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Ep 25: Lose 30 Pounds (or More) the Right Way and Keep it Off
What if you have significant weight to lose—around 30 pounds or more? In this episode, we cover how to lose mostly fat, do it sustainably, and have the knowledge to do it whenever you want for the rest of your life. We’ll discuss what happens when you lose weight through chronic dieting, what I would do with a client who needs to lose significant weight, and step through the entire process to get successful, long-term results.
What if you have significant weight to lose—around 30 pounds or more?
Most people have no problem losing weight . . . in the short term. What usually follows is a rebound, usually because calories or the diet itself were so restrictive that they were impossible to maintain for more than a few months.
In this episode, we discuss a completely different approach. Instead of “weight loss,” we want to achieve FAT LOSS. We want to improve our body composition over time and actually become leaner.
Our topic is how to lose 30 pounds or more the right way…and keep it off.
Not how to lose 30 pounds in 30 days, or how to lose weight now and then…good luck!
Those approaches to dieting are completely myopic. They’re short-term. Just cut calories and lose weight. Then you’ll be lean.
The problem is, every time you lose weight this way, usually without enough protein or resistance training, you lose some muscle and then regain mostly fat. This bodyfat overshooting phenomenon causes your body fat percentage to rise over time, even if your weight stays in the same range, but most likely you gain even more weight each time you rebound.
Does this sound familiar?
Here’s the reality. Losing weight is the “easy” part. The challenge is the 95% of skills, behaviors, and metabolic recovery we need to address BEFORE losing weight.
In this episode, we cover how to lose mostly fat, do it sustainably, and have the knowledge to do it whenever you want for the rest of your life. We’ll discuss what happens when you lose weight through chronic dieting, what I would do with a client who needs to lose significant weight, and step through the entire process to get successful, long-term results.
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:08
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable diet. I'm your host, Philip Pape. And in each episode, we'll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
Philip Pape 00:31
Hello, everybody, welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. And just like the last episode, we're gonna stream this, we're streaming this live on Facebook. So if you want to watch future episodes, and get access to a bunch of free resources, related to strength related to fat loss, nutrition, things like that, just join our group using the link in the show notes. I'm your host, Philip pape, I'm the founder of Wits & Weights Nutrition Coaching. And as always, if you enjoy this show, just let people know about it, submit a five star review, tell others about it, take a screenshot. And I appreciate your support as always, now what if you have significant weight to lose, we're talking 3040 50 pounds or more. Most people have no problem losing weight in the short term. What usually follows then is a rebound. Usually, because calories or the diet itself were so restrictive, that they were impossible to maintain for more than a few months. So today we're discussing a completely different approach. So instead of weight loss, we want to achieve fat loss. We want to improve our body composition over time, and actually become leaner. And this topic is a little different from the last one where we talked about cuts and bolts, because in that episode, we assumed that you had already gotten to a reasonable level of leanness today, it's what do we do on the other extreme, when we have a lot of weight to lose, even if you only have 15 or 20 pounds to lose, though I think this will be highly relevant. So our topic is losing 30 pounds or more the right way, and keeping it off, not how to lose 30 pounds in 30 days, or how to lose quite weight quickly. And then good luck. Those approaches to dieting are pretty myopic, right? They're short term, you just cut your calories lose weight, you'll be lean. But the problem is every time you lose weight that way, usually without enough protein, usually without resistance training, you lose some muscle and then regain mostly fat. I've talked about this before. It's called body fat overshooting. And this phenomenon causes your body fat percentage to rise over time, even if your weight stays in the same range. But most likely, you gain even more weight each time you rebound. So if this sounds familiar to you, it's because it affects a lot of people. And here's the reality, losing weight is the easy part. Right? The challenge is in the 95% of other things, the skills, the behaviors, the mindset, the physical and metabolic preparation, the preparation of our bodies that we need to address before losing weight. So today, we're gonna go over how to lose mostly fat, do it sustainably and have the knowledge to do it whenever you want for the rest of your life. We're going to discuss what happens when you lose weight through chronic dieting. So that's the first part, then we'll discuss what I would do with a client who needs to lose significant weight. So something that you can do for yourself as well. And then we're going to step through the process to see how we get successful long term results. So first thing, let's discuss what happens when losing weight through chronic dieting. Because I think people aren't aware of this for the most part, and don't think about it. And the first approach to dieting is just cut calories. So here's what happens when you lose weight through dieting, you eat fewer calories, that it decreases your body fat, and then your fat cells shrink. The fat cells shrinking sends a signal to leptin. Leptin is a hormone that regulates your metabolism. It regulates hunger, satiety your energy expenditure overall. And so that's controlled by the size of those fat cells. This sends a signal to your brain to the hypothalamus specifically, that there's an energy shortage. And then the receptors in your brain say, Hey, I'm not full, I'm not full anymore, so you get hungrier. Then multiple other hormones are downregulated, we're talking thyroid hormone, which regulates cellular metabolism, your basal metabolic rate, protein synthesis, leptin, as I already mentioned, but also insulin. And then, ladies and gentlemen, the reproductive hormones go down testosterone, and estradiol. And then on the other hand, ghrelin which makes you hungrier goes up. And cortisol, which is associated with stress goes up. So this cascade of hormones, results in increased appetite. You can lose muscle mass, you get a lower metabolism, and that's just a few of the problems. You also get all sorts of symptoms. Ah, crankiness, angriness, whatever you want to call it, that you've probably experienced with chronic dieting. So our goal is to offset some of these, especially the decrease in metabolism, and the loss of muscle mass. So we can take take control of this process to avoid that, and avoid what everyone else does. And they chronically diet and puts their body into this downregulated state. So now we're going to go over now that you understand what happens when we chronically diet, what I would do with a client who needs to lose at least 30 pounds the right way, so that it's sustainable, that's what I mean by the right way, is on the way down, as you're losing the weight, you're not suffering as much. And then you know what to do when you've lost the weight. So you don't just rebound because, hey, I can't stick to keto that long. So I'm just gonna gain all the weight back. So we want to make it maintainable for the long term. Alright, so it all starts with establishing healthy habits. These are skills, skills that we have to learn outside of dieting, right, we all want to diet, we all want to just lose weight. But there are a bunch of skills we have to learn before dieting, so that dieting itself is easy. And then when you lose weight, it's easy to maintain. So I'm going to go through a list of these habits, it might seem overwhelming if you struggle in more of these areas than others, but have hoped that the way to attack this is pick one thing at a time and work on it week after week, and start to improve each one. Some are more important than others for you as an individual. And if I was working with you, as a client, we would focus on the big red flags. But we would also take advantage of your strengths. So the first thing is tracking? How do you know what's going in your mouth? How many calories are in a particular food, how much protein how hungry a food makes you feel relative to the calories How do you know all that if you don't track your food. Now, there's a lot of controversy surrounding tracking, that it causes eating disorders or it's obsessive. The evidence generally shows that unless you had a prior issue, eating disorder an issue with tracking, that it's correlated with better adherence, and better results, bar none. Plenty of studies have shown this, that if you're to track versus not track, you're gonna achieve your results more than than if you weren't tracking. And by tracking, I mean tracking your food with some sort of log, generally an app these days that make it very, very easy. The one I always recommend is macro factor. I use it my clients use it, but whatever works for you. And what you can do is for two weeks, you track everything you eat, you track your weight, and you can tell based on the intake, what you're truly consuming, and how it affects your weight. So let's say you've been maintaining your weight for a while, and you decide to start tracking, don't change anything, just eat the same way you've been eating, I don't care if it's processed food, junk food, whatever binges on the weekend, track your food for two weeks, and assuming your weights still maintain is maintained, then the calories you ate are your maintenance calories, and they may be much less than you expected. That's that's often what happens, we usually overestimate or we underestimate the calories you're consuming. So tracking is a very important skill. I'm gonna go through all these skills today. And we could do an entire episode on each one. And I'm not going to get into the details of how to improve that skill necessarily. But just know that if you if you find a way or work with a coach, these are going to go a long way. Okay, the second skill is eating enough protein. Most people eat far less protein than they need. Even if you're sedentary. Even if you don't resistance train, you still need protein to preserve muscle. And you need more protein the older you are. If you're training though you especially need protein. And most importantly, our topic today is fat loss. Well, I talked about body fat overshooting where you lose muscle mass. That's because partly because you don't have enough protein. So we're looking for around one gram per pound of body weight. That's just a rule of thumb, anywhere between point seven to 1.2 is perfectly fine. For most people. My clients when they come in usually our half that most of them are eating, let's say 160 pound female might be eating 80 grams of protein a day. And we need to get her up much closer to 141 50. But I'm not going to do it overnight. Right? We're going to take time over the next few weeks to figure out how we choose foods and food quality and structure our day to be able to get that protein. Right. So protein is just so so important. And most of us don't get enough. If you track your food. Step one. You'll know how much protein you get. Step two. All right, then that leads us to kind of an even bigger picture with food, which is food quality and selection. So the idea here is to change our mindset about diet Eating and about food, we want to move past the idea of restriction where we cut out food groups, particular foods, you know, unless you have obviously an issue, or an allergy, I'm talking about pure choice. All the fad diets out there are based on the idea of restriction because in the short term that works, when you cut out a bunch of things that are usually the source of processed foods, then you will lose weight. But now you've gotten yourself in a bind, because you have to restrict more and more. And then eventually you get tired of it, or you compulsively overeat you binge something because you miss the things that you've cut out. Right? Tell me this doesn't sound familiar, you miss these things. I've been through myself so many times over the years. So what we want to do instead is use restraint, not restriction, and understand everything that we put into our mouth, how full they make us feel, how much volume they have, how many calories they have, what their macros are, understand that a tablespoon of peanut butter might have 100 calories, whereas a tablespoon of broccoli is almost no calories. Right? That's kind of a weird analogy. I know, a weird comparison. But the idea is that as you diet, and you if you have the skill of knowing how to select foods that make you fuller, without too many extra calories, you'll be able to scale more in that direction, as you're dieting more and more deeply. But without restricting anything. You know, if you still want that pizza on the weekend, or you still want that glass of wine, you still wanna enjoy ice cream. You know, unless you're a bodybuilder trying to get down to essential leanness, you can enjoy those things. But we have to do it in moderation with restraint, right? And understand that the majority of our diet has been made up of things that serve our goals. So this is going to help with fullness, this is going to help us scale our foods up or down depending on if we're losing or gaining weight. And it's a great skill to have to get us out of the mindset of restriction. Okay, then that brings me to meal timing, meal timing, I'm not talking about the complicated meal timing that athletes need to understand with pre and post workouts and things like that I'm talking about if you if you're tracking your food, and you know, you have to get so much protein. And you know, you don't want to get hungry or suffer through a diet, you want to plan your day out and structure it so that you have the right number of meals spread across the right timeframe. So for example, if you like intermittent fasting, but now you realize you need 160 grams of protein, but you only can eat two meals in that timing window, it's going to be tough to get 80 grams of protein at each meal. And you might decide, maybe I need to move away from intermittent fasting for this and have three meals and maybe I need an extra snack in there. So that I can space things apart, not get hungry, get my protein, etc. So that's what I'm referring to when it comes to meal timing. It's a skill. Mealtime is also associated with planning ahead. So if you were to look, if today's Tuesday or Monday, today is Monday, and you want to look ahead to tomorrow, and you have no idea what you're gonna eat tomorrow, because you live in the moment. Well, what if you sat down and just figured out what you were going to eat just for one day to hit your targets, calorie targets, protein targets. Part of that part of that planning is going to include the timing of the meals and you might surprise yourself, you might realize that, hey, this is why I'm not getting enough protein by 8pm Because I need to stick some other snack in the mid morning as an example. Okay, so that's meal timing. The next aspect of nutrition here, as a habit is hydration. Some people have no problem drinking plenty of water, others are woefully dehydrated. And I'm not going to give you a rule of thumb. I mean, most people say to shoot for three quarters of a gallon of water a day, I like to say just take your weight divided by two and add a little bit. And if you're very active, or you do something like CrossFit, you don't drink even more. There's a study that recently came out, I think I heard about it and stronger by science, where athletes when they were training to strength training, if they drink to thirst, they actually didn't perform as well as if they drink a little more than that. So we can't always rely on our thirst signals for this. Definitely if you're thirsty drink, but you might need to drink a little more. And so we work on that as a habit. Okay, so moving beyond food, the next two habits are related to sleep and stress. Okay, sleep, highly underrated, potentially one of the most important things for you, especially if you chronically under sleep. So by sleep we mean two things, we mean quantity and quality. I did a whole episode not long ago, all about sleep and various ways to use sleep hygiene to improve it. But two things number one, quantity. If you can get around seven or eight hours of sleep most days, you're pretty good. And especially if you go to bed and wake up around the same time. Quality is a lot of different things. But for most people, it's your pre bed ritual. How do you get the cortisol down get the melatonin So you're ready for bed, and you sleep through the night and you're well rested. And for some people, this is wearing blue blocking glasses, you know, not using screens, taking a shower, meditating before bed, whatever. And then stress, okay? Stress is also critically important because dieting is a stress training is a stress, and why add more and more stress and stack them on and make it harder on yourself to recover. And for your muscles to grow. And for you to feel full. Stress can cause issues with appetite issues with your hormones, so many issues. And the first step is to try to eliminate or reduce it. Easier said than done. Right? Many of us can't just change our jobs, we can't change our family situation. But we might find creative ways to reduce stress. If you can't reduce stress, you can at least cope with it. And this is making sure to find time for things that you enjoy that or not at all stressful. Things like walking, breathing, exercises, meditating, dancing, playing, singing, you name it. Okay, then that brings us to the last two behaviors that we need to put in place before we go and start cutting calories. And these are related to activity. So the first is steps. And I think I saw my dad join. He's a huge fan of walking. So am I ever since my back surgery last year, I fell in love with walking. And then since then, I've realized how much evidence shows us that increasing your step count, even even by three or 4000 steps a day, has massive benefits for mortality, diseases of aging, metabolic disease, perhaps even things like Alzheimer's, I mean, I'm not a medical professional. But there's correlations here that are undeniable. And then the short term impact of of walking is simply that it increases your metabolism. As we're going to die it, our metabolism is going to decline. And I talked about earlier that when we're chronically dieting, that's one of the things that starts to drop, because of the cascade of hormones, steps actually can counteract that. And they can do so to an incredible extent more than you could possibly imagine by hundreds of calories a day. And I've seen this in data. And I've seen it with my own clients. So there's a friend of mine who used to be a co worker, or I guess he still called her, but he's also a client. And I'm going to share his information on our group in a couple of days. He sent me two graphs from his macro factor screenshots. One was his weight. So he's consistently losing weight at a nice clip. But the other is his expenditure, and it's going up and up and up. And then last two months, it went up by 400 calories a day. So he's burning four and a calorie today more than it was two months ago, eating less, because he's training and walking. I mean, that is the clear correlation. If you were looking at everything he changed, he's eating more protein, yes, but he's also walking a lot more than he used to. So don't discount steps. And when you're deeper and deeper into a diet, increasing steps can be a good way to offset the calorie reduction. All right, and then the last behavior that's so important to all of this. And in fact, it's like a house of cards that will collapse without it is resistance training, you know, is going to talk about this one. I mean, that's the first word in our Facebook group of strength. It's, it's in the podcast, everything. I love strength training, not just because it's so much fun, and it makes you feel great. But it changes your life. Because it allows you to build muscle, and more importantly, allows you to preserve muscle and prevent muscle loss when you're dieting. So if you don't have this and you don't have the protein, none of the other stuff is gonna matter as much, because you're still going to lose some muscle when you die it and this is where most people go wrong. So I'm always very excited when someone who has never trained before starts training. Even if it's just some dumbbells or machines, cables, I don't care just start training. And it's going to just make a huge difference in your life. Okay, so I just spent a whole bunch of time talking about things that have nothing to do with cutting calories. And that's intentional. Because if if you if we were to hang out and I was in you were to say hey, how do I lose weight?
Philip Pape 19:15
I'm not gonna say cut calories, I'm gonna say, Well, do we have these other 10 things in place first, then it's gonna be easy to lose weight, keep it off. Alright, so while we're doing all this, and this process could take two weeks for somebody who's already pretty dialed in with most things, or could take two months if it if you've got a lot to work on. But you'll get there it doesn't take long once you focus on these Like any skill. Now during this phase, we are going to focus on what we call metabolic restoration, which is just what it sounds like you're restoring your metabolism. And what we want to do is take you from your current maintenance, meaning right now you've been maintaining your weight, probably at a lower calorie level because of all the dieting and we want to bring that up to a higher maintenance meaning we want to get to a point where you're actually eating more and still maintaining your weight. And you're like, oh, sign me up for that, right? That sounds great. But most people who've chronically dieted are always in an underfed state, or have never bounced back up above that, and given their body a chance to get to restore to what we call homeostasis, right, which is just just a form of balance for the human body where the stressors are, as as few as possible, you're trying to give your body the nutrition, it needs, the recovery, it needs, reduce stress, etc. And what this usually requires. So listen to me, if you have 30 pounds or more to lose, what this usually requires, is a reverse diet. A reverse diet is where you eat more food, okay, you eat more food, you titrate up by, say 200 calories a day, the first week, and then maybe another 200 calories a day, the next week, and you monitor your weight and make sure that it can take up a little bit, okay, I expect it to tick up. Because you've got more gut content, water, glycogen. But I expect your expenditure, your metabolism to come up at the same time. And so what should happen is, your intake goes up and your metabolism goes up together, and you're still maintaining your weight, but you're eating more food. And if this sounds like a revelation to you, or like something you never would have thought to do, because you thought you would gain all this body fat. It's definitely something that works for a ton of people. Because you're helping your body recover to the level of nutrition, it needs to be in balance. Alright, so I hope I hope that makes sense. So the way you can do this is if you're tracking, like we talked about rule number one tracking, and you're tracking your weight, then you can just gradually up the calories. While you're doing this, you want to start training and getting those steps in all of these go hand in hand to push and push and push your metabolism up to eventually it might start to plateau. Or in the case of the client I was talking about, it's still going up, which is awesome. So for him, you know, it kept going up and up and up. So we realized he was feeling great, and we were ready to go into fat loss. We weren't going to wait for it to go to some astronomical level first, we basically want to recover it to something that is enough so that when you cut your calories, you feel like yeah, I'm not going to suffer on this number of calories as I'm losing weight. So usually takes from two to eight weeks for most people. And you kind of know when you're ready when the biofeedback is all good. Like when when you're feeling good in the gym, when you are sleeping well, when you're less moody or you feel like you have more energy, those kinds of things are very important. Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, You'd be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story, or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful, and how I can improve again, and incredible. Thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode.
Philip Pape 23:08
Alright, so now we've done all of this pre work, it's time to lose the fat, it's time for fat loss. Acceleration, I call it acceleration, because we are going to be able to do it fairly quickly. Without the suffering you would do otherwise in a traditional approach. And it's going to be mostly fat. So even if it's the same rate as you went at before, the last time you dieted, you lost muscle in the process. Now you're doing what you're eating protein, you're training, you're getting steps, and you're going to hold on to that muscle. And by the way, I didn't mention when we were talking resistance training, I kind of went off on a on a ramble because I got so excited about it. I forgot to mention the the approach to resistance training without getting into a ton of detail should be one that requires progressive overload, meaning over time, each session or each week, you're adding weight to the bar to the dumbbells to the machine, or adding reps or tonnage. But usually when you're a newbie, it's its weight, you shouldn't be kind of all over the place just randomly doing exercises, you should have a good training program, usually three or four days a week for a newer lifter, that is focused on some key movements, that all work for you and your body and your mobility, and that you progressively overload over time because the goal here is to give your muscles the stimulus to actually grow. Okay, so having said that, let's talk fat loss. So remember, we have all these habits in place first. And all we're doing now is just turning the dial. As I mentioned before, this is actually the easy part once you set everything up. So what do we do from a numbers perspective? Okay, let's use an example of someone who weighs 250 pounds. I think it's a it's a good way you know if you're overweight, male, female, that's a that's a ballpark wherever a lot of where a lot of people sit. So the first rule of thumb I'm going to throw out there is to not try to lose more than 10% in one shot, meaning don't, you know, lose weight lose up to 10%. And then after that, we're going to take what's called a diet break, and I'll explain that in a bit. And then you're going to continue the fat loss. So let's say you're 250 pounds, and your goal is 200 pounds, you know, your final lean weight might be 190, or something, but just for the sake of simplicity, so I wouldn't try to just go all the way to 50 pounds, I would set the target at 25. So you're trying to go from 250 to 225. So we're going to lose 25 pounds. And we're going to do it in a reasonable deficit. And if you've heard my other podcasts, or you're familiar with the, what the science says, that's usually a quarter to 1% body weight per week, same as when I talked about bulking and cutting, it's the same range, okay, a quarter to 1% body weight per week. So in this example, for round numbers, we're going to go with point 6%, which comes out to one and a half pounds a week. Alright, so you weigh 220, or you weigh 250. And you're going to lose one and a half pounds a week. So that's going to take roughly 16 weeks. All right. And as far as calculating the one and a half pounds, that's going to have to do with the the deficit that you go into, which I wasn't going to get into details today. But just for simplicity, about a pound a week is 3500 calories. So one and a half pounds is going to be and now I don't have my calculator 3500 plus 55 5250, I think I got that, right, I don't know, it's gonna be
Philip Pape 26:39
that much divided by seven. So whatever that is, in calories, you have to eat that many calories below your maintenance. But I don't want to complicate it with all those calculations. I've got other episodes in the past that go into the numbers at nauseam. The point is, you're going to use an app or work with a coach or calculate the numbers yourself, and aim to lose one and a half pounds per week. Here's the thing, or the problem or issue or challenge. As you diet, your metabolism will decline, like we talked about earlier. And if you do nothing differently, then you're going to have to cut calories more and more as you get leaner and leaner. partly just because you weigh less, your body's burning less. But it's also starting to downregulate in general, because not that you're starving your body. But your body's not getting everything it needs for that full hormonal balance. So we've talked about, so how do we counteract that you got it steps and training, I'm gonna assume you're already training hard. So you can't really train harder on a cut. So the one thing you can do is increase your steps. So in a diet, think about how to structure your day, your week, to get an extra 2000 steps a day, or 4000 steps a day, whatever you can handle, whatever it is, you're going to have to adjust calories roughly every one to two weeks based on the rate of change. So you're trying to lose one and a half pounds a week, and you're going to weigh yourself and you're going to use the average weight, you're not just going to use the daily fluctuations. And after the first week, you've lost one and a half pounds Great. Stick with those calories. Next week, you lost only one pound. Okay, you might need to cut calories a little more. Next week, you lose two and a half pounds, okay, maybe a little more aggressive, you get you get the idea, right? We're just kind of eating it out over time. So the average is one and a half pounds a week. Okay. Now, how do we do that from a food perspective? Well, on a cut when you're losing weight, we often actually need to eat more protein than when we're gaining weight. But if you just went from very low protein in your past life to you just listen to this and you've brought your protein up to where it needs to be around one gram per pound. That's perfectly fine. I tried to push people to go to 1.2 grams per pound. The problem is that pushes out more fats and carbs. So for balance for flexibility for not suffering anywhere between point eight and 1.2 grams per pound is okay. And then the rest. The rest of the reduction comes from fat and carbs. And you might ask, Well, are we talking low carb? No, we're talking whatever you enjoy. So if you prefer fats over carbs, then the carbs will be lower. If you really like carbs, or you realize the value of carbs for energy when you work out, cut the fats. The lower the calories you have to work with and the lower fats and carbs you have to work with. It's just straight math. All right. So then what we're going to do is divide all those calories by the number of meals and snacks we need or want to have each day. So we're going to have three meals and two snacks. Well, and we've got 1800 calories to work with. Well, that might be three meals at 400 calories. That's 1200 And then two meals at 200 calories, for example. And this is what we mean by thinking ahead plus Planning and not being compulsive. And I can go off on a whole tangent about compulsive and obsessive and emotional eating, and it can be its own episode. But one of the experts in that area, I think his name is Dr. Glen Livingston. He talks about the concept of ordered and planned eating, versus compulsive eating. Meaning that one of the best ways to combat this emotional eating that a lot of us suffer from is just to plan things ahead of time. So making sure you have your day structured your meal structure, etc. To the extent you need to, right, I'm not talking about being obsessive about it, it's just what you need to execute your plan, versus just go grab what's in the cupboard. Alright, so I'm going off on tangents, hopefully, these are interesting, helpful tangents, but back to the calories, the lower the calories, the more you're gonna have to focus on high volume foods. So we talked about food selection, and we talked about restraint versus restriction. What we're talking about here is, the lower your calories are the hungry, or you're going to be if you continue to eat a lot of processed foods, for example. So I'm not telling you to cut all those out, what I'm saying is, you may have to incorporate more fruits, vegetables, when you eat dairy, like cottage cheese, or Greek yogurt, you might try the low fat version of that, you know, I know it's not as tasty. But you know, you don't have to get skim. You could get 2% Whatever, leaner cuts of meat, there's plenty of delicious meat that are lean. And by the way, chicken thighs are not as fatty as people think. So you can still have chicken thighs on a diet, trust me. Whole grains versus white grains. You know, if, if you're still gonna enjoy a bagel, fine, go get a whole grain bagel instead of weighed in and look at the difference in calories. It's a few, it's fewer calories for the whole grain version. And it might fill you up more. It's just kind of a smart decision. smart, creative decisions like this. Egg whites, egg whites are kind of disgusting in my opinion. But when you mix them with whole eggs, and you have an omelet, where there are whole eggs in there, the whites kind of just sneak in there and give you the extra protein and fewer calories, right. And then mostly unsaturated fats. So try using olive oil instead of butter while you're on a diet. Okay, I love butter as much as the next person, but you're not going to notice that big of a difference. And just try to be creative is my whole point here without necessarily restricting. Okay. So while we're going through this process, we need to monitor biofeedback, we're talking sleep, stress, hunger, energy performance recovery. I know it sounds like a lot. So like with my clients, I have them do a weekly check in. And there's ratings where they rate each of these and usually, they're all pretty good. But occasionally I'll see one come in at a three or four at a 10. You know, that's, that's a point that might be worth talking about. So you can do the same for yourself with a journal, you can do it with an app. And I would focus on the things where you have the most challenges, like for me, it's getting enough sleep. So I went out of my way to get one of those smart rings, and really have to go out of my way to to not work so hard during the day and then not sleep enough, you know, prone to get up at five and train and work and then stay up late just because I'm trying to get things done. But that's not good for my recovery, your issue might be something else, you might get super hungry at 3pm. And knowing that information will allow you to adjust things like to have more vegetables with your lunch, simple things like that, or drink more water in the afternoon. Okay, so we've talked about a lot of things, we're losing weight, we already have a really good system in place for food selection, meal timing, protein training. And by the way, if you're training and getting steps, a lot of this stuff is easier simply because you have higher calories. So don't discount that. Whereas the person next to you is just like, you know, dragging their feet, their legs feel heavy, they're cranky. They're doing all this cardio, or they're on the treadmill, and they're eating 1300 calories. You you're going and you're resistance training and going for nice walks, you're getting good sleep, and you're at 1900 calories, and you're losing more fat. That's what we want to get to. Okay, so now you've lost 10%, you're down to 225 you're feeling okay, maybe you're feeling a little bit, a little stressed or a little bit over overnighted, so to speak, because it's been 16 weeks, it's been four months. This is where we're going to take a diet break, right and a diet break is just a fancy term for stop dieting for a while. And we do that not just for recovery and for the additional calories, but for psychology. And the science actually supports the idea that the psychological component is probably the most important component because it allows you to mentally stop thinking about dieting and food and all these things and Just enjoy yourself for a while to a higher level of calories, and then continue with a fresh start. It's like when you have a vacation, right? Or when the weekend comes around, you've been working hard all week, the weekend comes around, and you get that break Monday comes around, okay, you're ready to go again? Well, most people, maybe not most people, you get the idea. It's like a vacation. So there are two ways to do a diet break. One is to do a reverse diet, like we did at the beginning, where you add a few 100 calories each week. But I prefer for a diet break to just go wham right away into what's called a recovery diet, where you just jump right up to your maintenance. So if you've been at a deficit of 600 calories a day, you're going to up your calories by 600, immediately that Monday, and you're going to stay there for maybe four to eight weeks. So we're talking about a decent amount of time, where you're going to stop your dieting on purpose, so that your metabolism can recover, you can start performing better in the gym, you're gonna feel better, everything's just gonna kind of feel a little better, and then psychologically, you get that boost. Now, if you feel completely great, after 16 weeks of dieting, and you want to keep going, and you're my client, we have that conversation Sure, we're gonna keep going potentially, this is more of a rule of thumb. Similarly, if after 12 weeks of the 16 weeks, you're just, you've had it, think about having a diet break, it could be a shorter one, it could be a one or two week diet break. It could even be what they call a refeed, which is just just a weekend. Not a binge, but a planned higher calorie weekend. Okay, but what we're talking about here is you've lost 10% of your weight, we're gonna go for a month or two at maintenance. And here's how we're going to do it. We're not going to start eating Pop Tarts, and kettle corn, although I love those things. Okay. Now, if you were already eating Pop Tarts, and kettle corn and some level as part of your diet, okay, then maybe it's not a big difference, but you get the point, we're instead going to scale up what we were eating. That's all we're going to do. So if we're going to add 600 or 1000 calories. And I'm looking at the comments, avocado Yeah, love avocado and a shirt that's taking some saturated, go for it. We're going to scale up our foods. So we're going to stick with the avocado oil, the olive oil, egg whites, the low fat, dairy, all these things mixed in with the delicious things. So it's a nice balanced diet, and we're just going to scale them up. So if you are normally having two eggs, you're going to have three if you normally have eight ounces of meat, now you're going to have 12 ounces of meat, so you get the idea. And this is to avoid completely changing
Philip Pape 37:39
our mindset in the middle of the diet where we still have more dieting to go. The the more process palatable foods, those will come later once you get to the leanness where you want. Those will come later when we talk about bulking and the opportunity for some extra indulgences. But the nice thing about a diet break is you scale up and you still have some room for these indulgences, you'll have some room for what I call planned indulgences. So this could be your glass of wine, or your ice cream on the weekend or that slice of pizza. If you know you're going to a party or an event or holiday event, you know thinking ahead and planning for what you're going to eat. And I like the strategy I like to use for example is if you know you're gonna binge not binge, if you know you're going to have a party on the weekend, and it's gonna be mainly fats and carbs we know it's gonna be then eat your protein in the morning, almost exclusively protein and save the rest of the fats and carbs for the night, or eat fewer calories during the week, and then scale up the calories on the weekend. Alright, but I digress. My point here is we're taking a diet break, we're getting everything back, excuse me back to normal. And that's going to take about four to eight weeks. So now we're 225 pounds, we're gonna rinse and repeat that entire process of the reasonable caloric deficit. And you might find, you might find that your metabolism is at a state now. And you're so used to dieting now that you could go more aggressively, you might be able to maybe not, your lighter, your metabolism might be lower, maybe not depends on the individual. So you do that again, and you get to 200 and boom, you're at your target weight. And notice how we got there. We didn't get there just by cutting calories right off the bat and suffering we got there by getting us into the healthiest state we could possibly get. And then quickly losing the fat holding on to the muscle. And now we are in a state where we can possibly maintain this 200 pound weight on more calories than we used to have at 250 pounds. And you can understand the logic of how we got there because of the training because of the steps because of the protein. So now you have think about this you have lifelong habits in place. You've lost mostly fat while preserving muscle. You're now training you know how to manage food quality food selection, timing meal timing intake, you have all these skills in place, so that you can just turn the dial whenever you want, you can turn it up or down. And then you can start having fun with advanced strategies like cutting and bulking. Okay, and I went through this myself, after years and years of chronic dieting, finally figured out, oh, there's a way to control this process, and make it not suffer and get to a level of leanness that you'd never really been to before. With more calories, a true state of health. Now, I can actually intentionally gain weight while building muscle, which is something most people never even consider. So normal normal rebounds, where you just gain fat, your body composition has improved. And best of all, you have confidence. This is really about skills and confidence, to have control of the process of what goes in your mouth of what your body looks like, feels like. And then now you can play with your kids play with your family, you know, do those things you want to do up into old age. And that's really what we all want. And And last but not least, you basically know what the heck you're doing in the world of nutrition and fat loss. So that is how you lose significant weight sustainably for long term results. So I hope that was helpful. I know there's a lot to cover. And there's probably a lot of other topics I didn't cover. So if you have questions or follow up, please reach out to me, I'm going to provide a short blueprint or pdf of all of these steps. In the Facebook group. If you if you're in there, just reach out I'll put out a post asking if anybody wants it. If you need someone to give you accountability, because I know this is a lot. And you want that external motivation. You want that guidance to successfully to sustainably lose fat using the process we just covered. Reach out to me reach out to me I do one on one nutrition and lifestyle coaching. But I'm happy to answer questions for free you know, I'm not going to charge you just to answer a question. Just DM me @witsandweights on Instagram or Facebook, or you can go to witsandweights.com/coaching. So if you're interested in coaching, it's a six month program, which as you learn today is kind of the timeframe we need to restore your metabolism, accelerate fat loss from a better starting point and integrate these changes into your lifestyle. So you what you get with that is one on one strategy calls, weekly check ins private group access 24/7 Direct Message access to me in our professional app, whenever you have questions or issues. I also offer a guarantee that if you don't achieve the results we want by the end of six months, I will continue working with you for free until we do because I'm confident we will get you the results if you also put in the work. So again, just DM me on Instagram @witsandweights weights or Facebook, or go to witsandweights.com/coaching. And if this training was helpful, or if you have questions, just comment on the video, click the link in the show notes or email me at philip@witsandweights.com And I wish you the best in your fat loss journey.
Philip Pape 43:04
Thank you so much for joining me today. Before you go, I do have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast, just let me know by leaving a review in Apple podcasts. This will help others find the podcast in search results, which makes a huge difference. Thanks again for joining me, your host Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.
Ep 24: Science Says - Protein Distribution to Increase Muscle Mass
In our first “Science Says” episode, we answer the question: Can we build more muscle mass by evenly distributing protein throughout the day (primarily by increasing protein at breakfast if it is low to begin with)?
This is our first "Science Says" episode, where we break down a single recent article relevant to the fitness (lifting, nutrition, health) industry and strategies you can apply right away based on what the science says.
Today's article is "Evenly distributed protein intake over 3 meals augments resistance exercise–induced muscle hypertrophy in healthy young men" by Yasuda, et al. (2020).
The main question is, can we build more muscle mass by evenly distributing protein throughout the day (primarily by increasing protein at breakfast if it is low to begin with)?
RELATED LINKS
Yasuda, J., Tomita, T., Arimitsu, T., & Fujita, S. (2020). Evenly distributed protein intake over 3 meals augments resistance exercise–induced muscle hypertrophy in healthy young men. The Journal of Nutrition, 150(7), 1845-1851.
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:08
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable diet. I'm your host, Philip pape, and in each episode will examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
Philip Pape 00:31
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. Today is the first episode of what I'm calling science says, where I go over a single research article relevant to the fitness lifting health nutrition industry, and break it down. We'll go over the methodology, the results, and how you can apply that to your life and gain value from what the science says. And I would like to give credit where credit is due. Because I will be referring with many of these episodes, to a research review being published by Dr. Bill Campbell. And he just started this a few months ago. If you're not familiar with a research review, it's what it sounds like an expert in the industry. And Dr. Campbell definitely qualifies as that breaks down a scientific article for you with a summary of the relevant aspects of the study. Like the participants, the methodology, the process, the results, the some of the statistical findings, and then what we can learn from it, what we can gain from it. And what I like about Dr. Campbell's review, it's called body by science is that he also invites two experts, these might be coaches, physique athletes, power lifters, what have you to break down the results and discuss how they would apply it to their clients and how you can apply it in your life. So today, I'm actually going over the very first study published in that review, and a study is called evenly distributed protein intake over three meals augments resistance exercise induced muscle hypertrophy in healthy young men, by your SUTA in 2020. And the main question it was trying to answer is, how should we divide protein across our meals throughout the day, most people who are not intentionally trying to get a lot of protein tend to have more protein toward dinner, he might have very little if any, at breakfast, some at lunch, maybe in a sandwich, for example. And then quite a bit at dinner, or at least the majority of the protein at dinner. But as we've talked about many times, we are trying to eat quite a bit more protein than the average person, something around 0.7 to 1.2 grams per pound. And so to do that, one of the basic ideas basic concepts is to just divide that across X number of meals. So if we have to have 160 grams of protein, and we're going to eat four times, we have to shoot for 40 grams of protein per meal. So the question this study was trying to address is, what if you have more protein at breakfast? What if you have a very high protein breakfast, can you build more muscle, and this was performed on as the title suggests, males in the early 20s. And they were not resistance trained. They were 26 Total in sample. So all of the all of the participants actually started resistance training as part of the study. It was a 12 week program. And they were split into two groups, one that had a high protein breakfast, and one that had a low protein breakfast, they log their food intake at the beginning and then at the end. And just to be clear, the group's ate roughly the same amount of calories around 2500. And about the same amount of protein about 90 to 100 grams of protein. And the only difference was the high versus low protein breakfast. And the researchers
Philip Pape 04:10
reported a fairly high adherence to this protocol. So I would say that they did a pretty good job of accounting for potential confounders, such that the variable of interest whether the high protein breakfast caused a difference in muscle gain, could be sussed out from the research and you could make a claim that potentially there's a correlation or causation there. As far as what the resistance training program looked like, it was a three day per week program. With three upper body exercises and two lower body exercises. It was two by 10. So two sets of 10 of each movement, and then one more set within AMRAP as many reps as possible. The researchers use DEXA to measure their change in body count.
Philip Pape 05:00
Opposition. And I've talked before about the the challenges with the quality of measuring body fat using just about any method. There's always a little bit of error that's there. But the idea is if you can control the environment, if you can control the conditions, from one to the next, use the same manufacturer use the exact same equipment, in fact, which they probably did in the study, that at least the relative change has some validity to it. So what were the results? Well, turns out that both groups gained a lot of muscle mass. All right, so good news. For those of us who want to resistance train and eat protein, you will gain muscle. Great. All right? Well, that's not the question the study was trying to answer. However, the question was, would you gain more muscle if you had a higher protein breakfast. And it turns out that the high protein breakfast group gained five and a half pounds of muscle mass, the low protein breakfast group gained 3.9 pounds of muscle mass. Now, this was a 40% difference. But according to the researchers, it did not pass the threshold of statistical significance, which in this case, was a p value of less than 0.05. For anybody who's familiar with statistics, but it was close to being statistically significant. And there's another statistical measure they use called the Cohen's d effect size, which was large in this study. And then the authors, the researchers interpreted that as the group of the higher protein breakfast, gain more muscle mass than the group of the lower protein breakfast. Now, does this mean you need to eat more protein in your breakfast, that's not what they're saying, what they're saying is, you should, if you don't get very much protein in your breakfast today, eating more, and having a protein more evenly distributed, could be better for muscle building, for those of us who already spread our protein out and eat roughly the same, it does not suggest that you can eat an even larger protein breakfast and have more muscle mass. So I want to make that clear. Basically, it's saying it's validating something we talked about a lot, which is you should spread out your protein and get a decent amount somewhere close to the average, do the best you can at your four or five meals throughout the day. Now there were some limitations of the study. And the one that I want to clue in on is the fact that the total protein that The participants ate was around point six, five grams, which is quite a bit less than we recommend. It's not even in that range of point seven to 1.2, that I often talk about. And despite that, they were still able to gain a decent amount of muscle mass. So imagine what they could have done with even more protein. This might raise one more question for you then, okay, if I have to distribute my protein evenly throughout the day, how do I do that. And I always recommend thinking of your of your meals as meals and snacks. Your Meals would be things like breakfast, lunch and dinner, where you have a decent amount of calories in each meal. And you can often include a Whole Foods source of protein, be it eggs, lean meat, dairy, and then you would have one or two snacks. And at those snacks, you can use more convenient forms of protein. And those would often be dairy like cottage cheese, or Greek yogurt. But it could also be protein shakes, or even a protein bar. But I prefer less processed forms of food if possible. So the rule of thumb would be three meals with protein, and then one or two snacks with maybe dairy or a protein shake. Now where people find this challenging, are in a couple of scenarios. One scenario is when you simply don't eat very many meals, maybe you come from a background of time restricted feeding or intermittent fasting, and you are used to eating twice or three times. And all of a sudden, I'm asking you to eat 150 grams of protein, well, it's gonna be very hard to have 75 grams of protein in two meals, versus having three or four meals at something like 40 grams of protein. Another challenge is if you eat too close to each other, if your meals are not spaced far enough apart, you may get full, you may not feel like eating that much protein. And then the solution is to space them farther apart. You might even have one snack that doesn't have protein, and then more protein at the other meals. So it's not as filling. And then finally, if you have too many meals and your protein target isn't exceptionally high, like maybe for a smaller female, my only concern there would be if you spread them out too thin and have too low of a protein threshold at every single meal. We'd like to hit that roughly 25 Maybe even 30 grams, and the older you get even a little bit higher at a single meal. So again, in that case, I would opt for one of the meals or snacks having quite a bit less protein and giving that to another so that you have the 25 or 30 grams and you can hit that muscle proteins
Philip Pape 10:00
synthesis threshold. So that's it for the first episode of Science says, Again the study that was reviewed is evenly distributed protein intake over three meals augments resistance exercise induced muscle hypertrophy in healthy young men by Yasuda 2020. I'll include the link in the show notes. I'll also include a link to body by science, the research review that I subscribe to, I highly recommend it. And as always, if you liked the show, please let others know. Give it a five star review. Reach out to me with questions, or just to say hi, and I will always get back to you with an answer or a high right back. Stay strong. Thank you so much for joining me today. Before you go, I do have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast, just let me know by leaving a review in Apple podcasts. This will help others find the podcast in search results, which makes a huge difference. Thanks again for joining me, your host Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.
Ep 23: How to Minimize Fat Gain and Get Lean with Cuts and Bulks
If you could be in a calorie surplus for three-quarters of the year and constantly get leaner, would that appeal to you? You’re going to learn how to periodize your nutrition with cut and bulk cycles to get leaner and leaner by minimizing fat gain while maximizing muscle gain.
If you could be in a calorie surplus for three-quarters of the year and constantly get leaner, would that appeal to you?
Today’s topic is something that ended my many, repeated unproductive cycles of crash dieting and changed my mindset to one of abundance, performance, improved body composition, a better relationship with food, and sustainable results.
You’re going to learn how to periodize your nutrition with cut and bulk cycles to get leaner and leaner by minimizing fat gain while maximizing muscle gain.
Why do we periodize our nutrition anyway? Why use so-called cut and bulk cycles?
Why not just lose a bunch of weight and then maintain? Or gain a bunch of muscle and maintain? Or gain muscle and lose fat at the same time (the holy grail known as body recomposition)?
Because our biology has thrown us a curveball. When you lose weight, you DO lose fat but you ALSO lose some muscle. Conversely, when you gain weight, you do gain muscle but also gain some fat.
Therefore, why don’t we focus intelligently on ONE GOAL AT A TIME and MAXIMIZE our results for that goal?
That’s exactly what today’s discussion is about!
RELATED LINKS
Join our Facebook community if you'd rather watch the video
MacroFactor diet sidekick (use discount code WITSANDWEIGHTS)
🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you shred fat, build strength, feel energized, and project confidence in your career and relationships without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions.
👉 Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to connect with me.
👥 To join our Facebook community for live training, free guides, free challenges, and more, just click here.
🙋♀️ HOW TO ASK A QUESTION FOR THE SHOW
👉 If you have any questions, just click here.
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:08
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable diet. I'm your host, Philip pape, and in each episode will examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition. Welcome to another episode of weights and weights. We are also streaming this live on Facebook. So if you want to watch for your future episodes live, just join our Facebook group using the link in the show notes. As always, I am your host, Philip pape, I'm the founder of Wits & Weights, nutrition coaching. And if you enjoy the show, if you enjoy the podcast or the videos and you find it valuable, educational, maybe mildly entertaining, please consider submitting a five star review for the podcast, or share the group to make sure others can find the show. And they could also benefit from the content as you have. Also, if you know someone who could use some of these strategies that we share, to work on their fitness goals, their health and fitness goals, you find an episode that they'll really enjoy, tell them about the podcast, you can take a screenshot of the episode, tagging it with some weights and post it to your story. Okay, let's jump into today's topic, which I'm very excited about, which is how to minimize fat gain and get lean using cuts and bulks. Now if I told you that you could be in a calorie surplus for most of the year for three quarters of the year, and constantly get leaner over the years, would that appeal to you? I know if I talk to my 20 something year old self, I would have found that unbelievable, but would have jumped at the chance. I just didn't know what I was doing back then. And I've learned a lot in the intervening years. So today's topic is near. And dear to me. It's something that ended many, many repeated unproductive cycles of Crash dieting. It changed my mindset to one of abundance, one of performance, improved body composition. I think it even improved my relationship with food. And of course it resulted in something sustainable that I could take with me the rest of my life. So today I'm going to show you we're going to learn how to periodize your nutrition with cut in bulk cycles to get leaner and leaner by minimizing fat gain while maximizing muscle gain. Now why do we periodized our nutrition anyway in the first place? You know why you so called cuts and bulks. Which by the way are the kind of the bro science terms that people are familiar with. I prefer to call them Fat Loss and Muscle Building phases. But cuts and bolts are easy to remember. So they're handy shortcuts that we can use. But why not lose a bunch of weight and just stay there, you know, it sounds easy, right? Lose a bunch of weight and just maintain it or gain a bunch of muscle and maintain it or gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. The Holy Grail that we call body re composition. The main reason is that our biology has thrown us a curveball. So assuming you're doing everything right, and you're past the initial newbie gains, when you lose weight, you do lose fat, but you also lose some muscle, it's just a cruel reality of life. Conversely, when you gain weight, you do gain muscle, but you also gain some fat. So again, this is if you're doing everything right, in terms of nutrition, training, and recovery. Now, this is one of the frustrating contradictions of the human body, that gaining muscle losing fat accompanies gaining fat and losing muscle. So therefore, here's the thing, why don't we just focus on one goal at a time and maximize our results for that goal. And that's exactly what today's discussion is about.
Philip Pape 04:02
So let's get some assumptions out of the way. Alright, for the purposes of today's discussion, I'm going to assume you're not brand new to this, you're not a total beginner, and that you've already dialed in to areas tracking and training. Alright, we'll explain why I will explain that if you're not there, what we can do about it first. So tracking firt The first thing is that you know how to hit a specific calorie and macro target consistently on most days. And that includes knowing what it's like to eat enough protein, right, which a lot of people don't eat enough protein. If you've never tracked before. If you haven't quite developed your consistency with this. I would focus on that before anything else. So I would work on establishing your true maintenance, your true calories where you don't gain weight based on that number of calories that you burn each day. And then dialing in the right macro balance regularly and consistently until you try to get into these. Moreover, strategies. So you can go back and listen to earlier episodes of the podcast. Or you can even reach out to me about coaching and we can help you get there. So that's tracking, the second is training. So this assumes you're already resistance training or strength training, you know how to go to the gym three, four or five days a week, on an individualized program based on progressive overload. You know how to train hard to get the proper stimulus for strength and muscle growth, you're using the proper rest periods, you're getting enough sleep. Again, if you're not training or doing it consistently, or if all you do is something like CrossFit, or lots of intense cardio or high intensity endurance base work, without strength training, using progressive overload. Or let's say you only get four hours of sleep a night and aren't recovering, go back. And let's straighten these out and nail these down. As part of our habits before we go into cuts and books. And again, we you could reach out to me anytime, I'd be happy to get you on a path to success in these areas before going to this level. But if you are educated about tracking your macros and resistance training, then everything we talked about here regarding nuts and bolts, applies to you. And if it doesn't, that's all right, enjoy it soak in the information, so you know what the future holds. But make sure to cover the basics. So with that said, let's first outline what happens when we lose weight. And when we gain weight. And then we'll get into the actionable strategies. So first, when losing weight, which is what we're going to call cutting, from now on, to imply that we are intentionally trying to cut fat, not just lose weight. Alright, so when we lose weight, when we're cutting, we lose fat, but we also lose some muscle. However, we can bias that toward losing mostly muscle, or I'm sorry, toward losing mostly fat by doing everything possible to preserve or hold on to the muscle. And to do this, we have to prioritize three things, a reasonable caloric deficit, training, and protein. So as far as the deficit, a reasonable caloric deficit, that is not too aggressive, we're talking a quarter to 1% of your body weight per week, right, and we're gonna repeat these as we go along. But a reasonable deficit. Number two, you have to be resistance training, with enough sleep for recovery. And then number three, you have to have sufficient protein. And when you're cutting sufficient proteins around a gram, per pound of your target body weight, or a little bit more than that. So let's say you are 200 pounds, that's around 200 grams of protein, maybe a little more than that. If you weigh 250, and you're trying to cut to 200, I would still use the target body weight as your baseline around 200 grams. So it's simple, right? Just don't, don't lose weight too fast. Keep training as if you can still build muscle, eat lots of protein. Easy right? Now, we're going to come back to this. Alright, so that's losing weight. Let's talk gaining weight, which we're going to call bulking from now on. to imply that we're intentionally working to pack on or bulk on muscle to gain strength and size, we don't just want to get fat, right, we want to actually gain muscle. And for the for the women listening if you prefer the word toning to bulking feel free to keep that image in your mind because that is the end result, a more lean, defined figure, because you have improved body composition, even at a higher weight. And that's what we're going to get into here. So when gaining weight, we can either gain mostly fat, or a combination of fat and muscle. So just as a hypothetical, if we wanted to gain mostly fat, which is not something that I've ever heard anyone want to do intentionally in my life, but hear me out to gain mostly fat, we need to basically live our lives, like a typical American now I'm an American. So that's that's my frame of reference, but we're talking low protein, a sedentary lifestyle, no resistance training. Alright, and I wanted to start with this premise, because it's behind what Layne Norton termed body fat overshooting. So this is where every time you lose, and then regained weight. Without protein or resistance training, you first lose some muscle, and then you primarily gain fat back. So in other words, you get fatter and fatter at the same weight over repeated cycles of dieting, where you're not eating enough protein or straight train and when I say fat, I don't mean in size, I mean body composition, meaning your body fat percentage becomes greater and greater proportion of your overall mass. So now to flip this around, if we want to maximize muscle gain, even though we're going to gain some fat, but not nearly as much, we have to prioritize three things. First, a reasonable caloric surplus that is not too aggressive. So it's just the opposite side of the coin. And reasonable means point one to a quarter percent of your weight per week. So that's about 1% per month. So now when we talked about cutting, we said it was about 1% per week. On the upside. bulking is about a quarter that rate up to 1% a month, unless you're very new to this, and you could push it a little bit more up to maybe one and a half percent a month. So that's number one. Number two is resistance training with proper sleep for recovery. And number three is sufficient protein. So when you're, when you're bulking you don't need quite as much protein as when you're cutting. But still, we hover around one gram per pound of your target body weight. So I want to focus a little on the bulking side, because I think that that is maybe the most misunderstood and feared part of transforming your body. And I think a lot of this stems from the fear we have of intentionally gaining weight, right? It's a crazy notion for most people walking around this planet that you would intentionally getting away. Crazy, right? It seems to go counter to everything society's telling us, you think of the rampant obesity epidemic. And this incessant focus on thinness, weight loss, body image, the misplaced idea that somehow skinny is sexy, all of these kind of just topsy turvy notions we have. But remember, you as the listener here are not like the average American you are resistance training, or you will be you're eating enough protein, or you will be and you are into your intelligently gaining or losing weight at a reasonable rate.
Philip Pape 11:36
And I just want to take a quick pause and think and ask you to think why do we even do this? Why do we care? Is it all vanity? Is it to look good? Is it to feel good? And by the way? There's no shame in saying yes to any or all of these? Is it to improve your health markers, your cholesterol, your blood pressure? Is it to live longer and enjoy a more functional life? Is it to be able to eat more food and not have to restrict all the time? And the answer is yes, yes to all the above and many more reasons that you might be able to come up with. So if you go through reasonable cuts and bulks, you don't gain a ton of fat, or lose a ton of muscle. There's no disadvantage from a health perspective that I am aware of in improving your body composition, I can't see a disadvantage to this. It's pretty much upside, whether you're talking aesthetics, longevity, or performance. So let's explore what happens when we intentionally eat in a surplus while we train to gain muscle. So these are this is what's going on. So you have to be aware of these facts, and then you know how to make the decisions afterwards. The first fact of life is that you will absolutely gain some fat, okay, that's just we have to just be honest about it, you are going to gain some fat while bulking, it's unavoidable unless you use a very conservative surplus. And in that case, it's going to take you years to gain muscle, if at all, which is just a losing proposition. So my guess is that you want the results a little bit faster than that, you know, not, not two decades from now. But gaining a bit of fat is okay, because it's much easier to lose the fat than the gain the muscle. So remember that kind of like it's much, it's much easier to spend your money than to earn money, right? Building muscle requires enough calories to actually produce a muscle building or what we call anabolic environment. And I want to talk about this for a second. When you're going from a cut to a bulk, it's like turning a big ship around, it takes time for the increase in calories to signal to your body that it needs to start building back strength and size. And the first two, maybe even three months is just getting back to your original baseline. After that is when you start to get the momentum of additional PRs in the gym, additional muscle mass additional size we're talking months, four or five, six. Okay? So because it takes that long, you need to eat enough. But you also need to remain in that surplus for a decent amount of time, which is about six to nine months or longer. And if you're watching this, and you were that was the answer, you were looking for that you get to bulk and eat a lot of food for a long time, then I'm telling you that's the answer. None of this, you know, bulk for three months, I feel like I'm getting fat and I'm going to do a mini cut bulk for three months I'm getting fat mini cut, that is just a hamster wheel that's going to take you nowhere. So I give you permission to bulk for a decent amount of time, about three quarters of the year longer. Here's the thing though, the longer you stay in that surplus, the more fat you'll gain. So there's some contradictory forces at play. And we need to inject these short fat loss or cutting phases the cycles between or much longer bulking cycles to strip off that that, but without threatening too much muscle loss, because that's the other side of the coin people get caught in is cutting for too long. So based on how the math works out, that's about a two to one to four to one ratio of bulking to cutting, depending on how lean you want to get and how quickly. So if you're bulking for six to nine months, you would cut for about three months. Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story, or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful, and how I can improve again, and incredible. Thank you for supporting the podcast, and enjoy the rest of the episode. Alright, so now let's talk about a few mistakes people make. The first mistake I alluded to already is not bulking long enough. You know, you notice the belt getting a little tighter, you notice the pants are a bit tight, your abs disappear, you start to freak out, you look in the mirror. And of course, we're our worst critic, and we just absolutely don't like what we see. And we say we need to cut. But when you do that, when you cut prematurely, you just don't give your body enough time in that anabolic environment. And then you end up just wasting all those months to get basically no results.
Philip Pape 16:27
The second mistake is the other end of the spectrum, which is bulking too aggressively. So earlier, I mentioned that you have to bulk at a reasonable rate of about point one to a quarter percent body weight per week, which is half to 1% per month. And if you're less advanced, you can push it a little faster to maybe one and a half percent per month. But any faster than that. And you're just gonna gain more fat, pure and simple. You can't speed up the muscle building process. Some people try to do it things like dreamer box where you go on the seafood diet and you eat everything you see. Or, you know, the bodybuilding lore of quick gains. But a lot of these guys are taking drugs. So neither of those apply to us, we need to go to reasonable rate. So we don't add too much fat, but we maximize muscle gain. And then the opposite is true that if you try to do a lean gain, we've probably heard that phrase lean gain and you're barely in a caloric surplus, it's just going to take forever, we talked about that before. And then you're still not going to get results. So we've covered what happens when you cut in bulk. We've covered the importance of training hard, eating enough protein using a reasonable rate of change. So what do we do with this information? All right, I want to walk you through an actionable process that we can follow. So the first step is to pick a lower and upper body fat percentage, where you feel comfortable, that you're going to stay within for your cut in bulk cycles. So we talked about the fact that you should already be training and tracking. But let's say you're still quite a bit overweight, you haven't quite gotten in, in view of your eventual settling point for the weight you want to be at. Alright, so you you want to you want to eventually get there. Alright, so let's say you're 250. And you really want to hover between 150 and 200, we're gonna have to spend time cutting for a while doing maintenance phases to reverse out of that cut, cutting some more and continuing back and forth until we get down to that, that lean range that we want to be in. So that's kind of outside the scope of today's discussion, and it's a little bit more of a beginner thing. That's where I would start my clients who have weight to lose, I wouldn't get them in the cuts and books, they have that actually favorable store of body fat already to work from that allow them to get some body recomp going. But we're not talking about that scenario. So let's assume you if you're a male, you're in spitting distance of 20% body fat, which is kind of slightly fluffy, I guess we can call it or, you know, you're starting to get where it's maybe a slightly unhealthy weight, but not really. So and for females, we would add about 10%. And then you pick the low end that you'd be comfortable going to without getting to a point where you're starving yourself or feeling like you're suffering. And that's usually between 10 and 20%. For me again for males just add 10% For females, but you might want a tighter window like 12 to 18% So meaning first step is to pick the range of body fat you want to settle within. And if this is your first time don't aim for body builder level leanness don't try to go sub 10% if you're male, alright, just pick something like 12 or 13%. Now, what does this look like if you don't want to measure if you don't want to use tools like that or devices? Just pick the level at where you might see your abs. That that's a good Good point, right and that that's a good measure for most people. And then on the other end, it's the level where you just feel like you're starting to get a little fat. I mean, let's use subjective things. This is all about what works for us, and works within our lifestyle, and something that we think we can live with. So we're not trying to use DEXA scans and you know, bod pods and water dunk tanks here. Now, I would use progress photos first. But if you're into data and you're into measurements, I would suggest googling the Navy formula, where you can just use a few tape measurements to measure your body fat percentage, and then track it over time. And I wouldn't trust the number, but I would definitely trust the trend. So you know, when you get to the leanest you want to be, and when you get to the heaviest you want to be, you'll kind of have a good idea of what that body fat percentage is for you. So that's, that's step one, I spent a lot long time talking about it. But the goal is to pick a range, it might be 12, to 18%, that you want to live within.
Philip Pape 21:01
The next thing you're going to do is cut to your lower target. So if you're currently a 16%, body fat and your targets 12, you know, your target is I want to see my abs, then you cut to that point, okay, and again, not like totally ripped and jacked and striated with vascularity, but I can see my abs. And so what are we going to do? Well, we're going to use a rate of a quarter to 1% of your body weight per week, like we've mentioned multiple times. Now, depending on how fast you want to lose it, how long you want it to take, how much you have to lose, and how few calories you can handle in your diet within your lifestyle. So we're gonna go with a simple example. Again, this is all from a male perspective. But same thing applies for females, let's say you weigh 180, and you want to lose 10 pounds to get to that 12%. And we're gonna pick half a percent a week, kind of in the middle. So that's about a 12 week cut, three month cut, which is totally reasonable. So you're gonna lose 10 pounds over three months. Alright, so now you are at your baseline leanness, here's where the fun begins. And now we can begin the bulk. Right. And the bulk should be anywhere from six to nine months or longer at something like a quarter percent body weight per week. But there's there's a caveat I want to talk about real quick here. When you go from a cut to a bulk, and this trips, a lot of people up, you will gain around five pounds in the first few weeks. And if you've never done this before, you won't, you won't, you might freak out, right. And if you have done it, you'll be used to it. But you've got fluid retention, glycogen, gut content, just from all those extra calories coming in. Now, if you use an app like macro factor, which is the food login app, I use, shameless plug discount code, WITSANDWEIGHTS, go download it, the algorithm in that app is designed to accommodate these fluctuations, so you don't really have to game the system or anything. And you can use something like the moving average of your weight, and then push past your goal weight. So if your goal is to gain 10 pounds, you're really going to push to like 184 185 on the scale, where the average has gotten up to about 180. Okay, that 10 pounds, so I'm throwing a lot of numbers at you. But just to simplify, you've gone from 170. Okay, you're gonna bulk for 26 weeks, which is six months. And accounting for that initial weight bump, which you kind of ignore, meaning you're trying to gain 10 pounds on top of that weight bump, you'll be at around 184 pounds. All right, now think about it, we started at 180, we got down to 170. To start. Now we're back up to 184, it's a little bit higher than where we were before the cut. And really, it's about the same because you have that extra weight. However, a good chunk of that 14 pounds, maybe three to six pounds, maybe a little more, if you're newer is muscle. Okay, that's the key here you are training hard, you eat enough protein, most of that a lot of that weight gain is muscle versus the average person who just over eats in their day to day sedentary life, it's all fat. So now you've gained maybe three to six, seven pounds of muscle and then the rest of its fat. Now we go the other direction, we're going to cut for three months. Okay, and after you've cut for three months, you're going to be a leaner version of yourself and likely at a higher weight. And now this kind of blows people's want people's minds as well when you think of the math but if you are here to start and you're here afterward, but more of that is muscle, then the percentage of the weight that's muscle is higher, therefore the percentage of fat is lower. So you've you've actually gained some fat and a lot of muscle as you bulk. And then when you cut you don't really lose muscle but you lose some fat right. So your overall you know addition of the two gets you to be slightly heavier than you were before. But you're at a leaner body fat percentage. That's how you look leaner. So you started at 170. Over nine months, you went from 170, to maybe 175. But all that five pounds, or most of it was muscle. Right. So it's kind of like magic, it's waving a magic wand. And there you go. extra muscle on your frame. It took nine months, but it was a fun nine months, because most of it you got to eat, that that's the part I enjoy, eat and train and make progress in the gym, right? So throughout the nine months, your weight fluctuated by somewhere around 15, maybe 20 pounds. And if you do this slightly more aggressively, or if you're a larger person, you could fluctuate by as much as 20 to 30 pounds. But the end result. And this is what we're looking for. The end result is you're adding desirable health promoting muscle tissue to your frame.
Philip Pape 25:59
Pretty cool, right? Alright, some final thoughts and things to watch out for. Alright, so I'm just kind of doing a lessons learned here to make sure we've covered everything. The first one is that I wouldn't go much beyond the body fat level you feel comfortable with, and is healthy for metabolic markers like blood pressure and cholesterol. And this is probably around the low 20 percents for males. And you'll know this if you get regular bloodwork. And I encourage you to do that don't just wait for your annual physical or if you don't get an annual physical and it's been years, I would get bloodwork it's pretty inexpensive. Get it when you're at your leanest, and get it when you're heavier. And you will see how these numbers change. And why it's important to kind of stay in that healthy weight range. So I wouldn't go much beyond that unless you have a specific goal, like you're a power lifter, and you need to push it for performance purposes. But then you're going to cut it, I would stay around that upper limit, or no more than the upper limit. The next thing is, as we've talked about, on other episodes, metabolic adaptation, so metabolic adaptation sets in at the extremes of both cutting and bulking, right, so when you cut, and you cut, and you cut and cut, and you start to get really lean, your metabolism just starts to drop, no matter what I mean, you have to put in a lot of steps, maybe get more active, and it just keeps dropping, dropping, dropping to the calories are just unsustainable. Again, unless you're a bodybuilder. But the opposite happens when you're walking, your metabolism actually starts to climb, climb, climb, and you get eventually get to the point you're like, I can't even eat another, you know, piece of food today, how can I possibly 30 504,040 500 calories. So we're trying to avoid these points of diminishing returns again, unless you're an athlete with a specific goal. Now, if you like making gains in the gym, raise your hand. If you like making gains in the gym, it's much more fun to be in a nice long, steady bulk for three quarters of the year or longer. And then, and then you can get the cut over quickly. Here's a little hack. All right, to make this all work even better. Consider timing these cycles so that your bulk overlaps the indulgent part of the year the in the US it's the end of the year holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, my birthday happens to be in October. So bam, I've got three straight months of enjoyment when it comes to food within my plan and per my, my calories and macros and all that. But if I time my bulk at that time of year, it's it's less restrictive than if I were trying to cut it that time of year. And then you could have your cut coincide with the spring going into summer, or vice versa in the southern hemisphere for my friends down in Australia, right and that's if you're going for that six pack look or whatever, you just want to feel better for the beach. Again, no shame in that. And then there's a lot we didn't cover today. There's a lot of nuances like carbon protein timing, distributing protein throughout your day for muscle protein synthesis, a lot of nuances that we cover them in other episodes. We'll cover them in this community. And of course, again, a shameless plug a good coach can help with all of those as well. Alright, so let's recap to make a long story that hopefully wasn't too rambling and you found valuable. Let's make it short here. All right, number one, train hard. Always train hard, pretty much train hard the rest of your life. It's fun. Once you get used to it, you get good at it. You're just gonna feel great. And of course it helps you build muscle train hard. Number two, get enough sleep.
Philip Pape 29:43
This is like the most neglected aspect of nutrition in my opinion. Even I struggle with this a lot because we don't give it as much credit as it deserves. But getting enough sleep. Number three eat your protein. Roughly one gram per pound of your target body weight. You know you could you You can play games with this and find perfect numbers. But that's that's the ballpark number four. Cut until you're reasonably lean. Do you like what you see in the mirror? Are you comfortable with yourself? Are you at a level where the calories are okay, you know, whatever your goal is, get to that point of leanness. And then you start your bulk. So that's number five bulk for at least six months, at a quarter to 1% per week. Number six, you then cut for around three months at point one to a quarter percent per week, rinse and repeat, become strong, become lean, conquer the world. All right. So that's what I have for you today. Last but not least, if you are interested in getting accountability, and support to finally achieve, and not just achieve, but sustain your results. I do offer one on one coaching where we can develop an individualized plan just for you to help you improve body composition. Like we talked about today, with all the nuances for you. You can DM me on Instagram or Facebook and go to witsandweights.com/coaching. And the way it works, it's a six month program. Because we need that time to establish the foundation for success. We want to get you going on these periodized phases so that you can learn to keep those results for the rest of your life. It includes nutrition, and lifestyle coaching weekly check ins by recorded video, weekly live called Office Hours access to our Private Client Group live training calls and 24/7 Unlimited direct message access to me. So you can ask me questions whenever you need to. And then best of all, here's the thing I guarantee that if you don't achieve results by the end of six months, I will work with you absolutely for free until you do, because that's how confident I am. That we will get it done. We'll get it done together. So again, just DM me on Instagram at Woods and weights or Facebook, or go to witsandweights.com/coaching The process is quick and easy. I asked a few questions, see if we're a good fit to work together. Your situation has to work with the type of clients I'm able to help and if it is, I'll invite you to join my coaching program and we'll get started. If you found this helpful, if you have any questions, just comment on the video, click the link in the show notes or email me at Philip at witsandweights.com and stay strong. Thank you so much for joining me today. Before you go I do have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast, just let me know by leaving a review in Apple podcasts. This will help others find the podcast in search results, which makes a huge difference. Thanks again for joining me, your host Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.
Ep 22: How to FINALLY Achieve (and Keep) Your Fat Loss and Fitness Results
This episode is all about achieving LASTING results: finding that place where you no longer have to yo-yo diet, jump from one program to another, or feel like the only way to success is severe calorie restriction, excessive cardio, or short-term transformations.
This episode is all about achieving LASTING results: finding that place where you no longer have to yo-yo diet, jump from one program to another, or feel like the only way to success is severe calorie restriction, excessive cardio, or short-term transformations.
If what you’ve tried before just has NOT worked, maybe it’s time to engage the help of another person.
Someone who can hold you accountable, give you some extrinsic motivation to help you build momentum and develop new, sustainable habits, so you can finally achieve the weight loss, muscle building, and body recomposition goals you desire and MAINTAIN them for the long term.
Yes, I’m talking about working with a coach, especially one who understands nutrition.
We are going to make the distinction between effective and not-so-effective coaching and why you might (or might NOT) actually need a coach for your particular situation.
