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Philip Pape 8/5/24 Philip Pape 8/5/24

7 Biggest Fitness & Nutrition Myths Busted After 200 Episodes (According to Listeners) | Ep 200

Are you tired of hitting roadblocks in your fitness journey? Do you wonder if some of your fitness and nutrition beliefs might be holding you back?

In this milestone 200th episode of Wits & Weights, host Philip (@witsandweights) pulls back the curtain on the biggest surprises that can transform your approach to health and fitness. Get ready to challenge what you think you know and discover powerful insights that can elevate your results!

Throughout the episode, Philip shares insights from the Wits & Weights community, showing how these myth-busting lessons have led to real-world transformations. By the end of this episode, you'll have a fresh perspective on fitness and nutrition, armed with evidence-based strategies to achieve your best physique and live your healthiest life.

📱Book a FREE 15-minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment, designed to fine-tune your strategy, identify your #1 roadblock, and give you a personalized 3-step action plan in a fast-paced 15 minutes.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

3:22 Myth #1: You need to eat less to lose weight
7:17 Myth #2: You need to avoid certain foods
9:49 Myth #3: You need to obsess over numbers
15:00 Myth #4: Fitness and nutrition are complicated
18:52 Myth #5: Your current workout routine is optimal
23:30 Myth #6: Failures are setbacks
26:07 Myth #7: Fitness is solely focused on physical health
29:05 Changes based on the community's feedback
35:15 Outro

Episode resources:

Reach out to Philip on IG @witsandweights
Bonus: Share a screenshot of this episode on your story and tag Philip so he can re-share it!

Episode summary:

Ever wondered if eating more could actually help you lose weight? In the 200th episode of the Wits and Weights podcast, we tackle some of the most surprising myths and misconceptions in fitness and nutrition. This episode features inspiring stories from listeners who have transformed their perspectives and achieved real results through consistency and simplicity.

The episode kicks off with a deep dive into seven surprising myths that have been busted over the years. One of the most intriguing is the idea that eating more can aid in fat loss. Alan, a dedicated listener, shares how he shifted from viewing food as something to restrict to seeing it as essential fuel for progress. This mindset shift, from restriction to additive nutrition, aligns with scientifically-backed strategies for optimizing performance and recovery. Flexible dieting and non-linear approaches are highlighted as effective methods for achieving long-term transformation.

Consistency and simplicity emerge as key themes throughout the episode. Wyatt, another community member, shares his journey of moving away from meticulous tracking of numbers and focusing on the bigger picture of consistent habits. His story debunks the myth that perfection is necessary for success. Instead, small, sustainable changes can lead to significant, long-term results. Isis also contributes by demonstrating how straightforward and logical approaches to fitness can be both effective and easy to maintain.

Listener feedback has played a crucial role in shaping the podcast’s direction. This episode highlights how the content has evolved to better serve the audience, introducing new formats and focusing on specific demographics and issues. Rita’s story underscores the importance of aligning workout routines with personal goals, such as incorporating resistance training for muscle building. Her experience highlights the need to adapt and find routines that align with individual goals, emphasizing that effective strategies don’t have to be complicated or restrictive.

Breaking down fitness and nutrition myths, the podcast celebrates its milestone by reflecting on the biggest surprises and lessons learned. Alan’s experience with additive nutrition and flexible dieting illustrates how eating more can actually be a secret weapon for fat loss. By viewing food as fuel for progress, rather than something to restrict, Alan has optimized his approach to nutrition in a way that aligns with evidence-based strategies. This approach emphasizes the importance of fueling the body for performance, recovery, and long-term transformation.

The episode also delves into the importance of consistency and simplicity. Wyatt’s insights reveal the pitfalls of obsessing over precise numbers in fitness and nutrition tracking. By focusing on consistent habits rather than perfection, Wyatt has achieved significant long-term results. Isis further illustrates how uncomplicated, logical approaches to fitness can be both effective and sustainable. Her story emphasizes that efficient strategies do not have to be complicated or restrictive, and the most sustainable approaches are often the least like traditional dieting.

Mindful practices in fitness are another key topic discussed. The episode challenges misconceptions around achieving desired physiques, emphasizing that it doesn’t require constant hunger or deprivation. Understanding energy balance and proper nutrition allows for more flexibility in diet plans, making them simpler and more sustainable. Rita’s experience highlights the importance of adapting workout routines to align with personal goals. By incorporating resistance training and building confidence in the gym, Rita has achieved better results, demonstrating that effective strategies can be simple and empowering.

Listener feedback has been instrumental in the podcast’s evolution. A recent listener survey revealed the real-world impact of the show, with many listeners reporting significant influences on their approach to fitness, nutrition, and health. Based on this feedback, several changes have been made to the show’s format, including reducing episode frequency to avoid overwhelming subscribers, introducing more varied formats, and focusing on specific demographics and issues. These enhancements aim to provide more relevant, practical, and engaging content for the community.

Engaging directly with the audience is a recurring theme in the episode. Listeners are invited to share their biggest takeaways or surprises from the show and to send questions or express frustrations encountered online or from other podcasts. This feedback loop is crucial for creating better content and helping other listeners learn from the show. Emphasizing the importance of gradual progress in fitness journeys, the podcast encourages continuous improvement, mirroring its own journey to reach 200 episodes through consistent, incremental progress.

In summary, the 200th episode of Wits and Weights is a celebration of busting fitness and nutrition myths, highlighting the importance of consistency, simplicity, and mindful practices. Real stories from listeners like Alan, Wyatt, and Rita provide practical insights and inspiration for anyone on a fitness journey. By evolving based on listener feedback, the podcast continues to offer valuable, evidence-based content that empowers listeners to achieve their fitness goals.

This episode serves as a blueprint for changing the game in fitness and nutrition. It encourages listeners to rethink their strategies, embrace flexibility, and focus on consistent, sustainable habits. With a commitment to evidence-based approaches and continuous improvement, Wits and Weights is dedicated to helping listeners build their best physique and live their healthiest lives. As the podcast moves forward into the next 200 episodes and beyond, it remains a valuable resource for anyone seeking practical, impactful information.

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:01

Everything we think we know about fitness and nutrition might be wrong. At least that's the impression I have after 200 episodes of diving deep into the evidence and having meaningful conversations with listeners who follow the show. To mark our 200 bowl episode, today, we're doing something special. I reach out to some of our most loyal listeners, the ones who've been with us since the early days, and ask them about the biggest surprises they've learned from the show. That shattered a long health fitness or nutrition myth, the conventional wisdom that everyone takes for granted and are pushed hard by the fitness industry, even though they're probably not true. From eating more to working out less to discovering your biggest obstacles, not what you thought. I'm pulling back the curtain on the seven biggest surprises from the first 200 episodes of The Whitson weights podcast. Whether you're a longtime listener, or this is your first time tuning in. I think this episode serves as a blueprint for changing the game and being doing and becoming a better human being, not just for your physical and mental health, but for living a long and fulfilling life. Welcome to rich and weights, a podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.

Philip Pape 01:21

I'm your host, Philip pape, and today we are celebrating a major milestone, our 200th episode. Whoo. All right, can you believe it? Since launching in November 2021, we've actually published over 300 Total episodes, with 200 of those being full numbered episodes like this one, we've hit over 275,000 Total downloads 25,000 downloads per month, and are now listened to an over 140 countries and almost 7000 cities. It is extremely humbling to see how far we've come and how many lives we've touched. But this show isn't about just numbers, it really is about you, our listeners, without which it wouldn't exist. It's about what you've learned how you've taken action, and the progress you've made to transform your life for the better. So today, we are turning the spotlight on you and sharing some of the biggest surprises and lessons our longtime listeners have learned over 200 episodes. Now these are real world examples of how evidence based approaches can change lives by simply offering a fresh, grounded perspective on how things actually work based on science and based on your body and your mind, because it is very personalized, so that you can take full control and get the health and physique you want. Now, if any of these stand out for you, after you listen to this episode, or if anything changes your perspective, either as a longtime listener, or just from the episode itself. I would love it if you shared a screenshot of this episode to your Instagram or Facebook story and tag me just to celebrate the 200 just to let people know, hey, I listened to the show. They just had their 200th episode, check it out, I will reshare it to my audience. And that way I know a few of you out there were inspired by the episode or as by listening to the show. Again, just take a screenshot in your podcast app, share it online and tag me at Whitsun Wix. All right, let's dive into the seven biggest surprises or Myths Busted after 200 episodes of the wits and weights podcast. The first surprise is how eating more could be your secret weapon for fat loss. And this one is from Alan, one of our longtime listeners. And he said quote, the biggest lesson is that I view food as fuel for progress. Whether I'm holding on to muscle for a cut phase, or adding muscle in a bulking phase, I typically looked at food in regards to how much to restrict. Now I look at food as what foods can I add to align with what I need for my physical goals. And that word add is important because we talk about additive nutrition as an adding some protein to your plate. Right? As opposed to taking things away. And this shift from restriction and deprivation to let's fuel ourselves, right, let's support ourselves let's serve ourselves is really a huge shift that people make during this process. And it aligns with what we talked about with adequate nutrition for muscle building and fat loss. Nutrition is always on this show in the context of what we are trying to do with our body and improve it. Not in the context of I'm trying to lose weight. Or I feel like I have to cut something out. Because your body does need fuel. It needs fuel to perform, to recover and ultimately to transform over time because it's adding new tissue. It's releasing some fat along the way. And that requires energy and energy out and thinking that way right chronic under eating, which many of you know who you are. Right when you about the state of low energy, like you're never quite there where you need to be in the gym. And that hinders your progress, it leads to things like muscle loss, right when you're on a weight loss drug and you lose weight too fast, for example, or when you don't have enough carbs, and now you don't have the performance to hit it in the gym. It can slow down your metabolism, you know, not permanently, we can't break our metabolisms, but we can definitely cause them to slow down and to adapt in the short term with our lifestyle choices. So by viewing food as fuel for progress, instead of something to be feared or restricted, or to punish ourselves with, we are looking at it as fuel to add to our plate to support our nutrition and our training. This is just one of many examples you're going to hear today of working smarter and more efficiently, right? Looking at these things as tools for progress, rather than something that emotionally or morally restricts us, right and Alan with his comment, he's optimized his approach to nutrition in a way that perfectly aligns with the evidence as well. He also mentioned something else that caught my attention, he said, quote, in addition to the additive nutrition comment, my biggest surprise and helpful strategy is flexible, slash non linear dieting, especially the stairstep fat loss approach. This release changed my mental approach to the physical and detailed aspects of my nutrition and quote. And so if you've been a regular listener, or even just listen to some recent episodes, go back into the catalogue and look at recent ones about my three new dieting methods, or the one that I did called My stairstep fat loss process. We've talked about nonlinear dieting, quite a bit nonlinear meaning you don't necessarily have to lose weight at the exact same rate. And you don't have to eat the same amount of calories every day, there's creative ways to work with our bodies and work with our lives. And our schedules, instead of assuming has to be one way, right, one size fits all. And then that allows for periods of more aggressive fat loss, interspersed with maintenance phases. And these can be easier to sustain both physically and mentally, and both short term and long term. And that's a great example of how we can make these strategies effective, but long lasting, okay. That's the first surprise. The second surprise is how embracing all foods leads to less stress, more freedom, and more long term success. And this actually comes from Carol, her comment brief but powerful, she said, quote, a mindset shift from restriction to food freedom. And this ties in beautifully with what Alan was talking about, doesn't it about additive nutrition, and fueling your body and not worrying about cutting things out. It's not about saying no to foods, but instead, saying that anything can go as long as it serves me right now, not eating whatever you want, whenever you want. Not that YOLO diet, the dream balk, right? Or not assuming that you're going to be able to cut aggressively eating all pizza and doughnuts. It's about understanding that all foods can fit into a healthy dietary pattern, when consumed in the right amounts in the right macro balance with the right amount of micronutrients for you. And that allows you to make informed choices in they're informed by what you want, right in terms of your goals, your preferences, the food preferences, but they're also informed by what you need. Rather than following a rigid diet, a diet plan demonizing certain foods, cutting foods out great. And when you do that, when you're like, Oh, I could actually eat anything. As long as I stick to some calorie macros and any other you know, goals I've set for myself, like my meal timing or whatnot, reduces stress around eating, it makes social situations like going out to restaurants, going to vacations, going to that party and having the cake right, even Yes, drinking some alcohol easier to navigate. And then that is what leads to healthier relationship with food because you're not saying can't have that kind of have that can't have that and then you binge right, the Restrict binge cycle goes away. And this is backed by science we've seen for years studies comparing flexible dieting, with rigid dieting rigid meaning I have a meal plan, or I have to eat these foods and I can't eat these foods. Those have consistently been shown to be unsuccessful for not only losing weight often but maintaining it. Whereas flexible dieting allows you to get to your goal, whether that's losing fat, gaining muscle, maintaining your weight, whatever, and then stay there stay wherever you want to be for a while. And that leads to long term health and success. Right and so that is where Carol has definitely set herself up by thinking that way based on this podcast, which is awesome. Okay. The third surprise is why obsessing over numbers, despite the importance of tracking and measuring could be sabotaging your progress. Whew, now you're thinking, Wait a minute, Philip, you talk about data all the time data and driven, tailored, engineered, right. But let's dive into this what I'm talking about Wyatt, Wyatt, longtime listener and Facebook community member. He said, quote, it doesn't need to be so precise and exact. It means even more coming from the science and engineering nerds, which I'm gladly and openly part of the science and engineering nerds. So what is he talking about? All right, as an engineer myself, and every week we put on an episode that ties engineering to fitness, I can certainly relate 100,000% to the desire for precision. But why it is also correct because when it comes to nutrition and fitness, if you overthink or over obsess over exact numbers, especially at the exclusion of other things, right, or without seeing the big picture, it can definitely cause more harm, more neuroticism, and obsession, then, you know, productive progress. I'm going to add some context here. But he went on to say, quote, Greg knuckles topic on TDE calculations. Alright, that's your metabolism was super eye opening, especially knowing that they can be super inaccurate in either direction. So he's talking about the calculators online. When you go to an online calculator to figure out how many calories you burn every day, they can be very inaccurate, either direction, continuing his quote, If I go out to eat, I don't have to be so precise with every single ingredient and calorie. That plate of pasta is about 1000 calories. Okay, sounds close enough and quote. So he's making an important distinction that while tracking itself, is extremely useful, and I encourage it, I encourage tracking so many things that help you see the big picture, it's important to remember that the level of tracking precision has a point of diminishing returns where you could be spending too much time overthinking it, too much perfectionist tendencies too much neuroticism. A good example would be when you go to a restaurant, you probably shouldn't be taking a food scale with you just estimate, right? When you're at home, even though you're weighing your food, if you've got 10 ingredients, maybe you only need to log two or three of the ingredients that have the most energy, right, it's a matter of degrees. Even with scale weight, right, we weigh ourselves daily, but we don't obsess over it, we actually want to look at the trend over time. When you go to the gym, you're tracking your PRs, you're tracking your lifts, sometimes you're not gonna have a good day and it's fine, you might miss a rep, you get back to it, you use that information, but you don't overthink it. Because your body is not a perfectly calibrated machine. It's actually this very gooey, organic, complex biological system that varies day to day. And so when we can take it as a system, where we can take it as a whole, we can actually be a lot more flexible. And I'll say graceful with ourselves and how we use this data. So he actually continued with what he wrote to me, quote, with that comes the realization that one day of eating doesn't make or break me. And there's no need to beat myself up over an individual choice in a day, I'm more conscious of the way foods make me feel like Ooh, that was a lot of oil, rather than how they fit into my perfect macronutrient. Target. And so there's this concepts of, you know, consistency over perfection, knowing that one choice you make during one day doesn't change your trajectory for the rest of your life. Right. It's like, just take it as it comes, track the data. But don't overdo it. Focus on the big picture, and keep moving, keep making progress, keep iterating and adjusting and experimenting, but not getting hung up. Right. And his realization about this precision versus consistency is a very key principle to efficient progress, including time efficiency, because you're not getting bogged down in daily minutiae that then takes all this extra time. Right. And oftentimes I hear people, clients and community members say, like, well, it just takes too much time to do this thing. And I'm like, Well, let's think of a different, more efficient way to get you that result. That might be 7080 90%, rather than 100%. And that's more than good enough. It's way better than zero. And then finally, Wyatt summed it up beautifully here, quote, it's the consistent habits over time that really make the difference. I have confidence that I am consistently eating protein, hitting my calorie goals, training hard, and doing what it takes overall, just takes time and consistency. Hell yeah, man. Like that. Is it right there. Thank you for summarizing the whole premise of this show. And echoing what we've said over and over, that it's not about being perfect every day. It's been good enough most of the time, and you're gonna get there very efficiently that way. All right. Number four. The fourth surprise is how simplicity usually beats out complexity. And you can see a common theme between all of this stuff like Simplicity vs. Complexity is somewhat related to what we just talked about, from why and of not overthinking, right. Moving on to ISIS, who shared this perspective, ISIS was on the show before and she's a longtime listener, she said, quote, how uncomplicated, and logical it was to get the body I always dreamed of, and how much I get to eat in the process. Alright, and quote. So this touches on two key points that we've also come back to time and again, first, effective fitness and nutrition doesn't need to be complicated. In fact, one of the simplest approaches are often I should say the simplest approaches are the most effective, because they are the easiest to stick to consistently, even if they require effort. You know what to do? You get it done, you get the feedback. If you're not getting it done, you'll know and then you get it done right. Second, is that achieving the physique that you want, does not mean constant hunger, and deprivation. Now, I'm kind of mixing two different things here, I understand. But when you understand the principles of energy balance and proper nutrition, you could usually eat more than you think, while still making progress toward your goals. And that ties back to what Alan and Carol said about moving away from a restrictive mindset and also ties into what ISIS is saying about simplicity, right. Because the diet plans the meal plans, they actually make it too complicated. Flexibility means every day can be a little bit different. You can roll the punches, you can take life as it comes. And that is being human. Right, focus on fueling your body, making the nutritious choices to fuel you. And now it actually becomes a lot simpler to get through your day, to plan out your week to plan out your meals. And then you probably eat a surprising amount of food while still losing fat or building muscle as you go through that process.

Philip Pape 17:08

Philip Pape 18:29

So irises, no surprise here at how simple it is, and how abundant it is. highlights the core principle that efficient strategies do not have to be complicated. They don't have to be restrictive. The most sustainable approaches are usually the ones that actually feel the least like dieting. That is the key here. And so therefore it's simple. It's liberating. It's empowering. Okay, so you hear some very overlapping themes here. The fifth surprise is how your favorite workouts might have passed their expiration date and no longer serve you. All right. What do I mean by this? Let's look at Rita's comment. So Rita touched on something that many of you struggle with, and that is you have a workout routine that you like. And now a fitness guru or fitness influencer or podcast host like myself comes along and says, maybe you want to reconsider that that might not be serving you. And she says quote, speaking of mindset, I found it interesting and a hard transition to the adjustment for moving away from my bootcamp classes that were not giving me the results I want. However, now that I'm building confidence in the gym, new routines and flexible nutrition, I'm in a better place and quote, and I'm glad Rita brought this up because many people they get stuck in workout routines that are not serving them. Well. It's usually out of out of habit, or fear of change, or maybe they actually enjoy it, but it's not giving them the result. Right and she mentioned boot camp Ansan I've heard this a lot with my clients, especially female clients who do the various group classes, they love the camaraderie, they love the community, I have the same experience with CrossFit very often. But it wasn't give me the results, right. And sometimes you have to make a change, even if it's challenging at first, even if it is beyond your comfort zone or expanding your comfort zone. And when you make that change, you're going to be a beginner again. And that can be very frustrating, right, and now you have to learn again, and you have to grow again. And that's the point at which habits hit roadblocks and bumps along the way before they start to stick. But if there's a few principles that tie into what Rita said, the first one is the importance of identifying training that aligns with your goals, right. If you are trying to build strength and physique, you're trying to improve your body composition, you're going to have to use resistance training, and you're going to have to progress over time progressive overload. A lot of bootcamp classes are cardio focused, they're high reps, there are a lot of movements perfectly fine for exercise, but not necessarily for training to build muscle. So you've got to pick the thing that works for you. And it doesn't mean you have to totally give up that other thing, you could definitely incorporate a mix of modalities. The second principle here is is building confidence in the gym, learning to navigate the gym like a commercial gym and perform exercises correctly have the right form and technique that can be extremely empowering, and then open up a world of more options. And for example, and I'm gonna plug our weights and weights physique University, we drop new programs every month, right? If you're in there, you get brand new programs every month, there's novice intermediate, physique, strength, female. And we do form checks. And the reason we do form checks is because there are a lot of people that join are not necessarily beginners, but they're switching to this different way of working out. And they're not super confident in, for example, how to do a squat or how to do a deadlift. And as soon as they post a video, and I take a look, usually there's some fundamental, major, you know, correction that needs to be made. But because they've shared that and been been vulnerable, in asking for feedback, they get the feedback, all of a sudden, they can fix it. Literally the next day, they fixed that. And they are they've gone from 20% skill to like 70% skill in one session, just from an online forum check and having a supportive community with some accountability. So building that gym confidence, men and women, right for men, it's probably like, learning how to do the movements I want to do for women, it's that but also getting over the gym intimidation, and like navigating and the etiquette of the gym, equipment, all that fun stuff affects men and women, of course, it's very important to, to kind of empower you to do that. I think Rita, I remember her going through that process. And then of course, you combine that with your nutrition, because if you're now training hard, you're building muscle. And now you combine that with this flexible nutrition approach. That's when the magic really happens because they support each other. And both start to accelerate toward, really, ultimately what you want. And read his journey is an example of how making these changes, even if they're initially uncomfortable, are the things that lead to the better results and overall satisfaction with your fitness journey. So question how you're working out today. And reach out to me on Instagram at weights and weights? If you have any questions about your training, because I could definitely point you to a previous episode or just straight up answer your question and whatever it is. Alright, the sixth surprise is how the more you fail, the more data you have and can transform even faster. So here I want to dive into a quote from Sean. And she said quote, for me, it's positive reframing. Let me repeat that, for me. It's positive reframing. It's easy to be negative if I don't reach a specific goal in a day, whether it's step count grams of protein. But it's one day out of many Philips constant reminder that it's still data that you're tracking, it's still momentum moving you forward. A positive mindset can make tomorrow's progress easier and better. And quote, This is so powerful. It's so powerful. I'm glad Shawn brought it up, because it ties in with what we've discussed already about consistency over perfection. But to get more specific, there's a few things that come up for me here. The first is how valuable tracking data is, but not obsessing over as we talked about with Wyatt. But just having data and measuring the things that you care about that represent the outcome you're trying to achieve. Even when you don't hit your target on a given day. Every day provides you that information about your habits and progress. And so to me, there's no such thing as a failure, right? Anytime you miss a target, that's just a data point says you've missed it and then you see what happens when you miss it. The other principle is again, looking at the big picture, right one day doesn't mean Take a break you It's the trend. So that's where seeing data day to day gives you peace of mind, when you see how it accumulates, like scale weight, right scale, a can go up two pounds, and it could go down two pounds, you know, you had extra carbs at dinner, you have some inflammation from your workout, whatever. And it's just waterway fluctuations. But when you have it day after day after day, and you see the trend over time, now you understand why it's important to collect that data. And then mindset is huge here, right? Because Shawn mentioned positive reframing. That's what we're doing here. We're saying, no, these aren't failures, these are data points like that, right, there is just a simple positive reframe. And when you can apply that to anything that hits your head is negative, any negative emotion that comes up, if you can reframe it, you're able to bounce back, able to be resilient. And that's what leads to consistency. Right? Don't beat yourself up over not hitting a daily goal, look at it as useful data, and a chance to learn and adjust. That leads to better adherence that leads to less stress. And that leads to better and faster results. Okay, the seventh and final surprise, is really my own surprise, but it is from all of you. And I'll explain in a second, how this show is changing lives well beyond the physical. Okay, our listeners, you have helped me evolve this show to what it is today. And we conducted a listener survey a few months back. And what struck me most about that was the real world impact of the show. Now I get messages from you guys all the time, not as many as I would like, I would love to have like dozens of messages a day from people saying how much the show affected them in some small way. And I know there's more of you out there than who actually reach out just based on how probabilities work in that sense. But I would just love to hear from you. But I have heard about you during the survey. And many of you reported that this show it's a way to significantly influence your approach to fitness to nutrition to health. Some of you mentioned, sharing advice from the show with your friends or family, or using the content on the show as a reference point for what you do every day with your decisions. And with your plans with your nutrition with your training. And this level of real world application. And implementation is something I never anticipated when I started the show in late 2021. Because at the time, I didn't even know if I could do a podcast, I didn't know if anybody would be listening or care. I didn't know if what I had to say was like unique enough. But seeing those results and hearing people even very recently, give me similar feedback that, hey, I love the fact that the weights and the weights come together that you talk about both training and nutrition and how they work together, not just one of those, and how you talk about being smart and efficient. So we can save time, and we're all busy and like it's flexible. Those are so powerful of reminding me that I have a responsibility. Now, as a content creator. This is not just for me. And that causes me to work harder to provide you with accurate, practical, impactful, but even like entertaining, interesting and unique information as well. Right? Because I don't want to just be like every other podcasts out there. Because then Why listen. So your feedback has helped improve the show. But it's also reinforced my belief in the importance of what we're doing of evidence based. And by evidence. I mean, yes, the science, but also our personal experience, experience through coaching. And you as an individual, your own personal N equals one experience, and also making it accessible because the podcast is free. So it's tons of free information with lots of how to do this, why this is like this. Here's what I believe about this. Here's my philosophy on this. And, you know, you take it and leave it you compare it to other things you listened to. But it's not just sharing information. Right? It's giving you something a nugget that empowers you to make meaningful change in your life. That is what I'm going for. Now, in that survey, just to close the circle, so to speak, you did provide me some suggestions of how I could serve you better. And so since that time, I've made a few changes. And I'm just going to cover a few of them here that directly addressed the biggest themes from the feedback. So the first one was, a lot of you thought there were too many episodes, and you wanted a little bit more variety in formats. I was doing five episodes a week. And I think for some of you that was overwhelming. It was clogging up your feed, you couldn't keep up. That is the last thing I want. I don't want you to think Oh, I gotta catch up with this huge library of information. So I reduced it from five to three. Each week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Monday, is a deep dive solo episode into a topic. And by the way, future Monday episodes in the near term are going to be based on a response to a post and An email I sent out to my community recently saying, hey, what's the biggest frustration you have? And I got a ton of responses, every single one of those is going to be its own topic on a Monday, well, maybe on a Wednesday to the Wednesday episodes are applying engineering principles from my 20 years plus as an engineer, to fitness, an angle that very few people are talking about if anyone out there, and I think it helps given you a different perspective. So that's Wednesday. And then Friday episodes are interviews, interviews with amazing guests who get better and better all the time. Most of those guests are people I want on the show who I reach out to because I follow them, and I respect them. And I think you will learn and and like them as well. So that's the first. The second one is you said you wanted more content that was specifically focused to a demographic or specific problems or situations because sometimes I can get a little bit broad, a little bit long winded. Today's episode may be a little longer, in fact, but, you know, I've recently pivoted from these long how to episodes, which will always be in the back catalogue, right? Like how to lose fat, how to build muscle, like I have these big long episodes. But I've started to niche it down, I guess niche it or narrow it down into specific topics, Peri and post menopause, fat loss, hard gaining over 50 training, cutting for the first time, being time efficient, et cetera, et cetera, right, very specific, so that you can really dive in on the things that interests you the most, and learn about that topic. And then the third bit of feedback I acted on is bringing on more targeted guests, not just any old fitness Pro. So lately, I've been bringing guests that have a specific area of expertise, gut health, anatomy, physique, competition, concurrent training, right, the list goes on. I've got a lot more amazing guests coming this year. And then also, you wanted to see some more case studies and real stories with clients, community members. And so I've done some of those as well. So I'm super excited about these changes, we've even got some new music, the episodes are generally a bit shorter, more around like 20 or 30 minutes, except for the interviews, which tend to be a little longer. And I'm going to continue evolving the show to better meet your needs. So episode 200 is just the beginning. Your engagement, you're listening, you're following your feedback you're sharing is helping shape the future of the show. And I'm so grateful for all of your input, and all of your support. Alright, now, last thing, this might surprise you, right? Because although the things I talked about today might seem obvious, or simple or intuitive, in hindsight, especially if you've heard them before, if you go back and you listen to any one of these, you realize that there's actually a profound shift in thinking that I wish more people had on this planet, like the vast majority of people that really don't quite have a clue about how to navigate nutrition or training, even if they kind of think they do because we take for granted conventional wisdom as well. You know, I've heard people say, well, everybody knows you need to do this. Well, now I don't even think that's true. I think there's misinformation, there's disinformation. And there's ignorance of information. Even once that addressed, you then have to implement the information. So it's really a whole spectrum. And everybody's at a different spot where their gap is. But what I talked about today, the surprises, the myths that I busted are really about how you think about this from mental perspective, right? Moving from restriction to fueling, embracing food freedom and not food rules, right? Being consistent. Don't worry about, you know, hitting your numbers all the time and being perfect about it. Realizing this can be simple, realizing you can have abundance, right, you can change your routine, and you can work out less and actually have more results. And these are not just minor tweaks, even though they could be simple. They are fundamental paradigm shifts, they are paradigm shifts that will change your life, they will change your life.

Philip Pape 33:54

And at the end of the day, all of this comes down to principles, applying principles, you know, that work in ways that work for you, experimenting rapidly and aggressively, to find out what stays in what stays out collecting the data tracking and measuring and continually learning and adjusting based on your results. So that you get the result you want as fast as possible. All right, as we move forward into the next 200 episodes and beyond. We are going to continue focusing on bringing you practical strategies that you can use to build your best physique, and live your best life. I want to thank each and every one of you has been on this journey with us whether you've been here since episode one, or this is your first time tuning in. You are indeed part of a thriving living, real community, real humans who I love to talk to. And we're all committed to smart evidence based approaches, efficient approaches to fitness and nutrition so that we can all get jacked now so that we can all feel great look great, and live our healthiest lives. I encourage you to reflect on these reflect on the surprise He says today, go back and review them. Go to the timestamp that resonates with you the most. And think about how it changed your approach moving forward, or reset your approach so that you can make progress. All right, if you found value in today's episode or in any of our first 200 episodes, I'd love to hear from you. Send me a direct message on Instagram at once and weights. And let me know your biggest takeaway or surprise from the show, the podcast so far, the whole show or just this episode, whatever you want, or you can send me a question or something that you're frustrated or confused about that you heard online or on another podcast. Again, I'm going to use that information and create better content for you and then help other listeners discover and learn from the show. Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights and remember, just like we are 200 episodes in and continuing to improve. Your fitness journey is measured by gradual progress over time. It's not sexy, but it works. I'll talk to you next time here on the whips and weights podcast.

