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Philip Pape 3/14/23 Philip Pape 3/14/23

Ep 52: How to Control Emotional Eating and Exercise Consistently with Ashley Carlotta

We discuss emotional eating and healthy habits, the difference between physical hunger and emotional eating, why we eat emotionally, and how to address this for consistent habits and results with Ashley Carlotta. We also explore strategies for planning ahead and staying accountable, why it's hard to go it alone when trying to live a healthy lifestyle, managing food choices during a gaining phase, and the importance of non-food behaviors like hydration, activity, and self-care for success.

Today we discuss emotional eating and healthy habits, the difference between physical hunger and emotional eating, why we eat emotionally, and how to address this for consistent habits and results. We also explore strategies for planning ahead and staying accountable, why it's hard to go it alone when trying to live a healthy lifestyle, managing food choices during a gaining phase, and the importance of non-food behaviors like hydration, activity, and self-care for success.

My guest is Ashley Carlotta, a Certified Accountability Health Coach. Ashley has helped hundreds of clients accountable to eat well and exercise consistently while living in moderation and practicing mindfulness.

She is the founder of Better Health by Accountability, where she coaches men and women all over the world. Ashley believes that daily accountability support is key to reaching your health and wellness goals. Ashley’s coaching provides daily communication, check-ins, guidance, and continuous reminders, and her clients find success with her direct, no excuses, fun-loving style.

You'll learn all about:

Ashley's story and why she became a coach
The difference between physical hunger and emotional eating
Why we eat emotionally
How to "fix" emotional eating or take control for consistent habits and results
How to plan ahead for dining out, travel, and other opportunities to eat emotionally
How to cultivate accountability and planning ahead (and why we don't already do this)
Why it's hard to go it alone when trying to live a healthy lifestyle
Managing food choices when in a gaining (muscle building) phase
The importance of non-food behaviors (hydration, activity, self-care) for success

Episode resources:

Download your free cheat sheet - 5 ways to start losing weight without dieting
Ashley's website - betterhealthbyaccountability.com
Find Ashley on Instagram - @betterhealthbyaccountability
Watch the episode on video here

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

IG: https://www.instagram.com/witsandweights/
Email: philip@witsandweights.com

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

👩‍💻 Free 30-minute call with Philip:
http://bit.ly/3JAFKSz

🥩 Free Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes:
https://witsandweights.com

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Ashley Carlotta 01:24

Hey, thanks for having me.

Philip Pape 01:27

Awesome. So why don't we just set up that story about emotional eating? From your personal experience? I understand that from a young age, you struggled with using food as a coping mechanism, and then eventually learn to eat more mindfully and intuitively. So walk us through your backstory. What got you here, what you learned along the way about that topic, especially that inspired you to help others?

Ashley Carlotta 01:49

Yeah, when I was six years old, it's funny, one of my kindergarten friends just actually sent me a video, she was watching old videos. I was overweight, even as a six year old. And so I didn't even know it. Obviously, you're so little at that time until I started comparing myself to the other girls around me when we had to be in this show. I had to wear a leotard and tights and I was crying to my mom, I didn't want to go out on stage. And it was from then I knew that I was bigger than other than other kids my age and just, it took me through my life like that. Like I never got control of it. I always finished everything on my plate. In my teens, I would watch my peers. And I would almost want to try to copy what they were doing. Like for example, we were at Taco Bell. It's like they would have like a taco and I was not just having a taco, I was having a taco and burrito, and maybe some of those churro thingies and maybe nachos like food was my comfort. And I didn't even know that that was a thing, right? Like emotional eating wasn't even a term that anyone ever used. You know, I had boyfriends that would make comments. I had one boyfriend tell me aren't girlfriends, like supposed to be skinny, we had been in an argument. I know. I know, things that you don't think somebody would come out of somebody's mouth, but it did. So into my 20s I had just accepted that I was an overweight person. This was my lifestyle. I didn't know how to control it had gotten married. And our hobby essentially was like going to breweries and eating the crap food and having beers. And that was fun. That's what we did on the weekends. And it wasn't until after I had my second child. I have three now. But after I had my second child, I was done. I was done with the yo yo dieting, I was done just restricting. And then going back to my old ways I had done it so many times I had tried this SlimFast Jenny Craig weightwatchers like all of the things and I knew that I could lose weight that way if I wanted to, but I didn't want to gain it back this time. So I just started asking people questions like friends around me like I had to start getting really vulnerable about what it was that was going on. And I realized that I hadn't really even opened up to anybody about the fact that I overeat that I emotionally eat in the evenings that I drink too much right these were all coping mechanisms for me when I was feeling stressed or tired or sad even happy let's go out and eat more food you know, no portion control whatsoever and so I started running actually, I always danced to growing up I danced and stuff but I was like you know I'm going to try something new so with what am I good friends we started running first it was like a mile and then it was two miles and then we got all the way up to like six miles and I ran a 10k I started eating actual food that was fueling me you know protein. I didn't even know what protein was and I got into my fitness pal and I started tracking my calories and my macros and putting it all together. And it just started working for the first time. And I got down to my goal weight. And I maintained it for a couple years, which I had never done ever, ever, ever in my life had I maintained a weight for two years, then we decided to have another child. And after I had her, I had, you know, about 2530 pounds to lose. And I just, I couldn't find the motivation. I knew what I had to do. I had done it before I had maintain it, but like Monday would come again. We were. So I decided, like every normal person to put myself on Instagram, and let everybody follow my journey. I have no intention of starting a business, nothing. But people started asking me oh my gosh, like, what are you doing? What program? Are you on? You know, what exercise place are you going to and all these things, and I was like, Look, I'm just eating healthy. I'm getting enough sleep, I'm drinking enough water. And I'm doing my at home exercises. And I'm not even it's not like a whole hour a day. It's just short, little spurts. And I'm doing it consistently. And this is how you get to where you want to be. But for me, it was them watching me and holding me accountable. And I was doing way and Wednesdays. And that was just the missing piece for me is having somebody watching what I was doing so that I couldn't make excuses. And from that I had people asking if I could help them. And I realized that it's so much more than just dieting. It's, that's I mean, anybody can diet, right? But it's more working on the mindset that comes with that. Why do you want this? Why are you eating more than you need to eat? Why are you having more than the portion size that you need? Why are you going and having eight cookies instead of to sitting down and joining them, all of that. And so that's what I help a lot of people with is planning how they want to go into a scenario, and then coming back and reporting how they did. And once you practice that over and over and over, it just starts to become routine. And you can get out of that cycle of choosing food and drinks for a lot of us to make yourself feel better. And that's where I am today. I it formed into a business I did taxes and accounting for 12 years and never thought I would be here. But it just goes to show that they can take the ugly and you know, use it for good. But God can do that.

Philip Pape 07:28

Actually, I mean, thank you for sharing the whole story there. There's so many like keywords and themes and philosophies in there that I love that I want to like pick out because, you know, I know this is the root of why you do what you do today with accountability. So starting from that epiphany you had where you finally got things to work for the first time. And it was at that time, it sounds like it was a knowledge and awareness thing before you even get to the accountability part. What would you how important would you say that is and how many people don't even know what to do before we even get to, hey, I know what to do. And now I need help getting there.

Ashley Carlotta 08:02

Yeah, I feel like you do have to come to the point of just hitting a wall and saying, I don't want to live this way anymore. Because the feelings around it and the things that I would say to myself, I was beating myself up. And so it did I think it took like just listening to some mindset things around it at the time. It was around my business and stuff in my tax profession and stuff. And I realized I thought your thoughts matter. And if I'm waking up every morning saying, Ashley, you're a failure. Ashley, you look disgusting. Ashley, why do you eat so much your pants don't fit. And you say that over and over and over. And I do think you have to get to the point to say you know what, Ashley, you can do this. You have a choice. Buckle in, get it done, you can do it. And you do you have to get to that switch where you make that decision to say I want something better for myself, and I'm not going to look back anymore. Is it going to be easy? No. But you can do it. You put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes you back up a little bit but you keep going and no longer was I going to say I screwed up this Friday. I'm going to screw up the rest of the weekend. And here I am Monday super pissed at myself. And so yeah, I think it gets to that. And, you know, when I talk to people on Discovery calls in the beginning and stuff, like there's a lot of tears, and I feel it, I feel their pain and it just it it makes me so sad. And I just want to get in there and you know, I really, really really want to help them because there is hope on the other side of this. There really is.

Philip Pape 09:37

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's that is so true. I think the majority of people that reach out once you dig into that deeper level of what you talked about earlier, the why right? Get get to the limiting beliefs get to understanding not just the why I want to lose weight, okay, why do I want to lose weight? Well, I want to you know, feel better about myself. Why do I want that? You know, and you go on and you find the deeper core how So how can people discover that for themselves as? And is that the first step? And then how can people do that? Yeah,

Ashley Carlotta 10:07

I think, again, that takes sitting with yourself and being honest with yourself. A lot of times, I know, especially for me, it's like, every time I would think something negatively about myself or want to change, I think in my head, it would be like, That's too hard. That's gonna take a long time, and whatever. And so you do you almost you have to put pen to paper and really write why do I want to change this? You know, is it because I want to be able to keep up with my kids? Is it because I just want to feel pretty, you know? Or do I want to feel more tone, I want to feel strong, I want to have energy, I don't want to be beating myself up anymore. And like, write those things down. And then you have to figure out, okay, what steps are you going to take to change that then? And who are you going to reach out to to help you and who are you going to be vulnerable with Intel, that you're doing this because even alongside the clients that I work with, I very much encourage them, talk to your spouse, talk to a few trusted friends have build your team around you, so that you won't fail so that they can encourage you and be a cheerleader for when you feel like you don't want to continue on? They're gonna remind you why you want it because A, B, C, D, E, and then you're like, Okay, I can do this, you know, you do you have to come to that point. And then you have to figure out why. And then you have to instill the steps to make you actually do it.

Philip Pape 11:29

Right. Okay, so let's, let's get a little more focused on the discussion more strategic and talk about the emotional eating specifically, because I could go on for two hours with you about mindset in general. So we often talk about things like hunger, or cravings, right there. I think there's a distinction, like, what, there's hunger, there's emotional eating, there's all these concepts, and people tend to lump everything together. What's the difference between, I guess, true physical hunger and what we call emotional eating?

Ashley Carlotta 11:59

Yeah, true physical hunger is when it starts to build, you can kind of feel your stomach growling, you know, maybe like your energy is not the same as it was. And you should have enough time, it shouldn't be like a snack, I'm so hungry, right, it should have enough time to where you're able to pause. Think about what you're going to eat, pick fueling foods, hopefully, you've prepared a little bit mentally before that. So you don't just go to your fridge and open it right. physical hunger is not based on emotion, it's like I am hungry, and I need to eat. emotional hunger can even happen. When you're not even hungry, it can literally just be you trying to make yourself feel better in whatever situation that you have. It also could be boredom, too. And a lot of times, you know, if desk jobs especially like a lot of people are sitting all day long. And then they're just eating so many more calories than they would ever have. Because they're just mindlessly like eating out of the chip bag, or they have a candy jar right here and things like that. motional eating, for a lot of I'd say most of the people that I work with, happens in the evening time. It's almost like they're tired. They're exhausted from the day, maybe they're stressed out from the day. And sometimes I know a lot of the moms that I work with, too, it's like, you want to reward yourself for like a long day, right? And it can snowball, it can start with like, Okay, well, I'm going to treat myself I'm going to have like a bowl of popcorn. And then it's like, oh, there's a piece of cake left, like, I'm going to have that and then maybe I'm going to have a glass of wine, or maybe I'm going to make some hot chocolate. And if a lot of times you just need to go to bed. That's really what you need to do. You know, and then I can also be loneliness like, and I just remember back, like sitting in my apartment, like, you know, maybe a boyfriend broke up with me or whatever. And I just, I would just go to town, I would just eat whatever was in sight to make me feel better. And so there is no satisfaction. When you're eating like that when you are hungry and you eat a meal and you've had proper macros and all that stuff, you feel satisfied with emotional hunger. You don't ever feel like you've had enough because there is really nothing that's going to fill you up. You keep trying to fill your cup up and then afterwards you don't feel good. You feel like crap, because then you've just done the same thing that you wanted to stop for all these years and months and days. Right. So those are the main differences and I do you feel that having somebody over your shoulder when it when you're going through that and when you're first starting to work through that is so necessary because we can just break you know, promises to ourselves all across.

Philip Pape 14:41

Yeah, there's a big, there's a big roadblock, there's a lot of momentum you have to get over right. There's a huge amount of friction there. So you covered a lot of the mechanisms I guess behind emotional eating, many of which are internal or their external reasons. Like the obesogenic environment Western society and food supply how we were raised? Like, what about those some of those things?

Ashley Carlotta 15:03

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, well, we have like endless supplies of food around here, right. And I feel like even even our kids are poor kids, we just, we, we need to be on top of it because any activity they go to, there's candy and sweets and crap anywhere they go, right. So there's that there's the temptations of just having all that around you. But then there's also, we're not getting enough sleep. As a society, most of us don't go to bed on time, get up, feel good, right. And a lot of us are not hydrating enough. And so a lot of times, you'll think you're hungry, when you're not even really hungry, you're just dehydrated. And I and that used to happen for me all the time. Like, I had no idea that there was like, you know, somewhat of an amount that you're supposed to drink throughout the day, especially when you're exercising consistently and stuff like that. It's like sodas, and it's a lot. So there are all these other factors. And then there's also making sure that, you know, self care, it's like that phrase, self care, right. And like you can roll your eyes to and it doesn't need, it doesn't need to be like going in to get a massage, or something like that. But it's pausing and make sure that you've done something for yourself, that sparks joy for you, right, that could even be listening to a podcast right now, while you're driving home. You know what I mean? It could be anything like that, to where you feel like you've been able to relax, and think, because a lot of times we're not thinking, and we've just been so bombarded with everything, and then you get home and you know, you still get get back on your computer, and you just haven't taken time for yourself. And I think especially as busy professionals, even entrepreneurs, right, like, there's always something that could be done. There's, there's always a reason why you could just go to a drive thru, and, you know, skip your workout or whatever. Like for me, I could just go and go and go and work and work and work. But I know that that's against what I teach. And so you have to make things a priority for you. And I feel like that's where a lot of things, it just gets hard because people are not prioritizing these things. Therefore, they're emotionally overwhelmed. They're eating more.

Philip Pape 17:11

No, that's great. There's a lot there. Like you mentioned hydration. So and I've heard that I've heard it said you know that hunger is sometimes thirst right in disguise, and physic the physical hunger and the emotional hunger that you made a distinction between it also sounds like there is there is overlap going on in some cases where you might actually be physically hungry. And then you remark you respond in a way as if you are emotionally hungry, perhaps if you're thirsty or something like that. Yeah. So reducing your stress and getting more sleep. And all these are really good tips for people because people don't realize the huge impact that has on on your stress and your hormones and everything else that then leads to this overwhelm you mentioned. Yeah. So I mean, so can we, can we can we actually eliminate emotional eating itself? Or is that just an abstract concept. And what we're trying to do is work around that end result. You know, like, we're not trying to fix ourselves so much. We're trying to maybe take control and find appropriate ways to plan and manage our lives, knowing that that will happen. What's your take on that?

Ashley Carlotta 18:07

Oh, it's something that I have to work on every single day? Absolutely, yeah. And I can feel it sometimes coming on to like, sometimes in the evenings, it's like, I'll have dinner. And it's almost as if I'm wanting to eat more just to eat, but it is it goes back to what I said. It's just like, you're just wanting to make yourself feel better. In a lot of ways. If you've had a crappy day, like your car broke down, like all these things, and you're wanting to do that, so that you're forgetting about what's going on around you in your life. It's like that's never gonna go away. It does get easier, the more that you practice pausing, and asking yourself, okay, am I physically hungry? Okay, no, then why am I thinking about this? And is there something else that I can do instead? Do I? Do I need some alone time? Do I need to get away from my children for a little bit? Do I need to go outside and walk around the block? Do we need to call a friend and talk about how I'm feeling instead of opening up and getting an ice cream bar out of the fridge? Because I promise you we're going to eat that in like, two minutes. And then you're just going to be on to the next thing. So yeah, it's one of those things that I promise you, you can overcome. And there are going to be setbacks. As you start on your journey, you're not just gonna be able to snap and fix this issue, especially if it's something that you've been doing your entire life. Like, I mean, I had 30 years of doing this. I mean, obviously, it stemmed from even just like a young kid, you know, like, I would always finish all of my food. I sometimes, like looking back, I would eat just as much as my dad would during that time. You had to do that. Yeah, yeah. So you're right. It's just one of those things that you're always gonna have to work out bit by bit and some days are going to be easier than others and there's going to be times in your life when it's a lot harder than other times.

Philip Pape 19:56

You know, we have to acknowledge that and allow for it sounds like and just continue New. I always like to say everyday, everyday is a reset. Right? Whatever happened yesterday in the past doesn't matter. Yeah, I love that it's reset. So like one specific example, you mentioned the ice cream bar in the in the freezer, is one possible technique to just not have that in the house? Or is that is absent and sometimes backfire?

Ashley Carlotta 20:17

Yeah, abstinence can backfire. In the beginning, usually with my clients, I tell them, I don't necessarily want you to clean everything out of your fridge because I do I want you to be able to practice eating when you're hungry and giving yourself a treat, when you feel that it's necessary, because I am I come from very much have a moderation approach because as soon as you were strict, you will not stick to what you're doing. I'm really big on that. Now, if you know, for example, that Doritos are like a trigger, right? Like you wonder Ido and you can't stop. And like seriously, Pringles, I will say for me, especially and I try, I really don't keep that stuff in the house that much. Because it really is true, if I see it, and let's say I'm thirsty, and I haven't had lunch yet or something. As soon as you have one crinkle it is really hard to stop for so so for those things, specifically,

Philip Pape 21:12

I gotta say, I gotta say, the food, the food industry designs that that we actually okay, it's the cylinder you're like, you know, it's just the right amount. They're super light and crispy, like,

Ashley Carlotta 21:22

salty, and they're so good. So in those cases, yeah, I don't necessarily think that that's something that you should keep in your house, if it's going to be something that triggers you time and time again. But for the most part, like if a neighbor, you know, delivers some brownies, right, like, I don't necessarily want you to just go throw them in the trash, right? But you know, have one, enjoy it, if that's your thing. Again, if you really like it, I want you to try it. If it's something that you could care less about, don't waste your calories on eating some, like cranberry roll bar Danish thing that you're like, I don't even like that. Yeah, but you have to set yourself up to succeed, and you can't have a bunch of crap all over the house, especially when you're getting started. And you're trying to be good, because you're just gonna see it, see it, see it, see it, you know, and so it's more about replacing and adding in, you know, drinking more water, adding in more fruits, adding in more vegetables. And then when you're adding all of those good things in and making sure you're getting enough protein, you're not going to be craving all the stuff that you're used to having for you're just gonna be in such a better mindset all the way around.

Philip Pape 22:30

This, you're just speaking right to my heart. They're actually like we're aligned on all this totally. It's exactly the exactly the way I would say to it's so great. The idea of replacing we're not restricting, we're not eliminating, we're putting in the things we need to serve our goals. We need protein if we need fiber or hungry might need fiber. Okay, so I can leave room for the Coke, you know, or whatever. Yeah, yeah. So all that's good strategies, people need to listen to this a few times to really soak it all in. What about so there's a, there's an aspect of motional eating, at least my clients deal with all the time, if you can even call it that. And that is, you know, their day to day routine is locked down. But then they go out on the weekends, right? They go to a party, they go traveling for vacation, and things, things are out of whack, and they are met with all sorts of new foods, lots of foods, maybe a buffet, how do somebody thoughtfully and mindfully plan for those? And especially if you're in like a fat loss phase, right, what are your calories lower?

Ashley Carlotta 23:26

Yeah, that is a fantastic question. And that's something that I work with a lot. What I think the best strategy to do is, is when you're going into a party or a buffet or something like that, to where you know, there's going to be like all these different choices and a lot of foods that you like probably more decadent ones than not, I want you to look at all of your options available to you don't just go in and grab your plate and start going oh, have a little bit that a little bit of that little bit that no, then you're going to fill your plate with way too much. So look at everything. Choose what you know, you should have first have some vegetables or some salad then okay, what protein am I going to have? Do I got steak, chicken fish? What do I have here? Let's put that on there. And then if you want to try some of the other things, maybe a little bit of mac and cheese, I'm totally pretending I'm somewhere right now.

Philip Pape 24:18

Or exactly what your wish was there? Yeah.

Ashley Carlotta 24:22

You know, I'm kind of thinking back to Thanksgiving because we kind of just went through that, but it's like, have a little bit, taste everything. If there's a dessert tray, or you know what I mean? Look at all of them. Choose your favorite habit, enjoy it, and don't drink too much. You got to keep having water in between your drinks. If you're in a fat loss phase, I try to have my clients limit their drinking as much as possible. But I love to have a drink when I go out with my friends when I'm traveling and stuff like that. Drink it slowly, and don't get drunk and don't get buzzed. Because if you do, your inhibitions are out the window and you just don't care and you're not going to be remembering my wife. Oh, yeah, I really want to have more energy for my kids.

Philip Pape 25:03

No, you're right. The the effects of alcohol itself just compounds the whole thing, right? Yeah. Hey, this is Philip Pape. And if you feel like you've put in effort to improve your health and fitness, but aren't getting results, I invite you to apply for a one on one coaching to make real progress and get the body you desire. We'll work together to figure out what's missing. So you can look better, perform better and feel better, just go to wits, & weights.com/coaching, to learn about my program and apply today. Now back to the episode

Ashley Carlotta 25:35

you're traveling. That's something I could talk about for a long time, too. But I will say my biggest tip on that is, even if you're driving or you're flying, wherever you're going bring some of your own food, I have a list of snacks that I send to my clients, it's like make sure that you have like some protein bars, make sure that you're still taking you know, your protein powder, or collagen powder or whatever those things handy. So that you can set yourself up to still succeed when you're traveling when you know you don't know we're going to be going look at the menu ahead of time, whether you're traveling or not, even if you're just going out to dinner, like on a date night or whatever it is, try to look at the menu ahead of time. Don't like get obsessive over it, right? But just so that you can go in saying, Okay, there's these three things I might want to get. I'm gonna see how I feel when I get there. But when I get there, I'm not going to just like totally order something else, because I haven't even thought about it. And now I'm hungry. And now I'm just going to do whatever I want to do. You do have to think ahead. And you don't want to do it. Like I said obsessively in the sense where you're like, oh my gosh, I'm worried I have clients that go oh my god, I'm so worried. I'm going here and I feel like I'm gonna fail. It's like not well, if you're thinking that then you are but no. Okay, let's talk about how do you want to go into this scenario? Do you want to have a salad? And maybe you don't feel like a fella? Then what could you have? Instead, maybe you could order like the chicken and the brussel sprouts with the rice or whatever. And then plan how many drinks that you're going to have, if you are plan how you're going to approach this scenario, if you decide not to have alcohol there, which a lot of us don't. But it's like, you can say no, if your friends are getting a bunch of appetizers, try this. Try this. Try this. You're allowed to say no, and you don't even have to explain yourself and you're probably a you're good good friends, they're probably going to pick at you a little bit, you know, like I mean, and then there's going to be the ones that totally respect you. But there's gonna be a lot of them that are like, Oh, come on, you're fine. You're fine the way you are. Come on, have a loose ball or whatever, or having a great comment. Yeah. And so I've had all of those different relationships around me. And I had to learn that like, I am my own person, I can say no, but I have to go into it. Knowing that I'm going to say know ahead of time instead of us like, oh, okay, whatever. Yeah, I will try this. I'll try this. I'll try this. And then all of a sudden, you're up 700 extra calories. And you know, if you have a goal, you gotta be consistent.

Philip Pape 27:54

Yeah, yeah. And in that scenario, there's something I heard a long time ago, or the way you say it, you can say I choose not to have that instead of I can't have it. I love dieting, say, Oh, I can't have that. No, no, it's I just choose not to have that, you know, I'm gonna have this instead. Okay, so you said a lot of great stuff there, too. One was about limiting, you're limiting your alcohol. For example, one of my clients has struggled with that. And one thing we're trying is keeping an index card with her that that like reminds her she has two drinks limit so that when she's had that first drink, and the buzzer is coming in, it's like, okay, I got one more, right. Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley Carlotta 28:29

Well to that, though, and I sometimes they limit to but you're a, again, you're allowing yourself to have two drinks instead of not having any.

Philip Pape 28:39

So this is actually like your allowance that you can take.

Ashley Carlotta 28:43

Yeah, it's not. But yes, it but at the same time, it is a limited, but it's how you think about it? Yes. Yeah.

Philip Pape 28:50

Yeah. And you mentioned also thinking about what kinds of food you're going to have, like, of course, if you're gonna go to a chain restaurant or something that has menus online, you can you can do that and plan ahead more precisely, but like you said, if you plan to have a salad or lean meat, vegetables, kind of similar to how you would eat at home, but just different options. What came to mind there? Oh, oh, the thought of having just sit through ingredients you can see, right? Because in restaurants, like fats, and fats, and sugars and salts are added in copious amounts that you can't even see. To make it delicious, right? That's their job. So like, if you can see it, you might be better off to who knows? So okay, good. This is this is great stuff. So going back to accountability then and planning and all of these wonderful things. Some people just don't do it. Some people aren't. They aren't accountable. So why not? Why don't they plan ahead and knowing this unit after they listen to your podcast? Most people are not going to do that now. Yeah. Why is that?

Ashley Carlotta 29:52

I would say that people think it's just too hard, and they get overwhelmed, and they feel like is so much work to go to the store, plan what they're going to eat, actually make it actually get to the gym, and they think they don't have time. And the reality is that you have time for what you make time for. And if it's important to you, you will do it. And so a lot of times, I do have clients that come to me that say, I know exactly what I need to do. I know exactly what I need to do, but I need somebody to hold my hand, and I need somebody watching me essentially knocking the cookie out of my hand, you know, and I always tell them, like when we get off our first call, and like, look, this is a partnership. So I can't make you do it, right. But it is going to be a lot easier for you to not make the excuses to yourself, when you know that you have to report to somebody else. And some people just thrive on that not only around just eating, but around just their business in general, you know, or getting things done all that. So I feel that accountability, for me personally, is one of the only ways that I actually get things done, you know, even if it's like my husband asking me to like, take somebody to the post office. Hey, did you take it to the post office? Yeah, I didn't or Nope, I didn't have to thank you for sure. Sometimes we just need the support and the community around us to help us do what we say we're gonna do. Yeah,

Philip Pape 31:28

I mean, that's, that's the big missing piece for people, right? It's hard to go it alone for a lot of different things. And I can't imagine anybody would say everything in my life, I can do it on my own right? There's something like you said, even just your spouse, you might be the person hold you accountable, and you might not even realize it. And that's what's happening. So having that support structure, having a family member or a coach is definitely important. I, you remind me of a client that was making excuses the other day with me, and she's like, I didn't do this because this I didn't do this because it's like, okay, what are we doing going forward? I need you to commit, you know, like, I don't want to hear at all that's it. And she knows she makes those excuses. And that's why she has a coach, at least in the short term. It's so funny. What so then why do you think it's like it's kind of already dresses in terms of living a healthy lifestyle? Without support? You know why it's so hard? I guess we already addressed that. So as far as the making excuses, how do you how do you address that? The example I just gave?

Ashley Carlotta 32:30

Yeah, well, it's funny. So for some of my clients, I only hold them accountable to their fitness. So I have a fitness one a nutrition and fitness. And then I have a nutrition only because some some of my clients are like over exercises to the point where I'm like, You need to tone it down a little bit. But so my clients specifically with fitness, it's so funny, like, they will say, they'll say, Well, I couldn't because this happened and this and then this and then that's like, okay, great. So you have a 30 minute workout to get done. So are you going to stay up later tonight? Or are you going to get up earlier the next day? Or where are you going to fit this in? You know, and they're always like, Ashley okay, yes, you're right. I do want to do it. And I do want to get it in, you know, for that. Now, if it's if it's more tied to like the emotional eating and the binge stuff, that's when I'm like, okay, look, we need to get on the phone. And we need to talk through this. Because we do a lot of texting, you know, I do a lot of check ins and nudges and making sure they're on the schedule and all this stuff. But you do need to talk to somebody through that, you know, if they've had like a really bad day, they'll say, Ashley, like, I totally blew it today, you know, and a lot of that a lot of times, that's because they weren't texting me their food, like they're supposed to be, you know, they were totally ignoring me. And they were in their sorrows or whatever it was. And so we do need to hop on a call. And like you said, I love the reset like we are, we're starting to we're not starting over. We're just, you know, we're restarted again,

Philip Pape 33:58

we're continuing continuing to plan.

Ashley Carlotta 34:01

We're continuing, nothing happened, we're not going to look back like we are just going to have a really good day today. And, again, a lot of times we have to talk through what happens. What happened to make you go

Philip Pape 34:14

off? Cause Analysis there. Yeah.

Ashley Carlotta 34:17

And a lot of times they know once we talk through it, it's like well, I got a call from the doctor. And then my kids teacher emailed me and then this and then they were just so overwhelmed in that in the moment. So yeah, it's just again, it goes back to that having that support and having somebody to talk to about it. Because usually like when we tell ourselves that we're going to start eating better or eat well or go on this diet or take sugar out or whatever it is. I mean, that lasts not long at all if you're just only accountable to yourself, because nobody's checking in on you to see how you're doing and I think we need that.

Philip Pape 34:51

Yeah, and the idea that the accountability being the right type of accountability, something came to my mind. Sometimes some of these fitness apps people use I should say the food tracking apps. I'm not going to name names, but they're often built off the idea that if you screw up, you get called out for it and try to make it up in the next day, right? Yeah, I think you know what I'm saying. And that can be detrimental too. Because I've had clients say, Well, I went over by 1000 calories, so I'm gonna eat 700 calories today and make up for it. Aren't you proud of? Don't do that. Again. It's a reset. We continue to plan as if it didn't happen. Just just execute today to the

Ashley Carlotta 35:29

Yeah, you don't punish yourself for doing bad. Yeah. And that's where we get into it. Because if you punish yourself and you only 700 calories in that one day, what do you think's going to happen to you the next day? Oh, it's Yeah. Yeah.

Philip Pape 35:43

Okay, so here's kind of flipping the scenario completely, maybe a fresh look at things. If I'm taking a client or you're taking a client through a muscle building phase, I assume you have clients that are eating to gain and gain muscle, not just fat loss clients, is that right?

Ashley Carlotta 35:55

Yes. Once in a while, most of the time, though, mine are wanting to lose.

Philip Pape 36:00

Okay, I don't know if this would be relevant or not, because, like, my big focus is strength and muscle building on here. But let's say they've, they've learned a lot of these things that you are teaching and talking about planning ahead, being accountable. And now they have a lot of calories they have to hit every day to gain weight, and they know about fiber, and they're eating really well. In their diet. They're eating well, maintenance, now they have to gain weight. So they might actually start adding some some treats. You know, yeah. Next, yeah. to process food, right? Is it like the mirror image? Because we're now doing it? Or is it a little bit more acceptable? Because we're trying to get enough calories? You know, what I mean? Like, what, what's your take?

Ashley Carlotta 36:38

Well, I think a lot of my clients, when I am trying to get them to eat more, they get, they're so scared to eat more, you know, and I always preface it by saying, I'm not meaning that you need to go eat more crap, or just calories in general, we need to really get you to hit your protein goals. If your goal is to build muscle, we need to make sure that you are having enough carbs stop restricting so much, you know, but yes, that doesn't mean McDonald's carbs. That means like more food in general. And you do and I'm sure you recommend this to your clients as well. But you kind of have to do it on in gradual, because if you're all of a sudden, like, Okay, I want you to eat 1000 more calories. They're like, Oh, shit, how do I do that? You know? But yeah, sometimes they do. They'll be like, Well, I mean, I have like, 300 more today. So maybe I'll do this and that and and like we've said, In moderation, that's fine. But no, not every day. Are you supposed to just like have more ice cream now to get where you?

Philip Pape 37:33

Are isn't? Yeah, it's interesting, because it's, I think about this all time, it's not really a symmetrical problem, because it's more of a logistical thing on the way up, right? That then necessarily emotionally, assuming you've addressed the emotional stuff. Obviously, if you have somebody with a lot of issues, and then you're like, now let's also eat a lot of calories that can be, it can be a problem. Alright, what about, what about the non food behaviors? I think we addressed that a little bit. Things like hydration, movement, strength training, self care. I mean, you kind of addressed that already. Was there anything else you want to add there?

Ashley Carlotta 38:05

Yeah, strength training is big. And I, I'm personally getting into liking it a little bit more. But I used to just do cardio, I dance. And I did like these dance cardio classes. And I would go running, and I would do Orangetheory workouts, which some of those are good, they do have strength training in there. But it's a lot of just like running and rowing and all the things and training is so important. If you are listening to this, you need to and that doesn't mean that you're going to be a bodybuilder. And that doesn't mean that you need to go out and buy all these things. Like you just need a few things to be successful at doing it and you need to be consistent with it. I usually recommend two to three times a week for my clients, even if it's 20 minutes, like if you're going to go for a run. Awesome, do that, but come back and do some strength training too. So that's my big thing on that. A lot of times when I talk to people in the very beginning, I'll ask them, I'll say about how much water do you get in a day? Usually they can answer me for one and for two. A lot of times, it'll be like a two o'clock phone call. And they're like, Oh, I actually haven't even had any water today. But I've had three cups of coffee. So important to drink your water. And one thing that we didn't talk about is like I'm a big believer in having breakfast. Now sometimes people like to have like a late a little bit of a later breakfast like 10 or 11. And I think that's fine as long as you're getting enough calories in the day. But do not skip your first big meal and make sure they're at least getting three meals in like sometimes I'll have clients come to me and say, Well, I usually only eat like one big meal. I'm like, no, no

39:45

faster, right? Yeah. Or sometimes too small

Ashley Carlotta 39:49

meals. And I mean, usually there's no possible way that they're even getting the like 1200 calories at that point

Philip Pape 39:55

or their protein. Yes. 80 grams of protein a meal or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley Carlotta 40:00

So people will come to me in the beginning and say, Well, I mean, I'm just not, I'm just not hungry in the morning. And I'm like, Look, if you are feeling your body well, and you're exercising consistently, you should start to feel hungry in the morning. And it should be within about two hours of waking up like otherwise, you're essentially fasting even longer than what you're, you know, breakfast is your breaking the fast in the morning, and I think 12 hours is important. 12 to 14 hours, but not really more than that. And so that's something I'm big on addressing, and I'll be like, All right, it's 10 o'clock. Like, I haven't seen your breakfast yet. Oh, okay. Like they're just not used to it. What are the other things that we talked about sleep? I know, we all roll our eyes. Because yeah, we could all probably use a little bit more sleep. I know, even me personally, it's like, I get the kids down to bed. My old my older one is like staying up later now. So it's like, he wants to talk to me until 930 At night, and it's like, Dude, I just want two hours to myself. But I know for me, if I don't go to bed by 11, when I wake up, it's just not gonna be good. And then the cravings start, you know, all of those things trigger when you haven't had enough sleep. And you're just not thinking as well either. And so even thinking about like, Oh, what am I going to make for dinner tonight, like, that just feels so overwhelming, because you're exhausted. And you can only focus on one thing at a time. So sleep is so important.

Philip Pape 41:25

It is and just funny. You mentioned sleep because I also, that's one thing, I struggle with that to get like, even seven hours and I'm telling all my clients, they need a lot of sleep. But it is funny how being a coach is a good form of accountability, as you're just like, I need to set a example.

Ashley Carlotta 41:40

I can never stop being a coach now. Because

Philip Pape 41:43

I'll yeah, all dependent on being a coach. Like how can I tell my clients

Ashley Carlotta 41:47

to do this or remind them to do in that if I'm not doing it, so you got to practice what you preach.

Philip Pape 41:52

Alright, one more thing, and then I'll get to my last couple of questions is about strength training. So I'm definitely all about the holistic, or I should say whole body wellness that you talk about here where everything is important. But you also mentioned you have clients that just do nutrition. I'm curious how that how you handle that if they don't do training or exercise? You know, do you still encourage them to do that as part of nutrition? How does that work?

Ashley Carlotta 42:14

Oh, yes. So yeah, on our call, if they are wanting accountability, just for the nutrition, I make sure that they are and have a proper workout plan. And I make sure that they're getting strength training in I mean, I'm not doing it for them, obviously talk about I'd say, this is going to be the assumption that you're doing these things, while I'm holding you accountable to eat well, because a lot of times, you know, people are really good about exercising, and then they eat so badly. And then they it's like they're wasting all not wasting because it's there's other benefits of exercise. But they're putting all this money into these different programs, but they're doing in these gyms, and they're working hard. And they're doing it every day. And they're being really disciplined about that. But they're not seeing any results because they're not eating well. So yeah, a lot of times I feel like for me, exercise is always something that I was really good about doing and I would totally ruin out to be like, I've earned 500 calories yet, so I'm gonna go eat a 2000 Calorie dinner and go.

Philip Pape 43:11

Okay, I was wondering about that. Because I mean, the way I like to put it is, you know, what's more important in a car is if the engine or that fuel does both, right. And so the engine is like your, your, your strength training, you know, is giving you a bigger, powerful, faster engine and your fuels your nutrition, and they go hand in hand. So like, for me, I'm a little bit more hardcore in that my clients all have to be strength training like me. But I was always curious about that, because I have heard coaches that are like, I don't worry about their training. I'm a nutrition coach. And I'm like, I don't think that's a quite the best approach. But okay.

Ashley Carlotta 43:44

Yeah, one thing I have clients that come to me through some of these other programs, and I won't name names, but if you're told on a program that you shouldn't be exercising for the first two weeks, or the month, red flag, like nothing's gonna be telling you that you can't exercise and that means that you're probably not getting near enough calories. So just know that.

Philip Pape 44:04

Yeah, so much stuff out in the fitness industry, we could like, talk about. Alright, so this is the penultimate question. I like to ask everyone, and that is, what one question Did you wish I had asked, and what is your answer?

Ashley Carlotta 44:17

Yeah, I would say probably, why should someone invest in their in themselves? And why should somebody invest in a coach? And my answer to that would be that you do need to have I feel like some skin in the game. You know, if you're not putting like money on the table to say that you're going to do something, you're probably not going to do it. You know what I mean? It has to be a little bit scary. Anything that you go into where you're trying to create change is going to be a little bit scary because you kind of have doubts in yourself, right? Like, am I really going to do this? Am I really going to do this this time? But if you're reaching out just like for example, working with a therapist, right Seems like something is going on in your life that you need help for, and you're at the point where you're gonna go get help for it. And you're not just gonna go to a therapist for free. So as health coaches, we are not therapists, but we are there to support you and encourage you and keep you on track. And it is an investment, and you are worth the investment. But you have to know that within yourself. And so, a lot of times people will say, you know, they'll, they'll ask me for my price, like, upfront, like before even asking like about how our coaching works and stuff. And it's like, well, let's talk about you first. And let's talk about what you need. And let's talk about while you're even interested in this, before we even go into the pricing, you know, what do you mean, because you can work around your financial situation to do anything that you want to do if it's really important to you. And within reason, obviously. But yeah, you've got to invest in you have to ask for health if you're in that cycle that you can't get out of, because otherwise you're just gonna stay there.

Philip Pape 46:02

There you go. I mean, what's more important in life than your health? Right? Yeah. So I mean, the stuff people pay for and pay lots of money for that. Don't get them anything. And importance of your health. Yeah, so that's, that's excellent. Ashley, this has been awesome. Oh, the last question, of course, is, where can listeners find out more about you and your work? Sure.

Ashley Carlotta 46:23

Yeah. If you're interested in my one on one coaching at all, my website is better health by accountability.com. And I have a little freebie on there for you if you want to learn how to live like a normal person while still living losing weight without dieting. So go grab that. And then I hang out mostly on Instagram, at Better health by accountability. And I'm really good about getting back to messages and stuff. So just come say hi, and if you have any questions, and I'd love to help you.

Philip Pape 46:49

Awesome. I'm gonna share all that stuff. And as we were getting ready for the podcast, Ashley was super responsive. And I've checked out all her her information and material and definitely encourage you to go check out her website. Better health by accountability.com. Yes, no, that's okay. And her Instagram handle at better health. By accountability. It's all consistent. So all right, I want to thank you for coming on the show to talk about what I think is critical, really important topic, maybe the heart of this whole coaching thing and how people get their results in success, and also for helping make an impact in the world. Thank you. Yeah. Well,

Ashley Carlotta 47:23

I appreciate you having me on here and keep doing your good work. And I'm gonna keep looking at all your reels that you do, because they're great.

Philip Pape 47:30

Awesome. Yeah. There's plenty of podcast episodes, too. That's my preferred format is the long form. Yeah. So All right. Thanks for coming on the show. Ashley. All right. Have a good day. 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 3/10/23 Philip Pape 3/10/23

Ep 51: Mental Resilience and Commitment to Training Despite Adversity (Earthquakes!) with Heather Clinger

I’m joined by my client Heather Clinger, a wife and mother of 5 currently homeschooling her children in Turkey. She is passionate about teaching and creating music and is enjoying learning how to lift heavy things. I met Heather 4 months ago when she reached out for one-on-one nutrition coaching to improve her body composition, get stronger, and build muscle. Most importantly, she wanted to FEEL her best and set an example for her kids of achieving results through hard work and committing to a sustainable process.

Today I’m joined by my client Heather Clinger, a wife and mother of 5 currently homeschooling her children in Turkey. She is passionate about teaching and creating music and is enjoying learning how to lift heavy things.

I met Heather 4 months ago when she reached out for one-on-one nutrition coaching to improve her body composition, get stronger, and build muscle. Most importantly, she wanted to FEEL her best and set an example for her kids of achieving results through hard work and committing to a sustainable process.

Despite constant upheaval for her and her family during the recent earthquakes in Turkey, Heather found the mental resilience, commitment, and strength to continue her training and maintain her fitness routine as one way of coping with such a stressful situation.

Through us working together, Heather has been mastering strength training, nutrition, and mindset for several months, both through a muscle-building phase and now a fat loss phase. But the change in her strength and body composition are just a small part of what she’s learned and the practices she’s developed that give her a resilient, positive, and sustainable outlook on life.

In this episode we talk about her experience during the earthquakes, our nutrition coaching journey together, and specific lessons and strategies YOU can use to stay focused on getting results.

You'll learn all about:

What Heather struggled with and had tried before working with a coach
Why she reached out for one-on-one coaching
What surprised Heather when she started working with a coach
Her strength training routine and what she learned from training
What happened on February 6, 2023
How the earthquake affected her training routine
Why Heather didn't take a break from training despite everything going on
How working with a coach was beneficial during this crazy time
Living the best version of you; aspiration and hard work
How Heather's habits and mindset around food have changed
Unexpected benefits or changes in other areas of her life
Advice for someone who is hesitant about hiring a nutrition coach

Episode resources:

Meet Heather in the (free) Wits & Weights community
Food logging app - MacroFactor (affiliate code WITSANDWEIGHTS to extend your free trial)
Watch the episode on video here

🔥 Grab your free Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here

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🎙️ ABOUT WITS & WEIGHTS

At Wits & Weights, Certified Nutrition Coach and Body Composition Expert Philip Pape helps high-achieving people use their wits to build their body, reclaim their time, and gain control over food through one-on-one nutrition and lifestyle coaching.

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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 this live in our free Facebook community. So if you want early access to these types of episodes, and you haven't joined yet, just go to the link in the show notes. Alright, today I'm joined by my client Heather clinger, a wife and mother of five, currently homeschooling her children in Turkey. She's passionate about teaching and creating music, and is enjoying learning how to lift heavy things of that. I met Heather four months ago, and she reached out for one on one nutrition coaching to improve her body composition get stronger and build muscle. Most importantly, she wanted to feel her best and set an example for her kids of achieving results through hard work and committing to a sustainable process. Despite constant upheaval for her and her family during the recent earthquakes in Turkey, Heather found the mental resilience, commitment and strength to continue her training and maintain our fitness routine as one way of coping with such a stressful situation. Through us working together. Heather has been mastering strength training, nutrition and mindset for several months, both through a muscle building phase and now a fat loss phase. But the change in her strength and body composition are just a small part of what she's learned, and the practices she's developed that give her a resilient, positive and sustainable outlook on life. So today, we're talking about her experience during the earthquakes, our nutrition coaching, journey together, and specific lessons and strategies you can use to stay focused on getting results. So Heather, after that long introduction. I've been looking forward to this. And thank you for your courage and coming on to share your story.

Heather Clinger 02:03

Hi, Philip. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for inviting me here today. I hope that the things I share can be helpful to others.

Philip Pape 02:11

Yeah, they definitely will. I'm really excited for the conversation. And I want to start with your story. Like who is Heather cleaner? And then specifically, what were you struggling with? And what had you tried before we met? And before we started working together?

Heather Clinger 02:27

Okay, so I think when I when I look back at like, where did my struggle start? And what were my struggles, I have this memory in my head that I'm pretty sure I was 12 Right. And I walked into this dressing room, and I put on this skirt, knowing that it was gonna look so cute, just like the model on the, you know, the picture. And, and I looked down and the skirt didn't go straight down like it did, you know, on the advertisement that I saw it and I kept, you know, pushing on my thighs wheeling that skirt to look the way that it did on that model. And I think that was just the beginning of a very long, you know, when I wasn't a happy kid, even right, it was just me deciding what my body should look like, and then deciding that it didn't look like that. And just very subjectively, right. And just starting on this long road of trying to you know, beat my body into submission through really rigorous exercise regimens or really strict dieting, and then falling into depression when it didn't and eating my way back into oblivion.

Philip Pape 03:40

So, yeah, that that I mean, and you're definitely not alone in that kind of, of history and background that you struggled. It sounds like it wasn't just physical, right? A lot of it was mental. It was beating yourself up and thinking that this was the standard that you had to strive for. And of course, then it leads to this psychosis of constantly, quote unquote, failing to do that, right.

Heather Clinger 04:02

Yeah, it really is. I mean, because there's nothing that that told me how my body should look. Right? It was, I mean, you can get messages from society or, you know, TV and advertisements and things like that. But there really are, you know, so many beautiful, unacceptable bodies out there. And I just decided on my own that mine wasn't one of them.

Philip Pape 04:25

And then what so let's tie that into the last year. So before just before we met and started working together, what was the moment where you said to yourself, I really need to do something different, or I need to reach out to a coach. Yeah,

Heather Clinger 04:40

I had been sort of, on my own, trying different things. The last country that we lived in, my husband is in the State Department and so we get to live a lot of different places. And the last time we moved and in moving is always just this Crazy mental struggle for me, you know, I, I like to teach, but I lose my students when we move. I love music, but I lose my instruments, you know, for periods of time when we move. And in the last country that that we had been in, I, you know, went off the rails getting all sorts of weight, and I decided that I was food addict and joined food addicts. Okay, I sort of separated myself from that, after a while and decided that while it was super helpful for many people to you know, accept that in themselves, I found it to be sort of a limiting belief that I didn't want, you know, I felt like it made me more scared of food and I wanted to be, you know, free of those feelings. And so, anyway, I had been trying all these things on my own, and really felt like, you know, maybe I'd start going back to CrossFit get into some, like, regimen that would help me be strong. I loved, you know, lifting weights at CrossFit. I always felt sort of, wrung out at the end of it. Oh, yeah.

Philip Pape 06:02

Then they're

Heather Clinger 06:05

really hard. But I felt, you know, awesome, at the same time. And so just trying to decide, like, what, what is next? What is it that I'm missing? Right, I'm okay with my weight ish. But, but I'd like to be strong, you know, and right around that time trying to figure out what it was that I wanted. Next, my cousin entered a bodybuilding contest, and, you know, cousins, similar genes, sort of, you know, and, and I saw her pictures, and I was just blown away, like, are you serious? That's my, I mean, she's always been beautiful, but her body definitely looked strong. Right. And she did really well in her contest. And I was just so impressed. And I sort of reached out to her to get some clues. And I started listening to weightlifting podcasts, and realizing that, you know, there was something else out there. And you asked, When I reached out to you for coaching, right? That was

Philip Pape 07:06

all of this stuff is colors, the picture really nice. I like I like, there's questions that I have for you out of this, we keep going. Sure.

Heather Clinger 07:13

Okay, so, so then I, after listening to all these podcasts, I was like, you know, what, it's, I would love to have a coach, I need a coach and my husband was on board with it. But the thing was, is I knew that in the next couple of months, we were planning to move again. And I was like, Well, that would be a terrible idea, right? I'm not going to pay all this money to get into a program that I know I'm gonna have to put on hold. But I do want to keep weightlifting. And I promised myself that as soon as we got to Turkey, which is where we were moving, that I was going to get a coach, and why. Yeah, so we got to Turkey and some of the podcasts, I was listening to had coaching programs that weren't available, but they were, you know, going to come up and I was sort of waiting for a space to open in one of those. And meanwhile, I was getting all these questions. And I really had three questions. And I should go back in my email and find out what those questions were. Because I can't remember right now.

Philip Pape 08:11

I remember that conversation. Yeah. I remember the questions. All right. Yeah, we have to revisit that.

Heather Clinger 08:18

Well, one of them was about my training split, right? Because I was doing an arm day, a leg day rest an arm day and a leg day, I think is what sort of my training split was.

Philip Pape 08:30

I don't want any one of our protein to or were they all just were they all about lifting or? Yeah,

Heather Clinger 08:36

remember. But anyway, I had these three questions that I had written down in an email that was helping me to keep track of my like fitness stats. And I found a new podcast that morning. And you were the guest on that podcast. And you answered all three of my questions in the podcast, and then at the end, advertised that you were coaching. And I was like, he's coaching. And so I emailed you and the

Philip Pape 09:06

rest is history. Isn't that amazing how life works? Right? And I remember having that conversation and thinking that was that was just so wonderful. Because the podcasting world I mean, there's tons of shows, and there's a lot you can learn, but sometimes certain things resonate with you. And the more you listen, the more you you have a chance of that happening. Going back rewinding a little bit to your story. So first, on the food side you mentioned food addicts and how you kind of this controlled structured system actually felt restrictive to you, right?

Heather Clinger 09:38

Yeah. Yeah, and in the food addicts I did. I did. I just felt like there was so much fear surrounding food. I found another group. They were the bright line eaters who I felt like their their way through it was a lot more positive. But I just felt like there had to be something More, right? Yes. Yeah, it wasn't me so controlled by food all the time. And actually, like, I think if you'd asked me like, What what did you know? My husband would tell you like, what is Heather's like, biggest goal? And he'd probably say, well, she wants to eat whatever she wants, and look, what's right. doesn't want that. But it was interesting, because I started listening to these, you know, mommy muscle building podcasts. And, and they would say things like, and I would eat the things that I want. Right, right. And yeah, and I get the body that I wanted. And so I was definitely intrigued.

Philip Pape 10:40

Yeah, and you talked about the bodybuilding as well, which we talked about occasionally on this show, you know, the pursuit of something like bodybuilding, it's a very, it's an extreme performance or aesthetic goal, right, that most people don't want, or if they think they want when they realize what it takes, it's, they kind of turn the other way say, No, I'd rather be lifestyle lean by actually being a bodybuilder and getting to that extreme leanness, but a lot of the techniques they use to control their physique and their nutrition do have a lot of carryover with just what the everyday person can use to do the same. Is that Is that what you found from that?

Heather Clinger 11:17

Oh, definitely. Yeah, I'm not sure that I ever entered this with the idea that I needed to be in a bodybuilding competition. I think I've wanted to do pull ups for a long time. And I wanted a better back squat. I, I'm afraid that my you know, the times that I had to bail, a CrossFit, you know, really low weights are sort of seared into my head. blasting through those, you know, low PRS is definitely, you know, change that in my head. Oh, yeah.

Philip Pape 11:50

Oh, yeah. I love that. And that's, that's part of what we're going to talk about here today is the whole mindset of performance and building and gaining as opposed to, you know, this restricting and trying to necessarily lose weight, even though that could be a pleasant side effect of the nutrition side. So going back to going back to when we started working together, because I want to walk people through the process until some of the recent excitement you've had is what surprised you or did anything surprise you at the time?

Heather Clinger 12:20

Oh, gosh. So when I think back to when we first started, I, I almost feel a little bit silly, because I think that the thing that surprised me the most was that you asked me to do things differently. Right? And he would think well, yeah, like, Isn't that why you got to coach? And it makes me wonder, you know, what did I want? It's like, I wanted you to look at all the hard things that I'd been doing, right? I'd been tracking my macros, and I'd been working out and I wanted you to look at me and say, oh, yeah, it's just not working for you, you must be broken, or, you know, it mean, it's not what I wanted. And I think that it's really eye opening to me to look back to that experience. And be really grateful that you didn't say those things. And instead, yeah, you asked me to track differently. You asked me to work out differently. I was so annoyed when you asked me to get a different tracking app. I know, you know that. Yeah. And, and using the different tracking app has changed me and my habits and my thought processes so dramatically. And yeah, I'm just I'm so grateful.

Philip Pape 13:36

I love that. So I mean, yeah, like, like you said, it's not it's not that you are are the issue that we have to fix you, we have to do it differently, right, we have to take a different approach. And sometimes a coach or another person, period, whatever it is, it could be. It could be a friend, somebody you respect, it could be a podcast host, it could be somebody who wrote a book, it doesn't matter, gives you that fresh perspective. And the question is, are you going to do it? You know, are you going to take that action? And is it even the right thing to do? Right? Because a lot of people struggle with, could should do I believe this person is are they telling me the right thing? Right, like CrossFit was the answer one time, right. And, and so you kind of had to, you had to trust me as part of this process. And then I, but you are great. I mean, as a client, you just you do things and you execute, which is like the number one thing that gets you to make progress and get results. So that's really cool. All right. So talking about strength training. What is your routine look like right now? Just so the listener gets an idea, like, what does it look like? How are you progressing? What are you learning from it?

Heather Clinger 14:43

Right? I think that what I've really learned from strength training, and shrink training with you is is really what progress looks like and what it takes to progress. Because in a lot of ways what I've had to learn And is patience. Right? I think I think my, well, no. Okay, so with, yeah, sometimes it can seem like, you know, we've been working together since October. And that can seem like a really long time. I had this nutritionist that I was working with back at CrossFit when I used to do CrossFit, and she is absolutely amazing. And she had just had a baby. And now it's been four years since that point. And she posted a picture the other day saying, I finally you know, gotten back the body that I want. And, and I was thinking about this woman who is just incredible. But being patient for four years, right. But at the same time, like, if I thought I would look anything like her and be able, and, you know, not even look like her, but be able to do what she does with her body. In four years, it would totally kill it, you know, like, three times a week, like I'm doing counting my macros, like I'm doing, you know, for four years. But at the same, so, but at the same time, I think that, you know, I was not new to exercise, right. And I wasn't used to a lot of the things that we were doing. But so I thought that I sort of had a grasp on my own physical limits. But I was really pleasantly surprised at how quickly my back squat and deadlift, like progressed, right. I remember the first time I couldn't deadlift 200 pounds, right. And, and it was, it was like, one of the first what was the first fail, I got to my deadlifts like they had just gone up and up and up. And I was like, Wow, that's amazing. And then one day, I couldn't do 200. And I was like, Well, I guess that's it,

Philip Pape 16:43

you reached the end.

Heather Clinger 16:47

reached the end. And now like 200 is just one of my steps on my warmup. Right? And

Philip Pape 16:52

exactly, that's awesome. Oh, just just sit with that. I mean, people need to hear this, right. Because you're saying that you you've done, you've done CrossFit, you've lifted barbells you are fitness oriented, maybe an athletic person. And yet there was this whole new level of strength that you hadn't experienced before. Just because you tweaked the weight the process? Yeah, totally. Yeah, no, that's great. So what have you learned from the fact that your body can do these things?

Heather Clinger 17:27

Let's see. I think that Well, I think that it totally crosses over into other areas of my life. Right? That just that things do take hard work, right. And practice and patience, but that they're totally possible.

Philip Pape 17:43

Yeah. Yeah, they are. Yeah. And, you know, hard work is part of it. For sure. Patience is part of it. But most importantly, you did the work. You did the work. So that's going really well. Now, a month ago, on February 6 2023, something happened on that date. Tell us what that is.

Heather Clinger 18:03

Watch, I can't even believe that. It's part of me is like, wow, that was only a month ago. And, and part of me is like, wow, it's a month ago. So on February 6, about 417. In the morning, my husband and I woke up to our building, just being violently slammed. Like I, we've lived in California, we've lived in South America and are familiar enough with earthquakes. And this was just violent. And I kept telling myself, I'm gathering my children and telling myself to breathe, and it's almost over. And this one just felt like it didn't end. We just kept going and going. And it did finally end, you know, but I, I remember getting my shoes on. But other than that, and I sort of remember my kids walking around, and I think my six year old laying back down on his bed, and I sort of looked at him like, I don't know if that's what we should be doing. But my brain wouldn't work. Like I'm pretty sure now that I was in shock. Until all of a sudden my daughter my 13 year old comes in and says Mom, did you see the cracks in the walls, and I look up and there are cracks in our apartment building. And all of a sudden my brain turns back on and I say get your shoes, get the dog get out, get out, get out, get out. And we had all gotten to the stairwell with our things. My kids even had their little like emergency packs that my husband so wonderfully helped them put together. When we first moved here, and right as we got to the stairwell, the building started to shake again. And I think at that moment, I had this you know, I'm looking at the already our building has cracks in it. And I'm just thinking we've lost our chance and it's because of my inability to to function there. During an emergency, and we're going to, you know, my kids are going to die. And the building started eating again, it stopped shaking, and we got out, my husband needed to go check in at the consulate. And so we went. And we just sat at the consulate, you know, some of my kids were able to sleep and I just couldn't. It was, we were getting all sorts of texts from people all over the place. That, you know, we're looking for family members, we were hearing about downed buildings. Even in our city, we found out that the epicenter was, you know, 100 or more miles away. And knowing you know, how violently we had been shaken, just worrying about those people at the epicenter of the earthquake. And the Marines sort of made some space for us at the consulate, and we were just in this room that was on the ground floor. It was a tent, they call it, the tent, I think, and it had a, like a TV and a heater and a frigerator, and a couch, and we sort of just sat there feeling numb. And there was even another aftershock later in the afternoon, and I just knew that I couldn't sit there anymore. I, I was just so you know, concerned about what was we didn't feel in danger at that moment. Right? We knew that there were so many people outside of that little tent that were in danger. And it was just really hard to just sit there not knowing you know, what was going on and what to do and how to help. And all of a sudden, I you know, I was trying to figure out what could my kids do besides just sit here like, glued to these movies. And I realized that the consulate was where I had been working out. When we first moved to Turkey. We found a gym right next to our apartment, actually, a few months later, but for a few months, when I first started working with you, I would drive every day, go to the consulate get in my workout in their fantastic little gym, and remembering Okay, so the gym is here. And I and it's Monday, I go to the gym on Mondays, and so I went to the gym. So, I mean,

Philip Pape 22:27

so there's so much the process there and what it's incredible, because first it sounds like you felt like you could die, right when it happened when you're in the building.

Heather Clinger 22:38

Right? And that seems sort of dramatic now. But I didn't write seeing the cracks in the building. And yeah,

Philip Pape 22:46

I tell you how I mean that I can't imagine. So and then you got to the the embassy, right? And now you felt safe. But you're still worried about all the other people and we know how horrible those earthquakes were seeing that in the news. And then you're like, Well, what do I do next? I mean, at the same time, we have to we have to live and we have to do something and move forward with the acknowledgement that these things are still happening. And you know, you made a comment that it's you said Monday, right? When you go to gym, you said it's Monday on Mondays I go to the gym, almost said it was just part of your part of your routine. It's not even something you question.

Heather Clinger 23:26

Were four months and now five months in, I go to the gym on Mondays.

Philip Pape 23:31

What if someone were to say, Well, how could you How could you think about going to the gym when all this was happening? What would be your answer?

Heather Clinger 23:38

fright? I mean, I think that I was still sort of in shock mode. So everything I did was just sort of, I don't know why I did it. I just did because most of the time I wasn't doing anything. We were just sitting on the couch. We were waiting for my husband to get done with work and I felt, you know, when we first decided, okay, we're just gonna sit here. We only brought one car, my husband's working when he's done, we'll go home. And then the aftershock hit and I was like, Oh, actually, we're not. We're not going home. I even imagined being back up in that building when the earth is still shaking. And

Philip Pape 24:14

it sounds like the earthquake which was a huge disruption to so many things. In parallel with that you wanted to at least maintain the things that were a part of your routine. It's kind of the way my interpretation right is you've got this thing that's part of your life and who you are and maybe even helps you cope. And so you just did it it's as opposed to an escape. It's a thing that you do, right.

Heather Clinger 24:37

Right. I when when I was under the you know, I did my I went went and did my my workout. Right and it was usually takes me a pretty good time to get through our current program like an hour and an hour and a half. And after that hour, and however many minutes I really I see that for the first time that day, I hadn't been scared of, you know, earthquakes, right. I hadn't been thinking about, is the ground still moving? Or is that just in my head? Right? And it was so nice, right? It wasn't and stressful, right? Because working out can be stressful, right. But it was a different kind of stress. And my body and my mind needed something different just for a few minutes. And I think that that was a really powerful moment for me to realize, oh, so this is what working out can be right now. Right?

Philip Pape 25:35

Yeah. Part of your emotional fitness, not just your physical fitness. Yeah. That that's a wonderful message for people because I think I think a lot of working out in people's minds is some intense, brutal, beating up of our body that we don't look forward to. And you know, you've made it part of your ritual part of your you know, there's a phrase that I hear used occasionally called voluntary hardship, the idea of doing this hard thing, because there's a bigger thing that comes out of it, that's positive, right? Like the actual getting the squat done can be extremely intimidating and nerve racking, right to where you almost want to back out, and you just do it, and that creates this resilience. I mean, I'm just telling you most of my opinion here, I'm not so much asking a question, but I'm, I'm getting that vibe from you. Is that right?

Heather Clinger 26:29

Definitely. Yeah, definitely. Well, and, and it wasn't like, I even thought like, this is gonna make me a more resilient person, like, let's go to the gym and be awesome today. That is a good thing to think sometimes, but I think it was more, I was able to recognize in that moment, something helpful, right? Something sort of necessary for me in so many different ways. And, and I was grateful to be able to access it.

Philip Pape 27:00

Heather Clinger 27:35

usually, my workouts consist of, of back squats, and warming up to a three times five set. Rep so so 15 of whatever that goal weight is that I'm working on that day. The same thing with either bench presses or overhead barbell lifts. And then same thing with deadlifts. But up to a just a five. Rep. Excellent.

Philip Pape 28:09

Yeah, so super simple, right? You're just doing big compound movements and, and have made a ton of progress. Yeah, exactly. Simple and effective. Not easy. But that's part of the joy. The benefit of it is that it's hard, at least in my opinion, and I think in yours as well. All right, so let's pivot a little bit. So as your nutrition coach, I have the pleasure each week of seeing your check in, right, you check in with a forum where you answer a bunch of questions. And you're very detailed in a very interesting perspective, is the way I put it in your form, you know, different clients have all different levels of detail they like to share. And you mentioned to me that just the act of writing down your wins, your lessons, your roadblocks, and so on are I think I think you've said their therapeutic. And that's just one example. So I mean, maybe tell me a little bit more about that. And also how working with a coach has just benefited you overall, through that process during this craziness.

Heather Clinger 29:03

Right? So because I think that it would be really easy for me to have said, you know, Philip, I can't do this right now. Right? We haven't. We haven't really gone home as a family. We've tried it a couple of times being in back in our apartment, and then we again, and we've been traveling and we have actually moved apartments for a little while and it would be really easy for me to have just said I can do this right now. And nobody would have questioned that. I don't think that you would have questioned that. You would said you don't do what you need to do for you and your family. But I think I was lucky that I realized early on that this is what I needed to do. I think and and like you said one of the most important things that I have done for my my training but also for my Mental Health was, you know, the kind of check ins that you require me to do every week, not only, like, keep me accountable, you know, and I know I'm gonna have to report to Philip, you know what happened that day when you didn't get your protein or you know. But I started noticing very quickly that when I checked in the kinds of questions that you asked, you know, about my sleep, about my training, about my digestion, about my water about, you know, all these things, we're all you know, every time I filled in a new swear it was earthquake, earthquake, earthquake, earthquake, earth quake, and it wasn't hard to realize that, you know, the earthquake was affecting all of these areas of my life, and that I needed to process that and checking in with you and filling out those questions was just so therapeutic and really helped me to, to understand better what I was feeling. You know, I had been through something that was really scary. And that was hard for me to talk about with anybody else, because so many other people had been through things that were way scarier. Right. I've, besides knowing people who who have family members that didn't make it out, right, I heard a story last week about some people that were visiting in the hotel that they were in, they were afraid they couldn't, they couldn't get out their door. And in their building was like, you know, crumbling, and it was the aftershock that like shook the door free, and they were able to kick their door out and get out of the building. You know, I mean, and so I'm not the one that's been through the scariest thing. And so sometimes that can, you know, hold you back from really, you know, talking about the things that were scary for you, right, because you don't want to, you know, diminish anybody else's, you know, scary stories, or whatever, or be compared at all. And this was just for me, right to take some time and to write out my feelings, and to be able to process what I had gone through and how it was still impacting my life. And I'm just so grateful, I hope that I will always do something similar to this check in even if I, if I don't work with, you know, a coach or with you forever, I hope that I will always do something like that.

Philip Pape 32:23

Something something like a journal. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. The comment about not wanting to compare yourself to others. I think it's something all of us feel, honestly. And what's interesting is from an outsider's perspective, from someone who's safe over here in the US where I didn't have to deal with the earthquakes, I think, by comparison to me, I'm thinking this is incredible trauma you had to go through. And so we don't, you know, we try not to compare ourselves, but we do, it just happens naturally. And I'm glad that you had an outlet and somebody that could almost look through it in a in a somewhat cold calculated way. Because, you know, I don't, my personality isn't one to necessarily dwell on things. I think you've learned that by now. And, you know, even I've been trying to listen more and learn how to deal with different personalities. But I'm not a therapist either. So my mindset is, let's just take action and move forward through things. But at the same time, we have to acknowledge the things. So it's funny, you mentioned that if, if you had said in the checkout, hey, all this stuff is happening. So therefore, I'm not going to do any of this. You're right, that I would have said you need to focus on you. You need to focus on your family, if that's what, but at the same time, I probably still would have tried some way to motivate you to do some of this, right. So all right. Now, what, here's a couple things, I hope you don't get a little personal. This whole thing is personal, of course. But when we started, you said something to the effect of you're a young, healthy, beautiful mom, but somehow mirrors and pictures don't always believe you. Okay, and we can edit this out of you. But, but I love how you acknowledged the health and vibrancy and have that positive mindset while recognizing there's something that you wanted to change, right? And this whole process is about change. Life is about change. So how do you feel about that sentiment now?

Heather Clinger 34:22

Who I think you know, that one is a day at a time. Or, or just try not to think too much about it. You know, I think bulking was definitely the most like humbling experience that I've had to go through. I but at the same time, what goes so it's sort of funny, right? Because for the first time in my life, I'm technically trying to gain weight, right? But at the same time, I'm scared of gaining weight, you know. So it sort of just by default need getting on the scale of much more neutral experience, right? Because I'm supposed to be gaining weight. But if I don't, it's all great. But if I do, it's okay. Right. Yeah. So I think that that became more neutral. I think seeing myself. I mean, I had like two things that fit for a while there. And they weren't the most attractive things. And I kept thinking, Okay, well, I need to buy more clothes, but I'll probably do it from Amazon. And that'll take me, you know, forever for it to get to me over here in Turkey. So what's the point? They'll be in a cut by then, you know, or? And so I just had forced me to say, but that's what you're supposed to look like right now. Right? You're building muscle under, you know, whatever else is there? And I don't know, I still don't think that I looked in the mirror and said, Wow, you're smoking, you know, or anything like that. But I did know that I was doing things that I was proud of. And I knew that my kids and my husband were proud of me. And you know, and if I'm honest, you know, I sort of knew going into coaching and doing a bulk that, well, I'm in Turkey, and I don't know anyone, you know, nobody's made. And, but you know, what, I had family visit. And I didn't, I didn't care, right? They knew I was the gym, they knew that I was happy. And we had a wonderful time. And yeah, and I felt healthy and, you know, strong.

Philip Pape 36:31

So yeah, I love that you touched on so many things that we went through, because at the beginning, we had to have that conversation about what do we start with in terms of nutritional periodization. So let's come phrase we talk about a lot, which is you don't want to be in a diet forever, or even very long. But you also have to spend time the other direction building muscle, and that requires feeding yourself. And I do have clients where it's like a battle to get them to eat enough, which, you know, might seem crazy to certain people, but it's true. And you're gonna get there like you recognize it sounds from your language that the physical manifestation on any given day is kind of irrelevant. And it's really the overall progress and process you're going through, right. And I saw that in your check ins when you would start to focus a lot on your lifts, right? You focus on your lifts and said, My biggest win this week is my squat went up. And and then our discussion was, well, that means you're getting stronger and building muscle. And so when the fat loss phase comes, which you're being patient about and decided prioritize, in what I'll say the optimal or most effective way, which is to build muscle first, you're gonna benefit tremendously from that. And we just started that, right? We just started the fat loss phase. So people listening? No. And maybe we'll have to do a follow up after that. Yeah, so cool. Now, you also alluded to the fact that you are proud, and you made your family proud. And that was another comment you had early on, if I recall that you wanted your kids to see your hard work pay off. Right. So it sounds like you feel that's happening.

Heather Clinger 38:02

Right? I'm a musician. And I feel like, I know the benefits of practicing. Right. But sometimes I feel like a lot of the crazy things that I've tried to do to get my body to change or to obey or have not resulted, you know, I felt like I was working hard. But they haven't left me with the long term results that that I felt like should have come from, you know, all of that work. And I wanted them to see me doing hard work that paid off. Right. And that work is worth what you put into it, you know? And yes,

Philip Pape 38:46

so awesome. So, so a lot has changed then and your mindset has shifted in that regard. What about food? Right? Let's let's just talk food. we've alluded to a few times have your habits. Has your mindset around food changed? And how do you think it's impacted your progress and your goals?

Heather Clinger 39:03

Definitely. I think before when I was doing my diets, it was like, well, once I get down to my goal weight, I'll be so excited to be there that it will give me the motivation to stay and I'll be really able to be strict. Right? It was like that's what I was looking forward to was this life of deprivation so that I could look a certain way. And now because we started with a bulk and because I was eating so many fantastic calories. Right? And you know, we just moved to a new country, right? I was not going to not try the foods, right? Yes. And have those experiences, you know, being here in a new country. And, you know, eating at my higher calories and building my muscles definitely gave me the flexibility to do that. And now I know that even though I'm not eating as many calories, and I am going to cut that I'm not looking forward to staying at these, you know, calories forever, I'm looking forward to going back to maintenance and even to another bulk. Right, that this short term, this is not for a very long time, it's going to give me some results that I want. And then I'm going to go back to doing other things for my body. And I think that that is, oh, it's just so new. For me.

Philip Pape 40:28

I love it. So the idea that in the past, when you thought you were done with the diet, you would then stay at this let baseline level of moderate restriction forever, versus

Heather Clinger 40:41

admitted that to myself, ever admit, well, then you're just sentencing yourself to this craziness for forever, but we don't want to admit that because we exactly know I'm going to reach my goal. If you have to. Right. Yeah, this desperate that you use up being honest with yourself, really, I think

Philip Pape 41:00

it's true. And people should ask themselves that question of, is what I'm doing today, when I'm done with it sustainable? Or what am I going to do when I'm done with it, because you know, 95% of people getting all their weight back and you're you're going, you're going to be in the top 5% You are, you are already from that you know what to do now to be in that top 5%, where you have that control. And you're right, after we're done through a fat loss phase, your calories are gonna come way up. And you can do that without gaining weight, or you can intentionally gain weight, for the right reasons, right to build muscle. So it's great. Yeah. Any, were there any other unexpected benefits or changes in, in anything in any areas of your life from this process?

Heather Clinger 41:43

Let's see. I think, you know, going back to food for just a second, you know, when we were when we were there in the earthquake, or on that day, right, so we were in this little room, and I told you, there was a fridge. And you know, everybody had been so nice and told my kids like, you know, feel free to eat the snacks. And I was watching them, just sort of like eat snacks and watch TV. And, again, I found myself in that position of nobody's gonna blame you, if you eat one of the frozen pizzas, right? Like, just take a break, eat it maintenance today, you know, give yourself a break, right? And I was feeling really emotional about it. And, but what something that, that I wasn't going to take a break on was tracking, right, because I didn't want my app to go crazy. And you know, cut my calories because I had gained all this weight without telling it that I eat and everything. And it's sort of interesting, because this app doesn't punish you for what you eat. It punishes Well, punishes, you know, quote, unquote, punishes you for not tracking, right. And so I become very good at being meticulously honest about what I ate. And so I went to go put in something before I ate it. And it was just that act of inputting data into my app that moved me from this emotionally charged place to just this like logic place, right? We're just doing math, we're just adding numbers were and all of a sudden, I was like, Oh, well, in this logical place. Like, I don't really feel like I care that much about that pizza, I brought a protein bar. And it sort of sounds good right now. I really like chambers, actually. So um, and I feel like that has happened. So many times that because I have these few habits. They don't control me. Right, I can choose the time to do something different. But I think that they informed my these habits inform my decisions. And, and yeah, bring me back to that place of logic. Yes. Yeah. I love that. We're in a different place now. And and yeah, it's just super helpful. And and then I get to make better informed choices.