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🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:08
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable diet. I'm your host, Philip pape, and in each episode will examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition. Welcome to Episode 22 of Wits & Weights. Before we get started, as always, if you enjoy the show, if you find it valuable. If you find it educational, entertaining, maybe it's given you some clarity, some aha moments, just consider submitting a five star review on for the podcast on Apple. And anywhere else you listen to it, make sure others can find the show and benefit from the content as you have. Also, if you know someone who could benefit from some of the nutritional and training strategies we share to help them accomplish their goals. Tell them about the podcast, you can just take a screenshot of the episode, tag me at Wits & Weights and post it to your story. Now this episode today is all about achieving lasting results. Finding that place where you no longer have to yo yo diet, jump from one program to another or feel like the only way to success is something like severe calorie restriction, or excessive cardio or short term 21 or 30 Day transformations. If what you've tried before, just has not worked. Maybe it's time to engage the help of another person, someone who can hold you accountable, give you some extrinsic motivation to help you build momentum and develop new sustainable habits. So you can finally achieve weight loss, muscle building and the body composition goals that you desire. And more importantly maintain them for the long term. So yes, I am talking about working with a coach, especially one who understands nutrition because nutrition will drive your weight loss. But nutrition plus resistance training plus a correct approach will drive muscle gain, muscle preservation, fat loss, and transformation in body composition that you can sustain, maintain and tweak and manipulate through the rest of your life without all of these crazy short term fixes. So today, we're going to make the distinction between effective and not so effective coaching, and why you might or might not actually need a coach for your particular situation. So first, let's put on the table all those things that a good coach does not do. If you're looking for a coach or coaching program right now, these are the telltale signs to run the other way. All right. So the first sign of a red flag for a coaching program is someone who is a macro planner. Basically, they give you calories macros, and say go for it, I wish you well. And I'll check in every week or I'll check in every month and I'll give you new macros and you're good to go. Now you can get this online from a template, you can get them for free, you can calculate themselves, calculate it yourselves. But macros are maybe 0.1% of what a good coach spends their time on with you. It's a an important piece. But it's a tiny piece. When it comes to my own clients, for example, I have most of them using macro factor, which is a food logging app. It's my favorite app, I use it myself. And that crunches a lot of the numbers in terms of your macros and calories and calculate your expenditure so that neither they nor I have to spend too much time on something a robot can do and something algorithm can do. What's more important is what is the target weight, what is our rate of weight loss or weight gain? Right?
Philip Pape 04:09
Those are the things we have to figure out to then plug into the app to get the macros. And then it's all the other 99% of things like accountability, consistency, special situations, and and the non food related items surrounding nutrition, including lifestyle changes. So if all you're getting is macros, then run the other way. The second thing that a nutrition coach is not is a meal planner. And this might surprise some of you but there's a distinction between nutritionists and dietitians versus nutrition coaches, which is what I am I'm a nutrition coach. There There are practical differences and there are also in some cases, legal or certification differences. Now a dietitian or nutritionist can prescribe you what to eat on Nutrition coach will suggest structures for meals and maybe give you sample meal plans. But more importantly, they're gonna help you decide what foods from all the variety that's out there can be put together in a way that fits your lifestyle that fits your goals, and at meats, your macros, and all the other things we're trying to satisfy. But without just saying, Here, eat this. And to me, that's a much more sustainable approach. One where you learn to fish rather than being given a fish. In this case, literally, since we're talking food. So a good nutrition coach is not simply a meal planner. The next thing you want to watch out for is a coach who they might seem like an expert, but they're always telling you to do something, because they're an expert, because they say so, you know, kinda like when you were a kid, and your parents said, Do this, because I say so. And he said, Well, why? And stop asking too many questions. Well, you don't want a coach like that, right? You want a coach who will explain why they're there telling you what to do. And more importantly, a good coach doesn't tell you what to do a good coach doesn't even try to convince you. A good coach says, Here are the options. And here's the science behind why these things might work for your situation. Now, what would you like to do? And and in some cases, and I do this with certain clients, who are, you know, a lot more educated in the space, I'll say, Well, what do you think you should do? And sort of let them grind through the mental gears and see if they can come up with an idea that might work because that results in a much more buy in accountability, consistency. So avoid the do it because I say so type coach, the next thing to watch out for is an extreme calorie restriction plan. If you just start with a coach, and in week one, all right, we're doing a 1200 calorie diet, we're going to lose a ton of weight. And we're going to have our before and after photo 21 days later, fat loss transformation posted on Instagram Client Testimonial, more business. Go out there and good luck. So you've seen them, they're all over the internet, the transformation type coaches, and usually they involve getting you right into a significant caloric deficit. And this is so damaging to so many people, because you don't know where the person is coming from in terms of their relationship with food, their dieting, history, and most most importantly, where their metabolism is today. Are they at a at a balanced state of homeostasis of their daily expenditure? And do they have all the other things in place that you need from a healthy balanced standpoint before you then stress the body with a caloric restriction or a caloric deficit? Which, hey, that is what is required to lose weight and lose fat. But at least for my clients, we first have to understand, are we getting enough protein? Are we getting enough steps? Are we strength training? Are we getting enough sleep getting enough water are the other stressors in our life that we can mitigate, reduce to an extent that supports a fat loss plan, all of these things have to be in place, so that you can then go into fat loss from a higher number of calories, a more balanced hormonal state, you know, the minimum stressors on your body as possible, because fat loss itself will be a stressor, and then we can manage it conservatively, over a reasonable length of time, and get you the results you're looking for. That can be sustained. Okay, the next thing to avoid is similar to that. And that is a coach that markets themselves purely on these short term transformations or challenges. Now I'm not I'm not against challenges, if they kind of motivate a group of people to do something over a certain period like a step challenge, but where the challenge is not individualized, and causes you to make decisions that are harmful to your health. That's where I have the problem. So watch out for those. Then there's the set it and forget it type of coach, the coach who says here's, here's your master grand plan, Here's your water, your steps, your nutrition, etc. Here's your training program. Now go forth and conquer. I've done my job. Good luck, right? A good coach should be there with you as a guide every step of the way, constantly making adjustments, so you can then hit your results, and then maintain them. And then finally, watch out for a coach who lives on templates. You know, the coach who has programs on their website and then when you sign up, they basically funnel you to premade downloadable templates, whether it's meal plans or training programs. No, I'm not against a coach having templates in their arsenal that can be pulled out for individualized As circumstances so like if you have a certain goal for training, and a coach has developed 20 different programs, well, they might select from one of those programs as a baseline for your training, that's different, that's an individualized approach still, and a coach just happens to be intelligent about running their business and efficient, and you want somebody who's on top of it like that, who has the experience, and has put that into writing, to help their clients. And we'll watch out for someone who thrives only on templates. Alright, so through that discussion, you probably have an idea of some of the things that a good coach does, let's get into how working with a good nutrition coach can help you. So you can decide whether coaching is something you need to achieve long term sustainable results. Now, this is in no particular order. It's more of a list that I put together based on what my clients have shared with me about their experiences. The first way that good coach can help you is when what you've tried before on your own has not worked. You've tried keto, or the carnivore diet, you've tried a bodybuilding program, you've tried cardio, you've tried steps, whatever you've tried, and it just hasn't worked either. Either it worked in the short term, and then you couldn't keep it up, because you're restricting a whole macronutrient like carbs, or the training was having you go to the gym seven days a week for 90 minutes doing bodybuilding programs, and you're just burned out, right, whatever you've tried hasn't worked. And what you're looking for, is to get lasting results, not just short term results, you want a system that you can apply, let's say a set of principles that you can apply, anytime, in any given situation for the rest of your life. And, at least that's my approach. I mean, when I work with clients, I want them at the end of our six months working together to basically be able to coach other people at that point if they wanted to, to have the amount of knowledge education, practical experience, to hold themselves and others accountable, if that's what they want, they can obviously continue working with with a coach if that's optimal for them. But I want them to feel that the results they got are just the beginning of a lifetime of applying those same habits and practices that are now in place that you don't even have to think about, and you'll be able to get results. So that's that's one of the biggest reasons to get a coach, you've been floundering for years, maybe going through yo yo diets, whatever it is. Maybe it's just you know, family has caught up with you work stress life, and like kind of lost, wondering what to do, a coach can just get you zoned in really quickly. And then within you know, a few short weeks to a few short months, depending on you know how many behaviors we need to work on, really get you accelerated to a point where you can take those forward for the rest of your life. Now, the next thing about a good coach is and we alluded to this in the beginning, individualized recommendations. I mean, that is that is huge, right? The reason you're going to a coach is the opposite of why you would just go by a program, a program is pre made, and is intended for you to hold yourself accountable. But also to somehow apply it to your situation. A coach is a human being who talks to you, who listens, who understands what you want, what you like, what you're able to do, what your environment is, who's supporting you, what your gym equipment looks like, what kind of food you do, or do not like what perhaps even some some medical conditions you have, but medical disclaimer, we are not doctors and do not give medical advice. But we do want to work around issues you have safely and productively. So a good coach is a human being who can provide individualized recommendations and adjustments and not just macros or a template.
Philip Pape 14:19
The next thing is consistency. Right? And you've probably heard it said that don't let perfection be the enemy of the good. That is if you try to do things perfectly, and then slightly missed that perfection for a day. Like let's say you're over on your macros by 50 calories. You say Ah, what the hell, I'm over by 50 Now, let me just go over by 500 and just you know, enjoy myself. And then the next day you wake up you say Well, yesterday was shot so the whole week is shot versus consistency, which is I'm going to do my best every day. And I'm going to get close. I may not be on target in fact with my clients I'm always trying to remind them that, you know, even though we have a macro target, I'm not looking for them to hit that right on point with zero delta, right? We're trying to get in the ballpark, in fact, within within 20% is fine. Because, you know, experience shows that just doing the tracking every day, or just doing the training program, you know, your three days a week, and showing up is 90% of the equation 95%. And that's consistency. Now, if you're trying to hold yourself accountable, this is where it's very challenging life throws curveballs at you all the time. And a coach is this person on your shoulder that can tap you every day and say, Hey, did you do what we talked about? You know, we talked about this plan, and you're not going to get results unless you do this. So I really need you to commit and do it. And if you don't find you didn't do it. Okay, what about today, it's a new day, it's a reset, are we going to do today. And then if if you have a string of these challenges, the coach is going to do their check in with you or they're live call. This is what I do with my clients and say, Hey, let's let's talk about this. What is in our way from being consistent, right, let's address that. Let's not talk about blame, or you know, your bad person or anything like that, let's understand how we can change the process the system, the environment, to make it easier for you to be consistent. So we don't have any excuses. And it's not all on us and our willpower and discipline. So that's consistency, which then leads to the next thing, accountability. Accountability is the idea of knowing that there's someone you have to report to or look up to, or you don't even you don't want to disappoint. And I hate to put it that way, right. But a lot of my clients have have used those words that, hey, if it wasn't for having a coach, knowing that a coach is looking for me to achieve something, I might not do it on my own. I might not, maybe I would maybe I wouldn't. And this is where it comes down to the guidance from a coach the consistency every day to the point where you develop internal habits, meaning the coaches and external force, right, the coach is providing external accountability. But the idea is that with enough external accountability, and repetition, and consistency, it gets converted into internal habits, not not internal accountability, per se, because again, that accountability implies that you're actively thinking about doing something to please yourself or others. No, it's more like this is just what I do. And to not do, it would take effort. And that's where we want to get.
Philip Pape 17:56
Okay, so along with that accountability comes the guidance of the coach. And a good coach will recognize when you're maybe struggling in a particular area, like I have clients who every single one of them has a different thing that they struggle with, even if they're on point with macros, and training and water and steps and everything. There's always something where I can nudge them in a slightly different direction. Okay, so the next thing about a working with a coach, why you may or may not want to work with a coach is the commitment, right? And I think this is tied in with accountability and consistency. But if you're accountable to someone who gets you to be consistent, you then build momentum and commitment toward these sustainable lifelong habits. All right, the next thing is an interesting one. And that has to do with food specifically. I've seen with clients who work with a coach myself included a improved relationship with food. I think a lot of people in in the western world particularly with the food environment, the what they call the obesogenic environment of hyper palatable processed foods, junk food, fast food, you know, even what seems like quote unquote healthy food but but it's made with a lot of fat and sugar or something because it's it's in a restaurant where they're trying to appeal to your taste. We put food into these buckets. We use labels, we talk about foods as good foods, bad foods, I mean, even the word junk food has that has that implication. We talk about clean, right versus dirty foods. And when you work with a coach, a good coach, something not someone who's just giving you a macro plan or prescription but who helps you understand the variety of amazing choices out there in the world. Everything from the whole foods to the processed foods, because yes, you can enjoy some processed foods in your diet. You can enjoy alcohol, you can enjoy candy. I mean, honestly, if there's something that you absolutely just love, and enjoy ice cream, you know, ice cream is my advice. It can fit into your diet in a small in small, reasonable amounts. And we talk a lot about restriction versus restraint, right? restriction is, no, no, no, I can't eat this, I can't have this macronutrient I can't eat this food, this foods, this thing is bad. And restraint is saying, I can choose from this whole cornucopia of foods out there. And depending on my goal, I simply learn to choose what serves my goal in the moment, if it's fat loss, if it's muscle gain, and I restrain myself from going crazy, right, I restrain myself from just eating massive quantities of foods because I'm tracking, I'm paying attention to quantities that satisfy me that that helped with my hunger signals that helped me feel good that helped me perform in the gym. It's all these things that footwear, food serves us they serve as fuel. And that relationship with food, we start to improve through coaching, because we allow for the flexibility to eat just about anything, but we learn restraint. We learn, you know, quantities, we learn balance, and things like that, that for the long term then gives us that sigh of relief that you know what I am confident that when I go to this party on Saturday, and when I go to the bar with my friends that I can prepare for this, and I know what I'm doing. And I know that I can have things that are indulgent, and that are part of my life that I enjoy. But I'm gonna have reasonable restraint, I'm going to track or I'm actually or I'm going to learn about, you know what works with my body. So a better relationship with food is a huge thing for some people and I know a lot of people are striving for, for getting past the dieting mentality. Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share to your Instagram story, or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful, and how I can improve again, and incredible. Thank you for supporting the podcast, and enjoy the rest of the episode.
Philip Pape 22:33
All right, the next reason that you might work with a coach is if you have specific needs. So specific goals like athletes, if you're a CrossFit athlete, or power lifter, or a marathoner, if you have physique goals, it could it doesn't have to be a bodybuilding show, it could simply be you're trying to improve your physique, you want to look better. I mean, there's no shame in that whatsoever. I think just about every human, I can say this safely, wants to feel and look good, just a matter as a matter of, of biology of being a physical human operating in a world that requires you to move and lift things and play with your kids. And, you know, hug your spouse and run in, you know, for an event, etcetera, right? Go swimming, all these things. And then as you get older, be able to get up out of a chair. It makes sense. So and you notice that I'm tying sort of the functional longevity and living with the physique, because a lot of these things are tied together, even if we don't pursue them. At the same time, we don't necessarily pursue aesthetics, at the same time as we pursue performance. They kind of spiral into each other. You might be a super busy working professional. This is a type of client that I often work with is somebody who's an engineer, doctor, lawyer, business owner, executive, who doesn't have a ton of time to figure all this stuff out to experiment. And they just want to understand how to integrate all this into their lifestyle. You might be a busy parent might travel a lot. So all these specific needs a good coach can help work around and help him be successful. All right. The next thing there are benefits about working with a coach is a safe judgment free environment. A coach is your advocate is supporting you, they are completely in your corner. And when you have conversations with them, you get into some personal things, right? You get into, you know, female clients, we might talk about their cycle we might talk about. We might talk about libido, we might talk about that not just female clients with males as well. Relationships, things like that, like things you wouldn't necessarily associate with nutrition, but they have to do with people goals they have to do with things that you experienced throughout the month hunger and perform changes in performance and the way you look and feel. And I'm not in a position to want to make you feel bad about any of that stuff. Whereas someone else, even a good friend, definitely people in your family may have I don't say ulterior motives, but you know, they're not coming to it from the same lens, they may have their own opinions and are strong and wording those opinions to you. Alright, so having a coach can get you an environment that you can just let go. Be honest, fully transparent. Reveal All your all the issues you have, and then try to come up with solutions to address those. All right, a good coach, another thing a good coach can do is help you cut through the noise and focus on the biggest thing first, you know, this is a form of triage or prioritization, with all the things that we have to think about for fitness and nutrition, and there are a lot of things, sleep, stress, hunger, training, you know, what you eat, when you eat, how much you eat, protein. All those things, a coach can say, You know what, let's, let's not worry about all of that stuff. Let's focus on this one thing this week. If you're not getting enough protein, we're not going to go ahead and pile on a new training program, a fat loss phase and all these other things until we get enough protein. So let's focus on protein. And, and it might be even more fundamental than that, maybe you just don't know how or what foods have a lot of protein. And so we work on educating you on
Philip Pape 26:45
you know, we go to the grocery store, let's break it up. Right, we have dairy, we have meat, we have eggs, and then we have some some process forms of protein as well. Let's structure that into your day and figure out what tomorrow looks like. Figure out what the some people call macro Tetris, how it all comes together, don't even worry about the calories, carbs, fat, let's just focus on protein. And if we can get you a good solid week, where you're say 100 grams protein a day, and your goal is 150. But you're at 100. And then next week, you average 125 Every day, and then you're at 150. For a few weeks all now we've dialed in that habit, and we can move to the next thing. So a good coach can help with that. And by the way, all these things that I'm telling you about sounds like a big sales pitch for a coach. But they're also things that you might consider in your own life. Like, if you feel overwhelmed, can you step back and prioritize the list of things you're trying to get done for your nutrition. And just pick the one that you can start with today in tweaking and moving toward the right direction, right before you go to the next thing. So it's, it's a very time tested habit building approach. Alright, the next reason you would want to work with a coach and when a coach can be helpful is expertise. A good coach is a subject matter expert, you know, you you are the expert in yourself, right. So don't let a coach think that they know you more than you. But a good coach will know a lot about nutrition, you know, good nutrition coach, and they're always learning, right? So look for a coach who has a passion for learning about these things, they will not have all the answers, that is a fact. Right. But the more they work with clients, the more they learn, and if they're immersed in educating themselves and helping you understand and learning to explain and coach you on things, then the more valuable they'll be to you over time. So ask questions of your coach, you know, test them a bit on certain areas, no matter how nuanced they are, and see how they respond, see if you know they are the type who acts like they know it all. But don't really have a grasp of it. And and won't say I don't know, versus someone who will say I don't know, and also seems to have a good grasp of, you know, basic and advanced nutrition concepts. All right. So another benefit of a coach that maybe isn't thought of as much is that you as the client, basically receive an education, it's like going to school for actually a lot less money than if you paid for tuition. Right? So this is one of those areas where, what is the real value you're getting out of having a coach now getting this as a good coach, a good coach over as little as a one month period working with them. You should you should learn more in that month than you probably knew learned in the past year, 510 years or maybe your entire life, about nutrition. And that is really one of the values of having a coach because after you know three to six months, you'll be really set up for success for the rest of your life just because of the knowledge you've gained. Eight, let alone the behaviors, actions and results. Okay. And that's the approach I like to take with clients is really helping them understand. That's why we have group calls, educational calls, this is why I'm going to have live trainings going forward. This is why we have, you know, office hours for my clients, whenever they want to have questions. This is why we have 24/7, direct message access, things like that, because I want them to understand what what's going on here. Okay, the next reason you might want to work with a coach is because you're lazy. No. And I mean that as a compliment. I consider myself a lazy person in the in the sense that I like to be efficient. I like to take shortcuts that work, right. And I think we I think we all do, let's just be honest, nobody wants to do things the hard way, even though some things are hard to get results, but we want to do them efficiently. So a coach can give you those shortcuts from day one. Right? You may have been struggling with something for months or years. And then the coach comes in and says, Hmm, well, you know, I see here, you really love your protein. And maybe we can shift some of that protein into carbs and get you the energy you need for your workouts that you're struggling with. Right? Because you've been feeling kind of sluggish, even though you're in a surplus. But it looks like we can give you some more carbs here. And I think that might help, you know, let's try it out.
Philip Pape 31:24
And then you're like, Oh, my goodness, I never even thought of that. I always thought I had to have all this protein. And you do have to have a nice amount of protein. Let's not forget that. But you know, I have way more protein than I really, really need. And now I can give some of that up to carbs and that kind of shortcut I'd never even thought about, right. And I could give a million other examples. But whatever your situation is, take advantage of a coach for that like on day one, come out with your your weirdest, toughest problems, and see if the coach has a solution for you right off the bat. Right? Couldn't hurt. All right, the next thing where a coach can help you is that they can cut through the complexity. And this is similar to some of what we've talked about, you know, with the shortcuts in the education, the expertise. But there's a lot because macros, stress, sleep hydration, timing, training, recovery, on and on. And it's very complex. And there's a ton of science, and there's a ton of bunk. There are fitness influencers, spewing things that are completely wrong. But every now and then one of them is right. And a good coach will break it down, will be on top of the research. A good coach listens to podcasts, read books, talks to other coaches goes to Coach trick coaching, training, and can break down any one of these topics for you. meal timing. Okay, let's talk about meal timing. Let's understand your goal. Are you okay? You're a marathoner. Excellent. We know we need to have a lot of carbs. And there's going to be a training protocol as we peak toward event. So here's how we're going to structure meals. And this is why this is what the evidence shows. And by the way, here's the research study, if you care, you know if a client wants that, right. And you might be surprised at what you learn, you might be surprised that the conventional wisdom has been out to lunch for years, or what all the bros have been saying is exactly what you should be doing. Alright, another thing about working with a coach, and this is related to the subject matter expert idea is that they have access to lots of resources, that will probably take you significant time to gather or find, you know, for example, I have access to lots of detailed manuals about gut health and hormones. Most people when they think, you know, hormones, what happens to hormones, when you lose weight, you'd have to do a lot of research, a lot of reading, read a lot of articles, and it's still very complicated information. Coaches have access to a lot of these resources, have access to other coaches have access to lots of groups, that they belong in a good coach at least, and they can bring that to bear to help you out. So you know, don't discount that value of a coach. And related to this, a coach can help you explore unique issues, okay, we're not talking medical issues. That's what a doctor's for, but we're talking about things like gut health and hormones, men's and women's health in terms of how nutrition can balance these things out. Right. Again, we're not diagnosing or treating conditions, we're just applying good nutritional practices, which may help with various issues you might be experiencing. Okay, this is a long list, I realized, but you know, it's long because it it is long, there are a lot of reasons that a coach can help. And you may be hearing all this and saying, you know, I don't need any of this. I can go on my own. And that's awesome. And if you do that, maybe you'd be a great coach. But the next thing about a good coach is that they help teach you sustainable practices. For fill in the blank, keeping your weight off, integrating healthy habits, behaviors, gaining muscle, you know, going through cut and bulk cycles if you're performance focused. And by sustainable, I mean just that things that you can sustain for years and for the rest of your life. And then the final thing I'm going to mention about working with a good coach is, they can save you a lot of money. Now, this, this sounds crazy, because a good coach is going to going to cost you
Philip Pape 35:34
a decent amount, let's just put it that way, right, depending on the coach, you know, unless it's a macro plan or a template type coach, but a good coach, if you consider the time that they're going to put in every month with you is going to cost a decent amount of investment. But this is an investment in yourself that avoids lots of other opportunity costs or, or, you know, money being thrown down the drain, think about all the things you've tried over the years that haven't worked, and how much money you put into those time and money, right. And time has a value as well. So and that money could have gone towards supplements that are ineffective books, courses, maybe previous coaches that were just not effective coaches. And, and they'll project that forward and say, Hmm, if I invested in myself for six months with a really good coach, and now I'm set for life, what is that worth saving in saving, have not been successful over the next six months. So I think there's a good argument to be made there. All right. The last thing I want to mention is that if you are interested in getting accountability, and support to finally achieve and sustain your results, I have a one on one coaching program, obviously, you guys know I'm a coach and talk about that. You can DM me on Instagram at Wits & Weights, or Facebook or you can go to wits & weights.com/coaching. Now, this is a six month program, because we need time to establish your foundation for long term success. And this is about keeping results. Right? We you can't do that in one month. And even three months is a bit sporty although we could we could accelerate for three months. But six months is the sweet spot to learn all the things you need to learn to restore your metabolism to lose weight or gain muscle depending on your goal. And come out of at the other end with something that integrates well into your life style for the long term. Now this includes nutrition and lifestyle coaching with yours truly, if you don't mind, listen to my voice and listening to this podcast. It's the same voice you're going to hear when we talk, weekly check ins by recorded video, weekly live call office hours, access to our Private Client Group and live training calls and 24/7 Direct Message access to me so you can ask questions when whenever you want whenever I'm super responsive. So again, just DM me on Instagram at Wits & Weights or Facebook or go to wits & weights.com/coaching. The process is really streamlined. I just asked a few questions, see if we're a good fit to work together. Because your specific situation has to mesh well with the type of clients I'm able to help. Right. I don't just take everybody because I can't help everybody. Most people though, would would qualify. So let me know we'll we'll chat and figure it out pretty quickly. And if it is that I'll invite you to join my coaching program and we'll get rolling. So I think you'll be amazed or even I dare I say shocked at how much you can achieve in six months. You know with a very effective strategy. You can improve how you feel how you look, the results you achieve when you have an attentive coach there by your side to guide you along the way. If you found this helpful and or you have any questions, just again, message me send me a DM on Instagram at Wits & Weights or email me at Philip at wits & weights.com and we'll talk soon. Thank you so much for joining me today. Before you go I do have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast. Just let me know by leaving a review in Apple podcasts. This will help others find the podcast in search results, which makes a huge difference. Thanks again for joining me, your host Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong
Ep 21: 21 Ways to Measure Progress and Crush Your Fitness Goals
We dive into 21 specific ways to measure progress toward your health and fitness goals, categorized into six areas: biometrics, biofeedback, nutrition, physical activity, behaviors, and self-awareness. We want to select the right measures for the job so we have clear, objective feedback that tells us whether we’re on track.
How do you know when you’ve reached your goal?
If you’re trying to lose 20 pounds, do you just instinctively change your eating behaviors and eventually magically arrive at your target weight? If you’re trying to build muscle, do you go to the gym without a program and randomly hit up different weights and machines, rep ranges, rest periods, and muscle groups?
Chances are, when you’re committed to a goal, you come up with a plan and then measure progress along the way. Otherwise, how do you “close the loop” between desire and outcome?
In this episode, we dive into 21 specific ways to measure progress toward your health and fitness goals, categorized into six areas: biometrics, biofeedback, nutrition, physical activity, behaviors, and self-awareness. We want to select the right measures for the job so we have clear, objective feedback that tells us whether we’re on track.
With these tools at your disposal, and strategies to use them that I’ll talk about, you can crush any fitness goal with the certainty that you know how and when to adjust course.
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🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you shred fat, build strength, feel energized, and project confidence in your career and relationships without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions.
👉 Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to connect with me.
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:31] Welcome to episode 21 of Wits & Weights. Before we get into the details. If you enjoy the show. If you find it valuable educational entertaining, or perhaps it's given you some aha moments, please consider submitting a five star review for the podcast to make sure others can find the show and benefit from the content as you have.
[00:00:51] Also, if you know someone who could better understand some of the nutritional and training gems, we share to help them accomplish their goals, tell them about the podcast. You can just take a screenshot of the episode, tag me at what's in weights and post it to your story. Now I wanted to share a five star review from one of our listeners quote.
[00:01:12] I started listening to wits and weights last week, and I've binged all the episodes in the last few days. Thank you for taking the time to create and produce this show. I'm not a beginner lifter I've been lifting for about 10 years with both a strength and conditioning coach and a nutrition coach. I didn't know if I'd learned anything by listening and I could not have been more wrong.
[00:01:31] I learned so much here. I had a mindset. I don't need to know this stuff. That's what I pay my coach for. Wow. I feel like I've missed out. I align with a lot of the habits and values that Philip discusses on the show. Great content end quote. Uh, I really love to hear reviews like that, and I would love to hear more if you enjoy the show.
[00:01:51] So, um, get out there and spread the word now onto the show. How do you know when you've reached your. If you're trying to lose 20 pounds, do you just instinctively change your eating behaviors and eventually magically arrive at your target weight? If you're trying to build muscle, do you go to the gym without a program and randomly hit up different weights and machines, rep ranges, rest periods and muscle groups.
[00:02:17] Chances are when you're committed to a goal, you come up with a plan and then measure progress along the way. Otherwise, how do you close the loop between desire and outcome? In this episode, we dive into 21. Yes, 21 specific ways to measure progress toward your health and fitness goals. And I categorize them into six areas.
[00:02:42] Biometrics. Biofeedback nutrition, physical activity behaviors, and self-awareness we want to select the right measures for the job. So we have clear objective feedback that tells us whether we're on track with these tools at your disposal and strategies to use them that I'll talk about. You can crush any fitness goal with the certainty that you know, how and when to adjust course.
[00:03:09] Let's start with biometrics. Number one. Body weight, body weight is one of the easiest to measure metrics on the entire list. Everyone's familiar with it just about everyone has a scale and if not, they're easy to get access to and they can tell you pretty quickly what kind of trend you're experiencing toward fat loss or muscle gain if you're training.
[00:03:36] So if you're training and you're losing weight, you're probably losing. More fat and muscle. If you're training and you're gaining weight, you're probably gaining some muscle along with some fat. Now, of course, this all depends on the rate of change. If you're going more aggressively, you might, um, gain more fat or.
[00:03:56] Lose more muscle, for example, but body weight is a very easy metric to measure. Now I've talked about this on the program before I like to weigh daily and I like to weigh daily because when you do that, number one, it becomes a habit. Something you really don't think about too much. Number two, it becomes a data point where it's, it's not an emotional thing anymore.
[00:04:16] It's. A number that changes every day. And number three, you start to get comfortable with the fluctuations that happen from day to day, especially when you're gaining or losing at a rapid clip. You might see wild fluctuations from day to day. And when you get used to the fact that that's happening and realize that it's the average over time, that really indicates what's happening to your body composition and your overall, you know, weight towards your goal.
[00:04:44] Uh, it, it just kind of, um, Object, you know, makes it an objective measure and a data point rather than an emotional one. So I like body weight. That's number one. Um, we can use it for a lot of reasons. Uh, when we're measuring progress, number two body measurements. Now this encompasses a lot of different things.
[00:05:04] The first and most, I guess, useful and accessible would be circumference measurements. And these would be things like your waste. Your neck, your hips, your chest, your biceps, your thighs, perhaps your calves, perhaps your shoulders. Now you can, you can measure all of these things if you'd like, if you don't mind the sliding convenience of it, and you want as much data as you can, but let's break it down to the minimum and then kind of an optimal middle ground in my opinion.
[00:05:40] So the minimum would be measuring your neck. And waste if you're a male and then also hips, if you're a female and that is because those measurements are used for the Navy body fat calculation method, it's a way to calculate body fat just with tape measurements, without the need for cappers, any special scans, these special skins.
[00:06:05] I, I wouldn't trust the absolute number very much, but the trend in the number is highly reliable. So if you are a female and you measure your neck and your waist and your hips, you plug it into a calculator for Navy, the Navy body fat method. and you come up with, you know, 35% body fat. Well, you might in reality be 30% or 38%.
[00:06:29] Uh, but then you do it again next week, the week after that, the week after that. And meanwhile, you're training and you're, you're watching your diet and it goes from 35 to 34.5 to 34 33. Well, that trend is a pretty good indication that you are losing body fat. So that's why I like those circumference measurements.
[00:06:49] Additionally, if you want a middle ground for additional measurements, I would include chest. Biceps and thighs, those are good data points for, um, body composition, change and muscle growth. Now keep in mind that everybody gains and loses fat in different areas, but generally if you're waste, circumference is coming down, you're losing fat, but you know, again, some people may, it may take longer to see it in that spot.
[00:07:17] So having a few different measurements, um, helps you triangulate. What's going. now some other body measurements as part of this, uh, this second metric biometric would be, uh, skin fold measurements using calibers. And you can get the, the simple ones online that you do at home. They come with a little chart and a guide on how to use them.
[00:07:39] And there are all sorts of caliber measurements. There's a single measurement. There's three site, five site, seven site measurements where you pinch. At various areas of your body, you know, your abdomen, your chest, your thigh, et cetera. And then you plug it in a calculator and it tells you what your body fat is.
[00:07:56] I would say that this has roughly the same, uh, accuracy as the Navy method and similar reliability when it comes to following the trend. So again, you wouldn't rely on the number, you would rely on the trend. Um, so if you wanna try that, that's an, that's an extra tool. Um, then there are body scans, which are less accessible, more expensive, more inconvenient.
[00:08:19] And in my opinion, you, you really don't get a lot more for all of those costs, unless you're say an athlete or your performance focused and you just want every data point you could possibly think of. And those would be body scans like DXA. And bod pod, and I've done the bod pod a few times. It's, it's not that hard.
[00:08:37] You, you know, you, you wear, um, skintight clothes and you jump in this egg shaped machine for a minute. Um, and they give you the data on your body composition, you know, fat, free mass fat mass. But again, if you look at the, uh, if you look at the error percentages from the literature, they're really not much better than.
[00:08:58] Skinfold or circumference measurements. So you, you choose a, and then the last part of body measurements would be these, uh, body scan or impedance devices, I should say. Um, I would avoid those. Those are highly inaccurate. Generally. The ones that use only the feet or only the hands where you hold the, the device with the electrodes or the metal like metal plates or metal contacts or the ones that are built into, uh, bathroom scales.
[00:09:27] I wouldn't rely on those. I have heard that the trend on those can also be something you can use, but I would rather use circumference measurements or skin fold CAS. All right. So that's number two, the third and final biometric. I would use is progress photos. Um, and I call this a biometric because it's a, it's sort of an objective data point, uh, measuring your body via imagery.
[00:09:52] Right? So taking progress photos, you could do this in a couple ways. The way I suggest is simply a neutral, relaxed hands to the side position, take one from the. Take one from the back and take one from the side full body, um, take them wearing, you know, briefs or briefs, underwear, um, yoga pants, bras, things like that.
[00:10:15] So you can, you can see the, the parts of skin that are relevant to you for tracking over time. The second way to do it is to do poses, right? So if you're more focused on muscular development and you wanna do some body building style poses, you can throw those in. the key is to be consistent each time you do them under the same lighting, the same time of day.
[00:10:36] Um, usually preferably in the morning when the same time you'd weigh yourself, you know, after going to the bathroom, um, while not wearing very much clothing before you've eaten anything at a minimum, get, take these monthly, I would say, um, if you don't mind take them every week, sometimes you'll see more change than, than others.
[00:10:52] And it's nice to have that. Uh, but this actually gives you a couple things first. It can motivate you as you see your body changing as you're transforming over time. It is just self-motivating to see that, uh, we all like to feel good and to look good. And it's a perfectly valid, uh, driver of our goals.
[00:11:14] The other aspect is for muscular development. If you are working on, um, your muscular size, your mass, your symmetry, any of those things, even if you're not a bodybuilder, you just want to make sure certain areas are coming along and. you can take photos to assess the weak spots. All right. Now we get into biofeedback and I actually have seven of the ways to measure progress categorized under biofeedback.
[00:11:41] The first one. So this is number four. Overall is stress stress by some measures is potentially the biggest indicator of. Your performance of your recovery, of your ability to grow of your ability to meet your goals. Uh, it affects your diet, affects your hunger. It affects all the other biofeedback we're going to talk about.
[00:12:04] I'm not gonna get into hormones like cortisol, which is the stress hormone. But when I talk about stress here, I'm not necessarily referring to acute positive stressors like training. You know, when you train in the gym, that is a stressor I'm referring to the chronic stress that comes from. A lack of sleep or having to work long hours or having situations in your life that just make it difficult to cope with everything going on because your body's resources and your mental resources are being stretched so thin by biofeedback here in terms of progress.
[00:12:40] Understanding and being aware of your stress, your chronic stress on a day to day basis can be a great tool to say, Hmm, is there something in my life that, that needs to change? Is there something that I need to eliminate reduce? Do I need to evaluate my priorities? And if I cannot change certain things, if I absolutely can't change them, right.
[00:13:01] How do I cope with that stress? Can I. Breathing techniques, meditation, yoga going for walks, right? There's a lot of different ways to cope with stress, um, dancing, you know, fun hobbies. Now I would argue that there are a lot of things we think we can't change, but in reality, we can, like, we can say that, Hey, I have my job.
[00:13:22] It is what it is. It pays really well. It's got really long hours. It's super stressful, but you know, I, I, I can't change my. but really ask yourself if you, if you had a gun to your head and this was the only way to reduce stress, could you find an alternative that, that I'm just putting that out. Um, as something to think about, always reassessing those things in your life and their priorities.
[00:13:46] So that's stress, that's a, an excellent form of biofeedback. The next one, number five is sleep, both quantity and quality, quantity of sleep. Is important. If you're only getting five hours of sleep a night, that right there is just gonna be a drain on the rest of your day and your recovery and your energy, everything, uh, it affects your hormones.
[00:14:05] It affects your hunger, but let's say you're getting the requisite seven or eight hours of sleep, maybe even six and a half seven. The question is, is the sleep quality optimal sleep quality, meaning. You sleep through the night, right? You don't get up multiple times. You fall asleep fairly quickly. Not instantly, because that could be, that could be a negative sign right there, but you know, fairly quickly do you feel well rested when you get up?
[00:14:30] So I have a, I have an entire episode about sleep that came out, uh, not long ago. You can look it up in the, the feed. But sleep is a form of biofeedback that like stress, cascades and affects so many other things that we do. And for lots and lots of people addressing sleep, all of a sudden magically, uh, makes lots of other ills diminish or disappear.
[00:14:58] I put it near the top of this list because of its importance. And there are a lot of ways to improve sleep quality, sleep hygiene, using a pre-bed sleep. all of that's covered in the other. Okay. Number six is energy and energy's kind of a nebulous term, but it basically refers to your, get up and go your ability to be motivated and feel like you want to be productive and do things throughout the day.
[00:15:25] We're really talking about just your, your baseline versus your, um, current, current energy. So if you normally can make it through the afternoon and all of a sudden you are just feeling wiped. By the afternoon, that could be a sign of something else. It could be a sign of poor sleep. It could be a sign of overtraining.
[00:15:43] It could be a sign of lack of recovery. It could be a sign of being under fed all of these things interplay. And the reason I'm listing them out independently is because each one of them can be assessed objectively. So energy's a good one. The next one is number seven and that is mood. All right. So energy and mood, they kind of go hand in hand for some people and mood, uh, seems kind of subjective, but again, it's relative to you.
[00:16:10] If you notice a change in your mood, if all of a sudden you're a lot more grumpy or more hangry, there, there could be. An issue related to your energy or your sleep. It could be hormonal, uh, changes in hormones can absolutely affect mood and hormones are intricately tied with your nutrition, with your training and potentially some other, other, other line issues and medical things.
[00:16:35] But, you know, if we're, if we rule those out. Then we're really just talking about the other factors in your, in your life, regarding your nutrition training, et cetera, and how they, um, can affect your mood and hormones. All right. Number eight, hunger. All right. I love hunger because depending on your, in a fat loss phase or a muscle gain phase, you could experience hunger in both cases, but for different reasons.
[00:16:59] So if you're losing fat, if you're in a deficit, you're going to experience hunger even. Unless it's a very quick, you know, three or four week diet or something, but generally you're going to experience more and more hunger simply because you're depriving in your body of the calories. It needs to remain in balance, remain at homeostasis, you're adapting downward and you're eating less food.
[00:17:20] So now all of a sudden you're telling your body, there's an absence of nutrition available. Anybody saying, I want more food, so I'm gonna send you a stronger signal that I need more. That hunger is a good signal because it can tell you maybe, Hey, I've gone a little too far into my cut, or maybe I need to eat more fruits and vegetables or drink more water.
[00:17:42] All of the things that could reduce the symptoms of hunger, but allow me to stay on my plan. I need to eat more, um, less calorie, dense foods, you know, more. Foods have more nutrition, but less but fewer calories. I need to change the timing of my meals. Maybe I need to reserve some calories for right before bed.
[00:18:01] Maybe I need to eat before my workout, rather than going fasted or vice versa. All of these things, hunger can tell you. And then another interesting thing is hunger on the way up. So if you run a building phase and one of my clients recently talked about this and I've experienced it myself. I, I, I do occasionally right now because I'm on a building phase and that is that you.
[00:18:21] Sometimes you start cranking up the calories, you know, I'm up to 2,600, then twenty nine hundred and thirty two hundred. I'm up to 3,500 calories and you're still getting hungry. Throughout the day, and it's such a weird phenomenon, but you know, lots of things are changing. You're probably eating a lot more carbs.
[00:18:36] The protein's more or less the same, if not even slightly less than when you were in a cut, but you're eating a lot more carbs. You're probably training harder. You're probably more active, right? Your meat is going up. Your TDE is going up. So all of these mess with your hunger signals and your, your hormones generally, I mean, I would say from experience.
[00:18:55] A lot of this will go away or you kind of, um, you know, push through it. But if the hunger is so stark, It surprises you. That is a that's good biofeedback. Uh, you know, maybe something has to change in the types of foods you're eating, you know, similar to when you're in a cut, do you need to eat more for fewer vegetables, more water, right?
[00:19:16] Do you need to space out your food? Are you eating too much? All at once too little, all at once. Hunger's great indicator of biofeedback. All right. Number nine is digestion. Digestion would be things like gas. bloating, you know, just some of these are experienced acutely. For example, if you start taking creatine maybe, or you start, um, taking a new probiotic, uh, but I see a lot with.
[00:19:39] Things like sugar, alcohols, artificial sweeteners, a lot of protein. When you start eating more protein, let's say you were, uh, an 80 gram a day protein eater. And now you're trying to push up to one 50 to get enough protein. Well, all of a sudden you might have digestive distress or maybe you are eating meals that are just.
[00:19:58] A little bit too large all at once. And you wanna space out the meals. Um, so you have fewer calories per meal. Again, all these things are just your body saying, eh, something's a little off. I need to do something here. I need to change what I eat when I eat, how I eat all of those things. Number 10.
[00:20:15] Recovery. So this is the last part of biofeedback. This is related to physical activity, which we'll talk about a little bit later, but the recovery piece of it is a form of biofeedback and by recovery it's things like. How sore am I the next day? How beat up do I feel, you know, are my muscles tight? Uh, do I feel like I'm gonna have trouble?
[00:20:37] You know, I'm gonna have to limp up the stairs. uh, you know, I'm thinking of myself here right after heavy rack poles the next day. Now a lot of these symptoms are perfectly normal and expected. If you're training hard, right? You expect to have a little soreness. Sometimes not always, but sometimes. And you expect to feel kind of beat up, but if it starts to build, if it starts to get where you feel, sluggish, if your legs feel heavy in the gym and not only do they feel heavy, but you are as a result, not performing.
[00:21:11] Okay. And I wanna make that distinction because sometimes you just don't feel great and then you perform fine and you realize it was mainly in your. I'm talking about where you literally start to regress in the gym. So that is a, a sign that you either need an extra rest day, potentially need a deload week.
[00:21:30] Or maybe even rest for a week or longer or a complete change in your programming. Right? If you are trying to do the Texas method as a 55 year old, if you're trying to do a six day a week body building program, that's 90 minutes a day, or if you're trying to do two a days and you're not on steroids, all of these things could be potentially over training you and you will feel it in terms of your lack of recovering your lack of performance in the gym.
[00:21:57] Hey guys. I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again.
[00:22:17] An incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the. That brings us to nutrition. Number 11 is how adherent are you to your diet? So this is a metric in and of itself. And if you track in any way, you know, track versus intuitive or instinctive eating. So if you track in any way, you have a good sense from day to day of whether you are being consistent.
[00:22:48] There's different ways to track, right? There are there's full tracking where you're tracking your calories and all your macros, your protein, fat carbs, and you're tracking against targets. There's tracking where you only track your calories and protein. Maybe you just track your calories or maybe you track something like portions, you track how many portions of protein, fat carbs you have, or maybe you track using photos.
[00:23:10] Whatever it is. You have an objective way to measure from day to day, whether you are in the ballpark of your intended target. The reason you have an intended target is because you have a goal. You have a goal to gain weight, to lose weight or to maintain weight. And this is an input to that process. How many calories you're consuming, right?
[00:23:28] The output being things like weight and body photos and all the other things we talked about. Did you get close to your target every day on average? So that for the week, your weekly average. Where do you want it to be? Uh, it's a simple thing, but we have a lot of, uh, folks who feel okay, I'm, I'm gonna reach my goals, but I don't like to track that is I don't wanna say a losing proposition that works for a lot of people who are in tune with themselves and understand portions and can eat intuitively because they have the experience from past tracking.
[00:24:00] But if you've never tracked and I've talked about this before, it's gonna be very, very hard to objectively stay where you wanna be. And meet your goal. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible. If you go by feel and you eat every day and you eat till you're full, but you're not stuffed. And at the end of the week, you've maintained your.
[00:24:18] And you have a good sense of how you felt all week. And you just repeat that every week then. Yeah. Maybe you can meet your goals. It's just a lack of fidelity. And so diet adherence, consistency and tracking in some shape or form is a helpful way to track. It's a helpful measurement. So that's number 11.
[00:24:36] Number 12 is protein. Now I'm not gonna go through all the macronutrients. I only have one devoted to one macronutrient and that is protein. I would say it is the primary macronutrient for growth for anabolism, as we say, right. For muscle growth or also for anti metabolism. So avoiding a situation where you are losing muscle, especially while you're losing weight.
[00:25:01] In that case, we wanna lose fat. We don't wanna lose muscle. And it's the one macro where you generally keep it consistent, whether you're gaining or losing weight and you adjust the fats and carbs. Most people do not get enough protein. If they're training, if they have a goal for, for body composition or for fat loss, most people do not get enough.
[00:25:22] And by enough, I mean around 0.7 to 1.2 grams per pound of your body weight, or if you're, if you're quite overweight, then it's of your target body weight. So if you're 150 pound person, it's around 150 grams, if you're 300 pounds, but you wanna weigh 200. Then it's 200 grams. The thing with protein is it has so many benefits, right?
[00:25:44] Improves satiety. It's the backbone of muscle building. It's the backbone of muscle preservation. It has a higher thermic effective feeding. So you actually burn more calories eating it, and it helps actually helps displace the other macronutrients. If you prioritize it, meaning from the time you get up and eat breakfast and each feeding and food choice thereafter starts with protein.
[00:26:07] To get to that target evenly distributed throughout the day, more or less, it's going to shape what your meals look like. They're gonna be protein focused protein first, and then you're gonna fill it in with the rest, right? With your veggies and with your starches, with your fats. The point here is, are you tracking your protein?
[00:26:24] Because if you're not, that could be a helpful measurement of your progress. Number 13 fiber. Now fiber's something. I think a lot of folks don't really track it, but if you start tracking it, you might be surprised. I know myself personally, this is one of my small areas, not small, but one of my specific areas that I need to keep working on.
[00:26:47] Okay. And it's because I grew up not eating very many fruits and vegetables, like many of us, and I've graduated over the years, added more and more now tracking fiber will tell you basically what kind of diet you're. The benefits of fiber are many. They help with hunger. They help with digestion. They help with bowel movements, but then also the amount of fiber you're eating tells you how nutritious your diet is in general, because you only get enough fiber from having enough fruits, vegetables, whole grains, the appropriate types of seeds and nuts, et cetera, lot of great foods.
[00:27:25] So they kind of go hand in hand, which is why it's a good metric. The recommendation is generally to consume 14 grams of fiber for every thousand calories you consume. So if you're on a 2000 calorie diet, 28 grams of fiber, and you might be surprised at the fact that you are not getting that amount, if you start tracking it.
[00:27:46] So by logging your food in a tracker like macro factor, You can see every day, oh, I'm only getting 20 grams of fiber. What can I change? Oh, maybe I can start having a banana here and some nuts here, some fruit, some, some more roughage or, or salad here. And then that starts to displace maybe more processed food choices.
[00:28:04] And again, you improve your diet overall and it's easier to meet your goals. It helps things like hunger. So that's fiber fiber is really important. Number 14, this is the last one under Nutri. Would be hydration. I include water under nutrition because it helps with everything else. Getting enough water is so important.
[00:28:24] And again, most people don't get enough. The amount of water you need is roughly half your body weight, plus 15 ounces. So if you weigh 200 pounds, that's about 115 ounces of water, which is almost a gallon of water a day. Now ask yourself, do I get anywhere close to a gallon a day between water, diet, soda, tea, even coffee.
[00:28:45] I know people say, oh, coffee's a diuretic, but it's a net. High hydrator. Alcohol's definitely not on the list. Okay. so don't, don't take it that far, but fruit, this goes back to the previous metric. If you start eating more fruits and vegetables, but especially fruits, you'll get more water in your diet as well.
[00:29:03] All of these things are tied together. So hydration is really important. Ask yourself if you're getting enough water. If you're not sure start tracking it, just to see, and then take half your body weight plus 15 ounces or even more if you're active and try to get that much water every day, that brings us to physical activity.
[00:29:20] Number 15 is steps. Are you tracking your steps? I'm a huge advocate of steps. You know, this, if you've ever heard any of my podcasts, I go Gaga over walking, something that changed for me after I had my back surgery last year, I didn't use to like to walk. I love walking now because I see all the benefits for your resting heart rate for your.
[00:29:42] Metabolism for your mortality for avoiding disease for your joints, for your recovery? Uh, just as a, an enjoyable activity, basically steps are, I would place them up, like in the top five of things to, uh, increase if you were to get onto a solid plan for nutrition and training, because they're the quickest, easiest, one of the most human ways to simply be more active and increase.
[00:30:11] Total daily energy expenditure. If you're not tracking them though, you don't really know if you're getting enough. Once you start tracking, you get a feel for, Hey, this is what 2000 steps is like. This is what 10,000 steps. This is 15,000. You get a feel for it. And then you kind of know where you wanna fall on a daily basis.
[00:30:30] So what I recommend doing is getting some sort of wearable. It can be a very inexpensive one because the speedometer function on most wearables is just fine. Even the heart rate is usually fine. Anything else? I wouldn't trust like calories burned. Totally useless based on what the, the evidence shows, but steps are pretty close.
[00:30:48] So you get a speedometer of some sort, you know, apple watch fit, big Google fit, whatever, and you track your steps and see where you are just naturally. If you're, let's say you're 4,000 steps a day because you have a desk job, you, you maybe pace around a little. You don't really go for a walk. Maybe you work out and that counts towards your steps.
[00:31:06] And now you wanna add 2000 steps. Well, 2000 steps is about a mile. You go for a walk after a meal, you go for a walk after lunch, you go for a walk after dinner and a mile is what? 20 minutes of walking in a reasonable pace. You don't even have to go to briskly. You get a mile that's 2000 steps. You do that a couple times.
[00:31:25] That's 4,000 steps. Now start doing that for several weeks, several months and see what happens in your metabolism. I can almost guarantee that it's going to go up all things. Right. Like if you're in a cut, your metabolism starts going down. Now I'm not talking about the gross change. I'm just talking about the net change.
[00:31:41] So adding more steps in when you're on a cut, for example, should blunt the decline in your metabolism. Um, but in general steps at increase, there's so many benefits of it. Make sure to track it. It's a great measure of physical activity. Number 16 is your training progress. And by this, I mean, do you log your workouts?
[00:32:06] Do you plan for your workouts? Do you write down what movements you're doing? The sets, the reps and the weight on the bar and then do the same movement next. And use more weight or use more reps. Aren't you doing that? Because if you're not doing that, you're missing out on the biggest benefit of strength training and the most effective approach, which is known as progressive overload.
[00:32:29] And that is simply stimulating your muscles basically to their limit. Then allowing them to recover and come back stronger through adaptation so that you can then lift more next time. And that is how we grow strength. And that is how we grow size. But you can't do that unless you know what you are progressing, having a log, a notebook, an app.
[00:32:51] I really don't care. Just do it doing basically the same movements from session to session. And I mean, you might have four sessions in a week and they all have different movements. And then the next week they have the same movements, but you do them all a little heavier. Or you're rotating through movements over a few weeks, and then you come back to those same movements three weeks later, and you're still progressing.
[00:33:12] The point is you're progressing over time, over some period. So that's number 16 is training progress. Are you measuring it? Are you tracking it? Are you using progressive overload? Number 17. This is the last one under physical activity is your performance in the gym. So the last, the previous one was about the, the numbers.
[00:33:29] This one is about how you are not, not really how you feel though. That's part of it, but are you able to progress your numbers? Are you able to build strength? Are you able to get more reps or higher weight and feel like you're actually making progress. Now the big caveat here is if you're on a cut, if you're on a fat loss phase, you will inevitably lose strength and lose muscle mass.
[00:33:54] And so you, you will reach some plateaus in the gym. But you still should train hard as if you are building, but I'm just talking about, let's say at maintenance or in a building phase, if, if you're not making progress, then that is a clue about your sleep, about your recovery, perhaps your diet, perhaps the timing of your food, perhaps the rest period you're taking.
[00:34:19] So track your performance in the gym and you can do this by taking notes in your log. If you're tracking. Your weight, your sets, your reps, those numbers themselves, that they start to stall is part of the performance metrics that I'm talking. So that's number 17. All right. Our fifth category is behaviors.
[00:34:39] I just have a couple here and then there's two more in the last category. So number 18, what's your relationship with food? Like, has it improved? Do you have an improved relationship with food? I know with my clients, we often have situations where. You haven't been tracking and there are certain behaviors.
[00:34:58] It might be binging. It might be social events. It might be too much alcohol. It might be that you really love carbs, whatever it is. When you have a plan toward a goal, and you realize that you want to start tracking and measuring and understanding your progress and taking control of the process, then all of a sudden you start to say, Hmm, okay, I need more protein.
[00:35:21] So I'm gonna, I'm gonna eat some more meat here, maybe some more eggs and well, that's gonna, it's gonna reduce the amount of Poptarts I eat and this and that. And all of a sudden, you start to. Nudge yourself toward a, a more well rounded diet that meets your goals, but it tends to improve your relationship with food as well.
[00:35:38] Cuz you realize that there, the food is a tool. It's a tool that you have control over. You can make choices with and you can also have flexibility around. You know, with my clients, we talk about how do we plan for social events? How do we plan for parties? How can we get our alcohol in all these things we enjoy not how do we get them out, but how do we get them in and still meet our goals?
[00:35:58] So think about your relationship with food. And if there are red flags, then that is a clue that something might need to change. If you notice that it's improving, then that's a clue that, that you're probably going in the direction you wanna. Number 19 under behaviors here is, do you have a newfound confidence with your behaviors and habits?
[00:36:22] Meaning are you able to handle situations today that would previously have. Made you go off the rails. It's an important question. This is now we're getting into mindset here. I heard one of my clients recently say, you know, I feel like I now have control. I have more control. And I truly believe that that comes from having knowledge, information, certainty that you gain from a lot of these metrics.
[00:36:52] We're talking about, basically understanding more about yourself. What you're doing, what the outcome is, what each toggle each dial does to the outcome gives you the certainty that now I can choose to have whatever outcome I want by just changing some, some things here and there. So do you have a newfound confidence with your habits?
[00:37:16] That's an indication of progress. The last category is self-awareness. I have the final two measurements here. Number 20. How do you feel in your clothes? We talked about photos. We talked about circumference measurements, but how do you feel, right? How, how does that pair of short? So that shirt feel today versus how it did a month ago.
[00:37:40] And I'm not saying you're gonna necessarily feel quote unquote better, even if you have made progress. And let me explain if you're in a muscle building phase and your biceps are starting to get bigger. , but you're also getting a little bit of fatter on the waist at that shirt that fit you find on the beach in the summer may feel a little bit tight, but that's not necessarily a quote unquote bad thing.
[00:38:04] If your goal is to start building muscular size, that's just an indication of progress. So you have to look at the data and say, okay, is it going in the direction I want it. so if my clothes feel tighter, is that because I'm gaining muscle as I'm gaining a little fat along the way that I'm gonna cut later versus, okay.
[00:38:24] I'm feeling tighter because I'm gaining unwanted weight and then vice versa. Do you all of a sudden, let's say your scale weight hasn't moved, but all of a sudden you have to tighten your belt, another hole, another notch. Well, that's an indication that you've probably lost some fat, right? You're getting trimmer and you're probably gain some muscle, little recom going on.
[00:38:44] But if you had only relied on the scale weight, you wouldn't have had that data point. So how do you feel in your clothes and the last measure? Number 21. Do you love your body? This is a loaded question, but I want you to ponder it. Do you love your body? And my implication here isn't that you can't love your body.
[00:39:08] If you are overweight, that is not my implication here at all. It's do you right now with all the choices you're making with the control. You're taking over the process with your ability to see how you are arriving at your goal day by day, because you are in control and you're making choices. knowing all of that.
[00:39:28] Do you love your body? And if you do, that's wonderful. That's we all wanna be there. And if you don't, then that simply raises a question of why, and it helps you examine some of these other factors and really that's, that's up to you to examine and explore, but I want to leave you with that. Do you love your body as the last measure of progress?
[00:39:50] All right. That is the list of 21 ways to measure progress so that you can crush your fitness goals. Now you don't have to use all of these at once, but you can prioritize and choose the ones that make sense for you based on what you're trying to accomplish. And if you're looking for a good coach who can help you stay account.
[00:40:11] By monitoring these with you and making adjustments along the way, just go to wits and waits.com/coaching to connect with me so we can help you get there together. I wish you the best in crushing your goals. Stay strong. And thank you.
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Ep 20: How to Stay On Track with Meals, Fat Loss, and Fitness No Matter Where You Are
Should you continue my current health and fitness behaviors when you’re on vacation? If so, to what extent?
In this episode, we’re talking about what to do with your carefully-honed, consistent, so-far-successful training and nutrition plans when you go on vacation!
Summer’s here, and despite exorbitant gas prices and airfare, we can’t help but get away from it all, even for just a week or even a long weekend. Vacations are the perfect time to shut off those devices, relax with a drink in your hand, and enjoy that well-deserved leisure.
But that raises the question, should I continue my current health and fitness behaviors when I’m off jetting about in faraway lands (or even a road trip to the next state over)? If so, to what extent?
What do I do on vacation?!
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:31] Welcome to episode 20 of Wits & Weights today. We're talking about what to do with your carefully honed consistent so far successful training and nutrition plans. When you go on vacation, summer's. At least in the Northern hemisphere and despite exorbitant gas prices and airfare, we can't help, but get away from it all even for just a week or even a long weekend vacations are the perfect time to shut off those devices, relax with a drink in your hand and enjoy that well deserved leisure, but that raises the question.
[00:01:07] Should I continue my current health and fitness behaviors when I'm off jetting about in far away land. Or even a road trip to the next state over. And if so, to what extent, right around the time we were packing up for vacation down the Florida for a family reunion on the beach, no less a listener wrote in with that exact question, what to do on vacation.
[00:01:30] Let's talk about some ideas I had from one side of the spectrum to another, whether to stick with or partially put on hold your habits without being that weird visitor who carries their food scale everywhere they go. Um, and I'm kind of pointing at myself because I did that when I visited my parents last year, they were cool with it, but not everybody is.
[00:01:53] First up, we have a shout out to listener Dina who writes quote, I started following your podcast and love it. Your information is explained so well, and I've seen a lot of positive results with my weight loss and starting to see gains in muscle development. Macro factor has been an excellent suggestion.
[00:02:12] So here's my question. I'm about five weeks into my weight loss and seeing great steady results. I'm five, two and was 138 pounds. And now, after not being obsessive about cardio and tracking macros, I'm down to 1 33 over the last five weeks. I have a vacation coming up in two weeks and I'm developing a lot of anxiety about it.
[00:02:34] Gaining weight, losing progress, being unable to track food and losing current momentum. Do you have any suggestions for vacation things to keep in mind, ways to adjust goals, et cetera. End quote, thanks, Dina for the question and the positive feedback about the show. I love hearing this. I love hearing from listeners.
[00:02:53] Uh, it warms the cockles of my heart. When any listener gains value from this podcast, especially when it improves your health and your life. It just so happens that I thought about this topic quite deeply before our recent vacation to Florida, the quandary was, should I. Find a gym and train. Should I bring bands?
[00:03:13] Should I do body weight exercises or just not worry about it at all? Similarly, should I estimate and track my food? Should I stick to my macros? Should I plan for binges and events or just eat whatever I want and stop tracking the answer is yes. Any of these can work depending on your goals, your needs and what you can tolerate from a psychological stand.
[00:03:39] For some people giving it all up for a. Is a break. They need it's it's that break. They need to stay sane to stay refreshed. Just enjoy it, forget about all this, and then come back firing on all cylinders. But for others, any derailment from their carefully crafted process could be the slippery slope to further lapses.
[00:04:00] So, therefore I wanna lay out some strategies on this episode today, so that you can think about this ahead of time, and then I'm gonna tie these options to together for what you can actually do when you're on vacation. First and foremost, if you're not consistent yet at home, if you don't actually have a routine that's working for you right now, before you even think about vacation, it's going to be tough to carry any sort of routine or discipline to your vacation.
[00:04:30] just logically speaking, in which case it's probably not worth sweating over it and worrying about what you're gonna do on vacation. So if you have a few weeks or more before the trip, this is the time to take advantage of setting up good behaviors at home. So when you return, you have something that you've already established that you're used to, and then you could just pick right back up as if nothing ever happened.
[00:04:56] Another thing to think about beforehand, before you go on the vacation is potentially timing your nutrition, your training, your fat loss, your maintenance, your building phase with your vacation schedule, if possible. Um, it's a lot easier to eat beyond a high calorie plan. Let me tell you when you're on vacation, uh, then on a diet.
[00:05:19] You avoid strain too much for your goals that way, just by default, because you're able to eat more. Speaking of nutrition, let's get into some of the details there. You've heard the expression that food is fuel and that's true, but also we're human beings who enjoy. Eating food. We enjoy it in social settings, especially when we're on vacation.
[00:05:41] This is the time when people want to go out. They want to hang out, hang around. They want to have some drinks. They want to have some, maybe some dessert or nice dinner. So think of planning ahead for specific meals on your vacation, that will be special experiences. They can be considered treats or feasts, whatever you wanna call them.
[00:06:02] I wouldn't call them cheat meals because that implies you're cheating or strain from something. Instead we want to plan these in these are thoughtfully forecasted, higher calorie events. That's all. And then when you're actually there, so you've done your planning. You've said. I'm gonna pick a few dinners, maybe lunches, maybe going out for ice cream that are planned in.
[00:06:27] So I know that at other times I may have a little bit less or eat a little bit more protein, knowing that there'll be, uh, high, fat, high carb options at the event. And I'm gonna get my protein ahead of time when you actually get to the event and that food is staring you in the. uh, this might be the event or it could even be the continental breakfast at your hotel.
[00:06:47] I mean, really anywhere where somebody else is providing food. Ask yourself this question. Would I eat this as part of a normal meal at home? Would I eat this at home? If the answer's yes, then go ahead and make the choice and eat the food. If the answer's no, which is probably more often the case on vacation.
[00:07:07] Ask yourself why you wouldn't normally eat it at home and then make your choice. You can still choose to eat it, but you've taken a breath to consider the why behind it. Now if the place where you're staying on vacation has a refrigerator or better yet a kitchen, maybe it has a microwave, a stove oven, things like that.
[00:07:28] Go ahead and stock up on groceries for a few of your meals each day. I mean, I know it's kind of a bummer. You're on vacation. You don't wanna get groceries, but it actually might make it more convenient and save you a little bit of money and you could make a few meals every day as if you were at home pick easy meals like breakfast.
[00:07:46] You're perfectly fine. Just having the same thing every day, being consistent. And they're also not associated with big events or social gatherings. Those are usually later in the day, like dinner. So if you know, you're gonna have your oatmeal every day with some blueberries, pick it up at the grocery store and just have that for your breakfast.
[00:08:03] Uh, also don't forget to pack your. Protein powder or snacks like protein bars. For example, these are just nice to have in reserve as an easy way to get your protein while a vacation. Cuz sometimes it's hard to find enough protein when we're not making all the same choices. and it gives you an option.
[00:08:23] You know, if the choices aren't there, they're not optimal, or, you know, you're gonna go to a, a big feast that has a lot of high, fat, high carb foods, but not much protein. Well, there you go. You've got your protein powder. You could take a nice two scoop shake earlier in the day. Good to go. And then when you go to restaurants and this applies, whether you're on vacation or not, Always think about the simpler, the better, the fewer ingredients, the better.
[00:08:48] And I would look for things like lean proteins and vegetables, maybe salads, but, you know, sauces, dressings, oils, fats, that's where all this calories kind of sneak in, but you could still have a great steak that's, you know, charbroiled or grilled with some steamed vegetables, with some seasoning. Delicious.
[00:09:09] So those are some strategies, some ideas to think about before you leave and while you're on vacation, but let's talk a little bit about tracking. If you are currently tracking your macros, if you're using an app like macro factor, um, there's a few big options. I'm gonna break it down into maybe three options.
[00:09:29] The first option is just enjoy your vacation and don't track it all. I mean, you can enjoy it either way. I know. You know, don't worry about it. Just try the intuitive approach and go by how you feel. Now, if you've been tracking for any length of time, let's say a few months, at least you probably have a better idea than you realize of.
[00:09:51] Roughly where you are for your calories, your macros for the day, how much a portion size of protein is, and a starch and vegetables, you know, how much, few tablespoons of oil or butter might be. So you can get within, within spitting distance of estimating with your eyes intuitively that that's what they say without tracking.
[00:10:14] And then you could just resume tracking when you get back on. You know, previous macros, when you get back home from vacation and let everything catch up again now. Pros of this approach is this extra freedom while you're on vacation, you just don't have to think about it. You don't have to track food.
[00:10:32] You don't have to have a food scale. You know, even if you're tracking, you could track without a scale, of course, but you don't need any of this stuff. And you might learn something about your ability to estimate and eat intuitively for. The future, you know, because this is a lifelong thing we don't wanna be tracking forever.
[00:10:50] Tracking is an awesome tool. It's great to use. You can use it for long stretches of time, but we don't wanna be so dependent on it that we couldn't, uh, succeed without it. The cons of this approach of. Not tracking at all is you might be the type of person that gets stressed out, thinking that you're falling behind on your goal.
[00:11:10] You might get a little setback because you know, sky's the limit. You could eat, whatever you want. The tracking is the thing that kept you grounded and, uh, making certain choices. And now you just have everything at your whim, and that could be a negative depending on your psychological approach to. So that's option one, don't track, option two is track your food, but just estimate, you know, plan, plan to have meals in a certain way.
[00:11:39] So that they're similar to what you have at home, even when you're eating out. You know? So even if you go to a restaurant or do takeout, or what have you, you're still going to eat the lean protein and the vegetables and the things you normally. , but you're gonna leave room for those fun family, feasts, those social events, or even drinking alcohol, if that's what you enjoy.
[00:12:02] So for example, you could have a light breakfast and lunch and then skip a snack and then have a giant dinner at a restaurant. Enjoy yourself. You could log that based on what you estimate get within about 30%, but don't sweat being too precise. So the pros of this approach where you are tracking, but you're just estimating everything is it does keep you closer to on track for your goals.
[00:12:26] And the negative is probably that. Now you still have the inconvenience of tracking. Now, granted tracking has become habit for you most likely. So maybe it's not that inconvenient, but the fact you don't have a food scale and you don't have the same control or choice over your food options. Um, don't get me wrong.
[00:12:45] You choose what you put in your mouth, but you don't necessarily have a choice of what's available to choose from. And then the third option is really to change your goal on vacation. So if you're dieting, um, this kind of ties to what we were talking about earlier about aligning your schedule, but you can say, Hey, I'm going to vacation.