Philip Pape 8/2/24 Philip Pape 8/2/24

You Don’t Have to Choose Between Fat Loss and Strength (Breaking the 300 Pound Barrier) | Ep 199

Have you ever felt like you're stuck between conflicting fitness goals? Maybe you're trying to drop fat while increasing strength or lean out while building muscle. What if you didn't have to choose?

In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) jumps into a real conversation with Jazz, a powerlifter just eight weeks from competition struggling to break through a scale weight barrier without sacrificing performance. They discuss setting realistic goals, prioritizing what really matters, and crafting a plan that lets Jazz chase multiple objectives simultaneously.

Learn how periodizing your nutrition could be the game-changer you didn't know you needed.

Jazz Young, the guest on this episode, is a dedicated powerlifter preparing for his first competition. Facing the typical weight loss versus performance dilemma, Jazz sought Philip's expertise to navigate his nutrition and training. With Philip’s guidance, Jazz explores realistic and sustainable strategies to meet his dual goals, providing valuable insights for anyone in a similar situation.

Don’t miss out on the actionable advice on handling conflicting fitness goals shared in this episode.

📱Book a FREE 15-minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment, designed to fine-tune your strategy, identify your #1 roadblock, and give you a personalized 3-step action plan in a fast-paced 15 minutes.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:21 Jazz shares his goals and challenges
3:22 Discussing weight class expectations
6:30 Nutrition, meals, and body composition
10:30 Analyzing current nutrition and protein intake
14:18 Planning weight loss before competition
19:29 Conclusion and next steps for Jazz
22:04 Outro

Episode resources:

Join the Facebook group and ask Jazz about his powerlifting!

Episode summary:

Can you successfully drop weight while maintaining muscle and strength? This episode of Wits and Weights explores this challenge through the journey of Jazz, a 300-pound powerlifter preparing for his first competition in just eight weeks. The episode dives deep into balancing conflicting fitness goals, setting realistic expectations, and discovering strategic middle ground with periodized nutrition. This episode is a must-listen for anyone juggling multiple fitness aspirations, whether you're an athlete or on a personal fitness journey.

The episode begins by addressing the common challenge of pursuing conflicting fitness goals, such as losing weight while maintaining strength, especially in powerlifting. Jazz, who is eight weeks away from his first competition, faces the dilemma of dropping weight without sacrificing muscle and strength. The host, Philip Pape, explores the importance of setting realistic goals, prioritizing key objectives, and uncovering a third option through periodized nutrition. This approach offers a strategic way to balance multiple fitness goals, providing insights that can apply to anyone facing similar challenges.

Nutrition is a cornerstone of any fitness plan, but it becomes even more critical when prepping for a competition. The episode dives into the essentials of maintaining consistent nutrition, setting achievable weight loss goals, and managing meal timing amidst a hectic lifestyle. Key topics include hitting high protein targets and incorporating practical meal strategies despite a busy schedule. Jazz shares his typical meal compositions, such as a protein-rich breakfast and dinner, and the challenges of hitting high protein targets. The conversation also addresses the importance of protein in managing hunger and its role in maintaining muscle during a cut.

The host emphasizes the need for realistic short-term goals, such as reaching 295 pounds, which balances the dual objectives of competing effectively and achieving a personal milestone of being under 300 pounds. Jazz's journey highlights the importance of periodized nutrition, a strategy that allows for a more flexible approach to achieving fitness goals. This method involves cycling through different phases of eating and training to optimize performance and recovery.

One of the critical insights from the episode is the importance of maintaining consistent nutrition leading up to the event. This includes avoiding drastic dietary changes and ensuring adequate energy intake. Jazz discusses the practicality of meal timing and the challenges of incorporating additional snacks or protein shakes despite a busy schedule. The goal is to ensure optimal performance while continuing to pursue gradual weight loss.

The episode also explores the intricacies of meal planning and protein intake for a competitive powerlifter aiming to balance weight loss and strength retention. Jazz shares his typical meal compositions, including a protein-rich breakfast and dinner, and the challenges of hitting high protein targets. The conversation shifts to strategic planning for an upcoming competition, considering whether to continue an aggressive weight cut or to maintain current weight to preserve strength.

Listeners are encouraged to take advantage of a free 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment to uncover what's holding them back and create a three-step action plan for results in the next 90 days. By scheduling a call through the provided link, listeners can gain clarity and actionable steps without any sales pitches or mentions of coaching services. This personalized approach helps identify specific resources and actions to elevate progress.

In summary, this episode provides a comprehensive guide to balancing weight loss and strength retention, particularly for powerlifters. It emphasizes the importance of periodized nutrition, realistic goal setting, and strategic meal planning. Jazz's journey offers valuable insights and practical tips for anyone facing similar challenges. Whether you're a competitive athlete or someone on a personal fitness journey, this episode will help you navigate conflicting fitness goals and achieve your dual fitness aspirations.

Overall, this episode is packed with actionable tips and strategies for balancing weight loss and strength retention. Jazz's journey serves as a testament to the effectiveness of periodized nutrition and realistic goal setting. Listeners are encouraged to take advantage of the free 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment to uncover what's holding them back and create a personalized action plan for the next 90 days. By following the insights and strategies discussed in this episode, anyone can unlock their full fitness potential and achieve their dual fitness goals.

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

I ever feel like you're chasing two conflicting goals? Maybe you want to drop some fat but also increase your strength, or perhaps you're trying to lean out while building muscle. What if I told you that with the right approach, you don't always have to choose. In this episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on a recent conversation I had with jazz, a power lifter, just eight weeks out from competition, jazz was facing a dilemma I see all the time, how to break through a scale weight barrier to get a mental win without compromising his performance. We're diving into setting realistic goals, prioritizing what really matters, and creating a plan that allows you to pursue seemingly conflicting objectives, you'll learn why sometimes there's a third option you haven't considered, and how the secret may lie in periodizing your nutrition, whether you're a power lifter like jazz a weekend warrior, or just someone trying to balance multiple fitness goals, this Episode should give you the confidence to eliminate any frustration when you're being pulled in two different directions.

Philip Pape 01:11

Welcome to wits end weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, Philip pape, and today we're diving into a topic that resonates with so many of us, how to navigate seemingly conflicting fitness goals, hearing a recording of one of my free 15 minute rapid nutrition assessments, a 300 pound power lifter who's eight weeks out his very first competition, he is torn between losing more weight to get under 300 pounds, and maintaining his muscle and strength. Join the call, thinking that he had two options, and we uncovered a surprising third option. So you're trying to build muscle, lose fat, body recomp prep for an event more than one of these at the same time learn a smart and efficient way to do it all right? Jazz, what is going on? Man,

Jazz Young 02:03

hey, what's going on?

Philip Pape 02:06

you as well? No, like, in person, yeah, in person, virtually, in person. It's funny what we call in person these days, right? But Yes, exactly, even though you're a few hours down in Philly and I'm up here in Connecticut, you

Jazz Young 02:18

will meet someday, yeah, probably, I've been in Connecticut like

Philip Pape 02:21

once, yeah, yeah, cool. So, just so the listener knows what we're doing here, this is a 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment, something I just started doing recently. It's going to be fast paced. And the goal here is to help you figure out what's one thing you should prioritize, one thing holding you back, and then maybe a few steps that you can get results with in the short term. I do know a little bit about what's going on with you, but I'm going on with you, but I'm gonna assume that I don't. So first big question for you is, why did you reach out to me? What are you trying to get done here with when it comes to your nutrition, your big goal right now?

Jazz Young 02:52

So my big goal is maintaining strength. I'm about eight weeks out from my first powerlifting competition, so I do want to shut some pounds I don't have, necessarily. I did have a goal week, but I'm not necessarily going to hit that with the amount of time that I have. But I would like to come in a little lighter for this first beat, just to give myself a goal. But I also want to, you know, still hit some big lifts on the platform when I do go out there, so maintaining muscle and just literally, some body fat weight competition. Thanks,

Philip Pape 03:25

man. Congratulations. By the way, on the urge to do that of powerlifting me at all. It's great. And I've been following you, you know, been following you, and you're a strong guy. I mean, like, when we get in some numbers here, and people will see, like, You're a big, strong guy. So

Jazz Young 03:38

could see that for eight weeks out.

Philip Pape 03:41

If you don't mind sharing, how much do you weigh? What weight class are you in?

Jazz Young 03:44

So when I got on the scale recently, I was three, oh 1.6 so I float in between about 298, and 301 for the most part, like average weekly body weight. And what's the weight class? When I signed up, it was for 275 so that would be the weight class. Don't know if I'll get there, but I can always change it for my first meet, the first meet, I don't necessarily need a weight class. That's

Philip Pape 04:11

good. And that's exactly what I was trying to get at here, right? Because people are listening like, okay, they have a specific event. If they have, uh, you know, even if you want to have a wedding, and you're trying to get down to a certain number. It's realistic expectations, and also it's important to you, right? Is it getting nice, big numbers and feeling good and like getting through it and done, or is it, you know, trying to fine tune every little thing get into the weight class, right? Guessing it's the former.

Jazz Young 04:36

Yeah, I want to lose some weight, but I'm not really concerned about getting into the weight class. The first one is just to get the first one out the way, and then I'll be concentrated on weight class, and it's like after that. But I still want to, you know, continue on losing

Philip Pape 04:51

Okay, so we're talking 25 pounds maybe, maybe you can get there eight weeks. Does that come out to three pounds a week, which your size is like exactly 1% a week. That's if you did it every single week right up until the competition, as you know, may not be super helpful for getting the best performance possible. Yeah. Okay, so, because we can talk about things like, let me ask you, you got a tapering plan coming up for your training? You have, you're working with a coach right for the training side.

Jazz Young 05:21

Okay, yes.

Philip Pape 05:22

Have you thought about the nutrition beyond just what you've already been doing in terms of prep the week leading up to it, and the meat day itself?

Jazz Young 05:31

Not necessarily, like that far out, just mainly the nutrition leading up to it. I know probably about two weeks out, I'm trying to sit at wherever I wind up, week to two weeks out, just trying to hover there. So I don't, you know, do too much going into the competition. Yeah,

Philip Pape 05:50

for sure. And I'm a big fan of, like, leading up to anything, even if it's an endurance race like a marathon. Want to keep things as stable as possible. Don't change what you're eating. Insert any supplements, you know, add a whole bunch of fiber, because that can mess with your digestive tract. All that stuff at the same time. You also don't want to be like under fed and under energy that period. So there's, there's a shift that we could make right where you could do a little carb loading not too far ahead of the meat, like three days ahead of the meat, the carb loading could be as simple as swapping out some protein for some more carbs. No, doesn't have to be like again, not like a runner who has to just 10 grams per pound of carbs or whatever. So, so what is your current I'm getting ahead of myself here, as usual, but what is your current nutrition look like? And what is it that you're trying to figure out that maybe isn't working, or you're just not sure of going forward.

Jazz Young 06:44

So finally, is much protein I'm eating, like, I'll use back profector. And it's like, Hey, I picked high for the protein. So saying like 219 grams of protein, which is a lot of protein, even for a big guy like myself. So hitting that goal is kind of challenging for me, and my biggest thing is I like the snack, and then my work schedule is three to 11 o'clock at night, so sometimes I'll come home and still be hungry because I'm at work and tail end of the day. So

Philip Pape 07:22

your protein's 220 you feel like it's high, and that's about point seven grams per pound of body weight. But listening to doing the math, they're familiar with the range we say like point seven to one gram per pound. But add some nuance to target body weight. But not only that, also based on lean mass. Originally, it's based on lean mass. The bigger you are. It doesn't scale linearly, right? So you have any idea, like your body composition roughly

Jazz Young 07:50

a DEXA scan, but I don't know any in my area, so, and it's not

Philip Pape 07:56

super important right now. It's just like, if you had a rough number of body fat to muscle, you can kind of say, Okay, this is how much lean mass I have, therefore this is how much protein be appropriate. But we forget about all that. We don't need to overcomplicate it. The 220 it's funny, because any guy over 200 pounds, I'd be like, you want to eat 200 grams of protein, at least no matter who you are being. 320 doesn't sound super high to me, but from a practical perspective, saying that it's difficult get that in, right? Yeah, okay. What does your meal timing look like right now? Like, how many meals a day? They all have protein. What sources of protein

Jazz Young 08:35

I usually eat after I come from the gym, I'll eat like, some carbs, like rice cakes before I go to the gym, and just some Gatorade, because I wake up, like eight, nine o'clock, and I head straight to the gym pretty much. And then when I come home, I typically eat turkey bacon, some eggs, maybe a little cheese, some time to time, but, and that's usually like 12 o'clock, 12 to one o'clock, and then next time I'll eat will be at four o'clock, like an hour after my work, shit. And then like six dinner. So yeah, it's like dinner. So like four minutes, like a pre post workout,

Philip Pape 09:18

mid afternoon or late afternoon, and then dinner. Okay, have you tried? Have you tried? Or are you able to with your schedule, adding in another snack?

Jazz Young 09:27

A protein shake would be fun, but because I get home from the gym at like, 12 o'clock, I eat, and then I leave at two and I'm not really hungry, and then taking protein powder to work isn't like the most convenient thing for me, so I've done that before, but I don't have, like, my blender and stuff that I have at home instead of just shaking it out.

Carol 09:51

Before I started working with Philip, I had been trying to lose weight and was really struggling with consistency, but from the very beginning, Philip took the time to listen to me and understand my goals. He taught me the importance of fueling my body with the right foods to optimize my training in the gym, and I lost 20 pounds. More importantly, I gained self confidence. What sets Philip apart is the personal connection. He supported and encouraged me every step of the way. So if you're looking for a coach who cares about your journey as much as you do, I highly recommend Philippa.

Philip Pape 10:32

All right, cool. No. And again, we don't have to shoehorn it into like meal frequency. I just always ask that question, because some people have an opportunity on the table to just get an extra meal in. Maybe it's earlier in the maybe it's in the morning, maybe it's later at night, but not too close to bedtime. So you told me like your post workout has freaky baking, eggs,

Jazz Young 10:50

cheese. How much fat are you getting in your diet? Roughly about, okay, macro factor, it was probably about anywhere from 80 to 100 grams, roughly that what you're actually getting. That's your target. What target is?

Philip Pape 11:07

Okay? What are you actually consuming based on your log, based on my log, probably about 80. Oh, okay, so that's reasonable, all right, because when I heard turkey bacon, eggs, cheese, I'm thinking, Okay, you have some room to maybe clean out some of the foods to get more protein and less fat, and then it's the same amount of food. You know, doesn't sound like too much of that's going on when you have lunch. When you have dinner, these, you know, meats and vegetables and some starch, for the most part, they

Jazz Young 11:31

look like, yeah, so the first meal is usually like some stir fry steak with rice, and then my last meal is usually just like a protein and a veggie. Okay,

Philip Pape 11:46

yeah, love this stir fry, steak. Man, make me hungry. Yeah, stuff,

Jazz Young 11:51

it's my go to No. That's

Philip Pape 11:54

great. I love it. And the fat sounds reasonable. So when you say the protein's high at 220 are you actually hitting that number, and it's just like, feels like enforcing it you're

Jazz Young 12:03

not hitting the number. I plug in my this my lunch and what I'm gonna eat for dinner, like the protein source, that's the first thing. I plug in, the macro factor. It'll have me at like, one. And I'm like, Oh, I still got 70 more to go, and I'll get the yogurts, like, Greek yogurt, the oikos, yeah, would you like 15 grams? But I can't eat four of them. A Destiny piece.

Philip Pape 12:33

You know, it's funny, I have that same breath, oh, it goes zero, right? And you put it in a bowl, and you're like, I'm up to, like, 150 grams. I'm up to 200 grams, and that's only, like 150 Cal. 50 calories, a pretty good protein, dense source of food there. But yeah, you're right. It kind of fills you up. You're saying you're not really hitting 220 right? No, no,

Jazz Young 12:52

I'm probably getting closer to about where from 170 to 190 Okay, some days I do get the protein, but it's few and far between.

Philip Pape 13:05

All right, did you say earlier, you you're getting hungry, some hunger, yeah, towards

Jazz Young 13:10

towards the end of the of my work shift, okay, I'll eat my last meal at about six, seven o'clock. Yeah.

Philip Pape 13:17

Protein could definitely help with hunger, right? But, before we get to that, do you have your gold macro factor currently set to lose at a

Jazz Young 13:25

certain rate, like two pounds a week? Yeah, it's two pounds a week.

Philip Pape 13:29

Two pounds a week, all right, so you know for a fact that that rate you're not going to hit the 275 unless you plan to do some water manipulation. You don't plan on that do Okay, good. You shouldn't do that at a year level, doing your fifth competition, maybe

Jazz Young 13:44

you look into that. That's for another competition. Yeah, exactly.

Philip Pape 13:48

So you resigned to that of not hitting the weight class, or is part of this conversation, like, Hey, can I speed it up more aggressively and hold on to my strength and muscle

Jazz Young 13:59

a little bit of both? Okay? Like, maybe speed it up a little bit. Like, main thing is just, I don't want to lose the strength going into the competition. Strength is fine, but if I don't get to the weight class, I'm resigned with fine with that, even my coaches, like, we shouldn't really press for that right now. So okay, and

Philip Pape 14:20

you're nowhere near to getting what's the next weight class? 275, would

Jazz Young 14:24

be the next the weight class I signed up for? No, I mean, up. Oh, up. Go eat. Okay, all right, yeah,

Philip Pape 14:31

yeah. Because I mean, where I'm coming at this, and you tell me, if I'm wrong, it's like, got your short term goal, and you've got your long term goal. I imagine your long term goal has some health goals in there, and some, you know, body composition goals, and we could talk about that, you know, to get to the 90 days past the competition up to the next year, that's a different thing. The short term, you're pretty much not going to make the weight class at this point, unless you go 1.2% a week straight on for the next six weeks, like a very aggressive cut, you're going to just feel terrible and then, like, your lifts are gonna drop and all that. Why not just toss that out the window altogether right now and just maintain, okay, maintain, like, get off the cut all together, right? And maintain your weight. Since you're still you're not close to the next weight class, and at risk of that, you could keep those glycogen stores filled, like, you know, up your carbs have more calories to work with, which will make it easier to hit your protein lift should, like, keep going up. I would imagine clean there's only upside to doing it that way. You're kind of, if you're not going to hit the lower weight class, why even that trade off? Yeah,

Jazz Young 15:35

and I was thinking that too, yeah. But sometimes we just need somebody else to confirm it for us. Okay,

Philip Pape 15:43

I should just ask you this. Why do you want to lose some weight before that?

Jazz Young 15:46

It's just a goal. Like, if I didn't get the 275 like I said, I was our rooms on that, but if I can get the 290 and sit there, I'm perfectly fine with that too. But let's

Philip Pape 15:59

dig in a little bit. Why is that the goal now, knowing that you have another goal in parallel, of smasher lifts on a power lifting me,

Jazz Young 16:07

I've been over 300 pounds for a long time, so, okay, under 300 pounds and competing in the power lift in me compared to where I started, would be fantastic.

Philip Pape 16:17

Okay, all right, I like it. I'm glad I asked. So that's cool, if you want to be like, the guy who's you kind of accomplish these two goals at the same time, and you could be super proud of that, right? And shout to the world, like, Hey, I got under 300 and I competed, and I got these massive numbers on my list. They're sitting right over 300 so why don't we make the goal? Like, 295, okay, you know, or two. You know what I'm saying? Like, just the psychological break, right? Like it's trade offs. It's all trade offs. You know that there's a trade off with everything. So, yeah, if the goal is 295 you can do that in the next, like, two or three weeks, easy, right? And at the rate you're already going, you should be there within a few weeks. Yeah, right, assuming you've been pretty consistent hitting the calories, yeah.

Jazz Young 17:00

So these last couple weeks, I've just been kind of hovering at cracking so much, but just making sure I stayed around the 300 pound mark. So these last eight weeks, I definitely want to start tracking so I can get to sub 300 since you

Philip Pape 17:17

kind of know what your maintenance is, just what calories right now,

Jazz Young 17:22

I think like 3500 rocky could

Philip Pape 17:26

see that. Okay, 3500 makes sense. What's your step count daily? Ish, 1000 steps. Oh, so you get a lot of steps? Okay, cool, yeah, I walk around a lot at work. That's great. That's really good, really listening. That's awesome. What jazz is doing here,

Jazz Young 17:40

all this job, so I make myself walk around the shop and

Philip Pape 17:44

stuff like that. Awesome. So 500 calories could then go into 1000 calorie deficit would get you. 1000 calorie deficit would get you two pounds a week. You could eat around 2500 calories for a couple weeks. Kind of feel it to you, okay, yeah. And then get in there around 298 297 and kind of decide, okay, I can push to 295 I mean, what happen is, when you get back out of that cut, gonna pop up a bit back because of the fluid. You want to get a little extra buffer there. And that leaves you a good five, six weeks to get back to maintenance and just stay there, get filled up, hit the lifts and everything. The only other thing that comes to mind is, are you doing a test day before then, like a test or anything like that?

Jazz Young 18:33

I thought I know of I would have to check my coaching and see what He has planned. But he typically doesn't do that. He wants all your energy on the meat day. I

Philip Pape 18:45

got it you were, I would say you could have an opportunity to do like a meat nutrition test day as well. I mean, I have to overcomplicate it, like, do what you normally do leading up to it, the carbs a few days ahead of time, a bit then, no, do your pre workout like you normally would, which is a, you know, sounds like you do the rice cakes and the protein, you probably want a bigger meal a few hours before the meat, versus what you normally do when going to the gym. And then the rice cakes. Take some fruit, take energy bars, Powerade, whatever you're kind of used to to getting really simple carbs, right? Not complex carbs. You don't want too much fat, too much complex or too much fiber early on, on that day, right? This is a separate thing we could talk about that offline, like, later and change too much, like, don't start taking a new supplement or anything like that. That can throw you off. Here's the plan, right? Step one, do a cut at two to three pounds a week for the next few weeks. Step two, go back to maintenance, right? And then step three, plan for, like, the pre meat nutrition to kind of fill up those glycogen stores. And then after that, we could talk about, okay, what is your long term plan? Now,

Jazz Young 19:55

get jacked. No plan, okay, yeah, yeah. I want to be, uh, big and strong but just in a smaller package. You

Philip Pape 20:03

know, it's gonna work really well for you, man, because you are a big guy with a ton of muscle who's super strong. So I bet there's a lot under there to, like, really reveal it to people. No, I'm just trying to reveal it. Yeah, we're skinny guys like me. We never quite pushed it that hard to get up there. It's like, up and down type of thing.

Jazz Young 20:18

So do you think that sounds good? Okay, yeah, I think it sounds good. And focusing in after the competition is definitely gonna be the best thing for me, because I don't plan on competing for a while after that, so I have all of the winner. And you know, to focus on getting down to the next bodyweight goal

Philip Pape 20:41

for sure, man. And you know how to reach me for that, we definitely should talk and map it out for you, because I think it achieved some great things, man, for sure.

Jazz Young 20:48

Yeah, I think so too, yeah. I think so too,

Philip Pape 20:51

yeah. All right. So I mean, I mean, there you go. That's, I know we went a little longer than 15 minutes, but I helped you get through the mental roadblock of between two different goals, right?

Jazz Young 21:00

Yes, yes, definitely. Like I said, sometimes I had it in the back of my head, like, maybe you should just change the goal to something like 290 or something like that. But sometimes we need somebody else to tell us, hey, you should do this. Well, I was thinking that so

Philip Pape 21:16

exactly, and I would just think of it as like, one quick goal. You get done. Now you're back to your main goal, and you get that done, and you're good

Jazz Young 21:24

seeing what you did with Jeremy and how he did it in phases. Oh, yeah. Jerry. Bonanno, yeah, Jerry, I said, Jeremy. Jerry, sorry,

Philip Pape 21:31

I've done that to him too. Yeah. Sorry, sorry, Jerry, sorry, Jerry, but yeah, I've

Jazz Young 21:36

done that. And I'm like, oh, can do this, do the competition, still hit my goal on some of the lifts that I want to hit, and then focus on the next phase after that. Awesome,

Philip Pape 21:49

man. Well, get it done and reach out to me if you have any questions along the way. Like, like I said, this is just to help people and see the how it kind of changes perspective, and it's gonna be a lot of fun.

Jazz Young 22:01

Yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to it. I'm excited.

Philip Pape 22:04

I hope you enjoyed that conversation with jazz to us a recording of a 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment. These are free calls that I give all the time. I always have a few spots every week in my calendar. I encourage you, if you are looking for a little bit of assistance, to uncover the one thing that is holding you back and come up with a quick three step action plan, get results in the next 90 days ahead, and use the link in my show notes to schedule that with me. Won't bite, as you could tell from today's call. I just ask you some questions. We figure it out together. They give you some actions. I don't sell anything. I don't even mention my coaching, and you leave with a little bit of of clarity, actually, a lot of clarity and some next steps to take. And then from that, you can always go further and talk about specific resources and actions you can take to put those to the next level. So, if you want to schedule that free 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment, use the link in my show notes, or go to witsweets.com, click the top right, and I will talk to you next time here on the wits, and waits podcast.

Philip Pape 7/31/24 Philip Pape 7/31/24

Avoid Joint Pain and Tendonitis to Lift Weights Forever (Fatigue Failure) | Ep 198

Are you pushing yourself to the limit in the gym, chasing PRs, but worried about the toll it's taking on your joints and tendons (knees, elbows, shoulders)? What if there was a way to keep making progress without risking nagging injuries? Discover how the engineering principle of Fatigue Failure can help you avoid injuries like tendonitis, bursitis, and tendon tears to keep you lifting for years to come.

Are you pushing yourself to the limit in the gym, chasing PRs, but worried about the toll it's taking on your joints and tendons (knees, elbows, shoulders)?

What if there was a way to keep making progress without risking nagging injuries?

Discover how the engineering principle of Fatigue Failure can help you avoid injuries like tendonitis, bursitis, and tendon tears to keep you lifting for years to come.

We'll break down:

Why your tendons behave like materials in engineering
The four stages of fatigue failure and how they apply to your training
Practical strategies to prevent overloading and allow for proper recovery
How to monitor for early signs of tendon fatigue before it's too late
The mindset shift from "pushing through pain" to "designing for longevity"

Learn how to find the sweet spot between progress and injury prevention, ensuring you can continue to lift weights and make gains well into the future.

You'll learn strategies to protect your joints and tendons while still making consistent progress in the gym.

Book a FREE 15-minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment, designed to fine-tune your strategy, identify your #1 roadblock, and give you a personalized 3-step action plan in a fast-paced 15 minutes.

Episode summary:

Have you ever wondered how the principles of engineering can enhance your strength training and tendon health? Our latest podcast episode dives deep into this intriguing concept, offering a unique perspective on preventing injuries and optimizing performance through smart training practices.

The episode kicks off with an exploration of fatigue failure, an engineering principle that explains how materials break under repeated stress. Interestingly, our tendons follow the same rules. The host explains that understanding fatigue failure could be the key to preventing nagging injuries and ensuring longevity in your strength training journey. If you're someone who loves to lift, especially heavy, this episode could save your tendons and your progress.

The discussion then delves into the components of fatigue failure: cyclic stress, crack initiation, crack propagation, and final failure. Each of these stages has a direct application to your tendons during strength training. For instance, cyclic stress in engineering refers to repeated loading and unloading cycles. In strength training, every rep of a heavy lift is a cycle of stress on our tendons. This cyclic stress can lead to microtrauma, which, if not properly managed, can accumulate and result in serious injuries like tendonitis or ruptures.

Proper recovery is crucial to prevent these microtears from accumulating. The episode emphasizes the balance between training intensity and recovery, introducing the concept of the fatigue limit or endurance limit. This is the stress level below which failure will not occur, no matter how many times the load is applied. For our tendons, this translates to finding the sweet spot of training intensity and volume that allows for progress without risking injury.

Practical strategies are offered to help lifters maintain tendon health and continuous progress. One key strategy is to prevent overloading. While progressive overload is essential for growth, it should be approached smartly. This means not necessarily going for a one-rep max every session but cycling through different lifts and varying the intensity. Another strategy is allowing for adequate recovery. Just like materials need rest periods between stress cycles, our bodies need rest between heavy lifting sessions. This could mean incorporating strategic deload weeks or simply ensuring you get enough rest between workouts.

Monitoring for signs of fatigue is another critical aspect. Paying attention to your body’s signals, like a slight twinge in your elbow or a click in your shoulder, can help detect early signs of fatigue. These early warnings should not be ignored, as they can indicate impending tendon issues. Regular maintenance and repair, such as proper nutrition, hydration, stretching, and even physical therapy, are also vital for tendon health.

The episode also touches on the importance of adopting varied programming approaches to prevent injuries. This includes modifying training routines, optimizing nutrition, and considering different types of workouts. Listening to your body and sharing these insights with workout partners who might be pushing too hard is encouraged.

The host stresses that tendon pain or injuries should not be seen as failures or setbacks but as valuable data points that tell us something about our training design. Addressing the root cause of these issues, rather than just the symptoms, is crucial for long-term success. This mindset shift from pushing through pain to designing your body for longevity is essential.

As we wrap up, the episode reminds us that our tendons are like the materials engineers work with—they have limits. Understanding these limits doesn't restrict progress; it allows for an optimized approach that balances intensity and recovery. This balance ensures continuous improvement without breaking down.

In summary, this podcast episode offers a wealth of actionable advice to help you achieve long-term success in fitness while maintaining your health. From understanding fatigue failure and cyclic stress to practical strategies for recovery and maintenance, the insights shared are invaluable for anyone serious about strength training. Follow the podcast for more tips and always prioritize smart design and feedback in your training practices.

Join us for a journey that unites evidence-based strategies with the goal of attaining your dream physique safely. Your tendons will thank you, and your progress will be more sustainable than ever.

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: 0:01

If you're like me, you love to get new PRs, you love to crush those lifts, continue making progress session after session. But lately there's been a nagging pain in your elbow, maybe your shoulder, maybe your knee. You brush it off, thinking that's just part of the process, but what if I told you that ignoring these signs could lead to a catastrophic injury? There's an engineering principle called fatigue failure that explains why materials break under repeated stress and guess what? Your tendons follow the same rules. Today, we're diving into how understanding fatigue failure could be the key to preventing nagging injuries and ensuring longevity in your strength training journey. If you're someone who loves to lift, and especially loves to lift heavy, this episode could save your tendons and your progress. Let's engineer a better approach to tendon health.