Philip Pape 44:16

Yeah, everything. I mean, how are you putting this all so well, for for the listener, in the idea that you can measure you can manage what you can measure, right? That's the classic phrase, you can manage what you can measure. And if you think of like finances, right, you if you if you want to save money for retirement, for your kids education, and to go on vacations, you have to have a budget, and you have to track your money. And we don't say that's weird, or that's restrictive, or oh my god that's going to prevent you from doing what you want to do. We say the opposite. Wow, that allows you to have all this freedom. Put the money in different buckets, to save more or less to decide to invest it. Same thing with your food as you are creating the level of awareness you've never had before. And if six months a year from now, you say you know what I'm counting I'm tired of the process of tracking, you at least have that ingrained skill of knowing what's in food and how much is in the food and so on. But it's funny because like, I've been tracking now for several years, and I still love to do it, because it's a habit. And it gives me information, you know, and you're right. You just saw what it takes five minutes out of your day. And now you can make choices and be flexible.

Heather Clinger 45:21

Yeah, yeah, I sort of I sort of like it. I feel like I mean, before when I was using different apps, I felt like, oh, but it's just sort of like this puzzle, you know, this thing, then where does it fit? Right? Yes, yes. Yes, so much food freedom, not scared of food. I, I think I'm surprised by the quantities that I am able to eat. And that if I just eat that quantity, and sit with it for a second that usually I'm able to feel satisfied. Whereas before, and again, like I'll eat the thing, right, and put it into my macros. And I think that was my rule for a while, eat whatever you want, but track it, right? Make sure that it's that it's in there so that you can see, right? Oh, I'm not reaching my goal. Why not? Oh, right. Because I was 500 calories.

Philip Pape 46:11

So exactly. That's why we do it. And it's not an it's not just so people are listening, you know, it's not just calories and macros. It's all the other things that you like to measure and get feedback on, right? It's your lifts. It's how you feel it's your hunger, you know, even our hunger, like we're in a fat loss phase, if you told me three weeks in a row, that the hunger was just so ravenous, and you've done everything possible to manage that with vegetables and fiber and water. That's good information to tell us who maybe we need a break. Right? It's good. All right. So I have one or two final questions. And the first one is what advice would you give to someone who is considering hiring a coach, but maybe hesitant, because we know that's there's often a lot of roadblocks in our mind to doing that.

Heather Clinger 46:58

Right, because this is a time commitment and a financial commitment. And so of course, we're going to hesitate, right. And it's good to do our research and to find somebody that is going to be a good fit. But My only regret is that I didn't start sooner. Right. So I told you that I decided to wait until after I got to Turkey. But I wish that you know the I am going to call it trauma, right? I feel like I sort of get many moving trauma, right when I have to leave my students, when I leave the things that make me feel like me, it's traumatic, and I gain weight, and I eat all the things and I get stressed out. And that's what would have happened this time during the earthquake. If I hadn't had a coach, if I hadn't been in this program, and writing out my feelings and tracking the things that were going to help me be the me that I wanted to be. And I wish that I had done it when we were moving. I wish that I had gone through all of that with a coach and with the information that I have now. And I didn't and I gained, I don't know, 1015 pounds, just in the process, and sure are moving processes are long, because we have to move this stuff here. And then we move this stuff to storage and then we you know, sell the things and we you know, I mean, moving to another country is is a process. But yeah, it did not look beautiful at the end. And I I've learned some tricks to be kind to myself. And you know, we we had a good time getting to Turkey. But I think I would have come out better on the other side if I'd had to coach.

Philip Pape 48:45

Now imagine if you hadn't ever gotten a coach. That's what I want you to think about. Right? So because the past is the past, but you're right. If people are listening, and they're wondering, when's the best time, there's never a best time. So now's the best time to go do it, if that's something you need. Alright, so I do ask this final question of all guests. And it maybe is a tricky one, maybe not. And that is what one question. Did you wish I had to ask? And what is your answer?

Heather Clinger 49:11

All right. So I think when I listen to podcasts, I'm always looking for the takeaways. So I guess I would like to, you know, talk about the things that I would hope that people would be able to take away from this podcast. So I think that that yeah, the first one is that I need people to make sure that they understand that I wasn't, you know, persevering through the earthquake to be some sort of, you know, baddie, right. I'm not I was doing it to prove anything necessarily. There are legitimate times when we need to take breaks in our life, right, where we need to focus more on different different things and the But the thing was, Is that Yeah, after making my my pros and cons list, oh, I have to tell you about the pros and cons list. Okay, so one day I came in, this was before the earthquake I came in, and I told my kids, I just don't I wasn't even telling them I was just, you know, telling the universe, oh, I do not want to go to the gym. And my 10 year old, brilliant, 10 year old that she is. She looks at me. And she says, Well, mom make a pros and cons list, right? The only con is that you don't want to do it. And everything else is a pro. True. And of course, I was gonna go to the gym that day. And I did go to the gym that day. But that's what I had to do after the earthquake, right? I had to make a pros and cons list, right? Did I need to go to the gym that day? Or did I need to stay home and do something else to decompress. And when I realized that, it was all pros for going to the gym, I went to the gym. And when I had to decide if I was going to track that day, did a pros and cons list. And when it was all pros, then I tracked that day. And so yeah, this isn't about how during an earthquake, you have to, you know, be one way or the other. It's about make your pros and cons list, right? If this is something, sitting your life, then do something good for yourself and keep going with, you know, the goals that are benefiting your life.

Philip Pape 51:23

And there's a common theme there that I can take away from that. And that is that you are in control. And you are thinking ahead. Right. And that's kind of a common theme with everything we do is planning ahead. So even in the worst of times, you at least took a few minutes to think about it and determine what serve you and your family most even if the end decision was something different from your normal routine. Yeah,

Heather Clinger 51:45

well, and like I said, I think before, you know, I was sort of on autopilot that day, right? I feel blessed that I had a habit of tracking, right. What I didn't have that day was I was not in a habit of a cut, right, we had just barely gone into my cat. And I mean, it was like day five, or something of my gut. I was not, you know, used to these lower calories yet. But what I was used to was tracking. And so when I went and put it into my, my macros, I was able to see oh, I can do something right now that benefits me. That's a pro, right? I went to the gym. And it was after I went to the gym that I was able to say, I actually felt really good to think about something else besides whether or not the earth is shaky under my feet. And so So I was glad that I had those moments of information that helped me, you know, inform my pros and cons list. But yeah, moving forward, I was able to make a pros and cons list. And some days, you know, we were traveling to Greece. And we got into, you know, Istanbul, which is at the top of Turkey. We live at the bottom of Turkey where the earthquakes happen. And we were at the top of Turkey getting ready to cross the border the next day, it was late and it would have been absolutely ludicrous for me to look for a gym at that point. Exactly. Suit, the pros and cons list. It was a con that day I didn't do it. But what I did do was reach out to my coach and he gave me some bodyweight exercises and reminded me that missing one day of exercise was not going to you know, disappear all my muscles and

Philip Pape 53:27

exactly so it's this is the balance and sustainability we're talking about. All right. These are great. I think we I mean there were a ton of takeaways I'm sure people are gonna get from this. And for those listening or watching Heather is in our community in the Wits & Weights Facebook community, so if you want to reach out to her there she I'm sure she'd be happy to answer questions or say hello. And if you're not in the community, it's free. Just look it up and join. And Heather. Most of all, I'm very grateful that you decided to do this and come on the show.

Heather Clinger 53:55

Thank you, Philip. Yeah, it was a pleasure.

Philip Pape 53:59

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 3/7/23 Philip Pape 3/7/23

Ep 50: Cultivating Discipline, Perception, and Mindset to Build Momentum in Health and Fitness with Scott Friedman

In today's episode you'll learn about how to be more consistent and build momentum in your health and fitness journey through mindset and discipline with my guest, Scott Friedman. Scott is a nationally accredited Personal Trainer, Fitness Nutrition Coach, and Behavior Change Specialist who has been in the fitness industry for years.

In today's episode you'll learn about how to be more consistent and build momentum in your health and fitness journey through mindset and discipline with my guest, Scott Friedman.

Scott is a nationally accredited Personal Trainer, Fitness Nutrition Coach, and Behavior Change Specialist who has been in the fitness industry for years.

He has worked with hundreds of clients and specializes in mentoring them on how to build long-term, sustainable habits using his key principles of mindset, motion, and momentum.

Scott is a unique and engaging speaker, coach, and host of the Power of Progress podcast (make sure to subscribe!). He prides himself on understanding the needs of those who wish to change their lives.

Through storytelling, personal experience, and a refreshingly honest take on the fitness and nutrition industry, Scott empowers and inspires his audiences and clients to take congruent action to achieve their goals. His authentic “grip it and rip it” style resonates with people and motivates them to take practical steps that improve their lives.

You'll learn all about:

What inspired Scott to enter the fitness industry and his "grip it and rip it" style
Goals vs. process-oriented objectives and lifestyle changes
Motivation vs. discipline
Small, consistent steps vs. changing everything at once
Perception and mindset for achieving results and how to shift one's mindset
Why positive thoughts don't work unless you feel it
Why having specific goals is crucial for success
How to understand the needs of those who wish to change their lives
Storytelling and public speaking to empower and inspire audiences

Episode resources:

Scott's website - scottspeaksfitness.com
Get your free ebook Back to Basics - at this link
Email Scott at scott@scottspeaksfitness.com
Download the Power of Progress podcast - Apple or Spotify
Watch the episode on video here

🔥 Grab your free Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here

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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. I'm chatting today with Scott Friedman about the mindset side of health and fitness, which I think is underrated, but critical principle for success. Scott is a nationally accredited personal trainer, fitness nutrition coach and behavior change specialist who has been in the fitness industry for years. He's worked with hundreds of clients and specializes in mentoring them on how to build long term sustainable habits. Using his key principles of mindset, motion and momentum. Scott is a unique and engaging speaker, coach and host of the power of power of progress podcast, make sure to subscribe. He prides himself on understanding the needs of those who wish to change their lives. Through storytelling, personal experience, and a refreshingly honest take on the fitness and nutrition industry. Scott empowers and inspires his audiences and clients to take congruent action to achieve their goals. His authentic grip it and rip it style resonates with people and motivates them to take practical steps that improve their lives. Scott, man, thank you for coming on the show.

Scott Friedman 01:35

Nah, man. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Philip Pape 01:38

Yeah, so we connected a little while back and we're doing a little podcast swap here. So today we're going to talk mindset and maybe some training and things like that. I just want to start with your background, right you have your podcast, the power of progress. You're also a public speaker, you're a coach or trainer. So what inspired you to get into the fitness industry and I do want to know about your grip it and rip it style.

Scott Friedman 02:00

So I think it goes back. I don't want to go too long with it. But it goes back to junior year of high school. I was I've always been like this lanky kid my dad used to call me like Elmo, or like a Sesame Street character. My arms were so lanky, but there was like a good layer of muscle there. But I had like these lanky arms, and I was okay, fine. I'm a lanky kid, no big deal. But then, the winter of my sophomore year, actually, I started to notice I started to get a little bit of a gut. And it wasn't anything that I couldn't No you couldn't see like the skinny kids six pack anymore. It wasn't like a real estate spec. Like I was skinny so I could see it. I couldn't see it. I was like, Oh my gosh, like I need to like do something so I just I started drawing some sports. And from there you know when you join like the track team or whatever it is varsity track team. It's they start, they start making weightlifting. I've never with weightlifting before my entire life. I started doing it. And it was like the most embarrassing thing like when you first start with all these like seniors and you're like a sophomore, junior, they're like, lifted all this way. And I'm like, Okay, I don't know what I'm doing. But I kind of fell into it. So you know, I graduated high school, I started to get this routine going started going to the gym every day after school right before I graduate. My mom pushed me to do physical therapy is my major in college. And I'm like, Okay, I'll do physical therapy. They make good money, I think and I can say I'm a doctor, like that's what the parents want. I'll do all that two years in. I'm doing like organic chemistry and like, just biophysics. I'm like, I don't I don't like I don't care about I just want to like work out like I don't understand. So I found out I had no idea I found out that there was a kinesiology program, which I have no idea what that is. It's Exercise Science, which is basically personal training in a nutshell. And I'm like, I'll just switch to this. All the classes are super easy. And I'll just be a personal trainer. Like why not? That's what I want to do anyway. So I switch halfway through. It took a little longer to graduate, but I switched halfway through and when to Kinesiology. And I like to say as most of my classes, but I got into it. And really, that was kind of the start of it that kind of that three year period of like, you know, senior to sophomore in college, really where like, I really honed my love for working out and I think my freshman year of college where I moved to a brand new city, probably an hour away from home, but I lived in the dorms. And I broke my ankle in the first three weeks of school like do you I mean, imagine the you know, I live on the fifth floor of this 1940s building, no elevator, no air conditioning in the middle of August September in Chicago. So it's boiling hot. I live on the top bunk. I know one person and that's my roommate. He's the one who convinced me to go like a jerk. And broken ankle don't know anyone. So I'm sitting there every day I hobble crutches, on crutches in a boot and crutches. I hobbled a class and we have like this we had like a subway deli basically. So I ordered two sandwiches when I got home, one for lunch, one for dinner. And other than that I would literally just be at the gym every single day for like Two hours, mostly because it took me like, forever to walk around. Oh, it was like an hour of work. Yeah, but I couldn't. I had to hobble from each station set things up. And that was really it. I mean, that's when the routine clicked. That's I had nothing else to do but workout for like a year straight. Alright, maybe was like six months, whatever it is, but and that's really where it came from. I just loved how I felt loved how I looked, just to be as vain as possible. And that you know, and you're a college kid, like, that's what you love. And obviously, as I grew in the career, and as I kind of made it a career, you grow and you find out more about fitness than just lifting heavy weights a billion times to be as you know, jacked as possible. When you're in college,

Philip Pape 05:36

of course, man. And you know, you mentioned the vanity thing, but it's kind of funny, because people don't care about vanity until they see that they get the results from this. And then they care about vanity you don't say like yes, because people can always listen to another show. And they were talking about how this guy lost a ton of weight and was able to nail everything down and improve his body for the first time in his entire 50 years of life in like six months, and you could do it that fast. And it was like, it drove him to do that. So that's okay, man. Right? I do what I do. I don't know if he didn't you answer the question or I didn't get it. But the grip it and rip it style. It's Oh, yeah. Yeah. So

Scott Friedman 06:10

I've always been kind of a contrarian. When it came to school, especially in college mail, my instructor is so good example of fitness, we had this guy come in. And you know, we just had learned, you know, an hour a day before about how if you're overweight or obese, clinically speaking, like you shouldn't be doing probably essentially concentric lifting too much, because it could cause a heart attack because it reduces the blood vessels. And we load all this stuff. Okay, this guy comes in. And he comes in all professional owns a gym, very, you know, Suave talks to us, he starts talking how Oh, he doesn't care. You know, he doesn't do anything, any testing, any medical test, anything like that, he starts talking about oh, like, this is great. So I'm the guy. I'm the jerk, who basically is like, well, we just learned what you just said, will probably cause someone to have a heart attack without them consulting their doctor and making sure they're healthy enough to workout. So why would we want to do that? Why would we want to work for you, like in front of this guy. And so I was I was, I've always been this guy of like, I don't take what everyone says as like the gospel. And I've always, you know, when you pass the certification test when you do all these textbooks, and then I am so ready to go, I'm so ready to like be in fitness. And then you get into fitness. And you're like, This is nuts. Like what were you teaching

Philip Pape 07:25

me for? Compute, right?

Scott Friedman 07:28

It's like you wasted I wasted so much money. I tell people now in college like honestly, like just get the certification and get practical experience. Like don't waste time going to college because it's just it's just it's not the same. So my grip and rip it really came from I hate the idea of these, these suave people sitting on a pedestal, they know what their amazing corporate PowerPoint and you know, talking as if they you know, their doctorates, it's like most people communicate on like a seventh grade level, this is how we communicate. And that's how I communicate. I don't want to be bogged down in the nuances of Oh, make sure this is perfect. Make sure no, no, just just go and talk. And people will resonate with the message people can understand even if you miss speak, people understand what you're trying to say. And I wasn't when I was started the podcasting era of what I was doing a couple years ago. And my whole thing was, I am not going to do this. If I have to worry about lighting, if I have to worry about the best possible headset, the best possible microphone, the best possible backdrop, which I imagine, most people will tell me, Oh, you can improve this, you can improve that. I'm like, if I can't just talk into a microphone. And if I need to make all these outlines, I won't do it. So my whole goal was what if I do this and just just talk and just go at it. And you know, when I first got started, I was listening to a different podcast, who was very similar, who he was talking to microphone, no script, no nothing. And it was very authentic, transparent. And I thought that it resonated with me because I was like, that's how I talk. That's how I want people I don't want this. Well, today, what we're gonna do is just like, I don't need and that's not how fitness is fitness is very fluid. And fitness is very well, it depends. And it I think it goes in that organic nature of let's just have a conversation, we're gonna mess up, we're going to stutter, we're not going to be the perfect, you know, essence of speaking or whatever it might be. And that's kind of the grip and grip and I tell you how it is and not going to sugarcoat what can happen if you do it a certain way. And that's kind of where the grip and grip came from.

Philip Pape 09:23

Cool. Yeah, that's so if I were to interpret it, that's that's kind of what I was getting from it. Of course, it's a deadlifting term, I think, right grip and grip it, but it comes across as like, you know, don't let perfection be the enemy of the good. Like, just take action don't We don't make make excuses, especially right. It's like, everything has to be set up just right. Of course. I'm very anal and very organized about things. So some of the podcast stuff does hit me a little bit right here because I do prepare but you know, we're all different right? That's the point. So all right, let's get into some of the mindset stuff then we're here to talk about you know, you have your key principles as part of your you know, who you are and how you talk through this. Have mindset, motion and momentum. And that first one being mindset. I don't know if it's intentionally first, but you know, it gives it a clue to how important it is. So most people have a goal, right? Most people have a specific goal. It's usually like, hey, I want to lose weight, I want to look good, I want to lose x pounds, I have a date that I need to hit for an event, whatever. What's your approach with a client comes in and says that? And maybe, maybe and you tell me maybe instead you want to focus them on the process or on the lifestyle changes before really trying to get to that goal, which may be months out?

Scott Friedman 10:30

That's a great question. Because you have to, there's a balance when it comes to, you know, training clients, and I teach a bunch of new trainers now kind of how to find that balance. And when you're training, because they're paying you to get results at the end of the day, they're paying you to get results. So I think if someone were to come to me, and what I've done is I try to I try to I let them know number one that like, you know, here's what I'm looking at, right? I'm looking okay, like you're saying this, but what are your actions? Or what are your actions actually telling us? So I think there is a balance when someone comes to you, and you know that they're not ready, or you know, you want to talk about something else. But at the same time, you also need to show them they gotta get results because they're paying you especially if you're working in a practical sense, right? If you're working in a commercial gym, where you have a sales quarter, if you're working at a studio, if your job is to personal train, or even on your own, you're you're a contractor and you go to places or whatever it is, you got to get results, you have to be a good trainer. So you can't stop that and go Well, for the first six months. We're going to work on building this habit for and so yeah, it's kind of a mix, you incorporate things where you can, and then use your expertise and your knowledge. Okay, look, this is why this has happened. I have a client recently, who I've worked with him for over a year. And I don't think you'll listen to that. So it's okay, I could say

Philip Pape 11:43

about clients all the time, just don't use their name,

Scott Friedman 11:45

no name, but he he's he's had no nothing. Eating was horrible. Fitness is horrible. You know, of course, he wants to make the change. He's paying me good money to make the change. And we've got him finally in a good fitness routine. But his diet again, I don't wanna use the word diet necessarily. But for the sake of the argument, use the word diet is horrible. I mean, it's just it's absolute trash. It is though, it's probably one of the worst I've seen to be totally honest. And, but I can't, what am I going to do? Am I not going to train him so that we can focus, but he won't do that? So I have to find the compromise? Okay, where can I push him? Where can I not push him and get him results along the way. And eventually, what we've started to do was we've taken these mini steps. And like you said, kind of earlier, different verbiage. But progress is new perfection. So if someone wants to change their mindset, it's on me to know that and to basically create that adaptation. So what I started doing actually was instead of personal training, I focus more on coaching. And that's kind of where I differentiate because I felt when I was at a studio or I was at a commercial gym, I don't have time for that your trainer, right, you have 30 minutes, 45 minutes, you got to get them sweating, and gotta get them results. That's what you're getting paid for. You don't have a lot of time to talk about their mindset or talking about their habits. And so you have to work in those things when you're stretching them when you're doing these things. But it's important to realize, okay, how do I do that when I'm trying to personal train them, because if you can kind of find that balance, then they'll stay with, you know, they might not stay with you, because you'll learn a lot, but they will give you referrals, they'll love you, there's going to be a great experience for you. And the way I've done that, as I've transitioned from personal training to more of a coaching perspective, so I differentiate that between Okay, personal trainers more so kind of what traditional you work out with them, you know, weight sets

Philip Pape 13:23

are just you're just holding their hand right there through them exactly.

Scott Friedman 13:25

And coaching is I focus less on, I'm not going to hold your hand, I'm going to give you all the tools that you need, I'll give you the exact workout that you need. I'm not going to be there with you working out you're going to have to you know, I'll have the videos for you will have everything you need. But you got to learn it because if we're not going to learn it, then I'm not sure I can help you with the mindset part of it. So I've deviated from personal train directly to more of a coaching programming perspective. And both are needed. By the way, some people absolutely need personal training, they need that handheld, and some don't. And just depends on kind of who you're who you're talking to.

Philip Pape 13:54

Yeah, it's kind of interesting to hear it from your perspective, because I come from the other side of it, the nutrition coaching side, and I'm trying to get more and more into working with people on their training, but without being a personal trainer, which is in being online, you know, it's like form checks, and here's your program, and now go and do your squats. And then the next day, I'm gonna have to fix all the bad squats you just did. And I can't do that in the moment, like a personal trainer can. So it's like you have to trust that they're gonna take that information, which means you have to communicate it really well. Yeah. Cool. So we just covered we just covered a lot about the fact I like the example you made about the six months like we can't work on something for six months before we get going. You wish you could write like you wish you could perfect be with a client for five years. And like just fix everything.

Scott Friedman 14:40

Most people are like, you know, you'll get a client who let's say you're at the commercial gym or something. Oh, let's buy a 12 pack of 30 minute sessions. After four sessions. They're like why vet lost weight? I'm like, dude, like you're probably 50 years old or whatever. And like I'm trying to undo 50 years of crap that you've done to your body and like four sessions I got to so it takes time to investigate So it takes a lot of time to get those sustainable results. I just say you could probably starve someone quickly.

Philip Pape 15:04

Yeah, of course. And that's the problem with their industry, right? There's so many people with the short term fix. And you have to package it in a different way and message in different way where they're still gonna stick with you. And I think your podcast and, you know, speaking to people and having them here and trust you and understand it's a long game goes a long way. But what would you how would you feel kind of going off the cuff on this? If somebody really, really needs a lot of work, okay. They're, you know, they're stressed by their job, they get five hours of sleep, they're not training consistently, they barely move, their diet is trash, like you said? Where do you start with that?

Scott Friedman 15:41

You know, I think it has to be case by case I think you figure out where in behavioral change, you know, kind of stuff, you know, you have the pre contemplation and contemplation fields and the action fields. So you kind of figure out what stage they're in. And in each part of it if if the fitness is the easiest part, or if the nutritious easiest part, if someone comes to me and says, okay, oh, I love to cook. And I hate to workout, I may focus on the nutrition aspect, because I'm nutrition certified. So I can do that. But obviously not not with the arty stuff. But I may focus on that first. And so Okay, let's, let's make baby steps this way. Because, you know, we all know that nutrition is extraordinarily important. If not, you know, there's symbiotic but very, very important that it doesn't get the credit it deserves. So I probably focus on that. And they tell me that they hate cooking, they only eat out, but they don't, but they can probably schedule in time to work out, I may focus on the workout first. So I think it's a matter of progress is the new perfection of I can get them 1% better every time and just keep going and show them. Look, when we first started a month ago, here's where you're at, here's where you're at. Now, you might not see weight loss, necessarily, if that's the goal. But here's what you're doing. Like, look what you've done, you've done 12 workouts, you've done X, Y and Z, you built muscle here, like you're on the right path, that's gonna take time and, and calm. And I'm very transparent with that like, this is going to take time, like you're investing in the process, just like a job just like a relationship. This is no different than anything else, like you didn't start in a company at President, you started with minion, and you worked your way up to, you know, whatever director role that you might have, it's the same thing, your body's the same way you got to start from where you're at, and then work your way up. And then, you know, so on so forth. So it is very hard question. But the answer is, it depends based on kind of where their mindsets up, I wouldn't attack it all at once, I would go one at a time. Very small steps.

Philip Pape 17:23

Yeah. And that's what I was getting from what you're saying is the small wins, it's like, a lot of people try to start from the biggest gap, maybe and try to fix that. And then it's very demotivating, when it takes time to kind of close that gap. Whereas you're saying, start from your strengths start from where you're close, but not quite there, and it's something you enjoy. And then you can get that quick win, right, and then spiral it into these other things. At least that's what I'm getting from what you're saying?

Scott Friedman 17:48

Yeah, 100%. And again, maybe that's not you know, maybe some psychologists out there says no, start with a bigger win, because you hear all these different, but and there's nothing wrong with that. I just think that when you're building momentum, building that, you know, when after when progress after progress that builds your momentum, which then creates that snowball effect, okay, now you feel better when you first what I found, at least in my experience is when people first ask you, I want to lose weight, I want to do this, they're not understanding that this is a lifestyle change, versus something they're gonna do for six months, and then stop. What most people do is they think they're gonna say, Oh, what's that lose 40 pounds, I can go back to eating chocolate cake, I can go, it's like, no, no, this is your life now, like, this is what you have to do. So when you start getting these wins, and you start feeling better and better and better, and you start seeing it, that's a good way to build that mindset of okay, this is this feels good, I can do this. Because they don't, they don't know what that feels like until they start to feel it. So that's how I attack it of, let's get these again. However slow it is depends on the person. But let's get these small wins, build momentum. And then slowly this will change your mindset to in a year from now you will recognize yourself like oh my gosh, I work out I worked out three days a week for a year, and I never did that before. And those are small wins. And now it's part of your life part of your habit. And you're going to start seeing more and more results as you snowball again, the more you move, the more you do the the more results you're gonna get. So obviously the pressure

Philip Pape 19:10

how fast you want to go. Yeah, I'm picking up what you're putting down man. And I think the people listening who just even when they're doing it on their own, you know, take heart if they if you feel like you're you've got a lot to work on and you've been going years doing one thing, just listen to what Scott saying Right? Attack Attack one behavior that is a small one and area that you enjoy, start to build on that. Because motivation, we know willpower motivation. They're nice in the short term for a little burst. Or even if you have a coach, it's nice to have that coach to push you but it's not a sustainable approach. And I know you'd like to talk about that too, right motivation and willpower. What? What's the alternative to that is that what we were just talking about is there's some other mindset games and strategies you bring into play.

Scott Friedman 19:52

I think motivation is great to get started. There's no doubt like you're not going to do it. If you're not motivated. I'm awesome. You also won't do it if you don't want Do it. So yeah, to be motivated to some mistake motivation last about two weeks. And I say that because about it's like 80% of any health goal from New Year's ends in about two weeks. So by January 15, all the health goals are already over 80% are already over. So motivation doesn't last very long motivation doesn't last, when it's five in the morning, snowing cold in the Midwest and your car doesn't start, you're going to warm it up. That's that there's no motivation there. I think what helps, I guess there's two things, one discipline, I think discipline is really where people should be focused. And discipline is habit building, if you can do something over and over again, and build that habit built. There's something called basically neurological pathways where if you do something over and over again, repetition is how we learn, you're gonna build that muscle memory basically, in a more of a habit sense than the actual muscle memory. So I think that's number one is discipline, build discipline, focus on that focus on, you don't have to like what you're going to do. As long as you go and do it, I have the time. And this might be horrible to say, like, I don't want to work out half the time I had to be like, I'd be like, Okay, I'll just, I'll go do it like fine. And I feel phenomenal when I'm done. And that's a discipline versus if I didn't do it, because I wasn't motivated, I wouldn't do it. And I think that's a huge differential. So I do it even when I don't want to. So that's number one. And then, when it comes to trying to stay, I guess supporting yourself, I would say some tools that I will implement is number one, you know, what's your reason? Why? Why do you want to let's just say losing weight? Why do you want to lose weight? Seriously, like, what what is the reason you want to lose it? Don't, don't tell me tell yourself, what is it. And then once you find you should be able to write out 30 reasons. It can be family, it can be personal, it can be as vain as you want to be as long as it's important to you when I was 22. You know, years ago, being being having a six pack and being just the hottest guy around was a really important goal to me. Now, that has changed since then. But that wasn't important at the time, that would force me to go to the gym, because that's what I wanted. So whatever goal you have, I think that's really important to understanding your reason why, and then making it visible I think is super important. Because I have a whiteboard in my apartment, where I live. And I have specific goals and specific why's written down so that I look at every morning I can reaffirm, okay, I got to do this today, I got to do this today. Because if you don't, what's gonna happen, you're gonna wake up, do your normal routine, you're gonna forget all about it. You know, especially when work gets busy when children are sick. When you go to the soccer game, I have constant reminders is actually I learned this from Bob Proctor mash if you don't know who Bob Proctor is, but he's kind of like the personal development guru. And he actually just died last year. But he actually used to carry on a note card in his pocket and would write down his reasons why or his specific goal. And he wouldn't look at it, but he would know it was there. Every time he felt his pocket, it would remind him that's my goal. So if like for example, if your goal is to work out three days a week, and you have that in your pocket, and you feel it workout three this week, you'll you'll constantly be resetting your mind. So it's not necessarily a motivational tactic. It's more of a support system tactic. What's your reason why and then make it visible so you can constantly remind yourself to do something because I have clients all the time. They know, they know 100% I know I gotta go for a walk. I know I I can't eat this ravioli or whatever it is, that's leftover. I know. But they don't do it. And they don't do it. They don't reset themselves every day,

Philip Pape 23:15

they just kind of melt. And there's always a reason right that they didn't do. Hey, this is Philip Pape. And if you feel like you've put in effort to improve your health and fitness, but aren't getting results, I invite you to apply for a one on one coaching to make real progress and get the body you desire. We'll work together to figure out what's missing so you can look better perform better and feel better. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching to learn about my program and apply today. Now back to the episode. So I like that so the discipline and then the y but with the y with a card idea. Is that something you use with clients like concretely do you say hey, go do this like on the onboarding call let's write it down an index card or is there some strategies with them? Yeah, so

Scott Friedman 23:59

I tried to again, I'm very can't force people to do stuff Yeah, yeah, so I give them I usually give them an options I see what sticks and what doesn't stick. But I tell them if you do everything I tell you to do you're gonna see better results if you don't do it. I can't I'm not gonna force you like you have to be able to do now it depends on the situation I try to enforce the best I can without being too pushy because if you push it too early, you know clients will they won't trust you so but I attempt Yeah, so that's something I do attempt to do. At minimum I say they have to have some sort of piece of paper on their desk or in their sink at their house so they can see everyday when they brush their teeth or something like that. They have a whiteboard yeah they have a whiteboard even better if they have an office if they have a somewhere that their spouse or friends can't see that their house or at work put it there but put it somewhere where it's personal to you. I wouldn't do on the computer mostly because they need to open your computer to see it's got to be visible right when you walk in the door. And that's where my whiteboard is. That's where the mirror is.

Philip Pape 24:53

Yeah, yeah, we're like so inundated with our reminders and technology. We tend to ignore them anyway.

Scott Friedman 24:59

Yeah, you can put on your phone Oh, but I'm not sure. Well, people are the first I've got put on your phone. That's the hard part. It's like, actually, and then are people actually going to follow? That

Philip Pape 25:05

is the question because it's so funny how these old school tool tools can still be highly effective. Like, just literally just yesterday, I have a client who checks in with me, who tells me daily what's going on, because she's in a phase where like, we're trying to get through a trigger triggering an issue with her food. And now she's like, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and on an index card, right, like my couple guidelines that I have. And every time I go out this weekend, I'm just gonna bring it out. You know, I'm like, it reminds you that it's great, obviously, because, yeah, you know, it's just yeah, like you said, everybody's individual. And the communication style depends, like some clients really want tough love. And you could just, hey, you need to do this for me now. Because if not, you know, you're failing yourself. Blah, blah, blah, and others. It's like pussyfooting around it. Cool. So we talked about perception and mindset a little bit. And I mean, what about shifting mindset? There's another concept that I like to get into and learn more about, I want to, I want to hear your perspective on that. of, you know, the fixed growth versus growth mindset, or whatever school of thought you want to bring up in? You know, people's people's way of thinking can change over time. Right. So is there methodology you use there you talk to about that for shifting your mindset?

Scott Friedman 26:16

Yeah, for sure. So I'll preface this, I'm not a psychologist. So you know,

Philip Pape 26:19

obviously take what I say with a psychologist. You're not an RD? Okay. We established that. Yes. I don't take rd because then you're forced to give people meal plans.

Scott Friedman 26:27

Yeah, I don't want to do that. So when people ask me all the time, I'm like, What do you mean give you here's like what I eat, but go figure it out. So shifting mindsets is so difficult, I will say, from someone who like, you know, there's plenty of things I'm going through right now. So one of my mind shifts, mind set shifts is I want to meditate every single day, or at least six days a week, I'm willing to give myself that one day off just if something happens. And I have not built that in I went like three months doing great. I took the summer off because I'm stupid, and then trying to get back into it. And so you know, shifting your mindset is very difficult at first in my mind, it can be very difficult to do because we are basically a computer program, we are hardly there are many things that we are taught when we were younger that we don't even know that we're doing now. So when you're there's something so there's certain if you look up brainwave activities, before you're seven years old, I think you're always in theta brainwave, which is basically, your subconscious brainwave, which is where you just literally just take all the information, and you absorb it all. And then you basically build this computer program in your head. And that's kind of how you perceive the world. And so even brothers who wouldn't say a household, they might get different stories, but having different interaction people, that's how they grew up differently, or they have the same story. And they grew up the same way. And that's how some people say, mage, different parts of the country, they, you know, there's different stories. So you're, you're almost hardwired to have a specific story. So if your story in your head tells you that you're not good enough, or you're not meant to be in shape, or you can't lose this weight, or it's just negative all the time, it could take a lot of work. And so shifting mindset, I think comes with a couple of different territories. And I probably won't hit every topic here, but one is you have to self reflect you have to really be a lot of people are honest with themselves when they come to trainers and like I want to lose weight. Oh, I'm doing so well. And then they like lie about half the stuff that they're not doing. It's like, oh, I didn't realize I had that chocolate, I didn't realize it's like, okay, so you're not really being totally honest with me about it. They're lying to themselves. They're lying to me. They allow themselves self deception that they think that they're in better shape or this food isn't as bad as they as it should be. Also, it's okay. Somebody wants really self reflection really understand and be honest with yourself and have a Have yourself a good cry, to be honest, because it's a good emotional release to what am I doing wrong? Like what what can I do to actually make a change my life, and then really feel that I think the two biggest things that changing your mindset, and I truly believe this is one emotion, you need to have emotion of the and two is direct thought with emotion. So if you want to lose weight, thinking about it, and having an emotion about it, are to combine things that will really help you push that forward. So for example, when I meditate, if there's something that I want, I know it sounds a little woowoo, but like, I will have a positive emotion towards what I want. And I will then force myself to basically have positive intent would be intent leads to action on it, which then yields different results, which will then yield the congruent results that I talked about over time. So when someone wants to change their mindset, it's all about I think, number one, creating positive intent with what they want to do. And then building building that discipline number two, it we talked about before, you have to kind of just push yourself to do it. And as you get those many successes, and you see the results, it's like okay, you know, your mindset will shift slowly. For example, when you're an employee, and you work for a company it's like my boss he doesn't understand anything that he sucks I hate you. We hear it all the time. So then I happen to be the boss in this situation. They don't get it. They're only looking at one cup of the situation that's their perspective. That's their mindset this one cup was that's that's their that's their that's their job title, that's the gym they manage, that's whatever. But as a manager, you have five cups you have to oversee, you see more of the bigger picture. And so when you be when you go from one cup to five cups, your perspective changes you, you see, oh, that's why my boss did that. Oh, that's why this happens. Oh, that's why the trainer told me to stop eating that, because I gained 50 pounds, when you can see the bigger picture. And you see, and you can only see the bigger picture. As you improve. As you open more doors. As you get more results, you start to you start to go, all the light goes on that stuff that makes sense. That's why it's so when you start seeing those little wins over and over again, you can start then basically changing your mindset that way. So once you can see more cups from the analogy, you can say, oh my gosh, that's why my boss did that he wasn't being a jerk. He just understood that that you know, this leads to this, this and this, versus my little cup. Like why can't you fill my cup all the way? Well, because I had to split it with five others. So it's a matter of perspective. And when you're able to start seeing results, I think your perspective can naturally change. Now again, I'm not a psychologist, not a perfect exam.

Philip Pape 30:59

Oh, no, but you just connected like the whole arc of this conversation from something early was said I want to, I want to like let it percolate a bit because I like this. First of all, a wise man once said, positive thoughts don't work unless you feel it. The wise man was you because I got that, I think from your website. So it ties in or just say, but But earlier, we were talking about small wins. And that's how it's a quick way to start making progress. Almost almost under the radar, right? Like you don't even realize you're just doing this thing day to day is making progress. But then now you also said you can shift your mindset by getting the results which sounds chicken and egg, because you need to first get those results to then feel like you know the results from getting results. So I mean people listening to that, it's it's a profound thing. But it really is true, it's that you want something go and make these little changes, start to really acknowledge and feel and recognize and enjoy those results. And then it kind of iterates on itself. Hopefully we're not getting too philosophical. Scott, I love this stuff.

Scott Friedman 31:56

I love it. I love it. And I just I find it to be the biggest issue people have is that, you know, I think the positive intent is so important. And I think there's a new studies out there right now, you know, talking about you know, stuff I won't get into of course, but neural creating new neurological pathways and the only way to rewire the what's the way to what's the way to fix your computer, it's to reset it right, it's to get rid of the documents, get rid of the files. So if you take that analogy, it's okay, if I have positive emotional attempts, what they're saying is you could enter a certain brainwave status or certain feeling the meditation and feeling and say, Okay, I'm going to do this, which will then create new systems in your body, which will then help you move along and create more results. And it's a it's a little woowoo it's a little like, yeah, it

Philip Pape 32:41

takes I get it, there's a scientific aspect to it that I think makes a lot even even meditation and breathing and all that. Like I used to be very cynical about it. But Sam, there's science behind, you know, how we're wired and doing those things and how they change our brain and our physiology. So I like the bringing this stuff up. And hopefully people listening can go research, you know, the theta waves and all this stuff. Yeah.

Scott Friedman 33:01

Yeah, I recommend what do i Oh, there's, there's so many of them out there. So I wouldn't recommend one of them. But just look up theta waves and all that stuff. And you know, brainwaves and changing habits. I think you'll find some good, interesting reason, just just a preference, just so everyone knows, like, you know, I'm the guy in you know, I was the fraternity president I was, you know, a big lifting guy. You know, I was a varsity athlete, I'm not this you know, I was never this meditation, yoga ever until, until like a year and a half ago and I started studying as a really looking at wow, this stuff is life changing. Because the way I was doing before wasn't working. And I was like, this is actually so I'm not that guy was really off since I was five years old. I've been in the forest and medicine so that's not me at all. I was very anti meditation for 10 years. Yeah, right now I'm like, I'm like breathing I Oh, I breathe and I sleep oh, I need to work out leave me alone. And then now it's like, okay, actually, there's a little bit more to it than I had initially anticipated. So, yeah, so

Philip Pape 33:55

so people might be thinking then Okay, that's great. I want to start making all these changes. But there's a Winston Churchill quote I like and of course I wrote it specifically for this podcast and it's plans are of little importance, but planning is essential. Right? So when when we want to change these habits, should we have a plan like so we have this goal? We want to lose weight and like you said you need to go beyond that. Okay, why do you want to lose weight? Okay, I want to I want to look good okay, why do you want to look good? Okay, I want to feel great for this or whatever. How specific should our goals and plans be to kind of reverse engineer back to what habits we should change

Scott Friedman 34:35

I think all the way as far as you can make it as far as you can make because the farther back you go so for example, if you wouldn't take that exact example you gave so I want to lose weight. Why? Because I have a history of health disease in my family. Okay, but why do you wanna lose all because my grandma or my mom died when I was young. What so why is that important? You because the way I and then as you get deeper into the whys, as you know, is anyone with kids would know they ask you why why, why why? As you get deeper, you You get more emotional, and the more emotional that you can get about why you're doing something, the percentage statistical likelihood of you to achieve that result is astronomically higher. So if you can get emotionally attached to it, that's why I said, Be honest with yourself and stuff, like, why do you want to do it? What's the actual reason why you want to lose 20 pounds cuz you don't have to lose 20 pounds, like live the way you want to live, like, I'm not out here trying to get everyone like, if you don't wanna lose 50 pounds, don't lose 50 pounds, I don't care, like I want the people who do care to to come to me. So I think that I think you should take all the way down. Now, if you're with a trainer, and they're trying to do that with you, like, obviously, you're, you're only gonna go so far, but I'm talking internally goes deep as you can go. Write down as many as those as you can. Because the more emotional connection you can have, the better results you can have. Because you're just want to support yourself, because now you feel that emotion. Now, I've had clients break down on a call with me crying, because we broke it down. And they really felt that spark of like, wow, I didn't realize what I was feeling this whole time. And now it's so clear, and now they have a clear path, or at least a more clear path forward to achieve their goals doesn't work every time. Of course not. But it's something that helps you along the way. Now, of course, I do want to preface that. I'm not saying you shouldn't just grip it and rip it in and work out even if you haven't identified all those things that you shouldn't let overthinking stop you from taking action either. So that's a big thing. I'm not saying you have to make this as perfect as but oh, just do it along the way. Do it along the way. Always reassess and just, you know, don't worry about the nuance of it just start going is kind of Yeah,

Philip Pape 36:31

yeah, it's a fine balance. So like you said, it's a, you want to have an end goal. Do you want to have some steps along the way, but you also everyday things can change. So what you go go the flow and keep getting out there and take an action. Exactly. So coaches are for and that's it goes to the format. You were talking about the why and one of my clients said, you know, she wants to be devastatingly gorgeous. She'll know who it is when she she listen this. I said, Well, why do you want to be that? Well, really, because I'm gonna be a good role model for my kids. Okay, now we're getting a little bit more into what you really want. Yeah, it's like she's got a sense of humor.

Scott Friedman 37:06

I love that devastatingly gorgeous me to see if she finds the secret. Let me know.

Philip Pape 37:11

Exactly. Alright, so a little side tangent here is you're kind of a storyteller, and you do speaking engagements. And I mean, I personally have a passion for public speaking as a skill, because I used to be an introvert and it was something I had to get over and again, mindset shift, like, you know, used to be well, I can't do that what that guy is doing up on stage too. Like, I know, I can do that. Now. Let me get there. I'm curious what kind of speeches and seminars you do like what what topics what audiences just, you mind sharing a little about that about? Yeah,

Scott Friedman 37:41

very similar to this, to be honest, like, just a little bit more in detail. And we go through practical steps. And like we go through more specific examples, get the audience involved. But a lot of it is really based on mindset and explaining the difference between discipline and motivation and explaining, I love talking about the basics of fitness. So I have presentations that are basically fitness one on one, literally, how do you get started from zero to like, just going to the gym and like what you have to do in between the most recent one I've been working on, and I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to do it is called the 10 Minute method. And it's basically how to how to basically see basketball, your fitness in 10 minutes. And the idea behind it is if you can master your mindset in 10 minutes, and it involves basically getting off the couch warming up and committing to the workout in a 10 minute span, you can then achieve all the fitness results you want. So I would say a lot of what we talked about today are very similar to the public speaking aspect of I know one of them was called the beads you have, which I spoke at North Carolina convention last year, actually, it was being virtual, but the idea behind beads you have was because you have to become the person. And then you can do things to have what you want. And most people have that the opposite. They're like, I'm gonna do this. So I can have this and then I'll become this person once I have it. And it's actually you have to reverse engineer it. That system doesn't work as we've seen it considering our society, at least in the US our society right now is it's not working with fitness. So you have to become that person, which most people don't want to do or don't understand. Yeah. And then so it's the B do have method was something I talked about is becoming that person who works out becoming that person does that. So those are some topics I've talked about.

Philip Pape 39:23

That's another 10 minute methods that also related to the coaching calls you tend to do. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Just letting people know. And the beat you have it's funny I've I've interviewed a few people leading to this show. I don't think they're the episodes have come out yet. Of course they will once they see this show, but and it's like that common theme of I don't wanna say positive visualization. Again, that sounds like the the woowoo thing. But if you are somebody a year from now, now, then you're obviously not doing something that that person would do. Right? And that's kind of leading you to do Taking those actions, right? Like, it's almost like you were you've become, imagine if you become that person. And all of a sudden you were in a coma for a year, and you just stopped doing all the things that person would have been doing as part of their habits. Now, you just need to get back to that. It's like,

Scott Friedman 40:12

Yeah, I mean, basically, it's good point. Yeah.

Philip Pape 40:16

So the another question comes to mind then is mindset versus education, right? In your experience, talking to people in the seminars and talking to people in general? How many people just don't know things versus they know the things but need the mindset? Change?

Scott Friedman 40:31

Man is good question. I would say, it's gotta be it's not 5050. But it's pretty close, I would probably say 60%. You know, the issue is a lot of people who don't have the right mindset also don't have the right education. So it's kind of a mix, I would say the people that can literally just make a change, and it's just all in their head is probably about 50 or 40%, I would say 40% of them, like they can do it. I would say 60% need education, they just and they think they know, but when you when you know, for example, you go really into fitness, right? It's okay. Well, if you want to do hypertrophy, and you want to get X amount, how much do you how many calories above your maintenance? Level d of d? How do you find your maintenance level? Calorie? How many reps? How would you rest time in between? And they don't quite know that they know how to work out a new team. The new one? The I call them the basic nuances, because those are simple to figure out. Yeah, I don't I don't get into like the I don't get into the real end of the nuances. Yeah, I don't get into that. I think that's a waste of most people's time in the general population. But I think that the basic nuances are very important. Most people have elicited that. Now, I would say in between those, some people, they can at least go to the gym and lift weights, and they just don't quite know exactly how to put it together. So that answers your question.

Philip Pape 41:41

It does. And it's just I it's for selfish reasons. When I bring guys on this podcast, or ladies, it's I want to learn as much as I can to but hopefully listeners as well. Because, you know, we all have to put our reels out on Instagram. It's like, what do people really need? Do they need to shift their mindset? Do they need to know about macros, you know, or do they need to know about like, oh, what deficit to be at? Yeah, I know. Exactly. It's both. So thanks for letting me on that. All right. I actually do hear hear that. But it's just very subtle. i There's some construction going on with scotch right now. But we can't hear it.

Scott Friedman 42:13

There's a there's a fire truck right next door. And I'm like, great guy.

Philip Pape 42:17

That's what it is. It's the frequency of the siren. Yeah. All right. So the penultimate question I like to ask all guests is what one question. Did you wish I had asked him? What is your answer?

Scott Friedman 42:28

I mean, I think you I think you covered it. I mean, you covered? I mean, I'm not sure there's a question I wished you as I think we had a really good conversation on the mindset, maybe, you know, the only thing I didn't really cover was perception, creating reality. I think that if you're someone who works in corporate America, in which the vast majority are just you have a stressful job, okay? Or you have kids or you have this, like it's, I call it the red light effect. Most of us I have it too. And I'm not better than anyone else. It's just that everyone has it. But it's about the awareness of having it when I'm going to work, okay. And there are 15 red lights, and I hit, you know, seven green lights, eight red lights, what do you tell everyone that came into work? I had every frickin red light. You never acknowledge the positives in your life. Now you'll acknowledge everyone else is positive, except for your own your friend got a promotion, great job, your friend got a girlfriend, great job, you gotta raise. It's not that big a deal? No, you always were so negative towards ourselves. And so that creates the reality we live in. Because the reality is, you just said you missed every light, which is all 15 lights, but in reality is you basically were half and half green, and red. And that's how most life is most of its law, the law of large numbers is half and half, it's usually kind of how it breaks out. So my, the idea is, your perception creates your reality, whether you think it's woowoo, or guru or whatever, and you don't like that stuff. Just think about if you're negative all the time, and you don't you hate your body, you don't want to work out, it's going to create a self fulfilling prophecy where you're going to rationalize, well, I can't work, I'm busy. That's what the excuses come from. I'm too busy. I had a stressful day at work. I hate this. I mean, it's like if you've I've had clients who have, you know, they're a single mother or single father, with three kids on varsity sports, they gotta, and they still beat me to the gym. So it's like, I don't even understand. I'm like, to me, it's like, I understand there's going to be times you're left with things gonna be difficult, but long term, like, if you have a negative perception, that's going to create a negative reality, and that's going to create that constant loop that you're going to be in. And then it's very difficult to break that cycle. So I think that's one thing people fall into is they're so hard on themselves, but yet everyone else gets all the praise, like praise yourself first, like praise yourself feel good about what you're doing, like, oh my god, that's so great. And, and I have a hard time I have a very hard time taking any sort of appreciate. Oh my god, it's gonna be okay. Yeah, cool. Thanks. I don't I love it, but I'm like, I can't show that. I love it. It's weird. So, praise yourself. Appreciate the small wins because you're perception creates your reality. And if you're always negative, you're always doubting yourself. And if you're the workout, just hate that. It's not going to be you're not going to like it, you should be enjoying the beliefs, not hating the process wouldn't say enjoying it, but you should not be hating the process. And you should really focus on spinning that negative. I'm not saying fake Pat, don't fake positivity. Because, you know, if you tell yourself, no, I'm in shape, I'm in shape. I'm in shape, and you're not like you're just lying to yourself, and you know, you're lying to yourself. But if you can acknowledge successes, acknowledge where you're at, and create that silver lining for yourself and how you're going to improve. It will change your life.

Philip Pape 45:33

For sure. Yeah. And how I mean, so just maybe come up with every day or every week, what is one win for today? That happened to me, right, is that, you know, would you say that's an approach or you have other purchase?

Scott Friedman 45:44

If you wake up every morning, what I do every morning, right now, at least I'm attempting to do every morning is a wake up, what is one thing that I'm grateful for, and it can be anything in your life. Now again, if you're going for a specific goal, it can be for a goal but anything in your life, what am I grateful for? It can be it can let in Not to disparage anyone who doesn't have something but like it can be I'm grateful for having all 10 fingers, because now I can button my shirt easily without having a system like that. As simple as that is no one thinks about that until something happens. So it can be as that you have lights that you if you live in the US who have power this winter versus in Europe where they might not have power this way. Like there's certain things you can be grateful for. That may change the narrative, if you're looking for some sort of win and your goal. Yeah, what did you do yesterday that you'd be proud of and be grateful for the next day or be grateful for that night before you go to bed? Either way, when you wake up, go to bed? Yeah, be grateful. If you're grateful for something or one acknowledgement of winning, that can help break the cycle for sure. Awesome.

Philip Pape 46:35

Be grateful. Great way to end the podcast. I think last question would be then where can listeners learn about you and your work?

Scott Friedman 46:42

Oh, my gosh, it's everywhere now. So the power of progress, iTunes, Spotify. Google, we'll find we'll find you somewhere. iTunes Spotify at power of progress on their Instagram, Scott Friedman. 24. And then the website I have is Scott speaks fitness.com those are those are probably the three main places people can and feel free to reach out. I'm always available. I answer every DM that comes my way assuming it's reasonable. And so I'm pretty pretty open with everyone.

Philip Pape 47:09

Cool, everybody DM Scott right now. So his inbox gets flooded yet to be happy to help. I'll put those links in the show notes of the podcast, the website, Instagram listeners can find you. And again, Scott, thank you again, man. This is a really great talk. I had a lot of fun. Hope you did as well. Thanks for coming on. Oh,

Scott Friedman 47:26

absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Philip Pape 47:30

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 3/3/23 Philip Pape 3/3/23

Ep 49: Q&A - Bigger Glutes, Insulin Resistance, Carb Cycling, Refeeds, and Fat Intake for Hormones

In this Q&A episode, I answer five questions from members of the Wits & Weights Facebook community covering training, nutrition, and health.

This is another Q&A episode!

Today I’m answering five questions from members of the Wits & Weights Facebook community covering training, nutrition, and health.

Questions:

I want to build my glutes. How many times a week should I train them? Is once a week too little?
How would you train and coach someone differently who struggles with insulin resistance?
What do you think about carb cycling? Is it beneficial to load up on carbs and calories and reduce fat on the workout days (mostly before and after the heavy lifting session), and reduce carbs and calories a lot and increase fat on the non-lifting days, assuming you maintain protein and your weekly calorie deficit? I am aiming for body recomposition. Will I feel increased performance during workout and avoid metabolic adaptations?
Are refeeding days okay when you are in a fat loss phase? Like one day a week when you intentionally eat at maintenance as opposed to a deficit?
I have a client who has gastrointestinal issues from having her gallbladder removed and heard that fat intake shouldn’t be higher than 30%. The question is, how do I stay within that 30% if her body needs fat to produce hormones? She is suffering from poor digestion, falling asleep periodically and can’t sleep a full night. So I know there is a hormonal imbalance.

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At Wits & Weights, we help you achieve optimal health that fits your lifestyle—without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions. Philip Pape, host and certified nutrition coach, helps high-achieving people use their wits to build their body, reclaim their time, and gain control over food through one-on-one nutrition and lifestyle coaching.

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Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:31

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. This is another q&a episode. And today I'm answering five questions from members of the Wits & Weights, Facebook community, covering training, nutrition and health. You can find the group linked in the show notes or just search for Wits & Weights on Facebook. All right, let's just dive into today's questions. Question number one is from Christine y, who asks, I want to build my glutes. How many times a week should I train them is once a week too little? Okay, so when I think of a specific body part, my first question is going to be are you already working on the overall basic human movements before we start focusing on a specific body part. And what I mean by that are using compound lifts, like the squat, and like the deadlift that engage your full range of motion in a natural movement, using lots of muscle mass, because that will build overall strength and size in parallel, and will start to I guess, even out the various muscle imbalances that you start with as a beginner, and help you build that first base of strength and size. And then is when I would start to add in additional accessory movements and isolation movements. And from a programming perspective, if we start there, your question was is once a week, too little. And the way I like to look at it is overall sets during the week, as well as frequency. So overall sets, we're looking at somewhere between nine and 12 sets a week per major muscle group. And of course, the glutes are just part of the hip musculature. There's some tie ins with the hamstrings, there's an aspect of your lower back involved, etc. And different angles that you can hit it. So if you could work out directly once a week and indirectly once a week. That would be from a frequency perspective, a pretty effective training program. And you would either get that through full body work, or you're hitting it two or three times a week anyway through big movements. Or it could be something like a four day split, where two of those days are lower body, and you can use one of those to be more targeted. As far as each of those workouts, I'd like to see one compound lift in the quote unquote strength range like the four to six rep range. And then one or two variants of the lift or accessory slash isolation movements. You know, later on in the workout, it may not be back to back with that first movement. It may be after some other big heavy movements for your overall training. But that's the way I would look at it. So what does that look like a compound movement would be squat deadlift, in the four to six rep range. For example, a variant could be a Romanian deadlift, or a different form of a squat that emphasizes the hips, or even something like a leg press Believe it or not, because we are getting a little bit more into the hypertrophy bodybuilding discussion when we're saying, Let's emphasize a specific part of the body. Now, there are plenty of accessory movements for the glutes. Some things that I like include, of course, the classic hip thrusts that we can do with the barbell, but I also like barbell reverse lunges, I actually prefer those over the forward lunges, I think you can get a deeper stretch and it's a little bit more of a natural movement. To do it up properly. I think the forward lunge, sometimes the the knee relative to the foot is isn't a bad place for people to get a lot of stress on the knee. So I like the reverse lunge with a barbell. I also like barbells step ups, just doing some really heavy barbell step ups to a box that's reasonably high but not too high, can really smash your glutes. And then when you get to smaller isolation movements, we're looking at things like heavy kettlebell swings, or even cable pull throughs where you have a cable in the low position, and you use the rope attachment with the two handles kind of what people use for tricep pushdowns and it's between your legs and you're basically just pulling it out and coming to an upright position so that you squeeze the glutes. So those are just a bunch of different movements. You could just search online for you know best movements for the glutes and you'll find I in 20, different things. But I would have a compound lift in the four to six rep range, and then one or two variants in probably the eight to 12 rep range. But you can mix that up, you could go, you know, four to six, six to 810 to 15, depending on your programming style, what you're looking to accomplish. And the most important thing with all of this, of course, is progressive overload. So whatever you select, stick with it for a while. And while it could be something like four to eight weeks in your training cycle, and make sure to increase the weight over time, when you're working in a rep range, you want to pick a weight that's maybe toward the top of the rep range, and then you go up in weight each session, the reps come down, and then when you get to the bottom of that rep range, then you decrease the weight to a little bit more than what you were able to get for the top of the rep range to begin with. So you're kind of going up, up, up, then you're resetting but not as far down as you started and go up, up up, and then you're resetting. So it's kind of this up and down, but gradually, gradually increasing your maxes for all of those rep ranges, if that makes sense. Okay, so that is my answer to building your glutes. And let's move on to question two. Question two is from Kayla H, who asks, How would you train and coach someone differently who struggles with insulin resistance? Insulin resistance is usually associated with metabolic disease, which is pre diabetes, and ultimately leading to type two diabetes. And this is where there's too much glucose circulating and remaining in the blood. And I'm going to assume for this question that this person has not yet developed diabetes. And I hate to say yet, we don't want to do that we want to reduce the risk or just altogether prevent it. And if it's not too late, then we can definitely do that. Now, almost all the lifestyle principles that I would use with any client who wants to improve their health, for any reason, still apply, and are in fact, the primary factors in reducing risk outside of don't smoke, and outside of whatever your genetics are. Let's start with nutrition. On the nutrition side, we want to have nutrient dense, high fiber foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean animal products, we want to limit our saturated fat to maybe 10% of our calories, have plenty of protein, and limit our processed foods, we don't have to eliminate them, but somewhere between 10 and 20% of our overall calories. And these are just all the things that we shift toward when dialing in our macros, using a flexible dieting approach. And using strategies like managing hunger during a fat loss phase, that those things drive how we select foods, we don't use a, you know, good or bad food diet, we don't say this is excluded, we say, you know, enjoy the things you like, but limit them to 10 to 20% of the calories discretionary. And the rest is devoted to mostly Whole Foods, things that serve your goals, generally, animal sources of products for proteins, plant sources for micronutrients. And you limit things like saturated fat, and you're good. And this helps with everybody, including people who have an issue with insulin resistance. On the movement side. This is also extremely important besides the nutrition, we have, of course strength training, why would I not talk about strength training on this on this show, and going for walks every day. It's not just the step count, but making sure you get up and move every day, especially after you eat meals. Walking after a meal is highly effective for regulating blood sugar. So of insulin resistance, or the opposite of that, which is sensitivity, which is what you want, is a concern of yours than walk after meals, even for 10 minutes makes a huge difference. Strength training, of course, is also highly effective, because you add muscle mass and muscle mass increases insulin sensitivity. They're like your muscles are like a sink for energy. And building muscle is just one of the best things you could do for about just about every health marker you can think of, as we talked about all the time on the show. But even for insulin sensitivity, it's huge. It that combined with eating carbs regularly and throughout the day, actually will help with insulin sensitivity. Believe it or not, carbs are not your enemy in this regard. Now, here's another fun fact. High intensity interval training or HIIT can elevate blood sugar in the short term, but it actually lowers average blood sugar over the long term. So if you want to incorporate some hit sessions during the week as part of a cardio, slash calorie burn strategy, that's fine, you know, as we talked about on the show, don't overdo it with cardio, be strategic, limit it to that Less than half the time that you lift, but if you need it hit can be effective. Now, what's the common denominator here, that improving your body composition through training, movement, and a healthy dietary pattern are good for everyone. Whether you are at risk of diabetes, insulin resistance or not, it's good for everyone. And if you're not doing these things consistently, start there and then start to look at other things as needed. Okay, question three is from Christos D. who asks, What do you think about carb cycling? Is it beneficial to load up on carbs and calories and reduce fat on the workout days, mostly before and after the heavy lifting session, and reduce carbs and calories significantly and increase fat? On the non lifting days? Assuming you maintain protein and your weekly calorie deficit? I'm aiming for body composition, will I feel increased performance during workouts and avoid metabolic adaptations? Okay, I know there's a lot in that question. Basically, Christos is asking is Is carb cycling worth it? For performance, and to avoid adaptation? Okay, metabolic adaptation where our metabolism declines as we get further and further into a diet. So he's not asking about fat loss, we know that fat loss and weight loss are driven by your calorie deficit. And fat loss specifically is driven by the fact that you strength train and have sufficient protein, He's not asking about that, because if he were, I would say, there's absolutely no benefit in carb cycling whatsoever. He's asking about performance and adaptation. So the main reason someone would carb cycle, which is eating more carbs on Sundays than others is, all it is, is to stick to your diet. It's for psychological reasons for adherence. And carb cycling is just one form of a refeed, or what we call nonlinear dieting, where you just have different calories on different days, or different carbs in different days, or you take breaks, it's all really the same idea. Now, as far as performance, let's start there, the evidence, frankly, is neutral. So when you carb cycle, I want you to think about the overall effect on your week, when you're carb cycling, you're actually depriving yourself from the other days. So on your recovery days, where you're not training, you're now depriving yourself of energy, even though you of course have more glycogen and energy on training days. So because of that, there, it might be a wash, but you have to try it yourself, because for some people, there might be a small boost in performance. If you time it right, simply because you do have that extra glycogen uptake and storage from the carp. So it could help with performance, I'm not ruling it out, the evidence is kind of neutral. But again, n equals one, you've got to try it on yourself. As far as metabolic adaptation, there doesn't seem to be any benefit. Studies have looked at refeeds with the hypothesis that the extra influx of nutrition of energy would cause your hormones to readapt upward and this would shift your metabolism up and make you burn more calories. And then you can start from a higher starting point to continue a diet, for example. But it doesn't work. That way, it all nets out. When you go back to the diet, you readapt right back to where you were, there's only two ways to shift your metabolism, the permanent way to do it is to have more muscle mass. And of course, that takes time, the temporary way to do it is to burn more calories. But we want to do it strategically and intelligently with especially through walking primarily, if not a little bit of cardio here and there. But if you overdo it, you're gonna actually cause more adaptation. Anyway, having said all of that, there's very little upside. And it's probably neutral in terms of carb cycling. And the downside is the complexity is trying to track all of this and do it right, and then not only have the higher and lower days, but making sure they're lined up with your training days, which might move around depending on your schedule, and then what time in the day you train, it's a lot of stuff. If you want to experiment with it, this is how I would do it, I would just increase your deficit on low carb days. So make your low carb days even lower than they are today. And then your high carb days add more carbs in but still stay in a deficit. This is how you would have your your weekly calories overall, in the deficit you want to be without slowing down your fat loss, you're going to keep protein the same, you're going to keep fat around 25 30% of your calories. And then the rest comes from carbs. So when your high carb days, it's going to be like two to three times as many carbs as your low carb days when you do it this way. Now my clients pretty much do not carb cycle unless they just want to try it out for fun, or see if it helps their training as an experiment. Most of them do not and if they've tried it, they usually go back to even calorie distribution at the end of the day. I think that the timing of carbs is probably more beneficial than trying to cycle the them day after, you know, from one day to the next. And so making sure you have that pre workout meal in your system, or a decent amount of carbs at dinner the night before, if you train in the morning, I think is going to be more helpful for fueling that, that lifting session.

Philip Pape 15:18

Hey, this is Philip Pape. And if you feel like you've put in effort to improve your health and fitness, but aren't getting results, I invite you to apply for a one on one coaching to make real progress and get the body you desire. We'll work together to figure out what's missing so you can look better, perform better and feel better. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching, to learn about my program and apply today. Now back to the episode. All right, let's go to Question four is from Carol ah, who asks, are refeeding days Okay, when you're in a fat loss phase, like one day a week when you intentionally eat at maintenance as opposed to a deficit. So yes, they are perfectly okay. And a refeed days, really just another example of when you're talking about carb cycling, and you're just choosing to eat more on one day. So this is a non light lunch, non linear dieting approach where the main benefit is psychological. But again, like I said, for carb cycling, it could give you a short term boost in performance, you'd have to try it out performance and recovery. Especially if the timing, you know if it's like right before your heaviest lifting session or something like that. It is another form of a diet break. And the way you could do it is either go to maintenance on that day and keep the rest of the week the same, which would obviously reduce your weekly deficit just a bit, it would slow down your fat loss a bit. Or you can reduce all the other days to make up for the increase on that one day. And this would allow for a high calorie day or two days in a row, which for a lot of people that might be Saturday and Sunday, right? If you have your lifestyles such that you really wouldn't just eat more on the weekends. And your weekdays are routine, they're boring, you're busy or distracted, no big deal. And you can have a lot fewer calories during the week, go for it. That's sometimes I have clients do that intentionally as a one off, if they have a big event or party or wedding coming up on the weekend. And they sort of bank the calories during the week. It's the same thing except you just be doing it week after week. Now when you do this, those extra calories on the higher day should mainly come from carbs. And they naturally will because you're keeping protein roughly the same. And you're just increasing your calories, which is going to come from a little bit from fats, but mostly from carbs. And that's again, because of the energy because of the recovery, because of the what we call anti catabolic effect the protective effect against muscle loss. But again, it doesn't matter if you do that versus have the same calories and carbs each day of the week. It's mainly for psychological reasons and a potential boost to performance. And then lastly, there's no metabolic or hormonal benefit to this strategy. Okay. And keep in mind, you're going to see larger swings in your daily weigh ins when you do this, right. If you have one day that's like a spike in carbs, you potentially could have a higher weigh in the next day or the day after that. You might not I mean, everybody's different, but just look out for that, and really stay focused on the long term. All right. Our last question. Question number five is from Travis a, who asks about a client who has gastrointestinal issues from having her gallbladder removed. And he heard that fat intake shouldn't be higher than 30%. The question is, how do I stay within that 30% and her body needs fat to produce hormones. She's suffering from poor digestion, falling asleep periodically and can't sleep a full night. So I know there's a hormonal imbalance. Alright, Travis, my first question is how she actually had her hormone levels checked to conclude that there's an imbalance because I actually see several red flags here that have nothing to do with the fat intake, for example, I see issues with food quality and fiber potentially, if she has poor digestion, she might have some sleep issues that come down to her activity and her sleep hygiene, like her pre bed ritual. You know, the use of screens before bed, things like that. And of course, whether she has strength training and walking regularly, all of which can significantly mitigate health issues before we look at other factors like a hormonal imbalance. You know, I usually like to deal with all of that with a client for about a six to 10 week period and get everything lined up nutritionally and movement wise, before I look at anything else, because generally that's where the answer is going to be for most people. The other question is, Is she eating enough? So if she's been in a diet for a while or been yo yo dieting and very restricted and adapted at this point. And then that definitely could cause issues with hormones, not a hormonal imbalance, just the downregulation that naturally occurs from not eating enough. And I would have read at maintenance for a few months, while putting in place all the things right the proper strength training, the movement, the sleep, self care, you know, self, self care, nutrition, and hydration. Now, the premise of the question, specifically is that intake below 30% of your calories as fat is detrimental to hormones, when in reality, the minimum intake is far lower, it's closer to 10%. And it's probably even lower depending on what calorie level you're at. But someone with an optimized diet can still be consistently around 15 to 20% of their calories from fat without any detrimental effects. This is both men and women. The studies have shown there's such variation between individuals that you can't distinguish recommendations between men and women. Long story short, the issue here is not insufficient fat intake for hormone health. It's all these other factors that need to be worked on. And I think that's where most people struggle to be consistent. You want to get her moving, because walking can be helpful for digestion as well. And definitely get her strength training, getting enough protein, selecting high quality foods for 80 to 90% of our intake all these other things and I think this quote unquote hormonal imbalance from fat intake would probably in mysteriously go away. That's my guess if you start there. All right. That does it for today's q&a episode. If you enjoy this episode, let me know by leaving a five star review with Apple or your favorite podcast app. If you're using an Apple just go to the Wits & Weights Show page scroll down to the bottom select five stars and tap write a review. And also here's here's a bonus I will read your comments on air in a future episode. If you go ahead and post a screenshot of your review to your social account of choice and tag me at Wits & Weights. As always, thank you so much for listening, and stay strong. 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 2/28/23 Philip Pape 2/28/23

Ep 48: Overcome Any Obstacle and Stay Fit While Thriving with a Disability with Kevin McShan

A few months ago, I joined Kevin McShan on his incredible and prolific podcast, Let’s Have This Conversation, and he returned the favor to talk about how to thrive while living with a disability. Through Kevin’s experience in sports, journalism, podcasting, and advocating for those with disabilities, he brings an exciting blend of education, experience, and entertainment to the motivational speaking industry.

A few months ago, I joined Kevin McShan on his incredible and prolific podcast, Let’s Have This Conversation, and he’s returning the favor today to talk about how to thrive while living with a disability.

Kevin McShan is a graduate of St. Clair College’s Journalism, Print and New Media Program. Kevin has an extensive history of promoting employment equality for individuals with disabilities most recently, as the Job Developer and Enhanced Employer Support Facilitator with the YMCA of Windsor-Essex County. He also continues the effort of promoting inclusion for people with disabilities through his motivational speaking efforts.

Through Kevin’s experience in sports, journalism, podcasting, and advocating for those with disabilities, he brings an exciting blend of education, experience, and entertainment to the motivational speaking industry.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Kevin's story and how he brings seemingly unlimited energy to the world
Advice for someone facing adversity to overcome any obstacle
How business leaders and individuals can foster a culture of inclusion and diversity
How to achieve equity and equality for individuals with disabilities in the workplace
How to thrive while living with a disability
How to stay physically active while living with a disability
Why fitness is so important
Unique nutritional considerations to complement fitness and lifestyle
Kevin's advice for someone living with a disability on how to get started with fitness
What he has learned from producing so many podcast episodes and talking with so many people

RELATED LINKS

Kevin's website - kevinmcshan.com
Find Kevin on Twitter - @McShan819
Download the Lets Have This Conversation podcast
Check out the Lets Have This Conversation YouTube channel
Watch the episode on video here

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Become a supporter with a subscription (and get a shout out!)

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:30

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. I had the pleasure of meeting Kevin MC Shan as a guest on his his powerful prolific podcast let's have this conversation. And unfortunate he's joining me on the show to talk about how to thrive while living with a disability. Kevin MC Shan is a graduate of St. Clair College's journalism, print and new media program. He has an extensive history of Promoting Employment Equality for individuals with disabilities, most recently as the job developer and enhanced Employer Support Facilitator with the YMCA of Windsor Essex County. Kevin also continues the effort of promoting inclusion for people with disabilities through his motivational speaking efforts. Through his experience in sports, journalism, podcasting, and advocating for those with disabilities. Kevin brings an exciting blend of education experience and entertainment to the motivational speaking industry. Kevin, thank you, man so much for coming on the show. Phil, I'm delighted to be with you this afternoon. And I'm excited to engage in conversation, my friend always great to see you. And thank you for a few minutes. Absolutely. Likewise, man, I think this is gonna be a fun time and the listeners really going to learn a lot about a topic. We haven't really dived into today, what we're going to blend discussion of fitness with living with disability and a little of everything the conversation takes us to. So you know, let's just start off with you've got this seemingly unlimited energy, at least the way I see it. And you're bringing all this information and impact to the world. When we recorded your the episode for your podcast. On that day, you told me it was the fifth recording for the day. So immediately, I was impressed by your hustle your work ethic. And my question is, who is Kevin mission? And how do you do it?

Kevin McShan 02:19

First of all, I'm severely

Kevin McShan 02:24

overqualified to be on this podcast. But

Kevin McShan 03:22

should have a platform to share their story and espouse their views. And my wanting to have conversations is because I want people to be

Kevin McShan 03:39

connected in terms of building bridges of inclusion, acceptance, and diversity. So I'm all about bringing people together and having conversations that move the needle of progress forward. Awesome. I don't think anybody can really argue with that. And I really appreciate your podcast. Sometimes you put out a couple episodes in one day or more. And it's amazing the diversity of guests and topics that you cover.

Philip Pape 04:06

Let's get in a little bit to the specific topic today, which is really about overcoming obstacles, which I think is something you've obviously done. Like you said, you take control of the situation rather than letting it control you. What's your advice when someone is faced with that kind of adversity in their life, whether whether it's a disability or really any obstacle? Well, I'll show a quick story. So So I have an identical twin brother Keith and I were both born with cerebral palsy. We were also born three months premature, my friends. So I always overcome obstacles in my life. And you know, people often tell me that I'm an inspiring person, and I simply tell them that I live my life. But to answer your question more directly, I think overcoming adversity lies in response to whatever the advice

Kevin McShan 05:00

Our city is we're all going to experiences, challenge and tribulations in life. And no matter how big and small, it all depends on the quality of the response and the commitment to sort of reinvent yourself with ossicles happen because, you know, fly foam has happened and strengthen their online, but would be very, very boring. So my advice to people is use adversity as a chance to grow and overcome their fears in life. And also expand again, that diversity of perspective.

