Wits & Weights Podcast

All Episodes

Philip Pape 11/15/22 Philip Pape 11/15/22

Ep 32: Fix Your Nutrition for a Healthy, Balance Lifestyle with Tyla Serro

One of my superstar clients, Tyla Serro, was my first interview guest (back in Episode 17), before we started working together on her nutrition plan, and she even planted the idea of me becoming a nutrition coach. Tyla is a powerlifter, mom of a toddler, military spouse, and working professional. She keeps herself busy lifting heavy weights, volunteering with Protectors of Animals, all this while working full time as a busy professional.

Tyla Serro joined us live in the Wits & Weights Facebook Group to share her journey. She was my first interview guest (back in Episode 17), before we started working together on her nutrition plan, and she even planted the idea of me becoming a nutrition coach.

Tyla Serro is a powerlifter, mom of a toddler, military spouse, and working professional. She keeps herself busy lifting heavy weights, volunteering with Protectors of Animals, all this while working full time as a Configuration Manager in the Aerospace Industry.

Tyla recently acquired the title of Connecticut State Referee for the United States Powerlifting Association and will be judging an upcoming powerlifting meet in November. She’s passionate about raising awareness of Primary Lymphedema, a rare disease that her son was born with.

When she's not doing all of these things, she enjoys the outdoors with her family and truly believes that an active lifestyle is one of the many hacks to living your best life.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Tyla's background with lifting and nutrition
Her fitness and nutrition goals over the last year
Experience with dieting
The process we went through for her fat loss phase
Who and why someone should track macros
Tyla's proudest moment on this journey
Education and awareness that comes from working with a coach
Planning ahead and enjoying social events and dining out
Tyla's increased confidence in her ability to sustain results
The importance of strength training
Her thoughts about the upcoming muscle-building phase
Where someone should start when it comes to health and fitness

RELATED LINKS

Find Tyla on Instagram
Protectors of Animals, a non-profit, primarily volunteer, no-kill organization whose mission is to increase the quality of life of all dogs and cats in the communities they serve.
Watch the episode on video here

🎙️ 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

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, where we discuss getting strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable nutrition. I'm your host, Philip Pape. And in each episode, we examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent nutrition and training for sustainable results.

Philip Pape 00:30

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights, and we are streaming live in the Wits & Weights Facebook group and we just renamed it recently. To that so it's easier to find. You can join the group absolutely free, you get access to tons of free information guides, training and interviews like this one, which is an early preview to what will become a podcast episode, and tons more related to strength and nutrition. You can find the link in the show notes. I'm your host, Philip pape, I'm the founder of Wits & Weights, nutrition coaching. And real quick one of the best ways to support the show is to submit a five star rating and review for the podcast with Apple or Spotify. Or just share this episode, you could take a screenshot, throw it on social media, tag me at Wits & Weights. Okay, I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while because one of my superstar clients Tyler zero is joining me today to share her journey. She was actually my first interview guests way back in episode 17. Before we started working together on her nutrition plan, and she even planted the idea of me becoming a nutrition coach. So I'm very grateful for that. I've always admired her, I'll say tireless positive energy, she has a passion for everything she does, whether it's fitness, or any other causes she's involved in, and her commitment to the process, despite challenges thrown her way. So let me tell you guys a little bit about Tyler ciros. Tyler is a powerlifter. She's a mom of a toddler, she's a military spouse, and she's a working professional. She keeps herself busy lifting heavy weights, she volunteers with protectors of animals. And she does all this while working full time as a configuration manager in the aerospace industry. Tyler recently acquired the title of Connecticut State referee for the United States powerlifting Association, the US PA and she is going to be judging an upcoming powerlifting meet next month. So we're recording this on October and the meat is in November. And maybe we'll put a link up to that when it's when it's out. She's passionate about raising awareness of primary lymphedema, a rare disease that her son was born with. And when she's not doing all of these things, she enjoys the outdoors of their family. And she totally believes in an active lifestyle is one of the many hacks to living your best life. So Tyler, I'm stoked to have you on the show to share your story, the ups and downs all the success you've had this year, I think your true inspiration and thank you for coming on. Thanks, so. So last time you were on the show, we talked about your powerlifting journey. And what we did, and we talked. So listen to that episode 17, guys, and today I want to dive into nutrition with you. So let's just start earlier this year, what I remember is you've been listening to the podcast, it was maybe 10 episodes. And at that point, you reached out to me to give me some feedback. And then we started to go back and forth from there. And that eventually led to your interview on the show, becoming a coaching client and so on. So walk us through what was going through your mind when you first reached out to me and then we'll go from there. So, um, do you mean when I think you reached out to me first, right? And you asked I think the first said was, hey, do you want to be on the podcast and talk about powerlifting. And so I was really excited. I thought that'd be really fun. So I quickly binged all of the episodes of Wits & Weights, so that way I would. Well, one I had agreed to being on the show before I had listened to any episodes. And in hindsight, you know, you probably should feel out the whatever it is that you're agreeing to do, right? Because I had no idea of what message or messages you were putting out there. So I quickly listened to I think all the episodes in a couple of days. And I was really impressed with everything that you had to say. You definitely took an approach that I agreed with. Everything made a lot of sense. Sorry, Hang on one second. My cat is trying to eat my dinner.

Tyla Serro 04:34

You were you were saying a lot of good stuff. And I was like, Wow, this guy's really smart. And I had no idea I had followed you on Instagram and I knew you were lifting weights and doing things like that, but I didn't know that you knew so much about strength and conditioning, health in general. And I almost felt a little embarrassed myself for kind of like I've said this more recently to fill up that I consider myself a lazy athlete and

Tyla Serro 05:00

And that I don't know a lot of the reasons why I do the things that I do. Like I've always worked with a coach for my programming.

Tyla Serro 05:10

And I wasn't really sure why I did those specific specific movements. I just did them and I saw great results. So listening to Philips podcast inspired me to listen to more content like that. I mostly listened to like true crime podcasts, which is a completely different genre. So that kind of gave me a bug to listen to more content like that and become more interested in like, what is progressive overload? And how does all that work? And why is nutrition such a big, important part of all of all of that? So yeah, so yeah, you you invited me on the podcast, liked it thought it was great. I think after our interview, I probably was like, hey, Philip, you should be a coach, you're really good at talking and smart. Why would why wouldn't

Philip Pape 05:59

you do this? Yeah, it's funny. So I mean, I love everything you talked about with education and awareness, even though you've been at this for years. And thank you for correcting my memory of all of this, because I get things out of out of order. You're right, I had invited you onto the show. And then you listened to it, and then got back. Yeah, so thank you for for correcting me there live, which is great. And when we started working together, so yeah, you're right after the last interview, we were off camera off recording. And we had a little chat about nutrition and coaching. And that kind of planted the seed. But as you said, you already have the solid foundation of, of practice at least of strength, obviously, as a competitive powerlifter. You'd work with nutrition coaches. So maybe tell us a little bit more about your fitness and nutrition goals, maybe just over the last year as you're working on process.

Tyla Serro 06:51

So I was working with some other coaches right up until I made the switch to work with you, once you decided to, you know, take on the commitment of becoming a certified nutrition coach. And I have nothing but great things to say about my my previous coach, she did a really good job, I guess the onus was on me that I wasn't really good at adhering to the protocols that I was given. I know I when I first started working with them, I was in the beginning, I was very compliant adherence to the macros and I was able to meet the milestones or goals that I was setting. And then as time kind of went on, I just became less and less interested in tracking really. So we tried to switch the approach to intuitive eating, which was so funny, right? When I made that switch to intuitive eating, I was intuitive eating at the time, and I listened to one of your episodes where you talked about that. And you were like for people who are brand new to the tracking and nutrition and whatnot, it's really not a good idea. Because it's really hard, especially if you don't have any foundation of weighing food and knowing what an appropriate portion is based on the goals that you have, it can be really hard to just lose it what is a serving of protein that really depends right on how many grams of protein you need, in that one meal. So I did have a pretty good foundation I was pretty comfortable, I guess was what a balanced plate or meal looks like. So I did do intuitive eating for a couple of months, kind of as my exit with the previous coaches that I was working with. And at that point, I had gained a decent amount of weight I want to say around like 10 pounds in like a year's time. And that was kind of weird for me because normally my weight would fluctuate maybe like three to five pounds, but 10 seemed like kind of drastic. No I didn't I didn't really wasn't really comfortable with that number of like, my clothes are starting to feel really tight and uncomfortable. Like, what's going on? I gotta die on my nutrition. And so when I started working with you, I definitely knew that that was the goal. Now however, like I said, I've been strength training and working with coaches on nutrition and whatnot. But I've never done a true caloric deficit and actually stuck with it ever. So I'm super proud that I was able to do that with you. Yeah,

Philip Pape 09:22

yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. And I want to say you said you were you had tracked before you then went to intuitive eating, of course, we track and you put it really well you put it better than I can about, you know, somebody who isn't quite experienced using tracking to develop that skill before they go to intuitive eating. But if we go even before that, had you had you tried other like dieting in the past, you know, kind of what a lot of people try, whether it's paleo, whole 30, keto, vegetarian, anything like that. Have you tried those in the past?

Tyla Serro 09:54

I yeah, I mean, I think all of us who have been doing this for five plus 10 yours, you try it all right, like I can remember, in high school even thinking that like sugar was the enemy. So anything I would like read late, that's when I started to learn to read labels to probably in like a home economics class. And man, you know, you start reading labels and just certain things were bad. So anything that had added sugar, I would try to avoid that. But I would find that like, you restrict yourself so much, and then you end up binging it. So I remember I did something like that, where I basically cut out all added sugars, but at the end of the day, like a car was a carb, right. So that, of course, didn't work. And then in my first few years of college, I started doing CrossFit. And at the time, Paleo was super, super big with all the CrossFit people. Um, and I was like, oh, yeah, I can get behind that. Like, I love meat and potatoes, and yeah, no carbs. Um, so I did. I don't think that I ever did any of these diets truly. But I tried, right, I would call it a low carb diet didn't really know what I was doing didn't have a legitimate training plan was just going in the gym, finding random workout stuff, a bodybuilding.com and swinging weight at my college gym. But it worked, I guess. So I'd say I probably gave paleo the most effort, but it was also probably drinking way too much alcohol on the weekends and stuff like that. And I don't think that's part of the Paleo plan. I never tried keto. I did try the carnivore diet for maybe like two weeks. Oh, my goodness. Like, no,

Philip Pape 11:41

that's gotta be tough, right? Because you're cutting out all plants. I can't

Tyla Serro 11:45

remember. It was like orange juice, eggs. A lot of red meat. Yeah. Just really interesting stuff. I mean, hey, if it works for you keep doing it. But um,

Philip Pape 11:55

yeah. So and that's the question is, do these things even work for people? And when we say work, what do we mean? Do we mean work to lose 30 pounds? Or do we mean work for something you can live with for the rest of your life? Right.

Tyla Serro 12:06

And I think you put it really basic, like, you've said this before? Maybe you haven't said it specifically, but other people have like, it doesn't really I mean, it does, it does matter what you're eating, but you need to be in a calorie deficit in order to lose weight. It's as simple as that and how you choose to fuel yourself. Yeah, there's better options, maybe but uh, other than that, I think those were the few diets. I never tried, like whole 30. I never did any like, cleanses or all those like I would call typical. Like a lot of women will do like whole 30. Or, like, I feel like keto is pretty popular with women too. But like all the talk, I remember listening to an episode, I think of Joe Rogan. On the Keto, real, the real effect of it and like to get yourself into a true state of ketosis is pretty difficult to do. And I don't think he average, Dieter can get themselves there without the help of an experienced, probably coach. So none of those things worked for me. None of those things were sustainable.

Philip Pape 13:15

Yep. So they, so they didn't work. Yeah, no, they didn't work. And for a lot of people, they, you hear time, and again, they they tend to not work. That's why we have, I think something like 95% of people eventually regain all their weight, within five years, something like that. So we're trying to change that. And I want to wait to talk about what you've learned, even even since we started working together about the process that others can use, when it comes to your relationship with food. And where I'm going with this is, you mentioned energy balance is important, right for gaining and losing weight, calories in calories out. But we also know that it's not as easy, it's simple, but not as easy for people to actually do that, in practice, due to a bunch of other reasons have nothing to do with food, right. Like weekend's, you know, or social events. And maybe we can dive a little bit into that. The process we kind of go through to identify those triggers those obstacles and things that have nothing to do with food and and deal with those.

Tyla Serro 14:13

Yeah weekend's so I always tell people that there's a huge like, for me personally, food, there's an emotional connection that I have with food, I love food. I love sharing a meal with friends, family, even a stranger, I think I can sit down and drink some coffee and eat, you know, a croissant or whatever any delicious thing and I feel like there's some level of joy that that brings me and then also that like conversation as well and they just seem to go really well together. And I always tell people, I have like really good discipline, but I have terrible self control. So I'm disciplined in the sense that like, I typically don't like people come over my house and like you guys have no snacks. And I'm like, Well, you Yeah, like, what's the point of snacks like just put together a meal? In the snacks I do have I guess my friends don't approve of.

Philip Pape 15:07

Oh, yeah, they're thinking like bagged packaged foods right like chips and stuff

Tyla Serro 15:11

Cheez Its and pretzels and things like that. And like, cut off

Philip Pape 15:15

cucumbers of hummus they want

Tyla Serro 15:17

no or they don't. Because the oil separate. But, uh, yeah. So if, if so back to the discipline, self control thing, right? Like, I typically don't buy that stuff. I just buy stuff that I know I can eat in appropriately so that way, I'm not like binging it should control your environment. And right, yeah, but if I go out to like a social gathering, and there's a huge charcuterie board with a ton of cheese and jellies, and jams and crackers, myself, control is like really hard, because it's there, and it's in front of me. And I'm like, Well, I'm just going to eat it. And I tend to be like, the type of person and you've actually taught me like, if you go over your macros by like 100 200 calories, it's not a big deal. But don't just like say screw it. And like, I hope I can say that. Whatever, like, I'm just gonna, you know, binge always just go 1000 over your macros, which I personally kind of had that all or nothing mindset. And I'm still working on like, not being that person. Because it can be really detrimental to your goals and progress, right? Like, a couple, a couple 100 calories is maybe not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But when you're doing that on a weekly basis, every weekend, you're going over by a ton. It's just going to take you longer if you're if you're in a deficit, and you're trying to lose weight. So yeah,

Philip Pape 16:45

and let me just stop there, because you just hit on the, I think that's the heart of the vast majority of people, where the issue is, you just talked about a lack of self control. And so basically comes down to emotion. And in the moment, decision making, you're all of a sudden presented with all these options. You're like, what do I do? And then you make a decision. And you're like, Ah, I feel a little guilty, you know, that over my calories, but what the hell, let me just keep going. And, and especially if you throw alcohol in the mix, where you don't even realize what you're eating, or you throw appetizers at the Mexican restaurant or whatever, yeah, it adds up. And like you said, on a weekly basis, it can, it can sabotage your goals. But conversely, if you're over by 100, or 200, on a given day, on a weekly basis, it really isn't that big of a deal. Don't beat yourself up over it, you know, aim for perfection, but don't beat yourself up when you don't get there.

Tyla Serro 17:35

That's yeah, and you really helped me see that too, with like, I tend to be because of my personality. And I feel like I tend to be somewhat of a perfectionist. And if things aren't perfect, I'm like, well, it's ruined. Just forgetting, um, you want to help me? And during my, like, weekly check ins, see, like, the positive sides of things and be like, Yeah, I know, you. You like, like, I was focusing a lot in the beginning on my scale. Wait, I'm not to try and wait. Like, every day I was like, like getting excited to to weigh in. And it would fluctuate a little bit. But I'd be like, when it would fluctuate down some. And then it took me a cup, like maybe a month or two to really be like, Okay, I really need to be looking at the trend way here. Because I would mention that in my check in and be like, oh, you know, my skill weight fluctuated a little bit. And you're like, Yeah, but when you like, look out at the big picture, your trendway is so going down. And that's what we're trying to do here. So it's like, oh, okay, like adjusting my mindset in a way that I didn't even know I was capable. Doing really. So that's

Philip Pape 18:37

awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Man. That's another great point you made about a trendweight. Now that that's the term we use, because the app we use macro factor uses that term, just for the listener, the person watching all we're talking about as a moving average, right? If you did this on your own spreadsheet, it would be taking a moving average, or even if you weighed yourself once or twice a week, and just looked at it over time. But what Tyler is saying is that if you if you look at your, on any given day, you look at the scale, you could freak out because it could go up by three pounds. Or it could go down by three pounds. And over time. The trend is really what matters, right? So when So speaking of the the weight and the data and the tracking and the macros, you mentioned tracking macros, and you went to intuitive and then we I got you back to that. Yep. When did you start tracking those and why with you or, like ever? Yeah, just more of a general question for the listener. But I mean, like, do you think people should track macros? Why should they do it? You alluded to earlier right, as there's the education and awareness piece, but I mean, is there more to it than that?

Tyla Serro 19:45

So that's a really interesting question. Short answer is no, I don't think everybody should track macros. I think we're probably a very small minority in the world, right? Like the average person probably does not track macros. Um, and I think it goes. So there's so much to this with wellness and health and nutrition, and also mindset. And I think that a lot of people who maybe get into this space or they want to lose weight, there can be a huge emotional connection to that. And it may not come from like, the healthiest of places like if their their goal is primarily I just want to lose weight, I want to look better, like I hate the way I feel or look, I'm tracking macros, if you've never done it before, it could be a really hard thing to do. And the whole point i Well, I'm not a coach, but I would assume as like a coach, you want to help people you want to like create sustainable habits that will work for a lifetime? And is tracking macros, something that you can do for a lifetime? I mean, maybe you can, but I don't think that's really anybody's long term goal. And the average person to I don't know, I don't know if it will work super well for them. But I think you yourself have to really figure out like, Okay, well, what am I trying to do here? And I think you've taught me to see that, like, all this is just data, it's just data. And if you separate the emotion from it, and you're just seriously looked at as like data, because one thing to say to about the app that we use macro factor, with previous coaches and apps that I would use for tracking, I would not be truthful, I would often underestimate or not track things. And then when I would, you know, my coach would see, okay, this is what your weights doing. This is what you're telling me, this is what you logged. I don't know, you know what I mean? It's like I was doing myself a disservice by not being 100% honest. And what I really like about macro factor is like it is you see it live time that it is not in your best interest to not track what you eat. Because if you do that, it's going to think that your expenditure is less than what it actually is. So you should track everything. And if you're not going to track then just don't track for that day. But I mean, I get it depending on like your lifestyle and your your goals, it may not be for everyone, I will say that if you're serious about wanting to lose weight, or gain weight, or understand the data on how all of this stuff does work, it's definitely gonna probably be the easiest way to do to reach those goals. It works.

Philip Pape 22:31

Yep, I like, Yeah, I like how you put that it's the easiest way is, you know, something that seems complicated, or seems inconvenient, or seems like it'll take much time. Once you figure it out, it's a skill, right? Within days, you can start to figure out how to do it pretty quickly. It just takes a few minutes out of your day. Or what Tyler just said, what you just said was, if I interpret it is the structure itself creates the freedom kind of to get to your goals, because now we have information we have understanding. And you talked about expenditure. And just so we can clarify what we're talking about. That's, that's the metabolism. That's the calories you burn every day. If you know what you're eating, and you know what you weigh, you know how much you're burning every day. So your coach, if you if you're working with a coach, or yourself, you know, then okay, this is why I'm gaining or losing weight. There's always a factual reason behind it. And that doesn't mean there's not other things at play, like stress, sleep hormones, especially for women, especially, you know, perimenopause, there are a lot of factors. But you've got to, you've got to rule out all these variables one by one. So I like what you said about macros. My clients all use those. But if someone came to me and said, I really don't have a good relationship with macros, I don't want to do it. Is there another way, of course, there's always an alternative, it's going to be slightly less optimal and slightly less effective from a time perspective. But from an emotional perspective, it might be what the person needs, you know, like, using portions or just tracking protein or something like that. So that's a great point. Yeah.

Tyla Serro 24:08

One thing that I think is, you know, interesting, what was I gonna say? Ah, remember,

Philip Pape 24:14

I'm rambled on. Maybe it'll come back. Okay. Yeah, this, this is a stream of consciousness type deal. We go off on tangents, it's not good. Alright, so let's switch. Let's get some macros. Think about so far. What would you say is your most proud moment on this journey so far?

Tyla Serro 24:34

One actually, like, it's crazy. So it's October now. We started this in July. And there were definitely some hard days and weeks and feeling like and that's the whole thing too is if you're in a caloric deficit, you're eventually going to feel it. You're gonna have nights where like, I'm hungry right now. I need to just go to bed and tomorrow's a new day and maybe I'll make better or day Rent choices. I don't want to say better or worse because it's whatever, but make different choices when it comes to the volume of food that I'm consuming, so I feel a little bit more full tomorrow. So it was, it wasn't easy. It definitely wasn't easy to do it. It took a ton of like discipline and self control and saying no to certain circumstances. Not that I did that all the time. I did I will. I'm not going to sit here and say like, I didn't have any fun this summer I went out I enjoyed myself. I did limit the alcohol though. I would say in total, I maybe had five, five total drinks during this whole deficit. For me alcohols just not a big priority. It's not worth the additional calories. I'd rather have ice cream. So pick your rice, but you can't have it all. Or you shouldn't she's gonna take forever.

Philip Pape 25:51

But you could have some of it. So that's yeah, to the point here. You

Tyla Serro 25:53

absolutely you can you can have like you can't not. And I think that's the whole point, too. It's like, you can eat just about anything in a deficit. You just might be eating less. So

Philip Pape 26:08

you know, for me watching they're eating ice cream now.

Tyla Serro 26:11

For me, I got addicted to like, yeah, so bars, which they're just frozen Greek yogurt. I think they're they range in calories from like, 100 to maybe 150. For the, like chocolate covered ones. They're super, super macro friendly. So those are good ice cream alternative if you are in a deficit.

Philip Pape 26:34

We just started when we say macro friendly mean, high protein.

Tyla Serro 26:37

No, they're not. They're not. Okay, just, they're like 100 calories. So they're probably like 1518 grams of carbs and low fat and probably not much protein. I'm not somebody who ever has an issue with hitting my protein. That's true. I'm always over. Um,

Philip Pape 26:55

which is fine. You can never be too far over the protein is fine. Yeah,

Tyla Serro 26:58

protein can be hard for somebody who's who's not ever tracked it right? Because like, you know, when you think of the average, what does the average person ate for breakfast, maybe a bagel, maybe some cereal, some fruit, oatmeal. None of those things are high in protein. So, people, Americans love carbs. I mean, I'm an American. So I can say that. I don't know what other cultures like they probably like carbs too. Who doesn't?

Philip Pape 27:29

Hey, this is Philip pape, letting you know that applications are now open for one on one coaching. If you're a busy working professional, who has tried dieting and exercising for years, with little in the way of results, and you want to lose fat, get lean or if you're confident in your body without excessive dieting, cardio or restrictions. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching to apply. You're gonna be getting a lot more carbs now though, because you're gonna be better handle it. Yeah, yeah, because Tyler is talking about so we just finished a, she said she finished the deficit. She's just finished about a 15 pound fat loss phase, I think roughly. And it was over a reasonable timespan about three weeks, about three months about the time we want to do 12 weeks. And she was able to enjoy most things that she enjoys, but some trade offs and some restraint involved. And now we're going to turn it around and try to build some muscle, which is gonna be a different I'm gonna be telling her to eat more food.

Tyla Serro 28:30

Yeah, it's only been what we'll say like a week. But last week was kind of crazy for me nutrition wise this week. I didn't do it today. But tomorrow, I need to actually like divide, what I like to do is like so take my macros and then divide it by like the number of meals that I plan on having which is usually four or five, and then try to make a balanced meal within those those targets. And I would like to give myself a range. So if I'm like, Alright, I need to have about 25 to 35 grams of protein per meal 35 to 50 grams of carbs per meal, and then that same type of thing, usually probably 10 to 15 for my macros adjust as whatever your macros are, but yeah, I'd say my proudest moments are comm actually completing a deficit losing weight, doing my check ins on a weekly basis, that was something I was pretty bad at with my previous coach. I just, I couldn't they could not get me to do my check in. And I will say if you're not a client of Philips and you're considering working with a coach Phillip has a pretty awesome setup. Also use macro factor. Also get a digital scale like these are all things that you gave as advice and your podcast and I actually took it and I was like wow, this made a huge difference to be able to just step on the scale in the morning and poof it beams to my phone. did have a little bit of issues in the beginning with that I think I don't know what it was maybe As my Bluetooth or something, but it makes it so much easier. And again, going back one of the first things I said when I joined this call was I'm a lazy athlete. A lot of us like to be lazy. I think you even maybe said that that's why you like to make a lot of processes, streamline systems and process. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Because like you want to take the easy or lazy way out. There's nothing wrong with that. Um, and if you make something easier, you're probably more likely to be compliant with it right? If something is hard, you're not going to want to do it. So thanks for all the advice Phillip gave. I hacked my way to make things more streamlined, more easy. So that way, when I do my check in now, instead of it taking me 45 minutes to complete, it takes me 15. And, yeah, one of the apps that you use for clients is super great, because it's like a dashboard. And it's got all your data right there. So if you have like a smartwatch, you can connect that and you can see your step data, your sleep data, your weight, your measurements, progress photos, that's really cool to have the all there. The the previous coaches that I was working with, I had it in like a Google Docs thing. And the thing was, like, over 100 pages long, it was just a mess, it was really hard to like actually compare data points, working with you has made that really easy to do. And it's great.

Philip Pape 31:21

Cool. So I didn't tell Tyler I didn't see any of this stuff about about my coaching. So I appreciate it. Plug. Like make sure to get that in there. But she did. But I do you really hit on a point when you talk about the proudest moment being not just getting the result, which I know everybody wants the result. But the skills that allowed you to hear be compliant and have consistency toward the result, which is something you can carry forward mean for the rest of your life. And that's one thing we all struggle with is doing it and doing it regularly and then continuing to do it. And a coach can help because you know, they poke you and they give you that extrinsic motivation. But of course, you have to do it yourself as well at the same time. And your comment about systems and process and efficiency and tools. Yeah, I mean, we come from engineering backgrounds, we're techies and stuff like that. So we understand sometimes the value of that as long as it makes sense as long as it pushes things forward. So the other the other piece, besides the doing it part is in the accountability is the education. Right? You know, I'm a huge fan of education, awareness. anybody listening or watching knows this. Of helping you understand why we do things, as opposed to saying just do it because I said so. So you can call it evidence based ScienceBase just stuff that works, whatever. What's something you've learned, it was like a big aha moment or something that changed your perspective or mindset about nutrition concepts. Just one thing, you've already mentioned a few. So

Tyla Serro 32:56

I've learned a lot. I feel like there was something Can I just do like a kind of silly this isn't really science evidence based. But it was something really interesting that you taught me when I first started working with you is like, on, like, if it's your thing, it's gonna take too much time to like, weigh out all your food, like weigh your plate, and then just like weigh the total weight. And then I think it was like, subtract out the weight of the plate or something like that. And then you can kind of like, break it apart. Let's say you had, you know, this much protein, this much vegetable, this much carb, you can divide that by what it looks like. And that's a pretty good estimate. So what do you say? Is it 20% 30%? Of what you want to be? 20%? Right?

Philip Pape 33:39

Yeah, yeah. 30 Actually, if you're within 30% Okay, your estimate? Yep.

Tyla Serro 33:43

So that that's something that I learned to that the whole 30% thing, like, you just have to be close, really, and like that'll pretty much work or get you to where you want to be. It doesn't need to be perfect, which is something that maybe my personality type being like type a perfectionist, it's got to be perfect, every little detail. Like it doesn't need to be perfect, you just need to be consistent, and you need to be really consistent. So like something I think you maybe mentioned this in one of your podcast episodes to in the beginning you said like, I don't know if you're just like doing a splash of creamer in your coffee like whatever, don't track it, but you need to be consistent with that if you're not going to track it don't ever track it don't just start tracking it like on Tuesdays you track your creamer I don't really track my almond milk, because I do unsweetened almond milk and

Philip Pape 34:31

like 15 calories for a water Giant Cup. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Tyla Serro 34:35

So that's something I never really have tracked. I mean, and I still was able to do a deficit lose weight. It was fine. So

Philip Pape 34:46

yeah, like that. These are the all these little hacks and skills they add up. I mean, the the 30% You're talking about just so people know is the it's better to track within 30% than not track at all when it comes to China. Understand your intake. And that's a ton of saying is, if you go to a restaurant, and you have a bunch of food, you don't know what's in it, you kind of eyeball it, or you take a picture. And later on, you just estimate, you know how many grams and split it up by the ingredients. And I think Tyler You were talking about specifically, if you're like at home and you have the plate, you can weigh everything on the plate, so many serves you and then you can weigh the empty plate, subtract the difference, and then divide it. And we're making it sound maybe a little complicated, but it's these are helpful skill when you get into tracking with food skills. Yeah, good. Yeah.

Tyla Serro 35:33

So that was one thing that I learned. I mean, Philip literally does like tips of the day, every day, I don't know, he's got like, a ton of content, because I would try to do that for a few days and run out real quickly. But it's usually like really helpful tidbits of information that sometimes it might seem like, oh, yeah, that's obvious. And then other times, it's like, oh, wow, I had no idea that that's how that worked. And it's just a quick little knowledge drop, that I find really useful. So please keep doing it. I look forward to them. Even if I don't get to read it right away, I usually will catch up on it.

Philip Pape 36:11

Yeah, and what are the tricks, a lot of information comes from, you know, clients, and people watch podcasts. And people ask questions, and it's like, everybody has something they they're trying to figure out. And so, you know, even if 99 People have heard it, the 100th person hasn't. So it's gonna resonate with somebody and help somebody out. That's what we try to do. Awesome. Now, we you can't we touched a little bit on the weekends and the dining out. Maybe we can go a little bit more into the strategy, one or two of the strategies we use for planning ahead. You know, weekend's for you had been and maybe maybe continue to be a challenge because the routine is off. Right. And you're going out, you talked about a little bit earlier today about if you had the charcuterie and what do you do? But what is the strategy we use ahead of time to plan for that, that other other people struggle with this? So what do you think might work in that situation?

Tyla Serro 37:03

Yeah, so I really liked your approach to my struggles with the weekends, because you didn't just one like rain on my brain and be like, You need to stop doing that. You were never, you were always like, okay, you know what, like, these are a few options that we could try. So you came at it with several ideas, which was great, people love choices. You know, even my toddler who's two loves to make a choice, I give him an option, like these are the two shirts you can wear today. And he likes to pick one. So that was great, I was able to choose from several options that you gave, and one of them, the one that I chose was, we can do higher calorie days on Saturday and Sunday. Now, this may not be the most optimal thing for your training, because ideally, you want to have higher food days on the days that you're working out. But we know that like you're consistently not meeting your macros on the weekends. So what we'll do is we'll shift your caloric intake. So Monday through Friday, your calories will be slightly dipped. And then Saturday and Sunday, there'll be slightly higher, nothing drastic, but enough wiggle room so that way, if anything, it was almost just like a mental thing for me, too. So on the weekends, I feel like I don't know I was treating myself or Yeah, sure. Having a little bit more less structure than I do during the week. Kind of Yeah, especially you know, if you've got like a family and you're, you know, the weekend is going to be busy. And you don't want to like show up to all of your events with packed Tupperware man meals. I mean, maybe you're that person and you're dedicated and good for you. But it's hard for me to be that person. I like to enjoy myself. Not that you can't enjoy yourself with a tub or male you absolutely can.

Philip Pape 38:57

Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's a great strategy. If you're listening very, very simple. Strategy, right is to just toggle your calories during the week. And it may not be the weekend for you. It may be Friday, maybe Wednesday, it depends on your schedule. And then we just we kind of joked about it earlier today, that now that Tyler is eating more, and we're going to be even more food shortly for a building phase. I said, why don't we just stop doing that for now because you're gonna have so many more calories, we'll work with you. You may want those calories during the week while you're training to support your muscle growth. So we'll see how that goes.

Tyla Serro 39:31

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to see how that how that goes. Like you said it's real nice to go from being in a caloric deficit to now eating well, what we're trying to find as my maintenance my husband is actually doing a cut right now.

Philip Pape 39:52

You're gonna overtake him.

Tyla Serro 39:54

And keep joking with all you know, you could have done this a couple of months ago and we could have done this together and it would have been a lot easier because you know At night, he would be eating his snacks. And I'd be sitting there like so sad, oh, I want to have that. And now it's kind of the opposite way around, like my maintenance calories are just below what his like deficit calories are. And he's like, makes no sense.

Philip Pape 40:15

I'm a big guy. So it's two different goals. It's

Tyla Serro 40:19

two different goals. Yeah, yeah, I told them to us, like, just stick with it, or you're gonna be doing it longer.

Philip Pape 40:26

Yeah, and if, and if you're doing it the right way, you're gonna, you're gonna be in a cut for a quarter of the time that you're not or, you know, one a one to three ratio of cutting to building or maintaining, that's the goal, right? So that, like nine months out of the year, you don't have to be dieting, and in the three months where you are, it doesn't have to be that bad. You know, it might be a little tougher the first time you do it, but then after that, it should get better.

Tyla Serro 40:50

I will say to the deficit gave me like a confidence boost in that now that I know I can do it. I actually am excited to like almost take charge be in control of like, my, my fitness my health? Yes. Whereas before, I was kind of just going through the motions of lifting and eating and like, Oh, I've gained like 10 pounds time to dial that in. But now it's really exciting to like, Hey, you just successfully did a caloric deficit, you can do anything. Not that I think I'll ever do like a bodybuilding show or something like that. That takes some serious commitment, dedication, time, money, a lot of things, but it gave me the confidence to say, you know, what, if I actually really did set that as a goal, I could do it? Of course, I could do it.