Philip Pape: 1:00

Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're exploring the engineering concept of fatigue failure. This episode is about keeping your tendons healthy and your lifts progressing. We're gonna break down the components of fatigue failure and see how they directly apply to your tendons during strength training so that you can keep showing up session after session for years and enjoy the process. And, as always, if you're enjoying the show, if you want more content like this that applies these concepts to your fitness, your health, your nutrition, hit the follow button right now. If you're not already following the show, if you just downloaded this one episode for the first time, take a look at the back catalog, subscribe, follow if you like the episode, so that you get notified of future episodes. And right now, when it comes to Apple and Spotify, that's one of the best ways that others can find the show. So go ahead and hit follow and let's jump right into today's episode.

Philip Pape: 2:07

I wanna start by breaking down what fatigue failure actually means in engineering, and then we're gonna quickly apply that to your training. In simple terms, it is the weakening of a material due to repeatedly applied loads. Now, this doesn't happen all at once. It's a gradual process that occurs in stages, and that's where things get interesting for us as lifters, because our body is physical system that includes these special tissue called tendons, and this is really where this process applies. So the four components of fatigue failure in engineering are cyclic stress, crack initiation, crack propagation and final failure. So let's break it down. The first one is cyclic stress. Now, in engineering this refers to repeated loading and unloading cycles In strength training.

Philip Pape: 3:01

Every rep of a heavy lift so every rep of a bench press, let's say, or a squat, is a cycle of stress on our tendons. I want you to think about those heavy singles in that lift, right? That heavy deadlift, that heavy overhead press. Each one is putting significant stress on your tendons, your tendons. The second component is crack initiation In materials. This is where tiny cracks form at stress points. Now, for our tendons, this is the microtrauma that occurs with each heavy lift. It's totally normal, right? This is when you hear about muscles breaking down and experiencing micro tears. This is normal, it's part of the adaptation process. But you have to understand that this is one of the steps along the way.

Philip Pape: 3:47

The third one is crack propagation. This is where those initial tiny cracks grow larger under continued stress. Now in our tendons, this is what happens when we don't allow for proper recovery. Those micro tears start to accumulate and grow. Recovery those micro tears start to accumulate and grow and that leads us to final failure In engineering.

Philip Pape: 4:08

This is where the material can no longer support the load and then it breaks. For our tendons, this is when a major injury can occur, like tendonitis or, unfortunately, what I had, which was a rotator cuff tear, a tendon rupture. Now here's where it gets really interesting, because in engineering there's a concept called fatigue limit or endurance limit, and this is the stress level below which the failure will not occur, no matter how many times the load is applied. So, for our tendons, think of this as the sweet spot of training intensity and volume right, your stimulus that allows for progress but without risking injury. And you might have heard of concepts like stimulus to fatigue. You might have heard of the fitness curve, stress, recovery, adaptation. They all kind of play on this principle of finding balance between the intensity side, where you're actually doing something physical and putting the load on your body, and the recovery side, which, let's be honest, many of us do not pay as much attention to or give enough credence to pay as much attention to or give enough credence to.

Philip Pape: 5:14

So if we want to apply this knowledge practically to our training, I'm going to give you a few strategies here that I think are helpful. The first one is we want to prevent overloading. Now you might say, well, don't you talk about progressive overload all the time? Well, progressive overload is a misnomer. We're not actually overloading. We're simply loading up to an appropriate stress to cause an adaptation. So just as engineers design structures like bridges and buildings to avoid excessive cyclic loading, we need to be careful with our training loads.

Philip Pape: 5:46

But it does mean being smart about progressive overload and thinking about things like okay, I'm not gonna necessarily go for a one RM every session or I'm gonna cycle through different lifts as I test my one RMs, like in, for example, the Westside method. Or instead of hitting one RMs, I'm gonna do doubles, triples, triples or even fives. Still hit it hard, still get close to failure, but it's not that high end. You know 90%, 95% of my maximum load. So there's there's ways to kind of balance this out and I've experienced myself with my shoulder rehab that when I really push for singles or doubles, there's a lot of stress on the tendon. I know it's there. Or doubles, there's a lot of stress on the tendon, I know it's there. I can hear some of the grinding. I get some of the pain if I overdo it and that's my body telling me that those are probably not appropriate for me. If you're still in a healthy state, you haven't gone through that yet. It's good to be proactive and get ahead of that. So preventing overloading just by balancing the intensity is a good strategy.

Philip Pape: 6:55

The second strategy is, of course, allow for recovery. In engineering, materials need rest periods between these stress cycles. For us this means adequate rest between your heavy lifting sessions. That's it. That's really what it means. It also means strategic deloads right Using deload weeks where necessary. Now, a deload isn't let me just take the week off A deload is okay. If I normally train four days a week, maybe I'm still going to go in four days, but I'm going to drop a little bit of the intensity and cut out some sets or exercises to reduce the volume. Or maybe it means I'm going to go from four days normally down to just two days this week and sort of compress into some smaller full body sessions, something like that, where you're basically giving yourself a chance to, you know, fully heal up and recover before you get back to the next cycle of, say, six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, whatever.

Philip Pape: 7:48

The third principle here, or strategy, is to monitor for signs of fatigue, is to monitor for signs of fatigue. So if you listen to my episode about experimentation and prototyping, you know engineers use non-destructive testing to detect early signs of fatigue. So they do things that don't push the material to their limit but still push them enough to kind of get data. So, for us lifters, this means paying attention to our bodies. Okay, I don't know if you hear my my dog's barking, but they're paying attention to something. Anyway, paying attention to our bodies, right, that slight twinge in your elbow, that little bit of a spring when you do your bench press and it gets to that one part of the bench press, you know what I'm talking about. That little bit of a click in your shoulder, that little bit of a crack in your knee, right, don't ignore those. Sometimes they're okay, sometimes they're early warning signs of, you know, impending tendon issues. I've gotten very in tune with that with my shoulder, and you may be familiar with that as well, but we don't want to push through that and push to the full fatigue point, right.

Philip Pape: 8:52

And then number four is maintenance and repair. So, just like structures undergo regular maintenance, we need to take care of our tendons. What does that mean? This means proper nutrition, so not always being in a fat loss phase and not always cutting, especially if you're having some pain, if you're having some fatigue, if you're pushing it really hard. If you're trying to build muscle, you need to be fully fueled up, have enough calories, enough energy, enough carbs to support your tendons. You know, when I get into a period where I need to do some extra rehab, I decide to go into a maintenance phase so that nutrition is out of the equation. This means staying hydrated.

Philip Pape: 9:29

This means, if you need to loosen up a bit, if you need to do some stretching before jumping into a movement, do it right. Some of us, you know we got the really tight shoulders or elbows. We're trying to do a back squat, like a low bar back squat, and you're just not able to get in there fully in one shot. So you can stretch into it right, get under the bar and just kind of stretch to that point where it becomes uncomfortable back off. Do it again back off and sort of ease into it just like any other stretching work. And you may decide to incorporate regular periods of, say, five or 10 minutes of stretching a certain body part to keep it limber and loose, and it's perfectly fine, there's nothing wrong with that. Things like massage, right Physical therapy all those may be in the cards for you, depending on what state you're in. So prevent overload, allow for recovery, monitor for signs of fatigue by paying attention to your body and give yourself some love in the nutrition and the stress and the other parts of your life. So here's a thought that might shift your perspective right.

Philip Pape: 10:30

In engineering, fatigue failure is not a flaw. It's actually a natural process that has to be accounted for when you design the part or design the product. What if we approach our training the same way? Instead of seeing tendon pain or injuries as failures or setbacks, we view them as valuable data points. They are telling us something about our design, right? When I hear people say, well, I got a cortisone shot for this, or I got some, you know, I took some meds or some rest and they're not addressing the actual root cause, that's a red flag, right, because you haven't fixed the design. You're actually putting a band-aid on the situation. Sometimes a cortisone shot can relieve a symptom that allows you to improve the design. Or if the design was correct and you're applying it in a context that has pain or inflammation, even a good design can fail right. So there's context and nuance here.

Philip Pape: 11:30

But when you look at your training and your recovery strategies, and then especially your form and technique. Those are the things that are part of your design right and listening to your body signals and adjusting those things so that, when you're healthy, you're not exacerbating and furthering the injury You're, you're getting back to the root cause and fixing it. That's a very nice place to be and this is a mindset shift from you know, pushing through pain to I'm designing my body for longevity. I'm designing it for longevity. And when you're 20, when you're 25, your body's so resilient you don't notice these things. They will start to accumulate. So get ahead of it as early as you can.

Philip Pape: 12:09

It really isn't about lifting the heaviest possible weight all the time, right, but finding the optimal balance of that intensity and that stress and recovery that allows for continuously improving without you breaking down. All right. So as we wrap up, remember this your tendons, your tendons are like the materials engineers work with. Right, they have limits. They have limits. They're physical materials, they're mechanical materials. But when you understand the limits, it doesn't mean you restrict your progress. It means you can optimize your approach for those.

Philip Pape: 12:44

So, when you're looking at your training session right now, when you're thinking about how you're training, how are you going to go to the gym tomorrow and next week, whether it's a three-day full body, a four-day split, a six-day bodybuilding program. Ask yourself, am I designing for just pushing it all out, to get short-term PRs, or am I designing to continue making progress, get strong, get jacked, get swole, but also have long-term durability right? It's not mutually exclusive. I mean pushing all out all the time is, but I'm saying getting the result is not exclusive with getting durability right. Am I listening to the early warning signs or am I pushing until something breaks? And that's where applying the concept of fatigue failure to your training is a very smart way to go.

Philip Pape: 13:29

All right, if you found value in today's episode, as always, do me a favor and share it with a lifting buddy who's been pushing a little too hard, or who loves to hit PRs all the time, or that guy or that woman who talks about their shoulder, their knee, their elbow right, and let them know about this episode and just to think about it a little bit differently. And of course, they could always reach out to talk specifics. I'm happy to talk about modifications for their training, food, other approaches, other types of programming and so on. And then again, don't forget to hit follow if you haven't already, because your support helps us reach more people. Until next time, keep using your wits, keep lifting those weights and remember, in training as in engineering, sustainability. And remember, in training as in engineering sustainability, longevity is about smart design and listening to the feedback and the data. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.

Philip Pape 7/29/24 Philip Pape 7/29/24

Your Very First Cut (Lose 10-30 Pounds of Fat) | Ep 197

Do you want to lose 10-30 pounds of fat without sacrificing muscle or energy? Do you know the common pitfalls that derail fat loss and how to avoid them? Are you ready to learn the smarter, more efficient approach to your first cut?

Today, Philip (@witsandweights) dives into a smarter and more efficient approach to help you achieve your first successful cut, losing 10 to 30 pounds of fat without drastic measures. He breaks down the process of cutting body fat, addressing common concerns such as calorie counting and training adjustments. Philip also outlines the frequent mistakes many make during their first cut, including unrealistic expectations. He shares essential principles and a step-by-step guide for sustainable fat loss.

Tune in to learn how to navigate this journey and unlock the physique you've been working hard to reveal.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:40 Mistakes to avoid during your first cut
8:37 Principles for successful and sustainable fat loss
18:00 Step-by-step guide to implementing a successful cut
26:00 Fast-Track Fat Loss Cohort
26:42 Outro

Episode resources:

Get your FREE guide, Nutrition 101 for Body Composition, to master your macros and calorie intake for fat loss, muscle gain, and better health, including workout nutrition for performance and recovery and a long-lasting approach WITHOUT depriving yourself of foods you love.
Related episodes:

Episode summary:

What if you could transform your body without resorting to crash diets or grueling cardio sessions? This episode uncovers the secrets to efficient fat loss and muscle retention. This episode is your guide through your first cut, helping you shed 10 to 30 pounds of fat while preserving every ounce of hard-earned muscle. Extreme dieting and endless cardio are not only unnecessary but counterproductive. Discover sustainable, balanced strategies that ensure your long-term success and well-being.

Flexible dieting is more than just a trend; it's a game-changer. This episode unfolds how you can hit your macros without depriving yourself of your favorite foods. Learn the nuances of managing hunger—whether it's physical or emotional—and get top tips for meal timing and incorporating nutrient-dense vegetables. Patience is your best friend in this journey, and the episode explains why a slow and steady approach beats quick fixes every time, helping you build habits that last a lifetime.

The episode starts by exploring smarter, more efficient ways to execute your first cut and lose 10 to 30 pounds of fat while preserving muscle and strength. Common pitfalls such as crash dieting, cardio overkill, and food restriction are addressed, emphasizing sustainable approaches instead. The importance of avoiding rapid calorie slashing to prevent muscle loss and rebound weight gain is discussed, along with the drawbacks of excessive cardio, which can interfere with recovery and lower metabolism. Cutting out entire food groups or subsisting on so-called "clean" foods is discouraged, advocating for balanced, maintainable eating habits. The goal is to guide you through a successful fat loss phase without sacrificing your well-being or long-term results.

The next segment focuses on the principles of flexible dieting and realistic expectations for fat loss and muscle building. No food should be off-limits, and hitting macros, enjoying a variety of foods, and listening to your body’s signals are key points. Strategies to manage hunger during fat loss are discussed, including identifying whether it's physical or emotional, and tips like adjusting meal timing and incorporating more vegetables. The importance of patience and realistic expectations is stressed, arguing that a slow and steady approach to fat loss is more sustainable and effective in the long run, avoiding the pitfalls of extreme diets and quick fixes.

Building sustainable fat loss habits is the focus of the following segment. Setting a calorie target, balancing macronutrients, and maintaining high protein intake with moderate fats are emphasized. Individual metabolism and body size can affect carb intake, often resulting in lower carbs without following a strict low-carb diet. Adapting training and recovery to suit fat loss goals, incorporating strategic cardio, and making data-driven adjustments for sustainable progress are key points. Patience, consistency, and learning through the process are highlighted, along with the value of community support. The journey is about personal growth, building better relationships with food, and understanding how to fuel the body effectively.

The episode concludes with a focus on achieving long-term fitness success. The common issue of failing to maintain fitness results due to a lack of accountability and support is addressed. Joining Physique University can place you in the successful five percent who achieve their fitness goals. With an emphasis on using intelligence and strength training, making your first cut just the beginning of a more efficient approach to improving your body composition, mind, and overall physique is discussed.

To dive deeper into the main topics, the episode transcript offers valuable insights. In the 'Efficient Fat Loss and Muscle Retention' segment, the importance of avoiding crash diets, cardio overkill, and food restriction is highlighted. The drawbacks of these approaches and the benefits of sustainable strategies are discussed. The transcript emphasizes the need for gradual calorie reduction, maintaining high protein intake, and focusing on strength training to preserve muscle mass.

In the 'Flexible Dieting and Realistic Expectations' segment, the principles of flexible dieting are explored. No food should be off-limits, and hitting macros while enjoying a variety of foods is emphasized. Managing hunger, both physical and emotional, is discussed, along with tips for meal timing and incorporating vegetables. Patience and realistic expectations are key, as a slow and steady approach to fat loss is more sustainable and effective.

The 'Building Sustainable Fat Loss Habits' segment focuses on setting a calorie target, balancing macronutrients, and maintaining high protein intake. Adapting training and recovery to suit fat loss goals, incorporating strategic cardio, and making data-driven adjustments for continuous progress are key points. The importance of patience, consistency, and community support is highlighted, emphasizing the journey of personal growth and building better relationships with food.

The episode wraps up with a focus on achieving long-term fitness success. The importance of accountability and support in maintaining fitness results is discussed. Joining Physique University is recommended for personalized guidance and achieving long-term success in fitness goals.

This episode of Wits and Weights provides a comprehensive guide to sustainable fat loss and muscle retention. By avoiding extreme measures and adopting balanced, maintainable strategies, you can achieve long-term success in your fitness journey. Flexible dieting, realistic expectations, and building sustainable habits are key principles that can transform your approach to fat loss and muscle retention. Whether you're just starting o

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 00:01

You've been training to build strength and muscle. But now you're ready to reveal that harder and physique. The problem is you've never successfully and permanently cut body fat before. And now you're looking to lose anywhere from 10 to 30 pounds. What if I told you there's a smarter, more efficient way to approach your first cut, other than what most people do, that actually preserves muscle and strength. It keeps your energy high and it doesn't require you to cut carbs, live off chicken and broccoli or ramp up your cardio. Today, you'll learn exactly that so you can execute your fat loss phase successfully, the first time.

Philip Pape 00:42

Welcome to Whitson weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.

Philip Pape 00:50

I'm your host, Philip pape, and today we're discussing how to execute your very first cut, and lose 10 to 30 pounds of fat. Now, the process of dropping body fat is not that hard to understand. But the actual implementation is what usually holds people up. First are the basic questions. How many calories? How fast do I lose weight? How much protein? What about carbs? What about my training and cardio? But where people run into a wall is not just with the information? It's with all the what ifs for their personal situation? And their individual response? What are the mistakes people make? Why do cuts fail? And how can you be successful. And that's exactly what we're exploring in today's episode, your very first cut, lose 10 to 30 pounds of fat. Now if you want a detailed guide to help you set up your next cut and dial in your nutrition, I've got a free nutrition for body composition guide that gives you details on numbers like calories and macros, with sections on hydration supplements, how to eat and more, it's really a nice complement to today's episode that can help you follow along and fill in all those details. So to get your free copy, just click the link in the show notes. Or go to Whitson weights.com/free. You know, set yourself up for success here by downloading my free guide. It's for body composition nutrition, downloaded by clicking the link in the show notes or going to Whitson weights.com/free Alright, so today, we are covering three sections. First of all the mistakes people usually make during their first cut. This is what often holds people up and why people fail not only to properly complete the cut, but to maintain the results, then we're gonna go over some smart, efficient approaches to cutting body fat without sacrificing muscle or sanity. And then finally, I'll give you a step by step guide to implementing this approach for your own successful cut. So we're going to kick things off with what are the problems most people face when attempting their first cut. And after years of helping people and lots and lots of clients and listeners go through this process? I've definitely seen some common pitfalls come up over and over and over again. And I'm going to simplify them here into the top five that I think are most common. So the first one is this whole idea of a crash diet, a quick fix, or I just need to get the results, I'm going to do it fast, I'm going to slash my calories dramatically to get the results. Because on one hand, yes, energy balance is a thing. When you burn or when you consume fewer calories than you burn, you're going to lose weight. But when you do it too quickly, although it leads to rapid weight loss, a good chunk of that is muscle. Right. So this is this is like rule number one when it comes to dieting or fat loss is not doing it too quickly, because of the potential for muscle loss. But not not only that, also the hunger, the irritability, and then the inevitable rebound that happens that leads to what we call yo yo dieting. And even if you don't think you're necessarily prone to that, think of all the times you've tried to lose fat and maybe not maintain the results. Or you've gone on a quote unquote, diet. Maybe it's keto carnivore or something else. And it's a temporary situation. And then you're done with a fat loss phase. And then you go back to eating how you were before and gain the weight back. All of that's kind of tied into this crash diet trap that people find themselves in. So the antidote to that, of course is going to be not going to quickly we're going to get into that. But that's the first one. The second mistake people make is cardio overkill, right chronic cardio, you might have heard it called because there's this persistent myth not sure why it's still out there, that these endless hours of cardio are the key to fat loss. And I hear it in the language and people say well, I'm going to in a fat loss phase, so therefore I'm going to ramp up my cardio or ramp up even my even steps even walking. And I am a big fan of Addy movement where it makes sense and it's sustainable, and it will help but too much. Not only can be unsustainable, it can backfire because it can possibly interfere with your recovery. It can add stress and it causes your body sometimes to compensate and actually lower your metabolism and then all of This ties into the first one of okay, you're going too fast, you've got too much stress in your body. Now you're exacerbating that. And it's just a recipe for disaster, hunger, all the things poor sleep, and then you're done. Like, you don't want to finish the fat loss phase. So, too much cardio can be a problem, there's a strategic way to incorporate cardio. The third pitfall is food restriction. Now, this is somewhat tied to the first one of, of going too quickly. But in this case, I'm specifically talking about cutting out foods or entire food groups, or trying to subsist on what you think of as clean foods only. It's like your diet foods, it's like when I'm in a diet, I eat this or I cut these things out. And then when I'm not I go back, that is the opposite of sustainable, right? Not only that, it's it's pretty miserable. And let's be honest, to do that in any context, it can also lead to nutrient deficiencies, and it throws off your macro balance, it just makes it harder, rather than easier, which is kind of counterintuitive. But it really is. I like to think of it this way, a diet is very simple to understand, right? You eat this, you eat that. But then when you put it into practice, you realize that in your individual situation, it doesn't work at all, because the things they're telling you to cut are things that you would otherwise like to eat. And again, that is not sustainable. So food restriction, no, you know, reducing calories, yes, we're going to reduce calories, we're going to do it in a smart way and still have foods that you enjoy. The next pitfall is on the strength training side, basically neglecting your strength training, or not doing it properly to hold on to that strength and muscle. Some folks or a lot of folks think they need to switch to high rep low rep, sorry, high rep, low weight training during a cut, when in reality, keeping the load or the intensity high. Keeping that stimulus high is actually one of the most important factors for holding on to your muscle mass. And it really comes down to are you training close to failure? Are you training hard, it doesn't preclude you going to a higher rep type of program like a bodybuilding program. But by definition, you don't need to switch up your training entirely, you can usually continue doing the exact same thing, if the recovery is okay. So that's the fourth pitfall. And then the finally, is up here between your years is the impatience and the unrealistic expectations, okay. And that kind of all ties into an adherence and consistency and maybe even motivation, where you think you can lose more than you really can in a certain period. Right. And that leads you to go too quickly number, the first pitfall. And so you have these unrealistic expectations, like I need, I need, I need to lose 30 pounds, and I'm going to do it in two months, right or something like that. And then when it doesn't start to happen fast enough, you get impatient. Whereas the opposite of, of coming up with a very reasonable, moderate rate of loss where you may, you may lose half of what you thought you can lose in that period. But you can go week after week, and keep executing, and you can have your social events, and you can enjoy your foods. And it ties in to all the other pitfalls we talked about overcoming and now you end up losing a bunch of weight that you wouldn't have been able to lose otherwise. Because because of the impatience and the unrealistic expectations, right? You don't want to go too aggressive, overall with your approach, and harm yourself in the process mentally and physically. So what happens when you have any one or combination of these mistakes? That's where we have our failed cuts. That's where we have our yo yo dieting. That's where we have muscle loss, and ultimately, frustration. All right, so those are the classic big mistakes people make. Now I'm going to talk about principles that will help you be successful. And you're going to notice that these principles are often a an antidote to the pitfalls. So the first one is gradual calorie reduction, right, instead of slashing calories, massively, or cutting or whatever, or cutting lots of foods out so that you can cut calories significantly, we're going to create a moderate deficit that allows for steady fat loss while preserving muscle. Now outside of the scope of this episode, there are recent episodes I've done on my stairstep fat loss process, and also three new ways to do a dieting phase, which are basically nonlinear diets. And those are other creative ways to go at different moderate deficits for you, that help you get through the process because ultimately, the thing that's going to make you successful is can you stick with it to eventually get that result. Alright, so gradual calorie reduction. Next, we're going to focus on protein, right Protein Protein Protein, keeping that protein high, and I say high but in reality, it's balanced, but it's high compared to the general population. Most people are very underfed on protein, you are aiming for a much higher level more in that. We're going to talk about the numbers but it's point seven to one gram per pound of your target, excuse me of your target body weight, keeping that Protein high is going to preserve your muscle mass during the cut. The next principle is maintaining your strength. Now I put it that way on purpose because there's nothing you can do about how much muscle you maintain. In other words, you can't directly influence that. But indirectly, by thinking in terms of strength, in other words, pushing your progressive overload in the gym, pushing, getting more reps or more weight, even though you're in fat loss and mentally going after it that way is going to put you in the regime where you're you got, you have that signal to your body that it has to hold on to muscle, what you may find in reality is that as you're losing weight, let's say you've lost 510 pounds, and all of a sudden, maybe you miss a rep, right, or maybe you can't go up in weight, but you got the same reps or the same weight as last time, well, the fact you have five or 10 pounds lighter, and pushing the same weight as last time than you were five or 10 pounds heavier, means you're actually stronger in relative terms, right. And I don't know if what order the episodes are coming out. But I did an episode about scaling laws, where like, you have to think of relative strength, not just absolute strength. And when you're losing weight, the relative strength is important. Keep in mind from a mental perspective, because we're emphasizing, maintaining that strength, which then maintains that muscle. Alright, so the next principle is strategic cardio, which again, you see how these align with the other pitfalls I talked about. So instead of this, like I just need to be on the endless treadmill, you know, metaphorical treadmill, it could be running, it could be, it could be biking, it could be whatever. Instead of that, we're going to use cardio strategically. And the way I would do this is number one, incorporate walks, where they're enjoyable, you can use some habit stacking, like listening to a podcast while you walk something like that. Or if you've got a treadmill and you want to watch Netflix, or do some work while you walk, things like that you do it strategically if you're trying to add some activity, but you can also make your existing cardio a little bit harder. So you know, burn a little bit more calories, and take more advantage of the time you have but without pushing it. So this would be for example, going on an incline when you walk instead of flat, or adding a rucksack, right or hopping on a an assault bike that you've never done before. And now it's going to probably burn more calories because you're not you're kind of clumsy at it, you kind of inefficient at it. So these are strategic ways incorporate cardio. Having said that, if you enjoy these activities, any form of cardio and want to include it throughout your week, as long as you don't overdo it and it doesn't overcome your lifting in terms of quantity, then you're probably fine. Just got to listen to your body and listen to your recovery.

