I have mixed meals that are abnormal for me. Or if I go out to eat, and like I don't know, that pesto, fettuccine with with with federal, like, like today and I'm like, okay, like I don't I wish they put it here, I'd have to guess right now a placeholder and is what it is, you look online for a bit, you overestimate the fat, maybe, in my case, whatever. But most of the time, I just know. And I also have a much greater connection of biofeedback than most other people. So I'm aware of what's an appropriate level of hunger at different body fat levels, at different phases, based on different goals, in season, offseason, everything in between all the way down from my current stage weight, where I'm walking around, you know, looking siliques light years or sticking out of hats and not even tried to flex it. It looks like I'm flexing and like you know, me, like shredded conditioning can't sleep all the way up to Oh, you're looking, we'll talk either Eric like it's deep off, he's broke. So I know what all that feels like when I'm forcing food in because I'm adult, my body's gonna get I don't get any more weight to Oh, man, I'm really interested in the flavor of my bread, you know, kind of spectrum, right? I think without that it's very difficult to modulate, like, I know a certain level of suckiness that I should feel at this at this level on on like, say my fourth low day in a row. What I waking up in the morning, and I'm 78.5 kilos shredded, and I've been dieting since February. And that's very different from when you're four months into a contest prep diet and you're still 10 pounds over stage weight, right? You shouldn't feel that shitty, you know, you're or you're you're probably going to burn the candle at both ends and that was just a little stint or a little flicker and then see if they hold me to the offseason. So that is what I said at a certain point. Once you have all those biofeedback knowledge sets And then self awareness, you can actually perform better by giving yourself a more of an auto regulated rage. So, for example, I have that kind of default diet structure. And on my low days, I typically am falling between 1400 to 1700 calories based upon energy levels, performance in the gym, my sleep quality, I can't sleep through the night, I know I probably do that a few days, or I'm for everything falls off. So I need to eat towards closer to 1700, I typically see blood better, what might step count end up being for the day. And that disrupts my general most emotive state or irritable Am I clear headed. And you know, so you strike when you feel like you're fine. And you pull back a little bit when you feel like you're giving too much based upon what giving too much means in the context of that face the giant. And that's something that is, to some degree, you can teach that. But you kind of have to take your late stage intermediate competitor, or athlete or whatever, it isn't that to be a competitor. And then tell them that's the outcome, you want to get to tell them the skills you use. And the guard, you need to try this. You know, like you give a broader range and you tell them, if you feel like crap, like don't just, you know, put on your hashtag grind face, we shouldn't be feeling that crap. But you need to assess. So the coaching process moves from being less prescriptive to what you're actually doing on a day to day basis, to more auto regulated, and that encouraging them. Use your intuition and your knowledge and experience to get to the best outcome. And that's what Berto is doing for me. So I'm working with Alberto Nunez collaboration. He's like my coach and has been he's my colleague. And a lot of the guidance he gives me is outcome based. And it does change at the end, this is an inevitable part, like where your carb loading, and you're trying to get a little leaner that should already shredded. So like right now, this morning, he said, Hey, this weekend, I want to repeat the carb load we did. Because four days later, you looked ridiculous. And you got a little tighter if we can keep using that strategy. So today, higher risk higher reefy than you expected tomorrow a little bit lower. And then we'll go for three or four load. Tight type tapering up. So yeah, that feels like oh, all the way back to 2009. No, you're just three weeks out from worlds. So yeah, it's

Philip Pape  37:15

awesome stuff. Yeah, what I'm even begin with all this the idea of using biofeedback. To learn about yourself, I see that a lot with individuals who aren't as advanced but are at maintenance right at maintenance is a good time to play around with this because they're not trying to induce a change in one direction or the other. You're not experiencing massive changes in your biofeedback, I see it a lot with lifters, who, you know, they'll say, Well, I'm, I'm gaining, and I'm going at a certain rate at a certain rate of gain, but my lift just didn't move this week, or even even regressed a bit. And it's like, stop looking at the macros just like over consumed to give you that energy, because that's what worked in the past, you know, oh, shit, you know, all of a sudden the carbs will do for me. So I think it's important people listening that they do build up to this right track all of these things, because you're tracking without tracking as the way you put it, you're still aware of hunger, stress, satiety all that? Pretty cool. Okay, thanks. Thanks for explaining all that. No worries. And that'll inform my coaching as well going forward. Because there's some nuggets in there, can we see the new muscle strength pyramids, and they come out? So I wanted to ask for a specific scenario regarding the carb protein split, because you talked about minimums, which makes a lot of sense. But I often get the question like, Well, what about the really high protein approach, you know, two and a half, three grams per pound, and we're talking in a gaining phase maintenance or gaining phase, right, where you have the calories, and then it bumps the carbs down to what you suggested is basically approaching keto sub 100. How important are carbs to keep that minimum? You know, in that scenario, I.