Philip Pape 05:46

Yeah, I love that reinventing yourself. Because, I mean, everybody is faced with obstacles of some kind or another, it's not, you know, obviously, I can't fully appreciate what you've had to go through, but I and others, and everybody on the planet has had things that they've faced, and it's their personal story and their personal struggle they've had to get over. So that idea of what do you do to mold yourself around the obstacle, because you can't change the situation around you, but you can change your situation is a really great message. So one of your missions is to promote the inclusion that you were talking about for people with disabilities in the employment side, you know, I want to get into that a little bit before we then tie it more into the fitness. But how do business leaders how do individuals foster that culture of inclusion and diversity to achieve that mission? Yeah, no,

Kevin McShan 06:33

Phil, I Oh, I always said starts with engage, engaging in a process of fostering the commitment. What I mean by that is, you don't have to create the conditions in order for something to happen. And while you know, it's one thing to put at the end of a job description, we're committed to being an equal opportunity employer or that we commit to diversity, if you don't actually do it. So it starts with a commitment to the process of engagement in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I also think it's a commitment to the realization of sort of embracing the process of education, you know, employers don't know what they don't know, right. And so, in order to embrace a new culture, you have to come with an open mind to learn and growing and experiencing new things. You know, here in Canada, Phil Ivey, federal government tells us that 59% of folks with disabilities are unemployed compared to 80% of their non disabled counterparts. So it starts with a commitment to the process of inclusion and always be open to the prospect of education, knowledge, and awareness. Because, you know, I always say that life is a constant game of learning, and it never ends. But one of the mottos that I live my life by is the day you stop learning, they die, no matter how much money you make, or how much experience you have, he could always learn something new from somebody else.

Philip Pape 08:28

Absolutely. Yeah. You don't know what you don't know. So it's almost like you embrace the fact that there's this this ignorance that we all have, and it's okay. And we need to learn and be aware and seek out that knowledge. I think, you know, avenues like your podcast, and others are one way to do it. But of course, going out and reaching these, these companies and businesses, like you do is even a more active, proactive way to do that. Now, inclusion is one thing, but I think equality is another maybe there's a nuanced difference between the two, when we talk about equality. So how do we achieve equity and equality for individuals with disabilities in the workplace?

Kevin McShan 09:04

You don't fill out with that. Talent is equally distributed. Oh, come on, are they but sometimes opportunity isn't. So it starts again, with a commitment to the opportunity of advancement. If you commit to fostering the opportunities, then increase the equity. So it starts with a commitment to that opportunity, and embracing the concept of advancement.

Philip Pape 09:31

Okay, yeah, equal opportunity, which then leads to quality. Very cool. So Kevin, I do want to talk about fitness. That's what this podcast is primarily about. And I know it's important to you just as it is to me and the viewers and listeners of the show. So how do you thrive while living with a disability?

Kevin McShan 09:49

You don't fill just before I jumped on this podcast, but I went through physiotherapy this morning. So just a little bit about the inner market. because of my disability, you know, one of the side effects of my disability feel is that my muscles contract faster than most people. So if I don't exercise and if I don't use them, I lose them faster I'm because of the disability and getting older. So walking, swimming, stretching during hamstring stretches is big for me, I'm big into lifting weights. I love to swim, as I said, and, you know, one of the tenants of my life is always active field because I found out at nine years old, from the doctor that did mine did my last surgery and all of the surgeries for my disability that I wouldn't be able to walk without the assistance of a walker, and I wouldn't be able to get around without a wheelchair. But being physically active, being physically active is vitally important to me, because it's a chance for me to continue, continue to continue towards the commitment and conversation of progress. So one of the tenants that I live my life by is always active, I challenge myself to be at least 10 minutes active each day, whether that's one thing lead, whether it's walking, whether it's. So one of the tenants that I live, my life by again, is always active. And I challenge myself to get at least 10 minutes a day of exercise,

Philip Pape 11:43

that I wish everybody did that no matter who they are getting whatever amount of activity every day, like you said, is so important. So I want to dig in a little more tell us about what kind of movements you incorporate. I mean, is there kind of a program you follow for, let's say, the lifting weights, in terms of maintaining strength, for example.

Kevin McShan 12:03

Yeah, so I live between weights between 10 and 25 pounds on a regular basis, just so that I have some level of consistency. I also have a big Walker, because movement, for me is important. Moving my hamstrings is important, I love to swim through because, you know, when you swim, the GrabIt is last and part of so part of my disability, I have a lot of lactic acid, my hamstrings and that just because of the tightness of the hamstring, so many of those swelling, right until the gravity of sort of the ground is lifted and my muscles are are freer. That makes sense. So I'm a big swimmer, like lifting weights, as I said, and walking is a regular part of my fitness record.

Philip Pape 13:02

Now, this is an interesting question came to mind for me, because you have a, you have a situation, the situation you exist in because of your condition makes it that much more critical and important that you do these things. But are there other drivers you have? Right? Because not everybody is can be driven necessarily by the same purpose their entire life? And I'm just curious, you know, is fitness important to you for any other reasons?

Kevin McShan 13:26

Oh, well, Fitness is important to me feel because I want to live. And, you know, Fitness is important to me. Because, you know, it's another way to lead by the example of your actions. And you know, you know, I always tell people, I don't do things that I will, I wouldn't ask others to do things that I'm not willing to do. So Fitness is important to me, and only telling you by example, but also to live a higher quality of life because you know, you only have a one chance to do this grand experiment of life. And I want to maximize the moment, you know, when I talk to businesses or people as a motivational speaker, Phil, I always tell them to maximize their own higher potential, whatever that means with that person is what that means for that person. And the second thing I always say, Phil, is that the only level of expectations that you have to live on your own because if you don't have a personal level of expectations, it's hard to measure up or be inspired to reach a second milestone that somebody else said for you. So it's always important to set your own level of expectations, isn't it?

Philip Pape 14:55

Absolutely. I love everything you're saying. It's just great. I can see why you're a motivational speaker. it because Kevin, I mean, talking about having personal standards and living up to those and the high quality of life. I mean, these are, these are great messages for people out there. Because there's plenty of people who are just aren't active, and they have the potential there, whether it's whether it's strength, whether it's movement, and it's a, it's a relative change. So what they're doing today, right, I mean, if you, if you currently don't walk, well maybe walk for five minutes, if you currently walk for 20 minutes a day, maybe you could do 30. So that's a great message. Hey, this is Philip Pape. And if you feel like you've put in effort to improve your health and fitness, but aren't getting results, I invite you to apply for a one on one coaching to make real progress and get the body you desire. We'll work together to figure out what's missing so you can look better, perform better and feel better. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching, to learn about my program and apply today. Now back to the episode. The align with the nutrition or the fitness side is the nutrition side. Are there unique nutritional considerations you have to complement your fitness lifestyle?

Kevin McShan 16:03

Well, first and foremost, Phil, I always say when people ask me about nutrition, everything in moderation, right? So and you know, one of the one of the things that I have to learn is, just because the apple pies in the fridge doesn't always mean I have to eat it right now. But to answer your question, in terms of fitness, I tried to eat a lot of protein, and drink a lot of Malcolm elcas Something that's important to me, because it helps to strengthen my bone density. I drink a lot of milk, you know, apples and grapes, and I'm a big fruit guidance in terms of that. As I said, I did a lot of protein, I had chicken pasta for once today. So I do a lot of chicken and rice and all of that stuff. So I always tell myself, if you know, if I want to live in extra five minutes, it's important to always know what I'm putting in my body and the results that come from putting it in to the system, right? Because once it goes in, it's hard to get it out. So it's always important to know what you're putting in and, you know, salary and carrots, something that I enjoy eating as well, for sure.

Philip Pape 17:32

I can't disagree with anything there, man, you've got all the delicious ingredients that we talk about the protein fruits, vegetables, fiber, milk is great. Yeah, good stuff, man. So if somebody is listening right now, and they're, and specifically, they're in a situation where they have a disability, and they don't know how to get started in improving their physical health, what would be your advice for them?

Kevin McShan 17:57

Well, first, I would say you're committed to the commitment. You know, every disability is different, you know, I was fortunate enough that the level of disability that I have, still allows me to talk, walk and, and move around. So first of all, be committed to the commitment that you're going to make to your health. Because if you are not committed, it's hard to have a sustainable future in your health journey. So that's the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say is go at your own pace. Because each disability is different. And everybody's level of success is, is different. You know, I always say painting a portrait of success is different from all of us. And as I said, previously, set your own level of expectations, because that'll keep you accountable and keeping you motivated and invested in your own process.

Philip Pape 19:14

So set your set your expectations, remain committed and go at your own pace. I think that last one or the one about going at your own pace is really important message. Because people try to take on too much at once I think or, you know, they they want that instant gratification of getting the result. And they say okay, well I have to go from you know, I get 2000 steps a day. So I'm gonna go to 12, right, or I get five hours of sleep and I'm gonna go to eat. So is there. If we dig into that just one more level? How does somebody do that? In terms of, you know, going at their own pace? Are there specific actions you recommend or an approach?

Kevin McShan 19:51

So the first thing I would say is hold yourself accountable to a schedule like I mentioned. Before I challenge myself to be at least 10 minutes active the day, obviously, I think you're wrong. Or if I'm walking, for example, or, for example, when I go swimming, I try to go for between 45 minutes to an hour. And you know what one thing that people don't know, Phil is may not know is if you exercise more regularly, it helps with, at least for me, it helps with sleep, overall quality of life. So if you want pieces of advice, know that exercise helps you to elevate the quality of every aspect of your life, I would say that would be my overall arching message is dependent on the quality of life that you want to live will determine the amount of, or the level of commitment that you're willing to put into something.

Philip Pape 21:06

Yeah, that's awesome. So if you want a high quality life, and you're listening, as much as you can invest in yourself, when it comes to movement, exercise, nutrition, you're gonna get out of it. And it's much bigger than the short term goal, right? It's much bigger than the day to day it's, it's it's committing to it and scheduling it in, like Kevin mentioned, and focusing on what it can do for you overall. So I love that you've been getting more sleep because you exercise everything's interrelated. That's great. So, your, your podcast, let's have this conversation. I think it's around 600 episodes now. And the topics. It is right, it's just, I don't know how many you put out a year, but it's a lot. The topics are very wide ranging. And the mission is to provide a thought provoking experience, which I think you succeed at regularly. So my question is, what have you learned from the experience of producing so many episodes with so many people?

Kevin McShan 22:04

is either a labor of love or insanity? No? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for the question. So the podcast is two episodes, giant 600 episodes. And, you know, I started the podcast because I wanted to have a vehicle or a platform that built bridges of inclusion. You know, Phil, when I started the podcast, I looked at society. And I said, there are far too many sort of vehicles that Interpol us polls apart. So I wanted to start the can start the conversation or start the podcast, because I wanted to have a platform to move the needle of progress forward. And to answer your question more specifically. So number one lesson that I've learned hosting the podcast now for almost two and a half years, I started that venture in May of 2020. And is to really value the diversity of perspectives. Because even the viewpoints that I may disagree with, that I allow the space to be broadcast on my podcast, it's important to have people that you agree with and have people that you disagree with, because it broadens your diversity of perspective. So the answer to the question is the number one lesson that I've learned is to embrace the quality of diversity of perspective.

Philip Pape 23:52

Yeah, and I think that's something a lot of us have to work on, myself included, when I just reflect on what you just said, and bring guests on to my show, you know, am I am I just looking for people who agree with what I say? Or am I really trying to bring on those perspectives so that we can have that deeper dialogue and allow people to draw their own conclusions from that? So you know, giving me something to think about as well. I do like to ask this question of all guests. And that is one question. What one question Did you wish I'd asked and what is your answer?

Kevin McShan 24:22

That's a fabulous question. You know, for me, you know, Phil, I'm all was about challenging myself to be 1% Better than I was the day before. And you know, why, to me is a fragile gift. You know, we're, we're all here for a very short amount of time, and no matter how long we live, and for me, life is about making the most impact for the most people like Ken, because life is all about impact. If you're not working towards increasing the amount of personal and professional impact on others, then you'll live a very selfish and non fulfilling lives. So it's important to me to continue the conversation of progress, and to challenge myself to be 1% Better than I was the day before. So, you know, one of the questions that I always asked my pod testing yesterday, I think I asked you this question, when you were on my show is, how do you celebrate, celebrate the wins in life, because, you know, celebrating the wins in life is important. Because, you know, we're also on to the next thing, and this, it's ratification society, but it's important to celebrate wins in life. And I tried to, to do that. Some days better than others. But, you know, celebrating wins in life is important. And also celebrating the progress towards prosperity that we've all made is also important, isn't it? Yeah, for sure.

Philip Pape 26:17

Be right, because we can get cynical and negative. And we we don't often reflect on the great things that not only are we achieving, but the impact we're making on people. This reminds me of another guest who came on and talked about gratitude. And he was saying that, you know, we often express gratitude for for other things when we do that, but don't often express gratitude for ourselves. And I think I can tie that to the to what you were just saying, How does somebody get up in the morning? Who's had, but for lack of a better word, they just had a rough week? How do they ask the question of themselves that triggers the thought of that those wins? Like, how do you ask yourself? Did I have a win?

Kevin McShan 26:57

You know, I'm reminded of a guest that I interviewed. His name is Travis Shelton, and Travis is a financial coach. And he said, reading, reading my personal story and watching videos on me, you know, he said, there was one overriding theme that he admired about men, and he said, it was the fact that I keep moving forward. You know, or one of the mottos of my life is, you know, I'm not a huge fan of excuses, because I think excuses are determined to progress and artificial reasons not to progress in life. So I think if you're having a bad day or having a bad week, it's all about keep moving forward and keep, keep trying to strive for whatever the definition of prosperity, prosperity is that you have for your life. So keep moving forward, always look for ways to maximize the moment of potential and didn't pack for sure.

Philip Pape 28:22

Keep moving forward, each day's a new day. Whatever happened in the past is almost irrelevant to today. Right? I think another guests that I interviewed also use the phrase, the futures a string of today's right. So I think that really resonates with me, Kevin, I want to thank you for coming on the show and give you the opportunity to let listeners know where they can learn more about you and your work.

Kevin McShan 28:44

Well, Phil, I think I said at the beginning of this podcast that I was overqualified, I meant to say that I'm,

Philip Pape 28:52

I knew that I knew what you meant no worries.

Kevin McShan 28:57

On the show, but I want to thank you for giving me the space to engage in conversation today. It's most appreciated. Great to see you. And for anyone that wants to learn more about me they can find all of the information about my life and my journey at Kevin mccann.com They can also find the podcast wherever you get your podcast is for let's have this conversation. The show's YouTube channel is just let let's have this conversation. If you type that in my name afterwards, all my stuff comes out. So it was a delight to be with you. I want to remind your audience to always maximize the moment because Phil you never know who's watching, right?

Philip Pape 29:46

You never know maximize the moment no excuses and each day is a new new day to maximize your potential. So, Kevin, you know, I'll definitely add the links to your your website, Kevin mcshane.com. And I want everybody here to subscribe to the lesson. Have a conversation podcast. It was really a joy talking to you again, hearing this unique, inspirational motivational perspective and kind of opening my eyes to your experience of living with a disability because I really didn't know much about that. And from the fitness and nutrition side. Thanks again, man for taking the time to come on the show I wish you the best with with everything.

Kevin McShan 30:19

Well, Phil, it was always an honor to be with you this afternoon. And I appreciate the platform and space to share a little bit about my personal journey. So it was great to see you and I hope I added value to your audience. I want to wish you the best of luck with the show. I think you're doing amazing work and I'm glad that we got a chance to be in each other's that works. And I look forward to my continued friendship, my friend best of luck with the podcast and all of your other endeavors. And again, thanks for having me. It's most appreciated.

Philip Pape 30:59

Likewise, Kevin, very much a pleasure. 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 2/21/23 Philip Pape 2/21/23

Ep 47: Upgrade Your Fitness, Health Relationships, and Communication with Carl Berryman

This one is for all the men listening to the show. I am joined by my man Carl Berryman for a conversation about being a man, from fitness to communication to expressing your feelings and everything in between. Carl is a Personal Trainer turned Men’s Movement Advocate. He is a man who had his world crumble around him, was able to put back the pieces, and simply wants to share his strategies for success so that other men don’t have to suffer the same fate he did.

This one is for all the men listening to the show. I am joined by my man Carl Berryman for a conversation about being a man, from fitness to communication to expressing your feelings and everything in between.

You MUST check out Carl's podcast, Inspired by Impact, where he delves into all areas of your life to apply the strategies you learn in the gym OUTSIDE the gym to be a better man.

Carl is a Personal Trainer turned Men’s Movement Advocate. He is a man who had his world crumble around him, was able to put back the pieces, and simply wants to share his strategies for success so that other men don’t have to suffer the same fate he did.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Carl's background from personal trainer to Men's Movement Advocate
The concept of the Mental Muscle-Up
Why men make up 80% of suicides
Why women initiate 70% of divorces
What's wrong with the fitness industry
Why men don't know how to communicate with their partners
Why men can't express their feelings
What emotional intelligence means for a man
Getting into the best shape of your life
The importance of accountability for self and loved ones; shouldering suffering
What Carl does for fun
The best books for men to become better men

RELATED LINKS

Find Carl on Instagram - @ignitetheimpact
Download the Inspired by Impact podcast
Watch the episode on video here

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:31

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. This one is for all the guys listening to the show because I am joined by Carl Berryman, for a conversation about being a man from fitness to communication to expressing your feelings and everything in between my guests, Carl is a personal trainer turned men's movement advocate. Carl's a man who had his world crumbled around him, was able to foot back to pieces and simply wants to share his strategies for success. So other men don't have to suffer the same fate. He did. Carl, man, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you so much, Philip. I'm really looking forward to this after hearing some of your podcasts already. So this is gonna be it'll be great. And I appreciate that that you're listening to. We've been going back and forth before the show. And I'm excited for today because we're going to cover some new ground for us. I've had a lot of women come on and talk about women's issues. And now we're going to dive into the other side of the equation which is relevant to me and a lot of listeners. Let's just start with your story. You know, you were a personal trainer, you're now a men's movement advocate. So who is Carl Berryman? And what is your mission? What's your purpose in life?

Carl Berryman 01:37

Okay, well really, really simply the longest story short possible. what my purpose is, is the way that I phrase it in my head is to inspire the dreams of humanity through the living my own and help other men or people around the world ignite the impact they wish to see in their world. Really simple. And so to put it really, really short in 2020 was December 4 2020. Actually, I had a really harsh wake up call in terms of how much my life was so far from where I wanted to be. And what spawned that was I got up and I decided I was going to get a jump on the New Year's resolution. Keep in mind, I've been a personal trainer for it's coming up 12 years now. So I wasn't in horrible shape, but I wasn't how I want it to be like there was still some room for improvement.

Carl Berryman 02:27

So I got up December 4 2020 took a glamour shot in the mirror with my shirt off. And I didn't realize like I went to put it in a folder in my phone. And I didn't realize I'd taken a shot the exact same day the year before. But I hadn't taken a picture in between. And the pictures looked exactly the same. I was like, wow, I went an entire year thinking I was crushing my nutrition and my fitness and gone nowhere. So that was really humbling. And I don't know why. But a voice inside me asked me, Carl, if you've been deluding yourself with regards to your fitness, where else are you deluding yourself. And I found out it was everywhere. And inside of my romantic relationship with my partner, Jenny Lee, we become roommates instead of partners were Yeah, we were good friends and everything. And there was no animosity, but there was no passion, there was no excitement, like intimacy was few and far between, and battled with depression really, really hard to the point where there were many, many mornings where I just couldn't get myself out of bed in the morning to the point where if I had clients, I would text them that my dog was sick or something like this. So ashamed of how depressed I felt, even though I was living my purpose because I had quit my job four years prior to pursue my purpose of personal training. And it was a hardcore wake up call. And at that point, I decided, okay, I really first of all need to get my body in check. So I did some very simple shifts and ended up having a radical transformation in a very short period of time. And then at the end of that I asked, okay, well, if I could do it with my body, can I do it with my relationships? Can I do it with my mental and emotional health? And can I do it with my sense of purpose? So all I did was I took the strategies and the principles that worked inside the gym, applying them outside the gym, and boom, transformation. And it was, it was pretty cool. All right, yeah. And I love that we're gonna get into all that. And I want to just address one thing you mentioned there a lot of people talk about if they went a year, right, and they took a photo of themselves a year later, I imagine most people would say, okay, maybe I've gotten heavier, I've gotten bigger and I kind of know that I was doing stuff that maybe led to that right. And you had this maybe different perspective of thinking you were doing all the right things and then didn't change at all. And so before we get into the all the not in the gym, just real quickly in the gym. I'm just curious, what are the secrets that you discovered that that small changes that you made for that transformation? Well, the big one, the biggest mistake was staring me right in the face and

Carl Berryman 05:00

That for me, there's, in order to make any transformation that goes for in the gym and outside the gym, there's four key components that I found work for me. And it's measure, measure, manage, test and track. So what am I measuring? Like, specifically, what do I want to measure and I, I don't use weights, I imagine maybe during this conversation or if you would be so kind to come on my podcast, we're going to talk about the whole weight loss thing. I'm those are dirty words for me, but I get it. But anyway, so I don't focus on weight, I wanted to focus on putting on muscle and my the amount of definition which to me made sense to literally track the amount of pounds I had that were muscle, and the definition that I saw when I looked in the mirror. So I just started tracking that stuff on a weekly basis taking the glamour shot, so I could see if I was making changes. So that was as measuring and then managing was probably the most important part for me managing is all about, okay, I know what mistakes I'm gonna make in advance. I know the excuses I have for not going to the gym, I know the excuses I have for having pizza, instead of making a home cooked meal instead of going and stopping at the drive thru instead of waiting till I get home to have the food that I've spent hours prepping. And now I'm gonna have to throw out because I have no self discipline to not stop at the drive that I know those excuses. So how can I manage them in advance? And this is something you talked about in your episode number 30 With regards to moving into the intellect, part of forming habits, right? So that's what I did that was the most important part was figuring out what are the mistakes that I make the most often? And how can I make those mistakes hard to make? And that changed everything? So I Alright, love it, ya know, a couple of couple things you touched on too. I would like to get detail on those if we could. But like you said, we can do another podcast about like body composition and weight and stuff. But I'm curious when you say you measured the amount of muscle being gained. So to me if I did that, it would be either trying to estimate my lean mass based on body fat, or using something like circumference measurements combined with performance and maybe photos. I mean, what what of those did you actually use?

Carl Berryman 07:05

For muscle mass, specifically, I have a scale called the renforth scale. And that tracks all the stuff right. But what I did, the day before I got the Renfrow scale is I went somewhere here in Winnipeg called body measure. And I did a DEXA scan DEXA DEXA scan is the gold standard for knowing what's going on inside your body. So after I got my DEXA scan results, I compared those to the Renfrow to see how accurate was and they were pretty bang on like it was the difference was negligible. So therefore I just started using the Renfrow scale to track the amount of lean muscle and body fat and everything that I had. So yeah, cool. Yeah. In the way I say it is like even if the number, the absolute number is not precise for you, it's going to change predictably, like, you know if it goes up 3% or down 3% pretty much changed by that amount for you. That's exactly, yeah, that's Yeah, as long as you have that reference point. That's why whenever I had clients were like, should I use a scale at home? Or should I use the scale of the gym? I said, Oh, no care. Just use the same one. All the same one. Same condition. Same one. Yeah. All right. So in your I want to get into the morning muscle, I want to understand what this is all about. I did listen to your show. In the episode why most men fail, most men fail being the man. And this is for people listening to the inspired by the impact podcast that that you run that you have. You introduced the concept of the morning muscle up. So what is that? So

Carl Berryman 08:31

the morning muscle up has now been switched to the mental muscle

Philip Pape 08:34

because you can edit that out.

Carl Berryman 08:37

I say the morning because for me, I if I want to make sure I 100% get something done. It has to get done in the morning. Otherwise, willpower, which is an exhaustible resource runs out and then I find excuses and it doesn't get done. However, one of my best friends Jeff, who is a new father is son Nixon's like three months old. He's like, Carl, I barely get any sleep. I can't do this in the morning. Is it? Okay, if I do this when Nixon goes to bed at night? As long as I'm doing the things in the next 24 hours? And yeah, absolutely. It's like, then you should change it to the mental muscle up. I'm like, Alright, so I'll do that. Well, none of it makes sense. The mental muscle up really was what it is, is it's a cure for something that I was struggling with hardcore pretty much my entire adult life in that I've been a self help and personal development junkie for the last I'm 43. Now, since I was 19 years old. And I found that no matter how many books I read podcasts, I listened to courses, I took all that jazz. I wasn't seeing the change that I wanted to make. But then when I took a real look in the mirror, it's like Carl, you're consuming a lot of content, but you're not really doing anything with it. You're getting motivated and you're getting ideas but either a those ideas are never getting started or be you're never following through on some like okay, well how do I stop this? So what I did was a couple of years.

Carl Berryman 10:00

ago I started a journaling process where I would just ask myself for questions for questions like, say, if I'm listening to one year podcasts, and I did it. What's the fourth on Wednesday, I've got actually created my own journal magnate, the impact journal. And so the other day, I took something from your podcast and ran it through here, because I was inspired by something that was shared in your podcast, and I didn't not want to take action on. So I have what's in here called the notable, quotable. So it's usually just a quote that you get from a book or a podcast and you guys talked about the extinction protocol. And I loved that. I love that that resonated with me big time. I'm like, Okay, well, what can I do to implement this in the next 24 hours? So question, one inside of the mental muscle up is what your situation? In other words, you're defining the problem that you have. And you're phrasing in the form of a question so that at the end of this, you can come up with an answer to that question. And so really long story short on this one, what I came up with was, over the holidays, I told myself that I was going to not be so adherent to my nutrition plan.

Carl Berryman 11:07

And I went completely off the rails, completely off the rails. And it was, it's not awesome, and it's not who I know I am. And it's not who I want to be. And I made excuses. And I fell for those excuses. I told him, I rationalized it like crazy. And sure enough, two weeks a holidays, the next glamour shot does not look how I wanted to look. And I didn't want to let that happen, because I could have managed it better. So taking your extinction protocol into play. What I did was, rather than looking at the foods I wanted to extinct, I looked at the excuses that I wanted to extinct. And for me, it was social gatherings. That was my number one common error as to why I did like I deterred from or I diverted from how I normally eat. So now I've identified myself just like it gets in that podcast where he says, I'm just someone who doesn't eat chocolate, I am now someone who doesn't eat fast food, I just don't, because I'll cook whatever it is that I could get it to fast food, it'll be way healthier, and probably tastes better. So now I am somebody who doesn't eat fast food. And so that's what I got from your podcast, making sure that you take it just run it through this stuff, there's a couple more questions in there to get a little bit more detailed and a little bit more of your emotions out. But long story short, it's taking something that you hear that really resonates with you and making sure that you can take action on in the next 24 hours.

Philip Pape 12:29

That's great. Because there's so it's so fleeting, we think we think our minds are going to remember things right? You hear something that's just burst in your brain, you could be driving in the car, listen to podcast, and you just keep going right? You just keep going. And then like five more things come in, and that first thing is long gone. But then, but then at the same time, I think if I take the time to write this down, then I'm gonna have 1000 things that I wrote, is that is that going to help me either, you know? So how do you deal with that, like not not letting that be overwhelming and really picking and choosing the things that are most helpful to you?

Carl Berryman 13:03

That's a really good question. And so I'm all about taking analogies from the gym, right? So say, for example, this morning, I go in and I, I'm training with the clients, and I train with my clients now most of the time. Excuse me. And so I go in there, and I know what we're going to be doing for our workout. But imagine if I went in there, and it's like, oh, that piece of equipment is great. Oh, yeah, that one's great. Well, those kettlebells are great. Oh, yeah, that barbell is great. Oh, yeah, the the assault bike, and all that stuff. And I just start trying to design a workout based on that like, no, Carl, what muscle groups are you're focusing on today? And what type of style training are you going on? So there was two exercises? That was it. And we use kettlebells? For both? That was it super simple. So going into a podcast when I'm listening, what I used to do is I would take a screenshot of the time when something hits me. But I noticed in an hour long podcast, I would have about 45 screenshots. So what I'm telling myself now as I get my I'm allowed to come up with four. That's it. Four. So if ever I want to take a timestamp, I got to I got to think to myself, Okay, is this one worthy of the four? Or is it better than the previous one? Because now you're gonna have to erase something as soon as that gets a four. That's it? Because like you, I would have all these things written down. And it's like, no, why. It's just like Meals what like going to a restaurant where there's so many things on the menu, it makes it impossible to choose, the shorter the shorter the menu or the smaller it is, the easier it is to achieve. So same thing with those aha moments.

Philip Pape 14:33

Yeah, that's great advice for people listening. I mean, it's all about planning and managing this stuff. And you had it you had a question for how to do that now. Now I'm going to think twice about it too because I actually listen to a lot of my podcasts while working out and and I also ended up giving myself my 20 item to do lists while working out and there's a correlation there. You know what I mean? The because i The ideas come to my mind. Oh, this this is a great thing. This guy said or this reminds me I need do you do this or I need to do this in my business? And it's like, yeah, boom, boom, boom, boom. So what you're saying about kind of also going in with a plan of limiting how many things you're gonna come out with is helpful to avoid the overwhelm.

Carl Berryman 15:11

Yeah, the other one that's helped me as well, too. This one can backfire sometimes, but I heard one time in terms of writing a whole bunch of stuff done down the good stuff sticks. So when you hear something, it's like, oh, yeah, cuz there are some things where I'm like, that was massive. And then it's like, yeah, there's no way I'm gonna forget that. I'm just, I'm just not going to like it as much as I like I did snapshot when I was listening to your podcasts about the extinction protocol. But I'm like, I knew that there's no way I'm gonna forget that. I'm just Yeah,

Philip Pape 15:44

man, people listening to this. By the time we're done, I hope to have like, 30 things they want to take away. I'm gonna have to really. So just one. Yeah. Yeah. And up with just one. Yes, yes, yes. So let's keep going and produce some of these, these these massive hits for people. All right. I want to get into some of your unique things related to men specifically, and see where we take that right. So a little bit more sober here with the statistics, some of the Autistics you shared with me, that seem highly unique to men, one of those that enlighten me a bit is that men make up 80% of suicide, right? Yes. Why is that?

Carl Berryman 16:20

I can't say for anybody else. But I had one occasion where I seriously thought about it I. And it was it was it was very fleeting. And I didn't do anything crazy. Nothing manifested from it, thank God. But there was one moment where I seriously just thought that you know what, I wouldn't be better off not alive. That's how I thought back in 2020. And I think the reasons that it happened for me will be very, will be pretty universal among men. And it's because while there are multiple reasons, number one was I was hiding everything I was feeling like other than my partner, Jenny Lee, who even you she knew a little bit, but she didn't know that depth of the darkness. I was feeling anytime anybody asked me how I'm doing was, oh, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. And I wouldn't talk about it. And it's just, I would, the way that I numb, my pain is through binging on Netflix, like I'll just sit there. And just like, it wasn't all that long ago, this still comes up every once in a while where I was on the couch for like 14 and a half hours, the only time I got up was to get some food, take the dogs for a walk or go to the bathroom. And I'm just binging because I just did not want to deal with what was going on in my head. And inside of me. And you do that for enough time, it's no different. Think about looking at looking in the emotional mirror or stepping on the emotional scale. If you avoid, like I've got I'm sure you've had lots of clients to who when they know they've had a bad week or something like that they don't step on the scale, because they're afraid of what the numbers gonna say. Now imagine doing that for decades emotionally, how much things are going to build up without you realizing it and never looking in the mirror and not having any indicators for where your mental and emotional health is at. And that was me. And I didn't realize because after the fact that I realized the one thing that changed the game for me with regards to my mental emotional health was the connection I had with other men. Because I joined several men's coaching programs where vulnerability was the name of the game, where you hear men sharing things about their addictions, their relationships, their bodies, and everything like that. And you're realizing holy cow, maybe I'm not the only one out here that suffering like this. And if there's one thing that really learned, it's that we just don't want to feel like we're alone. Because you look on the surface, especially with social media the way it is, it seems like everybody is living a perfect life, when it couldn't be further from the truth. Like people, people might look at you and I people who are really into fitness and I don't know about you, but getting to the gym is still like it's tough for me. And like I know for I know for a fact that Yeah, after the workout, I'm gonna feel amazing. But there are a lot of times where it like I work out pretty early and I'm up at 405 is when my alarm goes off. And there's there's times where it's like no, I would love to sleep in right now. Especially in Winnipeg. It's freezing right now. It'd be nice, even. But I've got to get there. And it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who struggles with that. And once you start realizing that you're not the only one, and that other men are suffering the same way all the sudden some of that pain goes away. And my favorite one of my favorite quotes that I got from one of the coaches inside that program coach Sam filosofi, he said pain shared his pain divided and success share to success multiplied. So that's kind of the mantra behind everything I'm doing right now, hoping to expose myself as much as possible so that people can realize, holy cow. I'm not the only one who struggles with this. And not only that, but if there's some potential solutions that worked for Carl to get him to where he is. Maybe I can try those on and see if they fit for me they might but not but they but they might. So yeah, I don't know if I had

Philip Pape 20:04

to Yeah, no, no, it did, you gave me a lot to think about and thank you for, for sharing your, the personal struggle, you went through a few things like, again, Bursting My Brain, from you saying that when I think of talking to my men, male clients, right, so, so female clients seem to like really have the language down in general. Because this stuff, you know, and even better than I do, and I'm the coach, but my male clients, I do sometimes feel like, I'm the only person they've opened up to about some of this stuff and acting sort of as that support in their life. And just yesterday, I had a conversation with a client, we had, you know, very successful, long phase together, and he's ready to move on, because he's, he knows what he's doing. He's confident now he's gonna fire me, and that's how it goes. And it's okay, that's what I want. But he, he said, you know, part of why I was accountable, because it's because you got excited when I got excited. And you mentioned something about, like, our successes together as well. Every time you gave me feedback, and you're like, you know, look at your metabolism going. And I got excited. And then that kept me going. And I feel like some men maybe don't even have anybody else. There even their own spouses they may not share that with so yeah, that's that's, that's an interesting thought, Carl, so you mentioned techniques or things what what's something that comes to mind? For someone who doesn't have that right now?

Carl Berryman 21:21

Well, first and foremost, I just want to back up and talk a little bit about what you just said there because it's not to be skipped over. And it is, it is wonderful, because I mentioned how my connection with other men in my life is literally what saved my life. Having those connections, it's critical now where you go through those connections. And it's interesting, because a lot of the guys that I I'm very fortunate now where I have about five or six other men that I can have very, very vulnerable conversations with like conversations where when we leave, it's always I love you, brother. And it's like that. And my saying you have to open up and let the waterworks come out? No, absolutely. It's just like in the gym, where if you go in the gym, let's say if your man right now, and you're you're not even aware of what your emotions are, because you don't have any words for him. Because statistically speaking, women have a lot larger the language database for emotions than we do. So they therefore they can identify and express them better. But if you're going to the gym, you're not going to look at what somebody who is like been doing it for years do and put the same amount of weight on the bar, if you're doing dads, whatever and go in there and try to lift that weight, no, you're going to do something that is a nice small start for you. So where I recommend starting, if you want to learn how to express your emotions better with other people, the first person to start with is yourself. And that's what journaling has done for me so much like just getting just trying to get what's going on for me out onto paper, because then it's not occupying so much space up there. And in here, at least it's on paper. So I started there. And once my language started to get better, and I gained more confidence of expressing myself to myself, then I started sharing that with other men. And as soon as you start sharing with other men, the one thing I'm hearing more and more with every single man I'm connecting with now, mostly through like podcasts that had been on. As soon as the recording goes off, we'll have a conversation that way, Carl, I this is amazing, because I can't talk like this with other men. And really now that I think about it, that is the challenge. And the problem I am trying to solve with my podcast and with the journal is I want to bring men together into a space where that becomes the norm. And it's just like in the gym. Like one of the analogies I use in the gym all the time now is level 123123 Like one come in, take it nice and easy. There's nothing wrong with that. Maybe it's a bad day, maybe you have an injury, maybe you're just tired, I don't know, level two, dial it up and you can dial back when you need YOU GO GO GO GO GO and you're like, Okay, I overdid that step back form starting to go step back. Level three is like today is the day I'm feeling great. All cylinders are firing I'm going to give it so same thing with communicating between men. If you're the type of man who doesn't really know how to express your feelings yet just coming in watch coming in here, our the men are doing it. And then after that, dial it up, maybe you can connect with with one or two or whatever. And then finally start leading the group through your experience. So that would be the first things dialing that way back. Start getting stuff out on paper with yourself. Nobody else needs to read it. Nobody else will ever see it. You never need to read it again. Just see if you can start saying stuff on paper. And especially stuff you would never say to somebody's face. Like genuinely my partner she knows. I write some stuff down about her that if I said it out loud, we wouldn't be together. I write it down on paper because it needs to get out as soon as it's out. Not only that, but I can see how ridiculous it is. Now that resentment that was building up inside of me. It's on the paper. It's not going to come time when she comes home from work and I'm supposed to give her a hug and a kiss It's an Ask her how her day was where I have that thing lingering in my mind. And I'll just, she'll come home and be like, what's wrong with you? Because that used to happen. It used to happen, it's probably started doing this.

Philip Pape 25:10

That's a good one. I mean, it's really good because I was just thinking, my own relationship with my wife, which is, I think, very healthy. And she she does her best to get me to talk as much as I can. But I see that why golf? You know, because to me, she's like Deanna Troi, from Star Trek, she's like an empath. You know, everything is just there out in the open to her. And for me, it's like, you know, there's always that wall, right? It's just weird how the genetics work. I also saw, I don't know what it was that I was watching. Maybe six months ago, they were talking about how we men also tend to use humor as like a defensive mechanism. That's like the word romance. You know, it's kind of us saying like, it's not that important. It's just this, bro. You know what I mean? Like, we're like making light of it. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. So another another statistic, which I man is related to this, and somehow is that 70% of divorces are initiated by women. So yes. Is that related to this? Would you say, the communication gap or something else? Absolutely. I

Carl Berryman 26:07

just think a lot of times women aren't getting what they signed up for in the marriage, right. And I think what happens there, I'm from my experience, because I was married and divorced. And then Jenny Lee, and I, my current partner, we separated for three months in 2020. And with the provision that we don't, we didn't know, if we were gonna get back together, we were pretty much sure it was done, but we weren't going to communicate for three months. And if at the end of three months, if we initiated a call. Sure, we'll check it out. Luckily, we're both working on some hardcore self development individually during that time. So when we got together, when we got back together, we're both, if you will, better versions of ourselves. But with regards to divorces, or relationships, ending, why it happened for me multiple times with all the people I've met before Jenny Lee, was because I treated it just like I would in the gym where things just plateaued. They plateau like I just, I stopped take, when you get to the gym, you're motivated, everything's going well, you're seeing results right away. And then as soon as you hit a plateau, something happens, and you just kind of stop doing the things that you need to do to get you to that next level. And that's what I would do. Like, I'd start making exceptions to things that used to be rules. So rules, for example, is Jenny Lee and I had a date night when we first started dating, we're coming up on nine years now. When we first started dating date night was a massive deal. Like I'd set up a playlist, I make sure I had the menu ready, I made sure I had the all the alcohol for the cocktails, I wanted to make a special wine and go at dinner like and it was all planned out. Fast forward three or four years date night is chilling out on the couch, not really talking to each other, just watching the movie and maybe having a couple laughs and all of a sudden, that's the bar that's like going from the gym, going from working out four or five days a week with really, really good intensity to just going to the gym, going to the gym and walking on the treadmill for 15 minutes. Like Like, what do you expect to happen to your body if you dial it down that much. And relationships are no different. So that's where I started taking some of the strategies from inside the gym outside the gym, where I want specifically was like, I know what styles of workouts I like in the gym, and what works for me and what keeps me consistent. I know what exercises I like, and I know what exercises hurt. So I stay away from those ones and which ones I don't like. So with Jenny Lee, I literally have a list of exercises that I've written down, that I can look at and be like, This is how she knows that I love her. So I'm going to make sure I am getting in my reps with these exercises every single week. And just like with my body, I started tracking it. I've got an app on my phone, I have to do X number of these per week in order for Jenny in order for me to have the best chances of making sure that Jenny Lee knows that I love her. So I hit those exercises every single week. And it's super small. It can be something like for example, Throwback Thursday. So what I'll do on Thursdays, is I go into my phone, and I scan through the camera rule. And I look for a picture from this month, four or five years ago, and then I'll send it to her with a little story. And that's something that I know she appreciates. So it's getting in those reps, getting in those reps, getting in those reps and making sure you're aware of whether or not you're plateauing in your relationship. So 70% of divorces, I would say and I said this in my last podcast is like death by 1000 cuts. It's never been it's rarely one thing. It's gonna be all those little things that all of a sudden you wake up one day, you leave some dirty dishes on the wrong side of the sink, your partner flips out and says you know what I'm out of here. It's like because there's dishes on the wrong side of the sink. No, because of the 1000 things that happened before that.

Philip Pape 29:52

Hey, this is Philip Pape. And if you feel like you've put in effort to improve your health and fitness but aren't getting results, I invite you to apply for a one on one coaching aim to make real progress and get the body you desire. We'll work together to figure out what's missing. So you can look better, perform better and feel better. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching, to learn about my program and apply today. Now back to the episode. Yeah, and I imagine that the, your spouse is probably telling you this over the years to you're not necessarily listening. Because I just to give an example, with, you know, we all we're all on our phones all the time, and, and I'm on a lot these days, because because my business as well. And I know that when my wife talks to me, whenever I'm gonna, even if I'm in the middle of work, it's like she, you know, my brain has to say, she's talking to me stop, like, put it down and look at her and listen, you know what I mean? Like, just the simple things like that, you know, are gonna make her happy. But I really love all these ideas you have about reminders and planning it. Because, you know, I tell people that same way about nutrition, right? You got to plan out your day, plan out your food, you know, plan out the gym, so why wouldn't you do the same? You know, we plan out our work with our calendars. Yes, that's really good. Every guy you talked to on these podcasts probably comes out with similar like revelations, man, this is great stuff.

Carl Berryman 31:10

That's good. That's good. I'm really glad everybody's accepting it that way. Because like I said, this is just stuff that's worked for me. I don't know if it will work for anybody else. I've tried to make sure a lot of it is very principle based that way can kind of go across everything. And it's not unique to an individual. So I'm really, I'm very hopeful and confident that that will be the case once this gets a little bit more.

Philip Pape 31:33

So no, I want it. I want to get pictures from four years ago of you and your partner and send it to my wife. Isn't that what you want me to do that exact?

Carl Berryman 31:44

That would be hilarious. Yeah. Is this class?

Philip Pape 31:49

Alright, so I don't know, let's you want to go back into the fitness side for a bit. Let's do that. A little bit. Absolutely. Okay, so the fitness industry? Like what's your opinion on that? Right, what we taught one of the core principles of this podcast is the skepticism of the industry. I think it's right in a healthy skepticism, a healthy skepticism, right? Because there's there's misinformation there's even dangerous information, if you will, there's there's perverse incentives, of course, with supplementation, you know, companies and the influencers, and how the algorithms push things and all of that, a lot of that it'd be nice to just kind of ignore it. But then people I think, are overwhelmed and don't know where to go. And it's like, how do you what needs to change? What's bad with the fitness industry? What's good? What needs to change? In your opinion? Big question, right? This

Carl Berryman 32:38

is gonna be an eight hour podcast. The first man, where do I even begin? For me, my single biggest pet peeve is weight loss. my single biggest pet peeve is weight loss, or anything to do with weight. And here's why, like, I'm still I, I really hope that I can't imagine this will happen in my lifetime. But at some point in time, if I could look back and see that the term weight loss has never been used again, that would be phenomenal. I'll give you a perfect accent. I'll give you two really good examples as to why I've got a client who's 66 On Tuesday, actually, he's in Hawaii right now celebrating he's, he's, he's so amazing. I've had him for four or five years now. And he's, he's in incredible shape. Like, if he were to come to one of my group fitness training classes, he would own a lot of us. And he's like, six, five, like, he's not a small guy. And when we first sat down and got together, like, Okay, well, what what is your number one goal, and he listed a weight that he wanted to get down to? I'm like, Okay, there's bells going off in my head, because I don't want to hear that. But I understand that's important to him. I'm not going to tell him it shouldn't be. So I said, Okay, well, what are four facts that you believe are going to be true for you when you get there? So he said, Well, I want my visceral fat to go down for sure I want my body fat to go down. I want to be able to fit into this size suit, and I want injuries to be reduced. It's like, Okay, now we've got our measurables are tangible, measurables way before we got down to the weight that he wanted, or he thought he had to get down to in order to achieve those things, we achieve those things. So if that's the case, why are we not focusing on the facts that we expect to be real for us? So the other example is me. I typically was walking around, or Yeah, about 150 pounds. I'm like 5859, let's say that. And I was typically walking around at about 150 pounds. I always told myself ever since I was probably 25. That in order to look and feel and perform the way that I want to I need to be 165 pounds with a body fat percentage less than 865 pounds of body fat percentage last night. So I'm like, okay, my body fat percentage at the time was 15. I've got to get it down to eight and I've got to put on 15 pounds. That when I made the transformation in 2020 at the end of 2020, beginning of 2021 It was 63 days, and I went from 150 to 148 So actually lost two pounds. And I went from a body fat percentage of 15 to 12. So dropped 3%. And I looked felt in performing the way that I wanted to. So that number I had in my head was just so inaccurate, like insanely inaccurate. But the other thing that I would transform about the health and fitness industry is getting people to make the habits they want to adopt their goal. Like what like the behaviors, I want to measure my behaviors, the process, the end results of those behaviors? Because I don't know if you've read the book atomic habits. Clear? Yes, yeah, it's so good. And there's so many things in there, the analogy he makes is, if you're a basketball team, you know what your out outcome is, it's the championship, but are you going to spend the entire game looking up at the scoreboard? No, you're going to focus on the fundamentals that are going to get you to score those points, because then the win is inevitable. So same thing with the health and fitness industry, if we could somehow get people off of this number on the scale, and say, Okay, let's spend a little bit of time helping you figure out exactly what you want to look, feel and perform like. But now that we have that crystal clear, let's spend 90% of our time figuring out how we're going to make it as easy as possible for you to engage in the behaviors that are going to lead you to that outcome and just focus 100% on the system, like James Comey said, You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your system. Yeah, so focusing on the system is what we need to do. That's what happens process.

Philip Pape 36:25

So first, I'm gonna go through all my materials and make sure I don't have the term weight loss anywhere. No, no, no, no, it's funny, because I actually agree with you, I'll say I'll say 90%. Because, from my perspective, it's the term weight loss can mean different things. But I also prefer the term fat loss when we're talking about what people are trying to get to. And then I go beyond that, and say, well really want you to do is feel good, right? You want to look and feel good in your clothes. And you kind of keep going from there. Because where I am right now, I'm five, nine, like you. And I just finished a building phase. And I'm like, 187, and I'm just, you know, I'm feeling I'm feeling fluffy. Right? I'm like, feeling that way. Yeah. And and it's not my optimal feeling. But at the same time, I know, all my lifts went up. So I'm excited. And the process to get there was great. And I'm happy with it's like a little trade off. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So all that I totally agree. Because I think weight loss cells, right? I think we know that that the quick fix is what says, But Instagram and all these guys are gonna push the things that get clicks, you know, you're never gonna go away like that.

Carl Berryman 37:31

That's what I want to challenge you on? Because Okay, okay, perspective on this, because one thing that you talked about so much as body composition, yes, body composition, like if we can focus on body composition or body re composition. So for me, I think about using the term weight loss because it sells, but then I'm like, Ah, I feel like I'm lacking integrity if I do, right, because I want to get people away from that. And I know, it's like clickbait and everything like that. But it's got to start somewhere. It has to start somewhere. And with somebody, I'm like, I don't know. Ah, that's what I struggle with. So I'm really curious what your opinion is on that, in terms of the integrity with weight loss, or, you know, what, if that's somebody's language, great. And then maybe we can, hopefully influenced them to see that there's other alternatives they can focus on? I don't know, what's your opinion? Yeah, I

Philip Pape 38:24

actually don't use weight loss very often at all, I'm not even sure I'm not even sure you'd find it on my website, or most other places, to be honest. But I do know very high integrity coaches that use it, they'll use terms like sustainable weight loss, or something like that. And, and when you look at their system and their the approach, it's not that dissimilar, it's a very lifestyle based, you know, you don't even start dieting until you get all the other things up to where they need to be, you know, your movement, your training, and so on. And then it's more of the acknowledgement that most people are probably carrying either an unhealthy level of weight quote, unquote, weight that impacts their health, you know, like their the blood pressure, cholesterol, all that stuff. Or that, like you said, people don't realize that the weight they want to be at is this random number may not have anything to do with the weight they need to be at to feel the way they want to feel. Right, right. And I've had clients, usually women who really are focused on losing the weight and and I've sort of convinced them maybe, or gotten them to convince themselves to build muscle first, and get into a conversation of like, Hey, can we can we were you, you were an extra jacket. It's winter like, and not worry about the physique as much in the short term. And guess what, you're gonna feel really good. And then the whole mindset starts to change where it's like growth and adding to your body and including things and then yeah, and then we can go through a fat loss phase, that's like, you're now training really hard. We're going to hold on to muscle like you've never done before. When you've done weight loss, and we're just going to lose fat. It's gonna be a different, different experience. And you're not going to have to lose 20 pounds, you might only have to lose five or 10, right? Because you've got all this muscle so you have to I mean, Weight in terms of body mass has to come into play somewhere to measure. Yes, yeah, I agree shouldn't be an obsessive thing. Yeah,

Carl Berryman 40:07

I think you just hit on what would be I think it might be number three that I would 100% change about the health and fitness industry. And it's focusing on what you need to add as opposed to what you need to take away. So like adding muscle? Absolutely. So for me the way that I when I'm on my onpoint with nutrition, I use something an app called Dr. Greger Gregers daily doesn't you know who Dr. Greger is, I don't, but I should probably you wrote a book called How Not to Die, and then follow up with another book, how not to diet. And so he has an app called Dr. All that reminds me I showed it to my client this morning, I forgot to send it to her because she wants it for her dad. Anyways, I got to do that. In it. He has a list of he's a huge plant based advocate. So no meat, no dairy, nothing like that. And I'm the majority of plant based like I might have one or two meals a week that have some meat or dairy in it. Because I love pizza and burgers. But in the app, he has a list of all the things that you want to make sure you're getting in a day, and you can get 24 points out of it. So there's grains, there's berries, there's greens, cruciferous veg exercises on their waters on their nuts and seeds, herbs and spices, all those things. So I know for me that I have a baseline of what I absolutely minimum have to get out of 24. And it's 12. Ideally, I'm closer to 20 on a daily basis. So what happens is when I think about having the burger or the pizza, or the Boston Cream doughnut, which anybody who knows me knows is one of my vices. When I think about having that, I have to look at what I've had already first, because if I don't have like, if I'm not at like 17, or 18, or 20 on the list, guess what, I've got to get to that list first. So then I'll have a meal, that rep that has those points in it, those qualities and those ingredients. And now all of a sudden, guess what I don't want after I have that meal, because I'm focused on adding the good things as if you automatically add muscle, you will subtract that if you automatically add good nutrient dense foods into your life into your meal plan, you will automatically not have rooms or those non nutrient dense foods. So adding is a huge thing.

Philip Pape 42:26

Yeah, it crowds things out. That's like another way I like putting people out. I love that. And a simple way. It's it's similar approach to what you said, you know, now with the point system, but most people don't have enough protein in their diet. And if they start to focus on getting more protein, if you think about where you get protein in the world, unless you're buying a bunch of protein bars and whey shakes, it's pretty much whole foods like that's at either animal sources, or if you're plant based, there's plant sources to get your protein. And including way which ways is one of the exceptions, I like to make the processed foods because it really is just a high quality part of milk. But if you start saying well now I need the five times a day and I have to get enough protein it starts to crowd things out it just Yeah. Oh, now I need some either, you know, rice and oats and I need meat and eggs, dairy and all these things. Yeah. So it's a good philosophy to take anything.

Carl Berryman 43:19

Yeah, I absolutely love that the street you call it crowd you are crowded out

Philip Pape 43:23

crowds. You still have room for it. Like you said, you haven't gotten this in yet. And then once you get it in, I'm not gonna have that Coke, you know, or I'm not gonna have that other thing because there's no room for it.

Carl Berryman 43:32

Yeah, yeah, I'm just so you know, I'm 100% steel in that crowded pool.

Philip Pape 43:38

I'm still a whole bunch of things for this and good thing that's being recorded. All right, so what else? Let's see. So fitness. We talked about the fitness industry. What do you saw? We didn't talk too much about your training specifically, but what do you think it means to get in shape or get in the best shape of your life? You know, how does somebody do that? Okay,

Carl Berryman 43:57

so, for me, a couple years ago, I came up with this idea, or actually, I guess it was in 2017. When I joined the men's men's group, one of the guys on there, him and I he saw that I worked out and he lived in like the Ukraine or something like that. But he saw that I worked out. I saw him doing some pretty cool videos. So we got to be friends. And then he challenged me to a 500 burpee contest. And so yeah, he did 500 burpees. And I'm like, okay, whatever, I'll give it a go. And he did it. I think he did it in just under 45 minutes or something like that. And so I had no idea how long it was gonna take me. So I was actually visiting Jenny Lee's parents in Vancouver at the time. And so one day I decided whatever I'll I'll give it a go. So I went outside and I made sure I didn't have the clock on so I couldn't see the timer, and I made sure I had really good music going and it just took my time. I had no idea what it's going to be like, and sure enough, I I wanted to have a really good song for the last 50 are really good music for last 50. So I turned on my phone and the timer came on. And it was at like 43 and a half. I'm like, oh, no, I've got a minute and a half to do 50 which obviously isn't gonna happen, but I came close. So ever since then, I've had very specific workouts that I do on a monthly basis to assess where I'm at compared to where I used to be. So the one that I was doing last summer that worked out really, really good. Was the Murph, are you?

Philip Pape 45:34

Yeah. Which one is that? That's the mile and then to other

Carl Berryman 45:38

the, you run a mile you do 100 Pull Ups, 200 push ups, 300 squats run another week. And that was that was the bar for me to see if my time was improving. So when I was doing it, my time was improving. So now with my clients inside the gym to once a month for three consecutive months, we do the same workout. So then it involves strength and insult, volume, stamina, endurance, even mobility and flexibility. And we assess so are you better than the previous version of yourself. Because not only is that going to require a lot of consistency, both inside and outside the gym. I know you're huge on this, the mindset components is like a lot of people think that I was having a conversation with a buddy the other day, he's like, Oh, we all know that, like changing your body is 20% workouts 80% nutrition. I'm like you're missing a lot of components there. There's the mindset component, because if you don't think that your mindset and like influences how you eat, and how you work out, you're missing something. The prep work is something I follow. It's just an acronym, I had physical health and fitness, relationship health and fitness, emotional health and fitness and purpose health and fitness. If you think the quality of your relationship is not affecting the quality of the food that you put in your body, and the quality of the workouts that you have, and the quality of sleep that you have, like there's so many things in that pie chart that we neglect. But anyways, answering your question we have, and I have very specific workouts that we do once a month to make sure that we are making progress in the direction that we want to go. Whether that's lifting more weight, doing things in a shorter amount of time, going faster, being more mobile, whatever it is.

Philip Pape 47:18

Yeah, that makes sense, right? Because that's subjective. And it sort of, I guess if you reverse engineer it, I assume you don't just do it in a vacuum and say all right, the months in between do whatever you want and then we're going to test you have a plan to get there right now work on that specific skills there is it just you know that the Murph is a pretty is kind of a catch all so that, yeah, right.

Carl Berryman 47:40

It's a catch all in so many ways, because it, it's very mentally daunting. Like, especially the pull ups like 100 pull ups is, it's not easy. It's not easy, like 300 squats, it's bodyweight. I don't do the weighted vests like it's our original one is I don't do the weighted vest. Not yet. That's for sure. But 30 Like doing doing 300 squats bodyweight when you weigh 145 pounds is not that big a deal. So and push push ups to right. When you when you don't weigh that much. Isn't that big a deal. But the pull ups pull ups get? Yeah. Yeah.

Philip Pape 48:16

Even that much harder when you weigh more. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's one, one lift that goes way up. When I lose weight. Yeah. Pull up. You know, have you heard of the 40%? Rule? Danny? I think it's Danny Goggins the Navy SEAL. David God, David Goggins? There you go, David. Yes.

Carl Berryman 48:34

It until you said his name. David. No, yes, we're actually only when we think we're done. We're actually only at 40% of our capacity.

Philip Pape 48:42

I thought of that with your burpees. Because I'm like, if you did that next time, and got to 500. Are you only 40% done with your capacity? Could you do another AC

Carl Berryman 48:53

that 700. Now you've totally challenged me, because when I started doing the burpees, I would do them in sets of 25 or no sets 20. I do set to 20. And I just did how many of them went up to 500. And then I started doing the last time I did it. I started off in sets of 25 for the first 200. Then for the next 200. I went in sets of 50. So that's only for four sets. And then the final 100. I just did in one straight set. So that just goes to show you that sure my capacity has increased over time, but at the same time, was it really at 100%? And the answer is always going to be no i for me. I can't imagine ever getting to 100% I can't imagine there ever being a time where there wasn't a second that could have shaved

Philip Pape 49:41

off do one Yeah. Or you can do one more burpee and then one more burpee like indefinitely for days on end, right? Yeah,

Carl Berryman 49:46

but the 40% rule, huge because it's just like when you get to that point in the set where the burn starts to kick in. That's not when the set ends. That's when it started. Like everything else before Without is just foreplay. Now the set begins, like, what are you going to do from this point on, as long as your form doesn't give away, because that's my biggest pet peeve is just doing things for the sake of getting in the reps of the short amount of time without any consideration to what your form is like or why you're doing the exercise in the first place. So yeah, that next that's right up there with weight loss for me.

Philip Pape 50:20

And yeah, you remind me of my CrossFit days. I don't do much of that anymore. But yeah, I remember talking about that. Yeah, yeah, that especially what was it grace, doing grace for the cleaning jerks? So I know we're getting close on time. There's one thing a couple more things if you don't mind. Yeah, of course. There's you were talking about I think this was on one of your podcasts as well. about the importance of accountability for yourself, but also people around you I think you were talking about your your I don't know if you're talking to your actual brothers or your like, brother,

Carl Berryman 50:50

but I call Yeah, I call all my good all the good men that I consider to be in what I call my love nest, like the most important people. Yeah, like, I just, yeah, I refer to them as brothers. I

Philip Pape 51:01

know that makes a lot more sense to me since this conversation. No, no, no,

Carl Berryman 51:04

I've only got two real older brothers and right. That's it. So yeah, the the these guys are just, we refer to each other as brothers. So

Philip Pape 51:14

yeah, yeah. And you talked about kind of not the way I interpreted it like not being the No at all that's trying to teach them what to do. But you want to shoulder some you said shoulder some of the suffering of your loved ones. Yeah, and express your passion and love in a receptive and patient way to help them but without like, overstepping, so how do we put that into practice? Okay, so solving everybody's problems on the show? No, no, you're

Carl Berryman 51:38

asking just the absolute best questions like you're a fickle nominal host. This is this is so easy. Okay, so the other day, I'm having a conversation with one of my brothers, who lives down in the States. And we're talking about some relationship issues that, that we're having, well, that that he's having. And so we've given each other permission to be pretty blunt about some things. But at the same time, I have to realize that say, for example, inside the gym, one of the things that I've that I love doing is agility work, like I love doing plyometric style stuff. So say, for example, box jumps. And I like I can get up there pretty good with Box Jumps. But should I expect that anybody coming to workout with me, because I tell them how it's done should be able to do it. Like, that's insane. It's like some guy who can put four plates on the bar and do a deadlift, I can't do that. I've never been able to do that. So just because he tells me how he does it. Should that mean that I can do it? No, we all have different strengths and weaknesses. So when I have a conversation with him, and he's, and we're getting, we're going back and forth, it's like, Okay, here's what I found works for me when I've been in a similar position as you, I don't know if it's going to work for you, especially when it comes to relationship stuff. Because I tell guys all the time, I have, I have a serious handicap over other men when it comes to Jenny Lee, because Jenny Lee and I have a level of communication that is unlike anything I've ever experienced in my life, and based on what other men have told me is something like that they don't have but this is something that we cultivated over years, years, years, years, years, years, to the point where something as small as Jenny Lee and I will never ever, ever say, You made me feel this because now you are placing responsibility for your feelings onto the other individual. The language we use in language is so important. The language uses. You know what, when you did this or said this, it triggered this in me. Can we talk about this? So you're accepting responsibility? So the conversation I'm having with my brothers like, Okay, well, when your wife said this, well, how did you respond? And how did you take that? And not only that, this is the thing that I love. And I am so guilty of this, too. If we're complaining about something that our partner does, I said to him, Listen, is this the first time that she did? He's like, no, she does this all the time. Okay, if you were going home from the gym, pass the fast food, fast food joint. And you were stopping there because you said you learned it, and yet you're sabotaging results? Are you gonna keep driving that same route? Are you going to take a different route so that you don't pass that same troublespot? Like, okay, we'll take a different route. So why do you keep taking the same route with your wife? When it comes to communication, you're gonna have to figure out something different because guess what, you're never going to change her. You're never going to change her. You can influence something with your own behavior, but you have to work on what you can control. So can you control the way that you react and respond with your partner? Yes, so put 90% of your attention there and then tempers 10% of time you can you can be a jerk like I am but but you So that's, again, I don't even know if that's your question. No,

Philip Pape 55:04

you are and that and that's like the heart of stoicism and like personal responsibility even, I always come back to fitness analogies. You know, I tell people that we can't control what our bodies do. But we can control all the inputs and let our bodies react to those. Same thing, we can't control other people, we can control what we do. So you're right, if if the same things happening over and over again, then look to yourself perhaps and see if you can change. Always great advice. Are there any books you'd recommend for men who want to become better men? There's there's your workbook too. But you know, man

Carl Berryman 55:37

cave. So, again, a brilliant question. Honestly, and I'm not saying this just a plug it just when I've thought about what the legacy is that I want to leave behind, and anytime I have conversations with some of my brothers, and they just want some advice on something, or they want my opinion, the first thing I do is just say, You know what, just start journaling. You don't even have to get the journal like, I'll give you a link that people can get to download the free like blueprint for it. So you have the four questions, and you know how it works. But the reason why I say this is because this is getting you to come up with your own answers. It's not me telling you what to do. It's not, it's not any guru telling you what to do. It's not Phil telling you what to do. It's you taking something that they said, and coming up with your own answer, because nobody knows you, like you know you. So the more you know you the more knowledge you have about yourself. And the more you're putting that to action, the better it's going to be, which is what this is all about. But in terms of other books, first and foremost, the Way of the Superior Man, The Way of the Superior Man by David, I believe his name is, the last thing might be pronounced data or data, the chapters are super short, and they are filled with unbelievable wisdom. So the way the Superior Man would be number one, or a tie for number one, because the other one would be The War of Art. And that one is by Steven Pressfield. That one has to do with dealing with your own inner resistance. Because if you can get to know what resistance is inside of you, and relinquish that resistance, now all of a sudden, all the potential that was there is free to come out. So those would be those would be the top two, for sure. And then anything by Don Miguel Ruiz says he has the Four Agreements, which is good. The not the voice of knowledge is a huge one. And then the mastery of love. The mastery of love is a huge one too. And they're all the best thing about those books. They're super short. They're super short and super easy to digest.

Philip Pape 57:29

All right, love it. Yeah, that's an awesome list. Thank you for sharing, I'm gonna look into those man. And all those, I remember, include them in the show notes, you know how it is with show notes. You gotta get cram it all in there. But people have to listen to the podcast is to hear this. Alright, so this is the penultimate question I like to ask. And that is, what one question Did you wish I had asked? And what is your answer?

Carl Berryman 57:51

Oh, wow. See if I'm pausing. That's good, because it means that you've, you've asked so many amazing questions, I'm going to dial back and see if I can come up with something that has to do with men's emotional health and fitness. Actually, question that you would that I wish you would have asked? Here's one, and I don't know how I'm going to answer it. What is the thing that I personally struggle with the most that I wish I didn't struggle with? That I'm embarrassed that I struggle with? So for you to ask that question, that would be a ballsy question to ask me. But I'm going to put it out there. So the thing that I struggle with the most that I wish I did struggle with, then I'm embarrassed that I struggle with, um, man is, I don't know if you're gonna have to edit this out or not. But we'll record it. And then if you need to edit it out, go ahead and edit it out. But it actually has to do with the extinction protocol, because I did another mental muscle up because I really liked that. And I wanted to see where else I can use it. For me, when I feel my lowest when I'm really depressed. I turn to porn. And like, it's, it's actually I'm holding back tears right now, because I realize how much that's costing me like it definitely doesn't happen nearly as much as it used to because I have strategies in place to better manage my depression, but it still happens every once in a while and when it does, I'm there and I'm like Carla, like why are you doing this? You know what this is costing you like this is costing you so much mental and emotional energy. This is costing you connection with Jenny Lee, this is you are going to feel so much worse after this. Why are you doing this? And yet sometimes that voice inside me I just I still can't so that's another thing that I actually did a bit with the extinction protocol is that's another thing I'm getting rid of. I'm absolutely 100% Getting rid of porn in my life because I realize the standards it's setting With regards to intimacy and how just toxifying it is, and I know as a man, I am not alone there, I just know we're not talking about it. So that would be what I struggle with the most sentiment bears that I struggle with. That is still a work in progress, but has massively shifted in my life since I've recognized that, but at the same time, the next level up now is for it to be non existent. So I will be using the extinction protocol for that. And just, if you don't mind, I just really want to read what the extinction protocol is so that people know what I'm talking about. It's from Episode 30 of your episode. But the extinction protocol is the brain recognizing that is a craving you never, you never want to get into. And it stops the craving, we don't crave things that we that we're never going to have. So whether that's food, whether that's porn, whether it's whatever, those are things, I'm just never going to have fast food is never going to be it. And if you think about it, porn is really the fast food of emotional sedation. So that's what I would. That's a question that there's no way you would have ever asked.

Philip Pape 1:01:12

And I'm not, I won't edit that out if you don't want because I think men need to hear that. And I think, no, I just No, no, no, it's totally valid topic. We don't talk about it enough. And people can hear that. And it's probably going to resonate with a lot of men. And if it also makes me hold you accountable, knowing that it's out there, I don't know, for

Carl Berryman 1:01:32

you sit on now that you said that it's gonna be top of mind. And that's beautiful. I love that because that is the other reason I start actually, the one of the main reasons I became a personal trainer was because I needed that accountability like you. You can't, to me, yes, there are trainers out there who can't may not necessarily look the part, it doesn't mean that they don't have value to offer. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying given my own personal values, which are not better than anybody else's. I knew that if I really wanted to have integrity as a trainer, I need to look and act the parts. Yeah. And there's just, there's no better accountability than having to show up and teach a class and be able to do the things you're asking people to do. Yes. So who said that when this is out there? Okay. Hopefully the system I have in place works and we can extinct that extinct, extinguished that stuff forever. So

Philip Pape 1:02:27

well. And you were the episode you were referring to, I think was Dr. Glen Livingston, right? And He even talks about like we do we strive for perfection, you're not always going to get there. So even though you know, like, you put it out there, you're going to do it, you're going to put in your system. And what happens happens. And I'm not saying that you have leeway to fail on that to yourself, but you know, it may or may not, whatever, that's reality. Now you're going to you know, you're going to do your best and you're you're taking action to make it happen, which is cool. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Nice, man. Well, we're can listeners learn more about you and your work and maybe download the workbook you talked about at Ignite the impact

Carl Berryman 1:03:01

on Instagram, for sure. And then all shoot you a link for the download for the blueprint. Because starting the mental muscle up like after listening to this episode, there's so many things that were shared between us that I know are going to be revelations, but don't let them stop there. Like the mental muscle uptakes you can do it in like 10 minutes is how long it takes me in the mornings when I'm writing it out. And it's so simple to make sure that you're taking action on that. So that would be it. And then if there were one episode of inspired by impact I would recommend everybody listen to it'd be number 2424 kind of goes over the core four cornerstones on whether it's your body want to transform whether you're battling depression like I was, and still am, whether it's lack of intimacy and poor communication, your relationship, whether it's finding your sense of purpose and figuring out what it takes to be fulfilled. That episode gives you the foundation to tackle all of that. So episode number 24, for sure.

Philip Pape 1:04:00

All right at Ignite the impact the mental muscle up in Episode 24, I will definitely throw those in the show notes. So the listeners can find all this amazing material and hopefully they'll have to listen to this episode a couple of times and then it also good, Carl, this has been super unique conversation. I think this is pretty good chemistry. You know, I really enjoyed back and forth. And you've opened my eyes a lot you gave me a lot to think about and listeners as well. So I'm honored that you came on the show.

Carl Berryman 1:04:27

Thank you very much and feel for you man like since I've already taken done to muscle ups based on your episode like I always say like we're here to ignite the impact we wish to see in our world. And you're definitely igniting an impact in mine, especially with this episode. So thanks very much for having me, but

Philip Pape 1:04:45

I appreciate that. That's so great to hear. Love to hear. All right, take it easy, man. 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. I'm 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 2/14/23 Philip Pape 2/14/23

Ep 46: Optimal Health, Effective Programming, the Fitness Industry, and Olympic Lifting with Yosh Stoklosa

On today’s episode I am joined by Yosh Stoklosa, whom I’ve known for many years through our association with Romeo Athletics (in Enfield and Avon, Connecticut), him as a coach and trainer and myself as a long-time member.

We talked about coaching, the fitness industry, optimal health, and training, including programming and Olympic lifting.

Yosh is a Certified Sports Performance Coach and Personal Trainer at Romeo Athletics in Connecticut. Through his professional career as a Behavioral Counselor and Group Fitness Coach, Yosh learned about the importance of mental health and wellness, and now serves as a guide and mentor to others on their own fitness journey.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Yosh's background in fitness, coaching, and mental health
His approach to training, programming, and coaching others
Lessons as a Behavioral Counselor that apply to fitness / personal training
What optimal health looks like
The current state of the fitness industry
Who benefits the most from hiring a coach (is it everyone?)
Advice for someone who wants to go it alone to get started, be consistent, and find success in their training
Top 3 priorities/tips regarding training
How someone finds purpose (to stick with the plan / optimize their health)
Olympic lifting (why someone would learn, benefits, why you enjoy competing)

RELATED LINKS

Find Yosh on Instagram - @the_yo5h
Find Yosh at Romeo Athletics (in Enfield and Avon, Connecticut)
Watch the episode on video here

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Yosh Stoklosa 01:18

Philip, what's good, man? Yeah, I'm happy. I'm excited to be here.

Philip Pape 01:21

Yeah, so I've known you for years, we've chatted a lot. But we haven't really gotten into your background and your story and kind of who you are as a coach. So I think we're gonna explore that today. And people are going to learn a lot, and maybe some strategies along the way. So let's just start with your background and expertise where they intersect, right, which from my perspective, looks like fitness coaching and mental health, which is, I think, is an interesting angle that we can explore. So what's your story? What inspired you to guide and mentor others in the way that you do?

Yosh Stoklosa 01:50

So I had recently before I moved to Enfield to Romeo athletics, I had lived in Boston for over a decade. And my career really started there as a behavioral counselor at an organization called Bay Cove Academy. And I got a recommendation from a previous company I worked for in Berkshire County, called Hillcrest educational centers. So like, that was sort of the breadth of my joke, because I feel like if fitness and that weren't a thing, I'd be unemployable. Like, those are, those are really the only two things I've dabbled in. So I started at Big of Academy. And then somewhere down. Within my, I would say, my first year there having known Rome and what he does with his gym at the time, I had reached out to him and said like, Hey, man, I'd like to follow your programming. If you could coach me up, that'd be great. I didn't go into detail about why. But really, because the the job itself as a as a counselor is pretty heavy. We we treated some pretty, pretty hard youth from the greater Boston area with very severe learning and behavioral difficulties. So I mean ages, we would we be treating kids anywhere from 12 years old to 20 years old, because after that, they would age out of the program. They couldn't provide resources or funding for any, any child over the age of 20. So did that for, again, probably the same amount of time that I was training in coaching in the Boston area. So once I got in with Rome, started working out, I said, Oh, you know what, it'd probably be better. Now that things weren't what the program wasn't well, on that side, but as I continued to do the behavioral counseling, and that work, he had suggested that I go to CrossFit Fenway, which was maybe a mile and a half down from where I worked. So I joined that as my first affiliate and kind of did the training coaching and the therapeutic stuff like pretty much like right in line with each other.