Philip Pape 12:40

Philip Pape 14:00

The next one is flexible dieting. So this one goes hand in hand with the food restriction. In this case, we are saying no food is off limits, right? We're focused on hitting our macros, enjoying a variety of foods, and listening to our body. Now that listening to our body part gets a little bit wonky, because people are like, What do you mean? Well, very simply, I would say hunger is going to be the big one. And then things like digestion, right? And just generally how you feel after eating things are going to be the other drivers. So during fat loss, if you're hitting all your macros, but you're still hungry, then you then you ask yourself, Okay, am I hungry? Because it's normal physical hunger because I'm losing fat in which case, I can reframe it as a positive like, Hey, I've got some hunger. Pretty cool. That means I'm losing fat. Let me go get a glass of water, go do some activity, whatever, or is it emotional hunger, which is a whole whole different situation that we have to analyze as well and it's okay to have both. And both can have different solutions, right like replacing a sweet tooth cream Been with fruit, or adding lots of veggies to your lunch and dinner to fill you up, or switching around your meal timing. So that, you know, your body doesn't think you've got this long stretch where you're just not eating, and now you get hungry. Because the calories are low. There's a lot of clever things we can do. There's no one right approach. But that's the part of the flexibility. It's the flexibility with food, but also how you arrange that food within your day to day. And then finally, of course, we have the antidote of impatience and unrealistic expectations is realistic expectations and patience, right? The long game is actually the fastest path. I've said that before. But I want to reiterate here, because like, just like the tortoise and hare right, slow and steady, when it comes to fat loss will definitely help you get through it. Because even if you ultimately don't lose as much as you want it to in a certain period, you're probably going to lose a lot more than you would have if you were impatient and try to go after it quickly. And our brains have a hard time reconciling that. But all you have to do is look to your past look to those times when you did a diet and either gave up, or you binge, or you lost a bunch of weight, and then you went back and quickly gained it back. Right? And I don't so I don't want you to say that, Oh, keto worked for me because I lost 40 pounds, and then you gained 50 pounds back, okay, then keto didn't work for you. But if you lost 40 pounds over, say twice as long of a period, and then now you're able to maintain the results, you know what your maintenance calories look like, you can kind of hold on to that physique for a while, ah, then you've done it, okay. And I fell into this trap many, many times, I went through many diets, some weird ones, I didn't even have names for where I'd have these small lists of strange foods that I put together, that I was basically just cutting a ton of calories by limiting my palette. And I was miserable, and I lose a bunch of weight, I lose a bunch of muscle. And then of course, I'm done and say, okay, thank God, now I can go back to what I was eating before, where's the pizza, right. And that is not what we're trying to do. So those of you thinking, I just need to cut carbs, oh, I just need to go on carnivore, I see it in my lifting communities, where kind of the advice that gets thrown around often is like, you just got to eat clean for a while, you just gotta cut this, this this and shake my head. And, you know, I hesitate to jump in and offer advice to people who don't want it. But I see that. And I'm thinking that's that's how people get into trouble. And for those of you who've reached out to me or like helped me out, because I don't want to do it that way, you find that you don't have to do it that way. So this approach allows you to lose fat, to maintain muscle to keep your energy levels stable. And here's the thing to enjoy the process. Like it's a process of growth, and mental and physical evolution. It's learning about yourself and learning what can actually work just like when you're lifting weights, okay, don't think of these as as, as distinct processes. They're all processes of growth, having a growth mindset, learning about yourself and not suffering through. Right, not thinking that this is a punishment, or a short term, terrible extreme situation I have to put myself through, it doesn't have to be that way. Alright, so we talked about common mistakes, and common principles, right. For this last segment, I'm just going to break this down into some basic steps that you can take to implement this approach. And of course, if you want more details, this is where you definitely want to reach out and check out some of my other content, because I break things down for different areas. You can't learn this on the day necessarily, but you can definitely understand the overall process pretty quickly. Alright, so step one is to establish your baseline. Well, how did you do that? Okay, when you're lifting weights, how do you establish your baseline for your squat? Well, you kind of test out your squat. On day one, you're pretty clumsy, you don't have very good form, you keep it light. And you learn a little bit about your technique. Okay, next day you go in, you're a little more confident, maybe add a little bit more weight, you get a little bit better technique. Basically, you go for a few weeks, maybe two to three weeks, right? And by the end of two or three weeks, you've got a pretty decent squat, assuming you've had some feedback, right? A coach form checks, whatever. And you kind of know where your baseline is, in terms of strength. Well, same thing with your diet and your body. If you can spend two to three weeks tracking your food, tracking your weight, and then you can kind of figure out how many calories is my body actually burning? Right? And I talked all about this in the macros are all you need episode. That might have been last week actually, and I talked about using macro factor to do this. But there's a lot of ways you can do it. You need to understand your baseline by tracking and measuring. Step two is now you can set your calorie target. And this is where you would say okay, I want to go into fat loss. And so forget about what target you want. Think about what rate of loss is sustainable, and let that determine what target you can hit when it's a different way than most people think most people put it the other way around, like I have to lose 20 pounds, and then they come up with a plan based on that and the plan ends up being not right for them. So set your calorie target for something like half a percent of your body weight a week, which for a lot of people is going to be about a pound a week, or a 500 calorie deficit a day. Like that's a really good ballpark for a lot of people. If you're bigger, if you have a lot more muscle, if you've done this before, you might be able to push it to pound and a half or up to two pounds. But that tends to be more on the aggressive side. I've rarely rarely had clients above that. But I've often had clients below the pound per week because of their metabolism, because their metabolism isn't that high. Because remember, whatever deficit you set, and the calories that results in for you to eat, you've got to look at that number and say, Can I eat this way day after day after day? For like 12 or 16 weeks or potentially longer, right? And if the answer is no, then it's too aggressive. Or you need a more creative approach, like shifting your calories around cycling, nonlinear dieting, all of that well beyond the scope of this episode. But that's how we make it sustainable. Then step three is is focusing on your macros, right, so you've got a calorie target, within that calorie target, you're going to keep the protein pretty high, the fats pretty moderate, say around 20 to 30% of your calories. And then the rest are carbs. Depending on your calorie level, this will probably result in a moderate to lower amount of carbs during fat loss. And for some of you smaller females or even smaller males who have a lower metabolism. This could result in fairly low carbs. And we're not doing a low carb diet. We're not doing keto, we're not doing this any anything intentionally like that. But we are trying to keep the protein high in the fats moderate, and it may result in fairly low carbs or fat loss. And it may look almost like a low carb diet in that sense. And so that's one of the trade offs we make. Alright, so you know what your baseline is, right? We know what our deficit is, we've got our macro set. What about training, I've mentioned it already, plan your training to just be the same. And if recovery starts to become an issue, or if you're always trying to push PRs, that may not be appropriate for fat loss, you may need to go to something different, moderate the volume, moderate the days per week, right. And then along with that as the strategic cardio, like we talked about before, and then all you're going to do is track and adjust, track and adjust. And this is where rapid prototyping comes into play. Another another principle I talked about on a recent episode, I look it up rapid prototyping, go to my catalog, you'll see only one episode with that term. And this really is about experimenting with yourself as you go along. Because whatever plan you had on day one, by day two, or by week two, it may need change. So that you can continue making sustainable progress. It's data driven adjustments. This is where having an accountability partner. Having a coach having a community is massive, it's a huge game changer. Because those people can look over your shoulder and say, Hey, did you do this? And how do you feel? And is this working for you. And if not, here are some ideas. Lastly, of course, be can be patient and consistent. And plan for your cut to last anywhere from eight to 16 weeks, on average, eight to 16 weeks. So if you know your rate of loss, and you assume eight to 16 weeks, because beyond that, it just gets kind of miserable. And I wouldn't recommend being in fat loss longer than that at any one time. Just do the math. And you can kind of tell the ballpark where you're going to end up with at a target weight. And you can reverse engineer that and say, Okay, now how many times I need to do that over the next say year to really get closer to where I want to be. So I think this is this whole episode is really all encompassing, it's a very sound blueprint, I didn't dive into too much of the weeds because I don't want to overwhelm you today. But you know, it's like when you build a house, and you find out that the lumber just went up in price, your wife actually wants a bigger laundry room, or the trusses you ordered have a vaulted ceiling that you didn't expect. Yeah, true story. Just like all of these unexpected things that might come up your fat loss journey is going to start popping up these little surprises along the way, based on your metabolism, your recovery, how you respond to training, and all of these things that you're going to need to adjust to. And that's a totally normal part of the process, right? If you return to this episode, and you just remind yourself of the mistakes people make, and the principles to adhere to. And then the steps, all of those can be applied to your situation and you're going to be successful. And then that brings me to the big reveal. All right, the real success of your cut is not about the pounds lost or the muscle revealed. It is about what you're going to learn through this process. I'm such a huge advocate of this being a process of personal growth. It's not about losing fat, it's building a better relationship with the things that nourish you the things that your body interacts with. It's doing hard things, but enjoying what comes out of doing those hard things and them not being suffering or painful. It's learning to listen to and roll with your body. Right? Understand how different foods affect your energy and performance. You're gonna learn all of that by taking this methodical approach. It's methodical, but it's highly adept. optimal, you notice I didn't tell you exactly what to do, I gave you a blueprint, right? So that you can build those skills, you can build the habits, and learn how to fuel your body properly, how to balance this enjoyment of it, but also the progress where you're pushing, and you're doing hard things, and then make adjustments based on data. And that's the power of this approach, right, not just changing your body, but changing your mind, building the confidence to know how this stuff actually works. And then you'll be able to maintain the results. And that is what less than 5% of people actually are able to do. So if you're still tempted by cutting carbs by food programs, like optive, via by weight loss, drugs, or some other extreme approach, remember this sustainable enjoyable progress beats short term miserable results every time, your very first cut, or your very first cut done right is an opportunity to learn and build something that lasts. And if you're consistent, if you're patient, if you're willing to learn, you'll become a more informed, capable individual. Okay, if you found value in what I shared with you today, and you're ready to take your fat loss to the next level, I want to invite you to check out Whitson weights physique university, that is our comprehensive semi private coaching program, where you get personalized guidance, accountability, to help you achieve your dream physique. And as this episode comes out, we just launched the Fast Track fat loss cohort, it's a private group within WWE within the university. And it's a way to save 15% off the normal price while getting even more personalized attention. To accelerate your fat loss phase, such as one on one calls personalized feedback on your data and so on. So that you can commit to the process, over 95% of people fail to maintain the results. And it's usually due to a lack of accountability and support. That is it. And if you want to be in the 5% of those who do succeed, I think it's a no brainer to join physique University, especially for what it costs. So to learn more, click the link in the show notes, or head over to Whitson weights.com/physique. Again, click the link in the show notes or head over to Whitson weights.com/physique. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember that your first cut is just the start of a smarter, more efficient way to improve your body, your body composition, your mind and your physique. I'll talk to you next time. You're on the wits and weights podcast

Philip Pape 7/26/24 Philip Pape 7/26/24

Why You Can't Stop Eating (How to Break Food Addiction) with Dr. Judson Brewer | Ep 196

Are those late-night cravings for ice cream sabotaging your fitness goals? Do you struggle to tell the difference between real hunger and emotional eating? Have you ever wondered if there's a way to manage cravings without relying on willpower alone?

In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) sits down with Dr. Judson Brewer, a renowned neuroscientist from Brown University, to unlock the secrets of conquering food cravings and building healthier eating habits. Philip and Dr. Jud dive into real-life examples and actionable steps to help you transform your relationship with food. From distinguishing between true hunger and emotional cravings to embracing mindfulness and self-compassion, this episode is packed with valuable tools to support your fitness journey.

Dr. Judson Brewer is the director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center and a professor at Brown University. He is a leading expert in mindfulness training for addictions and has developed innovative treatments for smoking, emotional eating, and anxiety. During their conversation, Dr. Jud shares insights from his groundbreaking research on the neuroscience of cravings and practical strategies to break free from unhealthy eating patterns.

Tune in and learn how to change your brain's response to food, manage food cravings, and align your eating habits with your fitness goals.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:12 Dr. Jud's experience with cravings and ineffective willpower
4:26 The difference between emotional and physical hunger
8:01 The role of the food industry in shaping eating habits
12:49 How to rewire your brain and manage cravings
18:20 His stance on tracking your nutrition
19:26 The impact of societal pressures on eating habits
21:29 Techniques for recognizing and addressing true hunger
33:14 Adjusting your top-down model for better food choices
42:54 Questions from the community
48:48 Finding satisfying and healthy food alternatives
54:28 Reprogramming your reaction to hunger
56:40 The question Dr. Jud wished Philip had asked
58:54 Where to find more resources from Dr. Jud
59:25 Outro

Episode resources:

Dr. Jud’s Website: drjud.com

Episode summary:

Philip Pape sits down with Dr. Judson Brewer to delve into the complex world of food cravings. Dr. Brewer, an expert in mindfulness training for addictions, provides invaluable insights into the science behind our eating habits and offers practical strategies to manage them. This episode is a must-listen for anyone struggling with emotional eating or unhealthy food cravings.

The episode kicks off with Dr. Brewer sharing his personal battles with cravings, particularly for ice cream and gummy worms. This sets the stage for a broader discussion on the difference between emotional and physical hunger. Emotional hunger, or hedonic hunger, is driven by emotional states rather than actual caloric needs. Dr. Brewer explains that understanding this distinction is crucial for addressing unhealthy eating behaviors.

Reinforcement learning, a concept deeply rooted in neuroscience, plays a significant role in how we develop and sustain food cravings. This learning mechanism, which helped our ancestors survive by remembering food sources and avoiding danger, is now being exploited by modern food environments. Dr. Brewer emphasizes that traditional methods like willpower and restrictive diets often fail because they do not address the root causes of these behaviors.

Marketing tactics by fast food giants like McDonald's and Taco Bell are another focal point of the episode. These companies have mastered the art of associating their products with positive emotions and convenience, making it challenging to break free from these habits. Dr. Brewer highlights the need for a deeper understanding of reward-based learning to counter these manipulative strategies.

Societal biases and judgments related to body image also come under scrutiny. The episode discusses the importance of building resilience against these pressures and shifting the focus towards self-care and compassion. Dr. Brewer provides practical advice on differentiating between hedonic and homeostatic hunger, urging listeners to ask themselves, "Am I actually hungry?" This simple question can be a powerful tool in managing food cravings.

Mindful eating is another key topic discussed in the episode. By paying attention to hunger and fullness cues, we can avoid overeating and reduce the appeal of unhealthy foods. Dr. Brewer explains how mindful eating can change our perception of food, making less healthy options less appealing over time. This approach aligns our eating habits with our fitness goals without relying on willpower.

The episode also explores how early experiences and parental responses can shape lifelong eating habits. Dr. Brewer discusses the challenges of changing ingrained behaviors in adulthood and offers strategies to overcome them. By fostering curiosity and incremental exposure, we can rewire our top-down model to accept and even enjoy previously disliked foods.

Curiosity and flexibility are recurring themes throughout the episode. Dr. Brewer encourages listeners to question their behaviors and allow themselves to learn from past experiences. By building a "disenchantment database," we can facilitate long-term change and make healthier choices effortlessly.

In summary, this episode of Wits and Weights provides a comprehensive look at the science of food cravings and offers actionable advice for managing them. Dr. Judson Brewer's expertise in mindfulness training for addictions sheds light on the complex interplay between our brains and our eating habits. Whether you're battling late-night snacking or stress eating, this episode offers a path to freedom that doesn't rely on restrictive dieting or endless cardio.

Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of your own mind and discover practical strategies to break free from unhealthy eating habits. By embracing mindfulness and curiosity, you can transform your eating habits and achieve long-term success in your fitness and nutrition journey.

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:01

You probably found yourself mindlessly reaching for that extra slice of pizza? Binge watching another episode when you should be sleeping, or reflexively checking your phone for the 100th time today. Even if you've put in the work at the gym, those pesky food cravings are sabotaging your efforts to build that lean strong physique. You're after you've hit your macros for the day, but that pint of ice cream in the freezer is calling your name. You know, these habits aren't serving you or your health, but breaking free from them seems nearly impossible. What if I told you that the key to conquering these cravings isn't more willpower or a stricter diet, but understanding the inner workings of your own mind. In today's episode, we're sitting down with a neuroscientist who's cracked the code on why we get hooked on foods and how we can break free whether you're battling late night snacking, stress eating, or any other food related habit that's hindering your physique goals. My guests groundbreaking research offers a path to freedom that doesn't rely on restrictive dieting, or endless cardio. Today, you'll learn science back strategies to rewire your brain, break bad eating habits and take control of your nutrition once and for all, so that your eating habits and fitness goals are better aligned.

Philip Pape 01:09

Welcome to Whitson weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, Philip pape, and today we have a very special guest joining us, Dr. Judson Brewer. Dr. Brewer is the Director of Research and Innovation at the mindfulness center, and professor at Brown University's School of Public Health and Medical School. He's an internationally recognized expert in mindfulness training for addictions, and has developed groundbreaking app based treatments for smoking, emotional eating, and anxiety. He's also the author of several popular books, including The hunger habit, why we eat when we're not hungry, and how to stop. Today, we'll be discussing strategies that actually work for managing food cravings and breaking poor eating habits, all backed by cutting edge neuroscience, this is often the missing piece, if you're looking to optimize your nutrition for your health and physique goals. Dr. Brewer or should I say Judd, welcome to the show.

Dr. Judson Brewer 02:03

Thanks for having me. So, Judd,

Philip Pape 02:05

I first heard you on or not first heard you, but I heard you again on the hidden brain recently, and then I reached out to you could come on the show. And then I got a chance to read your book, The Hunger habit. And there's this powerful moment in the book. And I think you mentioned on the show as well, a light bulb moment when you were working with patients struggling with binge eating. Can you start by painting a picture of a particular instance, from your own life? Perhaps involving ice cream or gummy worms? Where you found yourself, you know, in front of the pantry or fridge, you're grappling with a craving? You know, what was that inner battle? Like? Because I think so many of us can relate to that. And then what would you have tried back then that we now know maybe isn't so effective? Yeah.

Dr. Judson Brewer 02:44

Well, I could do it. I mean, back in high school, I had a very strict diet, because I was trying to optimize my athletic performance, I needed all the help that I could get. And, you know, offseason. So I would need any basically no processed sugar, you know, and just really healthy, clean diet. And offseason, no, just the ice cream would call to me. And so I'd find myself, you know, galloping through a half gallon of ice cream. Fast forward to I think it was cheese, grad school residency, I think, when gummy worms were kind of my siren song where they would just call me and there was nothing I could do, I was totally under their control. So I'd eat, you know, whatever bag of gummy worms no matter how big it was, I would have it, you know, I'd eat the whole thing in one sitting because I knew at least they would be out of the house. Until of course, I bought the next bagger somebody gave me some. And so, you know, willpower, you know, a lot of discipline for all sorts of things, you know, from, you know, athletic training, to getting into medical school to completing a PhD and all that. But it didn't seem to apply when it came to gummy worms. So that's where, you know, ironically, I started practicing what I was researching, I found that it worked pretty well for me.

Philip Pape 04:09

Yeah, I can identify with that. Back in college, I had a convenience store right around from my dorm, like literally in the building. And they had Sour Patch Kids or something like that, you know, and it's like, you have one bag of those. And every day you get a habit of just having having another bag like it just have to have it. And listeners can relate to that so much. So that brings up the idea then of the emotional versus physical hunger, or I think you call it he Donek hunger, how you know, emotional states drive people to eat. Maybe let's start there. Because people are wondering, how do I even distinguish that? Where do I even start? Before I then go down the rabbit hole of what to do about it?

Dr. Judson Brewer 04:44

I think that's a great place to start you as a neuroscientist. I think it's generally very helpful for us to understand how our brains work, and we don't need to know it down to the synapse level. But it is helpful to know some of these general frameworks and one of the most basic frameworks that is evolutionarily conserved all the way back to the sea slug is this process called reinforcement learning. And it helped our ancestors survive before we had, you know, ready availability of food. And both in terms of learning where food sources were, but also learning where danger was. So they could, you know, go get more food and avoid danger is basically get lunch and not become lunch is the way that I think of it. And so that is described as homeostatic hunger. And the reason it's called that, you know, that fancy term homeostasis just means it's trying to keep us in balance. So when our stomach is empty, we're out of balance, and our body kicks into gear, dopamine fires and says, go get some food. Well, it actually starts back with learning dopamine firing when we learn where a new food source is. So if there's something surprising that they say, oh, there's food over there, then that Oh, signals dopamine to fire. And we actually laid on a memory that says, hey, remember this, remember where this food sources, and then that dopamine firing shifts from that Oh, surprise, because it's no longer surprising to, Hey, get out of the cave and go get the food when we're hungry. So we get back, you know, when we're out of balance, it says, Go get back and get balance. So that's homeostatic hunger. hedonic hunger was coined probably within the last 20 years. And it was coined as a response to what researchers were finding, which is that people are eating a whole lot, not when they're hungry, not when their stomach is empty, not when their body is saying that it needs calories. But when they're out of balance in a different way, emotionally. And they coined, it's a misnomer, actually, because it's called hedonic hunger, meaning eating because of emotion. But it's a misnomer, because we're not actually hungry. We're just eating because there's a, the urge to eat. And that urge says go eat. But often, you know, bringing this back to when I first started working with patients with binge eating and or disorder around this, they couldn't tell the difference between when they were actually hungry, or when they just had an urge to eat, because they had learned that, you know, when they felt sad, they could eat as a way to distract themselves when they were celebrating something they could eat, you know, as a way to reinforce that process. So they were mixing up this homeostatic mechanism of this reinforcement learning, where they were learning to reinforce behaviors, such as making themselves feel better through food, rather than filling their, you know, filling their calorie deficits,

Philip Pape 07:42

so to speak. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, we hear that often how something we've evolved that was beneficial in the wild under a different environment. Now we have this, you know, modern food environment, that is up plenty. And like you said, it's not really hunger, right? It's filling a gap, or having an urge, or there's some chemical link that forms out of habit. And again, we're gonna get to what do we do about it in a second, but I want to tie that concept to the environment, since I did just mention that the modern food environment, the food industry, which is not just their happenstance, there's a lot of design and intent behind it. And I'm not gonna call them villains or anything, they're doing what they do to make money, and it is what it is. But it makes food very addictive, right? It taps into that exact thing you talked about, which I assume is a reward system. When you mentioned dopamine, it sounds like to me, maybe tell us about that. We're not using it so much as an excuse, as we want to be aware of this and be aware of even the manipulations that might be going on. And so we can make better choices around that. Right.

Dr. Judson Brewer 08:41

And I like the way you framed that this isn't about vilifying an industry, that either because this is really about just how humanity has been conditioned through capitalism, to say, hey, you know, making money is a good thing. And so if we had been conditioned as a society to say, hey, public health is the ultimate greatest good, we probably wouldn't be in this predicament because people would be designing food to optimally deliver nutrition, and not optimally addict us. So that will eat more. So the idea of, you know, if it's a growth industry, if it's, you know, a consumer model, so to speak, where you get people to consume to make profit, then people are going to be conditioned to try to get people to eat as much as possible, because they'll get you know, the revenue will come in the margins will be higher, and they'll ultimately, you know, help their stakeholders who will then feel like they are momentarily fulfilled because the stock price goes up and then we can see how that becomes a vicious cycle itself. We can talk about that later where, you know, that's ultimately this meeting the same, the same process. That's not actually helping people be healthier or happier, but we're just stuck in and because we don't know any way out As a society, so it's not society's fault, it was, you know, it was set up, you know, way, way, way long time ago. So with that as a backdrop, if you put yourself in the perspective of a company that's trying to maximize profits or increase its, you know, its growth so that it can, you know, meet its projections and then get have its stock go up, then they're going to do everything they can to learn about how our brains work, so that they can tap into these learning mechanisms to get us to consume. And so and Michael Moss, I think, wrote a beautiful book over 10 years ago now, around how the food industry, you know, it's peeling back the curtain, this exposition on the food industry, and all the different ways that the food industry has been doing this for decades. You know, you can think back to 1963. When was it Lay's potato chips came out with the big candy? Just one, right? Because we're designing it that way. So you know, they put it in our face, that they're they're doing all this stuff to make food addictive, whether it's a bliss point, which is a perfect, you know, mix of sugar, salt and fat to banishing caloric density, which is exactly what it sounds like, we're, like, think of any puff type thing. You know, like a Cheetos or whatever, where it melts in your mouth, in your body says, Did I just eat something? I don't think so. Because it's gone. I should eat another thing. You know, and so we get all these calories in, but our brain is like, but it's supposed to I have to I'm supposed to to it right? Because that's what that's what natural does. So that's the backdrop against, you know, against with, we're working. I'm not saying that properly. But that's what we're up against. Let's put it that way. And just to kind of name how explicit it is. RJR Nabisco. So RJ Reynolds merged at some point with Nabisco. Right, RJ Reynolds, a tobacco company, they had all these engineers that knew how to get people addicted to cigarettes. And they started applying that to food. Right? So it's, you know, again, that's how they're choosing to spend their time. So if we don't know how that process works, then we have very little chance of being able to work against it. Because, you know, they got billions of dollars invested in getting us addicted. And all we have is our one little brain. Yeah.

Philip Pape 12:28

And my comment about them making money too is like, I mean, simple thing is capitalism and economics drives. Behavioral Economics drives an entire industry to then become neuroscience experts and psychology experts. We see it in marketing, right? For years, we've seen it in marketing, even go back, you know, and look at the old Howdy Doody show. And you see how like, right in the show, they're marketing straight to kids, because they understand the psychology of it all. I just saw Taco Bell ad that was my wife and I were watching people were like, really, that's how they're pushing this, it was about how you have no time to eat. So go get Taco Bell. And it was like, wow, like, we're just throwing mindfulness out the window with that ad. And you think of like Planet Fitness, or the big box gyms, same thing. There are health and fitness companies whose model is to get you to not go to the gym. So we see perverse influences everywhere. And I think we said enough about that. But now that people know, we want to go to Okay, what do we do? So we take back control of our, our minds, our mindfulness to whether it is quitting smoking or eating better, rewiring the brain, right. Like, I think that's the next logical step. It is.

Dr. Judson Brewer 13:31

And so just to highlight this in the catapult us into what we can do, think of the McDonald's play scape, right? The parents could think, Oh, it's so convenient that we can go and play in the playground and eat at the same time. And McDonald's is saying, we're gonna have kids associate having fun with eating McDonald's. And so if you do that at an early age, then kids start to associate McDonald's with happiness, quote, unquote, with playing, and then they're wondering why it's so hard not to eat McDonald's when they're older. So with that as a backdrop, let's talk about what to do about it. Yeah,

Philip Pape 14:08

let's hear the expert on that one. Where do we start with? Yeah,

Dr. Judson Brewer 14:14

it goes back to really understanding this process itself is reward based learning or this reinforcement learning process. And so if we think about if we break it down, there are three key, let's say key ingredients for forming any habit around eating. The first is a trigger, the second is the behavior. And the third is the result or from a brain perspective, a reward. And so think of it let's use McDonald's as an example. So, kid goes to McDonald's and they see a play scape, right? And so there's the trigger. They're fed McDonald's foods, there's the behavior and they learn to associate playing with eating McDonald's, right? There's the result, and their brain lays down this memory. Hey, you know, let's go eat at McDonald's because it's fun. Okay, that's called positive reinforcement. So the other side of the equation, which is the same equation is just flipped a little bit in terms of Valence is the negative aspect when somebody feels sad, they've learned, hey, you know, I know McDonald's has a place gay is fine, right. So let me eat some comfort food. And that comfort food makes them the reward is that it makes them feel less sad or mad or bored or anxious or frustrated, or whatever the negative emotion is that they're trying to escape. And if they eat that, they get this temporary relief, one of my patients described it as that she would numb herself she would eat to numb herself. This is somebody who is binging on entire large pizzas in one sitting, because it you know, it started with one piece. And then that wasn't enough, two pieces, three pieces, because her body would habituate. And eventually, she was eating entire large pizzas in one sitting 20 out of 30 this month, because that was the only coping mechanism she had learned since the age of eight, and how to cope with negative emotions. So it was eat to numb. So trigger is negative emotion, the behavior is to eat a pizza. And the reward is to numb herself from her negative emotions, which of course, doesn't fix the problem in the first place. And just reinforces the process to do it again, the next time she has a negative emotion come up. What is the industry?

Philip Pape 16:29

Or what is the been the traditional approach to addressing this? That is not effective? Because I want to compare that to what actually works? Yeah.

Dr. Judson Brewer 16:37

So what I learned in residency, and what most people learned today is, is use your willpower. Right? Now, that works well for the diet and weight loss industry. Because they can say, look, the formula is correct. And I learned this formula in medical school calories in versus calories out. And they set it up like it's just a straightforward cognitive thing. If you eat salad instead of cake, you're going to lose weight, it is true. What they don't talk about is it in context, and whether that even fits with how our brains work. It's a great business model, because they can say follow our diet, whatever the diet is. And you'll notice these diets change every two years because there's a new fad diet coming out, because the last one didn't work. And so you think, Oh, here's something new, maybe this will work and they claim that it works. And then it it works briefly, and then it doesn't work. Because it all relies on this willpower, you know, you just have to use your willpower. And the diet, people will say, hey, it's not our fault. You know, this is a low calorie diet, it's your fault, you don't have enough willpower. So not only do they implore you to sign up for another year, but they also tell you that it's your fault. That is a travesty to blame people for a system that's set up to fail. Yeah,

Philip Pape 17:59

the yo yo diets are the Weight Watchers and everything. It's like, there's no endpoint, you go to them, you do the thing. It doesn't work, you come back, you do it again, then we want to say what are the alternatives because people in like my practice and nutrition coaching, we will use various tools and mechanisms that maybe they are I don't want to say band aids, but they're not necessarily getting at the root cause, such as tracking. And I've heard you talk about tracking. As you know, there's pros and cons. But I've definitely heard you say, you know, it's kind of an intermediate thing that doesn't necessarily solve any particular problem. But I do want to address that real quick, because we talk about tracking calories, macros, for awareness and things like that, not so much for emotional eating, per se, but it's a way to potentially get there. What do you think of tracking? Yeah,

Dr. Judson Brewer 18:41

it depends on how you use it. So if somebody uses tracking as a way to judge themselves, beat themselves up, you know, to say, Oh, I'm not meeting my goals, then it's just gonna ultimately fail, if they use it as an awareness tool, and we'll talk about why this is critical in a minute. If they use it as an awareness tool, it can be extremely helpful. But if they use it, anything more than helping them become aware of what they're putting in their bodies, then it's going to generally fail for them and actually can create even, you know, the same type of problems that, you know, the self control problems that are caused by the diet industry.

Philip Pape 19:22

Okay, so I mean, you mentioned self control, and actually do have, you talked about societal pressures in your book, how we value things like fitness, right, and self control and willpower. And that I think you said, quote, Those who carry a few unwanted pounds can feel like they're wearing a sandwich board announcing their failure. How do we build resilience against these judgments? Right, and shift the focus toward the practices I think we're going to talk about related to self care and compassion and all that we can get into. Yeah,

Dr. Judson Brewer 19:49

so I won't emphasize this today. But I think there's a big effort that needs to happen around public health and changing societal habits. It's around what is healthy. So, you know, I would just want to put a footnote there, because that's really important. So we're not, you know, there's this, you know, anti fat bias, where people just like that quote says, you know, somebody's walking around and they're deemed by society as obese or fat. Along with that goes, the label, lazy lack of self control, can't do it, failure, all this stuff. And there's lots of research showing that there are all sorts of, you know, biases and viewed discrimination against fat people basically. So that's something that we need to work on as a societal habit, at the individual level, where more of my research comes in, is that we can do a couple of things. One is one, see that societal bias, and to see if we're beating ourselves up, when we are working with our own behavior change processes, because this self deprecation that, you know, self abuse, literally for a lot of people actually gets in the way of making progress and sucks energy into this black hole of judgment, and shame and blame and guilt and all of this, that actually just keeps us spinning in the same types of cycles. So we can actually repurpose that energy to help us learn our brains work, help us learn to change our behaviors, but we can't repurpose it, if we're stuck in the same unit. If society is telling us we're bad. And then we're telling ourselves that we're bad on top of, which

Philip Pape 21:26

is yet another loop we can get into here. So okay, is this one of the first things people should be aware of and work on then? Is this like cultivating self compassion? Or are there some tools or steps like your reign method, you have a bunch of methods in the book that I thought were pretty straightforward and helpful? You know, again, what's step one, somebody's at the fridge, and they just have that like total urge, they can't help themselves. They know, they need to do something differently. What's next? Yeah.

Dr. Judson Brewer 21:51

So I think, depending on how much somebody judges themselves, this also fits. There's a general three step methodology that, you know, my labs been researching for over 10 years. Now, this fits into major buckets, one is around getting stuck in the urge to eat. And the other is getting stuck in that bucket of self judgment. So if we're judging ourselves and blaming ourselves, and that's taking all of our energy, it's a really good place to start is to map those habits out, and then bring in some kindness to help as an antidote. But I'll walk through the general process, and then we can see how we can apply it, both the eating and also the self judgment. So the first step is really just recognizing what the habit is. And we can simplify it. So we talked about these three ingredients for a habit loop, but you can actually simplify it just asking, what's the behavior? What am I doing right now? Am I eating because I'm hungry? Or am I eating because I'm bored, sad, lonely, angry, frustrated, you know what we're celebrating whatever. And so we can separate out the hedonic hunger, that celebration, anger, boredom, you know that the mood food relationship from the calorie, you know, I actually need calories right now, because I've added a deficit from that homeostatic hunger. That's the first step is just to be able to recognize what is this? Right. And so, for example, working with patients with binge eating disorder, those were so much together that they couldn't tell the difference.

Philip Pape 23:20

You mean the hedonic hunger and the homeostatic hunger and the homeostatic hunger?

Dr. Judson Brewer 23:25

Yeah, I still remember a patient. Because if you just clarified this for me so much, this was as if it was yesterday, but it was over. It was probably 15 years ago, where she said, I just have an urgent I eat. And my assumption was, oh, when somebody's hungry, they have an urge, because they're hungry. And she's like, I can't tell the difference between hunger and mood related eating. And so being able to just ask that question, am I actually hungry, helps us step back, and then start to be able to tease those apart, it can take a while for some people, where and then I've got some methodologies to help differentiate those until we can really quickly feel it like, oh, yeah, I'm actually hungry, or nope, I'm just angry. You know, in my anger drives me to McDonald's, or whatever. So that's the first step in before we go on. Does that make sense? Yeah,

Philip Pape 24:21

it makes sense. And people might be asking, Well, how do I do that? And I know you have, there's apps and things and there's probably checklists, rubrics, you know, maybe even just a journal and you literally just ask yourself the question, you know, again, if somebody's listening, they're not necessarily going to sign up for a big program, and they just want to know today. What do I do when I go grab my next snack? Yeah.

Dr. Judson Brewer 24:39

So the simple question there that they can ask themselves is, am I actually hungry? Right, and check in with their bodies. So this starts with awareness. They've got to be starting to build out awareness of their body. Am I actually hungry or not? And that can, you know, that's the basic question to be asking, and then looking for evidence whether they're hungry or not. Yeah, so you don't need an app, you don't need a book. You just need that question.