Dr. Eric Helms  38:51

So the strategy of largely come from some of the Jose Antonio studies where it looks like metabolic magic is happening. But I think it's important for you to understand that these are small sample size studies that people say, hey, go do this. And they go out, and then they just do that on my fitness pal come back. And then we look at the outcomes. Anytime this has been more rigorously and empirically tested like metabolic Ward, although it didn't have lifting. If you look at some of braised research in 2012, or other studies where we, you know, have higher protein intakes and in gaining phases, we just don't see this effect. So I really think what's actually happening in these maintenance phases as people are struggling to consume those loads of protein, actually not getting there. And their reported calorie intake is lower than it actually is. And they're doing some recopying. That's accelerated by the fact that they're coming in and out of slight deficits, but the net effect is some some gains there. I think that's a more likely outcome, then tried to explain the energy and take differences in it. Something magical happens when you go from 2.2 grams per kg of protein to 3.5 That is unexplainable by physics, but will magically make you recover. I just don't think that is the case. And I think for you know, there's there's a saying, For Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And the Jose Antonio studies, I love them, I'm glad they exist. They are small sample size, more observational style, outpatient, not well controlled, cool studies on protein, but they're there. They're not robust investigations that are designed to answer that question definitively as to what's the mechanism by what we're seeing here. All we know is that, hey, if you tell people to eat, you know, close to two grams per pound of protein, sometimes they're they're not going to gain weight, and there was little bit of fat, and they'll improve lean mass, or they'll gain lean mass and very little body fat. Okay, cool. But that's what that's like black, but it's a black box there, right? We just know that. We told him to do that. And that's what happened. Okay. So if someone wants to do that, I'm more than happy to facilitate them trying. Nothing wrong with experimenting, right? So yeah, yeah. So go for it. And in my experiences, those are typically short lived. And people don't often get what they hope out of it. It but it does work. I will say the instances where you have athletes who struggle to not be in a state of a larger surplus than intended in the offseason, they want to lean gain. But definitely they start gaining a pound a week, this can be very useful. And I think it has more to do with being inconvenient. You know, like, it is very difficult to eat that amount of protein, make meals, but it does drive your food choices away from things that are hyper palatable. And it makes it hard to go

Philip Pape  41:43

out to eat it as well, doesn't it? I mean, it just makes you feel stuffed. Yes. And

Dr. Eric Helms  41:48

I think the data on really, really, really high protein intakes is not super clear for the long run on the satiety effect that seems to increase satiety, and that starts to level off. That's more similar to a moderate intake around like a gram per pound. But I don't think the inconvenience factor goes away. Like if you have to eat 350 grams of protein, and 150 grams of carbs and 70 grams of fat per day. What does that diet look like? It doesn't include eating out? Does it include things that are really really tasty, you know, there's a reason why carnivore is a rage. Because when you actually cut out 90% of the foods you eat, yeah, you're probably not going to have a whole lot of GI issues in the short term. And you're going to be in a deficit, you're going to lose weight, and you're going to be covering your bases protein wise. So if it's a protein modified fast, you know, it's a better approach than just do it like the grapefruit diet, right? So anyway, I find that those those those approaches typically are short lived. But some version of it can be useful just because it changes your your food of options, if you're someone who slides towards bulking too hardcore. And if you need some rules, like some macros, basically, which are end up being rules, de facto, they don't feel like rules. But you'd like to hit your target numbers. And that keeps you in check. You go to the restaurant, you're like, Okay, well, like Yeah, okay, the stakes are too high of fat. Alright, okay, well, the car? Oh, no, no, that the chicken is not enough protein, but like, you have to really think about, you know,

Philip Pape  43:14

a big plate of white fish, that's all you're gonna have. Exactly. Right.

Dr. Eric Helms  43:18

You know, so it, um, it makes things more challenging to keep making that same error. And that's a, if that works, go for it. But generally, in that situation, I would encourage the person towards something maybe a little more moderate. And just make sure that they weren't under any illusions of like the magic of protein, probably have a similar conversation that we just had from asking more questions like, you know, this isn't a consultation. But yeah, what

Philip Pape  43:48

about the illusions of the, the anti magic of carbs, so to speak, or the anti catabolic effects of carbs? Like are isn't someone missing out significantly when they're when they could be eating three or 400? And they're eating 80? Or 100?