Philip Pape 41:36

You know, my next question was going to be whether you have confidence in sustaining your results. And you just answered that question. And I love that. Because you said before, it was like, I need to lose some weight. Now, you know, like, we've all been there our whole lives, like look at every now and then you hop on the scanner, like, Ah, well, how did I gain those 10 pounds? Back? And you're in control? And yeah, we might, we might have done it in a kind of process oriented way. But you know what it took to get there, you know what it felt like, you know what you ate on most days? Like, if you had to repeat that without macro tracking? Do you think you could do it? Oh, yeah, I'm asking you that. Like, do you think you could do it without the macro tracking? Now that you've been through it before? Once?

Tyla Serro 42:19

The audio cut out there for a second? But do I think I could?

Philip Pape 42:22

Oh, that's weird. Yeah, do you think you could repeat a deficit now, anytime, with or without the macro tracking, knowing what it feels like what it takes to do

Tyla Serro 42:30

it? Without it? I don't know, Philip, um, I honestly, don't, I hate to say I don't think sorry, that I couldn't. Because I don't want people to think like, Oh, if macro tracking is not for you, like you're never gonna lose weight, I just think it's gonna be a lot difficult. And this actually, I remembered halfway through this point of what I was going to say, a little while ago. What you eat and what you fuel yourself with is in your control, right? You have control over that. Whereas a lot of these other factors that play into like, maybe while you're having a difficult time losing weight, or can't lose weight, like sleep and stress, and hormones, and all those other variables are a lot harder to control than what you actually eat. So if you can just say, You know what, like, I'm gonna make a conscious effort to eat these things. I know, these are gonna fuel me appropriately for whatever my goals are. You can like start there. Whereas like, stress, for instance, like maybe you have a really tough job, maybe you're commuting a lot, maybe, maybe you have like a lot of things that you just have a harder time controlling. Not that those are things that you can't take charge of as well, I think you can do it all. But baby steps you have to maybe the nutrition part of it is the easiest one to actually take control of. Yeah, I like the model like anything is possible. But again, the the tracking macros is just a it's an easy way to take control of the data.

Philip Pape 44:07

Yeah, it's a very effective tool. And I think, if you if you apply planning ahead, which is what the what the macro tracking does, right? Like you've got, you've been through a deficit, you know about what you eat in a given day and how it's distributed. You could conceivably create your own meal plan for that. And in the future, repeat that without necessarily tracking and I just want people to be aware of that. That is a possibility. It might be a fun thing to challenge yourself with future to get off of because what I want people to know is you can get off of macros eventually if you want to. I personally track track macros for a year and a half now and I just like to do it. It's a habit but not everybody is like that. The other things you talked about are the other areas that affect our nutrition that aren't food, right sleep and stress and things and you can't change everything. Sometimes you have to cope. But what you just hit on is everybody's different. Everybody has their own, like red flags and their own priorities. And it may not be food for somebody, but it's often food for for most people, right? So now what about let's talk about lifting for a little bit, you're, you know, You're a strong woman who competes, you'd like to lift. You know, it's not anything I had to worry about educating you about in any way when we met. So how important is strength training to you and your ability to get results?

Tyla Serro 45:27

Oh, it's super important. I mean, that for me, it changed my life. Like, I think back in 2012 2013. I was never like a super athletic person growing up. I played some sports, but I was the type of kid who like on the cross country team, my, my, I wasn't fast, and my friend and I would like run into the woods, and we'd sit on a rock for like, 20 minutes and be like, Okay, it's time to run back. I was definitely not like setting any records or anything like that. I think I tried out for like, the softball team didn't make it. I did cheerleading. No, I'm just kidding. Um, but I never was like, super athletic. And then I did CrossFit for a little while hurt myself. So went to Planet Fitness and did things like that. And I would go on bodybuilding.com. And I would find like workout programs. And I was like, kind of a good squatter, just naturally, people were like, you're built to squat, whatever that means. Um, so I would just go to the gym and squat every day, six days a week. And I got better and better at it. Even though I look back at like, old training videos. When I first started, I'm like, Oh, this is horrendous. But, um, it was really fun. And it built a community for me of people that were like me, and then a friend of mine. I think I mentioned this in the last episode, she invited me to her powerlifting meet. In this, this was in Rhode Island. And I mean, you had women who were like 138 48 pounds, squatting like close to 400, benching close to 200, and Poland close to 400, at like a local meet, which to me, I was like, This is crazy. These women are so strong, you know, they're totaling almost 1000 pounds, what can I do that so I joined a local gym, close to me, and I mean, made lifelong lifelong friends. And I started listening to another podcast to not just Phillips about like, strength and conditioning. And like they, they really, like say, strength is for everyone. And it really is. And that was like, one thing that I like, too is like you didn't have to have like a certain body type, or look a certain way to strength train. It can be really intimidating when you first start going to a gym. Like, I just think of a lot of those like commercial type of gyms, like, like are people there to like, what are they really there for. But in the actual lifting community that I joined, it was really truly people that were just like, hey, we like being strong. And people that really got behind you when they would see you like, lift, big weight for you, too. And it's all the other thing too, that I like about lifting is it's competitive, but like it only really needs to be competitive with yourself. Like you can be competitive with yourself, you can keep getting stronger, you can keep making progress. And it's not like a win or lose sport in that sense. I mean, it can be as you get with more elite, but it's just it's a it's a really fun thing. I love it.

Philip Pape 48:32

It's fun, it's part of what you do. I think it's also of course been instrumental in your ability to get your nutrition results as well, because you've, you know, you make it easier to hold on your muscle and, and prioritize fat loss, which I think is important for people to understand even if they're not doing that a powerlifting level of lifting, just getting that resistance training in on a regular basis. So we're about to start a muscle building phase. First of all, are you worried about getting big and bulky? No. Second, how do you feel? No, yeah, so face.

Tyla Serro 49:07

That's like my biggest pet peeve of all like here, women, people. One thing my previous coach taught me was like, Don't give advice just like it like advice is never free or shouldn't be. Because I've in the past, like tried people have come to me and asked like, Oh, I'm not losing weight, or can you help me like, you're so good at this stuff. And I'm like, I'm really not that good. I'm not certified in any of this. Like I can tell you what worked for me in my experience, but you should really probably work with a coach. And, you know, I feel like every woman says like, I just want to get toned. I don't wanna have big muscles. I'm like, me, I'm like the opposite my I want big muscles. I'm like, it's hard, right?

Philip Pape 49:46

It's hard to get them.

Tyla Serro 49:47

Like, yeah, like I want to be like stronger than your boyfriend or husband. Somebody had a shirt like that the gym was like, I was more than your boyfriend does or something like that. I'm like, Yeah, but I don't know. Maybe that's That's just my personality. Like, I have nothing like I've always and I've never been like a super petite female I weigh my weight normally is like, my adult life has been around like 140 to 150 pounds 150 pounds usually is pushing the like, Alright, I'm not feeling comfortable and my clothes. And I remember I can like remember talking to a coworker telling her like how much I weighed. I was like, Yeah, we're about 145 pounds. She's like, you weigh that much? Which like, don't say that to people. That's not like, like, I mean, I think intent is good, right? But it's like,

Philip Pape 50:36

right? She said, You mean she's saying you don't look like you weigh that much. Do you think oh, oh, that sounds heavy.

Tyla Serro 50:43

Heavy, because I think like maybe the ideal size for a woman is less than that. Which, what whatever that ideal is, you know, you can be somebody who weighs 145 pounds and be like a rock solid, lean muscle, and can be somebody who weighs 145 pounds and be like, not, you know, you could take two people that have the same body weight, and the same height, but like have completely different body compositions. So in that regard, like, weight doesn't matter. I mean, it matters for you individually, because you know, your body knows, like, what is probably a good healthy weight for you to be. And like, I'm not gonna like, I'll just put it bluntly, like being overweight, being obese, not necessarily your BMI. But like, if you are truly an unhealthy weight, like that's not good for your body, our bodies are not designed to carry around all that extra weight. Our organs are not designed to sustain that. You want to live a long, healthy life. Probably see if there's something you can do about that. Maybe.

Philip Pape 51:44

Yeah, I don't think there's anything controversial what you're saying. We talked about this all the time. No, I mean, there's, there's fat shaming and stuff like that, and body and the whole body image thing. That's like a different topic. But when we're talking about just blood pressure, and weight and stress, joints, and all those things, there's a factual component to it. And you're saying, you know, there's a wide range where you can be in a healthy weight, right, and it's different for everybody. And if, honestly, if I was working, I would want every female client that started with me to actually want to gain weight first, but that almost never happens. Because everybody wants to get to what they think is their ideal weight. Even you wanted to lose weight, let's be honest, right? But right, and that's okay, too. I mean, I myself, like I want to be leaner, but then I also have to spend time building muscle. So the building muscles side of it is super important. Because until you do that, you're just you're never really improving your body composition, just kind of oscillating between, you know, there's a good good points, Tyler. Okay, so I think we're getting close on time here. Let's say somebody is listening, they feel overwhelmed about everything we're talking about. They don't know where to start, like, what advice would you give them,

Tyla Serro 52:54

you have to start somewhere. And you have to be serious with yourself. Like, if I think a lot of people struggle with actually setting goals and sticking to them. Don't wait, today is as good as any day. Don't wait until Oh, I'm gonna wait till the New Year. Just start. And even if that's just like, You know what, like, I can't afford to pay for coaching right now. Or, like, there's so much information out there that's free, whether it's a podcast or YouTube or a lot of these people who are coaches that have clients produce a ton of free content on their, their social media pages, their websites, that you if you are truly interested in learning about this stuff that you can consume yourself. And you can probably teach yourself how to do these things. Like I said, In the beginning, it's really not difficult. It's not it's not like super hard to do tracking macros is not a super hard thing to do, it actually makes the whole process easier, you just kind of have to bite the bullet and like, try it and give it an honest effort. And then make the determination after giving it an honest effort, like is this for you? Or is this not for you? Is it working? Or is it not working? And then go from there, but I do think that if you have the means to pay for coach, finding a good coach, it makes a huge difference. I mean, I've been working with a coach now for fulfil up since July or end of June. But before that I was working with a coach for the past like year and a half. So you might ask like why do you why are you gonna keep paying for coach or don't you know all this stuff? And the answer is yes, I do know a lot of this stuff. But the accountability for me personally is huge. So maybe that's what you need to do too. You put money on the line and you're more willing to stick with something and hold yourself accountable.

Philip Pape 54:45

Yeah, I couldn't have said any of that better myself. So I will leave it at that. Tyler's wise words. We've got great information on this podcast and many others. That's how I learned. I did a lot on my own before I decided to go out and be a coach and I also had many coaches myself, and I still have coaches for training. I mean, we all need them many times in our lives and sometimes it helps us accelerate, getting to where we want to get and, and helps us become more educated so that we can be more successful for the long term. So, last thing, Tyler, where can people connect with you or any, any causes that you want them to support?

Tyla Serro 55:20

Sure, I'm mostly active on Instagram, my handle on there's at tireless zero,

Philip Pape 55:25

okay. We'll leave it at that. I didn't lose you today at Tyler zero Instagram. All right. So I'm gonna include that info in the show notes. And I hope anyone watching or listening who feels like you know, what they've done before hasn't worked, that they feel inspired. They feel empowered by your story today. Because I think it shows you know, you can, you can do whatever you want, you can take control, like you said, of the process and your results. And if you're committed to learning, right, if you commit to learning what we're learning about yourself and focusing on it. So you can do it on your own. You could accelerate it with a coach, you can see that someone like Tyler with tons of knowledge or experience she She's competing at a high level, she still faces challenges that we all face, you know, emotional eating, accountability, maybe some direction guidance, those kinds of things. So if you found the discussion helpful, or if you have questions for me or Tyler, just comment on the video, click the link in the show notes, or go to wits. & weights.com, look for the Ask Philip section on the homepage, including questions for Tyler could throw me in there and I'll make sure they get back to her. And we'll get back to you with an answer. So thanks again for supporting the show and listening to Tyler's story. Stay strong. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for listening to the show. Before you go, I have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast, let me know by leaving a five star review in Apple podcasts and telling others about the show. Thanks again for joining me Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.

Philip Pape 11/8/22 Philip Pape 11/8/22

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

I discuss hormones and weight loss during perimenopause with Karen Martel, a Certified Hormone Specialist & Transformational Nutrition Coach and women’s weight loss expert. She is the host of the top-rated women’s health podcast The Other Side of Weight Loss where she helps women to unlock the mysteries of female fat loss and hormone imbalance.

I am extremely excited for today’s guest, Karen Martel, not only because of her work in women’s fat loss and hormones but her genuine passion for helping others, which comes through on her podcast and in my personal interactions with her.

Karen Martel is a Certified Hormone Specialist & Transformational Nutrition Coach and women’s weight loss expert.

She is the host of the top-rated women’s health podcast The Other Side of Weight Loss where she helps women to unlock the mysteries of female fat loss and hormone imbalance.

After struggling with her own health issues, Karen was determined to bring her knowledge to others with a bold new approach to women’s hormone health and weight management. Karen’s passion lies in helping women balance and optimize their hormones in peri- and post-menopause and breakthrough weight loss resistance.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Hormonal weight loss resistance
Hormone imbalances that cause weight gain
Sugar cravings from hormone imbalances
What happens to hormones during perimenopause
Gaining weight during peri or post-menopause
Foods or nutritional strategy to consider before therapy/supplements/medical advice
How perimenopause affects muscle growth
Safety of bioidentical hormones
When to start using bioidentical hormones
Effect of estrogen on weight gain
Seed cycling (viable strategy for estrogen dominance?)
Determine whether we are processing hormones properly

RELATED LINKS

Take the Hormone Quiz and find out which hormones could be stopping you from losing weight at this link
Subscribe to The Other Side of Weight Loss podcast
Visit Karen's website at karenmartel.com
Find Karen on Instagram
Watch the episode on video here

👉 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

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Karen Martel 01:28

I'm very excited to be here, Philip. I love your audience already, because they're very similar to my own audience.

Philip Pape 01:36

That's awesome. So they're gonna enjoy this conversation. So mine yeah, I'm gonna learn a ton talking with you. So just right off the bat, you know, energy enthusiasm attracted my attention when we connected a while back. And I'm guessing that you've helped many women with that attitude with that approach. So tell us about your background in hormones specifically and weight loss coaching for Peri and postmenopausal women. How did you get into that area? How did what inspired you to help others?

Karen Martel 02:03

Yes, so I feel like I've had like a life long journey with hormones. Like anything that could happen hormonally. I feel like it did to me. Like since a very young age, like pretty much since I hit puberty, it was like, Oh, you want endometriosis? Sure, we'll check you endometriosis. You want ovarian cysts, oh, here you go. You want horrible PMS. They're just like, from a very young age. I was very hormonal, and not in a happy way. It really hit the fan though, when I had my first baby, which I think a lot of women can really relate to this where, you know, you're ticking along. You have your first child. And then it's like, nothing goes back to the same after that. And you're going What the heck just happened to my entire system. And I was young, I was 30. While young ish. I was 33. It was two years after having my child I had lost all the baby weight. And it was it just suddenly I started packing on weight for no reason was actually only about a year and just over a year because I was just on breastfeeding. And that's it triggered something when I had finished breastfeeding. And just started packing on this weight and I suddenly have really bad insomnia and horrible PMS where I would have a migraine for you know, 10 days out of that month, like right around my period. I was super bloated. So I had a lot of digestive problems. I was getting hives on my body and like most women, what did I do at that time? I looked around and said okay, what do you do when this kind of thing happens? I went into the next best diet at the time, which was I think the zone or Atkins, something like that. So I went on to the next best diet was watching my calorie intake. I hired a personal trainer. I started working out like crazy started going to like these CrossFit workouts and like six days a week, I was pushing it hard, probably in the best shape of my life because I was working out so much and like really tough workouts and thinking this is the answer. Eat last workout more, right? This is what I've been told. This is what women still do to this day when they start gaining weight. And I just kept gaining and gaining and gaining and all the problems kept getting worse and worse. went to the doctor was put on the antidepressant the sleeping pills like she didn't even want say anything about hey, maybe it's your hormones. I mean, I'm 33 and this just kept happening and I'm looking around and all these women that I'm working out with who are shredded, doing exactly the same thing that I'm doing and I was probably eating far better than they were. And I was the heaviest I had ever been. And I was like are you kidding me? I switched all to all the diets. I was juice cleansing I was doing enemas. I was like, wow, you know, doing the Atkins the zone. I tried veganism. I did it all. So finally I was like, There's something wrong, clearly. And so I've always been a researcher and I was into hell. So I was like, I gotta dig into this farther and see what's going on. And I talked to a friend of mine who was a naturopath and I said, I think I want to test my hormones. And I said, can you test my hormones for me? And he said, Yeah, come on in. And I ended up doing what's called a saliva test for hormones, which tests what available hormone levels you have in your body. And it also tests your stress response, and like where your stress system is,

Philip Pape 05:41

you said a saliva test. This is just saliva, okay.

Karen Martel 05:43

Yep. Yeah. And so it tests your stress hormone cortisol and cortisol supposed to come up in the morning and then fall throughout the day. And when the results came back, my cortisol was flatlined. So I was down at the very bottom. At that time, it was called adrenal fatigue. Now, it's called adrenal insufficiency. And my estrogen was high. And I had very, very low progesterone, which are our sex hormones. And we can get into that. And I also had a very low DHEA, which is another adrenal hormone, a stress hormone. And that was also tanked. So there, I was highly stressed out, you know, I was the single mother, you know, no help from the Father. I was running my own business at the time, I was a massage therapist. So it was it was very physical on me, I was just go, go go, thinking, I'm not stressed out. I'm doing what every other North American woman's doing. But it clearly was affecting my body. And there, I was starving myself and working out the hardest I've ever worked out, which is exactly the wrong things that I should be doing according to that hormonal profile. And so I did this huge overhaul in my life, because it really just made me take a look and go, Oh, my gosh, I'm way more stressed out than I thought I was like, This isn't right. And so I quit working out, I started doing yoga. So I guess that's considered working out. But you know, which to just yoga, walking, you know, getting more help all of these things, was not a quick fix. I'll tell you that right now. I had to balance those hormones. I later found out I was also very hypothyroid. And so all of these things, and I kept toxic load. And I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff to this picture that I had going on. And it was like I found all these puzzle pieces, I was able to put it together. And finally my body slowly but surely lost the weight. And then, you know, once again, because Karen gets all the hormonal stuff. I started to go into an early menopause when I was in my early 40s. And so then I went from, you know, having stabilized my weight for almost 10 years feeling fantastic. At that time, I had decided as well, I was like, I can't be the only woman that's feeling this. This is going through this. There's got to be more women out there that are eating right, exercising, doing everything that everybody's telling them to do. But yet they're not losing weight, and they're maybe just gaining. So that's when I went and got my nutritionist certification, started working in weight loss and dabbling in the hormone thing. And then when I hit the early, perimenopause, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. Okay, fine. I'm going to learn everything I can vote, the female hormonal system and what happens in perimenopause and menopause. And I'm going to reverse this. And I did. And I still have my regular period now, and I'm 46 years old. So it's been great. And now I'm helping women all over the worlds fix these problems as far as their hormonal weight loss resistance goes and helping them to thrive in these Peri menopausal years, which can be anywhere from 10 to 14 years. And instead of suffering through this time, I'm giving them the education that isn't out there to help them with their hormonal state as they get through this time,

Philip Pape 09:14

while care. So that's quite a story a lot to unpack. But I was the short version. Oh, no, that's okay. And I get it, you have that and then you have the 20 minute version. I want to I want to break this into phases before we dive into the hormonal weight loss resistance and the perimenopause. Because I do want the listener to realize the process you went through, you know, you you were frustrated from years of thinking you're doing the right thing. You were doing a lot of what we all do, myself included, you know, the Atkins and then it was paleo and then it was keto, and CrossFit, and move more, move more, eat less. And then you you sort of diagnosed what was going on by looking at your hormones. You didn't necessarily go and do a quick fix and try to try to attack it from the hormone perspective directly. You went and said, you know, what are my priorities that I need to straighten? out first the big things that that you know, steps and stress management, yoga, etc. And then see what happens and it sounds like you, you were able to get to a good state doing that. And I want a lot of people to be aware of of that, that that we that is could be the first step we try before we go to anything exotic. And then you said okay now in your 30s I think perimenopause is mid mid to late 30s. And then all the way till menopause, right? So which could be in your 50? So it's a wide range, then you started to have other issues that were isolated to that, once you accounted for the other thing. So kind of two different phases, right? And most of your clients are assuming more on the perimenopause side of the equation. Do you do you work? Do you work with them first on those things, and then move on to the hormones or is there a proven approach you take that kind of blends the two,

Karen Martel 10:51

it depends on where they're at. So, women don't even know that they're in perimenopause. Number one, and most of them have no clue they kind of associate perimenopause with their 50s. They don't realize that perimenopause now typically starts in our mid to late 30s, as you said, and that's just simply we start to lose ovarian function, we see we start to lose ovulation. And so the first hormone that goes is progesterone. And this is, like I said, late 30s, early 40s, we see a real dip, like 75%, in some women in progesterone, and we'll get into what that is. But if the woman is still cycling, and she's in that late 30s, early 40s, there's a lot that you should be doing and that you can do to really mitigate the hormonal loss and the effects of the hormonal loss without jumping to hormones. Now, there's obviously nuances to that, like if somebody's goes into early menopause, premature menopause, then, you know, you can try and really find out the root cause of why is this person losing her period at the age of 40. And there is the oftentimes you can find a root cause it can be from stress, it can be from long term, low carb diets, too much fasting, which is all stressors to our body, especially to the female system. So we can sometimes look and go, Okay, here's what happened, or maybe they had trauma or anything like that can can stop the cycle and stop you from ovulating. So we do look at all of those things. But typically, there's a lot that we can do in those first, that first half of perimenopause that doesn't involve hormones. Once you get to a certain age, Philip, it's really about the fact that your ovaries are no longer functioning the way they used to. And this will happen to every single woman, nobody's exempt from it. And at that point, our ovaries just stop making these hormones. And there's no supplements, no diet, no fitness, nothing that will bring that back. And so it's at that point where you don't really mess around. Like there's tons of awesome therapeutic holistic herbals, and, you know, things that you need to really manage. And this is what I help women do so much as their lifestyle and their stress management and the vitamins and minerals and herbals that can really help ease the transition. But you still need in most cases, if you're as long as you're a good candidate for them, you really, you can't like I say you can't supplement your diet your way out of the hormonal loss, and then it comes down to replacing because replacing the hormones. It actually is healthier for most of us to use hormone replacement than not, is that.

Philip Pape 13:59

Yeah, and I guess I know when I was in the testosterone world, we talk about hormone replacement, the risk being that now you sort of train your body not to produce as much testosterone is that is that not an issue because of the fact that you've just simply not producing it anyway.

Karen Martel 14:15

Exactly. And you do have to be very careful with that in the younger years if you're thinking of replacing because there's certain hormones that have what is called the negative feedback loop where you're telling it's coming from the outside source. Testosterone is one of them where it goes, oh, there's testosterone coming in. I don't need to produce anymore. thyroids. Another one. Interesting enough progesterone isn't. So when you start taking progesterone, it will not suppress ovulation and you can't make progesterone unless you ovulate. And so it doesn't you can still produce your own even though you're taking it from an outside source.

Philip Pape 14:53

I'm fascinated by this topic because I think there's a lot of physiological reasons that people hit plateaus and they struggle to lose weight, including hormones. And I think hormones are a big mystery for a lot of people. And I think you touched on hormonal weight loss resistance. Is there anything else about that concept that we need to understand?

Karen Martel 15:14

I think it's just good to understand that if you are doing everything, right, you're eating right, you're, you know, your stress management, you're sleeping, you're doing all of those really important things that I'm sure Philip talks about. And you're not losing weight 95% of the time, it will be hormonal. And so to make sure that that is looked at, we women are very hormonal, and we have to honor our hormonal system. And with this day and age, with all the toxins in our environment, and the stress factors, majority of women have some degree of hormonal imbalance, especially in their 30s 40s and 50s.

Philip Pape 15:59

And looking at not only plateaus, where, you know, women come in struggling to lose weight, but our our hormone balance is causing weight gain. And maybe that's just a counter a counter force, or other things like sugar cravings and things like that.

Karen Martel 16:15

100% like, you know, you hear these women saying, Oh, I can't control my sugar cravings, and they're doing, you know, emotional support. They're trying supplements, they're, they feel like they're doing so much trying to get control of their eating habits. And sometimes it's just a matter of because they've lost certain hormones, that it's driving the sugar addiction, or driving the anxiety or driving the depression, which then makes them eat the sugar.

Philip Pape 16:44

Yeah, no Are these have We nailed down specific hormones that cause those specific effects, like, I understand things like not female hormones, but leptin and ghrelin, for example, that go out of whack, when we're dieting that affect our appetite. So if we nail that down, well,

Karen Martel 17:01

and so estrogen as we age, we lose it typically later in our 40s, we start losing our estrogen. Estrogen has, it's got receptors in the hunger centers of our brain. So when we lose estrogen we can get so that our leptin signaling becomes off, so we get more hungry. Okay. The other thing is, estrogen helps us to be more insulin sensitive. So as you lose that, now, you're not so sensitive to that blood glucose and you become more insulin resistance, which will drive the hunger and the cravings. And then and also drive insulin resistance to get worse. So there's these kinds of behind the doors, things that can be driving these things.

Philip Pape 17:47

Yeah, it's that cascade, right? It's Yes. It's our interactive. Yeah. So lifted cast. Yeah, all of those. So I've had I've had female clients that talk about, of course, gaining weight period, and post menopause. Oftentimes, it's in the form of visceral, abdominal fat, or perceived to be so I wanted to dive into that a little bit. Yeah, what we know about that, and why that's caused, you know, other than the things like alcohol and and, and other behaviors that we know about hormone related.

Karen Martel 18:15

Yeah. Yeah. So it is the biggest complaint that you'll hear is, oh, my gosh, I just packed on 10 pounds on a solid, my stomach. Very annoying.

Philip Pape 18:26

And it's almost asymmetric. Like, you can't even imagine that that had happened. Because everything else is exactly the same. And all of a sudden, you know, the stomach is gone. Yep.

Karen Martel 18:35

Yes. And so there's a few different things that start to happen, that drive that one is that we become more insulin resistant. And we know that, you know, if you see type two diabetes, one of the markers of that, as far as physique goes is they have a big stomach. The man gets the big, hard, big belly, and the woman gets the softer but still very all the way around like no waistline look to them, which is the same as the menopause belly. So insulin resistance because the loss of fat, it's always too, let me just say, almost always, because of the estrogen loss that you gain, belly fat. It's the driving hormone of that. So we'd start losing our estrogen we become more insulin resistant, which can make it so that we gain it in our stomach. The other thing that starts to happen is cortisol can start to go up in our menopausal years. And we also know that stress, cortisol can cause weight gain in the belly, so that will contribute to it. Your body's super smart and estrogens the most vital hormone in a woman's body. It has over 400 different functions. So when you start losing your estrogen, your body is so smart. It says how can we get out estrogen if our ovaries aren't going to make it anymore, and how is that through our adrenal system and through our fat cells, and so the body goes, Okay, quick, let's put some fat on this woman's body so that we can make some estrogen. And so you'll see women like the heavier they are as they age, typically, the more estrogen they actually have sticking around in their system. Yeah, so even though they have no more ovarian function, they'll still have decent levels of estrogen in their body.

Philip Pape 20:32

So there's a logical way you put that is this is this, what they call adipocyte hyperplasia new fat cell generation, or is this just enlarging of those fat cells

Karen Martel 20:42

enlarging up the fat cells? But I'm not 100%

Philip Pape 20:45

on Yeah, no. Okay. Yeah, here I am. Yeah, so I guess it's. So we're scaring everybody with the hormones. Now let me take a step back. Talk about just quickly food and nutrition before we go down the path again, is there an optimal set of foods or a strategy nutrition strategy women should consider before they go down the path of getting freaked out about all the hormones and the hormone therapy and supplements and medical advice and all that?

Karen Martel 21:13

Yes, yeah. I always say no matter what road you choose in your perimenopausal years, diet has to be the foundation. And I was like everybody else in the world where I was to one extreme to the next. Like I said, I've tried it all. I've been there done that I've done keto I've done carnivore, I've been vegan vegetarian, you know, and get into the diet camp and the tunnel vision of this is the best I'd ever for everybody. And I quickly realized the more women I worked with that how wrong that was. And now I really base everybody's diet plan on what their hormones are doing. And there's certainly some that are better than others that I use a lot more, I've actually created my own kind of diet plan that is very flexible, I tell everyone, they have to make it their own. But because we become more insulin resistant, it is better to be lower carb as when you're in your 40s out of your cyclical years, because we're more insulin resistant and more prone to the weight gain. And so our blood because our blood glucose gets a little bit funny. It's a good idea to go more lower carb, but you want to cycle those carbs. Because too long, too low carb does a lot of damage. And I see these women on a daily basis in my practice, who have heard me on a podcast talk about it. And they're like, that's me. I did keto. And it was so great. And I lost 30 pounds. And then a year into it, I suddenly started gaining and and I didn't change anything and I can't sleep and my hair's falling out. Like I'm telling you felt almost daily, I get this. So we really see this long term effect of what these diets are doing to the female hormonal system. And, I mean, this is a whole podcast in and of itself, so I won't get too far into it. But it's just safe to say you have to be very careful. Because if you're a woman like I was when I was in my early 30s and having all those problems who I was in adrenal insufficiency, I had hypothyroidism undiagnosed hypothyroidism, I was a totally, absolutely burned out. Putting me on a ketogenic diet would have been disastrous at that time, another big stressor. Yeah, another big stressor. And we need the carbohydrates, you know, for those that those hormonal systems thyroid and adrenals really need the carbs, good carbohydrates. So then there's the person that maybe is coming up that's got insulin resistance, or type two diabetes, they might have polycystic ovarian syndrome, there might be overweight, that person could probably utilize a ketogenic diet for a period of time to reverse some of those issues. And then as soon as they can, they can start cycling in some of those good carbs. The other thing is we become more inflamed as we age, and we start losing muscle sarcopenia. So when this starts to happen, we really, really need to upper protein. There's a lot of research around this about the loss of muscle tissue and how you know, muscles a process. It's something like 80 to 90% of our glucose in our body. So if we start losing our muscles, and you talked about putting, there's another reason why you're going to put fat on you losing your muscle tissue muscles process was to process all of our blood sugar. So in that case, you want to be a little bit lower carb because your body's not handling the blood sugar as well. But at the same time, you've got to really increase that profit tene intake to make sure that you don't lose that muscle tissue that can counterbalance weight gain, like nothing else. And so you know, diet has to be the foundation, you can't just hop onto the hormones are very, some can, but most Can we come into our 40s typically not doing our greatest, you know, we tend to start gaining weight, we're highly stressed out, we're, you know, like, it's, it's not, we're not like how we were we're not as resilient as we were in our 20s. Or we could party all night. Yeah, and eat like crap and be fine. And we're not like that anymore. And so you have to be very careful. And so I always say you got to have that foundation, you got to figure out what's going to be best for you, according to your hormonal profile at that time. Because we're more inflamed, we want to do a lower inflammatory diet. So I do lean on the side of paleo. I've personally been paleo for over 10 years, it's just what works for me, I have most of my women on some form of a paleo based diet where we, you know, we do a little bit of intermittent fasting for the blood sugar, we don't overdo it, we increase our protein weekly carb cycle and we calorie cycle so that we don't plateau.

Philip Pape 26:19

Yeah, so I mean, the big message and everything you just said I love it, I agree with with all of that is individualization periodization. And you take it to that next level, by incorporating the hormonal aspect of that, and saying, Hey, for you, as an individual, because of these inputs, and these outputs, we're gonna get the best results doing this. Whereas, you know, the traditional approaches, everyone will get the best results doing this one thing, and you come from a different approach. And I like to have the same conversation that hey, if you if you enjoy keto, if it works for you, and it's imbalanced with your results, then great. That's the diet for you. Maybe you just don't like grains. And so paleo is great, you know, maybe whatever. I've heard of elimination diets being used to which are very difficult for

Karen Martel 27:07

various challenging, but they can be very helpful. And

Philip Pape 27:10

they can be you know, and I've known people personally have done that. And then when they reintroduce things, they can really identify their triggers. So I love all of that stuff. And you started to go on a little tangent about body composition and protein in muscle. And maybe we can talk about that just a little more. Because I think sometimes it's under not given enough attention with all the talk about weight loss and fat loss, especially for women who want to maybe look more toned, have a better physique, and feel better and be stronger and all the things you said about sarcopenia and even osteopenia, and health. So how does, how does perimenopause specifically affect muscle growth? You know, somebody comes in and says just you need more protein, you just strength train. Okay. But that's not the end of the story. So how does it affect that?

Karen Martel 27:58

Yeah, because a lot of women, about 50% of women start to lose their testosterone in their 40s. And we know that testosterone is extremely important for muscle growth, not just for the men. Testosterone is a woman's most abundant hormone, which nobody knows that

Philip Pape 28:19

absolute terms, you're saying in absolute

Karen Martel 28:21

terms, we have more testosterone than estrogen and progesterone. We just don't have as much as a man. But it doesn't mean it's any less important. So we get very much ignored with this from the medical system. It's like to try and find testosterone for a woman is extremely challenging.

Philip Pape 28:44

Hey, this is Philip pape, letting you know that applications are now open for one on one coaching. If you're a busy working professional who has tried dieting and exercising for years, with little in the way of results, anyone to lose fat, get lean or feel confident in your body without excessive dieting, cardio or restrictions. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching to apply.