Philip Pape 04:18

All right, cool. And so for those listening, when you say Rome, you're talking about Andrew Romeo. He's the CEO and head coach. Now just for people because people I have an international following here. Many people all over the world and maybe beyond listening, but for anybody in the Northeast or in Connecticut Romeo athletics, Andrew Romeo, it's named after him. So Yoshi is there in the Enfield facility and they have another facility opening up by the time this goes out. It might be open already in Avon. So anyway, that sounds pretty cool. How, you know, your background led you to another area that you're also passionate about and then you got this opportunity from Rome. And then so then you moved out here when in started coaching here,

Yosh Stoklosa 04:59

I'm moved out here in June of 2019. Okay. Yeah, I may was I gave my, it was funny because I had one of the great things about my previous employer, they would have weekly supervisions. And kind of like feedback loops, right? So, you know, her name was Carol, she walked in, I said, Hey, I have some something to tell you. And she goes, No, you're leaving. I'm giving you guys 30 days, I'm going to help train the next person who's going to fill my spot. But yeah, so I moved here. I had to, I had to settle up some things with where I was living in Southie at the time, and then had to get that beater of a car that I'm sure you saw when I first moved down here. So right around like the first week of June,

Philip Pape 05:49

okay, in 2019. So you'll you're left with class from your old job, that's the way to do it, you know, not burning bridges, helping to train the next folks. And then how you know, time dilation from COVID is crazy, because I feel like I've known you a lot longer than that. And it's, that's three years. Okay. So you got there, not even a year before everything got locked down.

Yosh Stoklosa 06:12

I know. So yeah, we Roman. Roman, I joke about that all the time, Kate do Rome's wife. Because, I mean, and people should know, too, that this wasn't just like a random email that he sent me said, Hey, come work for me. We, we had been, Rome has been my coach and my own, like pro he programmed for me. Probably the same amount of time that was in living in Boston. So probably, like a decade, if plus even. And, you know, we would dabble in that conversation. And he would tell me that there might be some work available. And again, I was just a, I was in Jesus, I was in my early 20s, at that point, when we had that first conversation, and I just wasn't ready to leave the city. So like this had been going on for a while, before I actually was able to move down here. So I had known like you and other members of the gym, and kind of the greater community there for a really long time.

Philip Pape 07:21

Cool. Yeah, and we, we saw each other a lot, because you were there in the morning. And I would go in, usually around seven. And for those who listen to the show, they know, they know I have a home gym. So that's usually what I workout these days, but still have a great relationship with you and the other coaches, they're roaming athletics, with with nutrition and with with everything with the website. So I will see you in the morning. And, you know, we chatted, but we didn't really go dive deep into you as a coach. So I want to get a little bit into the training and programming side of things. You know, what is your approach as a coach to training programming? Do you work with specific types of clients? Do you work with specific performance goals and so on?

Yosh Stoklosa 08:01

Sure. So I would say right now my current client load, they're more the general population. And by that, I mean, these are individuals who come in with no one like particular skill set they want to focus on. And truthfully, circling back to what you said about COVID. Like, the vast majority of people who I train right now have really kind of come off of the kind of like the onset of COVID, where they were forced to do nothing, and they realize how much their health was deteriorating in some in some, in some ways. So they just they needed what again, for their, like, mental health to get healthier and really as broad of a stroke that, you know, paints it's, it's been it's been cool to get to build a relationship based on like, the fact that all of us went through the same thing and now like, hey, the gym or the fitness industry is super vulnerable to begin with, like as someone new approaching like yourself, say like, hey, hey, Philip, I need some help with some some fitness or nutritious nutrition, excuse me, coaching. So, yeah, for the most part, they're all there. They don't have any specific skills that they want to focus on. They they're looking for the bigger picture and the great thing about what we do is we can do the fitness piece, and also have like a mentoring slash coaching side to it. So I don't just take my clients in, you know, it's just a workout and then see you Friday. We we talk about a lot during our sessions. We try and bounce ideas off of one another so that I know and that they're aware of that I'm still doing right by them. As far as what their goals are, and as far as how I train them, you know, I have very, very basic like principles like rooted in, like the strength and conditioning community. And again, like, it's kind of the, I know, like what the meat and potatoes of of a workout that I want them to do. And then no matter regardless of like, what their training goals are, so that's all the like, the larger lifts, the bigger movers like the squat and the deadlift. And again, this is, of course, to say that they all are having an appropriate amount of manner to like perform those movements safely. So there's that the, there's a hierarchy typically that I like to follow first, and like moving well, exploring where any limitations are, as far as like movement patterns are concerned, like we can add, then, you know, some add a little bit of intensity or a little bit of load to that, and then kind of increase the volume or the speed at that point. So it's really, again, if we didn't have those, that first conversation with them to begin with about like, hey, fill up, tell me more about yourself, like, what are you here for? What are your biggest limiting factors, concerns? And what kind of experience do you want to have with me?

Philip Pape 11:26

Cool. Yeah, I mean, that sounds what I'm hearing is it's highly individualized. But there are principles you follow, right? There's principles of strength and function in overall movement mechanics, right. But you have to take each person in and it makes sense, the general population is the majority of people, right? Like, I think most people going through, even on the nutrition side are not saying, Hey, I have a bodybuilding show that are a CrossFit competition. That's a tiny slice of the population. So it totally makes sense. You do that. And then, you know, for people watching or listening, you know, usually saying is you could you could get a template online that tells you like, here, the main lifts, and it's, it's going to take you a decent, it's going to take you pretty far as a beginner, if you're like totally healthy, you have no limitations, and you go for certainly at the time, but at some point, you're gonna probably hit a wall or get injured or something that someone like Yoast can come in and say, Hey, this is you, this is how you move this is you know, how we can work together. So I really liked that I see how you work with your clients all the time. And it looks like it's more than just, Hey, do these three sets, I'm here watching you. It's you know, let's chat. Let's figure it out. Let's and you're not you're not like wasting time. You know, I know some trainers just like chat to chat, but you're actually trying to get something out of it. Yeah, they're paying for it. Right? Yeah,

Yosh Stoklosa 12:43

exactly. Yeah, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, they have entrusted myself or one of the other coaches with, with that level of vulnerability, right. Like, it's hard enough to, it's hard enough to say like, I need help in, in anything. But especially with like nutrition coaching and fitness. So, we, you know, we really try and do as much as we can with that first. So it's not overlooked down the road, like a Alright, fill up like we're gonna, I'm going to put you on this like Brickhouse program, and we're going to, we're going to get you strong, fast, powerful that okay, that's well, I'm good. But you know, there's other things that like, I need to work on, it would help if, you know, not only if we, if you coach me through what we're doing exercise selection, pairing order, etc, like wise, like, that's fine. But tell me how, where this is going to carry me outside of the gym, and other relationships that I may have with people that have nothing to do with with exercise.

Philip Pape 13:53

Right? Right. It's not, it's not all about how much you can deadlift. Right. But can you walk up the stairs at the Patriots game or whatever your team is? Yeah. Cool. So you mentioned mental health and, and just health in general. So what what lessons have you learned as a behavioral counselor that you were talking about in Boston that apply to fitness and personal training, and then, you know, kind of what it means to be healthy? And that optimal health that you were talking about?

Yosh Stoklosa 14:20

You know, I think more there are enough people that know all like the physiological effects of how exercise like, you know, triggers hormones that make us like, feel happy and better. But I unless you have seen some, like seeing that change in someone or seeing that change in yourself. A lot of that is kind of new. You know what I mean? Like, oh, well, if I exercise for half an hour a day, doing aerobic anaerobic strength training workout, like I'll feel happier. Right. And I think, again, some of that gets overlooked because we number one, a lot of us don't have our own baseline to go off to begin with. So working at that, even again, like through that first year at the job, I noticed how much of that work I was taking with me like at the end back home into the weekend. And then at some point, it just felt like it was it everything just like bled into one another. And the first one, I was able to introduce the, the extra, more high intensity exercise into my thing I was doing it like three or four days a week. You know, a lot of that helped me understand that there are really healthy outlets. So go go and use them. See how they see how you fit them into your car, you fit them into your week, and then again, like that baseline now is week to week, I'm not taking all that I'm not taking work home with me, I'm not taking all that cathartic like nasty stuff into conversations with other people. So it was, I think when I first when I first kind of had the idea that like oh, like shit, this is this stuff is working. I just was able to start having better conversations with people at work and at the gym, again, like at work about what I do at the gym. And then vice versa, like that in the gym or in a class like telling people like what I do for work, I'm and prior to that it was just like, you know, like,

Philip Pape 16:38

I'm mad. I was abstract, it was just the

Yosh Stoklosa 16:40

shitty job, I don't feel good. Or like, Well, yeah, I don't have time to work out. So I don't know how to make it better.

Philip Pape 16:48

All right, so what are the missions of this podcast is acknowledging that we were skipped? pretty skeptical, the fitness industry, right? And we do everything possible to split out what works, the things that actually work from all the noise and nonsense and all those darn influencers on the internet? So what are your thoughts? What do you what are your thoughts on the industry, or overall the state of the fitness industry or anything around, you know, just kind of when you have clients coming in, and they ask you questions that you're like, they've been googling stuff again.

Yosh Stoklosa 17:21

I, I would like to think it's been good. I'd like to think it's getting better. But I also like, I'm not smart enough to know all the trajectories right now only like what is in front of us and like what we're what we're dealing with, I think, I think a huge issue has been the kind of the format that social media has played. And I, I see that at times as a as a vessel for people to just absorb information. And then you can, you can just regurgitate it back out at any speed to anybody. You don't need to care, like who it goes to who, who it affects to some degree, and then it just all settles to various communities or people that you know, are very, I guess, susceptible to this quick feed of information. Because as human beings, right, like we do a very poor job at like waiting, and hard work in the sense that like,

Philip Pape 18:38

if something truly want a quick fix, if something means a lot

Yosh Stoklosa 18:41

to me, I don't want to spend that much time to get there. So I that's always been a tough question for me to answer only because, you know, when you when you open up Facebook or you open up Instagram, there are a number of, of influencers, just pushing, like their own agenda. And I would say more than half of them are well, more than half of them have been able to dupe the general public into thinking that they care about a specific cause or they care about you. And then they're like side peddling supplements or, or, or meal or whatever, or, or workouts and, and I don't like listen, when I first started, I made the same mistakes again, like hundreds and 1000s of times. And it's just at this point like you said, like at this point in the fitness industry, like we you know, we both had enough skin in the game to to then have much more valuable and objective feedback to people like no person to sell you like a two week detox or like, strength program is really really cares about like, who you are. And then the longevity of your, of your goal. So I, I will say I've met a lot of super, super generous and kind, people who are also great coaches and also great mentors, and the fact that they're out there doing their things and their community does, it does provide, like, just a sense of relief, like, hey, you know, there are more people like us doing the right thing, they know how hard you have to work to provide and setting the example the way we know, can work over the course of, of years, or for the rest of your life. Right. And now, like kind of the uphill battle is still the the people who come in and are super reserved of your opinion, because they watched? I don't know, they watched a tic tock video on.

Philip Pape 20:57

Yeah, now you have to unravel that in some sort of rational way where they trust you. Yeah, you know, I like how you kind of spun that into a positive, right, because we don't definitely, I never want to talk bad about other coaches, I want to acknowledge the fact that you do have to be skeptical and aware of the content and where it's coming from. And you would hope that over time, the good coaches would start to take over and flood the internet effectively and drown out the bad actors. And as people get frustrated, and try these things, and blow a bunch of money on something doesn't work that eventually they're going to come around. But we know humans are humans, there's always gonna be some of that, right? So hey, this is Philip Pape. And if you feel like you've put in effort to improve your health and fitness, but aren't getting results, I invite you to apply for one on one coaching to make real progress and get the body you desire. We'll work together to figure out what's missing. So you can look better, perform better and feel better. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching, to learn about my program and apply today. Now back to the episode. Cool. Yeah. And I just wanted to go off on that little tangent because you and I had also chatted about some of the technical aspects of how do we make videos and put captions on there. And like, we're trying to go out there on social media and put stuff out there. Just because it's one it's the way a lot of people connect today. Right? All right. So as coaches, right, we, we understand how valuable it is when someone finds a, a good coach that can work with them to get them progress quickly. And I know you said you know, it takes time. And it's to become sustainable, there's no quick fix, but you can still get there a lot faster oftentimes, by having a coach than trying things were yours on your own. So let's get into some of those specifics from your perspective, who would benefit from hiring a coach versus, hey, this person is perfectly fine going going on their own?

Yosh Stoklosa 22:54

I honestly think any anybody can can find value in in hiring another professional to Florida for whatever goal or for whatever reason. And I think in particular, it's because we again, as like, busy human beings, right? Like you have, I don't have you have a family. I don't myself, but again, like there are certain stressors that we would gladly let other people worry about and take care of for us. And again, like I'm happy to, I'm happy to pay for that service. So I think an example that comes to mind for me is, you know, I have typically like a very busy schedule most days of the week, right? And one of the things that I reach people who I reach out for, excuse me are like meal prep services, right? So looking for very, like standardized, credible places that like offer ready to go meals so like okay, I'm gonna pay for a box to get it I bring him in to work with me if I have like, a half an hour between clients. I'm good to go. So that I that I think to dance your question there, if you are, if you are struck, everybody struggles, whether we've done this for 10 years, 50 years, whether you're coming off the couch into the gym, or again, like someone like myself, just getting back into an Olympic weightlifting program, right like you will always find you will always find a way to put stress on yourself because you think you that you can just take it all in. You can be that like you're that alone, gunslinger type that you can handle it all. And at some point, you're going to hit a wall and you won't be able to do it anymore. And I think at that point, you either fall into one of two camps, like I have to set healthier boundaries for myself and prioritize things that maybe I don't need to rush to do all the time. Or like, like you said, ask for help, like hire a coach, like buy a program from a coach. Because that being able to sustain the, the part of ourselves where we feel the need to just carry it on for length of time is incredibly stressful. And I've done it myself and it gets so like, just physically draining that I do believe at some point, no matter who you are, you can find an area of your life where you can at the very least reach out for reach out for some guidance.

Philip Pape 25:37

Yeah, yeah, I like the way you put that because and it may not it may not even be in a coach, right? It may be somebody you know, maybe a friend, a may, it may be a one time thing, right? I know, I had to work on my squat years ago, and I went to a specific coach specific to that type of squat. One time and it like it was as if I had worked on it for two years and at one hour, because the coach was so valuable, and knew so much more than I did. And what you're saying is we have way too much to do in our life, to be able to take everything on. And we can only rely on willpower, motivation, discipline, consistency, accountability to ourselves without anybody else, we can only do that for so long. And that's where a coach can be valuable. Now people listening to this podcast are like, wait a minute, Phillips been telling me how to do everything. Now for 35 episodes, he's got these great guests on like, Josh, and I want to do it on my own anyway, I don't want to hire a coach just yet. I do want to get into training. So let's just let's just play devil's advocate for a second. And what are the top priorities then for someone who wants to get started wants to be consistent, find success? And then of course, at some point, they are going to need an entire coach, right? But if they want to get started on their own, what, what should they be doing?

Yosh Stoklosa 26:51

And this is gonna sound against the grain, I guess. But first, you have to identify a problem, right? And I mean, it has to be something that's super palpable, right, that has, unfortunately, brought you some, some grief in some area of your life. So I think you identify a problem first, right? You, you have, you have to open up a bit and kind of make suggestions to yourself in way in areas that it's deeply affected you and daily, daily habits, relationships, conversations, etc. I also think that if you're doing it, if you're serious about it, and you the goal is to ask for help, you need to ask other people for feedback on on yourself. And that and that's something that I've, I've learned even just recently through the the leadership academies that I've had the opportunity and pleasure to go to up in, in Manhattan, and one of the things that is commonly called next jump, and one of the things that they drive is that we you know, as, as individuals, it is almost impossible for you or for us to, to see our own blind spots. And Parsh part of the reason that it's so difficult for people to ask to help is because they don't know what they need help with. And so if we identify a problem, if we're asking for help or feedback from other people, right, then we can go into the area of to explore, like, where how often, we can make that happen nutrition, fitness, exercise, like mental health, anything like education, any part of that infrastructure. And then throughout that process, using us as an example, like, we, we reach out, or you would reach out to us sit down with myself and one of the other coaches and say like, Hey, you know, this is really what I've been struggling with for several months or several years. And now I'm at the point where I know I can't mitigate it myself and I need I need other resources, I need your help I need this is what I've been struggling with. And that's again, like going back to what we were talking about, originally about how you you know why why is it important to build a relation relationships with people understand, like what will need long term down the road? And this is a big reason. Because when they come to ask for help, you just don't want to say like, well, Philip, I'm gonna teach you how to squat and you know, Booth like, You're fit. And so and, and I'm not going to I'm not suggesting to anyone that you know, these conversations are easier that every person that I have the ability to meet with like, at all of a sudden like all the layers get peeled back like that's probably that's not the case at all. So yeah to do and then like that's where again now input like, like someone like yourself Are myself. Now we have to do right by them by asking the right question,

Philip Pape 30:07

man, you just, you just covered something, this is like gold. And I want the listener to be aware of what you just said. Because I asked you about where they would get started with, with training and you made it about mindset and you made it about like your true lie, your true goal, your true gap in in from where you are now to where you want to be. And you know, what I get from that is we all we're all struggling in something, right? And let's say it's fat loss. So from a nutrition side, I've got tons of clients come in and say, Okay, I want to lose weight. Is that really the problem? Right? Is the problem that you want to lose weight? Because I bet you've done things many times over the years that caused you to lose weight successfully. Short term, right? Is that the problem? And we have to dig in and say no, it usually comes down to the mindset of notes that you want to feel a certain way that you want to be able to play with your kids, you want to be able to do the things you do and then you kind of back back into that. Okay, what does that mean? Was that mean? Was it mean, at the end solution may be you need to get stronger and not even worry about the scale? I don't know. I mean, it depends on the person. But that's awesome. Yes. Like what you just talked about?

Yosh Stoklosa 31:15

It's again, like, it's through a lot of trial and error. And you made a really good point too, because I even like, I mean, I've over the past that, you know, been on the scale, like gone the InBody, you know, looked at myself in the mirror and been like, I should like probably lose some weight too. But, you know, why do I want to lose weight or gain weight? Like, what am I trying to objectify there? And again, like, I What, for me, that really turns into what my habits are like. And if I have shitty habits, I'll just automatically explore like, well, I need to lose some weight. And but my, but my habits won't disappear. So like I I told I 100% agree there that it's, it's a lot more than just write like that service layer strategy that you might have. Because it's not always going to be it's not always going to be that easy.

Philip Pape 32:18

Yeah. Yeah. So that's great advice for folks listening, you know, really ponder that and ask yourself, not only what my goal is that maybe that's the first step like what my goal is, but then ask yourself why that's my goal. And maybe that'll lead to the real goal, the real short term process transformation that you need to go through. Okay, so let's, let's talk about some kind of fun stuff here. In terms of the lifting side, you're an Olympic lifter, I haven't really gotten into that on the show at all, because I'm more focused on traditional lifts when I do talk about it. And I have a love hate relationship with lifting from my, from my history, because I learned about it through CrossFit, which, you know, pros and cons of that. And I remember you getting me to push myself on Grace, like so people listening grace is one of the words in CrossFit where you do 30 clean and jerks for 135 Now, today, that probably wouldn't feel so hard. But at the time, it wasn't as strong and you're like, you got this man, you got the the RX and you know, I could do it. It wasn't like I was going to injure myself. And I got it done. But tell me why somebody would want to learn the Olympic lifts the clean and jerk the snatch why they're valuable as part of somebody's programming.

Yosh Stoklosa 33:32

So I would I mean, I think, obviously, like if you want to, if you want to compete in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, like yes, of course, like, you are going to have to learn the snatch, you're going to have to learn the clean and jerk outside of that, honestly, I mean, there is a layer of this where, you know, you see it looks cool, like and you learn it, and there's fun, like it is a really, really fun, they're fun exercises to learn, develop, develop an awareness for and then ultimately you get better at, you know, whether it's a snatch or a clean, things are so precise and get so technical, that when you even make when you succeed, a lift by a pound by two pounds by five pounds, even like that is taken a lot of freakin work to do. So I would I would say to some degree, people that if you're going to try something a little more challenging than your current trajectory offers, you know, one, it'll, it'll show you right off the bat how much discipline you have. Because the workouts that don't go as planned, the weeks that don't go as planned. Well, we'll see if you come back the next day and pick up train where you left off.

Philip Pape 34:54

All right, so it's a mental game for sure. It's a skill. It's mental. Yeah.

Yosh Stoklosa 35:01

On the I guess on the more objective side of things to like, they're great. I do believe that they're great exercises for certain athletes to, to learn, maybe not. And by that I mean, take a I only say this because I was watching a video on Instagram today an Olympic thrower, like like those guys are the most powerful athletes in the world on one of the variations of the Olympic lifts that they use as the hang power, snatch, hang power clean, because it'll start just by placing like little stars above the knee, you have very minimal length or distance of movement, but you have to be super explosive. And these are guys that are putting up several 100 pounds. And I mean, again, it's it's humbling for someone like myself to see who's been training them for like 10 years, and seeing like these college athletes come in and just do something. So again, in my eyes, so incredible from such a difficult position. So that's like being a more than being an athlete itself in certain sports. I think they're appropriate not not not all sports, like do I think that any that if you're a elite caliber or professional athlete, you could benefit from the use of them? 100%? Do I think that they're necessarily appropriate for every like program you might be following? Not not in every case like that, you know, you walk a very fine line there. But I guess to answer your question, it is always cool to take somebody out of say, like just doing CrossFit. And say and suggesting to them, Hey, how do you feel about like getting really, really strong over the next like three months? And yeah, of course, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that. Cool, you're gonna stop doing all the shit that makes you hurt in line you're back after. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna teach you something a little more fun. And at the end of that, I'm going to put you in an actual competition to see how you do. So I guess like someone who is open enough to try something different to help their performance in said, area already. Like it's going to be it will be a lot of fun. And you're going to learn a lot about your, your level of tenacity as an as an athlete or as an individual.

Philip Pape 37:27

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. That would be me with a snatch constantly back in the day not wanting to do the snatch, shoulders, man. But it's funny because there's, I've always had interesting opinions on that over over the years, too, because the Olympic Lifts are kind of how I got into using barbells through CrossFit. It wasn't till years later that I just focused on pure, you know, strength movements, just to build strength. But there are some programs, I think, like starting strength, for example, that incorporate the power clean, early on, as the deadlift gets really heavy as an alternate pole movement in between just so you're not deadlifting, like every session. And yet, even though I've seen arguments about that, it's like, you still can only lift so much during a power clean. So why would you do other poles or rows or something like that? But

Yosh Stoklosa 38:18

yeah, I would say that I agree. That was tough for me too. Because if I'm, if I'm looking at that, and someone saying like, Hey, if you're stalling on your deadlift, do, do a power clean, do whatever, like number one? I don't? Again, in my opinion, I don't think that that truly necessary. I don't I'm not like what kind of adaptation? Am I going to get through that? That being said, if you asked me like, hey, is there a variation of a lip, that could help the performance of my deadlift? And I would teach someone how to do a poll, like just a basic clean full, either from risers or from like a rat, or having the injured individual put straps on and go from some position above the knee, right? For sure. Yeah, like that. And you've done before like we overload rack pulls that there are many reasons to do rack poles, but one of the, one of the larger benefits of a rack pole is to break past that sticking point of a either of a conventional deadlift, right when you're getting it towards your knee and people might look like they buy a taser. But again, like that, I think what you're what we're both saying really is, it's a very, you're going to have to know that athlete or that individual so well number one, to even suggest that number two, then if they're able, even able to perform it well enough to get the adaptation or benefit from that to then provide them a bigger deadlift. And but that's where like good coaching comes in. Right? Like a good a good coach is going to look at that and say, you know, I felt like yeah, you don't need a power clean one because your shoulders and your wrist can't take it but I can teach how to pull. Like you definitely have enough power like your back strong enough your your, your, your legs are strong enough to handle that kind of position. So we're just going to shave some weight off the star and we're going to teach you how to like produce some some speed tools. So it just that that to me definitely comes down to the the level headedness of, of a coach to even put that in their athletes program.

Philip Pape 40:28

Cool. Yeah, all good stuff. I mean people listening, they wonder about that. And I know folks that do and Olympic lifts mainly for the fun of it, and the skill of it and the athleticism side of it, which seems to be the dominant driver, especially if you want to compete. So pretty cool. Pretty cool stuff, man. Thanks for we haven't covered that on the show yet. So I'm glad we covered a little bit, you know. Now, last thing or one of the last things a little birdie told me that you're a foodie. But your favorite beer is Bud Light. Now, I think you're in good company. I think you're in good company on the food side with me. Okay, my wife could tell you, my wife makes most of our dinners these days, and they're delicious. But she's not a foodie. She just she she finds a good recipe throws it together, serves it to me. And I'm like commenting on the mouthfeel and the texture and the seasonings I taste and like all this stuff such a snob. So but is it true that you're a foodie and your favorite beer is not some barrel aged Imperial Stout, but it really is Bud Light.

Yosh Stoklosa 41:25

Yeah. 100% I am a foodie. And again, I think this lert like, enjoying food has come off of like a part of being in the fitness industry and and that most people that probably seems obvious because like if you're going to do the provide like your yourself with physicality, like the like the, the, the workouts and the training that you're going to do, like, Hey, why wouldn't they pair that with eating right? Like, I like to say that every every fitness. I'd like to say that every fitness professional does that. But I don't know, like, so the food piece came from wine teaching, I've taught myself how to do the Olympic lifts, I want to teach myself how to, to cook, I want to I just it's more of a point of creativity. And then when I learned when I learned how to cook, and I'm not like, my, I don't have this huge continuum of what I'm good at, like in the kitchen, but like, I want to be able to do that for myself. I feel like that is a necessary task. I get that, that all of us should at least try. Yeah, the foodie piece like is and now like knowing how to do that it has given me such a more just every time on restaurants or, or people suggesting that like, hey, like I know you enjoy like making this you should try it from here. It makes it like, I guess the whole experience much more enjoyable. Overall.

Philip Pape 43:03

Yeah, again, yeah, gastronomy or whatever it's called. I'll write with you, man. I mean, I mean, there's there's a dark side of foodie ism in that, you know, you eat out all the time because you love food so much. But the positive side, like you said, is you learn to cook your own stuff, and you really get creative. Now you can now food can serve you you know, it's not like you're just shoveling it in for the calories. You know, you're actually trying to make it an experience as part of life. And hey, we're human. So just make it work with your macros and with your goals. And you're good to go. Right? Yeah, I

Yosh Stoklosa 43:33

think everyone should learn how to cook for themselves for sure.

Philip Pape 43:36

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And eating at home is a good way to stick to your plan, too. All right, so the the second, the last question I like to ask all guests is what one question Did you wish I had asked, and what is your answer?

Yosh Stoklosa 43:49

Oh, geez. I admit I don't what, um, I guess. Okay, what are Do I have any personal

Philip Pape 44:01

personal training goals

Yosh Stoklosa 44:03

or training goals? Yeah. And I guess I guess I don't at the moment, I would, people may think that it would be to train for, like a weightlifting competition. And I, I guess I have, I'm trying to get better at just enjoying the train for the sake of being able to train and getting stronger and healthier, versus always needing a spot to prove what I'm doing. Right. So if I'm trained in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, yes, most people will find a meet to do and compete and I and I wholeheartedly agree with that. I think if you're doing that sport that has that result or outcome to it, like 100% You should challenge yourself and do that. But I right now, I just, I guess I don't have that goal in mind yet, and I'm learning how to literally just do it for the sake Get having fun lifting.

Philip Pape 45:03

That's a great, that's a great one. Man. That's a great one. Because, yeah, I know I throw you for a loop and you're like, you came up with a question. And then you realize the answer is you don't have a goal. But that was the money answer. Because some people need to learn to just just, like, suck it up and enjoy the process. I don't mean suck it up. I mean, enjoy the process, like live every day, each step along the way. It's not six months from now, every time Yeah. And I

Yosh Stoklosa 45:29

think this comes with this just comes with experiences that like, damn near all of us do not have the ability to just focus on that part of our health and wellness, like just the training, I see the other the other. If I'm booked morning to evening, and I don't get to work out how am I gonna react to that, right, like, at some point, outside of the chance that you can become a professional at it, or not a professional but like, be paid to do it. You're gonna have to prioritize other things like family, your your work. And I'm, I think over the last couple years, I've done a lot better at saying like, you know what, the business that I'm helping to run right now takes precedence over my training. And that doesn't mean that I never trained, it just means I'm not going to. I'm not going to like, set intentional blocks out in the afternoon for myself just so I can work out like I leave them. I want to fill them with as many people as I can. And then what I do every Thursday or Friday is go look into the next week and see like what can I do have available and then I will put kind of strategize and move my train around that and in most cases, I'm I get a good a good enough block of time every day to at least do something I've started doing 2025 minutes of like aerobic work now like in so at the very least, if I can do that, it's a good day.

Philip Pape 47:03

Cool. Yeah, you got priorities, and you're still making it work. So you're awesome, man. Well, this has been a fun talk. I'm gonna Oh, the last the last question of course is where where can people learn about you?

Yosh Stoklosa 47:15

Yeah, so number one, if you are in the if you're a Connecticut based in your in the Enfield, Enfield summers Ellington Suffield even if you're over in Springfield Agawam like if you're in the surrounding area, myself and my other colleagues are located at Romeo athletics at seven moody road. Again in Enfield Connecticut, I do have a Facebook page that I don't really put much on. And it's really just my name you just Yoshi and my Instagram page where I put most of my clients training in my training on and my handle there is at the underscore, y o and then five in place of the F and H

Philip Pape 48:01

Yes, perfectly easy to remember. Yes No, just kidding I'll put it in the show notes. So we got Romeo athletics we got Romeo athletics which has a website rolling athletics dot fitness for people just if you want to find address that you mentioned, Facebook Yoshi, and then Instagram at the Yogesh where the SS of five minutes an underscore I'm gonna put it in the show notes so you don't have to remember that. And man it was great talking to you talking about all this stuff. Appreciate you joining me and of course I'll be roaming athletics. Alright, man. Oh, yeah, man. Thanks, dude. 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 2/10/23 Philip Pape 2/10/23

Ep 45: Q&A - Strength for Women 40+, Safe Lifting, 3 vs. 4 Day Splits, Workout Nutrition

This is the first Q&A episode ever for Wits & Weights!

I'm covering four training-related questions from followers of our Facebook group (Wits & Weights) and plan to do more episodes like this to answer your questions there and on Instagram (follow me at @witsandweights), with a shoutout to you (if you want)!

And if you like this Q&A type of episode, let me know and I'll do more of them to release on Fridays between my other episodes. Just email me (philip@witsandweights.com) or direct message me on Instagram.

Here are the questions for today:

What would a solid strength training protocol for women over 40 look like?
Another woman over 40 here. I have been lifting with progressive overload for a year and I have not been able to progress as much as I would like. It’s not that I don’t want to go heavier; I just don’t feel safe in doing one rep, let alone 4-6. What are my options?
Does research show a difference between a 3-day full-body strength training schedule vs. breaking it up into a 4- or 5-day split such as Push/Core, Pull/Calves, Legs/Core, Full Body?
What are your recommended pre- and post-workout nutrition strategies?

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:31

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. This is the first ever q&a episode for the show. And if you find it helpful, the best thing you could do for me is to let others know and submit a rating and review on Apple or Spotify. So people can more easily find it. That's the way to do it. Spread the word spread the love, I really appreciate it. And I'm grateful for that. If you don't know me, my name is Philip Pape. And I help high achievers use their wits to build their best body reclaim their time and become their most capable, confident selves in the gym, and in life, so they can show up and make an impact. Today I'm answering for training related questions from followers of our Facebook group, and plan to answer more in the future from that group as well as on Instagram. You can find the group linked in the show notes or just search for Wits & Weights, and you can find me on IG at Wits & Weights. Alright, let's jump into today's four questions. Question. One is from Christina M. She asks, What would a solid strength training protocol for women over 40 look like? Alright, I'm going to spend the most time on this question today. And then the remaining questions are also training related. What I want to start with is just the basic principles of strength training that apply to everyone. And then add on the considerations for women over 40. So the most important thing about training is that you get the right balance of intensity, volume and frequency. So intensity, what we mean by that is the weight on the bar, the load on the bar, not how much your you know, heart rate is going and how hard the workout feels. But really the weight on the bar, we also want to have progressive overload. And that is simply increasing your volume over time, usually in the form of increasing your weight on the bar over time or your intensity. But you could of course, increase it through other means, such as volume, and sets and reps. The next thing which is critical, so critical is good form. I've seen people jump into a training program and start to progressively overload, but they're using poor form. And on one hand, it leads to a chance of injury. But on the other hand, it also prevents you from properly and efficiently lifting the weight, and then actually getting the benefits of progressive overload. And before long, you're at too heavy of a weight. It doesn't feel safe, it doesn't feel effective, because you never dialed in form from the beginning. And then finally, I'm just going to mention this right up front. If you are unsure about a lot of this, even if you go the DIY method, and you've done everything you can to read and listen and watch videos, and you're still uncomfortable with it. Please get a coach get a trainer. Okay, not just me. I'm not even a personal trainer. I'm a nutrition coach. But I provide oversight and form checks and I refer people to trainers, but just find any trainer you can who seems to know what they're talking about when it comes to the big movements like squats and deadlifts. So that's that's the basics. Now, what is our goal? Our goal when we strength train, at least for me and my clients is strength, first and foremost, as a beginner, and size. So building muscle. And for women, this may be expressed in terms of getting lean getting tone, you're definitely not going to get bulky. I think we know that we've put that myth to bed a while ago. building muscles the only way to improve your body composition and get lean we know that and if you want to hear me go on and on about that check out some of my other more recent episodes. But if our goal is strength and size, we basically need to apply a few principles to our muscles when we're working out and then pick our program and protocol accordingly. The first is mechanical tension. So simply the load that we place on our muscles from lifting heavy weights, is going to put tension on the muscle to stimulate it to grow. Somewhat related to that is activating the most amount of muscle fibers as possible. The more muscle fibers we activate not only muscle groups, but actually the different size fibers within a single muscle. Muscle belly we call it is going to maximize your growth Okay, and we get that from big movements generally Big full body movements or compound movement.

Philip Pape 05:01

the next principle is progressive overload, which I already mentioned before. But now we understand the reason we use progressive overload is to increase that mechanical tension over time. Because every time you do that, you then stress the muscles, you take the time to recover, and then your muscles adapt, and now you're able to lift a heavier weight. And so you don't want to keep lifting the same weight because that will not further stress your muscles and they just won't grow anymore. You've probably heard like muscles grow, when you're recovering or muscles grow while you're asleep, they don't grow in the gym, that's where that comes from.

Philip Pape 05:35

Okay, as far as movements to accomplish this, we can simplify it into three general categories, pushing, pulling, and squatting. So for pushing, we have the benchpress and the overhead press. So bench presses laying flat on your back, and pressing and then the overhead press is standing. The pulling movements would be deadlift, and rows. So the deadlift is just picking something off the ground, and rows are going to be bent, usually bent over and pulling something back in a rowing movement to work you're back. And by the way, beginners don't really have to use rose, in my opinion, you can incorporate those a little later. And then the squat, okay, so the squat is the mother of all lifts, in my opinion, because it works, the largest muscle groups, quads, the hips, the glutes, the hamstrings, the calves, and it even uses your stabilizers like your core, and you're back. So it's kind of a full body movement. And when you talk about wanting to build bigger biceps or tighter back or bigger glutes, I say, well, first, you got to get the foundation, squat, deadlift, and pressing, I mean, the pressing doesn't even really contribute to the lower body. But the squats and deadlifts definitely do. And they contribute to the core and everything else. So those are the basic basic movements that you want. In a beginner program. You don't need barbell curls, you don't you don't even need like chins and pull ups until you get a little bit a little bit in like a few months in. You don't need isolation movements, you don't need machines, you don't need cables, all that you don't need those, okay, for a basic program. So what is the protocol look like now? Okay, and I really hope this I know, this is a long answer to a question in the q&a segment. But I think this is important. So the program should allow you to workout three to five days a week, okay? Two days would be if you're significantly older, and you've never lifted like 70 Plus, but everybody else should be able to work out at least three to five days a week. And I one of the later questions of the four questions. Today, I'm going to talk about the difference between three and four or five day splits, and which one's more beneficial? So stay tuned for that question. So 35 workouts per week, I liked the advice by Mike Matthews of Legion athletics, in terms of how many sets to do and he likes to say nine to 12 Hard sets per major muscle group, okay, per week, which basically comes out to be nine to 12 sets of something per workout, or to make it really easy three or four movements with like three or four sets. Fair enough. So three or four movements, three or four sets, you're not going to do seven movements or eight different machines or anything like that, I can do cardio, none of that three to five movements. Keeping it simple, I would use straight sets across at first, what does that mean, you're going to do say three sets of five, or three sets of four, or three sets of six, and just go up in weight each time. Don't make it complicated with rep ranges and RPE are IR if you've heard all these terms, don't let them you know, confused the beginning phase, which we want to keep very simple. You want to go heavy, what does that mean? Heavy mean 75 to 85% of your max. Now you're not gonna know what that is at the beginning. So you just want to go with something that is achievable, and then start going up from there. And you want to work in the four to six rep range. The reason we do that, and I like five, it's right in the middle five reps. The reason we do that is it optimizes your volume it balances, reps and sets, okay? Or reps and weight. So if you go four to six reps, you can lift pretty heavy. If you were doing like one rep, it would be way too heavy and you probably wouldn't even have good form and wouldn't give you enough volume. If you're doing 20 reps, you're not gonna have much weight and you're gonna get fatigued really quickly and you're not going to get the stimulus you need. So around five reps is ideal. Once you start adding an accessory movements, other movements, you can go in higher rep ranges like six to eight or eight to 10 at a slightly lower weight. One of the important things we care about in our program is stimulus to fatigue ratio. I think that's I think Mike Israel, coined that phrase And it's the idea that you want the most muscle stimulus, but you also want to be able to recover. So always keep that in mind, if you feel like your training program is beating you up, and you you come sluggish to the gym every time and you're doing everything else, right? You know you're eating, you're sleeping, and so on, it may just be too much stimulus. Conversely, if you feel super fresh, and like you could easily lift more weight, and you probably shouldn't be lifting more, you should be lifting more. All right. And then finally, we're going to, we're trying to work out so heavy that it feels like it's one to three reps shy of failure. And as you get more into training, you'll understand what that means. If you use sets across and just go up in weight each week, it'll keep you in that range. And then we're going to have decent rest periods anywhere from two to five minutes between the movements. Okay, so that was quite a bit that could probably be a podcast all to itself. But what are the considerations for people over 40 and women over 40? All right, and I say women and I say people because a lot of it's the same, regardless of gender. The differences for women that I've seen, and that I think the science or the evidence has shown is women can generally handle a little bit more volume on average than men, which just means that you might have to do a few extra reps, or take a little bit less rest period, or have do the movements more often during the week. So with all that sounds sounds like bad news, right? Like you have to do more, but it also means that you could recover more quickly. So that's the plus side of all of that. And recovery is the name of the game as we get old. So I'm in my 40s. And I'm feeling I don't feel like I was in my 20s I couldn't work, do 90 minute sessions every day for six days a week, no way. So let's talk about the considerations to have the most optimal workout and feel your best but still make progress. First, you're not going to like get something they're not going to like this, but you've got to eat food, you've got to eat enough. And if you really want to make gains in the gym, you have to at least eat at maintenance calories, but more likely, you want to be in a very slight surplus. So strengthen muscle gains and of any meaningful amount, you're not going to get them in a diet. Okay, if you're brand new, and you're in a very slight diet, and you've got all the other things up to snuff, right like your your steps and your sleep and your stress and your macros and everything, then yeah, maybe you can get a little body read composition going on. But it's not going to be optimal. If you want to focus on just the goal of getting stronger and increasing your muscle mass. Knowing that later, you can quickly lop the fat off, you need eat enough. So that's that's an important part of training for over 40.

Philip Pape 12:41

Recovery, recovery is very important. So as a beginner, you're probably going to be working out three days a week. And that gives you a good amount of rest periods a rest time. But as you get more advanced, you might end up working out four or five days a week. And so you really have to manage the programming style versus your ability to recover recovery in a couple of ways. One is recovery between sets. So taking long enough rest periods, right. And if you feel like you're just winded by set two or three, you might just need to wait longer. And then recovery in terms of don't not doing the same movement too many times in a week. Like if you're doing a three times per week squatting program. But you've been doing that for three months, you may be too fatigued doing that and need to back off on the frequency or at least on the load. All right. Here's another consideration for women specifically, I found that women sometimes can handle more sets with fewer reps. So for example of a program is written with three sets of five, and you start to plateau. Like let's say you're on your second month of training, the overhead press and you just don't feel like it's going up. Switch it to five sets of three. So if you think about it, you should be able to lift more weight for three reps than for five reps, or, yeah, more weight for three reps than for five reps. But now you're just going to do a couple extra sets. And because women again have a better recovery ability and ability to handle volume, this actually works pretty well sometimes because you can get those extra couple sets. Whereas a male trainer might, you know, might find that too fatiguing in terms of volume that the way that structured. So we'll let you progress continue to progress. So think of instead of three sets of five, five sets of three as a way to continue progressing, okay? sleep and stress so important when you're over 40 They're always important, but if you can get that eight or even nine hours of sleep, if you can manage your stress or a cut things out of your life you don't need, you can find time to yourself and you can find time for self care as much as possible. That's gonna go a long way in how you feel in the gym and your ability to make gains. We talked about food, we talked about recovery. The only other thing I would say is don't Don't go with the same program too hard for too long. If you're six or eight weeks in or even 10 weeks in, and you're feeling just beat up, you can take a D load. And a D load is where you take a very light week where you still have high intensity, but you do many fewer sets. And you might even notch the intensity down a bit like to 80% of what you were doing, just for that week, cut out all the accessory movement, and then continue with your block the next week. That's one approach. The other approach is just switch it up. If you're doing a strength based program, switch to a bodybuilding program, you know, those are ways to kind of allow your body body to keep recovering. So I hope Christina that that answers your question is a lot of information, go back and watch or listen to this again. And of course, you can reach out to me with direct questions. And if there's further q&a from that q&a Answer, I will clarify more in the future. Hey, this is Philip Pape. And if you feel like you've put in effort to improve your health and fitness, but aren't getting results, I invite you to apply for a one on one coaching to make real progress and get the body you desire. We'll work together to figure out what's missing so you can look better, perform better and feel better. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching, to learn about my program and apply today. Now back to the episode. All right, question two is from Sophia G. She asks another woman over 40 Here I've been lifting with progressive overload for a year, I've not been able to progress as much as I would like. It's not that I don't want to go heavier. I just don't feel safe in doing one rep, let alone four to six. What are my options? So Sophia, thanks for that question. Obviously, you you've already gotten know some of the information that I just shared about training and training for women over 40. But the struggle I'm sensing here is more on the safety and the confidence in the gym. So I'm going to repeat what I said earlier in the episode and that is, if you don't have a coach yet, consider getting a coach even if it's just for one or two sessions to teach you the movements and look at your form and give you feedback. Okay, you know, if it's not in your budget to hire a personal trainer ongoing, just just have one or two sessions. If you can find a starting strength coach in your area, go online and look that up. I would highly recommend someone like that. I mean, I've worked with them myself. Such as oh man, what's his name in Connecticut?

Philip Pape 17:33

Cheese. And you know, Cody, Cody's is Cody and Nino's his name in Connecticut. And he helped me tremendously with my squat, my deadlift and my press all in one session. That's one. The second option is if you're going to do the DIY route, I want you to take video of your lifts and watch them back and compare them to either books or videos about that show you proper form. Okay, so this is a skill, it's a skill for life, and you're going to constantly have to tweak and get better. But unless you get feedback, it's very hard to know where your bad habits are. So use the video and check and watch yourself. Also, you could upload your video to one of a number of groups online that do form checks, okay, like I do form checks for my clients directly, for example. And if you had a remote coach like that could be an affordable option. If you can't afford a personal trainer, in person, or remote coach, and I know a few I could recommend could give you a form check and tell you what cues to use to to better lift some resources. Okay, I would definitely check out starting strength, the book and all their videos and resources on the proper and safe and effective way to lift. I would go look at videos by barbell logic on YouTube. Okay, barbell logic, and then and then let's talk about actual safety in the gym. You want to use a spotter like another person has a spotter or the pins and spotter arms on a power rack when at a minimum when you're squatting and when you're benching Okay, so when you squat, you want to sit the pins or the spotter arms, those are the the pins or the arms that go across the rack that can be used as stops as safety stops. You want to go down into a full squat and set those just below that point. So if you have to bail on the squat, you're going to bail forward, you're not going to go backward like in CrossFit where you dump the bar and everything clanks to the ground and then you damage equipment, you're going to just gently lean forward set the bar on the spotter. That's how you safely squat. I do that myself in my home gym. benchpress is even more important because benchpress actually could be dangerous. If you don't have a spotter spotter arms because you could drop the bar on your chest or neck and then not be able to get out of it. Pardon me. So again, spotter arms, you want them set up at the height between your neck and chest. So that if you fail the rep, you can just gently set it down and then like scooch out from under it while it's just safely sitting on the spotter arms. So that's important. And then here's the thing, you said, you feel you don't feel safe doing even one rep, let alone four to six, there, there has to be a weight that's light enough, where you do feel safe doing four to six, it might be the empty 45 pound Olympic bar, or it might be an empty women's bar, or like even a 15 pound bar, if you can get that, um, you could buy one yourself, if it's a home gym, or a PVC pipe, or a mop or broom handle seriously, and do your four to six, your three sets of four to six or whatever, with that weight, you should be able to do something, right, and then go up from there. So if it's a 15 pound bar, and you're like, Yeah, this is no problem, you know, add five pounds on each side and make it 25 pounds. Oh, now this is starting to feel a little heavy, but it's not so crazy heavy that you feel unsafe. So start there. And then each session just add a little bit of weight. This is where you might need microplates you have to buy those, just put them in your gym bag, where you get like quarter pound, half pound, three quarter one pound plates, so that you can go up by two pounds instead of five or 10. Okay, so I hope all that helps. And you just going to iterate through that process and developing that skill, watching videos, reading books, doing form checks, working with coaches as needed, reaching out to me reaching out to others in our group, you know, slowly progressing over time, you know, backing off a little bit if you feel unsafe, and you need to rework and form and then just keep going and you're gonna get there. All right. Question number three is from Alan, F. My man Alan, he asks, does research show a difference between a three day full body work? Three day full body strength training schedule, versus breaking it up into four or five days split? Like push core pull calves legs, core full body? Okay. He's saying is there a difference in effectiveness between three days full body? And four or five day body part splits? And the answer is, the research suggests that there's not a difference for strength or size. But there is a difference based on you as an individual. So you knew I was You knew I was going to say it depends at some point here, but I'm going to break it down exactly to give you the decision tree to to decide that from. So two research studies that came out just in the past year two, one is by ama evangelist at all in 2021. And the conclusion was that quote, resistance training twice or four times per week has similar effects on neuromuscular adaptation, provided weekly Set volume is equal. Okay, so that's neuro muscular adaptation. It doesn't matter. The other study Peterson at all in 2022, and Brad Schoenfeld was on this. And he's, he's one of the researchers that I really respect out there. Quote, this study did not show any benefits for split body resistance training program compared to full body resistance training program on measures of maximal and explosive muscle strength, and muscle mass. So again, they didn't really find a difference. What's the most important thing, Alan and everyone listening, as we said before, progressive overload, okay, so whatever a combination of intensity volume, and recovery allows for you as an individual to get stronger, is the best program for you. But there are some things to consider. Okay. So the first one is your training age and your experience, if you are beginner, three days, full body, bar, none, I wouldn't even consider anything else. And that's because you get the best bang for your buck in terms of the lifts in terms of your time, it's time efficient, you're not going to have very long rest periods, because you're new, and you're gonna be able to recover really quickly, within two days to do all those movements again. So you should be squatting every session, you should be dead lifting or pulling every session and doing some sort of press every session, every session. That's it, period. That's my opinion, no matter what age you are, unless you're very, very, very old and have never lifted, maybe it's two days a week, okay? Another factor is ability to recover between sessions. This is often tied to the first thing, age and training experience. So the older you are the hardest to recover, the more you want to consider whether you need a three or four day split as a result. Now, it could go both directions. A three day split gives you extra time between sessions, but it's also longer, right? And you may get more beat up doing it that way, in which case splitting it into four or five days allows you to spread that fatigue out over the week and recover better. So that's going to be individualized. The other thing is your personal schedule and whether you enjoy it and it makes it's consistent. Right? If your schedule doesn't allow for four or five days, because you know, you work a full time job, you have a family you have all these obligations. Then three days it is or maybe every other day where it's kind of a shifted schedule, right or maybe every third day, whatever makes sense, three days is great. For beginners, it's time efficient, it stimulates all the big muscle groups multiple times per week, it helps with your work capacity. And your it helps it gives you enough frequency to become better at the lifts to develop skill. So I said that already, but barn on beginners, three days, four or five days is what you want when you are intermediate, or advanced. So that could be as soon as three to six months after you start training, if you do it the right way. Definitely, if you're a year or two into training, you're probably up to a four or five day split at this point. Because then you can get more frequency and volume for muscle mass and hypertrophy. Right. So like the bodybuilding type stuff.

Philip Pape 25:44

Also, the training sessions won't be as long because when you're an intermediate trainer, you're you're lifting much heavier and you need more rest periods. And your sessions generally go up to like an hour and a half. So splitting into four or five days allows you to get that back down to maybe an hour. But again, it's going to depend on can your schedule accommodate that some people would rather have long sessions where they have the commute time built in than shorter sessions. Now the long story short is the best program is the one you can stick with that you can enjoy. And that meets your lifestyles and goals, lifestyle and goals. But let me give you an example from my personal experience over the last two years, I started with a three day split, when I was a beginner. Then I moved to a four day, a four day split, that I moved to a four day conjugate style program. Then I moved to a five day bodybuilders power building program. Then I tried a six day bodybuilding program, I went back to a four day conjugate program. And now because I'm in a fat loss phase, and I want to get more sleep, I'm back to a three day program. But it's not a beginner program. It's more of an advanced program. There you go. Alright, question for Question four is from Jay W. She asks, What are your recommended pre and post workout nutrition strategies? All right, always love this question. Because it can get complicated and it doesn't need to be. I'm trying to, I'm gonna try to simplify the guidelines as much as possible. And if you want a book about a really good book about flexible dieting and macros, that covers the research behind a lot of this flexible dieting by Alan Aragon is fantastic. He came out with it, I think lat just last year. And he summarizes all the research really succinctly. So here we go, I'm going to talk about protein, carbs and fats, protein, consume protein up to two hours before and two hours after your workout. That's pretty broad, right? So you get a lot of flexibility, consume some protein up to two hours before up to two hours after. And this will maximize muscle protein synthesis. If you're eating enough protein, you're probably going to be eating four or five times a day anyway. So if you're working out that day, make two of those times two hours before and up to two hours after. And I would say somewhere like 25, or 30 grams of protein at each of those is in the ballpark for most people, you know, if you're much larger, it's going to be higher. So that's that's protein, simple. Carbs. You You generally want carbs in your blood from a meal consumed up to two hours before the workout or a small amount, 30 minutes before your workout. So let me explain if you if you have breakfast, and then you train it 10. And you know, if you had breakfast at eight, and you train at 10, and your breakfast had a deep amount of carbs in it, you're good. If you wake up early, and the first thing you do is work out, well then give yourself a 30 minute buffer and have a simple carb like fruit, banana, I love bananas because they add potassium which is excellent electrolyte. So fruit or something like rice. Okay, 30 minutes prior, give yourself a little time to start digesting and then hit the gym. Okay, and this can be as little as 10 to 20 grams just to get something in your system to help you with your performance. Because when you work out when you strength train, you start to draw on your glycolytic tank on your glycogen. And if you don't have that tank filled, like if the last time you ate was dinner the night before, in your tank is half full, you're going to deplete it much more quickly and you're going to start to feel like you can't lift as much. And the whole goal of strength training is lifting the heaviest weight we can for progressive overload. So if it's a long workout, or if you can't consume carbs before your workout, try to consume them during the workout. So this could be something like highly branched cyclic dextran or it could be fruit. The bodybuilders way back in the day would have like pop tarts and gummy bears I don't recommend that. But you know, the dextrin or fruit would work something that's easy on the stomach and digest pretty quickly and then just get your the your next carbs at your next meal within a few hours. So I know I talked a lot about the carbs but just to simplify, have carbs up to two hours before The closer you are to workout make it simpler carbs that digest quickly. If you can't consume before consumed during, and also consume carbs within a few hours after you workout, it could just be your next meal. Or if it's a very intense training session like CrossFit or a lot of movement, you want to consume it sooner than that to refill your glycogen. That's it. Fats easy, limited or no fats at all, because they slow digestion of protein, carbs, and they have no benefit at all for energy or hypertrophy or strength during strength training. So don't worry about fats, I mean, worry about them in the sense that try to keep keep them low to minimal, low to non existent. So here's what I do. I work out in the morning, early in the morning, I give myself about half an hour, 45 minutes, I wake up, I have a banana and a way shake, I get some work done. Or maybe I read and relax. And then I go for my training session. After my training session, within 45 minutes, I have a way shake with some highly branched cyclic dextran. Or now that I'm in a fat loss phase, I can't even afford those carbs. So I just go jump right into breakfast. All right. Hope that helped. That is it for our first q&a episode. If you found this helpful or valuable, let me know please by leaving a five star review at Apple or Spotify, I often read these reviews on the show. And I would be happy to give you a shout out if you want. And again, thanks for listening and stay strong. 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 2/7/23 Philip Pape 2/7/23

Ep 44: Menopause and Weight Gain, Brain and Heart Health, and Empowering Women with Alison Bladh

I was honored to speak with Alison Bladh about women’s health, particularly during menopause, to help demystify the associated affects on weight, brain and heart health, sleep, stress, and other symptoms to empower women to take control of their health.

Alison Bladh is a registered nutritional therapist and beauty therapist living in the wilds of Sweden after falling for the charms of a Viking man!

Alison worked in the health and wellness industry for over 30 years specializing in menopausal women’s health and currently runs an online clinic helping women worldwide manage the negative symptoms of menopause.

Her mission is to support her clients with individualized changes to diet, health, mindset and lifestyle so they can harness their hormones and get their confidence and sparkle back.

Alison supports busy, midlife women who are stressed, depressed, gained weight, and have lost their confidence…because all women, no matter what age, deserve to reclaim their health and feel great. Every woman has the right to feel and look amazing in midlife!

Topics discussed in this episode:

The spark that inspired Alison to help women get their sparkle back (her mission to help women during midlife/menopause)
Menopause and its importance (especially regarding hormone reproduction)
Why there is a stigma attached to menopause
Why weight gain occurs during midlife/menopause and what can be done about it
How someone can modify their lifestyle to manage the symptoms
How to sleep better and manage stress
How to improve bone health
How to improve hair and skin
The importance of blood sugar and how to regulate
How to improve brain and heart health
The story of a client who got her "sparkle" back (the steps/process)
How all women can embrace menopause positively for a long, happy, healthy life

RELATED LINKS

Alison's website for free downloads - alisonbladh.com
Find Alison on Instagram - @alisonbladh
Watch the episode on video here

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:00

Before we start the episode, just a quick note about the audio quality of this one. For whatever reason, our connection had a delay, and some artifacts in the audio from our remote recording software, and we cleaned that up as best we could. I think you'll find the conversation both listenable and totally worth the small loss in audio quality. Enjoy the episode

Philip Pape 00:28

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 examined 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. I'm honored to be joined today by Alison blood to talk about women's health, particularly during menopause. We're going to help demystify the associated effects on weight, brain heart health, sleep, stress and other symptoms to empower women to take control of their health. Alison Bladh is a registered nutritional therapist and beauty therapist living in the wilds of Sweden. After falling for the charms of a Viking man. Alison worked in the health and wellness industry for over 30 years specializing in menopausal women's health. She currently runs an online clinic helping women worldwide manage the negative symptoms of menopause. Her mission is to support her clients with individualized changes to diet, health, mindset and lifestyle so they can harness their hormones and get their confidence and sparkle back. Alison supports busy midlife women who are stressed, depressed have gained weight and have lost their confidence. Because all women no matter what age deserve to reclaim their health and feel great. Every woman has the right to feel and look amazing in mid life. Alison, thank you for coming on the show.

Alison Bladh 01:59

It's my pleasure, lovely to be on your podcast. Thank you for having me.

Philip Pape 02:04

Yeah, and thanks again. I'm really excited to talk to you today. I think the listeners are going to learn a lot and get a lot of value from this topic which is very important for women's health and jumping right into your mission to get women their sparkle back. What was your spark in taking that on? Like who is Alison Bladh? Why this singular but important mission to help women during midlife and menopause?

Alison Bladh 02:26

Yeah, we all like a bit of sparkle, don't when some of that when we come into midlife, I think we can lose a bit of that sparkle. But the reason that I'm so interested in in a work with with women for so many years and women's health was, you know, my journey started actually started off as an esthetician. And the reasons behind that was when I was growing up as a teenager, I suffered from very bad skin. So I have acne really, as a teenager, you know, the hormonal acne. And that really fascinated me, you know, why was I getting this so I really started researching and finding ways to improve with fashion lifestyle, I can medications. And then that led me interesting in Perry Manor because that is an area where all of a sudden you can really lip skin problems. And then stick them to ring on the outside on the skin usually needed to work on the inside as well. It really isn't enough just to treat the skin from the outside. And that's when I went back to university and studied nutritional science. So I've worked with my clients now, you know really working on nutrition, lifestyle and mindset to help women thrive through this time in their life. Because, you know, we all and gay gain their spot, uncle and love of life. So that's that's what I do you get your spot with that.

Philip Pape 04:03

Yeah, that's that's a great message. I think a lot of women can take heart knowing that there potentially is an approach with lifestyle with mindset with nutrition, before we necessarily have to go other routes and consider medication and so on. Why don't we Why don't we this is a big topic, as we were talking about before we started recording. Why don't we just define first menopause why what it is, why is why it's important, especially with regards to things like hormone production.

Alison Bladh 04:29

Yeah, great question. Because even though we hear the word menopause, they're still, you know, even the clients that I work with, we don't there's so many women or men that don't really fully understand what that is, you know, and it isn't just menopause. It's different stages. So if we look at the first, which is called perimenopause, and this on average starts at the age of 45. It can start earlier we're all very visual, but on average, it starts To the this is the stage before. So this is really where our hormones, in particular estrogen and progesterone really start to kind of become unbalanced, they really start to fluctuate, you know, still produce hormones, but they've unbalanced and this is where you can see the classic report or symptoms happening, you know, like hot flashes, weight gain, irritability, mood swings, I always like to say, you know, you've got your estrogen levels, which can be quite high during perimenopause. And this is a bit like the diva hormone. And the progesterone levels can be lower, and they're like the calming best. And so you know, when you reach your levels are high, and you haven't got that calming effect from progesterone, stone, you can get very irritable, and you can just find moody and anxious, and it's to do with the imbalances in hormones. So that's really your parent pools. And that goes on to refer to the relative 51. Again, and then what happens is, when you haven't had a menstrual period, or you haven't had a period of a year, you are then in menopause, which means that we're no longer fertile, you're no longer ovulating, you will still produce produce a small amount of estrogen and progesterone. But, you know, your levels will go down quite, quite considerably. Menopause really is just that phase, when you haven't had a period for a year. And all the time after that you're in post menopause. And that can be you know, the next 3035 years of your life. It's very, it's a, it's a transition early many years, and everybody isn't really, you know, some people go and have no problems. And some women, it can be really, you know, a very difficult time. But post menopause. It's like, it's a new phase of life, really 30 years of, of life where you should be things. So you know, what I would say to that get the support they need, because there's so many things that you can do. So you do five and have a happy, you know, it's like a new beginning and doesn't it?

Philip Pape 07:30

Yeah, so I love all of that. First of all, the metaphor about the the Diva and the calming best friend, I think that really resonates in terms of the perimenopause phase. But like you mentioned, menopause, is this exciting new phase of life potentially, for many decades, a significant portion of your life with all these opportunities for health and for just enjoying new things. And of course, why wouldn't you want to then take care of your health during that phase? So why why is there still this stigma, though, attached to menopause?

Alison Bladh 08:01

Yeah, it's a great question that I get asked that so many times. And it's, it's, I mean, I can relate when I think of when I was growing up, my grandmother and my mother and all the women at you know, within my family network, they didn't talk about menopause, it was very, very much a taboo subject. It was kind of, no, we don't talk about we just, you know, the very British, you know, stiff upper lip, just get on with it. And I think, you know, it's changing, it's changing, especially, I don't know, you're the welfare state. But in Europe, there's a bit of a menopause revolution going on, here. And women have really started saying, you know, this is enough, we want the sport, they shouldn't ignore attached to it. But I think maybe the stigma comes from the fact that you're not fertile anymore, is that we live in a society gently. As women get older, it's very much based as well, isn't it societies on how we look, you know, in everything, I think it has something to do with this is more of a, you know, an ending of your youth than your fertility. And it's something that maybe women feel that they don't want to talk about it as much. Whereas you know, puberty, that's like a new beginning, isn't it? Which, you know, it's just, it's a totally natural phase, and every single woman will go through it. So it really should be embraced rather than thought of, as, you know, being terrible, and we shouldn't talk about it. But I think a lot of it is to do with women getting older and we don't really want to talk about that. And we don't want to talk about the fact that we're not for sale anymore. And there's a lot there's a lot of negativity around that.

Philip Pape 09:56

Yeah, that's I mean, first of all, stating The obvious I can't relate directly with this, but I do, you know, have have a wife. And also I've seen the double standard with what you're talking about because, you know, men tend tend to kind of, I don't wanna say that goes through, but there isn't this major change or different phases in life. Whereas women have this, and hopefully, podcasts like like this, and the ones you're going on talking about this, and especially how women can embrace it right, and take control of their health through that phase and make it this new positive thing in life, I think, you know, go a long way toward this. So hopefully, the world is changing in terms of how we talk about it. So speaking of those changes, during menopause, I imagine that one of the big ones weight gain is is one of the bigger shocks and maybe struggles for a lot of women, which I've seen with clients as well. Why does this seemingly indiscriminate weight gain that comes out of nowhere and some times occur? And what can women do about it?

Alison Bladh 10:57

One is, I see that with a lot of my clients as well, the main, some one of the main reasons that they come to me, but it's just, it kind of just creeps up, isn't it, even if you're eating the same, and they've got the same lifestyle, you know, where you didn't put weight on, you know, all of a sudden just feel especially common for menopausal women to put weight on around the middle area, you know, we go from more of a pear shape to an apple. And it's, you know, there's so many things going on. So, you know, when we look at research, we still don't fully understand why this happened. But certainly different parts of the weight gain. One of the big players in this is stress is actually virtually impossible to lose weight, if you're suffering from chronic stress poems, called Zol, in particular, is what we call a store hormone. So if you're calm, stressed, you will find it very difficult way. So working on stress management is key for weight gain. But another thing that we have to remember is that you can't blame everything on the MediCal, the natural process of aging, you know, we tend to less active as we get older, which can or may lead to weight gain. Any we can't even have to think of portion control. And I'd love to, but you really can't get away with eating what you ate when you're in your 20s and 30s, when you're 50. So you read, which a lot of people don't really think about, they carry on eating the same amount of food, which leads to weight gain. And then there's another you know, estrogen is a major metabolic hormone. So when I go into perimenopause, there's so many metabolic shifts that are happening in the body that may lead to weight gain. And one of those is insulin resistance. When we talk about blood sugar balance in the body, you know, when we eat carbohydrates, pacifically refined, you know, the processed foods that really shoots our blood sugar levels up very quick. And what the body does to counteract that it produces a hormone called insulin. And insulin really is the nice way to describe it's kind of like the key that opens the cells in to the set of be utilized for energy. But what happens when we have decline in estrogen is that we don't become a sensitive to the the insulin, kind of like saying that the key doesn't work anymore. And we can find that we have high blood sugar level up good for weight gain, instant Lin format again. So if you if you've got levels, such as you to lose weight, it's really again, we're working on less refined, sugary, sugary foods, and other area for hunger hormone, leptin, and when we, again, can put is it's the hormone that makes us hungry, right, allows you to eat. So if you're producing more of the hormone, then you're going to have more of an appetite and you're going to be wanting to eat more. So in effect, leptin, which is our satiety hormone, and the satiety hormone is the one that when you eat and tells you to stop eating, so it's countless all this become alerts and it's the multitude of many things that you know, make us put weight on it in this time period. and also thyroid health. A lot of women, when we come into this time of ours have the thyroid is like the engine of the book and isn't worth looking at optimally can lead to weight gain some some of those symptoms of high, the thyroid gland is weight gain. So there's so many things you could actually do a whole podcast on on just on menopausal weight.

Philip Pape 15:27

Yeah, I love that. Alison , I know, I know, there's a little bit of delay here. So I'm not sure how major it is on your end. But I want to unpack a lot of that. Because what's in what resonated with me is, a lot of times we talk about dieting, or even taking menopause out of the equation, we talk about dieting and metabolic adaptation, a lot of the same hormones come into play, right, they get downregulated, cortisol goes up, reproductive hormones go down, you talked about the appetite, hormones, leptin and ghrelin. And I want the listener to understand that what you're saying is women in menopause just because of this physiological change, you know, biological changes in our body are also undergoing these things that they didn't have to deal with 510 15 years earlier. And the awareness of this is where you start to then you know, unpack and make changes. So talks about cortisol. Usually, people say that's the stress hormone, but I like how you also refer to its ability to help to help you store fat when it goes up. And sometimes people and they take an inventory of their day to day life, it's not really even about the food and all their activity, it's that they're so stressed that they're preventing themselves from proper fat loss, you know, and it may be getting sleep, and maybe something like that. So I think these are important because they they're, they're factual things about how our bodies work, that if you understand them, you can then go the next step, which is where I think you come in, right? Where you're, you know, your mission in helping women change their lifestyle, change the nutrition, how can someone start to then modify their lifestyle based on all these changes to manage the negative symptoms? Yeah, so

Alison Bladh 17:02

when when, if the whole they need to look at the nutrition, you need to look at lifestyle, and you also need to look at mindset. And there are some things that you can do to really help manage weight. And I know you mentioned sleep there, which I haven't gone to that yet. But that is really key for weight management, amongst other things, but I think the main things that that we want, we think about nutrition is that we really want to eat more of an anti inflammatory diet. Because when inflamed, it's very difficult for all the process to function as they should. And estrogen has an anti inflammatory effect. So when that goes down, you know, it causes inflammation. And when we're trying to lose weight, trying to really rebalance the body, we want to think about eating and the inflammatory foods. And a very, or style of eating is more of a what we call the Mediterranean style diet, which is, you know, you're eating lovely, fresh proteins don't in the Mediterranean style diet, they don't eat much red meat, a little amount of red meat, but a lot of nuts and seeds, all the ones for olive oil, olives, buttered ghee, and they're really, you know, getting the majority of your carbohydrates from fruit and vegetables and whole grains that they don't there's very little sugar and processed foods in a Mediterranean style diet. And you know, they've seen it always in research, you will always say that the Mediterranean style diet really comes up as the best style of eating, for weight loss and for overall health. And when pacifically for weight loss, we really tried to focus on reduce reducing carbohydrates and really getting a car behind rate adjustable balls or cruciferous vegetables. For example, when you're looking at the plate that you would eat from you would you would have a boat team and then you would have some Health's and then you have your carbohydrates from vegetables since to really reduce the amount of energy that you're taking into your body and eating foods as well which are very important for menopausal women to help detox re individual and it's absolutely not about going on a diet or restrict addiction. It's really it's a lightness is change, you know, giving someone the tools that they can eat in this way for the rest of their life, because it's not something that you can just do for a couple of weeks. It is it's a lifestyle change. So has to be less sick, that people can volunteer and delicious.

Philip Pape 20:21

Yeah, no, I, I totally agree with everything you said. Normally, I don't use named diets. But yet the Mediterranean style diet is one of the few maybe two or three on the planet that is highly compatible. I agree with what you're saying. And anti inflammatory diet. It's mostly unprocessed foods, delicious foods that you can incorporate. And then most of your, like you said, most of your grains from fibrous foods, which also help with other things like hunger and digestion, etc. But then have the added benefit of being caught, you know, nutrient dense, so low calorie for a lot of bet a lot of bang for your buck. So excellent anti inflammatory diet. Now, would you recommend an elimination diet to get there in terms of making it sustainable? Or, like, what are the baby steps or what are the steps you take clients through, so that they go from what they're eating today, which could be vastly different from that, to where they should end up.

Alison Bladh 21:15

So when I work with when I work with clients, I work very individually. You know, we work together and really focusing on their goals, because everyone has a different, you know, many different goals, the majority of women come to see me, they're normally overwhelmed, they're very stressed, they're tired all the time, you know, they just need someone to help them and give them that energy back. So what I always work on first, so food, to nourish and nurture the body. So this is really important, because we need to make sure we're getting all the correct vitamins and minerals. So really nurturing and nourishing the body and hydrating the body. And also working with that person in a way that it will suit them. Because we all have different life styles, we all have different, you know, things going on in our lives. So So really looking at what they're each thing and, you know, taking out certain things putting in certain things. I wouldn't in question, I wouldn't do an elimination diet unless a particular reason that that person needed it. I mean, if if there's any sign of maybe allergies, or, you know, problems with gluten, or lactose excetera, then yes, I would. But it's very individual, it's not something for everybody.

Philip Pape 22:48

Alison Bladh 23:12

Firstly signature and hydrate and then we move on to, you know, elimination if needed. So what I like to do is to eliminate and then repair and then reboot. So really looking and when when we talk about elimination or removing thing isn't necessarily always nutrition. It can also be, you know, lifestyle habits that are beneficial for your health. So it's really looking at everything together and really moving those things, maybe reading them with something else, and then really rebooting everything and it can get in the body better, but homeostasis. Another key area of my work is stress. So I sit down and we do a stress audit. Because I think really, especially when you come into perimenopause, just to be honest with yourself and the majority of people when we're living you know, in this age, we're all stressed or some degree majority of people so I'm so stressed, I'm so busy. But you really have to sit down and be honest with yourself and look at things that you could maybe manage differently. So you have time for yourself to reduce, because as we were saying earlier, it is so detrimental to help suffering from chronic stress because of bones. You know what happens in the body. So really looking at what is going on stress wise and coming up with ideas for that for the client. That work for them could be something as simple as deep breathing exercises. You know if you're if you're sat at your back and you're suddenly starting to feel anxious, anxiety big sent to menopause. Amazing. Just take some really three or four deep breaths it completely resets body, it's actually virtually impossible to be stressed when you're breathing deeply. So something as simple as that, if you could do if you, if you like yoga, if you like meditation, great, but the majority of people I work with don't have the time to spend, you know, doing meditation or yoga every day. But I mean, that is a fantastic way to manage stress, and really just find it, you know, just for five minutes, going for a walk, getting banned, no, just looking out the window tapes and little things if you do them every day, you know, really, really mount up and help help to relieve stress. And I think with management, it's admitting that you're stressed, and admitting that you need to do something about it, rather than just, you know, carrying on and on until ill, or you become so stress, you have to look at it and look after yourself. So stress audit, and then I missed that, you know, how we can make this time in our lives with a more poor mindset. I also look at testing and in, in my programs as well, again, that is very individual, and it would depend on the client. You know, we could do functional testing, to test for example, moans, we can do all tests, we can look at the microbiome, the gut bacteria, to really testing is wonderful, because you can really get to the bottom and you can really see, you know, what is going on in the different systems of the body. And then it did supplementation for any deficiencies or, you know, things that that we work with. I work with clients for life, because it is very individual, but my main aim is to result you know, you tell me the goals that you've got, that is what I'm trying to achieve, you know, get it get your result.

Philip Pape 27:01

Yeah, thank thanks, Alysa, for going through all of those, like the hierarchy of priorities, where you know, we first focus on the big things like sleep and stress, and then maybe collect more data with the testing. And finally, things like supplementation going back, going back to stress for a second. I like that you acknowledge the fact that people don't want to unnecessarily add more stress to their life trying to manage stress, right? It's like, oh, now you're telling me to do yoga, you're telling me to do this other thing, and I already don't have enough time. So go ahead and work on breathwork. And every time I talked to a guest who taught who mentioned breathwork, immediately, I want to do it myself in the moment and realize how much it relaxes your you because of the parasympathetic state it is right. So these are these are excellent tips. And of course, having a coach like like you, Alison would would help someone because they can individually kind of step back, get that extra that third party perspective on those little things that can make a big difference. So why don't we get into then some specific symptoms that I think we wanted to cover? You told me what you want to go over here, but I was thinking bone health is a big concern for women with the prevalence of osteopenia, osteoporosis, you know, the general frailty as we age which can lead to injury and hospitalization for polypharmacy reduced function, so many things. I think people don't even think how important that is. We talk a lot about strength training on this podcast is one way to improve that, but what's your advice for bone health?