Philip Pape 25:04

This is part of your, your rain technique. I think we're gonna get into here because you started with recognize, it's related

Dr. Judson Brewer 25:09

to that. But it's it goes, it's even before that. So it's really just starting with this simple question. Am I hungry and starting to be able to tell the difference between that homeostatic hunger, the true physiologic hunger and the hedonic hunger, which is the mood food thing? Yeah,

Philip Pape 25:24

okay, no. And that's extremely helpful when you hear people discuss things like intuitive eating, and your hunger signals, and all that a lot of this gets lost in there, where there's a lot of finger pointing is like, well, you can't be intuitive because the food environment and you don't know what hunger is. And the other side's like, well, you have to track all the time, you know, you kind of get both. And it sounds like you can definitely, you know, learn about yourself as a human and your brain and actually know what real hunger is. Before we get to the next steps, yeah, great.

Dr. Judson Brewer 25:51

I mean, this is something that has been so important, from an evolutionary standpoint, that for some people, they regain that pretty quickly. And for others, it takes a little bit longer, especially with all of the noise in the system, and the noise that the food industry is deliberately injecting into the system. I haven't met anybody that hasn't been able to regain that, because it's such a critical evolutionary function.

Philip Pape 26:17

You told a really neat story,

Dr. Judson Brewer 26:19

I think this is on a hidden brain you talked about with the gummy worms, when you finally gave it a thought, moment of thought to what you were eating and what it tasted like that awareness, you realize it just tasted like chemicals or something like that, right? Yeah. Is that part of the this first phase is coming up? It's actually part of the second steps. Okay. All right. All right, once we can just pause, bring some awareness in and start getting reacquainted with our body and asking, am I actually hungry or not? And determining that, then we can go to the second step. And the second step is credit, I'd say all three steps are critical. But the second step is the most counterintuitive, but also the most critical in the way that works from a neuroscience standpoint is our brain, you know, this willpower thing, it's not even in the equations of neuroscience for forming behaviors or changing behaviors, right? That's how far off off the realm it actually is. So what is in those equations, is what's called reward hierarchy. And this reward art can be set up to help us make decisions every day. And the way it works is if given A versus B, and we've done both of them, our brains going to naturally compare them and say, Do I prefer a over b? Or do I prefer B to A, and whichever it gets, the higher reward value we're going to do. And that becomes our habit. So we don't have to relearn all of our habits every day. So most of this reward hierarchy is really helpful. For us, just living our everyday lives, it helps us you know, learn just the most efficient way to walk, this is the most efficient way to get food in my mouth. This is the most efficient way to do X, Y and Z. It also pertains to food, right? So from an evolutionary perspective, our brains looking for calorie density, because it's planning for famine. It says, hey, if I've got calories in front of me, I'm going to try to get them in. Because I don't know if they're going to have calories tomorrow. For most of us, we're not going to run into famine anytime in our lives. So when our brain says, hey, you know, sugar is the most efficient way to get calories in because I can get those in, I can storm this fat, I can save them for later. If we have a ready source of sugar, we can see how that becomes a problem. We just keep eating sugar or body keeps laying it down as fat. And then voila, we develop diabetes. Like it's some magical thing. No, it's just our body saying hey, you know, famine hasn't ever come and now you know, our pancreas is worn out, basically. So we can't handle all of this extra especially the adiposity, especially around our in our in our viscera idea in our intestine. So and we don't need to go into the details there. That's been well worked out. The bottom line is our body is going to prefer sugar to non sugar things until it's too much right. So the second step is really asking as another simple question, what am I getting from this?

29:21

Hey, just wanted to give a shout out to Philip. I personally worked with Philip for about eight months, and I lost a total of 33 pounds of skill weight and about five inches off my waist. Two things I really enjoy about working with Philip is number one, he's really taking the time to develop a deep expertise and nutrition and also resistance training. So he has that depth if you want to go deep on the whys with Philip but also if you want to just kind of get some instruction and more practical advice and a plan on what you need to do. You can pull back and communicate at that level also. He is a lifter himself. So he's very good Now you're aware of the performance and body composition goals that most lifters have. And also Phillip is trained in engineering. So he has some very efficient systems set up to make the coaching experience very easy and very efficient. And you can really track your results. And you will have real data when you're done working with Phillip and also have access to some tools likely that you can continue to use. If all that sounds interesting to you, Phillip, like all the coaches has a ton of free information out there and really encourage you to see if he may be able to help you out. So thanks again, Phil.

Dr. Judson Brewer 30:36

Now, if we look at it from a just a meal perspective, ticket one meal at a time, if we pay attention, the same food is going to taste different from the beginning of the meal to the end of the meal, which is kind of interesting in itself. Very same food, you can keep it at the same temperature, you can make sure it hasn't changed at all. Yet our body says wait a minute, I don't like this as much. At the end of the meal. As I did at the beginning what's going on here, our body is registering satiety. And it's got these all of these intricate networks set up to say, Hey, eat until you're full. But don't eat more than that, because that's what's gonna help you survive optimally. If we don't pay attention to those signals, those hunger and fullness signals. We're often eat beyond satiety, especially when we've got the engineered food. And then on top of that we learn to eat not because we're hungry, but because we're, you know, have some mood, right? So the second step is asking a simple question, what am I getting from this, right? Am I eating because I'm hungry? Or because I'm bored or whatever? And what do I get when I overeat? Right when I eat beyond satiety, but when I when I'm not even hungry at all. The second piece that we can ask is if like, let's use the gummy worms as an example. What do I get when I eat non food objects that have calories in them and that are designed to be addictive like gummy worms are right. So when I started paying attention to eating gummy worms, they had this sickly sweet petroleum hit nice to them. I still, my mouth still screws in my face still screws up like Yak. I haven't eaten and gummy warming. And I can't remember how many years but I can still remember what they taste like, right? Because my body was like, dude, really, you call this food. But I hadn't noticed that for years because I was just eating. Because I was basically addicted to them. I was craving that next gummy worm while this the gummy worm was still in my mouth. And I wasn't registering what it actually tasted like. So we found We've done studies with this we've been called Eat right now that we've that we can actually run these studies to measure reward value, it only takes 10 to 15 times if somebody's really paying attention, whether it's eating the gummy worm equivalent, or overeating for that reward value to drop below zero. When that reward value drops below zero. That's when our brain says hey, this is no longer rewarding. We become disenchanted with that behavior. That disenchantment is key for behavior change,

Philip Pape 33:04

because why are we going to do something that we're not excited to do? We're not right, notice how that takes zero amount of willpower. This is so powerful. There's a lot I want to ask about here. But like, you really close the loop on the willpower thing, because what I got from that is that the habits that we want to engender are about not needing willpower at all. Like that's the powerful statement here. Is that the things we want to do we want to put them on autopilot. So we don't have to have willpower. And I know people are thinking, Well, what do I do to change the habit? And that's we're kind of getting into that, when you mentioned that the body and the mind have these automatic preferences, right? You said you compare things you just automatically go with this. And so if you can make one of those less palatable and drop it in the kind of choice tree here, you'll go toward the other one, a few things came to mind. One is how like, I've always, I've told my clients like when they go to a restaurant, they're a little bit hungry. It helps to have something like the salad first, just because you start going through that satiety curve that you talked about with your stomach, like the task salad is going to taste amazing. And then the next thing is going to taste less amazing and so on. Because of that people often think of satiety, I think in terms of like calorie density, but what you're talking about is just the temporal the time based aspect of satiety is super important. And then the the non food objects. I was thinking of movie popcorn, right? You go to the movies and you just mindlessly shove it in. Folks just stop and eat a few of those like mindfully and you'll see how disgusting that oil,

Dr. Judson Brewer 34:33

the oil and the amount of salt. Yeah,

Philip Pape 34:36

well I put my own salt. I've already put too much on there. Yeah, you're right. Okay, so then you said okay, we need to have disenchantment with the behavior. Neuroscience doesn't even care about willpower. We care about the loops in our brain. So before we go to step three, how does this play into pickiness with things like vegetables. People grow up and they have certain behaviors and they avoid vegetables, apparently, and get them to eat them. And then now they're in their 20s and 30s. And they don't eat any vegetables. does this tie in somehow with like how our brain is trained and disenchantment?

Dr. Judson Brewer 35:11

I think it certainly could, right? So I don't want to generalize. Because there, there could be lots of different situations that lead to the same result. But let's use just one example. So a kid is fussy. And for some reason, you know, they say, I don't want to eat my vegetables, and they throw up a fuss, and they have a fed, and their parents are like, Fine, I'm not going to make you your vegetables. Well, you know, french fries, or ketchup or sugar laden things, you know, gotcha, typically has a lot of sugar in it, right. And so if you think of French fries, you get the Triple Threat of sugar, fat, and salt, especially if you're putting ketchup on them. So the kids are going to, can learn this preference for this type of addictive type of thing. Now, as a kid, you're not going to typically have a lot of negative consequences for eating a bunch of French fries. Because, you know, they're usually pretty active they can. Now it's interesting. This is less and less the case case these days with a lot of sedentary, you know, like a lot of the habits of kids where it's not to go outside and play, but it's to stay inside and play video games, right? So. So I think childhood obesity is at a record level now. And we can see why you get the Busey kid, the parents too tired to just wait it out, and say, hey, you know what, they're hungry, can it take over at some point, if I don't give in, but if I give in, they've just trained me to feed them crappy food. And so that that habit gets set up. And they can go, you know, junior high schools, high schools, the food industry tries to get in there. And you know, be able to offer all these sugary things because they know they're going to that's a critical period to get kids addicted to certain sodas and certain things. And so they're going to try to get in there and how and have unhealthy meals as well. And so there's no real place to line people up to kind of learn, oh, that healthy food actually feels pretty good. So we're fighting against all of that history where somebody makes it in their 20s. They wake up, and they're like, Wow, well, I feel really sluggish in the morning. And I you know, I'm in a pretty unhealthy weight. And I don't have a lot of energy throughout the day. When I feel sad, I reach for candy, right? So that's where we just have to start to become like pay attention and see the cause and effect relationship between what we put in and how we feel. It's that food mood relationship. And it can be hard to tease apart if that's all we're doing. Until we start really isolating enough of the variable. So we can see very clearly, what a bunch of junk food this is what happens. And when I eat clean for a week, this is what happens. So interesting. I grew up in Indiana needs to race BMX bikes. And I learned this myself kind of accidentally, when the way it would work, when we race on weekends was that there were three heats, you know. And so you whoever won the most place the best in three heats won the trophy or whatever. And so I could do well, like I'm the first heat and then I bought like soda and crap. And then I'd get tired by the third heat, because you have to go through all the age groups. And my mom's like, why don't you need like peanut butter and honey sandwiches or something like that something a little more nutritious. So I do that. And I was like, wow, sustained energy, I can actually do better consistently. And I learned from my own direct experience, hey, junk food leads to this, how the food leads to this. And I just happened to run into that, because I needed it in junior high school for my athletic performance. So a lot of people don't have that serendipitous opportunity to learn from their own experience until later in life. But that's the place where we where actual change happens is when we can really say okay, let me pay careful attention to what I get from this, whether it's an amount or type of food, versus this and this is where the third step comes in. But before we go there, you know, we can even just start by asking when I overeat, what do I get from this? Right? How do I feel afterwards? I've never had somebody come back and say, You know what, thank you for helping me see how wonderful it feels to overeat. You know, thank you Dr. Bird. Now I am I'm overeating even more. Never, never. Yeah.

Philip Pape 39:32

Could you have a situation though, where someone acknowledges that like the first of the six muffins actually was a very pleasurable experience and they enjoyed it and it was high quality and then it was the second through sixth though it's the issue. Yeah,

Dr. Judson Brewer 39:45

yeah. So this isn't going to make chocolate tastes terrible is not going to make muffins taste terrible at Target. So it's both the type of food and the amount of food for me. There was nothing redeemable about gummy worms but other People are gonna be like, yeah, other people like, yeah, gummy worms no big deal. I'm not saying that everybody's gonna have the same experience that I did. What I will say is that our bodies are pretty intricately tuned. And the more we can tune them, the more we're going to our bodies are going to really say, really, you know, this sickly sweet thing is. Now what helps us do that is finding and comparing these two foods that truly satisfy that urge to have something sweet, for example, and don't have any negative consequences to them. So just to put it out there, the example for me was blueberries, right, I started eating, you know, it was like, after dinner, I wanted something sweet. I needed some blueberries. And I was like, wow, these are good. These are really good. And blueberries have enough fiber in them and all this stuff. But they're not overly sweet. They're not they don't hit that bliss point. So I can eat some blueberries, and be finished, and actually feel great afterwards, right, and I'd have more blueberries for later. So we can become disenchanted with an old habit. But importantly, we also have to become enchanted with something different. And that something different tends to come in two flavors. One is not overdoing it. If it's like one muffin versus three months, or the type of food which can be you know, for me gummy worms versus blueberries. I'll give a concrete example. I remember somebody in our E right now program to she and her husband had gone to a was like a church, you know, get together with a it's like a yearly thing. And she had a friend who would always bring like the world's best pie. And she she ate three or four bites of the pie. And then she turns she's like, I don't want anymore. And she turns to her husband, because usually when he two to three pieces, right? She turned her eyes when she's like, does this taste as good as it always does. And he's like your ads killer. It's same yours because same thing. She's like, Ha, it tastes good. But I still want anymore, right? Because she'd seen the difference between eating those few bites and enjoying it. And eating to the three pieces, which didn't actually make the enjoyment any better. It made it worse, but she was now aware that that was the case. So same pie, different result. You know, oddly,

Philip Pape 42:20

I remember iced speaking of ice cream, I love ice cream, I still do and I enjoy it. And I remember when I was tracking my food and deliberately reducing my portion of ice cream, it forced me to realize that I actually could like less ice cream, right? It was kind of a again, awareness. Really not the fact that I was picking X number of grams of ice cream was the fact that I could get through it be satisfied and realize that was the case. And I think we, like you said we don't have we're not in tune with that. When you go to go to the ice cream parlor and you see people ordering these large ice creams you like you'd probably be cool. Like in your head, you know, you'd probably be caught this little one. But before we go to step three, I still there's a few other little corner cases I'm curious about. So the first is actually this is from a listener community. She said, You know, when she eats a diverse diet, lots of vegetables, meat fiber, she still craves the sweet after a meal, even if she's like, quote unquote, full, like, where does that come from? And how does that tie into this?

Dr. Judson Brewer 43:15

So evolutionarily speaking, and this is where the, you know, the example of a holiday meal comes in, in an extreme. So you know, let's say Thanksgiving in the US where you know, people are they're eating till their stuff, for whatever reason, because that's the habit, you know, societal habit. And then they pull up the desert array buffet, and they're like eight desserts, and they have to have one of each, right? Or at least some of it. Well, there's an evolutionary mechanism for variety in there. Because our body is saying, Hey, if you eat a bunch of different foods, you're more likely to get all the micronutrients that you need. So there is a, there's an evolutionary, at least explanation for it's like, oh, you know, like, let's have a little something extra, because that might help fill this little niche that I hadn't filled with the the year the regular meal.

Philip Pape 44:09

So that's an interesting segue into the other corner case then, which is, I alluded to vegetables before, I used to be very picky. I'm not anymore. My wife helped me out with that, because she pureed vegetables into things I liked, for like a year, love her for it. And I was willing to do the experiment. And for whatever reason, my brain got used to it or I saw it and was eating it and realizing it's not so bad. You know, like, I'm curious about the neuro science mechanisms, but also where that's going to fit into our process here of not just avoiding foods you don't want avoiding foods you don't want too much of but then adding in foods that you kind of know you want to need, but maybe don't taste so great to you yet. Yeah. So

Dr. Judson Brewer 44:49

not to nerd out too much from a neuroscience perspective, but hopefully this will be helpful for folks. I'll keep it simple, but try not to oversimplify we tend to have a top down model of the world of how We interact with things and that is based. It starts with our sensory information coming in and saying, Hey, I'd like this I don't like this often gets set up early in life, you know, where if our parents feed us a bunch of vegetables, early in life, it's much that top down model says, I like vegetables, when they don't forced us or, you know, say, Oh, you're not leaving the table until you because then we associate vegetables with negative things, right? So it's like, oh, vegetables, you know, boom, we've got this top down model, not a big problem, because then our bottom up sensory information says, Hey, vegetables, and our top down model says, I like vegetables. If we come in with the I hate vegetables, model the world, two things are going to happen. One is, this affects how we see how our sensory information is interpreted. So we are literally biasing our world based on our worldview, so that our world conforms to our worldview. We see this everywhere you look at politics, and you take any you political actor that you like, or you don't like, and you have a top down worldview, let's just use age as an example, right? Doesn't matter whether we're Republican or Democrat, we can look at the other candidate and say that person is too old for the job, or that person is just right for the job, are top down model until some sensory information comes up. And proves to us with beyond a shadow of a doubt that our top down model is not true. And then we have to revise our top down model, right? So we see this all over. It's not a political thing. It's a brain thing.

Philip Pape 46:27

It's framing right?

Dr. Judson Brewer 46:28

Now the way to put it. Yeah. And that severely bias is how we see the world. And we can also you know, we're like how can that person not see this? Well, they have a such a model, that they're conforming their bottom up information to fit with that model. Now how this is relevant to eating is that we can be like I vegetables, to the point where every vegetable looks like a Mr. Yuk sign. And so we're not going to actually take in that bottom of sensory information and explore, hey, does this sensory information actually fit my top down model? Or does it force me to reevaluate this top down model, right. So you could do a couple of things, one, as you could put somebody on psychedelics, which is a way to like, totally change this top down model temporarily, and then introduced bottom up sensory information. I'm not suggesting we do this, but this is just a hypothetical, where suddenly taking notes, yeah, this bottom up sensory information is more accessible. And it reforms are top down view of the world. You don't need to take psychedelics for that well you can do is start to bias awareness. So if you start to get curious that curiosity helps to increase the weights, they call this in math, how much this essentially information is weighted as compared to our top down model. So our top down model has to start to pay attention and say, Hey, does my model fit the data? And when the data are really, really clear, then have to reevaluate and change our models. So for you, let's use you as an example. Tell me if this fits your experience. So you have this top down model says no vegetables, and your your wife says, well get curious, let's puree some vegetables, start introducing some sensory information where you can actually access that information. And I'm guessing your brains like vegetables aren't so bad.

Philip Pape 48:17

Exactly. Fine. Model. And then

Dr. Judson Brewer 48:20

suddenly, that top down model is going to start looking at vegetables like yeah, it's compared to yuck. That is

Philip Pape 48:27

awesome. I loved it. This has got to be one of the most powerful like insights out of this episode, at least for me, because we talked about curiosity and skepticism and using data and all of that. And that's exactly what you're saying is like, just always be curious. If you have a fixed statement sounds like fixed versus growth, right? It is this or it? Isn't this that there's some there's an opening there. There's an opening there. You just got to find what it is. So okay, cool. So I think we talked about step 1am. I actually hungry. Step two, what am I getting from this? What step three,

Dr. Judson Brewer 48:55

step three, I call it finding the bigger better offer. And what that does is it leverages Step Two directly. So if our brains are always looking for setting up a reward hierarchy, and we start to become disenchanted say I became disenchanted with the gummy worms, my brain says, okay, that slot is now open, fill it in with something better. And so I started comparing it and I mean, for me, it was blueberries, I start eating blueberries, and I pay attention. I see blueberries tastes great. They're healthy. Like I get all this energy. I don't get the sugar rush and crash. I don't crave more, all this good stuff, right? And so my brain gets this bigger, better offer, it sets up blueberries and then it becomes very easy to make that choice, right? My brain is already doing that. I'm not even choosing my brain is like duh, you know, this is better, you know, until you prove to me until you give me some sensory information that's different. That's where I'm going is blueberries are my go to choice. So that happens so it can be a dip One type of food, but it can also be a different amount of food. So if it's one muffin versus three muffins, we can ask ourselves, hey, what feels better one versus three? Or in your example, Hey, actually a little bit of ice cream. Will you tell me it was better than a lot of ice cream? Yeah,

Philip Pape 50:17

you didn't feel stuffed? And like, you know, afterwards.

Dr. Judson Brewer 50:19

Did you have where's your willpower in that? Yeah, no.

Philip Pape 50:24

No, it was easy, right? But that's

Dr. Judson Brewer 50:26

it. Right? So not only do we become disenchanted in the second set, we become enchanted. It could be the exact same food. But what bringing that curiosity and then asking how much is enough? How much is enough? And truly being curious?

Philip Pape 50:40

Okay, yeah, no, as simple as that, right? No, I love it. It's substituting one thing for another. I'm trying to think if there are like particularly difficult cases where this, you know, require something extra to it. I don't know if you have exactly, you know, if you can give us an example of where some of your patients have had, or I don't know, if you call them patients, but like, the binge eating that's just uncontrollable, and they don't like anything, and everything is just against them. This process works every time, or is there anything along the way, that's like an obstacle, there are a couple of

Dr. Judson Brewer 51:13

things that I see pretty consistently that are worth pointing out, you know, with my patients, for example, my clinic patients, one is if they've, so our brains don't like change, right. And this is actually fitting with these top down models of the world, our brains are looking to try to predict the future. And what's called mathematically is you're trying to maximize future or minimize future prediction errors, you're trying to be able to accurately predict the future. And so what we're doing is we're What do you how do you predict the future, it's based on past experience. And so you take your past experience, and you say, Okay, if I do this, again, this is going to happen. So if something has helped us survive to this point, it's going to be hard to change course, because it's a habit. And our brain says anything deviating from this could be dangerous, and I could die, you know, edit an extremely, that's what our survival brain is saying. So anything that's different is going to push up against habits of the comfort of familiarity. So that's the biggest thing that most people run into is, oh, this is this could be dangerous. And really, so I have people ask themselves, is this dangerous? Or is this different? To remind themselves that anytime we're stepping out of our comfort zone, we can either step into our panic zone, which makes us run back to our comfort zone? Or we could step into our growth zone where we're actually growing and learning. That's where Curiosity comes in. So instead of going, Oh, no, we recognize that Oh, no habit. And we go, oh, this is different. Right? Vegetables gonna kill me? I don't know. Let me try and see, right? Most likely not going to, obviously not eating poisonous vegetables, right. But that's where it comes. I mean, that's actually where it comes from. We're gonna go to food that we know isn't going to kill us. Now, generally, society is is not going to put food in the grocery store that's going to kill us. So we don't have to worry about that.

Philip Pape 53:04

So, yeah, so again, it comes back to curiosity, I love it, it

Dr. Judson Brewer 53:08

generally comes back to curiosity. So that's the biggest thing that I see. And directly related is when people have had food rules forever, like, I have to eat this, or I have to do that. Or they're depending on somebody's step by step checklist, just tell me what to do. It's really scary to step out of that, especially when they asked me, Are you really telling me that I can eat as much or whatever I want? And I say not only Yes, but you have to, in order to change. Now, the good news is they've largely done that enough in the past that they don't actually have to go back and repeat the experiment. They can just recall their previous experience. And that's what did I get from that last time? Right? And if it's, if they can feel into the results, enough, they don't have to repeat the behavior. But if they can't, they're going to repeat the behavior anyway, at some point. So they might as well pay attention as they do, and give themselves the freedom to learn and say, Wait, this is in the spirit of learning, so that they're really paying attention and asking how much is enough? How much is enough? So they're gathering what I call, they're building up their disenchantment database. If they're so scared that they're always going to go back to their old habit, it's going to be really hard to change.

Philip Pape 54:21

Sure, understood. No, I love the whole message of flexibility and openness, curiosity, collecting data being it is what it is, we're just trying to figure ourselves out, which is awesome. One little last thing that comes to mind is when someone is in a fat loss phase, and they're actually deliberately in a calorie deficit. And let's say they've dialed in, you know, their eating habits, like we've talked about here, but now there is physical hunger. You know, what does that introduce? Is there? I'm guessing the answer's no, a willpower aspect to it, or is there other things that we lean on to continue that and be successful?

Dr. Judson Brewer 54:54

Yeah. Again, it that willpower is more myth than muscle. So it's not about willpower at that point. and some people associate willpower with doing something. But really, if they look at it carefully, it's probably the reward of having done the thing that they then go back and attribute to Oh, yeah, it's because of willpower. So here again, we can look to see, okay, if I'm looking to lose X amount of weight, when hunger comes up, if they're in a calorie deficit phase, they can go, oh, no, I gotta fight this or then go, oh, what does this actually feel like, right? And so instead of running away, or pushing against something, you know, that phrase, what we resist persists. And having that build or run after us, we go at it, but not in a fighting with it way, but in an aikido way, where we bring that curiosity in. And I love that phrase, you know, the only way out is through. And so if we start exploring, oh, what does anger feel like? Oh, what does it feel like? Oh, what does it feel like? And we start to notice these thoughts like, oh, no, if I don't eat, something's terrible is gonna happen? Or, oh, no, or Oh, no, or Oh, no, pretty quickly, like within days, we can actually get used to having hunger, having it be there, and not having a drive our lives. Now, I'm not saying it's easy, but it is definitely like, that is the most consistent way to be able to be under like

Philip Pape 56:21

smart, efficient, consistent, over forcing yourself or trying to, quote unquote, make it easy necessarily. What did you say there that I wanted to comment on? Oh, the hunger like getting used to it and knowing that it's actually doing the job. I mean, you're going to have some physical hunger when you are releasing fat stores, you're going to have that. So I love it. Okay. Is there any, any question you wish I'd asked Judd? And if so, what's your answer?

Dr. Judson Brewer 56:45

Well, the one thing I would say just briefly is, now let's apply this to kindness. All of the steps are the same. But let's use a concrete example. So if somebody judges themselves, see, they look in the mirror, I had a patient who didn't have a single mirror in his apartment because he was so self judgmental, right? So that's the extreme of what we're talking about here. Somebody looks in the mirror, trigger, they judge themselves, Oh, I'm fat and whatever. There's the behavior. And then the result is shame. Or maybe they ironically, go and eat to numb themselves, which I often see. So the self judgment, habit loops are critical. So one recognize second step is ask, what do I get from judging myself? So there's this false association between Oh, if I beat myself up, then I will change, right. And what that comes from is the perceived reward of doing something rather than doing nothing. The irony is that doing something often perpetuates the habit makes it worse. So we can ask the same question, what do I get from beating myself up? Oh, it doesn't feel very good. Nobody's like, Oh, this feels great. It doesn't, right? If they're being honest with themselves. The third step is then to compare that what's the bigger better offer kindness, right? Oh, and so the number of ways that people can bring in kindness, tons of stuff out there for building it, but really, it's starting at what does it feel? What does kindness feel like? What's it like when somebody's been kind to me? Anybody can remember that, right? Anybody has had some small act of kindness happen to them in their life, and hopefully recently, so they can feel into kindness feels like and then they can compare that What does kindness feel like compared to self judgment, right, so they can find that bigger, better offer? And then they can start exploring? Well, what's it feel like when I'm kind of myself, and that can simply start with not judging themselves? Right? Again, when it's an old habit, it can be hard to break. So it can take a while, but it is not that hard to access. And your first step leads to the next step leads to the next step.

Philip Pape 58:46

So self judgment is the gummy worms, the petroleum, gummy worms, kindnesses, the blueberries. And that's how we're going to tie it all together. All right. Jeff, thank you so much for your time. Where can listeners find out about you? I know you've got a lot out there. So where do you want them to reach out

Dr. Judson Brewer 59:00

the simplest places, my website, it's Dr. Judd, Dr. J. ud.com. Got a bunch of free resources. You know, the hunger habit book, The unwinding anxiety book, the other books in our apps are there as well, if anybody's interested, but also tons of free resources, if just people want to learn how their brain works. One thing I love to do is try to make the science accessible. So we have some animations, videos, things like that, that anybody can access for free. Yeah,

Philip Pape 59:24

it's full of stuff. I mean, I would say your book is excellent as well, in terms of practicality. It is not it's not too dense. You know, in terms of the science, it's just right, at least for me, I'd like to geek out on that. But it has a lot of practical things in there. And we'll throw your website in so people can check out free resources as well. Again, appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on. My pleasure.

Philip Pape 7/24/24 Philip Pape 7/24/24

Bigger Isn't Always Better for Strength or Metabolism (Scaling Laws) | Ep 195

How can a small guy deadlift more than the big guy, or why does your smaller friend never seem to gain weight no matter how much they eat?

And what does this mean for your lifting and calorie targets?

Discover the science behind these phenomena as we delve into the fascinating world of scaling laws and their impact on fitness and body mechanics. We break down the principles governing strength, power output, metabolism, and nutrition to help you your training and nutrition.

We'll explore why smaller individuals often exhibit higher relative strength and why lighter weight classes in powerlifting shine. Or why smaller individuals can do more pull-ups.

You'll learn about Kleber’s Law and how basal metabolic rate (BMR) scales differently with body size, revealing why smaller individuals have relatively higher metabolic rates.

And what it all means for YOU both physically and psychologically as you set goals for strength, performance, weight loss, and anything else in your health and fitness.

Book a FREE 15-minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment, designed to fine-tune your strategy, identify your #1 roadblock, and give you a personalized 3-step action plan in a fast-paced 15 minutes.

Episode summary:

Philip delves into the intriguing world of scaling laws and their profound impact on fitness and body mechanics. If you've ever wondered why a petite gym-goer can outperform the biggest lifter in pull-ups or why your smaller friend seems to eat endlessly without gaining weight, this episode is for you. Through the lens of scientific and engineering principles, Philip explains how different physical quantities change with size and how these changes affect strength, power output, metabolism, and nutrition.

Scaling laws are fascinating concepts from engineering and biology that explain why bigger isn't always better when it comes to fitness. For example, the principles of scaling laws help us understand why smaller individuals often excel in pull-ups and why lighter weight classes in powerlifting shine. These laws also explain why smaller individuals have relatively higher metabolic rates. Understanding these principles can help you set realistic goals and optimize your training and diet strategies tailored to your body size.

One of the most compelling points discussed is how strength scales with body size. Strength is primarily a function of muscle cross-sectional area, which scales to the power of two, while body mass scales to the power of three. This means that as you get bigger, your strength increases, but not as fast as your weight. Therefore, smaller individuals often have higher relative strength. This phenomenon explains why lighter weight classes in powerlifting often lift more relative to their body weight. If you're a smaller individual, you might have an advantage in relative strength movements like pull-ups or Olympic lifts. Conversely, larger individuals might excel more in absolute strength movements like deadlifts and bench presses.