Dr. Eric Helms  44:00

You know, to be honest, I'll tell you what, this is basically a scenario when you're eating, let's say 350 grams of protein, and 150 grams of carbs, instead of swapping it. It's, it's basically saying, Hey, I like to get in my in my car door by rolling down the window and the jump through, right? Because you're, you're asking, Hey, liver, how much can you have regulate? You know, gluconeogenesis? Like, how much how much can you convert to protein, and it's pretty good. Like, like, you can actually get to the point where, you know, like, 40% of your, your carbohydrate is getting produced from protein conversion. There's some paper, theoretical bills, burrowing man, which always stands out in my mind, because it kind of has these questions about like the upper end thresholds of theoretical protein intake and humans. So you know, I generally present protein as something that's not a metabolic substrate, primarily, it's for structural repair. But if you give your body twice what it needs in protein, it's going to make a lot of that into into carbohydrate and, and like ketone bodies like you know amino acids or their ketogenic or their glucogenic. So it's gonna start making other substrates from sure from that cleaving off those, Amiens recycling those things. And it will, that's why protein has a higher thermic effect of the other macronutrients to ETFs a little higher. That's why high protein diets brought a few more calories, and you would be maxing that out a little bit. You might be gaining the systems or you noticed, hey, I can actually eat 100 more calories when I do it like that. And I'm actually, you know, eating more than twice when old protein intake, that might be worth it to you, but it gets stuck calories are really going to enjoy it's another, you know, ounce of whitefish on your plate, right?

Philip Pape  45:43

Yeah, when you're probably already having a challenge eating enough anyway. It's like gaining face. All right, so straddling nutrition and training here. How do I want to ask this question? So imagine you have a kind of an intermediate athlete, which probably a lot of people listening to, they've gone through their newbie gains, maybe they're a year or two into effective training, they understand the basics of nutrition, like you've said it, and they just want to have the most efficient next two years in terms of physique, so let's say physique specifically, is their goal, not their one, our you know, for sure sports production or something? What would that look like from a periodization strategy? And I know it's like a general universal thing. We're talking here and everyone's different. But people always ask, you know, how long should I be cutting? bulking? You know, what, what does that look like? Do I use mini cuts that whole thing, I don't know, if we can generalize it,