Alison Bladh 28:30

Yeah, that is so crucial affiliate bone health, and it's kind of the thing, because you don't really, you know, if you get if you if your bone, if you're losing bone density, it's nothing that you really, really feel like there's kind of this silent thing that can happen to you, and your downfall. Fortunately, if you fall over when you're older, if you're suffering osteoporosis, or, you know, you've lost bone density, you know, you can break something. And, you know, it's very, very, you can see in studies that the density of bone in women when they lose the estrogen and progesterone goes down quite considerably. So it's something that you really have to think of and be quite active, nutritionally wise and lifestyle and 100% behind you on strength training, because that gives such fantastic results for strengthening bones. So what I say well, my menopausal ladies is you have to do strength training. There's no that that is a must to keep your your bones and muscles, you know, strong and active. So that is a really key thing. I mean, I'm not a personal trainer, but that is what I would recommend that they go to professional advice on how they should be training. As far as it comes when it comes to nutrition, you need to think about calcium rich foods. The thing that we need, well, there's many things but the Pacific like vitamins and minerals that we need for bone health is calcium, vitamin D, vitamin K, magnesium is crucial as well. So you really have to make sure that you've got a diet rich in these rich vitamins and minerals, because vitamin D, vitamin K and calcium, they all kind of worked together to improve bone density. So, you know, we all think of calcium, don't we, which of course is important, but calcium on its own, you know, it cannot actually be at all. So you really have to be careful, you're going to take calcium supplements that you can buy the vitamin D and Vitamin K, I mean, the majority of very good supplements in supplements actually have these other nutrients combined in the supplement. Very much a believer in food first, you know, try and get your nutrients from food if possible. You know, when you think of calcium, you think of dairy milk, your green leafy vegetables, a lot of nuts have calcium in Vitamin D is at the it's actually quite difficult to get enough vitamin D through food. Because there aren't that many food sources of vitamin D, we produce vitamin D from sunlight as well. So it's very important that in the summer months that we go outside and expose our bodies to some because the body produces D through sunlight. But vitamin D probably one of the only supplements that you're one of the only victims I would recommend and supplementing because it's so difficult to get the amount that we need you know, in high enough doses through there is vitamin D in like oily fish eggs, but it's I know it's meant to bitumen D has been talked about so much through the pandemic as well because the effects that it has on the immune system. It's a crucial crucial vitamin for many many things but killer bone health and I know in Europe and into Kingdom it's actually a vitamin supplement the government you know the health authorities recommend that people take as a supplements high risk surgeon if you don't go out died very much if you're really if you live in a darker climb because it's so crucial for so many different things in body so that's your your bone health. Also stressing you know, keeping act and avoid again and you know, I think every single day when we talk about health, avoiding sugary foods, processed foods, fizzy drinks, because they really let the they strip your bones that they're not good. They can actually have a negative effect your bones especially all the really sugar laden drink avoiding your bet and really getting your back from whole nutritious foods.

Philip Pape 33:12

Excellent answer that question I think again you raised awareness of how the menopause itself and the changes in hormones especially the estrogen compounds that affect for women, right it compounds the lack of bone density and increases the need for all of these factors. You mentioned strength training and calcium rich foods and potentially supplementation which are all excellent things and reminds me in New England here you know it's getting cold and dark and you know get as much sunlight as I can but maybe the vitamin D supplementation needs to be looked at so what about some some other things that are I'm not gonna say they're less important than bones are important for individuals but hair and skin for example. I know you mentioned in your your story how that I think you came into this from from from a skin perspective right Healthy Skin How can women improve that during menopause?

Alison Bladh 34:04

Yeah, skin it again, it's it's a huge subject under hair as well. Again, you know, estrogen is so it we have estrogen receptors all over our body, that when estrogen levels start to dip, it affects every system of the body cluding up our skin. They start noticing on your skin like pigmentation. You can get sensitive skin you can get dry skin. You can actually develop acne, you know as you come into perimenopause because of the hormonal imbalances but it all it all goes back down to really you know eating anti inflammatory diet more than Mediterranean style diet. Making sure that you're hydrating enough, you know enough water and then we know we talked about skin there there are meat treatments that you can do that can help the skin because also the decline in estrogen, but you've got aging process as well, because the collagen in the skin as we get older declines quite considerably. And the collagen is really collagen and elastin is what our body needs, while the skin needs to keep him fresh. Seeing protein is key really good sources of protein for the health and for her health. So really making sure that getting enough protein, that that's something that a lot of women don't do, we don't eat enough protein. And also talking about bone health and muscle skill a health, it's already pre made, still roughly what I aim for a part size of protein with every meal. And when I talk about protein, I mean things like chicken fish, if you don't eat meat, you know all your soy products, nuts, beans, protein is, is also going back to what is great for my weight management because when you eat protein you become you're quite satisfied, you can actually eat a lot of 13. So it fills you up. It's very crucial for skin health and for hair health. And using products on skin that give moisture, you know, an older skin and menopausal skin is lacking hydration, estrogen that the hormone estrogen enables our skin to hold water. So as we become older, we lose the skin lose that that loses the ability to hydrate as well. So you really need to use products that contain a lot, a lot of moisture and sun, of course, you know, if you talk about, you really have to think on exposure, because that really is so detrimental to the skin as far as aging pigmentation. So making sure that when you apply products that you have, if we're talking about the face, if you have a day cream with an SPF in, and what the research is saying is that you should really have an SPF, at least of 30 because they're using you, when you come into your 40s or mid 40s You really see on your skin, what you've done to it in your 20s. So if you were, you know, done worshipper, when your teens and 20s, that that pigmentation and that damage that you did, then it kind of catches up with you in later life and you're suddenly starting pigmentation and you'll see that your skin will age a lot quicker. So get on protection is crucial for the skin. It really is you really see a difference if you if you protect your face from the sun.

Philip Pape 37:55

Alison, it's funny all the all of the things you're talking about to improve your hair and skin are also things that are good practice for all the other areas of health that we've been talking about as well. So it's nice that everything kind of comes together in one big package right eating protein. I hear so many times people wanting to go to, I don't know collagen supplements or collagen itself, which is, in my opinion, quite a low quality protein for consumption, versus just getting protein from natural food sources as you suggest. And then the dehydration and avoiding avoiding UV exposure with sunblock, but still going out in the sun to get your Vitamin D right. We have to do a little both are all great. Great tip. So what about Okay, so I know we're getting close on time here. Um, there's we could go into blood sugar, we can go into brain health, heart health. Maybe, maybe instead, can you share a specific example of maybe a client that you worked with? Who had, I guess lost your sparkle, right, as you call it, and the steps or process you might have gone through together to get that back so we can focus on a couple of key areas that you might have worked with a client on?

Alison Bladh 39:05

Yeah, sure. I had just under I was for eight months, and she she came to me. She was overwhelmed, very, very tired. She had been sleeping. And she had bloating, you know, the have stomach. You know, she said when she did her stomach just really expanded your clothes feel very tight. And she was in perimenopause. And she was just generally feeling terrible and like, you know, her spa golf had certainly. So her main goals were to work on bloating and to energy levels. So what we did is we looked at her diet to play to see what she was eating and really started putting in a lot of things that would improve her gut health because bloating again is a symptom of perimenopause. And what we found was, we actually did quite a lot of well, and it was really interesting because what there was an imbalance I am in our gut, there's some people dysbiosis, which is the microbiome of the gut bacteria. And we've seen in so many studies now that this is crucial, you know, not only to prevent bloating, but for overall health, the microbiome in our gut bacteria has an effect on everything, even brain health and how we're feeling and mood and everything. So we we really worked on that by introducing probiotic foods. probiotic foods are things like sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, all the fermented foods that have live bacteria. And so she started introducing those into a diet, we got rid of all the sugary processing foods, and introduce whole foods in our diet. And once you take away the processed sugary foods, you will start feeling better even if you do something. So after a couple of weeks of eating the whole foods, she felt so much better. But then we really focused on on the gut bacteria with the probiotics. And getting sugar improved her blood sugar balance, so she had much more energy. We worked on asleep by introducing a sleep hygiene routine that works for her. And it was mainly just she had quite a high pressure job. And it was more giving her time to wind down before she went to bed because she was sat working virtually until the time she like just went back to bed. So she actually took an hour before she went to sleep to unwind to turn off all devices, maybe read a book or just have a bath, but Epsom salt baths we introduced which are wonderful for anyone's have probably really is fantastic. Because Epsom easier absorbed into the skin and maximum magnesium is such a calming mineral. So if you do that before you go to bed, you really really to help you sleep. So she was sleeping better, she was eating better, we worked on her gut bacteria. She actually lost weight as well, even, that wasn't her main goal. But she was very happy about that. And what was so fantastic with this client was that I still keep in touch with her now is that she's managed to keep all these things in place. So it's become a lifestyle for her that and she feels so much better. And she's really enjoying this new way of eating. It's not it's not restrictive at all, and how she feel so much. It motivates her to carry on with it. So that's what is one client in particular. Yeah,

Philip Pape 42:59

that's an amazing story. I'm sure you have many clients stories like that. And for the listener, you know, there's some bigger changes here. But there are some smaller changes that just the little nudge in the right direction, like the sleep hygiene, fantastic example where you're not you're not trying to get her two hours more of sleep, per se. You're just saying look, the blue light and the stress and working right up until you go to bed is just causing the quality of employment. So here's a small change you can make. I like the idea of the bath stew because not only the salt baths, but just having a warm bath actually cools you down is you know, an interesting thing people aren't aware of. Okay, that's these are these are amazing things. Alison, you gave us a ton to think about. I do like to ask one question of all guests before we wrap up. And that is what what one question Did you wish I had asked and what is your answer?

Alison Bladh 43:51

Yeah, I think like the positive side, you know, what are the positive sides to men a good talk about, like doom and gloom? Really? Isn't it slow this thing down? Because there are there are actually some positive stuff. So the positive sides to mess are the there's no you don't have any more pain areas, which I'm sure virtually all women will be quite happy about. No more PMS. So no more of that, like mood swings and you know, being angry before your periods. You have no pregnancy worries. So you can have sex without having to worry about getting pregnant. And normally, this isn't always the case, but a lot of women suffer from migraine headaches. But once your hormone levels have really declined and stopped, you know, stop producing, seeing estrogen, your hormone headaches go away. And it's also very impact I'm I think I'm for me. Now. Now I'm going to look after myself and I'm going to do what I wanted. It's, I think it's fantastic to see women when, in this stage of their life, you know, some of them are setting up businesses, they're going off traveling around the world. It's like a sense of freedom. In a way, this is me time, and I'm going to go and do exactly what I want. And you feel that you don't have, you don't have to prove yourself anymore. That kind of worrying about what other people think about you. It has gone, you just do what you want to do, and then feel happier and more confident about that.

Philip Pape 45:30

Yeah, that's amazing. So there's both the mindset and the physical positives of this new phase of life or menopause that women can look forward to. And then, of course, take control of their health and lifestyle with many of the things you've talked about today on the show. So last question is, where can listeners learn more about you and your work, Alison?

Alison Bladh 45:50

Yeah, I think the best place to come from my website, which is alisonbladh.com. And that's B L A DH. And I'm on all social media platforms. Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok. And that's alisonbladh, you'll find those that I also have on my website has a resources page, which is got lots of free downloads, lots of free with meal plans, and recipe ideas. For example, if you're interested in skin health, there's a recipe book for improving skin. There's lots of different resources there that are free to download, if if any of your listeners are interested.

Philip Pape 46:32

Excellent. And I know they will be interested as well. I'm going to go download some of those. And I'm going to make sure to add those links to the show notes so everyone can find you, Alison, it really was a pleasure. I think you're helping so many women up their game with regards to taking control their health during this exciting new phase. It's exciting, positive phase of life, and I'm grateful that you took the time to come on today.

Alison Bladh 46:54

Now it's a pleasure. It's been lovely talking to you, Philip. Thank you.

Philip Pape 46:59

Philip Pape 1/31/23 Philip Pape 1/31/23

Ep 43: Lose Fat and Feel Great Using Mindset, Consistency, Endurance Training, and Longevity (Coaches Roundtable)

This is a coaches roundtable with 5 amazing people in my inner circle—whom I would consider friends at this point—who are making an impact on peoples’ lives—both active and aspiring nutrition coaches and personal trainers.

These incredible women and men each have a unique perspective on health and fitness and agreed to come together despite being in different timezones all around the world, to share their experience and expertise to help you thrive and achieve physical self-mastery.

After all, that is the mission of this podcast and why I’m constantly looking to bring on experts who share that mission, even if we use different paths to get there.

We will be covering nutrition and training, women’s health navigating social situations, tracking your food, endurance sports and ultra-running, how to be more consistent, and longevity, just to name a few.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Managing stress and "getting out of your head" to achieve your goals
How to navigate social situations and still enjoy your lifestyle
Setting up your environment and support structure for success
Why tracking your food can be helpful
Ultra-running training and fueling your endurance training and events
Celebrate the small wins and focus on consistency more than intensity or volume
How to "peacefully" achieve and sustain your fitness goals
Healthy from a longevity perspective: unique health hacks
The importance of nutrition vs. training

RELATED LINKS

Find Elaine Tarbell at https://www.facebook.com/TarbellsBarbells (mention WITSANDWEIGHTS to get a free in-person training consultation)
Find Michele Moe at moestronger.com (click BOOK CONSULTATION for a free strategy call)
Find Aaron Cartridge at his website to get a free Train for Your First Ultra guide
Find Michele Clark on Instagram - @minutri_michele
Watch the episode on video here

🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you achieve optimal health that fits your lifestyle—without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions. Philip Pape, podcast host and head nutrition coach, helps high-achieving people use their wits to build their body, reclaim their time, and gain control over food through one-on-one nutrition and lifestyle coaching at witsandweights.com.

👉 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)

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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 today, the first for the show, because we're doing a coach's roundtable with five other amazing people in my inner circle whom I would consider friends at this point, and they are out there making an impact in people's lives. These incredible men and women include active and aspiring nutrition coaches, and personal trainers. And each of them has a unique perspective on health and fitness. They agreed to come together despite being in different time zones. We've got folks in the morning in the evening, the middle of the day, all around the world. And they're going to share their experience and expertise to help you thrive and achieve physical self mastery. After all, that's the mission of this podcast is why I'm constantly looking to bring on experts like these who share that mission. Even if we use different paths to get there. We'll be covering nutrition training, women's health, navigating social situations, tracking your food, endurance sports and ultra running, how to be more consistent and longevity, just to name a few assuming we get to all of those. Without further ado, let me introduce everyone, and then we're going to dive into the questions. So I want to give each coach a chance to kind of take the floor starting with Elaine Tarbell and Elaine, how're you doing?

Elaine Tarbell 01:44

Good, thank you.

Philip Pape 01:46

So Elena's from Oskaloosa ah knew I'd get it wrong. It's near Des Moines, Des Moines, Iowa. It

Elaine Tarbell 01:52

is near Des Moines. Yep. Okay.

Philip Pape 01:54

Oskaloosa, Iowa. She's a personal trainer, gym owner of tar Bell's barbells. Gotta love the name. And she's a nutrition coach. Elaine uses her experiences and knowledge to help other women achieve their goals in a kind and compassionate way. And she specializes in women's health, both nutrition and weight training. So again, Elaine, thank you for being on the show. Yeah, thank

Elaine Tarbell 02:14

you very much, fellas, I'm very excited to be here.

Philip Pape 02:17

And so am I it's gonna be a fun conversation. Moving on this there's six of us, but I don't have to introduce myself. So we're going to next go to Michele Moe. And I might be calling her Moe during this conversation because we actually have two Michele's with me on the call today. Michele is from Charlotte, North Carolina. She's the owner and head coach of Moe stronger nutrition and fitness. They teach people how to eat foods they love, lose weight, Feel Great maintain it for life, and she helps people navigate the aging process with positive results. Michele, I appreciate you for coming on the show.

Michele Moe 02:49

Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.

Philip Pape 02:52

All right, our third coach today is Erin cartridge from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia In Australia, right. Erin is a nutrition coach with a passion for endurance sports. He helps aspiring ultra runners sift through misinformation in the sport and maximize their performance. Air man's pleasure to have you on.

Aaron Cartridge 03:11

Good to finally have a conversation and thanks for having me.

Philip Pape 03:15

Awesome. And maybe we'll have a chance to talk about all those lives you've been doing on Facebook. All right, next up is Michele Clark, who currently lives in Florida but she's originally from Brazil. She's a fitness and nutrition specialist helping women of all walks of life to learn how to nutritiously and peacefully achieve and sustain their fitness goals. I want to say that peacefully because it already is calming me down. Michele, I'm so glad you were able to come on the show as well.

Michele Clark 03:42

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Philip Pape 03:46

Awesome. Now it's gonna be great. And then let's get to our final coach of the evening or the morning. Last but not least is JC from Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland which I understand is is the the mouth of the river that's connected to Loch Ness that we all know about right

Philip Pape 04:09

to share we're just give them a wave. There you go man and JC may even show off his attire for you at some point if you're watching the video we'll see. Some people are like what are you talking about? You'll see just think Scotland you know what I'm talking about. So, alright, so JC is a health longevity and nutrition student who dabbles in biohacking and holistic healing. He explores why in our ever ever developing world were going backward in terms of mental and physical health and he helps people with their longevity goals. JC thank you for coming on. That's me. It's good to be here man.

JC 04:43

Good to finally meet y'all.

Philip Pape 04:46

This has been fun. We had a whole conversation before recording this and I think people listening are gonna get a ton from this because every single one of us is so unique. We also have a different different to bring to the the nutrition space and we're chatting all The time and helping each other help our clients. So that's how we grow. I'm going to start with a lane with the first question. And we'll give everybody a chance with, with at least one question to start. And then we can just kind of go back and forth. A lane I understand most of most of your clients, they have stressful lives, right? They struggle to get out of the mental space, get out of their heads. And I'm sure there's a lot of people listening, who are also stressed out, how can people take care of themselves? How can they build that confidence to achieve their goals?

Elaine Tarbell 05:29

Yeah, that's a really good question. Actually. I think just kind of reiterating what you said, people, it especially women, they're so used to taking care, like, if you have children, they're so used to taking care of their children and meeting everybody else's needs. There's a lot of people pleasing, women are kind of ingrained to take care of everybody else before it's taking care of themselves. So when it comes time to taking care of themselves, there's a identity crisis. There's like this, I don't know how to do that. And, you know, when you become an adult, you don't have parents to tell you how to do those things anymore. So a lot of times, I feel like in coaching women, there's a lot of like, I have to almost be their mother in a way like, Well, did you go outside and go for a walk? Did you eat breakfast?

Elaine Tarbell 06:14

Did you drink any water today?

Elaine Tarbell 06:15

Like, have you done the basics? And sometimes we're like, Oh, yeah. And it's it, you know, sometimes we get so stuck up here. And we're overthinking the process, we think we've got to do this 90 Day Fix, we've got to do this cleanses, detox, there's all this, you know, social media bullshit, or we let go.

Philip Pape 06:40

Threshold we're good. Just certain words, you know,

Elaine Tarbell 06:43

there is so much crap out there that is being shoved down our throats, and we have to be a size zero. And we have to be able to get the kids this nutritious lead perfect meal all the time. And meanwhile, we're neglecting ourselves. So sometimes it's just a matter of coming in and just saying, Hey, are you getting those basic needs met? Because if you're not, then we need to start there.

Philip Pape 07:09

You know, the thing he mentioned at the beginning resonated with me how people are missing the parent figure. And that's what they need. I mean, how often do we even reach out to somebody who is close in our lives, who isn't even our parent for support, I probably rarely happens. And you can be that person for them. Right? You can be someone that they don't have an emotional attachment to. And, you know, I know, I look at it as I can mansplain and get away with it with my clients, because they're asking for help. They're asking for information, you know, so what are your thoughts on on that?

Elaine Tarbell 07:41

Yeah, no, I, I, I actually kind of had this, I guess, you know, like, I'm one of my walks, I had this conversation with myself about it, like, I don't, I didn't have parents that were there to guide and instruct me, they were just sort of like living in the moment. And they've, you know, they've, they've not been good role models, I guess you could say, and when I became a parent, it was my absolute determination to be a better mother than what I had experienced. And I have found that in my own struggles, I, you know, there's times where I still grieve that loss of a parent, not just because maybe they're not here on this earth is neither here nor there at this point, but just that emotional connection to someone that would guide me to becoming a better person and having that deep desire within myself. And seeing so many people are disconnected from who they are. And from having someone to look up to. I just Yeah, I feel like coaching is very similar to being a parent, you have to set boundaries and expectations. And you don't have like this, like you have to meet this expectation, but you have to have some kind of an expectation for for your clients. And they have to be able to willingly reach for that in order to feel like they can make some kind of gain and success not just physically obviously because we're all here to help people achieve some kind of physical fitness but also to achieve some kind of mindset and mental growth.

Philip Pape 09:16

Yeah, and isn't that such a huge part of this, but for a lot of people it is about mindset, and consistency and accountability. Cool. So the format of this show today's is a little awkward because I'm gonna tend to jump from person to person instead of the continue on that flow because I could probably ask you 10 More questions. That lane but we'll come back to it. I'm sure you're okay getting the spotlight. But you know, if anything resonates with anybody that's really strong, just jump in, even if it is in this first round. If you want to comment,

Michele Clark 09:45

I do. There's something that I want to add to that. In a nutshell, where Elena was saying, usually what I tell my my clients, especially parents, I always tell them, you can pour from an empty cup, right so You cannot teach you cannot lead unless you're doing it we lead by example. So we have to be the role model so that we and that's how we influence people, right? It's not by telling them, I can tell you for sure. It's not by telling them you got to do. In coaching, obviously, it's a little different. But we, but we also do what we preach, right? So, we are influencing. So yeah, we cannot pour from an empty cup. That's all I wanted to say.

Philip Pape 10:29

That's great. Until you find that being a coach is its own form of accountability. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. It almost makes it I don't want to say makes it makes the whole thing easier, but you just have dozens or hundreds of followers online or whoever's following you, holding you accountable. And you've got to act apart. Absolutely. Everybody who's listening, you know, maybe they want to become a coach. Okay, so I'm gonna move on to moe Michelle, how you doing?

Michele Moe 10:54

Hello. That was great. I just want to say to Elaine answer that very well. You know, one thing I may just add, right before, just before you ask me, what you're gonna ask me sorry, is, you know, it's how we talk to ourselves. Sometimes, too. I think it's easy to talk to ourselves in a different way in our head than we would maybe a friend to make that shift toward the way we speak to ourselves in light of our weight loss or what what we're doing toward our goals, I think, to make that shift, and it takes time it it takes practice, to get to that point where you tell yourself that you can achieve these things.

Elaine Tarbell 11:34

Yeah, yeah.

Philip Pape 11:35

Yeah. For sure. Now we can we can continue on that Mo. If you want. We can. No, no, that's so yeah. I mean, there are a lot of little situations we're going to cover here that I think the listener be curious about how to deal with and one of those a common struggle that, that you've talked about is navigating social situations. Right? And how do you help clients enjoy their lifestyle? Right? Because that's, we talk about that all the time, especially we came up through NCI, we talk about periodization, we talk about sustainability, and not restricting and all of those, so how do you help people enjoy their lifestyle? Yet, you know, they still have to achieve this goal. That's going to take some hard work and some change.

Michele Moe 12:16

Okay, funny you asked that, because because I just did a whole video on that the other day, a couple of things I do. First of all, I have the client, look at the situation, the holiday, the barbecue, party, whatever they're going to what are you going there for? Well, you're going there to enjoy family, friends, the event, you're not going there for the food or drink. That shouldn't be why you go, you're not going to say Oh, I can't wait to go there and get drunk or eat like an asshole. You know, that's not the point. You're going there to enjoy family friends, go to the beach vacation. So keep that in mind when you go there. It's not about the food, the food's a benefit, but that's not why you're there, go there and enjoy the people. Okay, the food is great. Second thing I would say is, so the first thing was just don't make it about the food. The other thing is, don't make every day, any event, a special event every day every week. There's holidays, there's anniversaries, there's birthdays, there's your kids soccer tournament, whatever it is, we have these things throughout every year, we all have maybe one a month, maybe two a month. But in the whole scheme of things, this shouldn't be your everyday life. Everyday can be a celebration. And then the third thing I would say so keep it in moderation. Don't make every day like Wednesday night. Oh, great. Let's have some wine. It's Wednesday. That can't be a thing if you're trying to lose weight, right. So the other thing is, I would plan it. Think about these things. You don't end up somewhere saying whoopsie I ended up at a barbecue now I have to eat and drink. No, you know these things are coming. So just plan it and let's plan it with your coach. Let's work toward that and say, Oh, I have this thing coming up. How can we work through it? How can we come up with a plan to where you can still go and enjoy it and still meet your goals? Because you shouldn't go there with guilt. You shouldn't go say Oh, I just ate and drank some things I shouldn't. Or let's take that as an untracked meal. There's nothing wrong with one untracked meal in a week one untracked meal out of the whole week will not blow your plan and your goals.

Philip Pape 14:28

Yeah when on track plan below, like you're saying true true.

Michele Moe 14:31

Eat like it's your last meal on Earth. I really love to but those aren't. Exactly well that's another point is eat before you go I'm the kind of that I'll be sitting in the car and we might be going to any event where there's going to be food and I'm eating food in the car on the way there. My husband's like you're crazy, but I'm over there eating my protein bar or my turkey wrap or whatever it is because I live that day. So I'm starving. And then I want to eat everything in sight also. And one more tip. So I'm sorry, I have a lot of tips on this. Don't sit near the buffet, get a plate, put food on a plate and go sit down and eat what's on your plate. Don't sit there and graze. Because if you sit there and you're going to talk to your friends and you're at the buffet, you're just going to sit and eat all night, get a play, and that's what you're going to eat. And then if you want more, you, you're forced to go back and get more food.

Philip Pape 15:29

Yeah, those are awesome tips. I like the second one you mentioned. I don't hear that talked about a lot. The fact that we always say, well, you're going out for the weekend. So you need to plan but why does the weekend every day every week have to be this special thing? I mean, you can have a routine weekend hanging out at home or, you know, whatever. But

Michele Moe 15:47

I like to use with a client is don't let don't let your weekend be your weekend. WTE ik don't let your weekend be your week. And oh, yeah.

Michele Clark 16:00

Oh, clever.

Philip Pape 16:01

That's a good one. All right, cool. So let's, that's a great point and move to the next. Next victim here, Aaron. So we've all got it, we've got it, we've got the screens ordered, and everything. So if people are on video, they know who's next are watching the video. Erin, you're you're on the endurance, endurance and ultra RAM, which is not something I'm familiar with at all I've I've run in my life, and I once train for a half marathon, and it's as far as I got was training for it. It's good, you know, except for a few obstacle course races. But I do have a lot of respect for something like an ultra marathon because of its scope and ambition and the amount of training you have to do you know, it's not just distance. It's a massive amount of distance and all sorts of planning that goes behind that. So what is involved in training for an ultra? Is it just lots and lots of cardio? Or is there more to it than that?

Aaron Cartridge 16:56

Definitely more to it than that. But that doesn't take away from the fact that there is lots and lots of cardio. So for example, if you're, if you know you're going to do a run, and you're going to be on your feet for 12 to 36 hours, there's no, there's no compromise, you have to condition your body, you have to condition your ankles and your feet, your back and everything. And the only way to do that is to train on the terrain that you're going to be, you know, racing on. So yes, you definitely, you can't get away from the fact that you need to spend a lot of time on feast during the morning during the cardio. But I think a lot of traditional training plans, they overlook the importance of strength training as well. So, I know, looking at my my history when I did 100k back in 2019 I definitely overlooked the strength training. And when I finished a month or two laser hadn't stopped training so much and my body was just broken. Because all I've done all I've done was so my alarms going off. Something to wake up

Aaron Cartridge 18:10

with was the thing and I just hadn't really worried about bulletproofing my body and getting that structure super strong. So yeah, it definitely it definitely made me reflect and train differently moving forward. So core work, anything that helps you get up those hills faster, but also as bulletproof as the body is, is definitely necessary.

Philip Pape 18:37

And you mentioned I like like how you mentioned I guess the specificity of training right training within the terrain but also strengthening extremities and joints in areas like maybe your calf muscles or ankles and things is that does that come with the the training itself on the terrain? Or is that do you also do special strength training movements for those you know, isolation areas? Are those joint areas?

Aaron Cartridge 19:03

Yeah, look, I really like unilateral training anything that because some people a lot of people recommended Okay, well you do your lunges, do your will do squats and deadlifts. You know for a few groups on the trail when you're running, you're never stood on two feet. So I really like any stability work and anything that's unilateral. Quite explosive training. So you're going from left to right. Yeah, anything that gets you to jump. But then also it's important then just to think full body anything that's rather than isolation. I think that if you are limited the time you're better off doing full body work and make sense and unilateral stuff.

Philip Pape 19:45

Cool. Yeah. So like, bilateral stuff might be focusing on the hamstrings focusing on the the quads and the calves right, but unilateral might be what step ups and lunges and whatever Every month, let's

Aaron Cartridge 20:01

see is only focusing on the same muscle groups. But rather than doing is a deadlift, doing a single leg deadlift, so you're holding weight on one side, saying with your same with your squat. So if you hold a heavy kettlebell and your left hand, and do a squat, it's all about that stability and getting you're, you know, looking for any weaknesses. And then you're really focused in finding those weaknesses and focusing on improving those things. When you're fatigued as if you've been on the trail for 10 hours, and you've still got another two or three hours to go, you can bet that those weaknesses as well will definitely sneak up and make you wish you'd

Michele Clark 20:48

like thinking about it.

Elaine Tarbell 20:51

Sounds kind of fun.

Aaron Cartridge 20:54

Definitely. It's a mental game. I think this is what drives a lot of people to the trail running, and especially the endurance efforts, because, you know, most people aren't trying to break any records, you have some crazy elites, and they're doing these things like, you know, just incredible sort of times, but the vast majority of people who are the age group that like the highest performing age group, typically for these ones are 40 Plus, like 40 to 50. Because it's a lot of people, ex athletes, and they done the explosive stuff. But now they realize that they can slow everything down, and just competing against itself. Because yes, there's that mindset mind game of knowing that you've just got to push on planning every step planning, you know what you have for the next checkpoint? How much water you're going to drink, how much food you're going to drink? What are you going to do when your body starts saying, we probably shouldn't push on anymore? Like, how would you control your thoughts? So there's a lot more to it than cardio, cardio cardio?

Philip Pape 21:57

Night. So you're obviously the expert in this. And we're going to come back to that because I want to cover some other things like, like you mentioned, fueling and nutrition. And also, maybe you alluded to overtraining, and some things people can consider, you know, because you're the man stalks about that. So, maybe even touch on like, what, what it makes sense for a beginner who's getting into it, versus like you mentioned some of these ex athletes. So I want to move on to Thanks, man. Thanks, Aaron. We're gonna move on to Michelle, the other Michelle, Michelle Clark, how are you doing?

Michele Clark 22:26

Good, catching my breath after all this, this marathon talk?

Philip Pape 22:32

Yeah, it can be intimidating. You know, I talk about lifting weights as being this amazing thing. And it's just in reality, I don't want to be doing that. So now, talk about we're gonna get into mindset, again, which is a common recurring theme, when it comes to anybody who's listening who's trying to improve their health improve their fitness, your big focus is on consistency, more than intensity or quantity volume. Tell us about your approach to celebrating the small wins.

Michele Clark 23:03

So So yeah, I am you're right, I am big on like doing it, right. I always say that, Don was always will always be better than perfect or not done, right. So what I, what I try to coach my clients on is on just doing it, you know, just get yourself started. Don't overthink it, don't you know, don't don't worry about how long it's gonna take, not only in terms of what they're doing, like the exercise itself, but also how long it's going to take for them to achieve their goals. Don't worry how well you're going to perform, you know, intensity, none of that, because I think that the majority of people based on my experience, and actually, I'm speaking from my own experience, not only the people that I work with, but also my own experience. I think that when we overthink and try to plan too much, although planning is very, very important. But I think that the first step is just getting started in creating that consistency, right? So again, what I try to tell them is like, Okay, you need to start walking more, right, we need to start increasing your, the amount of steps you take daily. So we're going to start with five minutes, you just have to go you just get your sneakers on and just, you know, just go don't worry if it's going to take five minutes because what I what I see is like, sometimes we won't do it. They won't do it because it's like, oh, I don't have an hour to go for a walk right or to get on the treadmill. But you don't need an hour. You just need to create the consistency because if you go five minutes, you're gonna see that you're gonna end up doing it for 10 You know, you're gonna do it for 15 for 20 And if you really don't have the time that's okay, you still go for only the 510 minutes that you have, and and work on the cars See, and then we're going to worry about the time. So that's what I do when it comes to moving more, right. And the same goes for food, I always tell my clients to focus on the next meal, right. So like the meal that's that they you're gonna have next. So if you're wake up in the morning, you your focus has to be you have to be focused on your breakfast, do the best you can with your breakfast, right? I was going to say, Don't worry about your lunch, but you do have to worry about it. Because there is some we know that planning is needed, right? You can just, you can you know, the clock can hit 1212 o'clock, and you're like, oh shit, what am I gonna eat? Right? So we do need planning, but I I, I take more the approach of taking baby steps, right? So focus on breakfast, do a good job with breakfast and celebrate that celebrate the fact that you had your protein, right, that you didn't loaded yourself up with refined sugar or, you know, simple carbs, do that, get that out of the way. And then you think of lunch, right? And so on, and your snacks and all that. And I find that that really works, you know, when and I tell them and if you struggle with it, you know, if it's like 10 o'clock, and you're already struggling? I? So I don't know if that's a good thing, but I have I am very easily accessible to my clients so they can reach out to me and be like, Oh my God, I don't know what I'm gonna do for lunch. And I'm like, okay, all right, take a deep breath. And let's get that out. You know, let's let's focus on that. Don't worry. I don't know what I'm gonna have for dinner. Mike. Wait, but what did you do for lunch?

Philip Pape 26:40

Yeah, so I mean, everything you're saying. It's, it's funny, you mentioned planning is important, but also taking actions important, right? Because we do. You know, as coaches, you would love to have this grand plan for the next six months, where everything's mapped out and your workouts are mapped out everything. But that's not reality. And like you said, if, if that gives opens the door to excuses, which is things that we're talking about here, when people say, Well, I don't have running shoes, and I can't take an hour and I can't do this, and I can't do that. It's like, well, you can take five minutes like that is a fact you can do right. So how do you what's practically how do you do that? Or how would somebody listening? Do that? Right? Because it's that initial momentum. I think that that initial motivation, we call it that eventually, you don't require the motivation, right? Somebody do that.

Michele Clark 27:25

To me, it's more like doing it not debating not trying to negotiate with yourself. I feel like every time I try to negotiate with myself, it goes badly. It doesn't go well, you know. So I'm gonna speak my, by my own experience, as all of you now know, I'm expecting so I am now almost, I'm 14 weeks now. But what I was going to say is that the first the first trimester was very challenging for me. And I'm very active, I've been very active. And I have kept a very well balanced diet for the past 12 years, I think. And, and then all of a sudden, I'm feeling nauseous, and I cannot work out or eat the foods, the amount that I'm used to eat, right. And that hit me really hard because I had control over over everything, a lot of planning, you know, and all of a sudden, I'm like, okay, you know, here, here I go, here I am I what am I supposed to do now that I no longer have control? Luckily, it's going away. So things are getting are getting better now. But to answer your question, what I what I have been doing what I did while I was feeling very, you know, nauseated, in what I'm starting to do now, I don't think about it, you know, I'm like, Okay, I don't have an hour to go lift weights. I can't lift yet, because I'm not quite there yet. I'm still not 100% In terms of how I feel, but I'm like, Okay, what is it that I can do? And I don't think about I literally just put my sneakers on and I go for a walk. And sometimes I'm able to go for 20 minutes, sometimes I end up doing it for an hour and a half. You know, but I don't negotiate because the reality is if I do I'll be like ah, but but remember you pregnant you're not feeling so great. Oh, you go later you go tomorrow. And and I find that most of the people that I work with struggle with that, you know, so don't do focus on the on the task at hand. Like just do it. Obviously now for like people that work full time for instance, you have to have some sort of plan, right? You can't just stop and go you have to so so that what I tell them is like okay, oh, I leave the house too early or I come home too late. Right. And then I have husband kids, whatever. What I tell them is what can you do? Can you do it at lunch? How long is your lunch break? Oh, I have an hour lunch. Okay, great. How long does it take for you to eat? Oh, it takes me 15 minutes. Okay, so what do you do with the next 45 minutes that you have? Right? And, and that's when they start to I swear to you, I was off, right? Exactly. I worked with this with this one girl who was doing phenomenal. And she tried to convince me that she had no time. I have no time. And then I started to ask her all these questions. And she's like, okay, yeah, but I wouldn't have time to do this. And then I can go to she doesn't work from home. And she was like, well, but I can't, you know, I can't really go to a gym. Now. I can't afford that. I'm like, Okay, let's focus on why you can do now why you cannot do right. Turns out this, she started walk around in town, she works downtown. So she would eat her lunch. And then she was she would go for walks. And, you know, she found herself walking for 40 minutes when she thought she had no time. Yeah. Go ahead.

Elaine Tarbell 30:54

I was just gonna add, I like to ask people, or at least look at their schedule and see where are the pockets of time? It's off. And even if it's 10 minutes, everybody has 10 minutes somewhere. So

Philip Pape 31:06

yeah, and you probably are spending time on things that you could substitute for other things. Haven't quite realized it yet.

Michele Clark 31:13

And feel it? I don't think I spoke so much. And I don't think I actually answered your question. You talked about celebrating small wins. And then what I tell them is, once you do that, even if it's only five minutes, you celebrate that, you know, you give yourself a little tap in the in the back and you say good job, you did it. You know, five minutes is always gonna be better than then. Than 01 good meal a day, a complete meal, you know, with all your macros, bro protein, good carbs, vegetables will always be better than zero good meals, right? So I encourage them to celebrate all the little tiny wins.

Philip Pape 31:54

I agree. That's super important. Because I've seen clients in our check in early on that. I asked them when their wins, and they're like, I didn't have any wins this week. And then like, okay, that opens the door to some really good I love I love it. I might have, I might have to show you your wins, because you probably have 10 right in your data or your check in right. But it's that shift in mindset and that's there to help with to support them with so maybe the person Listen, people listening. If you struggle with that, we'll hear what Michelle is saying that their wins every day. That can be the smallest thing like you got up you're breathing and you're walking around and enjoying the planet. I mean, it could be anything. Right? Alright, so this is really good stuff. We're getting deep. Let's let's go John or JC has been chomping at the bit right. Last Last but not least, and nervous. Yeah, it would have been your fireplace here. You got too hot yeah, all right. So I'm really glad you came on because your focus is very different in some ways from from us, you know, it's much more toward longevity. Sometimes we'd like to split our goals into things like physique or body composition goals versus say performance versus longevity right living a long life and being optimally healthy and not necessarily chasing some of those other things all the time. And I can always count on you to teach me something I've never heard before because I mean your your group chat where you share all this interesting stuff what's what's your personal routine because I want to start there so that people understand how you live your life right and so we know that you walk the walk and then you know later on we can get into some hacking concepts personal routine for your health and longevity

JC 33:37

personal routine see I could probably go my my daily routine so my daily routine would be a general routine general teens more minimize stress and focus on sleep and family time and move and stretching and stuff but my daily routine I would say sorry I'm sitting on the floor here I'm seeing you Elaine you're moving about to I'm sitting on the floor Yeah, so the morning I usually start off in the morning, cold shower, cold shower in the morning which is st app is a process called a toughie G happens as well when you're going to cold shower so it kind of know if you know that you know about that but it's the process of autophagy is your sales and your body so when you go for a cold shower you get cold and hot therapy and stuff too. And a cold shower basically but the autophagy eliminates all the bad cells in your body and it recycles all the all the cells that are kind of can still there's still something in them you know but they just want us all yourself. So first thing in the morning cold shower. I'm getting my kids into cold showers too that's good fun

Aaron Cartridge 34:45

Scottish winter

JC 34:48

definitely. So a Yeah, we try and do some some grinding in the morning like grinding is a lot easier in the summertime. And just know it's not very you know you don't really fancy you don't say you did mine just to you know the last

Philip Pape 35:02

well explain what grounding is when people

JC 35:08

grounding is basically just getting outside and your bare feet and stand on the grass if you can get in the sand or somewhere good. I was getting to find out that if you stand on the tire because I'd be at work is my day job as an electrician so we lunchtime we sat in the van nice day outside, we're looking like a total idiot to people that don't know me and know what grind it is. And I was I was doing it for ages for the whole year. And then you can't grind on tar on

Philip Pape 35:37

you because because it's gonna scorcher feed off.

JC 35:39

Yeah, well, grinding. Grinding basically the earth is full of different energies. And basically it kind of recharges you. We're never taught this. And we don't know this, but I've looked at quite a few studies and a few scientists talking about it. And But yeah, if anyone's interested in blending look into it, but that's why I'm the middleman you see, because I know a lot, a lot of stuff. A little about a lot, but not a lot about a little you know. Yeah, but grounding is really good. In the mortar I always always hydrate in the morning. So I usually have probably between 507 150 milliwatts or so we have a filter process in our house or hold all our water in the house is filtered as it comes in a top bar. And I've also got a reverse osmosis machine. So normal water for the day, I've put in my stainless steel bottles no BPaaS. So yeah, so I have that in the morning. I have my vitamin C. So I try and have vitamin C three times a day, a sorbic acid so that just boosts the immune system. Whilst I do just try to think I've obviously gotten my meals like you're saying your macros your proteins, prioritize proteins.

Philip Pape 36:48

Your your vitamin C, how much do you take? How many how many teaspoons?

JC 36:52

Probably about half a teaspoon if I'm honest, about half a teaspoon or just two times a day. About three times a day. Yeah, yeah. And that's that keeps the immune system keeps it going. Yeah, it keeps it good. Yeah. Through the day, other supplements I do, I'll try and do some fish oil, some krill oil or something like that depends because it's quite expensive for the good stuff. And I'll also do I'll always do my sorry, my main systems, magnesium. Magnesium is good. So you need magnesium. Yeah, I've I've actually read some really cool studies. And there's a guy, Clive to Carl. He's a really cool guy. He had the chronic joint pain and stuff at 30. And he was in hospital, trying to give them all this medicines anyway, your mom basically long, long story short, he cured himself with magnesium, high doses of magnesium sorted out, it's incredible, incredible. Some of the stuff you know,

Philip Pape 37:40

is just just to take a pause on magnesium, like my wife had massive migraines for years, and she started taking more magnesium and they either have gone away or significantly mitigated. And other people have had sleep issues and take it at bedtime and help someone sleep. So you're right. It's pretty great mineral that we're lacking.

Aaron Cartridge 37:59

Magnesium, I think I think we can all agree with the ultra running.

Philip Pape 38:04

We don't agree with everything else JC but the magnesium actually, you know, it's funny,

Michele Clark 38:11

another cold shower.

Philip Pape 38:15

I mean, all of a sudden you're saying I've heard you right? You're getting cold showers. There's definitely plenty of studies to say there's there's good stuff there like saunas and other. So here's the thing, I actually do want to ask you this follow up question because just like what the conventional nutrition folks cover, it can be overwhelming for people at first, right? It's like, oh, I have to only do these 15 different things to have a good healthy life. Similar with your stuff, you know, I even think that like, am I going to do cold showers I'm gonna do this and that the other what's like the top one or two things that somebody would focus on and want to prioritize sleep,

JC 38:49

sleep all day sleep and stress. That's the two that make an assistant I'm trying to put together just now it was like a jigsaw. Imagine a big jigsaw. And our health was that jigsaw. But the jigsaw is not like any other Jigsaw that's got small parts that all come together. There's big parts and the small parts, and you need them all for optimal health. And like you said, it's funny you said two because it's always the two for me is stress. Sleep.

Philip Pape 39:11

Yeah. And that's, that's the one that always gets like short shrift, right? When we talk, okay, any training, any walking, you need food. And by the way, nice restful sleep like not that we all necessarily message it that way. But I think it's often received that way, at least in my opinion. And even today, sleep is something I struggle with. And I know I should prioritize it more than I do, because it's gonna help everything else. So cool. All right. Well, we're gonna, yeah,

JC 39:35

so the, I think Elaine nailed earlier on as well. She said about the pressures for women nowadays, you know, to be a size 11 stuff. I think there's a pressure for everybody. And there's a pressure for us to make more money and work more hours and there's pressures from all in so I think, on that basis, sleep kind of does take a backseat and stress is obviously heightened because you're spending less time with your family. I mean, we're here live, you know, your work to live not live to work and the world's changing a lot. I mean, if you look like 4050 years ago, and not a chauvinist, we would say like a man would work. And a woman would say, I'm not in that at all. But I mean, like, one parent would work and one parent would look after the children, and that one parent could afford everything, you know, they could afford holidays, you got a good lifestyle. But nowadays, kids are all shunned off to be serious and whatnot, and we're not living enough, you know, and I think that's a major problem today. But that's another story. You know,

Philip Pape 40:25

I bet you resonate with a lot of people are listening to it. Yeah, there's just, it's a matter of change. I mean, you sleep stress. We all have a lot of stress, especially as we're probably somewhat edging on workaholics, as coaches, right. But sleep is a huge mitigator of that. I know what I have, like, an extra half hour sleep when I get up in the morning. I'm ready for the next half day to get stuff done. Right. And it's a mitigator. So all right, really cool. I see. We're really filling in the time well, here. And I want to get back to some other topics. This is awesome. You know, we're gonna maybe in the future, we'll peel off and have a couple couple at a time. You know, this is great. So I guess back to Elaine, we want let's talk. We've touched on nutrition a little bit, you're a personal trainer, right? But you're also training your nutrition coaching cert? Why is nutrition important? You and your clients? You know, how do you help them achieve their goals there and kind of the merging between personal training and nutrition?

Elaine Tarbell 41:23

Oh, that's a good question. Because sometimes it's really hard, you know, when I'm training, or I'm hired as just a personal trainer, and we're talking food, food, and like, I have this one client, and she fast all day. And then dinnertime kids game on. And I looked at it, I was like, How long have you been doing this? And she was like, several years, like, five, six years, I was like, I don't know what to say like, I'm just kind of shocked, like, I mean, and I said, Well, I mean, studies show that's actually really not very supportive for your metabolism. And if you're hiring me to personal training her goal, you know, everybody has their goals. And her goal was to have runner's legs without running it. So I just said, you know, if we're going to be going through this process, I need you to understand that you're going to have to have some form of energy when you come into, into training with me. So if you're going to train like an athlete, you also have to eat like an F. So you have to have things for recovery, you have to have foods for energy. And you have to also think about like, if you are a woman or even a man, you have hormones that play into effect as to how conditioning is going to affect and nutrition is going to affect all that. So I don't try to ever cross the line unless it's being asked if someone wants to directly ask me, I will directly answer. If they're hiring me for both. I do have one client that she is, she works with my husband for personal training, but then I trained her nutritionally. And so there are times where I will, like this is kind of a funny thing. But I remember going to my husband, and I'm like, Okay, so I'm gonna call her Mary, Mary is starting her cut. So I need you to back off on some of her her cardio type. I don't want to putting her under too much stress, like keep pushing the weight. But please take away some of the some of the added stuff, right? And he didn't, he didn't listen to me.

Elaine Tarbell 43:39

He forgot. So a few weeks later, a few weeks later, are checking

Elaine Tarbell 43:42

in with her. I'm like, How are things go? It's just like, I was so tired. And I just don't have any energy. And I'm just like, what's going on? I pulled them aside. I was like, why didn't you? You know, and I just kind of so it's kind of the fun part about returning with my husband and having that duality, I guess. When he's, he's got one, we have the same client, but we're meeting their needs differently. And that's where communication is huge. When it comes to training a client both in the gym and in nutrition. I find it's probably easier to do both. If you have like, if you have a client and you're able to program both things for them, it's probably a lot easier than or at least knowing what their training program was going to look like which in this situation. I wasn't. I had no I had communicated.

Philip Pape 44:37

Yeah, I hear what you're saying. Right? Because a lot of there's personal trainers, nutrition coaches, you don't often see it packaged together, but what you do, and I know in my case, a lot of personal trainers, it's like the opposite. And I can't control what they're doing with them. I try to coach them on that as best I can. But that's cool. So maybe Moe let's let's go into nutrition a bit. You talked about Some other hacks or practices, I should say, I want to call the hacks, practices like setting up your environment for success, right? Or, and tracking your food, things like that, how important are are doing those things, setting up your environment, from a planning purpose, and also the tracking food.

Michele Moe 45:18

I would say they're very important. I would love to hear what others think after I say why it's important. But first of all, setting up your environment. If you don't, if you if you have weight, you want to lose, and you've tried everything and you haven't had the success you want. It might be time to change your environment. What I mean by that is change, you might have to change who you hang around with. And let's go back to the social things you asked me about. You may have to say no to girls brunch, every Sunday, or whatever that looks like for you. Maybe that can't work for a time. And I guess I think of clients that had in the past where maybe they go to their parents house every week. First of all, for a dinner, Sunday dinner, their parents aren't on board with their weight loss. So they don't make foods that they can eat. Well, hang on, sorry, something just popped up on the screen.

Michele Clark 46:19

Oh, that was mean.

Michele Moe 46:24

I couldn't see anything for a second.

Michele Clark 46:27

The dog barking.

Michele Moe 46:31

So what what that looks like is sometimes you may just have to say to your friends, family. Look, this is something I'm doing for me and for my health. And this is important to me right now. So I need you to support me, I need you to be on board when I have to say no to the extra drink. Or when I can't go out to have wine night with you. Or when I can't go out to eat three days a week, I can only go out one day a week, that goes for your spouse too. So it's kind of I liken it to somebody who let's say somebody has alcohol issue in their past and they're trying to overcome that, let's say they're sober now, they can't go hang out at bars, that's just not a good place for them to go. Say when it comes to your weight loss in your food, you have to surround yourself with a positive environment, and people that will support you. And you have to set yourself up for success with your with with the food you buy the food you prep and plan and where you hang out and what you choose to do. Now that might just be for a short time during say a weight loss or fat loss phase. And those things may or may come back in the mix. I always like to say that up front and say, Okay, this might just be for a short time where you have to say no to some things, let's get in the diet and get out as fast as we can. So that time is not prolonged. Once we're done, we can add those back in. But that's kind of what I mean by set yourself up for success. It's, it's going to be really hard if you have a spouse who's not on board, that's the biggest one is let's make sure your spouse is on board with this or whoever you live with. Because if you're the one cooking food, it can be done. I have clients who they're in charge of they have to cook food for their spouse, their kids, their grandkids, whoever else lives with them, but yet they can still stay on track. So it goes back to the first thing you asked Elaine about mindset is you have to make that mindset shift. I'm gonna do this for me. This is important for me right now for my health.

Philip Pape 48:28

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I want to make a distinction with people between restricting or abstaining from what were you talked about, which is understanding your own personal triggers, or your own personal things that tempt you or whatever the phrase you want to use, and just taking control in advance and being proactive with your environment. It's not saying no, I can't do this. No, I can't that do that. It's just making the giving you a easier path to avoiding those things, and setting guidelines for yourself. So I'm sure sure we can all agree with that. So thanks Moe these are these are awesome tips. And I like that you talked about people as well as part of your environment, because that is super important. Yeah, go ahead and

Michele Clark 49:08

quickly add something to what Michele to Michele's point, I find that he also depends on where people are on in their journey, right. Because usually beginners, it's really, really difficult. So I personally try to focus more like trying to teach them on how to mitigate the damage. Does that make sense? Like so it's not, you know, even if they, they drink they eat more than they should at least I try to focus on like, Okay, here's what you can do, too. So it's not too too bad, right? So you don't you don't get off your plan so miserably that you're gonna feel like shit afterwards. Right? But I find that with people they're a little more advanced. I feel that that comes with time, right? You don't need to like it's easier. Because they they know what to do. They're a little bit better about about being more selective, right? I think you guys would agree I have, I actually have this, this dis two people that I talked to yesterday, my coaches and one of the girls, she's like, way more advanced, you know, she she has seen some amazing results. And so when we're talking about the holidays, she was like, Yeah, you know, it was a little challenging. And isn't that I had some moments where, you know, I ate more dessert or I skipped meals, whatever. But it was far less than someone else that I had. It's a beginner, right, they struggled a lot more. So yeah, I think it's like, for me, I find it's very, it depends really on where each person is. You have to kind of

Philip Pape 50:55

meet them where they're at.

Michele Moe 51:00

I think you're right, Michelle, I think some people are when might look like having pizza one night, but just having one slice, right? People might look like the wind is no pizza at all. It depends on people, relatives. Yeah, absolutely. And it depends on that journey. You're right, how far along? Are they? What are those things? Some people can have a little bit of a cheat meal and not go overboard? Some can have any without going off the rails? Absolutely. Exactly.

Philip Pape 51:27

So switching topics again, I know we have, I don't know if anybody has a hard stop in seven minutes. We can always go a little past but let me know in the chat, but we're gonna move back to Aaron. So Aaron, the ultra stuff, preparing for an ultra whatnot? Should do people need to have all their other ducks in a row here that we've been talking about before they do to Ultra? Or can they kind of start slow, you know, take baby steps and work toward it, maybe with some sort of smaller race. And then and then use your process, whatever it is like your your fueling and training process.

Aaron Cartridge 52:00

I think that's typically Yeah, that's typically what most people would do. They dip their toe in, do a, you know, few 10k races. And then they sit down with coffee with a few other like minded people and somebody actually my journey into an ultra I was doing a Spartan Race, I was in a 7k Spartan Race with with my wife and a friend. And I just had these two guys talking about doing the Ultra. Ooh, and Ultra. That sounds cool. What's that? And that was my inspiration or moment to decide to become an ultra runner. But yeah, for sure, it's definitely something that you would build up to.

Philip Pape 52:42

Alright, so we're back on the show, we had to edit a little bit of it out. Aaron was talking about Ultra races, I think we lost one of our coaches due to a network issue. Because you know, Scotland internet, maybe not as reliable. We'll see if he comes back. And Aaron, you were talking about working your way up to an ultra? You know, what, like, what would be the first race? So a guy like me? Well, I'm a little bit a little bit fit, but somebody who's maybe not even into fitness at all, versus somebody who's fit? Where would they start? Yeah, so

Aaron Cartridge 53:11

typically, where you would start is you would pick the race. If you wanted to be an ultra typically, it's a 50k. To start with don't order. I'm not sorry, I'm not sure what that is in miles. I've been in Australia too long.

Philip Pape 53:23

It's long, but

Aaron Cartridge 53:25

it's, yeah, it's long. Yeah. So typically, if today is your first Ultra, so if you were to have that on your radar, you would pick the race. And typically I'd say don't travel too far. If you've got one local, pick that one, and then have a depending on your start point, have a good amount of time, up to that race. And then you know, do a couple of races in between. So do a half marathon, build your training plan around it, but definitely have at least a half marathon, maybe a marathon like an easier marathon in between. So that you can experience that race situation and all the nerves and all the planning and and really get a good idea of, of everything that goes into it. And then you'll learn so much every time you learn about yourself a nutrition plan or a training plan. Every time you do.

Philip Pape 54:19

Yeah. And that's a good point, right? Just committing to it kind of like Michelle talks about just taking the first step and that's it, you know, a decent step for somebody to go, Okay, I'm gonna sign up for a you said 50k, which it looks like 31 mile run, which is a little bit more than a marathon. But at least you now are forced to figure all this stuff out. Where so that they get a little bit of a leg ahead. What about the fueling strategy, you know, for food, because to me, that would be the biggest area of uncertainty is how do I prepare, maybe in the weeks days leading up and then the event itself? Just very basics, what what should people consider?

Aaron Cartridge 54:50

Yeah, absolutely. And it's often overlooked, I think a lot of people. There's a bit of a distinction between overtraining and under fueling for all ultra runners, even seasoned runners make the mistakes they take quite often they won't be eating enough. But in those specifically in those days leading up to the day, you you're already consuming, you should already be consuming a high amount of carbohydrates, protein to support. And obviously, you're not fat just to, you know, manage the calorie So all's

Philip Pape 55:29

carbs maybe shouldn't be you shouldn't be losing weight leading up to it

Aaron Cartridge 55:32

shouldn't be losing weight, yes, it definitely should be maintaining the enough not to be losing weight. And if you change that, you see changes in people's faces all the time, and often towards doing these longer distances. And it's, it's definitely affecting the performance. But there is an element of carb loading. But what most people do before a race is they'll have a, like a cool off period, still no taper. So the actual output is dropping anyway. So that calorie means maintain maintenance is yeah, quite often enough. So but most people are people 24 hours before the race or have a very high carb meal. Let's be the go with Pastor, whatever you used to, in my opinion,

Philip Pape 56:21

awesome, Michelle. So we're gonna go slightly past our own a lot of time the people listening love it, they love these epic, hour and a half to three hours, we'll just go three hours now, it won't be much longer. I'm going to hit off Michelle and JC with one more question each. And then we'll wrap it up. So Michelle, we talked about the big the small wins and talks about the like doing something is better than doing nothing. The last thing I wanted to ask you about is part of your mission is to help women peacefully achieve and sustain their fitness goals. So in today's, as we know, from JC stressful world, how do you get centered and find that peace?

Michele Clark 56:57

I think knowledge, I think knowledge is freedom, right? So I really try to focus on teaching my clients. Guess what I'm trying to say is I try to help them understand what they're doing and why they're doing it. So I'm very big on, on sharing knowledge with the race. So here's why you should start your day with protein. You know, here's why you have to move more, here's why you need to prioritize sleep, because I think that it's not even I think this is what I've been seeing working with people, right? They become more compliant, once they understand what they're doing. So and that, to me is you know, in some ways, this will because it's, you know, you know, what you're doing and wants to learn you also were able to, to draw your own strategy. Right to, again, to Michele's point. I'm very big on like, Okay, you understand why you know why and why and why you're doing that. So like, if you're going to say Brazil as you guys probably no, we're be gone on what we call Churrasco which is like a barbecue so it's like red meat where we grill red meat so we have this thing where the knee goes around so I would assume that you guys are familiar with what I'm talking about right now. So that's very common in Brazil for for you know, for people friends families to get together and just grill some meat they will they'll eat meat and have the you know the will though they'll gather to eat it's very very easy to overeat when you do that right because what they do the grill meat and they go around right they'll put the meat the cut up meat that looks extremely delicious on like, like cutting board like a nice wood cutting board and they go around serving people in they love it, you know, like usually someone that's very good at grilling will be doing and they go around with the meat. So what I tell the folks that I work with is make her plate again Michele has touched on that you know make a plate get the amount of meat today you know that you're gonna eat that you need, right that's gonna satisfy you you don't need to eat your face off. You know get your little portion of salad your little whatever rice whatever they have potato salad, you know, make your plate eater plate because that will be enough to keep you full that will be enough, right so and then helping them understand why they shouldn't be you know, peeking on food constantly like munching away is what I find help them to to Um, be compliant. And that to me is peaceful I, when I say peacefully helping them, I mean, I teach them so they understand and they they're able to make their own choices. You know,

Philip Pape 1:00:13

I love that. Yeah. Because the the ignorance leads to stress uncertainty, and all the other things that are not peaceful but as you said, the awareness and knowledge really opens up that door and liberates you. So I love that. So thank you,

Michele Clark 1:00:26

Michelle. Yeah, I

Michele Clark 1:00:27

was just going to say we underestimate the amount of calories and while we do have a little bite of something, and you think, Okay, this is nothing this is this is not going to hurt me. But then, you know, 30 days, back in whatever do the photos after 30 days, and they're super frustrated. They don't understand what happened. I did everything right. Did you?

Philip Pape 1:00:47

Yeah, that's what it is. And their coach can can question them on it. So that's the thing. I think I think the studies show like we underestimate by 50%. And that even professionals, dieticians, nutrition coaches, nutritionists. Even they underestimate by 20 to 30. So it's crazy. All right, so JC Well, let's go to the last thing here, I just want to let you tell us, like one or two things on your mind that maybe you've been learning lately, or we should know, maybe something accessible to people. And I say it that way. Because, again, cold showers, I don't know that everybody would want to jump into that right away. Great thing to do is, you know, something that you've been learning that you think is can make an impact on people that is somewhat accessible in your space?

JC 1:01:31

Well, I'm always learning, always learning different things, chopping into one gene. And then you go online, and you hear one thing and all that. But just now, I mean, you know, in our course, you talk about macros, and we'll be talking about stress. And we talk about sleep. And we've got all these different factors, working out muscle mass stretching, etc. And I think you can do all those things. But there's also external things out with the people don't even think of so I kind of like to look at things a bit different. And just now, my main focus just now I've been I've started a book by Dr. Mercola. It's called EMF. And there's another guy I follow Ben Greenfield, he's in his biohacking. And he talks a lot about EMFs. And you probably hear about me on the on the group chat talking about EMFs. And a lot of people don't know about EMF and so your your, your electric electric fields around you, you know, whether it be your your Wi Fi, or whether it be your Tailee and, and whether it be it's crazy, you know, dirty electricity. So you could be next light fitting and not even realize you're soaking up these these EMFs. And I suppose people were wondering, well, what's what's why is that relative to health, but that causes a lot of inflammation. And depending on what your body can only process a certain amount. And for years and years and years, it was okay people we could we could absorb it, we could get rid of it. And it was fine. Because a lot of free radicals as well, which can cause anxiety and cause fatigue, low libido. And we you know, as coaches, we can work through all the different processes that we know. But there's this other things that could and you might think, what's wrong with them? You know, so this has been my focus lately anyway. EMF circuit myself and EMF meter, because that's one thing seen videos, reading books, but sometimes you really need to know it for yourself. So yeah, I've been going around the house and trying to figure out what's good and what's bad. So I've rewired my house and what's called Cat six cable for it eventually to have no Wi Fi and going old school, you know, and they say even my kids have a big tail on the wall when they're doing the next Xbox. They're jumping about doing the Kinect. And I'm like God, Kelly from the tail, you are getting fried.

Philip Pape 1:03:25

I can't imagine what the microwave puts out.

JC 1:03:33

I mean, this horrendous behavior. Now we're playing with these 5g Towers, and we've got, you know, smart meters and all these things. So it is something that I mean, everyone should look at and the stuff that I've been reading up. I mean, if you think back to I don't know, if it was the 40s or whenever, when when doctors were on adverts going, Yes, smoking is good for you. Yes. You know, I think I think this is going to be the new smoking, you know,

Philip Pape 1:03:56

yeah, I'm always worried about keeping my cell phone in my pocket, you know what I mean? So, you know,

JC 1:04:01

it was actually there's actually something about that. So you used to be on Apple used to be on Apple, and it would actually tell you that you actually not supposed to have your cell phone within six inches of your body at any one time. But now they've made it really hard for you to find out but that's the truth you shouldn't have and what that does is it causes dark spots in your muscles and stuff and actually can stop you from having kids as well it can destroy fertility.

Michele Clark 1:04:25

Say that I never paid attention to that. But since I found out I'm pregnant, I am so careful to not have my phone near my belly and that happened and she like by instinct, you know, I didn't read anything about it. But I used to lay in bed sometimes and I and like I would listen to like, like, whatever like a TED talk a listen to, you know, Wits. & Weights, whatever. And I'll have

Michele Clark 1:04:52

my belly. Did you talk

Michele Clark 1:04:59

well Yeah, and I'll have my I used to have my phone like resting on my legs on my belly. And now I'm like, I don't do it anymore, you know? Yeah.

JC 1:05:09

Well, there's another interesting thing for you, Michelle, there's actually been a direct link with, you know how autism is on the incline, you know, used to be like, when I was a kid, there was maybe one kid in your school had autism. And now, you know, there's probably three in each class. But there's a direct link between EMF exposure and autism.

Philip Pape 1:05:27

So, I mean, this has been like a whirlwind conversation with a lot of different topics that we covered, hopefully, the listener, even though it wasn't, you know, one entire topic got some great value out of it, that people listening, you know, resonated with them, everybody had their own thing, something may have been more relevant to somebody and others, and we covered a lot. So everybody here is obviously dedicated to helping people transform their lives, that is clear. And you know, because we don't want listeners to miss out on connecting with each of you. I want to go around and find out where people can learn about you or, and or your work. So I just want to start with Elaine, where can people find you?

Elaine Tarbell 1:06:05

The best place is to reach out through Facebook and look at tarballs barbells and Oskaloosa, Iowa, and you can just send us a message there and reach out whether you're looking for a training in person or a nutritional needs a good place to go. Cool.

Philip Pape 1:06:19

So Facebook, TarbellsBarbells, you could search it, or you could just type facebook.com/TarbellsBarbells. And you'll get there. Shell mo where can people find you?

Michele Moe 1:06:30

i The best place to find me is on my website most stronger.com I'm on Instagram at most stronger. If they go on my Facebook, I'm sorry, on my website, they can contact me and I'd be happy to get on a call with anybody to talk about their goals and their needs and see if it's a good fit.

Philip Pape 1:06:50

Cool. There we go. So moestronger.com. And I think it's a big pink button book constant consultation, right on the homepage for a free call. Encourage you to do that. And next up we have Aaron Aaron, you're giving something away, right?

Aaron Cartridge 1:07:05

Yeah, so people can find me. Well, I have a free guide to training for your first altra and you can send me an inquiry either find me on Facebook is and cartridge or through PT distinction.com Kairos nutrition AU. All one word is my is my platform right there.

Philip Pape 1:07:29

Awesome. Yep, PT distinction.com says Kairos nutrition au get your train for your first Ultra guide. It's epic. It'll get you started and then Erin can help you with the details beyond that. Michelle Clark, where can people reach you?

Michele Clark 1:07:44

Instagram so that'd be the easiest way I'm there more than I like to admit

Philip Pape 1:07:50

whether we like it or not.

Michele Clark 1:07:54

So I will definitely see it so my Instagram is me for Mitch short for Michelle and my notary for nutrition so when you try I underline Michelle there we

Philip Pape 1:08:09

go at me Nutri underscore Michelle with one L. And again, all this is gonna be in the show notes. Don't worry for people listening. Thank you, Michelle. People definitely reach out to you on Insta and then JC do we want to share anything at this point or you're in

JC 1:08:25

a ghost waiting? I'll say something that they'll say something that probably an Instagram as well set up a profile. Yeah. So I'll let you know Phillip and you can maybe put it with the podcast or something. Oh, we

Philip Pape 1:08:37

will. We will because these these tend to come out like a couple months later. So all good. We'll have time. All right. So I'm going to include everybody's background, every coach's background and contact info in the show notes. So you the listener, the viewer can reach out to them, especially if any one person really resonates with you and your goals. Everyone here can help in some way. You know, not just one on one coaching but just have a conversation, ask a question, go to their Facebook group, watch their stuff, whatever it is, you're gonna learn a ton. Thanks to my fellow coaches and friends for joining me today. Thanks to the viewers and listening listeners for hanging out with us and as always, stay strong. 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 1/24/23 Philip Pape 1/24/23

Ep 42: High-Impact Entrepreneurship, Inspiring Leadership, and Resilience in Coaching and Business with Lauren Tickner

Prepare yourself for some deep insights about entrepreneurship, leadership, online coaching, the fitness business, mindset, and more from today’s special guest. I am extremely excited to be joined by the amazing Lauren Tickner. Lauren is ranked as Forbes Magazine’s #1 business coach for 2021…and a Forbes Top 10 Entrepreneur in 2020. Lauren now works with her team at Impact School to help their clients implement systems and gain freedom in their businesses.

Prepare yourself for some deep insights about entrepreneurship, leadership, online coaching, the fitness business, mindset, and more from today’s special guest.

I am extremely excited to be joined by the amazing Lauren Tickner.

Lauren is ranked as Forbes Magazine’s #1 business coach for 2021…and a Forbes Top 10 Entrepreneur in 2020.

Lauren now works with her team at Impact School to help their clients implement systems and gain freedom in their businesses.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Lauren's story from content creator to online fitness coach to high-impact business coach
Core principles for finding success with online programs
How her fitness journey has impacted her business mentality/strategy
How fitness and business are similar
The value of systems and how to amplify them for business or life
If someone loves fitness but dreads the idea of running a business
The importance (or not) of having a niche market / unique approach / ideal client
How someone who has a full-time job, feels overwhelmed, and wants to cut through the distractions becomes an entrepreneur
What distinguishes an average leader from a successful / high-impact / inspiring leader
The big mistakes people make that hold them back from success in their online business
How a solo practitioner starts to build their team
The value of resilience and how we embody that in practice
How people seeking out coaching find someone authentic who they can trust

RELATED LINKS

Find Lauren on Instagram - @LaurenTickner
Find Impact School on Instagram - @Impact_school
Find Lauren on Facebook
Watch the episode on video here

👉 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.

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👉 If you have any questions, just click here.

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Philip Pape of Wits & Weights (Instagram 👉 @witsandweights)

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:31

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights, prepare yourself for some deep insights about entrepreneurship leadership, online coaching the fitness business mindset and more from today's special guests. Because I'm extremely excited to be joined by the amazing Lauren Ticknor. Lauren is ranked as Forbes magazine's number one business coach for 2021. And a Forbes top 10 entrepreneur in 2020. Lauren now works with her team at impact school to help her clients implement systems and gain freedom in their businesses. Lauren, it's great to connect, and have you on the show. Yeah, Phillip,

Lauren Tickner 01:04

thank you so much for having me on. I know this is gonna be a load of value for your audience. So I'm gonna do my best to share as much as you want. Me too.

Philip Pape 01:12

Yeah, but you're my audience and me as well. Here's when we connected. I was really excited to have you on, you have this passion energy, if anybody watches your videos on YouTube, or wherever else, as an entrepreneur through online coaching and fitness, especially business systems, and I know you're trying to impact as many lives as possible. So tell us a bit about your story from beginning as a content creator to an online fitness coach and influencer. And now a high impact business coach, what inspired you pursue the path you're on today?

Lauren Tickner 01:41

Yeah, you've clearly done your research. So I appreciate that. And so it really started out I was just I loved fitness. I just absolutely loved it evidence based training and nutrition. And I was, I kind of started by accident when I was like 17 years old online coaching wasn't really a thing. But I found the likes of 3d MJ, and Eric Helms, and all these guys. And I just started reading the content they were putting out, and they had a podcast. And I remember they had a guy come on that they were doing some collab with. And he had a podcast, too. And his name was Luke Johnson. And they one time had this episode about how to start online coaching. And I thought, What is this online coaching thing. And so I listened to that, and became really good friends with the guys that are in that company. And we ended up just doing a bunch of stuff together in the space when it came to like training programs and ebooks, and this is back when you could sell 1000s of ebooks just through sending one email. It was craziness. And so I'm super grateful to have fallen into it. kind of by accident, honestly, I never intended to be in the fitness industry, I always had this goal of becoming the CEO of an asset management company in the UK, it was a weird goal. I know, looking back, it was so random. But I that's what I wanted to do. Then when I had that job, there was a gym like I was in a high rise building. And there was a gym just below and I could look down on out and see these people walking in and out all day. And I just dreamed to be able to go train whenever I wanted to. And so that's when I decided to leave the job. And pretty much then go full time into online fitness coaching. And yeah, then started working with companies like Jim shark and stuff. And then when they started pivoting more mainstream, they stopped working with a bunch of people they had been paying a monthly salary to. And loads of my friends no longer had an income. And I obviously had the online coaching the ebooks and stuff going on. So I helped them with that and didn't think anything of it. And then a couple of years later, I realized, wow, like this could be a really great business. And that's how impact school was formed very loosely. It definitely wasn't a company back then though. So that's kind of how we got here to this point. And I'm super grateful to be able to help the people that help the people because, you know, I know when I was first starting out, I knew nothing about business. So it's a it's really rewarding.

Philip Pape 03:53

Yeah, no, I love that story. I mean, we listened to a lot of the same stuff. Apparently, you mentioned Eric Helms. And that's kind of how I got into this journey as well as a lot of the education and but I like how you said, you know, helping people, helping the people or helping people. And you sort of found your way there both through serendipity, but also through your own action to get there. And eventually, you know, life just throw you in the right spot. So for online nutrition coaches like myself and others who are just starting kind of back earlier in your journey, or they're growing your businesses, and they want to make that big impact. They want to help people eventually help people help people. What would you say just the core principles for finding success with online programs specifically?