[00:13:05] I'm just gonna change my goal to maintenance. When I'm done, I'm gonna go back to dieting. Now this is essentially a diet break. I mean, that's the term we use, right? And, and nutrition is a diet break. That's when you just stop dieting for a while, it could be a few days, a few weeks, maybe even a few months so that you have more calories to work with on, on vacation.
[00:13:26] and then go ahead and either track or don't track, but you're doing it with more calories available to you. So the pros are obviously less restriction on the amount of food. You can eat less restriction on maintaining your weight, and this could actually be a breather for you. This could help your metabolism recover a bit.
[00:13:45] It acts as a feed. It's a diet break that pushes your daily expi. The cons of this approach of going to maintenance is it's of course gonna slow down your progress toward weight loss. If you were in a weight loss or fat loss phase, it's gonna slow it down. Just a tad. We were talking about a week or two of vacation.
[00:14:03] You might even gain a little bit of weight. So what you resume when you get back, you don't try to make it up. You don't try to undereat when you get back, you just continue where you were before. Now, as far as measuring your body weight. Since we're talking about tracking, I would say don't worry about it on vacation.
[00:14:20] If wherever you're staying actually has a scale in the bathroom. Maybe it's a friend's house and they have a scale or a nice hotel that has a scale. I mean, it's really up to you if you want to track, if it's part of your routine anyway. now keep in mind that, uh, another person's scale might not have the same accuracy or calibration as your scale at home, but it's probably close enough.
[00:14:41] Uh, but I don't think it's a big deal not to track your weight. So you could just resume weighing yourself when you get home.
[00:15:02] Hey guys. I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again.
[00:15:21] An incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. Let's shift to activity and training since you're on vacation. I just want you to enjoy being active, being in a new place, enjoying the experience, the adventure, and even walking more, if it fits with your plans. Now, when we stayed on the beach a few weeks back, I did plenty of lying around, but then I'd play some Frisbee with my brother or I'd go for a swim.
[00:15:52] Or I remember one day walking down the beach all the way down to this nice pier, walking back. And if you've ever walked through. Thick wet beach sand, because it had rained recently, as it does in Florida in spring every afternoon, then, you know, you have to fight for each step. Uh, it's kind of a calf exercise in a way.
[00:16:13] So that's, that's just general activity. I would say, enjoy yourself. And if you have the opportunity to get the steps in the activity, Go for it, but don't force yourself to, uh, but then we get to discussing training specifically, you know, weight lifting, resistance training. If you really enjoy training like I do.
[00:16:30] And you think it will be. Relaxing fun. Just natural part of your vacation. Feel free by all means, go to the local gym once or twice during the week and do a deload style program. You know, if you're going for a week and you normally do a five day program, I don't think you're gonna wanna spend five days in the gym while on vacation, but it's really up to you.
[00:16:54] My recommendation is make this a de-load week. Keep the session short, maybe 45 to 60 minutes and do maybe three to five movements at a high intensity. And by intensity, again, going back to basic definitions, we mean, wait on the bar, not, you know, oh, um, it's CrossFit. I intense. And I'm sweaty. Wait on the bar.
[00:17:13] without too much volume. So for example, if you normally do a, um, let's say a three day full body routine, or a four day body part split where you have one or two big compound lifts and two or three accessory movements. On the vacation pick two days that are spaced apart. And on those two days, do a short session of maybe two compound lifts.
[00:17:37] Keep the weight high, the reps low, and then maybe one or two accessories, just to add a little volume, get, get a pump, you know, a little extra activity, whatever it is. Now, if you feel like training will be a chore on vacation or highly inconvenient, or you just can't access a facility, then don't do. Just take the week off and you might actually find that the rest is what your body needed to recover.
[00:18:01] And to set you up for bigger batter gains with a Z, when you get back gains with a Z multiple Zs. Now if you wanna train, but you don't have access to a facility, then you do have a few other options, right? Cause we're, we are not the type of people to make excuses on this podcast and you, the listener is not that type.
[00:18:22] So I know that if you wanna train, you're gonna find a way to do it. So I'm gonna give you three options to do that. And I'm sure you can come up with more. The first is just to stay active, so play some sports. Go for a swim walk, a lot hike, hang out with your friends and family, do something adventurous and that'll keep you active.
[00:18:41] That'll give you, uh, you know, maybe not the same training you're used to, but a different stimulus and it'll be a lot of fun. The second option. is body weight movements, the classics, pushups, chin ups. If you can find a bar or, you know, a, uh, door frame that can hold your weight, that's not gonna break. Um, or maybe the side of a Tiki hut squats with a big rock in your hand.
[00:19:04] Hey, maybe this is a good opportunity for strong man training. Get creative. Uh, the third option is to bring some resistance bands, either the kind with handles or the, the classic, um, like mini bands or the weight lifting or CrossFit bands. And these give you a ton of ways to hit the same movement patterns you would with your weightlifting routine.
[00:19:25] And there's ton of guides online. Just Google it for movements and routines to use resistance span. last but not least. I wanna share what I did on our trip to Florida. This was in June. So it was a little bit warm there. It's it's nice. You know, nice time of year for nutrition. I just didn't track. At this point, I've been tracking long enough that I could eat intuitively I could get pretty close to what I want, but here's the kicker.
[00:19:53] I deliberately timed my last fat loss phase to end two weeks prior so that I could go back to maintenance ahead of time and up my calories. And this gave me some flexibility to enjoy myself and I did. I had to have Cuban food at least twice while I was there. Uh, and of course, ice cream, a few times, that's my vice and ice cream in Florida is, you know, match made in heaven.
[00:20:19] And I knew that I might gain a few pounds over that week. And in fact, on the scale, I probably gained about six or seven pounds, but a lot of that was glycogen and water cuz it quickly came off and I just simply resumed where I left. I switched to a building phase when I got home. So it was actually ideal, right?
[00:20:37] I went from a, a 16 week cut to a two week maintenance, upping my maintenance calories going on the trip, eating whatever I wanted, but, you know, I knew how to restrain myself and then going to a building phase when I got home. So it naturally trended into the new phase. Now I could tell on the trip by my hunger signal.
[00:20:58] Or, or lack thereof let's say, and the occasional feelings of bloat and digestive distress when, when I'd eaten or drunk more than usual. Um, and when I did that, I sort of tapered off the next day. Took it a little bit easy. um, or if it was my choice, I continued my hedonistic ways, but rest assured I didn't abuse this freedom and I just had a few select, very high calorie meals during the week.
[00:21:24] Um, planned it out, thought about it ahead of time, made sure to have enough protein on hand, et cetera, things I talked about before. For training. I coaxed my 70 plus year old dad and my younger brother just younger by a few years to go to the local big box gym on two different days, one upper body, one lower body.
[00:21:44] I just wanted to show them the barbell lifts. Hey guys, you do machines. Let's, you know, try something different. Um, And I think how did we do it? We used the free three day promotional pass they had, so we went one day and then two days later within that window, of course, then we're on their mailing list AF after that point.
[00:22:01] But, uh, as expected. Okay. I totally expected this. There was literally only one squat rack. There were a couple Smith machines. There were a million cardio machines and body building machines. It was a good dumbbell rack, but one squat rack. And it wasn't even the traditional rack with the vertical. Um, the vertical steel rod rods.
[00:22:23] I can't speak right now. It was one of those, uh, like triangular trapezoidal, contraptions. I can't really explain it other than it was not ideal for unring for a squat. You really had to be a little bit careful. But we spotted each other and we used good form and technique to be as safe as we could. We got it done.
[00:22:43] So we spent about a solid hour slinging, barbells, dumbbells, and trying some of the machines. What's fun about being on vacation at a different gym is you get to try some other machines you don't normally have. I mean, simple things that I. Wouldn't take for granted like, um, a seated leg curl, you know, I have a line leg curled home, so I said, well, now I can do it seated.
[00:23:03] That's great. Or a cafe machine, something like that, you know, just for fun. So we felt energized for the day. We had a great time. Well, at least. I did. I think my dad and brother maybe have regretted the decision, but we'll have something to talk about for years to come. Okay. That that's it for me. I think that covers the solid list of some of the unique challenges that I could think about when going on vacation.
[00:23:27] Uh, and I hope it answered Dina's question as well. I think it did. I hope some of these ideas and strategies are helpful for you the next time. Adventure calls.
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Ep 19: Functional Strength, Longevity, and Martial Arts with Ken Caputo
Ken Caputo is a lifelong athlete who eventually found his way to strength training in his late 30s. I invited Ken on today because of his passion for lifting and nutrition, and how they can keep someone healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally, as well as recover from injury.
Ken Caputo is a lifelong athlete who eventually found his way to strength training in his late 30s—something he and I have in common!
From an early age, he competed in swimming, track, cross country, and even pole vaulting and spring board diving at the University of Connecticut, eventually becoming an expert in martial arts.
I invited Ken on today because of his passion for lifting and nutrition, and how they can keep someone healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally, as well as recover from injury.
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:26] Welcome to episode 19 of Wits & Weights. Today, we have another special interview guests. Ken Kaputo is a lifelong athlete who eventually found his way to strength training in his late thirties. And that's something he and I have in common, uh, from an early age.
[00:00:47] He competed in swimming track, cross country, even pole vaulting and springboard diving at the university of Connecticut. Eventually becoming an expert in martial arts. I invited Ken on today because of his passion for lifting and nutrition and how they can keep someone healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally, as well as recover from injury.
[00:01:07] Ken Kaputo. Thanks for joining me on the.
[00:01:10] Ken Caputo: Glad to be here. Um,
[00:01:13] Philip Pape: you've been an athlete since you were a teenager and you've dabbled, recreationally and competitively in probably more sports than I've ever even thought of. Um, tell us, tell us more about your fitness background and your current approach to training and nutrition.
[00:01:30] Ken Caputo: Yeah, so I really, I think. I would say I became an athlete in my mid teens, you know, like around high school age. Um, prior to that, I was the skinny kid who couldn't, you know, I did little league and stuff like that, but did all of it poorly. And, um, and, uh, I was became attracted to more like endurance.
[00:01:51] Activities. So running. I did really well with swimming, uh, embody controls stuff, and I found that it just it's, it was a joy. It was like, I think the main thing, especially younger was it was a way to decompress, relieve stressors that, you know, all the teenagers are feeling. I think the hormonal highs, especially from endurance activities, with something I became kind of addicted to.
[00:02:17] Uh, so that really was. The start was, you know, and I think the other thing that attracted me to these kinds of individual, um, physical activities and sports was just, it was really just you against the clock, you know? And it was just kind of, you know, this time yeah. You know, a time where you're testing yourself and you know, that kind of fit.
[00:02:39] Personality and style early on. I think now where
[00:02:42] Philip Pape: you, were you encouraged to do this or did you find it on your own? Do you say you're a little skinny kid? Cause I was like the little fat kid who stayed out of sports when I was young. So nobody you'd have to, you know, pay me to do it. So, you know, how did you get into it that.
[00:02:55] So
[00:02:55] Ken Caputo: it's kind of funny because my, my dad, um, is a, he was like a big time football based, Paul, you know, he was into more of the traditional kind of team sports and he always really encouraged us to do those things. So I tried them all and that was just terrible. It just wasn't good at any of them and,
[00:03:13] Philip Pape: you know, something physical, just not those sports.
[00:03:17] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah. And I really just, you know, I mean, I, I remember just as a, like a 12, 13 year old, pretty much. Reading a lot of books and hiding in the basement and just kind of, you know, just nothing was working out that way. And it was, uh, a good friend of mine in high school who had joined up on the swim team to become a springboard diver.
[00:03:37] And he was like, you want to try. I said, I knew nothing about diving and neither did the coach, honestly. I mean, this is like a high school team. There was a board there, so it was me and him. And they literally showed us this eight millimeter reel of the required dives,
[00:03:53] Philip Pape: poems, or trays. Like you ever see Dodge ball.
[00:03:55] Like, I don't think it up now, this the springboard. So versus the, I don't know what you call the other one that's doesn't spring, but is this very high or is it pretty close to the water?
[00:04:08] Ken Caputo: It's pretty close. So one meter. So at the high school level, it's all one meter. Once you get into the collegiate level, uh, there is no one meter it's three meter.
[00:04:17] And then, especially as you get into the higher levels, you've got platform, usually, uh, a five meter and 10 meter platform. So, you know, starting out of this one meter and, um, you know, and I just, I loved it. And. As I got into it, I also started swimming because you could do both so you can compete. So I started competing in a hundred free and breasts and stuff like that.
[00:04:39] And, um, so this was my freshman year of high school. And what happened was that spring, they were looking for pole vaulters and the track coach said, Hey, you know, you diverse your, these skinny light guys who have good body control. Why don't you try out for the track team and see if we can pull all, okay.
[00:04:58] Philip Pape: Okay. I was going to say, it sounds like a totally random sport, but you've got, yeah,
[00:05:04] Ken Caputo: yeah, exactly. And I'd actually tried out for track when I was in junior high and got cut. Cause I didn't know what I was doing. I couldn't run. I was just not athletic. So, uh, so anyway, so I tried pole vaulting and, and again, as part of that, decided to try running again and got hooked on the 3,200.
[00:05:22] Which is basically two miles on the track. And that that fall I did cross country can take you to swim, dive and became a three sport athlete right through all of high school. Um, and then that carried over university of Connecticut. I was actually, um, recruited to be euphoric. But didn't get enough money to actually go there.
[00:05:45] So I walked on to the swim team at Yukon and, uh, made it as a diver and a dove for a couple of years there. Um, that's pretty cool.
[00:05:55] Philip Pape: What were you Yukon for? What was your major?
[00:05:57] Ken Caputo: Uh, actually I went in for psychologists. Okay. And, um, and ended up, uh, just not doing well. Um, you know, I was doing a bunch of stuff.
[00:06:06] I was, you know, kind of working my way through. I actually had joined the national guard to pay my tuition. So I was doing that once a month, you know, doing a army infantry men type thing. And, uh, and eventually just kind of ran out of money and motivation for the whole college thing. So. You know, so I left campus, I was still doing some classes part-time working nights and was looking for something physical to do, because at this point I understood the value of physical activity and just was looking for something that would kind of hit that body control part, but also something that would bring in a little bit more of a, I guess you would say a mindfulness, although I didn't really have those words at that time.
[00:06:47] So another friend said, Hey, there's a karate school in town. Check it out. So I went in, you know, so this is probably around 20 at the time. And, um, went in, try to class, fell in love with it. And. About a year later realized that I loved it so much. I actually came in a little early and saw Southern working with the kids and I was thinking, oh my God, I, I could see myself doing this with my life.
[00:07:14] You know, I mean, it's, it's, it's healthy for me. I could really transform a lot of lives. So I started teaching, volunteering my time and eventually took over a school that was failing and, um, It's still going strong 30 plus years later. Well,
[00:07:31] Philip Pape: that's amazing how opportunities come out of nowhere. Right? We seeking that a kind of individualistic pursuit, right.
[00:07:37] Of something that would channel your energy. So it wasn't even for self-defense or anything like that, which is probably why I would think to take martial arts and then you fell into it found that you could teach kids. And that was another passion of yours kind of combining the two.
[00:07:50] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah. And I had actually, uh, because of the swimming, I had, uh, been a lifeguard through high school that was kind of my job.
[00:07:56] And I taught swim lessons and loved teaching the kids. So there is, so that kind of came back, bubbling out to the surface when I saw this, this opportunity with the martial arts and it all just kind of came together and, you know, so I started doing it professionally and Doug, you know, really dug into that and competed in tournaments and, you know, Six days a week and you know, really just became a lifestyle.
[00:08:22] Philip Pape: That's pretty cool. My only foray into karate. Well, there's two first is I tried it as a kid and I was too scared to actually go up in front in front of everybody for the first demonstration. And I told my parents, I don't want to do this. Um, and then the second is, is my love for Cobra, Kai, which I know is completely realistic.
[00:08:39] Uh, the show on Netflix, right? And that's about it. It's hilarious. It's very entertaining, um, tongue in cheek and all that, especially if you grew up around that time. Um, but so I've wondered, I understand you've taught. So this is Shalon. Kempo is the style that from your email, hopefully I pronounce that.
[00:08:55] Right. Um, and you're a seventh degree black belt. And again, I don't know anything about martial arts in general. So why that style? What, what excites you about.
[00:09:05] Ken Caputo: Uh, it was really the first one that I stepped into and, you know, and what I tell people all the time there's, there are so many different styles and it really just comes down to, does the, does the way the system is set up, compliment the way that you kind of move.
[00:09:24] And does it feel good to you? And more importantly, do you like the environment? Do you like the teachers? Do you like the students that are with you? It's really a community. Uh, so as long as those things, the actual name of the style or the specific of the style never really seemed as relevant. Um, they all have advantages and disadvantages.
[00:09:43] Um, like you said, I was more interested in being a balanced human, so I wasn't really into Intuit for like a con. Type of, you know, hardcore. Yeah. You know, and it, it just, it wasn't. And, you know, and if I was, I probably would've picked a different style, although there's, you know, the style I'm in is very, um, there's obviously self-defense application there always is, but what it's really about is living a long, healthy life, you know, and that's, that was what really appealed to me.
[00:10:15] Not only for myself. Teaching that you know, to communities and, you know, here I am at, I literally trained multiple generations, you know, so watch kids become parents and have kids and, you know, live healthy, abundant lives with this martial arts system being kind of, part of that. Part of that experience for sure.
[00:10:37] Philip Pape: Yeah. And I think this, you hit on the community aspect. I think that's attracted a lot of people to all sorts of pursuits. Right? CrossFit is a big one I can think of that took off 15 years ago. Um, you also mentioned longevity and health, and I want to get into some of that with this discussion because.
[00:10:55] You know, so sometimes goals are contradictory, right? There's the performance goals, there's strength, goals, longevity, and health. They don't always align perfectly if you're trying to build and you need to cut body fat and, you know, be hungry and suffer through all that. And you're messing with your hormones.
[00:11:13] And so on that doesn't necessarily translate to living to 110, if that's what you meant by long, but you know, you get the point. So, I mean, what's your take on balance. Yeah,
[00:11:25] Ken Caputo: it's, it's really an interesting thing. And the funny part, I, I, I trained as a lifelong athlete. It was all, it was, it was pretty well balanced just because I wasn't looking to be like some crazy.
[00:11:38] You know, MMA fighter, whereas taking a lot of hits, like even competed in tournaments, but there's, what's called point fighting. So there's contact, but it's, it's like tag, you know, when someone hits you, everything stops and you're accumulating five points and then you advance. So. You take some shots, you know, but it's not the sheer abuse that like an MMA fighter or a boxer, you know?
[00:12:01] I mean, they're like taking such a pounding. So I didn't have that element. What was interesting is, you know, by the time I was in my mid thirties, I had reached, uh, a rank in these, in the system that I was training where you really couldn't compete anymore. I started racing mountain bikes
[00:12:19] Philip Pape: and, uh, had the bug.
[00:12:21] And yet somehow
[00:12:23] Ken Caputo: I've always needed to do something competitive. And this was cross-country. So, you know, so you start off as a beginner and, you know, it's like maybe like a 45 minute, uh, you know, race. And by the time you reached back then what was the expert level? What's now cat one. These are two, three hour races.
[00:12:39] So they're very demanding. Um, doing point series. So you're talking 14 races between like April and October. So that's where you start seeing what you're talking about. Like balancing that level of training and conditioning, um, against the demands of the sport. Can really throw you out of whack. And I remember very vividly, uh, when I first started racing, you know, I got like blown out my first year.
[00:13:07] I did terrible. And it was just part of the learning curve, um, led to a lot of nutritional insights we can talk about, but there were posters up for dealing with. And a lot of, a lot of these racers were pushing themselves so hard, physically logging so many hours to be competitive, that it was creating damage emotionally, you know, not enough time committed to their relationships.
[00:13:31] So, so I learned a lot about that and really, you know, my goal was doing this because the best way for me to stay healthy was to have some kind of a physical event to train for in a cyclical way. You know, so, and that's when I started really thinking about all right, what's the best way to be efficient and to be smart.
[00:13:53] So. I, I feel imbalanced. I'm not like getting moody or, you know, eating things that are leaving me all doubled over and cramped up after a race or impacting my, my business. I mean, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a business owner, so I had to invest all of that. So I learned, I think, more from the mountain biking experience and did that for about a decade.
[00:14:15] Um, did I did from anything I had done previously to that, you know?
[00:14:19] Philip Pape: Yeah. So it sounds like what you're talking about is the need for period of. The need for, I guess, seasons in your training and your competitions. I mean, CrossFitters learn this over the years of the open and the games where the organization, I guess, added more and more competitions.
[00:14:34] And the top ranks guys wanted to compete all year and they found they couldn't do it. And, you know, because you get over-trained, you get over fatigued and you really need to peak peak for that. Right? You need to have a building phase, you have to have an off season, et cetera. It sounds like what you're talking about now, could these bikers.
[00:14:51] Just skip a bunch of competitions and choose the ones they wanted or did they have to compete in all of these
[00:14:56] Ken Caputo: it's upended. So, you know what, for those of us that were into it from a point serious perspective, it was, you could miss one race, which usually was going to be a DNF. Like you went to race and something broke on your bike or you crashed and broke yourself and that kind of thing.
[00:15:14] Yeah. But I mean, you really, you had to, you know, the ones that would win. I won states. I won new England. So I took it as high as I could go at the expert level. Um, and it was really attrition. It was who could raise consistently pretty much top five race after race, after race, through the whole series. So, yeah, it was very challenging because you really couldn't, you know, and you found yourself like during the training season balancing, like your, your main physical effort was the race and then everything else was kind of recovery, maintaining fitness.
[00:15:48] You know, you could sustain it. And what's interesting is there's this, and you see this a lot in athletics. There's this. Tough guy culture. Like, you know, one of the things we used to say is, you know, the one who breaks last wins, you know, the one who could and, and cycling is sustained pain, like mountain biking, especially cause it's very anaerobic and aerobic.
[00:16:13] So, you know, you're, you're going up and up Mount snow with your heart rate at 180 5 for 15 minutes, and then you're exhausted and trying to traverse and go back down and do it again. You know, so you, you almost didn't recognize how important it was to take care of yourself and focus on recovery because the tough guy would just take it, you know, and not break it.
[00:16:40] No, it really was. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:43] Philip Pape: Wow. That's cool. So w so we, we touched on balance and periodization then, so then that brings me to. I know you're doing OTRs now, but, um, you, you also do strength training and that's, that's my passion. Right? You came into that, I guess, in, around in your thirties, sort of similar timeframe that I did.
[00:17:00] Um, I guess my question is, you know, how did you fall into this?
[00:17:05] Ken Caputo: So, yeah, so it was really interesting. So with the cycling, you know, one of the things, especially road cyclist, they'll tend to, um, you know, there's a lot mass amounts of cardiovascular fitness and they're there, you know, your legs just get huge, but your upper body on a mountain bike, you need a lot of upper body strength, but it's hard to actually work.
[00:17:27] On the bike, you know what I mean? It's to, to actually get like, kind of balanced musculature and it was also starting to, you know, there's a lot more research I had. Um, my first started racing, um, I was just pumping calories, you know, five, 6,000 calories a day, and I'm doing it with feeding anything, hot dogs, ice cream, whatever I could, I didn't know, you know?
[00:17:48] Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, so I'm starting to get like cramps. So I started studying nutrition and started learning about, you know, how it's not just the calories, the macronutrients, the types of foods, all of that started coming into play. And that led me to understanding a little bit more about body composition and the value of maintaining muscle mass.
[00:18:14] Not only for just strength, competitively, but overall health and longevity. And at this point, Almost 20 years ago. So the research wasn't even really that strong, like now, I mean,
[00:18:26] Philip Pape: science phase still.
[00:18:28] Ken Caputo: Yeah. You know, and I, I was really kind of turned off by the idea of muscle building, like bulking up because as a martial artist, who is all about everything being balanced and functional strength.
[00:18:40] So, you know, I mean, Fighting. I, I weighed 150 pounds, you know, and it was about hitting, like you weighed 250 pounds sure. Through structure, not necessarily too big. So, so I had kind of, I was misinformed about what resistance training could actually do for you. And as I started reaching it, uh, researching, and I was like, okay, now this is starting to make sense.
[00:19:05] And I recognized that I had worked a lot on. The other cornerstones of fitness, there's like five things that I think about, uh, conditions. Um, flexibility, which you do a lot in martial arts stability, which you do a lot in martial arts is just so much balance and mobility movement. But what I missed was strength and
[00:19:29] Philip Pape: which you could argue, could bring all these other things up another level.
[00:19:33] Ken Caputo: Exactly what happened. So, so I, and I found that I just had, um, I was doing a lot of upper body, uh, not upper body. Um, just like, uh, Strength training always had tons of pushups, pull ups, just explosive movements with the body, but not adding in actual weights. And when I started adding in the way. All of a sudden, like it was kind of scary, like how much more energy I had.
[00:19:58] I started hitting like a lot harder. Um, I was moving more exclusively when I was training in the arts, my, uh, ability to perform my mountain bike racing got better. It just, it just brought everything together. It was like the glue that brought all these different things together.
[00:20:16] Philip Pape: Um, I'm not surprised at all.
[00:20:18] What I'm curious about is what, what style or what focus of strength training that you've found most effective, you know, is it the big compound lifts or was it just adding weight to, to anything or what was it.
[00:20:29] Ken Caputo: It was, it's kind of funny. I think, um, I, I just started reading books on it. Um, and there were a few good ones that, uh, um, I think there's one body for life, uh, early on.
[00:20:40] And there are a few like that. And, um, and so I was just kind of learning. How to lift and, you know, the difference between low rep high rep, figuring out what your one lift max was and just the basics, you know, I mean, bench, press deadlift, squat, you know, that kind of stuff. Um, but I actually found this guy is probably still around his name is shin or talkie and he, he was big on.
[00:21:05] Understanding how to do compound movements. And he was like doing a lot more of like the Olympic lifts, like Queens and you know, that kind of stuff. And, but all the dumbbells. So I really got kind of fascinated by that. It made a lot of sense, as far as working through connect kinetic chains of movement, like you do much more bilateral.
[00:21:27] Yeah. Yeah. So, and there was just, and also the core state of stabilization. So I felt like it, it was causing me to use my body the way I trained it to work for two decades and all these other things I did. So, so I kind of started digging into his stuff for a while. Um, and then, so a few years after. I think it was when Jeff cavalier showed up on the scene with YouTube and he
[00:21:55] Philip Pape: just really, yeah.
[00:21:57] Athlete next.
[00:21:58] Ken Caputo: Yeah. And that's what I use to this day. I just use various of his programs because I like the way he kinda, you know, he, he varies it up. He, he sets you up on, you know, a training regimen. That's not too time intensive, but you know, it doesn't leave any gaps. It's smart and intelligent. And now I just kind of cycle through a bunch of his different programs and, you know, that's what I've found has been most effective for me.
[00:22:24] Philip Pape: I mean, that. You know, you came through with the compound lifts and also the dumbbells. I mean, I I've heard it said that if, if you had no problem lifting any weight dumbbell, it would be the most effective, you know, implement. Um, but when you get heavy enough, you just can't wield them. You know, they're just too, and that's why you tend to use both.
[00:22:44] Um, if you have the training volume and you have the time, but, um, Consistency. Right. When did you say, like, I know a lot of folks, they can pick up fairly mediocre program. I'm not saying, um, Cavaliers program is that, but you could pick one and as long as you're consistent, you're gonna have, you're gonna be in the top 90% of people in terms of your
[00:23:02] Ken Caputo: progress.
[00:23:03] Yeah. Yeah, no. And when people ask me, you know, I mean, that's, that's, I'm, I'm always very clear. There's a difference between like I'm choosing to live my life. For as long as I possibly can as a high performing athlete. And obviously what high performing is, is relative to, you know, the event, the time I put in age, all those other things as they just naturally occur.
[00:23:27] Um, but for most people tell them, look, I mean, just if you stress the muscles, you know, two, three times a week, it's just, it's all good for you. You know? So find something you can do safely and smart that you can commit to. And, you know, and if it's just body weight and you just want to pull a bar and do pushups and you know, that's going to be what it is, it's, it's definitely better than nothing.
[00:23:51] And you may find that over time, as you get stronger, you get curious and you know, and now you do sign up for the gym and get a couple of personals and. Learn a few things about how to lift safely and smart and that kind of thing. But, um, but yeah, I just tell people, look, it's just the act of strength training on a regular basis.
[00:24:12] Like you said, consistently. Is going to have a tremendous impact on your overall health and wellness over time period.
[00:24:20] Philip Pape: Yep. Totally agree. Preaching to the choir on that, you know? Yeah. You know, and it's funny. I don't know. Let's see. Did it come out? Yeah, I did an episode on injury that just came out. And then you had mentioned that you suffered, um, at a grade three AC tear the lout three ligaments, but, but.
[00:24:39] You were, had gotten stronger up to that point and you believe that that helped you through or help the recovery process versus if you hadn't.
[00:24:47] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah. When Fe, so that happened in 2015 on Thanksgiving morning. So we're talking, you know, almost seven years
[00:24:56] Philip Pape: ago.
[00:24:59] Ken Caputo: This was so basically that morning before going to do all the family stuff, I just went for a run, um, as soon a trailer.
[00:25:06] With my golden retriever. So I had her on my leash and, you know, and we ran this trail. It was very clear and everything just kind of like a gravel road bed. So, you know, so it's doing some sprints and she, she saw whatever squirrel type thing cut across my legs. So I went over the top, which was fine. One of the things I really good at is rolling out.
[00:25:27] You know, I've gotten over the type of bicycles and all that kind of stuff, but she pulled the leash. Exactly when I was upside down and I came down on the top of my right shoulder, the ortho guy said it was perfect. Like there was no fracture in my collarbone at all. Like I hit exactly on the top of the joy and basically your arms held to your collarbone by three ligaments.
[00:25:52] Uh, and I sheared right through all three of those ligaments. So, you know, so like your collarbone. Like 3g and see it right through a t-shirt even it's like, it was like almost an inch, you know, raised up and, you know, so,
[00:26:07] Philip Pape: so also you said, so are you saying that was preferable to having broken your. Well, the
[00:26:13] Ken Caputo: vantage to it, not
[00:26:14] Philip Pape: preferable
[00:26:16] Ken Caputo: vantage was, I didn't need like surgery and things.
[00:26:19] So no pins in the collarbone, nothing like that. But basically you have two choices with a grade three tear, cause there's not a sprain or a partial tear. There's literally nothing holding your arm attached to your collarbone other than muscle and skin at that point. So you can either, uh, let it heal up naturally.
[00:26:37] And it'll do what's called scar. And scar tissue will basically replace the ligaments or they go in and they string up piece of wire around your collarbone and they just kind of cinch it up. So, so I decided to let it heal non-surgically and, and the doc had told me, he said, look, you got nine months. Uh, if at the end of nine months, it hasn't healed.
[00:26:57] Well, we can go in and we can do the surgery and do that. So, so basically you spend about six months holding your arm in your. And like you can't pick anything up, you know, at all, because you'll tear all the scar tissue. Um, so I lost, probably close to, at that point, I, I was probably like one 60 somewhere in there.
[00:27:19] Um, you know, a decent amount of muscle mass. I lost about 12 pounds of muscle mass, my whole right side atrophied. I had done so much work to strengthen and build muscle that I healed completely and asymptomatically and have absolutely no limitations. Now it actually, the doctor even was a little surprised at how well it healed.
[00:27:41] Um, and he said you have years of prehab. Yours. And especially the resistance training doing these, these complex lifts and everything. I had strengthened the shoulder, all the support muscles were balanced and in good shape. So my body was naturally trying to bring everything back into alignment, which gave me a better opportunity for it to scar up and heal.
[00:28:03] Right.
[00:28:04] Philip Pape: Um, it was sort of like a muscle memory in a way everybody's trying to get back to that point.
[00:28:09] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah. And it took me. It was two years from the injury before I regained everything that I had lost as far as strength and mobility and everything. But now almost seven years later, I'm doing everything I could do and more priors, incredible jury.
[00:28:26] So, yeah. And I think what really struck me about just maintaining your, your, you know, just to exercise fitness, lifting, all of those things is there. You're putting money in the bank. These are investments that will pay dividends if and when something happens, you know, and so many people, you know, I was talking to him and he was showing me pictures and he said, a lot of people don't recover well from this injury because they've been sedentary.
[00:28:54] So, you know, so now they're trying to actually develop muscle. To protect and help them overcome the damage they did. But it's too late. It's like learning to defend yourself after you got mugged. Right. It doesn't
[00:29:10] Philip Pape: get insurance after you don't need it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Have you ever seen the, uh, there, this cross, the cross-sectional pictures.
[00:29:18] Of somebody's thigh as they get older on, if you've ever seen something like that, where you see the diameter of the thighs the same, but the muscle area just shrinks and shrinks and shrinks because of the as you get older. Right. So it's just, like you said, you, you basically waste away, especially as we start getting into your fifties and sixties.
[00:29:37] I mean, it's never too late to start strength training, but like you said, injury wise, the risk of not being able to recover goes yeah. The older you are. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you'd be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media.
[00:29:53] Just take a screenshot, share to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful in how I can improve again, an incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the. And
[00:30:09] Ken Caputo: what's cool though, is from my understanding your body responds really well.
[00:30:12] I mean, you can start lifting when you're in your sixties and you're going to regain muscle mass and, you know, and it's gonna it's and there's just this whole, like kind of domino effect of benefits that come from that, you know, the big thing is making sure that you're safe.
[00:30:30] Philip Pape: Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. What the answer doing the right forum.
[00:30:33] My dad is in his seventies and has finally picked up weight training for the first time. And he's seen the benefits. I agree. You can build additional muscle even in your seventies. It's crazy.
[00:30:44] Ken Caputo: Yeah. And you're talking like the, and I know you've talked about on some of your episodes, the metabolic. Oh, of course, you know,
[00:30:51] Philip Pape: that testosterone and
[00:30:54] Ken Caputo: yup.
[00:30:54] And the proportion of muscle to fat, you know, the ratio and it's, and I don't care what age you are. That is, that is going to be good for you. Oh, absolutely.
[00:31:03] Philip Pape: Just having a higher metabolism for sure. Yep. Um, all right. So. OCR. I want to get back to that. Cause I, you seem like a guy who is high energy always has to be busy doing something, and you're trying to balance everything and not get injured.
[00:31:18] You want to live a long life. You want to perform, you want to go out and win. So that sounds like a good outlet for that. Is that how you got into. Yeah.
[00:31:25] Ken Caputo: Yeah. So, so it's kind of funny. And again, you know, these things are so random. It was, uh, uh, someone just asked me if I wanted to go do one of a rugged maniac, which was, you know, and, and at that point, um, I wasn't really doing anything competitively.
[00:31:40] I had kind of retired from the cycling, you know, I was doing it recreationally. Um, but it just kind of ran its course and I wasn't interested in continue to compete. You know, I kind of took it to. You know, as high an amateur level as I could. And it was just, I lost my interest in it. So I was kind of in between interesting athletic things to challenge myself.
[00:32:02] I hadn't already done. Um, you know, when skydiving, when I turned 50, that was fun, but I, it was an adrenaline kick, but it's not really a sport. It would
[00:32:12] Philip Pape: be a skydiver. Yeah,
[00:32:14] Ken Caputo: it was, I loved it. I did it a few times. It was such a blast, you know, but, uh, but anyway, you know, so. So they invited me to go do one of these rugged maniac things and it was a blast and the culture was very celebratory.
[00:32:29] It reminded me a little bit about, uh, um, how mountain biking was when I had done that. Just the, the type of people that would show up and, you know, so, so I did, let me stop you there.
[00:32:39] Philip Pape: Did you do the one. Yes. Okay. Because I did that twice. It'd be interesting to know if we competed the same years. Was that like within the last 10 years or was that much more recently?
[00:32:48] Yes, I did
[00:32:50] Ken Caputo: it. So I want to say the first year I did, it was probably 2017. Cause it would have been, I wouldn't have been able to do it the year before that because I, I wasn't healed enough yet. I was less than a year off of my injury. So I think it was, I think it was 2017 and I was really just at a point where I was starting to get back.
[00:33:10] Physically to the condition I was used to operating it. Um, that's a good way to say it would've made sense. Yeah.
[00:33:17] Philip Pape: So like tough Mudder or something like that.
[00:33:20] Ken Caputo: Yeah. And of course, you know, so I tried it. I had a blast. I think I went back, did it the next year. Yeah. So that would have been 2018 and I'm started looking into the fact that they would do an elite heat.
[00:33:33] Um, so which the first heat in the morning, you could actually have a timed race. You could key in it. So I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. And of course I was going with a group of people and they weren't interested in that. So, so I ended up running the course in 20, 19 3 times and I did it, uh, once competitively, um, did okay.
[00:33:56] You know, like I didn't, I didn't win or anything, but I get relatively well. And then I did it with a small group and then I did it one more time with a big group and just was really, it was a lot of fun. So
[00:34:09] Philip Pape: for the listener, this is a 5k with like 20 or 30 obstacles. Yeah. So a good time is, is somewhere in the upper twenties maybe or low thirties,
[00:34:22] Ken Caputo: low
[00:34:22] Philip Pape: thirties.
[00:34:24] Ken Caputo: There's times where, depending on the course for the 5k, um, and how muddy it is that day, um, anywhere between 30 and 35 minutes. Uh, and the, so the first year I did it competitively, I did it in about 38 minutes. Um, you know, so I, I did it well enough. That it seemed like something that was interesting to pursue.
[00:34:44] And then of course, 20, 20 the pandemic. So it didn't happen. Uh, so, so last fall, you know, so I kind of trained, I decided last fall in 2021, I was going to train for this thing and try to do well. So, and they actually have, um, competitively, they have, uh, a 50 and up division and then they have just an all age division.
[00:35:06] So I ended up winning the 50 and up and finishing third overall. Two metals. Yeah. No. And it was, it was fun, you know, and it was what I really enjoyed was the preparation because it, the process. Yeah. You know that the endurance part of it. So you gotta be running, you know, Hadn't run. I'd been focusing on cycling.
[00:35:29] So it's kind of cool getting back to running. It's very pure. I love trail running. Um, but then, you know, you need a lot of body strength and a lot of body coordination because of all the obstacles. So, so I did that placed high enough that I got an email about OCR world championships, which happens every year.
[00:35:50] It's strategy. It's at Stratton this year. Um, I was like, Why not. So, so I decided I was going to train for that. And as part of that, um, I started researching the different OCR, like kind of circuits going around and found Spartan racing. Really like, you know, the way that looked. So, uh, so signed up for a trifecta, which is basically doing the multiple distances.
[00:36:19] Um, worlds for OCR is a 15 K race. So, you know, so long, get a little
[00:36:25] Philip Pape: more hardcore here. Yeah,
[00:36:27] Ken Caputo: yeah, yeah. More endurance. And, uh, the, the really fascinating thing about it is they basically, they give you a risk. And, um, if you don't clear an obstacle, they cut your wristband. You're done so you can finish the race, but you're disqualified.
[00:36:40] So you've got to be able to clear all the obstacles and you can try it more than once, you know, like if you slip off or whatever, but, um, oh,
[00:36:48] Philip Pape: okay. You can try them on. What, what what's is that not the one where they make you do a bunch of burpees if you miss it, or is that like at the non. Oh, that is fine.
[00:36:55] Yes. Spartan does that 30 burpees or something? Yeah.
[00:36:59] Ken Caputo: 25 burpees. So yeah. So if you miss an obstacle, you got to go to the penalty box and they actually, for the competitive, you can do Spartan, just recreationally. But if you know, the, the preparation and how it relates to this idea of being an integrated athlete, that's really.
[00:37:16] Kind of focus off of all of it. So,
[00:37:19] Philip Pape: yeah. So, so let's talk about the, the terms here, right? You've used the terms, functional strength, um, integrated movement, integrated athlete. The first time I came across functional movement was CrossFit again, back back in the day, um, where I get introduced to barbells and, and power cleans and such.
[00:37:35] Um, I guess, what do you, in your words, what does that mean? What does functional strength mean?
[00:37:41] Ken Caputo: So for me, I mean, there's a lot of different ways that people think of it, but it's, for me, it's being able to do the things that I love to do. To live the life of my choosing. So, you know, and for some people that could be hiking with their grandkids or being able to go to a waterpark and actually go down the slides and climb up the stairs, um, it could be being able to do yard work in your nineties.
[00:38:07] You know, it's just, you know, to me that the, the, the preparation for athletic events. For me has always been in service to being able to do the things that I want to do. Not only physically, but mentally and emotionally keeping my energy levels stay strong. My mind is clear. I'm on zero medications, you know, I mean, it's.
[00:38:34] I stay healthy. I get to live the life that I want to live. So, you know, so to me, what I think functional strength, it's like even this, uh, you know, this OCR stuff, it's, you're pushing, you're pulling, you're crawling, you're climbing. You're you're doing like actual movements that, you know, show up in your life.
[00:38:54] It's funny. One of the things I would tell people in martial arts is the one skill I guarantee you will use that you'll learn in a martial arts class is how to fall safely. At some point, you're going to fall down, you know, and most people that's how they, especially as they age, you break a bone, you dislocate a hip, you get.
[00:39:12] Because, you know, two things, number one, falling is a skill. It's a skill develop. Um, let me down when I blew up my AC, but Hey, no, there's no guarantees. Right. You know, but then the other thing is how well have you practiced your body being functionally sound and structurally sound. So. It has a higher tolerance for the unexpected things that happen in our lives, you know, and if something does go wrong, you can recover from it better on the other side.
[00:39:42] So,
[00:39:42] Philip Pape: yeah, it's just, it seems like there's a spectrum because. For example, if, if somewhere to come to someone where to come to me and say, I want to get stronger, I'd say, all right, we're going to start with the very basics. Right? We're going to squat. We're going to deadlift. Cause squatting is bending down, right?
[00:39:57] Like you would do if you were sitting, if you were outside with your tribe or whatever, um, deadlifting is picking stuff up, you know, overhead pressing is reaching over your head. And Ben's pressings kind of the odd man out, even though we all love it, but it's kind of pushing, you know, being able to push something heavy forward in a way.
[00:40:13] So those are functional movements and they develop stability, mobility, et cetera, but you are still lacking some, like I couldn't do a back flip and I haven't really learned to fall properly. So things like that, um, would expand the repertoire, I guess if I, you know, focused on those skills. So it it's an interesting perception.
[00:40:31] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Like we went to a trampoline park and I'm out there literally doing backflips and bouncing all over the place. You know, like I'm a teenager and you know, and I'm not sore from it the next day. Like I train trampolining is part of diving and you would not believe how sore you can get if you're not used to doing.
[00:40:52] But, yeah, so it's just, you know, for me, it's, it's that, and you know, in the idea of being an integrated athlete is actually kind of these five components. Um, you know, we talk about move, think connect, fuel, empower, uh, with the idea being every day, make an investment in your ability to move somehow, you know, every day do something that's good for your mind.
[00:41:15] You know, and, you know, learn something new, read something, listen to something and get the blood going, you know, get the blood into your brain, oxygenate your brain through. So the movement helps with that. Fuel is obviously the nutrition, you know, the nourishment you bring in connect. This is the relationships that you've.
[00:41:35] Through all of this, you know, so, I mean, going for a walk with, with a partner or a friend, that's powerful on a lot of different levels, you know? And then, um, through the martial arts, I do a lot of, uh, cheat dog, meditation, mindfulness stuff. So empower is just, you know, being present in whatever it is you're doing.
[00:41:54] And when you do all those, all those things a little bit every day, it kind of, for me anyway, it helps keep everything. And balance. So you don't get caught up in lifting for the sake of lifting. You're lifting for a purpose that adds value to your life over the longterm. And if your body changes or your environment changes or something changes professionally, you don't feel like you're losing something because it will just adapt to the needs that you now have, and it will grow and evolve with you over time.
[00:42:26] Instead of, you know, ah, I used to be able to run a mile. Five 15. I can't do that anymore. I shouldn't be running. Yeah.
[00:42:36] Philip Pape: Yeah, no, I, I like it. I like where you're going with that too. You have to have a goal and you can have intermediate goals. You could have long-term goals, right. And then you break it down to the process.
[00:42:46] Um, don't, don't. Either extreme. In other words, like you said, don't just do the process for its own sake. Cause then eventually you might not have purpose and don't just focus on the end goal thinking that's all there is. So that's a good balance. What would you say to people who are listening, who either want to get started in what you do, maybe with the martial arts or somebody who's not as active because you threw out a bunch of things, right.
[00:43:11] And you develop these over time, but what are the big priorities? The big rocks for people.
[00:43:18] Ken Caputo: Uh, I think honestly, the very first thing is understanding the value of recovery. Right? I think you almost have to start there. You know, understanding how much sleep you need. Um, I I'm like a geek when it comes to the technology.
[00:43:33] So like I use whoop, you know,
[00:43:36] Philip Pape: which is that the mat, the mattress, or is that the device in your wrist? That's
[00:43:39] Ken Caputo: the device. Yeah. And it's basically that same thing as the exact same, well, different companies. Same thing, you know, and it helps you understand how well based on the effort you put in how well you're sleeping and recovering based on that understanding of hydration needs and understanding the nourishment of the foods you bring in and how it's really just.
[00:44:07] I think, uh, the confusion I see in a lot of people that I've worked with over the years is they get caught up in the output and, you know, I need to, I need to do my 10,000 steps or I need to get to the gym three days a week. And yes, there, there is all of that, but that's just stimulation, you know, that you have to create the space in your life to receive the benefit.
[00:44:29] And you know, and sometimes the best thing to do is stop. You know, like I definitely, I, I go off every Finn, you know, I do like little supplementation, like created and then sure. You know, omega stuff like that, but I stop everything, stop lifting and just walk for a week and just stop.
[00:44:49] Philip Pape: You can, you know, you can say it's de-load, but you, you really just unplug and disconnect and, and let your body fully
[00:44:54] Ken Caputo: recover.
[00:44:55] Yeah. And I'm actually thinking about that. I'm thinking about muscle repair. And how much better I'm going to feel on the other side of it, you know, and that kind of thing. So, you know, so that's the first thing. And then, um, the second thing that I always recommend to people is find movements that you enjoy, you know?
[00:45:16] So, cause that's the first thing. If you're, if you're doing something that makes you and you hate it every time you think about doing it, they're not going to, you're not going to stay with it. You've got to find things that you now. Yes. You know, an exercise. Isn't always fun. I remember, uh, an adult saying to me a few years ago, he's like you saying, I'm gonna have to do this for the rest of my life.
[00:45:38] And I'm like,
[00:45:42] if you want to be healthy. Yeah. So, you know, gotta do
[00:45:46] Philip Pape: your squats, but maybe you don't want to do back squats. Maybe you want to do front squats. They either do it with a dumbbell, whatever leg, press, you know, do something.
[00:45:56] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Maybe it's resistance bands, you know, or, or maybe it's, you know, putting your kid on your back and doing squats with them, feedbacks, you know, or just.
[00:46:08] Grab a dumbbell walk up and downstairs, you know, the farmer, Hey, asymmetric, farmers carries. Those are great. So, you know,
[00:46:15] Philip Pape: so no excuses, what you're getting at. It's like, if you don't like something, you find something you do. Like at the end of the day, it's going to be hard at some point. Right. And that's part of, part of the fun really is when you do hard things and you see the results can be funded,
[00:46:28] Ken Caputo: but, and you're looking forward to the result.
[00:46:31] So while you're engaged in the activity, you're thinking about the value you're creating, you know, and what that means to you. And. I think I've been fortunate in that, um, like physically, what it does to me has been symptomatic. So like, you know how ripped my abs are. Yeah. The reason I work out. It's just something that you notice as you're going through the training cycles and you know, my body composition, you know, I weigh myself every day and use an impedance scale just so they can kind of monitor how I'm doing and you know, but it's not, I'm not obsessed with how I look.
[00:47:07] I'm just thinking about the value I'm Korean. So, yeah, I
[00:47:11] Philip Pape: agree. Like if, if, um, for new nutrition coaching, you know, I talk about the using biofeedback and data and measurements. It's just that just data it's. In fact, when you do it regularly, if you weigh yourself every day, it, you almost stop thinking about it and you stop obsessing about it.
[00:47:27] Yeah. But it's easier said than done because people have there's, there's all sorts of emotional, mental issues people have, and there's disordered eating and things like that. Um, but I, I love where.
[00:47:37] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Oh, sorry. I was just thinking that could be so hard. Like, you know, especially when I've worked with younger people, they're, you know, they're on Instagram and they're, you know, they're seeing all those visuals are kind of hitting them.
[00:47:49] And it's really hard to balance that, you know, against doing what's best for you and not getting caught up in, you know, these kind of unrealistic images or. Whatever, maybe they are realistic, but if it becomes and in and of itself, it's all very impermanent. You know, anything you win, any metals, you get any picture you take, you're not going to look or be able to do that.
[00:48:14] It's a new world,
[00:48:15] Philip Pape: social media. It's crazy. Yeah. This is all. This is all great stuff, man. I mean, recovery and, uh, you know, food and fuel and finding something that you like for sure. Is there anything else you want to share with the listener before? Wrap it up.
[00:48:33] Ken Caputo: Yeah. I think the last thing that has been helpful is understanding how to lower resistance environmentally.
[00:48:40] Um, and one of the things I'll help people with, we call it the swapping grid. We look at. Rather cause a lot of people, I think they're thinking they have to add more to more, you know, I've got to now get up an hour earlier to get into the gym and they're, so their approach is something that can lead to being out of balance because you're trying to find more time and especially
[00:49:02] Philip Pape: stressors by trying to do exactly.
[00:49:04] Ken Caputo: Exactly. So, so we talk about looking for, um, things that you already have built into your life. That maybe aren't serving you and then swapping them out. So, you know, so a simple example could be, um, like what I've had a lot of people have success with is they, you know, they're trying to cut down on like soda nutritionally, because it's just a lot of junk carbs and not good for him.
[00:49:29] So either they stopped buying it or they put it in the back of the fridge and they put a pitcher of water in front of it. So, so you're just trading out the choice to drink the soda. For drinking water. And sometimes they'll do that. Sometimes you won't, but a lot of more. Pretty quickly, they've reduced their intake by 50% and that has all kinds of effects they can experience.
[00:49:54] So, you know, so maybe you're, you're tired at the end of the day and you like to decompress with half-hour and Netflix and, you know, you just go for a walk instead, you know, or maybe you find like a podcast that you like and you listen to it and walk. So it's, how can I find. Time that's already there and reclaim it by swapping out something that fits with my long-term goals instead of just these habituated patterns.
[00:50:22] Are just kind of there that I don't even think about anymore. And
[00:50:25] Philip Pape: I like that, Ken. Yeah, that reminds me of a, I don't know if it was a Freakonomics episode, years ago, talked about how I think it was Angela Duckworth, maybe that you know about the habits that show. Yeah. And it was, it was sort of rewarding.
[00:50:38] By doing the activity. And the example they gave was being on a treadmill while watching Netflix, you know, like I only allow myself to watch Netflix while I'm going to try them on and sort of, uh, you're, you're leveraging that same time, but now you're doing something, you know, I got a treadmill, a treadmill for, to work with now that I work from home, mostly for that same reason, like, well, I gotta, I gotta get my steps in and I will go for a walk, but yeah.
[00:51:01] Walk all day, so I can walk all day now while I'm working, you know?
[00:51:05] Ken Caputo: Yep. Yeah. And you just, you find ways and yeah, I've done that for years. Like audio books have been my best friend cause I can do them while I'm doing cardio. Right. You know? So whether I'm on a run or a bike ride. Yes. So I'm nursing my mind at the same time.
[00:51:22] Training my body and, you know, and it's helped me reach my goals for how many books I want to read each year and, you know, stimulate the brain. So, yeah. And it's, it's interesting. Having talked to a lot of people, they, they, once you pointed out. They come up with these amazing like solutions for their own lives.
[00:51:41] They just hadn't thought about it. They just needed someone to say, Hey, have you thought about this? And then they're like, no. And then they do. And it's like really cool. I've had some people telling me some really wild things that they've done that, you know, not only added to their own physical wellbeing, but improve relationships, like, you know, all of a sudden they're doing things with their kids.
[00:52:00] You know, when they never felt like they had enough time and then they, they found this new solution. That's better for everyone, you know? So yeah. It's been really helpful. Um,
[00:52:12] Philip Pape: that's awesome. All right. Well, very cool stuff. Um, where can listeners learn more about you or.
[00:52:18] Ken Caputo: Uh, my goodness. Um, so I'm doing a lot of, uh, projects right now.
[00:52:25] Um, but nothing really. I think that would be of much interest to anyone, uh, that will probably change in a few months if it, if they wanted to contact me, you know, email is probably the simplest thing. To do. And, um, that's just ken@questersway.com and
[00:52:46] Philip Pape: I'll put it in the show notes. Sure.
[00:52:48] Ken Caputo: Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and that's question's way is one of the, it's actually a business we created, uh, ran for four years and now we're ready to relaunch it.
[00:52:56] Post pandemic here that it's basically an entire center built around this idea of moving connect, fuel and power
[00:53:04] Philip Pape: all about
[00:53:05] Ken Caputo: it. Yeah, yeah. Yep. Yeah. So that's a really cool. Project. So, but right now, you know, I just kinda, you know, I, I, I work with different people in different things. We're going to be working with, um, actually the Yukon football team this summer, helping them out a little
[00:53:20] Philip Pape: bit.
[00:53:20] Oh, that's amazing. What are you doing with them? Yeah.
[00:53:23] Ken Caputo: Yeah. A combination of things, but a lot of it's going to be, um, helping there. They're defensive and offensive lineman with, uh, getting a little bit more of a competitive advantage, especially with the way they use their hands and just where their heads at, before the snap of the ball.
[00:53:42] So, yeah, it's just gonna be a lot of fun. We're looking to work.
[00:53:45] Philip Pape: So we're going to see them in the top 10 before long, huh? Oh
[00:53:48] Ken Caputo: boy. That would be really cool. I'm sure they would love that. They've been struggling for a few years, but they've got a new head coach now and, um, they're making some. Significant changes.
[00:53:58] Like even just, they redid the whole locker room and it's like amazing. They gave us a cool tour,
[00:54:03] Philip Pape: Jackson, better recruits, but Hey, w what you're doing with that, you know, could have a big difference. You never know.
[00:54:08] Ken Caputo: So, yeah. No, and that's exactly it. So, you know, so they reached out and we had a little conversation with them, and there are some ways that we could kind of apply some of the principles that we've learned over time to help them out.
[00:54:19] So, uh, you know, so that's what I kind of do, but it's nothing super formal. I'm kind of at a place of picking and choosing. Projects and who I work with and stuff like that. So. Awesome.
[00:54:30] Philip Pape: Well, Ken, thanks for coming on the show. It was really cool to, with you learned a lot of, a lot of really neat stuff here today.
[00:54:35] So thanks again. We
[00:54:36] Ken Caputo: learned a lot. I've been following your podcast and it's just been super helpful. Really good information. Keep it
[00:54:43] Philip Pape: up. Yeah. If there's anything you want to hear on there, you think I should talk about, let me know or anybody who wants to come on, let me know. So great talking to. Take take it easy.
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Ep 18: 25 Ways to Improve Sleep (The Missing Ingredient to Nutrition and Recovery)
This topic may not seem exciting, but it could be the critical missing ingredient to your nutrition and recovery, whether everything else is dialed in or not. I’m talking about sleep: too little sleep, low quality sleep, irregular sleep, and poor sleep habits. Here are 25 ways to improve sleep.
Today’s topic may not seem exciting, but it could be the critical missing ingredient to your nutrition and recovery, whether everything else is dialed in or not.
I’m talking about sleep: too little sleep, low quality sleep, irregular sleep, and poor sleep habits.
Many people suffer from insomnia or a sleep disorder, and a lack of sleep can lead to terrible consequences like medical errors and car accidents. A lack of sleep can increase hunger, reduce your metabolism, impair memory, affect hormone balance, and even accelerate aging.
Yet there is hope. In a paper published in 2019 by Vitale et al., called Sleep Hygiene for Optimizing Recovery in Athletes: Review and Recommendations, the authors reviewed the effects of sleep deprivation and extension on athletes to see how applying sleep hygiene methods could improve their performance.
In this episode, I am shamelessly borrowing from their list of sleep hygiene recommendations. First, we talk about the tremendous benefits of improving your sleep, even just a little bit. Then, I review the list of 25 ways to improve sleep recommended by the authors, sharing some of my personal anecdotes and strategies along the way.
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:26] Welcome to episode 18 of Wits & Weights today's topic may not seem exciting, but it could be the critical missing ingredient to your nutrition and recovery, whether everything else is dialed in or not. I'm talking about sleep. Too little sleep, low quality sleep, irregular sleep, and poor sleep habits.
[00:00:54] Many people suffer from insomnia or sleep disorders, and a lack of sleep can lead to terrible consequences like medical errors and car acts. Uh, lack of sleep can increase hunger, reduce your metabolism, impair memory, affect hormone balance, and even accelerate aging. Yet there is hope in a paper published in 2019 by Vitaly at all called sleep hygiene for optimizing recovery in athletes review and recommendations.
[00:01:23] The authors reviewed the effects of sleep deprivation and extension on athletes to see how applying sleep hygiene methods could improve their. In this episode, I am shamelessly borrowing from their list of sleep hygiene recommendations. First, we talk about the tremendous benefits of improving your sleep even just a little bit.
[00:01:44] And then I'm going to review the list of 25 ways to improve sleep recommended by the authors, sharing some of my personal anecdotes and strategies along the way.
[00:02:03] Sleep is more beneficial than you could even imagine. According to the paper that I referenced earlier by Vitaly at all sleep deprivation can negatively affect quote, reaction, time, accuracy, vigor, submaximal strength and endurance in quote and quote, cognitive function such as judgment. And decision-making.
[00:02:24] And conversely, getting more sleep can improve reaction times, mood, sprint times tennis serve accuracy, swim turns, kicks, stroke efficiency, and increased free throw, and three point accuracy. Now I realize some of these are very specific, but you get the idea. Furthermore, more sleep can reduce chronic stress levels and prevent a spike in cortisol.
[00:02:50] The.
[00:02:59] Cortisol being the stress hormone, too little sleep can disrupt your regular cortisol pattern and having low cortisol during sleep is critical to Siler repair. That's one reason you can feel extremely fatigued when you don't sleep at night. Uh, lack of sleep can impede performance and recovery because it adds an additional stressor and even sleeping too often.
[00:03:23] So this goes back to sleep quality and sleep quantity can reduce estrogen, throwing off hormone balance, both in men and. Don't discount the impact of being in a caloric deficit. So when you're trying to lose weight, you're in a deficit, you could experience metabolic adaptation that along with the under eating negatively affect sleep and sleep quality, which then just requires you to prioritize the sleep even further.
[00:03:57] Now, before I get into the detailed list of sleep hygiene recommendations, because it's a long list, but I think there's a lot of great things you can try in there before I overwhelm you with that. I wanted to take a step back and just talk about habits, mindset. When it comes to sleep. My recommendation is simply to change one thing from this list that you're not doing today and give it maybe two weeks, see how it affects.
[00:04:25] If things improve, then that's great. If they don't, maybe you try something different. I think that's a, maybe a more appropriate approach for most people than to try five or 10 of these things all at once. Because first of all, it will be hard to. That many new habits. And secondly, it would be hard to tell which one of them had the biggest impact.
[00:04:46] Now, what we really care about the most is sleep quality, which is your ability to fall asleep and stay there throughout the night. Particularly getting enough deep sleep early on, there are trackers for these. Like, I have an aura ring that I wear on my index. And it tracks things like heart rate variability, but also my cycles of sleep deep sleep REM sleep.
[00:05:17] Sometimes we talk a lot about quantity and quantity is definitely a good thing. If you only get five hours of sleep every night increasing to six or seven can make a huge difference, but there's also the quality of the things you're doing throughout the day. The various hygiene habits that enabled the sleep itself to be of a high quality, even if it isn't as much as you possibly could get.
[00:05:39] Now I'm going to go through the long list and we're going to start with the first 10, which are they consider the top 10 recommendations. And the source that's credited is the UCS D center for pulmonary and sleep medicine, patient information handout. So this isn't something you couldn't just Google, but I'm compiling it all here into one episode.
[00:06:02] Hopefully you find it helpful and you can try one of those. Over the next couple of weeks as a new habit and see if it improves your sleep. All right. Number one, don't go to bed until you're sleepy. Sounds obvious, but if you're not sleeping and you try to go to bed, then. You may have trouble getting to sleep.
[00:06:21] So it's this vicious cycle. Simply wait until you are sleeping. Now there's other things we're going to talk about that can affect whether you're sleepy, like blue light, you know, doing too much activity right before bed, eating big meals, things like that, but don't go to bed. Tears, sleepy. Number two, having a ritual or routine can help you relax.
[00:06:44] This can help you prepare just like any other habit. It becomes a part of who you are for me. This is reading. I like to read. Maybe 20 minutes before I fall asleep, it helps me get to sleep. It sort of slows my mind down, even though it is reading, it's not as stimulating as for example, watching TV.
[00:07:05] Another technique is to take a warm bath as a bedtime routine or a warm shower instead of showering in the morning, maybe shower before you go to bed and maybe some sort of meditation routine, number three. Keep a consistent schedule get up at the same time every day, including weekends and holidays. I know this can be difficult.
[00:07:27] I, for one, like to get up very early on the weekdays that I work out and not as early on the days that I don't, but the spread is maybe only a half hour. And I think that. Good enough for most people just try not to get up at five in the morning on weekdays and then nine in the morning on weekends. Try to keep the same schedule.
[00:07:46] Number four, try to get a full night's sleep every night and avoid naps during the day. If possible. Now this one was interesting to me because I've also heard that taking maybe a 45 minute nap between say one and 3:00 PM could be helpful. To recovery, if you didn't get enough sleep the night before. And I think that still might be the case for some people, but the idea here is if you're trying to be consistent, get a full night's sleep every night so that you don't have to try to take a nap and definitely don't nap late in the day after 3:00 PM.
[00:08:23] Number five, use your bed for two activities and only two activities sleep. Intimacy, don't use them to watch TV, to work on your computer, to use your phone. And my only exception of this personally is I like to read. In the bed as I'm falling asleep versus outside the bed and then get into bed to me, it helps me wind down, but the idea here is stay off all the devices, anything stimulating, use your bed for what it's intended for and nothing more.
[00:08:56] Number six. Avoid caffeine, if possible. Now this is going to be very hard for us who lift. We like caffeine is a stimulant. So the exception to this is if you must use caffeine, avoid it after lunch avoided after say one or 2:00 PM because of the half-life of the calf. And getting it metabolized in your system, you should be fine by bedtime, but if you drink soda or coffee, any form of caffeine after two or three, especially around dinnertime or later, it can really disrupt your sleep.
[00:09:26] And by the way, I personally incorporated this habit maybe a month ago, I used to have a diet soda late in the afternoon, as I was getting a little bit tired from the Workday. And I stopped doing that. I switched to either seltzer, water, water, or caffeine free. Soda so that I stopped drinking caffeine around 2:00 PM and it did make a difference.
[00:09:47] I started having more restful sleep. Number seven, avoid alcohol, if possible, again, just like caffeine. It can disrupt your sleep. So if you must drink alcohol, then avoid drinking it really close to bed. This is not as restrictive as caffeine. You can still have a glass of wine or beer with your dinner to stone.
[00:10:07] Have it right before bed. Number eight. Don't smoke cigarettes or use nicotine ever. There's not much to say about this from a health perspective should be obvious by now we know better. Don't use it in fact, sleep as well as everything else that affects negatively. Number nine. Consider avoiding high intensity exercise right before bed, because it can increase your cortisol, which impairs sleep.
[00:10:36] Now high intensity exercise may be different than say a lifting session. 5:00 PM. So there are recommendations that if you have an issue with cortisol, shifting your workout from early in the morning, when your cortisol levels are high to the afternoon, when they're starting to come down is actually a good strategy for cortisol and for sleep.
[00:11:00] But this recommendation is to avoid high-intensity exercise right before bed. So I just want to be clear at the end of the day, though, if the only time you can exercise is close to. And you're still feel like you get adequate sleep. And the alternative is you wouldn't exercise at all. I'd rather you be consistent and do something that works for you and exercise when it makes sense.
[00:11:22] And then number 10 of the top 10 out of the full list of 25, make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark and cool. It says here, quote, unquote, similar to a. So there's a few things wrapped up in this one. This one suggestion, the quiet part of it just means you don't want to have honking horns, dogs, barking, car alarms, things like that, going off, not everyone can help.
[00:11:49] Where do they live? So considered that you might need earmuffs or earplugs to make it quiet. The dark as possible part is avoid. Light disrupting your sleep pattern of cortisol, especially blue light or big nightlights. I know in our bedroom, we have the computer router off in the corner that has some annoyingly, bright LEDs.
[00:12:11] So I covered them in tape. I also use orange. An orange light bulb in my nightstand light so that when I'm reading, I don't have any blue light. And then here's the kicker. This is a habit. I just started a few weeks ago. I wear a sleep mask. I know it sounds a little odd, but I suggest you try it. If you've got any light bleeding into your room and you can't use blackout curtains, for example, or let's say your spouse, doesn't like blackout curtains, try a very lightweight sleep mask.
[00:12:44] Covers your eyes and the area around your eyes, you get used to it pretty quickly, and you might find you get a more restful sleep that way. And then the third part of this number 10 suggestion is. Being on the cool side rather than the warm side. So this is temperature. And I understand if, if you've got a partner that she, and you may have different levels of what you consider cool and warm, you could always get special blankets or mats that contains change the temper.
[00:13:12] Or just make sure to set your thermostat to go low saves energy. Well, it saves energy in dirt, in the north, during the winter, I guess during the summer you can use fans, things like that. So just make sure it's on the cool side. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you'd be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media.
[00:13:33] Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally. And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again, an incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. Moving on to the last 15 on this list, which are considered other tips and tricks for healthy sleep hygiene, we have number one, avoid blue or.
[00:14:00] Emitted from screens at least two hours before bed. So this would be your smartphone, your laptop monitors for a computer television, blue light suppresses melatonin, which you need to. Go to sleep. The worst thing you could do is be on your phone, text messaging, you browsing social media, playing games, using apps, all of this stuff, even watching TV right before bed and a two hour window might seem long, but this is where having an evening ritual to take that space can really help improve your sleep quality.
[00:14:36] Number two, get bright, natural. If possible the sun to wake you up. Now, the sun is ideal, but I get up at five 30 in the morning to work out. This time of year, the sun is starting to come up, but throughout the long dark winter, I actually use a smart bulb in my nightstand that starts to gradually Brighton to a normal sunlight type of bright white to coincide with my, the time I need to wake up.
[00:15:07] So the other suggestion here is eight, 10,000 Lux lamp to give you. Look, there are special lamps you could buy just for that purpose that having a built in alarm. Think about it. If you can't wake up to the sun and you wake up early, when it's dark, think about getting a special device that. Give you simulated sunlight, number three.
[00:15:27] And you probably have heard this one, many times before don't hit the snooze button and I'm guilty of this as well. I know I am. This, this is probably the next habit I need to break. Don't hit the snooze button. It doesn't improve your sleep quality to get the extra 10 minutes, especially if you do it over and over again, you might as well just get that extra time to sleep.
[00:15:46] And then. One trick that I've heard is just to put your alarm clock, your phone, whatever. On the other side of the room, forcing you to get out of bed to turn the darn thing off. Number four, if you have trouble waking up. So this is tied into number three, about the snooze button. If you have trouble, some people suggest using a Dawn simulator alarm clock, which is redundant with number two, I'm realizing now, but good to reiterate it.
[00:16:12] Number five, if you must use your computer at. Think about putting a color adjusting or blue light reducing software on it, or now here's the one I like where blue light blocking glasses. This is another habit I also recently incorporated. And I know it sounds like I'm doing a lot of these things. I did them over.