Dr. Eric Helms  46:33

I think we can give some constraints to help people. So we recently just published a paper on different rates of weight gain, and changes in body composition. It just came out sports medicine open, we had a preprint up before that, open access, feel free to read it. And we had three different groups, one group was eating at maintenance, or attempting to one group was an attempted 5% surplus, and one group that attempted 15% surplus, and they were adjusted by a dietitian in real time and do video consults with them based upon how their weight was progressing. And then we looked at biceps and triceps, muscle thickness and quadricep muscle thickness changes, while they're doing a three times per week full body program aimed at generating hypertrophy for eight weeks. And there are some really interesting findings. For one, we regressed all of them, which just means that we plotted all of them together as one big group, plotting a change in body mass versus change in skinfold thicknesses. So the sum of all their skinfold thicknesses not a derived body fat percentage, but a very accurate measure of subcutaneous fat added together. And also, all of this different muscle thickness values and also their water strength gates, and just focusing on the gains they made. The strongest predictor of gaining more body weight, was getting more skinful thicknesses. And that was explained about 50% of the Marriott's in that. So if you want to know, am I going to put on body fat that's primarily influenced, but all the things you could do 50% of is influenced by how large is your surplus, not the content of the surplus necessarily. And I would guess the rest of it would be related to your trading and trading age and gaining capacity, right, those intangibles. But we know for sure that if you put put yourself in a big surplus, you're more likely to gain body fat. Another thing we found was that there was a very, very, very weak relationship with putting on slightly more bicep muscle thickness, but not quads, and also not triceps. And it's not because the biceps are magic. It's just when you look at the training program, I wrote that the biceps out of all the muscle groups that we measured, got the most trading volume, and it was going to fail your most of the time. So if you are pushing pretty hard to grow a certain muscle group, it's gonna have a little more gating potential. If you will, then you could, you know, but not that much. I mean, we're talking. There's 10 times the strength of evidence we used to Bayesian, the Bayes factor, it was like 14 point something versus 1.4, which is just kind of like an odds ratio, meaning that, hey, if you're in a larger surplus, you're 1.4 times more likely than someone at a smaller surplus in the study to put on more biceps thickness, but you're 14 times more likely to put on more skinful thickness. Yeah. Yeah. So. So it's certainly a lot of variance between individuals. But yeah, so training hard is important in dropping it too large of a surplus is important for not accumulating unnecessary fat gain, right? Now, it'd be easy to go okay, well, then, therefore, you should be closer to that 5% surplus. And, you know, maybe you could just try made gaining made to gain TT, whatever you want to call it. But the problem with that is that that's hard advice to follow. And this came, we looked at our nutritional data, so we had a 5% surplus group 15% surplus group, and we regress them as one big group, which was useful. And the reason we had to do that is because the 5% and the 15% group had the same mean body weight change, meaning that it's really hard for people to follow up Very, very specific surplus. Yeah. So yeah, so on average, not everyone, but on average, a 5% surplus turned into a 50% surplus, right. And the 50% surplus had some people who are in a 15, we're at a 5% surplus. So the precision there is in the CELT, like we didn't have a familiarization phase, it wasn't like they didn't have you know, a dietician guiding them. They had the equivalent of like one on one coaching like you and I would provide online. And some of the some of the people in the study were pretty advanced. So it wasn't for it just being a bunch of random soccer moms doing something they had never done before. Right. And sorry, pickup soccer mom felt that like, oh, man, there's a bunch of tracking, I don't know why it has to be, you know, soccer balls, please. Just got these internal biases against the soccer mom. So I apologize. But um, so anyway, the I think the lesson here is that you do need to figure out what's feasible first. And that's going to dictate your approach. Because if you're working with a bodybuilder, sure, you can say, hey, I want a 5% surplus. And I want you to only get a pound a month. But if you're working with your general fitness enthusiast, that might turn into two pounds a month anyway, and then they just feel like they're failing. So then you go, Okay, well, what's the slowest rate we can gain reasonably, if it's appropriate for the person's goal. So like, if they're an intermediate, you probably want a little bit slower, just because it'll put on body fat. But it's also going to create a good environment for gains. And then from there, that'll dictate your cutting schedule, because like How high should I get it? So it might be something like four months of being in like a gaining phase, and then a one month mini cut? That's probably the the highest ratio of cutting to getting I would have to see have more time to do it. And ideally, I'd like to be less frequently that that

Philip Pape  51:48

less regularly meeting me want to stretch everything out six months and building to like a six week mini cut or something.

Dr. Eric Helms  51:54

Yeah, or even just a month, because that means they gave us that period, right? And also, there's other factors is going to impact this. So it's basically how close do we think you already are genetic ceiling? And then what's your current body fat level? And how comfortable are you with it? Because if someone's relatively high in body fat, the answer may just be we do a conservative cut. And we know that they're going to have a good chance of actually putting on muscle mass, they'll probably recap quite well. And if they're a newbie, they're probably going to read and let's say they they're higher body fat than they otherwise like to be. We could also just kind of eat a maintenance and let body recomposition do its thing until it seems like it's stopping. And I think you can run across

Philip Pape  52:33

someone who's What about someone who's gone through this. And they're like, kind of at that steady state? I don't know for myself 15%, body fat, something like that. And they just want it like what's the, you know, put it on autopilot for the next five years? What would the cycles generally look like? For most? Do you line it up with the seasons and life? Is that a kind of a good approach? Or do you have you seen a certain ratio and length of time be more optimal?

Dr. Eric Helms  52:55

I prefer like a minimum four to one or six or eight to one ratio, the slowest they can gain while still being able to check that they're gaining and focusing more on progress in the gym. So this looks more like hey, having a four to eight month period of only getting like a pound a month. And then we look up really okay, we've gained, you know, five to 10 pounds, how are we look at? And you know, a good answer for someone in that scenario would be like, yeah, it was probably about two thirds body fat, you know. And, I mean, that's incredible, right, that means you put on three to four pounds of muscle, you know, in the better part of a year, I doing that. But I think if someone can do that in a relatively late stage, that's fantastic. And then you clean up and you're rinse and repeat. And it is certain points, you do get to get to a place where that is becoming less and less and less, less possible, and you're getting better and better and better and better at tracking. And it starts to look a little more individualized, and you might stay lighter. And it's more just about creating a good trading environment and in traditional environment and kind of clustering into a surplus, and just figuring out what timeframe that looks like. And then what level of precision and control and structure do you need to not let less than ideal habits kind of take hold where you're like whatever I'm not trying to gain weight says really matter like meal frequency slips and protein intake drops, like that's what you want to actually avoid at the advanced level. Yeah,