Metabolism is another area where scaling laws come into play. Kleber's Law states that basal metabolic rate scales to the power of 0.75, resulting in smaller individuals having a relatively higher metabolism. This explains why smaller people often seem to be able to eat more relative to their size without gaining weight. Larger individuals, on the other hand, burn more calories in absolute terms, which means they can eat more total food without gaining weight. Understanding these metabolic principles can help you set more realistic dietary goals and optimize your nutrition based on your body size.

Nutrition doesn't scale linearly with body size. For example, smaller individuals require more protein relative to their body weight compared to larger individuals. This is independent of lean body mass. Therefore, if you're a 110-pound female, you might need 110-120 grams of protein, whereas a 300-pound individual wouldn't need 300 grams of protein. These principles also apply to calorie intake, which is tied to your metabolism. Tracking your food and weight can help you determine your real-life calorie needs and optimize your diet accordingly.

The psychological benefits of understanding scaling laws are also significant. Knowing that there are natural, scientific reasons for the differences in strength, metabolism, and nutrition between individuals can be incredibly liberating. It helps you stop comparing yourself to others and focus on maximizing your potential within the natural laws that govern your body. Realistic expectations can be incredibly motivating, allowing you to set goals that are tailored to your individual potential rather than trying to meet arbitrary standards.

The episode concludes with practical steps to apply these insights to your fitness journey. For smaller individuals, focus on relative strength movements and don't get discouraged if your absolute numbers aren't as high as those of larger lifters. For larger individuals, take advantage of your ability to excel in absolute strength lifts. When it comes to cardio and endurance, smaller individuals might have an advantage due to better heat dissipation and lower cost of movement, while larger individuals need to manage their heat during intense cardio.

In terms of goal setting, understanding scaling laws helps you set realistic strength goals based on your body size. For example, relative strength standards like 2x body weight for deadlifts or 1.5x body weight for squats can serve as benchmarks. When it comes to pull-ups, losing weight can help you achieve more reps because you are lifting less weight. Choosing exercises that play to your body's strengths can also be beneficial. Smaller individuals might excel at gymnastic-style movements, while larger individuals might excel at traditional lifts.

In summary, scaling laws offer a new perspective on fitness, helping you optimize your training and diet based on your unique body size. Understanding these principles can help you set realistic goals, tailor your fitness strategies, and achieve incredible results. Tune in to the episode to transform your approach to fitness by leveraging the science and engineering principles that shape our bodies. Let's use our wits, lift those weights, and embrace the power of knowledge in our fitness endeavors.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:00

Have you ever wondered why the smallest guy in the gym can do the most pull-ups, or why your petite friend seems to eat whatever she wants without gaining weight, or why that medium-sized guy can pull a 500-pound deadlift? If you've ever been puzzled by what seem to be fitness paradoxes, you're not alone. The answer lies in a fascinating concept from engineering and biology called scaling laws. Today, we're diving into the counterintuitive world of scaling laws and how they secretly shape every aspect of your body and your fitness journey. We'll explore why bigger isn't always better when it comes to strength and metabolism. Whether you're a towering power lifter or a compact gymnast, this episode's going to give you a new perspective on how to optimize your fitness based on your unique body size.

Philip Pape: 1:00

Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're continuing our Wednesday series on applying engineering principles to health and fitness. Now we've all had the experience of seeing a massive guy struggling with pull-ups, or a much smaller person who's able to squat really heavy weight. Or, you know, maybe you're out to dinner, you're eating with friends everybody's of a different size and you notice that the smaller person over here seems to eat just as much as the much larger person over here, without gaining weight, for example and I've I've experienced that with my own wife actually being on a on a more small side, being able to eat as much as I can eat. And you're just scratching your head. You're like, why doesn't size always correlate with the strength in the gym or someone's metabolism, how much, how many calories they burn, the way? You'd expect. What if I told you there's a set of principles that explains these paradoxes, from science, from engineering, a concept that helps you understand why bigger isn't always better and maybe why we shouldn't worry about that so much and instead think about applying the principles to ourselves and our journey, our bodies, and then learning from that to make the best decisions for us. Because when we talk about optimization, we're talking about optimization for you. We're not talking about getting the maximum results at all costs based on some fixed plan. This is the premise behind setting realistic goals, which then you can actually achieve, and you can actually get incredible results doing it that way, rather than assuming you're going to get some output whether it's strength, metabolism or something else based on what others would expect for them.

Philip Pape: 2:43

Before we dive in, if you're enjoying the show, if you want more content that blends these scientific and engineering principles with practical fitness advice, please hit the follow button, hit the subscribe button and if you're already following the show, the next level up that you can do for me is just tell somebody else about it. That's it. Just tell somebody hey, you're gonna love this show. Share with them a specific episode, post it on social media, post it in your story, whatever is most comfortable for you, so that more people can find the show, and then ensure that we reach as many people as possible, and I can keep creating content like this.

Philip Pape: 3:17

All right, so let's get into today's topic about scaling laws. Here's what we're covering what are they, how they affect you in terms of strength and power output, how your body size affects metabolism and energy expenditure, the implications of scaling laws on nutrition, and then what are the practical takeaways. So it is a little bit more of a deep dive episode for a typical Wednesday, where I'm often unscripted, because I really wanted to get this right for you. Let's start with the basics. What are scaling laws? Well, they are how different physical quantities change as the size of an object changes, right, something's bigger or smaller. How do different physical quantities change with that? In biology and engineering, these help us understand why things work the way they do at different sizes. For example, you've probably heard how an ant, right, little tiny ants can lift many times their body weight. But why can't humans do the same thing? And it comes down to scaling. As an organism gets larger, its volume and thus its mass right, how much it weighs on the earth increases much faster than its cross-sectional area. Pretty cool, think about that. As you get larger, the volume and mass goes fast, increases faster than the area, the cross-sectional area. This means a larger animal needs disproportionately more muscle to perform the same relative feats of strength. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but this is the kind of cool stuff we cover here, and then I'm always fascinated and geek out on.

Philip Pape: 4:48

So let's apply this to human strength and power. Have you ever noticed that in powerlifting competitions, right? You ever see somebody doing a deadlift, or even a strong man? The lighter weight classes often lift more relative to their body weight than the heavier classes, right? And this isn't because they're necessarily stronger in absolute terms. In fact, they're not. Right, a small guy. You know, a 190 pound guy at that level is not going to outlift a 350 pound guy, I mean, with rare exception. Right, it's because of how the strength scales with size. Strength is primarily a function of muscle cross-sectional area, which bear with me here it scales to the power of two. So think of, like, when you square something like two times two is four, that's two squared, all right, but body mass scales to the power of three, okay, Okay, and maybe you can think in terms of you know, we're a three-dimensional body and so the power of three is like a prism or a cube, okay, so this means as you get bigger, your strength increases, but not as fast as your weight. And this is why smaller individuals often have higher relative strength. I hope I didn't lose you yet, because a little bit of math, but that's all I have in terms of the math department.

Philip Pape: 6:05

Here's where it gets interesting for your training. If you're a smaller individual, you might have an advantage in relative strength movements like pull-ups or Olympic lifts. If you're larger, you might excel more in absolute strength movements like the big lifts, deadlifts, bench press, right, it doesn't mean you shouldn't or can't do any of those things, it's just about setting expectations and understanding your body size and how this plays into it right. Your height is going to make a big difference, as well as your weight, and of course you can't control your height without lopping off your feet or something. But you can control your weight and when you understand this, it helps you set more realistic goals and choose routines, exercises, volume. You know loads, even types of activities that play to your body's natural strengths. Of course, you may not know what those are until you play around with different things. So that's on the strength side. I thought that was a pretty cool thing to understand. How you know.

Philip Pape: 7:03

As we get bigger, we would actually need more and more muscle to increase in relative strength. So smaller folks tend to have the ability to generate higher relative strength, which also is why you shouldn't get totally freaked out about potentially losing some fat and losing all your strength as a result, cause you're not you might lose a little, a little bit of absolute strength, but once you've built up that strength I've seen it time and again with my clients big guys have a lot of muscle. We go and lose 30 pounds. They can lift just as much, and now their relative strength is massive. So don't discount all of these things.

Philip Pape: 7:34

Now let's talk about metabolism, because there's a relationship here as well. Right, it's not the physical relationship, it's more on the energy side. So the amount of energy your body burns. It's more on the energy side so the amount of energy your body burns, called your basal metabolic rate, your BMR. It also doesn't scale with your body weight. It actually scales to the power of 0.75. Please, I hope I don't lose you here. It scales to the power of 0.75. This is known as Kleber's Law Pretty cool stuff.

Philip Pape: 8:03

And what this means is that if you're smaller, your metabolism is likely higher relative to your body weight than a larger person. Ah, this is why smaller people often seem to be able to eat more relative to their size without gaining weight. And you know, I've wondered this myself often when I have clients. I've had a hundred pound female clients, and of course I've had clients usually male clients and of course I've had clients usually male clients 300 pounds and North of that. And yet the disparity in metabolism isn't as large as you would think. You would think you get down to a hundred pounds and your metabolism is now all of a sudden 900 calories, like if you were to scale it, but it doesn't quite work that way. It kind of it kind of bottoms out a bit. It starts to slow down in in uh on the bottom end as somebody is smaller and smaller and smaller, right. That's why smaller people again, um, seem to have a higher metabolism than you would think, and, of course, it varies individual to individual. We're talking about averages here.

Philip Pape: 8:59

Now, if you're larger, this is not something to worry about, because your absolute calorie burn as a larger person is still higher. Thing to worry about because your absolute calorie burn as a larger person is still higher and that still means you get to eat more total food, right? Which is which is their advantage when it comes to feeling satisfied on a diet, for example and again, I have seen this many times with usually male clients who are in their mid to upper two hundreds, and they can they just burn a ton of calories even when they're not in the best shape. When they start with me, if they haven't been walking a lot, maybe they haven't been lifting, and we get them doing all that, even then they might start with a decent metabolism just because they're bigger, right. However, a smaller person can also build up their metabolism over time, through both expenditure and muscle mass. So very, very interesting to think about these things. In case you're wondering why you have a certain metabolism or why you have certain struggles that others don't, it can be helpful to put in these terms, but don't overthink it. I just think it's kind of cool. And then that brings us to nutrition.

Philip Pape: 10:03

Nutrition doesn't scale linearly with body size. For example, protein, right. Protein. We often talk about it as gram per pound, right, or 0.7 grams per pound, that's per body weight. But in reality, smaller individuals need slightly more protein relative to their weight, and then larger individuals need less relative to their weight, and then larger individuals need less relative to their weight, and that's actually independent of that's independent of lean body mass as well, which is another factor. I don't want to. I don't want to overcomplicate it, but it just explains why. If you're like 110 pound female, I might want you easily eating 110, 120 grams of protein. But if you're 300 pounds, you definitely don't need 110, 120 grams of protein. But if you're 300 pounds, you definitely don't need to eat 300 grams of protein. You know, you could probably get away with 200 and be perfectly fine. It doesn't scale right. And then the same thing goes with calories, obviously, because calories are tied to your metabolism, so I don't think you have to like restate that. So what does this all mean for you? Practical purposes, cause at the end of the day you're like, okay, this is good stuff, what do I do with it? I would say, okay, strength training, right If.

Philip Pape: 11:16

If you're smaller, focus on the relative strength numbers. Don't get discouraged. If you're at absolute numbers, aren't as high as other lifters, like, don't compare yourself to other lifters, especially who are bigger than you. You know, I see that all the time. I'm like, don't get hung up on the number when somebody posts a win and they're like yeah, I just deadlifted four or five today, but you know there are six to 220 pound male. So if you're a 135 pound female and lifting um more relative to your size in that person, then you're you're kind of technically stronger in a way. Right, you're not absolute strength stronger, but you're relatively stronger, um. And then if you're larger, like, you can take advantage of that. When it comes to the absolute strength lifts, like the big lifts, you might be at a good advantage to really push those to compete to, to build up your bench and your deadlift and your press and focus, it might be a lot of fun, is what I'm saying because you have that advantage, right. So that's number one.

Philip Pape: 12:12

Number two when we talk about cardio and endurance, smaller individuals might have a little bit of an advantage because of their cross-sectional area being bigger relative to their mass, and so they have better heat dissipation and a slightly lower cost of movement. Now, that cost of movement can be a disadvantage for your metabolism. See, this is where it's like there's pros and cons to everything, right, whereas larger individuals might have more need to manage their heat during intense cardio. This is why larger people might sweat more, right, and might just feel hotter in general. It's not just because you're big. It also has to do with these relative scaling laws. Nutrition, right.

Philip Pape: 12:51

When we talk about nutrition, don't just rely on your body weight for calculating your energy needs, because there are relative differences between individuals and based on your size. And so, of course, I always recommend tracking your food, tracking your weight and letting that tell you in real life how many calories you burn. Best way to do that get Macrofactor. Download the app, install it, use my code, witsandweights. All one word, witsandweights. Start tracking. After about two to three weeks, you will know pretty precisely how many calories you burn, and then you can forget about comparing yourself to everyone else, self to everyone else.

Philip Pape: 13:29

The next thing that comes to mind is goal setting, because these scaling laws reassure you that there are realistic strength goals for you because of your body size and you're not aiming for absolute numbers. You might want to look up the relative strength standards based on your body weight, like 2x body weight for deadlift or 1.5x body weight for squats, things like that, and then you can use those as benchmarks to say, hmm, how close am I to that? And I remember, when it comes to pull-ups, if you're losing weight, you might actually be able to get more pull-ups just because you are lighter and you were picking up less weight. And you might be also relatively more stronger in a fat loss plays phase. Then you think, even though the weights aren't going up because you're losing weight, remember all those things. Um, and then finally, you can choose exercises.

Philip Pape: 14:11

You know movements that play to your body's strengths. Smaller individuals might excel at things like gymnastic style movements and the pull-ups and all that kind of fun stuff. Larger individuals might excel more at the traditional lifts. Now I'm saying I think everybody should lift heavy, that's for sure. Everybody should be doing compound movements, um, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of today's episode.

Philip Pape: 14:32

But when you're looking for athletic um challenges, when you're looking for different modalities, when you're looking to compete, uh, all those kinds of things you know play around and see if your body size gives you a certain advantage. All right, so here's something that might surprise you Scaling laws. They don't just help you optimize training and nutrition. They are incredibly liberating psychologically, and that is why I wanted to make this episode, and maybe it doesn't surprise you anymore. That's just what I wrote down for my notes.

Philip Pape: 15:04

So how many times have you compared yourself to other people, right, and then felt discouraged? You see someone smaller than you lifting more, someone taller eating more without gaining weight? All the things we mentioned before. And because scaling laws explain why these differences exist, independent of other behavioral factors. They're perfectly natural. They're perfectly normal, and then you can stop comparing apples to oranges and you start appreciating your body's unique capabilities. Then you can set goals that are tailored to your individual potential. Stop comparing apples to oranges and you start appreciating your body's unique capabilities. Then you can set goals that are tailored to your individual potential rather than trying to meet arbitrary standards that might not be realistic at all for your body size. And this can be incredibly motivating, right? Realistic expectations in general can actually be incredibly motivating, because now you won't be frustrated or feel frustrated by some perceived but non-existent limitation. You can focus instead on maximizing your potential within the natural laws that govern your body. You're not trying to be better than someone else. You're trying to be the best version of yourself All right. So the next time you're tempted to to be better than someone else, you're trying to be the best version of yourself All right. So the next time you're tempted to compare your lifts, your metabolism, your diet to someone with a vastly different body size, remember the scaling laws we've discussed today. Because your body's unique, it operates according to its own set of rules based on its size All right.

Philip Pape: 16:26

If today's episode resonated with you, if you're ready to start applying some of these realistic expectations and understanding what they might be to your approach to training, your approach to nutrition, please schedule a call with me. I do free calls all the time. It's called a rapid nutrition assessment. It is not a sales pitch at all, at all. Okay, in fact, we have episode 199 coming up with a guy named Jazz. He's a 300 pound power lifter and it is a recording of that call where you can see exactly what it's like.

Philip Pape: 16:57

But rather than wait for that, why don't you give it a shot and reach out to me with the link in the show notes? Or go to witsandweightscom, click the big button on the top right and I've got you covered. All we're gonna do in that fast-paced 15 minutes is figure out where you are, what's the number one thing holding you back or where you're stuck, and give you some actions three actions at the end that you can put into place right away and get results within 90 days. That's it. That is my goal for you, and then you're gonna come back and say thank you so much.

Philip Pape: 17:24

You really helped change the trajectory of what I was trying to do, and now I can actually get unstuck and make some real progress. That is what I my wish for you. Remember, sometimes the difference between spinning your wheels and making that progress is understanding your body, understanding the laws of nature, understanding what you can accomplish. And then you go out there and you do it Until next time. Keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember, in fitness as in engineering, size matters sometimes, but knowledge matters more. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.

Philip Pape 7/22/24 Philip Pape 7/22/24

Why Macros Might Be All You Need to Streamline Your Nutrition | Ep 194

Nutrition can be overwhelming: from calories and macros to saturated fats, fiber, micronutrients, and meal timing. But what if you ONLY tracked macros? Is that enough for a diet that supports your health and physique

In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) breaks down why tracking macros might be all you need to rebalance your diet and set the stage for long-term success. If you're ready to streamline your nutrition without the headache of overcomplicating things, this episode is for you.

Philip dives into the basics of macro tracking, explaining how this flexible dieting approach can cut through the noise and provide a clear path to better nutrition. By focusing on just three targets, you can reduce mental fatigue, promote consistency, and prioritize what's most important for muscle building and fat loss.

Philip also shares an advanced tip for seasoned trackers who are feeling stuck. He recounts a client's story to illustrate how even those with experience can benefit from revisiting the basics.

Whether you're new to nutrition tracking or an experienced dieter, you'll find practical tips and insights to help you simplify your diet and make meaningful progress.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

1:33 Nutrition can be complicated
3:17 What tracking macros means
7:15 Steps to implement effective macro tracking
14:47 The significance of tracking macros in sustainable nutrition
18:23 Tip for the advanced trackers
20:09 Outro

Episode resources:

Try MacroFactor free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS – Apple/iPhone or Google/Android
Related episodes:
- Macros Aren’t Enough – Flexible Dieting vs. IIFYM | Ep 110
- How to Get More Fitness Results for Less Effort (The Pareto Rule) | Ep 189

Episode summary:

Nutrition can be overwhelming with countless details to consider, from saturated fats and fiber to micronutrients and meal timing. What if there was a simpler way to kickstart your progress and maintain long-term consistency? Enter the If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) method, a flexible dieting strategy that focuses on tracking just the big three macronutrients: protein, carbs, and fats. This episode of Wits and Weights delves into the essentials of macro tracking and provides practical steps to transform your eating habits without the stress of perfecting every detail.

The IIFYM approach prioritizes the fundamentals, allowing you to let go of the nitty-gritty details and embrace a simpler, more effective way to manage your nutrition. By focusing solely on macronutrients, you reduce mental fatigue and increase adherence to your diet. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned tracker, this episode lays out the steps to calculate your calorie needs, set macro targets, and find a balance that works for you.

One of the key aspects of the IIFYM method is understanding the importance of protein intake. Protein is essential for building and preserving muscle, especially during fat loss. The episode provides tips on how to allocate your remaining calories between fats and carbs based on your goals and personal preferences. A suggested starting point is 30% of calories from fat, but this can be adjusted according to individual needs.

Tracking your intake is crucial for understanding your eating habits and making necessary adjustments. The episode emphasizes the importance of experimenting with different foods to fit your macros while maintaining satisfaction and balance. By tracking your macros, you can uncover patterns in your diet and identify areas that need improvement.

A significant benefit of macro tracking is its ability to simplify nutrition. By focusing on just three targets, you can reduce the mental load of tracking multiple dietary factors. This approach promotes consistency and adherence to your diet, making it easier to stick to long-term. The episode highlights that even if you're already familiar with detailed tracking, revisiting the basics can streamline and enhance your nutritional strategy.

In addition to simplifying your diet, macro tracking can also promote consistency. When you think of your diet in terms of numbers rather than good or bad foods, it becomes easier to stick to your plan. This flexible dieting approach allows for a more sustainable and enjoyable way to manage your nutrition.

The episode also explores advanced strategies through a revealing case study. By revisiting macro basics, even experienced trackers can address common issues such as imbalanced protein, fat, and carb intake. This case study demonstrates how a simplified approach can lead to significant improvements in energy levels, training performance, and overall well-being.

Listener feedback plays a crucial role in shaping the content of the show. The host emphasizes the importance of sharing thoughts and suggestions to ensure that the show continues to deliver valuable content. By engaging with listeners, the show can adapt and improve to meet their needs.

To get started with macro tracking, the episode provides simple steps to implement this approach. The first step is to calculate your calorie needs by tracking your food and weight for about two to three weeks. This data will help you determine your personal calorie needs, whether you want to maintain, gain, or lose weight.

Next, you set your macro targets, starting with protein. Aim for up to one gram of protein per pound of target body weight. For example, if you're 200 pounds and want to reach 180 pounds, aim for around 180 grams of protein. Allocate the rest of your calories to carbs and fats, starting with 30% of calories from fat and adjusting based on your preferences.

Once you've set your targets, track your intake without worrying about hitting the exact numbers. This process will give you a better understanding of your eating habits and help you identify areas that need rebalancing. By focusing on the big rocks, you can simplify your approach and promote consistency.

Experimenting with different foods to fit your macros is also an essential part of the process. By trying various foods, you can find what works best for you and what keeps you satisfied. The goal is to create a sustainable approach that allows for nutrition and enjoyment over the long term.

In conclusion, the IIFYM method offers a simplified approach to nutrition that focuses on the essentials: protein, carbs, and fats. By tracking these macronutrients, you can reduce mental fatigue, promote consistency, and achieve significant results without getting bogged down by unnecessary details. Whether you're new to tracking or looking to revisit the basics, this episode provides valuable insights and practical steps to help you master your nutrition strategy.

Listener feedback is highly encouraged, as it helps shape the content of the show. By sharing your thoughts and suggestions, you can ensure that the show continues to deliver valuable and relevant content. Join us for an episode packed with actionable advice to help you use your wits, lift those weights, and conquer life one macro at a time.

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:01

Maybe you've heard about tracking macros. But you've also heard experts say that usually not enough that you need to care about food quality and other factors. But if you're struggling with your nutrition to begin with, it can be even more overwhelming to worry about saturated fat fiber micronutrients, satiety, calorie density meal timing and even supplements. It's like trying to optimize 100 different parameters at once for the 5% before you've mastered the basics that will give you the 95%. What if I told you that sometimes just focusing on macros can be enough to kickstart your progress and streamline your entire approach to nutrition to make it easy and effective. Today, we're diving into why tracking only macros might be all you need to rebalance your diet, prioritize what's most important, and set the stage for long term success without getting bogged down in unnecessary complexity. If you're ready to streamline your nutrition, you're going to love this one.

Philip Pape 01:05

Welcome to wit's end weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, Philip Pape. And today we're tackling a topic that might bother those both in the intuitive eating and the flexible dieting camps. Why macros alone might be all you need to streamline your nutrition and get most of your results. And of course, if you want more content like this, hit the Follow button in your podcast app, so you never miss an episode. All right, let's just jump right into it. First, the elephant in the room. Nutrition can be complicated, really complicated. We've got macros, micro saturated fat, trans fat, fiber, glycemic index, index, nutrient timing, and a ton of misinformation to go along with that, like carbs are bad or protein is bad or fat is bad, right? The list goes on and on. And for a lot of people, especially those just starting out, that alone can be overwhelming, and cause you to just throw up your hands and say, All right, forget about this. And I've seen it time and time again, even with clients who have come to me and said, Look, I understand there's an approach that works. I want to learn that. And they come to me heads spinning with all this information, paralyzed by the fear of not doing everything perfectly. And then you know what happens, they end up doing nothing at all. Now, now these are assuming that they don't work with me. And we show them that no, you can actually simplify this process just like we talked about on the show. Otherwise, you get into that analysis paralysis, you know at its finest. But here's the thing. While all those details can matter, eventually, they're not always necessary right out of the gate. Sometimes we need to step back and focus on the fundamentals. Remember, I talked about the Pareto principle in a recent Wednesday episode about focusing on the 20% to get 80% of the effort. And that's where macro tracking comes in. So in this episode, first, I'm going to share why I think it's a great idea for many people, including some reasons that you might not have considered, then I'll give you some pointers on how to get started. And finally, I've got an advanced tip for those listening, who may have already been tracking much more than macros by this point. But you want to come at it from a fresh perspective. So stick around for that near the end of the episode. And so let's talk about what we mean by tracking macros, right? What is tracking macros? It is a type of flexible dieting approach, right? Just one type. Because flexible dieting, by definition has a flexible spectrum of approaches. Tracking macros focuses on hitting your daily targets for macro nutrients, protein, carbs, and fats. That's it, right? No food is off limits, as long as it fits within those goals. You might have heard it called If It Fits Your Macros, or I F YM. And interestingly, I covered this in Episode 110. From the opposite angle. In that episode, I was talking about why macro tracking alone isn't enough. And as always, it's about context. Because if you go listen to that episode, Episode 110, after you listen to today's episode, you'll notice they're entirely consistent with each other. And that the approach that you take depends on well, you right, that's the essence of flexibility, isn't it? And I mentioned this because I can already hear some of you saying, but Phillip, what about micronutrients? What about fiber? What about meal timing, you know, around my workouts, which you talk about all the time. Trust me, I get it, right, those things can be important. But let's strip it back. Are you even getting to the basic goals that you're going for here with your nutrition? Right? Because if you're not doing that, Why care about those things? First, here's why focusing on just macros can actually be a game changer for many people. And even some people who've gone beyond that by this point. I want to step back and give it a shot. First of all, it simplifies nutrition. You're just focusing on these three simple targets, right? And we're not talking about getting precisely the exact goal Hamza each every day, we're just talking about having either minimums or ranges to aim for. And this reduces the mental load of tracking a whole bunch of things, right? It just reduces friction and reduces mental fatigue. The second benefit of tracking just macros, it can promote consistency right out of the gate, right when your diet isn't this constant battle of, you know, good versus bad foods, which many of you may be in that head state right now. And you just think in terms of these cold, hard numbers, and any food goes within that, it's actually a lot easier to stick to long term. And by long term, I mean, even past the first week, or two, which is where a lot of people give up. The third benefit of tracking macros, it prioritizes, the big rocks, it's the 2080, or the 8020 principle at its core, right? We've got to hit our protein to build muscle and preserve muscle during fat loss, we got to have a certain amount of carbs for energy for recovery for performance, and we got to have fats for Hormonal Health. That's it. These are the heavy hitters that drive most of your results. Yes, calories are in there as well, because when we track macros, we're also tracking calories. But I'll tell you what, even if you weren't tracking calories, and you're just trying to get enough protein, that's still going to massively improve a lot of the other other things that later on, you want to track like food quality. The last thing, the last benefit, and perhaps most important one here is tracking macros is a nice simple stepping stone, it is a great way to first build a habit of awareness, right? Not even not even trying to hit the targets, just becoming aware of how much protein you eat, for example, before you dive into more complex nutritional strategies, in fact, it's where I want clients to be before I start working with them, so that we can take you to the next level and make the best use of our time together. And you might be surprised by that. Because I usually don't work with rank novices rank beginners who've never tracked before, I have kind of a filtering process. By the time you join Whitson weights physique university or I take you on as a client, you kind of already know the basics of tracking, maybe you're already using macro factor, you understand, you know, even even a little bit beyond that. But you're not just coming in cold, right? You're not coming in saying, Oh, I thought carbs are bad. I want you to be listening to this podcast and understanding that there is a flexible approach you can take. So it's a great stepping stone. So now how do you actually put this into practice? I think it's pretty simple, which is the whole point. Before I give you the steps, though, I want you to do yourself a favor, download macro factor. First, pause the episode, use the link in my show notes or search for macro factor all one word macro factor in your app store. Then enter my code Whitson weights to try it free for two weeks. Okay, my code, Whitson weights, that's wi TS wits, and end weights all spelled out all together, and you'll get it for two weeks. Again, this is all in the show notes for your convenience. But do yourself a favor, this is going to be a game changer for you not just for tracking macros, but for learning about your metabolism, and then eventually having the right macros for your goals. Alright, so here are the simple steps to implement macro tracking. Alright, so back to basics if you need a refresher, or if this is new to you. We're getting back to basics here. Number one, you've got to know your calorie needs. Okay, this is your starting point. Now, even though I said earlier, tracking macros is a great way to build awareness, you don't even have to hit targets, you still can use that data pretty quickly in short order within a couple of weeks to figure out your personal calorie needs, how much energy your body needs to maintain, to gain weight or to lose weight. And the simplest way to do this is to track your food and track your weight every day for about two to three weeks. Right? Just get into the habit of doing that. And the cumbersome way to do this is to then calculate it in a spreadsheet. And if you are if you're a geek, if you're a nerd like me, and you love numbers and spreadsheets go for it. The easy way is to guess what download macro factor and let it do it for you. And if you already took my advice earlier and did that you're ready to go. It's the only food logging app that can actually determine your true calorie target. Other apps chronometer, My Fitness Pal, and many others only estimate this and they do so pretty badly. They can be off by several hundreds of calories, which is why many many people use those apps and then they struggle to hit their goals. Because all they're doing is they're entering numbers and they're not actually determining what they really need. And then, when you've got that setup, this is still step one, determine your calorie needs. I recommend not trying to gain or lose weight until you've spent those three weeks just trying to figure out your maintenance calories, which again, if you use a macro factor, it's just going to do that for you. And all you need to do is log in food and weight. And here's what I want you to reach out to me if you get stuck on this first step. Alright, just reach out to me, you could reach out to me on Instagram at what's in weights. Or you can reach me in our Facebook group which is totally free. Alright. Also be patient. And don't worry about what the metabolism is until you've hit that three week mark. It could be higher or lower than you expect.