[00:16:33] I did them for a few weeks. Then I added something else that I added something else. I wear blue light blocking glasses, about two hours before I go to bed, I might wear it to watch TV. And then as I'm getting ready for bed, and then as I'm reading, I'm wearing those blue blocking glasses also on your computer.
[00:16:51] If you have, for example, a windows computer, you could turn on, I think it's called nightlight and you could do it earlier in the evening to get you ready. Your smartphone should have a night shift or similar feature. All of these tools can help you block out the blue light. Before we go to bed, number six, consider meditation some sort of relaxing mind based ritual.
[00:17:15] Now there's a mention in here of brainwave entrainment, such as binaural beats, and that's considered experimental in terms of helping you go to. I'm actually not sure what that is and I'm not going to look it up right now. Um, consider that a homework assignment. If you're interested, it's called brainwave entrainment.
[00:17:33] But anyway, the general recommendation here is meditation. Find some way to meditate. It could be helpful. Number seven, higher carbs, especially high-glycemic carbs at night can improve your sleep. And this is true. Sometimes people are in a low carb. They have trouble with their cortisol and adding your carbs helps break that pattern and can improve your sleep.
[00:17:55] Now they said also high protein, including trip to fan could help sleep. Whereas high fat intake at night can disrupt sleep. And this is all consistent with the nutrition airy advice. I tend to give people which is have a carbon protein meal or snack. If you're going to have something later. And limit the fats, a corollary to this is that if you don't get enough calories during the day, you may have also trouble sleeping at night.
[00:18:22] And this goes back to what I mentioned in the introduction that when you're in a caloric deficit trying to lose weight, and you've got that hunger and you're not eating as much, that also can cause you to have trouble sleeping. So this is where you might want to play around with the timing and shift some calories to right before.
[00:18:39] And it may be it's something as simple as a casein protein shake or a casing pudding mixture with almond milk. Number eight, topical or oral magnesium can help. If you are deficient by topical, they mean a salt bath or a topical mineral oil. And by oral, they mean a supplement. Now I also started taking magnesium recently, specifically magnesium.
[00:19:03] Glycinate. I think it's how it's pronounced, which is considered a highly bio available version of magnesium. And I take that with dinner because I've learned that it also can help you relax and get ready for bed, which then leads me to number nine, melatonin naturally occurring in foods, tart cherry juice, raspberries, goji, berries.
[00:19:28] Wow. Almonds tomatoes may improve sleep, but they recommend avoiding artificial melatonin supplements. Some people will say, there's no problem with those with taking melatonin. I don't do it myself, but I know it can work for some people. And there's always a prescription for individuals based on their unique circumstance, but melatonin, we know helps us sleep one way or the other.
[00:19:53] If you can get it from food, that's a good way to do it. Number 10, don't fall asleep to your. This kind of ties into the whole blue light and device thing, and that you shouldn't be watching TV in bed anyway, even if you're on the couch and it's late at night, don't just keep watching the TV mindlessly until you fall asleep.
[00:20:11] The sleep studies support that when you do this, you wake up multiple times during the night, and then this is juices, sleep quality. Number 11. Herbal supplements, which are not regulated, can cost side effects, which may impact your sleep. Let alone result in banned substance tests and failures for athletes.
[00:20:32] If they're on the prohibited list, but in general, just be aware of what you're taking and be aware if it could possibly impact your sleep. Number 12. Consider reducing your fluid intake before we go to bed. Just so you don't have to get up to go to the bathroom. This is a really important one. I like to drink throughout the day.
[00:20:49] I drink lots of water. Maybe I'll have some tea or diet soda. And sometimes I'm not thinking about when I'm drinking and I'll have a big glass of water at 8:30 PM. 9:00 PM. Well, for sure, given that I'm in my forties, now that will make me have to get up in the middle of the night one time, at least. So if you want to avoid that, if you want to have continuously through the night, stop drinking at a certain point that you know, works for you, as long as you're hydrated enough to prevent you from getting up in the.
[00:21:20] Okay, we're getting close to the end of the list here. Number 13, cooling your body temperature can help improve sleep. Now we talked about keeping the room cool already between 60 and 70 degrees, but keeping your hands and feet warm in the winter with socks or gloves can also help improve sleep. Number 14, they recommend checking your mattress.
[00:21:43] If your mattress is too old and, and the lifetime of mattress is supposed to be around 10 years. It may have allergens. Any allergens can disrupt your sleep, especially if you're particularly sensitive to allergens. So think about your mattress and hygiene in that, from that perspective, if it's clean, if it's been rotated, if it's too old, these could affect your sleep.
[00:22:01] And then the last item on the list. Number 15. Recovery from exercise, from training, isn't just about muscle repair. It's also about mental fatigue, reducing external stressors, and all of these things are tied in very closely to better quality. All right. That's all I have for you. I only have those 25 items to consider a lot of great stuff in there.
[00:22:29] A lot of great techniques, just to recap the things that I do personally, that have worked really well and are simple to. One is having a sleep mask to make it dark. Number two is to use blue blocking glasses. Number three is to avoid caffeine later in the day. Number four is to consider orange light bulbs in your bedroom.
[00:22:54] As you're getting ready for bed. Number five is to think about your supplementation. Something like magnesium. If you're deficient taking it close to bedtime could be. And number six, try not to use the snooze and think about an alarm that can wake you up similar to the sun or a time waking up with the sun.
[00:23:14] I hope these were helpful. I hope you can take at least one of these implemented right away, implement it to night. See how you fare over the next days and the coming few weeks, and then either jettison. And if it doesn't work. Or add something else and keep improving step by step. That's how we improve our sleep, improve our recovery, which translates to our nutrition.
[00:23:37] Our hormones are lifting our performance, everything holistically ties in to sleep. And that's why I call it the missing ingredient to nutrition and recovery.
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Ep 17: How to Get Stronger and Smarter in Less Time with Powerlifter Tyla Serro
Tyla Serro is an engineering colleague of mine—we work for the same aerospace company—and she finds time to train and compete as a raw powerlifter, placing second in the 2022 USPA Connecticut state championship in her weight class.
I had the honor of hosting a very special guest, Tyle Serro, for the first ever interview on this podcast. Tyla is not only an engineering colleague of mine—we work for the same aerospace company—she finds time to train and compete as a raw powerlifter, placing second this March in the 2022 USPA Connecticut state championship in her weight class…and only missing first in a close tiebreaker against her training partner.
I invited her on the show because I think her story is very relatable to those of us who are working professionals with busy lives, maybe a full-time job and a family, who still want to find a way to get “big, strong, jacked, swole, ripped, fit, tone, lean, healthy” whatever term you want to use. Tyla juggles work, family, and the challenges of life using a sustainable approach to training and nutrition, so I wanted to pick her brain on how she makes it all work.
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At Wits & Weights, we help you shred fat, build strength, feel energized, and project confidence in your career and relationships without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions.
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:28]Welcome to episode 17 of Wits & Weights. Today, I have the honor of hosting a very special guest Tyla Serro for the first ever interview on this podcast. Tyla is not only an engineering colleague of mine. We worked for the same aerospace company. She finds time to train and compete as a raw power lifter.
[00:00:50] Placing second, this March in the 2022 USPA Connecticut state championship in her weight class. And she only missed coming in first by a close tiebreaker against their training. I invited her on the show because I think her story is very relatable to those of us who are working professionals with busy lives, maybe a full-time job and a family who still want to find a way to get big, strong, jacked, ripped, fit, tone, lean, healthy, whatever term you want to use.
[00:01:16] Tyla juggles work family and the challenges of life using a sustainable approach to training and nutrition. So I wanted to pick her brain and how she makes it all work Tyla. Sarah, thanks for joining me on the show.
[00:01:28] Tyla Serro: Thank you, Phillip. It's an honor to be your first guest.
[00:01:31] Philip Pape: Absolutely. I'm really excited. I know we've talked a lot recently about training nutrition, um, excitement, frustration, all these things.
[00:01:40] I just want you to start off by telling us your story, you know, how did you get into lifting?
[00:01:46] Tyla Serro: Sure. So, as Phillip mentioned, um, I worked for the same company that he does. And since about March of 2020, we've been working with. And, um, I'm officially not going back into the office, probably ever. I opted to be completely remote.
[00:02:02] And for me personally, that has been a huge game changer life hack, in my opinion. Um, I'm not totally against going into the office if I absolutely need to. I can, but now, um, I became a parent since they started the pandemic too. So just having that. Almost two hours back and commuting time has really been huge in my ability to do all the things that Phillip just mentioned.
[00:02:29] So
[00:02:30] Philip Pape: that makes a huge difference. Doesn't it? All that time. Yeah.
[00:02:32] Tyla Serro: Yeah. But other than that, um, I am a wife, I'm a military spouse. My husband is actually in the air national guard and he works at Pratt and Whitney, which is a sister company to the company that Philip and I work for. And he actually just got home from a depression.
[00:02:48] He's we're both into health, wellness, fitness, if you will, but he's a runner and actually training for the Marine Corps marathon in DC. So I'm not into that
[00:03:02] Philip Pape: and different sides of the spectrum. Right? All fitness though.
[00:03:06] Tyla Serro: I'd much rather strength train. But, um, other than that, you know, those are probably the least interesting things about me.
[00:03:13] I think the most interesting thing about me is that I volunteer with, uh, Here in Connecticut called protectors of animals. And I've been with them since 2018. I work with the rescue dogs. Uh, they work with, they have cats as well, and I volunteer about two hours every week, uh, walking them, feeding them, cleaning, kettles, and doing that sort of thing.
[00:03:33] And that's kind of my passion other than lifting. Oh, that's that's
[00:03:37] Philip Pape: awesome. Yeah. We have a couple dogs. One of them is getting up there in age and yeah, they're, they're part of the family. So yes. Awesome. So a lot has happened during the pandemic in the last few years. It sounds like your, your family situation changed.
[00:03:51] Your husband, went on deployment and came back. Um, I've read a lot of your Insta posts about the, your powerlifting journey. You know, what, what got you into that? I mean, how, how did you get to that point here, knowing that you're a busy professional, like I am, and you know, there's only so much time for other.
[00:04:07] Tyla Serro: Sure. So I started competing in the sport of powerlifting in 2016. So it's been about six years that I've been competing. And what really got me into that was before then I had been lifting, you know, at like planet fitness, commercial type gyms. I did start work, um, working out at a CrossFit gym around 2013.
[00:04:28] That didn't last very long. I got hurt pretty soon into that doing like overhead snatches and things. I did something to my shoulder and was like, I just,
[00:04:39] Philip Pape: it sounds like a whole layer storage.
[00:04:42] Tyla Serro: Yeah. Everybody's intro to CrossFit, but I mean, I, I could go down a tangent on that, but, um, and so I then after that, I just, I wasn't, I was starting college and, you know, I wanted to look good and that was kind of my primary reason for working out, but I was definitely not doing the right things.
[00:04:59] You know, I was doing way too much cardio, not eating. Binge drinking and doing all sorts of things that were probably negating most of the stuff that I was doing inside of the gym. So I've been working out, I would say consistently since around 2013. Um, however, in 20 16, 1 of my best friends, who's actually my nutrition coach right now.
[00:05:21] She did her very first powerlifting meet, um, in Rhode Island and invited me to go be a second. And I went, I had no idea what to expect. I kind of had that stereotypical idea of what a powerlifter was or looked like as like somebody commits kind of fat kind of fit. Um, You know, maybe like Sumo wrestler. I didn't, I didn't really.
[00:05:45] Yeah. You know, I was like, that's not really for girls, is it? But whatever I went and I was amazed and an off by watching, you know, 63 kilogram girls. Lifting pulling 400 plus pounds squatting 300 plus pounds benching close to 200. And I literally was like, wow, can I be that strong? I want to be that strong.
[00:06:09] That's so cool. So right around that point, 2016, I was wrapping up my undergrad. I was getting ready to start graduate school and I started tranq training at, um, a local gym called lightning fitness. It's in Southwest. Um, it's a phenomenal, phenomenal facility. Uh, they keep the owner actually just bought a bigger space and there they're doing so much more than what it was back then.
[00:06:35] And that was really kind of like the PivotTable pit pit of.
[00:06:41] Philip Pape: Pivotal target
[00:06:44] Tyla Serro: point in my life where I really started to training kind of became a big part of my life. A lot of the relationships that I have today, friendships, um, stem from that gym and from the people that I met there. And so, yeah, it's been about six years that I, that I started powerlifting.
[00:07:00] I did my first competition. Three months into actually working with. So my very first coach was actually the owner of that gym. Um, Matt mills, and about three months into training with him. I did my first competition in, uh, USA PL down at Gleason's performance gym in Derby, Connecticut. And I fell in love.
[00:07:21] It was, it was so much fun.
[00:07:22] Philip Pape: So you jumped right in. So I want to, I want to take a step back. You, you mentioned how you started with CrossFit, your original goal was aesthetics and getting fit, getting, you know, um, you had some injuries, you maybe didn't see the results you wanted and eventually you found strength training and what it, what it sounds like to me at least is you have a passion for the training itself.
[00:07:42] Maybe the process, maybe the competition and getting strong, which is a very. Goal or, you know, immediate goal than aesthetics, even though it kind of gets you that result. Well, would
[00:07:52] Tyla Serro: you say? Yeah. And that's the interesting thing because you know, when you're, I think not even I was going to say a young person, but I think most people want to look good and.
[00:08:03] Um, a lot of times you'll hear people say like, I'm exercising, I'm eating right. I'm doing all these things. And do you know, I actually had a coworker recently reach out to me and say, Hey, I know, you know, a lot about like exercising. Um, this is what I'm doing. Like, do you think I should be doing more core workouts?
[00:08:18] And I, you know, that's the biggest thing is people will ask about like crunches and sit ups for abs. And I'm like, it sounds so corny, but you know, I remember hearing this years ago, like abs are made in the kitchen. And, uh, that really stuck with me. And it's you see it through the work that you put in that if you do eat well, 80% of the time, um, you know, more, if you can eat better more of the time.
[00:08:45] Great. You know, if that can just be like a habitual thing that you do, you just learn to like eating well, you're going to see body composition changes and the aesthetics will kind of come along. The, uh, strength training, if you will. So it's kind of, you get the best of both worlds. You get to be strong and you get to look good.
[00:09:04] Philip Pape: And I liked that you mentioned nutrition because you can't have one without the other, unless you want to be an old school powerlifting look right. Want to get bigger. Um, but yeah, you mentioned, uh, nutrition and you also mentioned core work and all of these things. I bet you're getting your squat up to a new PR help your stabilizer muscles as well, or.
[00:09:24] Tyla Serro: Yeah, definitely. So I'm going into core stuff. So. I have baby about two years ago. And actually during my pregnancy, I started to notice that my core was changing quite a bit, which is a total normal thing that happens during pregnancy. Um, your abs literally have to separate in order to make room for growing baby, but it really freaked me out.
[00:09:47] Um, I would be doing certain movements and exercises and I would just see this dome slash cone. They call it doning and combing, um, where you get this kind of like little mountain Ridge that kind of jumps out in between your. And, you know, if, if you're in tune with your body and you're paying attention and you see something like that, it looks really freaky.
[00:10:07] And, uh, I ended up going to work with a pelvic floor physical therapist, and that was really incredible, um, for, for a few reasons that that physical therapist taught me how to actually breathe and brace into those like deep transverse abdominal muscles that most people cannot properly. And even as like somebody who had been lifting for years at that point, doing a very, very simple exercise to try to get those, um, muscles engaged was really, really hard.
[00:10:43] Um, so I think that when you learn how to breathe right, and brace, right? Like you said, you know, my, my squat going up, I've noticed a huge change in the way that I squat and deadlift. And I can tell too, after I do a live. If my bracing was just off just a little bit, that lift is not going to move as easily if I engage properly.
[00:11:04] Philip Pape: So, and that's with a belt without a belt.
[00:11:08] Tyla Serro: Um, I like wearing a belt when I get past like an RPE seven or eight, or it depends too on reps. So if I'm doing more than like three reps, I prefer a belt because it's easier for me to feel myself bracing and I, and I don't think that. The way that I use my belt is I can feel it's at an actual physical barrier that I can feel my belly breathing out against and making that contact with the belt.
[00:11:38] So that way I know I'm engaged. Does it actually support my back or do anything like that to help me be stronger? No, I don't think so. Um, It maybe gives lifters a little bit of like a placebo effect, thinking like this is keeping me safe, but again, if you're, if you're bracing your core correctly, You don't really need a belt.
[00:12:01] Philip Pape: Yeah, no, I totally agree with everything you said, like, you know, if I'm working in the 65 or 75% range, I'm not going to wear a belt, but as I warm up to doubles, triple singles in that range, you right as it gets heavier, it helps with the inter abdominal pressure and you shouldn't rely on it for, you know, preventing an injury.
[00:12:18] Like I had back surgery last year and I know that breathing. It helps, but you don't rely on it to have bad form, you know? Um, so that's awesome. Uh, so we talked about you getting into powerlifting, your coach, uh, very soon after starting got you to compete. Was that hard to do, um, or did you jump at the chance?
[00:12:42] Tyla Serro: Um, so I was kind of cocky or arrogant, I guess when I first started my lifting career, I remember thinking. You know, oh, I just pulled three 15 for like the first time these are new beginnings. I'm going to be pulling 406 months. And, uh, I remember my first meet. So the thing with powerlifting too is you should, if you're training for a meet, you really should train with the committee.
[00:13:07] I don't know how much you want me to talk about
[00:13:08] Philip Pape: that, but I love to hear, because this is something I don't know much about. And I think the listeners would be fascinated with.
[00:13:14] Tyla Serro: Okay. So with powerlifting and with any sport, right? There's always rules. And within the different federations in powerlifting, there are different rules as well.
[00:13:24] So I've competed in USA, PL and USP. They have very similar rules at their, at the four, but they do have different rules as well. So what I'll be talking about is mostly as it relates to USDA, because that's what I'm most familiar with in that the last three or four competitions that I've done have been USPA.
[00:13:44] So in the sport of powerlifting, there are three main lists that you are tested or that you could be in, which is squat bench and deadlift. You have three attempts for each lift. So a total of nine lifts for the day. And there are three judges, one that sits darkly in front of you and two to the side. So often you'll hear like, um, something like three white lights and that's what you're going for.
[00:14:06] So the judges will all bass, you know, they're held to a standard, they have to be like either state qualified, nationally qualified judges. They have to sit through a test, um, in order to qualify to be a judge. And then they actually have to sit for a certain number of meats as. In order to be like, basically pass a standard that they're all judging to the same standard.
[00:14:27] And I make a point of that because different federations don't have standards like that. So if you go compete in, um, I don't, I don't want to throw shade, but I'm kind of going to like an RPS meat or something like that. I'm not really sure what their standards are for picking judges and stuff like that, but they're kind of notorious for people that squat really high or yeah.
[00:14:50] You know, like you'll just see the white light somebody, and then the next person will go and you'll be like what that call made no sense. So, yeah. That's why I prefer. Especially for new lifters. I think it's better to compete in like a USPA or USA, PL Federation they're, um, USA. PL is drug tested. USPA has tested and on tested competitions.
[00:15:15] Um, but they're both held, held, like I said, really high standards, so that that's important, you know? Um, so as I was saying, there's three judges and your goal is ultimately to get two out of the three judges to give you a white light, which means you pass a lit. Um, you have to so say, so you start with SWOT and if you fail your squat on your first attempt, you have to retake that attempt again.
[00:15:39] If you feel it a second time, you get one last chance to take that squat. And if you fail it a third time, this is called something, um, bombing out. You don't want to bomb out because then depending on the size of the meat, if it's a small local meat, they may still allow you to compete for the day, but it's not going to counter.
[00:15:58] Got it.
[00:15:58] Philip Pape: And it just, it ruins your total, of course. Yeah.
[00:16:02] Tyla Serro: Like you, you could potentially, you know, go have, you could have a really good day with bench and deadlift, but it doesn't actually count. Sure. You're not going to set any records or anything like that. Um, so you, you want to be conservative with at least your first attempt when you pick it, it should be something that you could do.
[00:16:17] You know, if you have a cold or flu, you're not feeling well, you're really confident you're going to go under that bar and you're going to be able to hit that.
[00:16:25] Philip Pape: Got you. So you're, you're not, you're not going to hit, go for your all time PR on the first, first
[00:16:28] Tyla Serro: lift. No, probably not a good idea. Um, so yeah, so that's, that's kind of how the day looks.
[00:16:36] And then there are things called lights, which are based on weight class usually. So there'll usually be a flight, a B, C, um, and depending on it, the meat is split up into like one large meat for the day. Sometimes, if it's a, they'll split it into two, which I prefer meats that are held on two days. Usually they'll have like the females on one day and the males on the other day.
[00:16:56] And that makes for a shorter day because otherwise, you know, like, you'll go squat, like meats typically start around 9:00 AM. I'm in one of the first classes because I'm a relatively small female and all squat and be done by like 10 squatting. And I'm not going to bench probably until like noon. And I'm not going to devil it until two or 3:00 PM.
[00:17:18] So it's a long day
[00:17:21] Philip Pape: on a rest between lifts. Okay.
[00:17:23] Tyla Serro: Yeah, a lot of, a lot of, so you have to be smart too with like how you warm up and how, you know, how quickly you do that. But ideally you have a coach and the handler, if your coach is not also your handler, um, and that handler should be somebody who can help you throughout the, literally handle you throughout your day to make sure that you're staying hydrated, you're eating.
[00:17:45] Um, you're not just sitting there eating candy, right? That was something that I did a lot during my first meet, because I remember going to that meet where I watched my friend compete and seeing all these powerlifters, eating donuts and sour patch kids, and like a bananas. Kind of crap food all day long.
[00:18:03] So I thought that's just what you do. That's what powerlifters do on, on the day of a meat. Yeah. But then as, as it went on and I competed more, um, I noticed that stuff would, is not something that I eat on a regular basis. And, you know, I don't have stomach issues per se, but if like, I, my nerves are going and then I'm eating something that I'm not used to eating.
[00:18:23] The last thing you want to have to be doing on the day of a meet is be running to the bathroom. That's not any fun. Yeah, definitely. Um, I would say for people who are just getting started into powerlifting, just pick a local meat, you know, if it's in the state that you live in, that's great. There's no point in traveling really far, um, for your first meet.
[00:18:45] It's that traveling in and of itself is stressful and you want to limit as many things as you can to. Have a good day. Yeah.
[00:18:55] Philip Pape: That makes sense. And it's cost last. You don't have to travel. Um, I, you mentioned powerlifting or competing in general can be intimidating for some people. It's not something I've ever considered, to be honest.
[00:19:06] Um, ma maybe in the masters class, it'd be a good thing to consider. But, um, you talked about at the beginning, you, you thought you were being a little arrogant about your lifts and so what happened there?
[00:19:18] Tyla Serro: Yeah. So. I actually had wrote down. I can find it in my notes, my first, uh, meet. So my first meet was in September of 2016.
[00:19:28] Like I said, I competed in USA, APL. I went six for nine for the day, which isn't great. Um, I think I had jumped some commands, so I remember hitting my third squat and I swatted it perfectly. But that's one of the things too, that I, I forgot. I neglected to mention earlier when I was talking about how powerlifting is set up, um, you're given commands.
[00:19:50] So for the first slip SWAT, there is, um, two commands and you'll on rack. The bar you have a minute to, so as soon as you get on, they'll say platform ready. The lifter walks out onto the platform. You have a minute to do the lift, which a lot. That's another thing too, that a lot of new lifters or new computers will think of they're rushing, rushing, rushing, and they, they go fast.
[00:20:12] A minute, seems like a short amount of time, but if you're ready, you're standing there. You're chopped up. You're ready to go. Your lift is going to take about 10 seconds. Take your time, take a breath, take a breath, set up. Try to tune all Alvin, all the noise. Don't look at the spectators. Focus on like that head judge.
[00:20:30] Cause he's going to have his hand up like this and he's going to say squat, and he's going to his hand is going to come down. You're going to squat. You're going to stand up and then you're gonna to. For the rack command. And that is something that a lot of new lifters don't do, especially if they nail the lift because they're excited, they're like, yes.
[00:20:49] And then they rack it too soon. And then you just, you got three red lights because you didn't wait for a command. Okay.
[00:20:55] Philip Pape: Now, now explain that to me. Cause I always wondered that command as well as the bench pause at the bottom, like I always wondered about why, why, why do they exist?
[00:21:04] Tyla Serro: Um, it's a country. It's one of, so don't quote me, right?
[00:21:07] I'm not a, I'm not a USPA judge, but it's a control thing for one. So I know for bench, right? The point of the, so with bench that's one of the more technical lifts, there's three commands. So they'll say start you'll unrack the, the bench or the bar and you'll. You'll bring the bar down and you want to bring that bar down, slow and control, the more slow and controlled that you bring that bar down the faster you're going to get a, um, an up command, um, or press command, I should say.
[00:21:37] So if you bring that bar down sloppily, and it's kind of like coming down and you're, you have no control over that bar. They're going to, what the judges are looking for is no movement in the barbell. That's so that's why those commands exist. And I think it's another thing that has to do with standards, right?
[00:21:54] You have to squat to a certain depth, which is like breaking parallel with bench, your butt. Can't come up off the bench, um, USP your head, 10 chemicals off the bench. USA cannot your feet. They can be up like you can be up on your toes. Some people I lift that way. Other people have their heels completely flat, but your feet cannot move.
[00:22:15] They cannot slide or anything like that. Or it can actually lift up off the floor. And it's just, in my opinion, it's a way to kind of. Make it, so that way there is a standard across the sport. That way everybody's kind of lifting to the same. It's hard. It's hard to grade something or judge something when you don't have like standards, I guess, you know, so deadlift is the easiest one.
[00:22:40] You, you go out there and you pull that bar and then they just say down and that's it. So a lot of things, a lot of times new lifters will, um, they'll go out there and no. They think like you're going to get a command to say, like start or something, but you don't. So it'll be like this awkward thing where like the judges aren't allowed to talk to the lift and then I'd be like, okay, go now.
[00:23:00] You know? So sometimes it's funny. You'll see, like when it's somebody that's like 60 years old and it's their first meet and they're super excited and it's a local meat to most, you know, like, um, a friend of mine is actually the meat director for USDA. They're not gonna take it that seriously. Like somebody is like, okay, you know, you just.
[00:23:18] It's not a big deal. Um, but if you're competing at like the national level or even higher than that, it's, you're not going to get that leeway. I guess that was another thing too. And I was talking about being arrogant. I remember doing my first meet and I had a few friends who had competed at the national level and I was like, oh, I'm going to go to nationals next.
[00:23:41] Philip Pape: You got to start somewhere. I mean, I like the ambition, right. You know, to push yourself. Um, I mean, let's, let's so let's talk numbers. You made a lot of progress over the years, especially even in the last few years I saw, you know, the excitement of getting back into it with your training partner. I mean, Y, you know, sharing your PRS or even just the process you went through to get to this point.
[00:24:02] Tyla Serro: So my very first meet, I totaled 650 pounds. I think I squatted about 2 25. Maybe I bench around 115 pounds and I dead lifted. I want to say like three 15 and I was, I was stoked to get an over 300 pound dead lift. I thought that was
[00:24:17] Philip Pape: so cool. Awesome. That's
[00:24:19] Tyla Serro: great. Yup. And then my second knee. A little less than a year later in may of 2017, I totaled 705 and a half pounds, which that's a decent jump.
[00:24:33] Right. I think that's probably no looking at it to add anything more than like, you know, At 50 pounds plus to your total,
[00:24:45] Philip Pape: right? Yeah.
[00:24:46] Tyla Serro: Yeah. Yeah. The following me I did was in August of 2018. So about a year later and I totaled seven 16, so there wasn't much progress there. That was only about 10 pounds that I added to my total.
[00:24:58] I did another meet the following spring in April of 2019, and I totaled 7 43 0.4. So, I mean, I'm still making progress. Every meet. My total was getting better. Which is something that I didn't actually even realize until I started preparing for this conversation, actually. So I was, I was proud of myself. I gave myself a little pat on the back for seeing that like, Hey, you know what, it doesn't, it doesn't always feel like you're going in a smooth line, right.
[00:25:28] With lifting. But overall, my, my journey with looking at it has been. '
[00:25:34] Philip Pape: cause in, in the moment you feel like you're, you're not quite where you want to be, but relative to the last time, if you're still getting stronger and that's the point, right? That's the point.
[00:25:41] Tyla Serro: Yeah, for sure. And, um, so the fifth meet that I did was in November of 2021.
[00:25:46] So can't believe that was already, almost like six months ago. I totaled over 800 pounds. That was a huge goal for me. I totaled 804.7 pounds. And I have to say that was probably the best meat of my life. For, for a bunch of reasons, there was a lot going on at that time. I, my husband was deployed. My kid had been sick.
[00:26:09] Like non-stop, I know you have children to fill up. And it's probably been awhile since they've been in daycare. But my goodness, like, you know, at that point I wasn't even worried about COVID. It was just like hand foot, mouth disease, stomach bug. It was so bad. And an I had gotten sick right before the MI.
[00:26:29] Wasn't good, but I ended up going nine for nine that day, which was, uh, that was the first I had never, I had never hit all of my attempts on all of my, uh, lifts. I squatted, um, 303 that day and it, it blew. And, uh, I could have cried, you know, for me to squat over 300 pounds that took six, six years for me to get to that point.
[00:26:52] So that was a really good day for me. And. Uh, my friend, my training partner was going to compete in March cause she had actually broke her foot that fall and it kind of threw things off because initially she was going to compete with me in that meet as well. Um, she didn't end up competing, but I still did.
[00:27:11] And despite all of the crazy stress that I had going on in my life, I had a great day. So I was really stoked about. And then the most recent meet that I did, I came in first to, at that meet. Awesome.
[00:27:23] Philip Pape: That was good.
[00:27:25] Tyla Serro: But there may have only been, I think there were only three people, two or three. I'll have to look at that.
[00:27:31] So there, there may have only been two people in the meat and I came in first, which whatever, but whatever still got the first place that was cool. My most recent meet was in March of this year and I told them 8 21 0.2. I did not squat over 300 pounds like I did in November. But I added about 10 pounds to my bench.
[00:27:52] So I benched 1 75 point something, which was really awesome. Um, I think for a lot of, I don't know about men, but for females, bench is probably one of the harder lifts to like see, go up and
[00:28:08] Philip Pape: pretty quickly on
[00:28:08] Tyla Serro: that one. Yeah. Like, you know, it's, it's pretty hard to make big. Achievements there, like usually a five pound PR couple pound PRS is huge.
[00:28:18] Whereas squat and deadlift, I feel that there's a little bit more room for bigger, bigger PRS. So for me to, for me to bench 1 75, like that was, and it wasn't, it wasn't super slow either. I felt like I saw more gas in the tank, which was pretty awesome to think that, you know, back in 2016, when I went to see my friend compete and I was watching female lifters about the same size as me benching close to 200 pounds.
[00:28:43] And me thinking, oh, that's going to be me next year. And then me a few years into Powelton being like, I am never going to bend over 150 pounds to now benching over 150 pounds. That's it's, it's a really, it's really cool to, to see that happen. And then deadlift
[00:28:58] Philip Pape: it. Was that something you, you specifically focused on that lift, uh, leading up to that, or just kind of got lucky and pushed it up more than the others?
[00:29:07] Tyla Serro: No. Um, I will have to credit that to having a really awesome coach. Uh, I think I'm benching more or doing more arm or upper body, like, uh, variations of benching, I think is important. Like don't just binge once, once a week or overhead pressing. And I know you're a big fan of that. That's huge too. Like if you can overhead press a lot, you could probably have a pretty big bench.
[00:29:34] So. Yeah, bench. That was probably, I don't know. It's hard to say between bench and deadlift. Cause devils has been a lift that I have struggled on for ever. And I'm like you not as severe, I've definitely have not had back surgery or anything like that, but I have had back pain on and off. Ever since I started trait training, like I can remember, you know, you you'll pull your back doing something or you might not feel it when it happens and then you go home and you're like, okay.
[00:30:03] Yeah, this isn't good. And then you lay down in bed and you're like, I can't get up. You can't walk. And it's just that like crippling feeling of pain and I've gone to PT and chiropractor. After a couple of weeks, it starts to get better. And I, and I still don't know whether or not that was because was it the dry needling?
[00:30:21] Was it all the PT was at the chiropractor or was it this, or was it just time? Right, like sometimes time just, it just takes time for you to heal a strain, muscle strain or something like that. But, um, hurting my back a couple of times, it made me kind of afraid to do. Um, I was so especially, so I pulled conventional for the longest time and I tend to pull out of position more so on conventional, you know, my back will round like a cat as I'm pulling, which you don't want that to happen.
[00:30:56] I mean, you, you wait, you want to
[00:30:58] Philip Pape: set you back. So some, some elite lifters get away with, you know, odd form and they develop and adapt to it over time. But yeah, generally you don't want to do. Right.
[00:31:08] Tyla Serro: Right. And that's the thing too, you know, like form is, is important. I think, I, I believe that it is. It may not be the only thing that keeps you from getting injured, but it's definitely going to minimize, minimize that.
[00:31:21] And it is a lot, a lot of weight too, you know, it's, it's a lot of weight.
[00:31:24] Philip Pape: Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you'd be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you.
[00:31:40] And we can talk about what you found. And how I can improve again, an incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode.
[00:31:49] Tyla Serro: So I was afraid to like lift over 300 pounds for a long time and I would constantly sandbag deadlifts. Like I would just not put in a lot of effort because I don't want to push it.
[00:32:00] I don't want to. Yeah. But I'm at that meat. So the meat that I just did with my friend, Sam, it's funny because the whole day, right? Like, so. I just went squats, just weren't feeling good, but, um, I squatted 2 97 on my second attempt and salmon salmon, my, uh, our coach and everybody was like, you know, you squatted three or three at your last meat, go for 3 0 8.
[00:32:24] I kinda knew it wasn't there that day, but I was already at three a week. How did I have chosen 3 0 3? What I've gotten it I'm honestly not sure. I, I don't think so. 2 97 did not move that well. Um, But I ended up failing that third attempt. So I was calculating, right? Like, so I knew Sam had her, she got all three of her lifts in squat.
[00:32:45] She squat around 2 75. So then when bench came, I was doing the math in my head because as much as like, you know, I'm happy for my friend and I. The whole point of competing is you want to win? Why can't you don't want to win? Right. So I'm in my head thinking like, okay, what do I have to hit on bench? What do I have to hit on deadlift to get a first place here?
[00:33:07] And so, um, uh, I had failed my third attempt, so I knew I had like 10 pounds on the squat. And then for bench, um, we, we took the same attempts for bench or benches, very, very close, and she failed her third attempt at 1 75. So she just. 1 65 for bench, but her deadlift has like 20 plus pounds on mine. Okay. So I hit my third attempt in bench 1 75.
[00:33:31] So then I had, I had her in the squat and the bench by squat by like 10 pounds bench by 10 pounds. But I knew when deadlines were coming, I'm like, she's got like 20 to 25 pounds on by the same
[00:33:42] Philip Pape: amount. Yeah. You
[00:33:43] Tyla Serro: know, so in my head, I'm thinking like this is so close and I was so happy for Sam to like, like I said, we're training partners.
[00:33:52] It's friendly competition. So we go for Douglas and like her third devil's attempt was amazing. Like I was, I was as excited for her on that third attempt that I was for myself on my third attempt. I can't remember what she pulled, I think around like 3 70, 3, 69 or something like that, which is, is huge.
[00:34:11] And, uh, I had pulled 3 36 at my knee in November. Which was a PR by a couple of pounds. And, uh, I went for it on my third attempt, you know, I was like, whatever, I'm just going to go for it because if I don't hit this, I'm definitely not going to get first place. I went for 3 47 0.2, I think. I don't know what the
[00:34:31] Philip Pape: 10 pound PR you're saying.
[00:34:33] Tyla Serro: Yeah, 3, 3 36 in November 3 47. Yeah. 11 point something pounds. Um, and I pulled and I pulled and I pulled and I waited for that down command and I got it. And then I. And the lights were actually broken for my third attempt. So they have little buttons that they press for the red and white license. And in my, in the video, you can see me like, look, I look like you're crazy person.
[00:34:54] Cause I'm like, where's the light? Where are the lights? And, uh, they had papers. So they, everybody, the judges held up like a white sheet of paper and I was like,
[00:35:04] Philip Pape: I got three. And then you thought, okay, I won right.
[00:35:08] Tyla Serro: Well, I don't know. I didn't talk about the other Sam at that point. I had not, I was not convinced that I had won the meat or out totaled my friend, Sam, uh, because I have not talked about the other Sam who was competing in our weight class that day.
[00:35:21] So there was another Sam in our weight class and she, I think that might've been her first meet. She's definitely, she's a new lifter, but she's strong as hell. Um, she has phenomenal, dead lifting. Her squat and bench. Isn't that great. But most lifters aren't when they first start. And I think that if she sticks with the sport, she's going to be a national lever level athlete, like most likely, um, she pulled, she outpolled Sam and I, and like I said, she's been lumping for like six months, I think.
[00:35:53] I'm not sure. Um, but yeah, she was, she was really strong. So Sam and I out total, Sam R and I out totaled Sam. Um, however, Sam L polled significantly more than us, and she's younger than us too. She's still in college. So, um, she's got a lot of, a lot of years to get better and to get stronger. And I, I think she absolutely will.
[00:36:16] So I, that whole, so then after the meet, right, like I was saying, it's a long day after we got done competing. Because there were two sessions in one day, the whole meat day goes till about seven or eight o'clock, which kind of stinks. Like you're stuck there for a long time. Um, my husband and son did come down to, I think they saw like some of my bench and deadlift, but like I have a toddler and that's, he likes to be running and not in a gym, like.
[00:36:42] Cooped up. And it's not really something that's super fun for my husband. He said they weren't going to stick around until like, you know, metals were being handed out and stuff like that. And I wasn't sure that I was going to stick around to metal suit because if I'm not placing, I don't really care. Um, and it, it just takes too long, you know, to, to be there from you're there from 8:00 AM to like 8:00 PM.
[00:37:01] It's a long day. But, uh, I was, so me, Sam RN, Sam Al, we were all very friendly. And that's another thing that I love about the sport of powerlifting too, is most people aren't for lack of better word, like Dick's like most people are really kind and helpful and want to help you. Right. So if you're warming up and there's one, um, so at this path neatly used a squat bar, which has knurling all across it versus like a power bar that has knurling in the middle of knurling on the side.
[00:37:32] I prefer a power bar, just because that's what I've used for the last 10 plus years. So I know exactly where my hands go
[00:37:40] Philip Pape: comfortable.
[00:37:43] Tyla Serro: Absolutely. And you know, Sam are my training partner and I had been training on a squat bar for the last, the whole entire meat prep. But I still, when I walk up to that bar, I'm like, where the heck do I put my pinky?
[00:37:55] You need to like break out a friggin ruler and measure it because it's just, it throws. So I'm like I was saying though, like in the sport of powerlifting, I have found that most people are very kind and helpful and friendly and I have a pretty outgoing personality too. So when I'm at a meet, I'll just walk up to someone and be like, Hey, I really like your singlet.
[00:38:14] Where'd you get it? Just to start conversation and kind of have that icebreaker and like, let people know, like, yes, it is a competition, but we're all here to first and foremost have fun. And that that's been something that I've learned too over the years is that. Don't take yourself so seriously, if you do, if you walk into that meat and you've got your headphones on and you're like, you know, screw everybody.
[00:38:35] I'm just here to like crush PRS. If you fail a lift and you're in that mindset of like, oh, angry powerlifter, you're probably gonna get like down on yourself and it's just going to spiral. Yeah. It's going
[00:38:49] Philip Pape: to be devastating. Stay friendly, enjoy the community. It sounds like a great community. Um, and. And you've been doing it now for, like you said, six years, right?
[00:39:00] Um, you talked, so you talked about your training partner, Sam, you guys have like a friendly competition, so to speak and you also push each other. It looks like in training. I mean, what, what does your training look like? Um, and maybe talk about what it's like to have a training partner, what, you know, advice for some people listening as to how that works.
[00:39:16] Tyla Serro: Yeah. So I never had a training partner up until about the end of 2020, right. Um, I had powerlifting coaches who did my prescribed my training. And then I would, this was before I had a child. And, you know, that takes up a lot of my time now. But before then I would go to the gym and I would spend about three hours a day, maybe four or five, six days a week at the gym.
[00:39:41] Was I training for three hours? Absolutely not. I was probably training for an hour and a half, maybe two max, but it was a big social thing for me. So instead of like going to a bar or something like. That's what I did. And like I said, a lot of my close friends now are still people that, um, train at lightening fitness, but it just wasn't conducive for my life at that point anymore to train like that.
[00:40:03] And even like I had said,
[00:40:05] Philip Pape: because of how much time
[00:40:06] Tyla Serro: it took. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and just, it just, wasn't something that I was really super interested in. Um, I was breastfeeding, which that's a whole other thing too. Like I just, I didn't like to be away from my baby for that long. I didn't want to have to like bring a pump or anything like that.
[00:40:20] It was just too much. The thought was just very overwhelming and COVID was still, that was kind of the height of COVID as well. So the gym had just opened back up and I was not comfortable. I had a newborn baby vaccines were not a thing yet. It just wasn't comfortable being around a bunch of mass close people at the gym because.
[00:40:40] Totally understandable.
[00:40:43] Philip Pape: Yeah. You've got a baby at home. Like I understand. So,
[00:40:45] Tyla Serro: um, yeah, I, uh, I was kind of in this like depressed, maybe state and in the end of 2020, I, I stopped lifting. So if I back up a little bit to my pregnancy, when I noticed the whole diastasis recti thing going on, the coach that I had at the time was not very receptive.
[00:41:07] And I don't know how much experience he had with coaching pregnant. Well, I knew that that was a niche that other people, other coaches had more experience with. So I decided to
[00:41:16] Philip Pape: do this is the abdominal issue you talked about. Okay. Okay. Just to clarify for, yeah. And I can't, I can't relate,
[00:41:24] Tyla Serro: but, um, I had, I had read up on it that there were certain ways to breathe and my physical therapist who was like, absolutely no, I'm back.
[00:41:33] Is it called? Like. About valgus breathing. When you basically, when you do a squat or a w hold your breath. Yeah, that's it? Yup. Um, she was like, don't do that. Like imagine like your, your ad dominal area as a canister. And when you do salvo maneuver. You're putting so much pressure on like your pelvic floor and like there's already a baby growing there and you don't want to add all of that pressure because what happens when a pressure there's too much pressure it's Thanksgiving.
[00:42:03] Interesting.
[00:42:05] Philip Pape: Okay. So you're being advised not to do that because of your unique situation.
[00:42:09] Tyla Serro: Well, just, she just said during pregnancy, in general, not a good idea to breathe, breathe like that.
[00:42:17] Philip Pape: Got
[00:42:17] Tyla Serro: it. Yeah. You really should breathe through the lift, which that was completely foreign to me to breathe through a squat, breathe through a devil.
[00:42:23] Oh. So
[00:42:23] Philip Pape: it's like you have to brace while breathing. Is that the idea? Yeah.
[00:42:27] Tyla Serro: Like you're, you're not, you're not holding your breath at all. Um, you're trying to minimize as much pressure as you're putting on that, like pelvic girdle area. Um, so like I said, my coach didn't really know a lot about it. Wasn't really comfortable with it.
[00:42:41] So I started switched to, um, Briana battles. You are a female in this world and you have been pregnant or, you know, anything about that. Like, she's pretty big in that area. So she had a, uh, pregnant, pregnant and postpartum athlete training. And I actually really liked her program. It was more of like a CrossFit kind of like a power building type of thing.
[00:43:06] We still squatted a lot. Um, not really a lot of bench, but like I still deadlift. She was big on the, you know, breathing through each lift. Um, they had the app, I think, teachable. So it was, it was really easy to work with. Um, you could like watch a video of them doing the lifts.
[00:43:25] Philip Pape: If you needed the, she found something that worked for you.
[00:43:29] Tyla Serro: It worked really well. And then that was like three months into 2020, and that was one of the pandemic hit. So I stopped having access to a gym at the time. Did not have a home gym. Uh, and nobody knew what the heck was going on with COVID so, yeah, and I kinda just was like, oh, whatever. And I stopped training.
[00:43:51] My husband, like I said, has always been a runner. So he was like, well, why don't you like pick up running? So I started running like a mile around the neighborhood, two miles, three miles, like, okay, I can do this, which I do not recommend starting like a completely new exercise regimen, like 20 weeks into a pregnancy.
[00:44:06] Probably not a good idea. So my husband was going for a longer run out, like one of the rail trails in our area. And he's like, I'm doing a five mile or today I'm like, okay. At five miles, no big deal. He was like, you sure you've only like run two or three miles. Yeah, I've got it. No problem. So I ran the five miles.
[00:44:22] It was an Allen pack and I was playing it. Cool. Like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. And then by the time I got home, I was like, not fine. Uh, I think I ran maybe a couple more times. Um, and then I just kind of stopped lifting, like up until we, uh, we ended up getting a bunch of numbers. Bottom off of Facebook marketplace for a decent price.
[00:44:44] So I was doing some
[00:44:47] Philip Pape: actually, yeah, I can totally relate. Yeah. Very few people had home gyms at that point,
[00:44:51] Tyla Serro: but not structured. Like it was not structured at all. I'd stopped following that pregnant athlete program, wasn't really doing any. Then I had a baby, um, we bought a house. My husband was taking like a bunch of classes.
[00:45:04] He was going back into the office now. Cause at the time he was like active duty military leading up to his deployment. Um, so it was just really, really busy. And I could just feel my, and I, I had, okay. My, my maternity leave was up. I was going back to work. I was really stressed out about my son going to daycare because of course.
[00:45:24] Um, I wasn't sure how I would feel about going back to work. Thanks. I'm really grateful to be in a situation where had I had wanted to stay home. We would have been able to do that. Um, he went to daycare, I went back to work and I was like, yep. This is definitely where I like to be. So that worked out. And then, uh, that was probably around like November, October.
[00:45:43] December, our family ended up getting COVID and I was just bombed. I would just like, I didn't actually, I was asymptomatic that asymptomatic didn't have any symptoms. My husband was really sick. The baby was sick and I just was just not feeling good. And you know, it's so hard to look back on that time and say like, why wasn't I feeling good?
[00:46:03] Was it because I stopped lifting? Was it because I gave birth was because I gave birth during a pandemic. Was it, all these things combined, right, right. There was a lot going on, probably all the above. So I, I, my husband was like, you are miserable and you're kind of no fun to be around. And I really think you should go back to your gym because you're
[00:46:21] Philip Pape: tasting it.
[00:46:23] That's what you love. And that's what makes
[00:46:24] Tyla Serro: you feel good, right? Yeah. You know, and I was just like the thought, the thought of driving to the gym and like doing it. Like, it sounded good, but I wasn't sure if that was the right move. Um, So I had reached out to my friend, Sam and during the pandemic, her and her husband started building a really kick ass home gym.
[00:46:42] It took them some time, of course, over the year with all the shortages and whatnot, but they got some awesome equipment and she was like, Hey, why don't you come train with me? And that was actually, so the company that Phillip and I worked for, it shuts down between Christmas and new year's. We get like a week off.
[00:46:58] Um, so that week Sam invited me to come train. And I went there and, uh, Sam's husband, Carlos Rayez. He's a professional powerlifter, like ranked number eight in the world. Very strong guy. He and I look like, I look up to him like if Carlos gives me some advice, I'm definitely like, okay. Yup. Got it. So Carlos asked me that morning.
[00:47:21] He was like, what are you training today? No, I don't really know. I'm not sure. And Sam's like, well, why don't you do my program with. And I, and I was like looking at Sam and, you know, she's jacked and strong and those were programmed daily and I'm like, oh, I don't know if I can do your program, but I'll try it.
[00:47:41] Philip Pape: Maybe like a seven day
[00:47:42] Tyla Serro: program or? Oh, no, no. Sorry. She trains, like, I think she's been training like four days a week. Yeah. Um, for years now, but poor choice of words. So yeah, so she she's been training on a weekly basis, whatever consistently and I had not been, so I knew whatever I did that day, I was going to be sore about what.
[00:48:03] Um, so I was like, all right, I'll do it. So I did all the same movements as her, but, you know, she was squatting with weight on the bar. I was squatting with the barbell and 45 pounds felt really heavy. Um, and I remember like, I think the day or two later, she was like, okay, like you coming over to train. I'm like, nah, I don't think so, Sam, I don't think I'm going to make it.
[00:48:19] Like, I feel like I got hit by a bus. I can't remember what she said to me. I wish I, I wish I still had the texts, but she was basically. Come on. Don't be like a chicken, like I can imagine. Yeah. Like the soreness doesn't last forever. Like just, just get here and train. And I was like, fine. And so I went back and then the rest is kind of history, right?
[00:48:39] Like since then her and I have been training consistently for a year and a half now. Um, and well, we knew my husband was deploying that wasn't like a surprise. So leading up to the deployment, I had said to my husband, like, listen to. We have a two garage bays. And I said, we're turning one of them into a gym because I know I'm not going to be able to get to Sam's house to train four days a week.
[00:49:04] It's probably not going to happen. I'm going to be doing things completely solo for seven months. So we need to get gym equipment making that a priority. And we did. And I'm glad that. Um, because it, it made being able to train for like my power lifting, meet in November a possibility when my kid was really sick.
[00:49:21] And the only time I could train was at night after he went to bed, which I do not prefer training at night. I definitely prefer training if I had it my way and I didn't work, I would train at like 10:00 AM every day after breakfast. Okay. You
[00:49:34] Philip Pape: get the energy going? It's not too late in the day. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:49:39] And I hear you because I have to train early in the morning because of work. So there's a lot to unpack here. Um, because what I want to the heart of the matter here is the consistency. It sounds like you got significantly detrained we had the pandemic, so you didn't have a place to go. It's always a hassle to even go to a gym, right.
[00:49:56] Even when there is one available. So you had somebody that held you accountable, which, you know, maybe not everybody has that, but at the end of the day, it got you to try. Regularly. And then you did the home gym thing, which, which I've done. And I think I constantly encourage my listener to really think about that.
[00:50:12] It's a small investment compared to what you get out of it and the time you save and it's there, right. Staring you in the face. So you can't help it.
[00:50:21] Tyla Serro: Yeah, exactly. And you know, my husband uses it too, even though he is a runner, like he, he does do some stuff, so it's, it's getting its use and it'll last forever
[00:50:29] Philip Pape: runners.
[00:50:30] Don't try to do that,
[00:50:32] Tyla Serro: but, um, it'll it'll if it, if you take care of it, it's going to last forever and it's you just can't it's invaluable, I
[00:50:40] Philip Pape: guess. Absolutely. All right. Well, I would expect you to respect your time. I think I had, I had one last question I wanted to ask, um, and that is, do people have.
[00:50:49] Question or misunderstand what you're doing
[00:50:53] Tyla Serro: all of the time. I'll pick a couple of things to talk about. First thing is, um, older family members, not even older, just family members will be like, you're gonna break your back. You're gonna hurt yourself. That's too much weight like, or no, you just like the, the stereotypes about like me being a girl or me being a woman and lifting, and it's not feminine.
[00:51:16] Like, you know, like whatever. No actually like lifting and I don't
[00:51:21] Philip Pape: and I'm yeah, you're going to get too big. Right. Did you get that one? Like you're going to get too big or no,
[00:51:26] Tyla Serro: you know, and, uh, my coach actually said this to me the other day. Um, my nutrition coach, she had said like, uh, I forget something about giving out free advice and just don't do it basically.
[00:51:36] Cause people aren't going to listen to you. Um, I can't tell you how many people have asked me, like, oh, you're in shape you lift weights. Can I, can you help me? How do I get to your point? And you're just, you give them like really basic information and then they proceed to not do any of it, or they'll say like, well, I don't want to get like big muscles.
[00:51:55] I just want to get tone, like a bodybuilder.
[00:51:58] Philip Pape: And I hate the word you say, lifts those 10 pound dumbbells. I'm going to be, I'm going to look like a bodybuilder.
[00:52:02] Tyla Serro: Yeah. And I hate, I hate the word tone. So I'm like, what does tone even mean? Like, do you want, you want to put on some lean muscle mass? Like what, but, um, yeah, so I think that the biggest thing I get.
[00:52:14] You're going to hurt yourself. Um, that has been like from the start. And I, I mean, I look back on some videos, right? And I'm like, Ooh, that is a cringey looking. But
[00:52:27] Philip Pape: you have to figure it out at some point. Yeah. Cause I didn't want to mention the female angle. Right. Um, but, but you hit the nail on the head with the, I think they're not a double standard, but I mean like if, if somebody I'm a dude, you know what I'm saying?
[00:52:40] I'm working out. People are like, oh yeah, that makes sense. You know, that's generally accepted. But I imagine with, with being a woman that you get some weird looks sometimes. That's why I wanted to ask the
[00:52:49] Tyla Serro: question. Yeah. I mean, or just the fact when I say I'm like powerlifter, people are like, No like female powerlifter, but it's so weird because I'm so far removed from that stage in my life.
[00:53:00] Uh, I've been a powerlifter now for so many years. So a lot of the circles that I'm in and the feeds that I follow are curated to other female lifters. So it's just, that's just the world that I lived. And every so often I'll talk to. Who doesn't shrink train and they'll say something that's just wild to me, you know, like wearing waist trainers or they're doing just tons and tons of cardio.
[00:53:22] And they're like, I can't lose weight and they're eating like 1200 calories a day and I'm like, dude, my toddler eats more than you
[00:53:29] Philip Pape: too much cardio.
[00:53:31] Tyla Serro: Yeah. So it's just, uh it's thanks. Like, I, I really do think the strength is for everyone. Um, I'd sent Philip a video the other day of like a woman who's in her second.
[00:53:41] Shrank training. I was like, that is so cool. You know, like you're never, you're never too old to start strength training. It really is for everyone. And you're probably going to lead a longer, healthier life. If you do lift some weights,
[00:53:55] Philip Pape: that's what I totally advocate what you're saying. And how would you like, so people listen to this podcasts do want some advice.
[00:54:02] What is your advice for somebody who's maybe the brand new, or even maybe recreational wants to get more into.
[00:54:09] Tyla Serro: Work with a coach. That's, that's probably the biggest thing in order for it to be sustainable. And for you to not actually hurt yourself, if you don't know what you're doing, um, because I don't know the science behind it and why I lift the way that I lift.
[00:54:20] Like, if you ask them, what kind of program are you on? I'm like, I think it's a power building right now, the phase that we're in, but I don't know, like the reason that we lift in the way that we do, but I know that it works. Um, and I have full faith in my coach to, to prescribe a program. That's going to keep me healthy and safe and having fun.
[00:54:40] Right. So that's probably my number one piece of advice. And the second advice is just pick a meet and sign up and sign up and do it. Don't don't yeah, don't wait until like you're oh, I have to be this strong for, I can do it because the sport of powerlifting, unless you are at that like elite national level, you're really competing against yourself at the end of the day.
[00:55:01] So if you're making PRS and you're, you know, Continuing to, to have progress. Then at the new day, you can copy because you're just competing against yourself. Really
[00:55:12] Philip Pape: awesome. So find a good coach. However, you can get into it. Be consistent, have fun with it. Sign up for me. Go, go get at it and have fun and get strong.
[00:55:22] Um, so Tyla, where can listeners find more?
[00:55:27] Tyla Serro: I am on Instagram @tylaserro. And, uh, yeah, if you have any questions or if you're new into lifting, I'd be happy to give you some advice. I'm not an expert, not a coach, but I can at least talk about my own personal experiences with the
[00:55:40] Philip Pape: sport. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate.
[00:55:45] Tyla Serro: Thank you Philip.
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Ep 16: Strength, Lifting, and Recovery with Pain, Injury, or Even Back Surgery
Last year, I went under the knife for a microdiscectomy, a type of minimally invasive spine surgery where a portion of a herniated disc is removed using microsurgical tools. In this episode, I share my story of what happened, how I dealt with low back pain in the context of health and fitness, the surgery and recovery process, and lessons I learned along the way.
Last year, I went under the knife for a microdiscectomy, a type of minimally invasive spine surgery where a portion of a herniated disc is removed using microsurgical tools.
In this episode, I share my story of what happened, how I dealt with low back pain in the context of health and fitness, the surgery and recovery process, and lessons I learned along the way.
I hope my story sheds light on some productive ways to think about pain and injury and even inspires you to consider multiple options when faced with a situation like this.
Medical Disclaimer
One last thing. I am NOT a medical practitioner and am NOT dispensing medical advice in this podcast. Everything I say is my personal opinion and experience. Do NOT use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition. Consult your own physician for any medical issues!
RELATED LINKS
Book about dealing with pain through screening and corrective movements:
Rebuilding Milo: A Lifter's Guide to Fixing Common Injuries and Building a Strong Foundation for Enhancing Performance (by Dr. Aaron Horschig)Starting Strength article about "pin firing" for elbow tendinopathy:
Elbow Tendonitis: How It Occurs and What to Do About It
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape:Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:26]Welcome to episode 16 of Wits & Weights. Blasts year, I went under the knife for a micro diskectomy. This is a type of minimally invasive spine surgery, where a portion of a herniated disc is removed using microsurgical tools. And in this episode, I share my story of what.
[00:00:54] How I dealt with low back pain in the context of health and fitness, the surgery and recovery process and lessons I learned along the way. I hope my story sheds light on some productive ways to think about pain and injury, and even inspires you to consider multiple options when faced with a situation like.
[00:01:17] One last thing. I am not a medical practitioner. I am not dispensing medical advice in this podcast. Everything I say is my personal opinion and experience do not use this podcast as medical device to treat any medical condition, consult your own physician for any medical issues. So I want to take you back to what happened to get me to this point.
[00:01:39] So about 10 years earlier than the surgery. So this is around 2011. I was doing CrossFit and I had just been doing CrossFit for a few months at that point. And if you know anything about CrossFit, it's a lot of high intensity interval training combined with power movements combined with barbells. Uh, it's kind of a recipe for.
[00:02:02] Potential injury, especially if you're not used to it, especially if you're not trained and you're trying to throw around big weights. Um, and I'm not blaming CrossFit at all, but at some point I was warming up with very lightweights with a back squat and back then it was a high bar back squat. I didn't have very good form and I felt something pop in my lower back and I could barely stand up.
[00:02:24] And a lot of you have had low back pain over the years, whether you lift or not may have experienced something like this, it could have been. Reaching over to pick up your kid's toy. Uh, it could happen anywhere, but it happened. And I went ahead and got an MRI and discovered I had a herniated L five S one verb, which is very common.
[00:02:46] And in fact, Once you get to your thirties. Pretty much every human being on the planet is going to start having disc degeneration, bulging some sort of issue, and many don't have any symptoms, but it was very painful and I allowed it to recover. It took a few days. I got back to what I was doing before it happened.
[00:03:09] And this time I went to see a, an orthopedic surgeon, I think at the time. And the recommendation was to get a steroid injection in my spine. I did that. It seemed to make the pain go away. I didn't think about it anymore. And then I moved on with my life in the next 10 years, maybe five years, seven years later, something like that.
[00:03:29] It happened again. And this time it didn't happen. And I was, I was lifting. I was just, uh, doing some everyday activity. Might might've been getting in the car or getting up out of my seat and I felt it again. And this time again, I just went about my day. I got some rest and after a few days, it started to get better.
[00:03:49] So fast forward to 2021. It is, I think the end of March. And again, I am warming up with my back squat and you might think there's a common theme here. Oh, the squatting is causing your injury, which is not the case at all. And even the doctors and surgeons will say, you know, we don't know what causes this.
[00:04:08] Everyone has some sort of degeneration in their spine, but for some people that just gets a little worse than others and a particular event along the way. Good causes. My wife and I both think maybe there was a snowboarding accident 10 years earlier that caused this where I effectively flipped over a few times.
[00:04:27] The edge of my board smashed into my lower back, who knows the point is last year I had the pain again, it was severe. And again, it was warming. With a lightweight on the back squat. And I could barely move. I had to lay down. I couldn't walk for like two or three days. This time, the pain wasn't going away as significantly, meaning I still had some pain and it started to radiate down into my left.
[00:04:57] Well, if anyone's familiar with this symptom, you've heard of sciatica. The, the idea that something is impinging on your nerve that goes down your leg and it results in some level of pain. And for some people it's worse than others. And for some folks that goes all the way down to your toes. For me, it went down to roughly my ankle.
[00:05:15] Um, and it sort of progressed over time, but over about a six week period, I had this pain now, initially I went to get an x-ray nothing. Uh, then I went to the orthopedic surgeon and he said, okay, well, the first thing we need to do is send you the physical thing. So I went to physical therapy and did that for about three or four weeks.
[00:05:40] I did everything to the letter and nothing helped. And the physical therapist even said, yeah, I think you need surgery. So then finally I was cleared for an MRI. The MRI showed that the herniation that I had had over all these years had gotten so severe that it bulged out into the canal where it impinged on.
[00:06:00] The nerve. So he said, all right, you need surgery. You definitely need this surgery. Now, before I get into the process of planning for, and then the surgery and then the recovery, because I think there's some important lessons there for folks, especially if your lifter, I want to take a step back and talk a little bit about.
[00:06:20] Pain in general, especially for those of us who lift those of us who exercise and there's different levels of pain, right. There's soreness, which is, could be the delayed onset muscle soreness also called Dom's where you either have you either have soreness in the workout, right. Immediately from the pump, the burn, whatever.
[00:06:41] And then you, or you can have Dom's where you get it a day or two later. And you know, you know, the feeling when you've done some heavy quad workout and. Maybe it's a new movement for you. Maybe it's an extremely intense weight compared to what you're used to, uh, or maybe even just, uh, biked 20 miles. And you know, you hadn't ridden a bike in a year and then the next day you just can't walk well, that's soreness.
[00:07:03] Right? And I think we're all familiar with that. And we know that that goes away, you know, fluids and hydration, electrolytes, all that tend to help. There's all, all tricks that people learn over the years. That's soreness. So let's put that aside. That's manageable pain. That's part of lifting get used to it.
[00:07:20] Then there is something like tendinopathy, and this is. Uh, pain, swelling, inflammation in attendance. For example, I'll give you one that affected me and affects a lot of lifters. And that is golfer's elbow. The medical term is medial epicondylitis, and this is where you get pain on the inside part of your arm, right?
[00:07:45] Where the up the bicep attaches to the forearm golfer's elbow, because people who swing a lot of golf balls, get it. But. I've also seen it quite frequently with those of us who back squat heavy when you don't have a very good grip on the back squat. And your hand is overextended to the point where you're basically supporting the bar.
[00:08:09] With your forearms and with your elbow. Uh, and ideally when you do a, especially a low bar back squat, your arms should simply be there to lock the bar to your back and your body does the work, your legs do the work. But if you have a poor grip, you can definitely develop pain eventually on your elbow known as golfer's elbow.
[00:08:30] Now, for something like that, traditionally people thought, well, I sit and take ibuprofen, and now we know that icing is probably not the way to go and that we need to. Use the tissue that is having the problem. So that is kind of what your father or grandfather used to say. Just walk it off. Basically you have to move the injured area and find some sort of pain, free exercise or tolerable exercise that will accelerate the muscle repair and the generation and limit scar tissue.
[00:09:05] So going back to the example of golfer's elbow, You know, I had it for quite a while and I tried all these different things, stretching. I'm scraping. I tried the ibuprofen, I tried the IEC and I tried heat and finally came across a recommendation, I think, through the starting strength community of. A high number of chin-ups, you know, doing, doing a few reps, um, maybe at 30% of your max.
[00:09:33] So if you could do 10 chin-ups you go ahead and do two or three and you do it like 20 times, and then you. A break and do it again. So you do three sets of that, and then you do this every few days. Now I don't have the precise, um, regimen. You can look it up. The point is it forces you to do a movement that exercises that tendon, and you, you kind of feel a little bit of the pain as you're using it, but it's.
[00:09:59] So the point where you feel like you're making it worse, uh, if anything, you're, reinflating the tissue, so to speak and helping it to heal and avoiding scar tissue. Right? So that's just kind of a tangent. I wanted to take on some of the types of pain that are not, um, not a real acute injury or something that is more severe.
[00:10:17] Now I wanted to talk about a book that was actually very helpful to me called rebuilding Milo by Dr. Erin Horshack and the subtitle is. The lifters guide to fixing common injuries and building a strong foundation for enhancing performance. And I'll include a link to this book in the show notes, because if you are having any sort of pain, okay.
[00:10:41] Back pain, hip pain, knee pain, shoulder pain, elbow pain, ankle pain. He has chapters on all of these and it takes you through. The specific sub injury types that you might have within each of those. So if you have low back pain, you know, is it herniated disc or is it something else? It takes you through movements you can do to screen for the specific pain and identify it.
[00:11:04] And then corrective exercises, including loaded. Because using barbells using dumbbells, using strength related exercises to address injury can be an important part of rehab. And it helps you change how you work out in the short term to get around the pain, but facilitate healing. Uh, and this author, you know, he's one of the ones that recommends against icing for injuries and sore muscles, and instead, you know, using movement to heal.
[00:11:35] And in some cases you have to load. The effected muscles. You just have to, through some form of moderate lifting, it could be body weight, or it could be loaded. Um, and this lesson has paid off for me throughout this whole process. I'm going to get to that in a bit. When I talk about the. However, if nothing works and the pain gets worse, that's where doctors come in.
[00:11:58] I lived with this, for this condition for about 10 years. It bothered me off and on, but it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't until it actually got worse and just would not get better. Then I finally took the next step now, before taking that. There are other things you might consider. Some of those are recommended in the book that I mentioned, rebuilding Milo.
[00:12:18] Um, but others are, are things that might work for you. For example, some forms of pain. Are for lack of a better term mental or psychological they're associated with some form of stress or underlying trigger that leads to chronic pain. And I definitely explored that for my condition, but then it turned out my condition was just an acute problem that could easily be fixed by surgery.
[00:12:43] But I also know individuals who dealt with pain. It was stress-induced. Didn't know where it came from. All of a sudden they felt a pop in their back and they were in pain. They would have to lay on the floor with their legs up on a chair. And this might've gone on for years and dealing with the mental side of things often helps for, for some of these conditions.
[00:13:03] So consider that, and then. Also consider of course the physical therapy, the mobility, the stretching, the massage, all of those things. Um, in addition to of course, the loaded movements and exercises that work around the pain. So all of these things could be solutions before you go to the point of involving a physician or a surgeon.
[00:13:28] Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the. If you find it valuable, you'd be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again.
[00:13:47] An incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. All right now. Go ahead and talk about the process that I went through, which some of you may, may relate to. So I mentioned that I had the injury and. Lead to pain radiating down my leg. It wouldn't get better. I went through all of these steps, physical therapy, MRI, and then I finally scheduled the surgery.
[00:14:14] Well, throughout those six weeks, I took the advice of in, in the book, I was talking about rebuilding Milo and I continued to work out because I realized. Continuing to squat deadlift and all the other movements. If I was able to do them without making the pain worse, it was a, probably a good thing, not only for preventing scarring and keeping me moving, but for staying strong.
[00:14:41] So here's the thing I had only been doing. I'll call intelligent strength training for maybe not quite a year and a half at that point. And I had gotten stronger and stronger, stronger in terms of my maximum production, meaning all my lifts were going up, uh, but also increased muscle mass. You know, I like to do some power building, throwing some accessories to go along with my, the big lifts.
[00:15:05] And I would say that is like my number one piece of advice for those of you listening who want a. Much less painful, quicker, easier recovery. If you ever do get injured, if you ever get injured and you ever have to deal with surgery or anything like that, having been strong and fit to begin with, we'll give you a huge head start.