Philip Pape  54:22

and the idea of just keeping the training you know, hard and sufficient the whole time can can end up being the holdup for a lot of folks once even when say down the nutrition thing because because of life and the programming and

Dr. Eric Helms  54:34

died at a time. Yeah, it is what it is for advanced lifters. It's not nutrition right and less there because you typically don't get to be an advanced lifter when you chronically under eat. Right? You know, that actually ends up holding you back. So most advanced lifters that I've found. They are either too big if they get too heavy, or they're able to maintain but they're not seem to make any progress. And the guys who get too heavy like sometimes they cut down If they see that nothing changed, and then there is a nutritional modification, just they're happy in or in general, but for the, the objective goal have to be put on lean mass is the same for both of those two people, the person who's better at not getting too heavy, and kind of hangs around 15%, or the person who's floating up to 25% of for using this kind of male archetype, you can add a percent to those numbers for women. And in the case where the person is not struggling to get too heavy, I would even say 10 out of 10 times unless it's like a sleep issue or something else, if, in the cases where it could be nutrition or training, it's always training, because, or they're just done, which, which does mean that we don't want to ever accept that to be the case, but but they could just be like, you know, now it's I'm actually, you know, I've been training for 30 years. And we're just gonna focus on other aspects of the process and focus on living in this awesome body of built for as long as possible, right, yeah. But most of the time, what you're doing is you're going the training is obviously not stimulating muscle growth, because nutrition is permissive. Right, okay, we have an environment that would support growth, if growth, there was a growth stimulus, but there's not. So let's talk about specialization cycles. Let's, let's take a look at how much volume you're doing per muscle group, let's, let's really audit your proximity to failure, let's audit your recovery. Are we doing too much or too little? Do we need to focus on these groups of muscles, not that etc. And that becomes everything. So focusing on training is, is it because you could take early stage intermediate, or late stage novice and anything reasonable will get them good gains that you probably are splitting hairs, we try to make them optimal. But when you get to an advanced level, like for me, the difference between 2019 why I was close to a pro Corbin didn't get it in this year. And excited there were physique changes beyond just getting leaner, which I'm only happening now I don't think I think onstage last Saturday, I was as late as I was at the May of 2019. I play second at that show. And it was arguably a similar competitive level of show. But this one, I was second overall and got a pro card. So what happened. And the difference was, is that I probably put maybe 100 grams of tissue on certain key spots, you know, so I have more medial delts, I had more back, I had more more back with. So the back with the shoulder with it really from my narrow structure, it makes such a huge difference. It's a disproportionate influence on some poses, and my my bodybuilding outcomes. So how do you track that, you know, 100 reps over like, you know, so. So that's the type of thing where it was all down to specialization cycles, training, implementation, my calves also improved a little bit, I was still like an orthotic stretching device, you know. So there's a lot more that goes into that side of it. When you're at an advanced level.

Philip Pape  57:47

Yeah. So do you have time for like a couple of questions. One or two more? I know, we're at the bottom of the hour here.

Dr. Eric Helms  57:53

Yeah, got like five minutes that we're okay.

Philip Pape  57:55

Yeah, it works. I'll take all my training questions and kind of swish it into one because you touched on, on the key variables, right? It all comes down to individualization for you, right? The volume, and your programming and recovery and all of that. Yeah. So my question is for like a late intermediate, or even an intermediate? Because again, I think that's if you think of the bell curve, right, a lot of the population here. Yep. How do they find that sweet spot without looking back and thinking they wasted the last two years of their lifting? How do they find that individualized volume, sweet spot? They're not a programming guru, per se, they might have a coach, but you know, like, what, where is it? Is it? Is it effective reps? Is it you know, how you feel with your biofeedback? Is it just trial and error? You know, what is it? Eric,