Karen Martel 29:08

Men there's clinics on every bloody street corner for them. Oh, you need to start oh my god, here's your

Philip Pape 29:15

Yeah.

Karen Martel 29:17

So as you lose your testosterone, you're gonna lose that muscle, right? Estrogen is is responsible for produce some of the protein synthesis in the system. So when we start to lose the estrogen that can also impact the muscle. There was an really interesting paper that just came out, like literally, I think a couple of months ago by two Australian guys, Robin Heimer. And Simpson, have you heard of them? Remind me I don't think so. They wrote a book called Eat like the animals. Okay. Fascinating. I interviewed them on my podcast. I've read their book and that they from that from their studies in that book, they studied all forms have species and he and then it replicated it in humans. And what they found was human beings will over eat carbs and fat to meet their protein threshold. So this is why we're all constantly over why it's so easy to overeat carbs and fat, because most of us aren't getting aren't eating enough protein. So now we tend to, we're eating far more calories than we need to, because we're trying to meet our protein that this protein intake that we need, as humans.

Philip Pape 30:36

Interesting is that just let me stop you there is that is that simply because you know, in the wild protein is just not as abundant, versus the other sources. And so you have to eat just more a larger quantity overall, to get all the trace proteins to add up all the amino acids from all the different sources to add up to the protein you need? Is that comes from

Karen Martel 30:55

I think so like they even they even like they studied things like grasshoppers and larva. And even in these things that were like, what do you call them? Like amoebas amoebas, like not the organisms, all these single species does this. They'll even cannibalize each other to meet their like some of these insects will cannibalize just to meet their protein intake.

Philip Pape 31:24

Interesting, because I know people make the argument that Why are gorillas jacked when they're vegetarians. And when you look at how much they have to eat every day, they get enough protein that way.

Karen Martel 31:34

100%. So the book starts out where they're talking about in a ring, a tang, who they studied the exact, they measured and weighed everything that went into the monkey's mouth. And they tracked it for like three months, and they realize that that monkey was eating the exact amount of protein every day, through fruits and vegetables.

Philip Pape 32:00

Sure, so we're drawn. So I mean, your point was, we're drawn to carbs and fats. And in the modern, in the modern world, where there are so abundant, that can not be a great thing,

Karen Martel 32:09

while they're highly palatable foods, right? Like, it's like, whoa, give me the fat and carbs together, please like a doughnut, I'm delicious. But they came up with so that they extended their research. And they've been working on this for the last couple years. And so then this is the paper that was just published, where they talk about menopausal women, and the need for protein and how it increases as we age. So as we're, you know, growing up and we're going through our adult hood, there's a certain percentage, we have to meet this threshold, or your body's trying to meet this threshold, this protein threshold, which is I can't, I want to say it's like 15, or 30% 30%, I think it's 30%. And then as you age that increases. And so, you know, you think about all the stuff that I just talked about all this blood sugar dysregulation and you're wanting to eat more, and you're stressed out, your cortisol is a mess, and you're going to be craving carbohydrates, you're going to crave those highly palatable foods, because that's what happens when you're insulin resistant, and you're stressed out or depressed or anxiety ridden because you have two hormones. So not to paint a horrible picture here. I hate being the Debbie Downer with all of this, but just to give you guys an idea of what happens, you know, inside the body, and so that if we're not meeting our protein requirements, as we age, we're going to eat even more than we

Philip Pape 33:35

used to. And you know, I don't think you're a Debbie Downer at all. I think you're highlighting facts that that are just there. You didn't You didn't make them up. They exist and we can do something about it. That's the positive messages. That's what you do every day with people. So get it getting, I guess we're not off track. This is all great stuff. But getting back to the hormones, then I know you talk about bio identical hormones, which I think is the same as natural hormone therapy, but you can correct me if I'm wrong. Are they safe? That that's the first question people might have. Are these safe? They're

Karen Martel 34:07

extremely safe. Yes, there's a lot of bad rap because of the Women's Health Initiative study. And most people don't even know why they're afraid of hormones. But that's why was from that study, even though they never even heard of it. That's where the fear has been stemming from since 2002. So it used to be that it estrogen replacement therapy, which used to come from pregnant horses. It was called primary. It was the most prescribed medication in North America. So every woman was on Premarin back in the 1950s. And on like everybody, it was number one. And then they decided to do this great big study and it was the large one of the largest studies of its kind. That's how big it was. That was billions of dollar. It was like it was insane. There was two arms of the study. One arm was Premarin used with fake progesterone, which is called progestin. And then the other arm of the study was women without a uterus and they were just on Premarin. Okay? They halted this study early two years early, because they saw, they saw a rise in breast cancer cases, not very much. It was very small, like an extra four people out of 100,000. That's how minuscule it was. They saw this increase little bit of the breast cancer, a little bit of heart attack and stroke. And so they were like, Oh, my gosh, hormones, cause breast cancer and heart attack, heart disease, every woman needs to get pulled off of these hormones and kind of word went out to the world. HRT causes breast cancer. And it's never gone back. And there has been several analysis done of that study reanalysis. And what they now see in that study that was not shared with the public was that the arm of the study where the women were on Premarin only had a decrease in breast cancer cases by 34%. Wow. So it was the progestin that caused the increase in breast cancer. And if we look at all of the studies that have now been done, and we kind of collect them together, we see now that women that replace their estrogen having decreased rate of developing breast cancer, and most can't even believe that, because cancer Oh, my God, I'm gonna, you know,

Philip Pape 36:40

it's, you're right. It's one of those scientifically misinterpreted results that has stuck for decades, I guess now, and I'd be really curious to see I'm sure that we can identify the papers or the current papers. Oh, that up? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Tons. So then, so they're safe. When would women start using them?

Karen Martel 36:59

Yeah. And don't get me wrong. There are a select group of women that shouldn't be on hormones. And this is something that you want to talk to a knowledgeable hormone practitioner and probably not your doctor. Unfortunately, doctors are not trained in bioidentical hormone therapy. So they're going to have that old view most of the time of, oh my gosh, it'll cause you give you breast cancer. But then they'll give you the birth control pill, which is full of progestins. The thing that causes

Philip Pape 37:25

we are not dispensing medical device on this show. Disclaimer.

Karen Martel 37:29

No, yeah. So we're so if you if you're going to choose the hormone route, now we have we're lucky we have the choice of doing what's called bioidentical or body identical hormones. So Premarin, we're not horses. We do not have the same estrogen as horses. And yet that still worked. And it still decreased our risk of breast cancer and osteoporosis and Alzheimer's. And it did a whole bunch of wonderful things for us. But it also had some bad to it too. It did, it does increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, because you have to take it orally. So it has to go through the first hepatic pass of the liver, which increases inflammation and it can increase your risk of heart attack and stroke past 10 years, it can increase your risk of breast cancer. So we don't need to choose that anymore. We can now do bioidentical which is, comes from either yam or soy, and is identical to what your body makes. So your body can't distinguish between what's coming in from a cream or a shot or however you're going to use it, or what your own body produces on the inside. So it's extremely safe. We know I mean, I can go on and on about the benefits of hormone replacement, but we do see a lower risk of developing all types of cancer. If you replace your hormones for at least 10 years post menopause. We see that women there was a great big study out of Arizona where they looked at 4000 Women and the results of that study showed that women that replace their estrogen for five six years or longer had a reduction in developing Alzheimer's and dementia for up to 75% which is huge for something that they say there's no cure for. But you ask a woman how she how her brain feels and menopause when she loses her estrogen and they'll say I can't formulate words. I can't remember I'm so afraid of developing Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is also one of the highest killers of women right now and it's getting more and more so. So we know that estrogen is extremely important for brain. Progesterone is very counteractive to that estrogen is a growth hormone. So we always want progesterone in there not progestin progesterone in there to counteract growth that also shows protection of the breasts. If you have breast cancer This is where there's some caveats to this, if you have breast cancer, or you have a history of breast cancer, you obviously have to be more careful, because estrogen is a growth hormone. If you've got breast cancer, it can make it multiply. But you have, you should have more fear of drinking alcohol. And eating too much sugar will cause breast cancer before your estrogen replacement in most cases. I mean, like I said, this is not a blanket thing statement. This is, in general, just

Philip Pape 40:30

having a conversation. You know, we're just trying to educate people to look into this. And I think it's great, I think, I mean, if somebody wants to start pursuing their own education about their own body and their hormones, where would they start to determine whether they're processing hormones properly? How can they do that?

Karen Martel 40:51

Great question. So I always say as soon as you can start testing your hormones. So if you're in your 30s, and you're feeling fine, now's the time to test because you really want to see what are your levels at when you feel good? It's good as a baseline. If you're past that, don't worry, it's never too late. But we want to get a really good idea of how does your body take on these hormones? Are you more estrogenic? Are you more androgenic, there's so many things that you can look at, there's also breakdown pathways of hormones that you can look at that can tell you if you may have an increased risk of breast cancer, because of which path your body chooses to break down estrogen, because some are more inflammatory and damaging than other pathways. So if you go to your doctor, your doctor will only test through blood, which will only test what's called bound hormones, and they're bound to a protein. These are not able to be used by the body, they have to get off the protein in order for the cell to use it for it to dock onto the cell. So this is again, probably a little too sciency for

Philip Pape 41:59

the free version, I mean, say versus no, yes,

Karen Martel 42:03

yeah. Oh, yes. And men can get their testosterone free levels tested through serum with no other hormones do the test three levels through serum. God forbid we help women. But you want to see what those free levels are. Because your total levels may look great when you don't have a lot of available hormones to the body. So if possible, you can do saliva, which tests free levels only. Or you can do what's called urine metabolite testing, which is the gold standard, that's going to give you your biggest picture, because it's not only going to reflect levels of free hormones, but it's going to tell you how you're processing all of these hormones, and what hair how are you metabolizing? Which pathways? Are you going down? And there's a lot that we can do with that information.

Philip Pape 42:54

Okay, so the again, you said your urine metabolite, and the saliva based test, which cannot

Karen Martel 43:01

be done through your primary care physician. Yeah, standard doctor, you need to buy that out of pocket. And you

Philip Pape 43:09

mentioned about women's health. I'm sure we could do an entire episode about the history of gaslighting and women's health, if you want to call it that. Yes, I yeah, I've done them. sympathize and empathize with that. So kind of, I guess third to last question. Sec. Asking for a friend. What do you think of the concept of seeds cycling? I think the intent is to minimize the fluctuations in hormones from cycle to cycle, but I'm not entirely sure what the purpose is. So is there a merit to this strategy?

Karen Martel 43:39

Yes. So seed cycling is actually used to help promote different hormones to help them come up, levels come up. So it's based around you, we want estrogen in the first half of the cycle. And we want more progesterone in the second half of the cycle. I actually have seen seed cycling work really well to help balance a woman's hormones and help with PMS, when they're cycling. So if you are a cyclical woman, not in menopause, this can help and remember what I said like we can't, we can't see it our way out of hormonal loss, just like we can't diet our way out of it. Same goes, right. So if you are in your 30s, and you're still got a cycle, seat Cycling is a really great way to help balance those hormones. You eat certain seeds in the first half of the cycle, and then you eat other seeds in the second half of the cycle like pumpkin and sunflower, sesame. And flash.

Philip Pape 44:41

Yeah. Yeah, pretty cool. And it's an easy, it's an easy thing to do and try it. Yes, yeah.

Karen Martel 44:47

Yeah. And there's all kinds of herbals and stuff like there's so much you can do in those early years that don't contain hormones. Right.

Philip Pape 44:54

Okay, so the penultimate question I like to ask this of all guests is well One question Did you wish I had asked and what is your answer?

Karen Martel 45:04

Oh, okay. I wish he would have asked, I'm not like dying for you to ask me a question. I don't think

Philip Pape 45:12

we covered so much. No, we

Karen Martel 45:14

really did. I mean, I can go off on so many different tangents. Okay, how about this is there light at the end of the tunnel for menopausal women because I do tend to tell you all this negative stuff, and women kind of go, Oh my gosh, like this sounds like it's horrible. And I don't want to be part of this. Like, we'll be going through this, this is all just negative. What I'll tell you right now, number one, there's, there's something that you can do. And that's what we've talked about here today. This is going to arm you with information and education so that you can go out and take action and do something about how you feel. There's so much that you can do to get through this time, low to no symptoms. I mean, I've seen women transform their lives just by replacing their hormones, where they're like, oh my gosh, I feel like I've come alive again, my libido is back, my skin's back, my hair is growing better, I feel better, I've lost weight, like, the list just goes on and on and on. This can be the best time of your life truly, honestly. I mean, we are told everywhere we look as women that we are not allowed to age, and you've got to ignore those things. Because aging can be the best thing ever, let me tell you this is when you're going to hopefully be the wisest. In your years, you're more confident with who you are, you're just like your kids have grown up or they're growing up, and they're not so needy anymore, you've kind of decided on the husband, whether he's staying or going or your wife, whatever you choose, you know, like this is when you really get to know who you are, and you start to put yourself first for the first time in your life, you put yourself first in most cases, women, you know, we try it, we get married, we get the career, we have the children, it's all about that. And then suddenly you hit your 40s 50s 60s and beyond. And it's like, oh, now I get to live for me and put myself first and it's a beautiful, amazing time. And so cherish it and make sure that you feel your best don't just survive this time, thrive during these years, and you can thrive during these years.

Philip Pape 47:29

That is a great way to end I love that don't just survive, but thrive. And I do want to give you the opportunity. Last question, Karen, after this amazing conversation. Where can listeners learn more about you and your work?

Karen Martel 47:43

Yes. So Karen martel.com is the website, you can find me on all the social accounts at Karen Martell hormones. And then of course, my podcast. I think that that's probably one of the best sources of information I talked a ton about wage and hormones and everything and everything else. It's as it's always number in the top 100 of the nutrition podcasts on iTunes, we do really, really well we've reverted top 20 Weight Loss podcasts of 2021. So it's great. And then I also on my website, you can take my free hormone quiz that tells you what your top hormone imbalances could be and which what could be stopping you from losing weight. And it comes with a nice eBook about some strategies that you can get started on right away, as well as a two week free hormone and metabolic meal plan, which is what I talked about earlier, where we cycle the carbs, we cycled the calories and you can kind of get an idea of how to eat that way. So that's all free. And you can get that over at Karen martell.com.

Philip Pape 48:49

Awesome. A lot of information. I think this for the listener the name of her podcast is the other side of weight loss, which you can go right now and download it very high quality podcast, lots of great information. And we just scratched the tip of the iceberg here. So I'll throw all that in the show notes so listeners can find you and Karen this was eye opening, very valuable conversation and I really thank you for coming on the show.

Karen Martel 49:11

Well, thank you so much for having me and I'll come back anytime Phillip.

Philip Pape 49:14

Absolutely love to have you. Thanks for listening to the show. Before you go. I have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast. Let me know by leaving a five star review in Apple podcasts and telling others about the show. Thanks again for joining me Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.

Philip Pape 11/1/22 Philip Pape 11/1/22

Ep 30: Stop Overeating, Binge Eating, and Obsessing Over Food with Dr. Glenn Livingston

I discuss overeating and binge eating with Dr. Glenn Livingston. Disillusioned by what traditional psychology had to offer overweight and food obsessed individuals, Dr. Livingston spent several decades researching the nature of bingeing and overeating in working with his own patients AND a self-funded research program with more than 40,000 participants. Most importantly was his own personal journey out of obesity and food prison to a normal, healthy weight and a much more lighthearted relationship with food.

I’m excited to have Dr. Glenn Livingston on the show today, especially because of his incredible work and useful strategies on emotional and binge eating.

Dr. Livingston is a veteran psychologist and was the long time CEO of a multi-million-dollar consulting firm for Fortune 500 clients in the food industry. You may have seen his (or his company’s) previous work, theories, and research in major media outlets like The New York Times, ABC, or CBS radio, among many others.

Disillusioned by what traditional psychology had to offer overweight and food obsessed individuals, Dr. Livingston spent several decades researching the nature of bingeing and overeating in working with his own patients AND a self-funded research program with more than 40,000 participants. Most importantly was his own personal journey out of obesity and food prison to a normal, healthy weight and a much more lighthearted relationship with food.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Glenn's personal story with overeating and binge eating
Why the modern world is a perfect storm for overeating and binge eating
Practical strategies people can use to stop overeating
Starting with just ONE rule for the most troublesome trigger food or behavior
Why rules and a personal food plan are liberating, not restrictive
Why generalizations like "just eat everything in moderation" are not helpful
Why we should strive for perfectionism (with a caveat)
How someone trying to GAIN weight would use this approach
The difference between HUNGER and CRAVINGS
Challenging clients and situations that required a more intense approach
Dealing with overeating on the weekends!
The one thing Dr. Livingston wished he learned earlier in life
The one question Glenn wished I'd asked...and his answer
Where to get a copy of his free book, "Never Binge Again"

RELATED LINKS

👉 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

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Dr. Glenn Livingston 01:31

Thank you so much. It's nice to be here. And looking forward to it.

Philip Pape 01:34

Likewise, I think it's going to be a great conversation. And to start off, since we are going to explore the topic of overeating and binge eating. What is your personal connection with this your personal story with overeating? What inspired you to become an expert in the area?

Dr. Glenn Livingston 01:49

Where do you live? Phillip?

Philip Pape 01:51

I live in Connecticut.

Dr. Glenn Livingston 01:52

Okay. My mother was in Danbury, Connecticut. And what was the name of the store, there was a deli there. It's right off Route, maybe for exit nine. And if you happen to stop there and find that they were out of pizza or pop tarts, I was probably there before you. So I have a very personal connection with overeating. It I'll try to encapsulate it a little more concisely. But when I was 17, or 18, I figured out that if I worked out hard because I'm six, four and just genetically lucky, little bit muscular. That worked out for a couple hours a day, I could eat whatever I wanted to like literally five 6000 calories a day and boxes of pizza and boxes of muffins and multiple chocolate bars. And if it wasn't nailed down, and then it was mine. And I thought that was great. It wasn't a problem. It was more like a superpower like Doug Graham says. And that worked for me until I was 22 or 23 years old. And I was married. And I was commuting several hours each way every day to go to graduate school and see patients and take classes. And then we get home and we'd have to work on the business a little bit. And God forbid my ex wife wanted to talk to me it was I just didn't have the time to work out. And so I discovered though that the food had a hold on me a life of its own. So I kept eating like that. And slowly but surely I got heavier. And my triglycerides went to well over 1000. And the doctors were yelling at me that, you know, I probably wasn't going to see 30 or 35 if I kept going like this and their heart attacks up and down the line of my family. And you know what, what bothered me the most though was that it interfere with my work, because I'm from a family of 17, psychotherapists, my mom and my dad and my grandparents and my aunts and my uncle, everybody, my grandmother. And so what was always most important to me was being a really good doctor. And I found that I just couldn't be totally present with my patients. And the thing is that psychology is not so much of an intellectual clinical psychology isn't really so much of an intellectual endeavor. I mean, you got to know a lot of stuff. But it's not like people come in and they present you with the puzzle of their life. And you say, well just rotate this here and you're missing this spot here and they go brilliant, brilliant doc, I'll get right on that. That part is actually relatively easy. Within you do a little bit of studying within a couple of sessions, you can kind of figure out what's going on with people. What's really hard is getting them to love and trust you enough so that they're willing to think new thoughts and go outside of their comfort zone and do new things. And to do that you have to learn them your soul, you gotta be right there with them. And I wasn't I was thinking, you know, sitting with a suicidal person thinking when can I get the next pizza? And I never lost anybody. Thank God, but but I wasn't fully there and that's what bothered me we're going anything and And being from the family I was from I went to very traditional roots. And I figured I must have a hole in my heart, a metaphorical hole in my heart. And if I could fill that hole in my heart, then I wouldn't have to fill the hole in my stomach. And so I tried to love myself then for lack of a better phrase, and nurture my inner Wounded Child, I went on a kind of spiritual journey, I went to, you know, doctors and healers and Overeaters Anonymous and took medication for a while and, and I don't regret it, because I feel like it enriched me and made me more compassionate person made me a deeper person as part of who I am today. But it didn't really help with the binge eating, or we get a little better when a lot worse, a little better and a lot worse. And it was up and down and wait, but like, gradually up, up, up, up. And what really helped me and was flipping the paradigm. And there are a number of things that happened that caused me to flip the paradigm from love yourself, Finn, to no be the alpha dog of your own brand. And kind of like a tough love approach. What what happened was, my ex wife was traveling for business all the time, she was a focus group, moderator and I had this extra time on my hands to start a second career. So because I didn't commute, and we didn't have kids. So I started consulting for big companies. Also, a lot of big companies in the food industry. I was on the wrong side of the war, I was like a hidden first wave sweater and advertising research. And I regret that I'm trying to make up for it now. But but

Dr. Glenn Livingston 06:38

but I saw that what they were doing was throwing billions of dollars. To have all these rocket scientists engineer, these hyper palatable concentrations of starch and sugar and fat and excitotoxins, and oil and salt and, and it's all aimed at reaching the bliss point in the reptilian brain stimulated the bliss point in the reptilian brain, without giving us enough nutrition to feel satisfied, which creates addiction, you know, and then every time you're looking for love at the bottom of a bag, or a box or a container, there's some fat cat in a white suit and mustache that's laughing all the way to the back.

Philip Pape 07:15

Yeah, yeah. So those are the you never, you can never stop it. Just one, right? You can never eat just one. That's the food science industry. But it's hard.

Dr. Glenn Livingston 07:22

It's hard. They actually, besides the food science, there's the advertising. And people think advertising doesn't affect them. But it affects you more when you don't think it affects you because your cells resistance is down. And not only does the food science stimulate the bliss point in the reptilian brain, without the nutrition, so you want more and more and more. But it turns off your ability to know when you're full. It actually physiologically turns off some of the sensors in your body, a lot of them do to know when you're full. And they press other evolutionary buttons that you don't even know that you have, like, you know, when, when a bag of chips is engineered, it's usually not from a unitary assembly line, usually multiple assembly lines with slightly different flavors, just very slightly different micro differences in flavor. Because your brain is wired to look for diversity, because a diversity of different flavors should be a diversity of different micronutrients. So you keep going and going and going when you encounter. So there are lots of things like that, that go on that just keep you eating. So I said that's an external force, the advertising industry, they're good at faking us out. Also, for example, it was working with this food brand manufacturer, who shall remain nameless, so don't get sued. And the VP kind of hung his head in chambers, he was leaving the company and told me, you know, Glenn, the most profitable thing we did was to take the vitamins out of the bar, because they were too expensive. And we could put the money into the packaging instead. So they made these diverse, multicolored, vibrant packages, which looks like the rainbow in nature, like you're supposed to eat the rainbow because when you find a diversity of colors, you're also red, red tomatoes, green lettuce, blueberries, yellow carrots, you're reading a diversity of micronutrients. So there are buttons in the reptilian brain that says, go for the rainbow. But in this case, they were pressing those buttons, but taking the nutrients out. And so I said to myself back to your original question. These are two very powerful external forces. You know, the advertising industry and the big food industry that have nothing to do with the fact that it was in a bad marriage had nothing to do with the fact that my mom didn't love me enough where she dropped my on my head when I was a baby and her mother dropped her on her head when she was a baby. It has nothing to do with my personal psychology. It's just a very powerful external force pressing on the reptilian brand. Furthermore, when I started to study neurology a little bit and just just a little I'm known enough to be dangerous, but But I discovered the reptilian brain doesn't know love. Like if this Is the reptilian brain when it looks at something in the environment, it says, Do I eat it? Do I meet with it? Or do I kill it? It's like a bad college drinking game, eat made or kill. On top of that, is the mammalian brain, which says, Wait a minute before you eat meat or kill that thing? What impact does that have have on your tribe and the people that you love? And then there's the neocortex that says, Before you eat meat or kill that thing, what impact does that have on the person you're trying to become on your long term goals, on your fitness, your training, your weight loss, your health in general, and who you want to be in the world. So this thing here doesn't know love? Yet, I'm spending, I must have spent two and a half decades trying to love myself in. So I said, Okay, this is more a matter of controlling a bodily organ than solving a psychological problem. What's it's hard for me to admit as a psychologist from the family that I was in, but since it's more a matter of controlling a bodily organ, I already control my testicles. And my, my, my bladder, right? If if I had to pee really, really badly, right now, if my bladder was pressing me to go pee, I would say, Look, I'm talking to Philip, we have an agreement to talk for an hour or so. And I'm going to have to get to you later. We'll just have to hold it. I don't really have to pee now. So you don't have to worry about

Philip Pape 11:17

it. No, I'm not worried.

Dr. Glenn Livingston 11:20

Same thing with your testicles. Right? Like, if there's a really pretty woman that I've seen in the beach, I know we're running out to kiss her right away. Actually, don't do that. Anyway, because I have a girlfriend and I'm kind of shy anyway. But but you know what I mean, there are civilized ways of going about this. And I have to credit champ, Jack trampy, of rational recovery, who wrote about this kind of thing for kind of putting this together for me. And I said, Well, why can't I control this organ and the reptilian brain that says, you know, just hand over the chocolate and nobody gets hurt? It's it's a misfiring of the survival drive. stimulated by industry. Why can't I control that same way. So here's what I did. It's a little crazy, it's going to sound less than sensitive, I promise you, this whole thing comes together into a system that's very compassionate and loving. But it's gonna sound a little crazy at first, I decided and I was not going to take this public. It's just an experiment on my own, that I had to know when the reptilian brain was active in order to stop it. So I have had very clear rules like a very clear line in the sand. So I knew when this reptilian brain was trying to get me to cross it. So I'd start with something like, I will never eat chocolate on a weekday again, and never have chocolate Monday to Friday, only on a Saturday or Sunday. Because then if I'm at Starbucks on a Wednesday, and I hear this voice in my head that says, you worked out hard enough, Glenn, it's going to be no big deal to just start again tomorrow. Start your silly diet tomorrow, go ahead and have some chocolate, you're not going to gain any weight. I would say, wait a minute, that's not me. Here's the crazy part. That's my inner pig, and called me my reptilian brain, an inner pig are kind of, you know, fictionalized it. Chocolate on a Wednesday is pig slop. I don't eat pig slop. And I don't like farm animals tell me what to do. And as ridiculous as that sounds as crude as that sounds, it would wake me up with a moment of impulse and give me a few extra microseconds to make the right choice, which I wish I could say I always did right away, but I didn't. But it just it cleared away the muck, I no longer thought I had some chronic progressive mysterious disease, I didn't think I had some psychological problem that nobody was able to get to. It's just like, my reptilian brain was active. And now I was waking up. So I had to get better at waking up, I had to get better at turning off the lizard brain. We've talked a little bit more about that in a little bit. And then I had to adjust the rules, so that I found rules that I wouldn't could follow. Which was easier than I thought it would be. Because nobody was telling me what to eat. I was deciding myself. And they said, well, one of the most important thing is that I make rules that I can follow. What is the most important thing is that I prove to myself that I'm dominant over this stupid bodily organism ruining my life. And then after that, I'll deal with losing weight.

Philip Pape 14:10

Yeah, so I want to unpack a lot of this because I really love the connection you're making. So a lot of people think this is a behavioral thing, a psychological thing, right? Like you said, there's some deep way to solve this with love or something else. And I like how you separate the primal from the psychological reminds me of a study I can't tell you who did it wasn't wasn't too many years ago, where they had the two groups basically locked in a in a room as part of the study and one group was asked to eat processed food and one group was asked to eat more whole foods. And they were basically left to their own devices to eat till they were full. And the group eating the process food ate about 500 calories more a day than the other other group, which which supports what you're saying because every single person in that group eating more calories because they have some, you know, emotional or psychologic The goal, right? Or is it, you know, the external force of making this perfectly delectable, highly palatable food that we just can't, can't resist, or we think we can't resist, which then leads to what you're saying is, if we're aware of that, and if we can name it, and we can then give ourselves our own rules, as opposed to following Peter, or following this or following that diet. I think it's matter. It sounds like it's a matter of self control. It's a matter of maybe a little bit of work, right, a little bit of thinking and thought and planning ahead of that, which I really love. And I think people can act on I mean, that's the key. It's not this years of what do I do? I'm so overwhelmed. Sounds like taking really act on this. Yeah. First, and I haven't read in your book, never binge again. So I'm gonna plug that for people. Where you talk about the food plan, you talk about the food rules, and you do mention this one rule for the one trigger foods. It sounds like, it sounds like that.

Dr. Glenn Livingston 15:54

With start with one simple rule. Yeah, what happens? My understanding is that overeating and particularly binge eating, but overeating in general, is a misfiring of the feast and famine response in the reptilian brain. It's this. It's this emergency response system that that was used to having evolved in an environment where food was not plentiful. And so when you came up on the harvest, or the catch, that would say, you better horrible you can. And what happens is, most overeaters are also good dieters, and so they keep themselves in this steady state of feast and famine. So there is an old nursery spring that says when she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad, she was hard. That's how most people live with their eating. Like they say, Well, I'm unplanned now. Screw it, I'm totally off plan, I'll start this again. And you want to beat that. And the way that you start to beat that is don't set the bar too high, come up with one simple practical thing that you could and would do, that doesn't feel too burdensome, so that you can experience success, I'll always put my fork down between bites, I'll never eat after seven o'clock, I'll never go back for second some, something you couldn't would do. That would make a really big difference. But it's not, it's not going to cause you to lose all the weight in 30 days, it's not going to totally fix all your health problems, it's just going to get you back into control and prove that you can do this thing.

Philip Pape 17:17

So So going on that example, let's say alcohol is your problem. Just for an example. You drink drink too many drinks on the weekend, would would that first step be to have fewer drinks? Or would it be have none? I mean, which how? I don't want to say extreme Do we go but where does the rule make sense.

Dr. Glenn Livingston 17:32

So I prefer when it comes to drugs and alcohol that people use Rational recovery or, you know, though, those specific techniques, because first of all, he's been developing this for 20 years specific to drugs and alcohol, and it tends to work better, my system is more forgiving. In other words, people tend to make more mistakes with food. And you can't really afford to make mistakes with drugs and alcohol, you might get behind the wheel and car to killer games. And when that said, people do use this sometimes for moderating their alcohol. And you know that

Philip Pape 18:11

Yeah, and that wasn't referring just everybody knows I'm not referring to alcoholism, specifically, I'm just talking about the average client that might drink a little bit on much on the weekend.

Dr. Glenn Livingston 18:19

So what typically happens with alcohol and food is that alcohol is a disinhibitor. So it makes it harder to follow your rules. And what I what I find is that with women, they'll tell me that if they have more than one drink at a meal, that they aren't able to follow the rules. And men will tell me that if they have more than two drinks at a meal, they're not able to follow their rules. So I said, Well, why don't you make a rule that says, I'll just have one drink at a meal or drinks? And yeah,

Philip Pape 18:45

yeah, so So speaking of rules, right? Some people might listen to this immediately. And I'm sure you you've always gotten this reaction that rules are themselves restrictive, and maybe cause people to binge I see the value in planning ahead. Mainly to avoid making decisions in the moment, at least that's the value I see in rules is having guidelines to avoid decisions, or, you know, spur the moment decisions. So what would you say to those who think rules are overly restrictive, or there's a danger in distinguishing good from bad when it comes to foods?

Dr. Glenn Livingston 19:14

So I have a lot of thoughts about that. And there is a whole philosophy of overcoming overeating, that says that making rules makes you feel too rebellious. And the cause of every binge is a restriction, even a mental restriction. And I will say that it's possible to make rules that overly restrict your food and you don't want to do that. So I think of rule is kind of like a good sharp kitchen knife. You can use them to chop vegetables or you can use them to kill your neighbor, and you shouldn't use them to kill your neighbor. Right? You could be you could also be self destructive with it. There. The idea of just learning to eat more mindfully is important. People eat less when they eat mindfully. There's some studies that say you are absorb more nutrition. If you eat mindfully, it's good to eat mindfully. But relying on that solely as a mechanism of overcoming overeating, I think is a mistake. The people that I talked to who have more or less done that, they still complain that they're not eating healthy enough, they would like to be eating healthier, but they're scared to to draw the line between healthy and unhealthy foods. And I'll say, Well, you know, do you know that there's flavored cardboard in the food system, like there's like, if you've seen some of the things these companies do, you wouldn't be. And at some point, you have to stand up and say, I opt out. That is a bad food that is an unhealthy food, I choose to eat healthier foods. And I'm not saying you can't indulge in processed foods, sometimes most of my clients two or three of them, they wind up making rules to moderate the food, like, I'll have no more than one bag of chips, and not more than, you know, every two days. Most people, that's what they do. But in the absence of rules, I don't really see how you can work it out to be mindful all the time. We don't live in a world where you can be mindful all the time. It's kind of like driving. When I'm driving around town. I'm mindful, I am. I'm daydreaming a little bit. Also, I am maybe listening to some music or a podcast or something like that. But I stopped at the red lights. And I'm thankful that the red lights are there, because there could be a guy coming in the other way, you know that those those rules protect me. And they actually expand my freedom, they don't contract my freedom to make it possible for my radius of locomotion to go farther. The other thing about that statement that creating rules is too much of a mental restriction. It's based upon the idea that it's going to stimulate your Inner Inner rebel. And it's true that it will, it will make you feel rebellious, you make a rule that says I want to have never have chocolate on the week, during the week again, watch yourself every time you go into a Starbucks, there's going to be a little voice in your head that says, Oh, my God, give me the chocolate. You have to be kidding me. Right?