Lauren Tickner 04:33

For sure, yeah. So I really like to think about business in three pillars. So there's the impact offer, which is taking all of your knowledge, all of your experience and turning it into one scalable product, which is very difficult when when new because we want to help loads of different people and loads of different ways. But we're never able to build something sustainable, that's going to be independent without us having to run it all the time. If we try and do loads of different things. Because as soon as you start bringing on a team, they get really, really confused. So there's that part. And the second pillar is all about lead generation and sales. Okay? So I call this the specialist system, because it's a way to ensure that you have both inbound lead gen, and an outbound power prospecting, working for you all at the same time. So that you can also have a system so that anyone that comes into your ecosystem, you have a way to reach out to them in a stupid, non spammy way to get the conversation rolling, so that then you can prequalify people. And if I'm going too deep, just let me know. I love to go ahead. Okay, cool. I just don't want to lose anyone. But so you can pre qualify people and then vet them without even getting on to everyone seems to call it like a strategy session or something, you want to do that before to make sure that it is aligned, because I remember when I met when I was first starting out, so I was all about strength training, right, and about eating to become stronger. And this is what I loved. And I was obsessed with powerlifting. And I competed. And it was just the thing that I was really into, which was kind of weird, because like most girls weren't doing that. So I got a lot of girls come to me who were wanting to become strong and no longer have this like fat loss goal, right? Because my goal is they they were already super skinny, too skinny, right? And so they needed to gain some muscle. And so like, I remember then this one time, this guy could Steve came to me. And he was like, a skinny dude, right? And so he wanted to run marathons. And I thought, Oh, cool. Like, I can learn how to coach someone on a marathon like, yeah, it will help me diversify my skill set. And so I remember like, it was a Sunday, because I remember eating a roast dinner in England, you have like a Sunday versus like a traditional thing that you do in the UK. And so I sit down for this roast dinner with my family. And then I remember staying up until like, 11 at night, which you know, I'm kind of an early bird person. So it was really late for me trying to understand tapering and carb loading and how to, you know, run for a marathon, it was so boring, like, it was not like when I'm studying about how to back load your carbs, so that you can, you know, have increased, you know, whatever ever, like marginal gains for strength training, it wasn't like that, okay, this was boring for me. And I remember thinking to myself, Okay, but I need to learn this if I'm gonna be a successful online coach. And I had this belief in my mind that I had to know everything for everyone to serve every single person. And so around, I don't remember how long it was, because this is, gosh, this is years ago now. But let's just say I worked with him for a couple of months, and I ended up refunding him all the money, because every time it came to a consultation call with him, I just dreaded the encounter. Because it was boring, right. And most people are too afraid to say that they hate talking to a client, but it was true. And everyone has that client, they hate talking to you, they just wouldn't be honest about it. Let's be real. So what if you can have a business where you only work with clients that you love to talk to, when you get off your calls with them and you feel energized and excited to serve, right, because when you have that you want to show up every single day, and you're excited to scale the company rather than just grow it. Because you know that with more systems with more structure, with more infrastructure in place, you can then keep expanding the horizon rather than just growing something to its capacity, because you can't simply take on any more clients because you hate it so much. Right. And this is what I see a lot in online coaching people resenting their clients, obviously, we hear the stories because people tell us, because we are that guy to empower them to make it happen. But you know, coach to coach, people don't really tell this to each other that like, oh, yeah, everything's going great. We hear the truth most people hate the clients they work with. And this is terrible. So that's why it really comes down to like having one sustainable offering based upon the vision that you have the impact that you want to make, and then building the lead generation and the pre qualification systems in front of that, to ensure that you're only taken on the right clients that you can truly, truly help. And then from there, it comes down to the third pillar, which is scale your impact, which is replacing yourself. And these two things through building a team of purchased or building a team of special sales specialists who can enroll new clients ethically, and stick to your values. Right? So like, these are the three pillars that I always look towards. But it all starts with you, as the business owner, knowing where do I actually want to go? What impact do I want to make? Right? And why is that important? To me? Most people have a story. So Philip, I'd like to ask you like, what is your vision? Like? What's the impact that you're

Philip Pape 09:25

putting on the spot? I was actually gonna ask you about that first pillar, right of the, of the offer of how do you actually determine that ideal client because I've worked with many different clients with different goals and your, your thing about the marathon runner resonated with me because one of my clients had done that and you're right, you had to just okay, a deer in the headlights. I don't know anything about that. I have to learn as much as I can about this, or you know, a lot of female fat loss clients or then I have the person that wants to build muscle. And I might enjoy working with three or four very different types of clients. So how do we how do we determine that At early on, to make that impact, right? I would love to work with three or four types in that group. How do we determine that?

Lauren Tickner 10:08

Well, that's what you'd love to do. But it's not necessarily what's going to make the biggest impact. And sometimes we have to sacrifice our wants and our desires in favor of what the company needs, and what the people need. Because it's not all about you, in the, in the, like, in the long, long run, okay, at first, it's all about you when you know the impact that you want to make. Because when you get clear on the impact you want to make, it's like a tunnel vision thing. So a recent example, I have a lot of friends, and they are all investors, right? So they've got to the stage where they've built like nine and 10 figure companies, really successful people, like, you know, I can't even believe that these are my friends. But it's crazy. And so I did this exercise where I got really clear on what is my 10 year vision, like, what mission? Am I here to serve? Why am I doing this? And so, I would always say it's to build a company of companies that make a positive impact on the world. But I realized that's super vague, right? Because positive impact can be interpreted differently for everyone. Same like health, right? Health can be different for one person and the other, we know the state that we want to get to. But for someone with diabetes, it's very, very different than someone that is like, let's just say anorexic, it's totally different. They have to have a different treatment. So then when it comes down to the way that I was thinking, there are some things that are really important to me and some things that are not so I have a brother who's two years younger than me, however, his mental age is between one and two years old. Right? So he's physically disabled. He has epilepsy, and autism, various other learning disabilities, he has a tube in his tummy, because he does not eat or in a sustainable way. So he's actually interesting enough, quote, unquote, anorexic even though he would never even know what his body looks like. It's just totally out of his consciousness. Right? So anyway, I realized that for the longest time, I thought that the things that I really cared about was like education. And I thought that it was, you know, all these different things. But I realized, like, biggest, most important thing for me is health. So then, now, I had this deal come to me to invest in this company. And it was a really good deal. Okay, very, very good deal. It was a crypto gaming company. And it could have made a lot of money. And I know a lot of people that have made a lot of money from the steel. So I said to one of my friends who has a huge nutrition supplement company, like you would know exactly this company, like it's flipping huge. And he was the one that presented the deal to me. And I said to him, like, I'm facing an ethical dilemma right now. Like, I don't know what to do, because this deal is great. And I know I can make a lot of money. And I know where that money, I could then invest that into the things that I really, really care about. But it doesn't align with my values and my vision. So he said to me, something which I then ended up taking a different decision than what he said, Because he said, like, we'll learn if you put an even just, you know, X amount now, and you make this much on the back end is pretty much guaranteed, which, you know, this kind of sounds crazy sometimes. But there are these deals like when people play with like big sums of cash, like it can be like that. Anyways, I digress. But so he said, based upon what you're looking to do, and to achieve, like, if you invest the money, then that can be money, which you've then multiplied to then make a bigger impact. And I agreed with that. But it didn't just it didn't for me aligned, because it didn't agree with my truth value. So I said no to the deal. I didn't go ahead with it. And so now I'm very specific. And I could have made like, a really a lot. And so now I just realized, like, This feels good inside. This feels great inside. And it allows me to stay focused and not get distracted. Because I must say I did get distracted then. But now I know if a deal like that comes to me again, I'm not even going to entertain it. And instead I can focus on the things that I need to focus on. So I have to get clear on what is basically my tunnel, like what is yes. And what is no, if it's great. It's no it's not if it's not a Hell yeah, it's a no, I love that thing. And so, the same thing goes with like many clients that we have our impact school. So I have this fantastic fertility health doctor, that's her Instagram as well. And she in the beginning was like working with all different sorts of people. Like sometimes she would take up clients who were like, you know, half, half half, but then she realized like, why she's in the game. She wants to help people have a very healthy, successful pregnancy and raise incredible children. Right and so like, that's our mission, like that's why she's doing this. So if she's going to take on someone who needs to like reverse diabetes, that person will be better served with someone else who focuses on that specifically like another one of our clients, and M Charmaine Dominica as and she helps people reverse type two diabetes, right? And then for example, if someone with type one goes to her, then actually for example, the CEO of Impact school sister, her name is Gallia barrage, right. She helps she has type one diabetes, so she helps people who live with type one diabetes So there are people out there who you can build partnerships and relationships with, to send clients to, and maybe you want to do a deal where you send referrals. I personally just like to send it because you know, whatever you put out in the world as value, you get back 10 times, and it doesn't have to be from that same person. Sure, then that when it comes down to like the, you know, more spiritual stuff, but to answer your question, I think it all starts with you in your mind, but then realize that it's not all about you, and what you want to do, once you've made that decision, you then stick with your original choices. And obviously, you can change and adapt based upon new information that you get. That's, of course, important, but like taking on everything and trying to be everything for everyone, you're never going to serve people to the best degree possible. That's from my personal experience, having worked with, you know, more than 3000 clients very closely at this point. Yeah. And

Philip Pape 15:47

I asked that question, especially on behalf of people who have have had maybe five clients, 10 clients, something like that, and they're still figuring it out? And really can't answer that question, I guess, is the problem. Some people have that, you know, extreme tunnel or target vision that they have others haven't discovered yet, like, in my case, I know, most of the clients that I enjoy working with, and I find I can help them most of the ones that found me through this podcast, or through the information I'm putting out there. And maybe there's some tie in to, you know, this, this evidence based nutrition and body composition that are really focused on a lot, but I'm not really 100% sure exactly where that falls, and I don't necessary want to rule things out either, if a new potential client comes in, and all of a sudden, it's a perfect fit. So that's why I asked that, you know,

Lauren Tickner 16:32

one of your values, right, like, so a value that comes to my mind that you have clearly is like constant learning, right? And progression. So it's like you don't want clients who just want to get by, you want clients who want to get to that next level, because you then are able to thrive and you get excited to serve them, because they are excited about working with you. And they're excited about the outcome that you're going to get them. So like that would be a value that you have right for us. Same thing, we have constant progression. That's one of our values. That allows me to know our impact school, you know, if we're hiring someone, if they're complacent, and they're satisfied, and they don't really care to learn more than they're not going to be grateful at walking at impact school, neither are they going to be good at being a client of us. So that's just an example there. But okay, this is one thing that really helped me, I can't remember who said this to me, because I would love to be able to give the credit. I definitely didn't come up with this. But someone said to me, how do you want the world to look after you're done in it? So that was really helpful, because then it made me realize, like, there are some things that I just don't really care about actually doing that I'm doing right now. So that can get you thinking,

Philip Pape 17:38

yeah, definitely gets me thinking in the audience thinking I hope. Okay, so what if your second pillar was about the developing the business with lead generation sales and so on, before you get to the scaling? Well, what if you love fitness? But you dread the idea of those things? Yeah, dread the idea of, quote unquote, business, right? Whether it's posting on social media, sales and marketing, all the things people think and know are required to grow business. And you're too I guess, too early on to necessarily hire and have a team to do that. So what is your take on that?

Lauren Tickner 18:10

Well, maybe you don't need to have your own business. That's also an option, right? There's people like you, that these people can go and work for who already have a great platform and a brand. There's also other companies that you can go and work for. So I also used to be in the belief that everyone should have their own business. And I had a conversation with Nora, who she started out as a sales specialist, okay. Then she, this is years ago, then she started managing that team. Right? Then she started doing some coaching on sales for our clients. Then she started shifting into operations, and she became the operations manager. And now she's coo. And now she's also my business partner. Okay. And so like, this is the evolution there. But I didn't understand because she was making from in person personal training, she was selling it for 4.2k pounds. And every month, she was doing more than 16 grand a month, because I remember it was above 15k, but below 20. And then she I offered had this job and I said like, look, this is going to be a serious peeker. But I need you on my team. And she said yes, because she didn't want her in business. She She didn't care about the money as much. And so I think as entrepreneurs sometimes because we are so excited about things all the time, or we want to do 10 different things. Sometimes having those non entrepreneurial people on our team who are more level headed than us is very valuable, because they can prevent us from making all these crazy decisions, which, believe me, I've been there so maybe they don't need to have their own business, right? If you're on the PC, if you're a PC on the ground, like doing all these sessions in person and it's too much for you. Then maybe you could go and be an online coach for an online coaching company. If you're a nutritionist, oh, my gosh, there are that is like super in demand skill because there are so many great online fitness coaches who don't have a neutral Shouldn't brunch with a company. So they're just doing these kind of like sketchy, you know, macro plans, which they shouldn't really be doing whereby you could come in and partner with them, right? And then they take on all the business stuff. And then you act as the nutritionist at the business and get a fixed monthly retainer, or you aren't you say to them, like, hey, I want to be like intrapreneurial here, which is building kind of like an entrepreneurial company within a company. And then they build their own branch within another business. So that's also another option. There are many ways to do something doesn't just have to be like, Okay, I love fitness. I need to have my own business. Yeah. Right. That's what I thought. And so I even sunk more than 10k, this is 110 K, I did not have a lot of money, right? This is like, I was 19 years old, I invested 10k in building these leggings, getting them manufactured all this time and effort. And I realized, like I was just in a business idea, which was never even going to make any real money, right? People make money on that type of thing, because they have huge, huge volume rather than, you know, having something like a online coaching, which can be you know, high margin. So, to the point like, maybe you don't need a business.

Philip Pape 21:09

Yeah, I think that's a fresh perspective. That's great, because I think, I think a lot of people answer that question with well, how do you how do you make it work anyway, and like you said, there are partnerships collaborations you can hire people you could work for people might be in sourcing and outsourcing, there's so many great approaches to this. Hey, this is Philip Pape. And if you feel like you've put in an effort to improve your health and fitness, but aren't getting results, I invite you to apply for a one on one coaching to make real progress and get the body you desire. We'll work together to figure out what's missing. So you can look better, perform better and feel better. Just go to wits, & weights.com/coaching, to learn about my program and apply today. Now back to the episode. So that's and that was the sort of leading to the third pillar than about scale, as I'm an engineer by background, so I love the idea of using repeatable systems and frameworks to make things more efficient. And I've done that well before I even knew what it was called right? Taking spreadsheets, automation tools, whatever. And trying to, because I'm lazy. That's what I like to tell people. I don't like to do things the hard way. I want to do it the easy way. Even with strength training, I was like, what's the lazy way to get strong and jacked? It's, it's barbells. You know, like, what's the most efficient? Yeah, right. I'm not gonna run on a treadmill every day. So, no. So yeah, so I think that I do have my podcast or posting on social or even the things I don't quote unquote, like myself when I mentioned the previous question about running a business. But I figured out a way to get me out of it, so to speak. Right, right, tell us about the value of that of systems of frameworks, how we amplify that fundamental approach to business or even life.

Lauren Tickner 22:49

So I would say like, it kind of depends on on your revenue. Because I think the biggest problem is people do things they think they need to do. But they really don't need to be doing them posting on social media everyday. I used to believe this was a so we have this framework at impact school vile, right, vital, important luxury and eliminate. So most of the things are in that E bucket of eliminate, you can eliminate, probably, I love the 8020 principle. And then going even deeper on that there's this great book called like 8020, sales and marketing. That's a really good book. Okay, love this one. This is like the first business book I'd ever read in my life. And I still think back to it, because it just, man, it helped me so much. So there are so many things that we think we need to be doing, which really, they don't really produce any results. Like why bother building a website, when you don't yet have anyone clicking the link to go to your website? Right, only in the last three or four months did we actually properly put together a proper website for impact school before it was had Latin text on there? You know, it was terrible. It was really texting me. Yeah, and even now, it's like pretty mediocre. But we recently just I just invested in a website, building expert and copywriters to do the whole thing for me, which was a huge sum of money, which I didn't need to do. Because in the beginning stages, I would have been better off spending that I'm building a team to support my clients so that then I could get freed from that area, and then focus on sales and marketing myself. And then when I made that more money again, then I could then finally put that into, you know, maybe some ads or some social media growth. And then from there, maybe then you want to build the website. Okay. So like, I just think about things in sequential steps. So if I am going to have like two people visit my website, why build that instead, when I could build like an entire Google document or a notion page, telling exactly all the details about my offer, and my program, because then I can send that to people one on one in a DM conversation or via email who were actually coming to me and asking me or you could then start reach hanging out to like 50 people a day, saying and not doing it in a spammy way. Instead saying like, Hey, I've just graduated 10 People from My Nutrition Program, which reverses type two diabetes, just wondering, as I'm about to start a new cohort, if you know anyone that could be interested in, you know, reversing, reversing type two, right? That's just an example. And then you're going out asking them for value and then giving them value sorry, by seeing if they know anyone, and then you know, you can get referrals. And oftentimes those people then will end, you know, if you do your targeting properly, they are people that have type two diabetes as my example. And then from there, then they'll start replying back to you like, oh, well, I don't know anyone, but I'm interested, right? And then you can send that each of them directly in the chat. So it's just like the volume of people that will see it will be way greater than like, I'm giving this website example. Because this is probably the biggest mistake that I see. People get all their fancy business cards and things. No one cares.

Philip Pape 25:57

Nobody, nobody sees it. Yeah, nobody comes. Yeah, exactly. So.

Lauren Tickner 26:00

So before even thinking about scale, I like to scale intimacy, which is one on one conversations. And I like to get that so scaled that like, for example, as the business owner, I would no longer be able to do anymore, because I have other things going on. And then I would want to replace myself in the things that are not directly producing revenue. Because I think especially in fitness coaches think that they have to do all the client work, like, I don't want to have a cookie cutter program. And I don't want to, you know, I thought all this stuff, too. But then I realized I can hire great people, when I'm making enough sales, people who are really fantastic, who don't want their own business, who will come and work at my company, who are going to get better results for my clients, because I can then stay in my zone of genius. So it really comes down to at this point, like ask yourself the question, what do I hate doing the most of my business that doesn't produce me revenue? Excellent. Because if you hate your sales, like, you probably want to keep doing that for a while until you've refined it and dialed in the system so that every single time you know that this is going to produce the outcome that you want,

Philip Pape 26:54

right? And I imagine everybody you can pick 100 people and every one of them are going to dislike a different aspect of that process. So you got to target the woman, you know, like, I really enjoyed talking with people, and I didn't used to, you know, years ago used to be very introverted. And, you know, now I'm talking probably way too much on my podcast. But yeah, that's my outlet for reaching. Yeah,

Lauren Tickner 27:13

that's great. That's great. But if you were doing client work, like 10 hours a day, you wouldn't be able to do this right? And so like, it just comes down to also thinking where can I add leverage, and you know, a lot of it on the client success side of things, we like the impact offer, because it's really a fusion of having, you know, an out a program, which takes someone to an outcome specifically, but then there's enough like wiggle room so that throughout that process, you can adapt things, one on one to every single client. And especially now, like, the way that I'm seeing the industry go in, is that coaching plus consulting plus Courses Plus agency is all moving into the same umbrella. Right? So it's like, how can we do more for our clients, so that then they have to do less work so that we can stand out, rather than them saying, like, what makes you different than this person, right, that's also something that's going on in the space. So I think adding leverage through building a program, we like having an impact offer, because I just think it fuses together everything. So so nicely, client does something they submitted to you, it's all systematized and organized. And then from there, like most of the time, the next thing comes down to like getting someone to take care of actually managing the clients serving the clients. And then if they have like something specific that needs your attention, then that person will come to you to ask you rather than the client coming to you. And it just removes that level of access. So then you're able to have the creative thinking time to think how can I actually scale this thing? Right? How can I build a new system to bring in more leads of dream clients, or get me on more podcasts or go to more events, things like that, it creates that freedom, then you can really, really scale?

Philip Pape 28:52

The impact offer, as opposed to trying to sell the differences between you as an individual coach, for example, it's having a program where the client feels like that it's seamless, maybe frictionless for them, and then being able to scale. So taking a step back a little bit for someone who wants to be that entrepreneur who does have the passion and enjoys the fitness space, but they have a full time job, right? They're already feeling a little bit stretched, thin, overwhelmed, maybe of the family and so on. And they want to cut through a lot of these shiny tools and distractions we've just been talking about, maybe they're a little risk averse to but still feel like that's the way they want to go where where would they start? Right balancing that job that they don't want to give up just yet. And then moving into this new venture?

Lauren Tickner 29:33

Yeah, so it's interesting, we recently kind of pivoted to working exclusively with people that like, you know, full time in their business already doing like a certain amount because, you know, this is where I'd say we are the strongest when it comes to like getting the first and honestly it's the first stage like I don't even think it's a good idea for someone to like join a program like in post school at that stage. Because it is it's way more simple than people think is It's way more simple. And I don't feel super ethical doing that. Because like, it's so simple. And I didn't realize that it's mainly just you and yourself. So I would say the first thing is that you need to be dedicating like, one or two hours a day to personal development, you have to start that you have to get ready for it, you need an entrepreneurial mindset upgrade, so that then you're ready for what's about to come. Because when things start moving, they start moving very, very quickly. And people are often thinking like, it feels too much too soon. But that's entrepreneurship. Okay. So where can you right now, if you pull out your phone, pull out your calendar, whatever you like to use? Where can you put in, let's just say 30 to 30 minutes, lots of personal development work, and you put that in, right? And I'm not talking like, just business stuff here. I'm talking about personal development, things like you know, maybe you want to look at like Dr. John Demartini. Okay, like Bob Proctor, you know, people Tony Robbins people that are gonna show your mind, like what you can do, what you can take you to the next level, where you're listening to this podcast. Now, you could check out mine to impact school podcasts and things like this that you can listen to and make notes. Because you have to start getting into the habit of doing the things that other people won't do. Because in order to be successful in entrepreneurship, I've seen again, from our clients, our most successful clients, my friends, the ones that will Zig when everybody else thinks they're the ones that are gonna be the most successful, right? Like, you're probably already into fitness, and your friends aren't right. You're into health and fitness people from the past thought that you were crazy. Now all your friends are, you've made new friends who are fitness friends, right? I had that same thing too. So like, how did you get so good at health and fitness? Because you did what everyone else thought was weird, right? We are. Exactly. That's what I mean. Right? Everyone says that you have to do HIIT training, whereas you just, you know, squat every day. And that's how you make the games. Exactly. So. So that's the first thing. Second thing is like, really understanding that and answering that question like how do you want the world to look after you're done with it? I really love the sport because then it gives you clarity and direction. And when you have that clear, then you'll know Okay, let's say right now, if I were to tell you, you need to charge two grand for a client. If that makes you shudder. You know, you need to do money mindset work. Okay? There are some great books like Jensen Zehra has a book called you're a badass at making money. There's another book called The Richest Man in Babylon. Man, there's a lot but just on Google on Titan money mindset books, okay, you need to improve your money mindset. If you think that charging two grand is too low, I too high sorry, I think charging two grand is too low. Even if you're in health and fitness. Because let's be honest, if you're in the house, if you're in that industry, you could have 1000 wishes. But if you you know if you if you don't have your health, and you only have one wish, there's some quote that I heard a while ago. And so people have this huge mindset block here, I find this especially in health and fitness industries, it's a big problem. And so that's then something you need to work on. Okay? Then when you realize like, okay, I can charge for my first time round two grand in the future, let's say you want to charge for 5k, like a 16 week program. All right, then you need to figure out what's that program going to be, I have a video on YouTube, if you just type into if you go to my YouTube channel, it's just Lauren Ticknor. There's this video, like, where I spoke at this event called War Room. And it's like how to build a product or service and scale to millions, like that's the title of the video, like, this is a really good video to watch to get an understanding of how to actually, you know, have build your build your your product. And then from there, it comes down to just bringing in like five to five to 15 clients at that 2k price point. And let's say that takes you like, I don't know, 45 days to do, then you've made what, at least 10k in the very beginning. And it comes down to how you're positioning and enrolling people. I mean, I'm sure right now, you know, five people on your Facebook friend list or like in your small audience, if you have one, or your phone contacts that you could really help. So it comes down to positioning it like hey, like I'm bringing on my first five clients, like, I know you were looking to x y Zed XYZ? Would you be interested in working with me before I start charging full price in exchange for some feedback? And I'd be happy to get you in for less?

Philip Pape 34:15

Yeah, this is gold. I mean, that's how I got my first clients as well. It's a great approach. You're right. And what was I gonna say here? So what are what are the things that then hold people back beyond? They got the mindset thing I like I like how you mentioned that spend time and personal development and it might be very different for different people might be how to talk people on a sales people on a sales call, right? Like maybe a lot of different skills. You You live in Dubai and we're talking and actually across the world right now as we record this, you have team members across something like 11 time zones, more than 15 countries. And let's say you are an entrepreneur and you've gotten through that first step, you've gotten 15 clients, your client base is growing. And now you need to hire that first person, coach, Assistant, build your team. How does a solo play exhibitioner start to do that.

Lauren Tickner 35:02

This is great. So how not to do is find a friend and say, Hey, you want to come work? We've all made that mistake. So also another thing, a lot of people will find someone that's a friend as well and say, hey, look, let's do a partner business partnership. But oftentimes, like our friends are the ones that are the most similar to us. Thus, we do not need them there, because they're basically just you. Okay, so like, let's just say, Yeah, let's say like, you're a fitness person, and they are a nutritionist. And one of you is good at sales and marketing and one of you loves working with clients then great. But if you both a fitness, or if you're both nutritionists, and you both love to work with clients, and you both hate sales and marketing, you get on because of those things, usually. So in that case, you'd probably be better off just, you know, each building your own company, and then hiring your own teams, or just going into it knowing like we are going to we are very similarly, we need to hire different people into the business. And just be aware, like, you know, the partnership usually isn't necessary at that point, if you want to have a partnership, because you want to have, like the friend now with you, then yeah, sure, great, but just be aware, like it will probably cause friction in the future, if you're good at the same things, because you're going to want to do the same things. And the company doesn't always need that. So I would say it comes down to like, okay, you've got things going now just looking at your calendar, like what's taking the most of your time. And out of those things, like, let's say you would circle they will highlight things in green that bring in money, and then highlight the things and like orange that just allow the business to run, and then highlight the things in red that you do that like maybe you don't know, if they're actually doing anything to like, actually build the business. And then the things that are orange are the things that you hire. Makes sense, right? Because the red things, maybe they don't bring any money right now. But maybe you're like, you know, working on a new program that you're gonna change your entire industry with, right, and the things that bring in the money, you want to keep control over that. Because if you start handing over sales to someone else, and they suck, it's not that let's say you hire a commission, or any salesperson, and they just don't make sales. And let's say you're selling the thing for 2k. And they have five sales calls a day. Right? That's like, not that you're just oh, I didn't have to pay them because they you know, they didn't make any commission. No, that's 10k a day that you are missing out on, right that you could have otherwise have, you could have closed, right. So that's like how I like to do it. Honestly, I would say until, you know, 200 grand a month or so like being the main one during the sales is oftentimes the best thing for the business.

Philip Pape 37:33

Okay, this is this is gold. I have a couple more questions, maybe from the client point of view. You know, I think there are a lot of salesy and authentic business owners out there that are scamming people, or at least perceived, you know, comes across that way, because the fitness industry is what it is. Nobody's surprised about that. But how does someone find someone they trust as a client, right? I'd like to think for example, we talked about this podcast that it helps people get to know me and realize I'm a human being, and I love this stuff. I like to help people. And so when they have that conversation, I'm sort of pre qualified them, as you mentioned earlier in a way that they know me, but for someone seeking coaching, how do they do this from an informed place?

Lauren Tickner 38:14

Yeah, great question. I mean, I think what you're doing hence, fantastic. But I think it comes down to like, first of all, the business owner, knowing the ideal client, better than the ideal client even knows the ideal client. Because when you know, the problems that they have, before they've even seen those problems, yet, that's actually adding value, because you're highlighting the pains. So for example, like in the past, in fitness, I had this webinar, like, it was like, the three biggest mistakes. I forget the title now, but it was like, showing them the biggest mistakes that people make. And then they realize, like, Oh, I didn't even realize I was doing this wrong. And I added value to them through showing them that through, you know, constantly focusing on hitting like, one hour of cardio a day that was actually you know, preventing them from losing us from from from getting hurt, etc. And like getting, they always wanted to be toned. I don't like the word but they, you know, that was their favorite one. So, yeah, so that was really valuable to them. So I think making content surrounding those pain points and those problems, but then also like, as, as the client, like realizing that you just have to get started, right? It's like, if you've been thinking about it for a while, like, you know, if you want something now, the sooner you pounce on it, the sooner you start getting value from it, nothing is going to change, like nothing's gonna change, except your situation is gonna get worse. And so I think sometimes, like we have to really, you know, show the potential path of them not making a decision so that then the client actually knows that they need to make a decision right now. Because then when they come in, they're also a client that's bought in and they'll actually take the action. Right so I would say what you're doing with the podcast is fantastic. And also like yeah, built scaling the intimacy building personal relationships, like not being afraid to get in the DMS and have those conversations, because then you get the best feedback as well about what people's real pain points and problems are right now. So then you can build that into your solution.

Philip Pape 40:11

For sure, yeah, and the cost of not changing is often much greater than the cost of change and trying to help people understand that. So kind of related to this on one of your Twitter posts, you talked about using the language your clients want to be spoken in. And I really liked that point, I'd like to learn a little more about that, if you can elaborate on it. Yeah, so

Lauren Tickner 40:31

for example, like, if you say, I'm going to help you get a toned stomach, or I'm going to help you get shredded ABS is the same outcome is just one way you're talking to a dude that wants to, you know, get off. And the other way, you're talking to a woman who wants to have a nice stomach, or a guy that just wants to, you know, get a bit a bit a bit a little bit, you know, jacked and muscley, but not like shredded, right? So it really comes down to like, when you're in the DMS of people talking to them, or if you're talking on email, or you're looking at how they're commenting on on the posts of like, you know, companies in your space. Just look at how they're typing things, right? Like if they're like, yes, queen, like, you know, you want to start talking like that. Whereas if this became like a super scientific way, then you can meet them where they're at. And that's also going to kind of dictate, like the level of sophistication of the client in which you're serving, right? So if you're I made the huge mistake when I was in fitness, whereby I would be talking about super complex stuff in a really scientific way. And it totally alienated my dream client. They don't know they don't care, they don't understand. And that was, you know, I also when I was competing, I did some bodybuilding competitions, like bikini. And that was stupid. I shouldn't have done that. Like, I thought it would help my business, but it hurt my business a law and you know, I do, I just did it. Because my friend told me like, Hey, you should do it. And you know, I wasn't thinking properly. I mean, fine. In hindsight, whatever it was, it was whatever. But like, for my business, it was not good, because I was so alienating myself from my client. So that's also something to think about too, like, how can you be relatable, but also position yourself as the person that's been through the pains which they've been through? And now you have the answer in the outcome?

Philip Pape 42:11

Got it. Awesome. Sunflower? Well, I like to finish with this question with all guests. And that is, what one question Did you wish I asked, and what is your answer?

Lauren Tickner 42:21

Oh, man. Okay. So the question that you wish I'd asked, I think like, just maybe about, you know, for you and yourself, like what you need in order to get your business to the next level, like, because it sounds like you have a bunch of different offers going on right now. And you're trying to serve like a lot of different people. So maybe just something specific to that, because I think that can be helpful for your audience. And then maybe they can also send you in their feedback.

Philip Pape 42:42

Should I ask you that question? All right, yeah.

Lauren Tickner 42:46

I would say like, you know, you need to just figure out like the outcome that you want to take your clients to, and get ultra crystal clear on that, like, based upon the impact that you want to make. And then from there, I will also in order to get to that outcome, like have people DM you on Instagram, at Wits & Weights, tell them like, you know, what, what they're working towards? And like, what offer that you could put out that would get them to say yes,

Philip Pape 43:10

I love that validation. Right? That's great. Okay, so Lauren, this has been an amazing conversation full of great information, I learned a lot. And if nothing else that I love that, but the listeners are going to as well. So where can they learn more about you and your work and impact impact school?

Lauren Tickner 43:27

Yes, if you'd like podcasts impact school podcast, I also have a really old podcast where you can still listen to all of them, called Business meets fitness. So you might like that, that's all about like building a fitness business, like the stuffs super old from like, 2017. I think so. You know, I think it's still quite relevant. But I haven't listened to it for a while. So maybe my voice is a little higher. And I'm less eloquent. But yeah, that's the best faces and obviously, all social media. I'm on Facebook. We have a Facebook group called MP School, which is free. Yeah, those are the best places, Instagram to Lauren Techna. I'm kind of everywhere. So

Philip Pape 44:04

awesome. Of course, ya know, and I'll include all of that. I'm gonna go check out that the older podcasts don't know which one you're talking about. So you've been an incredible guests, Lauren. And, you know, I think we're here we've peered into the mind of someone with a ton of experience and knowledge. I personally learned a ton I had fun chatting with you. And I want to thank you for coming on the show. Philip.

Lauren Tickner 44:22

Thank you. This is awesome. And yeah, I love what you're doing. So keep it up.

Philip Pape 44:25

Thank you. 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 1/17/23 Philip Pape 1/17/23

Ep 41: Massive Mindset Shifts, Habit Building, Productivity, and Self-Mastery with Monica Ricci

Today we are digging into shifting your mindset to achieve self-mastery and live your best life through things like identity, habits, productivity, and of course as always on this show, how those tie back to your fitness and health.

My guest is Monica Ricci. Monica has been facilitating positive change for over 20 years. She founded Catalyst Organizing, LLC in 1998, working with individuals, business owners, and business teams to help clarify priorities, achieve goals, create organization, and improve productivity.

In the world of productivity, Monica has been an author, blogger, speaker, radio host, and frequent TV guest on many local morning shows as well as Fox & Friends, CNN.com, and HGTV.

Today, she uses her experience and talents to facilitate positive change and transformation through coaching, speaking, and social media.

Monica lives a nomadic life, coaching via Zoom while traveling the country. When she isn’t moving to a new city, she enjoys strength training, cycling, baseball, rock and roll, and high-quality butter.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Monica's personal story and how you got interested in coaching
Why "Day Thirteen" was pivotal
How someone develops a skill or habit over time to create positive outcomes (the Law of Accumulation)
The science of habit building and making progress
Micro-stepping to create new habits
The Exercise Myth and the right approach for someone trying to lose fat
How identity drives behaviors
The courage to be an outlier
What self-mastery looks like
The identity-to-behavior transformation
How you help people create significant shifts in mindset

RELATED LINKS

Find Monica on Instagram - @remakingmonica
Find Monica on Twitter - @monicaricci
Monica's website - monicaricci.net
Watch the episode on video here

👉 Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to connect with me.
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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:31

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. Today we're digging into shifting your mindset to Achieve Self Mastery and live your best life through things like identity, habits, productivity, and of course as always on the show how those tie back to fitness and health. My guest is Monica Ricky Monica has been felicite facilitating positive change for over 20 years. She founded catalyst organizing, LLC in 1998. Working with individuals, business owners and business teams to help clarify priorities, achieve goals, create organization and improve productivity. In the world of productivity. Monique has been an author, blogger, speaker, radio host and frequent TV guest on many local morning shows, as well as Fox and Friends cnn.com and HGTV. Today she uses her experience and talents to facilitate facilitate positive change and transformation through coaching, speaking and social media. Monica lives a nomadic life coaching via zoom while traveling the country. And when she isn't moving to a new city. She enjoys strength training, cycling, baseball, rock and roll and high quality. Butter. Yum. Monica, I'm so glad you can come on the show. How are you?

Monica Ricci 01:42

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me, Philip. I'm great. I am in Connecticut at the moment, as I mentioned are you as you mentioned, I live this beautiful nomadic adventure. And so I happen to be on the northeast part of my road tour. And it is really lovely being here. Yeah, we were talking about the beautiful fall because we're recording this in November. And I'm also in Connecticut. And it's so awesome to hear about your ability to travel. And when you say the North, you know, this is just where I'm from, but the country is huge. So I'm really excited to talk to you because you have this background, not only in health and fitness, but in personal development and mindset. And so what is your personal story and how you got interested in the type of coaching you do today? Well, you know, sometimes, I think I know for myself, I can't even see the beginning of when I started to get interested in personal development it if I follow the line back, it's almost like you can't really tell where it starts. Because it's it starts so small sometimes. But I've really been hitting it hard, probably the last, I would say probably the last 10 or 15 years in just really exploring opportunities to learn,

Monica Ricci 02:52

to grow to take advantage of the resources that are out there that help us do things like cultivate our own self mastery in terms of you know, coaching and courses and books and you know, all the things we hear about the people you surround yourself with. And so as I was building my business back in the well, it was really the turn of the last I mean the end of the last century, which is the 90s It's amazing. It's been it's been that long. But I started that business in 1998, with the idea that one of my strengths is helping people to get to the core of issues and simplify things. And I translated that into physical simplicity, organ organization, and decluttering. And so that was kind of the beginning of this of the personal development work that I did, because organizing someone's environment. And indeed organizing your own environment. And building the skills to do that is definitely an exercise in personal development. Because it takes discipline, it takes learning, it takes a certain skill set a certain habits set, right. I never connected really to personal development way back then I just kind of recognize that it was a need in the marketplace. And I had a skill for it. And so I just jumped in and started doing it. And it grew so really organically. I am oh I shouldn't even say this. I am that business owner who never had a business plan or never planned at all. I just kind of leaped right in and literally never did a day of marketing in my whole life and my whole career for 20 years. I just didn't and and in some ways I think that's great. And that says hey, you know, like, you're onto something right? If you don't, right, if you don't need to put your energy in that to come to you Sure. Yeah, right. And it really did opportunities just came it was such a beautiful existence and, and it was really, it was probably about four years into it, that I really started to get a grasp on on how important the work was that I was doing. For the people that I was doing it for, it wasn't about the spaces it was about the people. And there were times when, when I realized that just the conversation we were having was the important piece that it wasn't about remaking the closet, or, you know, remaking the office or whatever it was we were working on. It was the conversation that happened in that space. That was transformative. And that's what I latched on to. So many years later, when I began to feel like it was time for me to exit that industry. In that specific capacity. I still, I still am in the service of productivity. It's just that I'm not doing it exactly the same way sort of a different channel now with the coaching and the masterminding and such. Right, but but that was, I guess, really my foray into into working in the personal development space, it's started way back, then. And it continues today. As you mentioned, I travel and I do zoom. And it's a really beautiful existence, because it allows me to reconnect with people in my life that I haven't seen in a long time. And it also allows me to continue to work and contribute in that way. And it allows me to see places I've never seen before and meet people I've never met.

Philip Pape 06:14

You know, it's amazing, your story, how you, you, you engage in passions along the way that eventually it kind of converged into something you didn't expect, right? You tell me about how you focus on productivity and organizing. But now it's the organization of your life, right? It's the development of things and organizing things. And now the development of yourself and your and then the nomadic life prop, I'm assuming the whole pandemic and everything moving online, and technologies flourishing like that, also, maybe facilitated the ability to do that. So what what Tell me a little bit more about the coaching that you do today in terms of personal development. And also maybe I don't know if you want to tie that into day 13, that you mentioned before we talked today, I don't want to give it away.

Monica Ricci 06:59

The the coaching that I do today is I do a combination, I do private coaching, and I also do group group coaching and business team coaching. And what we work on is is sort of a mixed model. And what I what I mean, as a mixed model is we work on things that are very tactical, in some cases, very granular. But we also work higher level like we work on things like who are you being right? Who do you need to be in this situation? Who have you been in the past that hasn't worked? And how do you embody this new identity moving forward, so that you can create the habits you want to create, to create the outcomes you want to create? Right? So there's this all this kind of higher level, a little more esoteric stuff. But when it comes down to it, those things translate actual specific actions, you go broad, to narrow, and that's where we focus our attention is in the everyday habits, actions and disciplines that really build a life.

Philip Pape 07:57

Yeah, and that that's so aligned with a lot of what I do as well, with nutrition coaching, like you said, it's not not necessarily where you've been or where you are today and what you embody today, it's the future, you, right? Act as if that's where you're going to be. And now what, where's the gap? And I love that approach. Because yeah, it is up here. But it drives down, down down down to today, in the moment in front of us, when we get

Monica Ricci 08:21

a little bit weak, give some real really granular and concrete examples, because I know, folks who watch podcasts, they watch for a reason they want information, swamp takeaways, they want to be able to go I want to do something new now. Yes. And we can absolutely talk about how the higher vision of who you want to be and who you strive to be translates into a singular action every day. And that is really the powerful part of this kind of this kind of coaching is that it involves not only that instructive part, but also it involves the community and the accountability piece, which is so supportive, they're kind of like the guardrails in life, you know, he's having that community, and then he also the accountability, so that you're not alone in this journey of of changing mastery.

Philip Pape 09:04

Great. Yeah. And I'm all for the listener getting as much value and strategies out of this as possible. So do we, do we start there? Do we start up at, at maybe, you know, a lot of people know what to do. Right? And maybe not, but a lot of people have sort of the education or they listen to a lot of podcasts. And they may personally know what they need to do. But they get overwhelmed taking that first step of being consistent day in day out, right. That's the overarching challenge for a lot of people. So how does someone develop that skill or habit over time and create those outcomes? I think you refer to that as the law of accumulation. Hmm.

Monica Ricci 09:37

I love the law of accumulation, which essentially just says that small changes applied consistently add up to great results. I mean, it's pretty, it's pretty straightforward, right? And during my fitness journey, my fitness transformation. I started my fitness transformation in 2019. And I didn't intend for it to be a transformation. Frankly, I had no idea what was gonna happen, but it's it set off this cascade of events and changes in me that was that led me to where I am today. But during my fitness transformation, I just showed up, I just showed the heck up every day. And I didn't know the end result. But what I what I knew was that if I showed up every day, something would change. What I didn't realize was that I would change in the process was that I would become a new person. And when you mentioned the what, why and the or the what people know what to do, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. But let's assume that people know what to do. And I love using the container of health and fitness. And the reason I love using it is because every single person can relate to it. Every single person has had this conversation with themselves around their health and fitness, it's not some magical thing that only a few people can understand. So most people know what they need to do. What they miss, though, is the why they want to do it, and who they have to become in order to do it. And that's where the coaching comes in. Right? That's where you dig a little deeper, because the thing is, and I have said this in speaking engagements I can remember, I was it was probably I don't know, mid 2000s. And I was speaking to a group of Army Wives at a base called I want to say it was Fort Thomas Georgia. And I actually have video of this piece of my of my presentation, we were talking about this exact thing. And I said, information is just information. Unless you apply it, it means nothing. For example, I know what I need to do to lose 15 or 20 pounds. Am I doing it? No, I'm not. So that was me, like in the past saying exactly what I'm saying now, right? Which is the information isn't the magic, the knowing what to do is not the magic. Because if that were the magic, everybody would be everywhere they want to be right now. Yeah, it's the getting yourself to do it. And that's what self mastery is. And it's very nut, it's very core and the essence, self mastery is the ability to get yourself do the thing you need to do whether you want to or whether you don't. Regardless of how you feel acting. That is great.

Philip Pape 12:16

And I love it. You also put it earlier as showing up. If you don't show up, you can't change. And you can't become that future you whether it's the lighter, stronger, fitter, happier, whatever you want to call it version of you. And that term, physical, mental and self mastery really resonates with me because I think I think my podcast description actually has that exact term. So you really resonate with me there. Oh, mine. So yeah, yeah, no, I love that that phrase right? Of the future you so let's dig into the habits then a little bit more. Because like you alluded to that this is kind of the missing skill, we often know what to do. And we don't know what to do. I think people are people know how to seek out information and education. But if people could grasp and develop habit building, right, it would cultivate the consistency we talked about in the small results we talked about. So is there something about the science of habit building that we're all missing? Or don't understand something you can let us know? And that's actionable where I could, I can learn more about habit building itself, so then I can apply that skill.

Monica Ricci 13:17

Yeah, absolutely. There's so much on habits that is out there right now. BJ Fogg talks about habits in his book, I think he's the one who wrote tiny habits. And James clear I love I love his content and atomic habits as well. And so like, for example, the James clear model of the habit loop, which is the cue, the craving, the response and the reward, it's the circle all the time, round, and around and around, we go right. And we don't even realize how much of our lives are habituated. But they are and that's our brains way of conserving energy in our brains way of getting us through the day without being completely exhausted. Is that anything we do repeatedly? The brain just goes okay, duly noted. Boop, boop. And it puts it in the back for like, you know, just Okay, now it's second nature. But the good part is, good habits can become second nature. But the bad part is unconscious habits, just kind of easy default ways of being also become second nature and very ingrained and entrenched, as well. So we break down the habit loop and we look at the cue, the craving, the response and the reward, there are certain things we can do to interrupt that loop to either add new habits we want to incorporate into our lives, or stop existing habits. And Tony Robbins will say, you can't just stop an existing habit, you have to replace it, replace it. So I find that that's probably true because stopping something leaves a vacuum for something else to come in. So you want to be able to choose what that thing is, right? We've often heard that folks who stopped one behavior like for example, and addictive behavior of any time often will just substitute a different addictive behavior or it right it may switch they may go from, you know, being addicted to one substance to them being addicted to food, for example, or gambling or whatever it might be. Right. So the way that we interrupt that habit loop is, is by looking at the habits that we, that we want to change or replace, I should say, and making those habits difficult, making them inconvenient. Right? So if, for example, your habit is that you're constantly checking your phone at dinner, and that's impacting your relationships, and I gotta believe that's the thing. You got to ask yourself, Okay, if the habit I want to replace is that I want to stop checking my phone at dinner, because it makes my spouse or my partner or my kids feel disconnected from me, how can I make that difficult? Okay, well, how can we let's look, you can put the phone across the room or in a drawer or upstairs, right? So again, you're putting barriers between you and that automatic behavior, right. And then similarly, you want the habits that you do want to be easier. So you design your environment, around making the resistance as low as possible between you and your new habit. We always hear this, put your gym shoes at the outlet, right? By your bed or pack your gym bag the night before or sleep in your gym clothes, or whatever it

Philip Pape 16:23

may be. I've had those myself, yes.

Monica Ricci 16:26

Removing the friction and the barrier to the ones you do want and putting in barriers to ones you don't want. That's your friend, think about.

Philip Pape 16:37

Right. So somebody could take a somebody can inventory their day, right? And think about those things that get in the way or cause friction or like you said, the the phone at the dinner table that I know it's causing a problem again, people people know this stuff, it's not like they're clueless about, it's just they get into a routine and day after day, they come home from work, they're tired, it's like, they don't want to think about it. Do you just you take a piece of paper and kind of write down the top three or four for the day? And then right next to it, either the replacement? Or how to make it harder? I mean, depending on which direction want to go, is it that simple?

Monica Ricci 17:09

It's, I would say do one or two at a time, one or two habits at a time, right? And I would say to ask yourself questions, ask yourself, don't just tell yourself, but actually ask yourself and inquire. Because what you're asking yourself, you're consulting, your Higher Self, your inner knowing. You're not just thinking it's kind of a little bit of a shift. Because if I look around the room, and I asked myself, what needs to be done in this room today, I'm engaging that part of myself. That is sort of the the, I guess it would be that yourself that can see things through a different lens than I got like

Philip Pape 17:49

a Socratic. Yeah, and you know, what needs to be done

Monica Ricci 17:53

today? Same thing, how can I make this harder? Or how can I make this easier. And also, asking someone else is helpful to getting different perspective can be helpful in that in that process. And also, we, if we look back at the ABCs of habit building, which is an actual behavior in celebration, which I'm pretty sure as BJ Fogg, the acknowledgement of every time you do or don't do the thing is really also an important part of it. Right? You get that celebration of Look at me, look what I did. I left my phone in the drawer, and I didn't die, right? At dinner time. Or I went to the gym, and I feel so great about myself. Yes, that high five, like, that's totally who I want to be today. And that ties into the identity, right? Who do we want it to be? It's not just the what are we doing? We are integrated beings, we are Mind Body, Soul spirit, right? So moving the body is really important to get the head to follow, right? And also integrating the head in the acknowledgement. What makes the body want to move more. So in this sort of spiral, it's, it's like a cycle. It's really lovely.

Philip Pape 19:08

Got it, who do we want to be? And I guess we can stack that onto getting our steps pacing around the house as we reflect on that. So so as one other technique comes up, I want to ask you about and that's habit stacking, where you're combining something indulgent, it may not be the best habit in and of itself, but you're combining it with a good habit, like the common the common common example is like watching Netflix while you walk on the treadmill or something. What do you think of that concept?

Monica Ricci 19:36

I think habit stacking is wonderful, because you're already in the habit of doing something. And so, using that as your cue, like if we go back to the clear model, the queue, which leads to the craving, right and so, you already have a queue in place. So when I do this, I will also do this, or after I do this which is solidify Do I always use brushing teeth, because there is nobody that I've ever spoken to who has a problem remembering to brush their teeth in the morning and at night, we've been doing it since we were tiny babies, right. So that's one of the most ingrained habits that we have, or taking a shower or anything else that you can do without thinking, if you can attach and stack a new habit onto an existing one. It's like, it's like a little link, right, and it connects it. And so eventually, you begin to view those things together. When I get up in the morning, I will brush my teeth, and then I'll meditate. For example, I'm just making that up, right? If you're not in the habit of meditating, because otherwise, what you do is you try to squeeze meditating in somewhere during the day when you have time. But when you attach it to something you're already doing, you're carving out a little piece of time for it, and then it happens everyday at the same time. And then once those two are solidified, you can actually stack another one on top. So by the time you're, you know, six weeks in, or however many weeks in, you've got a stack of little morning things that you do that create a super foundation for you to set your day upon.

Philip Pape 21:12

Yeah, that's awesome. And for people who think they don't have enough time, that that sounds like a great technique to because some of these things are done, you know, simultaneously, right? So they're more efficient. Actually, I was just talking to a client who likes to drink a lot of coffee. And we're talking about getting enough hydration not getting dehydrated. And so why don't we, every time you pour a cup of coffee, pour a glass of water, put some, you know, put some lemon and salt and make both together. And then when you're done with the coffee, now you have the water to kind of last you until until the next coffee, you know. Anyway, so I watched your YouTube video about micro stepping, which is sounds also in this realm of creating change. Can you explain that concept, I don't know if it's different than what we've been talking about, or we're not going,

Monica Ricci 21:51

it's not really different. It's just a matter of shifting your mindset from taking huge, massive actions all at once to taking tiny little actions and recognizing that those are incredibly valid, and that they are the way to get to big changes. I saw a really cool graphic not long ago, and it was just a little pencil drawing. And on one side, it had a picture of a ladder, a really tall ladder and a little stick figure guy at the top. And on the other side, it had a picture of a really tall ladder. And there were only about a quarter of the number of steps. And the steps were really far apart in the lawn guy was on the bottom, because he couldn't reach the first step. So the whole point was every step is important. You can't get to the top if you can't reach the first step. And so it's that idea. We've we've, we've so conditioned ourselves to believe if we're not going to the gym for an hour, five days a week, you know, hard driving that we that we're failing. But that's not how you get there. You don't go from zero to 100. You don't go from the standard American diet to carnivore in one day. But don't do it, you step your way there, right, you change in slow incremental parts. Same with any habit, you step your way there, because in the small steps, you create wins. And every time you create a win, your brain wants another win. And that's why it's important. The micro steps are important because you set yourself up to succeed multiple the day.

Philip Pape 23:26

That's so motivating. Monique, I love your energy, by the way, the microstepping it is a nuance in this discussion, because you know, up till now we've been talking about habits and replacing things. But if people realize that also if, if they feel that new habit or replacement is kind of a big jump, how do you break that back down to a much smaller jump, like if you're, if you're getting five hours of sleep today, you're not gonna get eight hours of sleep immediately next week, but you might get five and 15 right are five and 30. So I love that concept for people. Hey, this is Philip Pape. And if you feel like you've put in effort to improve your health and fitness, but aren't getting results, I invite you to apply for a one on one coaching to make real progress and get the body you desire. We'll work together to figure out what's missing so you can look better, perform better and feel better. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching, to learn about my program and apply today. Now back to the episode.

Monica Ricci 24:24

Absolutely, yeah, you know, and the other thing too is if you if you look at how if you look at how you would approach teaching a child how to do something, and and then you look at how you approach teaching yourself how to do something new, very often it's very different. Why? Why would we Why would we expect a child to go from not being able to ride a bike to being able to ride a bike with no training wheels? Who wouldn't? We wouldn't we would never set our kid up for failure like that, would we? Yet we set ourselves up for failure all the time every day.

Philip Pape 24:55

Yep. You don't go from counting coins to algebra in one day. It's Six years of school, right? Yeah. Okay, awesome. So I guess I want to talk a little bit about fitness specifically. And then also some of the you mentioned, like very actionable strategies we can get into. And we love to talk about fitness and body composition through muscle building and fat loss on this show. Many people are trying to lose weight, right? And the traditional formula is, eat less, move more. You see people doing tons of cardio, constantly restricting themselves through dieting. Tell us what about something you call the exercise myth and what the right approach might be for someone trying to lose fat, maybe we get tied into all the habits we just talked about?

Monica Ricci 25:37

Okay, well, the first thing I need to share with you is that I am not a personal trainer, and I am a health coach. Among my other coaching, I also am a certified health coach. So I just like to put that out there because I am I just not in my wheelhouse to create training plans or anything, but what I will say about the exercise myth, which is people put their attention on the wrong process, or the wrong part of the process when they want to lose weight and get in shape. Most people that come to me for health coaching are frustrated. And when we have our initial conversation 99% of the time, one of the things that come up that comes out of their mouth is I should be what? exercising more Yes. And 99% of the time, they're wrong. What they should be doing is shifting the attention from the lack of exercise to the power they have over what goes in their giant hole in their face. For sure, right? Yes, so one of my one of my aunts, dropped 70. Now, not quite 70, she dropped her first 40. And in about three months, and I specifically said to her, do not worry about exercising, do not your knees are not gonna be able to take it right now at the weight she was at. And she was astonished that she could, you know, created this result in her life. And that was just really proved to her the exercise is wonderful as an adjunct. But it is not the magic that you're not doing. So many people have this belief in themselves, about themselves that if they could just get to the gym more, that would be the thing. And it's not, it's just not, and they don't often want to hear it. Because what it means is they have to change the thing they do all the time all day, which is the way they eat, it's actually easier to blame your lack of exercise than to look at what you have to do every day, we just make hard decisions every single meal. But that's part of self mastery. And that's part of an identity shift, right that we were talking about earlier is coming to grips with what is true and loving and accepting what is true. You don't have to like it. But you do have to accept it.

Philip Pape 27:55

Right. And so related to that mindset shift. I know, I've heard you mentioned that identity drives behaviors, and vice versa. So So what do you mean by that? And how does that apply to what we were just talking about? Well,

Monica Ricci 28:09

every behavior that we do is a direct reflection of what we believe about ourselves of who we believe we are, right? It's our identity leaks out of us in our actions. And so if we can change either one of silos, it's like an equation, right? If you change one, you begin to change the other. Or if you change this one, you begin to change this one. Ideally, you change them both at the same time. And then you have really start thinking moving. So if I believe that I'm a healthy person, if my identity is an athlete, if my identity is a focus, business leader, right, if that's my aspirational identity, then I get to ask myself, well, what would an athlete do? Or what would a healthy fit person eat? Or what would have focused business leaders show up like in this conversation, having those identities those aspirational identities as touchstones informs the granularity, and that's what we talked about earlier about going from broad to narrow. If my identity is up here on the top line, it trickles down into day to day to day actions and reinforce that yes, that is who I am. In fact, I just had a moment that I'd like to share with you. About a half an hour ago.

Philip Pape 29:28

Oh, you mean you just had them? Okay. Yeah.

Monica Ricci 29:30

It's not a moment, an identity moment. About a half an hour ago, I finished recording a one minute promo video for a speaking engagement that I'm doing in March at a conference. And I had to record it a few times because, you know, it's, you know, it's not perfect and polished. Yeah, right. I want it good. And I so I recorded it, I finished it. And as I was walking down the stairs, I said to myself out loud, man, I nailed that and And then I said, because that's what I do. I nail things. I am awesome on camera. And it just, I'm just reinforcing the identity that I am awesome on camera. And that that is my wheelhouse. And of course, I nailed it. That's what I do. Right? It's incredibly powerful to acknowledge yourself in that way, the same way that you would acknowledge your best friend, you know, high five, or meet slap on the back, or you do whatever, man, you nailed that thing. Why don't we not do that for ourselves? We got to do that every day. You nailed that? Oh, yeah. Love it. It's just like you to do this, just like you to know that thing. Whatever it is, it's just like you to get up and work out in the morning. It's just like you to choose this incredibly healthy meal and really enjoy it. Like that's who you are. Yeah, that's how behavior and identity swirl together. One reinforces the other.

Philip Pape 30:55

Yeah, I love that. And and it's, it's, it's a form of visualization. But it's very powerful, right? Because then it leads to you saying, Okay, what do I need to do to get there? And I know, when I work with clients, we talk about a vision for the future, what do you look like in a year, one of my clients, and I want to, I'm going to be devastatingly gorgeous. Next year, I'm going to be devastating and gorgeous. I'm like, that's what that's what we're gonna do, then that's what you are. And we just need to close the gap to get there. Love that. So there's another thing you talk about in terms of being an outlier. And I don't know if you mean that in a. So for example, we talked about research based fitness and evidence based fitness here. And you know, most research is done and you have, most data points fall in a normal curve, right, like a bell curve that people are familiar with. And mostly, very few people fall at the tails of those curves. But the people that do tend to be the ones that are more successful, like the fact that only 5% of people keep their weight off, you know, after five years, and they lose it. And so almost being weird, in that sense of being an outlier is often a good thing, I would say, and you talked about the courage to be an outlier. So I'd love to hear your perspective on that.

Monica Ricci 31:59

Well, um, as of today, let's just say, almost 90% of the American population is metabolically unhealthy. That is some scary stuff. So if you don't want to go down that road, you got to do something different than the vast majority of people are doing, which will make you an outlier. And that's all well and good on paper. But what does that look like day to day, that's where the coaching comes in. That's where the understanding that if you want something different, you got to do something different. And when it becomes difficult to do is the most important time to do it. That's where you show up as an outlier socially. We have got to as individuals, embrace the fact that no one is responsible for us, but us, and that it is up to us to protect what we want for our lives, because no one else will protect it like we will, if I go to a social situation, whatever it is, you know, we have in November, what do we have coming up the holidays, holidays, right? So many people are going to show up at holiday parties, whether it's office parties, friends, neighbors, whatever, there are going to be a group of people who go with the flow, and who use the excuse. It's the holidays, I didn't want to be rude, I gotta have a cocktail, I got to this, I couldn't turn that I couldn't I had to as if they're as if someone else is in control of their actions. And then there is a group of people who will say internally, I can come here and I can choose to only eat the shrimp, and the sausage, and the egg, the deviled eggs. And I can have a Diet Coke or seltzer water, or half glass of wine instead of three glasses. I choose to have this Yes, I choose to have these things. And the reason that I choose to have these things is in service of my future self, who I love. And I love my future self more than I love what anyone at this gathering thinks of me. That's it right there. That's it. I love my future self and my present self more than what anyone else thinks of me. Yeah, if you can embrace and hold that in your hand and your heart and your mind and your soul and your spirit, becoming an outlier and doing something that is different, strange or unfamiliar to other people is a piece of cake.

Philip Pape 34:32

And that's often what if you are doing the right thing it often is it does make you an outlier, doesn't it? I mean, there's so much pressure from friends, society, family, social media, and usually the norm is not what you have to be doing and what you have to be doing as hard as you said. It's hard and there's kind of a converse, converse to that. That's maybe all just as insidious. You're talking about the going to a social outing or a holiday party. And it's saying that I let's say you're on a diet and you tell you yourself. I can't I can't I can't that's almost the same thing. Right, as opposed to saying I choose not to. That's just what I was thinking of. Yeah, that's, that's great advice. Monica.

Monica Ricci 35:09

We, you know, I love this whole conversation, Philip about, about balance. And so so there's this thing that I use in my coaching, and I've learned it, I learned it through the heroic coaching program that we're in now. And I rely on it so heavily, almost every day. And it's what Aristotle calls the golden mean. Or the virtuous mean, and it's being in the, it's being in the middle. So there's the the idea of extremes on each side, which is, I can't write. And then over here is I can, or I will do whatever I want. And, but then there's the middle, which is I choose, so I can do whatever I want. I choose to do whatever I whatever I choose. So if I choose to abstain, that's great. But if I choose to have a slice of cheesecake, that's great, too, as long as I'm choosing it, as long as I am mindfully, deliberately choosing it. And then along with choosing it comes the ability to say, I chose that I will not feel bad about choosing it, I will not punish myself, I will not beat myself up, I will not go down this road. Because when we go down that road, it's because we didn't choose it. It's because we fell into it as a victim. Right? Yeah,

Philip Pape 36:30

yeah, for sure. No, I love that balance. And I was thinking of, you know, hedonism on one side. And what's the opposite of asceticism or restriction on the other side, right? What about something else came to mind there with regarding to choosing? Oh, so a lot of people have trouble trouble choosing in the moment, I think that's a struggle that people face when they're especially dealing with ingrained habits related to food and their relationship with food. And if they went to a party like that, just being thrown into the party and say, Now go make choices may may be difficult for somebody who has struggled with this their whole life. Is there a pre planning that goes on to kind of develop the habit of knowing that you can choose if that makes sense? Absolutely. So there's

Monica Ricci 37:13

this thing, again, I'm referring back to the heroic coaching program that I'm in right now, which is about to wrap up. So that'll be another fun certification that I'll have under my belt. But there's this thing that we talked about in heroic, which is, it's a four letter acronym called whoop, whoop, and it is W O P. And this is exactly what you can do to prepare for almost anything, whether it's a project or whether it's just going to a holiday party. W is what is the outcome? Right? What what are we what do we want the outcome to be? Well, I want the outcome to be that I want to feel great after I leave this party and not feel like I've completely abandoned myself. Okay, great. What is the what is the first Oh, is? Oh, actually, sorry? W is what? Oh, is the outcome? What is the wish? What is the wish that I want to do this party and feel great? What is the outcome? Which is, which is why do I want to feel that way? Okay, well, because I like myself, mastery, I want to stay on and maintain the progress that I've already made. Okay, great. What's the obstacle? That's the next oh, what's the obstacle that you're gonna encounter? And the P is how do you plan for it. So if you can anticipate what's coming up around the curve, you're not going to get surprised by it. If you're driving along at night, and you're around a curve, and all of a sudden, you run that curve, and there's a bear sitting in the middle of the road, that's a split second decision that you are not prepared for, and you're probably going to crash. But if somebody told you, hey, about a mile up the road, you're going to hit a curb, and there's going to be a bear around there. What are you going to do, you're going to drive differently, it's the same thing. So if I know that my weakness is what up sweets, or whatever it is, I'm going to prepare in a different way to go to that party, I'm going to fill myself up in advance with the things that I want fats and proteins, right, I'm going to go there not hungry, so that my resolve is higher, I'm going to make choices mindfully in the moment to do proteins. And if I feel I can, I'm going to mindfully choose to have a little bit of a cookie or one cookie, instead of completely losing it losing all my control, and then feeling terrible about myself. So absolutely, seeing around the corners of your life gives you a tremendous amount of agency in the way that your life plays out.

Philip Pape 39:27

This is so awesome. Like I love this model. And I'm going to use that and I'm gonna throw your name and when I talk to clients about the many ways to do this, because managing risk, I think of it as managing risk or having a food plan or having a strategy going in. But the way you put it of hey, we're in control, we know things are going to happen. We've been around the block, you know, for those of us who've been on the planet for three, four or five decades, we know what's going to happen at a party. It's like not like you know Christmas is coming. So did you save up to buy the gifts it's going to happen? What are you going to do about it to take total control of your situation, because it is up to you, even if it's a little hard, but eventually becomes a habit. Awesome. Okay, good stuff. So, I know you do the Self Mastery coaching, we've been talking about self mastery. And this really helps people, I think you call it upgrade their life experience, which is another I like that visual upgrade their life experience. You talked a little bit about the coaching, but earlier you said we're gonna get into some more maybe strategies, are there other models or details you want to get into on that?

Monica Ricci 40:29

Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about what we touched on earlier, which is one, which is the three components of the identity, the identity to behavior sort of line, right? When you connect identity to behavior, there's a thing in the middle, which is the the attribute, and I'll give you a very concrete example, if your identity, your aspirational identity, let's say is, let's just use athlete because again, it's relatable, is athlete, and the behavior that an athlete would do would be to strength train three times a week and do a little bit of cardio two days a week. Well, in between those is our ways of being our attributes, right? So an athlete might have attributes of consistent, that's an attribute, right? That that would be great that would that would support those behaviors, and an attribute of positive and attribute of hopeful an attribute of, let's say, courageous, right, you get to you get to assign to your identity, athlete, all these ways of being so that you show up in those ways to execute on the actual action.

Philip Pape 41:49

It's not that you necessarily have these strengths to begin with, we're again looking in the future like we will, and we will embody these things, okay?

Monica Ricci 41:57

Yes, but here's the thing we get to embody, we get to have any attribute we want, just by claiming it today, I will be calm. Today, this morning, I will be strong. That's one of my attributes that I select every day. Because under my identity of athlete, strong, consistent, disciplined, those are attributes which lend themselves to supporting the execution of the strength training the cardio though, whatever, it's going to be the bicycling or whatever, right? So I wish I could remember who said, assume a virtue and it is yours. If I if I say to myself today, I am strong, confident, disciplined. That's what I'm going to embody today. That's who I want to be today. That helps me to remember why I'm even in this endeavor of self mastery. Right? Am I being strong right now? Am I being disciplined? Am I being consistent? Or because? Because those things are a tangible way to embody the identity of an athlete, for example. And then they translate down to well, what would a consistent strong discipline athlete do right now? Get out of bed? Right. I have this conversation with myself almost every morning. Yeah, what would it what would a courageous champion do right now, even though it's warm in this bed? Right. greatest champion would get up right now? Why? Why would she get up because she's committed to being courageous champion for who? for herself? Okay.

Philip Pape 43:32

Yeah, I love that. The

Monica Ricci 43:34

conversations we have with ourselves are the very most important ones.

Philip Pape 43:38

Yeah. And we have total control over them, right. I mean, I don't know if it was the Stoic philosophers or Mother Teresa or somebody who said I like no matter how everything, no matter how bad everything is around you, like the one thing you control is what's in your mind. Right. It's your thoughts.

Monica Ricci 43:53

Absolutely. And you know, it's interesting that you said the Stoic philosophers because I keep referring to this coaching program that I'm about wrapped up with and, and it is based on stoic philosophy and modern science. Okay. So just to be clear, and you know, Mark Devine and David Goggins and all these, you know, kind of modern heroes, combined with Aristotle and Socrates and Epictetus and Seneca

Philip Pape 44:19

cheetahs. Yeah, Marcus Aurelius all those guys. Good stuff. Yeah, I love I love stoicism. It's great. I mean, if anything is is worth inspiring you, you know, to think about how to take control and be in the moment what you're talking about. It's that. So we've covered a lot of this. Is there anything else we're like related to creating these significant shifts in mindset that come to mind that we haven't discussed?

Monica Ricci 44:43

I don't know if there's anything we haven't discussed? Probably a lot we haven't discussed in what we wanted to cover today. I think we have been covered. But I think if I would, if you were asking me for closing remarks, I would say I would say that to today. And indeed not today even but in this moment is the only place that you have any influence over over your future in this moment, and and every choice you make in this moment, gets you closer to or farther away from the person that you want to be. And that's a really great reminder to kind of carry with you during the day,

Philip Pape 45:20

in this moment, and Today's a new day. Don't worry about what happened in the past. Let's do it. Let's get up and make it happen. Awesome. Thank you so much. Well, Monica, where can people learn about all this? Great information and you and your work?

Monica Ricci 45:34

Well, Twitter is my social media boyfriend and I am at Monica Ricki on there. And, and Instagram, I am at remaking Monica. And so I would love to connect with anyone who wants to reach out.

Philip Pape 45:47

Awesome, so I'll include that information in the show notes. When the episode comes out, and people can can take go click on that. It was awesome having you on I love talking all this mindset. You inspired me. It's great because I want to be thinking about these things and my clients and everyone listening. Thanks again for coming on the show. Monica

Monica Ricci 46:03

was a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Philip.

Philip Pape 46:07

Philip Pape 1/10/23 Philip Pape 1/10/23

Ep 40: Everything You Need to Know About Fat Loss (Simple Strategies for a Fitter, Leaner Body)

Whether you're trying to lose extra weight, switch to a fat loss phase after building muscle, get lifestyle lean, or finally achieve success with your new year’s resolution, this episode will help you get there.

You will learn everything you need to know about fat loss so you can lose the weight and keep it off sustainably, efficiently, and in a way that actually improves how you look and feel for the long term.

This is NOT a “rapid weight loss” prescription. This is a “fat loss for life” approach that I use with clients that you can use on your own with a little bit of knowledge, practice, and accountability.

Also, I'm starting my own 12-week fat loss phase the week this episode goes live and will be adhering to these principles, so if you want to follow along and see updates of my journey, make sure to join our free Wits & Weights Facebook community. I also made a Fat Loss for Life Guide I can send you after joining the group.

Just check out the links below to join our free community or apply for one-on-one coaching. Enjoy the episode!

Topics discussed in this episode:

The 3 principles that make fat loss possible, easier, and maintainable
The most important behavior to maintain muscle during fat loss
Which macro is the "body composition" macro and how much you need
What data to collect to maximize your results and consistency
What to do before you actually start a calorie deficit
How fast you can and should lose weight
The most important consideration when selecting foods during a fat loss phase
The easiest way to boost your metabolism during fat loss
What you're doing TOO MUCH of, and what to do instead
The simplest way to reduce overall stress and also belly fat!
How to avoid diet fatigue

RELATED LINKS

Download the Fat Loss for Life guide that goes with this episode by joining the Wits & Weights Facebook community
Download the MacroFactor app (use affiliate code WITSANDWEIGHTS to extend your trial by an extra week)
Join our Facebook community if you'd rather watch the video

🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you achieve optimal health that fits your lifestyle—without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions. Philip Pape, podcast host and head nutrition coach, helps high-achieving people burn fat, get lean, feel energized, and project confidence in their lives through one-on-one nutrition and lifestyle coaching at witsandweights.com.

👉 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)

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:30

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. This is another live training in the Wits & Weights Facebook community, which is totally free, it gives you access to lots of free valuable content, challenges, guides, nutrition, blueprints, even early access to podcast episodes. And you can see me posting regularly to follow along with my upcoming fat loss journey if you would like. So just click the link in the show notes to join. Again, it's the Wits & Weights, Facebook community, which you can also just search.

Philip Pape 01:03

And my name is Philip Pape. I'm a certified nutrition coach, body composition expert and founder of Wits & Weights. And as always, I would be very grateful for your support. And the easiest way to do that is to submit a five star rating and review on whatever platform you use to listen to your podcast, and then tell others about the podcast if you find it helpful. So with that, let's get into today's topic, which is everything you need to know about fat loss. Now this is going live in January 2023. When everyone's making new year's resolutions, the most frequent one being to lose weight by starting a weight loss or fat loss phase. And we're going to make a distinction between what we mean by weight loss versus fat loss.