[00:15:28] And you see this with older folks who fall and then they break their hip and because they're weak, the other things break and then they can't move. Uh, and then the recovery takes longer and then they get an ammonia and then it sort of cascades. There's this cascade of issues from one to the next to the next, you start taking different medications.
[00:15:48] You know, I know I'm painting a grim picture, but you've heard it all before. So being strong and fit. Going into the potential for injury gives you a big advantage. So I wanted to mention that I kept working out. I didn't just give up. I knew my surgery was coming, but I kept doing all the movements that I could do.
[00:16:07] Right then I had surgery. And I went in, I had general anesthesia, the surgery probably took half an hour. As many of these things do. There's a lot of buildup, a lot of forms you have to sign. There's a lot of medication involved and then the surgery takes 30 minutes. And then I woke up. Now, keep in mind for six weeks.
[00:16:28] I had been effectively laying down on my back most of the day or working out because it was painful to stay. And to walk. And that was very limited. We tried to go on a hike and I actually had to stop every two minutes to sit on a log, to lay down on a log because I couldn't walk. I couldn't just stand around because the pain would start to radiate.
[00:16:53] It would feel like tingles in my leg and it would get worse and worse and worse until my body was like, you gotta lay down. But of course I could work out because that kept me moving. I could ride a stationary bike cause it can be moving very interesting. So here I am recovering from surgery. I wake up and.
[00:17:10] All of a sudden, I feel that there's no pain because the pain was always there. Even when I was laying down, I could feel something in my life and it wasn't there. And I was like, ah, that must be the pain medication. And they said, no, let's try to get up and walk. So I got up and I stood, no pain walked around, no pain.
[00:17:25] All I could feel was a little, a little bit of throbbing in the back where they had cut me. And over the next few days, as I recovered, that was really the only pain I had. So to speak was from where the incision was made, which is to be expected when you've been cut open and given a bunch of drugs and sewed up.
[00:17:42] That's fine. But I was able to walk again without pain. The issue was fixed. And that's not the case with everyone who has back pain. I know that back surgery can be playing the odds, so to speak, depending on what type of issue you have, especially if you have to have a, you know, a fusion or some sort of more invasive surgery than I had.
[00:18:06] I I'm pretty, I consider myself lucky in that regard. That it was an easy issue with a fairly easy fix, but it was still surgery. And so I had to take some pain meds for the first few days and I was encouraged to get up and walk whenever I want it to. So I took that advice. I won't say it to the extreme, but the fact that I could walk again, after not walking for six weeks, all of a sudden walking was my favorite new thing in the world.
[00:18:33] And we are talking may. In new England. So the weather was perfect. It was in the upper sixties, sunny, nice breeze, beautiful walking weather. And the first few days, you know, my wife and kids went out with being, I was like a, like a little old man, you know, kind of shuffling along, but I was walking and then by day three or four, I was had no problem walking, pretty good distances.
[00:18:58] And I realized that I loved walking. Took it for granted much of my life to that point and that I would now be an integral part of my movement going forward. Well, little did I know. How beneficial walking is for your mortality, for your overall health, for fat loss for giving you more room in your diet.
[00:19:18] All these things I've talked before about on this podcast. And I think I've posted about it. Um, but I think walking's the best form of cardio. So throughout this process, I realized that movement in the use of the tissue is key to your recovery because every day as I would get up and walk around and really move as much as I could, I felt less and less pain, more and more mobility.
[00:19:40] Things started to come back. And after only about a week, I got cleared by the doctor to start lifting lightweights. And then after about a week after that, I said, Hey doc, could I, could I go heavier? And he's like, You know, you can go a little heavier for you. And I said, oh, for me, you mean relative to what I can lift.
[00:20:00] Yeah, go ahead. And that kind of gave me license to start progressing again on. The lifts that I loved, you know, the back squats, deadlifts RD, ELs bench, press, everything. You read a lot of stories about how people have microdiscectomy that they're done back squat and they're done dead lifting forever. Uh, and that's sad.
[00:20:19] That's really sad because a year ago today I'm actually recording this exactly a year ago, uh, to the surgery. I don't know how many times I've squatted and deadlifts since then, since then, but it's just making me stronger. I love doing it. There's no problem with it. When I had my final checkup with the doctor, he said, you know what, I'm not going to tell you not to do anything because you're probably going to do it anyway.
[00:20:42] And it's probably not going to cause issues anyway. So go ahead. Enjoy your life. So I did, and I started to progress on my lifts again, and then. In July, we were coming back from a trip to Maine and it was the day we were driving back. So thank goodness it wasn't while we were up there. And I started to have a pain in my stomach, which developed over several hours to check myself into the hospital.
[00:21:07] I had appendicitis. So only two months after having surgery for my spine, I had to have an appendectomy. So they cut me in the open in the back. Then they cut me open in the front and interestingly, the recovery was pretty similar. Um, there was pain, you know, from recovering from the incision. I couldn't lift anything.
[00:21:27] Warren you getting a hurting enough, you do it, but I still walked a lot. And then I quickly resumed light-weight lifting as quickly as I could. I didn't wait. I didn't want to wait because I knew that movement is healing. It helps avoid scar tissue and you just have to progress in it. Um, I don't want to say slowly, but smartly and here we are.
[00:21:49] One year later. And I would say that I'm healthier than ever. And there were quite a few lessons that I learned from this whole process. The first, as I already mentioned, being strong is better than being weak. If you're strong going into an injury, you can recover better from that injury and you don't have the cascade of issues that other people experience.
[00:22:10] Number two recovery from most types of injuries requires movement and use of the effected area. Even if you have a surgery or you have a broken bone or whatever, generally, you're going to be advised to rest. You should always follow your doctor's advice, but there are cases where you can rest too much and actually prevent the affected area from healing sufficiently.
[00:22:35] So consider all the possibilities is what I'm suggesting. Don't just take one opinion, take multiple opinions and just realize that there are multiple options than the conventional, you know, staff feet and just recover option. And then the third thing is that at least for the injury. The spinal injury with the micro diskectomy.
[00:22:55] I'm not prevented from doing any particular lift, just because of that. And in fact, I would argue that doing your deadlifts, your squats, your accessory movements, they all strengthen your back and having a strong quote unquote bad back is preferable to having any weak, bad back. That is your back muscles are going to support that spine.
[00:23:17] And would you rather have a. Set of muscles, such that the spine is more easily susceptible to getting injured, especially the older you get, or would you rather have strong muscles that can support your back? Because it wasn't the squatting that caused my injury, but the squatting, the deadlifting make me stronger to prevent future injury and to support myself going forward.
[00:23:41] So that's my story. I wanted to talk about injury pain. I wanted to share the book rebuilding Milo. It was very helpful. Talk about some different options for recovery and rehab and encourage and inspire you to get back under the barbell. Keep lifting, stay consistent, you know, nutrition, walking in those things are all part of this, but loading those weights, getting stronger, developing muscle will better equip you for the future.
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Ep 15: Maximize Your Lifting Sessions: Warmups, Supersets, Rest Periods, and More
In this episode, we cover how to maximize your lifting sessions regardless of where you train so you can get the most out of your workout without it taking forever, while also producing the results you want.
Let’s say you’re a busy, working professional, perhaps in your 40’s with a family, a mortgage, and a high-stress job. But you want to improve your health through lifting and nutrition. That’s why you’re listening to this podcast!
The last thing you want is a one-size-fits-all training program that has you lifting six days per week with 90-minute-long sessions. Something so out of whack with your current lifestyle is not exactly sustainable, and it’s a surefire way to bomb out within weeks if not days.
On this podcast, we focus on maximizing your time, inside and outside the gym, for a sustainable, long-term approach you can stick to consistently. Results only come with steady application over time. That is the “first principle” of this whole deal, or else the rest is irrelevant.
Therefore, you’ll probably want a training program that has you in the gym maybe 3 or 4 days a week (of course, if you can swing more and that makes sense for YOU, go for it) for maybe an hour, not counting commute time. Although we talked about the benefits of a home gym back in Episode 8, today I want to cover how to maximize your lifting sessions regardless of where you train so you can get the most out of your workout without it taking forever, while also producing the results you want.
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:26]Welcome to episode 15 of Wits & Weights. Let's say you're a busy working professional perhaps in your forties with a family, a mortgage. And a high stress job, but you want to improve your health through lifting and nutrition. That's why you're listening to this podcast.
[00:00:50] The last thing you want is a one size fits all training program that has you lifting six days a week with 90 minute long sessions, something. So out of whack with your current lifestyle is not exactly sustainable. And it's a surefire way to bomb out within weeks. If not days. On this podcast, we focus on maximizing your time inside and outside the gym for a sustainable long-term approach.
[00:01:17] You can stick to consistently results only come with steady application over time. That is the first principle of this whole deal or else. The rest is irrelevant. Therefore you'll probably want a training program that has you in the gym, maybe three or four days. Of course, if you can swing more in that makes sense for you.
[00:01:37] Go for it for maybe an hour, not counting. Although we talked about the benefits of a home gym back in episode eight. Today, I want to cover how to maximize your lifting sessions regardless of where you train. So you can get the most out of your workout without it taking forever while also producing the results you want.
[00:01:57] In today's episode, we cover planning for success, staying focused, using smart programming, warmups, super sets and rest periods. All right. The first thing that I think about before even leaving your house for the gym is having a plan. Now we've talked in previous episodes about the specifics of planning, your training programming ahead of time for.
[00:02:25] The next day, the next week, the next month. But in general, what I'm getting at here is you don't want to just leave your house, go to the gym and work out without having a specific plan of what you're going to accomplish during that session. And ideally this is documented in a notebook or an app, and you've got everything laid out, such that you don't even have to think about it when you're in the gym.
[00:02:48] So that would be each movement you're going to accomplish. And within each. The number of sets reps, the specific weights, as well as the warm-up sets and even the rest periods. And some apps actually let you pre-program some or all of that, including automated timers for your rest periods, whatever makes it easier for you to be consistent and make sure that you go in and don't get distracted and get the work.
[00:03:14] The other thing I would suggest before leaving your house is to prepare substitute movements for your workout. Now, if there are things, you know, for sure you're going to be able to do, you know, your gym has plenty of power racks, plenty of barbells over certain machines that you want. And they're always available.
[00:03:31] Find. But if either you expect the gym, you're going to, to lack certain equipment and get your programming calls for, let's say a double cable crossover, and they only have a single cable machine, you know, with a single cable. Well, then you can't do that movement. So you have to come up with the substitute.
[00:03:51] Am I going to do a one-arm crossover? Am I going to switch to dumbbell flies? What am I going to do? Prepare that ahead of time. Also prepare for the fact that if the gym is busy, Occasionally have a lack of availability of certain machines that you have a substitute in place, just in case sort of your plan B like, okay, if I can't do this, I can do this instead.
[00:04:13] You don't want to just not do the movement and give up and move on, try to do something that is a good substitute. So those are two ways to make sure that when you get to the gym, you don't waste any. All right now you are at the gym ready to get the work done. And the next thing I want to talk about, which is probably the most important for a lot of folks and where we waste a ton of time, often unconsciously or subconsciously is avoiding distractions and just focusing on getting the work done.
[00:04:46] And there's a lot of things tied in with this. For example, during your rest periods, you might. Decide. You want to check out social media or watch a video or check your email. And before long you could be stretching your rest period out much longer than you intended. That's one way that you can waste time.
[00:05:06] And so going in with a rule that, Hey, I'm not going to browse social media. I'm not going to do any work. Anything I do is related to my workout. Like if I'm going to watch a video, it's going to be to help with my movement, or if I'm going to browse social media, it's because it has to do with. My training programming specifically, but I would suggest that you don't even need to do any of that stuff.
[00:05:29] Maybe listen to some music, if that helps you focus or in many, for some of us not listening to music and just having it nice and quiet is a way to focus, being efficient with your time while you're working. If you're doing other things like taking video. Okay. That's a big challenge. Make sure you've got your equipment set up ahead of time, whether you're putting your camera in a shoe or on a tripod, but things like editing and posting and all that can be done later.
[00:05:56] Don't waste time while you're in the gym. So that's avoiding distractions. From doing the work, but I want to talk about actually doing the work itself. A lot of folks go into a movement thinking, okay, I got to get the movement done. I'm going to just get under the bar, bang out the reps and I'm done. But what I want to suggest is that you have both an attentional focus and an intentional focus on the movement and the results.
[00:06:24] So what do I mean by this? Let's talk about the attentional focus. That is a focus on the outcome. So if you're going to do a set of five squats, you're focused on getting all five squats and you're going to get there regardless, right? I mean, in your mind mentally, you're saying I'm going to get the five squats.
[00:06:47] Now, as you're doing the squats, you're going to have certain cues that help you with the movement. Once you've gotten past the initial. Neuromuscular adaptation muscle memory learning the basic form phase, you know, in the first few weeks of learning. Hopefully, you've got the number of queues whittled down to maybe one or two cues each time you do the movement.
[00:07:10] So you're not thinking of every single little piece of the movement. And instead let's just get the squat done, but you might use a cue or two to do a proper. Um, I think we never perfect these movements. So there's always something you want to think about, but having both an intentional focus on the movement with a cue or two and a cue could be simple.
[00:07:32] If you're doing a, let's say an isolation movement, like a barbell curl, it could simply be every time you bring the rep up, you focus on squeezing the biceps and then going down slowly in the concentric or in the east centric. But you're also thinking. My target here is 10 reps, and I'm going to get to the 10 reps.
[00:07:52] I'm going to train hard when I think I'm close to failure. I'm probably not. I'm going to go for another rep, those kinds of mental games that we played at. Pushing through and getting the work done without of course going overboard without cheat reps, without, uh, pushing past failure, so to speak. But for newer and intermediate lifters, we generally don't train hard enough.
[00:08:15] So that kind of focus can help us train hard enough to get the result we're looking. Now a side tangent to this whole thing is being assertive with our movement. Basically being in control, owning the barbell, owning the dumbbells in such a way that we are not too relaxed. We don't have too much slack that we stayed.
[00:08:37] When we need to, that we keep a neutral spine. When we need to that we're going through the full range of motion and doing it at a reasonable tempo and all of these things. Again are things to think about initially, but eventually become a little bit more automatic. Getting your gym session done efficiently is partly helped by the fact that you are focusing on the.
[00:09:01] And being assertive about it and getting it done so that you don't get hurt, you don't get injured and you can get all the reps done. You're trying to get. Now, before I continue to talk about some techniques we can use in the session itself, let's just take a step back. If you find that the sessions are still longer than you can handle because of not just because of fatigue, but also because of your schedule and because of your commute.
[00:09:27] And now you're, you're in there for two hours, even though you might be going three days a week, they're just way too long. Well, then you can consider, should I go in an extra day or two? But with much shorter sessions. So instead of doing a full body, three or four full body workouts that might take an hour and a half, I'm going to do four or five split workouts, you know, push, pull legs or body part that are only say 45 minutes long.
[00:09:53] And depending on whether you're driving to a gym or doing it at home, that could factor in, you know, if you're at home, you don't have to commute. So you can do a higher frequency. You know, you can have more sessions because you don't have that fixed time of the. So think about that. And you may not quite know until you get into your lifting and maybe even a few months in when you get stronger and you realize you need longer rest periods and longer recovery, you might find that the sessions are too long or too short or too frequent or not frequent.
[00:10:26] And so always consider that as a possible way to tweak what you're doing so that you can fit in with your schedule to remain consistent. The other piece to this is the style of programming you're doing, could also impact the efficiency in the gym. For example, we talked about full body versus split, but also the movements that you're doing.
[00:10:47] So if you are focused on strength and you're going to do a lot of compound moves, Squat deadlift, press overhead, press. And you're going to be working with a high intensity, meaning a high weight on the bar. Then you're just by definition, going to require longer rest periods. And that is going to extend your session.
[00:11:05] Now you may have fewer movements and it may all even out, but let's say you're doing a bodybuilding or I should say power building program where you have compound movements combined with accessories. You could easily get to a situation where you just have too much. In terms of time where, you know, you might be doing five or six movements, but because of the rest periods during the compound lifts, even if the rest periods are shorter for the others, you're now extended into pushing an hour and a half, maybe even longer.
[00:11:35] So consider all of those, consider the split, consider full body versus. You know, compounds versus a conjugate style or power building, whatever it is, and just pick the one that you're going to be able to stick to, um, consider whether it's enjoyable, whether you're going to stick to it, whether it works for your schedule.
[00:11:51] All right. Now, back to the lifting session, I want to talk about. Warmups, and I can do an entire episode just about executing warmups, but what I want to talk about is first of all, do you need them? Um, and the answer is, it depends on how you define a warmup. So the, the old school or a classic warmup. Like that was done in CrossFit, for example, or you think of bodybuilders back in the day where you, you know, do 20 minutes on a bike and then he might do some stretching.
[00:12:23] And before you know, it you're half an hour in and you haven't even started to work out. That is not the type of warmup we need. We also know that the evidence shows potentially deleterious effects from warming up the muscles too much with stretching when you lift, uh, In colloquial terms, it kind of makes you too flexible if you will.
[00:12:43] And we actually want to be a little bit tighter and stronger when we get into that movement. So the there's a couple of types of warmups that are beneficial. The first type is one that literally warms you up. That is it raises your body temperature. It gets the blood flowing, gets your heart rate up. And that could be just a very short bout of cardio or a dynamic workout.
[00:13:04] So for me, that would be a couple minutes on an assault bike, and that's it. You know, I work out in the morning, it's cold here in new England, I'm over the garage. So it's even colder there. And I jumped on the bike a couple minutes, that's it? And it warms me up and I'm ready to go. And, and all of a sudden it feels 10 degrees warmer when I hit the Barbeau.
[00:13:23] You could do a dynamic workout and going to do some pushups, jumping jacks, whatever you want to do, really just, just to get you warmed up, but don't take too much time on it. Uh, don't tire yourself out. Now, the real warmup that I would suggest is warming up using the movements themselves. So, if you're doing compound lifts focused on strength, you're doing, let's say a squat is your first movement.
[00:13:47] Then you warm up with the squat. It's as simple as that, where you take, for example, let's start with a squat and let's say your average strength, and you're doing a set of five and 2 65. The way I would suggest warming up is start. An empty bar, especially on the squat. Maybe not as much for the other movements, but the squat.
[00:14:08] Do you have this, uh, complex movement that requires some muscle memory, and it's good to start with the empty bar to stretch out your elbows, stretch out your shoulders, getting get into that slightly awkward position and feel the range of motion, you know, for a set of five or maybe a couple sets of five.
[00:14:24] And then you start adding weight to the bar. And what you do is you do a certain amount of reps. You take a short rest. Uh, maybe very short, you add weight to the bar and you do fewer reps, add weight, do fewer reps. And so you're doing something like 5, 3, 2, 1 or 5, 4, 3, 2. Um, if you have a higher weight that you're going to get to, you might have to throw in some singles in there at incrementally higher weights until you hit your working set.
[00:14:52] So what does this look like at two 60? And the way I would do that is, you know, warm up with the empty bar, maybe a set of five, just get the field gets stretched out. Then I might jump right to 1 35, but you could jump to 95 and then 1 35, the key is try to use the big, the bigger. You know, start with the 40 fives, but if you need to use 20 fives, if the weight isn't fair, if the final target working weight, isn't that high, you're going to have to jump up with the 20 fives and the 40 fives, then 20 fives and 40 fives.
[00:15:23] So let's just keep it simple. You're going to put on the 40 fives and now you're at 1 35, do a set of five. You can put. Now the 20 fives and you're at 180 5, set a three, and then do you know, replace those with the 40 fives and nine to 25. Do a double. Now you could pretty much jump to 2 65 at this point.
[00:15:47] If you were, deadlifting say 4 0 5, you might just use 40 fives to jump up. You might do, you know, 1 30, 5 or five to 25 for. For for, uh, you might do then three 15 for a triple or even a double. Then you might go to 365 for a single, and then finally do you're working Senate for. So it doesn't have to be perfect.
[00:16:11] Just take reasonable jumps and do fewer reps for each jump. As you warm up the rest, doesn't have to be very long between them until till you get to very high weights. You know, if you're a powerlifter you're working in the higher strength range and you have to have some singles on the way. And then you might need a little more time between your warm-up sets.
[00:16:31] Uh, but that's it. And then you get to your working set. I take a little bit extra time, right before that working set. And then you do your normal working set with the full rest periods between each. Now, if you're doing accessory movements or isolation movements, you can probably just jump right into that movement potentially with the, the called four reps, just go right into the working set.
[00:16:59] If you're in, say the eight to 12 or higher rep range, you may not even need to warm up. Uh, it's kind of your call. If it's the first movement of the workout, you may need one warmup. Like halfway there to the final weight or maybe three quarters of the way toward the weight, you know, even if it's something like barbell curls, but you're working down in the say four to eight rep range.
[00:17:20] Yeah. You may want to put on two thirds of the weight. Hang on a set of five and then do the working. Wait. So in general, for isolation or accessory type movements, you could probably jump right in, uh, the bigger they are, the more compound they are, the more you're going to need to warm up. Like if you're doing a, let's say a close grip bench press for your triceps, that's a compound movement.
[00:17:43] That's very much like just a bench press and you should be warming up. Now here's the exception. If you just finished a movement, that's very similar. It uses a similar muscles as the next movement where you are warmed up. An example of that might be you just. A bunch of bench bench pressing. Now you're going to do shoulder pressing.
[00:18:04] You could, you can still do a little bit of a warmup, but you're, you're mostly warmed up. Or if you're going to go from an overhead press on the barbell and then to an incline shoulder, press a dumbbells, you're totally warmed up for that. You don't even need to do another warmup assuming you haven't rested for 20 weeks.
[00:18:21] So where I'm going with all of this is that you can save time by being intelligent about your warmups. Don't take 20 minutes doing a dynamic CrossFit style warmup, just warm yourself up with a little bit of cardio and then use the actual movements to warm you up. Don't warm up movements that are, you know, in the higher rep range, don't need them.
[00:18:42] You don't have to warm up movements that have already been warmed up because of similar movements before them. And these are all ways to save. Hey guys. I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you.
[00:19:06] And we can talk about what you found helpful in how I can improve again, an incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the. Now there's another technique to save time. It's more of a, maybe a bodybuilding approach, but the way we're going to discuss it is, is a smart way to use this, to save time, not a way to get certain muscle groups faster to fatigue, and that is super sets.
[00:19:33] So you may be familiar with a super set it's basically doing at least two different movements back to back. So let's say. Uh, bicep curls, and then hammer curls, both of which work, the bicep you do set of bicep curls. You know that let's say barbell curls, and then with very little rest at all, you go right into hammer curl.
[00:19:54] So you've fatigued the muscles. Now you're hitting them at a different angle. You kind of go back and forth. That's like a bodybuilding style approach. I'm not a huge advocate of that because I believe in sufficient rest periods and recovery, even when doing isolation movements to get the full amount of reps and really get the full muscular failure that we're looking for across the range of sets right across.
[00:20:18] You know, if you're trying to hit 10, getting 10 in, rather than just getting six or three in, because you're just so fatigued. So the super set approach we're going to talk about is the antagonist muscle approach, mainly for accessory or isolation movements. And that would be. If you're doing, let's say a bicep movement, you then super set it with a tricep movement.
[00:20:41] So it's the, the, the antagonist the opposite muscle, so that you're not really fatiguing one or the other in between the others set. And you're effectively getting two movements for one within that time period. Now, even doing that, I would suggest a short rest period. So if you were normally gonna rest three minutes, Between sets, you might rest say 45 seconds to a minute before you do this super set alternative and kind of back and forth.
[00:21:10] That's still going to save you a ton of time, but it's gonna give you a rest from the general fatigue you get from the movement, you know, not the specific muscle that's targeted, but the general fatigue. So that you can still get in your full sets. All right. I wouldn't suggest super setting big movements.
[00:21:26] I wouldn't do squat. And then, oh, it's my rest period. I'm going to do a full, heavy working set of deadlifts. Now I wouldn't do that. I would just focus on doing this for antagonist accessory movements. And that could save you a little bit of time. If you've got some power building or bodybuilding in there, uh, you might be able to save, let's say three or four minutes on a movement because you've combined it with another.
[00:21:52] All right. And finally, we get to rest periods and I saved this for last, because I think there's a lot of opportunity here to save time or sabotage ourselves either way. And I wanted to make sure it was the last thing you remembered before the podcast ends. So I think rest periods or something, there's a lot of misconceptions about a lot of misunderstanding and I've spent probably more time than I wanted to learning about reading about and thinking about this topic, because it is so important when it comes to recovery to getting your sets completed, to doing the work, to going to failure, you know, all these other concepts I grew up in Brazil.
[00:22:32] Um, the bodybuilding concepts, like rest, pause sets, super sets, et cetera. Uh, rest periods are kind of the glue that binds all of these, and it can have a big impact on your results, but also the time in the gym. So I think in general, for most people, rest periods need to be longer than you think. I know that's a very general statement, but I think a lot of.
[00:22:57] I think rest periods are just, you know, take a few breaths, wait 30 seconds. Do the next set. Now for some isolation, bodybuilding movements, there's a time and place for that. For example, there's something called rest pause sets or Mio sets where you do a set of, let's say eight to 12 and then you rest 30 seconds.
[00:23:17] And then you try to do as many as you can again, and it's, you're going to get half as many sets or half as many reps. You wait 30 seconds, do it again. You're, you're fatiguing yourself and not letting yourself recover. And so you're just pushing toward that upper limit of failure. Um, more and more quote, unquote efficiently, which does save you time.
[00:23:36] But there's a value to getting the full set of reps in, uh, as supported by the evidence supported by the literature. And it's why you don't want to just use rest pause sets for everything. So let's take a step back and talk about rescue. If we're talking about compound movements, the big compound movements, and if you're a newer lifter, I strongly suggest focusing on strength, focus in the lower rep range, higher intensity, you know, around sets of five with the compound lifts.
[00:24:05] I think it's efficient. I think it gives you a great stimulus. I think it really helps you develop and learn the movements before you start branching out into these accessories and bodybuilding style exercises. So for compound. When you're fairly new, they don't have to be extremely long. I would say around three to four minutes, you know, maybe two to five, if you want to stretch that out, could work for your rest periods between sets of five on squats, dead lifts, press bench press, but before long.
[00:24:39] And, and I mean, as little as two to three months, as you start to get stronger, you realize that the stimulus and the fatigue or. The weight is higher. They're harder to get the set's done. You're going to need extra time. So it generally starts to stretch up into more of the four to six, four to seven minute range.
[00:25:00] And of course, when you get really strong, you could be waiting 8, 9, 10 minutes or more between between sets, but let's focus on, you know, the average person, which is probably my listener. Is reasonably strong are getting they're working toward that between your squats, between your deadlifts. You want to give yourself more than enough time so that you can get the entire next set completed without the reason for you not completing it, being that you simply didn't rest enough.
[00:25:27] So we talk about all the things that are important. We talk about food, nutrition. We talk about sleep, uh, In this session itself, rest periods are probably the, the biggest factor in you failing a rep on the next set, all things equal, you know, assuming you're strong enough to get it done. If you fail a rep, it could very well be because you did not rest long enough.
[00:25:49] So think about that. And if you are finding that you're not making progress. If you're plateauing. It could be your rest periods, try longer rest periods and see what happens. You can't really rest too long. I mean, I say that with an asterisk. Of course, if you, if you wait 20 minutes and you totally cool down, I mean, that's ridiculous.
[00:26:08] And that's also going to just cost you hours and hours in the gym that you don't need to spend. What I mean is you don't, you know, you can't really go too long as in, if you wait seven or even eight minutes instead of five, you might find that that's just what you needed at this point in. Uh, trajectory, like let's say, you're squatting now you're getting up to 3 0 5, 3 15.
[00:26:31] And all of a sudden you get stuck. You may need to stretch out your rest periods. Rest periods can be shorter. However, for accessory movements and bodybuilding movements, that's for sure. So if you're doing something like a compound or compound ish, um, accessory like lying, tricep, extensions with an easy curl bar, you know, you might be able to rest two to three minutes or even four minutes.
[00:26:53] Uh, the point is wrestling with. To get the whole set done. It's better to rest a little longer than a little shorter is my opinion. Unless you were specifically trying to over fatigue the muscle with a special technique that requires shorter rest periods. Or if you're trying to train cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance, and that sort of part of your programming, and you want to have a few sets of isolation movements.
[00:27:18] Bang, bang, bang, bang them out with very short rest periods and get your heart rate up. And it's more of a cardio workout. Fine, but that's a specific application that has nothing to do with developing strength or muscular size. It's more for in. Now here's a trick with rest periods. I'm telling you to make them longer than you think they need to be, but there's also a benefit to this.
[00:27:40] So if you're doing a strength-based full body workout, you probably have two or maybe three compound lifts in there. At least you can warm up the next movement during the rest periods for the current movement. It's perfectly fine. If you're going to squat and then deadlift, for example, you get your.
[00:27:58] Squats none. And yeah, it was hard. And your heart, rate's a little bit high. You're taking a breather. Um, you know, wait 30 seconds, maybe a minute, you still have a good four or five, six minutes left in your rest. Period. Go ahead and warm up your deadlift. You're going to be in a very lightweight, it's not going to be taxing at all.
[00:28:16] You're simply trying to get the, the movement, you know, burned into your brain. You're trying to get the blood flow to the right places. Get the right. Or I'm sorry. Get the warmup set done. Then you've got three, four or five more minutes of rest. You get back to your second set of squats of working at your working weight.
[00:28:35] Can you get that done? Yeah, it's really hard. It's really heavy. It should be should be tough. You get them done. All right. Again, now you go up a little bit higher weight on your deadlift warmup and you do your next warm-up set. Then finally you do your final set of squats, and then soon after doing another warmup set for deadlifts and before you know it now, Ready to hit your working set of dead lifts and without spending another 5, 6, 7 minutes just warming up.
[00:29:00] So that's your big technique to take advantage of rest periods while keeping the longer rest periods that you need and not feeling that you're just twiddling your. Now earlier in this episode, I talked about avoiding distractions and rest periods are where those distractions really rear their ugly head.
[00:29:16] You sit down on the bench, you pull out your phone, you start browsing. And before you know it it's been 12 minutes, 15 minutes. That's, that's where the rest period can get too long. And you get distracted. Maybe you start talking with people and you just cool down way too much or worse. And this happened to me.
[00:29:34] Uh, last year is I was deadlifting and I got distracted talking to someone, took a little bit too long, forgot to put my straps on for the next set. And I also didn't get tight. Like all of these things were a result of getting distressed. And that goes back to the attentional and the intentional focus.
[00:29:52] So what can you do during your rest period? You can just rest and listen to music. You can walk around. It's a great way to get extra steps in, or you can throw in your warm-up set for the next movement. Like we talked about. There's also other things you can do. You can go around and get your next movement set up.
[00:30:11] Even if you're not going to warm it up, you might be able to. The machine or the plates or what have you. Um, if you're at a home gym, you know, I like to plan ahead to the next movement or to move my stuff around. You know, you can't always do that in a commercial gym kind of hog space and hog equipment, but in a home gym can so pay attention to your rest periods.
[00:30:32] They're very important for recovery, but you can also use some techniques to save time during your rest periods without making them too. All right. That is my list of ideas to help you maximize your time during lifting sessions. All I ask is that you take a step back and consider your current approach to training.
[00:30:53] If you can incorporate better planning, use of downtime and rest periods, other approaches like warmups and super sets, you might experience more. But more time efficient workouts so that you can get back to all the other important and urgent things in your life. And if you have any other ideas to be more efficient, just send me an email at philip@witsandweights.com or DM me on Instagram.
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Ep 14: Avoid These Common Mistakes That Sabotage Your Fat Loss Goals
As a follow-up to the last episode on losing weight without losing muscle, I want to address the frustration many of us have experienced with either not being able to lose weight or hitting a plateau, usually in the form of scale weight no longer going down.
As a follow-up to the last episode on losing weight without losing muscle, I want to address the frustration many of us have experienced with either not being able to lose weight or hitting a plateau, usually in the form of scale weight no longer going down.
This is a complex, nuanced topic that ultimately comes down to understanding the root cause behind being unable to lose weight and taking back control so YOU can do something that will nudge your fat loss back in the right direction.
That’s not to say this is your “fault” but rather that, 99% of the time, we just need to identify the problem so we can apply the right solution, and YOU are empowered to uncover the problem with the right tools and information. That is the goal of this podcast!
Every fat loss phase is just a bit different, even for an individual. You may sail through and shed the pounds with ease, or you may struggle with fits-and-starts, ravenous hunger, and the feeling that there’s just something else going on beyond calories in, calories out.
However, at the end of the day, it really is about energy balance. The challenge is identifying which SIDE of that balance (diet vs. metabolism) and accounting for recent changes and other factors that could mess with this balance, often in subtle ways like a sneaky ninja trying to sabotage your hard-earned progress.
Before I get into the list, a few caveats. First, these reasons aren’t always in a vacuum: you may be experiencing more than one at the same time, and some of these may be interrelated. Second, I want to reiterate this isn’t a blame game; while a weight-loss stall ultimately comes down to energy balance, it can indeed be challenging to identify the true root cause, which often stems from something out of your control. My intent is to empower you to take back control.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
02:42 - The 20 common mistakes that sabotage your fat loss goals
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:26] Welcome to episode 13 of Wits & Weights. The last episode covered why gaining weight while training hard is an effective way to get lean by packing on muscle increasing metabolism and making it easier to lose fat later today, we're tackling the losing fat part of.
[00:00:53] If you haven't listened to episode 12, go back and do that first. If you're a new lifter who is not extremely overweight, your best gains will come through hard strength, training and eating at maintenance or in a slight surplus to improve your body composition. I recommend focusing on building muscle before you worry about losing.
[00:01:15] However, if you're a late novice or intermediate lifter who has spent time in a building phase and is ready to lean out through a fat loss phase, this episode is for you after all, most of us want to maintain a healthy weight and we can't keep packing on muscle along with some fat. The body adapts muscle building slows down, and sometimes we need to rev the engine, so to speak by taking a break, cutting some weight and resetting ourselves for the next building.
[00:01:48] The challenge is losing weight at a reasonable pace while retaining as much of that hard, one muscle as possible through appropriate training and nutrition choices, just as we want to maximize muscle size and growth while gaining weight, we want to minimize muscle loss and maximize fat loss while losing weight.
[00:02:09] In this episode, I cover when it makes sense to enter a weight loss phase, how fast you should lose. Training and diet strategies to retain as much muscle as possible metabolic adaptation and taking diet breaks, listening to biofeedback, especially as you get really lean. And my recent successful 12 week weight loss phase, and the current cut that I'm going through.
[00:02:38] Right. The first thing I want to address is the question. When does it make sense to enter a weight loss phase? It seems obvious. Well, I just want to lose weight don't we all? And if you are skinny or average or slightly overweight and you are a newer lifter. I would say you want to build first if you're not extremely overweight and you're a newer lifter work on building muscle, don't worry about losing weight or losing fat.
[00:03:08] You could go on a maintenance diet for awhile to try to get some body recomposition or go into a surplus. Doesn't really matter that much, but it is not the time to lose weight. If you are very overweight, then losing weight could be a good idea to prioritize. Overbuilding muscle, even though you're going to continue lifting hard to at the very least preserve what muscle you have and still possibly engage in body recomposition, especially if you're newer, where fat loss and weight loss makes complete sense is if you're you've been lifting for a little while you're in late novice or an internal.
[00:03:47] Lifter or, or more advanced and you have some amount of weight to lose then this episode and these strategies definitely apply to you. So then the question is how fast and how much weight do you lose first? Let's talk about the goal weight. So I always recommend setting a target weight, not a body fat percentage target.
[00:04:12] And this is for a few reasons, a weight on the scale is object. It's just a number and, you know, when you get their body fat percentage, it would be objective. It could, if it could be measured objectively, but the problem is most forms of measurement have error. And unless you're very good with calipers or tracking really, really closely, which is definitely possible.
[00:04:35] And we've talked about doing that with tape measures and calibers, unless you're doing that, it's a much harder target to hit. And to really know that you've got. So you want to set a weight target to get down to however, I wouldn't set a goal that's insanely low for a single phase. I'd go for no more than say eight to 10%.
[00:04:57] At one time before you then might take a diet break or a maintenance break for awhile has meant as long as a few months. And then continue if you have a lot of weights. But if we take our an example, 200 pound male, I would target getting to no less than 180 pounds. So that's 20 pounds of weight loss in one continuous phase.
[00:05:20] Now the actual target weight you're going to hit depends on your personal goal is your goal just to get to. Quote unquote, healthy weight, which we'll talk about in a second, or is it to get really lean for a specific goal? Like a physique competition, bodybuilding, a vanity goal, like looking good on the beach or even a photo shoot.
[00:05:42] Those are very different goals. We're just going to assume that your goal is to get to a healthy weight. And I realized that that is a somewhat subjective thing. There's something called the BMI, the body mass index, which is often used to determine whether someone is healthy, overweight, or obese. Now, if you don't have much lean mass, if you're sort of the average American who doesn't lift, it's a pretty reasonable reflection of whether you are at a healthy.
[00:06:09] But the more lean mass you have, the more body fat itself becomes a better proxy for quote unquote healthy and take myself as an example, I currently weigh 1 75 and I'm five nine. If I plug that into a BMI calculator, it says that I'm. But I have a pretty lean body composition of probably around 13 to 15%, which I would consider healthy from all aspects.
[00:06:34] But if you were say skinny fat at 1 75 and five nine, you very well could be at a, maybe an unhealthy weight. So I would keep all those in mind based on where you are today. If you're a newer lifter, you haven't put on much muscle BMI's. Window to look at, to decide if I want to get to the lower end of the overweight range or down into the quote unquote healthy weight range.
[00:06:58] So that's the target. Then we want to target how much weight we want to lose per week. And the generally recommended range is 0.25 to 1% of your body weight per week. The newer lifter you are the higher you can go. And any more than that is just too aggressive. It would probably lead to more muscle loss, more hunger.
[00:07:22] You have fewer calories to work with, which makes it hard to hit your protein probably makes you miserable and it could cause more rapid metabolic adaptation. All of these things, you can do it if you're, if this is the very first time you're doing this and you're overweight or very overweight and you just want to be very aggressive and you just started with.
[00:07:41] You might be able to go a little higher, but generally the range is 0.2, five to 1% of your body weight per week. Even just, if you think about a 200 pound person, half a percent is still one pound per week, which is still 52 pounds per year. So if you have 50 pounds to lose, you can lose. Approximately a year and chances are, you're going to go a little bit more aggressive than that at that weight, which would speed up the process.
[00:08:08] But remember, we want to take a break. If it's any more than roughly 10% of weight loss, we want to take a break. Once we get to 10% and then we're going to continue later on. So if we take a 200 pound male who wants to lose 1% body weight per week and lose 20 pounds, that's going to be up to two pounds per week loss, and it's going to take 10 weeks.
[00:08:29] So using the 3,500 calorie per pound rule of thumb, the very rough rule of thumb that's 7,000 calories deficit per week, 3,500 times to 7,000 deficit calories of deficit per week. You divide that by seven days and that's a thousand calories per day below maintenance as a very rough. Frame of reference to start.
[00:08:53] So if this person's expenditure, if his total daily energy expenditure is currently 3,200 calories, he would target 2200 calories per day for the diet. And then you would try. Your weight on a regular basis. I recommend every morning, I've said this before, but you can do it a few times a week. It's gotta be enough to get a moving average so that you're not beholding to big swings, big fluctuations in scale weight that naturally occur due to changes in glycogen and water in your body every day.
[00:09:27] So we need to have something to smooth it out. And then after a week, and then another week we'll know whether we're losing that two pounds per week. The problem is. Total daily energy expenditure is very dynamic. You cannot just set it and forget it. This is why it's extremely important to log food and weight.
[00:09:48] So you have objective data to tell you how the calories in affects your change in weight week to week. So I would consider using an app. I said this before an app, like macro factor. Which I'm a big advocate of, I use it myself, a discount code, Whitson weights, macro factor uses an advanced algorithm that adjusts your calories.
[00:10:12] Individual goals that you put into the app based on your food intake and a predicted change in your body composition. And if I'm going to share my current macros as an example, my current calories, a macro. So you get an idea of what this looks like when your weight loss phase. I currently weigh about 1 75 and my target right now is pretty aggressive at 2,130 calories a day.
[00:10:34] And that's made up of 185 grams of protein, 70 grams of. 190 grams of carbs. Now that 185 grams of protein you'll notice is a little bit more than a gram per pound, sort of the gold standard we've talked about. And it's been constant even when I was gaining weight, it was that. And when I'm losing weight, it's that, but when I'm losing weight, I'm cutting the calories quite a bit.
[00:10:58] So the fats and carbs have had to drop IX extensively as the calories have dropped. So as not to touch the. You can see at 190 grams of carbs, it's still okay. Amount. It's roughly a gram per pound of carbs and in 70 grams of fat. So I have to be really careful to get my protein in, but make choices that limit the other macros so that I can get my protein while hitting my calories.
[00:11:24] So to summarize this section, choose a target. Don't try to lose more than 10% of your weight in one, go and choose a target rate of loss per week between a quarter to 1% of your body weight and use that to drive your calorie and macro plan. All right, next, I want to talk about training and diet strategies so that you can retain as much muscle as.
[00:11:50] For people who aren't lifters, which has many of us, myself included for much of my life, weight loss is often seen as a way to get thin. And you just do it at all costs. In other words, typically you do it by. Eating less and you might do it by following a fad diet, keto, or carnival or whatever, but at the end of the day, you're cutting calories, but you often don't care where the calories come from and how much protein you're getting, because you're not really lifting and muscle.
[00:12:21] It doesn't seem that important to you. But now that we are focused on being healthier, being fit, gaining muscle and improving body composition, the training and diet strategy is very important when we're losing weight. So when we talk about training, we have to continue lifting heart. It's really, as simple as that, what I recommend is whatever you're doing today for your programming, whether it's starting strength or a four day split or an intense bodybuilding program, continue the same program into your diet.
[00:12:55] Recognizing that progress may eventually start to stall and that's okay. Because as we get deeper into our diet, we're going to lose strength and we may lose some muscle mass and you're not going to have the same performance. Now that's a small sacrifice that we make, but by continuing to provide a strong muscle building stimulus, usually in the form of intensity, meaning we're lifting heavy weights, high weights on the bar, but not necessarily variety of programming styles.
[00:13:27] We are preserving as much muscle as we can now do not expect strength or muscle gains while losing weight, unless you're in that small sweet spot of a new lifter, who's undergoing body composition, but that is a very short window. So if you get that, that's a bonus. Don't expect it instead. We're focusing on minimizing muscle loss.
[00:13:50] So that's for training. It's pretty simple. Just keep training hard and be consistent. Consistency is the most important. And of course recovery. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you.
[00:14:15] And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again. An incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the. Now for diet protein on a fat loss phase will be even more important than when regaining weight. And by more, I don't mean you're going to eat more protein, although some suggest that as a strategy, but the fact that you still need as much protein as when you're gaining weight means that you're going to have to sacrifice the fats and carbs, which takes some rebalancing in what you eat.
[00:14:50] So you're still going to target around one gram per pound or whatever you were doing on your weight gain. That makes sense for you. And that's going to help preserve that hard one muscle as you lose weight, but carbs and fat are going to come way down. So to make sure you have sufficient carbs for recovery and for training, you may want to cut more of the fat than you do the carbs, which can be a sacrifice for some of us, depending on what we like.
[00:15:17] I also recommend trying to get lots of your carbs Perry workout that is in the window before, during, and after your workout. It doesn't, we're not talking about this crazy anabolic window where you have to do it precisely half an hour for up to precisely half an hour after or anything like that. Just roughly around your workout window, three, four hours around that window.
[00:15:39] Try to get a lot or most of your car. Also focus on satiety, promoting foods by society. I mean, things that fill you up that are less calorie dense, and this might require adding more greens, salad, fruit, vegetables, instead of calorie dense foods, it might mean eating leaner cuts of meat. Maybe a little more chicken, even chicken thighs, instead of say beef, occasionally staying hydrated, you know, drinking water can help you stave off hunger, fill you up and maybe even spacing your meals in a way that minimizes hunger.
[00:16:19] I know when I was gaining weight, I could eat six times a day and each meal would have quite a few calories and that was heaven. But when I'm losing. I need to be judicious about having say four strategic meals or even three meals with a strategic snack. So that there's just enough time between meals where I can have a big meal, but not get too.
[00:16:44] And I would say that because protein, the need for protein is still high thinking your mind protein first when constructing your meals. So for example, if you want an afternoon snack consider cottage cheese, which is pretty high in protein, in moderate to low in fat and carbs, where on a bulky, you might've had a bagel with cream cheese, you know, more carb.
[00:17:07] And if you're only going to have, say three big meals, each meal has to have sufficient protein so that the total adds up to your needs. So if you're shooting for 180 grams of protein for the day, and you're going to have three meals, then that means an average of 60 grams of protein per meal, which is quite a bit.
[00:17:26] So this is where you might end up supplementing with the occasional protein. All right. So I want to talk now about this concept of metabolic adaptation and then what we can do about it. If it becomes an issue for you, as you lose weight, your TDE, total daily energy expenditure will inevitably decline.
[00:17:46] It just will. The longer you go through a weight loss phase, it's going to start to drop for a number of reasons. Some of the. Include the fact that you simply way less, you have, you're carrying less mass around, which reduces your BMS. You might see a natural reduction in meat, non exercise activity, thermogenesis.
[00:18:07] And that often comes with just being on a diet. You tend to move around less. You just don't have as much energy. You might have a reduction in eat exercise, activity, thermogenesis, because you simply can't train as hard. So when you're not performing as well. You're not burning as many calories. And also finally, the body's stubborn desire to survive will cause you to conserve calories and adapt, you know, so you don't starve and the leaner you get, the more aggressive this quote unquote metabolic adaptation might become.
[00:18:42] So it's very individual. Some people don't experience experience this until they're extremely lean while others get hit right away. As soon as they start going on. And I've experienced both. In fact, it seems to change based on your individual circumstances at the time. Are you coming off of a big bulking phase or are you coming off of maintenance that might affect it or have you been a lot more active for the past few months or not versus a different time than you went on a weight loss phase?
[00:19:12] There are a lot of conditions that can change this. Now, one way to offset this reduction is to intentionally increase your active. But you have to do it intelligently and strategically. So the best way to do this, in my opinion, this is just me is low intensity cardio, like walking, walking, especially I've talked about the benefit benefits before it is low stress.
[00:19:37] It can be. Right. Especially if you go outside with fresh air and sunshine, um, it's spring now, it's almost going to be summer. I'm really looking forward to a lot of those outside walks. It doesn't interfere at all with your lifting. And in fact, it can have the opposite effect and improve your recovery, your mobility, your joint.
[00:19:57] Uh, and of course it's great for your cardiovascular health, your resting heart rate, and your overall markers of, of health. Now you can also incorporate two or three moderate to high intensity cardio sessions throughout the week. Just don't overdo it, especially when you're losing weight, because your ability to lift hard and preserve muscle is still the primary.
[00:20:19] But a bit of extra cardio can increase your TDE and give you a little more room to either eat more or increase your rate of weight loss without eating less. So for example, a lot of bodybuilders, when they get deep into their cut, you see them trying to get a ton of steps, trying to get 20,000 steps a day, for example.
[00:20:40] And I'm not saying go that. But if you can increase from what most people get today, which is like maybe four or 5,000 steps and increase up to 10 or even 12, most days, you will see a big difference. It's going to add a few hundred calories to your material. Every day, which gives you extra room in your diet.
[00:20:59] Now, the last thing related to this metabolic adaptation concept is the idea that as our body adapts, it gets harder and harder to lose weight. We have to reduce our calories more and more, and we're just kind of pushing against a wall to break that wall. We can take a diet break and a diet break is just a fancy term for eating at maintenance for a while, maybe a few days to a few weeks.
[00:21:26] Could even be a few months. If we're talking about a very, very long fat loss phase, and then you continue your diet and there's some evidence that this could help your TD E recover, restore your glycogen, your energy, give you a psychological break from the incessant deficit and the hunger from. Now, this could slow down your diet a little bit, or it could give you a jumpstart that you need to continue.
[00:21:51] So I just suggest trying this out. If you're on a longer, more aggressive diet to see if it helps. All right. The next topic is biofeedback. As you lose more and more weight, your body's going to give you information through biofeedback, things like hunger, fatigue, loss of strength. When you train all of these little things are clues to what's going on and hints that you may or may not need to adjust.
[00:22:19] Now, if you also take body measurements, As I've recommended, you should see things like your waist circumference declining, and that's a good sign. That's a sign you're losing body fat, but you might also see a decline in your other measurements, like your chest biceps, thighs, calves, et cetera. And that could indicate a combination of fat and muscle loss.
[00:22:41] Hopefully mostly fat if you're doing this right, but you can't know entirely. Now just because you have a particular weight target. So let's say you're 200 pounds. You want to get to 180. It doesn't mean that you should just keep pushing and pushing and pushing toward that goal. If the experience has become too negative, right?
[00:23:01] If it's getting harder and harder, if your metabolism is dropping like a rock, if you're having a cut in your calories, if you're super hungry and you're miserable, you might just need a diet break or it might be time to end the cut and get back to me. For awhile or even a building phase because we're in this for the long-term folks, we're in this for sustainability over the long-term.
[00:23:21] We're not talking crash diets here. We're talking reasonable. I'll call it slow weight loss to preserve muscle until you get to your goal. But it has to be something you can sustain for the rest of your. All right. The last thing I want to cover here is the 12 week cut that I went through last year. And then the cut that I'm undergoing currently, which is roughly an 18 week cut with some breaks.
[00:23:49] So talking about the 12 week cut, going back to early August of 2021, I had just finished a muscle building phase and my weight was 180 7 point. And when I ended the cut in late October, my weight was 1 67 0.8. So that was a total decrease of 19.4 pounds, which was 1.6 pounds per week. So that's roughly 0.8, 5% of my starting week, weight per week.
[00:24:22] Right in that range of half of quarter to 1% that we talked about, it was 0.8, 5%. So moderate to moderately agree. Now I also did calculate my body fat percentage. I use two methods. One is the Navy method with the neck and. Measurements with tape. And the other was the three site caliber measurements. And then I would average them because they're pretty far off from each other most of the time, but the average gives you a reasonable number and then the trend is what's most important.
[00:24:54] So I started. 18.6, 2% body fat. And I ended at 10.69. So fairly lean. In fact, it was probably the leanest I had been ever before. Um, and now I'm actually on track to try to beat that. I basically lost 17 pounds of fat and I lost 2.4 pounds of muscle, which isn't too bad. So I preserved most of my muscle. I lost a little bit of lean mass and not all that.
[00:25:23] Is necessarily muscle, but some of it is now when I started my cut, I had a fairly moderate expenditure in the low to mid two thousands. And actually my expenditure increased somewhat during the cut and then it leveled. And what happened there is I had actually started this not long after recovering from surgery.
[00:25:47] So I was not coming off of a big muscle building phase immediately. I'd actually taken quite a bit of a break and my metabolism had come down. So if anything, I was actually training more than before during this cut. So you see that everybody's situation is different and everybody's going to respond differently.
[00:26:04] What I did notice is that deep into the cut, the expenditure leveled out. My nutrition was. Around 2200 calories. And the important thing here is how did I know when the cup was ready to end? Because I did have a target in mind and I just met the target, but I could also tell it was ready to, I was ready to be done with this.
[00:26:27] First of all, is the increased appetite. Very common increased appetite. Now. I definitely had a loss of muscle mass from my measurements, but definitely because of my loss of strength. So that was an objective way to measure that things had declined my press and my bench press started to backslide. My squat was feeling super heavy.
[00:26:49] I think my deadlifts stalled also, I had spent 12 weeks in this cut, which was a nice duration and the trend. Sort of my average weight fell below what was originally my goal of one 70 and I was happy with that. So then I said, well, it's time, time to bulk again, time neither, go on maintenance and take a break or time to bulk again.
[00:27:08] That's what I did. And in the last episode, episode 12 is where I talked about that recent building phase. But now I want to talk about my current cut because I think that's more representative of what a lot of people see after they've gone through a building. And for the current cut. My goal is more or less to get as lean as I've ever gotten before.
[00:27:29] Just for fun to see if I can do. Ahead of a big event on the beach with the family in June and the summer months, where are you going to be wearing shorts and sandals, all that kind of vanity thing that lots of us have. And the goal is to do that before I then go out on a nice long building phase. So for this time around, because I have about 18 weeks to get it done, I could have taken a few different approaches.
[00:27:53] I could have just done a linear approach and just kind of time to that. But what I wanted to do instead, I wanted to be more aggressive at the beginning for about eight or nine weeks. So I'm targeting 1% per week for that. Then take a diet break for a week, then go in a more moderate cut for about six weeks and then go back on to maintenance for a couple of weeks before the event.
[00:28:17] So I could sort of fill in with carbs, get my diet back up before I go on vacation and eat my heart out and not track and not care about how much. So the first few weeks of the phase actually went really well. This is the aggressive 1% per week. Cut my trend weight decreased from where I started around 180 2 and got down to 1 77 and for about three weeks.
[00:28:41] So I was actually overshooting. Now I ascribed that partially to coming off of a bulk, probably losing some of that waterway, that glycogen as well as some fat, my body fat started to drop a bit from about 15 to about 13. Now, initially the scale weight didn't move very much during the first week or two.
[00:28:59] And then there was a big whoosh, and this is one of the things people experienced. The whoosh for me, it was about five pounds from one day to the next. And this highlights, the fact that scale weight is. Volatile and you can't necessarily trust it without smoothing it out by averaging the weight over time.
[00:29:17] My metabolism started to steadily declined from about 34 50 to a little over 3000 calories kind of bottomed out, but it has since started to decline. My macro plan. I think I mentioned earlier is around 2130 calories. Now, after the first few weeks, it was up around 2,400. Now it's getting closer to 2100 and that's because my metabolism has been declining.
[00:29:42] So my protein is stayed in the one eighties, but the fat and the carbs have come quite a bit down as I've been cutting my deficit. I started at around 900 calorie deficit and it's been. I'm still lifting six days a week, trying to get about 12,000 steps a day. Maybe on the weekend. I get half that, but on the weekdays with the treadmill and I take lunch walks when I can I get the 12,000.
[00:30:07] So the first three or four weeks of the cut were great. Then I started to see a big drop in my expenditure, and then I saw it climb again. And the problem was the weight started to stall. So I think the app was probably maybe overshooting or undershooting. Based on my inputs because my metabolism is dropping, but I have a big fluctuation in activity some weeks, you know, I'm lifting hard and my diet is changing.
[00:30:33] So all of these variables interacting together, I've seen my metabolism effectively declined to. Roughly where it was during my last cut. So that might just be more or less my set point for metabolism when I'm at roughly the same level of activity, which kind of makes sense. Right. Just intuitively the point is it's changes all the time and you have to track food.
[00:30:59] You have to track weight. If you're going to more precisely keep your calories where they need to be to stay. X pounds per week of reduction. You know, for me, it's around 1.7, 1.8 pounds per week. And some weeks I don't lose any weight. And then other weeks I lose way more and it kind of averages out. But if it's not hitting that target, that I'm going to adjust my calories accordingly.
[00:31:21] So I'm looking forward to a maintenance week pretty soon when I hit my interim target of 1 68. And then the plan is to kind of. Gradual glide path in less aggressively, hopefully allows my TDE to recover. And then coming in around the low one sixties. Now notice that I'm not targeting any specific body fat, but I know where I was last time at one 70.
[00:31:49] So I'm going to be something more lean than that below one 70. And yet I also have about five pounds more muscle, some of which I'm also going to lose. So that's a lot of information I threw at you, a lot of lessons that I've learned, um, some tips and strategies that I hope will help you. It's all about losing weight so that you burn fat without losing muscle.
[00:32:13] You keep lifting hard. Keep your protein high, follow us on these other basics. And then I hope you can take these, apply them to your own situation as you strive for a better healthier you for the long term.
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Ep 13: Losing Weight Without Losing Muscle
Today we’re tackling the “losing fat” part of getting lean. If you’re a late novice or intermediate lifter who has spent time in a building phase and is ready to “lean out” through a fat-loss phase, this episode is for you.
The last episode covered why gaining weight while training hard is an effective way to get lean by packing on muscle, increasing metabolism, and making it easier to lose fat later.
Today we’re tackling the “losing fat” part of getting lean. If you haven’t listened to episode 12, go back and do that first. If you’re a newer lifter who is not extremely overweight, your best gains will come through hard strength training and eating at maintenance or in a slight surplus to improve your body composition. I recommend focusing on building muscle before you worry about losing fat.
However, if you’re a late novice or intermediate lifter who has spent time in a building phase and is ready to “lean out” through a fat-loss phase, this episode is for you. After all, most of us want to maintain a healthy weight, and we can’t keep packing on muscle (along with some fat) forever. The body adapts, muscle-building slows down, and sometimes we need to “rev the engine” so-to-speak by taking a break, cutting some weight, and resetting ourselves for the next building phase.
The challenge is losing weight at a reasonable pace while retaining as much of that hard-won muscle as possible through appropriate training and nutrition choices. Just as we want to maximize muscle size and growth while gaining weight, we want to minimize muscle loss and maximize fat loss while losing weight.
In today’s episode, we cover:
When it makes sense to enter a weight-loss phase
How fast you should lose weight
Training and diet strategies to retain as much muscle as possible
Metabolic adaptation and taking “diet breaks”
Listening to biofeedback, especially as you get really lean
My recent, successful 12-week weight-loss phase and current cut
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MacroFactor app for food logging and calculating expenditure (use discount code "WITSANDWEIGHTS")
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:26] Welcome to episode 13 of Wits & Weights. The last episode covered why gaining weight while training hard is an effective way to get lean by packing on muscle increasing metabolism and making it easier to lose fat later today, we're tackling the losing fat part of.
[00:00:53] If you haven't listened to episode 12, go back and do that first. If you're a new lifter who is not extremely overweight, your best gains will come through hard strength, training and eating at maintenance or in a slight surplus to improve your body composition. I recommend focusing on building muscle before you worry about losing.
[00:01:15] However, if you're a late novice or intermediate lifter who has spent time in a building phase and is ready to lean out through a fat loss phase, this episode is for you after all, most of us want to maintain a healthy weight and we can't keep packing on muscle along with some fat. The body adapts muscle building slows down, and sometimes we need to rev the engine, so to speak by taking a break, cutting some weight and resetting ourselves for the next building.
[00:01:48] The challenge is losing weight at a reasonable pace while retaining as much of that hard, one muscle as possible through appropriate training and nutrition choices, just as we want to maximize muscle size and growth while gaining weight, we want to minimize muscle loss and maximize fat loss while losing weight.
[00:02:09] In this episode, I cover when it makes sense to enter a weight loss phase, how fast you should lose. Training and diet strategies to retain as much muscle as possible metabolic adaptation and taking diet breaks, listening to biofeedback, especially as you get really lean. And my recent successful 12 week weight loss phase, and the current cut that I'm going through.
[00:02:38] Right. The first thing I want to address is the question. When does it make sense to enter a weight loss phase? It seems obvious. Well, I just want to lose weight don't we all? And if you are skinny or average or slightly overweight and you are a newer lifter. I would say you want to build first if you're not extremely overweight and you're a newer lifter work on building muscle, don't worry about losing weight or losing fat.
[00:03:08] You could go on a maintenance diet for awhile to try to get some body recomposition or go into a surplus. Doesn't really matter that much, but it is not the time to lose weight. If you are very overweight, then losing weight could be a good idea to prioritize. Overbuilding muscle, even though you're going to continue lifting hard to at the very least preserve what muscle you have and still possibly engage in body recomposition, especially if you're newer, where fat loss and weight loss makes complete sense is if you're you've been lifting for a little while you're in late novice or an internal.
[00:03:47] Lifter or, or more advanced and you have some amount of weight to lose then this episode and these strategies definitely apply to you. So then the question is how fast and how much weight do you lose first? Let's talk about the goal weight. So I always recommend setting a target weight, not a body fat percentage target.
[00:04:12] And this is for a few reasons, a weight on the scale is object. It's just a number and, you know, when you get their body fat percentage, it would be objective. It could, if it could be measured objectively, but the problem is most forms of measurement have error. And unless you're very good with calipers or tracking really, really closely, which is definitely possible.
[00:04:35] And we've talked about doing that with tape measures and calibers, unless you're doing that, it's a much harder target to hit. And to really know that you've got. So you want to set a weight target to get down to however, I wouldn't set a goal that's insanely low for a single phase. I'd go for no more than say eight to 10%.
[00:04:57] At one time before you then might take a diet break or a maintenance break for awhile has meant as long as a few months. And then continue if you have a lot of weights. But if we take our an example, 200 pound male, I would target getting to no less than 180 pounds. So that's 20 pounds of weight loss in one continuous phase.
[00:05:20] Now the actual target weight you're going to hit depends on your personal goal is your goal just to get to. Quote unquote, healthy weight, which we'll talk about in a second, or is it to get really lean for a specific goal? Like a physique competition, bodybuilding, a vanity goal, like looking good on the beach or even a photo shoot.
[00:05:42] Those are very different goals. We're just going to assume that your goal is to get to a healthy weight. And I realized that that is a somewhat subjective thing. There's something called the BMI, the body mass index, which is often used to determine whether someone is healthy, overweight, or obese. Now, if you don't have much lean mass, if you're sort of the average American who doesn't lift, it's a pretty reasonable reflection of whether you are at a healthy.
[00:06:09] But the more lean mass you have, the more body fat itself becomes a better proxy for quote unquote healthy and take myself as an example, I currently weigh 1 75 and I'm five nine. If I plug that into a BMI calculator, it says that I'm. But I have a pretty lean body composition of probably around 13 to 15%, which I would consider healthy from all aspects.
[00:06:34] But if you were say skinny fat at 1 75 and five nine, you very well could be at a, maybe an unhealthy weight. So I would keep all those in mind based on where you are today. If you're a newer lifter, you haven't put on much muscle BMI's. Window to look at, to decide if I want to get to the lower end of the overweight range or down into the quote unquote healthy weight range.
[00:06:58] So that's the target. Then we want to target how much weight we want to lose per week. And the generally recommended range is 0.25 to 1% of your body weight per week. The newer lifter you are the higher you can go. And any more than that is just too aggressive. It would probably lead to more muscle loss, more hunger.
[00:07:22] You have fewer calories to work with, which makes it hard to hit your protein probably makes you miserable and it could cause more rapid metabolic adaptation. All of these things, you can do it if you're, if this is the very first time you're doing this and you're overweight or very overweight and you just want to be very aggressive and you just started with.
[00:07:41] You might be able to go a little higher, but generally the range is 0.2, five to 1% of your body weight per week. Even just, if you think about a 200 pound person, half a percent is still one pound per week, which is still 52 pounds per year. So if you have 50 pounds to lose, you can lose. Approximately a year and chances are, you're going to go a little bit more aggressive than that at that weight, which would speed up the process.
[00:08:08] But remember, we want to take a break. If it's any more than roughly 10% of weight loss, we want to take a break. Once we get to 10% and then we're going to continue later on. So if we take a 200 pound male who wants to lose 1% body weight per week and lose 20 pounds, that's going to be up to two pounds per week loss, and it's going to take 10 weeks.
[00:08:29] So using the 3,500 calorie per pound rule of thumb, the very rough rule of thumb that's 7,000 calories deficit per week, 3,500 times to 7,000 deficit calories of deficit per week. You divide that by seven days and that's a thousand calories per day below maintenance as a very rough. Frame of reference to start.
[00:08:53] So if this person's expenditure, if his total daily energy expenditure is currently 3,200 calories, he would target 2200 calories per day for the diet. And then you would try. Your weight on a regular basis. I recommend every morning, I've said this before, but you can do it a few times a week. It's gotta be enough to get a moving average so that you're not beholding to big swings, big fluctuations in scale weight that naturally occur due to changes in glycogen and water in your body every day.
[00:09:27] So we need to have something to smooth it out. And then after a week, and then another week we'll know whether we're losing that two pounds per week. The problem is. Total daily energy expenditure is very dynamic. You cannot just set it and forget it. This is why it's extremely important to log food and weight.
[00:09:48] So you have objective data to tell you how the calories in affects your change in weight week to week. So I would consider using an app. I said this before an app, like macro factor. Which I'm a big advocate of, I use it myself, a discount code, Whitson weights, macro factor uses an advanced algorithm that adjusts your calories.
[00:10:12] Individual goals that you put into the app based on your food intake and a predicted change in your body composition. And if I'm going to share my current macros as an example, my current calories, a macro. So you get an idea of what this looks like when your weight loss phase. I currently weigh about 1 75 and my target right now is pretty aggressive at 2,130 calories a day.
[00:10:34] And that's made up of 185 grams of protein, 70 grams of. 190 grams of carbs. Now that 185 grams of protein you'll notice is a little bit more than a gram per pound, sort of the gold standard we've talked about. And it's been constant even when I was gaining weight, it was that. And when I'm losing weight, it's that, but when I'm losing weight, I'm cutting the calories quite a bit.
[00:10:58] So the fats and carbs have had to drop IX extensively as the calories have dropped. So as not to touch the. You can see at 190 grams of carbs, it's still okay. Amount. It's roughly a gram per pound of carbs and in 70 grams of fat. So I have to be really careful to get my protein in, but make choices that limit the other macros so that I can get my protein while hitting my calories.
[00:11:24] So to summarize this section, choose a target. Don't try to lose more than 10% of your weight in one, go and choose a target rate of loss per week between a quarter to 1% of your body weight and use that to drive your calorie and macro plan. All right, next, I want to talk about training and diet strategies so that you can retain as much muscle as.
[00:11:50] For people who aren't lifters, which has many of us, myself included for much of my life, weight loss is often seen as a way to get thin. And you just do it at all costs. In other words, typically you do it by. Eating less and you might do it by following a fad diet, keto, or carnival or whatever, but at the end of the day, you're cutting calories, but you often don't care where the calories come from and how much protein you're getting, because you're not really lifting and muscle.
[00:12:21] It doesn't seem that important to you. But now that we are focused on being healthier, being fit, gaining muscle and improving body composition, the training and diet strategy is very important when we're losing weight. So when we talk about training, we have to continue lifting heart. It's really, as simple as that, what I recommend is whatever you're doing today for your programming, whether it's starting strength or a four day split or an intense bodybuilding program, continue the same program into your diet.
[00:12:55] Recognizing that progress may eventually start to stall and that's okay. Because as we get deeper into our diet, we're going to lose strength and we may lose some muscle mass and you're not going to have the same performance. Now that's a small sacrifice that we make, but by continuing to provide a strong muscle building stimulus, usually in the form of intensity, meaning we're lifting heavy weights, high weights on the bar, but not necessarily variety of programming styles.
[00:13:27] We are preserving as much muscle as we can now do not expect strength or muscle gains while losing weight, unless you're in that small sweet spot of a new lifter, who's undergoing body composition, but that is a very short window. So if you get that, that's a bonus. Don't expect it instead. We're focusing on minimizing muscle loss.
[00:13:50] So that's for training. It's pretty simple. Just keep training hard and be consistent. Consistency is the most important. And of course recovery. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you.
[00:14:15] And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again. An incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the. Now for diet protein on a fat loss phase will be even more important than when regaining weight. And by more, I don't mean you're going to eat more protein, although some suggest that as a strategy, but the fact that you still need as much protein as when you're gaining weight means that you're going to have to sacrifice the fats and carbs, which takes some rebalancing in what you eat.
[00:14:50] So you're still going to target around one gram per pound or whatever you were doing on your weight gain. That makes sense for you. And that's going to help preserve that hard one muscle as you lose weight, but carbs and fat are going to come way down. So to make sure you have sufficient carbs for recovery and for training, you may want to cut more of the fat than you do the carbs, which can be a sacrifice for some of us, depending on what we like.