Philip Pape 22:07

And you're gonna see the chocolate more than you've ever seen it before. Yeah,

Dr. Glenn Livingston 22:10

for a while, for a while, after a certain period of time you go through an extinction protocol, and your reptilian brain doesn't jump at that anymore. Because the brain is very efficient. It does not want to waste energy. So when it recognizes that this is a craving, you never get into, it stops, it stops the craving, we don't crave things that we're never gonna have. It just

Philip Pape 22:33

Yeah. And I love that concept, the extinction protocol, which sounds like a habit. I mean, that's what I would turn it into. Well, there's a lot of research into that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah,

Dr. Glenn Livingston 22:43

yeah, it takes 30 exposures or so to the, to the offending stimulus. And a couple of little bursts of cravings, like, people think it's just gonna go straight down like this, but it actually goes through a honeymoon period, then you get some significant cravings, then it goes down, then you get a little craving and, and then it just kind of trails away. I have offered the point that I never eat chocolate, I don't we didn't have a rule about it. I just became someone who doesn't eat chocolate, and I don't, I don't crave it. I don't think about it. I just I'm just I'm just someone who doesn't eat chocolate. But what I was going to say is that the essence of recovering from overeating is making the decision to move your important food decisions from emotions, whims and impulses, to your intellect. Now, rebellious ness is just another emotion. So you could feel angry, you could feel depressed, you could feel lonely, you could feel anxious, you don't have to overeat because of those feelings, you can sever the link, you're gonna have those feelings, but you can sever the link between those feelings and overeating. Just like a really good fireplace severs a link between the fire and burning down the house. Right? The fire can keep burning, you can still have all the emotions in the world. But it doesn't have to get out of the fireplace, it doesn't have to burn down the house, you can be as rebellious you can feel as rebellious as you want to. But if you don't eat chocolate, on a weekday, then you don't eat chocolate on a weekday. So I don't see it as any different than that. And I really see the ultimate goal is learning to control your important food decisions with your intellect rather than your emotions and impulses.

Philip Pape 24:21

Yeah, so controlling with your intellect would then probably go counter to some of the old saying either there's an adage just eat everything in moderation. For example, I hear that a lot.

Dr. Glenn Livingston 24:33

Yeah, well, I mean, what they'll say is eat well 90% of the time and indulge yourself 10% of the time. For things that have not established themselves as to Addictive a pattern. You could do that but for the things that are too addictive for you. It's going to be difficult because first of all, the cravings are very, very strong. They're artificially inflated by food industry, but they're very, very strong. It was a matter of habit. And secondly, when you say well, 90% of the time and indulge yourself 10% of the time, you don't have a vehicle for deciding, which is the 90% and which is the 10%. So you're forcing yourself into a situation where you have to make food decisions all day long. If I say if I say I'm just going to have chocolate 10% of the time, it's great in theory as a guideline, but every time I walk into Starbucks or any place that there's a chocolate bar, I have to make another chocolate decision. And willpower is the ability to make good decisions. Unfortunately, that ability is not like a genetic given where some people have it or they don't. It's more like gas in the tank, and you wear it down all day long as you make decisions, which is the reason that your decisions are better in the morning than they are in the evening. So if you create a rule that says I'll only have chocolate, on a weekday, I only have chocolate on a weekend that I've made all my chocolate decisions during the week, I don't have to burn my willpower all week long.

Philip Pape 26:04

Hey, this is Philip pape, letting you know that applications are now open for one on one coaching. If you're a busy working professional, who has tried dieting and exercising for years, with little in the way of results, and you want to lose fat, get lean or feel confident in your body without excessive dieting, cardio or restrictions, just go to wits & weights.com/coaching, to apply. Now, how does this How does this tie into people who are tracking right? So a lot of my clients the track is that's one way to learn about intake when we're trying to go for a specific goal, you know, generally fat loss goal, but it could be a muscle building goal, I have clients and myself who need to eat a lot of calories to go the other direction. The tracking itself is somewhat of a structure and that going into each day, you know, there's a limit on the calories, right? But it still leaves you open to making decisions potentially in the moment, and could be disruptive if those decisions are things that you just can't help but want to eat more of. What do you think of that? Yeah,

Dr. Glenn Livingston 27:03

you know, I know a woman who was traveling and her business required her to eat at a restaurant three times a day for three months. And the way she worked it out, was to never step foot in a restaurant, unless she'd written down and tracked exactly what she was going to have beforehand. So she kept herself out of the environment of temptation, unless all of her decisions were met. And so the tracking, the tracking was a willpower preservative that she and she was perfectly fine, she's perfectly fine like that. If you have a rule that you write down your calories, or macros or nutrients before you eat them, it inserts a pause between stimulus and response. And it gives you a little bit more control. And it at least forces you to make the decision before your taste buds are stimulated. And you're right in front of all the smells and everything like that. So it kind of depends how you use it, some people use it after eating. And that kind of gives them a sense of control and help help them with the decision making. But it doesn't obviate the need for decision making in the first place. So it's a good tool. People sometimes get tired of tracking and so there are other tools you can use. Yes, awesome.

Philip Pape 28:19

happens for sure. And the example you made about pre logging, that's the term I use has been helpful to people, I've seen it work a lot where things have maybe lately been going out of control on the weekends, and all of a sudden, you're just not sure how you're going to stay there. And we say Okay, tomorrow, for tomorrow, I want you to think about everything you're going to eat, pre log it in your app, and then execute the plan. And that usually works for a lot of people. So it's a great

Dr. Glenn Livingston 28:45

event. And you think about it, like, you know, there's general Glenn that plans it all out. And then there's private limits, there's the application not to question why are yours to do or die, right?

Philip Pape 28:57

Yeah. And actually, we apply the same thing to training, you know, plan out your sets, your reps, your exercises, and then go in and execute and then you know, you're gonna, that's what you're gonna do. So, I again, I've been reading your book, and there was a quote in there. And it's related somewhat to some things we've touched on already. You said, quote, you must authoritatively declare your food plan as 100% Perfect, or you're not committing to anything at all. And then you expound on pre the pre and post binging context, and we just touched on the pre, you know, doing things ahead of time. But can you elaborate on that philosophy of perfection?

Dr. Glenn Livingston 29:30

Yeah, most people think that perfectionism is a bad thing, and that we have to strive for progress and not perfection. That's true, and it's not true. It's only true in context. If you made a mistake, then beating yourself up and saying, Well, if I'm not perfect, then I'm nothing and I'm, I am pathetic. I can't possibly do this. Your pet your pig is going to jump in and say, therefore, you might as well just binge binge binge binge binge at least till the end. then you can start again tomorrow, right? So, after you've made a mistake, you, you need to say, look, I'm human, I was practicing a food plot plan. Now it's time for the big leagues. Let's see, I missed the bullseye by how much and in what direction, so that I know how to make adjustments and aim again. And then I forgive myself, it's just like, if I accidentally touch a hot stove, I don't want to say oh my god, you're a pathetic hot stove touch here, you might as well put your whole hand down on the stove and just bring the whole thing off. Because you can't even do this right, or you could chip a tooth, you don't go get a hammer and bang the rest of them out. You have to forgive yourself with dignity. However, when you're aiming at the bullseye, an Olympic Archer, who only hits the Bull's eye 35 or 40% of the time, but when the Olympic Archer is aiming at the bullseye, before they lose the arrow, they see the arrow going in with perfection, they kind of have to be one with the target. They're not saying maybe I'll make it, maybe I won't, I'll do the best I can. So that, no, I'm gonna hit the target. Because I see the I Am One With that goal. You commit with perfection, but forgive yourself with dignity. By committing with perfection, you prevent your pig from draining your energy with doubt and insecurity. You purge your mind of doubt and insecurity, you claim the target. And you can make with perfection and do everything you can to hit it. Yeah, so you can make with perfection and forgive yourself with dignity, your pig will do exactly the opposite. Your people will say just try the best you can, which just means you'll try for a little while so you don't feel like it anymore. And then if you miss it, it'll say oh, you're an idiot, you obviously can't do this, just shoot the rest of the arrows into the audience. We wanted to the opposite of that. So perfectionism is being used anyway, no matter how you slice it. So let's let's harness the energy and use it as a commitment tool, not as a forgiveness and analysis tool

Philip Pape 31:56

as a braiding tool. Yeah, no, that's, that's really good. And I think, again, you know, I'm a coach. And a lot of times people need that boost ahead of time and try not to say, hey, just do your best. It's more, this is our plan. Let's go get it. Let's let's execute to the plan. And then afterward, you didn't make the plan. Okay, that new day? Let's start again. Yeah. So I just wanted to clarify that because I know, you know, that could be a controversial concept to people with the perfectionism. So let's, let's say someone's not trying to lose weight, I was just curious, on your take on this, someone is maybe in a maintenance phase, or building phase or trying to gain weight, because I know, probably 90% Plus what you're talking about is about losing weight. Would you take any different approach and that scenario, in terms of managing overeating or binge eating,

Dr. Glenn Livingston 32:43

we wouldn't take an approach in terms of the structure of mind or techniques that we use. However, the rules are different, we usually have anti restriction rules. You know, like I will, although we see 600 calories before 11am. Or I will have no less and no more than three meals per day and never less than x number of calories per meal. We'll have anti restriction rules in place to keep the calories up.

Philip Pape 33:09

Yeah, anti Russia, okay, I was I was worried about that. I was thinking that exact same thing. Because if it's three o'clock, and I haven't hit, you know, 2500 calories, man, the rest of the day is going to be really tough to try to

Dr. Glenn Livingston 33:21

be a bodybuilder. So we're going to gaming things on there. Yeah.

Philip Pape 33:24

And then you and then you're prone to maybe scarfing on processed food on purpose. And that could be an issue over time, you know, just to get the calories. And I was curious about that. So you talked about cravings. I think language is important. Is there a difference between hunger and cravings?

Dr. Glenn Livingston 33:41

I believe that most of our hungry and foam meters have been broken by industry, especially if you're binge eating or like seriously out of control. But even if you're just overeating, a little beyond your own best judgment. And the traditional approach is to help you become more in tune with your hunger and fullness so that you can eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. Which I think is a good guideline but I don't think it's enforceable via these never binge again methods. Because I don't think we have a true sense of being hungry and full I think it's it's distorted from from industry that says there isn't that said there is a difference between a craving and true hunger. I think you feel true hunger kind of in the back of your throat. true hunger will make the meal taste better. You'll know if you really were hungry, but hungry because hunger is the best sauce. If you're really hungry, you'll be happy with fruit and vegetables. If you're not so, if you're if it's more of a craving, it's got to be the chocolate bar and the Doritos Right? So there's definitely a difference but I don't rely on that difference to help people overcome overeating.

Philip Pape 34:55

Okay, but it sounds like if you if you ask yourself what I what I eat as bullets calorie? And the answer is no, you're probably not hungry. Okay. So what have you dealt with, I'm sure you have a client or situation that was just very, very challenging someone who had, you know, maybe a lot to surmount, and had to pull out all these tools and strategies and help them overcome their personal speaking points.

Dr. Glenn Livingston 35:20

The hardest thing we have to deal with is people hiding. There two things people hide, and they fall in love with their emotions. There's so much emphasis on emotions and overeating in our culture that people think they have to solve their emotional problems. And I just had a session with a client and home session, she was crying and told me it's so frustrating. And I kept saying, but what do you want? What do you want to accomplish? If people will do the work to like, pick a very specific goal and then analyze, I guess we didn't really talk about that one. The the pig will, once you have a rule in place, the pig will usually squeal in such a way. That sounds true. It's like a half truth and a bigger lie, to convince you to indulge in the cravings. So for example, the one I used before when the pig says, you know, you worked out hard enough, it's going to be just as easy for you to start your diet again tomorrow, go ahead and have the chocolate back are now. Well, it's true that I worked out harder enough. And if I just had one bar that I probably wouldn't gain weight. But it's never just a bar. It really wasn't for me, chocolate was my thing. And it would lead to pizza and everything else. Secondly, the way that the brain works, the principle of neuroplasticity says that if I have a craving and I indulge it today, that craving is going to be stronger tomorrow, as well. The thought that just came right before the indulgence. So the thought and just start tomorrow is going to be more likely to recur tomorrow with a stronger craving. So it's not just as easy to start tomorrow, it's harder. I can only ever use the present moment to be healthy. If you're in a hole, stop digging. So what you want to do is is disempower those irrational thoughts. That's the work of what we do. There's, there's more to it, because there ways to get out of the reptilian brain and into your higher brain to kind of calm down and think rationally. But that's the essence of what we do. The biggest problem I have is that people won't do it. They'll, you know, they'll, they'll say, I just have to solve these emotional problems, or they won't show up for recession, or, you know, they want to do the little assignments that we give. And that's, that's the biggest problem I have not really that the techniques themselves don't work or that you need a stronger one to help someone who's 500 pounds than you do to help someone who's 200 pounds. Yeah, same techniques work.

Philip Pape 37:41

So it's it's not the winner. People know what to do. They just don't do it. It sounds like it's an accountability and a momentum thing.

Dr. Glenn Livingston 37:49

The pig talks him out of it. May I say a little bit more about emotional eating, please. Okay. The paradigm we have in our culture is the belief that I have these uncomfortable emotions, and I escaped from them with overeating, right. And this is not really my hands are not really the best analogy, but it's like it's this one way relationship. We're eating to, quote unquote, numb out. And it's true that when you overload the digestive system, the nervous system has difficulty conducting the emotions. So there is a kind of numbing anesthetic effect on the feelings when you overeat. That's true. However, several other things are also true. First of all, the things we overeat are not typically broccoli, it's more likely to be these concentrations of calories and starch and sugar in these hyper palatable things. Which we didn't have in the Savannah, we didn't have chocolate bars and Doritos on the savanna, right. And these artificial concentrations of pleasure are really akin to drugs. I mean, they're legal. And I'm not advocating that the manufacturers be put in jail or anything like that. But really, how is it that much different, it's an artificial concentrations of pleasure that evolution didn't prepare us for, and we get more and more and more involved with it. So when you're going to the chocolate bar, or the potato chips, or the pizza or the pasta, you're kind of sort of going to a drug. And so there's this piece of us that wants to get high with food, right? It's this is the stuff is not just numbing out. Do you ever go to the dentist? And he says I'm sorry, I'm Adam Novocaine? Could I inject you with some potato chips instead? Right because the potato chips have more than just a numbing effect. We're going after something else. There's an even more important difference though. It's not just a one way relationship. It goes both ways. Let's take anxiety. A lot of people say I'm too anxious to fall asleep without overeating. A lot of people say they can't fall asleep without eating something heavy. And no the middle site serotonin rich things you know, potatoes, pastas, there'll be eating very heavy, hard to digest serotonin producing things. So it seems to make sense. However, when you're looking at anxiety to get got several physiological correlates, your blood pressure goes up a little bit, you start to perspire, your respiration goes up, your heartbeat goes up a little, the galvanic skin response go was up a little bit. These are all very measurable things. Now, if you're looking at a group of animals, and you, you give them a sugar reward or a starch reward, when their heart rate goes up, or their blood pressure is up or any of this other. There's a study with baboons, for example, where every time their blood pressure was up a little bit, we reinforced them with sugar transit that those baboons while at the moment, they're having sugar, the the blood pressure goes down a little bit, overall, their blood pressure goes up, that whole group goes up. And so you could infer that perhaps the anxiety is raised overall, their body is learning to produce those experiences more because of the sugar reward, because his experiences led to a sugar reward. So you think that you're getting yourself back to sleep by doing this, but really what you're doing is creating progressively more anxiety. So what are the Yeah, but if the inability to sleep is actually caused by the rewards that you're giving it?

Philip Pape 41:12

Yeah. Okay. So it's, it sounds complicated. But it also, in a way simplifies everything you said before in that, why don't we just focus on what we do have control over focus on that pig and focus on planning ahead? And like that concept, so what if a lot of my a lot of my clients face the temptation on the weekends, right, this is a pretty common approach. And they might describe it as emotional eating, in many cases. And I don't know, I don't know if it is or not, you know, in terms of the technical definition you were describing. But it's extremely common, right? Because the routine is broken. On the weekends, often for people, they have social events, they go out, they travel, hanging out with family, and so on. What would you say is maybe the the big go to approach or strategy for that case? It's it probably affects a lot of people.

Dr. Glenn Livingston 42:03

I plan to have more in the weekends, but but planted out? Right?

Philip Pape 42:08

Okay. It's higher calories. And on the weekends? Yeah. Yeah, maybe

Dr. Glenn Livingston 42:11

maybe a little less every day during the weekend, a little more on the weekend.

Philip Pape 42:14

Okay. And that's, and that's effectively that, that's something you write down as a plan. So that's one thing we didn't talk about. When you come up with this food plan, it's you actually write down the rules for yourself? Yeah, so

Dr. Glenn Livingston 42:25

maybe, maybe I would say, I will never have read on a weekday again. And no more than two slices a day on the weekend? They'll just be an example.

Philip Pape 42:33

And then how do people hold themselves to that besides having written it down? Or is that is that the extent of it? Is that usually enough?

Dr. Glenn Livingston 42:38

Well, well, okay. So whenever you create a rule, now, you know, that a pig squeal, and you don't have to call it a pig, you can call it your food monster. But a squeal is any thought filling impulse or reimage, which suggests that you're going to break the rule, either now or in the future. So you're kind of separating your thoughts into two, there's you and then there's the pick where your food master. And so if you say, I will never have more than two slices, on slices of bread on the weekends, and I will never ever during the week, your pickers going to squeal all the time saying at first saying, oh boy, you can have this, you know, forget about it on Wednesdays like Saturday, you first recognize that that's what's going on. That this is not you, this is a destructive thought, by your definition, this is a destructive thought of your pig. Okay, now what you want to do is move the battleground, what's happened is your reptilian brain is active, you're, you're probably have activated your sympathetic nervous system, which is the part of our nervous system that gets us ready for immediate action. You know, like, if a hungry bear is chasing you, it gets you all revved up. So you can take immediate action for your survival, your brain is misperceiving or to be in an emergency, you just got to have that extra piece of bread or you're going to die. That's that's literally what the brain is thinking. So now you know that it's active, you want to step into your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the part that says it's okay to rest and digest and stratotype strategize and plan for the future. So, one way you can do that, once you realize that it's active, is to take what we call a 711 breath, where you breathe in for a kind of seven, and that for a count of 11. We do that a couple of times. The reason that works is that if we were in a true emergency, if we're being chased by a hungry bear, we'd be breathing as fast as we can, we wouldn't have time to breathe out for you know, 25 30% longer than we were then. And so the brain says okay, there must not be an emergency here so it starts to come down. Once you've done that, you can further move from the Chilean brain to the neocortex by writing down specifically what the pig is saying. Just the act of writing it down even if you can't disempower it will take you from the reptilian brain to Leo cortex because writing is an upper brain experience and binging as the lower brain experience. So now you're right down. Just start tomorrow, it's no big deal, right? Then you look at the squeal, you take another couple of 711 breaths, you look at the squeal. And you say, how is the pig wrong? How is it lying to me? Well, it's not easy. It's all the things we said before, it's not as easy to start tomorrow, because XYZ, take another couple of 711 breaths and you say, Why would I be a happier better person, if I kept the pig in the cage? Why wouldn't be a happier better person if I don't have the chocolate bar now. And maybe that has to do with feeling in integrity that I'm walking the walk in the world or, you know that I can climb to the top of the mountains as a tall fan man, or, you know, one of the reasons I have for the rules in the first place, you kind of come back to your big why. And then you take a breath out, you should feel calmer. The last thing you want to do is ask yourself, is there any genuine, physical or emotional need that I need to fulfill? Usually, it's physical, often these cravings are louder and more appealing when you're hungry or tired. So ask yourself, how do you take care of that? For chocolate for me, I eventually really got off of chocolate, not just with the rule. But you know, the rule gave me the power to recognize when this was happening. And it would experiment with a lot of different things that I could eat. When I realized that kale, kale juice, celery and bananas together seem to it doesn't didn't give me the same feeling I didn't get high with it the same way I got high with food. But I felt content, like it scratched the itch. And it was taking care of some genuine physiological need. So that whole routine together with it's what gave me the power to never have chocolate. That's that's how it happened.

Philip Pape 46:51

This is This is gold gland. I love this. I'm gonna have to rewatch this a few times. Because there's so much great stuff in there going from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic, using the 711 technique, right? Sounds like it takes us out of the I don't know if it's the fight or flight. That's a colloquialism that feast or famine. Yeah, feast or famine, to telling our brain that, no, we're not in this emergency situation. And then the having substitutions. I know one substitution where you know, hunger is disguised, or thirst is disguised as hunger. And you may just need to drink could often work with people, but you found a specific food that maybe scratched the itch, but without all the other side effects, and it's not something you crave. So I just love that whole story, as well as the steps I think people are going to be able to take a lot from that. So thanks. I do want to ask more of a philosophical question for you. Is there something with everything you've learned that you wish you had learned earlier in life?

Dr. Glenn Livingston 47:49

I wish I learned that all earlier in life, but it's just not as complicated as it's as it sounds, it's, you know, you, I still thoroughly believe in psychology as a mechanism for soul enrichment, solving other problems in life. I wish that I didn't spend all those years looking for psychological solutions to overeating. Because I had damaged my body a lot in the process. I suffered a lot in ways that I didn't have to. The other thing that happens when you start to have control like this is that the food obsession goes away, because the pig doesn't crave things that it's never going to have. And it also will stop craving things that you don't do except for a very specific context. Like if you only have read in a restaurant on the weekend, you'll find that the pig stops craving bread during the week, most of the like one out of three people will have to give bread altogether. But mostly you'll find that it starts craving bread during the week. And, you know, I have to tell you that I'm really happy to live in a relatively thin and healthy body. I am infinitely happier that I can think about other things besides food all day long. Because I was always thinking, When is the next meal? When's the next pizza? How am I going to control myself? How am I going to make up for it? Do I go to the gym for three hours tomorrow? How am I gonna hide the evidence? It's just it was a nightmare. All the obsessing about it was a nightmare. And if I just knew that I could start with one simple rule and I didn't have to go through all this deep soul searching to to fix this. I think my life would have been a lot better. Sometimes I think if I had a, I had a time machine, I can go back and mute myself when I was nine years old. What would I say? I'd say Glenn, step away from the Pop Tarts just step away from the puck.

Philip Pape 49:39

And at the same time, though, right, like if we hadn't gone through that experience, you wouldn't have actually learned what you have. Now we know that but it's fun to hypothesize. So the takeaway there is it's a lot simpler than we might make it out to be. Maybe we there scapegoats we use to try to link this whole thing to something more complex regarding emotion psychology. which is, which is good that we that we don't have to do that, especially someone like me who doesn't have a background, and then I just want to help people, you know, succeed in life and get the results they want to get. So it's very helpful. Before we get to the last question, is there anything you wish I would have asked you? And if so, what's your answer?

Dr. Glenn Livingston 50:16

Okay, you did a really good job. I wish you would have asked me what do you think about people who are frightened that setting up these rules will restrict their freedom. And what I would have said is there were two famous quotes, one from Jim Rohn, that said, a life of discipline is better than a life of regret. There was some Peter McWilliams, who said, you can have anything you want, but you can't have everything you want. And so to really get what you want, you really do need discipline. And I think about discipline is creating freedom. I think that it's only because of the discipline of the engineers have put my car together, that I can turn my wheel further degrees to the right, and the wheels actually turn 30 degrees to the right. And I can drive all over the state if they want to, oh, they're not in Florida this week because of the hurricane. But, but. Or I wanted to be a jazz pianist when I was younger. And it was only because of the discipline of knowing the scales and practicing the skills that I was ever able to express my soul in an improvised way. Right. Discipline creates freedom, it doesn't restrict your freedom. So that's what I'd say about that.

Philip Pape 51:26

Wonderful. I totally agree with that as an engineer, too, and you're throwing in an engineering analogy, I can totally appreciate that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So all right, final question. Where can listeners get a free copy of your book that we've been talking about the fantastic book Never binge again? And where can they learn more about you?

Dr. Glenn Livingston 51:47

Both the same place that never binge again.com Easy enough. If you click on the big red button, I'll give you three things. One is a free copy of the book and Kindle ebook or PDF format. If you want the audible or the paperback there is a charge, reasonable charge, there's a charge. When you do it, though, when you sign up for that reader bonus list to get the free copy, you will also get several other things. One of which is a set of recordings that shows how this crazy psychologist coaches people through feeling hopeless and powerless and confused and despairing to feeling excited and optimistic and confident that they can do this in just one session. So recorded a whole bunch of that this is all free. And that's just so that you don't think I'm too crazy. And why does Philip have a psychologist with a pig inside him on the coffee. And then you'll also get a set of food plant starter templates. Personally, I'm a whole foods plant based person, but we work with people across all dietary philosophies. We have a lot of keto people, we've got point counters, calorie counters, macrobiotic vegan carnivores. And we thought through a set of starter templates you could use, you need to customize them and own them for themselves. These are not diets. I'm not a medical professional. I don't have a nutritionist license or dietitians license. And more importantly, we found that to overcome over eating, you really have to make your own rules. But yeah, three things that never binge again.com click the big red button, including a free copy of the book.

Philip Pape 53:27

Wonderful. I will make sure those links are in the show notes. I've already been a recipient of the resources myself and I love the regular emails that come in too with clips that are that I think are super helpful to people. So Dr. Glen Livingston, this has been enlightening. It's also been very educational to me and the listeners, I'm sure. I really appreciate you coming on the show and having this conversation.

Dr. Glenn Livingston 53:48

I really enjoyed it. Phil, thanks for having me on.

Philip Pape 53:51

Thanks for listening to the show. Before you go, I have a quick favorite ask. If you enjoy the podcast, let me know by leaving a five star review in Apple podcasts and telling others about the show. Thanks again for joining me Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.

Philip Pape 10/25/22 Philip Pape 10/25/22

Ep 29: Science Says - Diet (Calorie Deficit) vs. Exercise (Cardio) for Fat Loss

In this “Science Says” episode, we answer the question: which is better for weight loss: diet (a calorie deficit) or exercise (in the form of cardio)? Listen to find out—you might be surprised!

This is another "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 "Reduction in obesity and related comorbid conditions after diet-induced weight loss or exercise-induced weight loss in men. A randomized, controlled trial." by Ross, et al. (2000).

The main question is, which is better for weight loss: diet (a calorie deficit) or exercise (in the form of cardio)? Listen to find out—you might be surprised!

RELATED LINKS

Ross, R., Dagnone, D., Jones, P. J., Smith, H., Paddags, A., Hudson, R., & Janssen, I. (2000). Reduction in obesity and related comorbid conditions after diet-induced weight loss or exercise-induced weight loss in men. A randomized, controlled trial. Annals of internal medicine, 133(2), 92–103.

👉 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

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:39

where I review a research article talking about the findings and how you can apply it in your life to improve your overall health and fitness. The study we're talking about today is titled reduction in obesity and related co morbid conditions after diet induced weight loss or exercise induced weight loss in men, a randomized control trial. This is from 2000 by Ross at all. And it is a fine example of a study on the topic comparing dieting with cardio, and he participants in the study included males who were overweight and or obese. So that was a BMI above 27, a waist above 39 inches. And they've had, they've maintained their weight for six months before the study began. Out of the four groups. In this study, two of the groups were assigned to lose body fat. One group was the diet only group. And one group was the cardio only group for both groups. They put them through a four to five week period, where they basically got them to maintenance. And they confirmed this using doubly labeled water measurements, which is very highly precise way of calculating the expenditure. And then during the study, the participants had to go to seminars every week with a dietitian, where they were taught about food selection and preparing food. And then they had to keep logs of their food. So the researchers understood their intake. Now the duration of the study was 20 weeks, of which 12 weeks were for the weight loss phase. And during those 12 weeks the diet only group they cut their calories by 700 calories per day. So they were in a deficit of 700 per day, and they didn't do any cardio. Conversely, the cardio only group were at maintenance, but they expended 700 calories a day using cardio without dieting. So it's a very clear control of the specific variable of interest here, which is whether dieting 700 calories a day, or cardio 700 calories a day, which one was more effective. And then as far as the macros in their diet, it's more percentage based because obviously the dieting group is going to be on fewer calories, but the percentages were 55 to 60% carbs, 15 to 20% protein 20 to 25% fat. Now if we look at the cardio only group, we talk about what kind of cardio they did, they basically did brisk walking or light jogging. So I would call that low intensity steady state generally. And they did this long enough so that they could burn 700 calories, which resulted in an average time of an hour per day at just below 80% max heart rate. So the end result because of how well this was controlled, monitored, measured, was that both groups had an effective deficit of 700 calories per day. One was purely from cardio, and one was purely from diet. And by the way, I want to go off on a little tangent here, because one thing that struck me when I was reading about the exercise, that they're brisk, briskly walking for about an hour a day, and I'm always talking about the value of steps of walking, especially with my clients of if we can just walk an extra two, four, maybe 6000 steps a day, you know, oftentimes, people are getting 4000, because they have a desk job and they're not moving around a lot. And then they go up to 8000. Well, that that for that extra 4000 steps, is probably about 4550 minutes of walking, just normal walking. And of course, it'd be slightly less if you were briskly walking, which if you can tell from this study, if you're able to add 700 calories, your expenditure for one hour, then you're going to still add four or 500 calories to expenditure from adding about 4000 steps. So I think just without even going any further in the study, this is good evidence that you know, without down regulating your metabolism by doing the higher intensity forms of cardio that I typically warn against overdoing because of the recovery and the metabolic effects. And this low intensity version of cardio can actually be quite highly effective for helping with your metabolism, but we're gonna get They're later in the study when we talk about the results, and what combination of this kind of cardio and diet we might want to incorporate for the best outcome. So now I want to talk about what they measured. And it would be the things you would expect, they measured, the resting, the RMR, it's called which some people use interchangeably with BMR. But it's a component of your metabolism. They measured body weight, they measure body fat, and then they used an MRI machine to measure muscle mass. So they had some fancy tools at their disposal. So now let's talk about the results. So after the 12 weeks, both groups lost the same percentage of weight, they both lost about 16 pounds, 16 pounds for the diet group, 17 pounds for the cardio only group. So those are basically exactly the same. But the big difference was actually in the change in body composition. Something we talked about a lot in this podcast is the value of improving your body composition, cutting fat, and maintaining muscle or building muscle while not adding too much fat.

Philip Pape 06:06

Philip Pape 06:30

So in this study, the group doing just cardio actually lost a lot more body fat 4.3% than the diet only group 3.4%. In statistical terms, that's a lot. It's only about 1% difference, they still both loss, decent amount of weight and body fat. But in addition to that, so Compounding this, the group that did the cardio lost less muscle 2.2 pounds, then the cardio only group which lost 4.8 pounds of muscle. So when you use a ratio, the group that was relying on the diet calorie deficit, they lost 70% from fat 30% from muscle, the cardio group lost 85% of their weight from fat and 15%. From muscle. This is a fairly profound outcome showing that when you combine the two, the cardio only group, despite losing the same amount of weight actually lost more of that weight as fat. Now here's another interesting finding. Both groups saw that there saw their resting metabolic rate decrease, but the diet only group their rate decreased by 40%. More than the cardio only group. So the fact that they were in a diet in a deficit caused their metabolism, their metabolic rate to decline more precipitously than the cardio only group. And this is actually consistent with the fact that the cardio only group retained more muscle, because muscle is more expensive. And we talk about the fact that having more muscle mass actually keeps your metabolic rate higher, and that the fat free mass or your body composition is the biggest impact when it comes to your metabolic rate. Other than the short term fluctuations like meat like steps, like activity. Now there's one huge caveat to this study. And that is the participants in the study, were not resistance trained, which is something we all tried to do the listeners of this podcast, we know the value of strength training of resistance training as part of your daily regimen, or maybe not daily, but as part of your ongoing consistent weekly regimen, you strength train. And people tend to make the argument However, and this study counters that, that somehow dieting is the best thing you can do for fat loss and that cardio is somehow ineffective. And I don't I've never said that. I always say that. You don't want to do too much medium intensity cardio, so it doesn't interfere with your lifting and your recovery. But I also say at the same time that cardio was an excellent boost for fat loss during the diet said that many times that you can use HIIT sessions or low intensity cardio or definitely walking in steps to give you a boost your metabolic rate. So now the question is, should we be in a calorie deficit to lose fat and weight? Or should we only try to get it from activity? And I think you know, the answer is I think, you know, the answer is actually both because we never want to rely on on strictly having to move a certain amount every day just to lose weight. And furthermore, it's usually not enough when we're trying to get into a certain deficit and lose at a certain rate of loss. So at the end of the day, what we're saying is the takeaway from this is the best way to optimize fat loss is to use a calorie deficit combined with some cardio in your program, and that cardio could be simply walking and that is why I always recommend and with my clients, we go through a metabolic restoration or preparation phase for probably two to as many as eight weeks before we go into a fat loss phase, and during that initial phase, we start upping our steps, we incorporate training, we incorporate sufficient protein, and then manage the stressors, the sleep, distress, and so on. So that puts us into a great position metabolically to start that fat loss phase. And that we have the habits in place like the steps to keep the metabolism high enough, so we can diet on higher calories. And so that when we hit the gas pedal on the fat loss phase, we then can go into a deficit, but it's not as painful, we're not at such low calories, we're using our steps to supplement our diet, because we've already started to increase our steps. And thus, we have an easier time dieting. Now as you get further into a diet, you've experienced some more metabolic adaptation, and you're trying to hold on to muscle mass. This is where adding a little extra cardio in the form of brisk walking, I'm not a big fan of too much running, but I do like sprints, or biking especially because of the biking is fully concentric motion and it doesn't place the any stress on your joints like running does. But either way you can do what I would say two, maybe three high intensity interval training sessions a week for about 10 to 20 minutes. And a very simple way to do this is interval training, where you go all out for maybe 15 or 30 seconds, and then you rest for two to four times that amount to get fully recovered. So that you can go all out again. And this will allow you to get a little bit of calorie burn in there. Also a little cardio, but it's not so much that you're going to send your body the endurance signal that down regulates your metabolism, and not so much that you're going to recover or interfere with your recovery or with your lifting. And then he tried to do this at least two hours separated from your lifting sessions, and ideally on off days. Another consideration I would have is your hunger. As you get deeper into a diet, if you start to experience the the signs of hunger because of the metabolic adaptation. This is where you might look for other ways to increase your metabolic burn your metabolic rate, so that you can actually eat on more calories. And that's where additional steps can come into play. Or if you're already kind of maxing out your steps, if you're up in the maybe 12 14,000 Step range, and you want some variety wants to do something different. This is where again, a little bit of these other modes of cardio can come into play. So cardio, I'm just going to repeat, if you are doing low intensity, then you could really do quite a bit of that during the week, maybe three times maybe four times, half an hour, if you're doing and when I say low, intense, I mean really low intensity like walking, brisk walking, biking. And that was the inner interval training was what I talked about before, on off days, maybe 20 minutes with the all out and then two to three, two to 4x ratio of rest to all out. Now one other thing I would definitely not take away from this study, I would not take away the thought that you can do cardio instead of strength training. Again, the the participants in the study weren't even resistant strain, but strength training is going to come before anything else. Okay, that is the thing that sends the signal to hold on to muscle mass when you are losing weight period that and then combined with the proper nutrition, which includes a fairly high level of protein, or higher than most people were used to but roughly around a gram per pound of your target body weight. And then steps come into play after that. And then cardio after that. So I hope you found this study useful. I will include the link to the study in the show notes if you want to read it in great detail. And at the end of the day, the thing that works best is what works best for you as an individual. Thanks as always for listening.