Philip Pape 01:51

Whether you're trying to lose extra weight, or you're trying to switch to a fat loss phase after building muscle like I'm doing, or you want to get lifestyle lean or shredded, or you finally want to just achieve success with your New Year's resolution. I think this episode will help you get there. And you may want to listen to it a second time and take notes to to really let it sink in. So I think you're going to learn everything you need to know about fat loss so you can lose the weight and keep it off sustainably efficiently. And in a way that actually improves how you look and feel for the long term. And I realize everything saying that this is everything you need to know is a presumption of statement. But when I was preparing this episode, I tried to think of all the things that really matter, based on experience based on the evidence based on other experts that I listened to or watch and read so that you can refer to this episode in the future as sort of a definitive guide. Now, this is not a rapid weight loss prescription. This is a fat loss for life approach that I use with clients that you can use on your own that I use on myself. And if you have a little bit of knowledge, practice and accountability, you can incorporate this, these practices. As a body composition expert, I work with clients who want to eat more and enjoy their lifestyle, but they also want to improve their physique. They want to have more energy, I want to have more self confidence. And this really requires a focused, disciplined and evidence based approach to fat loss, that prioritizes strength training and body composition. That's where it's at. That's where the magic happens. And you're gonna hear a lot of emphasis on that today. You may have heard some or all of these principles and strategies before, but I'm going to lay them out in a way where you can refer to this episode in the future as a fat loss blueprint if you ever get stuck. And as I mentioned before, I am following my own 12 week fat loss phase starting this month, and I will be adhering to these principles and the strategies. So if you want to follow along and see updates of my journey, make sure to join our free Wits & Weights Facebook community, I also made a fat loss for life guide that I can send you after you join the group associated with this episode. So just check out the links in the show notes to join our free community or to apply for a one on one coaching if you need that extra boost of support. Okay, so before even considering fat loss, let's review three principles

Philip Pape 04:22

that we are going to adhere to throughout this process three principles that I think govern a lot of why we do it this way and what the strategies are. So the first principle is that building muscle increases your metabolism and that's going to make fat loss easier. Muscle burns more calories and fat. Having more muscle allows you to carry more weight and be leaner but have a higher BMR higher baseline metabolism. More muscle means you're more active more muscle means you can push more in the gym. More muscle means higher bone density. More muscle means deeper sleep and additional recovery. and all of these mean, easier fat loss. So that's the first principle is that building muscle makes fat loss easier. Principle number two, you can't improve your body composition without building, or at least preserving muscle. Okay, so this is sort of tied in with principle number one. We don't, we don't just want to lose weight, right? We want to lose fat. And the vast majority of people we're talking 95% of people or more, have been doing it the wrong way, right? You've been either crash dieting, or dieting very quickly, without regard for protein training steps, any of these other things, potentially do a lot of cardio. And every time you lose 20 3040 pounds, you lose a lot of muscle in the process. I mean, I've said this many times before, but I can't overstate it enough. If you lost 30 pounds, doing it that way, you might be losing 15 pounds of muscle. And it's easy to lose fat and muscle. It's hard and it takes time to build muscle back. So let's not lose it in the first place. Okay, so that concept of body fat overshooting, which I've talked about before, and I think one of my recent episodes was a replay on Paul Hinton's podcast, where I talked about it as well. The idea that every time you lose weight, you lose muscle. And every time you gain weight back, you're gaining mainly fat, and you're constantly getting worse in terms of body composition. And what we want to do is principle number one, build muscle. And then principle number two, preserve, build or preserve that muscle as part of the fat loss phase. So if you're doing it for the very first time, if you've never built muscle, yes, you can get leaner and improve your body composition, just by doing what we're going to talk about today. And focusing on fat loss and holding whatever muscle you have, it's not much muscle you have I get it, but you're gonna hold on to it, which you've never really done before, when doing a traditional approach or crash diet type approach, or a restrictive diet, okay, now, this is going to get you what I'm going to call skinny lean, not skinny fat, right? skinny fat is what's been happening over the years of yo yo dieting when you lost fat and muscle, and you keep getting what seems to be fluffier, even if you're at the same weight, I'm talking about skinny lean, meaning wouldn't cut fat hold on your muscle, and you're going to reveal some of that little bit of muscle you have. However, I would suggest going back to principle number one, building muscle first at some point, and then revealing that muscle with fat loss and periodized in your training, and periodized in your nutrition. That's the way I work with my clients at least. And I highly recommend it. But either way, we're going to at least preserve the muscle we have principle number three, okay, you cannot maintain your results, your fat loss results using traditional restrictive dieting approaches. We don't want to arbitrarily cut out food groups, like all carbs, or pick a one size fits all low calorie target, you know, like a, like an 800 Calorie target that optive via and these other damaging, highly dangerous programs use. We don't want to rely on a packaged food service where we don't really even know how to make our own meals. And I'm not talking about food delivery. Where do you still make the meals and they serve the ingredients I'm talking about? Programs are you spending hundreds of dollars a month and they're delivering all your food and telling you to eat it this specific way. And then we don't want to use something like fasting as a primary fat loss technique. It's a tool in the toolbox for certain people, but it's generally not something you need. And it's not the you know, sure way to to fat loss. So those those things I just mentioned, that's just a few of them are all short term fixes. I guarantee that you will lose weight on those, but at a huge cost to your metabolism, to your behaviors to your lifestyle, and really to your ability to maintain results once those diets are done, or whatever approach you're taking. Because then it's like what do I do now? Instead, we need a flexible approach, right? We call this flexible dieting, a flexible approach that lets you enjoy Dining Out social events, food and drinks you prefer and maybe not those that you don't prefer. And something that works whether you are losing, maintaining or gaining weight. So in other words, we are going to learn the skill of manipulating your nutrition to fit whatever dietary pattern makes sense for you and your goals. And by definition, this can change with your goals. So it's a flexible approach. So those are the three principles. Okay, principle one, building muscle makes fat loss easier. Principle two, you can't improve body composition without building or holding on to muscle. And number three, you can't maintain your results using a crazy restrictive prescription. So that brings us to the strategies. Okay, and I'm going to start with the first three strategies, which I think you're going to want to put in place Before you even think about dieting, and by dieting, I mean going into a calorie deficit. Okay, so the first strategy, start strength training now, and always train as if you're building muscle, even when you're dieting. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go through what I mean by others. But basically, if you're not strength training, look to do that first. Seriously, I am, I am that guy who, who says strength training is so pivotal to this, even as a nutrition coach, that I want you to be doing that from the beginning, because it makes everything else work better, it makes it easier, and so on. So no matter what people tell you, if your goal is to lose fat, to improve body composition, you have to have a strong muscle building signal, period. Refer back to principle number two, that you have to build a preserve muscle to prioritize fat loss, or you're just going to lose muscle defeating the entire purpose of this exercise. Even when you're losing weight, if you have a strong muscle building signal, that is what's going to retain your muscle, that's the most important thing. Even more important than protein, believe it or not, protein has a lot of tolerance behind it. shocking is that maybe, to hear from me, you know, I've come to realize from from the evidence that the training signal is the is the most important thing. Our goal when we train, whether we're gaining or losing weight doesn't matter. Our goal is always muscular tension, and progressive overload, meaning we have to prioritize a mode of lifting that has high intensity, intensity, meaning meaning weight on the bar, relatively heavy for us, 60 7080 90% of our max, which would put you into a range of somewhere between, I don't know two to six reps as your baseline, before you start stacking other types of rep ranges and movements on to that. And that's going to that's going to give you the muscular tension you need, we're not necessarily talking going to failure all the time, we're talking about recruiting as much muscle mass as possible. And then giving ourselves the chance to increase that weight over time, or increase the reps over time for progressive overload, even when we're in a fat loss phase. Okay, because when we're in a fat loss phase, we're not getting much nutrition coming in, we're having a stressor on our body. And there's going to come a point where it's going to be very hard to make further gains or any build any muscle. And all we're trying to do is hold on to the muscle. So what we need to do is lift probably three or four days per week, I would say at least two but almost anybody would benefit optimally from three or four days per week. So that's like three to five hours in the gym with a high load based program.

Philip Pape 12:48

foundationally based on the compound lifts, right, the squat, the deadlift, the bench press. And then I also loved the overhead press.

Philip Pape 12:56

I actually posted in the community group, not long, I think it was last week about my own switch from in my programming from a four day power building program where I was going an hour and a half to the gym, to a three day basic barbell programming, but in a low rep range to give me plenty of stimulus to hold on to that muscle during the dieting phase. So it's probably the opposite of what a lot of you are thinking, you're thinking, oh, I need to go with, you know, more cardio, more endurance, more reps to burn the fat. No, we need to go heavy to give the stimulus to muscle so that you maintain that muscle. Alright, so that's strategy number one starts training right now. And always train as if you're building muscle, even when you're dieting, and it's hard to do. So. Number two, consume sufficient protein to maintain muscle while dieting you knew this was going to be next. And by the way, you're gonna hear a lot in here, a lot of detail. I'm going to summarize all this later in the episode, you can skip to that if you want, you're gonna miss a lot of nuance and context, just warning you. But you will have that. So consume sufficient protein to maintain muscle on it. Now protein is what I call, or a lot of people call the body composition macro, right? It's the one that lets you really control your body composition. Now studies have shown time and time again that a higher protein diet leads to more lean mass retention, and more fat loss during weight loss. So it's very well established. Also, protein naturally leads to eating more whole foods. It's a nice side effect, because you're trying to get all this protein from animal sources like meat, eggs, dairy, and also from plant sources. You know, legumes, some grains have proteins, vegetables that have proteins and so on, kind of forces you into making choices that incorporate more whole foods, which is a great side effect. Protein also forces you to establish appropriate meal frequency and timing because To get enough protein, you have to eat a certain amount of times per day. And then that forces you to kind of time your meals throughout the day to optimize muscle building and muscle retention, which, which is simply another way to say, of just having enough protein spread evenly throughout the day. And then it also crowds out other foods that don't serve your goals, which kind of tied to the first thing I said about it gets you to eat more whole foods. Now, I suggest building your protein habit as follows First, just get protein every time you eat. Okay, a lot of people aren't doing that, right now, if you think about your three or four meals a day is their meal, it just doesn't have protein for a lot of people. That's breakfast, right? Bagel muffin cereal, oatmeal. I mean, oatmeal has a little protein, but it's like trace amounts. And you realize, well, if you don't have eggs, or cottage cheese, or meat, or even a protein shake, whatever, you're probably not getting protein at that meal. So the first thing is just get protein at every meal, then we step it up, and we say, okay, let's make sure to eat four or five times a day, where there's always protein, and one or two of those maybe just protein and maybe just a bowl of Greek yogurt, right, and maybe just a whey protein shake. And then the next step up from that is to actually track your protein, which is going to be in the third strategy I'm going to cover in a second. So the goal of how much protein to get, I've said it many times, and I'm gonna continue to use the same window that I think is supported by the evidence. And that is 0.7 to one gram per pound of target bodyweight. So if you a 250, and you want to lose 50 pounds and get to 200, you're aiming for between 140 and 200 grams of protein, pretty straightforward. And it's a big range, if you're on the lower end of that range of most people are perfectly fine. Okay, I'm not going to be a zealot about the one gram per pound, if that's just such a far cry from where you are today. Or if you're dieting, and we're talking about fat loss, and you don't want to have so much protein that it crowds out the fats and carbs. So there's a fine balance there. Now leaner individuals, or people further into a diet may need to actually have higher protein, just to continue to retain as much muscle as possible. That's where we get worried about the muscle loss accelerating. So keep that in mind. So that was a strategy number two is to consume sufficient protein. Strategy number three, is checking my notes here. Strategy number three is to use data to maximize your results and stay consistent. Okay, so notice I'm making the strategy somewhat generic. And then I'm diving in with specifics that I recommend. But the principle of the strategy is that the more information you have about your body and how it's changing, the more you can respond to it, and continue to make progress toward your results. As well as stay consistent and hold yourself accountable. Whether you're working with a coach or not. Having that data will give you its feedback, right? It says, Okay, I'm not doing what I need to be doing to get from here to there. And I have a process to follow in the data I'm gathering every day is telling me how I'm tracking on that process. So here's what I recommend. I recommend tracking at least calories and protein. But go ahead and just track all your macros, because it's so easy to do with technology today. Why limit yourself to calories and protein? That's my opinion. Having said that, if you know your calories, and you know your protein, to track calories, you're going to have to track the calories and the food, which generally comes along with the macros. And then you're going to know what your fats and carbs are anyway, even if you don't care where you fall on those fats and carbs, you feel me there. So it kind of all works out anyway, because calories and protein are what's most important to hit. The fats and carbs are much more flexible. Now what I recommend, I recommend an app called macro factor. So in the past, I've lately suggested it more and more I'm coming to find that not only does everyone I know on this planet who've used it preferred over all the other apps. I've seen coaches who are just diehard My Fitness Pal users and chronometer or RP users switch to macro factor and they're all like, okay, we're not going back. It's just that helpful. Like, I rarely see something that's designed with what we are trying to do so clearly in mind, right, the developers, the team behind it, the owners, the community is just all toward this. So I'm an evangelist for it. I admit, macro factor, I do have a code and affiliate code that will give you an extra free week in your free trial, although you're gonna end up wanting to buy it anyway. But you can use my code Wits & Weights, when you sign up for the free trial. It also supports me so I really appreciate that. But heck, I'm a user. I've used it since day one. I still use it. I'm going to continue using it in my upcoming fat loss phase that you're going to follow along in our group with if you want And all my clients use it. So everybody that I recommend use this. And when people reach out to me asking for help, like I'm having trouble with my protein, I'm having trouble with this. First question is, are you logging? Are you tracking? Because how do you know what you're eating the quantities, the macros the balance, unless you track we are terrible, terrible at estimating calories. That's just a fact. And as much as you want to do intuitive eating, you can't do it without the intuition developed first, that skill of okay, I'm going to intuitively eat do I even know how many calories or macros are in this food on my plate? No, generally you don't, unless you've tracked it. So use something like macro factor to track your macros and calories. And then the other thing you want to track is your weight. Okay. Now, I know there's a lot of coaches and a lot of programs that are all about getting rid of the scale and not using the scale. And, you know, especially I note, a lot of them are marketed toward women, like, you know, start, you don't have to obsess over the scale, etc. I'm, I'm not going to trash any of those whatsoever, because the principle behind them is totally sound that you don't have to weigh yourself to put in the principles for fat loss. Totally true. However, I'm a big fan of understanding what's going on with your body specifically, why do we get bloodwork? Why do we get our blood pressure checked? Right? Or why do we measure our resting heart rate? Why do we measure our steps? Why do we measure our lifts in our in the gym, so that we know what's happening. And we can make adjustments. Same thing with weight, I would recommend weighing as frequently as you can, ideally every day. And the reason I support weighing yourself every day is because it makes it a habit that you start just not having to think about meaning you actually start to reduce your obsession with a scale because it's now a daily thing. And then the second part of that is you see the number fluctuating up and down and up and down and up and down. And you realize, heck, this number doesn't mean a whole lot in the short term. And instead, I need to know what's happening over roughly a three week period to see how my body's responding. So if you're using an app like macro factor, it uses something called trend weight, which is a 20 day exponential moving average. And I tell you that and it's no secret, because you can reverse engineer and they've admitted it, you can do this in a spreadsheet, you could do it in Excel or Google Sheets, if you just want to do it on your own, track your weight every single day and apply a 20 day moving average Exponential Moving Average formula. Okay, why am I telling you all this, because at the end of the day, the daily weight on the scale, isn't that important at all, it's the 234 week change in your weight, that's important. Once you have your calories in, and your weight, which is the output of your energy, then that will let you monitor your current daily metabolism, you know, daily or weekly, whatever resolution you're using. If you use macro factors every day, if you do it on your own manually with the spreadsheets roughly every week, you're gonna get some decent data. And macro factual calls this dynamic maintenance. And what this allows you to do is see exactly how your body is responding to everything, to your activity, to your food, everything you do, so that each week you can adjust your calorie intake and keep progressing toward your fat loss goals. So that really is kind of the crux of why data is important, isn't it? Alright, so I just shared the first three strategies. And I want you to put these in place before you continue to the remaining strategies. So number one, start strength training properly. Number two, consume sufficient protein. And number three, use data, track your calories and macros and track your weight. So that you have what you need to make adjustments and to stay consistent. Because we truly are trying to do this as effectively and efficiently as possible as quickly as we can. We're not trying to you know, go for months and months and months and hope that we lose weight and fat because nobody wants to be hanging around that long in a diet.

Philip Pape 24:14

Hey, this is Philip Pape. And if you feel like you've put in effort to improve your health and fitness but aren't getting results, I invite you to apply for a one on one coaching to make real progress and get the body you desire. We'll work together to figure out what's missing so you can look better, perform better and feel better. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching to learn about my program and apply today. Now back to the episode. So once you've used those, once you've done those first three things, we get to strategy number four, is to spend time finding your true maintenance before you actually start the diet before you go into a calorie deficit. I would say four weeks is usually a good timeframe for a lot of people. And if you're using macro factor, you don't have to do anything like reverse dieting or You slowly up the calories over time, and it kind of takes forever to get there. No, just eat at your dynamic maintenance, you're going to know week to week what your maintenance is, maybe you overshot a little, maybe you under shot, you're not going to gain a whole bunch of weight, it's going to keep you roughly in your maintenance level. And in about three weeks, maybe four weeks, you'll know exactly where you need to be to start your diet. Alright, so the, all of these prerequisites are going to help you they're going to set you up for success. And they're going to set you up for retaining that muscle and losing that fat. All right, strategy. So strategy number four that I just mentioned, is spend time finding true maintenance. And if use macro factor, it's going to happen pretty quickly. Number five, is now we're gonna go into the diet. So this is critical on like all that restrictive diets out there, or the names diets where you're not counting calories. And you really don't know how quickly or dieting or slowly maybe you're going to slowly we're going to use a known moderately aggressive deficit, moderately aggressive as the word I like to use, meaning we want it to be aggressive enough that we get it done quickly, that we get the fat loss done as quickly as we can, but moderate enough to avoid losing muscle, and also to keep it sustainable, right, because if it's too if it's too aggressive, you may also feel like you're suffering, because you're just not eating anywhere close to where you would feel good. So it's that fine balance between, get it over with and keep it going. Right. So the the, what am I trying to say here, if you're training, and if you've got the protein, you're in a great position. And what we're going to aim for here is 0.25 to 1% of your weight per week, I find I found through experience and working with clients that 0.5 or 0.75%, kind of in the middle is the sweet spot where they can do it consistently and see the fat fall off, but not feel like they're suffering. And it's just a constant like, oh my god, I binged and I couldn't help myself, because I'm so hungry, you know, we don't want to be in that state. So the range is point two, five to one, find a sweet spot. So for example, I'm, I'm at 185. And I'm going to go pretty aggressive at maybe point eight, or maybe one person, maybe the full 1%, because I want to get it over with in 12 weeks. But I'm also dieting on way more calories than I used to. Because I've added muscle you see, this is where it comes in handy. Because I can diet on something like 2200 calories and actually lose 1% Somebody else might have to go down to 1400 calories, it's a big difference in your ability to do the diet. So number five is using a moderately aggressive energy deficit. Number six is to select foods to prioritize appetite management. So this is the only strategy I'm actually talking about the food you eat. And you'll see why I think this is really important. We, you when you think of named diets like keto or vegetarianism, or whatever, they're all about cutting things out. Or there's good and bad foods or there's clean and dirty you know, the you know, clean eating or just just just cutting something right so something crazy. So it's not about that. What we want to do is select foods that we prefer that meet our calories and macros, but that minimize our hunger as much as possible. I think appetite management is one of the primary drivers during fat loss of selecting foods that meet all your other needs. Protein micronutrients, hydration, you know, calories and mitigate the most important adaptation that negatively affects us during a diet which is hunger really, hungers? The big thing? Yes, adherence is important. And all these other things I'm talking about have to do with adherence. But managing hunger is probably the biggest thing that comes from hormonal downregulation when we're dieting because all of our all of our hormones are leptin, ghrelin, cortisol, thyroid, everything, they all tend to gang up on you to make you want to eat and survive because you're like, come on, you're not bringing in enough calories, we're gonna have to keep pulling from your fat cells. Well, that's what we want. That's the trade off we want is the fat cells to shrink. But as a result, we get these other symptoms and we get some adaptation. So we're going to select foods and minimize hunger as much as possible, which then generally results in you eating a wide, diverse variety of Whole Foods very much like protein gets you to eat more whole foods. So what does this look like okay, foods that are higher and fiber, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, making smart decisions to say go from you know, white bread to whole grain bread or go to white rice to brown rice or you know, start eating Oh, For quinoa, right, substituting starches and grains for vegetables where you need it. So the further you are into the fat loss phase where you have low calories to do to work with, you know, if you're dieting on 1600 or 1500 calories, you don't really have a lot of carbs in there anyway. And the carbs that you do you want to get full from. So you're going to want to prioritize vegetables, or even something like potatoes, potatoes are very high and in fullness, as long as you don't put butter and sour cream all over them. So substituting vegetables in using something like vegetable soups where you're combining the benefit of water and hydration, filling you up with filling vegetables like zucchini, for example, zucchini, tomatoes, and so on. On the other hand, which is kind of the opposite of soups, eating foods that are harder in texture. And I hear Eric Trexler mentioned this all the time, harder, texture will slow down your eating will allow you to chew for longer, it'll lengthen the amount of time you eat. And it actually increases your sensory satisfaction, it sends a signal in your brain that you're actually eating food and you're eating a decent amount of it. You're chewing and swallowing, chewing swallowing. And this can actually manage your hunger make you feel like you've tricked yourself into feeling like you've eaten more.

Philip Pape 31:15

What's What's another thing, staying hydrated. So when you're hungry, sometimes you're thirsty, just drink a glass of water, or drink a glass of water before every meal, for example, stay really hydrated. I like to use a salad every day at lunch. If you know when I'm in a building phase, I don't do that. So often when I'm in a fat loss phase, I plan to incorporate lots of greens with my protein at lunch because they're fibers and they fill you up, shift toward lower or zero calorie drinks. Okay, this can make a big difference because drinks don't really fill you up. But if they have calories, they give you calories that don't fill you up. So going from soda to diet soda, whole milk to 2% milk or almond milk, coffee with cream to Coffee with half and half an IPA in terms of beer to like a light beer or god forbid, a an alcohol free beer. Guinness is alcohol free beer is actually not bad. Also whole versions instead of ultra processed highly palatable foods. So this would be okay, if you really have a craving for something sweet or pop tart or something like that, you know, instead of a Strawberry Pop Tart have strawberries. Now, obviously, that's a bigger leap. But these are the kinds of decisions and swaps we start to make on a diet to make sure that we manage appetite as the main driver of why we're selecting all these foods. And then ultimately, that allows us to get through the diet successfully. And in the meantime, we've transitioned our overall dietary pattern to one that supports optimal health, good nutrition, plenty of micronutrients, and so on. Okay, so that's it. That's all I'm going to say about food. Notice I didn't I didn't really tell you exactly what foods to eat, but more how to pick foods. Strategy number seven, incorporate movement into everything you do. So usually I make this very specific about steps. And it will come down to that from a tracking perspective. But the idea is, the more you move with everything, like just think of what you're doing right now you're listening to this podcast, are you watching it, you could be walking around your house, holding your phone and watching this. And if you're not doing it right now, and you're watching this on your phone sitting on your couch, Get up right now, it's our pacing around for the rest of the podcast, I probably have another 2030 minutes, or you're gonna you're gonna get like two 3000 Steps doing that. Okay. So incorporate movement and everything you do. I think steps on a wearable are the best proxy for that, right? It's not super, super precise, but it's enough to tell you how your patterns are changing. So if you always get two or 3000 steps, and you change your movement patterns, and now you're getting six or 7000 steps, while you're definitely more active, based on step count, like it's plenty accurate enough to tell you that. So do all the things that get you to move more, go listen to episode 34, which was another live that I did and recorded it it was all about walking. And it's more exciting than it sounds a lot of great stuff in there and strategies and things you can try and why walking itself is so beneficial, but really anything you could do to move that's not intense cardio, which I'm gonna get to in the next strategy. So the other thing okay, why are we doing this? Well, steps or movement is a great way to boost your metabolism it really is. Yes, you are going to burn more calories moving around. And that's not the only reason we do it. We do it for health and to avoid sitting down too long. It helps with your heart rate helps your cardiovascular health and lots of other things but it also burns more calories. Let's admit it and in a fat loss phase you may need the extra two or three or 400 calories a day to ease up on your diet or to speed up the fat loss however you want to use it. So that brings us to strategy Number eight, which is to use cardio strategically, and not excessively. So remember the point of cardio is to improve your conditioning, your cardiovascular health, not to burn calories. That's not really the point. Because the amount of calories you burn burning cardio in a half hour of highly stressful movement on your body in a fat loss phase, you could just eat a little bit less, and not have all that stress and have more recovery and better sleep. And it's not really a great trade off. But a little bit of it can go a long way. And a little bit of it also prevents you from adapting to it, such that your metabolism actually comes down and you don't want that. So I liked the advice from Mike Matthews of Legion athletics, he always says to live up, limit your cardio to half of the amount of time that you lift. So if you're lifting three to five hours a week, limit cardio to an hour and a half to two and a half hours a week tops, avoid forms of cardio that impact your recovery, or cause additional muscle stress and tearing like running, it really isn't great for you if you're a lifter. But if you really, really like hard running, and it's just like, it makes your day reduces your stress. And maybe you're pretty good at it. And maybe you're an athlete, so I'm sure incorporate it and do it in an intelligent way. Do it with Sprint workouts. You know, just don't Don't be running half marathons, you know, a couple of times a week, unless you're training to be running athlete. So good examples. Alternatives would be biking, swimming, or pushing or pulling a sled or Prowler in the gym. These are all good, concentric only movements. You can also use high intensity interval training, if you need like a calorie boost a couple times a week. And it's something fun. I mean, a lot of people don't really find it that much fun, to be honest. You know, I did CrossFit for eight years, I was doing it constantly. But I wouldn't necessarily just sign up for it.

Philip Pape 37:01

But even that is not super effective. Like you're gonna find that maybe bodybuilders deeper, new cut, have to pull out these extra things. But you don't have to do them. I mean, if you just don't want to do cardio at all, go for a lot of walks, do all the stuff I'm talking about here and you're gonna lose fat just fine. All right, number nine, strategy number nine is to get plenty of high quality sleep, you knew this one was coming like Oh, there he goes again, on sleep. Maybe I maybe I could have made this number one, like before even do anything, fix your sleep issues, so that you get recovered and improve your fat loss. But a lot of people have trouble with this some for some people, it's really a process over time of improving sleep, and I get it. So I'm just gonna throw a couple of things at you here. There's a study done last year by Avacyn at all. Hopefully I pronounced it right. That found that participants in the study that were sleep restricted, they had just over four hours of sleep. They, they and another group that got about eight hours of sleep, they both gain the same amount of fat, okay, in this case, they were just eating whatever they wanted. And they were all over eating slightly. So they all gain fat, but they gain the same amount. The Sleep restricted group, they gained more than three times of that fat in the abdominal area, then the other participants so so the body fat gain was the same, but the belly fat was up by 9% in the sleep restricted group, and it was only 2.6% in the normal full sleep group. So even if you're doing everything right, and you're the right calories and all the other stress, just not getting enough sleep can cause you to store fat in your belly, which I know is a problem for a lot of people especially you know women, especially in perimenopause and post menopause, it becomes an issue because of the effects of the reproductive hormones and estrogen for that fasters. But men as well right with the beer gut, think about it, see pas how big of an impact. The other thing is. So if you're not really tracking and saying top of all the other things, which we are right, we're going to be doing that sleep deprivation can cause people to just eat more calories, it just makes you hungry and makes you eat more. It lowers your metabolic rate. This is a hormonal thing and down regulate your hormones. It causes the appetite, it causes the metabolism to go down. Okay, just like other stressors on the body. So sleep is the biggest thing. If you have other chronic stress in your life that is hard to get rid of, because of your job or your family sleep can be that big mitigator of the negative effects from that, like the negative effects of cortisol, your stress hormone, when you're stressed all the time and it stays higher than it needs to be and it doesn't come down enough at night. And then you don't get good quality sleep well if you can kind of turn that around a bit by focusing on scheduling in enough sleep. Okay, we're talking seven to eight hours of sleep and no screens 30 minutes before bed. That's the bare bones thing you can do to improve your sleep. If you want to learn a lot more beyond that, I do did an episode quite a while back about sleep that has like, you know, 20 things, you can try all the little subtle things. But getting enough and avoiding screens before bed will go a long way toward this and getting enough sleep will really help with fat loss, help with hunger. And it'll definitely help with your recovery during a time when you don't have a lot of other resources coming in. Okay, strategy number 10. This is the last one. And then I'm going to summarize everything okay, this strategy is to use diet breaks to conquer those mental demons of dieting. So we already talked about selecting foods for hunger, that's going to help a lot. Having said that, though, it can get tiring it can get fatiguing. When you're on going on 1012 weeks or 14, like maybe you have a little more weight to lose, and you're going for a 16 week fat loss phase was the maximum I would ever recommend to be honest. But I've seen people I've had clients, I can go well beyond that, because we're managing all the biofeedback so well, that it's okay they can keep going in their body responds just fine in the metabolism isn't too low, etc. But what you want to do is monitor all those things we talked about, monitor your hunger, your energy, your recovery, tracking everything, monitor your performance in the gym, that's one of the most important things to be honest. Because as soon as you start to degrade on your lifts, and you start to feel tired in the gym, that tells me you may be starting to lose muscle. If any of these things go past the point that are comfortable for you. Take a diet break. Okay, so if your biofeedback is poor, like like your recovery, your hunger, your energy performance, and so on, or you're just getting tired of dieting, or you want to align a break in your diet in with a special event or holiday, right, we just had Thanksgiving Christmas here. And those are good times to take a diet break so that you can eat more food and enjoy without too much pressure. Or if you're traveling right. Or if you have a lot of weight to lose, and you need to break it up into phases, take a diet break, there are a lot of ways to do this, the easiest way to do it is just eat at your maintenance calories, by increasing your carbs to get you to those calories. So let's say you're you're dieting on 1600 calories, but your maintenance calories are 2200 Just get 600 more calories of carbs per day during the break. So 600 divided by four, that's going to be two, that's gonna be 150 more grams of carbs. So if you were at like, you know, 100 grams of carbs, now you can have 250 grams of carbs during the break, that's going to refuel your glycogen, that's going to give you more energy to cut is going to help bring your metabolism up all these things for a while before you get right back to dieting, and everything adapts right back. It's a good strategy to try. There are many more advanced, what are called nonlinear dieting strategies. You can look up nonlinear dieting or reach out to me for questions, I have interesting schemes that could use like interval dieting, where you you're aggressively dieting for two weeks, and then maintenance for two and then aggressive, or five to dieting, or you pick two high calorie days during the week. There's a lot of ways to do this. But I don't want to get into the weeds today. Just know that that strategy is available to you. Okay, so we just went through 10 strategies, we established three principles for fat loss. And I'm going to summarize all of this because it is a lot. And again, I recommend going through this again in the future, if needed. And I will also have a guide a fat, fat loss for life guide available. If you join the community and just reach out you can get it. Here we go. Number one, always train heavy, and train hard. Use low intensity, I mean sorry, use high intensity that's weight on the bar, low to moderate volume programming, so that you can recover. So this is going to be training as if you're building muscle. Number two, track your calories, protein and weight. So that you know your dynamic maintenance for for your metabolism before we go died. So this is actually number two and three, I just I'm sorry, this is number two and three. So number two is protein. Number three is tracking. Alright, so getting sufficient protein, and tracking.

Philip Pape 44:23

Number four, do the first three things first, and then try to find your true maintenance calories spend time getting to true maintenance. Using an app like macro factor makes it really easy to do. I generally recommend something like four weeks for this phase. Number five, use a moderately aggressive energy deficit. Okay, point two five to 1% per week. Number six select foods that mitigate hunger. So you want to prioritize appetite management. Number seven move just move Get It steps, aim for somewhere around eight to 10,000 steps, but get steps and movement, however, you can get more than you get now, and then get more than that later and keep pushing yourself to get more movement in. That's low intensity. The next one, this is number eight, use cardio, strategically limited, so like half the time you lift. And if you need to use something like hit, do it. If you want to do medium intensity cardio, go with a high recovery, low impact one like swimming, biking or Prowler pushing. Number nine, get seven, eight hours of sleep and limit screens at least 30 minutes before bed. And then number 10. Use diet breaks at maintenance calories by increasing your cat carbs whenever you need to, to remain consistent and continue dieting. All right, there you have it a lot I know. But hopefully it was organized well enough that you can absorb it all and apply it to your own life. And that's my attempt at providing everything you need to know about fat loss, or at least the things that really matter. And I would say rather than try to implement everything at once, work your way down the list and incorporate these over time. I ordered them in a way that I think is effective, useful and doable. maybe with the exception of sleep, sleep maybe could be higher on the list, but you really can customize it to what makes sense for you. And if you want that free fat loss for a life guide that goes along with this training, just join the Wits & Weights Facebook community, the link again is in the show notes. And if you want more support than this, because I know it's hard to do this on your own, it really can be hard you may have tried in the past, and you just want to do it in the most effective time efficient way possible. I do have a few spots open for one on one coaching, where we're going to work together on all the things I talked about in this episode. To get you the results the body you deserve a sustainable plan to maintain those results. For the rest of your life. The easiest way to get in touch is go to wits & weights.com/coaching, where you can fill out an application or DM me directly. And then I'll just set up a quick call with you and see if it's good fit. And then if it is, we'll get started. Again, just go to wits. & weights.com/coaching. If you have any questions about any nutrition or fitness topic, go to wits & weights.com and look for the Ask Philip section on the homepage. And lastly, I really do want to thank you and I do appreciate you for taking the time out to listen to or watch this episode. And as always, stay strong. 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 1/3/23 Philip Pape 1/3/23

Ep 39: Training Principles, Rep Ranges, Avoiding Pain, and Flexible Dieting with Matthew Spiewak

I am joined by a member of our Wits & Weights Facebook community, Matthew Spiewak, to chat about training and nutrition, including flexible dieting, compound lifts, pain and injury, and programming.

I am joined by a member of our Wits & Weights Facebook community, Matthew Spiewak, to chat about training and nutrition, including flexible dieting, compound lifts, pain and injury, and programming.

Matthew is an ACSM-certified Personal Trainer in the Chicagoland area with a degree in Kinesiology.

He loves helping people feel and look better and transform their health through his hands-on work in the gym as a trainer, so Matthew has both the educational and practical experience to help you succeed.

Matthew also hosts a 30-minute Instagram live every Tuesday at 5pm Central time in the U.S. and brings on new guests every week.

Topics discussed in this episode:

How and why Matthew got into fitness
Flexible dieting and who benefits from it
Whether anyone should NOT use flexible dieting
Whether people should squat and deadlift, benefits, how to incorporate in training
The best rep ranges for strength, hypertrophy, and physique
Bench press form (and getting the entire body involved)
How to avoid low back pain
How to deal with an injury
Why programming is so important to get better results
How to start and stick with a training routine
and lots more

RELATED LINKS

Find Matthew on Instagram
Matthew's website
Watch the episode on video here
Join the Wits & Weights Facebook community

🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you achieve optimal health that fits your lifestyle—without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions. Philip Pape, podcast host and head nutrition coach, helps high-achieving people burn fat, get lean, feel energized, and project confidence in their lives through one-on-one nutrition and lifestyle coaching at witsandweights.com.

👉 Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to connect with me.
👥 To join our Facebook community for live training, free guides, free challenges, and more, just click here.

🙋‍♀️ HOW TO ASK A QUESTION FOR THE SHOW

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👨‍💻 HOSTED BY

Philip Pape of Wits & Weights (Instagram 👉 @witsandweights)

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Matthew Spiewak 01:15

Like, theoretically, we're going to take the keto diet and just like, we're going to take out an entire food group, throw it out of there, get rid of it, throw, you know, throw everything in your house, get rid of it, we're going to be able to expand actually, what you eat. A lot of times, that's the best part is, a lot of people have this mindset of, oh, I need to get to this Wait, look this way and get down to this body fat percentage, I need to close down on the types of foods that I'm eating, and I need to kick things out. And in all reality, once you start giving them more information, and giving them the tools to understand what they can do, and add the foods that they can use to actually start to expand the options that they have. And all of a sudden, now they have all the options. They have the freedom, they have the autonomy to eat what they want. And it'll work because at the end of the day, it's sort of looking at the macro base side of things, you know, does this fit with our macros? Is it good for us? If it Chuck's off those boxes? By all means? Go for it run with it?

Philip Pape 05:59

Yeah, so I love that approach. It's flexible, because it's flexible. But you talked about diversity of food options, and really opening it up as opposed to closing it up with the restriction. Taking a quick tangent here. How did you how did you originally learn about flexible dieting? Because I know I can think of my past of books like lean Norton's fat loss forever. And you've got Alan Aragon and all the all the guys like Trexler and Eric Helms, right. The evidence based guys, how did you come across this concept?

Matthew Spiewak 06:27

Yeah, so it was more or less just the idea of being in college, I'll be honest, and it was an how I got into it was just on the total end of the spectrum of the pop tarts and pizza diet pretty much like it is anything if it fits the macros it, it works, because you know, I was a young kid in college, you know, consuming some alcohol here. So I had to work with what I had, I didn't want to spend, you know, a lot money on some things, not to say that eating healthy is expensive whatsoever. But it was just more or less, hey, I'm in a rush because I need to go to class, can I just grab like a quick protein bar or something like that? That sort of aspect. And so I started going into it. And I just continued to see all of this success with, hey, if I just hit my macros every day and hit the calories every day, I'm seeing the physical success, and I'm seeing it in the weights and all that everything is progressing. And then as I continue to learn about I say, hey, what if we started to make this a little more in terms of feeling better, because with all this processed food that I was eating it my diet was I mean, you know, as I said, Before, I was on the one end of the spectrum there, you know, so it was a lot of processed foods and all that. And so I said, Okay, how can we make that, you know, a little bit healthier here? How can we make some better choices while still using that ideology of if it's the macros if it's the calories, I'm good, and so slowly, but surely, I started to kind of change it and tinker it around. But that whole idea of the flexible diet is still a staple. Today for me,

Philip Pape 07:59

that's awesome. So you can came to it just naturally by how you love to eat, and you're like, how can I get away with this but still meet my goals? Initially, but you know, you're actually referring to like the the muscle and food pyramids or some of the priority pyramids, you see where, you know, rule number one is calories, right? Like to gain or lose weight, you have to adjust your calories. And honestly, you could do it however you want, you're gonna gain lose weight. But then the question is, like you said, how are you going to feel? Are you going to preferential prevent, prioritize fat loss doing that? Is it going to fuel your training and all the other things when we get into the nuances of protein, and then timing and fuel, food quality, etc. So it sounds like a great way to eat. And I use that with my clients as well. But should anyone not use it?

Matthew Spiewak 08:47

I haven't come across it yet, I would say there might be a couple of cases where it just doesn't work for you. And this is where the individuality of working with a client one on one really comes into play. Sometimes people do actually work better if it is super strict, because they're just saying, if I'm giving this amount of freedom, I'm gonna run with it. And I'm not gonna be able to control the calories and not be able to control the macros and all that. And so sometimes you do need to take that approach with more strict. Now I think it's easier. A lot of the times when you're working with a new client to start broad, and, you know, ease the weigh in a little bit more. But obviously, there are a couple of cases where it's, Hey, we're getting rid of this right now. The only time I would I've done that before is has been with alcohol and that's when they specifically go like I need to get this like, I don't want this in my diet. Sometimes people say I want to still be able to have drinks on the weekend and all that. But when there are the times that they say, Man, I want this out of my diet, I don't want it then we say okay, like we won't incorporate into the diet. We will not include it whatsoever. So yeah, and honestly, I think in my opinion, that approach is still consistent with flexible dieting, because what you're telling me is, the client is making the decision. They're planning

Philip Pape 10:21

Cool. So we'll probably get back into nutrition or if there's other topics related that you want to bring up, I definitely can do that. But let's get to training.

Philip Pape 10:31

I want to hear your perspective, first of all, on the big three, because when I when I talk to a client doesn't know much about training, that's usually where I want to start, in my mind is just basic introduction to strength, the compound lifts. And let's start with the squat and deadlift, because I think they're intimidating for a lot of people, especially when we talk about barbells. Should most people be doing these? You know, what are the benefits? How do we incorporate them?

Matthew Spiewak 10:54

Yeah, I think I mean, right off the bat, I think most people should at least be trying to work up to them. Because not everyone is going to be in the right position, starting off, maybe they have some sort of reoccurring injury underlying injury, they just don't know how to do the movement, you know, maybe we don't start them off with a deadlift day one, you know what, that's kind of a basic rule there. But the whole idea is that we should be more or less working towards that, because we need to look at, okay, what kind of movement is the deadlift? It's a hip hinge movement, what kind of movement is the squat, it's, you know, that's idea of we're sitting down standing back up, we need those movements in life. So we can start off with variations of those movements that either simplify it by reducing the load, maybe reducing, or decreasing the range of motion that they're performed in, for example, for example, a lot of times, when I want to work with someone to eventually say, down the road, like in three months, we're gonna get you to be deadlifting. That's, that's a pretty scary sight. For some people, all of a sudden, like deadlifting, like, Oh, I'm gonna hurt my back, I'm going to do all this, I'm not doing that. Say, Okay, we're going to be doing rack poles, where we're starting with the bar, almost at halfway up the the thought of the quad. So the, we've just shorten the range of motion by about 70%. There, we're still getting that top portion of a deadlift, where it's still a hip hinge moment, we're utilizing the lats utilizing the upper back. And we're just going to now slowly progress, we're going to work on that. And then we're going to master that right there. All right, of the of the raffle. And then we're going to lower it by an inch, and we're going to master that. And then as we go down, we're slowly going into it, building up their confidence. And that's one of the things I talk about a lot is like, I'm trying to build your confidence in this, because I know how scary it can be sometimes to say like, Man, I'm doing a delet doll Southern, I'm doing this new movement, a lot of times just because it's a new movement, and they, you know, have this little bit of fear in there that like something's gonna go wrong, something's gonna, you know, snap and get hurt. It's just building your confidence in the gym in order to actually perform the movements.

Philip Pape 13:01

Yeah, and I like that confidence approach. As I like that you didn't go straight to something like mobility or physical limitations, because I know that also, I'm gonna say it's use that as an excuse. But I believe most people can do the full range of motion of most of these movements, if they can work up to it. And it's getting them there. So like, on a squat, right? If I were to take your analogy of using the rap pole, the deadlift, it might be going to a tall box, right? Or it might be sitting into bands, if you want to get the full range of motion, but like, take some of the load off. So for the for those of you listening, like this is great advice. Because if you're doing this on your own, and you're like, No, there's no way I can do X movement, think about ways to gradually work your way up, right? And the rack pole is do you want to just explain that for people. So they know how to do that.

Matthew Spiewak 13:50

Yeah, so the rack pole you'll be working at, at the rack itself, with the safety catches that are there. So it's the it's the long flat part that actually extend out, and you want to set it up at first. So ideally, a good rack poles anywhere, kind of right above that knee, if you want to set it up there, you put your quads right in that middle part of the Olympic bar where it's smooth, because we don't obviously, we don't want to scrape up your entire leg there, you have your hands just outside of, of the thighs. And so what I tell people is the bar never leaves your quads, it is staying on your legs the entire time, alright, it should never leave. And what we want to do is want to squeeze that upper back as tight as we can to maintain that back with the lat tightness or at the upper back tightness, all that getting the traps involved a little bit. And the whole goal I tell people is we're not shrugging the bar up. If we think about the hip hinge movement. All right, all we're really doing is just starting in this hinge position. We're kind of bent over almost done. We're just standing straight up. What a lot of people do is when they are in that position, they tend to stand up with their back, you know, and they go into it like that. And so we're trying to teach we're going to stay up by moving the glutes forward and moving them in that in that like sagittal plane of motion kind of. And it's that hip hinge movement that like really opens up the box, if we can get the hip hinge movement down, like and it becomes second nature to us, that opens up everything, we can do so many more exercises, and really, really improve ourselves.

Philip Pape 15:21

Nice. And for those listening who are confused in any way, you know, you could always hire a coach like Matthew Walker. But he's talking about cues as well. Right? Which and different cues work for different people I know. Like, my daughters, they're eight and 10. If they see me working out, I use fun analogies. I'm like, Yeah, I'm using gorilla arms on my deadlift, you see grill arms that just hangs down. I don't pull, they just hang and I'm driving my legs grill, you know, or, or I'm pushing the earth away, you know, or stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, it's fun. So what about the benchpress? The other big three, the benchpress, maybe is a little more complicated than people make it out to be. But if you know if people can use their full body and the right grip and the leg drive and all that, I'm sure they could, you know, realize the benefits of it. So what are your thoughts on that move?

Matthew Spiewak 16:12

Yeah, I love the benchpress. But I do agree with your words, a lot of times people will kind of take it a little bit too simple. I will say it's off from just the physical superficial perspective, yes, it's the easiest one out of none of the three, it's the less technical, we're not utilizing our entire body that's actually moving. But that's not to say that we're not utilizing the entire body. So a lot of people go into it and think, oh, all you do is you just move the bar down your chest, and you press back out, okay, it's one muscles you're working if there's someone knowledgeable themselves, that chest, triceps shoulders, so yes, that is correct. But we also need to think about the setup and how to get as much power as we can as much force as we can not only to improve the amount of weight that we can actually lift, but to also keep us tight as we can, because a lot of times people have a shoulder problem, or they actually will injure their lower back on the benchpress, which is really interesting. It's like you're injuring your lower back on the bench press, how are you doing that. And it's when we're creating that arch in the lower back. But we're not utilizing the hips and the legs. And so whenever we are moving that lower back, I'm in more of the realm where we can move that lower back as much as we want, as long as we are directing the pressure that the exercise is placing upon us into the right muscle groups. So in that movement, and what I'm saying by that is, we're going to have that arch in the lower back. So we're going to move it a little bit. But we don't want the pressure go into the lower back. We want the pressure going to the hips, because if we can bear the lower back to the hips, the hips is so much stronger by 95%. I mean, they can bear so much more load produce so much more power. So we the goal there is to pinpoint all the pressure into the hips, so the hips then can drive the movement forward.

Philip Pape 18:03

Yeah, awesome. I love that. So you're moving the back, and you're supporting the load going through the back to the hips and really relying on the hips. And the back is just a stabilizer, right? So to speak. What about the shoulders? What about the shoulder blades on the back of the bench? Because a lot of people tend to just relax and not think about that. What do they need to do there?

Matthew Spiewak 18:23

Yeah, I mean, it's this is the simple cue where you're just pinching the shoulder blades back. And this is where either if there's two main cues that I would use for this, and it works for different people. So either pinch the shoulder blades back, which you're literally just retracting the scapula as close as we can. Alright, and the second one is I just get a high chest, get a big chest in there. Because what we ideally want is we want the chest to be above the shoulders, when we do a movement. If you're to look at yourself in the side, you want the chest here and the shoulders down here because then the chest is the main mover compared to the shoulders. And so some people don't have that mind muscle connection to per se, of actually being able to retract the scapula. But if I say hey, just make up the chest, pump that chest out as big as you can. Naturally you're gonna pull your shoulders back and move it out. It's the same thing. It's just that we're relaying the information differently. We're really in the instructions differently to you.

Philip Pape 19:22

Yep, again, we're a coach is very beneficial. Do you do you do online form checks for folks? Are you just in person?

Matthew Spiewak 19:30

I do them if they send me a video at this point. I'm only training in a gym right now. So only personal training and coaching in the gym. But by all means I always love I do have people like will send me their videos to see like, is this form good? Can I improve this? If they do have that scenario where my back is hurting in the squat? You know we we go through it a little bit because I'm always trying to help because I know that pain of being lost and confused. And then if you are in that position where you're getting hurt, or you're getting injured in these movements that you want to perform to the best of your ability, it sucks. And I've been there for so long. And I know that pain and I'm like, I don't want you to be that I want to help you as much as I can.

Philip Pape 20:17

Cool. Yeah. And I, you know, I could tell you talk like a coach who knows what he's talking about. And there, there's a lot of coaches that don't. And so people struggle if they're trying to find someone to help, or if they're working from their home gym of, you know, who to go to. So just trying to throw some clients away when people are listening. And we're gonna send you some form checks. What about, what about the fourth big lift? The one that I really love the overhead press? Do you program that in? Do you consider it a big lift? Like, what are your thoughts on that?

Matthew Spiewak 20:42

Oh, yeah, overhead press is? Yeah, we talked about the big three, just because those are going to hit all the muscles. But in all reality, we do need to include overhead press. And I would also include a row in that. Yeah. But yeah, 100%. I mean, I always like to say this, if I could go back to my past self, when I first started working, I would only program those, what those five movements pretty much. And I would tell myself just get really good at those movements, build the skill, build a base, build a foundation, just to get really good at moving your body through that pattern. And then later on, we can start to add in some new new movements in there have some fun, but I mean, honestly, you can grow so much muscle and improve so much, if you were to just focus on those.

Philip Pape 21:29

Yeah. And you mentioned a row as well. Do you throw a pole in there into like the fundamentals like pull ups and shins? Or do you just rely on the deadlift at that point?

Matthew Spiewak 21:38

Yeah, if they can do a pull up and chin ups? Yeah, it's 100%. I'm going to do it. I mean, if not, we just set it up an inverted chin up or inverted row, where we just set up the bar on this AP catches, once again, you just doing, you're grabbing onto the bar there, and you're pulling yourself up. So it's strong from the ground. But 100% Those are the main movements. And for everyone, obviously, I'm when I program for clients, it's going to be different for everyone. Everyone has one goal, they're starting off at a different starting point. They have different limitations, different strengths, different weaknesses. But ideally, I try to find how can we fit these main movements into every single person, whether it be a different variation, whether it be different intensity, different frequency, all that stuff? Ideally, the same. Main foundational movements aren't every single person's workout.

Philip Pape 22:31

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, some people No, no call these functional movements. But unfortunately, the the CrossFit world also kind of took that over. And, and I know, what you're referring to, you mentioned earlier is you got your hip hinge your squat, your vertical and horizontal presses, and polls, just just how we move in real life, right? What What about intensity? So if you're starting someone new, who's never trained before they want to get stronger, you know, I will say an average person, they may, you know, they may not be in the greatest of health, but they're not they don't have any significant limitations. Taking the squat, for example, are you working in a fairly low rep range? Or do you start higher? What's the programming look like?

Matthew Spiewak 23:09

Yeah, so it's interesting here, I wouldn't even look at what rep range I'm starting with, because that can vary. And I'll explain why. But I would really automatically start at a low intensity just because they're coming off. What whether it be that they have some experience in the past, whether whether it be they've been doing stuff on their own, and they can probably handle it. When they work with me, I'm throwing a new stimulus at them, and their body automatically is going to be like, Well, what is happening, we need to adjust, we need time to adjust this. So I always tell people, the goal of the first week of the workouts is for me not not to make you sore, I'm really planning not make you sore. That being said, you might be sore a little bit, but I'm not trying to drive you into the ground, you are only going to be sore just because it's this is a new fluid pattern for you and all that. Now going back to why I said the volume per se, yeah, let's say we're already going to be a low intensity, we know that. But if we're at a low intensity, we can play around with the volume. So let's, let's say we're going back to what you said, I'm working with the squats. So we can either work at a low intensity and a higher volume, per se, with a four by eight, just all of a sudden we're getting, you know, 32 reps in there, my math is correct there. Or what we could do is actually go you know, six sets of three, because sometimes if you throw them in to do eight reps at a time, that's just a lot at once, and it's too much to focus on and they get fatigued even on a very mentally fatigued. So you just say three reps at a time. You can actually help them out and do like focus on one cue here for these three reps. I don't care about anything else. Focus on no keeping the elbows tucked in for three reps. They do that everything's fine. And then you focus on I focus on keeping the heels down just for these three reps. And then they do that and they focus and slowly you're building up all these cues because honestly I tell them like I'm throwing a lot of stuff at you right now. Sure. And it's hard. Yes, it is skill. Exactly. But as long as we're starting with that low intensity, we can vary depending on how much volume we want to put into it.

Philip Pape 25:13

Sure, yeah. And then I imagine peep different people will take to it more quickly than others if someone is more athletically inclined versus not. And yeah, like you said, your skill and technique and form sets you up for eventually making a ton of progress, doing it fairly quickly, later on, and not injuring yourself, Oh, my God, versus trying to go all out initially, and then just just having bad habits. You know, I just heard about a study that came out, I think it was, I think it was stronger by science, put it on the website might have been today, showing that in the back squat. The more the higher the intensity, the more recruitment of the hips, right? So at higher reps and lower intensity, it's more quad dominant, which will kind of kind of know that I mean, trainers know that someone intuitively you know that, but it's interesting to see in the research, how that recruitment ramps up and take the load goes more and more to the hips, based on your relative intensity. Just just mentioning that. And you know, if you had heard that, it's pretty cool stuff. Now, that's cool. Yeah. It's always interesting to hear that. Yeah. Cuz then we talk about, okay, how do people get really strong in the squat is like a whole body movement, right? And eventually, you do have to lift pretty heavy. So how do you work with somebody who's like, I want to get stronger, and I want to improve my body composition, and you're past that initial training phase of skill development, they've got the list down, you trust that they know what they're doing? What is your programming look like at that point?

Matthew Spiewak 26:37

Yeah, that point, that's when we can say, you know, I like to tell people, we're trying to check off these boxes here. I just had like a client the other day, like, we finally got to that point where the I didn't even need to, like remind her of the deadlift cues and anything like that, we just added the weight. And she finally got it. All five reps were like, perfect. And I said, That box is checked off now. Now we can start to work with the deadlift, and manipulate the intensity and actually go into okay, what is that main goal that we're trying to get to how can we actually utilize the intensity to actually achieve that goal. But I mean, first and foremost, obviously, we do have to check off that box and just make sure that we have that movement down, then what we go into is more or less, increasing the intensity a little bit, so we're still going to be working on that main movement of of the squat. So we have the skill, the squat down, we can perform a squat without, you know, failing without having really bad heels coming up, knees caving, and all that all that bad stuff there. So now we can say, Okay, now we're gonna start increasing the weight, and they're gonna feel what the intensity is. Because before that, we were keeping the weight kind of low, though, that load was pretty light, just because we wanted to be good at the moment, we didn't want to get fatigued too much, because we still wanted to be strong enough to do the movement and get the practice reps. And now we're saying, we got the practice reps, and we're going for the actual game now like this is this is where it matters. And the intensity goes up, obviously, it's not like we're going to max out, I tell my clients, I'm like, I'm never gonna have you max out not going for like less than a two rep max or max here. But we're still trying to go anywhere between anywhere between the 7075 80%. For anywhere between, I would say four to six reps is a good mark for just building the overall strength, which is where I usually tend to throw the mat if you're going anywhere above, it's, it's taxing on your CNS, if you're gonna go above 10 reps for a squad, and there's only so much weight that you can put on and sure, yeah, that's the tough part. So

Philip Pape 28:40

that's like a mark of if you can, if you can do what is it three sets of 20 or something on the squat is a test of yourself, you know, I can't imagine doing that. And, and I and you're supposed to do it in like a 10 RM to get the 20 at a 10 RM you know what I'm saying? Okay, so, I like what you're saying, and that's good for people to hear, right? Because a lot of people have, I think conventional wisdom is more the hypertrophy or bodybuilding range, eight to 12, you know, especially a lot of my female clients come in doing everything is set to 10 with like, the pink dumbbells and and kind of the same thing week after week. And I say that a little bit facetiously, but they know it. And you know, when we talk about strength, and what you're talking about here is, Hey, you want to build muscle, and you want to get stronger and it's not just about aesthetics, right it's about health but guess what, it all ties together. So if so, you somebody somebody comes in you say yeah, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go really intense here. And they say, Yeah, but I want to, I want to get ripped. You know, I want to get big muscles, big biceps or a female client, you know, bigger glutes. What's your response? Is this going to help them?

Matthew Spiewak 29:48

Oh, 100% it's still going to help them. Are you talking about specifically if how I'm going to do a squat to help with bigger biceps or just

Philip Pape 29:56

no no, no, not as compromised. So just you know, the the a notion that you have to do bodybuilding style movements almost exclusively to build your physique. Hey, this is Philip Pape. And if you feel like you've put in effort to improve your health and fitness, but aren't getting results, I invite you to apply for a one on one coaching to make real progress and get the body you desire. We'll work together to figure out what's missing. So you can look better perform better and feel better. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching, to learn about my program and apply today. Now back to the episode.

Matthew Spiewak 30:33

Oh, totally. Yeah, I mean, I built a lot of my physique on, on doing the lower reps, rarely do I go past 10 or 12 reps and a lot of things. Now granted, if I'm going to do that, I need to be going at a higher intensity because the volume is down, we know that there's an inverse relationship between volume and intensity. So that is there. If we wanted to go more hypertrophy we can this is this is the beautiful thing about weightlifting and trying to build muscle and trying to build strength is that there's 1000 ways to skin a cat. So I can work I can go somebody strictly with just doing six to eight reps on pretty much every movement and they are still going to build muscle. And then the same time I'd be with somebody else and not even touch six reps stay around like the 10 to 12 if they really wanted to. And we would still see a lot of muscle and a lot of improvement. Now it's expensive when we can like combine both worlds and like go up and down and change things around. And that's where the programming comes into play. But I always tell people like do like there's so many ways we could do it. If you really don't want to go that low and wait, I'm not going to force you, I'm going to try my best to explain why I want to do it. But if you are saying there's no way I'm doing five reps on a squat, I say alright, I'm not gonna do it.

Philip Pape 31:45

It's just so true. There's so many ways to get there. And I think the like the bro science has evolved to kind of catch up to where anywhere between you know, three and three and 18 reps or something is getting is going to work pretty effectively. And the only reason more than more reps. And that doesn't work is because most people can't actually mentally deal with the amount of work required to do more than that. Right? Yeah, exactly right at the right level of failure. Cool. So let's talk low back pain, because you alluded to that a little bit earlier. Somebody you know, you tell them you're gonna deadlift, and they're like, No, that's gonna be bad for my back. And I personally had back surgery last year, I had a micro diskectomy on my L five, s one, and F and since then I've done I can't tell you how many squats and deadlifts and it feels great. And I think it's the best thing to do. But form is really important, as we've talked about, how do people avoid pain? Or maybe if they come to you with pain, maybe get rid of pain?

Matthew Spiewak 32:42

Yeah, the first thing we do is we actually move that back. That is that is what we want to do. A lot of times I tell people when they come in, and the I'm a big Stickler, the very first moment I do for every single client, no matter what is going to be a cat cow, or a cat camel is what some people say, I think cat cow, it makes a little bit more sense. But that's where you're just in that tabletop position. And you're flexing and extending that that entire spine pretty much. And I want to tell people is like, Yeah, our lower back. If we get so afraid, we have this natural fear of moving the lower back and hurting the lower back, which obviously is there because you know, either you've experienced an injury before or you've seen somebody else with that injury with in your case, you've had that surgery, oh, I don't want to move my lower back, I don't want to have the surgery that Phillip had. But in reality, if we don't, you know, move that lower back and move that spine in general, we're teaching it to pretty much just be stiff that entire time. And so then all of a sudden, when we are in a position because you know whether it be in life, we're bending down to pick something up, or we are in the weight room, you know, we're moving around putting a plate back, all of a sudden, we find ourselves in a vulnerable position where the back is in flat, that lower lumbar isn't a flexed position. And also we haven't prepared for that. And then it snaps. So then then it like pulls and back spasms and all that and then and then we get hurt. So the first thing is just moving and putting that lower back in those flex and extended positions.

Philip Pape 34:10

That's awesome. Yeah. So you are preparing for, and this is great for people to hear when you lift a lot more onto the back of a truck. And you're flexing your back and then you're lifting and then you're twisting. Have you prepared for those movements? Because if not, that's where you get injured is what you're saying. And don't be afraid of the very controlled environment of a deadlift, which Matthew is going to help you actually work up that that load on against those muscles to be able to handle that movement in real life. And even you know what else I think of strongman the strongman competition, they just had the rogue Invitational right with those events. And you see them doing the Atlas stones. And you're like wow, there they are rounding their back significant breezy it that's like you have to so you have to prepare for that right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So then, what if you do get into heard, like a strain tendinitis something else. And there's so many there's so much complexity when it comes to injury. Because there's nerve pain, there's things and PTs and doctors half the time don't know what they're talking about no offense halftime they do what? Somebody comes to you and says, you know, I just have shoulder pain all the time. And I've had it for years, like, what do we do? Yeah,

Matthew Spiewak 35:21

well, my job I always like to go back into my kinesiology degree, you know, the study of movement. Alright, how can we move your body to possibly make it feel better, I really try to stay in, stay in my lane of, I'm not trying to diagnose you, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a physical, we're not going to spend an hour training session working on your shoulder, because you know, that's not the point. But what we can do is look at how you move, right? Does the shoulder hurt when you come in? When you're externally rotating your arm all the way back? Is it hurting? When we're bringing it behind our back, you know, we can look at those movements. And I can say, honestly, it's a quick YouTube video from the past that I've done, and just say, oh, usually, when you're in this pain, when you can't rotate your arm this way, there's here are five moments that you can include. And just by doing that, we can sometimes you know, maybe it's it's almost never a, oh, it's fixed in one inch. Wow, this is great. It's saying, Hey, this is the problem that we have. It's not an underlying issue, because it's obviously an issue in front of us. But this is what we're gonna be working on. Every time we come in, we're gonna dedicate 510 minutes of our time, just by working on this, because this is what's really holding us back. We can't make a lot of progression until we can take care of this slowly, but surely, we're gonna get it done. Don't just like going through the movements of our body, what can we actually do, and this is where like, all the biomechanics and actually understanding muscles and all that stuff comes into play. But it's just taking that approach of moving your body the way that it's supposed to

Philip Pape 36:55

love it and moving and not just resting right, because people probably try that for years. And now they've got the scar tissue. It's so funny, because few years back, I had golfer's elbow, right bicep tendonitis. And I know for a fact, it was from a terrible squat group I had, which is not something people would necessarily jump to right in their head is the squat group, which I fixed the squat rack,

Matthew Spiewak 37:16

we're talking about, hey,

Philip Pape 37:17

you know what I'm talking about, right? So you know, now I use a thumb over and a half, and you do it a certain way that works for me, where there's no strain on the elbow, but the pain was still there for a while. So then I had to rehab it. And the best way to rehab it was chin ups. And you're like, oh, that way. So you know, and they were painful, right? But I kept it light. And I did high reps and rehab it. So you're talking about movements, like re instilling the basement basic movement patterns that are natural to kind of push through that.

Matthew Spiewak 37:44

Yeah, the easiest for that I'd like to say is, let's say they are having shoulder problems when I'm benching and we try to make the adjustments on the barbell bench, and they're still feeling it, you know, half the time, or more than half the time, if we could just step away from the barbell and go to a dumbbell bench. It the pain goes away immediately. So then all of a sudden, we found a way. I mean, we found a way to actually still get that, that thrusting motion of the chest without any pain. Yeah, great. Look at that.

Philip Pape 38:13

There you go. That's great advice to people listening, just an alternate or very have a move, try it out. Awesome. Okay, so we've talked about, we talked a lot about the show on the show about the difference between exercise and training, right, like, exercising, going to the gym, not really having a plan and just, you know, having fun getting a sweat and whatever. Whereas training is something that's planned out right are a difference between a workout and a program. So for you as a personal trainer, programming is a huge part of what you do. I mean, it's basically what we're your expertise comes from, and why somebody would need a coach. So help us understand why it's important to getting results.

Matthew Spiewak 38:51

Yeah, well, we need to get results because we want to be efficient with our time. I always I always go back to that. It's like, don't you value your own time? Don't you respect your own time? Okay, so you're already paying money to go to a gym, and let's say you're at a home gym, right? Even if you're not paying money to go to your home gym, you're still paying time you're putting some sort of an investment in, don't you want to get the most out of your return on your investment? Right? So how do we do that we need to be able to have a plan for efficiency in there. And so that plan of efficiency comes through actually programming and saying, Okay, you're going into this day to do this moment, this many sets this many reps, and then you're gonna have this moment and do this and this and this, okay? And that is how and then you say, take a step back. Okay, how is this going to help me reach my goals, you say, Oh, well, in a month, you're going to actually be so good at it that you can probably go up to this sort of intensity. And then after that, you're gonna get so good at that, that we're going to actually change the exercise and make it a little bit harder on you. And then you're gonna have so good there. Then we get to this point, and you're saying it all comes back at the end and all circles back to your goal. And that is the main difference is that everything that we do in the gym In one way or another is going to lead to the goal if you find yourself that you're doing an exercise, and you have to ask yourself, How is this helping me? And you can't answer that, like, how is it helping me reach my goal? The reason why I started working out and trying to get better, and you can't answer that, then why are you doing that exercise? Why is why is it in there?

Philip Pape 40:22

Awesome. So you are wasting your time, and you're not being efficient unless you have a plan and a program. And that's basically time and money down the drain for weeks, months, years of your life, probably why if you're listening, and you haven't made progress in the gym, definitely programming can be a huge part of that. So are there is there a specific type of programming you really like to use in terms of, and we can get a little a little more complicated here, if you want to talk about mesocycles block programming, progression, like, I don't know, just digging a little bit of that.

Matthew Spiewak 40:51

Yeah, a lot of the block programming is pretty good, we can also always just kind of put somebody into this, you know, let's say we're taking a Gen pop, right, now, let's majority of our clients, we're gonna put them through a restorative phase. First and foremost, I don't care how advanced they think they are even, you know, or how little advanced they are, we're gonna put them through a restorative, that we're sort of phase my bed. And that's and what is that, that's pretty much just teaching them the movements. And not only teaching the movements, we're reteaching different movement patterns. Because what I love telling people is, you've spent so much time developing this movement, that is a has become your normal, it is your normal, and whether it be a muscle imbalance or something like that, it is normal to you, we need to untrain that and put in a different movement and create a different normal. So it's always setting these blocks of this phase is here, when we get done there. And we are confident in our ability that we've checked all the boxes, once again, then we can go into a different phase. And with a different sort of goal, a sub goal, I guess, within the overall goal, but the phases, I always tell people, it's very fluid, I've never seen, we're gonna work two weeks here, and then two weeks here, and then two weeks here, because for one person, they might check off all the boxes in two weeks. Sorry, but for another person, it might take six weeks. So always have to be adjusting. And that's where you're taking it week by week with the programming, you know, you have to look at and say like, we did really good on the deadlift this week, I think we can progress there a little bit. But that squat is still really struggling a little bit. So we're gonna stick with that and try to focus on it a little bit more. So, yes, that's the beauty of just the programming in general.

Philip Pape 42:42

Cool. Yeah. And you're working with the individual. And it kind of reminds me of, again, nutrition coaching, same thing where you work on one thing at a time, and if it doesn't, if you're not quite there, you got to keep keep working on it. So I think a lot of this, I mean, I'm sure you agree. Rule number one is consistency, right? Can somebody show up and do it? And the reasons are, are many, right, like for people, for some people, it's how fun it is. And others, it's the results and others. It's how much their coach yells at them, because that's what they want, you know, or whatever. But without that, it doesn't matter. A perfect program is irrelevant if you don't stick with it, right. Show up. Yeah. So how do you get people because you deal with all kinds of people? How do you get them to start and stick with the routine? Yeah, so

Matthew Spiewak 43:28

starting with the routine, it's starting them easy. Starting them off easy, alright, and letting them have autonomy in it. I always like asking two questions. It's how many days can you come into the gym on your worst week? You know, work is work is hell, your family is going crazy. You know, some something happens. How many days? Do you know that you come in here. And usually that's that's the common denominator. There's like three days is like usually like, I know, I can be here three days a week, even on a worst week. And like, Okay, sweet. We're over three days. And then I always like to tell them, what movements do really love doing, you know, is their machines, free weights, kettlebells, cables, bands and stuff like that. Because the whole goal is if we're trying to get them into this new stimulus, this new habit, this, this this new practice in their life, if we were to throw all of this new things, all the new things out them at once, it might be too much of a new stimulus, it might overload them a little bit, and then they kind of shy away, you know, they burn out pretty much. So allowing them to have autonomy in okay, I really like machines. All right, I can focus on right in the beginning. Maybe we do some bodyweight stuff just on the ground, get them moving. And then we go into the machines but deep down I know in my head I'm like, in a month I'm getting away from machines is once they start getting used to exercise and intensity and different levels. It's like okay, look at how we can progress and get away from machines. But I say I'm like yeah, totally. Let's do machines first. Like we can do an hour machines. Then it's going to be great, because I know you can still get a workout with machines. Now, do I want them there the entire time? No, I'm going to progress them to free weights and all that stuff. But yeah, it's starting it off with the stuff that they want to do.

Philip Pape 45:12

Yeah, like that. And yeah, you can't come, you can't just say, here's the ideal thing you need to do, especially if they're not gonna enjoy it, or they're gonna be stubborn, bad or whatever, however you want to phrase it. And you start with what they like, and gradually convinced them just through their own through osmosis, that there's a better way. Cool, is there anything about nutrition? You wanted to come back to with all this? Because I know you you do you do both? Right. Like, do you? Do you have clients where you'd give both nutrition and training coaching?

Matthew Spiewak 45:41

Yeah, yeah. And that's, and that's something that I do is, I try my best to actually provide that because I understand that like, hey, they can come in here, I can give them the program four days a week, I work with them once a week, maybe twice a week or something. And that's all going good. But if they're going home, and they're eating, like, crap, and or they're overeating, or they're under eating, a lot of times, it's they're under eating, a lot of times they come in and they want to build muscle, I'm like, Dude, you got to start eating a little bit

Philip Pape 46:08

more fasted, right? Exactly.

Matthew Spiewak 46:11

And then it ends up just they don't see the progress, and is the is the most interesting thing ever. Because this is what will happen, they will see the progress with the weights, the weights will steadily increase week after week after week, they won't see a physical difference in the mirror. And they're asking me what's going on here, I've been going up in the benchpress. For the last five weeks, I'm like, Yeah, we're simply just getting better at the skill of the movement. Like, that's all it is, we're just becoming more efficient and movement, we're using more muscle fibers, we're having better higher recruitment pattern. But we're not actually increasing the size of the muscle fibers themselves. And that's coming from the fact that you are not in taking as many calories. So it's given them guidelines on that, because I understand, it's like, it's a two pronged effect, you can't just have one aspect of it and expect to get the results.

Philip Pape 46:59

Yeah, you know, what you just said is, is really critical, because you're making me think of it in a different way than it had before. So when I talk to people about when they start training, and they're getting stronger, you know, there's neuromuscular adaptation, you referred to that, where you're getting better at the skill, and you're recruiting more muscle fibers that you already have, it's like this inherent potential that you haven't tapped into, and you're starting to tap into it. And and, and the way I've always said it is eventually you get to a threshold where your body needs to create new tissue to keep getting stronger. But what you also said is, if you're not in that anabolic environment to begin with, and feeding yourself, you're leaving gains on the table right from the beginning as well. Which is great for people to know. Yeah,

Matthew Spiewak 47:41

yeah, exactly. Exactly. Call I've just,

Philip Pape 47:43

I've just repaired for you. I'm just paraphrasing.

Matthew Spiewak 47:46

I mean, that's what it is. And it's, it's, it's been able to actually have them understand. And that's, that's what I love to tell my clients and like, I know that I can tell you to eat. But are you going to how much motivation is that? Is there enough of a reason to do that, just because I, your trainer is telling you to eat. If I were to explain why it's important, say, hey, remember that goal that you have that you want to have a bigger chest and a bigger back? Alright, well, we need in order to do that, we need to have muscle muscular hypertrophy, we need to increase the size of the muscles, we need to build muscle per se. In order to do that we need to eat more and weight and lift weights. So then they have that reason of why they need to eat more. And so if they can understand why they need to do something, they're going to be more inclined to actually doing that habit and doing that daily task. Rather than like, I'm doing it because my trainer said it's good for me. So I guess I got it. It's like, but now they're like, Oh, I know, putting this meal into my body right here is going to help me with my goal. So they're going to do it a lot more.

Philip Pape 48:47

I love it, man. Yeah, I'm totally fine with you on helping people understand why I'm gonna use what you just said, with clients as well that, hey, you're gonna gain strength, but you're not going to look as good as you want, unless you also keep it.

Matthew Spiewak 49:00

It's crazy. But yeah, that's what it is. No, it's true. And then

Philip Pape 49:03

and then you do see the interesting phenomenon where somebody who's very overweight, and they they go into a slight deficit and they start starting training, you see them gain weight and lose, you know, you see them gaining strength for quite a while. What in that scenario? What do you think? are we experiencing body recomp? Or is it still the neuromuscular adaptation for a while?

Matthew Spiewak 49:24

Yeah, it can be a little bit of both there. Yeah, yeah. It's

Philip Pape 49:30

to feed the muscles

Matthew Spiewak 49:31

right? Yeah, they have a bigger runway is what I like to say. And that's that's this is a metaphor that I learned from Dr. Jordan shallow if you guys he uses a lot of bigger fancy words than I do. So if you have trouble understanding me then I don't know if you're gonna understand him, but he always explains it as you have this sort of a runway of how long can we actually do this movement for this, this pattern for until we actually hit that roadblock we need to take off. So starting off from your base there, if you have more body weight, you actually have a much longer runway. Compared to somebody who started off at 110 pounds and has skin and bones, they have a much shorter runway where we can only develop that neuromuscular adaptation for that long, until we need to really start increasing the caloric and looking at that aspect, but with someone who's more on the heavier side that was looking to go down in weight, and bodyweight, their runway is a lot longer.

Philip Pape 50:30

Awesome. Yeah, that's a great way to put it the runway. Again, man. So this is gold. So much good stuff this interview. So I like to ask all my guests. Is there a question that you wish I had asked? And what's your answer?

Matthew Spiewak 50:43

Yeah, the question that I wanted you to ask would be like how to understand that less is more, because this is something that I love to fight with people about, because that means that we've gotten to a point where you are working out so much, and you love to work out, you love what you're doing that you're actually coming in here too much. And you're actually negating some of some of your strength and fuzzy gains that you could get, because then I need to fight you and bring you back down. I would much rather have that battle with someone to take him down today. Rather than like, Dude, you're only coming in here one day a week, we need to get you up to two, that step is huge for them. I would much rather have the Battle of like, you're already there. Let's just take it down a notch. Right. But understanding that less is more, and I've heard that quote, throughout my entire life. And throughout my entire life. I was like, nah, nah, I'll just work hard. I'll just keep working hard. And it wasn't until I actually took time. And I decided, You know what, I'm gonna implement it for like one month, trial for one month, cut down my the number of days I go to the gym, everything else stayed the same. I just cut down the number of days I went to the gym. And I felt better. I got way stronger and everything. And I was noticing a lot of physique changes in the good sense. So it was crazy. It was like, it took me you know, six or seven years to figure it out. But once I did, once I did it was it was it made a lot more sense.

Philip Pape 52:11

Less is more that's that's awesome advice. So if we're where's the sweet spot for most people? Right? Is it is it that they're, they're trying to lift four days a week and then fill in the other days with like, boot camps and cardio, you know, air squats and stuff are running, you know? And what is the sweet spot? Like two or three days a week? Generally?

Matthew Spiewak 52:32

Yeah, it's there's, I would say two to four days a week for the weightlifting per se you can easily do that. If you look that week or seven days, you can afford to go back to back days on one day, as long as you take that rest day on the third day. But yeah, it's a lot of it is like they come in, let's say they are doing the four days though. But then the other three are like heavy cardio days. It's like another heavy bootcamp days. And then we take a look back and like do every day you're taxing yourself. So so much. Where's the recovery aspect to it? There's no recovery in that,

Philip Pape 53:02

like, but I wanted to fat but I want to burn fat Matthew? Isn't that how I do it?

Matthew Spiewak 53:07

Yeah, it's oh my gosh. And that's and that's just where it's going back to the idea where if we can allow them to understand it, and teach them so that they can understand it, then they understand why and then they're not going to do it, compared to oh, I don't want you to do cardio for these two days. And then they say oh, like my trainer said I don't I don't have to do cardio. But I really want to because I bet it's going to help me, you know, because now they're just going off of whatever I say. I want them to understand why they shouldn't do it. Because then they're gonna realize, you know, they can practice.

Philip Pape 53:36

Yeah, they buy into. Yeah, and another question I like to ask is, are you doing this? Because you enjoy it? Are you doing this? Because usually the answer is not really. Like very few people enjoy all the success of cardio very few people, somebody might like running and then it's then it's a question of okay, do we still need to incorporate running because you enjoy it for consistency, but know that it might interfere with some of your gains over here? Yeah, great. Less is more. And then finally, where can listeners find out about you and your work?