[00:15:17] I also recommend trying to get lots of your carbs Perry workout that is in the window before, during, and after your workout. It doesn't, we're not talking about this crazy anabolic window where you have to do it precisely half an hour for up to precisely half an hour after or anything like that. Just roughly around your workout window, three, four hours around that window.
[00:15:39] Try to get a lot or most of your car. Also focus on satiety, promoting foods by society. I mean, things that fill you up that are less calorie dense, and this might require adding more greens, salad, fruit, vegetables, instead of calorie dense foods, it might mean eating leaner cuts of meat. Maybe a little more chicken, even chicken thighs, instead of say beef, occasionally staying hydrated, you know, drinking water can help you stave off hunger, fill you up and maybe even spacing your meals in a way that minimizes hunger.
[00:16:19] I know when I was gaining weight, I could eat six times a day and each meal would have quite a few calories and that was heaven. But when I'm losing. I need to be judicious about having say four strategic meals or even three meals with a strategic snack. So that there's just enough time between meals where I can have a big meal, but not get too.
[00:16:44] And I would say that because protein, the need for protein is still high thinking your mind protein first when constructing your meals. So for example, if you want an afternoon snack consider cottage cheese, which is pretty high in protein, in moderate to low in fat and carbs, where on a bulky, you might've had a bagel with cream cheese, you know, more carb.
[00:17:07] And if you're only going to have, say three big meals, each meal has to have sufficient protein so that the total adds up to your needs. So if you're shooting for 180 grams of protein for the day, and you're going to have three meals, then that means an average of 60 grams of protein per meal, which is quite a bit.
[00:17:26] So this is where you might end up supplementing with the occasional protein. All right. So I want to talk now about this concept of metabolic adaptation and then what we can do about it. If it becomes an issue for you, as you lose weight, your TDE, total daily energy expenditure will inevitably decline.
[00:17:46] It just will. The longer you go through a weight loss phase, it's going to start to drop for a number of reasons. Some of the. Include the fact that you simply way less, you have, you're carrying less mass around, which reduces your BMS. You might see a natural reduction in meat, non exercise activity, thermogenesis.
[00:18:07] And that often comes with just being on a diet. You tend to move around less. You just don't have as much energy. You might have a reduction in eat exercise, activity, thermogenesis, because you simply can't train as hard. So when you're not performing as well. You're not burning as many calories. And also finally, the body's stubborn desire to survive will cause you to conserve calories and adapt, you know, so you don't starve and the leaner you get, the more aggressive this quote unquote metabolic adaptation might become.
[00:18:42] So it's very individual. Some people don't experience experience this until they're extremely lean while others get hit right away. As soon as they start going on. And I've experienced both. In fact, it seems to change based on your individual circumstances at the time. Are you coming off of a big bulking phase or are you coming off of maintenance that might affect it or have you been a lot more active for the past few months or not versus a different time than you went on a weight loss phase?
[00:19:12] There are a lot of conditions that can change this. Now, one way to offset this reduction is to intentionally increase your active. But you have to do it intelligently and strategically. So the best way to do this, in my opinion, this is just me is low intensity cardio, like walking, walking, especially I've talked about the benefit benefits before it is low stress.
[00:19:37] It can be. Right. Especially if you go outside with fresh air and sunshine, um, it's spring now, it's almost going to be summer. I'm really looking forward to a lot of those outside walks. It doesn't interfere at all with your lifting. And in fact, it can have the opposite effect and improve your recovery, your mobility, your joint.
[00:19:57] Uh, and of course it's great for your cardiovascular health, your resting heart rate, and your overall markers of, of health. Now you can also incorporate two or three moderate to high intensity cardio sessions throughout the week. Just don't overdo it, especially when you're losing weight, because your ability to lift hard and preserve muscle is still the primary.
[00:20:19] But a bit of extra cardio can increase your TDE and give you a little more room to either eat more or increase your rate of weight loss without eating less. So for example, a lot of bodybuilders, when they get deep into their cut, you see them trying to get a ton of steps, trying to get 20,000 steps a day, for example.
[00:20:40] And I'm not saying go that. But if you can increase from what most people get today, which is like maybe four or 5,000 steps and increase up to 10 or even 12, most days, you will see a big difference. It's going to add a few hundred calories to your material. Every day, which gives you extra room in your diet.
[00:20:59] Now, the last thing related to this metabolic adaptation concept is the idea that as our body adapts, it gets harder and harder to lose weight. We have to reduce our calories more and more, and we're just kind of pushing against a wall to break that wall. We can take a diet break and a diet break is just a fancy term for eating at maintenance for a while, maybe a few days to a few weeks.
[00:21:26] Could even be a few months. If we're talking about a very, very long fat loss phase, and then you continue your diet and there's some evidence that this could help your TD E recover, restore your glycogen, your energy, give you a psychological break from the incessant deficit and the hunger from. Now, this could slow down your diet a little bit, or it could give you a jumpstart that you need to continue.
[00:21:51] So I just suggest trying this out. If you're on a longer, more aggressive diet to see if it helps. All right. The next topic is biofeedback. As you lose more and more weight, your body's going to give you information through biofeedback, things like hunger, fatigue, loss of strength. When you train all of these little things are clues to what's going on and hints that you may or may not need to adjust.
[00:22:19] Now, if you also take body measurements, As I've recommended, you should see things like your waist circumference declining, and that's a good sign. That's a sign you're losing body fat, but you might also see a decline in your other measurements, like your chest biceps, thighs, calves, et cetera. And that could indicate a combination of fat and muscle loss.
[00:22:41] Hopefully mostly fat if you're doing this right, but you can't know entirely. Now just because you have a particular weight target. So let's say you're 200 pounds. You want to get to 180. It doesn't mean that you should just keep pushing and pushing and pushing toward that goal. If the experience has become too negative, right?
[00:23:01] If it's getting harder and harder, if your metabolism is dropping like a rock, if you're having a cut in your calories, if you're super hungry and you're miserable, you might just need a diet break or it might be time to end the cut and get back to me. For awhile or even a building phase because we're in this for the long-term folks, we're in this for sustainability over the long-term.
[00:23:21] We're not talking crash diets here. We're talking reasonable. I'll call it slow weight loss to preserve muscle until you get to your goal. But it has to be something you can sustain for the rest of your. All right. The last thing I want to cover here is the 12 week cut that I went through last year. And then the cut that I'm undergoing currently, which is roughly an 18 week cut with some breaks.
[00:23:49] So talking about the 12 week cut, going back to early August of 2021, I had just finished a muscle building phase and my weight was 180 7 point. And when I ended the cut in late October, my weight was 1 67 0.8. So that was a total decrease of 19.4 pounds, which was 1.6 pounds per week. So that's roughly 0.8, 5% of my starting week, weight per week.
[00:24:22] Right in that range of half of quarter to 1% that we talked about, it was 0.8, 5%. So moderate to moderately agree. Now I also did calculate my body fat percentage. I use two methods. One is the Navy method with the neck and. Measurements with tape. And the other was the three site caliber measurements. And then I would average them because they're pretty far off from each other most of the time, but the average gives you a reasonable number and then the trend is what's most important.
[00:24:54] So I started. 18.6, 2% body fat. And I ended at 10.69. So fairly lean. In fact, it was probably the leanest I had been ever before. Um, and now I'm actually on track to try to beat that. I basically lost 17 pounds of fat and I lost 2.4 pounds of muscle, which isn't too bad. So I preserved most of my muscle. I lost a little bit of lean mass and not all that.
[00:25:23] Is necessarily muscle, but some of it is now when I started my cut, I had a fairly moderate expenditure in the low to mid two thousands. And actually my expenditure increased somewhat during the cut and then it leveled. And what happened there is I had actually started this not long after recovering from surgery.
[00:25:47] So I was not coming off of a big muscle building phase immediately. I'd actually taken quite a bit of a break and my metabolism had come down. So if anything, I was actually training more than before during this cut. So you see that everybody's situation is different and everybody's going to respond differently.
[00:26:04] What I did notice is that deep into the cut, the expenditure leveled out. My nutrition was. Around 2200 calories. And the important thing here is how did I know when the cup was ready to end? Because I did have a target in mind and I just met the target, but I could also tell it was ready to, I was ready to be done with this.
[00:26:27] First of all, is the increased appetite. Very common increased appetite. Now. I definitely had a loss of muscle mass from my measurements, but definitely because of my loss of strength. So that was an objective way to measure that things had declined my press and my bench press started to backslide. My squat was feeling super heavy.
[00:26:49] I think my deadlifts stalled also, I had spent 12 weeks in this cut, which was a nice duration and the trend. Sort of my average weight fell below what was originally my goal of one 70 and I was happy with that. So then I said, well, it's time, time to bulk again, time neither, go on maintenance and take a break or time to bulk again.
[00:27:08] That's what I did. And in the last episode, episode 12 is where I talked about that recent building phase. But now I want to talk about my current cut because I think that's more representative of what a lot of people see after they've gone through a building. And for the current cut. My goal is more or less to get as lean as I've ever gotten before.
[00:27:29] Just for fun to see if I can do. Ahead of a big event on the beach with the family in June and the summer months, where are you going to be wearing shorts and sandals, all that kind of vanity thing that lots of us have. And the goal is to do that before I then go out on a nice long building phase. So for this time around, because I have about 18 weeks to get it done, I could have taken a few different approaches.
[00:27:53] I could have just done a linear approach and just kind of time to that. But what I wanted to do instead, I wanted to be more aggressive at the beginning for about eight or nine weeks. So I'm targeting 1% per week for that. Then take a diet break for a week, then go in a more moderate cut for about six weeks and then go back on to maintenance for a couple of weeks before the event.
[00:28:17] So I could sort of fill in with carbs, get my diet back up before I go on vacation and eat my heart out and not track and not care about how much. So the first few weeks of the phase actually went really well. This is the aggressive 1% per week. Cut my trend weight decreased from where I started around 180 2 and got down to 1 77 and for about three weeks.
[00:28:41] So I was actually overshooting. Now I ascribed that partially to coming off of a bulk, probably losing some of that waterway, that glycogen as well as some fat, my body fat started to drop a bit from about 15 to about 13. Now, initially the scale weight didn't move very much during the first week or two.
[00:28:59] And then there was a big whoosh, and this is one of the things people experienced. The whoosh for me, it was about five pounds from one day to the next. And this highlights, the fact that scale weight is. Volatile and you can't necessarily trust it without smoothing it out by averaging the weight over time.
[00:29:17] My metabolism started to steadily declined from about 34 50 to a little over 3000 calories kind of bottomed out, but it has since started to decline. My macro plan. I think I mentioned earlier is around 2130 calories. Now, after the first few weeks, it was up around 2,400. Now it's getting closer to 2100 and that's because my metabolism has been declining.
[00:29:42] So my protein is stayed in the one eighties, but the fat and the carbs have come quite a bit down as I've been cutting my deficit. I started at around 900 calorie deficit and it's been. I'm still lifting six days a week, trying to get about 12,000 steps a day. Maybe on the weekend. I get half that, but on the weekdays with the treadmill and I take lunch walks when I can I get the 12,000.
[00:30:07] So the first three or four weeks of the cut were great. Then I started to see a big drop in my expenditure, and then I saw it climb again. And the problem was the weight started to stall. So I think the app was probably maybe overshooting or undershooting. Based on my inputs because my metabolism is dropping, but I have a big fluctuation in activity some weeks, you know, I'm lifting hard and my diet is changing.
[00:30:33] So all of these variables interacting together, I've seen my metabolism effectively declined to. Roughly where it was during my last cut. So that might just be more or less my set point for metabolism when I'm at roughly the same level of activity, which kind of makes sense. Right. Just intuitively the point is it's changes all the time and you have to track food.
[00:30:59] You have to track weight. If you're going to more precisely keep your calories where they need to be to stay. X pounds per week of reduction. You know, for me, it's around 1.7, 1.8 pounds per week. And some weeks I don't lose any weight. And then other weeks I lose way more and it kind of averages out. But if it's not hitting that target, that I'm going to adjust my calories accordingly.
[00:31:21] So I'm looking forward to a maintenance week pretty soon when I hit my interim target of 1 68. And then the plan is to kind of. Gradual glide path in less aggressively, hopefully allows my TDE to recover. And then coming in around the low one sixties. Now notice that I'm not targeting any specific body fat, but I know where I was last time at one 70.
[00:31:49] So I'm going to be something more lean than that below one 70. And yet I also have about five pounds more muscle, some of which I'm also going to lose. So that's a lot of information I threw at you, a lot of lessons that I've learned, um, some tips and strategies that I hope will help you. It's all about losing weight so that you burn fat without losing muscle.
[00:32:13] You keep lifting hard. Keep your protein high, follow us on these other basics. And then I hope you can take these, apply them to your own situation as you strive for a better healthier you for the long term.
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Ep 12: Gaining Weight to Get Lean
Today I want to talk about a refreshingly sustainable, enjoyable approach to getting lean by gaining weight! This episode is all about the benefits of using a nice, long building phase to develop muscle, increase your metabolism, and set yourself up for a much easier dieting phase later on.
It seems that everyone wants to get “lean” these days. There’s almost an obsession with six-pack abs, visual muscularity, and thinness if you’re to believe the legions of fitness influencers who appear ready for an instant photo shoot on any given day.
I’ve got nothing against maintaining a healthy weight, and in fact this podcast is all about finding a sustainable way to get stronger, build muscle, and stay healthy. But if you were to ask yourself, “what exactly is my goal when it comes to body composition?,” most of us would answer that we want to be lean, as in lower our body fat percentage.
The reasons why are many, from improved performance and cardiovascular health to just feeling and looking good, often measured by whether we can fit into our favorite pair of pants again.
But it often leads to a cycle of aggressive dieting and gaining back the weight (and then some) in an attempt to “see our abs” rather than a steady, consistent approach that results in “leanness” without the extreme dieting, hunger, and disappointment at failing to reach this coveted goal.
Today I want to talk about a refreshingly sustainable, enjoyable approach to getting lean by gaining weight! This episode is all about the benefits of using a nice, long building phase to develop muscle, increase your metabolism, and set yourself up for a much easier dieting phase later on. You’ll be able to perform better in the gym, eat more, and eventually reach your goal without (as much) suffering.
In today’s episode, we cover:
Two approaches to getting lean, one which often fails
My recent, successful 15-week muscle-building phase
Listener Q&A about wearables, calories, and dieting
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MacroFactor app for food logging and calculating expenditure (use code "WITSANDWEIGHTS" to extend free trial to 14 days)
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:27]Welcome to episode 12 of Wits & Weights. It seems that everyone wants to get quote unquote lean these days. There's almost an obsession with six pack abs visual muscularity and thinness. If are to believe the legions of fitness influencers who appear ready for an instant photo shoot on any given day.
[00:00:55] And now I've got nothing against maintaining a healthy weight. And in fact, this podcast is all about finding a sustainable way to get stronger, build muscle and stay healthy. But if you were to ask yourself what exactly is my goal, when it comes to body composition, most of us would answer that we want to be E lean as in lower our body fat percentage.
[00:01:19] Now the reasons why are many from improved performance and cardiovascular health to just feeling and looking good, often measured by whether we can fit into our favorite pair of pants again. But this often leads to a cycle of aggressive dieting and gaining back the weight and then some in an attempt to quote unquote, see our abs rather than a steady, consistent approach that results in leanness without the extreme dieting, hunger and disappointment at failing to reach this coveted goal.
[00:01:54] Today. I want to talk about a refreshingly sustainable, enjoyable approach to getting lean by gaining weight. This episode is all about the benefits of using a nice long building phase to develop muscle, increase your metabolism and set yourself up for a much easier dieting phase later or on you'll be able to perform better in the gym, eat more and eventually reach your goal without suffering.
[00:02:21] So in today's episode, I cover. Two approaches to getting lean. One of which often fails and one which is much more sustainable. My recent successful 15 week muscle building phase. As an example of one way, you can do this. And finally, I have listener Q and a, a question I'll be answering about wearables, calories and dieting.
[00:02:45] Let's get into the show. All right. The first thing I wanna cover is this idea that the best way to get lean is to burn fat. And it sounds great. Uh, oftentimes it's a combination of dieting and excessive exercise, usually in the form of cardio that is at least in the common zeitgeist of how to do the us.
[00:03:07] But what happens is if you've never gone through a muscle building phase, if you've never added muscle to your frame, through lifting. And you're just trying to get thinner so that you can see your abs or your muscles, whatever, what you're gonna end up doing is being a lighter skinnier, but fatter version of yourself who has a lower metabolism, meaning you're not gonna eat as much in as you diet.
[00:03:34] You'll have to eat less and less. To reduce weight, which is gonna make you miserable. Let's just admit it. It often leads to yo-yo dieting where you rebound, you hit your weight. Great. I'm I've got my goal. I'm thin. Uh, but I'm pretty disappointed at how I look, but I'm thin and now I need to eat again. And then you start gaining the weight and because you've undergone this metabolic adaptation to a small extent, or sometimes an extreme extent.
[00:04:06] Your body is that much more primed to gain more weight and potentially more than you had before. Furthermore, if you're always cutting calories, always trying to get lean or thin, you will never have the performance you need in the gym, especially if you're cutting carbs, for example, to do it, which is a, a common approach these days.
[00:04:28] And this is just an overall inability to get stronger. Keeps you weak. You won't have muscle and you'll just be. Miserable skinnier, but fatter version of yourself. Now, I'm sorry to say, many of us have gone through this in trying to get lean. You may be overweight today, but at some point in your life, I'm going to bet that you've tried a fat loss phase and you were somewhat successful in the short term often through some sort of.
[00:04:56] Diet like keto, low carb Atkins. You didn't add any form of progressive lifting or an idea of building muscle and you got kind of thin or skinny, but you still didn't really see any muscle. Didn't really see the abs. You just look skinny and weak. Let's contrast that with a different approach, the approach that I'm in favor of the approach that.
[00:05:22] Many of us have discovered through a different strategy, one based on improving your body composition in the other direction. And that is getting bigger by adding muscle, adding lean tissue and then dieting. And the idea with this approach is that you enter a long and slow. Muscle building phase, you supply sufficient calories to your body so that as you are lifting, using progressive overload using the.
[00:05:54] Tried and true principles that we've talked about before on this podcast. And we'll talk about again, of objective progress, training, hard, doing it consistently. You will grow muscle over time, especially if you were a newer lifter, newer lifters can gain anywhere from one to maybe even four pounds of muscle in a month, which is quite a bit of lean tissue.
[00:06:18] And the more muscle you have, we've talked about this before, as well, the higher, your total daily energy expenditure metabolism for a variety of reasons, some of which we still can't fully explain some of which come down to the tissue itself. The fact that muscle tissue is more expensive. But there's a systemic effect that you see it inevitably.
[00:06:36] I've seen it myself. I see it with all the other folks in our community who go through phases of building phases of dieting. And inevitably, there's this shift up in your metabolism as you gain weight and muscle. Now, as you gain muscle while lifting and eating more, that is eating in a caloric surplus.
[00:06:54] You are gonna gain a bit of fat. That's just inevitable. And I think this is the thing that scares most people. The thought that there's no magic way to just gain muscle. You're going to gain all types of tissue. The thing is, again, if you are a newer lifter or even intermediate, you can still gain quite a BI bit of muscle as a percentage of that game.
[00:07:16] And then it's a lot easier. To lose fat fairly quickly versus the gaining of the muscle. And you're able to lose fat without losing much muscle. You retain that muscle and that will ultimately result in you being leaner than you were before at the same body weight. Now, if you've ever seen athletes or powerless or body builders or anybody, who's worked hard on their physique, And you try to guess their weight chances are you're gonna underestimate their weight by a pretty good margin because a leaner body will look thinner.
[00:07:53] It's filled out with a, a, a tighter kind of physique to it, but you can still be a heavier weight because muscle's denser. It sort of skews our perception of what we do talk about when we mean fat versus thin. What we mean by lean. And then we get into the rat race of just trying to lose weight, to get lean.
[00:08:11] My argument today that I, that I'm trying to get to here is that. By eating and lifting. We get stronger. We build muscle, we take in more calories, we have better performance. We then enjoy ourselves in the gym. As we see progress, the more progress we make and the bigger we get, the more progress we make still.
[00:08:32] And we get to a point where we say, you know, I'm putting on maybe a little too much fat, but I've, I know I've gained a lot of muscle as evidence by the objective progress in the gym. And now I can go on a steady or maybe slightly aggressive if I want to fat cutting phase, where I try to retain as much muscle as I can.
[00:08:51] Cut off that little bit of extra fat or even more and result in a leaner version of myself. In fact, you may end up at a slightly higher weight than before you started the building and then cutting phases, and yet still be leaner. And isn't that our goal, best of all, not only that you probably have shifted up your TDE, your energy expenditure.
[00:09:15] To the point where now you can eat more at the same weight than you used to. And that to me is an extremely sustainable approach. Let's just walk through an example, right? I'm gonna use my typical 180 pound male. And we're talking about a new-ish lifter. Let's say you've been lifting for six months.
[00:09:33] You've gotten past the, the new beef phase. You've gotten past the awkwardness of learning the lifts, and now you're starting to make. Steady consistent progress. And you're 180 pound man with 22% body fat. Now in subjective terms, if you were to look at someone with 22% body fat, you would say they actually look pretty healthy, but maybe with a little fluff, maybe a little gut or love handles, maybe a little bit on the backside, you know, wherever ends to collect for an individual, we all have our spots.
[00:10:04] You know, I'm not gonna talk about, um, obese or extremely overweight folks on this example, because that's a different scenario. I, I feel that if you are very overweight to an unhealthy level and yes, having too high of a weight is a health concern. It's not about the physique. It's not about the antibody image.
[00:10:25] It's about health, cardiovascular health, uh, and metabolic disease, et cetera. So if you're very overweight, my suggestion would be hit the gym hard, lift heavy and eat roughly at maintenance. And you're probably gonna see some sort of body composition you're gonna lose fat. Anyway, that's a unique scenario.
[00:10:42] There are a lot of sort of use cases that are on the corner like that one, but I wanna focus on the person who's not quite lean, has a little extra fat and wants to become lean. And I think this applies to men and women, you would just shift the body fat percentage by about five to 10% higher for women.
[00:11:01] So the 180 pound man with 22% body fat, if you do the math, that's about 140 pounds of lean mass and 40 pounds of fat. Now we're gonna go on a gaining phase. So this is the trick, right? We need to gain weight to gain muscle in this scenario. There are, there's no way around it. There's no magic formula to some sort of massive body recomposition.
[00:11:25] Yes, body recom recom is possible. But if we're talking about doing this in a fairly effective, efficient manner, rather than over a long period where we have to optimize everything. Uh, this is the more typical approach. So we're gonna target, for example, a pound a week of gain, which is pretty aggressive, but we're talking about a newer lifter, which makes sense.
[00:11:51] And we're gonna assume that half of that gain is muscle. Just for this example, it may be less, it may only be a quarter or a third. It actually may be slightly more depending on the individual responder. And the more advanced you get the less of the percentage of what you gain is muscle. And so you tend to dial back how aggressive you are to increase that percentage back to a higher level, which simply means it's gonna take longer to build muscle.
[00:12:17] But again, going back to this newish lifter, one pound a week, assume how half of that is muscle, which is about four pounds a month of weight gain with two pounds a month of muscle. I think that's reasonable. So after 16 weeks, so here you go, about four months getting to eat more food. If you're using an app like macro factor to track your food and track your weight, you can see how your metabolism fluctuates.
[00:12:47] You're probably gonna see it climb over time. It's generally what happens, which is great. Eight, because then each week you're gonna check in the, app's gonna say, Hey, you get another 125 calories a day this week, next week, Hey, you get another 80 calories a day this week. And you keep pushing and pushing and you enjoy this process of getting to, to taste new foods and try different combinations to hit your macros and all that great stuff that we like about gaining weight.
[00:13:12] So after 16 weeks you've gained 16 pounds. And if half of that is muscle, you've gained eight pounds of muscle. Now you weigh 190. Pounds now, there are people walking around at 180 and I was one of them who never could imagine pushing myself up close to 200 pounds on purpose. Just seemed crazy. I had gotten to 210 in college.
[00:13:36] Totally not on purpose. Uh, and I, I was not lean and I was not lifting. So that was a very different scenario. The kind in that we don't want to follow, but you've been lifting hard three days, four days a week following a linear progression. Or maybe a, an intermediate program. If you're at that level, maybe a four day split, and now you weigh 196 pounds of which 148 is lean mass because you've gained eight pounds of muscle and 48 pounds of fat because you've gained eight pounds of fat.
[00:14:09] So now your body fat percentage has climbed up a little bit to 24 or percent. So you might look in the mirror and say, huh, I'm looking a little fluffy. Uh, my pants are a little bit tight, but it's, it's an incremental change and you've been training hard and eating a lot for about four months, which is a pretty good stretch.
[00:14:27] So now you're slightly quote unquote fatter, but you have quite a bit more muscle. Eight pounds of muscle is nothing to sneeze at. That's a lot of extra lean tissue on your body. So now you just, so I'm gonna go on a diet phase. For eight weeks and eight weeks is a perfectly reasonable sanity maintaining length of time.
[00:14:46] Uh, some people might even call this a mini cut where you're gonna go pretty aggressive. You're gonna go maybe two pounds a week, which again, for a newish lifter at 24% body fat is totally reasonable. In fact, I'm on a cut right now, now where I I'm at 1.7 pounds a week. And the second phase of my cut will be less than that, but it's still pretty aggressive.
[00:15:07] So you're gonna go on a diet phase for eight weeks. At two pounds a week. Cause the goal here is we're gonna take all that, all those pounds that we added, we're gonna take them right back off. But you're gonna find that at the end, you actually have more muscle than you did before. So after eight weeks you've lost 16 pounds.
[00:15:26] You're back to 180 pounds. Now we're gonna assume that of those 16 pounds, you've lost two pounds of muscle. There's always gonna be some level of muscle mass. And there there's different evidence that supports different rates of fat loss. You know, you go, you can go very quick and make sure you have the intensity and volume to the where you retain your muscle in your lifting program.
[00:15:50] But inevitably there's gonna be some loss. So there's no easy way to predict how much it's going to be. The key is just to keep training hard throughout that period. So we're just gonna assume you've lost two pounds of muscle. And now you're back to 180 pounds with 146 pounds of lean mass. Now that's six more pounds of muscle than you used to have.
[00:16:12] And then 34 34 pounds of fat. So that's six pounds, less of fat. So your body fat percentage is 19% at 180 pounds. You just went from 22. It's a 19% body fat. At the same weight, not by reducing fat, but by essentially replacing some fat with muscle, obviously not directly, but you've built muscle. And then lost fat.
[00:16:41] And now you're leaner. Technically, if you wanted to be at the same fat level you were before, you'd actually have to carry a heavier weight than you are now. And as you build muscle, you may find that's what you wanna do, that you actually have a. Nice healthy lean look at a heavier body weight than before.
[00:17:01] And you'll start to change a mindset of what scale weight even means that it's not so much about the number as how you feel. How you're performing in the gym, how healthy you are and your overall leanness in terms of body composition, even better. And here's the bonus. This is the thing that I've actually really enjoyed the past few years.
[00:17:21] Going through this process, your metabolism has likely shifted higher due to the extra muscle on your frame. So your daily food needs. Are at a more comfortable level than before, even when you're just gonna go at maintenance. Now you can switch to maintenance. You've you have this extra muscle and spend a good 2, 3, 4, 6 months a year at this higher metabolism, enjoying more freedom to eat what you want during that building phase, you would've pushed up your metabolism constantly.
[00:17:53] As you're growing in size as you're gaining muscle. And then as you were dieting, the metabolism probably came back down, but chances are, it did not come down to what it was before. And you had a higher level than you were before. Uh, similar phenomenon occurs when someone's in a diet dieting phase and then goes into a maintenance phase or reverse diet as it's called kind of slowly coming out of it, where you can recover some of your metabolism before continuing your diet.
[00:18:19] So all of these are mechanisms to shift your metabolism up, but the, I idea of putting, putting on muscle to do it is one that's sustainable and will last for months or years to come as you retain that muscle. The cool thing is you can repeat this process multiple times over and over again, perhaps with weeks or months of maintenance in between.
[00:18:40] Meaning just not losing weight, not gaining weight, just sitting around, getting a feel for your body, letting things recover, training hard, seeing how you respond and then deciding, okay. Do I need to push it up to add muscle? Do I need to cut to get leaner. Sometimes we do have short term goals. Maybe it's some big event where we just, you know, what a feel and look our best, or if we've got a good six or eight months ahead of us, of the deep, cold winter of new England where I live, I might say, you know, screw it.
[00:19:11] I don't. I don't need to be lean during that period when I'm bundled up. Anyway, it's cold. I just want to eat. I just wanna hunker down. Let me build muscle. Let me just eat at a steady pace. Grow, grow, grow, add that muscle. And then it won't be very hard to spend a couple months. Cutting the fat on top of this, if you add in walking, okay.
[00:19:33] I'm a huge advocate of walking. I've talked about it before. Step count, I think is the most sustainable form of cardio to give you the most impact. So it's not the most effective. In other words, it high intensity interval training and other forms of cardio like that might burn the most calories. But they're not sustainable.
[00:19:53] They beat you up. They're hard on the joints. They make it harder to recover in some cases where they might interfere with your lifting, all of these reasons, but walking doesn't do any of those. Walking's enjoyable. Uh, we're getting to the warmer seasons here. So you get your vitamin D you get your sunshine.
[00:20:10] Get to enjoy nature. It's mentally relaxing. It's great on the joints and the bonus from walking is it adds some cushion to your calories. So as you're lifting, for example, it's a way not to interfere with your lifting and not get to fatigued while still allowing you to keep bumping up your calories.
[00:20:30] And then conversely, with dieting it's even perhaps even more pivotal in that it prevents you from having to cut your calories too much. So I don't know about you, but. Adding muscle by having some fun lifting in the gym while eating more food and increasing my metabolism and hitting these goals, sounds like a pretty reasonable way to get leaner.
[00:20:51] Feel good about yourself after all a said and done. And it's also quite sustainable, which is what we're all about on this podcast. And I wanna talk now about the building phase that I just completed. Uh, as I, as I'm recording this podcast, it was about six or seven weeks ago. I took 15 weeks to bulk after I had cut.
[00:21:12] I had cut to a fairly lean level. About 11% body fat. And if you're wondering how I measure that every week, Sunday morning, I use a tape measure to measure my neck and my waist. I also take measurements of, for muscle mass of my biceps and thighs and chest. And then I also use hallers and I take a few points on my chest, abs and thigh, and I plug those into a couple calculators online and I average them out.
[00:21:43] To get my body fat. So there tends to be a big tolerance or I should say a big, I don't wanna say error, but there's a big variance between these calculators. So for example, I might be. Uh, 12% on one and 15 or 16% on another. So then I average 'em out to about 14% and what I really care about is the trend.
[00:22:02] So over time I can see both numbers shifting up or shifting down in tandem. It's pretty consistently. And so I just take the average. I don't really care about the absolute number. I care about the change, how look, and how I feel. So I dieted down to about 11, 12% body fat, and I was now ready to. Bulk and my goal, because I've been seriously lifting for about two to three years.
[00:22:26] It's not 5, 10, 15 years. Like some folks, you know, I got in my forties finally started to be healthy and started training seriously. And that's what this podcast is all about is sharing these things. I've learned with people maybe in similar, or maybe completely different circumstances who do just want to get healthier.
[00:22:43] And I decided at this point I wanted to bulk and gain a bunch of muscle so that I could do it in time to do another dieting phase leading into the summer, which is a common cycle for a lot of people follow. When you know, you're going to be swimming and be wearing shorts, showing more skin, you know, you wanna feel better about yourself in those leaner months.
[00:23:05] So in late October, just before my birthday, my starting weight was. 167.8. And then the ending weight in February of 2022 was 182.3. So I went from 167.8 to 182.3, the average change being 0.8 pounds per week. And right toward the end of the bulk, I actually had a week long vacation where I didn't do any lifting.
[00:23:34] There was a little bit of a, a burst in my weight there, which. Makes perfect sense. Right? Cuz my activity level was lower during that week. And that gave me a loss of some of my calories for my diet, but I kept my diet the same. So I gained a little bit more weight during that week. It's it's science, you know, it works like you expected to work.
[00:23:55] So the, the true average was 1.0, but the. Trend average throughout the most of the phase was 0.8 pounds a week. By the way, I tracked all of this using macro factor. This is by far my favorite app for this. I've talked about it before. I do have a discount code. It's wits and weights. If you go download the app, but as I am an avid daily user of the app and gained tremendous benefit from it, I have no problem plugging it or being affiliated with them.
[00:24:25] Great developers over stronger by science. So shout out to them. All right back to the bulk. So I gained 14 and a half pounds in 15 weeks, and I would call that a moderately aggressive gaining phase. It's a perfect rate of change for somebody who is still new to intermediate. In fact, you could go faster than that.
[00:24:43] If you wanted to, if you were newer, Um, and if you were more intermediate or you just didn't wanna gain that much fat that quickly, you can go at about maybe a half pound a week if you're around my weight. So it resulted in about a half percent of my weight per week. My starting body fat percentage was about or not about, but the average was 10.7%.
[00:25:06] And I ended at 15%. So I gained about four, a little over 4% of body fat, which you'll tend to gain more. At a leaner level at the rate that I was going, then in the earlier example, I talked about where he went from 22 to 24. So I gained 9.7 pounds of fat and 4.9 pounds. Of lean mass. So about a third of the gain was lean mass lean mass is a combination of muscle water, bone, et cetera.
[00:25:34] It's everything. That's not fat, but most of it's gonna be, you could just use it as a proxy for muscle. So about a third of what I gained was not fat. And I was very happy with that. Remember, in the example earlier, I, I said, assume that. Of what you gain is muscle and for a newer lifter that's that could be true for me going at the rate, I was going a third was pretty good.
[00:25:55] And then I mentioned before that I measured my body measurements and body measurements are a great proxy of your composition, your body fat, as well as your. Muscle mass. And that's why I encourage taking them. I know it's a pain, it's a little bit extra, uh, uh, obsession there. If, if you have body image issues, but I'm a big fan of objective data, especially trends.
[00:26:18] So I collected body measurements. My waist went from 30.8 to 33.8. So I gained three inches by, by no means, you know, fat, obviously still in the low thirties for male. Uh, most of my pants still fit fine. My chest went from 37 to 38. You know, I don't have the biggest chest. I admit it, but I gained an inch biceps.
[00:26:37] I gained a half inch thighs. I gained 1.6 inches. So I'm very happy with this bulk in terms of gaining, you know, a third of the weight as muscle. And I've had two plus years of what I'll call intelligent, serious training that I think has helped, uh, get me to this point of being able to do this. Now let's talk about total daily energy expenditure.
[00:27:01] This is your metabolism. And why? I think using an app like macro factor is important is because the premise is that you track what's coming in, that's your food and you track what's going out based on how much you weigh and that will help you determine your energy expenditure. You don't need any other.
[00:27:23] Variables in the way you don't need to track your exercise calories. For example, your walk, you don't need to track steps. None of those have to be tracked to determine your expenditure because it's all so called built in. Uh, if you use food and weight now, of course you have to smooth the weight over time.
[00:27:41] And that's where it gets a little bit complicated. And that's why using an app or a spreadsheet, uh, is helpful with this. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you.
[00:28:04] And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again. An incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. So when I started the bulk, my metabolism was burning 2,965 calories. So Al almost 3000 calories a day. So it was Al already a pretty robust metabolism from the previous muscle building cycles I had gone through, but through the bulk, I actually ended up at 3,500 calories.
[00:28:35] So I was really happy because every week my targets just kept going up and up and up and up. And if you look at the graph. It sort of looks like kind of like a smooth stock market chart in good times when it's going up, comes down a little, goes up, comes down a little bit. Generally the trends is upward.
[00:28:51] And then right at the end it had a small dip. I think that was correlated with the week off that I took the D load, the vacation that I took now, because I switched from. A cut to a bulk, which some people, some coaches don't always recommend that sometimes it's recommended that you have an intermediate maintenance phase.
[00:29:10] You know, you switch to maintenance, say how your body responds, see where your maintenance really is, and then start to. Push it up, you know, that's sort of a reverse diet is the term sometimes used, but I've also heard. And for me, it seems to be perfectly fine that you can switch just like a light bulb, go from a cut, right to a bulk, no big deal.
[00:29:31] Your body will handle it as long as you're tracking it. So that's what I did. And so if you looked at my nutrition every day, I went from eating. A little bit over 2000 calories because I was in a cut to eating well over 3000 calories on a bulk, which I was pretty happy with the first week. I actually had to kind of hunt around for more food to make sure I got enough calories.
[00:29:50] And I know people are groaning listening to this podcast like, oh, don't complain that you had to eat too much. And I'm not, I'm not complaining. I had to eat too much. I was actually very happy at it. And this is why gaining weight and bulking can be, can be a fun process if you don't overdo it. And you stick primarily to.
[00:30:07] Healthy foods, quote unquote, but you still have to throw in some other snacks, treats desserts, things like that to, to get it all in and you might as well, you might as well enjoy life. That's that's my philosophy. At least, you know, the occasional pop. Tart's not gonna hurt you as long as you're also having sweet potato rice and broccoli, uh, for most your meals.
[00:30:26] So by the final week of the gaining phase, I was. Eating 200 grams of protein. My protein always tracked a little bit more than one gram per pound. I'm a, I'm a big fan of, of hitting that target, especially on a cut, but on a bulk is important and I was hitting 450 grams of carbs. And this is somebody folks.
[00:30:48] Let me tell you. I used to be a low carb advocate. And to think that I would be intentionally eating more than 400 grams in a day, would've seemed insane. But the carbs are your friend. When it comes to training, you need them, you love them. The body thrives on them. Don't shy away from it. It's a different way of thinking.
[00:31:09] I know for many of us, but if you're lifting hard in the gym, you need the calories, you need the carbs. It's all good. So to fit all this in I'm, I'm, I'm going through this process by the way, so that you can get a visual of what it's like to do this, and maybe some of the positives. So it doesn't, you don't shy away from it, but you also know what's acquired to be successful.
[00:31:29] So for me, it was three big meals, plus two snacks every day. I would shoot for an average of 40 grams of protein per feeding. So that's an average. I might have 60 on one and 20 on another, but generally I shop for shoot for 40. Um, I try to, you know, really get the protein synthesis triggered. Um, some evidence says it doesn't really matter the timing and, uh, how and the frequency try to get it these three meals and get all your protein and that'll get you most of the way there.
[00:31:59] So here are some things that I. Was consistent about to meet these targets. And I think consistency is. So important. If you generally eat similar foods, it's gonna be a lot easier. If you make your own food, it's gonna be a lot easier. If you're going out to restaurants a lot and eating completely different things every day, it's gonna be a little harder, not impossible if you're okay.
[00:32:20] Fight, figuring it all out, weighing, tracking. And so, and looking up nutrients on cha you know, rest, front websites, et cetera. That's fine. And in fact, while I was bulking, it gave me the opportunity to eat out a little more, but the foundation is consistency. So in a typical day, I'd get up at around five 30.
[00:32:39] Yep. It might be early for some of you. Sorry. That's just me. I like to work out in the morning. I get up at five 30 and I have a, pre-workout a protein shake and a large banana. So that's 30 grams of protein, 25 carbs about half an hour, 45 minutes later. I do my workout. Currently, I am doing a body building program, so I'm working out six days a week and it takes about an hour when I was bulking.
[00:33:04] For most of that time, I was actually doing a, either four or five day split conjugate style programming with maximum effort and dynamic effort days. And this is more advanced training, not gonna get into the details here, but it was a good, good high intensity training with a decent amount of volume and some, uh, physi work as well.
[00:33:24] Um, then I would have a post workout at around eight 30, which is oatmeal with peanut butter and a protein shake. 40 grams of protein, 20 grams of fat 40 grams of carbs. Then mid morning, I'd have to get a snack. Usually it was bagel with cream cheese. A little bit of protein, little bit of fat, a lot of carbs for lunch.
[00:33:42] Some sort of meat might be chicken. Thighs might be pork chops leftover from dinner might be roast beef and then a starch and a veggie. So the starch or other carb, it could be rice, but it could be potato, something like that. And, and then a veggie. So that would gimme about six grams of protein, 20 to 30 of fat and 80 to a hundred of.
[00:34:03] Carbs mid-afternoon snack a protein carb snack of some kind. It might be like a quest bar if I'm feeling lazy, but it might be something like cottage, cheese and some pretzels. And that would gimme about 30 grams of protein, a tiny bit of fat, and about 40 to 60 of carbs. Then for dinner, similar to lunch, I'd have meat starch.
[00:34:23] Veggie. My wife cooks a lot. She makes great food. I sometimes cook. And oftentimes the dinner becomes the next day's lunch. And then I might even have a carby dessert if I'm lowering my carbs for the day. And then before bed, I usually have a pre pre-bed snack of casing pudding, which is another 20 or 30 grams of protein.
[00:34:43] And the only reason I do that is it's just hard to get all that protein in through the other meals consistently. So I would just assume I was gonna have this snack at the end of the night to, to punch it in right before I went to bed. But if I met the macros or calories during the day, I would just skip the pre-bed stack.
[00:35:01] All right now, I took notes as I was bulking the whole time to see how it affected me and some things I observed, some things I learned, and I wanna share some of those today. Using a tracking app or a spreadsheet. So in my case, again, macro factor made this a much easier process because it could calculate my rapidly changing metabolic rate.
[00:35:23] And so I could adjust my macro plan every week, much more dynamically without getting too far off of my, my rate of change. The second thing is that when you're bulking, when you're eating, you definitely see a performance improvement. Just it's inevitable. You're gonna make progress in the gym. All your lifts are gonna go up.
[00:35:42] It's gonna feel great some days. I mean, when I would deadlift, if I had a nice big meal the night before and ate a lot, the deadlift just felt great. Even at six in the morning. And I was never hungry. The third thing that walking every day. So in my case, I shoot for 12,000 steps a day. Which is reasonable, kind of maybe above average, especially since I work from home, I'm not in the city, so I kinda have to force myself to walk, but walking's great.
[00:36:08] A great form of cardio didn't interfere with lifting or recovery while I was bulking and allowed me to just eat a ton of food. And then speaking of eating a lot. Eating 3,600 calories was probably the most I ever had to eat on purpose in my life. So it required consistency. I had to make sure to eat frequently enough.
[00:36:28] Like you can't just fast. You can't wait too long for your first meal, or then you're trying to catch up in the rest of the day and, and stuff yourself. And you don't want to be there. Air. Also try to get EV enough carbs into every meal does require sometimes adding processed foods and by process, I mean, bread.
[00:36:46] I did eat some pop tarts, an occasional donut, maybe, but that was rare. I'm just saying it opens up the options and allows you to throw some of these extra things in there. And then when I wasn't sure how many calories or macros were in a meal, like, you know, my wife cooks, so I, I can't just weigh everything as she's making it at the risk of insulting her.
[00:37:05] And then I had to slightly. Underestimate when I wasn't sure. So if it was my, my wife's cooking or going to a restaurant and I didn't have the exact calories of macros, I would want to slightly underestimate because when you're bulking, it's the opposite of dieting. You're actually trying to eat enough.
[00:37:21] And so you wanna be conservative. The other direction, assume something has fewer calories than it might so that it forces you to make sure you eat enough, to go at least to your target and, and slightly exceed your target. Now, having said all this stuff about eating a lot, I'd never went totally crazy.
[00:37:39] Just eating anything and everything like some people wanna do. They call that. The dreamer bulk, but I did get to enjoy some luxuries ice cream. For example, I love ice cream and I could just enjoy that much more frequently than when I'm dieting also alcohol. You know, if I just want to have a glass of wine or a beer or some liquor, I can do that.
[00:38:00] I still track it, but it fits in nicely. Although always recommend keeping alcohol. To a minimum at any given time, just period. If you're trying to live a healthy lifestyle and perform in the gym, when I'm bulking, I might have alcohol once or twice a week. And when I'm dieting, I usually don't have it at all.
[00:38:16] I know that sounds crazy, but it feels great. And then I did go on that week long vacation at the end of January and I didn't lift at all that week. I didn't get enough steps. I even ate a bit more than usual because I was enjoying myself. And as a result because of science, my weight change rate almost doubled the last few weeks because my metabolism came down and my calories went up.
[00:38:43] But at the end it didn't really matter. I still had the data. I knew what was happening. It was objective and it was kind of my last rah before I turned around and went on a cut. So the bulk was successful. I hope I gave you a good idea of what's involved. And I'm currently now on a cut, which is something I'm going to talk about in the next podcast.
[00:39:03] We'll talk about the other side of this coin, dieting, you know, reasonable dieting, but I wanted to take the last few minutes of today's episode to answer a listener question. Judy in Connecticut. So the same state as me right in the neighborhood says, Hey, Philip, I recently started listening to your podcast.
[00:39:26] I really enjoy it. And I have a question about dieting without dieting. I understand all the info about macros and losing weight, but does my daily exercise fit into the calorie count in any way? I use my fitness pal and it adds your exercise, your calories burned to the daily calorie allotment. Should I not enter my workouts?
[00:39:48] And should I ignore those extra calories that I'm allowed to consume? So thanks for reaching out Judy, and, and this is a great question. I actually hear it. A lot when it comes to, how do we calculate metabolism? If I take the pie chart of metabolism and part of that is my basal metabolic rate. And then you've got your neat, right?
[00:40:10] Your, your, um, like steps in fidgeting and things like that. And then you have your thermic effective feeding. And then finally you have your exercise. Well, shouldn't I be tracking exercise as part of my cat calories. You know, I'm going to eat 2000 calories. But now I'm gonna burn 300 calories. So shouldn't I add or subtract.
[00:40:30] And my response to that is. First of all the data from wearables or machines regarding calories are highly unreliable. The devices themselves tend to be very unreliable as evidenced by any test where they compare these devices. Each individual also burns a different fr of those estimated calories from the device were all different.
[00:40:57] And so if your apple watch says 350 active calories, You may have only burned 70% of that or 245 calories. So even if you were to rely on that, the data itself is not precise, but, but more importantly, the most accurate way to determine your maintenance calories is simply to compare how your weight responds to your food exercise.
[00:41:18] Neat. All these other things are, are lots of variables in the middle of the process and trying to track them separately would be a nightmare. And frankly, F futile. But if you know how much you weigh and you know how much you eat and you eat the exact same amount every day, And you track your weight over say two weeks.
[00:41:35] And you look at the change in the average weight seven day, moving average, for example, you'll know if you're eating too much, too little or just the right amount of calories to maintain your weight. And that builds in all this other stuff that affects your metabolism, including exercise eyes. Now, having said that additional activity in the form of lifting your steps.
[00:41:58] Even cardio, as long as we don't overdo, it usually increases your TDE E E because you are burning more calories and this allows you to eat more. So if you're getting 12,000 steps a day, like I try to do my TDE is probably a few hundred calories higher than if I weren't, but I will see that I, my weight not increasing as much as it would have if I wasn't walking.
[00:42:24] And as a result, it does account for the exercise without me having to track it separately. So, if you're fairly active, your maintenance calories are likely higher. All things equal, but TDE E fluctuates so much and it fluctuates while you're losing weight tends to go down while you're gaining weight tends to go up and even then it's more like a roller coaster.
[00:42:41] Such that I would never recommend counting activity. As part of calculating the calories you need to eat instead base your calories and macros off of your calculated TDE, based on your weight change, do it for the week. Leave it alone. You have your plan in place, and then next week you adjust it again, adjust it weekly, and you'll be just fine.
[00:43:01] So, thanks again, Judy, for that excellent question. I'm sure it's on a lot of people's minds and thank you all for listening to this episode. I had a lot of fun talking about this journey of becoming lean by gaining weight. It's a fantastic, enjoyable process. If you remain consistent, you'll see. Great results.
[00:43:23] Hopefully the things that I shared about my own experience will give you a little view into what it's like as always, I'm happy to answer any questions you have about this. Just reach out and be happy to reply by email and share your answer on a future episode of the podcast.
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Ep 11: Your First Year of Lifting (Doing What Matters)
After going through the process myself and talking with hundreds of other lifters, I wanted to share some thoughts to help you keep making progress and avoid some common pitfalls that could derail you.
You decided to get stronger, improve your body composition, and become more healthy. You selected a simple but effective barbell-based strength training program and committed to consistent training. During your first year of lifting, there will be many new things to learn, habits to develop, and temptations to lead you off your chosen path.
After going through the process myself and talking with hundreds of other lifters, I wanted to share some thoughts to help you keep making progress and avoid some common pitfalls that could derail you. When I started lifting seriously and intelligently a few years ago, it was thanks to those who came before me that I could avoid making some big mistakes while still figuring out what worked for me as an individual. I hope these ideas help you in your first year of lifting or really any time during your fitness journey!
🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you shred fat, build strength, feel energized, and project confidence in your career and relationships without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions.
👉 Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to connect with me.
👥 To join our Facebook community for live training, free guides, free challenges, and more, just click here.
🙋♀️ HOW TO ASK A QUESTION FOR THE SHOW
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:26] Welcome to episode 11 of wits and weights. You decided to get stronger, improve your body composition and become more healthy. You selected a simple but effective barbell beast strength training program, and committed to consistent traits. During your first year of lifting, there'll be many new things to learn habits, to develop and temptations to lead you off your chosen path.
[00:00:59] After going through the process, myself and talking with hundreds of other lifters, I wanted to share some thoughts to help you keep making progress and avoid some common pitfalls that could derail. When I started lifting seriously and intelligently a few years ago, it was thanks to those who came before me, that I could avoid making some big mistakes while still figuring out what worked for me as an individual.
[00:01:25] I hope these ideas help you in your first year of lifting or really any time during your fitness. Let's just jump right in. The first thing I'm going to talk about is the fact that when you start something new, when you want to get fit, you want to start working out and training. You want to start eating right.
[00:01:47] There are a lot of new habits. That you have to develop. And initially this is going to require some form of extrinsic motivation reward system and even willpower and discipline. And I know we don't like to say that something requires willpower, but the initial getting over that hump of creating something, that's a system, that's a habit that you can do everyday for the rest of your life.
[00:02:15] Initially requires. A shock to the system. And this is why I think it's important right off the bat to take that excitement. You have that enthusiasm that, you know, I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to gain weight. I'm going to start working out regularly and use that energy to properly put in place those systems that will help you continue to have it days, weeks, and months down the road, when you might not have as much excitement or motivation.
[00:02:42] And I did talk about this in an earlier episode about automating your fitness journey with things like preparing your gym bag and preparing your training, preparing your nutrition, setting things up so that not only. Is it easier to do them each day, but it's hard to avoid doing them. You make it hard on yourself to not do them.
[00:03:06] And what works for you might work, not work for someone else. And the point is rather than just jumping into this and going take the hour or the day or the week to plan. To a little bit greater extent, knowing that this is something that's going to change your life. And so you have to change your life to develop the new habits that will get you there.
[00:03:32] But I assure you that once you get over that initial few weeks or month or two of consistent training and eating that it will be so much easier. It will become a habit. It will be something that you miss. If you don't. And after about, ah, say three to six months, it's just going to be an ingrained part of your life that you're going to enjoy, especially as you then start to see the results, enjoy the process, enjoy the results, set yourself up for success with systems so that the habits become easier to develop.
[00:04:08] Okay. That was more of a mindset thing. Now we're going to get a little more detailed nitty-gritty tactical. The second. Is to make sure that you log your workouts so that you can see progress. I'm not talking about just logging your workouts. I'm talking specifically about the fact that you want to see something going up and improving over time.
[00:04:33] Now as a novice lifters, a new lifter, this is most likely weight on the bar. It's as simple as that, as you see the weight. For the same movements and the same sets and reps, you know, you're making progress. And the purpose of doing this is so that the process becomes your focus rather than the results.
[00:04:58] If you can focus on the process, the results will come. But if you focus on the results, you can sometimes screw yourself up during the process. So chances are, if you've identified a really good training, That's also fairly simple and easy to track, you know, and may have as few as say, five movements, the big barbell lifts and maybe some pull-ups that it should be fairly easy to track your progress as you get experienced.
[00:05:27] And you get stronger to the point where you have to shift to intermediate programming, which may be as early as three to six months. Then not only will you have this habit in place, but then as things get a little more complicated, for example, if you start prac V start progressing against reps or sets, or when you start moving your movements around or adding new movements, it'll be that much easier to see progress.
[00:05:55] Next, I want to talk about the programming itself, not what program you're doing, but the fact that newer lifters are always attracted to the next shiny object. The next fun program you've been on a program for, let's say eight or 12 weeks. And you say to yourself, this seems to be getting repetitive, although I'm making progress, but you know, I want to do some more tricep work.
[00:06:20] I want to do some more back work. Some bodybuilding Hyper-V. And you start to hop around to different programs and you go off the path a little bit and then a little bit more. And before you know it, you're doing some high volume or super squat programming or something with a lot of conditioning that's way off from the original plan of just getting.
[00:06:44] And this is one of the biggest temptations for newer lifters in your first year. So the counter to that is to find a simple, fun training program that doesn't have a lot of movements because we're really looking for efficiency with our limited time in the gym, and we're looking to improve technique and get stronger.
[00:07:07] So when you find that program, stick with it, avoid the temptation to program. If you think you are quote-unquote plateauing chances, are there something else to look at? For example, is it time for a de-load or a reset or are you not getting enough recovery? Are you jumping too quickly in terms of your.
[00:07:33] From session to session, you know, is it time to reduce the increments you were going up 10 pounds, time to go up five. You're going up five time to go up two and a half. These micro plates, if needed. Are you resting sufficiently between sets? I would look at all of those things before you say, ah, that's it, I've just gotten as strong as I'm going to do after four months as a new lifter.
[00:07:57] And I need to get a new. But the next thing I want to talk about is the thought that you just want to get lean. Don't worry about getting quote unquote lean focus instead. Okay. And this comes back to process versus results focus instead on building strengthening. The best way to get lean is to get bigger, to add muscle, not the other way around, not to reduce fat.
[00:08:27] Yes. Reducing fat could make a dent in your body fat percentage, but adding muscle will immediately alter your body composition, increase your metabolism and make it such that getting leaner even at a heavier weight is possible. That is our. So stop trying to get lean, get a six pack. It ripped jacked, whatever in your first year, focus on building the neuromuscular adaptation and then the actual strength and muscle mass.
[00:08:58] As you get stronger and stronger session after session by adding weight to the bar for most new lifters, you're going to want to eat more than you were eating before so that you can provide your body, the nutrition and the environment it needs to build. I'm not talking about dirty bulk or dreamer bulk.
[00:09:18] I'm simply talking about eating enough to make progress, unless you're significantly overweight, you know, you're trying to lose weight. And that is your primary goal. In which case you may want to be at maintenance or even a. You're probably going to need to eat more than you thought you needed to, as you train harder and harder, and it's this eating more and building muscle mass, that'll give you the opportunity later on to get quote unquote lean.
[00:09:47] We're actually going to talk about that in the next episode, because I just completed a building phase or a bulking cycle that I want to talk about in detail, as far as why this concept of eating more and getting. Okay, is the key to getting leaner. The next thing that's super important. When you first start and it's really important for the rest of your life as a lifter, but if you focus on this from day one, it will take you so much farther and give you the progress you're looking for.
[00:10:20] And that is form and technique study. Practice it become one with the technique of the lifts that you are mastering. And by using a simple barbell based strength training program, that's limited to maybe five movements, you know, the squat deadlift press bench press, and then some pole. You can have the focus required to really master form with those techniques.
[00:10:51] And that means when you first start, you picking a reasonable weight, you're not trying to overshoot, even if you've lifted before we're trying to do it, right. Pick a reasonable weight on the bar so that you can do a full range of motion rep with beautiful form. Now it's not going to be beautiful at all.
[00:11:09] When you first start, it's going to be downright ugly most. And this is actually bringing me to the next point, which is to either get a coach or join some sort of group, like an online group where you can get form checks early on. Don't wait, six months later, when you've been squatting two or three times a week for six months, you may have been doing it wrong the whole time.
[00:11:32] And now you've developed a habit with poor form. And I'll tell you a quick story about this. When I was learning the low bar back squat. I had a lot of habits from CrossFit where we learn to high bar back squat and who, you know, asked to grass high reps, all of the things that are not what you need when you're doing low bar back squats for strength, for, you know, in the range of around five reps and much heavier loads.
[00:12:02] Grateful. So for awhile, I tried to figure it out on my own. I read starting strength. They watch videos. You know, I took my time to take notes and practice without a bar practice with an empty bar practice with a bar, looking at my feet, my knees, the angle of my back, all of these things. And I thought I had it pretty good.
[00:12:25] Until I decided to hire a coach for one hour. It was a starting strength coach here in Connecticut to help me with my squat and press the overhead press. And within about 10 minutes he had fixed 15 or 20 different things. I was doing wrong on my squat, despite me being completely certain, I, I was almost.
[00:12:49] And he fixed everything. He fixed my stance, how I pointed my toes, the angle of my knuckles on the bar, the width on the bar, where it was on my back and on and on and on. And by the way, I'd love to talk about some of these in a future episode, specifically about individual lifts. And we'll talk about the back squat.
[00:13:12] But my point of this story is he fixed all these things in less than an hour. That was the best money spent in terms of my lifting progress, because then I could go home. I could apply proper form. I could video myself and keep refining that, and I could start making significant progress because correct form allows you to recruit your muscles in the right way, avoid injury, lift the heaviest loads.
[00:13:40] And that's what we're trying to do so that we can make. If you can't afford a coach or can't get access to one, or there's not any good coach in your area, the next best thing is to join something like a Facebook Reddit group, where you could post a video of yourself doing the lift. And by the way, let's use good etiquette.
[00:14:00] Please make sure your videos are trends. Make sure they're at the right angle with the right lighting so people can help you out and you post the video and hopefully get some good feedback and can self-correct from there. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media.
[00:14:23] Just take a screenshot, share to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again, an incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. The next thing I want to talk about is the fact that when you are a new lifter or you've been away from it for a long time, You're going to make some pretty quick progress.
[00:14:51] Initially, in terms of load on the bar, you're going to be able to jump at fairly large increments, perhaps 10 or even 15 pounds on the deadlift, five or 10 pounds on the squat, five pounds on the. And some of that is what they called neuro muscular adaptation. The idea that you have the capability to lift that weight already sort of a base strength, but you are clumsy and your body hasn't been trained in those movements, in those patterns.
[00:15:21] So now that you learn the patterns pretty quickly, your body sort of catches up to its own. It's not that you're adding significant strength or muscle mass that quickly it's that you're converging to your initial set point. Then it starts to get a little. Right. It starts to flatten out the curve just a little bit and your jumps decrease, but you start to get to that sweet spot where you really are now gaining true strength and muscle mass in the process through this linear progression.
[00:15:53] Eventually though you start to hit the wall, the wall, and you know this because it starts to get a little grindy toward the end of your. It really feels hard. And so expect this to happen. At some point, this is going to come. It may not actually be too far into your, your journey, maybe about 3, 4, 5 months in.
[00:16:14] And one way to prepare for this is to always plan not to fail any reps. If you're going four sets of five, Your plan is to get all sets of all five reps, no matter what. And then your counter-argument is why, how do you do that? You know, what if you're just not as strong that day and not feeling it all right.
[00:16:36] It's not really about what you feel. It's about what you're capable of and the adaptation you've experienced. You may feel terrible and still be able to get all your reps. You may feel great. And it's. But as you reach that point, there are a few things to consider. One is to decrease the increase that's to decrease the increase, decrease the jump for the next workout.
[00:16:58] Plan ahead, knowing that you're reaching that point. Don't keep jumping five pounds. If you should be going up to. Also make sure you have consistent recovery that is sleep consistent. You're consistently eating and you're taking enough rest between sets. I mentioned this earlier, but all of these things, if you do them consistently, then you can compare the progress objectively from session to session.
[00:17:24] But if you all of a sudden, only get four hours of sleep one night and you have. 14 hours. Well, that's going to significantly impact your performance. You may then fail a rep and it's not necessarily because of a lack of adaptation so much as you've hurt yourself by limiting these other factors, recovery, rest, food, so on.
[00:17:46] So it's important to be keenly aware of your performing. In that session and get a feel for what you probably probably are capable of next session and plan accordingly. Don't just blindly jumped by 10 pounds, five pounds. What have you jumped the appropriate amount based on where you think you are in almost hitting that wall.
[00:18:08] Now eventually you'll get to a point where you truly would fail a rep. If you tried to increase the weight on the bar. And at that point, you're probably ready for intermediate. Where you start to split things up and go to something like a heavy light, medium programming or a 40 split, or even a five day something like a power building program that allows you to spread out the work a little bit.
[00:18:33] And then you're looking for weekly increases, not session to session, and eventually even less frequent increases than that, but you're still gonna measure progress somehow. All right, the next thing. And it's somewhat related to some of the recent things we talked about is always listened to your. And what I mean by that is not in it, not in a subjective sense.
[00:18:56] In other words, if you're going to go and do a set of five for squats and you just feel kind of tired that day, and this is going to be a grind, it's going to be terrible. I'm not sure I'm up for it. That's not what I'm talking about in that case. Get yourself under the bar and do the reps I'm talking about.
[00:19:13] You've got this weird tweak in your elbow and it clicks a little bit. When you try to do a bench press or your knee, all of a sudden starts to hurt or here's what happened to me? I got bicep tendonitis because my squat. Wasn't optimal for me. I was actually putting too much strain on my elbow because of too much extension of the wrist.
[00:19:38] And once I fixed my squat grip, the pain in my elbow went away and I no longer feared doing. Supinated chin-ups for example, you know, I was avoiding him. I was avoiding barbell curls, things like that because my barbell tendon hurts so much, but I had to find the root cause and I had to listen to my body and kind of trace it, do the research, try things out until I could figure out what was happening.
[00:20:06] So this is biofeedback. This is the kind of thing it gives you personalized feedback on something going on with your form and technique. Usually the gut reaction is just to not do whatever is causing the feeling or the pain. And that may be true in the short term that you need to avoid that temporarily, but more likely there's something else down the chain that's causing the issue.
[00:20:33] And so this is where we go back to form and technique, evaluate all of your movements and see if there's anything that really could be the root cause. This issue that is pain, and this is separate from true injury or true pain. For example, I had a herniated disc that was impinging impinging on my Sadek nerve.
[00:20:56] Okay. And that caused pain that couldn't go away with any other solution, then a microdiscectomy to get rid of the tissue, and then it solved the problem. That was a clear cause and effect medical issue. And. Affected by my form. Now having said that, did it make me even more rigorous about my squatting and my dead lifting in terms of keeping a neutral spine driving with the hips and my squat, having the right hip angle back angle, et cetera.
[00:21:28] In my deadlift, yes. I pay even more attention to those things. Now, just in case any of them could have contributed to that. So as you begin this journey, you're going to be super excited about trying all these lifts and making progress. And initially you're going to make progress across the board. Even if you have bad form, you could even continue for years like that with bad form.
[00:21:51] But some of these movement issues could cause injury or pain down the road. And so being a student of good form and technique and listening to your body are very helpful as it gets stronger. The last thing I want to talk about. Is a little bit different because this is a new endeavor. You want to try to absorb as much information as possible and also filter that information, using judgment and intelligence, corroborating evidence science experience.
[00:22:25] I implore you to read as many books as you can to listen to podcasts. Thankfully, you're already doing that right here right now, but there are lots of other great podcasts that are a ton of great books. Watch videos, go to YouTube to learn and develop expertise in this field of lifting. Treat it like a skill that you want to master.
[00:22:48] And yes, it takes practice. Yes, it takes training, but it also takes information and knowledge. And the scientific literature is changing all the time. We discover new, exciting things. We discover new techniques and then there's new nut jobs popping up all the time on social media that we want to learn to filter out.
[00:23:08] So reading books, listening to podcasts, watching videos, gaining knowledge, and just being aware of everything going on out there we'll emerge. In this field, to the extent that you're a student of it, as well as a practitioner and at least in my opinion, that makes it even more exciting as you continue to develop this habit through the years.
[00:23:29] Okay. Those. Some tips that I came up with for continuing to make progress and avoid the big mistakes that some people make during their first year of lifting. I'm sure there are many more that you can think of, or others have shared. And that we'll talk about on this podcast in the future, but the ones today can have a huge impact on your enjoyment, your consistency, your sustainable.
[00:23:59] As you transform your strength and body composition for better health.
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Ep 10: Focus on These 7 BIG Priorities for Strength and Fitness
I go over 7 “big priorities” for strength and fitness that, if you can do these at least 80% of the time, will help you accomplish your goals.
Sometimes advice from the fitness industry can be overwhelming. There are so many ways to program your lifting, eat your food, and meet your goals that we often get lost in the small details.
At the end of the day, it’s the BIG details, applied consistently, that contribute the most to your progress and result in sustainable habits of success in getting big and strong, losing or gaining weight, and sculpting a healthier version of you.
In this episode, I wanted to take it to a higher level, so to speak, and go over 7 “big priorities” for strength and fitness that, if you can do these at least 80% of the time, will help you accomplish your goals.
Get moving!
Keep programming simple and fun
Get enough sleep (recovery)
Get enough protein (as part of hitting calories)
Make your own food for most meals
Track progress
Enjoy the PROCESS (the results will follow)
🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you shred fat, build strength, feel energized, and project confidence in your career and relationships without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions.
👉 Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to connect with me.
👥 To join our Facebook community for live training, free guides, free challenges, and more, just click here.
🙋♀️ HOW TO ASK A QUESTION FOR THE SHOW
👉 If you have any questions, just click here.
👨💻 HOSTED BY
Philip Pape of Wits & Weights (Instagram 👉 @witsandweights)
👏 ENJOY THE SHOW?
Let me know by leaving a review in Apple Podcasts
👉 Apply for 1-on-1 coaching: witsandweights.com/coaching
Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:26] Welcome to episode 10 of Wits & Weights. Sometimes advice from the fitness industry can be overwhelming. There are so many ways to program your lifting, eat your food, and meet your goals that we often get lost in the small details. At the end of the day, it's the big details applied consistently that contribute the most of your products.
[00:00:56] And results in sustainable habits of success in getting big and strong, losing her gaining weight and sculpting a healthier version of you. In this episode, I wanted to take it to a higher level, so to speak and go over seven big priorities for strength and fitness, that if you can do these at least 80% of the time will help you accomplish your goal.
[00:01:23] The first big priority is just to get moving. I know we pay a lot of lip service to the idea of not sitting around just getting up and walking and moving around, but on a daily basis, moving, getting steps, being active, whether or not you're lifting or doing any particular exercise has a huge impact. All cause mortality.
[00:01:50] And I know from personal experience, it seems to have beneficial effects on your resting heart rate on your metabolism, on your ability to eat more on your general energy and mood on your flexibility, mobility, your joints, so many different things. And recently there was an article published that was analyzed by stronger by science.
[00:02:16] The study of. Daily step count and all cause mortality. And what they found was striking, and that is that quote, walking 2,700 steps per day was associated with a threefold greater risk. Of all cause mortality than walking 16,000 steps per day, they basically found a 12% reduction in all-cause mortality for every thousand steps.
[00:02:46] And apparently this is a bigger impact than the difference between smoking and not smoking or between having a high and a low. But I think even more than that, moving, getting into the habit of being an active person is a catalyst for everything else you do. It sets the stage for your day. It gives you a different mindset to how you approach things versus sitting around all day.
[00:03:14] Not to mention all of the health benefits. The second big priority is about your. And there are so many programs to choose from so many ways to lift weights. There is training for strength, there's bodybuilding power, building a ton of different ways to work out. But at the end of the day, if your programming is not fun, You're not going to do it.
[00:03:40] And if it's not simple, you're probably going to get frustrated and you're probably not going to do it. Although you have to still lift heavy and hard. If you're going to make progress and add muscle as a newer lift or even intermediate lifter, you can do this with very few different exercises. As simple as squat, deadlift bench overhead.