Philip Pape 13:52

I wish you the best and stay strong. Thanks for listening to the show. Before you go, I have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast. Let me know by leaving a five star review in Apple podcasts and telling others about the show. Thanks again for joining me Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.

Philip Pape 10/18/22 Philip Pape 10/18/22

Ep 28: Body Composition for Health and Performance (From Overweight or Skinny Fat to Lean)

Whether you’re trying to lose weight, get healthier, increase strength or performance, or just look and feel better in your body, improving your body composition is the path to overall health. Everyone can benefit from improving their body composition, and today we’re diving into the topic, including its benefits and the most important priorities for achieving a leaner, healthier physique.

Whether you’re trying to lose weight, get healthier, increase strength or performance, or just look and feel better in your body, improving your body composition is the path to overall health.

Body composition refers to the percentage of muscle versus fat in your body, which determines how “lean” you are. The lower your body fat percentage (or higher your muscle percentage) relative to your weight, the leaner you are.

Someone who weighs 180 pounds at 40% body fat is not as lean as someone who weighs 180 pounds at 25% body fat. This is more about composition than scale weight.

But why is “leanness” important?

Yes, being leaner affects how you look and feel. Even better, improving your body composition goes way beyond aesthetics and has numerous benefits for health, performance, and longevity.

Everyone can benefit from improving their body composition, and today we’re diving into the topic, including its benefits and the most important priorities for achieving a leaner, healthier physique.

Then I go over three scenarios—skinny fat, somewhat overweight, and very overweight—and discuss strategies for improving body composition with each.

Topics discussed in this episode:

What exactly is body composition?
How body composition gets worse over time (unless you do something about it)
The concept of "body fat overshooting" from repeated dieting
Benefits of improving composition
How to improve body composition
Applying these strategies if you're skinny fat, somewhat overweight, or very overweight

RELATED LINKS

Join our Facebook community if you'd rather watch the video and to access the nutrition blueprint PDF for this episode
MacroFactor food logging app (use discount code WITSANDWEIGHTS)

👉 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

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, where we discuss getting strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable nutrition. I'm your host, Philip pape, and in each episode, we examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent nutrition and training for sustainable results. Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights, we are streaming live in our Facebook group. So if you want to watch future episodes, if you want to interact with our community, you want to get access to future live trainings like this one free guides, blueprints, other free info on strength, fat loss, nutrition, and all things related to that just join our group using the link in the show notes. I am your host, Philip pape, founder of Wits & Weights, nutrition coaching. And as always, if you enjoy the show, please if you find it valuable, interesting, if you learn something new, the best way you can support me is doing a rating and review on Apple or Spotify. Just support the show let others know it's there. That's how the algorithm works, how people can find it. Just again, leave a rating and review on one of those wherever you get your podcasts. You could also take a screenshot and share it on social media and just tag me Wits & Weights. So let's get into today's topic on body composition. Whether you're trying to lose weight, get healthier, increased strength, increased performance, or if you just want to look and feel better in your body. And there's no shame in that improving your body composition is the path to overall health. Body Composition refers to the percentage of muscle versus fat in your body. And that determines how quote unquote lean you the lower your body fat percentage or the higher your muscle percentage relative to your weight. The leaner you are now someone who weighs 180 at 40% body fat is not going to look as lean or be as lean as someone who weighs 180 at 25% body. This is more about composition than scale weight. But now why is this important? Why do we care about leanness? Yes, being leaner affects how you look and feel. But even better, improving your body composition. It goes way beyond aesthetics. It has numerous benefits for health performance and longevity that we're going to discuss today. Everyone can benefit from improving body composition, everyone. And today we're diving into the topic, including the benefits, the most important priorities for achieving a leaner healthier physique. And then I'm going to go over some scenarios toward the end. Depending on your starting point, if you're starting from skinny fat, somewhat overweight, very overweight, and discuss strategies for improving body composition with each and I'm sorry, if any of those terms are offensive, we'll get into why we use those definitions, but they are what they are. So we're gonna get into body composition. What is alright, body composition is simply the percentage of our tissue that's fat relative to all other tissue. And that would be organs, bones, muscle, that's an important one. And any other tissue in our body. Now we all have to have some essential level of fat to survive, right, we need at least for men, we need 3%. For women, it's 12%. So there's about a 10% spread. Women need more fat for biological reasons having to do with childbearing and other reasons related to hormones. But if, for example, if I said, most men might want to be between 10 and 20%, body fat for health, for women, I would add 10% to that, so 20 to 30%. On top of the essential body fat, there is not essential body fat. And that's not all bad, right? Because, for example, I just told you 3% for men is essential. Well, nobody walks around 3% Except the most stage lean, high performing professional bodybuilder, most of us are walking out with much more fat than that. And that's okay, we want some of that fat for overall health, for balanced hormones for energy. And it even protects our internal organs, but too much fat too much. And we're talking, say well beyond 20% For men, or 30%. For women, it increases your risk of disease, heart disease type diabetes, and then many other health effects that we're gonna get to in a second. The other cool thing is that muscle is more dense than fat. You've probably heard this before, but because of that, it takes up less space, right? So leanness is determined by body composition, because of the density of muscle. So two people can weigh the same, but look vastly. Now, if we're talking statistics got a couple interesting ones for you. More than 40% of adults in the US are now obese with an unhealthy bowel position. And it keeps growing and the related diseases and illnesses keep and this is this is not a good thing. And to top it all off, you lose 8% of your muscle mass each decade between the ages of 40 and 70. And that accelerates to 15% per decade after age 70 Which means you could lose 37% of your muscle mass from age eight. Now that's only if you don't do anything about it. And today we're Talking about doing something about it, which is why you tuned in and while you're listening, and so I know you're going to be in the minority of people who go out there and get results and improve your body composition. Now, how

Philip Pape 05:10

does body composition worsen over time? All right, pretty obvious things that I think we're all familiar with. But just to state them. Number one lack of exercise, specifically, lack of resistance training. So there are people who do lots of cardio, but doesn't mean they have very good body composition, if you're lacking resistance training, lack of sufficient protein, which is widespread lack of movement. So I'm not talking again, about running or high intensity cardio, I'm just talking about being ambulatory walking, moving your body around, there's health benefits for that. And then repeated dieting. This actually potentially is the worst culprit of them all when it comes to your body composition getting worse over time. And I want to talk about that specifically. So you may have heard me talk on other episodes about the concept of body fat overshooting. And I think the term was coined by Layne Norton. But it's been used by many academics, and it's pretty widespread term by now. But when you die it what happens over time is you you lose fat when you diet, right? When you're in a calorie deficit, you definitely you lose weight, and some of that weight is fat. But a lot of that tissue is also muscle, as much as 50%, when you're not doing the other things we need to do to improve body composition. And that's a pretty scary concept. But it's supported by the statistic I mentioned before about muscle loss. And people don't realize that they think every time I diet, I'm just I'm losing fat, right, I'm losing my weight, so I'm losing fat. And then when you regain the weight, you regain mostly fat. And so every time you diet, even if you end up at the same weight, you have excess fat accumulation from each time you do it. There's also something called hyperphagia. With a G, that's a Greek spelling, and hyperphagia is the loss of muscle mass, leading to ravenous hunger, the more you diet. So if you've ever experienced it many times and feeling like you need to do it on less fewer and fewer calories, and you get hungry and hungrier. And then you basically just binge the food right back. That's probably what's happening 30% of people who diet gain more weight and and the rest of them, they may not gain more weight, but their body composition is worse. The other thing you have to be aware of is this energy restriction, which usually comes from crash dieting. That's how many of us do it right. You do keto, you carnival Weight Watchers, whatever it is, you oftentimes severely restrict well beyond what we should be doing. And then your body creates new fat cells as a response to that energy restriction. And those fat cells never go away for the rest of your life, but we can reduce their size. And so have no fear, if you've dieted 30 times that it's not a lost cause, we the same principles and methods can still help you reduce the fat. So this is why we don't just want to lose weight. This is what is wrong with the fitness industry. And the way we talk about this and all the 21 day challenges and all the everything everybody's trying to sell is we're not just trying to lose weight, yes, we need to be at a healthy weight to avoid disease, okay. But we also need to be at a healthy body composition to optimize health. So I hope I hope you got that what I just said there, we need it to be a healthy weight to avoid disease and sickness. But we need to be a healthy body composition to optimize our health to live longer, and to live a higher quality life with those extra years.

Philip Pape 08:28

So let's go over the benefits of improved improving body composition. And it's a very long list. So get ready. But I think it's it's worth understanding how powerful this one thing is, among everything else you'd have to filter through when it comes to diet nutrition fitness, because this is it like this is why I do what I do, and try to help people in in getting better habits and figuring out how to eat more protein and train and things like that. It's because of body composition, period. It's not weight loss. So what are the benefits of improving body composition? First, it increases your metabolic rate. And it does so all day long. Now think about that. When you have extra muscle on your frame, every ounce of muscle, every pound of muscle burns more tissue than a similar amount of fat. So you're increasing your metabolism, your total daily energy expenditure always. So once you have that extra muscle, you might train one hour a day, if that the other 23 hours you're burning extra calories. Now would you rather do that? Or would you rather go run on a treadmill for that's a pretty easy answer in my opinion, and I enjoy lifting too. So I'd rather go do that than run and then I can burn the calories the rest of the day. So this is huge. In my opinion. This is a huge aspect of body composition because once you improve it once you add muscle, your body, everything shifts up, your ability to diet gets easier, and your ability to maintain your weight gets easier. Alright, the second benefit is that adding muscle mass and focusing on muscle mass counter X sarcopenia. sarcopenia is basically the muscle wasting that occurs urs as we get older, it also counteracts what's called anabolic resistance. And this is a concept where our sensitivity to muscle protein synthesis. So our ability to basically construct muscle tissue from proteins, our sensitivity to that decreases as we age, which compounds the loss of muscle mass, unless we are doing the other things, the right things, right, the training protein cetera that we're going to talk about. So you not only lose muscle, as you get older, you lose it at a faster rate. Okay, improving body composition, it strengthens your bones and ligaments. So think about this people who think they're prone to osteopenia, or even osteoarthritis in later years, especially if it's genetic. This is a way to prolong or prevent that push off the time in which it could occur or prevent it altogether. You know, we've seen time and again, people who had bone loss, they tried medications wasn't really working. And then they start strength training, and all of a sudden their bones get denser on a DEXA scan, and also strengthen, strengthen your ligaments, which is great for overall, alright, increases your strength, which increases your function. This is so critical. Imagine all the things you want to do and you're 5060 7080 years old, the things you're doing now, and you're 35 or 40, don't you want to be doing those when you're 85. And having the extra strength having the improved body composition is going to give your body the capability to do that, to enjoy athletics to enjoy pursuits, like, you know, physical pursuits later. Also prevent frailty. And to prevent injury, when you fall, things like that. What else it improves sleep, improves mood increases energy. Why is it increased energy? Well, you have less fatigue, you're carrying less weight around and you have more strength, you have more muscle less overall weight. And even if you have a little extra weight, your body composition is better. So you're strong, so you can walk up stairs more easily. You could enjoy your lifting your cardio your sports better, because you have a better body comes in it reduces joint hip and back pain. Okay, so if this is you, if you've had issues in these areas, these often decrease or go away. When you start strength training and adding muscle you can walk more, for example, now I want to share a statistic according to a Danish study in 2011. For older adults with osteoarthritis, losing just a pound of excess weight decreases the forces on your knees by more than two pounds. So basically, if you were 25 pounds heavier than you need to be and you lost that excess weight, the load on your knees would go down by 50 pounds. Now that's just wait, we're not even talking about body composition. Add in strength to that and it just gets better. Okay, here, here's some more sobering things about body composition. In terms of how it actually helps actually, it decreases your risk of heart disease, type two diabetes, high blood pressure, which is hypertension, and even cancer when you are not strong and you have extra weight 25 extra pounds beyond a healthy weight requires 5000 extra miles of blood vessels and most of these are small capillaries, which means your heart has to work harder and you get a higher blood pressure to pump blood through all those vessels. Okay, improving body composition decreases your cholesterol and triglyceride levels. It decreases your blood sugar increases your glucose tolerance, your insulin sensitivity, it also potentially increases fertility and lowers pregnancy related complications and might reverse metabolic syndrome that's also called pre diabetes. So pay attention. If you have any of these numbers, you potentially have pre diabetes, and you're probably already aware of it. But just to be clear, blood pressure above 135 alrady blood sugar are fasting glucose above 100 triglycerides above 150 HDL below 40 for men or 50. For women, that's the quote unquote cholesterol. So if it's true, and then if you have a high level of abdominal fat, which means a waist size of 40 inches for men 35 inches, so improving your body composition can counteract all of these things. It can improve your breathing, it can decrease visceral fat, visceral fat is the most dangerous kind that's around your organs. It's in your abdomen looks like a beer gut on men as opposed to the subcutaneous fat under your skin. Alright, the last two benefits are pretty cool. The first one has to do with performance if you improve your body composition so for those who like to compete, and we're talking any any kinds of sport pretty much boxing, gym, gymnastics, basketball, endurance sports, CrossFit, mud races, whatever the you know, muscle mass is correlated with strength and power. So if you're more lean, and you have more muscle mass, you have a greater strength to train to weight ratio. So that increases your speed, your quickness, your agility. Now there's some genetic component to things like the vertical jump and to speed and things like that. But the one variable you can affect the most is strength in that equation. Yes, you can lose weight, but the strength has a much bigger of reducing excess body fat also helps with endurance, both muscular and cardio endurance. So if anybody's ever done a CrossFit workout, and you all of a sudden lost a bunch of weight, they tended to be easier. What else your joint range is improved when your body composition is leaner. So think about how that can affect you when it comes to food. functional movements and what I'm trying to say your form when it comes to lifting. Think about how that will help you form if you're doing rain. Now, there's some exceptions to this when it comes to improving body composition and reducing weight exceptions would be American football, wrestling powerlifting, where you actually might want to gain weight as well gain some extra fat along with the muscle, you're still improving your body composition, though, because you're adding muscle either way. But most, most sports benefit from the higher string to mass mass ratio. So that's the performance aspect. And then last, but not least, and this honestly, is why a lot of people get into this, it gives you a healthy physique. And this could do things like improve your self confidence,

Philip Pape 15:37

give you you know, make you feel more comfortable in your skin. Something let's not kid ourselves, okay? There's no shame in wanting a fit, shapely body looking good in clothes, feeling comfortable in our own skin. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Now, what is what this presents itself as is just something I guess we could say is genetically or biologically aesthetic, which would be broader shoulders for men or tapered torso, trim ways, maybe strong toned arms for women, we we know what we're talking about here. But for you, as an individual, it's really do you feel and look that also, don't be afraid of getting too big. It's very hard to do. Ladies, man, whoever you are, without some enhancements, and many, many years of body composition is going to improve your physique. Alright, so one last thing before we talk about proving body composition, because I know we want to do that now after you heard that extremely long list of benefit is how to measure it. Now I was going to leave this out of the training because when I'm working with clients, for the most part, we we go by how you look and feel right? We go by progress photos, or even if we don't have photos, it's Hey, do you feel like you are your body composition is getting better? Are you stronger? Are you lighter on your feet? Do you just feel better overall better mood, you know, the biofeedback but then I thought, you know, some of us do like data. I'm a nerd myself. I'm engineering background, I

Philip Pape 16:54

love to see progress and objective data. So beyond how you look and feel and photos, you can measure your body fat, okay, but I would keep it simple. And the way I suggest doing it is either with a tape measure, or caliber skinfold caliber. So with a tape measure, you can measure your neck and waist for men. And for women, you also measure your hips. And then you can plug that into the Navy calculator, go online and just Google Navy calculator. And that'll give you a body fat percentage that's based on a ratio. Now that's based on the average population, not you as an individual. So don't trust the number, but trust the trend over time. So if you take that measurement, and then you do it every week, or every couple of weeks, as you are building muscle or losing fat, you should be able to see a change in your body fat percentage. So like if you're, if you're building muscle, you're intentionally gaining weight, you actually might see the body fat percentage start to go up. We expect that because we expect the muscle to slightly outstripped the fat as we're gaining weight just because it comes on much easier. But then after you spend six to nine months or more in a building phase, and then now you go on a diet, now you should see the body fat percentage come down. So rather than focus on the number, focus on the trend, I personally have used this as well as skinfold calibers. And there's a lot of ways to do that. And I can get into details here. But when I measure them both in parallel, they're off from each other by as much as 5%. But the trend is very precisely in lockstep, you know, meaning one might say, I'm 20%, one might say, I'm 15%. But then after I go through my diet, the top one has gone down by five, and the bottom one has also gone down. So I know I've lost around 5%. But so that's a way to way to measure it. But really do you look and feel the way you want. So now the fun part, how exactly do we improve our body composition? And the simple answer is that we need three things. Number one, and I'm going to say this is the most important because without it the rest don't matter. Number one is resistance training to build muscle. If you don't build muscle, you can't improve your body composition. Like we said before body fat overshooting means every time you lose fat, you lose muscle, every time you gain weight, you only gain fat. So all you're doing is losing muscle. As you get older, this is the missing ingredient resistance training, we'll get into details number two periodized nutrition to control macro balance and intake. So I use my words very carefully periodized meaning we don't just do everything at once like a crash diet. We do things in phases to give our body a break to recover. And we're using nutrition to control our macros or macronutrients namely protein and the intake so being able to turn the dial for weight loss or weight. And then the third thing is going to be movement movements so that we remain active and healthy and also increase our expenditure from Neat non exercise Activity Thermogenesis and I think I was I was arguing with myself as to whether to include that part in here because technically you can improve body composition and not really get many steps or do much activity, but it makes it way harder to the point where the adherents level the concerns Since the level is going to be so low, and and that right there is going to kill the rest of the plan, right. So I think these three things go hand in hand, and we're gonna dive into each one, and how to do them. And if you guys who are watching live, you ever have comments along the way, feel free to throw. Okay, so the first thing is resistance training. And if you remember nothing else from the training, remember this phrase stress recovery, adaptation, stress recovery adaptation, this is the way our bodies get stronger, and add muscle. And the way it works is simply we have to offer some sort of stress that pushes our muscles close to muscular failure by training hard so that after we recover recovery, meaning sleep and food, our bodies have to adapt by adding muscle tissue, and programming our brain for lack of a better phrase to be a little stronger, right neuromuscular adaptation along with muscle mass. So that next time we try to do what we just did, you know, lift a very heavy bar off the ground, for example, with a deadlift, our bodies will be able to do at least that much weight, and then probably a little more. And then when we go to the gym, we add a little more weight, we do it, we stress ourselves, we recover with food and fuel, or food and sleep. And then our body adapts again, because like, oh, geez, you keep pushing me to the my limit, I'm recruiting as many muscle fibers as I can, I need to build this muscle tissue, I need to add and change the size and the muscles, and you go over and over and over again. So what am I talking about? I'm talking about progressive overload. And the best way to apply resistance training to increase your strength and muscle mass,

Philip Pape 21:37

which then improves your body composition is a planned out program of progressive overload, where you increase weight and or repetitions with the same movement over time. Now, for beginners, if you're just starting, or even if you're not a beginner, but you're trying to do this the right way for the first time, I would keep it very simple, I would use something like starting strength, starting strength by Mark Rippetoe, or something like it where the focus is on a few big compound lifts. And by compound I mean multi joint movements, namely, the squat, the deadlift, the deadlift is a hip hinge, the benchpress, which is your horizontal, push the overhead press, which is a vertical push, and then chin ups or pull ups, which is your vertical pole, and I missed one there, I don't think I did. So I would focus on a program that includes those basic movements with a barbell, that that is the preference of you can get access to that at a gym, or invest in your own home gym. And it really isn't that expensive. But of course, you have to have the space and know what you're getting into, I would go there failing barbells access to barbells, you can go with dumbbells and cables. I wouldn't use the machines, quote unquote, at a big box gym, because they restrict you and your range of motion and stability. And there's a whole bunch of reasons. Of course, it's better than nothing. So the point here is find a simple program where you can do two or three compound lifts three days a week. So starting strength, for example, we'll have you squatting every session, and then benching and overhead pressing alternate alternate sessions. And then deadlifting, and chin ups, alternate sessions, and everything is done with sets of five. So a lot of the really good programs that build that focus on strength, or in a low rep range between three and eight. And I think five is like a sweet spot. And if you go back to, I think it was episode two or three of the podcast, I talked about a bunch of different strength programs you can look into. And when you do sets of five, you go, let's go with the squat. For your very first session, you're going to live something moderate, you're

Philip Pape 23:34

not really sure how much you can, let's say it's 95 pounds, and you do three sets of five, and you take sufficient rest between each set. So you can get the three sets of five. And that means you're not going to just rest 30 seconds, it might be two to three minutes later on, it might be three to five minutes. And when you get super strong, because we're not focused on endurance here or getting your heart rate up, we're focused on getting stronger. So you're going to do three sets of five squats with couple, three minutes in between each set. Okay, then that night, you're going to sleep and get a good eight hours, you're going to eat plenty of food, you're going to take a rest day. And then the next day you're going to squat. Again, this is Wednesday, you're gonna do it again, three sets of five, but you're going to do it five pounds heavier 100 pound, rinse and repeat, do it Friday, then you get the whole weekend off do it Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, squat, squat, squat squat. Now this is in addition to the couple other movements in the program, but we're talking about the squat, either to go up five pounds, five pounds, five pounds. Now the goal here isn't to go in and not be sure if you're going to be able to get that weight, the goal is to go in and get that weight because you're stronger. And if you have to go up two and a half pounds do that do it. If you can go up 10 pounds, do it. And after a couple of months, you've gone from 95 to 215 on the bar for three sets of five and eventually after three to six months, you're going to be an intermediate and you're gonna move on to all sorts of other fun stuff. How do you part splits for day splits, maybe power building all these other fun things that we can talk beyond the scope of today? But let's bring it all the way back. What am I talking about? I'm talking about something that a lot of people don't do. A lot of people go in and they fling around 10 pound on balls for sets of 20. And I've nothing against the 10 pounds. But I just wanted to put that image in your head if you could do sets of 20 than 10 pound content. And what we need to do is stress ourselves enough, so the muscles know they need to. And that's training hard, that's training close to muscular failure failure, with the big compound lifts, that might be around two to three reps shy of the most you can do. But I don't want you to think about that, I just want you to add weight to the bar each week with one with an isolation movement like a barbell curl, you might go to, okay, so I can go on and on about training. The key here is that you need to stress yourself with muscular tension with heavy lifting with an effective program of progressive overload, do it over time, and within two to three months, you'll be much stronger than when you started. And that is the key to adding muscle mass. It's also why I always recommend spending at least six to nine months in a muscle phase. Now when you do that, and how you do it, we'll talk a little bit later in the scenarios. But that's the those are the fundamentals. So that's the first thing you need to improve your body composition is probably the most important that we're missing. So the second piece is nutrition. So this is the next most important that a lot of people don't, don't quite get the, you know, optimally. And we're going to start with macros. So your macronutrient composition, the amount of protein, fats and carbs you have in your diet, the percentage of those that contributes to your ability to build muscle, and your ability to maintain muscle, all three macros, and I'm gonna explain why. And I've done previous episodes where I dive into these in great detail. But just in the context of body composition, starting with protein, most people don't get anywhere near the amount of protein that the evidence shows we need to maximize muscle protein synthesis. Why do we care about muscle protein synthesis, because that is how when we are giving our body that stress from resistance training, our body can take the fuel coming in our protein, and shuttle it to the right metabolic processes to build as much muscle as possible. Okay. Similarly, when we're losing weight, we're trying to lose fat. That's how we hold on to as much of the muscle as possible. And it basically flips the body a fat overshooting effect on its head, it flips it around. So when you're resistance training, and you're getting a lot of protein, now when you lose weight, it's mostly fat. And when you gain weight, it's a combination of fat and muscle. So you flipped it around to now where you adding muscle, adding muscle, adding muscle cutting, fat cut, that's what we want. Now a few other things about protein. First of all, it's more satiating, it fills you up. So it helps with dieting. Second, it burns more calories when you digest it. So it helps with dieting, and then it supports muscle building and preservation, like we just talked about. But getting enough protein is definitely a challenge for people. And a lot of what we talked about today is the what, and it's a lot harder to do the how actually, it's even, it's the how isn't even that hard for people to understand. It's the doing it, that's hard for people to understand. This is why, you know, potentially having really good support structure, or a trainer or a coach can be super helpful to get through this initially. So how can you get enough protein? My general recommendation is you have four or five meals every day, evenly spaced, and every meal includes protein, one or two of those could be a protein shake initially when you're struggling to figure out how to get it all in. But as you move forward, you'll start figuring out how to get the protein from animal sources like that. Another topic that is sort of beyond the scope of today, but always happy to talk about questions. Okay, so that's protein. Now, carbs, okay, carbs, oh, carbs are terrible, right? So carbs are there. Now one of my best friends have to say I can, I can snuggle with carbs. And we have a great time. And it didn't used to be that way. Carbs were evil. You know, back in the day, for me, I did keto. I did paleo, I did all the things pretty popular today. And the I suffered for it. You know, I did CrossFit for like eight, nine years. And I did it fast it and I did a low carb, oh my gosh, if I redid it again, I would have loved to see how much different different my performance was, if I didn't do it fast, and I had carbs, which is what I do today. So carbs have to be high enough to fuel performance and recovery. Now there was a recent study that came out. I don't know if it's that recently might have been 2020. But I read a review about it by Dr. Bill Campbell, where they looked at two groups, one group that ate keto. And if you're not familiar with keto, it's just very high fat, very low. And the level of protein depends on the type of keto but the modified version of keto today has average level of protein. And they had one group doing keto one group doing a Western diet, a standard diet. These were bodybuilders eating like 3500 calories, so they had plenty of food coming in. And they had Zach's exact same amount of protein. It was sufficient protein like 150 or 200 grams of protein. And they were trying to build muscle and they found that the group that had the carbs, the non keto group gained about five pounds of muscle over this eight or 12 week period and the group that was keto gained like one pound that was enough to just tell me right there, that if I'm trying to build muscle, I've got to have carbs There's plenty of other evidence that supports this. But you can lose weight on a low carb diet, but you may not preserve as much muscle. And definitely, it's harder to build muscle on just saying, all right, and then fats, fats are usually around 25, or 30%. So when you're scripting all this out, depending on what phase you're in, you're going to start with protein, then you're going to pick up fats, and then everything that's left is for carbs. So if you're dieting, the carbs are gonna be lower. And if you're gaining, there'll be higher period, proteins usually around the same. And fats are a scale, they scale with how many calories. So that's the macronutrient composition. And the key, I don't think I mentioned it, but the key is to get around one gram per pound of protein. So if you're 150 pound female, you need close to 150 grams of protein. And that's just ballpark if you if you get 130. If you get 170. That's, that's good enough. But at least for me, when I see clients coming in, you know, 150 pound female, they're usually getting around 60, which is far short of what we need. And that can be the root of many of the issues that are experienced by that client. Previously, when it comes to feeling hungry, feeling like they have to go cut on low calories, feeling like dieting doesn't work, all these other things, part of it could just be a shortage of protein. Okay, so that's macro composition, then the second part of nutrition is the intake.

Philip Pape 31:19

Hey, this is Philip pape, letting you know that applications are now open for one on one coaching. If you're a busy working professional, who has tried dieting, and exercising for years, with little in the way of results, and you want to lose fat, get lean or feel confident in your body without excessive dieting, cardio or restrictions, just go to wits & weights.com/coaching, to apply. You can go back to the last couple episodes I did where I talked all about gaining and losing at different rates and whatnot. But basically, you want a reasonable deficit, if you're dieting to lose fat, and you want a reasonable surplus if you're building muscle. And this is one thing a lot of people get wrong when they crash diet, they go way higher than this rate of loss. And then of course, they don't try to build muscle. So that's an A not so a reasonable deficit, to remind everyone is quarter to 1% of your weight per week. And a reasonable surplus if your building is point one to a quarter percent per week. And you can use tracking and food logging to do this more precisely to control your weight gain or your weight loss. We use diet breaks, we use periodization. And then we use food selection to help us win, right. So when it comes to body composition, the importance of intake is simply that once we've dialed in protein and resistance training, we can now use the calorie level to help us go in the direction whether that's fat loss, or muscle gain. So if we're doing fat loss, there's other things we have to build. There's other skills, we have to develop learning to eat high volume foods, nutrient dense foods, you know more foods from whole sources, just to manage hunger and to increase our sensitivity to taste. And the idea is that as we incorporate those kinds of foods, whether we are dieting or gaining that's basically what our diet looks like, with not very major changes, like we don't go from processed foods to Whole Foods and vice versa, which is something we see a lot when it comes to binge eating, overeating and so on. When you go on a very restrictive diet, you cut out all these things. And when you come back, you want to add them all back in. Well, we don't want to do that we want to enjoy the variety and diversity of food out there. But we want to do it skillfully with some restraint, you know, and do it in a smart way. And then one last piece of nutrition, I should mention is the health aspect. Okay, not I'm not talking about clean food or any I'm talking, getting enough micronutrients for health, right? If we care about disease and things like that, get enough micronutrients, which comes from a diverse diet and vegetables and things like that get enough fiber, which helps with our digestion, with our bowel movements, with our colon health, with our gut, microbiome, and then saturated fat, keeping that to a reasonable level, which is about 10% of our overall calories. And that helps with cholesterol, heart disease things. Okay,

Philip Pape 34:05

so that's nutrition. And then the last aspect of body composition is going to be movement. And I split this into two things, steps and cardio. So four steps, just checking for steps, we want to I would say aim for somewhere around eight to 12,000 steps a day. But if you're currently getting to, I would like you to shoot for if you're currently getting four, I'd like to shoot for six 2000 steps is like walking about 15 to 20 minutes, it's a mile. And most of us can find a way to do that versus what we do today. So I encourage you to do that. So if you get more steps, you're going to increase your metabolic rate your metabolism, your total daily energy expenditure, expenditure, some times quite dramatic, right in addition to the training and protein, but steps or walking is also important for overall health, for movement for energy for mood for lots of things that we did still don't quite understand exactly why As physiologically, but we know it's true, we know there's a correlation between getting around 7500 steps or more, and a significant drop in mortality disease, and all these issues. And maybe intuitively, it's just the fact that, hey, you're always moving, you're active, it keeps you doing things that prevent you from, you know, sitting around all day, and just overall is correlated with all these other good practices. So that's steps. And by the way, when you're dieting steps can come in handy when you when you ramp those steps up, you know, if you're currently getting 6000, you ramp it up to 10,000. During a dieting phase, you might see your expenditure actually go up where you could actually more calories than you would. And then cardio. So I want to emphasize that we want to limit cardio to primarily walking, and then bursts of cardio as needed as a little bit of a calorie burn boost. But we want to stay away from these long bouts of medium intensity cardio, because they affect recovery from resistance training. And they could also cause other issues, if it's something like running where we have issues with your joints, that can cause other recovery problems. But the other thing that too much cardio does is it sends an endurance signal to your body that we need to be efficient with calories. And that's not what we want to do, we want to be inefficient with calories by prioritizing muscle. So the rule of thumb is to limit that kind of cardio to 50% of your lifting time. So if you live three days a week for an hour, that's three hours, you shouldn't do more than an hour half hour and a half of cardio. And that doesn't include walking. So like walk as much as you want seriously, you can walk for hours and hours, but limited to 50% of your time. And I prefer modes like high intensity interval training, with a short, short all out effort and a two to 3x. Rest, so on off on off on a one to two ratio or one to three ratio, or just something like walking on an incline treadmill riding a bike. Okay, so now, I've covered a lot here. And I just want to go ahead and apply these three scenarios to some or apply these two, three real life scenarios. skinny fat, somewhat overweight, and very overweight. And in all three cases, if you are a client of mine, you came in whatever situation you came in with, we want to set you up for success first, okay, I'm not going to stress your body right away with muscle building or fat gain, we're going to find your true maintenance calories. First, this might take a week, it might take two months. And while we're doing that, and by we I mean this is what you can do as well is while you're finding your maintenance calories, which means you have to eat enough food, right? Don't keep trying to diet get up to the highest amount you can eat without losing weight. While doing that you're going to start these other things we talked about, you're going to start resistance training, you can work on getting more steps, and you can increase your protein. And you can go back to Episode 25, where I go into great detail about this whole metabolic prep phase. So for most people, this means eating more and doing these other. Okay, once we've done that, no matter who you are, you start with that, then there are specific goals for each scenario. So the first scenario is skinny fat now by skinny fat. I mean, maybe it's a loaded term or controversial term. But I think we all know what it mean. This is the result of the repeated dieting we talked about before the body fat overshooting. But this is someone who's now dieted again, and they've lost a bunch of weight. And they're at what they thought was their target weight, their ideal weight, let's say they were 170 pound female. And now they've gotten down to 140. And they're like, Yeah, I hit my weight. But I don't feel so great.