Philip Pape 10:00

Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Whitson weights. I started with some weights to help ambitious individuals in their 30s 40s and beyond, who want to build muscle, lose fat and finally look like they live. I've noticed that when people transform their physique, they not only look and feel better, but they also experienced incredible changes in their health, confidence and overall quality of life. If you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same thing to build your ultimate physique and unlock your full potential whether you're just starting out or looking to take your progress to the next level. That's why I created wit's end weights physique University, a semi private group coaching experience designed to help you achieve your best physique ever, with a personalized done for you nutrition plan, custom designed courses, new workout programs each month, live coaching calls and a supportive community, you'll have access to everything you need to succeed. If you're ready to shatter your plateaus and transform your body and life, head over to Whitson weights.com/physique. Or click the link in the show notes to enroll today. Again, that's Whitson weights.com/physique, I can't wait to welcome you to the community and help you become the strongest cleanest and healthiest version of yourself. Now back to the show. So that's number one is just calculating your calorie needs, then we have setting your macro targets. All right, protein is the one we start with. Because this is the game changer for most people, most people are getting far less protein than they need. And you want to aim for up to that one gram per pound of target body weight. So if you're 200 pounds, and eventually you're gonna try to get to 180, you want to be eating at least 100, like around 180 grams of protein, don't overcomplicate this, right, get in that ballpark, and you're good, you're probably currently eating way less than that. So just getting close, that is going to be a major improvement. And again, if you use the macro factor, you select high or extra high protein, you'll get right in that range, then you allocate the rest of your calories to carbs and fats. And this can vary widely based on your preferences and goals. I suggest starting at 30% of calories from fat, and the rest of them carbs. And then you can go up or down on the fat if that's your preference. And at the risk of sounding like a parrot macro factor will do this for you if you select a balanced approach. So we've got what are your calories, what is your protein, what are your fats and carbs, then you just track your intake, don't worry about hitting the targets. So this is where I'm repeating what I said before, just track your intake, and then see how it stacks up against your targets. And that will give you the reality based data that you need to know what needs rebalancing. Because you may have something pretty close to where you need, you don't have to worry about it. And something else is way off. And it might be off from day to day, or might be off every day. That's it. It's amazing how much you can learn about your eating habits that eventually will give you insights into all those other more detailed things I alluded to earlier, like your saturated fat, like your fiber, like your meal timing, it's all going to come out of that eventually. But we just start with the big rocks. Last step to tracking your macros is have fun, figuring out what foods are going to fit your macros without making you hungry. Ah, okay, so that's a sneaky little variable that I just added to the equation I get it adds a tiny, tiny bit of complexity, hunger, right to biofeedback we call hunger. But this is your chance to start experimenting, eating whatever you want to fit your macros. And what you're gonna find as you do that, is that certain types of foods, for example, more whole nutrient dense foods will tend to fit your macros better and satisfy you at the same time. But hey, if pizza or ice cream fit in there, and you feel great eating them, and you enjoy them, see what works have those in there. Like that's what I encourage is the experimentation and the feedback of how you feel when you eat these things while trying to hit your macros. Because your body is really it's what was I gonna say your body is is very much able to tell you what's going on, it's going to quickly give you feedback on what makes sense. And then the things like micronutrients, fiber and so on, will naturally start to get rebalanced. You know, in some cases, they will and that's okay, that'll be step 234 later on, but you're gonna get a lot into a lot better food quality and kind of healthy dietary pattern than you've ever been before. Just because you're trying to get these macros lined up, especially driven by protein and having balance. Those are very important. And there's other things you know that you can get complicated like gut health and whatever, that again start to get resolved when you have enough protein and balance. All right. Now, the elephant in the room here The caveat is that theoretically, you can hit your macros eating nothing but protein shakes and pop tarts are nothing but you know, meat lovers pizza with a little bit of vegetables. But that's not the point. The goal here is to create a sustainable approach that allows for nutrition and enjoyment over the long term. And tracking only macros is just Don't wait to ignore all the noise and focus on the simplicity of balance before you then move on to more fine tuned optimization, I think it's a very reasonable stair step, like I mentioned earlier. So macro tracking, like anything else is a tool, it's just a tool, just like a budget is a tool for your money. If you use it wisely, it's going to teach you a lot about your eating habits and behaviors. And thus, you'll know exactly what needs to change. And that is the kind of clarity and confidence that most people don't have. Now, for that advanced tip that I mentioned earlier, as we wrap up the episode, even when working with very experienced clients, I often start with them by revisiting these basics, these macro tracking basics, because they are that important. And I had a client recently, let's call him John, he came to me frustrated with his lack of progress. And by that I usually mean inability to lose fat, right kind of the beer gut and a little bit of extra weight and already lifting weights, but still not getting the physique and the health of the want. And he was actually tracking a lot of things. He was already tracking macros, tracking supplements, he was asking questions about creatine, and mealtime, and what should I eat about my workout around my workouts? What kind of supplements should I get? But then I said, Hey, just send me some screenshots of your food log, please. You know, he was even using macro factor, right. And I saw that his protein and fats had gradually increased at the expense of carbs. Okay, like he didn't even realize he was actually eating a ton of protein. And again, especially bigger mail clients who eat a lot of meat, you'll see this pattern using a ton of protein and fat. And there were like fatty cuts of meat and high fat, dairy, and whatever. So it ended up being a lot of protein and fat. And the carbs are actually pretty low. They were like close to 100 grams, which for him being on over 3000 calories was was very low. And then he was hitting some walls in his training and recovery. After heavy lifting sessions. He's like, man, I've wiped. And I'm really having trouble pushing it and getting the reps. Even when I'm not dieting, you know, I'm not in a calorie deficit. And so we just stripped everything back to basics, right? I advise them, let's just rebalance your meals this week, and hit your protein, fats and carbs targets again. But really focus on the carbs this time, because it just wasn't balanced. Focus on that for a month. Let's see what happens. So what happened, of course, he started to feel much better his lifts started to move his sleep and recovery improved in in his biofeedback to me, that his ratings that that I collect a lot of data. By the way, when I work with clients, we collect a lot of data to know what's going on and be very proactive about it. And he didn't have to worry about meal timing or supplements or creatine, he just had to get his carbs back up. His energy in the gym went up his stressful and down, because we simplified the process. He was like, Man, this is I don't know why I overcomplicate things, but I do. And that's it. It's a very stripped down easy change. But it doesn't mean it's obvious to everyone, right? You may be in the weeds and not even know it. And you may be hitting macros every day, consistently. But they're not the right ones, or they're not balanced for you. Right? You may have gotten like, No, I'm getting my protein every day. And then my fats and carbs are consistent every day. But what if one of those isn't what you need? Right? So I'd like to think that by you know, having me in his corner as a coach, I was able to see a pattern that he wasn't seeing, even though the solution seems very simple. And that's the power of mastering the basics before diving into complexities. So my tip for all of you advanced trackers out there that, you know, think you know, at all, because trust me, I've been there is to ask yourself, Is my simple macro balance, right for me? Is there something I can nudge or rebalance to unlock my next phase of progress? Even better? Can I just ignore some of the minutiae for a while and focus on macros, and see if that overcomes a roadblock for me and go back and listen to the episode we did recently about the Pareto rule or the Pareto principle where we talked about sometimes you just you're putting way too much effort into something to get very little for it, and you might need to just strip it down. Alright, so as we wrap up, let's recap the main points. Number one, tracking macros, while while it's not perfect, right? It's not the 99%, it gets you to the 90 95% or even 80%. It's an excellent starting point for many people. Number two, it allows you to focus on the most important aspects of nutrition, which is energy balance, and macro composition, which goes a ton goes a long way toward what you're trying to achieve. Building muscle losing fat, right, that's where it's at, and then a lot of the other health stuff tends to work itself out. Number three, by simplifying your approach, you're more likely to be consistent, a wonderful combination, right? And that's the key to long term success, consistency. patience, flexibility. Last thing, remember, you can always add complexity later if needed. Like if you're at 80%. You want to get to 90%. And it takes a little bit of extra effort to get there and you want to make that trade off. Go for it. Right. But Master the basics first.

Philip Pape 19:57

All right, if you found value in today's episode That's really all I have for you guys. Like, that's as simple as it is. If you thought there was something magic or secret in this there isn't. But I think the simplicity of this approach is itself the secret. So do me a favor. If you like this, send me a text message, using the link in the show notes where it says, Send me a text message. Let me know what you thought about this simplified approach. Or if you have any questions that you want me to address in future episodes, like a future q&a, because when I hear from you, I just light up, I get a smile on my face. It's not like we have millions of people clamoring to send me messages, please send me a message. And I don't want to sound desperate either. So if you don't want to send me a message, that's fine. Your feedback really does absolutely help shape the content of the show. I mean, everything I put in the show my blood, sweat, soul, heart, whatever is for you. And the changes that I make tend to be based on what you tell me you're getting out of the show and delivering what you want. Alright, until next time, keep using those weights. Please keep lifting those weights and keep taking it one day, one calorie at a time, one macro at a time. I'll talk to you next time here on the wits and weights podcast.

Philip Pape 7/19/24 Philip Pape 7/19/24

The Extreme Cost of a Lean, Ripped Body and Visible Abs with Brittany & James Gatewood | Ep 193

What does it ACTUALLY take to achieve a lean, ripped, shredded physique? Philip welcomes Brittany and James Gatewood, the powerhouse couple behind the "Macros, Mindset, and Muscles" podcast, to explore the rigorous journey of bodybuilding and fitness competitions. From the meticulous planning and unwavering discipline to the significant lifestyle adjustments, they lay out the real costs of getting stage-ready. Brittany and James share their personal experiences, including the sacrifices, challenges, and ultimate rewards of pushing their bodies and minds to the limit. Together, they discuss the importance of having a solid lifting foundation and the impact of extreme fitness routines.

What does it ACTUALLY take to achieve a lean, ripped, shredded physique?

Join Philip (@witsandweights) as he welcomes Brittany and James Gatewood, the powerhouse couple behind the "Macros, Mindset, and Muscles" podcast, for an in-depth conversation about the physical and mental demands of achieving extreme leanness.

In this episode, Philip and his guests explore the rigorous journey of bodybuilding and fitness competitions. From the meticulous planning and unwavering discipline to the significant lifestyle adjustments, they lay out the real costs of getting stage-ready. Brittany and James share their personal experiences, including the sacrifices, challenges, and ultimate rewards of pushing their bodies and minds to the limit. Together, they discuss the importance of having a solid lifting foundation and the impact of extreme fitness routines.

Brittany started her fitness journey to become healthier for her children, and James began as a "hard gainer" looking to build muscle. Now, they use their expertise to coach and inspire others through Phoenix Transformations.

Tune in to discover if you're ready to take on the challenge and achieve extraordinary goals.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:29 Cost of achieving and maintaining a lean physique
5:06 Setting realistic expectations for fitness goals
7:02 Breakdown of the physical and mental demands of bodybuilding prep
11:47 Prep duration and the role of refeeds and diet breaks in a prep phase
15:02 The impact of metabolic adaptation and the importance of monitoring progress
21:06 Lifestyle adjustments, extreme adherence, and tips for staying on track
25:12 Sustainable practices for long-term leanness
27:36 Tracking progress and making adjustments
30:47 Symptoms and health risks associated with extreme leanness
36:26 Prerequisites for considering a bodybuilding competition
42:34 Long-term health risks of staying very lean
43:55 Real-life client success story and the benefits of a structured plan
45:35 Additional costs and considerations for competing in bodybuilding
48:57 How to connect with Britanny and James
49:36 Outro

Episode resources:

Get your free meal prep guide (scroll to bottom) at transformwithphoenix.com.
Podcast: Macros, Mindset, and Muscles

Episode summary:

What does it truly take to achieve a shredded physique? This question is often clouded by the glossy, edited photos that flood social media feeds. In this insightful episode, Brittany and James Gatewood, the dynamic duo behind the Macros Mindset and Muscles podcast, dive deep into the physical, mental, and emotional demands of extreme fitness goals. As seasoned bodybuilding coaches, they shatter the myths about quick transformations and unveil the rigorous journey required to achieve such a physique.

Achieving a shredded body is far from a walk in the park. It involves substantial lifestyle changes, relentless dedication, and an understanding of the long-term health implications. Brittany and James discuss how extensive the preparation for a bodybuilding competition can be, highlighting the necessity of consistency and extreme measures. The training schedules often demand at least five days of workouts per week, supplemented with up to two hours of cardio daily. Moreover, the diet is equally stringent, often requiring calorie restrictions that can dip below 1200 calories for women. The couple emphasizes the importance of strategic diet breaks and the intricacies of prep cycles, which can span anywhere from 20 weeks to over a year.

However, the physical demands are only one side of the coin. The mental and emotional toll of extreme leanness can be equally challenging. Symptoms such as frequent illness, digestive issues, and hormonal imbalances are not uncommon. Brittany and James underscore the importance of having a solid foundation in lifting before embarking on such a demanding journey. They also shed light on the often-overlooked costs and preparations required for competitive bodybuilding, including expenses for coaching, health monitoring, posing, tanning, and competition suits.

The Gatewoods provide a comprehensive view of the entire bodybuilding journey, from training and tanning to the mental and physical costs of extreme fitness goals. They discuss the misconceptions people often have about achieving a shredded physique, such as the belief that it is easy or quick. In reality, it requires changing almost every aspect of one's lifestyle and maintaining that level of dedication for an extended period. The episode also touches on how to evaluate whether pursuing such extreme fitness goals aligns with one's broader life objectives and how to transition from extreme dieting to a more balanced, sustainable lifestyle.

One of the key takeaways from this episode is the importance of understanding the demands of bodybuilding prep. The necessity of a strict diet and the inevitability of constant hunger are emphasized, especially for women who face more extreme calorie deficits. The couple also discusses the varying lengths of prep cycles, which can range from 20 weeks to over a year, depending on individual circumstances and goals. Strategic diet breaks are crucial in this intense and temporary phase of achieving single-digit body fat levels.

In addition to the physical demands, the episode delves into the mental and emotional challenges faced by individuals pursuing extreme leanness. Frequent illness, digestive issues, disrupted sleep, decreased sex drive, and hormonal imbalances are some of the symptoms that can arise from such extreme dieting and training. Despite these hardships, the sense of accomplishment and mental resilience gained from pushing one's body to its limits can be incredibly motivating. The Gatewoods stress the importance of having a solid foundation in lifting and a consistent gym routine before embarking on such a demanding endeavor.

The episode also explores the costs and requirements of competitive bodybuilding. Having a coach is essential for navigating the extreme and regimented nature of the sport. The importance of understanding the differences between natural and enhanced leagues and the health monitoring required during and after competition prep, such as regular blood work, is highlighted. The couple uses real-life examples to illustrate how proper off-season building phases can significantly improve competition outcomes. They also touch on the high expenses associated with competitive bodybuilding, including posing, tanning, and competition suits.

Overall, this episode is a must-listen for anyone considering the journey to a shredded physique or curious about the realities behind extreme fitness transformations. Brittany and James Gatewood provide valuable insights and practical advice, debunking common misconceptions and revealing the truth behind those jaw-dropping before-and-after photos on social media. Their expertise and first-hand experiences offer a realistic view of what it takes to achieve and maintain a lean, shredded body.

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Transcript

Brittany Gatewood 00:01

It's a huge accomplishment, it's proving to yourself that I can do hard things if you can push your body and push yourself and your mind because there's a lot of mental in this as well, to follow the plan and stick to your goal and accomplish that goal. Even if you don't win, you still got on stage and you're still doing something that 99% of the population can't do. It's just showing that you're capable of great things.

James Gatewood 00:27

When I first did my first show, it was like, what in my entire life have I dedicated 100% of everything that I do it to one thing, Bernie extended period of time like what is possible? What could I do

Philip Pape 00:45

Whitson weights community Welcome to another episode of the wits and weights Podcast. Today I am pumped to welcome Brittany and James Gatewood, a married couple and the dynamic duo behind the macros mindset and muscles podcast, and the founder and head coaches of Phoenix transformations. Now Brittany and I connected through one of our mentors, and we realize why don't we bring together our expertise to you, dear listener through a guest swap on both of our shows. So I want you to go ahead and check out and follow their podcast macros mindset of muscles, which I'm gonna link to in the show notes if you want even more practical advice, motivational stories, because fitness doesn't have to be frustrating, right? We all want to be more clear and confident with our fitness and health. So that's what they're all about. James is a hard gainer he got into fitness because he was always a thin guy. Brittany was obese and got into fitness to live a healthier life for her kids. They met on Instagram. Pretty cool. You don't hear that happening too often. And they encourage each other's journeys. Now they combined their personal experience and professional expertise to coach and inspire others. So we've got a fun topic today. Especially if you're considering getting shredded. If you thought I want to compete. I just want to get jacked. I want six pack abs. Hold on. Listen to this show, I invited Brittany and James on to discuss the extreme realities of doing that of achieving and maintaining a lean, ripped physique. We'll explore the significant physical and mental demands, the lifestyle adjustments, the long term health implications that come with striving for visible abs. And we're not saying it's a bad thing. But we're going to lay out the realities for you today, our discussion will cover sustainable practices, but the impact of extreme fitness routines on mental health, social life and how to transition from extreme dieting to a balanced healthy lifestyle. Brittany, James, welcome to the show.

Brittany Gatewood 02:27

Thanks for having us. Glad to be here.

Philip Pape 02:29

So let's just jump right in and talk about this whole getting lean thing, right. And maybe talk about the cost of it from the context of the misconceptions, right? Somebody comes to you, maybe a client, maybe somebody in the podcasts are like, Yeah, you know, I've been lifting weights, maybe they haven't yet, but let's just assume I'm a guy, I'm 20% body fat. I'm a female, I'm 30%. And I want to compete in physique competition, or I want to be, you know, beach ready, I just want to be the most jacked, ripped, you know, great looking person on the beach. And you're like, yeah, that's easy, right? Well, what are the misconceptions people have about this?

Brittany Gatewood 03:02

Yeah, we totally lead with that. Like, it's totally easy. You should do it, like, jump right in right now. Just go for it. I think really, the reality is, is people think it's easy. You know, they idolize people they see on social media, you know, their favorite Instagram influencer, or, you know, professional athletes, bodybuilders, things like that. And they're like, I want to look like that. And, you know, they might see that person's before and after picture. And they're like, they did it. So I can do it, not realizing how much time in between those two photos like has taken place, and also the methods at which those results were obtained. So there is a big cost of achieving those results. You know, and talking about some of this? Well, I think

James Gatewood 03:47

a lot of people think that, oh, there's just, I had to change this little aspect of my life, and then I'll get these great results, not the reality of the having to change everything, like for it to go to the extremes. And like she was saying that the amount of time and how long of a period of time that you have to stick to these things, to hit those goals and to achieve that look. And it's only for a very short period of time. Like she said, a lot of people that you're seeing on social media has dieted down for like months and months and months. And then they took all these photos that they post all year long. They don't stay at that weight. They don't maintain that level of sharpness for very long.

Philip Pape 04:23

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, no. I mean, we allude to the before and after pictures on IG all the time, right? Now, the algorithm is so nefarious, for good reason. They want you to engage as much as possible and sell you ads. And I know if I just if I tap something that just catches my eye. For the next like 10 days, every image is an extreme version of that. So if it's like, oh, this person looks good. I'm just gonna look at that picture. And all of a sudden, you get the extreme. And when you look behind the scenes, you realize that they're associated with oftentimes these promotional profiles and these scammy profiles isn't right. It's not even real. A lot of it isn't but then at the same time, many of us follow have legitimate bodybuilders and competitors and people who train and work hard at doing this. And it is legitimate. I guess before we get into the details of the specific costs, when somebody wants to do this, how do we step back and even look at that goal in the first place? Like how do we put their goal in context of whether it's really a goal they should be pursuing? How they evaluate those goals? You know, what I'm saying? Like to question whether you should do it at all from that perspective.

Brittany Gatewood 05:25

So I think this is actually a great like, question because a lot of people just jump into this blindly, they have zero expectation of what it actually takes what the process entails, of the sacrifices that you'll make the things that you'll miss out on, you know, while you're preparing for this, and the costs, like the actual financial costs associated with like, a competition prep. So having those conversations with somebody who does express interest in this type of aesthetic goal, you know, setting those realistic expectations is I think, a big key to long term success. Because if they know everything going in, then they can decide like this is for me, I'm financially in a good place. I can financially afford this. I have the time to dedicate to this goal. You know, I'm okay with eating my meal prep all when I go to social events, I won't be peer pressured, I don't have a problem with alcohol. All these things like play a big role in your success for achieving like this level of leanness. Does that answer your question? Yeah,

Philip Pape 06:32

yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. So just for the listener, you know, it's one on two here. And, you know, they know, this is it's not super common. It's fun, though. So we're trying to navigate like, who answers what, so feel free to like, jump in whenever you to James, if you ever want to jump in? Otherwise, I'm happy to? Oh,

James Gatewood 06:47

she's definitely the more of the talker on the Yes, yes. I agree with a lot of things. And then I'll chime in from time to time.

Philip Pape 06:55

That's wisdom. That's wisdom. And you're the quiet wise type, I get it, I get it usually need that, like the tensile workout in the relationship. Okay, so it's interesting, Brittany, because you mentioned, you mentioned the demands that maybe some people don't think about financial time, social events, things like that. And they're probably extreme versions of some of the trade offs we make. Anyway, when we're in, for example, a fat loss phase. But I really want the listener to understand the differences. So maybe let's just outline like the list of some of the physical demands, and the mental demands, from what we think of as a typical fat loss phase where you're in a 500 calorie deficit or something which most people can understand that, you know, you cut out a snack, or you reduce the scale things down, you have some more fiber and nutrient dense foods in there. Maybe a little bit fewer indulgences. And you're good, right? And it's kind of a sustainable thing. You do it for 1216 weeks, you're done. What is this look like? If we want to get shredded? I mean, what is that? First of all, is that like, sub 10%? For a male, like, maybe we should give it some parameters? And then really, what are some of the big physical demands?

Brittany Gatewood 08:00

Yeah, so you want to talk about

James Gatewood 08:03

some of the physical stuff. So the physical side effects now

Brittany Gatewood 08:06

like the the main

James Gatewood 08:08

demands, yeah, well, like going into a prep situation to get to those sub 10 bodyfat it's like men were men, personally, like getting down to 5% it takes a lot. It's a lot. We're looking at, you know, training, at least, you know, five days of training a week, we're looking at possibly two hours or plus cardio a week a day. Yeah, sorry. Two hours of cardio per day, every day that there are no even all

Philip Pape 08:40

rest days and define what you mean by current because we're not talking about just walking so steady state

James Gatewood 08:45

cardio, so you know that that's a walking on an incline at a decent pace, and make spin bike you know, we don't do a lot of times it's not gonna be running a secondary high intensity things, but it's just gonna be time consuming. When it comes to diet, you know, like in the lifestyle sense, like you kind of operate on an 8020 rule, you know, 80% Clean 20% lacks, there's no 8020 You got to be 100% on your diet every single day. You have to hit your water goals 100% Every single day, and there is the end like you're talking about like with the normal fat loss phase, there's gonna be some times when you're uncomfortable, you're gonna feel hunger in a prep going to that little leanness you are always hungry. You will always be hungry when you eat, right after you eat while you're eating you. Your constant state of of hunger and you're fighting your body because your body wants to

Brittany Gatewood 09:40

power that store fat for famine. Yeah, like

James Gatewood 09:44

you were purposely starving your body to achieve those single digit body fat. And

Brittany Gatewood 09:51

to add to that, you know, with like the calorie restriction with a normal lifestyle client, you know, you might restrict like you said like 500 calories. is when you are doing an extreme level of leanness when you're trying to get started for a show, you're hitting levels that you hear all the time, don't eat that little, you know, like, you're gonna lose muscle. Yeah, especially as a female, like more than likely like there are women just starting out bodybuilding, the likelihood of you getting under 1200 calories is extremely high. And most women aren't in a good place calorically when they start competing. So you have that working against you as well, because that, you know, that part is important

Philip Pape 10:34

to work with you. Yeah. Yeah. And I've heard from, you know, very successful natural bodybuilder men, you know, like, Dr. Eric helms has been on the show a couple times, that even they're using around 15 1800. Like, and they're doing everything right, you know, what I mean? They're, like, have a lot of muscle doing everything right. Does that sound about right? I know, James, you work more with male clients? Or did they get even tighter than that? I mean,

James Gatewood 10:56

it all comes down to the individual and the how, of course, and how far they're willing to push it, you know, but there's a range, I would say, you know, you tried to balance that out with the activity level. So instead of dropping the food so low, we're gonna increase more cardio, which is why you start getting into those, you know, multiple hours of steady state cardio. It's very unpleasant, but I mean, sometimes that's what it requires to achieve that level of leanness. Yeah, I

Philip Pape 11:23

think the common refrain is going to be here, and the listeners gotta get this through their head. This is an extreme temporary, like you're going after, it's like a David Goggins type of thing, right? Like, it's exactly your sacrifice, you literally are sacrificing. This isn't just the Oh, you make trade offs and good choices. This is like, you're going all the way, you're probably harming your body in some state. I hate to put it that way. But I mean, you're like temporarily, you know, in an unhealthy state. So I have a whole bunch of questions, but just to keep it organized. What's the typical duration for a prep where you're actually in a deficit? And then what kind of adaptation do we see from the beginning to the end, like when someone starts? And then by the end of it, what does it look like? So

Brittany Gatewood 12:03

that depends again, on the person, you know, I will speak for me, for example, okay, I am in a prep right now for next year. I am a short person, I have more mass than like a taller, like, I'm just compact, you know, so I tend to hold more body fat, and I bombed my reverse, which we can talk about that are later but you know, I bombed by reverse coming out of the last show. So I put on body fat really quick. Now, because of that my preps have to be longer. Because you don't want to do too much too fast. It has to be a slow, it's a slow burn, you know, like you're losing a little bit of fat each week, with strategic like diet breaks. So I'm looking at 54 plus weeks in this cycle, with some breaks. But you know, an average competitor, like a woman starting out, I have a client currently competing or going to compete in October and her first prep is going to be about 26 weeks by the end of it

Philip Pape 13:01

turns 26. So half a year. What did you say yours is?

Brittany Gatewood 13:04

Mine is over a year, a year? Okay. Yeah. The last show that we did, I was in prep for 46 weeks. James is like a 20. Week.

James Gatewood 13:13

Well, so then even if the 20 week, I'm not even into a calorie deficit until I'm within 16 weeks or so or less. It takes a lot of effort for me to actively keep weight on and to size. So majority of my prep is building up because I shed weight very quickly. So I don't have to die as long as we are the exact opposite. You know, she's having to eat less and less and less. I'm having to eat more and more and more. And that makes married life fun. situation.

Philip Pape 13:46

It's like Jack sprat you know, like you got two peas on this plate over here and you got like the whole buffet over here. Yeah,

Brittany Gatewood 13:52

his birthday last prep. Okay, sides sidenote, but he had a birthday in one of our last preps and for his birthday I'm not even kidding you. I made him this like beautiful Suvi seared on the grill. ribeye was two pounds. And I had to sit there and watch him eat this ribeye that I cooked him while I was eating like a whites.

Philip Pape 14:17

You can even have like some sirloin or so I smelled it. Alright, so yeah, that's a great point on the differences between individuals, men and women size, you know, based on your size, and you've alluded to like you have this improvement season right? We take a periodization that applies to everyone, even if you are going after this goal where you have to spend some time building the muscle and being at this healthier, quote unquote healthier state before you do the slow burn, which as you said was anywhere from 16 to upwards of nine months or more depending on how at the rate you go and how long you need to lose the weight and people listening to that. I mean to put that in perspective. Some people listening might be a chronic yo yo Dieter, that's a different situation. We want to get them out of that. But for those who are familiar with a typical fat loss phase, what are we talking 12 to 16 weeks and you start to get tired of it, like you start to get really tired of it after like week eight to 12 unit, if you're doing things quote unquote, right, in addition to the length and the duration, and we'll get to strategic breaks and all that. What is the metabolic adaptation look like, just because you've lost the mass, your hormones are adapting, like, I don't know, if we can maybe give numbers or percentages or whatever, it doesn't matter. If somebody starts at a, you know, 1800 Calorie metabolism? where might they end up by the end of the diet? Again,

Brittany Gatewood 15:32

it depends on the person. Me 1100 Easy,

Philip Pape 15:37

so you don't make sense. So like a 700 college job or something, I'm a

Brittany Gatewood 15:40

short person anyways. So my calorie intake isn't as high as you know. So you might end up

James Gatewood 15:48

around real like 2300 Yeah, at the lowest right, leading into it, and then, like, I have a client, now that's also gonna be doing the same show that we're doing now. And currently, I already have him up to, I think it's 2900 calories, and we're gonna always, I'm not just gonna keep increasing that, so. But he has a similar body style as mine, where he can drop away, quit. But we need to build up, you know, so we're gonna spend all this time building up so that when we do cut calories, his calories will never be that low. And he'll be able to drop the weight pretty quickly.

Philip Pape 16:21

Now, are you unhappy with that ability to drop weight? Quickly? Is this a result of having built muscle mass over time? Or is it a little bit more genetic, like just how you respond, this is

James Gatewood 16:29

just genetic, I was always very thin, it takes a lot of effort for me to put on sighs like when she can, she can grow his muscle way faster than I do. I mean, I will have to put in, you know, lots of calories, lots of training, and with no mistakes, and then she can just, you know, be in a slight calorie surplus, and she's grown stronger and stronger and stronger. Like, I'm jealous. And in the gaming aspect, because it's hard for me to do that. Right. But then when it comes down to leaning down for a show, she, you know, struggles and then that's where a, you know, does come in handy with my metabolism.

Philip Pape 17:03

Yeah, it's definitely helps to know this and about yourself, right and track and have that awareness. And I've seen that client of mine, a male client who never had gone through a fat loss phase, it was like, three pounds a week just dropping off with like, very little effort. And you're like, Okay, he's like, should I go? Should I keep going aggressively? I'm like, you feel great. Yeah, I feel okay, then that's, that's telling you right there. And others, it's like, you start to move the needle just a little bit in, you're starving to death. So what about the rate of loss? So here's what I'm curious about. I typically talk about like the point two, five to 1% body weight per week, I don't know if you talk in percent per week, or like percent deficit, where we know like, 50% is like extreme and then like, 10 to 20 is kind of normal. What? What deficit are we looking at in that perspective, and what rate of loss

Brittany Gatewood 17:46

so we don't do percentages? Okay, we do like we're looking at a pound per week, roughly. So anywhere from a half pound to one pound per week, on average, you know, sometimes it might be more, sometimes I'd be less over the course of the duration. So like, if we look at, you know, the number of weeks that we've been in prep situation, like for fat loss, like, even with like a lifestyle client, this is how we look at it. So it's not really any different in that aspect. You don't want to lose too much fat in one week, or too much weight in one week, you want to retain that muscle mass. And it's the same kind of idea in a prep, because when you get on stage, you're not getting judged by how much you weigh. You're getting judged by your muscle mass, and how that muscle mass is presented on stage. Yeah. So if you lose a bunch of muscle mass, you know, just trying to weigh less in the process, like you're only hurting yourself, for

Philip Pape 18:45

sure. So that's a good clarification, right? Because if if someone is a lifestyle client, and maybe just wants to do a mini cut, you might go more aggressively because the duration short. But if you're doing this slow burn, you're saying a pound a week, which is usually around 500 calories a day deficit is reasonable. However, it's a long time, right? So that's where it could get tiring. And

Brittany Gatewood 19:06

you're keeping in mind the metabolic adaptations? Yes, all along the way. And now you're

Philip Pape 19:09

eating less and less and less. So then how do you break that up and plan for that? Right? If you've got 48 weeks, like you, I'm guessing it's not just completely linear, the whole layout, right? We have some refeeds diet breaks in there.