Dr. Eric Helms  58:39

I think for one, philosophically, you're now at a point where you're entering a phase where you have to be willing to invest in a strategy, that's going to take a while that assessment pays off, and know that there's no other way around it. And the only other way to do to go is to always be looking at the graphing grader and program hopping, and then wasting more time than you otherwise would have versus committing to something for, say, four months, six months, seeing if it worked, and being open to the idea that maybe it didn't. But that's a valuable lesson. So that's the philosophical shift, one. The second one, though, is that you are going to have indicators of whether or not it's working along the way. And, like, it's a little different if you're just purely a competitive bodybuilder at the advanced level. But if your overall goal is this progress and growth, you do want to assess your trading box. And over a reasonable timeframe, you should be seeing performance trending up in the stuff you're focusing on. And let's say you really missed a general intermediate, you're not specializing any muscle group yet, you're still running, let's say an upper lower split, and you want generally everything to grow, you should generally be seeing that over the course of say a mesocycle of training, say six to 12 weeks of training, that you're getting a fewer reps or the same load to slightly lower RPE and that you know your eight to 15 RMS or clustering upward where you can sustain that same those reps across multiple sets. And there should be indicators that you are with the same technique, able to lift heavier, or for more reps, or that it's getting better cleaned up, like oh, like I'm going increased range of motion and better depth. And I'm not using as much momentum, even though it's the same RP and reps. And if that's not happening, then I would be comfortable saying, you know, what you put in a solid, you know, two mesocycles of needed to four week blocks of this training, that should be resulting in at least a slight majority of your lifts going up. And if they didn't go up at all, I think then you can go back to the drawing board. So that lag time does start to extend out. But I think, because you see larger changes in performance than you do in your physique, but they are indicating one another indirectly, at least, that you can not let the the amount of time passed for too long before you make some type of change to your progress that is informed by that, you know, so let's say you commit you guys, I'm going to try a lower volume closer to failure program. Awesome. Okay. At the eight week mark, is it working? And you're assessing your progress? If not, then you go, okay, maybe that wasn't it for me. But now I've at least explored going close to failure. So I'm going to try to see, okay, can I keep the same proximity to failure, how's my recovery, I'm going to go up 20% in volume, right, and then see what happens. And if the only thing you notice is that your recovery takes a hit. And now it's really hard because you have to do another set on everything going to failure still, but you don't actually make objective improvements, then you redial it again, okay, well, I'm gonna pull the volume back even further. And I'm, or rather my proximity to failure back even further, I'm gonna try to 123 or IR most the time. But now I'm going to make another 20 or 30%, increase in volume, and see how it goes. And you start to dial it onto what works well for you. And then you can apply that same kind of mindset to exercise selection, which I think actually gives you faster biofeedback and my feeling and my target muscle. Is that what I introduce these new exercises, do I get Dom's in the place? I'm supposed to get it. So there's a different set of rubrics but similar process. And that also, hey, let me take the same amount of volume, same exercise, etc, and manipulate the frequency and distribution throughout the week, to start to see if I can get the most out of my recovery and get the least bleed over into subsequent sessions. I

Philip Pape  1:02:25

think that last point is really important because people are hearing volume and they think it's up or down. And what you're saying is it could be the distribution of the volume. Yes. And I found that myself, especially in a cut, going from like, three days to six days actually works for me, because I guess spread it out even though I am working out six days a week. You know, it sounds counterintuitive, but definitely one experiment. So, man, this has been great. Eric, as always, last question, where do you want folks to find you?

Dr. Eric Helms  1:02:48

Yo, I think just based upon that last question you gave me what I really recommend people do is they go to the 3d MJ vault. This is our online learning platform for it, people are interested in either competitive or non competitive bodybuilding, we have a really cool course called bodybuilding program design, which is exactly what we just talked about. It is you starting with an inside out approach to programming How do I set up my own individual volume targets needs, etc. For me apply It's my life. And then how do I experiment with it? And it's a three coach collaboration myself a Brendon Yes, Brad Loomis teaching you basically how to individualize your training for people at that stage where they know like, like I said, I was 10 out of 10 times, that's the reason you're not progressing in the lab enables you to instead of just starting with a split, they kind of shoehorned you into I have to do for upper lower days or push pull legs or something like that. You start with no not I'm gonna start with a split, what are my individual needs? And then the training program where the split becomes an emergent property of that. So it's inherently much more customized. And then how do you honor that change over time?

Philip Pape  1:03:53

Awesome, couldn't have planned it any better go to the 3d MJ vault. It's called the bodybuilding program design. I'll put that in the show notes. I really appreciate you taking the time again to come on for a second time on Wits. & Weights, Eric, best of luck with the rest of the contest season and everything else and we'll definitely be in touch. Thanks for coming on.

Dr. Eric Helms  1:04:10

It's been a true pleasure. Thank you so much.

Philip Pape  1:04:14

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.