Philip Pape 38:32

I don't like how I look, I'm not comfortable and body, I've got excess skin, I just don't have great energy. And no, my sleep is not great, something's off on my hormones, and on and on. And, you know, you might have loved handles, you know, kind of a flabby midsection or whatever. And I've been there myself. So and that's what we call skinny fat, because your body composition is actually a pretty high percentage of fat even though you're at a weight. So for a person like this, I'm gonna go right into building muscle right after we do the prep phase, we're gonna go right to building muscle because you don't need to lose more weight. So right away, you're gonna go in a calorie surplus of like we said before, point one 2.25%. And honestly, somebody who's at this level, I might push them if they're a newbie, I might push him to the point three 5% a week, you know, battle one and a half percent a month. Because you're not going to gain that much fat, you're gonna gain a lot of muscle, you're going to be very responsive, most likely. And you're going to spend at least six to nine months in that. Once you've done that you've now let's say you've gained 20 pounds, we've got back up to 160, maybe half of that as muscle and now you spend about 12 weeks losing 10 pounds of fat. Now you've now you've gone from 140 to 150 and all of it pure additional muscle. I'm not going to do the math here, but you can figure out how the body composition has obviously improved if you've gone from 140 to 150 and that extra 10 pounds is pure muscle. Okay, so that's it for skinny fat. Now you if you thought I was going to spend a lot more time talking about each scenario you I guess the big surprise is that all the lead up to now has shown you that the process is basically the same no matter who you are, which is a good thing, right simplifies it. But you might have a different starting point and have to go one direction or the other, before you finally get to your ideal composition. Okay, so the second category is someone who is somewhat overweight. And I would define that as like 10 to 30 pounds overweight. Now, when we say overweight, we mean, you, you think you're about 10 to 30 pounds over what you want to be at. But you may not know that what you want to be at is a different weight once you've improved your body composition, but that's okay, right? Because you know, from your history, hey, every time I've been, you know, 150, I been a little bit more comfortable with my body at 170. Right? You kind of know that. But now, once we work on body composition, and you improve that, you might, you might say, Hey, I look great at 180, I feel great, I have extra strength, like I'm strong and light at the same time. That's my new ideal way you're gonna get there it happens. But in the meantime, we're going to say that, once you've gone through the metabolic prep phase, we can actually go either direction here, okay, I would encourage you to continue at maintenance, or even a slight surplus, believe it or not, to build muscle first at this point, because you don't have you're not that much overweight, and you're you're a beginner. So I would rather you take advantage of what they call the newbie gains, and gain as much muscle as you can right now, because it's easy to cut the fat off later. And it's gonna make you feel better, you're gonna eat more carbs, you're going to establish all these new habits and a much easier way, you're not going to worry about dieting, you're going to shift up your expenditure, all those things. And then after, again, about maybe six months of building you can cut. But here's the estrus. If you come to me, you're 2030 pounds overweight, and

Philip Pape 41:45

you're just like, there's no way you're going to have me gain weight, like there's no way, that's crazy, I came to you to lose weight, I'm not gaining weight, okay, in that case, what we can do is either keep you at maintenance or going to a very slight deficit. And what I found with a lot of people, if they have that extra weight, they can still build muscle since they're new to the game, while losing a little bit of weight on the way. And while they're doing that their expenditure goes up with their steps in their training. And their deficit actually increases without them trying to lead increases because their expenditure goes up, even if the calories stay the same, right? So the gap gets bigger, you end up losing more weight. And then after say maybe three months, you're probably around your ideal weight, what you thought it was, that's what I would say, Okay, let's, let's stop this right now. And let's really focus on building muscle. Which brings me to the final category, which is very overweight, okay. And this is more than 30 pounds. But typically, we're probably looking at 50 6070 pounds or more very overweight, lot of weight to use, lose. And for men, this man, this might be your 25 30%, probably even higher body fat, maybe it's like in the 40s or 50s, potentially, of percent body fat. So right here, right off the bat, we go to the metabolic prep, and then go right into an aggressive deficit, like this is the time where you do want to just lose fat for your that's more important than your cholesterol, your blood pressure, your joints, all the things we talked about, let's lose fat, but we're doing it while training, getting protein and getting steps. Magic happens, okay? Because this is where body re composition usually occurs, body re composition is simultaneously building muscle while losing fat. And when you're very overweight, it's actually pretty easy to do. Because you have such a reserve of calories on your body, that you are feeding yourself from your body. I mean, that sounds kind of gross. But you know what I mean, you're feeding yourself from your fat reserves in for quite a while. And I've seen this happen. And often what happens is your expenditure goes up, your weight goes down, you're in a big deficit. And yet, it doesn't take a huge cutting calories to do it. Because of all the other things. Then at some point, you can decide, okay, if you've done it for four or five months, we need a diet break before we continue, or hey, you know, I'm a little overweight now. But I feel so much better. I have so much more muscle. Now. Let's stop with the diet. And let's go the other direction very conservatively for a while before we cut all the way to my final level. Okay, I just covered a ton of information. And as usual, I would say at this point you the listener, the watcher can do one of two things. You can either take this information, study it, rewatch it, reach out to me with questions, I'll answer questions whenever you send them to me, I love answering questions, go forth, conquer, give it a go. Or you can work with a coach who can take you through these phases. Make all the adjustments along the way. Provide some accountability, some education, some confidence, so then you can continue on so if you need a coach, I am currently accepting applications for one on one coaching. You just have to DM me on Instagram at Wits & Weights or Facebook or go to my website wits & weights.com/coaching. And we together will go through this entire process and much more while all the nuances all the details, all the individualized First approach that you might need that you know, make you unique compared to someone else. To improve your body composition over a six month period, you get weekly check ins, private group access 24/7 direct access to me in our professional app. And then I also offer a guarantee that if you don't achieve the improvement in body composition you want by the end of six months, I will work with you for free until you do because I know this stuff works. So again, just DM me on Instagram at Wits & Weights or Facebook or go to wits & weights.com, forward slash coaching. And if you found this discussion helpful, if you have questions, just comment on the video, click the link in the show notes or go to wits & weights.com and look for the Ask Philip section on the homepage. And I promise to get back to you with answer. Thanks as always for supporting the show. Thanks for listening to the show. Before you go, I have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast. Let me know by leaving a five star review in Apple podcasts and telling others about the show. Thanks again for joining me Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.

Philip Pape 10/4/22 Philip Pape 10/4/22

Ep 27: Build Muscle and Perform Better Using Effective Training and Program Design with Eric D'Agati

Eric D’Agati joins me to talk about training. Eric has spent over 20 years in the fitness industry as a coach, trainer, and instructor. Each year, he travels around the world teaching and speaking to trainers, coaches, and therapists as a lead instructor for Functional Movement Systems and guest speaker for prestigious organizations. He also appeared in the NY Times bestseller “The 4-Hour Body” by Tim Ferriss.

Eric D’Agati joins me to talk about training.

Eric has spent over 20 years in the fitness industry as a coach, trainer, and instructor. Each year, he travels around the world teaching and speaking to trainers, coaches, and therapists as a lead instructor for Functional Movement Systems and guest speaker for prestigious organizations including Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York University Medical, the Navy SEALS, The Mayo Clinic, and multiple major universities. Eric also appeared in the NY Times bestseller “The 4-Hour Body” by Tim Ferriss.

His list of training clients includes an Olympic Gold Medalist, All-Americans, National Champions, World Series Champions, and Pro-Bowl athletes. He also works with many high-level sports teams from high school to professionals.

Eric’s latest projects include “Diamond Revolution Training,” an online training platform for baseball and softball athletes, and the “Principles of Program Design”, an educational workshop series and coaching service for trainers and clinicians on the art and science of designing training programs.

Topics discussed in this episode:

The top priorities someone should focus on to improve their health, fitness, and performance
The difference between a workout and a program
Competence, awareness, and application as success factors for improved health
Assessing your history, current state, and goals when working with a coach, trainer, or starting a new program
Injury, mobility, and recovery
Learning how to develop movement and increase physical capacity
Improving your body composition
Obstacles that stop someone from performing their best
Developing athletic skill, capability, and capacity
Managing volume and recovery
Exercise selection, unilateral movements, and Eric’s favorite lift/exercise

RELATED LINKS

👉 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

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, where whitse discuss getting strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable nutrition. I'm your host, Philip pape, and in each episode, we examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent nutrition and training for sustainable results.

Philip Pape 00:31

Welcome to another episode of weights and weights. Today I have a very special guest Eric de Gatti, and we're going to talk about training. Eric has spent over 20 years in the fitness industry as a coach, trainer and instructor. Each year he travels around the world teaching and speaking to trainers, coaches and therapists, as a lead instructor for functional movement systems and guest speaker for prestigious organizations, including the Navy SEALs, the Mayo Clinic and multiple major universities. Eric also appeared in The New York Times bestseller The Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss is this training clients includes an Olympic gold medal this all Americans, national champions, World Series champions and provable athletes. Eric's latest projects include diamond revolution training, and online training platform for baseball and softball athletes, and the principles of program design, an educational workshop series and coaching service for trainers and clinicians on the art and science of designing training programs. He also has a really cool podcast that I've been listening to lately. And Eric, it's great to have you on the show. Thanks for joining me to talk training.

Eric D'Agati 01:34

Thanks for having me. And thanks for being a listener. And we can't wait to get you on there at some point.

Philip Pape 01:39

Yeah, likewise, I love talking this can talk about it all day. And I want to start by digging into your background as a Coach and Trainer, specifically around programming. But I do want to get into performance and injury prevention a little bit later. Tell us about your background, and I guess your unique approach to training and programming. Okay, so the background is that I was always fascinated,

Eric D'Agati 02:04

you know, but the impact of of training and what it can have. And so the kind of to go all the way back, I had a situation where I was always you know, it depending on how loosely use the term I was an athlete growing up. I always loved playing baseball and football were my two main sports. But you get to a point at five, six, where you realize those who can't do must teach. And so how can I get into sports and do something so I kind of always had that in the back of my mind. At the same time I was in my early 20s, late teens and I had some really bad back issues don't know why. And was sleeping on the floor for about four months or so in my mother, you know, because I was just stubborn and stupid. And my mother said look, you gotta go get this checked out. You're not gonna live your life like this. You're too young. So I went to my general practitioner, I didn't know any better wait in the office for two hours to go sit on, you know, the paper for another hour. And then finally have look at my back. I always joke he looked at my back like I would look if you open up the hood of my truck Are you like, I have no idea what I'm looking for. Unless like there's an extension cord on it, right? So he looked at my back like that and said could be anything. And I said really I just waited three hours for you to tell me could be anything. So I got frustrated. And I said, You know what, I'm just gonna go to the gym. I'm just gonna look at every machine or exercise that says back and I don't care what it does or how it does. I'm just gonna try them on I started doing it. And by sheer luck, my back started feeling better. So it got me into investing time in the gym. And I said, You know what, if I'm gonna invest this time, I want at least know I'm doing it right started learning more and more study out. Let me let me give this a shot. And so went and started off with getting every certification that there was and back in the, you know, mid to late 90s. If you sent me a brochure or pamphlet in the mail for Hey, we got a certification, you got a sucker because I would buy it. So I did every certification there was and then I lucked out and met some cool people along the way, I was able to do two levels of Paul checks and internship with him I did two levels of Charles Poliquin 's internship. And then I also got the unique ability to meet both Lieber and great cook when they're in the real early stages of FMS before it was even really a course and so you know, when they had their first one of their first live certification courses, I brought my whole staff there and then kind of got hooked in and kept you know, kept bugging them and they said you know what, you kind of know this stuff, why don't you come help us teach some courses? And that led to Hey, do you think you could teach a course and became one of their lead instructors back in around 2005 2006. And what drew me to the FMS was the same thing that drew me to a lot of those other courses that that I always was fascinated by the assessment piece that you know what, why would I guess you know, I when I went to the gym beginning I guess but if I would have known this information ahead of time and had somebody tell me no, you need to do these and these I could have saved a lot of wasted time. So anything that would teach me anything in terms of better information gathering and data gathering, so you know I did every course I could you know from a fitness side but then also at the same time, my brother was going to school for his doctorate in physical therapy. So I'd steal his books and sneak in his classes and start to learn about stuff like surely SARM and Vladimir yanda and, and concepts of movement and how people can gain better awareness and better performance through those types of avenues. And that led me down to all other trails learning about, you know, Alexander Technique and felt in Christ and all these different I said, you know, what, everybody out here is this one trick pony. And it's all kind of like, pick your guru type of industry, right? I remember early on, I had a check shirt on at a conference and a guy who I kind of knew he goes, I, I know who you are, because you're one of those check, guys, I can't talk to you. I'm like, what does that mean? I'm also as that's your ski guy. I'm also a Poliquin. Guy. I'm also like, I'm about 50 different guys. And why wouldn't you take all those things that you have at your disposal and put them all into one soup? And so ever since then, it's always been this accumulation of what else can I put into the recipe and, and make it better, so I can make this a more efficient and effective process. And that's kind of what the education has been and continues to be. And so trying to look at things holistically and not just go a mile deep, but also be a mile wide. There's a great term that Kelly Surrett uses called being a savage generalist. And that's what I strive to be daily,

Philip Pape 06:21

bother to make sure you're like a sponge. It sounds like you started early, kind of most people have the back injuries later in life, right? And then they go through the MRI process, and they go through that. And then maybe they get lucky enough for someone to tell them, maybe we should start getting stronger. And you came in from the other direction. Right? And then we're talking that the 90s.

Eric D'Agati 06:41

This is mid to late 90s. Yeah.

Philip Pape 06:43

So you actually had to read books, right? You had to seek real teachers for this. Yeah, there wasn't,

Eric D'Agati 06:49

there was nothing online, I mean, my original courses, and now I'm really dating myself, all my original like check information was on VHS, like I have a bunch of stuff courses on CDs. And like for your listeners, I'll have to explain what those are VHS, were big boxes of tape that we get stuck in this giant machine. CDs were these little round metal circles that you'd have to play. And if you didn't stand completely, still, they would skip. But that's how I got a lot of my education. There wasn't a nearly as much available to and so it was it was more of a quest than it was just let it fall in your email inbox.

Philip Pape 07:24

Yeah. And then it sounds like you through tons of trial and error and learning soaking it up and becoming an instructor over time you became a better Coach and Trainer, which I think is a journey a lot of us have gone on, as opposed to let's say the person who gets everything from social media and maybe immediately goes out and is a guru, as you said before. So I guess if we step back and look at the big picture, what would you say from all this knowledge you've gained? And all this synthesis and distillation of information, the big priorities, the big things that people should focus on? If they're just getting started? So they're overwhelmed? Right? They haven't gone through two, three, however many decades of learning that you did health fitness performance, where do they start?

Eric D'Agati 08:07

That's a great question. So the first thing is, be have a critical eye. You know, in even to this day, I always wake up with the assumption that everything I've learned to this point could be completely wrong, right? Because there's a lot of things that we that I did learn back then that are that have been dispelled whether it was at the time, that was the best information that we had. Whether it was remember, you had that magic window, you had to get your protein shake in. Yeah, right. And so that's kind of been disproven, we thought that there was these, these really strict cutoff points that once you got to six reps, that's where hypertrophy kicked in. And then once you got to 12, or 15, then it shut off, well, it's now you can, you can really get that from like three to 30 reps, right. So always waking up every morning and being humbled to say, You know what, everything I learned yesterday could be completely wrong. And I'm gonna wake up today and try to prove it. And if at the end of the day, it still holds, then I promise to keep that in my toolbox. And so, like, if you look at different things that have come along in our industry, if the two extremes like yoga, there's a reason it's been around for 1000s and 1000s of years, because it stands the test of time and there's so much gold and elegance and what is in that model, whatever version of it you've come to know and then like curves was coming on in a year. Right? And so even with those those things like that, and not to to bash anyone model, but there was still something in there that I'm gonna say, okay, it worked for a while. What was it about it that worked? And where did they fail? Well, what worked for a while is they tapped into a segment of the population that we're not getting, and we can get into the weeds on this one that we're failing massively really to get people engaged because the vast majority people don't exercise, right the people that are listening to this or we're preaching to the choir, right it's the vast majority that are that are on scooters and Walmart's that are just broken, that we need to get to. But, but the challenge is, is how do we get to them and what a place like curves that has said, Alright, we're gonna give you a safe place. If you're, if you're someone who's an insecure, maybe overweight and female, we're gonna give you a safe place to work out. And we were to just dumb meatheads to realize the gym business up until recently, was just that it was just a meathead place. It's intimidating people, it scared people away. And so they gave the safe space. So how can we capitalize on that, and just give a better delivery of product, but still capitalize on that, you know, CrossFit, everybody loves to, you know, Crusher, but CrossFit has, has done an incredible job of changing our vision of what fitness is. And for a lot of people out there, up until they came along, it was I go into a gym with shiny machines that I sit on a machine that does one thing I look at the little placard, it says he does this muscle when I do 10 reps. And then when I'm done, I can just go up on another machine, and I just, you know, do that for a half hour, the blinking lights. And that's what I thought fitness was and you know, that really bore the shit out of people and scare people away. So CrossFit made it one where hey, I can I can do some athletic things I can do things that are outside of that that model to is it's tapping into there's there's an any need in our DNA to be challenged, and they push that button you're in said, you're better than just doing a seated, you know, back and forth fix machine, you can do more things. And then the biggest thing is they created a culture where they're, they're extremely loyal within that brand. And so it created a culture where people felt comfortable, and people wanted to be part of that. And so that is those are some of the things we need to tap into in the fitness industry that we're not doing a really good job of, or getting better at it, because we're getting a better demographic involved with us. But that's something that that, as trainers and coaches, that is a blind spot for us.

Philip Pape 11:57

I agree with everything you said there's a lot to unpack, but I want to touch on a couple of things. So the CrossFit story is my story. Just you know, most of my life was pretty sedentary, I didn't have an athletic background like you and it was maybe what we were pregnant with our first kid that I said, I need to get in shape. And CrossFit called to me for whatever reason, and and I credited for learning about barbells learning, the Olympic lifts, right? Maybe it injured me along the way too. But you know, I learned a lot from it. And your your, your insight here about appealing to more people in the average person who who's just sitting out there and not working out? How do we take something that we know is effective, right? You mentioned, I hate to use the term evidence based But effectively, what you described earlier was the scientific method of taking things at work, jettison things that don't and continue to refine what we know. And not assuming that we know everything. How do we take that approach combined with whatever we think is the most effective form of training? Maybe it's maybe it's strength, maybe it's hypertrophy, or whatever for an individual and and get them to do that. So like if, if, if we think strength is the foundation? How do we get more, you know, soccer moms to be interested in that.

Eric D'Agati 13:08

So I think and this is going to be a little bit their different answer than then trying to sell people on strength training, trying to sell you on strength training, or I need to sell the person who has no clue. And if we try to sell them on all the research and the data and all that stuff, they know all that. And everybody knows that we shouldn't be eating cheese filled pretzels at the mall, but we still do it. Right. So I'm gonna say the first two things is in this is a skill set that at that I don't think we have enough as coaches and trainers is we need to we need to be able to, to create an avenue of honesty and awareness. Okay, and I think those those were, that's where we need to start number one awareness to realize that most people don't know what they don't know, there's kind of that famous four levels of competence. There's, the bottom layer is unconscious incompetence, or screwed up, you don't even know it, right? That's when someone walks into me and they do a movement screen or we do something, they're like, Wow, I can imbalance on one leg or I can rotate to the right. I didn't even know, you know, walking around. But now that I know, the next year is that conscious incompetence? Meaning I'm screwed up, what do I do about it? That's where most western medicine leaves, either you're gonna slap you with a label and you have it scientists or whatever they're gonna call it, and okay, I got that, but what do I do about it? Or am I just, that's my scarlet letter, I gotta live with that I have, you know, I have, you know, SI joint issues, or I have, you know, sciatica, or I have all these things that people label themselves with, and they don't know what it means. Then the next step is conscious competence, meaning you can do this, you can fix this, but you're gonna have to be very aware to do it, it means you're gonna have to change your habits, you're gonna have to change your awareness, you're gonna have to, to gain that and once you do that for long enough, then that's going to become natural, it's gonna become reflexive. That's the ultimate layer that we got to get you to is this unconscious incompetence where you don't, you don't think twice about, you know, going in going for a walk as part of your day because that's now part of who you are. And part of that that awareness piece is also getting the awareness of where you coming into this You know, and at what point are you coming into this and I always say, when I write a program, I need to know three things I need to know about your past, what was your medical history, injury, history, training, history, all those things coming into it, because that's all going to factor in that I need to know where your present is. And that's where we really need to be honest. And that's where evaluation will kind of sift some of that out. And it's not to say, Oh, you're dysfunctional, or imbalanced, or all the terms that we like to use, but it's to say, Okay, well, here's where we need to start, right, we can get to a lot of places, this isn't where you're going to end. But this is where we're going to start. And at that point, is an interesting

Eric D'Agati 15:37

awareness piece of where you're coming to it from. So you have two different segments of the population I talked about yet, you have people that are fragile, and yet people that are broken, right, the fragile people are the ones that since COVID, have done, the most movement they've done is to go get up and get the Door Dash, right? That they're very sedentary. And so because of that, their bodies are starting to wilt away and break down. And so that person comes into and they say, Oh, my shoulder, my hip, My knee hurts, right? That's a very different person than the broken person, the broken person is the one who might still be sitting on the couch, doing zooms for the last three years, but they've gone out and they've done obstacle course races or joined CrossFit or did whatever, and now they're shoulder hip, or they're near backwards, they're two very different people, if you just get out your recipe sheet for here's what I do for knee, knee pain, you're gonna fail miserably, neither of those people are gonna get better, because they're there for different reasons. And they also may be going back to different environments. So you need to know, what's the future? Where do I need to get you to? Do you want to just be able to get up and down the stairs without paying you? Or do you want to go play competitive tennis? And part of that is challenging people to say is that all that you expect of yourself, right? So at some point, you look yourself in the mirror and said, like, I don't want to feel like this, like, I'm better than this. And like barbells don't scare me, this is actually kind of fun. And I expect more of myself at my age to then to be doing what I'm doing and, and kind of be able to push that button and have that real adult conversation to say, what is sufficient for you? And are you at that point? And you know, what are you willing to trade off to get to that point, because that may mean you got to go to bed a little bit earlier, it may mean you got to maybe change your your diet a little bit. And it may mean that you're going to have to do some training that may be a little bit uncomfortable at points, but but that's going to get you to where you're going to be satisfied with your level of physical sufficiency. And so that's really a different approach is really coming at it from an awareness and honestly place to say, you know, if you got the if you got the person who's fragile, they're scared to death to move, my brother, you know, does research and he's, you know, looked at outcomes, and he studies outcomes for a living. And he looked at what is one of the main reasons people fail in physical therapy. That is, number one is fear and avoidance of movement. They're scared shit to move, right? So you tell that person, hey, you need to go train and work out there. They're scared to death. So how do I get them in a non intimidating way to get them to embrace movement? And then for the broken person? Right? A lot of times they're broken, because they're the you know, and I'm gonna date myself again, remember Al Bundy, right, sure, for American children, about how he scored four touchdowns in the state championship game? Well, there's an entire demographic that I that's one of the group demographics that I seem to be getting a lot of is that 35 to 65 year old that scored four touchdowns in the state championship game and thinks they're still that person. Meanwhile, they haven't moved in 1020 years. And they want to be that person. And they're frustrated that they're not that person. But they can't. But if they go and start an exercise routine, and they just go load up the bench, and they wrecked their shoulder, like, oh, well, I guess I'm ready for the rocking chair. Now, I guess I'm broken, I can't do that anymore. And it's like, no, you're better now, you may not be able to go back to exactly what you were at 18. But you're gonna be a lot better than you are now. And looking at the, you know, the front, you know, windshield as opposed to the rear view. You know, you got your, your later years coming at you really fast. And what do you want those to look like? You know, Peter tear does a very elegant job of talking about your marginal decade and say that's the last 10 years your life, what do you want that to look like? And if you want to still be able to carry the groceries and go upstairs and not be a burden to your family? Well, we know that just the science shows you're going to lose a certain amount of growth hormone or certain amount of mobility and so forth every decade. So we got to get ahead of that. And if you're 50 Now, that means you should be here if you want to be there. It's 75. So we need to do everything we need to get you there right now. And framing it that way is coming from an honest place that people can really appreciate that you're you're they want to be challenged.

Philip Pape 19:40

Yeah, you're just throwing tons of wisdom at me, Eric, I try to keep up with everything here. But so here's so here's the here's what comes to mind. If someone is listening and they say this is this is amazing. So I need to I need to increase my awareness understand where I've been where I want to go. So it's going to be very goal specific, right? We have to have individualized approach that deals with my injury history and things like that. And I know a lot of people want to figure things out for themselves. Like you said, they're just some people just jump right into exercising. And we talked about the difference in exercise and training, or I think you you talk about a workout versus a program. Yeah. And I mean, short of having an amazing coach like you. And hopefully there's there's coaches out there that are accessible to people. But can can someone do a self assessment and kind of figure this out on their own? Should they be working with a coach? What's What's the thought process? What's the general process to avoid injury and start on the right foot?

Eric D'Agati 20:34

Okay, so yeah, you need to kind of figure out where you're at now, because you need is just as the assessment is, is basically writing your program. So when I'm doing an assessment on somebody, you know, day one, first thing I tell you is, Philip, I have no idea what I'm gonna do with you, right? And you're like, What are you talking about? You're doing this 25 years, you have not, what is your timeline, I have no idea what to do with you. Now, an hour later, I'm gonna have a real good idea what to do with you, and what not to do with you. Because as we go through an assessment that writes the program for me, so it's going to tell me, there's certain things so it's, you know, it's kind of like a menu. And if you have certain food intolerances or food allergies, you know, going in looking at a menu, there's certain foods you just need to avoid. Right? And and same thing with exercise that if you can't touch your toes, and you know, probably deadlifting kettlebell swings, not the best thing for you. Could you get away with it a couple times, sure. But you can also get away with smoking Marlboro reds and drinking whiskey every day for a while. Right, sometimes longer than others. But I wouldn't use that as my my plan for living a long, healthy life. So kind of knowing what that menu is. And then the better you move, the more that that that menu expands, the better more fit you are, the more that menu expands. So figuring out what's my menu to start with, what can I and can I not to doubt the low hanging fruit is like just going for a walk. That's everybody can do that. And some people don't even there was we were talking before we went on and talking about Twitter debates. And like there was a, there was an Twitter debate about if walking counts as exercise. And it made me want to quit the industry on the spot. And it's like, you this is, this is really what we're arguing about why like, of course, it's exercise, it makes an huge impact. Even if you're fit, it's going to make an impact in terms you can use that for recovery. You can use that for a lot of things. So like, how would you This is why people don't want to exercise because we're idiots arguing about trap bar deadlifts, and if walking counts, right? So that's where that's where you kind of start. So a coach is gonna be really helpful to decipher that, because you're gonna save a lot of time. And what is the you know, time is your most valuable asset? It's the one thing that that'll never come back, you know, this day, this time, we'll never be here again. So how much is your time worth? So with that, for me, I'd rather save the time and invest a little bit upfront and say, hey, where do I start? Now, if you get a good coach, the other thing they'll build do is they will not make you dependent on them. My goal is to get the training wheels off as soon as possible. So you don't need me anymore. I don't I'm not here for you count your reps, or count your sets or show you exercises I have means I can deliver that to you through through an app and through videos and those sorts of things. The last thing I want to do is watch you exercise. My thing is to get you the game plan, right, you can get exercise for free on YouTube, they'll pay me for that, right? The thing is, you don't know which ones to do, you don't know when to do and you don't know how many to do, you don't know, you know how to structure all that. So that's what I'm here for. Don't come to me for exercises, if you're just getting exercises, then like, like you said earlier, that's just a workout. And that's not to say a workout is a bad thing. Everyone said, wow, workout may be fun. You can go do something as a workout and it's fun, but it doesn't, it's may not get to your to your goal. That's what a program is. And there's a big difference between the two. Now workouts can be within a program provided they're specific for what your, your needs and goals are.

Philip Pape 23:52

Got it. And I think the parallel in the nutrition space, because that's what I do would be don't come to me for a macro plan, don't come to me for a meal plan, right, we're trying to learn a bunch of skills that'll that'll allow you to fire me in six months, and, and choose how to get to your goal whenever you want in the future. So I like that analogy from a training perspective. And actually a few years back, I my back squat was terrible. And I finally said I gotta get a coach because I had had coaches over the years. But you know, I got stubborn and said I can do this myself, finally got a coach. And in one hour, he fixed the things that had been plaguing me for two years. So just for the listeners out there, the time is money thing is really important because now you've avoided years of potential injury and lack of progress. So yeah, I like that analogy workout and a program. And we talked about it has to be individualized based on your goals based on your movement capabilities. So if and you said people will get stronger generally if they start on a movement, they may be weakened, but let's talk about the what did you say broken I think person fragile, fragile and broken, fragile and broken. And I don't know if broken also includes let's say an older client who might have arthritis in their shoulder and they just can't do an overhead press for example, what? You know, how would you handle that situation?

Eric D'Agati 25:05

So my first question back is why can't they do the overhead press right? So the arthritis doesn't necessarily tell me anything because if you took an MRI and an x ray of everything in my body right now God knows what you'd find. Most doctors would tell me to be to lay in bed and don't move, right but I still do everything I need to do I guess today front squat it I did pull ups and you all those things and and so if we, if we look at a lot of these things, we can get scared. And unfortunately, there's there's some unscrupulous clinicians who prey on that to say, Oh, you have a bulging discs, you have this disc, you have this spinal abnormality, you know, what 90% of people over 35 have that if everybody if all those were all those calls direct back pain, everybody be in, you know, be writhing in pain right now. But they're not most of them are asymptomatic. So why did why is this an issue for you? Is it a mobility problem? Right? And if it's a mobility problem, is that something I can even do something about? Isn't mobility problem, because there's a joint issue while that you may need to get some clinicians hands on? Or it may not be able to be fixed up other than surgical? Or is it? Is it a motor control problem? Is it a strength issue is it isn't any one of these issues? That's what we have to filter out first? So now I'm not guessing. Because just just to make the assumption, oh, I have arthritis in my shoulder, I can overhead press on. And that's, I don't buy that, I have to find out why. And find out why do you have the restriction, and then there may very well be a restriction. And then here's the reality, you could also live a really long happy life without doing an overhead press. And so I still need you to give you the capability to get your arms overhead. So you get something out of the cabinet. That's or get your shirt on. But it doesn't mean I need to overhead press a dumbbell. There's a lot of different ways I can go about that. And there's a lot of different, you know, artful ways I can make regressions and lateralization is to steal Charlie Weinger off term of those things that will create a similar effect without causing more damage.

Philip Pape 26:58

Okay, yeah, so that's a fair point, right? People get stuck in thinking they have to do certain movements to get stronger, they have to get certain movements to build muscle. And you're saying that there are plenty of options there. And you have to work with the person and figure out what it is. Now,

Eric D'Agati 27:12

here's the other thing I'll is a counter argument to those people who get caught in this dogmatic thing of you have to do your push pull strengthening, right? All that whole laundry list that we all know, is are you trying to determine like the phrase I like to use? Are you training to get good at exercise? Or you're training to get good, right? So there's a lot of people move really, really well. Like, go watch a martial artists go watch, like Ido portal or somebody like that move? And ask them when the last time you did a dumbbell overhead press? Like, we're so dogmatic and we're thinking that it has to be confined to the set of exercises? And and what if I get better at that? Did I really get stronger? Or did I just get good at an exercise? Right? real strength is where I can walk into any setting. And I can actually apply that, right? If I'm only good at your, your exercises that you pick based on a set of confirmation biases that you have. I'm just good at your workout. I'm not really strong, right? When I can actually go and do things like the joke I like to use is if you work out all the time, but you still can't help me move a couch, your workout sucks, right? You should be able to apply that, you know, in multiple ways. Now there is some levels of specificity. You know, you're not going to go from being a champion cyclist to a champion marathon runner, we saw that with Lance Armstrong is the greatest cyclists in history, but was a middle of the pack marathoner. There is some specificity in there. But there's a general physical preparedness that you know, you don't need to do. You could never touch a barbell or a dumbbell and still be very, very capable at those things. Agree.

Philip Pape 28:47

Hey, this is Philip pape, letting you know that applications are now open for one on one coaching. If you're a busy working professional, who has tried dieting and exercising for years, with little in the way of results, anyone to lose fat, get lean or feel confident in your body without excessive dieting, cardio or restrictions. Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to apply. I imagine the average person at least these person ideal with you know, who's just looking to improve their body composition generally, right? That's the majority of people who aren't don't have a performance specific performance goal or maybe a longevity goal. Where would they start? Let's say they're a female in their 40s, who runs a lot. There's a very common archetype I see. Right? They do a lot of Pilates, running, yoga, hiking, all this kind of stuff, and just wants to improve their strength and body composition. I mean, I kind of know where I would take her but I want to hear your take on that. Where would you start?