Brittany Gatewood 19:21

Yeah. 100%. So I have been cutting now, since April. And April. I'm not afraid to talk about my weight. I was 177. And April, I'm down to 160 On average right now and I lost two months. Yeah. I look at the average, you know, weekly. We're getting ready to go on our honeymoon and a couple of weeks. So we're gonna go to Jamaica. That's my first diabetic congratulations, which was the plan all along was like we're going to Jamaica. I don't want to miss out on anything. I want to try all the food. I want to have fun. We're going to be active anyways. You're always you usually more active than you realize on vacation. So that was the first planned diet break. And then we come back, he's gonna go into a building phase, I'm gonna stay cutting until I start training for completely not the same thing. I'm running a marathon at the end of the year. Okay. Interesting. At that point, I'll go to maintenance. But I'll probably that'll keep increasing just to maintain where I am true, right?

Philip Pape 20:25

Because you'll be burning so many more calories. Yeah, for that. That's an interesting one. You know, I mean, I definitely did. I've heard some competitors who will do powerlifting and bodybuilding but not often the endurance extreme, like endurance. And I like to defy the odds. I'm sure you'll get it. I'm sure you get it done. And yeah, you'll have that like strength to weight ratio going for you there right with all the muscle and have cut down and wait. Yeah, super fast.

Brittany Gatewood 20:47

I actually am a lot faster when I'm lean. Like, I've run some races previously, like in prep, I did a 10k. One time, I mean, I've run a lot of races. I was a runner before I did bodybuilding, and I would PR them just because you're leaner, your endurance is better, right? Like you don't have as much body fat holding you down. Yeah,

Philip Pape 21:07

that makes a lot of sense. So, you know, you mentioned practicality, like your trip and aligning the brakes with that, which is always a great practice. The question I have, and maybe this is for James, because you mentioned the 100%, like, not at 20. But like 100 to zero is gotta be your your adherents, or we use at 20 a lot of different ways, right? One way is just say like 80%, Whole Foods, 20%, whatever you want, or 80%, consistent, you know, 20%, maybe flex less consistent, tell us about the more extreme level of adherence and consistency we need. And then how do you do that?

James Gatewood 21:41

Oh, so that, for me, in my experience, and what works best for me, you know, some, some clients work better on macros, and they can kind of adjust their foods and things like that. For me, I work and function better, like on a meal plan. So I'm literally eating the same foods, the same portions every single day, you know, in the offseason, or when you know, further out from the shop can be a little more more flexible. We can make substitutions, you know, things like that. But it's the preparation, when it comes to like meals is going to be the key. Because even when you're tracking food, and you're going out and you're ordering food from like certain establishments, and they have the macros listed, and all those things, you're still trusting someone else to do the measuring, you know, you don't know how accurate there really is, you'll know if they went a little heavy on the oil when they made it this time. And, and it's all these little small details that you know, in the end, you may look like hey, I'm hitting all these numbers. Do you know, why am I not progressing? But if you're, you know, you get to eliminate all these factors that could be thrilling. You're playing off. So being very onpoint on nutrition. That's just key. So it's eating home food all the time. For me. It's nothing

Brittany Gatewood 22:59

that food. Unless you're a man, you have me.

James Gatewood 23:04

Yes, he does the cooking.

Philip Pape 23:05

Yeah. So let me let me ask you, when you so when you do go to a restaurant sounds like you occasionally do and again, we're talking. Maybe you could do it more than Brittany can at the level of calories or whatever. How do you? Do you limit? Like what kind of restaurant you choose? Do you look at the restaurant menu ahead of time and like plan out what you're going to eat? Do you bring a like travel scale to the restaurant? Like how neurotic are we because let's use that word you kind of have to be about some of this.

James Gatewood 23:29

So like in the in the cutting phase, when I'm really in it, there is no eating out. Okay, there's no so if I'm going to eat out if we are going to eat out this when we are having a free meal. So there is no need to weigh or measure it. This is a diet break. This is a refeed meal. This is whatever it is, if it's a mental break meal, you have like you we've been on the ground, you've been eating this specific foods for so long. That's what that is so that you know it's planned out. This isn't just willy nilly. Oh, you know, I don't feel like chicken and rice and green beans today. I'm gonna have a pizza. That doesn't happen. You just can't do that.

Philip Pape 24:06

Yeah, no, no, it makes sense, do you? When you first set up your entire phase? Looking ahead? How much of a planner Are you? Like, do you say, once a week I want to allow for refeed therefore, I'm going to distribute my calories in a way that does that or do you just adjust your week leading up to like a Saturday? What's your preferred method?

James Gatewood 24:23

I've done two different ways I've done where their weekly refeeds were, you know, on Saturday and Sunday, my carbs are higher and my fats are lower and I just carb up on the weekends. That's a really unpleasant way to eat on the weekends when your fats are extremely low and you know, then your carbs are high and you're just stuck with more rice and potatoes. Yeah, that kind of thing is more bland. Yeah, yeah, it's more of like looking at the pictures looking at the data looking at how I'm feeling if I'm getting really worn down. It's been seven 810 14 days, you know, typically depending on how what phase it is, you know, not going more than like 14 days without Some type of refeed until you start getting really close, and then you just you just had to grind it out like you are just, you're just gonna grind it until, you know, it's so Tom, pretty much. I

Philip Pape 25:12

mean, people are listening like, this sounds really exciting. This is what? No, but if you're thinking like, this is what has to get done. Now, because you're a competitor competing in something here, even if you're not competing, right? Even if it's a lifestyle thing that you're trying to get shredded, what about how about any other nonlinear dieting strategies you've used either for yourself or with clients who are prepping, maybe five to modified fast like carb cycling any of those you get into.

Brittany Gatewood 25:36

So what we honestly like to do is a free meal, because when you do like a structured refeed, like it's still kind of like falling into like guidelines. But when you tell a client like I have a client, that's three weeks out from stepping on stage, it's our second show, she competed in the beginning of May. And she was really close to getting that overall. So we want to like, go a little further. But like with her, you know, I'm looking at her stuff, and I'd like her to have a weekly refeed. But the reality is, she's super close. And that just doesn't happen. But further out, we like to implement like a free meal, here and there just for like a mental break.

James Gatewood 26:16

And that's a big thing, the mental break. I mean, when you're in there monotonous. Just the same food, the same routine, the same training, the same water amount, the same going to bed at the same time waking up at the same time. I mean, you were a machine, when you're in that everything you do is just repetitive, repetitive and just hitting it, checking off the boxes. So having that little break, where you're like, you know, I've been dreaming about this burger and fries from five guys. Have it, enjoy it, and then keep going. So

Brittany Gatewood 26:47

while we've been cutting right now, like since you know the last couple months, last three months, whatever we've done, like a weekly refeed because we're so far out or weekly free meal. Excuse me, sorry. So you know that free meal can range from a big ribeye and a big potato to burger and fries. We had pizza one night a couple of weeks ago, and we decided that we weren't going to do that because pizza just is so dense, right? Like our our array will be like, literally mine will be 10 to 15 beats higher like my resting heart rate just from having pizza. So it sticks. It sticks. A burger and fries though we might eat a burger or fries. And our body's like, Yeah, we love this. And then the next day we hit like a new low or something I know I hear Yeah. So it's cool to see how everybody's body responds to different things, too. Yeah. And

Philip Pape 27:37

so and that's funny because you mentioned skin weight fluctuation, which we talked about all the time as well. What do you track then? And not just like the typical things we would track for lifestyle climb. But what's supremely important for this kind of extreme leanness, and then maybe going along with that is there kind of a spectrum, depending on the individual where so for example, when I spoke to Eric helms last time, he he just became a pro right last year. And he, for the first time, stopped tracking his food. Now he said very clearly like he can only do that after years and years and years of tracking. And like knowing exactly what things look like and how much stuff weighs. And he still uses a food scale. So what do you generally advise people track? And then what does that spectrum look like?

Brittany Gatewood 28:18

So with food, they're weighing everything, they're tracking everything, especially like, our clients are doing macros. So we want them to have a little bit of flexibility in their food choices. I don't want to tell them, Okay, you're eating chicken, brown, Turkey and tilapia. Those are your three proteins, that's what you're eating, I want them to have the flexibility so that they can make choices. And then when we get like a couple of weeks out, we really clean it up and we simplify it and we will do like a meal plan. You know, based on the proteins that they prefer, they have to be lean, they can't be fatty proteins. We're talking white fish, shrimp, chicken breast, and maybe 97 or 99 lean ground turkey like if they are stomach tolerates it because it does make some people gassy.

Philip Pape 29:06

Dry. I know it's yes. Well, let me stop you there though the meal plan a couple of weeks out. So I'm assuming a client like this has some experience over kind of a typical client? Do they help construct that themselves? Or are you just like telling them? Is it based on what they've already been eating? Yeah. So

Brittany Gatewood 29:22

usually the client wants us to do they don't want to think at that point. You're so one thing about PrEP is like you get really drains your mental capacity, like you have a permanent brain fog until like six weeks after the show. So you know having like you telling the client, this is it. You got two weeks on this, like finish this strong. Peak week, you know is another ballgame. You start increasing carbs and filling the client back out so that they're not flat on stage. So it's really easy for them to be like, Okay, we've reached that endpoint. This is Showtime here and it's easier for them to flow guess on that for like two weeks versus the whole time.

30:03

Make sense. My name is Tony, I'm a strength lifter in my 40s. Thank you to Phil and his Whitson 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, not as heavy as me, but he trains heavy. So if you talked 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.

Philip Pape 30:47

And so let's segue off of the brain fog comment, because now we want to talk about the symptoms you get when you get at that low level of body fat for women and men, because obviously different hormonal situation going on and different levels of fat you start with and so on. So, maybe Brittany start on the female side and talk about all the symptoms we get. And this is the cost of leanness.

Brittany Gatewood 31:08

All right. So obviously, hunger is going to be number one, even in a regular deficit, like when you're just trying to lose fat for life, hunger is a normal part, it's a side effect of fat loss, like that is your body trying to tell you we don't like this fetus, we have amenorrhea, which is the absence of your period, if you get amenorrhea that is a sign that your hormones are jacked up, also a sign your thyroid will probably not function as well, because you're not getting the energy that it needs to function. Well, immune system, you're getting sick a lot. If there's a sickness going around, you can pretty much count that you're gonna get it. Like you can almost bet on it, that you're gonna get it. bowel movements become less frequent, you know, you might get lucky to have one a day maybe if you're lucky. But you know, less food in less food out. Sleep gets impacted sex drive tanks, you might even like as a female have issues like down there like dryness, things like that extreme pain during intercourse because of that, like there are a lot of physical symptoms, you know, from the hormonal disruption is what it is. It's your hormones get jacked out from this extreme level of leanness and long term dieting. Yeah.

James Gatewood 32:32

And as like for the men, I mean, of course, all the hunger and your thyroid and all those things, your testosterone, if they're a natural athlete or natural competitor, your testosterone is going to be tanked. You're gonna know sex drive, you're gonna feel horrible energy level, your, your hunger hormones are going to be jacked up. So even when you come out of the show, you're gonna always feel hungry. And then there's no nothing telling you when you're full. So a common thing that and you know, this happened to a friend of mine, we did a show together and come out of the show. And in one week, he gained 40 pounds. He just blew up like a balloon, you know, and it's just because he was just uncontrollable eating on control eating. Of course, he was I hadn't had carbs in months, because they were like doing the extreme diet, get trying to get him ready. And his bike no longer knew what to do with all you know, was sugar and carbs like that. So he just just started like crazy and blew up like a balloon. I personally, after one of my shows, you know, every time I would eat carbs, like I would instantly want to fall asleep. I was having like some insulin issues. I mean, this was crazy. I mean, I could not eat and then get in my truck to drive. Because I was going to fall asleep. As I was driving like I went to, I got a little Is it 5% or a little bit lower around 5% body fat, which is very strange. My first show and my body was jacked up. It took me probably six months to feel better. Sleep apnea, sleep apnea. Snoring,

Brittany Gatewood 34:04

that is a huge side effect for men and bodybuilding. Let me tell you, yeah, which

James Gatewood 34:09

ended up causing problems in, you know, at home, because now she can't sleep. And I'm affecting her life, like it was. And then I couldn't, I didn't know I was doing it. People don't know when it's happening. It happens with some of my clients, and then we have to make adjustments, but your body goes through a lot when you go to get that lien.

Philip Pape 34:29

So given all that very, very long list of 60,000 Other questions, why do it? Why would you do this? And that's rhetorical, but like, How does someone answer that? Now they know and they're fully informed. Why would you do this? Because

Brittany Gatewood 34:45

you're doing something that most of the population can't do. Cool. It's good answer. Yeah. It's a huge accomplishment. It's proving to yourself that I can do hard things if you can push your body and push yourself and your mind because there's a lot of mental illness as well, to follow the plan and stick to your goal and accomplish that goal. Even if you don't win, you still got on stage and you're still doing something that 99% of the population can't do. It's just showing that you're capable of great things.

James Gatewood 35:16

And for me, like being on stage like I have, I don't care about being on stage, I don't have this like, look at me he kind of like I don't it's it has nothing to do with like the outcome in the in the stage was, it's all about the challenge for me. And when I first did, my first show was like, what in my entire life? Have I dedicated 100% of everything that I do into one thing for an extended period of time? Like, what is possible? What could I do it for like six months, everything I eat everything I drink, how I sleep, how I work out how I limit certain things. I didn't even watch TV for six months, my first show, like I cut out TV, like I was in the zone. And you come out the other side, and you're like, wow, I was able to do this. What else can I do in my life? Not just in fitness. But like, maybe in your career, you know, and just other avenues of your life. You come out the other side? Much stronger. Yeah.

Philip Pape 36:13

And somebody hearing that myself included? Here's all in there, like, yeah, like, I'll take all that. And of course, once you get in it, no, but I do like value based schools like that, right? Because then you can break them back down to these action based things that you're doing to get there. And so that leads me to next question, where should you be before you even consider this? Both? I guess mentally in lifestyle wise, right, like, what should you already have taken care of? And then you're ready. And also even leanness like, I can't imagine somebody who's you know, excessively overweight, would be like, wanna go from that to shredded in one phase is going to take multiple phases, and potentially years depending on where you're starting from. So what are your thoughts on that?

Brittany Gatewood 36:53

So I think that a person should have a solid foundation of lifting. Because prep is not the time to learn how to lift like you need to have a solid muscle base. You know, we talked about newbie gains and stuff and coaching and you should be out of that phase like you should be already have embraced that have a solid base of muscle, a lot of experience lifting, and a consistent routine in the gym. Because if you're going from nothing to now you're going to prep like that's a lot to handle. And you have to manage that new routine with your life as well. And if your life has any stresses, if you're struggling in your relationship or your marriage, don't prep because it's just going to make it worse and you might even end up single, because prep is a lot for a spouse or a partner that's not prepping and doesn't understand the process. Also, you know, finances we talked about that should be in a good place, your calories need to be in a very good place because you don't want to start prepping for something extreme and you're already in an extreme calorie deficit like you should actually be coming off of a maintenance or even a growth phase coming into prep. So yo yo dieting you know, I see a lot of women they want to compete just for the sake of it, but they have a terrible history with yo yo dieting. And you know I understand wanting to accomplish this goal for yourself, but it's probably not best long term for your mental health it's going to heighten a lot of issues that you may have with yourself body dysmorphia, even eating disorders, disordered eating habits, things like that it can like amplify that. So being in a good place all around not having any of those issues in my opinion is really important. You

James Gatewood 38:38

know, I think if somebody's looking to do this speaking with a coach that has the knowledge on this is going to be very helpful and give you some realistic expectations on maybe like how long they're going you're going to have to stick with this to achieve the look that you're going for. Also like she was saying you know you need some experience already lifting because majority of people overestimate how much muscle they have you know that they overestimate the muscle and underestimate their fat so I was guilty of this myself you know and I thought all I have to do is get my get about this way now shredded and I'll be ready on stage I will kill it. Well, it was about 30 more pounds I had to lose than what it initially thought in my head for me to get to that level. And for somebody that's a hard gainer that was very thin his whole life to get to those really low numbers. It was a mental battle and it still is I had to keep myself in check because intentionally getting thinner goes against what like I've been working so hard to do like I want to be you know I like I like feeling stronger. I like being bigger but this is doing the exact opposite it's making myself smaller so you don't call without your shirt on like that does but when you're you have your shirt on, people just like maybe don't even know you lift nice if you once you get that lift once you get that lane you know Like, there's just a cost of it,

Philip Pape 40:01

that's actually a really great point for all the especially for the male lifters listening because we talk about those two extremes. And, you know, you get made fun of for, like wanting to lose too much weight and you know, be skinny and be like, you know, people may say, Oh, I'm not gonna cut with you, I'm gonna be big and strong, you know, with my shirt off on half the traps and everything. And we have to recognize that because when we, when Brittany mentioned body dysmorphia, and eating disorders, and all that all of these things play into that if you're not in a mentally healthy state, and I know I used to be just like skinny fat, and I haven't been lifting that long, maybe three or four years. So I don't have much muscle. But I do know that trying to get to what you said a certain level of leanness puts me back into the scale weight, I was way back when before I started lifting as skinny fat and then I'm like you get insecurities about what that's going to do to you, you know, is are all my muscles going to waste away and things like that. So these are all really great points. And the mental sides got to be huge. And Brittany, like you said with these, if you haven't taken care of these other issues, take care of them. But you also mentioned having a coach. And of course, as coaches, we're always going to talk about how how helpful it is to have a coach and reach out for help. But it sounds like this is the kind of situation where it's almost a requirement. Like if you haven't been through it, you have to because it's so extreme and regimented. You know, it'd be like a football player not having a coach for the team, you know, just going out there, what do you do so, just want to mention that some folks, you know, ask for help and make sure you're in the right place before you do this. What else?

Brittany Gatewood 41:26

I think an important thing to add is also like we're talking about extreme leanness and competing and things like that, and understanding that there is a natural side, but there's also an enhanced side as well. And as an athlete, like if you're going to compete, you need to understand like, if you're competing, right, and you decide to stay a natural athlete, then you need to look for leagues that are a natural league to start off with because there are a lot of competitors using performance enhancing drugs. And you know, that will impact like their experience versus your experience to as a natural athlete.

Philip Pape 42:06

What's so like the WNBA F right and I don't know what OCB.

Brittany Gatewood 42:10

He is one that we like how our clients and iocb they do like a polygraph test, which I don't really understand the polygraph test because it's like a controversial thing. But if they win a pro card, they also get your analysis, right, if after they step off stage, like they don't get like there's somebody there to escort them to pee in a cup. Sure,

Philip Pape 42:33

that's an important distinction. Now, okay, so what about long term? First of all, are there any health risks of doing this? Because, you know, like we said, it's a challenge. It's an accomplishment. You know, in the short term, you've got all these scary symptoms. Are there any do we know of any long term risks to doing this? Or is this one of those situations where when you recover, you're probably okay. Usually,

Brittany Gatewood 42:54

when you recover, you're okay. Now that's going to be different from person to person. It doesn't just happen like that. bloodwork is an important part of prep. So that's something else that you need to understand you need to get your blood work done. So you know, what needs to improve. Personally, after my last show, my thyroid was jacked up, my cholesterol was jacked up, like coming out. So you know, you need to stay on top of bloodwork so that you know what changes you need to make. My blood work was messed up like cholesterol wise, because when I came out of the show, I just didn't do the best job reversing. So I went from one extreme to eating whatever I wanted. And that was the result of that the thyroid was an issue of extreme fatigue for you know, 46 weeks.

Philip Pape 43:43

Yeah, and we know that's the regulator of your metabolism. So it just compounds everything exactly. What about so getting blood work, getting your health monitored, really important? It sounds like having the before and after monitoring your biofeedback, maybe in real life, like tell us about a client you've helped do all this in like a healthy, I'll call it a healthy way, right? Like there's limits, obviously, because you're making all these sacrifices and trade off. But they achieved a lean physique. And then we also want to know what comes afterward, right? Because you're not walking around at this like extreme vascularity. Forever. Just tell us about maybe real life situation. Okay,

Brittany Gatewood 44:16

I'll talk about my client, Jessie. She's also like, she don't care if I say her name. She's also one of our assistant coaches. She was a client long before she became a coach with us. But after her first show, I knew that she needed to put on more muscle mass. She hadn't been lifting too long. So I knew she needed a really good building phase. She's a natural bikini athlete. She just needed more muscle mass. So we went into a building phase. Immediately after the show. Our stage weight was 119 and I think we got up to 140. In the post like the offseason, she put on some good muscle May when she competed last month she won first place in her Navas class out of five. And then in her open class, which is the one where she could go on to compete for her pro card, she came in second. And it was just some little things to tweak. Because of the work she did in the offseason, her prep this time went better, she was able to do less cardio, her calories were higher. So like the prep for that in the offseason helped her be a better athlete the second time around.

Philip Pape 45:24

And that's a great point of like, you're not necessarily looking to quote unquote, win right the first time out, you're trying to do your best and see how it comes out. And even that's a source of data, right source of information. Okay, now, what do we do next time. And just real quick, since we didn't really talk about it today, it's not really part of the cost of leanness. But what are some of the things that people have to do for the show itself. And I know this can be a whole episode, but like, one or two of the big things that people will also need to think about as maybe it's a cost or just a thing that you have to learn or know.

Brittany Gatewood 45:54

Okay, a cos, like in terms of the

Philip Pape 45:58

posing and the tanning the all that kind of stuff. Yeah, there you go.

Brittany Gatewood 46:01

For women the suit, okay, if you're gonna buy your suit, you can expect to spend on a quality suit anywhere from $600 over 1000 Easy, I have two suits, they both were around $800. So I mean, suits are expensive. The tan, as a woman, you know, hair and makeup, I'm not, I'm makeup challenge. So I can't do my own stage makeup, I always pay for it, my hair, I just wear straight. But tan is a big thing, like you have to get a tan, it's not an option, you have to have that tan. Guys,

James Gatewood 46:40

Oh, does don't have to wear so much. So you just have yellow trunks on, depending on which category you're competing in. But you know, you do have your tam big cost. So you need to consider is a hotel room, travel, hotel room and supplements. Because even if you live locally, right? To start preparing for the show to get your tan and things like that, like her makeup would start at like 3am. So like, of course we'd be in the hotels, you know, it just gives up goes and you know, has that taken care of because in our shows, they start early in the morning. And then you also have to go back later in the evening for the final. So having a place that where you can go lay down and relax until so the cost of the coach, the cost of supplements, the cost of food, all these things add up. I mean, it adds up very quickly. And to do so other than that, I mean, depending on what Federation you're you're in, you're gonna have to buy a card, like you're on the register. So for the NPC, I had to register with the NPC, and then at the show, how many classes do you want to do? It's $150 per class, or $50. So I did three of them. So those 450 plus another 100 Plus hotel plus travel and gas and food and it adds

Philip Pape 48:00

you got no I want people to know, you know, it's an investment. It's a

Brittany Gatewood 48:03

very expensive hobby for those who don't have intentions to like go pro, which it's not that easy to go pro and make money off of it. So it's a hobby until you get to that point, you know, for

Philip Pape 48:15

sure. Yeah. And honestly, this episode, we've kind of covered all the things that would hopefully scare someone away who really doesn't want or it's a filter for like, I'm willing to do it. Right. Yeah, that's, that's good. So I'm just going to send on this episode of the future. Say I want to compete. Alright, so I do like to ask this question of all guests before we wrap up. And that is what one question Did you wish I had asked? And what is your answer?

James Gatewood 48:39

Oh, gosh, I don't know.

Brittany Gatewood 48:42

You know, I have nothing. Last week, we talked about things that we had planned on talking about. Yeah,

Philip Pape 48:53

I think so. I think so I just like to give you the chance case, there's Yeah, it's like, oh, no, we got to cover this. No, it's all good. Let's, let's connect people with you. Because this has been a lot of fun. Talking about this. We've never really covered this topic in depth. So this is like the seminal episode about this with Brittany and James, where can listeners learn more about you and your work.

Brittany Gatewood 49:11

So you can learn more about us on our website, www dot transform with phoenix.com. You scroll on down to the bottom, you can get a free meal prep guide. It's a 23 page ebook that we created. It'll help you create awesome meal prep bowl combinations. So you don't just have to eat chicken, broccoli and rice. There are some macro cheat sheets in the back of it. So it's a good resource, and our podcasts macros mindset of muscles.

Philip Pape 49:36

Awesome. Yeah, I'm gonna include those in the show notes, absolutely transform with phoenix.com. Get your free meal prep guide, whether it's for your prep or just for everyday lifestyle, right and then check out the podcast. I think you're gonna love it and I'm gonna be on there as well. So you know, follow both catch the new episodes, and we'll see you guys on the other side. Thank you so much, Brittany and James for coming on the show. Thanks for having me

Philip Pape 7/17/24 Philip Pape 7/17/24

Spend 70% of Your Time Doing THIS for a Faster Physique Transformation (Rapid Prototyping) | Ep 192

What if you could get FASTER results with your physique development by spending most of your time on something very few people put much energy into?

What if spending less time goal-setting, researching, planning, and designing your training and nutrition routine could actually lead to BETTER results?

Are you a perfectionist getting stuck in analysis paralysis or stubbornly being "consistent" but with a plan that's not working?

Discover how focusing 70% of your time on THIS can lead to faster and more sustainable progress. We'll explain why traditional approaches often fall short and what to do instead, inspired by engineers who design complex systems.

And you can do it without feeling overwhelmed, ensuring you reach your goals with greater ease and sustainability.

Book a FREE 15-minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment, designed to fine-tune your strategy, identify your #1 roadblock, and give you a personalized 3-step action plan in a fast-paced 15 minutes.

Episode summary:

Are you tired of spending endless hours meticulously planning your fitness routine only to find yourself stuck in a cycle of ineffective workouts and stagnant progress? If so, it’s time to rethink your approach and embrace a revolutionary method known as rapid prototyping. In the latest episode of Wits and Weights, we dive deep into how adopting an experimental mindset can transform your fitness journey, yielding faster and more sustainable results.

Rapid prototyping is an engineering concept that emphasizes spending a significant portion of your time on testing and iteration rather than exhaustive planning. This approach is a game-changer for those who often find themselves in analysis paralysis, meticulously planning every detail of their diet and training, yet failing to achieve the desired results. By shifting the focus to continuous improvement and adaptation, you can craft a personalized, effective fitness plan without feeling overwhelmed.

One of the primary benefits of rapid prototyping in fitness is the ability to start with small, manageable steps. Rather than overwhelming yourself with a comprehensive plan, you can begin with basic actions and adjust based on immediate feedback. This involves collecting and analyzing data from each workout or dietary change, setting realistic expectations, and understanding your body’s biofeedback. By methodically tracking your progress and making timely adjustments, you can achieve your fitness goals more efficiently.

Traditional fitness planning methods, such as the waterfall approach, often fall short in dynamic systems like human health and fitness. The waterfall method involves extensive upfront planning followed by rigid execution, leaving little room for adjustments. In contrast, rapid prototyping embraces flexibility, allowing for continuous iteration based on real-world results. This adaptability is crucial in fitness, where individual responses to training and diet can vary significantly.

In engineering, rapid prototyping involves spending up to 70% of the process on testing and iteration. Similarly, in fitness, this means dedicating a significant portion of your time to experimenting with different workouts and dietary approaches. By doing so, you can quickly identify what works for your unique body and lifestyle, avoiding the frustration of sticking to ineffective plans.

To implement rapid prototyping in your fitness journey, start by understanding your current state and setting clear goals. Gather basic information about your weight, demographics, eating habits, schedule, and training history. With this initial data, create a simple, flexible plan that serves as your prototype. The key is to avoid overcomplicating things—focus on one or two actionable steps that you can start executing immediately.

Once you begin executing your plan, track your progress meticulously. This includes logging your workouts, dietary intake, and biofeedback such as sleep quality, energy levels, and recovery. Treat each piece of data as valuable information that can guide your next steps. If something isn’t working, adjust it quickly. This iterative process ensures that you’re constantly evolving your approach based on real-world results, rather than sticking to a static plan.

A crucial aspect of rapid prototyping is setting realistic expectations. Understand that progress may not be linear and that it’s normal to encounter setbacks. View these challenges as opportunities to learn and refine your approach. For instance, if you’re not hitting your protein targets or struggling with certain exercises, use this data to make informed adjustments. This mindset shift—from seeking perfection to embracing continuous improvement—can significantly enhance your fitness journey.

Consistency and accountability play a vital role in the success of rapid prototyping. Whether through a coach, a supportive community, or self-monitoring, ensure that you’re staying on track and making the necessary adjustments. Remember, the goal is not to find a perfect plan from the start but to continuously refine your approach based on real-world feedback.

Incorporating rapid prototyping into your fitness routine can also have a positive impact on your mental outlook. By focusing on the process rather than the outcome, you can reduce stress and enjoy the journey. Each adjustment becomes a step towards discovering what works best for you, fostering a growth-oriented mindset that can lead to long-term success.

The beauty of rapid prototyping is that it never really ends. As your body and circumstances change, your fitness plan should evolve accordingly. This dynamic approach ensures that you’re always optimizing your routine for the best possible results. Whether you’re dealing with age-related changes, lifestyle shifts, or new fitness goals, rapid prototyping allows you to adapt and thrive.

In conclusion, rapid prototyping offers a powerful, flexible approach to fitness that can help you achieve faster and more sustainable results. By dedicating a significant portion of your time to testing and iteration, you can avoid the pitfalls of analysis paralysis and rigid planning. Embrace the process of continuous improvement, track your progress meticulously, and make timely adjustments based on real-world data. With this mindset, you’ll not only reach your fitness goals more efficiently but also enjoy the journey of discovering what works best for your unique body and lifestyle.

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Transcript

Philip Pape