[00:04:04] And you can do it in a variety of different ways that is enjoyable for you. Whether enjoyable means getting up at five in the morning or doing it in the afternoon, whether it means lifting really heavy and focusing on little compound lifts or adding in some accessories for variety for bodybuilding, just because you want to.
[00:04:21] So as you evaluate the different programs, And try to avoid program hopping. I would go back and listen to one of my first episodes, which talks about how to choose a program. Many of the beginner programs I recommend are just that they're simple and I think they're fun, but of course, if you do it and you say that this is, this is torture.
[00:04:43] I really don't like this. There are always alternatives to make it more enjoyable because at the end of the day, what we care about is consistency, which leads to sustainable. That brings me to the third big priority. Something that many people myself included often don't give enough attention to. And that is getting enough sleep.
[00:05:05] Sleep is the cornerstone of recovery of having the energy to get up and do it the next day. Giving your body, the time it needs to repair itself. And I could do an entire podcast episode about all the intricacies of how to improve sleep quality. But as today's episode is about the big priorities, the priority is just to get into.
[00:05:31] Sleep. I think many of us failed to do, even that we limp along five, six hours a night and ideally should be up around seven to eight, maybe even nine, if you're able to pull that off, but figure out how to get enough sleep. Does that mean we have to readjust our schedule to work out either in the morning or in the evening or the afternoon?
[00:05:56] Doesn't mean simply going to bed. And then doing the things that it takes to ensure we get to bed early, making sure that we have our routine, maybe that we're avoiding activities that would distract us or keep us up, like scrolling on social media, watching TV, those sorts of things, which yes can also affect sleep quality.
[00:06:17] But my point is take an inventory of. Your sleep, you know how much you're getting every night. And if it's less than seven on a regular basis, I would suggest you want to find a way to add another 30 minutes to an hour every night so that you can then get into the gym, lift really hard and get the benefits of all that time, trying to build muscle.
[00:06:40] So just focus on getting enough sleep for. Big priority. Number four has to do with nutrition. How do we meet our goals for the longterm? Whether we're trying to lose, maintain, or gain weight, you probably think I'm going to say you have to hit your calories low. I think that's obvious at this point to a lot of us, I'm not saying it's easy, but you could wake up in the morning and say to yourself, okay, I know I have to hit 2100 calories.
[00:07:11] And as I go along and I make my food choices, if I'm tracking, I know where I am against those calories during the day. And it's fairly easy to gauge when I'm going to hit those and how to pace myself. But what's a little more nuanced is. And so big priority. Number four is to make sure you get enough protein.
[00:07:33] I'm assuming you're going to hate your calories or try to as part of your tracking, but it's easy to get two or three meals into the day and really. I haven't been eating enough protein and it's not really something you can make up later in the day. You can make it up, but it won't have as beneficial of an effect because of protein synthesis, the ability of your body to use amino acids for that process.
[00:08:00] And you really want to space it out more now getting your protein one. It's fine, but where I'm going with this is to prioritize protein at every meal. Don't make it complicated from the time you wake up and have your first meal, ask yourself the question. Do I have enough food of the right types to start getting me toward my protein goal?
[00:08:23] If you would normally have, let's say a bowl of oatmeal and a banana and a bagel with cream cheese. Well, you're gonna have very little protein in that breakfast, a little bit in the cream cheese and the oatmeal. If you replaced one of those items with say some eggs or even a protein shake, you're off to a great start.
[00:08:42] You're you're up maybe 15, 20, 25 grams of protein, and you're getting yourself primed for the rest of the. Now let's take the example of a 200 pound male who's shooting for one gram of protein a day. That's 200 grams. If he's going to eat, say five meals during. That's an average of 40 grams of protein per meal, just quite a bit.
[00:09:05] So he's going to either have to add a snack or two that has primarily protein, or he's just going to have to be on top of the fact that he needs sufficient protein in each meal. And that might mean having, you know, more meat for lunch and dinner and making sure there's enough. Each other meals so that the total adds up to meet your goal, the fats and carbs, as I've talked about before, they're fairly interchangeable.
[00:09:29] You need to get enough carbs for your training. You need to get enough fat for your health, but there's a lot of flexibility in one versus the other, as long as you hit your calories. But if you don't get enough protein, you're going to hold yourself back in terms of building muscle, but also in terms of maintaining or retaining the muscle you have, when you.
[00:09:49] On a cut. The other thing about prioritizing protein is when you're craving a snack, for example, and you go to the kitchen, you're just, you're just a little bit hungry. You want something to eat and normally you would just go grab something. Well, if protein comes to. As your priority, you would say, huh? Is what I'm going to grab.
[00:10:08] Have enough to meet my protein goals. Maybe not. So maybe I should go for the cottage cheese instead of the pretzels, or maybe for convenience. I need to have a protein shake or protein bar and fit it in to keep me toward my protein goals. Get enough protein as part of hitting your calories. And you'll be all right.
[00:10:27] Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find. You'd be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again.
[00:10:46] An incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. The fifth priority, which is also about nutrition is to try to make your own food. For most of your meals and that's about as complicated as I'm going to make it. That's why these are big priorities. I've said before.
[00:11:05] It's not so much about what you eat as whether you have the right calories and macros to. But of course what you eat can make it harder, highly palatable process foods, for example, and they taste great, but they go down so easy and you could eat so much of them. They're high in fat and carbs and whatever and calories.
[00:11:28] That you might be hungry half an hour later, and this is going to make it more difficult to hit your calorie target. Particularly if you're losing weight. Of course, if you're gaining weight, you may actually use some processed foods as a strategy to get in the extra calories. But if you make your own food for most meals, it has a variety of benefits.
[00:11:47] The first benefit is, you know, what's in your food, even if you're making something tasty complicated. Even if you're making a dessert or baked good, you still know what's in it. You're going to make the, your grandma's favorite French bread. You still know it's got flour and the various other ingredients, whereas something you buy in the store.
[00:12:05] Me. 20 other ingredients or worse yet, if you go to a restaurant and get bread, you really don't know what's in it and you have to estimate. So if you're tracking, it just makes tracking easier to know what's in your food. You can prepare meals ahead of time and put them into a recipe in your food tracking.
[00:12:23] Like macro factor, which is what I use. And then the apple just calculate the macros and calories based on the proportion of the food. And it will be highly accurate. Another reason to make your own food for most of your meals is you can control the macronutrients much more easily. If you want to go ahead and make, make a special bread recipe with protein powder in it to up the.
[00:12:44] Go for it. If you want to use the high-protein filtered milk instead of just whatever milk. Well, now, you know, you've got your delicious milk, but you also are meeting your protein targets. Another reason to make your own food. It's a lot cheaper. It's a lot less expensive than going to restaurants all the time or getting takeout.
[00:13:02] And before you say, well, you know, I like the social experience of restaurants. You can have a great social experience with friends and family cooking your own food, having a barbecue. Inviting them over for dinner. So making your own food has a ton of benefits. The main benefit for our purpose being that, you know, what's in it in it's easy to track.
[00:13:20] Speaking of tracking big priority, number six is to track your progress. And this is sort of a catch-all priority because then your next question is, what am I tracking? Am I tracking 50 different things? Because to me that doesn't sound very easy. And again, today we're talking about big priorities, so let's prioritize what we want to track.
[00:13:45] And I would say the big things to track are going. Your food and your weight. You're also going to track your progress in the gym. And then if you want to go further than that and get more into the data and be a little more optimal with all of this, of course you can track other things like your body measurements, but the big things are your food.
[00:14:05] So we want to track calories and Adam. Protein, but usually if you're using an app, you're going to end up tracking your calories with protein fat carbs, because it's all fairly automated. You can use barcodes, you can put in common foods. It's pretty easy to do that. The hard part about tracking food.
[00:14:25] Taking the time to do it, you know, weighing your food, not being weird, uh, learning how to estimate food that other people might've made. It's definitely an art to some extent, but if you don't track, you just don't know the calories that are coming in. So tracking your food is one side of it tracking your weight is of course the other side, you can take a very laid back approach and just weigh yourself once a week on the same day.
[00:14:48] Same. And compare that over time. And if you're going up or going down and it's more or less than the rate that you want, then you just adjust the food side of the equation. If you want to be a little more proactive, a little more precise, then you can weigh yourself a few times a week. Or like I do every day.
[00:15:08] It's just a habit I get up in the morning. Four, use the bathroom step on my smart scale. It beams it to my phone. It takes five seconds. I don't really think about it. It doesn't become an obsession. The scale weight doesn't really do anything emotionally for me at this point, because it's just a data point every day.
[00:15:25] But however you do it, that gives you the two sides of the equation. You need to understand your metabolism and whether you're eating the right amount of food to meet your goal. And then as far as tracking your progress in the gym, we've talked before about the fact that a good training program. And we are training.
[00:15:45] We're not just exercising a good training program. We'll show objective progress, whether that's weight on the bar sets or reps. And then if you want to go to that next level, of course you can measure yourself, measure your waist, measure your arms, things like that, to measure muscle gain and weight loss.
[00:16:02] And I guess this priority really applies to anything you're trying to accomplish in life. Any goal that you're trying to achieve, how do you know if you've gone from a to B to C to all get all the way to. You know that by tracking your progress in some objective measurable way and the last big pre. Is just to enjoy the process.
[00:16:24] The results will follow. We get so hung up on the results. You know, where I have arrived on any given day that we fail to enjoy the process. And in some cases it's because we have a process that we don't enjoy and that's what makes it unsustainable. And so to have something sustainable and consistent that we can do.
[00:16:49] Months years, the rest of our life, both in diet and nutrition, the process itself should be as enjoyable as possible. Now I talked earlier about the priority of keeping your programming, simple and fun. And the fun part of that is what I'm talking about in terms of the process being enjoyable. When I get up at five 30 in the morning to work out and that's usually when I work out.
[00:17:16] Yeah, it's a little bit. And it's a little bit cold and I'm not quite warmed up, but I know that I'm going to get in there and it's going to be tons of fun to lift heavy weight, because I know the results are going to follow now. That is not at all fun for you. And even if you've done it for three months, it's still not fun for you.
[00:17:34] Then it's probably time to change it up to something that you can enjoy. Even if the results are a little less quote, unquote optimal, the same thing goes for diet. I talk a lot about. About macros calories and all this, if all of that stuff is just torture to you, even after you've tried it, even if you seen results, then for you as an individual, you'll have to have a different approach.
[00:17:59] And there are other ways to do things there's other ways to track progress in a little more laid back fashion, where maybe you, you gather data points. Once a month and you don't track your food, but you learn how to estimate based on what you see on the plate. I mean, you can't just totally wing it, especially when you're a beginner to this whole process, because that's probably what got you to the.
[00:18:24] Where you've been in the past where you may not have met your goal. So there is some element of willpower to start the process. There's some element of sacrifice and discipline and hard work, of course, but to be sustainable, you want to settle into the approach that both. And is enjoyable along the way.
[00:18:43] I mean, this is life, this is our life, and we're going to be doing this for many years. So that's why I wanted to include this priority because I know from personal experience, I've done things in the past that worked, but we're no fun at. And those are the kinds of things that lead to yo-yo dieting and program hopping.
[00:19:02] And we want this to be a fun process, a sustainable process, and one that gets results. I hope you found this episode useful and are excited to focus on some or hopefully all of these seven big. That should get you most of the gains and help establish a long-term sustainable approach to strengthen fitness.
[00:19:24] Hit me up with questions by going to the link in the show notes or by email or Instagram.
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Ep 9: 10 Fitness and Nutrition “Facts” I Changed My Mind About
I share some helpful and sometimes counterintuitive things I’ve learned over the last year about fitness and nutrition that either changed my mind or were completely new to me. I hope you’ll learn something new that will help you continue to remain skeptical, ask questions, and become even more informed on your journey to greater strength, better health, and long-term consistency.
Today I share some helpful and sometimes counterintuitive things I’ve learned over the last year about fitness and nutrition that either changed my mind or were completely new to me.
As a 40-something-year-old lifter who has only been training seriously and effectively for the last few years, I used to believe a lot of nonsense—ideas, myths, preconceptions, assumptions, whatever you want to call them—that often held me back from progress or, even worse, were counterproductive.
Chances are that you’ve heard some of these too, and it’s quite possible you’ll be surprised by some of my thoughts in this episode—or perhaps not. At the very least, I hope you’ll learn something new that will help you continue to remain skeptical, ask questions, and become even more informed on your journey to greater strength, better health, and long-term consistency.
More muscle means you can eat more
Metabolism is determined by body composition
Genetics are no excuse
Calories are the LEAST important reason to exercise
Walking has more benefits than you think
Carbs are not the enemy (they are crucial for training)
Losing weight is as "simple" as being in a caloric deficit
There are multiple ways to make objective progress
Being strong makes it easy to recover from injury or surgery
We don't know everything yet but learn new insights every day!
🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you shred fat, build strength, feel energized, and project confidence in your career and relationships without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions.
👉 Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to connect with me.
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:26]Welcome to episode nine of Wits & Weights. Today, I wanted to share some helpful and sometimes counter intuitive things I've learned over the last year about fitness and nutrition that either changed my mind or were completely new to me that I found.
[00:00:51] And as a 40 something year old lifter, who's only been training seriously and effectively for the last few years, I used to believe a lot of nonsense ideas, myths, preconceptions, assumptions, whatever you want to call them that often held me back from progress or even worse were counterproductive.
[00:01:11] Chances are, you've heard some of these too, and it's quite possible. You'll be surprised by some of the thoughts that I have in this episode, or perhaps not at the very least. I hope you'll learn something new that will help you continue to remain skeptical, ask questions and become even more informed on your journey to greater strength, better health and longterm consistency.
[00:01:35] Number one. Adding muscle, lets you eat more food, even in a deficit. Now this is a big one because for most of my life, when I was either sedentary or doing things like CrossFit and not really lifting and adding. It was always a struggle to maintain my weight. At least for me, I would call it a quote unquote, slow metabolism, which is not really a thing.
[00:02:04] And we'll get to that in, uh, the second item. The, the fact is that whatever my metabolism was based on my activity levels and based on my body composition, I would have to always be in a slight state of hunger to maintain my weight and definitely to lose weight. So I couldn't necessarily, at least in my mind enjoy eating without the risk of gaining weight.
[00:02:30] And if that sounds like you, the revelation I had over the past few years, when I. Singularly on strength, training and building muscle. Is that muscles and expensive tissue. You probably heard that before. It's more expensive than your other tissue. And having more of it generally increases your metabolism relative to your.
[00:02:53] Baseline. So it essentially increases your set point, but the idea is that while everyone is on the hamster wheel of cardio, trying to burn the fat off with burning calories, I was here lifting three or four days a week, which is a lot of fun. At least for me building muscle, not doing much, if any cardio not doing CrossFit anymore.
[00:03:18] And all of a sudden. I could eat more and more and more without gaining weight, or if I wanted to gain weight on purpose, I would have to even more. And then when I went into a cut last year, I had to reduce my calories, but it was reasonable. I'm five, nine, and I had to get it down to maybe 20 to 2300 calories a day, which is not starving.
[00:03:45] And before I had gained that muscle, I would have had to go much lower than that. If I were to lose any significant weight. And now that I've been in a bulk, I found that my metabolism continues to go up and up and up as I add muscle, allowing me to just eat tons of food. So the moral of the story is if you like to eat, like I do, you can eat more.
[00:04:07] If you add more. Number two, your metabolism is explained primarily by your body composition. We often talk about how metabolism is different for everybody, and it slows down as you age and men have a higher metabolism than women and all of these. Um, what I now know to be proxies of metabolism, but not direct causes.
[00:04:35] It turns out that the largest explanatory variable of a higher or lower metabolism is how much fat free mass you have. That is simply the more muscle you have, the less fat you have. So in other words, the lower body fat percentage, you have a higher metabolism. You have. If you took two individual. That were roughly the same height, same weight, but one had a significantly better body composition.
[00:05:03] That person would have a high on average, a higher metabolism. Now, if you extend that logic and say, okay, well, why do older people have slower metabolisms? It's because as you age sarcopenia and osteopenia kick in your muscles and tissue degrade waste away, whatever you want to call it. And your fat free mass declines.
[00:05:23] So your metabolism decline. Why do men have a higher metabolism than women? Well, again, all things equal. Men have a higher fat free mass they're leaner women carry more fat, just biologically. So men are going to have a higher metabolism. And what this means is that you can actually flip the switch and turn the dial and increase your metabolism simply by improving your body composition and adding muscle.
[00:05:49] Oh, that's exactly consistent with the first item I was talking about. Which brings me to number three related to these. And that is genetics are not really an excuse. Having a quote unquote, slow metabolism is not an excuse. And I know this from personal experience, but we also see this in the literature.
[00:06:09] And we see this among the population that if you engage in really any form of fitness, but especially resistance training. Eat properly, meaning to maintain a healthy weight that no matter what you are born with genetically, you can significantly improve and transform your own body. No, not everybody is going to look like the rock or Arnold or whoever your ideal physique.
[00:06:38] Of course not. There are differences between people and genetics do give you a different baseline and a different set point. But in relative terms, you can go from what you are now to a significantly improved, healthier version of yourself through your own effort. And this is liberating. Number four calories burn.
[00:07:04] Is the least important thing about exercise for many years, I came to realize that diet was definitely the most important factor in whether you gain or lose weight in general terms. But I also thought that calories burned while performing exercise was significant. And you've heard the phrase that you can't outrun a diet.
[00:07:26] That's true, but even more important than. I think lots of folks in society have gotten into their head that lots of cardio, that should be the primary form of exercise and that the more you run and the more you bike and the more you swim, the more calories you burn, that's how you stay on top of your weight gain.
[00:07:46] When in fact prioritizing cardio and not doing resistance training will send your body a signal that endurance is. And you will become more efficient, meaning your metabolism will actually decline. And you may even see reduction in muscle tissue, which is the opposite of what we want. What we instead, what are, what I talked about in number one, and number two, you build more.
[00:08:15] You drive up your metabolism. You don't have to do a crazy amount of cardio. Cardio is great. Cardio is healthy for you. There are a lot of reasons to cardio, but not as the primary driver of fitness in the context we're talking about, which is improved body composition, additional muscle ability to eat more, to eat in a healthy way to maintain a healthy weight.
[00:08:36] And therefore we don't perform exercise to burn calories. We perform exercise to lift weights and add. And to get healthy. Now having said that I'm going to contradict myself slightly with number five, and that is that while. Has so many more benefits than I realized, including the fact that if you walk regularly, you are going to burn a few more calories and those extra calories will give you a little bit of cushion in your.
[00:09:08] But that is different from doing medium or high intensity cardio on a regular basis for the sole purpose of burning calories, which then may lead to you adapting to endurance, which is counter to our goals of building muscle becoming less efficient so that we have a higher metabolism, but walking is such a great movement.
[00:09:32] I had back surgery last year, a microdiscectomy. And the best way to rehab that in the early weeks after the surgery, because I couldn't do much else was to walk now all of my life, I've not been a huge fan of walking. I've talked about this before. My wife would have to drag me out to go on a walk. I just thought it was kind of boring and a waste of time.
[00:09:56] I'd rather be, I'd rather be doing just about anything else, but. All of a sudden, it's the only thing I can do. It helped me heal. And I, all of a sudden had a new, found psychological link to the benefits of walking and I wanted to do it. And so I started to give myself a daily target of, I think it was initially 8,000, then 10,000.
[00:10:18] And currently it's 12,000 steps a day. And I think that's planning for most people. In fact, it's a little bit tough to get that if you work at home or are you work. Sedentary at a desk, you have to force yourself to either go for walks or have a treadmill, or get on a bike even, and get some steps that way at a low intensity by.
[00:10:41] But I've found that there are so many benefits to walking. One of those is it keeps you generally active. Meaning if you know, you want to get certain step amount of steps in for a day, you're going to find a way to do it. You're going to go get some vitamin D outside, go for a walk. After lunch, after dinner with your family, you're going to maybe walk around the house and pace a little bit while you're on the phone or doing work, it keeps you generally active as opposed to just sitting around all day.
[00:11:10] Second. It does burn a bunch of calories, almost you, without you realizing it, you know, several hundred more calories a day and it doesn't do so in a way that causes your body to adapt and go into the endurance mode. Walking gives you the opportunity to enjoy your surroundings, your environment. Get out into nature.
[00:11:30] You look for any excuse to walk more. You park farther from the grocery store entrance. You look for a reason to go upstairs. And then as I get older, I'm in my forties and I realized walking keeps me. It keeps the joints lubricated, so to speak. It's great for just general movement and joint health. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast.
[00:11:56] If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally. And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again, an incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode.
[00:12:17] Okay. The next couple items are related to nutrition. And the first one, which is this is number six, is that carbs are not the enemy. And not only that, they are crucial for training. If you're doing resistance training and trying to build. I followed low carb diets for many years from Atkins to paleo and primal, which by default are low carb because you're avoiding grains to Quito.
[00:12:48] And all of them helped me lose weight to an extent simply because I was excluding many food groups and many sources of calories, including processed foods, but none of them are sustaining. Nonetheless, I kept trying them over and over again under the mantra that carbs are somehow evil. And then when I got into serious lifting a few years ago and I had to really eat for the first time in my life, I couldn't do so.
[00:13:14] Without having some amount of carbs over 150, 200 grams a day, otherwise I'd be eating just a ton of protein and fat and nothing else. And I found that it just gave me a huge burst of energy and this is not unheard of. And some people may operate perfectly fine. Without too many carbs in their diet, but generally the, the evidence supports the idea that if you are training hard, whether you're doing endurance or heavy lifting, that you've got to have some carbs in your diet, and it doesn't have to be a massive amount, but if you're trying to shovel in 4,000 calories a day on a bulk, it's going to be meaningful.
[00:13:51] It's going to be probably. Four, maybe 500 grams of carbs. Now want to know when you're on a cut, when you're keeping your calories low and you're trying to lose weight, the carbs will naturally decline because you're keeping your protein high and you might to keep a little fat in there. And so your carbs may be down in the hundreds, which by some definitions is bordering on low carb.
[00:14:13] Anyway. So I have come to embrace carbs and they're just a macronutrient they're found in all sorts of delicious, healthy, natural foods. And it is a liberating experience to focus more on what's my target for calories and macros and not worrying that any particular macronutrient is good or bad. And that brings me to numbers.
[00:14:36] Losing weight is really as simple quote-unquote as hitting your calories, whether it is low carb, high carb, whatever, if you are training hard and you're trying to build muscle, you've got to hit your protein target no matter what, but when it comes to gaining weight or losing weight, especially losing weight, there is no magic to it.
[00:15:00] There's no special diet. I covered this in my episode, all about. All about dieting without being on a diet. That is as simple as the first law of thermal dynamics. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. If you want to lose weight, you simply have to be in an appropriate reasonable caloric deficit and be consistent.
[00:15:24] And generally, as I always advise that does require some form of tracking. So you know how much you're eating and eventually if you get good at that, you may not need to track it. But like many of the other insights I've talked about today, this is also quite liberating because it means you don't have to be on a specific diet and restrict all sorts of foods.
[00:15:45] You can enjoy what you like, as long as it fits your calories or your macros. You're good to go. The next to number eight and nine have to do with training. Number eight, you can make progress. In multiple ways in the gym, not just with weight on the bar, although that is the best place to start when you're doing a novice linear progression, but you can also progress the number of reps with the same weight.
[00:16:15] You can even add sets, whatever you use to measure progress. Make sure it is objective and demonstrates. So, for example, I've recently started a power building type program where I do a combination of the big strength movements, the compound lifts combined with some accessories, for physic development and on the accessory movements.
[00:16:43] The progress is sometimes with. But sometimes I use different rep ranges and I keep the weight on the bar and I try to hit slightly more reps. It really depends on the type of movement. Isn't an isolation movement. Is it something heavy multi-joint and so on, but the point is, have your notebook, have your app and make sure that every week you are making.
[00:17:09] Somewhere when you initially start that's five pounds on the bar, 10 pounds on the bar, two and a half pounds on the bar, whatever it might be for the same number of reps. But as you get more advanced, you may have different schemes that rotate using periodization. You may go through different rep ranges and you may be progressing weight within a rep range, and then you reset and try to get more reps and progress the way to get, or you may progress using.
[00:17:38] And then you add a fourth set and then maybe a fifth set, and then you reset back to three sets, but with a higher weight, always make objective progress and you will eventually hit your goals. Number nine, being strong makes it easier to recover from injury or surgery. And I have personal experience here.
[00:18:03] Because of my back surgery last year, which was followed two months later by an appendectomy. And in both cases, I felt during preparing for the surgery, the surgery itself, the early recovery, and then the rehab. That I could quickly bounce back. I had the willpower to do it. The discipline, I felt strong. I felt that if I just moved and use my joints, I could quickly get back to lifting and making progress.
[00:18:33] And indeed, that is what happened. It wasn't long before I was back to heavy deadlifts, heavy squats, everything I'm doing today and it's as if it never happened, but I attribute much of that to the year and a half or two years of discipline. Efficient effective strength training that I had performed prior to those surgeries.
[00:18:57] And if you go back to, I think my second episode, which was about all about strength, we talk about the benefits of being strong and health and recovery, vitality being useful are key parts of that. And number 10, the last item on the list today, we don't know everything. We really don't, but we learned fascinating new mechanisms about how our bodies work.
[00:19:25] Every single. For example, last year I was reading the newspaper and it referred to a recent scientific article that had come out called mechanical overload, induced muscle derived, extracellular, vesicles, promote adipose tissue lipolysis. And you're asking, why am I sharing this? Well from the abstract, the authors wrote.
[00:19:48] That their findings demonstrate that skeletal muscle promotes metabolic adaptations in adipose tissue. And what it seemed to suggest is that strength training and specifically the act of actually doing the resistance training and the results shortly thereafter causes your muscle cells to release some sort of genetic material.
[00:20:10] They called it intracellular. That and this material normally suppresses hypertrophy prevents your muscles from growing. And when you work out your muscles apparently release this material and it gets transmitted through these bubbles called vesicles to your fat cells and their, they signal your fat cells to break down and release energy.
[00:20:36] Now it's just one paper of many, but it seemed to indicate that maybe there are multiple complex mechanisms for how building muscle and working out, help us burn fat things that we still don't understand. I've heard it said that muscle is an expensive tissue, but the calories burned just from the additional muscle on your body.
[00:21:00] When you gain muscle are not enough to explain the increase in metabolism you get when you start building muscle. And perhaps this is just one of the many insights into those possible mechanisms. Th the point is it's fascinating. The body is fascinating and we know lots of things anecdotally, and by the way, anecdotes are a part of gathering data and research.
[00:21:25] And we know a lot of things from the scientific literature, and we know a lot of things from repeated practical use over thousands. Millions of real life people over decades. And I think the point here is not that we need to just latch onto the latest study to say, okay, this proves this or proves that, but that we don't know everything.
[00:21:48] And so we should make the best with what we do know. And the only way as an individual to try things out is to try things out and equals one. You are your own experiment. So get in the gym, start trying. Start making progress. See what works, see what doesn't and iterate until you get something that works for you that sustainable, that helps you be consistent.
[00:22:15] And most importantly is. And that's it. 10 things I learned over the last year that changed my perspective for the better. And we'll hopefully give you some insights that make it easier to progress toward your goals.
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Ep 8: Build the Ultimate Home Gym to Make Gains, Save Time, and Be Consistent
Building your own home gym can be a huge factor in developing good habits and consistency with your workout routine. It saves a ton of time, you can choose exactly the equipment you need, you can control the entire experience, and you can be more flexible with your training schedule. It’s a simple but highly effective step you can take to eliminate excuses and keep making progress.
One of our big goals on this podcast is sustainability and consistency, and the whole process of going to the gym is a huge barrier for many of us.
The hassle of preparing your clothing, gym bag, nutrition, and then factoring in drive time, weather, convenience within our schedules, compounded by access to random equipment at the gym, sharing a rack or barbell with other members, and sometimes dealing with policies like “no deadlifting” are just some of the many reasons we find to just hit the snooze button and avoid our workouts altogether.
That’s why building your own home gym can be a huge factor in developing good habits and consistency with your workout routine. It saves a ton of time, you can choose exactly the equipment you need, you can control the entire experience, and you can be more flexible with your training schedule. It’s a simple but highly effective step you can take to eliminate excuses and keep making progress.
In today’s episode, we cover:
The pros and cons of a home gym
Where in your home and how much space you need for your home gym
What type of flooring to use
Basic equipment to get started for the main lifts
Extra equipment for accessory and bodybuilding movements
Nice to have equipment to cover almost everything else
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and lean with the strength training and sustainable diet. I am your host Philip Pape. And in each episode, we'll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry and a commitment to lifting heavy and eating right.
[00:00:29]Welcome to episode eight of Wits & Weights. One of our big goals on this podcast is sustainability and consistency. And the whole process of going to the gym is sometimes a huge barrier for many of us to just that the hassle of preparing your clothes, your gym bag, your food factoring in drive time, whether.
[00:00:55] Convenience within our schedules compounded by access to random equipment at the gym, sharing a rack or barbell with other members waiting your turn. Sometimes dealing with policies like no deadlifting. These are just some of the many reasons we find to just hit the snooze button and avoid our workouts.
[00:01:15] That's why building your own home gym can be a huge factor in developing good habits and consistency with your workout routine. It saves a ton of time. You can choose exactly the equipment you need. You can control the entire experience and environment, and you can be more flexible with your training schedule.
[00:01:36] It's a simple but highly effective step you can take to eliminate excuses and keep making. In today's episode, we cover the pros and cons of a home gym. Where in your home and how much space you need for your home gym. What type of flooring to use the basic equipment to get you started and make tons of gains on the mainland.
[00:02:01] Then some extra equipment you might need for accessory or bodybuilding movements. And finally, nice to have equipment to cover almost everything else and build the ultimate home gym. First, let's start by talking about the pros and cons of. Jim, the biggest pro the biggest benefit of a home gym is just that you don't have to drive anywhere.
[00:02:24] It saves you a ton of time. It could be anywhere from 30 minutes, but more likely to one or two hours because of the entire process of getting ready and traveling and getting your session going at the gym. And, and doing that times two because of the round trip. And because you don't have that extra fixed time of traveling to the gym, you could split up your sessions for example, or you can have smaller or larger sessions, uh, much more flexibly.
[00:02:54] So there's flexibility with your time. You can squeeze in an hour at lunch. If you're working from home, for example, or you can sleep in an extra 30 minutes and just get a little bit more recovery before you work out, of course you don't need to pack a big gym bag or a change of clothes where, and you might forget something, you have it all right there, convenient to you.
[00:03:17] All of your equipment is there. Everything's waiting for you ready to go with the settings you'd like with consistently marked barbells, consistent weights between plates and dumbbells. And if you are taking care of your family, if you have children to care for where you need to be there for them, or you're single parent, it's just that much more convenient because you're in the same space.
[00:03:42] You're only a few steps away. So that's the big one related to time and convenience. The second thing is you could research and buy the exact equipment you need over time for your specific goals. The equipment will be consistent from one workout to the next. You know, I mentioned the plates and I mentioned the dumbbells, but you might also consider the barbell, the narrowing on the barbell, the height of your rack, the height of the hooks on the rack, the height of your bench, the angle of your bench, and so on.
[00:04:14] You could also make sure that it's safe. You know, you have the right pins in the rack, the spotter arm. You know how things are balanced, how things are level, you have complete control over the equipment to become familiar with it and make sure that it's safe, which is a huge component of lifting over the longterm and lifting, sustaining.
[00:04:35] And of course you can keep expanding your gym over time and add equipment as you need it. When you need it for your particular goals, this is your environment. And now that is a huge one. For some people you can wear whatever you want. You can throw on whatever clothes you want. Don't have to worry about the judgment of others or how you look.
[00:04:54] You can listen to your music as loud as you want, whatever type of music you want. You could change the temperature. You could change the light. For example, I actually have a smart bulb right over my rack so that when I do bench presses, I can dim or turn off the lights. So it's not shining in my face.
[00:05:12] You have privacy to practice your form without other others commenting or trying to give you advice or bothering you. And for some people, this is much more of a problem than others. In some of these big box gyms, having a home gym helps you establish consistency and accountability. Because it's always visible.
[00:05:32] It's easy to access. It helps you stick to your routine. Totally eliminating that excuse of going to the gym. And of course you won't get the flu or COVID from those other disgusting gym patrons. I'm kidding. Or am I. All right now, let's talk about some of the disadvantages that might come up that we have to consider.
[00:05:52] The first one is it takes space. You have to have enough space for all your equipment, but it's not as much space as you think. And we can get creative with this. If you're able to find space for some of the other things in your house, you should probably be able to find space for if this is something serious for your life.
[00:06:12] In addition to two dimensional space. There's the three-dimensional space, the height that is required for not only pull and chin ups, but pressing. And we'll talk about the height requirements in a bit costs. Okay. Some people think this is a disadvantage because now you have to buy all of this.
[00:06:33] Expensive equipment or seemingly expensive. And there are strategies where you can shop used. You could simply acquire what you need over time, so it's manageable within your budget. But I would actually say that the cost could also be an advantage because the equipment you invest in can easily. Decades, if not your entire life, if well-maintained and comparing that to a monthly membership at a gym over time, there is a payback of probably five to 10 years.
[00:07:04] And once you get over that initial hump of equipment, after that, it's really more of an elective process of if you need this or that over time and small investments here. Now, the next advantage is really a more practical one. And that is that you're going to have limited equipment, at least initially, you're not going to have the 50 machines that a big box gym might have.
[00:07:29] So what you might do is keep paying your gym membership, which are usually pretty inexpensive, 20, $30 a month. There's really not that much for a typical gym membership, just so that you can go in maybe once or twice a week. Or every now and then for special equipment, like a calf raise machine or cable crossover, or some other specialized device that you don't have space or budget for in your home gym, or it just wouldn't be worth investing in given the cost versus how often you're going to.
[00:08:00] And I guess the last disadvantage is that for some people, a home gym is maybe too flexible. It's not structured enough and you may want the accountability of having to go to another place to work out. But even in that case, consider a hybrid option where you have a very basic gym and home for the big compound lifts, you know, the rack, the barbell, et cetera.
[00:08:22] We'll talk about and continue to use the membership, which gives you the option to go either direction on any given day for your work. Those are what I would say are the big pros and cons of a home gym and maybe I'm biased, but I think there's a heavy lean toward the advantages of a home gym and some of the disadvantages can be mitigated in most cases.
[00:08:46] All right. Now let's talk about the location in your home and the space requirements for a home gym, just so you can think ahead about this. Really plan it out. So you don't just start throwing equipment in some random spot in your house and then regret it a few months later, especially how heavy some of this equipment is.
[00:09:07] The first consideration is a solid floor that can support enough weight. This may seem obvious, but some of you might live in an apartment, a condominium. Be considering the second or third floor of your house. And you just have to make sure that the load that it can support is sufficient. This usually that leads to using a garage or basement, which tend to have concrete floors.
[00:09:34] Or some sort of extra room on the first floor or a corner of a big room. Now I actually have my gym in, what's called a bonus room. It's a room over the garage, but it's climate controlled and I'm fortunate enough to have the space there. I also know how the house was built because I built it myself and per today's code.
[00:09:56] You have to have these massive. Uh, laminated beams, it supports thousands of pounds of weight. I did the calculations. There's no way I'm going to exceed that in whatever configuration I use. Uh, garage in most places, you're going to have to deal with the climate meaning cold, cold space in the winter, a hot humid space in the summer.
[00:10:17] The humidity could be a challenge for your barbell and your plates, but plenty of people have garage gyms. It works. And if that's the best space for your gym, go for it. Basements tend to be a little more temperature controlled, a little more stable throughout. A little bit on the cool land, but stable. So those will work.
[00:10:35] The problem with the basement tends to be height. Uh, most older houses or even modern houses sometimes have a low ceiling as low as say seven feet. And we're going to talk soon about the need. Eight feet to do everything you need to do. If you can't, then you'll be limited in what you can do. Or you can split up in your house where you perform certain movements like pull-ups and presses might have to be performed in a different spot than everything.
[00:11:03] I would say maybe the best option is if you have an extra room on the first floor, climate controlled supports the weight. That's a great option. Something like a spare bedroom or office, or if there's a corner or a section of a larger room, most people don't want a bunch of gym equipment staring at them in their living room when they're hanging out at the kitchen or watching TV.
[00:11:25] So again, you have to consider all these lifestyle and comfort factor. Now, what about the space needed? All right. I was remeasuring my gym. I was looking at it again. I was checking out some equipment online and I think that a reasonable space to cover most of your needs for the vast majority of your early lifting career is 12 feet by 12 feet.
[00:11:51] And this will allow you to lay down. Some solid flooring, have a power rack clearance for your barbell. Consider that a barbells little over seven feet long. So when it's sitting in the rack, it's you need at least the seven feet, but you also need room to maneuver to the sides of the bar to load plates.
[00:12:13] And you don't want to be crammed up against the wall either. And you don't want to be slamming your bar into the dry. So you want that extra space. So 12 feet gives you the room and then 12 feet, the other direction, the depth gives you room for your bench or inclined bench to stick out as well as room in front of the rack for pressing, for dead lifting.
[00:12:36] And for other movements, you're going to want to do dumbbell movements, say with an inclined bench and you, you don't necessarily want that crammed inside your power. So the space of 12 feet by 12 feet should be fine. My own gym. It's about 13 feet wide, which has plenty of space. I actually have extra equipment on either side and then it's 12 feet deep and I actually even have a vertical leg press machine in the corner of that 12 feet in front of the rack.
[00:13:04] And it still gives me enough room to. And then as far as height, you need eight feet and that's because typically a pull up bar you'll want it to be about seven feet height. If you buy a, uh, economy, I'll call it or a value, power rack. The pull-up bar tends to be raised a bit, and it's at about seven feet, which is tall enough to hang from it and do your poles, but then you also need a one foot clearance.
[00:13:31] Above that for your head and your shoulders when you do those polls, but also for overhead presses or shoulder presses, consider that a six foot tall male would push the bar up to about seven feet, but then the plates that the radius of a. Is eight inches. So you definitely want that extra foot above the seven feet.
[00:13:52] And of course, if you're extra tall, you may need slightly more than that. So that then tends to limit you to a garage or a typical house has eight foot tall ceilings or many in many cases. First floors today have nine feet tall ceilings. And this goes back to my comment about basements being a little bit low.
[00:14:10] If it's not eight feet, you're gonna have to consider what to do in that situation. For pull-ups and chin-ups, you could always put a rig anywhere, basically a pull-up rig or a doorframe bar. One that sticks out enough. So you're not hitting yourself on the doorframe, but you still need that extra height for the overhead presses.
[00:14:29] Otherwise you'd be limiting to doing Z presses and seated presses, things like that. But what we really want to do the full standing overhead. The only other space that you'll want to consider is for the extra equipment you might have like a dumbbell rack or extra benches or a stand, a freestanding plant stand for your plates.
[00:14:49] And this is where again, like let's, let's talk about the plates for a second. I have played holders that attach into the holes on my power rack, that saves space, or there are wall mounted, racks, and shelves for different things. So you can get. Of course you can have other gear. You're going to have your dip belt and your shoes and collars and all these things.
[00:15:09] And for that, you can go with a storage bin or shelving or something like that. Now let's talk about flooring, right? We're working our way up from the floor on up. We've got our space and now we have to have florid. Well, In a garage or basement, you've got concrete flooring. I don't think you want to be doing certain movements and dropping your bar and dropping your dumbbells on right onto the concrete.
[00:15:34] And similarly, if you're in a carpeted area or hardwood flooring, you don't want to damage. So we want something that's hard, but somewhat shock absorbing and a very common solution. And one that I use myself and I'm sure there are superior solutions depending on time, money, resources, creativity. What I use are, is plywood covered by horse stall mats, and you see this as a very common solution, Google it online.
[00:16:01] You'll see floor plans to see how to do. But you can easily take, say half inch or three quarter inch plywood. Go ahead and get the finished grade plywood. That's really smooth that you can just lay right on your carpet, right on the concrete and then horse stall mats. You can go anywhere from specialized gym, rubber flooring, which tends to be a bit pricey all the way down to.
[00:16:26] The horse stall mats, a tractor supply, which is what I got. And they do give off a little bit of a smell initially to go through what's called offgassing. But if you let them sit in your garage for say a week, bring them in. They're fine. And they're great. They're thick, they're shock absorbing, and they make a perfect cover on top of the plywood to give you.
[00:16:49] Now, some people like to have a deadlift platform. In addition to that, you can make your own, or you can purchase one. They tend to be a little more expensive. And I'm not really including this in the initial equipment because you don't have to. When I do deadlifts, I don't throw the bar on the ground.
[00:17:05] Like I learned to do in CrossFit with bumper plates, I use iron plates. So I'm lowering the bar to the ground. If the flooring supports the weight and you've got some shock absorption, you should be fine. But if you're worried about it, there is something called the deadlift platform meant to absorb the shock from deadlifts and protect your floor further.
[00:17:26] You can also get dropped pads, drop pads. Go on either side of you, so you could drop the bar onto the past and they absorb the shock. The problem there is you need to then be on a platform yourself so that the bar isn't elevated anyway, that's flooring. And again, I would just start with the basic plywood and rubber mats and it should be fine for quite a long time.
[00:17:48] Now let's talk about the basic equipment. If. Can acquire the things we'll talk about in this section of the episode, then that will be enough to get you going pretty far before we become intermediate or advanced. And if it works for you, you'll quickly decide that you want to start gathering some of the other equipment.
[00:18:09] Cause you'll see how convenient, how much fun it is, but I'll let you get there on your own. Let's just talk about the equipment. The first thing, the most important piece of equipment, and one of the best investments you can make is of course, the barbell and we are looking for a barbell that will last you a lifetime that will support all the weight you could ever.
[00:18:31] That is of high quality that has the right markings, the right knurling that can be maintained. That has the proper coding. There's all these things. So we're looking forward to the standard Olympic or seven foot PowerBar or similar that has several features. And I'm going to tell you what I like about.
[00:18:50] And it's not what I had in my first bar. So when I bought my first bar, it was from a guy off of, I think, Facebook market. And I met him in a parking lot, but he was a college student who could deadlift 600 pounds. That's what he'd used the bar for was all of his training. I think he was. Football or hockey player.
[00:19:09] And he was going to be an engineer. He was upgrading his gym and he didn't need the bar anymore. And I think I paid something like 75 bucks for it, but that bar lasted me a long time and I did tons of work with it, but it lacks some of the features that I got with my current bar. My current bar is a rogue Ohio power bar, and you'll probably hear.
[00:19:30] All over the place. The more you get into this, because it's one of the most popular, effective bars out there. It's a high quality piece of equipment. Now I bought it as part of their bone yard sale. So this is one of my pieces of advice is just look for sales, buy used. When you can, as you build your gym, save some.
[00:19:49] Get the same quality. The boneyard bars from rogue are just bars that have some sort of imperfection that is non-functional. And I don't even know what the problem is with my bar, to be honest, it's a beautiful bar. Now here's some of the features that it has, that I would look for in any bar that will last you a lifetime.
[00:20:09] First of all. The knurling does it have fairly aggressive? Knarly knurling is the crosshatching that's etched into the bar and I would look for center knurling. Okay. So right in the middle there's knurling, which is great for squats because the bar will stick to your back. And then I would look for a smooth section on either side of that.
[00:20:33] And that's where your shins will be when you deadlift and then more knurling beyond that, up to the. On that outer knurling, there should be at least one ring grooved in either side at 32 inches apart. And this is the standard width for power lifting for the bench. And it serves as a reference point for bench pressing, pressing, um, So that you can standardize your lifts.
[00:21:00] This is one of the benefits of being at home and using the same bar over and over, you know, where your grip's going to be and you know how the bar is going to feel. The next thing is look on the end of the bar and you should see no hex. In the center of the end, you should just see it, it just look flat or slightly recessed, but no nut at the end of the bar, that indicates that it's a good quality bar that it's smooth at the end.
[00:21:27] The sleeves themselves should spin very easily. And then the material. I have a raw steel bar now, raw steel bar. It's gonna last me forever. It's strong. It looks great. It's just metal. And all I have to do is wipe it and oil it with three in one oil and a bristle brush. Occasionally. Now I don't have a human environment.
[00:21:50] It's climate control. I have a lot of leeway in half. And I do that. If you are in a human environment and you go with raw steel, you just have to keep it maintained to avoid rust and oxidation, but there are many other coatings and a lot of it's based on preference and feel, you know, there's zinc coatings as black coatings, different colors, different materials.
[00:22:12] So just do the research and pick something that you think will work for you. Now cost-wise a barbell. A good barbell should run you anywhere from, I mean, on the low, low, low end, maybe 200 and then up to mid four hundreds, $500. So the robo higher power bar last I checked was in the low four hundreds. And the version I got on sale, I think it was like two 50 or 2 75.
[00:22:38] So it was. But budget about three or $400 for your barbell, unless you get it used. And then you might get a great deal. And then to go with a barbell, we need a power rack, also called a power cage. In some cases, some folks go ahead and. A squat stand, for example, which doesn't have the full four or six uprights.
[00:23:01] It's not a box. It's just a stand. I would recommend going straight for the power rack because it's very versatile. It's going to provide you a lot more capabilities for accessories, for expandability in the future. It's strong. It's safe. It's just the way to go. Especially given the price difference today.
[00:23:21] It's not very much. I would go straight for a power rack. A power rack is simply a box of steel angle iron post. It's typically a budget or value, power rack. Like the one I have it's for upright posts with a base connected at the top with a couple pull-up bars with neutral handle bars, connecting the two polo.
[00:23:46] Mine has two by two. Uh, but you can find three by two or a three by three steel with holes at different, at different distances. And the holes are where you will Fasten the hook. So put your barbell in, you can put in your pins, your safety pins, your spotter arms, and in all sorts of other attachments like placeholders, a power rack is typically about four feet by four feet in terms of footprint, unless you go with bigger, more expensive, maybe one that has six upright, something like the soar and ax, or, you know, in the really pricey range, then you start to take up more and more space.
[00:24:26] But consider about four by four. And this is where you've got your power rack. You've got your bar, the 12 feet total with makes a lot of sense and the 12 feet depth, because it gives you all that extra space around it to get all your work. I would say today, you could get a decent power rack for anywhere on the low end, as low as potentially $300.
[00:24:48] If you go to Amazon or something like that, you can find decent power racks. You look at the reviews, you look at how it's tested. They hold up really well. Uh, but then the price of a power that can go up to four or four or five, $600 for pretty good one up to a thousand dollars and up. I mean, you know, sky's the limit depending on what your budget is and what you're looking.
[00:25:09] With the power rack, it should add a minimum, have safety pins or spotter arms. You have to have that for safety during bench, press and squats. So when you bench, you're going to set the pins between your chest and neck height, so that if you fail. You're just going to gently lay it onto the pins. It's not going to crush you.
[00:25:30] It is as the least safe movement when it comes to working by yourself. So you have to have those pins, squats. Similarly, you would set the squats low enough so that if you failed it, you could just, you could just drop the bar onto the pins. I would also recommend if the power rack doesn't come with J hooks.
[00:25:51] If it comes with these small hooks that don't have much of a vertical back to them that goes up maybe 6, 8, 10 inches along the upright to get a separate set of J hooks and J hooks are nice because then when you slam the bar back onto the upright. When you, when you push it into the rack, when you're racking it, they hit the back of the J hook and not the upright itself.
[00:26:17] So you're not going to wear or damage the uprights. You're going to push it on the hood. So we've got our barbell and we've got our rack, the other things we need our bench and plates. So let's talk about the bench at a minimum. You want a flat bench and there are many options there as well, but make sure the bench can support plenty of weight.
[00:26:40] And then look at the base of the bench. Look at the feet, make sure they're high. And there are some benches that are more like power lifting style, like a tripod. They may have a single leg in front to give you plenty of clearance for your feet, but almost any bench will work. And if you want to invest now in something that will give you more flexibility down the road.
[00:27:05] Adjustable bench that can go into an incline also called an FID, which is flat incline decline bench. So that allows you to incline press. And other movements like declined sit-ups. And then on top of that, if you can find an FID bench that allows for attachments, like the one I have now, I actually just acquired an FID bench that has a leg developer attachment for curls and extensions.
[00:27:34] It also has a preacher curl attachment. The more you want in something like this, the more it's going to cost. So from a starter perspective, a flat bench, that's a hundred, 150 bucks. Should be fine, but you can go all the way up to four or five, $600 for these more advanced benches. And finally you need plates of course, to go with your barbell and at a minimum, I would say you need at least three.
[00:27:58] Or four pairs of 40 fives, depending on how strong you are. If you're a pretty weak, if you're just getting started, then three pairs should be enough because three pairs will get you to 315 pounds on the bar. And you can always go a little bit higher than that with the smaller weights added to it, but get four pairs, if you're a little bit stronger than that.
[00:28:18] So three or four pairs of 40 fives, at least one pair of 25. At least two pairs of tens, a pair of fives and a pair of two and a half. Also, I would suggest micro plates, micro plates. You could usually buy a package of micro plates that give you a quarter, a half, three quarter, and one pound plates. This is for more incremental loading on something like the overhead press.
[00:28:48] And then when you buy your plates, make sure to weigh them, take out your scale, right? When the plates come in and right when you buy them, weigh the plates and make sure they're very close to what's marked you don't want a 45 pound plate. That's 41 pounds. This has happened to me a couple of times, and I had to reach out to the manufacturer and say, Hey guys, what are you giving me here?
[00:29:07] I need to send these back, send me something that's close to what. Now iron plates, cast iron plates are the cheapest. The last you forever. That's what I use. That's what most serious lifters use, who don't want to then invest in. Uh, Olympic or bumper plates, which tend to be more expensive, but they're nice because they save your floor.
[00:29:30] They're great to put onto the bar with dead lifts, you could do a hybrid approach. You can get a pair, one pair of bumper, plate, 40 fives, throw those on the bar and then use iron plates for the rest of the weight. When you do a deadlift and that'll soften the landing. When the. Is lowered when it's lowered, not dropped when it's lowered, because we're not going to be dropping our bars in our house.
[00:29:54] We're going to be lowering them. The price of plates can vary widely, especially in today's supply chain and crazy market. There's places like rogue and tightened fitness. And even Amazon that sells, I think the cap. And as long as it's a piece of iron with a two inch hole at ways, what you need to, it's probably gonna work.
[00:30:15] Now. The only other consideration wood plates are, where are you going to store them? So if you have a power rack, then you might be able to put on plate holder attachments, they look like the two inch rods that stick. Onto a base that attaches to a hole on the rack and you might need four or six of those to hold all your weights.
[00:30:37] That's how I do it. Or you can get a free standing plate holder that goes on the. And then don't forget to get bar collars. They might get thrown in with the rack or some of the other equipment, the spring loaded colors, and there's different variations of colors. But basically these go on to the end of the bar to hold the plates on for certain movements.
[00:30:56] I wouldn't use bar callers for bench presses, for example, because you might want to shift the plates off from a safety perspective, but any movement where the plates can slide off, you would use. And that's it for basic equipment that will let you perform the deadlift, the squat, the bench, press the overhead press pull-ups and chin-ups, that'll take you very far.
[00:31:21] And if you have just that, you can do a lot of your programming, even as you get into intermediate and advanced stages. And you can combine that with a commercial. For some of the other work and that's a pretty good, a reasonable approach. But if you want like me to continue to build your home gym and do more and more from home to the point where you probably don't even need to go to the gym, let's talk about some of the extra equipment that we'll cover.
[00:31:48] I'll say 10 to 15% of the remaining 20%. And the first is going to be dumbbell. You could either acquire individual pairs. They're not too expensive. They've definitely gone up in price over the last couple of years. This is 2022 and we saw them go up during the pandemic. And some of them are so fairly expensive or go ahead and invest in a pair of adjustable dumbbells.
[00:32:14] I have a pair that's similar to the Bowflex. I think select texts. There's similar to that, but it's an offering. There's also the power blocks. There's other brands coming out all the time. I would look for dumbbells that can go up to at least 90 pounds. Don't get the ones that are limited to 52 and a half, because those will just you'll hit a wall pretty quickly when you get to things like pressing or shrugs or something like that.
[00:32:42] So get as heavy as you can that you can afford. And these tend to be fairly expensive. Let's say anywhere from four to $800 for the pair or even more, but comparing that to a bunch of different pairs of iron dumbbells, it may be the better. And then you of course, need a stand or a rack to hold the dumbbells or even the adjustable dumbbells, but dumbbells open up a ton of movements where your arms can move independently.
[00:33:11] Whether it's bench presses, overhead presses, rose, shrugs, all sorts of bodybuilding movements like side laterals, front raises, and. And these are the kinds of things you will start to incorporate as you become more advanced, as variations of the main lifts or accessories for weak spots. And for bodybuilding, if you're really on a budget, you could just get dumbbell handles that you can load plates onto either the one inch plates, but then you would need to buy the special one inch plates or the Olympic size where you can throw your two inch plates right onto.
[00:33:46] The handles the downside of that is the inconvenience and the hassle of constantly taking off and loading the weight. Especially if you want to do something like drop sets or you want to change the load or go from one movement to the next, it really is kind of a hassle. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that if you can go ahead, right, for full dumbbells or the adjustable dumbbells that have the dial on it while you're getting acquiring dumbbells, you might want to.
[00:34:12] By one or two medium or heavy kettlebells, if that's part of your programming or what I have is actually a kettlebell handle. It's a plastic handle with a rubber insert where it wraps around the dumbbell handle in terms of the dumbbell into okay. The second piece of equipment would be a dip attachment for your power rack.
[00:34:35] You can obviously buy a separate dip machine, but you don't really need that. If you could just get either the Matador attachment or like what I have are two separate handles that go into the holes on the power rack, and now you can do dips. And if you have a dip belt, you can also do weighted. And dips are a fantastic movement as an accessory to your pressing into your triceps.
[00:35:00] All right, then the next big piece of equipment would be a lat pull down cable attachment, and you could buy a free standing all in one. Functional fitness machine is what I think they call them, which tend to be quite expensive. We're we're looking at maybe at least a thousand dollars just for that. But if you planned ahead and you purchased a power rack that can support a lat pull down that lat pull down itself may only be a couple hundred dollars as an attachment to the power rack.
[00:35:29] And that's what I have. And what's great about it. It is. So it's not a stack. If you'd rather have a stack, you're probably going to pay a little more for that it's plate loaded, but it has a cable at the top and it has a cable at the bottom and it attaches to the power racks of the rack itself provides stability.
[00:35:45] Now this is where if you have extra space and extra money, if I went back to square one and budget was no limit, I might actually consider. Uh, functional fitness machine or a crossover, a cable crossover machine where you have two separate cables, it's really opens up a ton of more movements. Things like flies and lots of other things, but you don't need that.
[00:36:06] A straight pull down cable attachment will still work. Lat pull downs with wide or narrow grips, seated rows, tricep, press downs, rope curls, one-arm cable variations, like flies. Lateral raises a ton of versatility. A lot of these are, as you can tell bodybuilding movements, but still we're talking about the next level of your home gym.
[00:36:29] All right, let's go through some more equipment. Um, and this isn't, this isn't an exhaustive list or a list where you have to get everything. This is to give you ideas. How you can add versatility and movements to your home gym and start to whittle away the reasons that you need to go to another gym outside your house.
[00:36:49] So the next thing is a landmine attachment and these actually are fairly inexpensive. They would attach to the base of Iraq and it looks like a cylinder on a pivot and the cylinder, which tends to be about maybe six or eight inches long. Is where the end of the barbell is inserted. And then there tends to be a tightening.
[00:37:11] And now you have a free floating barbell attached to on the floor that can pivot. And it opens up movements like T-bar rows and landmine presses, and you can get attachments that go in the end for those types of movements. So for example, I like to do T-bar rows occasionally really hit the lats, the upper back and load a lot of weight for not much extra investment.
[00:37:36] All right to enhance all of this are some smaller items that I would consider. One of those is an easy curl bar. An easy curl bar is pretty inexpensive. You can get one on Amazon for probably as little as a hundred dollars or less. And they're great for curl variations, lying, tricep, extensions, French overhead, press.
[00:37:58] And it's just one of those extra types of bars that you can get for very little additional investment. Okay. The next item is a box, a strong box, probably 12 inches high. Sometimes it's called a plyo box or maybe one of those wood boxes that you see for box jumps and CrossFit or a steel box, or you can make your own, and these would be four box squats.
[00:38:23] So it has to be low enough that you get. Below parallel or right around or below parallel, but they could also be used as a platform. You know, you can stand on them before you do your dips, or you could put your feet on them for deficit pushups. Very versatile. The next item is a bar holder. Now that you have an easy bar and the bar.
[00:38:44] And when we get to the next section, we talk about other types of bars. You may need a place to hold all these, or if you have dumbbell handles that are the two inch dumbbell handles, you might need a bar holder that can hold something like five barbells. The next item is a deadlift Jack. Now I only got one of these recently.
[00:39:04] I saw Jujimufu talk about how this is the first piece of equipment you should get, which I thought was a little bit of hyperbole. And I realized how useful it can be. It's basically what it sounds like. It's a. Jack and they come in different styles, different designs that you can insert under a bar, prop the bar up, and then load your plates.
[00:39:25] It holds the bar up just high enough. So you can load your plates and avoid the awkwardness of trying to Jimmy on all of your 40 fives before you do your deadlifts. The next item is an app. Yeah, as seen on TV from the 1990s infomercials, but the app will is still around because AB wheel roll outs are a fantastic app.
[00:39:47] Exercise also called a roller AB roller there's the traditional wheel with the two handles. And there's something like the Sora annex roller, which looks more like a rectangular frame. That's flat on the ground with. Great for AB workouts. And then the last piece of equipment might be a calf. You could make your own, just look it up, how to make a calf block, make it out of wood, or you can buy one made out of metal.
[00:40:15] That's a simple horizontal bar, or some of them are triangular to put your feet on a wedge at an angle. And these are for you guessed at calf raises, CDs, seated, or standing calf raises. It just gives you a nice stable platform so you can get the full stretch and the full range of. With your calves. And finally we get to the ultimate.
[00:40:39] Gym equipment. You've covered all the other bases. Here are a few other things you might want to add to your gym. And again, this is like kind of like a menu. These last two sections here, the one I just covered in this one, in that you can pick the pieces from each that makes sense for your programming and your goals.
[00:40:57] I have some pieces from all of these lists, but I don't necessarily have them all. So for ultimate equipment, the first one. Cardio machines. Now I talk a lot about how cardio isn't all that important when it comes to lifting for strength, but it's still important. And cardio machines can come in handy for warmups.
[00:41:19] You know, if it's a cold day and you want to just jump on your assault, bike, your fan bike, they're good for a quick. Session right. High interval intensity interval training. Or if you're just trying to get an extra steps or low intensity cardio on the bike, on a rower, on a treadmill, whatever works for you, they tend to be a little more expensive.
[00:41:42] I personally have a fan bike. I think I got it from tightened fitness. I'd love to have the rogue echo bike. It's it's super smooth, but it's very expensive. So. You have to balance budget with quality with your needs. So a cardio machines are going to take up space, but they could be a great addition to your.
[00:42:03] The next item would be something like a glute ham developer, a GHD machine where you could do back extensions and glute ham raises. Now I have a very simple version of that where I could do back extensions, but I can't do . So I tend to do those at a commercial gym, but if you can get the all in one, which tends to be more expensive and it takes up more space, then go for it.
[00:42:28] Great hamstring workout. Great. Lower back. Great posterior chain. So related to this would be a reverse hyper reverse hyper extension machine. We're getting into very specialized equipment here, but the footprint isn't very big they're plate loaded. And if you've got back issues, or this is a important part of your workouts, if you follow the west side, a conjugate programming, you do a lot of posterior chain work.
[00:42:56] The reverse hyper could be useful. The next item would be one or more. Pieces of equipment for legwork, and I'm thinking the leg press the hack squat. I have a vertical leg press. It really doesn't take up much space. It's maybe two by two and it's plate loaded, but there are more expensive machines and some of them are multifunctional with the track, you know, for the hack squat or the leg, press the track of the plate loading.
[00:43:24] They take up more space. They cost more. If you have the room and that's part of your programming again, it's something to consider. And even more specialized piece of equipment would be a calf raise machine standing or seated calf raises. That's basically all they're good for. I don't have one of those.
[00:43:40] I like to hack up my calf movements. I'll either do a calf raise on my leg press or I'll rig up some sort of donkey raise with a barbell, or I will do seated calf raises with. And then finally there are lots of different specialty bars. There's a specialty bar, which is the kind that has multiple hand positions and angles.
[00:44:09] There are safety squat bars. There's the transformer bar by. Kabuki strength, I think which can go into multiple positions for things like front squats, there's Canberra bars. For example, if you want to get really deep into a bench, press a Canberra bar can be a great tool. And there are lots of other variations of bars out there.
[00:44:32] If you want to look for them, as you can see, although you can eventually build your ultimate dream home gym with time and money, all you need to start are around. Bar bench and plates. At the very least, you should be able to do one or two full workouts from home each week, as you design and build your home gym over time.
[00:44:54] I personally find that the option to roll out of bed, throw all my gym clothes, get in a good session from the comfort of my home is a big motivator when compared to the hassle of going to a gym, but I still have a membership so that I can work on specific movements like reverse hypers since I don't have that.
[00:45:13] Look for deals, buy used. If needed, check out Craigslist or Facebook, get started on creating that fun space for you to make gains at home. And as always hit me up with questions by email or Instagram.
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Ep 7: A Journey of Strength (Interview on Finding Your Strength Radio)
I had the pleasure of being on another podcast called Finding Your Strength Radio Powered by Romeo Athletics, where I was interviewed by Andrew Romeo. He asked me a ton of great questions about my journey to fitness, how I got into lifting and strength training, different movements and programming, my recent bulk and cut, body recomposition, sustainable nutrition, and other random topics like metabolism, walking, and even the similarities between music and lifting.
I had the pleasure of being on another podcast called Finding Your Strength Radio Powered by Romeo Athletics, where I was interviewed by Andrew Romeo. He’s an excellent host, experienced coach, and the owner of my long-time gym, Romeo Athletics (in Enfield, CT).
He asked me a ton of great questions about my journey to fitness, how I got into lifting and strength training, different movements and programming, my recent bulk and cut, body recomposition, sustainable nutrition, and other random topics like metabolism, walking, and even the similarities between music and lifting.
I think the conversation has some interesting and valuable information for those of you looking to transform your life in terms of strength, diet, and overall fitness.
It was a fun interview, and if you want to learn more about Andrew’s podcast, Finding Your Strength Radio, I’ve linked to it below, and I encourage you to check it out and subscribe.
Enjoy the conversation!
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and lean with the strength training and sustainable diet. I am your host Philip Pape. And in each episode, we'll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry and a commitment to lifting heavy and eating right.
[00:00:29] Welcome to episode seven of Wits & Weights. I had the pleasure of being on another podcast a few months ago called finding your strength, radio powered by Romeo athletics, where I was interviewed by Andrew Romeo. He's an excellent host experienced coach, and he's also the owner of my long time gym, Romeo athletics.
[00:00:53] He asked me a ton of great questions about my journey to fitness, how I got into lifting and strength, training, different movements and programs. My recent bulk and cut body recomposition sustainable nutrition and lots of other random topics like metabolism walking, and even the similarities between music and lifting.
[00:01:13] I think the conversation has some interesting and valuable information for those of you looking to transform your life in terms of. Diet and overall fitness. It was a fun interview. And if you want to learn more about Andrew's podcast, finding your strength radio, I've linked to it in the show notes, and I encourage you to check it out and subscribe.
[00:01:34] And if you enjoy this episode, I really appreciate if you could leave a five-star rating on apple podcasts for Wits & Weights, strength training for skeptics, enjoy the conversation.
[00:01:46] Andrew Romeo:What's up everybody. Welcome to another episode of finding your strength, radio. I'm your host, Andrew Romeo guys. I'm super lucky today.
[00:01:53] And I think you guys are super lucky as well for our guests. Our guest is Phillip. Phillip Phillips has been with me since 2011. So if you're doing the math on that right now, that's a decade. Phillip has been training at Romeo athletics, which used to be across at revelation for 10 years. So he's seen a lot of our changes, a lot of.
[00:02:13] Come what's gone what we've prioritized, but we don't prioritize and how the whole gym works. So welcome to the
[00:02:18] Philip Pape: show, Philip. Hey, thanks for having me. You trying to say I'm old here. I am
[00:02:22] Andrew Romeo: not trying to say you're old by any means, because I've been here for 12 years. I'm calling myself even older.
[00:02:27] Philip Pape: Thanks for having me on the podcast.
[00:02:28] Andrew Romeo: Yeah, man, I was really excited to bring you on. I know we were chatting the other day. We briefly mentioned podcasting. Immediately popped into my head. I was like, ellipse should come on the podcast. Um, so here we are here we are, um, to dive into this, I know a lot of members do know who you are, but there's also probably a lot of members who don't know who you are.
[00:02:48] So if you want to just give us a quick background of w where are you coming from? What's your background look like? What do you do? All that kind of
[00:02:53] Philip Pape: stuff. The problem, I kind of keep to myself here at the gym. So. So I am a, an engineering manager at Raytheon technologies based here out of Windsor locks.
[00:03:03] Um, I bet in technology, product development, software, and project engineering for about 20 years, that'll be 20 years next year. Um, and you know, I love my job there. I love working on products that keep people safe in the air that protect our military really cool stuff. Um, and that's, that's like my day job, but as you know, I have a lot of side ventures and hustles and endeavors that are.
[00:03:26] Andrew Romeo: Were you ever involved in sports was sports, anything that was ever, uh, like kind of put physical activity and that kind of stuff in the back of your brain where you're like, I like being active. What did that look like for you? Yeah,
[00:03:36] Philip Pape: the answer is an emphatic. No. So I have a very different background from a lot of folks.
[00:03:41] I was not in organized sports. We grew up in Florida. The weather was great all year round. So I played football in the street. My brother and friends played baseball on the street. So it was active in that sense, but never an organized. I went to an arts high school. Cool. Didn't even have athletics. Okay. I went to college, gained the freshmen 15, then the sophomore 15.
[00:04:02] Gotcha. Skinny, fat, fluffy, you know, my whole life. And finally the senior of college, they built a brand new gym. This is over at RPI. New York. And I decided to try some machine, some cardio kind of flare around in the gym. Like most people didn't know what I was doing. And then that's it graduated college still?
[00:04:21] Not, not in great shape and didn't know what to do in the gym. I knew how to maintain my weight. Diets, so to speak Atkins, what do I do? All
[00:04:31] Andrew Romeo: right, nice. See this ad for Atkins, as you're referring to that'll help me lose my freshmen 15. Let's go
[00:04:37] Philip Pape: for it. Yeah. It's like conflicting sources of information
[00:04:39] Andrew Romeo: all the time.
[00:04:40] Of course. That's what's out there. Right. I try to be the beacon of a truth for a lot of people in that
[00:04:45] Philip Pape: regard. Tell me about it. And today it's a lot, it's both a lot easier and a lot more difficult with the internet, right? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:51] Andrew Romeo: The information era where everything is at our fingertips and we can do anything.
[00:04:55] But there's a downside to that because there's a lot of misinformation out there. That'll lead you down a bad path. Um, diving back into one thing you said. So you went to an art school. What, what type of art did you practice?
[00:05:05] Philip Pape: Yeah, I was a musician, so I played saxophone jazz, and I did that well after college.
[00:05:10] I mean, when I met my wife, we were set up on. We were set up on a date when I was actually playing a gig. Wow. You know, and this is while I'm an engineer and this is just the thing I do on the side of the chair. Right. So I played music for three years and it was one of these high schools where you had to travel on a bus and a Metro rail at a Metro mover into downtown Miami.
[00:05:30] You were there for probably three hours longer than average high school kids because half of your day is music. Very cool. So it was a great experience. It was a small school, especially being in a big city, you know, and they had a good academic program as well.