Eric D'Agati 29:43

Okay, so, again, I get just create some basic awareness. Okay, so what's gonna create change in your body composition? Realize that that number one in nature and the nature of ourselves is that we're fighting to just live another day, every cell in your body has one job, and it's to live to the next day. And so it's going to adapt to whatever you do to it. So whether it's hot in the room and you sweat, or it's cold and you shiver, it's going to adapt. And so with that, you're going to create change, you have to create some sort of stimulus to create that change. And if you've been doing the same program for a year or two years, whatever time it is, and you're and you're not continually changing, well, then because there's not enough stimulus to create an adaptation. So that's number one. So we have to create a stimulus that's going to create that change, and what is the specific adaptation that we're looking for? Right, if we want to look better in the mirror, well, that's just basically, you know, three layers, you know, the most simplistic level layer, level you have, you have your muscle, you have your skin, and then you got stuff that's in between there, the stuff is what you don't like the stuff is what you make your shirt uncomfortable, doesn't make you not want to be in a picture, all that kind of stuff, that's got to go away, right, so you can see the muscle and then when you get there, hopefully, there's some muscle to see, or you're just a skinny fat person, right. And so we need to account for that muscle being there to actually be worth looking at. And then the stuff in between, well, that's really just your your energy balance. And so with that energy balance, it's a matter of calories in calories out at the most fundamental level. And then with that, what's going to be the habits and processes that are going to make you most successful to stay in that energy balance? Could you eat Froot Loops and stay under your caloric deficit? Yes, you absolutely can't, it's just not a real good recipe. Forget the health aspects, who cares, I just want to look at in the mirror, it's gonna be hard to sustain that, right? Because you're gonna, you know, anybody, any kid who's ever woken up, we're gonna have to watch cartoons on a Saturday morning knows you're not going to eat just one bowl, you're going to keep going until the box is gone. And whereas, you know, nobody ever ate way too much spinach, right? You know, like, I'm sure you love the people that come in and say, Well, I heard Bananas are high in sugar, I shouldn't eat those and say, look, and 20 years, no one's ever come in and said, I got so fat eating these bananas. It's like, No, it doesn't work that way. So let's get that let's get the reality of what first? What are you actually eating? Are you even aware of that? And so let's first let's capture what you're actually eating and start to track that. That doesn't mean you're gonna weigh and measure everything for the rest of your life. But you need to be aware of that holy crap, I didn't realize there's, you know, 700 calories in that whipped cream fancy thing that I get at Starbucks every day. So save yourself $9 And just have black coffee, right? Or have a cup of tea or something like that. That's our first step. And what habits can we change from a from a caloric deficit standpoint, they're gonna allow you to be successful, usually having more protein is going to make them more successful, usually making sure you get enough fiber in greens and fruits and grains, and those things that'll help you be more successful, because you're just not all that hungry after you've eaten enough of that, at least less hungry than if eating a bowl of Froot Loops. So let's create the awareness on that path. Right. And then if you've, you've gotten that dial down, that we can always go deeper. But most people, that's where their biggest struggle is, right? Make sure we get enough water, make sure we get enough protein, make sure we get enough, you know, greens and grains and that kind of stuff and fiber. And then, you know, if it still needs to get more dialed in, then we can always go deeper. And then in terms of exercise, we need something that's going to that's going to add a little bit of muscle doesn't mean you're gonna be a bodybuilder, especially for that woman in her 40s. Unless you're taking steroids. I don't know about you're not going to get too big. I've spent the last 20 years trying to get too big there, which should happen that easy.

Philip Pape 33:30

That's the answer. You could try to get too big and you won't get there. Yeah,

Eric D'Agati 33:33

yes, never has that been a problem. Oh, my gosh, I have way too much muscle. So we need to add, we need to have some concern for muscle. And we need to do that with some level of strength training. It doesn't have to be bars on your back. It doesn't have to be some type of you know, fancy bodybuilding split, but you need to do something that's going to create some change the deeper you get, the more you're going to need to get a little bit more specific. But at the beginning, if you have no exposure to it, doing some simple bodyweight stuff can be more than enough. So let's start there. And then the other thing I want to do is to make this something that's that's doable, because what's the challenge most people have, you know, the most famous Four words and diet and exercise, especially body composition, is it all starts Monday, right, is that they they can't stay consistent, create the habit. So I said, Alright, let's make this livable. All right. Now, there are some exceptions to this because there are some people that have true food addictions. But let's talk about just the general person who's not in that subcategory. I tell him, we're gonna live by the 8020 rule. If you follow everything as you do from an exercise and diet standpoint, 80% of the time, the other 20% Screw off have whatever you want to have, you don't have to slice a piece or whatever ice cream, whatever your vices are, if you skip a workout, and you're supposed to do five days a week you do four, I'll still take it and you'll still get to where you want to be at a reasonable pace that you'll be happy with. Right? And so that way, that way we can honestly now look when you hand me a food log and I look at your journal of what you've eaten, and say okay, well, you're really like 5050 That's not at 24 If you want to have the freedom to go and get that that slice of pizza, you got to dial it up a notch, right? Because you're 5050 right now, and then starting to kind of challenge himself, okay, you got to push this in at 20. You can't go 100. Right? I shouldn't say you can, you can slash directive. But here's what's gonna happen, you're gonna be miserable. Like I went 100 I competed in bodybuilding, I brought a cooler bag, to family dinners, you know what that's like, being an Italian guy from Jersey when Shep was 60 people eating pot trays of food and you have a cooler bag? Totally. Right, totally. And you and your grandfather is yelling at you in Italian trying to figure out what what's your problem. So like, that's bizarre, that's not normal behavior, right. But I was doing it for a specific goal. And so with a specific goal is is it changed your percentages. So I tell people who are in one or two categories, your I'd like to change, I'm in no specific rush. But obviously, the sooner the better. Good, you're in at 20 person to start. Then the second person is I have a tryout I have a workout, I have the beginning of my season, or I have a wedding, I have a vacation that I have to be ready for, well, you may not get at 20, you may get 9010. Right. So that that you know three or four, you know, slip ups you get during the week turns into one or two, or maybe none, if we're getting closer and you're not there ready enough, because that dates not changing, you're not going to push back your vacation two weeks, so we have to dial it up a little bit more. But this is going into it knowing that this is specific for this time period, this is not going to be the rest of your life. And I think framing it in that is a little bit easier to handle. Because now it's anything I want. I don't feel like I'm trapped. I don't feel like the way actually do it with with nutrition as I give. And I do this a lot because I work a lot with with high school kids. But I do for everybody and say, Okay, we do the math, you're supposed to say three meals plus a snack, that's over seven days, 28 meals. So let's make it easy for math that's you know, 25 to 30 meals that gives you about four or five meals that you can have whatever you want. So I want you to wake up every Monday morning, you got five magic tickets, now, what you're gonna do is you're gonna cash that in for whatever crap you want to eat, right, you want to go have your fruity drink, you want to go have your, your pizza, your ice cream, whatever it is. And what you're gonna do is you're gonna keep in your back pocket, don't go out Monday morning for a stack of waffles and ice cream. Right? Because then you blow your tickets. Now you gotta suffer the rest of the week, what you're gonna do is get in situations and if you have a work dinner, or if your friends are going out for pizza, don't be the weirdo with a dried lettuce leaf in the corner, like and ostracize yourself and torture yourself, every slice of pizza, just hand them a ticket and say I'm okay with it. Right? If you get to the weekend, and you got a couple tickets left, you go out for a nice dinner and ice cream, whatever we want to have, because they all wash away, you can't carry them over from week to week. And then that way, it's like anything I want to really have, or I really have a hankering for I really want it's no more than four or five days away. So it makes it a whole lot easier to manage that. And this is something I can stick with for a long period of time as opposed to I'm going to do the six week, you know, better Abs program.

37:49

Yeah, I agree with everything you said. I mean, going back to the tracking to start, you know, I know there's controversy people have when it comes to tracking, does it does it cause issues? And I think the evidence supports that, you know, tracking is associated with better outcomes, assuming you didn't have some some issue beforehand with with tracking but your strategy of how do we, how do we deal with emotional and compulsive eating? We do it by thinking ahead and planning and there's different ways to do it. I like your strategy of the tickets actually hadn't heard that? Are these physical tickets? No, no, they're massive. Because that can work too. Yeah, and I've heard strategies, like, you know, banking, banking for the weekend, or, you know, you know, planning for a specific day ahead of time pre logging, you know, there's all these strategies, but the whole, the whole theme, I think, is your thinking ahead and in with a cool head, before you get into the moment, and you've planned for right, you're planning for your weekly calories, you know, you're trying to hit to hit a specific goal. And like you said, if someone is doesn't have a way in coming up, for example, on a very strict goal, they have a little bit of leeway. You're still trying to hit a specific calorie target for the week, right? We're not just willy nilly saying that we can eat, you know, two whole pizzas on Saturday, right? It still has to fit within there. So yeah, I agree with everything you said. And, okay, I guess that answers the question. So what about let's turn to I guess, performance, then if we did have somebody that had a slightly stricter goal for performance, it doesn't have to be diet related this week could be training again. It could be powerlifting could be sports, endurance, what are the biggest obstacles that prevent them from performing at their best? So I

Eric D'Agati 39:29

just break it down systematically and say, Okay, make sure we're not going to miss anything. That's everything I do is just basically a checklist, right? So I love the work that Atul Gawande did in his book Checklist Manifesto, where he just talks about the impact and power of checklists, and he used it in medicine, but I translate that in a training so Okay, on my big global checklist to say, especially for performance, there's three fundamental layers. So like Greg Cook was my mentor, my mentors Use it as movement, performance and skill. And to kind of take a step back so people can understand that the lay person when I explained to him I said, there's there's, there's competency, there's capacity and then skill. So competency is can you even get into the positions and shapes and postures you need to get in to perform that thing, whatever that thing is, you're gonna do so, you know, you want to go play tennis? Can you even rotate? Can you even lunge to decelerate? Can you get balance on a single leg? Can you can you do all those things that are gonna show up on a tennis court? Because if you can't even get to those positions in a slow controlled environment, now, you certainly aren't going to get into them, at least well, you know, once we get out there at full speed and the balls coming at you. So I want to check the competency box, do you believe that at least have that baseline of movement competency? Then from there, I'm going to look at your capacity. And to say, Okay, do you have Are you physically fit enough to play that sport, and then that means you need to generate a certain amount of you need to have a certain amount of strength, you need to generate a certain amount of power and speed, have a certain level of agility and so forth. And then from there, we can look at the specifics of, Hey, I can't get to my forehand, because of a lack of, you know, rotation of my T spine, or I'm struggling with my serve, because I can't get hip extension, whatever that may be, we can dial that down. But most people go right to that, right, they're going to come in and say, Oh, I went and my tennis coach said, I can't get hip extension, he gave me the stretches I should do. I say well, back back up. Okay, so did he know that you can't even touch your toes like that would probably be a bigger start, then trying to do some really specific stretch, because maybe if we clear up the big global stuff, that that really local specific stuff that may just go away. And we also may check a whole lot of other boxes in between. So we kind of start global, and then we'll go down to regional, and then we'll go down to to, to really local when it comes to movement, and then the same thing will happen when it comes to the levels of competency, and then translating that to skill. So that's really just the checklist that I go through. And the higher you go up the chain, the more specific you get. So that's really how I kind of go through that journey with an athlete and explain to him that we're still gonna have to go back and check those boxes every once in a while because we, if we get too deep into capacity, we may actually steal from some of our competency, right. And I've seen that too many times, I've worked in the NFL for nine years, where more than one athlete has told me, you know, I moved so much better before I got into the NFL. And obviously, there's the there's the, you know, the physicality of the game that beats them up. But they say, just athletically, I was just more athletic before I got here. And they kind of train that anatomy, unfortunately. And we have to make sure that we don't do that, that we don't screw people up.

42:41

Now, as far as capacity, which is there an aspect of capacity that is universal, I mean, between different sports and different types of athletes, where you see a recurring theme, that that's common, you know, what I'm getting at?

Eric D'Agati 42:54

Yeah, are there are some baseline, you know, markers, and that's, again, having having a system you have baseline markers to say, Okay, once we've hit this, unless you have a very specific goal for strength as an example, I think we're strong enough. And then now we can move on to other things, right, and I have those things. So a lot of times, I'll start off athletes with a lot of unilateral training in the beginning, say, Okay, I want to have you be able to do a single arm floor press. And when I have you be able to do a Bulgarian split squat, I don't want to do single leg RDL. And for every one of those, I have markers relative to body weight that I want you to be able to hit once you can hit those. If we need to go deeper down the road of strength, then that's where we can get, you know, more specific that way. But once you've kind of hit those, I just my job was just to maintain those. And every once in a while, I'll keep those in there just to make sure we're, we're still hitting those marks. But now there's a lot of other boxes to check. Like when I talk about my performance pyramid with an athlete. There's 59 boxes of things that we want to look at. So I'd say I can't spend all my time working on strength. It's one it's one I got 58 others I gotta get to. So you want to a minimum by having markers say at least you've hit the minimum now, do you need more than the minimum for your sport? That depends how strong Do you really need to be to hit a golf ball? How strong Do you really need to be to ride a ride a bike? Obviously more would be beneficial. But if it comes at the expense of other things, I'm not getting to that are even more beneficial. That's a prioritization problem.

Philip Pape 44:19

Okay. Does anybody like Bulgarian split squats?

Eric D'Agati 44:23

I mean, weirdos like me. But are I you know, doing an ISO version of that's even more, you know, sadistic but no one's ever said hey, can we do more split holds but

Philip Pape 44:35

what do you hold that position for the ISOs

Eric D'Agati 44:37

at the bottom, at the bottom, hit the bottom of that and hang out there for 30 seconds. ISOs are very powerful thing that they've kind of come back in vogue in the last year. So they're finding lots of correlations with helping with tendon strength and so forth. But it's always a great place for me to start with people. Because we're happy when you take away the moving parts literally. It's a lot easier to to figure stuff out to so Getting in the bottom of that, all right, I want you to feel where your pelvis is, I want you to feel how your foots contacting the floor, I want you to feel what your spine feels like now. And we can make these little adjustments to create awareness, because that's tough to do when they're moving up and down. So doing these different positions, and there's probably a subset, there's probably a subset about five or six that I really liked to use in the beginning stages of training to get people aware of these positions and shapes and postures to say, okay, get in that position, feel what it feels like to elevate your chest, okay? Now feel what it feels like to, you know, QL use spread out your collarbones and get open in your shoulders, get your head back into a into a position. That's a lot easier to learn for the end user when they're in a static position first.

Philip Pape 45:42

Yeah, I like that idea. I mean, there's there's versions of that, like, I guess you could say something like a pause squat, where again, you're in one position. But but the idea of using isometrics for that, I haven't quite heard that before. I think a study recently came out about calf training as well, that was that looked at isometrics and saw a great benefit for, but I think that was for hypertrophy. So speaking of athletics, what about a an older guy? I'm not old, but an older guy like me, who's never been athletic. You know, one of the reasons I joined CrossFit years ago was to get in that kind of environment. I mean, how would somebody like that, who doesn't, isn't looking to compete or perform athletically you know, as part of a team necessarily approach that, you know, what kind of goal would be a reasonable goal for them to pursue?

Eric D'Agati 46:31

Well, provided We've checked the box for movement competency, and they have no restrictions there, they have a full menu to order from right. That's where we look at some simple things. And if I had to have a checklist of like desert island, things that you could do, jump rope is going to be really high on that list. Okay, so it creates a jille not agility isn't one word, it creates rhythm, which is a huge, huge, hugely impactful thing on athleticism. I had Lee Taft on our on our podcast, who's brilliant, and talking about the impact of rhythm on athleticism, I always joke that you look at the most athletic people that have two things, they have rhythm, I'm gonna write a book and it's gonna be called rhythm and glutes, because you need to have some level of rhythm there's there's an elegance to when you watch a really good athlete, watch it Tyreke Hill run around watch a Steph Curry play basketball, there's, there's just such a fluidity and rhythm to that. And then you need to get the force power from somewhere and it's on that posterior chain most is where a lot of it starts. Not all of it, but it's where a lot of it starts. So I joke if you see somebody in a flat asset, a game, it's usually a referee or spectator. So you need to so one of the ways to start with a rhythm and to also get you more elastic. So you can get up on the ball your foot, and you can have that elasticity and actually have the stiffness, not lack of range of motion, stiffness, but stiffness and spring in your ankle. Jump rope is a great place to start number one. From there, once you've established that singles or doubles, or it doesn't matter, just just figure it out from the beginning, just figure it out. And then and then what you want to have is some simple things. Number one, is make sure the knee is straight. So you're getting that spring in the ankle, if you have what I call squishy knee, and you keep collapsing, then you're all working from the hip and the whole body's involved, you shouldn't look like that you should look pretty much straight line ear to ankle and just spring off spring off of that ball, your foot. Then there'll be should be a rhythm and cadence to it. Like I'll have people and I'll just clap my hands and have them keep to a certain rhythm. I'll even put like an EDM or you know, kind of kind of, you know, house music on the inside, keep the beat to that, right, create some rhythm and create some cadence with that. And can you do that. And then my last year is always make it look easy. Like smile, relax, breathe through your nose, you shouldn't be grinding, you shouldn't be gripping the handles, like get smooth and relaxed, that's gonna have such carryover to athleticism, whether you're playing pickup basketball, or tennis, or whatever it may be. So that's where I start. And then from there, the next thing is sprinting, right being able to sprint and like go all out because there's a big difference. And that's why you see go to, you know, go to any beer league softball game, and you'll see a bunch of people yanked hamstrings and torn Achilles because even though that person may go to the gym and jog, you know, five miles a day, there's a whole different representation and synchronization of how your muscles work. When you change over from a jog to a sprint, and then as soon as you have that high demand if I need to use this right now, on your Achilles on your hamstrings, that's when they pop in. They don't have that so you need to work up to be able to do some sprinting and it doesn't have to be long you're not doing gassers here you're not doing this for conditioning you're doing it to be able to access the muscles you do have access the strength you do have right away right and so can I just do and there's some really simple protocols you could follow. Zack they can't from where's he's at TCU has some great protocols. Derek Hansen has this very simple 10 yards 10 Sprint's protocol that he uses just Sprint 10 yards all out like hair's on fire, walk back and then do it 10 times and then do it multiple rounds of that, like really simple stuff like that. That's where I would start. And if I can only pick two, those would be the things I would do

Philip Pape 50:06

jump rope and sprinting. I like that I used to love the what is it death by death by 10 meter sprints, whatever they did in CrossFit. That's, that's excellent. So, so kind of related to,

Eric D'Agati 50:17

I'm sorry to cut you off. But going back to that, that sprinting for conditioning, right, okay, that's not what I'm talking about. So and that's really dependent on your goal, that's that, that's, if you're doing for conditioning great. But if you're doing it to improve your speed, and athleticism, there needs to be enough time for you to recharge and have quality. And so like there's a, there's a system that I use when I have athletes spring, where a little sprint either for distance or time, whether it's you're going to sprint, a 40 yard sprint, or going to sprint for five seconds, whatever it may be. And you're going to take an amp in an ample amount of rest. So you may take two, three minutes, and then your job is in your every rep is to meet or beat or at least come within 10% of that last one. So if I gave you five for easy math, I gave you five seconds to run 50 seconds, or 50 and you got 50 yards, your next rep has to be at least 45 yards in those five seconds. Once you can't meet that marker, your quality has gone down and now we're going to do is get really good at being slow. So that's that's going to be my quality control. And if you can do that 10 times great. If you get to and you lose your you lose that quality and you drop off more than 10% Go home, you're done.

Philip Pape 51:31

Interesting. So it all sounds like you can combine, maybe combine this I know some people like to do short hit sessions to bada or one to two, one to three ratio all out versus rest it, it almost sounds like it could fit in there. You know, from a time efficiency standpoint, with the addition that you control the quality, like you said, and try to try to hit that time, don't just go out and start

Eric D'Agati 51:54

pretty fit to do this on a Tabata protocol or that shorter rest period. So if you're doing conditioning, that's going to be a different animal. If you're if you're doing it for speed you need, you need a ton of rest, and you're not going to do a ton of reps either. Right? If you go all out, and do you know even six, all out sprints anywhere from from 20 to 40 yards, you're gonna know it, if you've done it truly the way you should do it. There was a football team that I used to wear high school football team that I used to work with a lot of their players, their coach had this thing and I guess because it sounded cool, where they'd run 4040s. And it was horrible, horrible for every aspect. It doesn't translate to football. It doesn't it all it did was give me a ton of business because the amount of Achilles, low back hip flexor strains hamstring pulls that I got from this one school because that was their protocol. It was it was great for business, but it was horrible what they put these kids through.

Philip Pape 52:49

Yeah, that's crazy. So I get your point, fair point about the conditioning versus the athletic development and recovery, I think is important from from an even larger perspective for a lot of people that I see working out four or five, six days a week, and I've gone through this myself where you just get beat up, right? And it kind of even when you try to take the loads, it seems to catch up with you and never quite go away. I mean, what, how do older folks manage that volume and manage that recovery, who really like to work out?

Eric D'Agati 53:22

Okay, so I use tons of analogy. So I always explain this to clients in the beginning that you're basically the farmer and you have seeds and you have soil you're training as the seeds and the soils what happens the other 23 hours in the day, now, if you go and plant your seeds on a rubber workout floor, nothing's gonna grow there. So what makes you have rich, fertile soil, it's your it's your habits and activities, those are the 23 hours a day, it's number one, your Sleep Number two, you know, or one day is your nutrition. So if you're up till two in the morning, you know watching Netflix or playing Call of Duty and you're you know, drinking soda or or, you know, bang drinks or or whatever it may be. And that's the only way you can keep yourself going. Eventually, you know, you're just kind of living on credit event and that bill is going to come. So what you do those those 23 hours gives you the fertile soil of where you can grow more. And so if you put an active focus on your recovery, it's gonna allow you to train harder. I mean, the ultimate is when guys just in people use steroids because it boosts your recovery. So they can train for for endless time and, you know, and not break down as much as soon as they come off, they fall apart. So it's really managing how much how much recoverability Have you built, how much resiliency Have you built and then that's tells me how much I can push and how hard I can push. And there are great markers you can use to kind of gauge that to know when it's time to peel back or when it's time to go and I have a readiness screen that I teach in our course and that I use do my clients every morning takes about three minutes and it looks at your movement competency for that day because maybe maybe You could rotate freely both ways. Last time I saw you, but since I saw, you might have slept on the couch or had a cross country flight or you played, you know, 72 holes of golf, and I'll send you can't rotate, right? And I was supposed to have you do some sort of, you know, medicine ball drill or something. And I want to know that before I get started, right. So I looked at your movement competency. And then I look at some other markers that just kind of look at your overall global readiness, whether it's looking at your grip strength, whether it's looking at a time to breath hold, or if you have technology that can tell me about your resting heart rate, tell me about your ear, heart rate variability, all those things put into the soup, kind of give me a picture of where you're at, as well as their own self assessment. And they're not going to offer that information coming in the door, they're going to come in and then just assume they're going to do the workout and then all of a sudden, I put them through stuff. And you know, you normally hold your breath for about 25 seconds today was 14 seconds. What's up, while you know, I slept like crap, you know, I'm stressed out works been really brutal. And now you're starting to reframe Okay, well, this isn't the same organism that I wrote this program for, I might need to change what I'm doing here, I can't plant the same seeds the same way that I thought, and so I need to adapt that program to that individual. So you know, looking at those factors, if you have ability to look a little bit deeper, and that's, you know, things like an aura ring that looks at your sleep, or something that looks at your HRV like a Morpheus strap, or one of those types of things, it's going to those the accuracy of some of those things comes into question sometimes, but it's not gonna, if we're not really, if we're using it just for general awareness is to say, Wow, I never realized that, you know, whenever a couple drinks at night, my HRV crashes, maybe let me maybe not try to have that drink and see if that affects my workout the next day, or if I go to bed a half hour earlier, my workout, I'm a different person. My focus the next day at work is completely different. And again, it goes back to that that honesty and awareness piece of wow, I didn't realize these things that we're doing were either building or detract from my health.

Philip Pape 56:57

Yeah, I love that the not only the 23 hours being the focus, but building that awareness. I mean, it's great when you have a coach who can help you do that assessment before the workout. But even collecting the data, like you said, looking at the trend, I actually have an aura ring myself. So what you mean, what do you just like? Well, what's happening? Are you wait too late? Or, you know, like you said, you had a few drinks, something like that. All right. Any anything else you want to share? Eric?

Eric D'Agati 57:22

Go all day.

Philip Pape 57:25

Day, I got one quick question, what's your favorite movement, if you had to choose just one lift,

Eric D'Agati 57:30

just one lift? That's tough. If I had to, it's gonna be kind of a three way tie of if I had to go either some variation of a deadlift, right, whether it's single leg is probably the one I program a lot more than just a bilateral deadlift. But if I'm going for the masses, I would say something like that left, and then push up would be close tie with that, because there's so much that can get involved if you do a really good quality push up. And then not far behind would be some level some type of carry would be in there as well. Because I'm looking for stuff. They're gonna check a lot of boxes at once. So if I'm on your own, give me one I got to pick pick one that's going to cover a lot of ground. So I would I would probably go one A, B and C with those three.

Philip Pape 58:23

Okay, no, and those are all unique. You know, I wouldn't have guessed right. I would have thought you know, maybe a traditional big lift or something like that. So, single leg deadlifts, you've inspired me to do more unilateral movements and isometrics now, and then you said push ups and carry so carries like farmer carries. We're saying

Eric D'Agati 58:38

right there you can do overhead parry farmers carry rack position carry unilateral bilateral, six position carry, there's, there's so many different variations, but carries are going to get a lot of good things going in terms of posture, body awareness, grip strength, just general you know, you're getting core in there, you're getting a ton of stuff going in there that you would never realize until you've actually done a carry and really in realize how smoked you can be afterwards.

Philip Pape 59:07

Like, all right, well, this has been a lot of fun. I do have one more question Where can the listeners find you learn more about your work?

Eric D'Agati 59:14

Okay, easiest place is the hub is just my website. It's just my name Eric D’Agati ericdagati.com. And on there, I have, you know, links to all those projects that I'm working on. As well as an “Ask Eric” button on there where you can just put in a question and it goes right to my emails. And so you know, platforms like this, we don't get a chance to interact with people. So someone may hear this and say, Hey, I heard you talking about, you know, carries, you know, where should I start with that? Or how do I pick my weight? Or how long do I carry, you know, those kinds of things, send those to me. And then as well as on my media page. I have all previous podcasts appearances, all my social media links. I try to do my best. It's tough to keep up but I try to do at least one or two posts a day with just some informational stuff to kind of pay it forward. We'll do clips from The podcasts that we put up. So those are great ways to keep in touch and

Philip Pape 1:00:04

follow me. And that's the principles of performance podcast. Right? So

Eric D'Agati 1:00:08

it was a performance podcast. Yes, sir. Okay,

Philip Pape 1:00:10

I think I missed that in the intro.

Eric D'Agati 1:00:12

That's that's the; we're on YouTube, and then all the different podcast platforms,

Philip Pape 1:00:16

make sure to download that. And I'm gonna include all those links in the show notes. And Eric, thanks again for coming on the show. It was a lot of fun talking to you.

Eric D'Agati 1:00:23

Awesome. Greatly appreciate it.

Philip Pape 1:00:27

Thanks for listening to the show. Before you go, I have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast, let me know by leaving a five star review in Apple podcasts and telling others about the show. Thanks again for joining me Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.

Philip Pape 9/20/22 Philip Pape 9/20/22

Ep 26: Sustainable Fitness, Physiology, Fat Loss, and Running at Any Age with Louise Valentine

Today I am joined by Louise Valentine to talk about how to achieve sustainable fitness goals by doing less rather than more, how to work WITH our physiology and not against it, how to optimize health for women 35 and older, and actionable tips you can start applying right away to unlock your best health despite age, a busy life, or obstacles.

Today I am joined by Louise Valentine to talk about how to achieve sustainable fitness goals by doing less rather than more, how to work WITH our physiology and not against it, how to optimize health for women 35 and older, and actionable tips you can start applying right away to unlock your best health despite age, a busy life, or obstacles.

Louise is a Physiologist, best-selling author, avid runner, and military spouse. She was named #1 Health Specialist in the U.S., has worked for the NFL, and published research on how to solve the root cause of health and fitness problems.

She is now CEO of BreakingThroughWellness.com, where she offers one-on-one coaching, courses, and the groundbreaking Badass Breakthrough Academy for women runners and fitness lovers age 35 and beyond.

Just some of the topics discussed in this episode:

Overcoming health diagnoses at any age
The root cause of health and fitness problems
Doing less, not more, for sustainable success
Strategies for sleep, working from home, carbs, and more
Working with our physiology
Pitfalls to avoid when improving health and fitness
Considerations for women over 35 when it comes to health and fitness
Running for sport and for health: myth vs. reality when it comes to fat loss and body composition

RELATED LINKS

BreakingThroughWellness.com - Louise offers 1:1 coaching, courses, and the groundbreaking Badass Breakthrough Academy for women runners and fitness lovers age 35 and beyond
Breaking Through Wellness on Facebook
Louise (breakingthroughwellness) on Instagram
Louise on LinkedIn

👉 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

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:08

Louise Valentine: 1:25

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

Philip Pape: 1:27

Yeah. So am I. So to start off, can you just tell us a little bit about your background as it relates to your diagnosis, your health diagnoses, and then what you call turning breakdowns into breakthroughs?

Louise Valentine: 1:39

Yeah, you know, at a young age I was I got this message that I wasn't built to be a runner, I had such a strong genetic history of all these health diagnoses, that that would ultimately be my faith, my fate. And, you know, this motivated very young age, I was really interested in health and fitness, I got multiple degrees and an exercise science physiology. And I wanted to arm myself with these tools and strategies, so that that wouldn't be the case that I would be healthy and resilient. And, and I had this motivation I like I tell the story of turning the treadmill up to like a 10% grade and, you know, power walking in the sixth grade thing, that won't be my story. But, you know, ultimately, I did end up getting some health diagnoses, I did struggle with compromised immune system, infertility, hormonal issues, and ultimately did get diagnoses of both osteoporosis and a stomach pre cancer in my 30s, so I did have those moments where even having knowledge and, and tools and degrees I, I still felt like it was a breakdown moment. And I stand here as living proof, though, that despite what doctors say, they still told me it was impossible to reverse things. Despite what I was told in my youth that I was able to turn those breakdowns into breakthroughs and reverse what I was told would be chronic conditions.

Philip Pape: 3:05

So I mean, in your 30s, you got all of these these. There's bad news, I guess, on you know, surprise at that age, especially things like osteoporosis. You know, how did it make you feel? I mean, what, where did it take you at that point?

Louise Valentine: 3:18

Yeah, it was incredible darkness. You know, I kind of describe to those that I work with now that, you know, can shift our perspective that health and performance is fluid, it's always dynamic, it's going to have moments that are hard. It's just knowing what to do, and what to say to ourselves when it gets hard that matters. So now that I've been there, in those dark moments, I do have a lot of different tools and strategies to help others work through these moments. But it, it's okay to sit there for a moment and just kind of to feel it though. And it is ugly, and to be mad and frustrated and let that ugly out too.

Philip Pape: 3:55

So it was your crucible moment. I mean, it sounds like are you thankful that that happened? In hindsight? Yeah.

Louise Valentine: 4:01

Oh, yeah. And, you know, even say, like the struggles of being a military spouse, the struggles in my health challenge, I believe I was given them for a purpose, so that I would see how strong you can be, despite these crazy obstacles so that I can, my struggle can be someone's inspiration, ultimately,

Philip Pape: 4:19

that's amazing. And I'm assuming this, this led to a lot of the things that you accomplished later on. And we talked about in the intro. One of those is publishing research. We're big into science and talking about evidence on this podcast, and you talk about solving the root cause of health and fitness problems. So can you just share, expound on that a bit on the research and what you discovered?

Louise Valentine: 4:40

Yeah, so I did look at a lot of things like childhood obesity, looking at women's health issues in my master's program set up and things like that and our health and longevity but ultimately, my research fellowship was with the US Army. So I was able to look at health outcomes. All the way from chronic disease to mental health, look at the impact of physical activity, sleep nutrition, on our well being on our health, and the military is always a wonderful population to study because their circumstances are fairly controlled, they do a lot of the same exercises, they may be in the same type of an environment in the field, they might be getting the same meals in their prep prepackaged meals. So a lot of times we learn a lot about the human body and human performance by studying the military.

Philip Pape: 5:31

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, the validity study is often dependent on the sample and who's involved and how consistent it is. But so I want to dig a little deeper on that. The root cause, like I want to know the secret, right? What is the root cause of health and fitness? So I'm just curious.

Louise Valentine: 5:46

Yeah, so it was looking more so at the fact that it is always individual, we would look at the different troops and different troops would have different problems, like for some obesity was their challenge. For some it was mental health outcomes. For others, it was injury. So yeah, we looked at different impacts of in the individual troops, that each one would have a different health outcome that was their, you know, problem point. So it was then looking at targeted interventions for those specific priority issues. Because you can sit there going to try and have programs for everything. But it's really defining that number one trouble point and starting there, and aligning those resources accordingly. So rather than trying to do everything at once, which I see a lot with those that I work with, and their health and fitness, it's having that okay, what is your priority goal? And how can we be most effective in moving the needle to achieve that goal? Not everything all at once?

Philip Pape: 6:50

Yeah, no, I love that approach. And I know you're a one on one coach, just like I am, and you probably every single client that comes in as their unique big rock or big priority that they struggle with. And the next client is perfectly skillful in that area and has something else right? Yeah. So did you did you find common themes like things like biofeedback, specific types of biofeedback, that you could bucket eyes or categorize across? Anybody?

Louise Valentine: 7:17

Well, I think we looked at like the foundation of health, if you don't have health, you will not perform. So looking at things like mental health, and then also sleep. So having like that absolute foundation, without certain things, you will not be able to improve your fitness, you will not be energized to perform at your best, whether it's your career, whether it's the military. So what is the Health Foundation? And do you have it in place?

Philip Pape: 7:44

Okay, sleep, you hit a trigger with me that Sleep, sleep is a challenge for a lot of people. I agree, whether it's quantity quality. And I know a lot of my listeners are busy professionals, they have families, they have career obligations. And this idea of I know you mentioned doing less, doing less, not more, I think resonates with people were overwhelmed. And things like sleep come into the equation. So tell me a little bit about that concept of less versus more, and how it plays into sustainable success.

Louise Valentine: 8:15

Yeah, I think it's really important to look at the your priority goals and your health and fitness, and then start to inventory, the different things that you're doing. And we it's so easy with the noise out there to want to buy like the greatest supplement solution, I see that you know, all the time. And it's almost like a backpack, your game plan. Your game plan is a backpack, and you're just stuffing so many things. And it's try and gain the edge, losing the sight of the things that could actually move the needle and just like taking that focused action. And you'd be leaps and bounds ahead. So I'll use the example of I train a lot of runners. And something I might see with a busy mom who's trying to run her best. She has career goals, she's got kids in soccer, she's running around like a crazy person. So with that stress, she thinks, Okay, yoga is good for runners. So I'm going to make sure that I do yoga on and I'm going to add that into marathon training on top of this crazy season of life. And so I'll stop and I'll say, Okay, so are you driving to your yoga class? Yes, she's driving to it. It's an hour. Well, why are you doing yoga? While I'm doing yoga? Because I have, you know, this, this injury, I just want to make sure I just want to prevent injury and my running to be like, what if I told you, unless you're using that yoga for like mental health and you absolutely love it, we could give you like two targeted strength exercises that you could do at home at home would be more effective. And target your problem area. And we can maybe remove yoga until after marathon training because it takes so much time and energy. Yeah.

Philip Pape: 9:49

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, that's so true. With with prioritization, you see that all the time. You mentioned supplements, right? The pyramid of nutrition where People just need to focus maybe on protein, and they get in the weeds with, you know, whatever it might be clean eating or something else. So, regarding sleep, so if we dig in a little bit more about sleep, how big of a problem is that for people? How? Or how many people? Does that affect that you encounter? And what would you say are some effective strategies for that?

Louise Valentine: 10:22

Yeah, I'll see a lot of women that struggle a lot with sleep. And even like I had, I remember, I had a male triathlete who was struggling with it as well. There's different strategies. And next door, I actually pull it for some of the research with the US military, this concept of sleep banking. So if they have an event coming up the US military, they will add just a little bit more sleep to encourage the soldier or in this specific study, getting extra hours of sleep. And if you do that, just a few say it's like 10 or 10 minutes asleep, 10 minutes asleep, five days a week leading up to the event, you're still banking sleep prior to that event. So what I like to do is I like to encourage those that I work with to look to these events that they have, is it a high stress work week? Can we sleep bank? Is it a an event, like a marathon where you know, you're gonna get up at 3am to make a bus to get to the start line by five? Let's sleep bank. And then of course, looking at different things that influenced sleep like caffeine. Cutting caffeine off is huge at like noon. Can we just cut it off? Dude, maybe

Philip Pape: 11:29

long Half Life Care? Yeah. Yeah, I like that idea of sleep banking. And that's, that's adding 10 minutes each day leading up to the event. Yeah. And

Louise Valentine: 11:36

if they have more time, of course, let's do 20 minutes. But typically, we're hitting that like eight to nine hour optimal sleep range. For some ultra endurance athletes, we're looking at 10 hours is recommendations. But if we dropped below six, that's the cut point where you're seeing compromised immunity. Five times more likely to get injury, I think is a statistic there. It's just insane what that does to our physiology.

Philip Pape: 12:02

So the sleep bank is kind of like carb loading, which these athletes I imagine have to do as well. So So you're saying get more Tom Brady level of sleep? And so yeah, three shift worker level of sleep. So I guess, related to that, then so we talked about people working from home, talking about sleep. People are sitting around all day two, like I've heard the phrase sitting is the new smoking, and you're working all these hours. I mean, I'm working from home, we get burned out by stress, we have a tendency to even do more in that case, because we're not taking the chance to get in a car and go to our workplace. Do you have any actionable tips for those challenges?

Louise Valentine: 12:41

Yeah, I mean, I think the one of the best things we can do is like sit on a ball, that will just activate our core all day. And I'll tell you, I've even seen that the difference in my own core from when we moved here to Delaware, I would sit on the couch and work. So it was so comfortable at this big beautiful window, I could look out at us like I love it here, while I stopped sitting on my ball chair. And I saw fat accumulate on my stomach. And I was like, well, that's okay, that's just me. But if we're looking at bigger pictures, like having this ball works your core but if you don't like that idea, a sit stand desk alternate between the two. And I think the biggest game changer that I've seen in the research is just moving at least two minutes after you eat, whether it's a snack, whether it's a meal.

Philip Pape: 13:25

I like that. Okay, and you're on the ball right now. What about standing all day, all day, because I have a treadmill desk and I tend to not sit is that a problem. So the

Louise Valentine: 13:37

if you don't have back issues as as a byproduct of that. I do see a lot of people that stand too much. And for example, my husband is an ultra runner, and he was standing because he's like, Yes, I'm tough. I'm gonna stand all day. And he ended up having some back pain. So I wanted to try alternating between the two. And I think you'll be you'll be much better off. So it's

Philip Pape: 13:58

a good tip. All right, listen to that alternate get a ball and, and you'll be better off. So this is this is working with your body working with your physiology and how we are designed and our biomechanics. And you mentioned that right working within your physiology. So what do you mean by that? Exactly? What are some tips to do that?

Louise Valentine: 14:18

You know, there are just over the years, so many simple ways to work with our body and not against it. And I have some, you know, different strategies and hacks that I teach those that I work with, but sometimes it's, it seems so simple. And so it can create so much ease in our life and body from the state of cortisol Go, go go go, which is like fat storage, it's almost impossible sometimes to build muscle to lose body fat. And when we're just trying so hard, you know, especially working with runners and those who are really into health and fitness. Sometimes we really have to just have those moments where we can chill out. So recognizing the state of stress and then having the stress energies in place, whether it is sleep, whether you're struggling with just anxiety in these stressful moments and really high stress job. So one example strategy that I use is just to call it shifting your mind. And you just take one deep breath, think of one thing you're grateful for. And then think of how you want to show up in the world today. So it's I am, and you think, for a lot of times, I'll start my day like that. And I'll just say, I am joy filled as I make breakfast for my kids. And then I go, and I'm, I am that person, right? I just step into that, that joy, and I think about what I'm grateful for. And it's amazing what gratitude can do in terms of hormones, and just shifting that high stress state. So I just have individuals work with that strategy, just one breath. You don't have to do some crazy long meditation, just one breath. If you feel like things are, you know, the trains going off the tracks at work? One breath, think of one thing you're grateful for? shift yourself?

Philip Pape: 16:00

Yeah, like that a lot pot positive visualization. But, you know, people will listen to me. No, I'm very direct. I'm not, I'm not into a lot of spiritual things. But I do appreciate the link between the mind and body and what you're talking about. If I were to go to a speech, you know, in front of a big audience, for example, thinking that it's going to go well seems to relieve the stress and getting prepared for the moment. So what you're saying makes a lot of sense. When do you do you advise people journal? Or how would people identify these moments? Because I could see some people doing this just all day, because it's stress is always there.

Louise Valentine: 16:33

Yeah, I think that, you know, I say what we do what we say to ourselves when it gets hard matters. And this exercise if of defining what your heart is, what is hard in your life right now? Is it a relationship struggle? Is it you lost? Your job is, you know, during the pandemic, it was the pandemic stress of the pandemic, the unknown? Is it a health challenge? Is it you're struggling with weight gain? And you don't know why, you know, it's just it's so individual, but what is your heart and starting to identify, like, what's triggering it in?

Philip Pape: 17:06

Got it? Yeah. And looking back in your week, perhaps and say, this was the thing that that came up the most of cause the stress and maybe I should focus on some of these, these practices for myself.

Louise Valentine: 17:18

It really shifts where we start to intervene in our health and fitness, right? A lot of times we're like, okay, supplements, we're looking at the latest and greatest fitness, when if we just kind of went upstream a little bit and looked at like stress, we could simplify things just a little bit.

Philip Pape: 17:34

But Louise, isn't there a supplement you can take for stress? Oh, there's like 50 of them? I'm sure they're the biggest pain points of the most supplements? For sure. Yeah. All right. So I guess that leads to a corollary to that, which is people do try and maybe do too much, or focus on the wrong things, and fall into different pitfalls, different traps along the way. We already covered some of them, like taking on too much putting you're filling up your backpack with things that don't matter. So what are some of the mistakes you've seen clients make? And I'm really intrigued to know about some of the like professional athletes you've worked with? Maybe the NFL really interested in hearing about that? Yeah, so

Louise Valentine: 18:13

they think they're the worst culprits of doing everything they possibly can to get that cutting edge. So I think that's where I started to realize that there was, there's so many different solutions for everything. And I would have athletes that were, you know, sleep chambers, they were getting cryotherapy, they'd have personal stretch person, I would work with them for massage therapy. They had performance coaches and nutritionists. And it was just so much and so I take a step back and kind of observe and see. Okay, so what are they doing? And what is the science say? And so it was really interesting to start to see like, okay, so what are the minimum? What is the minimum effort needed to achieve that maximum results? And that's kind of the lens that I try and encourage those that I work with to start to think about. You know, for example, if you're looking for energy boosts of cryotherapy, but did you know that you can just spray cold water on your forehead and chest in your shower, to get that same mitochondrial die off, that you're looking for in cryotherapy, that energy boosts it start starting to look at some of these things we're investing in and spending a lot of time on. It's really interesting. There's a lot of different ways, like I said that you can just work with the physiology of your body once we understand what it is.

Philip Pape: 19:30

Yeah, and I think that awareness is maybe a big first step a lot of people have taken yet, before you even get into application and what you what you hit on there as the minimum minimum effective dose. I don't know if it's a phrase that, again, consistent with the theme earlier you mentioned of priorities of you've got all these things, but nine out of 10 of them aren't going to get you very far. So you focus on the 10th or vice versa.

Louise Valentine: 19:56

I could use an example to have an NFL player that came to me He was looking for just general overall health, he was taking hard hits on the field. And we started him on bone broth, just a great Whole Foods source of collagen, all sorts of nutrition and amino acids. So then he keeps coming to me with all these different things. Like my friend says, I should take this, my friends that I should take this, is this good? Should I take this? So he want one of them was a collagen powder. So I explained to him the benefits of collagen are in this whole food source of bone broth that you're already taking daily on top of an adequate protein diet. Do I think this supplement that your friend thinks is great, is necessary? No. So it's just like the education piece of again, we're just we're duplicating effort in so

Philip Pape: 20:42

many ways. Yeah, I just listened to a podcast, they talked about some supplement that shuttles more carbs to your muscles or something. And, and it was like a point 000 1% increase, versus just taking, you know, eating enough carbs? Gosh, I know, I know. You hear that stuff all the time. Yeah. So I'm sure you have a lot of other interesting stories regarding regarding athletes would What did you do with the NFL population. So I

Louise Valentine: 21:09

was primarily sports, medical massage therapy. This was years ago, I was working on my Strength and Conditioning Specialist Certification at the time, I worked with a Sports Med staff on that on the team with the sportsman docks, and in the training room with their strength and conditioning staff. So it was more of looking at the the overall total athlete health and how and I was specifically more on like the injury treatment and prevention side.

Philip Pape: 21:33

Okay. And now I would say you probably work a lot with women, right? Women, you said particularly 35, and over wiser women 35. And over, and they have to consider their health and fitness. And there's some unique considerations for them. So maybe let's let's dig into a little bit on that.

Louise Valentine: 21:51

Yeah, this need for vibrant health and health, energy and Hormonal Health in particular, a lot of us are, you know, maybe in our 20s, we could skimp on sleep, maybe in our 20s we could run super hard marathon training plan, and we didn't feel repercussions. But now we have to be really strategic about what we're eating, when we're eating it, ensuring our Hormonal Health is in place. First and foremost, we're not draining it, and just ensuring that we do we have to be more strategic and women over 35, our homeruns really start to shift our body takes longer to recover. And, and there's a lot of different things we need to do.

Philip Pape: 22:33

Yeah, and I was gonna, I was gonna ask exactly why so people so people understand why these things happen. And at what age is right, because when you say 35 To me, that's still a pre still menopausal is not postmenopausal yet, which then other things occur. Is it? Is it primarily down to hormones and other specifics about that people should be aware of?

Louise Valentine: 22:52

Yeah, I think the biggest one, and the misunderstanding that I've seen with the latest research coming out is just around carbs, and how essential they are for female Hormonal Health. And then not training fasted. We do need carbs, but we have to be strategic with them. Because yes, our body does not process them as easily, but just eating them around breakfast, around training around lunch is really key times when we actually need those carbs to build hormones. And without it, we start to cortisol, we build cortisol, instead, we store fat, and it's super frustrating. You could eat barely nothing, and you're still probably going to gain belly fat. It's just insane what it does to the hormones. So we need to ensure that that foundation is in place and not training fasted, because again, it's going to do the same thing. Cortisol is just going to spike and it steals from the hormones that oh, hey, by the way, we're losing as a byproduct of perimenopause, too. So yeah, that

Philip Pape: 23:49

those are all great insights. I want to dig in on some of those because they are very interesting one one having to do with mealtime and carbs. And the other with cortisol. So maybe started with cortisol. We know there's a timing window between cortisol and melatonin and serotonin, all these things, maybe just simplify, break it down and and help us understand why carbs are important in terms of fasted training, and cortisol.

Louise Valentine: 24:13

Yeah, because when we're when we go into a training session, fasted, especially in the morning there, our cortisol is going to spike. And in order for our body to make that cortisol, my understanding is that it's going to steal from our you know, our progesterone and our estrogens. And that's those, we actually need to have energy and vibrant wellbeing. And we need those to recover and just, you know, most of our major energy cycles and ability to to achieve our health and fitness and performance goals, we need our hormones. So with that, we definitely want to avoid the faster training and that's a really hard shift for a lot of women that I work with because there's a lot of that fasting is is the answer. And in certain circumstances, it is like when I had my son pre cancer, you better bet I fasted because I was going to starve those cancer cells, that's part of changing, shifting that terrain in my body to be anti cancer. So there was a time and a place for it. For those that have like, neuro neurological issues, yes, fasting has a place. Maybe every once in a while you do something like a, you have a favorite detox with your functional medicine doctor, okay, there might be a place for it. But to go into your training facet, every single day, I try to like meet people where they're at. But once they change this, are they even just getting like aminos, or a little bit of applesauce, half a banana, it doesn't have to be anything big. Get something into your body shift that biochemical pathway from that state of stress to one that can Hey, support your health and performance is a game changer.

Philip Pape: 25:53

I really liked that because we talk a lot about blood, blood glucose control, blood sugar control, and just glycolytic energy from carbs. And you're touching on the hormonal implication and the stressor related to cortisol and carbs. And it sounds like it's mainly for morning training. Because if you're training later in the day, you've probably eaten something. Before that point. Would you say that a large, fairly high carb dinner somewhat compensates for that, even if you didn't eat in the morning or not?

Louise Valentine: 26:21

I wouldn't know. And especially for women, too, I mean, just getting a source of protein in the evening to enhance that repair and recovery. Sometimes it's very beneficial, depending on their training volume. If they're a marathon runner, and they're going to a long run, absolutely get some great nutrient dense carbs, quality of your carbs matters. But otherwise, I tend to encourage just the slightly, typically based on the average person's dinner, which is a lot of like pasta, it's just looking at adding those veggies, adding some really great sources of protein and fat. And yes, you can have some carbs, but it's just not the heart of your beer, your meal at that point.

Philip Pape: 27:02

Sure. Okay. And then and then the banana in the morning or something. I'm all for that I do a banana on protein shake before my training in the morning as well, I get it. 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. 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. And then what was the other thing that the timing throughout the day for carbs? You touched on that a little bit earlier? Can you go into that? Yeah, so

Louise Valentine: 27:44

it having good carbs post workout for women who are 35. And over looking at like a one to one or two to one ratio, carbs to protein is great three to one starts to get a little tricky. We see some insulin impact there some energy that is going to possibly crash based on a really high carb meal because, you know, looking at that athlete or that fitness lovers, you know intra and pre workout meals, we might want to see up to 40 grams of carbs in that post workout meal, or I'm sorry, 40 grams of protein. So that protein is the heart of that meal. pairing it with with your carbs, of course. So like I said it's going to be their two to one or one to one ratio. Yeah. Yeah. Three to one is it gets hard if maybe you also marathoner.

Philip Pape: 28:33

Yeah. To our training sessions, CrossFit or something maybe. Yeah, cool, though, I could dig into this stuff all day. I tend to get in the weeds on this. But it's very interesting. I like I like for people to hear these things. Because I think there's a lot of misinformation and a lot of conventional wisdom around what and when you should eat right?

Louise Valentine: 28:52

Yeah. And it's so individual. Let me just say that. I had did like a whole training module and my bad aspects Breakthrough Academy on like, how we like what are your health goals? Do you have health challenges? What's your energy? Like? Do you have underlying conditions do you have how long you're training for, you know, what type of training are you doing? It all matters? So just using that lens and those blinders, put the blinders on listeners where you can and focus on you your goals and what your body's needs.

Philip Pape: 29:23

Yes, for sure. And feel free to experiment, right? Nothing's set in stone. Try something for a week, try something you know, for a few weeks and switch it up. Very cool. So, so we talked about women, that one other thing comes to mind was thinking of a client who is post menopause and dealing with the weight gain that sometimes comes from that just just indiscriminant quote, unquote, unexplainable weight gain, right? We all think we know what the science says about why you gain and lose weight. But then there's all these other factors that women face with hormones, and then it seems to present as visceral or abdomen abdominal fat as well. What what do we know? about that, and is there anything we can? What do we have to change at that point? To deal with that?

Louise Valentine: 30:04

Yeah, yeah. So that would definitely I'd be looking to see like carbohydrate timing, I'd be looking to ensure she's getting enough protein, I would look to alcohol use, just because alcohol could, really seems to push out that abdominal fat. And different strategies if you are because of course, I enjoy alcohol. So I just encourage the different hacks to help to, like prevent that super acidic shift in your body. And then I would also look to, if she was if she had like a good quality multivitamin, because believe it or not, for there's a couple of foundational supplements that I find are just game changers for, especially this age group of women, myself included, is just a really high quality multivitamin. And the reason why being that when we have that blanket of really high quality nutrition, it can cover the gaps, right, potentially, we don't have to worry about all the complicated lab testing, of course, that's beneficial, too. But if we don't have access to that, sometimes just you know, making sure you're getting really great methylated b 12, making sure you have a really high quality magnesium, you're getting enough vitamin D, and then the other one isn't high quality omega. And those two, you'd be amazed. I've had menopausal women that have said that stubborn five pounds, and they're just like, oh my gosh, it's gone. And I'm like, Oh,

Philip Pape: 31:31

we changed a couple of things. fish oil pills. Or the magnesium. You're right. It's just like something is deficient.

Louise Valentine: 31:38

That biological pathway to burn that fat and to see the gains of your fitness. It just couldn't run. It just needed some sort of precursor, which we just, we don't know what it was. But maybe it was magnesium. Maybe it was vitamin D.

Philip Pape: 31:52

Yeah, I like that thought of kind of, if you think of all your vitamins, filling up little buckets, and then a few of them are empty, and you're just kind of passing water over the entire thing and hoping to fill up the right buckets. Yeah. So what was I going to mention about magnesium, magnesium, fish oil, and multivitamins, what you mentioned? What about and then you said v 12? Creatine? What do you think of creatine?

Louise Valentine: 32:17

So honestly, it's one of the best studied supplements of all time. And I've personally used it. I, if an individual wants to try it, there's a time and a place sometimes. I mean, is one of them. That is the most research back. So from like a sports scientist perspective. Yeah, it's cool if you want to try

Philip Pape: 32:39

it for performance. Okay, so sweet. I want to get into a little bit more about body composition, right? Because we had a little conversation by email about running, and you're big into running, I want to get into that topic with you. I used to love running and kind of stopped altogether. At some point. Don't do it much anymore. But I get why a lot of people love doing it, both for enjoyment and for competition reasons. And I even just worked with a person training for a half marathon. So some people would say then that, you know, I'm the I'm against cardio, right? I'm against cardio, because we focus a lot on strength lifting muscle mass. And there's the whole interference effect with cardio. But I don't really I think it's a little bit overblown. I think if you enjoy it and keep the volume, reasonable, you can make it all work. But I want to hear your take on that. Because I know you're a competitive runner. And you know, you did that after the health diagnoses. I know you work with others and empower them to do that. So tell me about your love for running. Tell me about the benefits everything about running.

Louise Valentine: 33:42

So you definitely hit a nail on the head though running, especially this women over 35 population. My goodness, it is the one of the worst forms of exercises for our bodies. You say? No, it really is. And the reason why is because it is stress. Stress is stress, whether it's fear, whether it's exercise, the good stress or bad stress of you know, high stress work week life, but there is a stress tipping point. And when we are go go go all the time. And we add just six days of running on top of it. It is so much for our body. And you know, I saw a lot of health consequences from you know, the fact Yes, I had underlying conditions, but then I was running so much too. So the more I dug into it, the more I shifted to the simple, less is more type of training. It has it was a big game changer for my health for my hormones, like everything started to reverse and and so it is a little hard for those who want to train very religiously six days a week. But if we add just a little bit of strength training in there, they're injury free, they're energized. They have muscles that they love. And you know what, they're stronger runners and they're not tired all the time. And it's just, there is a place there's a place for run thing of course, I love it. But sometimes for my body I know ultra marathons. Not so great anymore. I tend to shy away from the marathon even anymore, maybe one a year. And, and for other women, it's just sort of looking at their physiology, where are they at in their stress in their life and their age two.

Philip Pape: 35:19

So tell us, tell us about that experience with a woman who's been into running runs every day. And you're so you're so correct, I think it might have started in the 70s. If you look at the history of exercise, and running, all of a sudden, there was one pivotal book, I don't remember the title, the running revolution or something like that. And it set off everything that along with the Nautilus machines that you see a benefit. For the modern gym in the modern culture, somebody who runs a lot, and then you get them to change their mindset, start incorporating lifting, what does that evolution look like for a lot of women,

Louise Valentine: 35:55

it's sometimes a little challenging, I find there's a lot of fear around strength training, just not knowing. And so that's where we work. And we keep it simple. It's amazing how women can do dynamic lifting. And by that, I mean, you can take away from off the floor, kick it up over your shoulder and over your head and you feel powerful, you see incredible results, you have an energy after doing it. And you're not going to break your back, you're not going to get super big muscles. Oh, by the way, your running is going to get stronger. And you're going to see like, great physique changes. So sometimes it takes time. But you know what, I swear, it's just only a few weeks. For most of them, they they're like my husband's commenting about my muscles. And I'm like, they can see the changes in my body and my clothes are fitting great. And oh my gosh, energy when I'm training and, you know, we switch up the workouts, they might have been running, like slow and steady for six days a week. And we'll just add in a little bit of speed work to get that like awesome, like hit effect. It's like you don't have to go to the hit class. You don't have to overdo it. But let's just add in like 32nd intervals. And at the end of your run, oh, wait, by the way, you feel like you're in college again, running track. It's just the most amazing empowered feeling. And women at any age can do it.

Philip Pape: 37:09

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's incredible that and within a few weeks, they start to notice do some of them, then they want to branch off and really get into it, you know, with, I don't know, powerlifting or barbell work or any of that kind of you

Louise Valentine: 37:22

know, so I would just say that they're they're just more open to things like a clean and press. For some of them. I haven't seen, I haven't seen anyone turned to powerlifting. But more so just realizing the value of how great lifting makes them feel, but also to injury prevention. Doing some targeted running specific exercises are amazing in just not having like that sciatica type pain, your hips aren't always out of alignment, you don't have low back pain, you're over your calf isn't always getting tight, like all of these things start to shift towards Oh, I don't have the aches and pains I have more energy. It's like a very beautiful place to be.

Philip Pape: 38:01

Yeah, that is so true. Even if you're if you're listening, and you're even if you're 6065 years old and never trained before, and I've seen it happen, you start training, all of a sudden, the pain starts to go away, right? I have back pain when I started deadlifting or any any hip hinge movements and really same thing, knee pain start squatting is incredible. So what about when we talk about body composition, I'm sure a lot of your clients do have a fat loss goal, right? They're trying to actually go into a cut or fat loss phase at some point, which is going to require caloric restriction. Now you're gonna have other stressors on the body. So where does running fit in there, if it does at all? And I asked that, because a lot of people think or used to think running is the way you burn more calories. And that's how I'm going to accelerate my diet. let's dispel that myth, please.

Louise Valentine: 38:46

Yes. So that's the thing, I'll be looking at an individual's, you know, running agenda. And then looking at the fact like, oh, they will do want to also lose weight. So for an individual, I might discourage the marathon and say, Okay, let's work with the half the half marathon seems to be a sweet spot where we can still those longer runs that you enjoy. But if you really want to target it, weight loss phase, I discourage it typically in marathon training, because again, I don't want you losing bone mass, I don't want you burning out. I don't want you feeling like junk every time you go out to run. And that is the reality of weight loss and marathon training for most. Now, if you're morbidly obese, and you're starting a marathon training cycle, it might be a sweet spot, right? You might see weight loss, you're gonna be in a killer sport from it, right? So context matters. But looking at more of those shorter races, maybe off cycling from the half marathon and doing the 5k. Now that's a place where we can lose that you can maintain your running value, you'll get faster for your next marathon, and maybe it's three or four months, or a year kind of off cycle. But hey, that's great for injury prevention, and you look great at the end, and you're faster, you know,

Philip Pape: 40:00

Yeah, so it's almost like an offseason on the running to be on Season on the fat loss and then cycled through the other way. Yeah,

Louise Valentine: 40:06

yes. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Yeah, just setting expectations otherwise, that this might be challenging. And we're not going to pull calories from around your training. That's the number one mistake I see. I think is like, I'm just not gonna eat as much after a run. Like, no, let's maybe pull from dinner. Which is really hard for most because we want to eat a dinner.

Philip Pape: 40:26

Yeah, for sure. So with the running, do you are your are you actually helping competitive runners prepare for their events, then? Is that a big part of what you do?

Louise Valentine: 40:37

So I wouldn't say that I work with a lot of like, super competitive like sponsored runners. I've like I've had an ultra runner who won 100 mile race, she was awesome. We worked a lot on like, mindset type stuff. Being that I can work on a lot of different aspects of health and fitness. I'm trying to think of I don't Well, I've had a more round mindset, honestly, for more of like, the the competitive side. Otherwise, it's it's pretty recreational. But yes, they have genders to Boston qualify, they have time goals, they might want to get a 127 they might want to get a, you know, 259 like this, you know, these obscure times that we all have runners absolutely have to achieve.

Philip Pape: 41:17

So yeah, I wouldn't know because I've never been competitive. But yes, I hear what you're saying. Let's take an everyday person, I guess who wants to just be competitive with themselves? Right? They want to get faster. And they're doing races fairly regularly, you know, a couple times a year, what's what's the the best tip you have for them in terms of, I don't know if it's the strength to weight ratio, or how would they get faster.

Louise Valentine: 41:41

I think the type of training rounds that you do are essential. But I see it overcomplicated. And from a physiological standpoint, you truly need your aerobic base, which are your easy runs, you need the net includes like your long run to so that's just going to keep that aerobic system going well recommend two speed type workouts, one might be more like a track based, you might do some 800, repeats, do whatever distance you love, maybe love for hundreds, maybe you love mile repeats, and then having what I call a tempo, which is actually a race pace. Most people don't call tempo race pace, but I love to help the runner achieve that feeling of like I have been here, I'd done that this is my race pace. I know what it feels like, I know what to expect. My body is so incredibly capable, I practice it every week of my training block. And that is a really great place from a physiological standpoint, and a mental

Philip Pape: 42:36

standpoint. Yeah, that that see, it's like the theory of specificity, right? Like, if you're gonna, if you're gonna go to a powerlifting meet, you got to practice the lifts. If you're gonna run, you're gonna practice at that pace. I mean, it makes sense intuitively, at least to me. Yeah. And then and then for lifting to support running. So let's say your primary goal is the running and the racing. What is the lifting look like for that type of person? I would definitely

Louise Valentine: 42:59

recommend at least two days per week. And I have a very specific like strength and conditioning type exercises that I recommend. One is a single sided kettlebell clean and press. I think that is one of the absolute best running exercises you can do. And that's because we never do anything when we're running on two feet is always single legged.

Philip Pape: 43:20

Yeah. So unilateral movements, is it a power cleaning press or full cleaning press? So I just kind of off

Louise Valentine: 43:25

from the floor? Yeah. Cleaner press fall. Yeah. That and just deadlifts. Anything working posterior chain, really strong glutes, because we're so quad dominant. So I see and tell

Philip Pape: 43:37

them tell the ladies, what's the best exercise for glutes.

Louise Valentine: 43:41

Honestly, I just want to make sure they're activated and firing in the first place. And so I have them just do like little Donkey Kicks when they're standing as their dynamic warm up day, just to like, know what that feels like to have a powerful kickback. But I mean, we might do like with a, for some very simple, just like a bridge with some weight in from off the floor. reading some habits, hip extension or kettlebell swings is a really great one. Yeah, it's great for power in running extension.

Philip Pape: 44:11

Yeah. And the kickbacks, I guess. Yeah, you're right. I mean, running is a power, sport and speed and power sports. So that's great. All right. Is there? Is there anything else you want to share?

Louise Valentine: 44:20

I don't think so. I just think that you know, if there are any listeners who are in that discouraging or dark place to know that, you know, you got this and there is always light, it's just having the strategies and the tools to know how to find it. And if you don't, that's where assembling your army of support is going to be your greatest resource, whether that's a coach, whether that's a loved one, whether that's health care providers, so get your army in place, and small steps. You'll get there

Philip Pape: 44:47

small steps and Louise can help you get there for sure. So Louise, remind us again where listeners can learn more about you and your work.

Louise Valentine: 44:55

Absolutely. So I have breaking through wellness.com It's your one stop shop. I have my blog. out there that talks everything about fighting disease, general physical activity running wellness, and I offer my badass Breakthrough Academy for women 35. And over, and I do a variety of coaching from youth athletes all the way through pro so you can find all events, resources, courses, and that badass Breakthrough Academy at breaking through wellness.com

Philip Pape: 45:23

breakthrough wellness.com. I'll include all those links and show notes for the listeners. And Louise. Thank you again for coming on the show. It was a pleasure talking with you.

Louise Valentine: 45:32

Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

Philip Pape: 45:36

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.

Philip Pape 9/6/22 Philip Pape 9/6/22

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.

RELATED LINKS

Join our Facebook community if you'd rather watch the video
MacroFactor food logging app (use discount code WITSANDWEIGHTS)

👉 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

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

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

Philip Pape 8/30/22 Philip Pape 8/30/22

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.
Body by Science (Bill Campbell, PhD)

👉 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

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

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.

Philip Pape 8/23/22 Philip Pape 8/23/22

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)

👉 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

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

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.

Philip Pape 8/9/22 Philip Pape 8/9/22

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.

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.

RELATED LINKS

MacroFactor diet sidekick (use discount code WITSANDWEIGHTS)

👉 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

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

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

Philip Pape 7/26/22 Philip Pape 7/26/22

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.

RELATED LINKS

MacroFactor diet sidekick (use discount code WITSANDWEIGHTS)

👉 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.

[00:00:31] 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.

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Philip Pape 7/12/22 Philip Pape 7/12/22

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?!

RELATED LINKS

MacroFactor diet sidekick (use discount code WITSANDWEIGHTS)

👉 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.

[00:00:31] 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.

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Philip Pape 6/28/22 Philip Pape 6/28/22

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.

Related links:

👉 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.

[00:00:26] 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.

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Philip Pape 6/14/22 Philip Pape 6/14/22

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.

👉 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.

[00:00:26] 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.

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Philip Pape 5/31/22 Philip Pape 5/31/22

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.

Related links:

Tyla Serro on Instagram @tylaserro

👉 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.

[00:00:28]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.

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Philip Pape 5/17/22 Philip Pape 5/17/22

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

👉 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 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.

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Philip Pape 5/3/22 Philip Pape 5/3/22

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.

👉 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.

[00:00:26]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.

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Philip Pape 4/19/22 Philip Pape 4/19/22

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.

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

RELATED LINKS:

MacroFactor app for food logging and calculating expenditure (use discount code "WITSANDWEIGHTS")

👩‍💻 Schedule your FREE 30-minute Nutrition Momentum Call with Philip here.

💪 Need help optimizing your body composition? Check out Wits & Weights individualized, one-on-one nutrition coaching:
https://witsandweights.com/coaching

👉 If you want to learn more about lifting and nutrition, reach out to Philip:

IG: @witsandweights
Email: philip@witsandweights.com

🥩 Download your Free Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here

👏 ENJOY THE SHOW?

⭐ Leave a review here
💁‍♀️ Become a supporter and get a shout out here
👥 Join our free community for guides, live trainings, & challenges here
🙋‍♀️ Ask a question for Q&A here

Transcript

This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.

[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.

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Philip Pape 4/5/22 Philip Pape 4/5/22

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

RELATED LINKS:

MacroFactor app for food logging and calculating expenditure (use discount code "WITSANDWEIGHTS")

👉 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

Transcript

This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

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

Listen on Apple

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Google

Wits & Weights Podcast

All Episodes

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Transcript

Have you subscribed to the podcast?

Ready to Stop Guessing?