[00:05:45] Andrew Romeo: Absolutely. I mean, if you become an engineer and gone to the lengths that you've gone with your education, they must've had a good education system.
[00:05:50] You did. That's very cool, man. Cause one interesting thing that I have noticed from musicians that come into weightlifting is typically musicians are meticulous in terms of wanting things to be perfect, right? Because when you're making music want it to sound perfect, and then you come into the world of lifting and they have that same mindset of how do I make this movement?
[00:06:10] How do I make what I'm doing? Perfect. And it really gives people a solid work ethic and also an ideal. Trying to do things really well. So I think that's a great background to come into probably engineering. Cause I'm assuming if you're designing flight controls or whatever you're designing, it needs
[00:06:28] Philip Pape: to be, it is funny, you link all of those because I've always linked music to engineering.
[00:06:34] The math that's inherent in music. You know, the music kids in my art school were always the top of the class compared to let's say the artists or dancers, right. Just different type of minds. So that's the way your brain works. Pretty mathematical. But I hadn't thought of the fact that lifting is its own science that can be thought of in that way.
[00:06:52] And I remember when I first met you, we talked about plate math. You know, you could just, just say a hundred thirty five, one hundred five to 25. Right. And I was like, what are you doing? I have to calculate what's on the box.
[00:07:02] Andrew Romeo: Right. I've just seen those combinations so many times where there's no thought behind it anymore.
[00:07:07] And I'm there
[00:07:07] Philip Pape: and I'm finding that. I'm sure you are.
[00:07:09] Andrew Romeo: Absolutely. It's the only thing that always throws you for a wrench is when there's a 35 pound bar. Wait a second. Hold on. Minus Ted,
[00:07:16] Philip Pape: or have you heard the joke about 35 pound plates from
[00:07:18] Andrew Romeo: Kabuki? How they absolutely hate them, but
[00:07:20] Philip Pape: what's the joke? Well, well, how do you make a 35 pound plate?
[00:07:23] Well, together a 25 and a 10, because you're not supposed to have 3,500 places. The joke, right?
[00:07:27] Andrew Romeo: That is Kabuki did a big thing out there with Christophe and about trying to get. 35 pounds. It's just obviously joking. And, but for the most part, you don't use them that
[00:07:37] Philip Pape: often they're here, they're convenient.
[00:07:39] Um, or you can use them for calf raises, you know, have you ever
[00:07:43] Andrew Romeo: looked into, um, why they decided to go with 45 pounds things and not 50? I, I mean, I've been in the strength industry for probably over two decades and I've never looked into that, but like, why would you make a 45 pound plate and not a 50 pound plate?
[00:07:57] Philip Pape: That is a good question. I don't know if it's really to be in 20
[00:07:59] Andrew Romeo: kilos. It's probably something that came from lifting of like 20 kilos is a 44 pounds for closest to 44 is 45. We'll cast them that way. Do that. So super interesting stuff. So a little bit of background where you're coming from. So you get out of college and you're you, did you go right into the engineering world and you also, you stayed in the music world.
[00:08:19] So you're in both of them, um, was physical fitness part of your life at that point?
[00:08:24] Philip Pape: Not really. Um, I, there was a gym at, I actually lived at Bigelow comments right here. And there was a, a little gym there with just like every gym. You've got some cardio machines and you've got some like Nautilus style machines, maybe a couple of dumbbells.
[00:08:40] Definitely. No barbells it's too dangerous. So before, up until I was 30, so that was like my first eight years living here, um, on and off global gyms didn't have program. He didn't have a plan and pretty much stayed where I was.
[00:08:54] Andrew Romeo: Gotcha. So how old were you when you decided to venture into the world of CrossFit?
[00:09:00] And look me up on the internet and go down that path. When was that in your life?
[00:09:05] Philip Pape: I had just turned 30 when we got pregnant with our first child interests. You know, it's these moments in life that make you think right. I'm going to be a father. I need to get in shape. I don't know how to do it, but I can figure it out.
[00:09:17] So I did the research and there's this big craze called CrossFit, right? There was 2011. It's getting toward its peak. I think CrossFits peak was like mid, I
[00:09:27] Andrew Romeo: would say to you probably. Yeah, like 2013, 2014. It was like every week there's a new gym charting. There's more. And you're like, oh my God, how big does this bubble get before?
[00:09:39] Philip Pape: Yeah. It's like bank branches. You see a new one, like every week on every corner. Um, yeah, so that was, I saw I, so I tried a couple gyms and I ended up here, I think it was convenient to work and I definitely liked the vibe and the culture. And you guys were pretty small back then. It was like a third, the size of this today.
[00:09:56] So yeah, I'm trying to
[00:09:57] Andrew Romeo: think back. I think when you first started, we were probably the L-shaped facility where it was, you walked in. You walked into the bay where all like the exercise equipment is right now, like the sore and extra eggs and the turf as you would walk in there, but it was a green carpet and a wall with a big window.
[00:10:16] And you walked through that and there was a standalone rig that went the language. Yes. And then to the right there was like another little, like half bay where I built a pull-up bar out of two by four, by whatever, by eight and then plumbing pipe that I ran through and connected to both sides of the wall.
[00:10:35] And everybody loved that pull apart. Cause it had like this big flex to it. So when people were doing pull ups, the bar would flex down and like kind of prop you back up. Yeah, exactly. Right. It was popping back up and down, but, um, did that was. A long time ago. It seems like it. Right. So coming into the CrossFit world, what was, what were you looking to do?
[00:10:54] Well, I don't even know if you remember, it was long ago, a long time ago at this point, but what was your goal? What were you trying to get get into at that point?
[00:11:01] Philip Pape: Yeah, I, I didn't, I figured that I couldn't do things on my own successfully in that space. And I needed somebody to tell me what to do. It was basically what it came down to CrossFit sold itself.
[00:11:12] Small group classes with coaching in a, in a good community environment. Right. And with all this cool stuff that I just didn't know about. And I say stuff like that, cause that's what it was in my head at the time. And I think CrossFit for introducing me to some things that were new to me, barbells. Sure.
[00:11:29] I mean, I had never picked up a by my entire life.
[00:11:31] Andrew Romeo: I think that might be one of the greatest gifts that cross it has given the world is putting barbells in people's hands and somewhat like rejuvenating. Even rejuvenated in powerlifting, rejuvenating, Olympic lifting, rejuvenating, all of these things where before people looked at a barbell and they're like, you can bench press with it.
[00:11:49] You can incline bench, press with it. And people didn't even think like dead lifting or squatting with it. Cause they're like yeah.
[00:11:56] Philip Pape: Cleaning and snatch. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[00:11:58] Andrew Romeo: Nevermind that stuff that is outrageous.
[00:12:00] Philip Pape: It's crazy. Yeah, exactly. So, and I agree because I think there was several decades between, I don't know, the seventies and eighties when power lifting and bodybuilding and kind of on the wane at the big gym model came into,
[00:12:13] Andrew Romeo: into play and the Nautilus machines are big.
[00:12:16] Did you look to the, to what you were saying, like your, your last year of college or P everybody that goes to the global gyms while I don't have a lot of money, so I can join this gym for 20 bucks, 30 bucks. And the machine right here has this little diagram that says, put my hands here, press this direction.
[00:12:33] And I work my, sorry, sorry. If you guys can't see what I'm doing, do sitting down and doing like a skull cross hopping around on a machine. Um, so it's like, uh, I mean it's very convenient and they kind of figured out
[00:12:44] Philip Pape: the scalability could sit down and do all your workouts, just sitting down and you can look
[00:12:48] Andrew Romeo: like Arnold Schwartzenegger when you're doing.
[00:12:51] And that's the hard part of, we were talking about booth misinformation. If they sell you a bad bag of goods of you can get all of this and they're not wrong, if you dialed in your diet and did all of the machines stuff, you could look really
[00:13:02] Philip Pape: good, but sure. I mean, there's value in, in some of those, especially the cable machines and some of them.
[00:13:07] Yeah,
[00:13:07] Andrew Romeo: absolutely. I mean, that's why I bought a lat pull down and a cable stack. They're awesome. Um, there's a lot of good stuff with that. Um, and I know as we've trained together for a long time, you've had history of back stuff going on. Was that prior to gyms or is that developed in
[00:13:23] Philip Pape: gym? I don't think I'll ever know.
[00:13:26] I, my wife and I have a theory that it was a snowboarding accident I had around that time 10 years ago, where I just took a hard fall, the board smacked right into my, um, like rear oblique area.
[00:13:40] Andrew Romeo: So you went forward, then you went forwards and your feet
[00:13:42] Philip Pape: kicked into what direction? I don't even remember. I just know I got hit really hard extras on the left side.
[00:13:49] Um, and then it wasn't long after that, that I would occasionally squat and it was always in a warm-up it was never with heavy load. Sure. And it would just. Go like that's the best way I can put it. You know, you feel that playing twins, a lot of people have spoken about that, such a bad feeling, but it, but it always recovered within a few days and I got back to normal stuff.
[00:14:12] And finally this year, uh, again, I was warming up a back squat at home and I felt. And this time it got worse over several days to the point where I couldn't walk, sit or stand, the pain was so bad all the way down my left leg lay down. And all you do is lay down with your feet up in the air. Like people people know back pain, know about that.
[00:14:34] I know exactly
[00:14:34] Andrew Romeo: I've had, I've had to the point where. Lay in a bed where it was like, I, and that, but I found out with Elvis was stuck in a certain position. So it was just creating a lot of tension where I just had to get everything popped and put back in and it was fine. But to your point yet back pain is very debilitating where you can't put your socks or your shoes on.
[00:14:52] Philip Pape: Yeah. And it, and it never really held me back all those years really. Um, and the funny thing is this year, I would say I've had my best fitness year this year, despite. Which is kind of funny, but I had the, I had the issue back in March, late March and all through April, went through the physical therapy and then finally had to have surgery microdiscectomy.
[00:15:14] Okay. What is that? That is where they make an incision in the spine between the vertebra of where the issue is and incise or cut out the tissue. That's herniated disc. So, okay. Which was impinging on my,
[00:15:29] Andrew Romeo: what was pushing them nurses. They just cut that away in Pinterest goes away. Optimally life
[00:15:35] goes
[00:15:35] Philip Pape: back to normal.
[00:15:36] And the thing is back surgeries is they don't have the highest, uh, success rate. It depends on what you have. So what I had was is a very acute issue that the surgeon literally said, the tissue like flew out when he opened me up, you know, it was just easier to just get rid of it,
[00:15:51] Andrew Romeo: waiting pressure on this thing where it's like,
[00:15:54] Philip Pape: oh, look at that popped her.
[00:15:55] Exactly. And so when I woke up. From the surgery. I Amelie felt no pain. I could stand up. I could walk. And the recovery for that is just a lot of walking. Can't really do any weights until you get green-lighted. Sure. And of course, when he said, all right, you can start lightweights. And I said, is that light for me?
[00:16:13] Or just, is this an absolute number? And he's like, not in a light for you. He works with athletes and people like that. And he could die. Yeah, no good doctor, because when everything was done, he's like, I'm not going to tell you what else to do. Just go have. You know, if you're back here again, you're back here again, but you'll be fine.
[00:16:28] Go
[00:16:28] Andrew Romeo: live your life. That's awesome, man. And I gave you a ton of credit because a lot of people that have been battling the back stuff that you've been battling at a certain point, you'd be like, well, I'm done lifting weights. I guess this is never again. Will I do that? Then that's where you took a different approach to that where you're like, okay, clearly there's something that's missing.
[00:16:45] That's triggering this. How do I strengthen everything up around it? What do I need to do to combat this, to stay active and achieve my goals whilst. Moving forward, which is awesome. Then I gave you a ton of credit for that.
[00:16:58] Philip Pape: Um, yeah, I I'd rather have, like, they say a strong, bad back than a weak, bad back.
[00:17:02] Like, I don't want to be 70 bending over to pick up a ball and then there's an issue just because I didn't strengthen my back.
[00:17:09] Andrew Romeo: Yeah. And I mean, you hear a lot of these doctors talk and I've talked to PAs that are in these surgeries where they're like, most people have some fucked up discs, something is wrong, somewhere in there, but as long as you're not that aware of it and it doesn't hurt you every day, you can pretty much, as you're saying, just develop strength around it and you're going to be okay and you're going to be able to do whatever you need to do.
[00:17:32] And I, I feel the same way where I, I I've gotten pretty good at self-diagnosing. I feel something out of alignment with my background, like, all right, I just need to get a pop out of this area. Right. And I'll get all of this tension relief and I'll be fine. Um,
[00:17:47] Philip Pape: but don't you find that working out usually makes it feel better?
[00:17:49] Not
[00:17:50] Andrew Romeo: 100%, man. I mean, so I'm in the middle of squat Tobar right now. Um, so if you're ever have. Uh, tired back is now in a day that you don't look forward to getting back under a barbell. The squad is right now for me, and today's a great example yesterday. I squatted heavier, went up to like 92% of my best and like a Seesaw.
[00:18:08] And then today I had to go back under the barbell and do paused back squats. I didn't look forward to it, but when I walked away from the session, I was like, man, I feel a lot better way. Things are, things are popping. Things are moving. I'm feeling. So we're, we're diving into kind of, you're in, you just got into the cross that world.
[00:18:28] Um, you had a back injury early on. It was snowboarding and squatting and it was some stuff through there. We're not attributing to the squatting, but how you felt it while you were squatting lightweights while you were warming up and things were popping with that. Um, as you progressed over the last decade, It seems like your goals have shifted, um, and your goals have shifted from, Hey, I just need to get fit and healthy to where are you now with your goals?
[00:18:50] What are you doing
[00:18:51] Philip Pape: now? You're like a mind reader, man. I mean, you, you, you know this all about me without me telling you, right? Um, so I want a good coach. So I agreed like about eight, nine years of that timeframe was. Fairly inconsistent. You know, I came in maybe two or three days a week.
[00:19:07] Andrew Romeo: So I would see you in the mornings, typically around 7:00 AM, 7:00 AM
[00:19:09] Philip Pape: is the only one.
[00:19:10] Sometimes
[00:19:11] Andrew Romeo: that timeframe of the Jim's history for a lot of people that don't see me coaching a lot. Now I used to coach almost every class, um, in, for a little while. Brian CARF, Brian you're listening. Hi, Brian. Um, Brian used to coach along with me and we had some other coaches that coached as well, but for the majority of classes, I ran ran them all.
[00:19:29] So Phillip and I got to know each other really, really well throughout classes, because as you said, sometimes it's like right now, seven 30 is a really popular time. Right. A lot of people come in, but back then, no one came to seven. Right. Maybe Phillip, maybe mark did when mark wasn't retired yet. Um, so I will, yeah, Lauren and I'd have an opportunity to talk to these guys for an hour.
[00:19:48] Three times a week, which is actually a really interesting and unique opportunity because how often do you have an opportunity to connect with somebody for an hour, three times a week? It doesn't happen often.
[00:19:58] Philip Pape: It's like a fun social club and get together.
[00:20:01] Andrew Romeo: I mean, I call my parents once a week for 15 minutes, like nevermind three hours a week.
[00:20:06] So you get to know, I get to know all of the clients and athletes and everybody really, really well. Um, so Phillip, when you went from training kind of inconsistently two to three times a week, 7:00 AM, and then. It wasn't just COVID shift of training at home, but there was, I feel like you were shifting before COVID happened, um, into more of the strengths.
[00:20:26] Philip Pape: Did you take a look at my notes? I know I was thinking, how do I do, I was looking back at that timeframe. I said, you know, 2019 is really when I made the shift. Cause I started doing RA strength. I, so
[00:20:37] Andrew Romeo: the way that I. The way that my mind works. I can specifically remember when the Soren next rigs were against that wall.
[00:20:44] So the far wall where the bay doors there in the middle bay against that, and I can remember squatting in the rack next to Philip and chatting, chatting about strength and that kind of stuff. So that, that's where my pinpoint comes from of being like somewhere around that timeframe, your mind switched from being like, Hey, I want to exercise for time and fitness.
[00:21:02] I want to start prioritizing strength a little bit more.
[00:21:04] Philip Pape: Exactly. Yeah. And I didn't entirely know why, like I have a much better grasp now of how important strength is as a foundation to everything.
[00:21:13] Andrew Romeo: I agree. I couldn't agree. More
[00:21:15] Philip Pape: aging and mood and energy and productivity at work. Like everything that's, that's better now from a physical standpoint is because of strength.
[00:21:22] That's awesome. That that's my opinion. But, uh, yeah, it was around 2019 doing RA strength, which for the listeners is, is rooms. Custom group programming for people used to be called the barbell
[00:21:33] Andrew Romeo: class. It was Barbara and we still have a barbell club and I kept that as Olympic weightlifting. So that's now before it was like a mix of whatever kind of strength things my head was at.
[00:21:42] And I've peeled that off to be like, all right, barbell club is straight Olympic weightlifting, and now RA strength is kind of like. My training program that I run through that I put everybody else through this at the same
[00:21:53] Philip Pape: time I would, I would classify it as like power building. Yes. Because you always have the compound lift to start one or two of those and then some form of hypertrophy or.
[00:22:04] Accessories, barbell rows,
[00:22:05] Andrew Romeo: things like that. Exactly. Yeah. 100%. I mean, you're definitely dead on with that. We'll start out with a squat or a deadlift or a bench press, and then we move into the auxiliary movement and more so for our listeners that don't know what hypertrophy is, anything over eight reps, uh, or, I mean, so you're talking what a four to eight reps is, um, Mio fibrillary hypertrophy.
[00:22:26] And then eight to 12 reps are talking about sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. So if you guys don't know what I mean by that is four to eight is get stronger. Eight to 12 is get bigger. And then above 12, you're talking more about muscular endurance. Yeah. So right around that timeframe, you're switching over to RA strength in somewhere in your brain.
[00:22:43] It's making the connection of, I think I might like
[00:22:46] Philip Pape: this more. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah. Cause, uh, co COVID, I mean really did a lot for me in our car because everything shut down. We started working from home. All of a sudden I had all this extra times, I said, well, why don't I just work out five days a week now?
[00:23:01] Right. And then you offered custom individualized programming to all your members. That was,
[00:23:06] Andrew Romeo: yeah. As soon as we kicked off COVID. What do we do? How do we keep people engaged? If I give you equipment and give you a program, will you do it? You will. Great. Let's do that then.
[00:23:15] Philip Pape: And what do you have? Right. Like I said, okay, I've got some fifties, some 25 Dumbo, no barbell, you know, maybe a ball or a limited.
[00:23:24] Andrew Romeo: Let's make it work, man. Let's make it work. And I've, as I've watched you, it seems like you're very similar to me in this, regardless. You've just slowly started collecting equipment and finding deals for equipment. I'm like, dude, I, if anybody is a fitness equipment junkie, it's me like, and I've had to pull like reel myself in recently because shit's gotten so expensive out there, but I am the same.
[00:23:46] Pick
[00:23:46] Philip Pape: this up. Well, rogue has her boneyard sale right now
[00:23:51] Andrew Romeo: because I just saw an email from them or they're like, just so people know for our black Friday stuff. Like the price of steel has gone up 300%. Nevermind. The price of cardboard. Nevermind. The price of tape. Nevermind the price of stickers. So take that into consideration when you're purchasing equipment, nothing.
[00:24:09] Philip Pape: Yeah. So I, I didn't have any equipment at the time. Right. And so you programmed for me, something like a moderate strength program with what I did have with. Yep. And here's the thing like when you're newbie, right? The newbie gains are still there on the table. I got to take advantage of that because my tonnage of volume went up, even though my load went down.
[00:24:28] Gotcha. Right. And I think, and then I also went on kind of a unintentional cut, you know, I just wasn't eating that much,
[00:24:35] Andrew Romeo: not eating that much. And you're lifting five days a week. So your caloric expenditure just went
[00:24:38] Philip Pape: through the roof, metallic metabolisms, going up with the muscle mass. Right. My activity is going up my energy inputs coming down.
[00:24:46] Um, You started to see it physically. I started to see the physical transformation, which was very motivating because my whole life, I thought, ah, my genes, you know, there's no way you can look like this or that. And it's not all about looks, but for a lot of dudes, it is somewhat about looks right.
[00:25:01] Andrew Romeo: And even if it's not about looks when you circuiting results in that category, as you said, it's very motivating.
[00:25:07] It's motive. You're like, wow, that, that traffic is starting to pop out a little bit more. Oh, my shoulder. No matter what anybody says, you're going to enjoy the, that aspect
[00:25:17] Philip Pape: of it. Exactly. And it feels great. You know, you feel lighter, you feel stronger. So it started to get me into. A little bit, I won't say an obsession, but a hobby of learning about strength.
[00:25:28] Right. And so I started to read a lot more and listen to a lot more, you know, starting strength and bigger leaner, stronger. And, you know, you've got the power athlete guys and, uh, RA and all the, the old timers. What's his name, Marty Gallagher and the power I can just listen on and on. And those are great
[00:25:44] Andrew Romeo: resources.
[00:25:45] And I mean, Phillip and I will talk about the podcast that he's going to be launching soon and what he's starting to do with that. But the resources that you're citing are all solid and quality resources, which I'm super happy that you found compared to finding people. Aren't going to lead you down a bad, bad path that you're like this, this doesn't look.
[00:26:05] Yeah.
[00:26:05] Philip Pape: Like the men's health guys or the supplement folks and whatnot. Yeah. Um, so once, once I did that, I started collecting equipment. As you mentioned, you know, I found, I found a bar about found some plates. Then I bought a power rack and it went on from there to the point where, okay, I've got everything I need.
[00:26:23] What do I do now? What do I really want to focus on? So I said, let me, let me strip everything away. I even said, you know, RA strength is great, but it's got a lot of stuff I don't even want to worry about at the moment. I just want to learn the lifts. I mean, big lists. We're looking
[00:26:37] Andrew Romeo: at primarily, you're looking at squat, dead bench and press and press.
[00:26:41] Okay. I love the overhead press. How many people do cause it moves. So. Uh, that's like the technician in you.
[00:26:49] Philip Pape: It's a very technical lift. People don't realize that. Right? Most people think the squad is the most technical, but the press is very technical and there are, I would say three styles of press. Right?
[00:26:58] You have the strict press. Everybody's familiar. But then you also have the Olympic press that went on a favor back and you get, you get hit. You get the,
[00:27:07] Andrew Romeo: if you had anybody has ever, if, so Steve Powell is listening to this. People used to refer to him as old Steve, and that's not an insult. And Steve knew we were calling him that at the same time, but he had the Olympic style press where he would like to go up Steve's Emma, would it be like your front squatting?
[00:27:20] He would come up and say, Pressure barbell, but you'd always look at it and be like, well, he's not push pressing, and almost looks like
[00:27:26] Philip Pape: the hip. And then it looks almost like a bench press lean
[00:27:29] Andrew Romeo: back and press it over
[00:27:30] Philip Pape: your head. Yep. And then, and then there's an intermediate form of that, or there's a combination of two where you can do the Olympic on the first rep and do strict with the stretch reflex on the subsequent reps.
[00:27:42] And.
[00:27:43] Andrew Romeo: I will say I dabble in a little of those, uh, those they're almost cheater reps, but it's how do you move a bigger weight? Well, if I let this bar even like, sometimes you take it out of the rack and you let it just drop like an inch or two and then boom, use that stretch reflex to drive it up. And you're like, well, I can press 10 more pounds doing it.
[00:27:58] Like, yeah.
[00:27:59] Philip Pape: Is there anything part of the range of motion that then gets the benefit from exactly that. Lion tricep extensions, full range back with your shoulders. Right. You can do a higher load. So part of the, yeah,
[00:28:11] Andrew Romeo: exactly. And then if you slip that tricep creep back or that four, or that you're to get your tricep creep back a little bit and then pull going, boom.
[00:28:17] And you're like, wow, that's all. And I mean, again, that comes back down to the training principle of overload. How do you overload a specific training? A body part? Well, sometimes giving a little body English. Isn't the worst thing in the world. Like the cheater curls, but that's fine because at the top of your curl, your.
[00:28:33] Philip Pape: Yep. Curling it. Yeah. So I basically those four, the big four. Also Paul's right. Cause I couldn't deadlift twice or three times a week. So I'd alternate with poles and chins and then some power cleans as well. Cool. For polling. Um, and I did kind of a variation of starting strength in some of Andy Baker's programming and some other things that I mixed in there, uh, like a novice linear progression.
[00:28:57] Andrew Romeo: Yup. I liked the fact that you mentioned a linear progression because typically. Uh, a lifter is considered a novice lifter until you've completed a linear progression and it doesn't have to be power athletes bedrock, or Jim Wendler is 5, 3, 1, or anybody else's, it can be one of your own creating, but if you don't know how much strength you can accumulate or what you're leaving on the table until you fully go through a linear progression where you're failing, and then you go back down and you reload it, you go through it and push it up again.
[00:29:28] And then you. Honestly, I've been veneer. Progressions are probably one of the hardest things I've ever done because with mine, I'd be squatting twice a week and you barely squeak through squatting session one. And you know, two days later you have to add more weight to the bar and try to do it again, force your body to adapt to it.
[00:29:43] Like linear progressions are hard.
[00:29:45] Philip Pape: Yeah, no, no. They're super hard. And each lift wants to go at its own rate of progress. Yep. And. You got to eat like yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually the shoulder press is the first install in my, my personal experience with
[00:29:58] Andrew Romeo: all shoulder presses. That's why I, that's why I said I was surprised at your favorite.
[00:30:02] Cause it's the most fickle fucking lift in the world where you're like, why doesn't this thing move.
[00:30:07] Philip Pape: Yeah. And, and one week to the next you could, all of a sudden lose 10% of Australia. Let's go.
[00:30:11] Andrew Romeo: What happened here? Teeny bit fatigue. All right, fine.
[00:30:14] Philip Pape: And do you remember, I don't know if you remember when I was doing, I was pressing like three or four times a week.
[00:30:19] I was doing like singles one day strict one day Olympic one day. And, and I've heard that that's what you need to do a lot of volume on the press for it to keep going up. So that works well for you. It worked at the time. Like if I wanted to get into it again and push, push the press up, that would work cool.
[00:30:34] Then. What's his name? Bill Starr had his athletes years ago doing weighted dips. He did a way to dip progression to where you were repping a hundred pounds hanging off of you. Dibs are awesome.
[00:30:48] Andrew Romeo: So bill SARS, big influencer, not so people think influencer and they think Instagram bill Starr was alive when there was no such thing as Instagram, um, by influencer, I mean, he had a big influence on these strength community.
[00:31:01] Um, there's even something called a star shrug, which is named after him for his shrug. I was aware of that. So it's more of like you at the bar slide down to the top of your knee. And then as you. Where you would normally shrug. You get a little bit more momentum and you can pop that shrug up. So you can go a little bit heavier rather than holding the shrug and just shrugging
[00:31:20] Philip Pape: kind of like a power shrug, putting pins.
[00:31:23] Andrew Romeo: You hold it, hold it the whole time. So he was a, um, more of than the Olympic side of things. And that's kind of where if you look at a clean or a snatch, that's where that's coming from and trying to get some hip momentum behind it. But, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't know where I was.
[00:31:38] Philip Pape: You're talking to that linear progression.
[00:31:40] Yeah. If you want to get strong, just, just strip away all the nonsense and all the accessories and all the bodybuilding stuff and just focus on heavy lifting and adding weight to the bar. Yup.
[00:31:51] Andrew Romeo: And in a consistent controlled pattern, it's very measurable. It's actually really satisfying. Yeah,
[00:31:58] Philip Pape: it's
[00:31:58] Andrew Romeo: active.
[00:32:00] And if you talk to any strength person, pretty much anywhere, they're going to be like, well, if you are you a novice athlete, are you an advanced athlete? And the way that you're going to differentiate between the two is have you completed any type of linear progression? Yes or no? So it sounds like the beginning of COVID you took that opportunity to focus on your big four to five lifts.
[00:32:17] You went through your linear progressions. So that's probably bringing you to like mid 2020.
[00:32:22] Philip Pape: That was, I didn't really start that til the fall ish of 2020. Got you. Okay. Yeah. So I started eating a lot. I mean, I gained 30 pounds in like four or five months. Just really fast for you. I know I'm fine with it.
[00:32:35] Like normally you'd call that almost a dirty bowl for some people you don't look like you put on any bad weight. Well, no, I didn't put on that's the thing. It's the first time I ever put on muscle at a decent clip. And then, uh, and then I maintain that for a long time. And then I'm about done with a cut.
[00:32:52] Okay. So I'm about done with the three month. Gotcha.
[00:32:55] Andrew Romeo: What if you don't mind sharing, what weight did you start at and what weight did you go to and where are you cutting to what's that look
[00:33:01] Philip Pape: like? Yeah. So I started in like the one sixties kind of not skinny fat. I mean, I had a little bit of muscle, but that was, you definitely had muscle on
[00:33:10] Andrew Romeo: you because you've been exercising.
[00:33:12] So at that point you've been exercising for eight years, as you said, inconsistently, but. You're leaner. Yeah. But you're like, you're not bigger. You don't have
[00:33:21] Philip Pape: a lot of exactly. So I went from that to 1 95. Wow. I was thinking of getting to 200, but, but it's true when you start, when you start getting up above where you normally sit there's impacts, right?
[00:33:34] Like it's hard, it's hard to eat. You don't feel as good. Even my blood didn't look your sweaty, like higher blood pressure and cholesterol. I mean, these things do start to creep up. They do, um, very strong correlation. So I was like, okay, this is it. So that's when I did my first real cut, that was last summer heading up to my brother's wedding.
[00:33:55] It was just coincidence, but it was a way on the beach side. It wouldn't be, you know, fat, Hey, we're going to
[00:34:00] Andrew Romeo: a beach and
[00:34:02] Philip Pape: I want to look good for this. Right. So, uh, that, that was, uh, that was kind of a random cut. I think I was trying to do keto or something at the time. I still wasn't dialing in my nutrition.
[00:34:11] Like I do today. And that worked out. And then I kind of maintain that, uh, for a while until then my back surgery. Right. So I was starting to get back into the end of my linear progression, moving into an intermediate four day split. So where
[00:34:27] Andrew Romeo: did you cut down to with the keto thing for the. 1 65. When, so you went for it, you started the one sixties, you went up to 1 95 and you went back down to,
[00:34:35] Philip Pape: okay.
[00:34:35] Yep. And then I kind of gradually got back up into the one eighties. Gotcha. And just hovered. Um, but I was working hard. I was training hard, so I still was building muscle, but I was more in a maintenance, so I don't know how anabolic it was. Who knows. Right. Um, then Baxter. Kind of interrupted and that was making good gains.
[00:34:55] You know, I was, I had just, and my deadlifts, like two weeks before, right here in the gym. So yeah, I had the back surgery then after about a month started to get back in. Then we went on a trip to Maine for 10 days. And I had appendicitis. I think
[00:35:11] Andrew Romeo: that you and I were communicating at this point about something on the digital side of things.
[00:35:15] And I think you were like, I just got back from vacation and I'm down and out for a while. Oh
[00:35:20] Philip Pape: man. Yeah, exactly. It was on, it was on the day back. So silver lining, we enjoyed our whole vacation. It was not till the day we came home. When St. Francis hospital, they had me sitting there all day. P three times had to give me painkillers.
[00:35:32] So it's like, man, you're just not a priority compared to these, you know, people losing their arms and whatnot over
[00:35:37] Andrew Romeo: here, your stomach hurts and your side hurts or whatever. You'll
[00:35:40] Philip Pape: be fine. You're good. Yeah. Yeah. More than pills. That's rough. So whatever, you know, I read, read books all day or whatever. I listen to podcasts.
[00:35:50] Find your straight radio who knows. And finally, they got me in at like 6:00 PM, took half an hour for the surgery. I mean, I was out completely cut you open and they do the appendectomy. And that was a lot faster recovery than back surgery. Absolutely. Maybe a week or two,
[00:36:05] Andrew Romeo: make sure that those stitches hold and when your blood pressure goes through the roof, you're not ripping anything or tearing it.
[00:36:10] Yeah.
[00:36:11] Philip Pape: So then I got back to me again and I said, you know, what, if I can't live heavy, why don't I lose weight? Sure. And go on a real cut. Okay. And I started to do it properly. So by properly, I mean, in my, for me, it's more of a flexible dieting. I track my calories, check my macros. Okay. Eat whatever. As long as it fits in
[00:36:30] there.
[00:36:31] Andrew Romeo: Absolutely. I mean, you'll hear it. Think there's so many different opinions on dieting and shit like that. And in my opinion, if that's what worked really well for. Awesome. That's an adherence. If you can adhere to it and you can achieve the goals that you want.
[00:36:46] Philip Pape: That's great. If you can eat keto for the rest of your life, go for it.
[00:36:49] Sure.
[00:36:50] Andrew Romeo: And I know with me, I can't do that. I can't, I mean, I, I work out, I lift weights five days a week and I can have a pretty open diet, but my primary, my state, my principals of my dieters, there has to be animal based protein throughout the course of the day, some solid carbohydrates throughout the course of the day.
[00:37:07] And then I filter in a bunch of junk, unfortunately, and that's probably why I have more fluff than I have on me than I need, because when you're lifting it like the middle of squats, I crushed one of the grand day home record burritos today for Moe's and it was awesome. And I had
[00:37:20] Philip Pape: enjoyed it. And if it fits overall in your plans, that's fine.
[00:37:24] Right? That's
[00:37:25] Andrew Romeo: fine. So on this final cut, where
[00:37:28] Philip Pape: did you come down to? All right. So I started at one 90 and I'm today at like one 60. And my goal was 1 65. Okay. I measure myself every week in terms of body fat. And I do that with calipers. I do it with the Navy tape measurement because I'm not going to go do Dex or bod pod or something that there's,
[00:37:48] Andrew Romeo: there's so much, as long as you're using the same thing consistently, that's all that matters.
[00:37:53] It's like consistency of the tool is what matters. It doesn't matter necessarily if it's the bod pod or a DEXA scan or. Uh, hydrostatic weighing or whatever, as long as it's the same tool every time. Cool.
[00:38:05] Philip Pape: And honestly, for most people, if you measure waste yes. You know, you drop inches on your way, so you probably dropped body fat.
[00:38:10] Yeah.
[00:38:10] Andrew Romeo: I've gone back to, and I know what April, April does tape tape measurements as well in terms of that is the least, um, variants. Right? As long as I'm the same person, as long as I measure the first time and I measured the same with a second. I'm going to have consistent, consistent, trackable results where there's no machine, there's nothing that comes in between what we're trying to get.
[00:38:31] Philip Pape: Exactly. Right. And you can measure both fat loss and muscle gain, right? Because you can measure your biceps in your thighs and your chest. And of course, I've seen those slightly dip because as you're leaning, I'm leaning down and again, for people listening, you know, when you really go farther into a cut because.
[00:38:49] I started around 18, 19% body fat and probably around 11, 12, maybe, I don't know, around 11 or 12. And that's what I'm gonna end up. Cause I don't want to go any further. You know, you start getting hungry, you start to, you know, you lose muscle mass first and then you lose strength is what I've found. And. My deadlifts going up, my squats about stalled, the benches stalled and the press going back.
[00:39:11] Gosh. And I'm like, I'm done. I need to start.
[00:39:14] Andrew Romeo: I was going to ask. So that was my next question, because I know myself personally, I have a specific number where if one of my body weight drops under it, I know it. I can feel it in my lifts. And I'm like, I'm too light. I know that I'm too. I don't know. Have you found that number yet where you're like, okay, I think this is
[00:39:27] Philip Pape: it.
[00:39:27] I think this is it like to go beyond this would be more of the obsessive. You're going to do a physique show or something. Sure.
[00:39:34] Andrew Romeo: And then you're doing it for the pure aesthetic aspect. You're
[00:39:37] Philip Pape: suffering on purpose and I don't need to do that. So now my goal is five pounds and five months of muscle. Wow. So to do that, I probably have to gain about 15 pounds in the next five months,
[00:39:50] Andrew Romeo: but it's good that you have that.
[00:39:52] Yeah, because a lot of people are like, so again like seven pounds and five, it will be muscle. No,
[00:39:57] Philip Pape: I think if you're new to. Like a third of it will be muscle.
[00:40:02] Andrew Romeo: And it's like for me to do that, like, it's real hard
[00:40:05] Philip Pape: now for you. It's probably like I have a training.
[00:40:08] Andrew Romeo: I have a training age of over 20 years at this point where like to change my, like, to put on five pounds in five months, I would be slamming steaks.
[00:40:16] Yeah, like steak three times a day and sleeping my face off
[00:40:19] Philip Pape: 300 grams of protein a
[00:40:21] Andrew Romeo: day. Yeah. That's awesome though, man, you have a plan, so you know what you're going to, so this next game you said you're going to get about 15 pounds. So it's going to put you back in the low one
[00:40:29] Philip Pape: eighties. Yeah, that sounds about right.
[00:40:31] Yeah. So about half a percent up to a half percent of. Of body weight gain. So like, if you, you got to plan all this out, like this is one of my big takeaways for sustainability, right? You have to track, you have to track it and know what your numbers are. If I know I want to gain a half percent of my body weight, I know exactly what I need to weigh on a seven day moving average week to week.
[00:40:52] And if I'm going higher or lower than that, adjust the calories. No.
[00:40:56] Andrew Romeo: This is the concept that you're talking about is really hard for a lot of people,
[00:41:03] Philip Pape: because it is hard, super
[00:41:05] Andrew Romeo: hard, and people don't understand the journey like, so I talked to people a lot about the journey that you need to go on. Like, if you want to make a body change, it's not something that you can do in six months, or you can, you can change.
[00:41:17] Don't get me wrong. You can lose a lot of weight quickly and you can keep weight off quickly, but the journey that Phillip's going on, it's a very similar journey that I went on. Takes a long time. Um, I went from somewhere around, one 70 up to, so my bulk brought me up to about 2 25. I gained about 55 pounds doing that.
[00:41:37] Um, and that was, I was eating a lot of five guys and they took me five, six years to do it. And then I would do what you're saying. And I pulled back down to one. And then I popped back up to two 20 and then I went back down to like 1 95. Then I popped back up to like two 20 again. And I've just yo-yo that.
[00:41:54] And that's not a yo-yo diet thing. I've done intentionally. These are all intentional mass gains and cuts and mass gains. And it's just slowly, every time you're just layering on a little bit of more muscle and a little bit more muscle. So you're just stacking that on and over the years and over your training age.
[00:42:10] You just find yourself, you get a little bit thicker and a little bit stronger and things just as long as you're consistent with it, move in the right direction,
[00:42:17] Philip Pape: stock Monterey up and down, up and down, but always up. It
[00:42:20] Andrew Romeo: always slowly works its way up magically. Um, and I, I admire the journey you're on.
[00:42:26] Cause it's not easy. It's not an easy journey. And to have the mental fortitude being like it's okay to get a little bit. Um, cause I'll pull it off eventually and then I'll put it back on and then I'll pull it back off because as you said, there's a plan and it's all trackable and you're going to do it in a way that makes sense to you.
[00:42:41] And if you like. Super hard thing, especially what I've found is people that come from being overweight and they've lost all that weight. And then I tell them, well, you need to put on some fat. They're like, I'm not doing that. And you're like, well, I can understand. You've worked really hard to get down into your body weight, but unfortunately you're going to need to put on some fat, if you're gonna put on muscle, it's just the.
[00:43:03] I guess I would say the only way that you can put on just straight muscles, if you play with drugs. Uh, and if you, if you play with drugs yeah. You can do it. And that's when you see people put on 20 pounds of just straight muscle and they're super vascular and they're purple. And you're like, well, what the fuck happened to that guy?
[00:43:20] He's probably playing with some drugs along. So that's kind of brought us to where we're currently at, right? This is what you're currently doing. And it seems like over the last decade, you've really developed a big passion for strength, training and fitness and trying to help people put them in the right, um, the right paths.
[00:43:37] Anything that I missed anything that we didn't talk about that I should
[00:43:40] Philip Pape: have taught. Uh, the only other thing I want to mention was how, how walking has kind of changed my life to really fill me in. And so when I broke my back, broke my back, when I hurt my back and had to recover, I had to walk, right. And I used to hate walking, found it boring.
[00:43:58] My wife loved walking and she had always drag me out to go on a walk and. When, when I recovered and started walking again, I eventually started building up where I, I was getting like 12,000 steps a day. And that's what I do every day now, effort,
[00:44:13] Andrew Romeo: especially because as you said, you're working from home.
[00:44:15] So treadmill, a treadmill
[00:44:17] Philip Pape: treadmill, and then walking outside. Cool. Cause I would say
[00:44:19] Andrew Romeo: if you were at an office, you could try to make a loop or find something, but I could see a lot of people falling into the trap of when they work at home, they walk from their bed to. Table or the refrigerator back to their class and their steps drastically decreased.
[00:44:33] Nevermind. Going the direction where you're seeing where they yeah. Right. It sounds like yours have drastically increased.
[00:44:40] Philip Pape: And I've found that because of that, I really don't need to do any other type of cardio. And I also, my resting heart rate has come down. So for my whole life, it was in the upper fifties.
[00:44:51] I mean, at least for the last 10 years or so. And it dropped to like 52. Wow. When I started walking, interesting cholesterol went down, you know, all these things improved. Um, and my metabolism has shot up beyond what I think it would have from lifting. And this is while I'm on a cut. So I'm just, it's just this epiphany.
[00:45:10] Is this all from the walking and there's no other variable. It seems to correlate. Have you read the book
[00:45:15] Andrew Romeo: comfort crisis? No. Okay. So there's a, there's a book out there. A lot of people have read it recently. It's called comfort crisis. And what it does, it talks about how we're more comfortable now than we've ever been in the history of humankind's right in the last a hundred years, our, our technological developments, our food, our.
[00:45:31] The ability to be comfortable has increased drastically, but they talk, he also breaks down part of it, how we are genetically designed to walk, um, and. Designed to be fast, right? If we're not out outrunning animals and he was making some analogy in the book or not knowledge comparison of, um, a kitten that's like 10 weeks old can run faster than us.
[00:45:52] Um, and there's more equipped to kill something than we are with our bare hands. Cause we don't have claws. Sharp sharp teeth and, um, all of these things, but what we're genetically designed to do is walk long distances and then carry loads over long distances. I E we're designed to walk down an animal until it dies and then process the animal and carry it back at that.
[00:46:16] Exactly. So we've been designed to walk and there's a lot of really big health benefits that come with walking, which we are discovering. And, and another part of it, what was really interesting, he was talking about the mental benefits that come from walking are exponential, but to receive them, you have to put your phone away where if you're walking and you're on your phone, checking your email, checking, whatever, which I find myself guilty of.
[00:46:40] Um, technical. A lot of times I try to listen to a book, um,
[00:46:44] Philip Pape: Is it okay to listen to something and still be looking at nature? You have to think
[00:46:51] Andrew Romeo: I do the same thing. Right? Um, it's so it's, it's really interesting. I literally just read this book where it really connects that all together of like, that's what we're designed to do.
[00:47:00] And going back to it, you're finding a lot of these really big benefits. Um, and I also know from a recovery side on the weightlifting side, walking shoes.
[00:47:07] Philip Pape: Oh, it's huge. No interference. Yeah. And even, even rucking, like I actually have a backpack and throw some weights in there and that'll, you know, step it up a little bit.
[00:47:16] And they actually
[00:47:16] Andrew Romeo: talk about, um, in that book, they talk about the guy that created the GORUCK challenge, where it came from, what he did, what he was designing to do with it, how he was designing and all of that fun stuff. So for any of our listeners, I actually really, really enjoyed the book. Um, comfort crisis, check it out.
[00:47:30] Uh, I have no ties to the book. I'm I get nothing from you buying this book, but I thought it was.
[00:47:36] Philip Pape: Amazon link in the show notes. I will drop that in there actually. So another book somewhat related, it's called burn. It came out earlier this year by Henry ponsor. He's like a very well-known researcher in, in the metabolism space.
[00:47:50] He's the one who came up with a constrained model of energy as opposed to the additive model. So we all, we all are familiar with the additive model where. The idea is the more activity you do, the more calories you burn indefinitely, the constraint model suggests that after a certain amount of activity, your body starts to adapt metabolic adaptation.
[00:48:10] And so the total calories level out plateau. Now a lot of people took this to mean, oh, so I shouldn't even do exercise, right. Because it's going to be one where I get to a certain point and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But. First part of the graph that does show an increase anyway. So you should still be exercising and walking does that, but he, he did all the studies with the Hadza tribe in Tanzania, where they did the double isotope water analysis.
[00:48:35] I think it's called when they can measure precisely calories in calories out. Interesting. And they can, and they found that HODs HODs are highly active, right? Westerner is not very active at all, but they have similar metabolisms because of this phenomenon. But the other cool thing was where do the HODs that get their activity walking.
[00:48:54] They pairing
[00:48:55] Andrew Romeo: water to carry they're
[00:48:56] Philip Pape: hunter gatherers.
[00:48:58] Andrew Romeo: So where we originally
[00:48:59] Philip Pape: came here, an animal and they walk all day and they walk up back and they get about 15,000 steps a day, 20,000. It's not a crazy
[00:49:06] Andrew Romeo: amount. And the big difference is they're doing it because their lives depend on it. We're doing it because we're like, man, I want to close this ring on my iWatch today.
[00:49:14] Like I better get out there so
[00:49:15] Philip Pape: true when I'm good today. Yeah. Okay. There you go. So you're close
[00:49:18] Andrew Romeo: to rings already. You're good to go. I think that's awesome, Phil, but I think that's a great place to leave it.
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Ep 6: Set Your Fitness and Nutrition Habits on Autopilot
We wrap up our foundational series by diving into some practical strategies, tools, and life hacks to set your fitness and nutrition habits on autopilot.
We wrap up our foundational series by diving into some practical strategies, tools, and life hacks to set your fitness and nutrition habits on autopilot.
If you’re at all familiar with the autopilot in an airplane—and as a side note, I used to fly small planes years ago and still work as an engineer in the aerospace industry—you know it’s a tool to eliminate constant manual intervention by the pilot.
In a similar way, we want to find ways to create consistency with our lifting and eating by using systems and tools to eliminate manual steps, barriers, and—frankly, excuses—that prevent us from taking action and developing solid habits.
Given that you have enough to think about between your profession, your family, and the million other things you enjoy, why not put in place some “life hacks” so you can just get to it and make progress! A word of warning—none of this relieves you of discipline and hard work—but a little preparation when you’re more motivated will set you up for long-term success, even when you’re not.
In today’s episode, we cover:
Establishing a plan for your lifting ritual
Locking in your programming calendar to make consistent progress
Removing the most common barriers that prevent you from going to the gym or working out
Establishing a plan for your diet and weight phases, and
Planning ahead for consistent meals and successful nutrition progress
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MacroFactor app for food logging and calculating expenditure (use code "WITSANDWEIGHTS" to extend free trial to 14 days)
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and lean with the strength training and sustainable diet. I am your host Philip Pape. And in each episode, we'll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry and a commitment to lifting heavy and eating right.
[00:00:29] Welcome to episode six of Wits & Weights. Today, we wrap up our foundational series by diving into some practical strategies, tools, and life hacks to set your. And nutrition habits on autopilot. If you're at all familiar with the autopilot in an airplane. And as a side note, I used to fly small planes years ago, and I still work as an engineer in the aerospace industry.
[00:00:56] You know, it's a tool to eliminate constant manual intervention by the. In a similar way. We want to find ways to create consistency with our lifting and eating, by using systems and tools to eliminate manual steps and barriers, and frankly, excuses that prevent us from taking action and developing solid habits.
[00:01:21] Given that you probably have enough to think about between your profession, your family, and the million other things you enjoy. Why not put in place some life hacks so you can just get to it and make progress. A word of warning, none of this relieves you of discipline and hard work, but a little preparation when you're more motivated will set you up for long-term success.
[00:01:44] Even when you're not in today's episode. Establishing a plan for your lifting ritual, locking in your programming calendar to make consistent progress, removing the most common barriers that prevent you from going to the gym or working out, establishing a plan for your diet and weight phases and planning ahead for consistent meals and successful nutrition products.
[00:02:13] Almost everything we talk about today involves planning ahead taking action when you feel the energy and motivation to do so, rather than acting in the moment, which is a surefire way of sabotaging your progress. Instead, we want to build the scaffolding of your new fitness and nutrition habits. So you can just focus on executing your plan in the moment without any excuses to fall back.
[00:02:40] Let's start with planning ahead with your lifting. The first thing I want to talk about is picking a gym that is convenient in terms of distance equipment and the type of policies they have. So if you pick a gym that's an hour away, it's going to be tough to feel that you can find the time to get there.
[00:03:00] So picking a gym that's closer is probably a good idea. However, it's got to have the right equipment, meaning at a minimum. Iraq rack and some barbells, but even better yet. Some of the other equipment you might need for the other movements as you plan out your programming. And then it has to have good policies that are friendly to lifters like us.
[00:03:22] For example, they don't let you deadlift. That's going to be a non-starter. So picking a gym that meets all of these criteria is going to reduce the excuses for going to the gym. Now here's a bonus. If you can start building your home gym earlier than later, and do it in a way where you can do at least one workout each week from.
[00:03:45] Then that's one less barrier to worry about in terms of working out. And then as you acquire and collect more equipment and you will do that as you get into this and find out how much fun it is, then eventually you can do more workouts per week and perhaps all of your workouts at home. And this just eliminates the excuse of needing to leave the house and drive to the.
[00:04:07] The next thing is to pick a training program that works with your schedule. If you are extremely busy and it's very hard to find more than say two or three days a week to work out, you don't want to pick a six day. Program. And in fact, if you go back and listen to, I think it's episode two, where we talk about choosing a strength training program that is inadvisable anyway for a new lifter, ideally you would pick something like a three-day per week, full body program.
[00:04:39] If you're a beginner or even intermediate, and then later you can progress to say a four day split or even a five day program. I currently work out five days a week. So from day one, picking a program that works with your schedule will eliminate excuses from doing that program. You could even, let's say you have only two days a week.
[00:05:00] You can take a three-day per week program and just stretch it. The next little tip I have is to pre schedule your lifting sessions. And you can do this with appointments, whether it's in a, an appointment book or your smartphone or on your computer or work calendar or reminders, whatever works for you.
[00:05:20] The point is, look ahead. And actually block that time out. That that means you have, it's like going to a doctor appointment or going to an important meeting. It's just going to happen. You are committed. It's in your schedule. And the next thing related to planning ahead for your lifting is deciding on the best time that works for you.
[00:05:42] Again, to minimize excuses. If you are a morning person, you love to get up early and start being productive, then go ahead and do your workout. First thing it gets you energized helps you continue with your day. You've got it out of the way. That's what I do. I've been doing that for years. I couldn't do it any other way.
[00:06:01] Now. Other people. I want to sleep in, or they couldn't imagine training in the morning, whether due to energy or motivation or whatever else. So they might work out at lunch and this is convenient if you're working out from home or if you're working from home and you can squeeze it in between meetings or working out in the evening.
[00:06:22] And that could be right after work or it could be after dinner or even later in the evening before. And some people might have more energy at this time and it see it as a good way to cap off your day. It's a reward. It feels good. Helps you sleep. Whatever reason motivates you choose the best time of the day.
[00:06:39] Right now, as you get started with your training, that will help you commit, help you enjoy it and helping you remain. Next, let's talk about planning ahead with your programming. So we talked about lifting in terms of the facility, time of day, things like that. Now let's talk about the programming itself, and this is really critical because most people just go to the gym and they just go to exercise and build up a sweat and fill in the time.
[00:07:08] We're not doing that. Here we are. So we have to plan for our training in a methodical way, but we can do it to significantly reduce the amount of thinking and work we have to do when the time comes to actually lift. So let's start from the. We need to look out at our upcoming cycle. What do you call that?
[00:07:28] A cycle? A mesocycle macrocycle whatever makes sense. It could be four weeks. It could be eight, could be 12 weeks. I like to do 12 weeks, but if you're just getting started and it's fairly consistent, repetitive type programming, like an AB AB or ABC type program, you don't need to look too far out and what you want to.
[00:07:49] Identify is exactly what your progression is. Meaning. And am I doing a linear progression where I'm going to increase weight on the bar for all the main lifts? Am I doing a 8 5, 2 or 5, 3, 1 type progression? Am I doing double progression? Whatever your progression is and your programming, and it gets more advanced.
[00:08:08] The more advanced you are as. But you can plan out the next four weeks and say, okay, I'm doing squats on Monday and I'm going to go up five pounds a week or 10 pounds, whatever it is or I'm doing, I'm doing bench press on Thursdays, and I'm going to cycle through eight reps, five reps, two reps, and then I'm going to repeat eight reps, five reps, two reps.
[00:08:31] Then you want to choose which weeks and days you're performing those workouts, the actual. Days in this cycle, given this calendar and time of year, look at your vacation, special events appointments, and basically eliminate all your excuses. If you know, you're going to have a big event in the morning on a day that you would do a heavy workout in the morning.
[00:08:58] Well, the you're probably not gonna be able to do that workout on that day. So can you do it later in the day, or can you shift your work? Your workouts by one day that week, plan it ahead so that you've got it booked in your calendar. And you know, when you're going to do it, there's no excuses. And you can track all of this in a spreadsheet, in a notebook in your app, whatever is your favorite medium for doing this.
[00:09:22] Okay. Then we bring it down a level and we want to plan ahead for the upcoming. So you've got your, your next four to 12 weeks mapped out at a high level. Now we say it's Sunday, for example. And we're going to look at the upcoming week, which days of the week am I working out based on what I planned earlier.
[00:09:44] Am I doing Monday, Wednesday, Friday? Am I doing Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Are there any special times this week because of what's going on and based on that, now you can preplan. All of your lifts sets, reps and loads because you know what you lifted last week, and now you can plan out this week at that greater level of detail and do it all in one day.
[00:10:06] It's like meal planning, just get it all done, take the effort, plan it out. And then when the time comes, you just have to execute. Look at the week as a whole, and then move things around if needed. If you find that Thursday's workout just can not be as long as it normally is. Maybe you move something to Saturday or you eliminate a movement.
[00:10:28] And then finally, we get down to the one day, look ahead. We're looking at tomorrow. So let's say it's Tuesday and we are looking ahead to our Wednesday workout. Go ahead. And pre-fill. Your notebook or your app with the exact lifts sets, reps and loads. If you're using an app, for example, you can enter the movements in, you can put in your reps and loads and all you have to do then in the gym is check it off.
[00:10:56] As you execute, add any specific cues or notes, if. If you're doing a particular movement and want to remind yourself to use a particular form or queue, go ahead and put that in now for the next day. And then again, all you do the next day is execute. Now, let's talk about the logistics of going to the gym of doing your workout and all the excuses we make for ourselves to just hit the snooze button and sleep in or whatever other excuse not to go to the gym.
[00:11:27] And the first thing we'll talk about is preparing a go-bag. Now, you've got your programming all set up, you know what you're going to do the next day. You've already entered it in your notebook or your app. So you're already somewhat committed, but now you can select the exact equipment you're going to need for the gym.
[00:11:44] Some examples might be your lifting belt, your lifting shoes, a chalk bag, or liquid chalk lifting straps. Wrist straps. These are just some examples. I might bring a neck pad if I'm doing, I don't know, calf raises with a barbell in the gym. Cause I don't want to use somebody. Else's use neck pad. I might have to pack my three in one soap and clothes.
[00:12:10] If I'm going to shower and change, if I'm headed out to work. Now we're talking about preparing your bag the day before at a time, when you feel motivated, you have energy. You're getting things ready? You have no problem doing this. There's no pressure to actually go to the gym at that time. Go ahead and prepare this bag.
[00:12:29] You could also remove your jewelry. Like if you have a wedding ring and you want to zip it up securely, or your personal items, like your wallet or keys, all that stuff, get it ready. And then place the bag right near the door where you're going to leave. That is one less excuse for the next day. Not only that I know I've, I've been in situations where I wake up think, do I really have to go to the gym?
[00:12:50] And then I realized, you know, it's gonna be a lot of work. Unpack the bag I just packed up and I'm going to not feel so great about myself. If I do that site might as well just. The next thing for preparing for the gym is to prepare your clothes, lay it out, lay out your shirt, your pants, socks, shoes, pick them all out ahead of time.
[00:13:11] Lay them out in advance. I work out really early, so it's dark. And if I had to find all that stuff, well, my wife is sleeping. That would be a problem. That would be one more. Excuse me, hunting around my flashlight, realizing something's not clean. Can't find my socks. You get the idea, prepare entertainment.
[00:13:29] If you need to download the latest episodes of your favorite podcast to enjoy during your drive or at the gym. And then if you're working out from home, instead of going to the gym, some of the previous steps may not apply, but most of them do you still want to prepare all that stuff, even in your home gym, go ahead and prepare the equipment in your gym.
[00:13:50] Move. J hooks and your pins or spotter arms on the rack for your first lift of the next day, a ranger bench and your barbell, wherever you need it prepare any special equipment, your easy curl bar, your calf block, your cable attachment, whatever it might be. And that will save you time in getting started and potentially between exercises.
[00:14:14] All right. So we've talked about preparing for lifting your programming and going to the gym. We are knocking down excuses one by one. We're being disciplined. We're setting ourselves up for really good habits here. Next let's move to the food side of the equation. Let's talk about preparing your workout nutrition.
[00:14:33] Now this may be going to the gym or at home, but it's just one more thing you can do ahead of. For example, if you use blender bottles, the shake bottles for protein shakes, I like to have four or five of them in the kitchen available so that if I've used one or two yesterday and haven't washed them yet, for example, I've still have new ones available.
[00:14:56] Again, one less excuse to think about having plenty of bottles, plenty of vessels for your powders and whatever you need. Also grab or prepare. Pre-workout pre and post-workout nutrition as best you can. For example, if you eat a banana, like I do, or something that you can hold like that it doesn't have to be refrigerated, get it ready and put it on the counter.
[00:15:19] You could also preload your protein powder, your creatine, your pre and post-workout drinks. Put them all in either the shakers or in little containers. So that they're all organized, ready to go. So when you need him and he's just, boom, boom, boom. Pull them out. Go ahead and place all of that on the most convenient counter.
[00:15:40] So it takes just a few minutes to prepare before you leave for the gym or before you work out at home. Again, we're trying to eliminate excuses, do this all before the day before when you've got the energy or gone around doing things around the house, get it right. And then the next day it's all set up.
[00:15:57] All right. We're going to shift the discussion a little bit now and talk about nutrition. We'll start with. Goals for your weight change. That is whether you're trying to gain weight, lose weight, or maintain. You should refer back to the last episode, episode five, which is all about going on a diet without being on a diet.
[00:16:20] And it talks about estimating your maintenance calories and setting a reasonable weight loss or weight gain. We talked about adjusting that each week. So what we're talking about today is, okay, you've got that information. Now you use those inputs, your maintenance calories, and your goal, your change goal to plan your calories and macros for the upcoming week.
[00:16:45] So again, we're saying Sunday, isn't. You want to plan it out? Are you going to increase your calories by 50 a day? Are you reducing them by a hundred a day? You've had a certain target this week and the next week it'll be something else, but you want to know what it is now. I'm going to plug macro factor again because that's the app that I use to do this pretty much automatically.
[00:17:07] I get up in the morning on Monday, the app checks in and says, we're going to increase your calories by 25 calories a day based on. T D E right, your total daily energy expenditure over the past few weeks, as well as your food intake. And that takes about five seconds, which is why I like to use that. So if you want to download macro factor, check out the show notes for how to do it.
[00:17:30] And now that you know how many calories you're shooting for in your macros, you can plan your meals for the week and, or work around special occasions. Or high calorie days, if you know, Thanksgiving is this week or there's a birthday party, or you want to go out with your friends and there's a big social event.
[00:17:48] Plan for it. It's it's Sunday, the events on Friday, you know, you're going to consume an extra, say 1500 or 2000 calories that day. Now you can plan for it for the week and know that you're going to stay on track going into the subsequent weeks. You can also take this further and look ahead to the next 12 months and even plan.
[00:18:11] Cuts and bulks to coincide with the seasons or special events and make it easier to stick with during those times. Again, things like holidays where you want to bulk during the holidays, because that's when you want to enjoy eating a lot more. Or if you want to cut for a bigger. So even if your plan right now is to say, lose 20 pounds and you do doing it at a reasonable rate of say a pound and a half per week, and you know, how many weeks it's going to take.
[00:18:40] Well then great look ahead toward when you will hit that goal and decide what will be my next goal and sort of plan out three months, maybe six or even 12 months to, to deal with the ups and downs or maintenance that coincide with the seasons or the. That's from the numbers side. Now we want to talk about planning ahead for your actual meals, the food you will be eating, and I'm not one of these obsessive.
[00:19:07] Meal preppers. And I admire people who are people who can basically, they can prepare all their meals for the week and store them all individually in Tupperware. And then they just pull every single one out when the, that takes quite a level of planning and discipline. And it may be to such an extent that you would not stick to your plan if you had to do that.
[00:19:29] But if that sounds awesome. If you're like an organizational guru and love doing that, by all means do it. I'm just going to share with you my experience. So the first thing I like to do is buy food in bulk. That's a simple thing that most of us understand many of us already do this, but this might look like choosing one meat of the.
[00:19:50] For your protein for lunch. Okay. Now I work from home currently. And so I can go ahead and easily pull that out of the microwave, but even if you go to work, you can pack it up. And this might enable you to cook one or two big recipes, say on Sunday and then just portion it out and heat it up when you need them during the week.
[00:20:11] And this, this could be fairly. So you would save the recipe probably in your nutrition app. So if you're using macro factor, you can just enter each bulk amount of food. The total grams of total macros, put them all in as a recipe. And then when you measure it out individually later, the combined recipe it'll automatically enter.
[00:20:35] Calories and macros for that portion. Pretty simple. So here are some ideas. For example, you can buy five pounds of ground beef and then cook it up with some rice, some Jasmine or basmati rice, throwing some taco seasoning. And now you've got a pretty rich, uh, modestly high fat, high protein, lot of carbs.
[00:20:58] Good lunch that you can. Or you can get a 10 pound pork roast and do pulled pork in the oven that allows you all week. You can get a Turkey, you know, do it Thanksgiving style, get a 15 pound Turkey, carve it up. And now you got 6, 7, 8 pounds of meat. Or I like chicken thighs. I love chicken thighs. So I might get a dozen chicken thighs, bake them all at once with some sort of very light seasoning or sauce on it.
[00:21:22] And then they're versatile. I can just eat them straight. Heat them up for lunch, where I can chop them up and mix with a salad or eat them with my carb or veggie of choice during the week. And again, you can go more extreme and, and make individual meals and split them all out if you want, but you don't have to do it that way.
[00:21:40] Just make things easier so that during the week you can quickly grab something. That's not junk food, that's not processed food necessarily, but it's something you enjoy. And you've already prepared it and you don't have to do this for every meal. I'm suggesting start with lunches. Dinners might be a little bit more of an involved affair depending on you and your family, but a similar thing can apply when you make dinners make a lot more than you normally would.
[00:22:06] So you have plenty of leftovers. Here's another tip related to meal planning. A lot of people don't do this, but you can pre enter food in your nutrition app to quote unquote, reserve those calories or macros. And. For example, if I want to have my casein pudding at the end of the night, I know it sounds kind of gross, but it's basically just casing.
[00:22:29] Vanilla flavored caisson powder mixed with some Oland milk. And it's probably 200 calories with maybe 40 grams of protein. It's slow digesting, so I can have it at the end of the evening, you know, watch some Netflix or something and relax right before I go to bed. Get the protein bolus in there. So that I can have protein synthesis going on for the next few hours.
[00:22:51] These are those advanced timing strategies don't necessarily have to worry about at this point, but it's fun to do. And I will enter that into my app. I might do it at 10 in the morning, but I'll enter it for eight or nine. And now I've reserved those 210 calories. So as the day goes on and I see the calories left, that's already accounted for, and you can do this for anything.
[00:23:13] If you know, you're going to have a huge party meal with family, it's going to be 2,500 calories. You're going to have Thanksgiving, whatever, reserve them ahead of time. Just to give you the signal that maybe you can take it easy the rest of the day and stay on track. All right next. I just want to talk about some of the technology that can help with some of the tips that we've discussed.
[00:23:38] And we'll start with apps, smartphone apps. There's really only one that I strongly recommend, and that is macro factor, which we talked about already for nutrition, because it's a food logger combined with an energy expenditure estimator, and. Adherents neutral. It does not penalize you for going over or under your calories.
[00:23:59] It simply tells you the data gives you the plan and then it adjusts based on what you do. Check that out in the show notes, as far as lifting goes, a lot of folks just love a plain notebook notebooks, great whiteboard if you work out from home. But if you'd like to use technology, there are plenty of apps out there like stacked, which I think is from Legion athletics.
[00:24:21] Mike Matthews strong is popular with a lot of folks. I use train heroic because I'm associated with a gym that has a coach that I work with sometimes, but also. In a program on train heroic, you can create your own sessions. And I have several years of history in the app. And the reason I like apps for this purpose is you can easily track all of your maxes, your one, RM three, RM, five RM, et cetera.
[00:24:50] You can see what you did last time. You know, there's a lot of. Ways to help the next time you have to go to the gym, which again, I like things that make it easier for me because it reduces excuses. Then there's the health integration, whether you have an iPhone or an Android device, there's apple health and there's Google.
[00:25:11] And they both are the defacto standards on those platforms that can link to most other. So, if you're using a nutrition app, like macro factor, you can then link it to apple health to pulling your weight. And eventually it might pull in fitness data, which really isn't that important from a calorie perspective.
[00:25:30] But because I use a smart scale, the smart sale can connect to apple health, apple health connects to macro factor. It's all Daisy chain again, making it super easy where I don't have to manually enter. I even have a blood pressure cuff that does the same thing. And you can link these to fitness wearables.
[00:25:49] When you have the apple watch Fitbit or whatever. Another way you can use technology is reminders set up reminders on your smartphone. A couple of examples would be a daily reminder to weigh yourself. I know it seems simple and eventually it'll just become. But if you get up at six, am you set the reminder for, you know, 5:45 AM?
[00:26:08] So when you wake up, you see it there. Oh, I got to weigh myself. Just don't want to forget first thing in the morning or a weekly reminder to take body measures. I strongly encourage measuring your waist, your arms, your chest, your thighs, or even your body fat with calipers or the Navy measurement using a tape measure of your neck and abdomen.
[00:26:32] But a weekly reminder, let's say Sunday. That says, make sure to take measurements and even photos of you want to take body photos. And I have one final bonus tip when it comes to setting your fitness and nutrition on autopilot. And that is to join a like-minded community, either up the place you work out, it could be at your.
[00:26:58] Or it can be online, a place to share ideas, videos, get form checks, keep each other accountable. You can yourself contribute to these communities as you learn and help others, which is extremely rewarding. And then you can continue to learn yourself and stay on top of things as they evolve, as they change over time.
[00:27:19] As we learn new information in this. Exciting, but sometimes confusing and complicated world of fitness and nutrition and one such group would be our wits and weights listener community Facebook group, which you can find in the show now. Okay. I think we've covered everything I wanted to get to. And I hope you find these ideas helpful and practical.
[00:27:42] You don't have to do them all at once. Just start with your biggest sticking points, figure out where you tend to struggle and the things that tend to hold you back from turning these actions into habits, and then just experiment with automating things, using technology, planning ahead, removing barriers to progress using some of that.
[00:28:05] We've talked about. I'd also love to hear your ideas for strategies or tools you've used to put your fitness and nutrition on autopilot. Just drop me a line by email or on Instagram at Whitson weights or on Facebook. This concludes our foundational series two. The wits and waits podcasts, but I think the fun has just begun.
[00:28:28] Stay tuned for exciting topics related to resistance, training, diet, programming, even mindset, and lots more to come in upcoming episodes.
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