Matthew Spiewak 54:07

Yeah, so I'm all over Instagram least I try to be the Spiewak underscore personal training. I do have a Facebook group similar to Phillips, but try to do my own spin on that, you know, I don't not just try to do a carbon copy of him. But pretty much those two places are the most I do have YouTube also on there. So that's some original content as well, unleased physique on YouTube.

Philip Pape 54:32

Cool. All right. So a lot, a lot of places. I don't think I'm in your group yet. I need to join that. So we're going to include all those links to Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and your website in the show notes. Matthew. Again, this was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a blast.

Matthew Spiewak 54:46

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It was it was awesome to talk about. Yeah.

Philip Pape 54:51

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. I'm 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 12/27/22 Philip Pape 12/27/22

Ep 38: Body Fat Overshooting, Weight Loss vs. Fat Loss, and Avoiding Weight Loss Mistakes

Paul Hanton interviewed me about body composition, body fat overshooting, the difference between weight loss and fat loss, what happens when we lose weight, mistakes people make during weight loss, and what we can do instead for a more sustainable approach while still getting results.

This episode from my appearance on Paul Hanton’s podcast, The Healthy Fit Life, for the episode “Avoiding Common Issues with Sustainable Fat Loss.”

Paul interviewed me about body composition, body fat overshooting, the difference between weight loss and fat loss, what happens when we lose weight, mistakes people make during weight loss, and what we can do instead for a more sustainable approach while still getting results.

If you feel like you’ve put in effort to improve your health and fitness but aren’t getting results, I’d like to invite you to apply for my one-on-one coaching program to get the body you desire, lose fat, build muscle, and make real progress.

We’ll work together to examine everything you’re doing and NOT doing to figure out what’s missing so you can look better, perform better, and feel better. Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to learn about my program and apply today.

Thanks for listening and enjoy our conversation about body composition!

Topics discussed in this episode:

What is body composition?
What is body fat overshooting?
The difference between weight loss and fat loss
What happens to your body when losing weight
Mistakes people make when trying to lose weight
Strategies for a more sustainable approach to weight loss

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🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you achieve optimal health that fits your lifestyle—without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restrictions. Philip Pape, podcast host and head nutrition coach, helps high-achieving people burn fat, get lean, feel energized, and project confidence in their lives through one-on-one nutrition and lifestyle coaching at witsandweights.com.

👉 Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to connect with me.
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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:31

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. This episode is from my appearance on Paul Hinton's podcast, the healthy fit life for the episode avoiding common issues with sustainable fat loss. Paul interviewed me about body composition, body fat overshooting the difference between weight loss and fat loss. What happens when we lose weight mistakes people make during weight loss and what we can do instead for a more sustainable approach while still getting results. The last thing I want to mention is that if you feel like you've put in effort to improve your health and fitness, but are not getting results, I'd like to invite you to apply for my one on one coaching program. To get the body you desire, lose fat, build muscle and make real progress. We'll work together to examine everything you're doing and not doing to figure out what's missing. So you can look better perform better and feel better. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching. To learn about my program, and apply today, or click the link in the show notes. Thanks for listening and enjoy our conversation about body composition.

Paul Hanton 01:39

Hey, and welcome to The Healthy Fit Life podcast. I'm your host Paul Hanton. Today we'll be talking to Philip Pape, a certified nutrition coach, mindset specialists and hosts of the weights and wits podcast, we'll be discussing how to avoid body fat overshooting for sustainable fat loss. And if you're a fan of the show, please do remember to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes. And we leave a review if you enjoy listening. So Philip, how you doing today? I'm doing great, Paul. Thanks for having me on the show. Yeah, thanks for coming on the show. So I'm really excited to talk about this thing something that while people can learn more about so an intro mention body fat overshooting for sustainable fat loss. So I think it's a really good place to start. What is body fat overshooting?

Philip Pape 02:24

Yeah, body fat overshooting is a concept that I think if if more people really understood it, it's probably the crux of many of the issues people have getting results. And I think the The term was coined by Layne Norton in fat loss forever years ago. And it's been used many times. But in a nutshell, it's the idea that every time we diet, we lose fat, but we also lose some muscle right there, there are a bunch of side effects that come along with that, that we can get into detail on that then cause us to want to eat, eat the weight right back and then some and overshoot the original body fat level that we had. And there's a sobering statistic that at least 1/3 and up to two thirds of people regain the weight they lose within a year and up to 95% will regain that within five years. Wow. Yeah. That's, that's crazy. That's kind of puts it in perspective, right? If you have some sort of goal, especially when it comes to fat loss,

Paul Hanton 03:26

like this one, get 33% chance of getting it back within a year. And then the vast majority people sound like they gain it back within five years.

Philip Pape 03:34

Yeah, it's it's and it actually is even more insidious than that. Right? Because we're gonna get into the body composition outcome of all of this. It's not just about weight. It's it's really about fat and body composition and overall health.

Paul Hanton 03:47

Yeah, and that's a good segue. So why people use weight loss, fat loss interchangeably. And, you know, I think I've been guilty of that myself a handful of times, sometimes it's easier just to generalize a weight loss. But what is it between fat loss and weight loss?

Philip Pape 04:06

Yeah, I think the the fitness industry and the way we've sold results over the years, has always focused on weight loss, because nobody comes to you saying, I need to gain more weight. Right? Right. It's something has happened over my lifetime. The older I get, the worse I feel. I look in the mirror. And every time I lose weight, I think I'm gonna be happy and yet, something's not right. My moods worse over time, my energy, my overall health, my blood markers, my strength, etc. And it just accelerates over time. And what we fail to realize is that there are very negative effects as being a human being over time if we don't give us ourselves the right stimulus, the right stimulus in terms of details we'll get into but things like training and protein, and so our bodies think, okay, I don't really need the muscle. You're not feeding me enough protein. I'm getting older. I'm sitting around all day, probably working from home now, and I just don't need this. So you start to lose the muscle and you start to get weak over time. And when we talk in the language of weight loss, yeah, it sells. And a lot of people know what you're talking about. But when I work with clients, it's it's how do we change our lifestyle, our habits, our skills and behaviors, so that we can improve our body composition, and then gain all the health benefits that come with that from increased strength to avoiding disease to just just greater vitality and, you know, healthy living.

Paul Hanton 05:33

Right? So I agree that the fitness industry sells weight loss. And most people, they what they want is fat loss, right? They they, especially for men, they want to go the body composition route, where they they are dropping fat, but they still retain some sort of muscle mass. But I agree that I think the fitness industry is really oversold weight loss. And that's what you see everywhere, when people what people really want is fat loss. But I do also want to talk about body composition. So maybe you can describe what is body composition? To me, the general audience, what does that mean? What does it look like body composition?

Philip Pape 06:14

Sure. I mean, in simplest terms are bodies made up of tissue, fat, organs, muscle bones. And the simplest way to describe body composition is how much of that is fat. So what is your body fat percentage, and for you know, there's a there's an essential level of fat we need to survive. So if you look at bodybuilders who are staged, lean, men can get down to three or 4%. Below that you would just die. Right? That's an insane level of leanness, and for women, it's 10%, higher than that roughly about 12%. And then there's a level of essential fat you need on top of that for health, right? It protects your organs. It's good for your hormones, and we need to have somewhere for men, it would be somewhere between 10 and 20%. Body fat and for women are going to be 20 to 30%. So that's what we mean by body composition. And most people, if they don't do anything about it will slowly slide higher and higher, you know, for men into the 20s and 30s. As they get older.

Paul Hanton 07:12

Yeah. And I think I know, one of the big myth, maybe back maybe it's gotten better now. I think it's gotten better now of how, you know, fat is bad, right? But like you just like you mentioned, we our body actually needs some sort of some some level of fat to to just survive, right? Not not excel, but just to survive. And I think I think we've moved maybe, hopefully move past that in the industry. But I know for me, that was one of the myths I held for a long time that fat is bad. fat is bad. And but really, we our body needs a certain level of fat, just to survive.

Philip Pape 07:51

Yeah, and I think like, especially when I have female clients who they just want to lose weight right away, right, we talk about body composition. It's it's like, even if you focus on losing weight, and think that's gonna get you to your level of leanness, a lot of what you're losing is not fat, it's also muscle. And that's part of the problem.

Paul Hanton 08:11

Right? Right. And so let's talk about body composition. That's another word you mentioned. So what we talked about body composition, which is like that percentage of fat that you have, what is body composition? So someone said, hey, I want to, you know, decrease fat, but keep my keeping in the lean muscle mass that I have. But what is body composition? Mean?

Philip Pape 08:34

Sure. And I guess I would split into two definitions. One is what people go after. That's like the Holy Grail of building muscle and losing fat at the same time, which is, it's possible in a few cases, it's possible if you're very overweight, because you haven't significant fat reserve your effectively. Even when you're in a deficit, it's almost like you're in a slight surplus, right? Initially, because you have the extra fat, right? And then in brand new lifters have never lifted before. Because it gets such a huge stimulus to build muscle, that even if they diets slightly or at maintenance that they can recomp. So that's that's re composition. But we could also think of it in terms of just over time changing our body composition. And we can't focus on just one half of the equation. We can't just focus on losing, right? Yes. When I when I have to get a new client and convince them that, you know, if they want to lose 30 pounds, at some point, we want to build muscle. We generally still start with a fat loss phase after after we go through a pre diet maintenance and prep phase, of course. But then once they get there, and once they realize the importance of muscle, then we turn it around and we say Okay, now let's focus on building muscle, which very few people do. Right? And when they do it, they often don't do it for long enough. They'll do it for three months, say Oh, I'm starting to get fat and then they want to cry. And my general recommendation is to build for at least six to nine months, if you've never done it before, because that's where all the wonderful new gains are going to be.

Paul Hanton 10:05

Yeah, those newbie gains, just very popular newbie gains. So you mentioned, like you recommend people will do the six to nine months of just strength training, especially if they're new. And I think that's really, really important consideration, especially if you're starting out. And you're brand new, because those newbie gains are very real. And so what you're saying is, the longer you can prolong that, the more of the longer you get those benefits from being that newer lifter, right?

Philip Pape 10:33

Yeah, that's it, there's, there's some sort of threshold where, like, the anabolic threshold, whatever you want to call it, after a few months, where it starts to kick in, your metabolism really starts to ramp up. And especially for a new lifter, a brand new lifter is going to have what they call neuro muscular adaptation, right for the first three months or so when you're doing a novice program, you have this inherent level of strength that your body is capable of, but you're not quite expressing it until you start getting under heavy barbell for a while. And so you start to recruit more and more of those muscle fibers and develop into your maximum maximal strength. And then you start to develop new and bigger muscle tissue at that point. So there's like this threshold where it starts and then it starts to take off. So if you don't let it go long enough, you're not gonna, you're gonna see that can be very inefficient for years.

Paul Hanton 11:18

Right. And then after that, after those newbie gains, that's when the real work starts. Right. The fun stuff, right? Just trying to try to make a little bit of progress. But yeah, so let's jump into what happens when your body when you actually start to lose weight or fat. So what is what are some sort of adaptations that your body goes through? When you start to decrease weight or fat?

Philip Pape 11:42

Yeah, and I liked the way you put that as adaptations, because I think people have to understand that the body is very dynamic. It does adapt whatever you do to it. But it never breaks and never like totally, you know, falls apart. We I've heard the term broken metabolism. Again, it's a sales tactic, in my opinion, say, well, your metabolism is broken and needs to be fixed. Really? No, it's downregulated. So what happens when you're dieting, let's talk about the average person who isn't doing the things we're going to talk about a little bit later, or who's maybe sedentary with a standard diet. And they use a typical restrictive diet, either cutting calories, and or cutting food or food groups, like keto or all the fat, I've done them all myself, okay. And so so you're doing that. And what happens is, you start to lose weight pretty quickly, initially, and your metabolism will start to decline right away your your daily energy expenditure, so the amount of calories you burn, right, so one of the first plateaus people get to is, hey, I'm eating on so few calories, and yet, I'm not losing weight, I can't lose weight, when in reality, it's you're probably losing weight way too quickly. And your metabolism is keeping up with that. And now you need to cut further because you're not doing the other things that we do to try to diet on war calories. Right? Right. There's a lot of hormonal changes, right, your your thyroid hormone decreases, that affects your metabolism, cortisol goes up, that's stress, leptin and ghrelin, which regulate fat cells as well as appetite change. So what happens is, as you're losing weight quickly, and you're not training, and you're losing muscle, all these things create a vicious cycle, where you experience number one, muscle loss induced appetite. Number two hormone induced appetite. And then and then when you you, you get to the bottom of that diet, you're so ravenous, and you've been restricting so much that you just now want to binge on high, high carb, high salt, high sugar type foods, or high fat foods that nature is telling you, it would be the best thing to bring into your body to get back to good health. Right? And, and that's what basically accelerates the desire to binge back. What causes you to overeat and body fat overshoot? And then on the way up, when you regain that weight, here's what people have to understand all that muscle you lost, which could be up to half the tissue, right? So let's say you lost 20 pounds, maybe 10 pounds with that as muscle. If you regain that 20 pounds back, most of that is fat. So every time you're cycling up and down and up and down, you end up with the same weight, but fatter and fatter.

Paul Hanton 14:26

Yeah, yeah. I think that's something what you what you mentioned initially about the people would generally just decrease their calories to an unhealthy amount. Which, which makes sense, right? We talked about being a caloric deficit. And so you think well, okay, well, I'm going to keep decreasing my calories in July. But then you have to ask yourself, Okay, at what point are you going to stop rikes 500 calories a day? You know, 100 right there. It doesn't really the logic doesn't really make sense when you start to really think through Okay, yeah. EDB caloric deficit, but But how far can you go and I think people sometimes go too far, and they got hit that plateau, then they can get they realize they can't go any further. They kind of get stuck.

Philip Pape 15:10

Yeah, exactly. And so that's, that's why I think it's very important to spend some time bringing up your maintenance calories to a higher level that where you can diet on a higher level. Now, you can't just magically do that. There's there's two pieces that I think make the biggest impact. Based on what I've seen, based on what the evidence supports. One is going to be training, you know, strength training, where not not the training itself, which does burn some calories, it's the adding muscle mass again, talking about body composition, that increases your base level of metabolic rate. And because muscle is more expensive than than fat, and then the other is activity. But here's where people go off the rails again, because a lot of people think of activity as cardio, like tons of cardio hours and hours on a treadmill. When in reality, we just need to move and generally that steps. So it's, you know, I used to tell people step count, because if you look at our ancestors, right, they had to move all day, they had to expend energy all day. We don't do that today. But as little as an extra two or 4000 steps a day can probably up your calorie burn by several 100 calories every day.

Paul Hanton 16:18

Yeah, and you touched on a one one big misconception or mistake that people make when it comes to trying to lose lose weight or lose fat is reliant over relying on cardio or only focusing on cardio or, or thinking that that's the only way that's the best way, or the only way to lose weight and fat. So how do you help people kind of understand that, you know, cardio has a lot of benefits for you. But when it comes to weight loss, fat loss, strength training is just gonna be better for you.

Philip Pape 16:51

Yeah, I mean, it's hard, it's hard to convince people who do the pilates and the orange theory and CrossFit, and they're just so into all of these things. And that's where you have to develop a relationship of trust. And, and basically, have them try, you know, an effective training program and understand what that's all about. And that we have goals we have, we have a goal, and our goal requires us to prioritize certain things, and we can't do everything. If you want to be a world class tennis player, or marathon runner, fine, we're gonna have to focus on that. If you're trying to improve your body composition, then then strength is where it's at. And too much cardio is going to interfere with the recovery from that lifting, which then interferes with the adaptation from the lifting. And that's how we build muscle. It also can send our bodies and endurance signal that, hey, we're it kind of conflicts with the strength training signal, it basically tells our body, try to be more efficient with calories, because I see you really need them, you're moving a lot every day, be efficient, and thus bring down your metabolism. Right? So what a lot of people find is that they start, they go from hours and hours of cardio to three days a week in the gym for an hour, and all of a sudden the metabolism starts to go

Paul Hanton 18:06

up. Right, right. And then another another common mistake that you mentioned already, but I want to talk a little more about as the extreme restriction around what you're eating or even caloric intake. And I think the fitness industry pushes that a lot, right? Because it sells well. So when it comes to those extreme, restrictive diets, or people dropping their calories to unhealthy mount levels, how do you help people kind of overcome that?

Philip Pape 18:39

Yeah, I think a lot of people that are seeking help with their nutrition have have tried these diets? And the answer, you don't want to ask them? Did it work for you? The answer is always for a time. Like it worked for a time well, why did it stop working? Well, I can't not eat carbs for the rest of my life. Or I can't, you know, whatever, whatever restriction it is, you know, if it's carnivore, I can't just not eat vegetables. Maybe some people can't. But but it comes down to sustainability, right? And yeah, maybe it's a buzzword, maybe we throw it around a lot. But how do you solve both sides of the equation one is trying to lose weight and maintain a healthy body composition, and the other is eating things I enjoy for the rest of my life. Right? And a lot of people think those two aren't compatible. They think of dieting as an on off switch. Okay, now I'm in dieting mode. So I'm going to start cutting everything out. Okay, I'm done. Now what? Like how do I sustain it? Do I just eat everything I used to not eat or that I cut out but less of it. I don't know what to do. So, we tend to work on from a principle of some people call it flexible dieting. But I basically say if, if it's consistent with your lifestyle, right? If it's foods you enjoy, we try to fit them in, but we understand where each where it serves. You and your goals. So if doughnuts are a non negotiable, okay, let's find a way to fit a doughnut in and maybe it's a homemade donut. Or maybe it's you know, one versus two donuts, you know, there's decisions we can make. And there are occasionally hard rules people need to set for themselves when things are just completely triggering for them. But I don't want you to just say, I'm not having carbs. 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.

Paul Hanton 20:48

Yeah, and that sustainability piece, you mentioned, really ties back into those statistics, you mentioned in the first half of the first part of the episode about breather thriller, a third of the a third of people, the 30 people in the first year just ate it back. And then the 95% of people gain it back within five years. That goes back to sustainability, like you mentioned. And so I also am a big proponent of what we call flexible dieting, of trying to incorporate, try not to restrict people from eating some of the foods that they love, and they just cannot do without for a long period of time. I think people can maybe suffer through it for a month or two. But it's really hard for people just to go without it for the rest of their lives. And as against sustainability, and thinking long term about how you approach your nutrition. And your health. Yeah, totally

Philip Pape 21:37

agree. Yeah. And then and then the other piece of that, of course, is the the macro balance all the things that we do, as part of that dieting approach that most people don't do, for example, the big thing, and we can call this a mistake, or we can call it a solution, but most people don't get nearly enough protein. Right? That's a huge one right there. Every client that comes in who who doesn't already have a good solid education on this stuff is probably under eating by 50 to 75%. Yeah. Right. I mean, you have 170 pound female eating 60 or 50 grams of protein a day, and she needs to be eating 140. And of course, in the from week one, it's how the heck do I do that? Right? And that's what we that's where the education, awareness and skills come in?

Paul Hanton 22:26

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's another common mistake, the macro balance is very easy. It's very easy to consume carbs, especially in here in Texas. And so yeah, I see that all the time, too, is the skewed macro balance of not enough protein, but, you know, overall reading on the carbs and fat. But I agree, I think part a lot a large part of it is just education and educating people on proper nutrition habits. And I think just another key thing is just making sure people plan ahead too, as well, which was meal prepping. And, and he'll put together a grocery list and, and again, like the triggering foods that they may that may trigger them to overeat or, you know, stuff like that. But yeah, I think this education around proper macro balance, why protein is important goes a long way knows a lot of my clients.

Philip Pape 23:20

Yeah, for sure. And you mentioned some some great tips in there, including the, the planning ahead. I mean, just in general, that's a that's something people are missing. And why we often emotionally eat or overeat is we make decisions in the moment. So if you tie that into protein, for example, someone listening who's thinking, I need to go from 50 grams of protein a day to 100/41 of all you have to know that you're eating 50. And the only way you know that is to log it somehow. My clients log because I think it's an educational tool. I think it's a great habit to learn about food and how much is in food. And I grew up eating foods out. But you could also do Fun, fun tricks or techniques like pre logging your food for the next day. Or for the weekend. If you're going to go to a party or event just pre log in and see what it looks like. Or, Hey, I can't get enough protein. So how do I do that? Well, let's do the math. You have have to get 160 grams of protein, you only eat twice a day, you have to slam down 80 grams a meal. That's probably not feasible, right? Unless you're in Texas with the barbecue, right? Yeah. But so then you do the math, say okay, maybe I need to eat four or five times. And each of those has to have 30 grams of protein. Well, how do I do that? And how do I have the groceries for that doing? Am I incorporating dairy and eggs and meat and all the things I need for that?

Paul Hanton 24:39

Yeah, that's a good. So we talked about some common mistakes that people make and I think it's also good to discuss what people can do better how people what people should be doing. Instead, he brought up a really good point around finding out where they're at first. So like you mentioned, if someone doesn't know how much protein they're eating I know that you can do like intuitive eating. But I'm also a big one to like you have of tracking that way you want education, so you understand what you're putting in your body and how much. I think another common mistake people make is they say, they under under zoom over, zoom, under, over over zoom. Understand how much they're eating right over zoom.

Philip Pape 25:20

Yeah, under underestimate.

Paul Hanton 25:23

underestimate how much they're actually eating for sure. Yeah. And then when they started tracking, they go, Oh, wow, that's a lot. Okay. So I think education piece is really important. But so when it comes to what people should be doing, you mentioned, the training. So let's talk about the training. What should someone's training be focused on if they're looking to lose weight, or especially for fat loss?

Philip Pape 25:45

Yeah, so I love I love talking about training. And I know a lot of nutrition coaches don't get a lot into that. But it's a huge part of my life and what my my clients have to train like, they always have to train, you know, that's the big missing ingredient for most people to give you that stimulus for muscle growth. So I like to start with principles. I hear myself in the recording. Do you hear that?

Paul Hanton 26:09

No, I don't have my headphones on sign on. Alright.

Philip Pape 26:11

Alright. So I'd like to start with principles, the first big principle is going to be mechanical tension, that whatever you're doing in the gym, you have to have sufficient stress on your muscle. Usually, this comes from very heavy weights, right. And this could be could be barbells. But it could be dumbbells, it could be machines, whatever. I'm not going to be dogmatic about it. But But most people are lifting in high rep range, high volume lightweights. And they need to put a lot more stresses on muscle. So that's mechanical tension. The second principle is going to be maximum effort. Whatever you're doing, it has to be training hard. So even if it is a while, or if it's three reps, those last few reps have to be really hard and feel like something you've never done before. Right? Right. Big missing, greedy. And then the third principle is going to be progressive overload. So a lot of people will go into the gym, and they'll do the same thing over and over again, and they won't change the weights. But we need to increase the load, right, we need to add weight to the bar, add weight to the dumbbells, or add reps. They're both effective. For beginners, I recommend, you know, focusing on weight and just going literally adding five pounds to the bar every session so that your body gets greater and greater stress each time that it adapts to and you come back stronger each time.

Paul Hanton 27:36

Yeah, like I said that adaptation is key, right? You're wise and adapt to whatever you throw it. And that includes what it how if you do stress at it, ie lifting weights, right, so your body's gonna adapt to that. And you mentioned a great point about progressive overload. I think that's something that people overlook, they don't think about and so I make all my clients track their workouts that way we can see our how are they doing in their workouts? Because you mentioned how important intensity is for your workouts in order to see any sort of adaptations for your body. Because if you're just you know, kind of lollygagging through a workout and you're really comfortable, we'll Good on you. But I don't know it's really going to have any sort of adaptations, right?

Philip Pape 28:16

Yeah, exactly. I mean, and I'd like to illustrate this through videos for people and show them kind of what somebody looks like who's really working. And it might be myself, it might be Hey, guys, this is what you have to look like when you're training hard. It's tough being an online coach, you know, as opposed to like an in person personal trainer, because you need them to send you videos to do format checks. And like you said, track their factor reps and weight and see, are they actually progressing like you would expect if they're truly getting stronger?

Paul Hanton 28:44

Right, right. So we talked about training, let's talk about nutrition as well. So you mentioned making sure someone gets enough protein of crucial protein is so when it comes to nutrition, and so wants to focus on say fat loss, what can they do with your nutrition? How should they structure their nutrition? At a high level?

Philip Pape 29:04

Yeah. So there's a couple of things. First, we want to have the macro balance sorted out, right. So we talked about that before, of starting with protein, always starting with routine and making sure you're getting roughly a gram per pound of target body weight. But we know there's a wide range anywhere from point seven to 1.2. And if you're getting currently point three

Paul Hanton 29:28

different Yeah, right, right baby

Philip Pape 29:30

steps, it's let's work with the client. And if you know, let's work them and titrate them up toward that level. So it starts with protein, fat 20 to 30% of your calories is usually doable for most people unless they come from keto and they have to have more, and then the rest goes to carbs. And you might find that it's more carbs than you're used to eating with some of these diets. All right, on a fat loss phase. What you're going to do then is select your target weight and you want it go with a reasonable deficit. And the evidence supports a deficit of between a quarter to 1% of your weight per week, right. And the sweet spot for most people that I've seen is around a half percent 2.75. Because if you go too, too aggressive, it's just too few calories for most people. So if you're 200 pounds, you're looking at maybe one and a half pounds a week, something like that. And when you do the math that comes out to what 4500 calories a week deficit, which is, which is four to 600 calories a day, something like that, just doing quick math, which is just not terrible. For most people, if you have a metabolism, that's around 2200 calories, that's gonna put you at 1800, for example, 1700. But that's, that brings us back to why we need to diet on more calories and bring that metabolism up. Okay, I have a client who I've never seen, it's so extreme, but he was very overweight, we're talking maybe 5060 pounds overweight, he trained when he was younger, he got pretty jacked when he was in his 20s. And now he's in his 40s. So that that's a point going for him. Because if you train before it comes back quickly. And we started them diet dieting at the full 1%. And his his expenditure, his metabolism just keeps climbing and climbing and climbing. Because he's strength training, and he's getting protein. And then the next thing I haven't talked about, but getting steps. So he's doing all these things. And every week we say, man, let's just let's just stay where you're at your deficit is getting bigger and bigger without even changing your calories. Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's I don't throw in a lot of things that people and I could go there. There are other things that support this, like stress, sleep, recovery, and so on, we can get into but those are the big ones.

Paul Hanton 31:42

Yeah, I think one of the key things that you mentioned is taking that gradual approach and not looking to lose 10 pounds in a week, right, trying to do something in a healthy and more, say more importantly, but also as just as important as sustainability, right. And making sure that whatever your clients do, is something that they can sustain for a long period of time. Because if you look at health as a, as a lifelong pursuit, or endeavor, whatever you do, is gonna have to be sustainable. I know I've seen people start and stop things, and they'll start for a month or two then quit. And that's because they're just trying to go from 00 to 100, you know, overnight with their training or their nutrition. And really, he's gotta look at a gradual baby steps, like you mentioned, right? Just take baby steps to where you need to go or where you want to go.

Philip Pape 32:35

Yeah, I mean, it's about progress and process. And that gets to tumors, all right, because if you can't stick to it, if it's not enjoyable, you won't get anywhere. And I liked the point you made about the the deficit itself being part of sustainability, meaning besides all the food selection, quality, and so on, the fact that you are measuring, tracking, and then trying to stick to a certain glide path that is conservative, conservative enough, is part of sustainability. Because along the way, now you get time to figure out, okay, how do I eat a little bit more fiber, and a little bit more fruits that have more water in them. So I don't get as hungry, you start to learn these techniques as you go on the way down. And then when you've lost all the weight, and not much muscle because you're doing it right? When you come back in a surplus. You don't just go start eating pop tarts and pizza. Okay, and kind of scale up the things you just learned to eat, and maybe incorporate some treats along the way. But it's sustainable.

Paul Hanton 33:32

Yeah, exactly. It's a lot of the same foods, whether you scale up or scale down, right. It's mostly just the quantity that and the macronutrient profile. But yeah, again, like sustainability and education. Do you like you mentioned just educating your clients or people in general on on proper habits additionally be adopting? So I think that's a I know that there's a lot of information out there on the on the internet when it comes to fitness and health and who do you listen to? Who do you trust? So sometimes I know it's hard on the outside looking in to kind of filter through the Bs in terms of what you actually should be doing. But I think two things that I always stress is just make sure it's sustainable. You know, you don't want to over commit or overdue if you've never done anything like this before. And then just educate yourself, right? There's a lot of resources out there to educate yourself. But education and sustainability are two key key things that everyone should be doing if they want to make they're really committed to health for the rest of their life.

Philip Pape 34:29

Yeah, I agree. I mean, education is a huge gap and podcasts like yours hydro fitness podcasts like mine Wits, & Weights, right there are, I mean, that's how I learned a lot about nutrition is through through podcasts. And that's a big piece. And then once you have the education where people get stuck is just doing it by themselves. Right. And you know, some people have, I don't want to call it discipline or willpower. It's just everybody's different and some people have the willpower Fall to just kind of hold themselves accountable, and many more people need extrinsic motivation to get started. But once you get started and start getting those results and developing the habits, it starts to stick. And again, the sustainability piece comes in where a habit can be developed in maybe three to six weeks, and you start to stack on habits. And before long before, you know, say, three months of this process, you're really well equipped to do this for the rest of your life on your own.

Paul Hanton 35:24

Yeah, absolutely. I think that the action taking action pieces was also a huge challenge for a lot of people and education is important. But you also have to take action to incorporate that education or do something. If you don't you want to improve your health or lose weight or lose fat. So I think that's a really great point is to not forget to take action, right? And we will need help. We need new trainers like us to help now with that, to be able to rely on their intrinsic motivations that people need extrinsic motivation, their spouse or their kids, right. So that take an action piece is really, really crucial. So before we wrap up this episode, I think it's been really a really great discussion and a lot of great points. We talked talk through what are some last minute takeaways or big things you want people to get out of this after listening?

Philip Pape 36:16

Yeah, there's a lot of takeaways here. Yeah, there's a lot of takeaways, I think, the big takeaway is the thing about weight loss, that there's, there's a different way to think about this, that we don't have to struggle for the rest of our lives thinking that it's a constant battle of dieting and gaining weight, that we can take control of our not only our physique, which I know a lot of people get into this, because they just want to look better in the mirror. But our health, and I think that that cannot be overstated, is that if you're worried about diabetes, or heart disease, or fertility, or some you know, frailty and old age, at any age, you can start to turn that ship around, you can you can avoid what 95% of people experience with sarcopenia osteopenia, all these disease, diseases of aging, and take control of your vitality. By telling your body Hey, you've got to be stronger and more capable in this physical world that humans evolved in, by getting by, you know, strength, training protein and other things that we talked about.

Paul Hanton 37:24

Right? Yeah, I think that thing is a really great point to end the episode on is, when you look at health over the rest of your life, like one there's, it's not too late to start, you know, if let's say you, you were training and then you stop in kind of wondering if, when they get back on the bandwagon, we'll start tomorrow or start start today, right, there's, you can start at any point in time when it comes to the rest of your life for your health. And I think the other thing is to like, again, is want to keep reiterating sustainability. If you start something, but then you're only going to last for two months, who is not really going to help you out. And so whatever someone decides to do, and I'm a big proponent of strange training, but you know, some people don't like it, some people don't want to do that, you will rather go ride their bike or run, which I don't like so, you know, props to them. But whatever someone does, it needs to be sustainable, and they need to have some sort of enjoyment behind it. Otherwise, we'll just quit. So, again, I just want to reiterate how important sustainability is.

Philip Pape 38:29

Yeah, I agree. Fun, balance all of those things. You know, you don't want to be crazy, the crazy weirdo who is just an exercising their family. Just live your life and enjoy. I agree. Those are those are great words to live by.

Paul Hanton 38:44

Yep. And I think that's a great a great ending point. So Phillip, thanks again for coming on the show. Really got a pleasure talking to you. And I think there's some really, really, really great takeaways that people are gonna get from this episode.

Philip Pape 38:56

Thank you, Paul. I also enjoyed the conversation was a ton of fun. Thanks for having me on.

Paul Hanton 39:00

Anytime.

Philip Pape 39:04

Philip Pape 12/20/22 Philip Pape 12/20/22

Ep 37: Training and Nutrition for Strength & Endurance, Managing Recovery for Longevity, and Backcountry Mountain Hunting with Josh Isley

My guest is Josh Isely, a 42-year-old mechanical engineer who loves hunting the backcountry and mountains but who also rides a desk every day. We talk about strength, lifelong health, training for events, avoiding overtraining, and lots more.

Today is a special one because it’s our first episode featuring a member of our Wits & Weights Facebook community, so I’m very much looking forward to this conversation.

We’re going to get into strength, lifelong health, training for events, avoiding overtraining, and lots more today.

My guest today is Josh Isely, a 42-year-old mechanical engineer who loves hunting the backcountry and mountains but who also rides a desk every day.

He was an athlete in high school and as happens to many people, relied on his natural abilities for too long and, in his own words, “let himself go a bit.” Josh was inconsistent with training and developed a bad relationship with food.

He spent the last several years training on and off for hunts and finally got it dialed in this year in preparation for a mountain goat hunt!

Josh still struggles with food and binging but is getting better all the time; his program worked well as he was able to climb much better than he could last year. He is now moving into recovery mode and beginning to prepare for New Zealand in the spring.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Josh’s background and how he finds time to go hunting
Why motivation is not enough (and what we should do instead)
How we avoid overtraining (especially as we age)
How to minimize the impact on aging/ailing joints
Dealing with setbacks (injuries/anxiety/depression) and how to overcome those
Managing the dichotomy of strength vs. endurance
Balancing training for longevity with specific events
What recovery looks like (and training periodization) in preparation for his event in New Zealand
Strategies to overcome the urge to binge on processed food
Dealing with the influences of your support structure when they don't “get” your nutrition/training

RELATED LINKS

Talk to Josh in the Wits & Weights Facebook community
Watch the episode on video here

🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW
At Wits & Weights, we help you achieve optimal health that fits your lifestyle—without excessive dieting, cardio, or food restriction . Philip Pape, podcast host and head nutrition coach, helps high-achieving people burn fat, get lean, feel energized, and project confidence in their lives through one-on-one nutrition and lifestyle coaching at witsandweights.com.

👉 Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to connect with me.
👥 To join our Facebook community for live training, free guides, free challenges, and more, just click here.

🙋‍♀️ HOW TO ASK A QUESTION FOR THE SHOW

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👨‍💻 HOSTED BY

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:30

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Wits & Weights. Today is a special one because it's the first episode I've ever done featuring a member of our Wits, & Weights, Facebook group, and he's got a unique backstory. He's got some exciting, very interesting performance related pursuits that we're going to chat about. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation. We're gonna get into strength, lifelong health training for events, avoiding overtraining, especially as we age, and more topics just like that. My guest today is Josh Isley, a 42 year old mechanical engineer who loves hunting the back country and mountains but who also rides a desk every day, we can relate. He was an athlete in high school and as happens to many people. He relied on his natural abilities for too long, and in his own words, let himself go a bit. Josh was inconsistent with training and developed a bad relationship with food. He spent the last several years training on and off for hunts. And he finally got it dialed in this year in preparation for mountain goat hunts. Josh still struggles with food and binging but is getting better all the time, his program worked well, because he was able to climb much better than he could last year. And he's now moving into recovery mode, beginning to prepare for New Zealand in the spring. We were just talking about that. Before we started recording. Josh, I appreciate you coming on the show, man. I'm excited to get into training, nutrition, whatever you want to talk about.

Josh Isley 01:54

Yeah. Thanks for having me. Philip pape, I appreciate it. Exciting. Yeah. It's

Philip Pape 01:57

very cool, man. So in the intro, I mentioned how you're an engineer, 42 years old, by the way you love the outdoors, you have a desk job. And I can relate. I'm also 42 also an engineering background. And I'm also at a desk most of the day. So if you don't mind.

Philip Pape 02:13

Just tell us a bit about what you do. And maybe how you find time to go hunting and anything else about your background? Sure. Yeah. I mean, you said it in the intro, right. I, I was an athlete in high school, I've always enjoyed being active.

Josh Isley 02:27

I come from kind of an active family and my father was a good athlete as well, but kind of let things go after high school. I always loved hunting. As I got older, I found the mountains in the backcountry and really wanted to be able to do that. But I don't know if you've ever tried to climb a mountain when you're not in shape, but you can't cheat the mountain. So there's only only one way to do it. And that's to get in really good shape. And be consistent with your training. So I started taking lunch breaks and running. My knees kind of got beat up. So when I would walk,

Josh Isley 03:04

I got a bike this year, to try to limit the impact on my joints. And just made nutrition and weight training a focus of my life I made it made it a priority and started to build the discipline around that. I did a last year in Colorado, that was really high. And I really struggled. My joints hurt my muscles ached. It was it was painful. And it was kind of a wake up call that as I get older, I'm not going to be able to rely on my natural talents and abilities. And I have to put in the effort and the work to keep doing the things I want to do as we age. Fair enough. Yeah. So when you started climbing years ago, I don't know how long ago that was. But you said you weren't really in shape and ready for it. And it sounds like you've pushed yourself over the years, even as you've tried to train and keep up with that. Right? That initial climate was that? Are we talking rock climbing? Are we talking just steep kind of hiking? Not? Not just I know it's a lot to hike a mountain for hours on end? What are we talking about? Yeah, no, no technical climbing. I don't have crampons or ropes and carabiners and things. It's really just being able to move heavy weight over long distances for a long period of time. off trail, you know, being able to bend at the waist with 80 pounds on your back and go over deadfall there's a lot of beetle kill in places like Idaho and Colorado, right. So it's these animals have been hunted extensively for a lot of years. And they live in some pretty nasty places now, so to be able to take 1800 or 2500 feet elevation changes, right? It's really just climbing climbing up avalanche chutes, climbing around through timber up and over screen slides and things like that to get to where they are. Okay, and when you talk about carrying a lot of weight on your back and having to bend over. And you know, I think of these, we focus a lot on functional movements when it comes to training but then there are movements you need in real life that you don't necessarily

Philip Pape 05:00

use every day, but are special specific to something like that right? Like so I'm thinking of a good morning a back a barbell Good morning is like, movement, right? And now we're gonna change that was, as you found yourself getting a little bit more beat up from these more difficult climbs, what what was the biggest factor you you thought to yourself, I need to do better or if if I had done that over again, this is what I would focus on.

Josh Isley 05:22

Yeah, so that was the kind of the case last year I struggled with a few things and what I focused on in my training last winter, and this through the summer, leading into this false Hunt was a lot of unilateral work, single leg stuff, right, if you slip and fall, you're gonna catch yourself with one leg. So a lot of unilateral work in Single Leg deadlifts, single leg squats, step ups, step downs, just things to be able to and then mobility, right. So even having the strength but being able to have joint mobility, everything's uneven, rocky terrain, slippery terrain, and things like that. A lot of core work, I could use a lot more. But I definitely tried to focus, focus on my core. And then as funny as it looked, I would take my backpack into the gym, and I'd wear it while I'm working out, I would try to do things with that backpack to mimic that it's hard to mimic that with free weights. So having that pack strapped on with a bag of sand in the back of it walking up and down stairs on the stairclimber or up and over plyo boxes and things like that.

Philip Pape 06:26

Nice. So specificity is what you're talking about is like just do the movement you need to train for as well as everything else. Unilateral movements. I think a lot of people, they're not a big fan of them in the gym, right? We focus so much on bilateral stuff squats, deadlifts, but, I mean, what would you say about those just for the general population? Even if they don't have to do an event like that? Is there value in doing those?

Josh Isley 06:50

I think so. Right? I mean, it's not as impressive to the lady sitting across the gym when you're only moving 40 pound dumbbells with unilateral movements. But I think that it's a novel stimulus for a lot of people who haven't done it before. And then you spend 12 weeks or eight weeks on unilateral movement, and you go back to a standard squat or standard deadlift, and I think you'll see improvement, it helped my joints, a lot of times my knees are pretty beat up so my knees will hurt. But the more that I focus on really good form and technique and strengthening those muscles and making the muscles do the work, my joints feel better. And then I'm able to move move better when I'm back into heavyweight.

Philip Pape 07:31

Okay, now, let's talk about mindset a bit, because I know you said you were inconsistent with your training, because you had some natural talents. And a lot of people struggle with that a lot of people know what to do they know how to do it even just don't do it. And rely a lot on willpower, you know, which is a finite resource or motivation, or hire somebody like me, who's a coach to kind of give him extrinsically. But why would you say that? That's, you know, motivation is not enough. And we need to, I think you call it build a discipline? Well, we were talking earlier about this.

Josh Isley 08:02

Yeah, well, I'm just like most other people, right, I get really motivated in spurts. And so it's really easy to go to the gym when I don't have a deadline at work, or I don't have a date or whenever else. My son doesn't need me for something. But I found that for me, what I needed to do was it was just like, I had to make it like brushing my teeth or cooking dinner or whatever else. It was just, it's what I did. And so there wasn't any excuse, or any reason to say well, I can't go it's just Well, I, I do go this is what I do. It's part of my day, it's in my calendar. For me, that's what it took. Because otherwise, the minute that I could find an excuse, I would,

Philip Pape 08:41

yeah, so it's what you did. I mean, that's the classic line. It's what I did, like brushing your teeth. And you mentioned a calendar that you dropped a little hint about one of the ways you do it is you schedule it in or reminders on your phone. How do you do that?

Josh Isley 08:55

Yeah, it's I don't, I guess I don't have a real calendar that I put it in, but it's just in my in my head and my calendar, the one thing that I would do is block off an hour and a half at lunchtime. I don't know about how your work is but if I have an open spot in my calendar, someone will fill it. So I would make sure that every other day I had an hour and a half to go and do my cardio. So I would run or ride a bike in the summertime or have a stair climber in my basement. And that was my time. It just if I didn't do it at lunch, I didn't want to do it. I could find a way to go to the gym after work. And I needed more time my gym routine was kind of longer anyway. And I had to drive I live in the middle of nowhere. So I had to drive and get to the gym. But I needed that that lunchtime cardio I found that if I tried to get up early, I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't wasn't motivated after work. My brain just was tired. I wanted to eat dinner and sit down. I couldn't do it. So I had to find a time that worked for me and make sure that that's just what I did. That was my lunchtime routine on Tuesdays Thursdays and Saturdays. I ran or biked or hike to a rock. Yes, that part of my part of my day.

Philip Pape 09:57

Yeah, and that's awesome advice. A couple of things. There's one the fact that you thought ahead and you planned it in, and you blocked it out, right? It's the same idea when people say they can't get enough steps. It's like, well, you know, find something you do every day and connect it with that activity, maybe it's lunch, and you're gonna eat out for half an hour, block an hour, like you said, out of your calendar block an hour. And that second half an hour is always going to be for walking. And what was the other thing you mentioned that, even if you do that, it has to work for you. So getting up early, and doing it late didn't work for you, just like, I can't train after the morning, because the day is just just gone for me. And some people are like, I couldn't train in the morning. So it's got to work for you. Yep. So now, I love the culture here of you working out and trying to stay fit, you know, regardless of age, age, just a number, and we're not in our 20s anymore. So we can't put in the same long, hard workouts every day, you know, six, seven days a week, like we would have liked to back then. How do we avoid overtraining, then?

Josh Isley 10:58

Yeah, that's a great question. And I didn't know the answer to that. So I was raised by parents who were entrepreneurs and small business owners, and they just worked and worked and worked. And my grandfather and my uncles were farmers, right. And so I was raised in this culture throughout the late 80s. And early 90s. It was nobody cares work harder, right? Just keep going. And so I kind of took that approach through high school and my wrestling coach was the same way. And I approached my fitness that way, and I found myself injured a lot. I mean, I was working through a doctor and growing poles, I ended up I still have an umbilical hernia, a lot of shoulder issues, right. And I just had this feeling listening to podcasts like yours and others, right? It was really great information, hey, it might be overtraining. So I actually went hired a personal trainer. To me, I felt like it was an investment, right? I pay health insurance and I go get a physical, I go to the dentist and take care of my teeth. Right? I put money away for retirement, why wouldn't I put the same investment in my body? So I squirreled away some money, and I hired her and she was like, Absolutely, you're overtraining, you need to need to back off, right. And so I think, just having that reinforcement from somebody else who I trusted as a professional, and then I was able to back things off a little bit and reevaluate. One of the problems I have is sleep, I don't sleep well. So I've been really trying to focus on that. And that's helped if I can, if I can get consistent sleep. And I don't push myself for two hours in the gym every single day. And I cut it back to maybe instead of three days, go to four days, shorter time periods or something like that and find what works, right. It took a while to kind of 00 in on what my body needed. But I didn't get injured after that. I had a lot better experience when I was able to stay more consistent. And so I ended up in a better place by doing less than where I was going by doing so much because I was constantly recovering from injury.

Philip Pape 12:53

Yeah, people need to hear that because I mean, we say 20s But really even starting in your late 20s, early 30s. These issues can start to creep up if you're overdoing it. And it sounds like before you got a personal trainer did did it enter your mind that you should do less? Or and you just didn't do last or did you not even consider it? Yeah.

Josh Isley 13:14

Oh no. I I struggled back and forth between this this inner monologue. I'm probably overtrained. Right, I can listen to Philip on on his podcast, and I can listen to these other people. And I can read these things. And I can look at I'm an engineer, right, I can look at everything that is happening to my body and how I feel and put the puzzle pieces together, then the back of my mind is, you know, put on your big boy pants to keep working hard. Yeah.

Philip Pape 13:40

I'm gonna lose my games. I'm not gonna be strong.

Josh Isley 13:43

Like, well, I can't take a day off because I'll eat too many calories. And I'll gain six pounds. But it's just it's, I think a lot of it has to do with what we're fed in the media to and through sales. People are trying to sell supplements or sell workout gear, whatever else it is. And I think we're fed a lot of misinformation. So

Philip Pape 13:59

yeah, I agree. And people come from from different angles. I know, a lot of my female clients, it's the idea of the more I move, the more calories I burn. That's how I keep the weight off. So of course, I'm gonna workout every day. And for guys like us, you know, we'd like to lift so on my Wednesday off day, I'm like, What am I what do I do? I guess I recover.

Josh Isley 14:19

So in for me, I was trying to be as strong as possible, but as small as possible. So I don't want to carry the weight on the mountain. So I don't want to be huge. I just want to be really, really strong and really, really lean. So we I was worried about the same thing. I don't want to put on a whole bunch of body fat and carry that up the mountain. So even though it's my off day, I'm gonna put 50 pounds on my pack and I'm gonna go rock for six miles, right? Well, you don't get a chance to heal.

Philip Pape 14:43

Yeah, fair enough. So that makes it even more difficult because now you're playing that game of strength to weight ratio. Same thing that a lot of endurance athletes go through. I guess I'm gonna go off on a tangent there, because I've worked with a few runners and it's always a balance of how much lifting do we do versus two training for your, you know, specific event and balancing recovery as well. Because I would love for them to work four days a week and get super strong, but it's going to beat them up and they're not going to be able to prep for the race, they're not going to get their their miles in. So what, what do you think about that philosophy training for that kind of event?

Josh Isley 15:19

Yeah, it's, it's interesting, I fight the same same battles. And what I found is I just split it down the middle, I was lifting three days a week and lifting heavy. And other three days a week, I was all about cardio and trying to get long distance endurance and muscle endurance. And so I was eating a lot of calories. So to try to keep that up, I was still in a deficit, but I was in when I quit. A week before my trip, I was 185 pounds, I was 10% body fat. And I was eating 3000 or 3200 calories, right, and I was maintaining or just just losing a little bit. So there's a lot of movement. But eating and feeding the body so that it could it could recover. But if I felt like if I just lifted and didn't do the cardio, it doesn't matter how strong I am. If I can't keep climbing, I can't keep moving because my muscles don't have the endurance. But I can I can run all day long. If I can't pick up the animal and put it in the backpack and carry it off the mountain, then then I'm stuck too. So I had to split it down the middle.

Philip Pape 16:20

Okay. And you said you were in a just a mild deficit going in and not even not necessarily trying to be it's just trying to keep up with the calories with Oh, I was trying to be you. Okay, so you were trying to trying to get the weight down in that way. Is that is that is that typically what's done as opposed to because I don't know, is as opposed to cutting ahead of time and then kind of maintaining or even trying to gain into the event? Just curious.

Josh Isley 16:44

Probably would have been better if I'd been gaining into the end of the event. But I felt like it did. Okay. Anyway, I, like we talked about before, I still struggle a little bit with my nutrition. And sometimes I go off the rails. And so I had done that. Earlier in the summer gained gained a little bit of fat back. And so I was still working on cutting that out you had to make my trainer wanted me to be eaten more for sure. Yeah, it's somebody went understanding on where I was going to

Philip Pape 17:11

be. It's relative to where you are. And you know, when you have an event, there's a time base to it that you just can't ignore, you know, the average Gen pop that has flexible schedule, can make it work, but you're like, I gotta go climb on this day. So it is what it is. That's reality. Okay, so continuing on with the training for old dudes. How do we minimize our impact on our joints? Because I'll tell you, I experienced this myself to just the joints are a little bit achy, a little, a little more alien as we get older. How do we minimize that?

Josh Isley 17:43

Well, that's a great question. And that's probably your expertise, I can tell you what, what helps me. What I noticed the most is definitely my nutrition. If I'm eating garbage, I feel like garbage and my, the inflammation in my body and my joints hurt. Right? If I go out and have a pizza and a couple of beers and ice cream, I'm gonna I'm gonna hurt the next day I swell up. And it's it's a problem. So I really have to watch my nutrition. And then it's funny, how little outta How do I want to put this, just the smallest little difference in form. And technique can have a big a big difference. And for me just having a professional, look at my lifts and critique my form and give me direction on what I should or shouldn't do. And when I was fighting through some of the shoulder issues, like what other exercises to do that can mimic the same CNS response, but not do the same damage to the joint was really helpful to me.

Philip Pape 18:46

Yeah, so okay, it's a few concepts here that are a goal that I want the listener to get out of that. So starting from the first thing you mentioned, nutrition, right, I talk a lot about on the show about flexible dieting, and how most types of foods can work within your diet. But at the same time, you have to go by how you feel and how your body responds. And what you just said was if you eat certain things, and they tend to be more processed, or maybe higher sodium, or what have you, it ramps up your inflammation. And I think people need to really think about their bodies and listen to it and maybe even journal or document their biofeedback associated with their food to see if that affects them. Because yeah, you might be able to eat pizza within your macros. But if it beats up your joints, or if you have inflammation or an autoimmune disease, a lot of people have those now. There's insulin sensitivity is all these things that come into play. So that's that's a good takeaway. The other one about form is also critical, right? Because people will complain about my knees hurt, and it's because I'm squatting Well, it's probably because you're squatting wrong. And if you squat it right out actually might make your knees feel really good. Or if your knees hurt and you don't squat, maybe starting to squat and doing it correctly could help your knees right. So these are all really good concepts for I

Josh Isley 20:00

learned that just in the last year or so, right, I avoided some things because my knees are so beat up, I'll likely need both my knees replaced as what I'm being told now. But the more I lift, and even the heavier I lift, the better I feel. I think it increases blood flow, it helps to lubricate your joints. There's, I mean, I'm not an exercise scientist, I'm just an engineer. But anecdotally, what I have really

Philip Pape 20:24

are mechanical engineers. So that's, that's like I draw.

Josh Isley 20:29

Yeah, a little bit. But I just, I just know, when I'm consistent, and I continue to do it, I feel better. And so I've been taking some time off, when I got back here tried to recover a little bit, I was in the gym yesterday, for the first time after a few weeks off, and my joints are sore they are they haven't been used that way in a while. So it's gonna take some time to get back into it. But now today, I feel good. I feel better today than I have felt in a couple of weeks with recovery. And I think it's because I was in the gym and I was moving. A body at rest stays at rest, a body in motion stays in motion. So I think we got to keep, keep doing it. It's hard to get that activation energy to get into it when we're used to sitting around or it's easy to get comfortable being being lazy. And I'm guilty of it for sure. But I always I always seem to find that when I get back to it and I'm moving and moving some weight. I my mental and my physical health is is better.

Philip Pape 21:23

Man, I totally agree with you. And for people listening, like once you get into it. And that's the thing, getting that first habit going, you'll find that you might wake up and your resource on your knees are sore, and you're just kind of achy. But it's the day that you work out, right. And you got to get yourself in the gym and all of a sudden you feel great. And if you do that enough times you kind of program yourself to know that that will come from that kind of makes it a little easier. But I agree with everything Josh was saying. I felt it I've been there. Even this morning, it was just cold and achy and gwydion it got it done and you feel much better.

Josh Isley 21:58

And I think we get a there's some times I feel some stereotypes and we feel like well, I can't go in and I can't squat 300 pounds. So I don't want to go to the gym, right? I don't want to be embarrassed or whatever. I just say go and do it. I went in yesterday. And I used a 50 pound kettlebell and I did some squats with the kettlebell and I did some deadlifts with the single kettlebell like I was moving, no weight compared to what I normally move. And I did push ups, right, I just needed to get back into the routine. We don't have to PR every time we go in there, it's not what it's about. For me, it's just about constant improvement and keeping my body healthy. So I can keep doing the things that I love as long as I can do them.

Philip Pape 22:39

Yeah. And people don't realize how little how little activity it actually takes to maintain your strength. So even once you have your strength, you can go through periods, like you're talking about where the reps, the intensity doesn't have to be nearly as high, you're not trying to PR all the time, and you're not going to lose all your gains.

Josh Isley 22:56

Now, ridiculously low, like 8% of the intensity or something to maintain.

Philip Pape 23:02

Yeah, what 1/8? So let's that that's about 8% as well, it's 12 and a half. Yeah, yeah, it's really low. And that could be like, when people go on vacation, they say I'm gonna, I'm gonna be out for a week or two, should I train and lose all my games? The answer is you don't need to do anything. For a week or two, you know, like, you will not lose your case in a week or two, right? After about two weeks, two to four weeks, it starts to decline. And, and something as late as band work, if you're on vacation can be enough to keep it going. As much as we love our big barbell movements and think that's the be all end all. There's more to it than that.

Josh Isley 23:36

Yeah, I have a bag of bands that I take with me when I travel for work. Yeah,

Philip Pape 23:41

for sure. So I'm not sure if you know that I had back surgery. But you know, I want to talk about injury here. I had a micro diskectomy last year back surgery on my lower spine and then an emergency appendectomy two months later. But I found that that inherent base of strength developed over the years made the recovery pretty fast and easy. And I could get back to training but everybody has a different situation. In terms of what interrupts their training, right? Injuries, maybe anxiety or depression, things like that. Have you dealt with setbacks like that? And then how did you deal with those?

Josh Isley 24:16

Yeah, I haven't had any major surgeries like that, in a long time, had a knee surgery back in high school. Of course, I was 16. So I healed quickly. Mostly, it's been nagging things, right, nagging muscle poles, things like that, that I've worked through. I do have some baseline anxiety issues, and my whole family has really bad anxiety. I'm not medicated, I'm able to manage it pretty well. But exercise is a big part of it. I do find myself especially this time of year when it started to get darker. We're about to change from daylight savings to standard time here in Wisconsin, where I'm at, it's going to start getting dark at 430. So I've traditionally found that that's a problem. Okay, and for me, the way I work through it is just cognitively right now. Um, there's things like CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, issues that you can read about and just talk through it. And I know that when it starts happening, I need to exercise because it makes me feel better. Even if I don't want to do it. I've built that discipline. And as part of what I do, then it's just like, just like going to work on Monday. Nobody wants to go, but it's what we do. So we do it, and I don't want to go to the gym because I'm feeling sad, or I'm anxious about work or whatever other thing, well, too bad. That's what I do. So I go, and it makes me feel better, and it pulls me out of it. So, to me, it's just about building the discipline in making it rather than trying to force it into something. It's not I make it fit my life. Right. So

Philip Pape 25:43

yeah, and that's amazing that it helps with the the depression or the anxiety. Is that physiological or is it the fact that you're doing something you enjoy doing? Or is it a little both?

Josh Isley 25:53

That's for somebody a lot smarter, okay. Just know, I just know it works. I mean, there's there's studies Josh, yeah, I'm sure there are, I'm sure there are studies out there, I don't know them and couldn't, couldn't cite them. But it's amazing. And the other thing, too, is just being outside, right? If I live out here on 40 acres, and I have a little bit of land, right Bo hunts do so I'll just go out and sit in my stand. And just being outside in nature and getting fresh air during the time of year when it's hard to get outside and get sunlight also really helps me one of the one of the major indicators of depression is the lack of desire to do the things that we normally would love to do. And so the way that I work through that is well, even though I don't feel like I want to do it, I know that's what I want to do. So I just, I'm gonna force myself to go, and I'm gonna go sit out there, and I'm gonna do it and baby steps, things like, Well, I don't really want to go for a walk. But I'm just going to put on my shoes. And if you put on your shoes, and you tie them and you lace them up, you're probably going to go for the walk. Right? So it's it's don't eat the elephant in one bite, right? Just start with, Okay, put your shoes on. Even if you don't go walk around the house with your shoes on, maybe you vacuum or do something. And then the next day, put your shoes on and go to get the newspaper and work your way into it. But don't give up. I mean, it's a digital society. And sometimes we think in in black and white and ones and zeros. And it doesn't have to be that way. If you start feeling for myself when I start feeling that way, and I don't want to go or maybe I haven't gone in two weeks like well, haven't gone in two weeks, it's all over. I'm just going to let myself go. Doesn't have to be that way. Right? You can say well, let myself go for two weeks or three weeks or a month or six months, whatever it is. Today's a new day and you can start over you can you can fix your nutrition, you can put on your shoes, you can go to the gym, even if you just go to the gym and sit on the bench. Just go there, get in the space, sit on the bench, maybe walk around and look. It starts that building up a practice.

Philip Pape 27:47

Do your inspiring I'm glad we have you on here. I hope everybody is listening to like I don't know if they're driving to the gym right now or that home or whatever it just take that step. Today's always a new day. Who cares what happened yesterday? I mean, same thing with nutrition. It's like, yeah, you binge eat yesterday, or you you know ate way more than you intended to, you're not trying to make it up or screw up with your plan today. Just start the new day and do it again. You know, perfect device that that's so good. 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.

Josh Isley 28:41

I fight that battle all the time. I mean, I'm fighting it right now when I got back from my trip, I have not been eating well. I went to the grocery store, I've just had enough and I went to the grocery store and and bought healthy food and I made a good meal today and you start over. Don't just keep keep after it just don't give up.

Philip Pape 28:57

Yep, throw away the What the hell mentality and you know, take the step forward.

Josh Isley 29:02

It's a it's a, it's a long view, right? It's an infinite game, we're trying to stay healthy as long as we can. So while we have short term goals, or I have short term goals in between, it's also ultimately I want to be healthy into my 80s and, and so I can't get there if every time I have an ice cream cone or I drink too many beers I don't like just throw it away and it's all gone. Exactly, which is it's easy mentality to slip into. It's taken me a lot of years to come to that realization but I think that that that's what works for me and it has been working Give me Give yourself some grace, right? I mean, we're not perfect.

Philip Pape 29:38

For sure. Some grace, some self love. And you know it might be relying on the systems we've been talking about and might be taking the step each day it might be your support structure, somebody in your life that can support you. Lots of ways to get there but get there. Really good message.

Josh Isley 29:55

Yeah, that's a really I don't mean to go on a tangent but that's a really good point you just brought up and it made me think of something If you don't mind me just sharing your story, please. I think a lot of people don't see food and nutrition and exercise the same way they see some other other things. And some of my friends and family didn't understand the struggles that I had with food and what it meant. Because if you look at me, even when I'm what I consider heavy, I don't look like I'm obese, right? So like, you would think of a normal fat guy or whatever. And so they're like, Oh, you're fine, you can have this dessert, or you can have that. And my response was, like, you don't understand this is something that's important to me. And it's not that I can't have it, I'm saying that I don't want it. And I'm trying to do something different. And what I need from you is that support and then understanding, right, you can do whatever you'd like, and put whatever you want in your body. But I'm asking you to respect my decision. And if I say I don't want it, say, Okay, no problem, is there something else we can get you? Or how can we support you? Right? As my friend and my family, you would do that for an alcoholic or somebody struggling with drugs or depression or having trouble with a relationship, right? You wouldn't say, oh, it's, it's fine. Just go date someone else, you'd say, How can I support you going through this, and it's the same thing, but I don't think that a lot of people see nutrition and exercise the same way. And I feel like it's the same.

Philip Pape 31:12

I agree with you as well. And that's courageous to ask somebody to make to support you and be explicit about your, your wants and needs. Because of course, I'm sure a lot of people feel they maybe can't do that or difficult thing to do. Yeah, it's a good message, just thank you for sharing that. So let's, let's get a little more a little less serious, maybe for a second and go back and talk about the training again, and you're hunting and I'm not a hunter, it sounds like a lot of fun. My perception of of what you're doing with the climbing through the mountains and punting the same time, it's like a composite sport, right involves both strength and endurance. And we already talked about the keeping your weight down, but staying strong, which are kind of contradictory, in some cases, depending on how your training is structured. So how do you manage that dichotomy? You know, the strength versus endurance?

Josh Isley 32:05

Yeah, I think it's like I said earlier, I tried to split it down the middle and train, train heavy, so I wasn't worried about like high reps or low reps, I tried to do different things. And so I would, I would run through a program for eight or 12 weeks, and I would do five reps or six reps. And then I'd go to a 12, or 15, or 20 rep program, just to keep keep scrolling, I don't think it matters so much what you do, as long as you're doing something to keep your muscles building and keep keep your your central nervous system, kind of surprised. So I've got a couple of programs that I bought, that I thought were good. I tried to do full body workouts, excuse me, very little of what I need is preacher curls or leg extensions, or things that are very isolating to single muscle groups. I'm usually, like I said, up down, climbing, kneeling, laying in uncomfortable positions for a long period of time, right. So I'm trying to move my whole body. And then different trying to find different ways to train for climbing. So bicycle uphill, heavy pack, hiking up hills, stairclimber spent a lot of time on a stairclimber. So I just split it down the middle and tried to do things that made sense, I would put on my pack and go out in public land and just go for a long hike, try to if you want to shoot free throws, you practice shooting free throws, I wanted to hike. So I practice hiking with a heavy heavy pack on. So that's strength and endurance both.

Philip Pape 33:37

Okay, and there's some I mean, there's some concepts in there that are rock solid, that you know, people need to understand one being specificity, which we alluded to before, and you just said it there. If you want to get good at something, do that thing. So if you want to get good at squats, do the squats. And then the other is the periodization. Right? We do it, we do it nutrition and we do it with training. You talked about different rep schemes and changing it up. And it's not that we're trying to confuse the muscles or make it variant for for its own sake, even though it could be fun. It's you're trying to be well rounded, right? You're trying to hit everything support everything you don't want to overtrain a lot of good reasons for that.

Josh Isley 34:14

Yeah, and for me, as I pushed in the lower rep ranges and started getting heavier and heavier, I worried about my my hernia a little bit. I worried about injury a little bit. So when I started getting up into i think i one rep max like 400 pound deadlift. And I'm like, Well, I don't need to pick up 400 pounds. So I'm going to start doing higher reps and lower weights, there's less chance of me getting injured. It's something I haven't done for a while. It's something different. So I'm transitioning into that for the eight weeks before my trip.

Philip Pape 34:45

Yeah, and that's a priority for you, you know somebody who's gonna go to a powerlifting meet they've got to get their one RM deadlift up, but that's not a priority for you so it makes perfect sense. Now, you, you mentioned you dialed in your training for the mountain goat hunt earlier this year. In British Columbia, I'm telling my my wife and kids about that, I think it's so cool mountain goat. It's just a unique thing. And it sounds, it sounds really challenging. It sounds fun because I just from what I've seen from mountain goats on any nature's show, you know, I know they could like scale the size of cliffs and whatnot. So tell us about preparing for that event and how balancing that with longevity and everything we talked about how you did that, and for these events in general, and for that event, specifically,

Josh Isley 35:26

yeah, so I focused a lot on climbing. And what I found is that coming down, sometimes it's harder than going up. And it's hard to train, it's hard to train that going going down in part. So for this hot I was in the Canadian Rockies, and I was carrying maybe 35 pounds on my back most days, right water, some foods, some clothes, we weren't carrying camping, so it was just hiking up every day. But it was 4000 feet of elevation gain up every day, from where we stopped climbing up through avalanche shoots and on trails and up creeks to get up to where the goats Live, which is way up above Timberline up in the rocks, like you were saying. And so I had focused a lot on training for the climb because I had such a hard time climbing previously. But what I'm finding is that I need to find a better way to train for the descent. Okay, right. And that concentric part with the heavy load and slippery and uneven terrain that really pounded my joints and my quads pretty hard. And my hips. So that's something I'm still searching for, was thinking about how to create a treadmill that ran backwards and I could point downhill and go downhill with.

Philip Pape 36:32

Yeah, yeah. Right. Because you think of like your shins and your knees and the things that kind of get pounded even when you're just going for a hike and you're coming down the mountain from a different movement pattern that is interesting, right? Do they have other specialized movements that are loaded that

Josh Isley 36:47

that mean I do, I do step ups and then I step off. So I'll put several benches or PIO boxes together in a row and I'll step up, step down and step up, step down and go across them. But I can't get the same as like putting a treadmill or stairclimber up and going for an hour, an hour and a half right. When I came down with my goat I shot a really nice seven year old billy goat this year, he probably weighed 250 pounds. So the guy was with and I both carried out packs full of meat and hide in the head and horns. And I think my pack was 75 pounds when I got out and that's with all my water gone, I'd finished my water. So I had four litres of water. So it was at eight, nine pounds. So water, so I was probably at five pound pack coming down, which isn't super heavy, but it was steep going up. At the top, it was about 40 degrees, it was hand over hand over foot climbing and then coming down that gravity just keeps pulling, never stops. So

Philip Pape 37:48

that's impressive, man. I mean, it's

Josh Isley 37:49

four and a half hours, it was a four and a half hour hike down the mountain with the goat. I think it took us about five to climb up there.

Philip Pape 37:58

And that's you did that for a while. And that's what the go and then you said each day you would also go up whether you had whether you had a kill or not. Obviously, you're going up and down multiple days. Yeah. So now and then you have another hunt coming up in New Zealand. And you mentioned kind of moving into recovery mode. And now you've you take lessons from each of these hunts, I'm sure to improve your training each time. But you're also getting older, right? Everything's getting more beat up. So what does that look like in preparation for the spring hunt?

Josh Isley 38:25

Yeah, so my plan this winter is to put on some muscle and gain gain a little bit of weight and just get my get my engine kind of revved up to build some strength so that I can cut, I'm gonna cut back again, I like cutting into the event so that like the week before I can start eating more. Maybe that's not for everybody. But that seems to work well for me. So my plan this winter is to is to build and try to build, build some more muscle. I'm already up to 210 pounds. So I put that weight back on pretty fast. I'd like to put on, you know, five or six pounds of muscle if I can. And I'm sure that'll come with it plenty of body fat. And then yeah, I'm going to try to figure out a way to train the the descent a little better. And keep after my climbing, I really felt good to be able to climb, I carried a lot more weight and I was able to just go up, up up up, but I didn't get tired. And so that was the first time I've had that. And that felt good. So probably do a lot of the same things I've been doing, try to find in a way find a way to add in some some descent training, even if that's just finding a hill out here that I can walk up and walk down over and over again.

Philip Pape 39:36

Yeah, you go on the bleachers, rocky style, you know, up and down. And for people listening, you know what you just said? The how you felt it was easier after you had done that training to go up this next time. And for anybody listening, you know, you don't have to be a mountain goat climber to get that same benefit from training. I mean, I've had clients who are in their 60s never trained before, and they say hey, I went to a football game and I actually wasn't out of breath, you know, going up the bleachers. And it's all relative to you. And I think that's the value of of what we do. So you met you mentioned nutrition a little, I want to get into that, because that is also my space here. I know you had, you said you had a bad relationship with food and struggle with the urge to binge, what strategies have you developed? Because now you're obviously dialing in and you're cutting, you're bulking, you're doing what you need to time with your training. And you have some what seems like good control over that or better control? How have you gotten there?

Josh Isley 40:31

It depends on the day. To me, it's really all mental in my, to me, it's all mental, right? If I get a craving, I mean, I've got some strategies, but I cave, often, right, I just, I just do, I was raised on bar food and eating ice cream every night before bed, right? Just like most of us in sugar, cereal and everything else, right. And so I've got a couple of tricks, right? I tried to keep a lot of healthy choices around. If I if my refrigerator is empty, I'm going to go down the street to the bar and get a burger, right. It's just it's, it's easy. And so if I can make it convenient. For me to eat healthy, I do a better job. If I have food, if I meal prep, if I spend a couple hours on Sunday, or whatever making meals or I put a roast in and I have a roast and I have the sweet potatoes already cooked, right? It's easy to grab them and throw them in the microwave and make a good choice. So I had to come to terms with the fact that I'm lazy and I'm going to make a lazy choice. Sometimes I need to have things available. They're easy for me.

Philip Pape 41:33

speaking my language, just your speaking. I remember calling people years ago, they're like why? Why do you strength train, I'm like, I'm lazy. This is the laziest most effective way to train that I've ever found, you know, I get to go three days a week and take a bunch of rest time between sets. You're over there on the cardio, I'm lazy. It's kind of a, you know, it's a self deprecating kind of thing. But there's some truth to that. And the common theme of what you just said, and people need to hear this is mindset and planning. And they're actually two halves of the same thing. Because the reason you plan and think ahead and meal prep and so on, is to take out the mind later on right to take out the decision making an emotion as much as you can. I mean, if you go out to dinner, and there's a buffet, and there's some amazing food that you just can't help, you know, it's going to be tougher, right? But the planning is the key. So yeah, it's great. I

Josh Isley 42:27

think understanding understanding your your brain or your body or whatever is controlling your desire, right. So I know people who can go out to dinner and they're like, Well, I want dessert. And so excuse me, they can have like one piece of pie, or they can have, you know, a handful of chocolate chips and they're fine. If I eat a handful of chocolate chips, I'm going to eat 6000 calories. There's just no two ways about it. So when I'm training, I have to get rid of all that stuff. I can't go, you can't do it. And that's just what I found about me. I'm, I'm a I'm an all or nothing kind of guy. Right. And so that's just what I've had to figure out. And so that's where I struggle with the binging right, because once I let go, I might eat 10 or 12,000 calories in a day. If I start in the morning with pancakes and syrup. It's I have a hard time rein that in. So I really have to watch it. And I tried to make other choices like I found that if I take yogurt, and I get a good 2% Greek yogurt, and I put frozen berries in it, and maybe a little bit of honey, I can I can use that as a substitute. And then I didn't eat the ice cream. And I don't eat the whole thing, right. And so I made up kind of a route Yeah, substitute for what I would normally want. It's just got the cold, and I've got the little bit of sweet. And it also helps if I can get off of sugar for two or three weeks, then berries and oranges and other things taste sweet again. Yes. And so I can use that. Right. And I really struggled with that transition once I've had Ben and Jerry's for a couple of nights in a row. And then I go and have yogurt and berries. Well, this tastes like garbage, right? But it's because my receptors or whatever it is. And your brain is like Well, that's not sugar. So it just takes a little bit of time and then I get back into it.

Philip Pape 44:08

That is so true. desensitizing yourself is actually a really good strategy. I mean, we talk about that with clients all the time of substituting because if you just try to cut things out, let's be honest, you try to cut things out, you're gonna be tempted, right? And I like how you control your environment by cutting them out of your house. That doesn't mean hey, if you really, really really want ice cream, okay, we're gonna go drive to the high quality ice cream stand with the mom and pop flavors you can't get anywhere else. We're going to enjoy the experience. We're gonna have our ice cream, maybe, I mean, maybe you the type you do that and then you're gonna go buy 10 gallons of ice cream. I don't know. Everybody's different. But you got so many so many so many golden statements and what you said that people can take and not everything. Not every technique has to be used by everybody. But you know, three or four of the things you mentioned are going to be are going to be key controlling your environment. You know, substitute Green, I think, did that really start back in? Like, I don't know, maybe it was before paleo, but I feel like they came up with all the cookbooks where they had substitutes for every, everything that could, you know, baked good.

Josh Isley 45:13

Brownies. Exactly.

Philip Pape 45:16

Actually, even my wife when I was when we first met, I was very picky. I didn't eat any vegetables. I very few unless you count corn and potatoes as much I

Josh Isley 45:23

was in the same boat 20 years ago. And you

Philip Pape 45:27

know, she did she bought a book by Jerry Seinfeld's wife that was written for kids to for mothers to make food for their kids and sneak vegetables in to delicious thing. So she would put spinach in brownies and kidney beans in mac and cheese and got me to eat vegetables over time. So we can we can sort of fool ourselves till it becomes the norm. That's that's what we eat. Good stuff, man. What else? I guess we've covered a lot. Is there anything else you want to cover that I didn't bring up?

Josh Isley 45:57

No, I mean, I guess for people listening, like, even if you're not a hunter, right? Anything you want to do. And it can be as as big as climbing a mountain, right? I climbed Kilimanjaro. And that was a great experience, or it can be as as every day is I want to be able to, you know, walk my grandson down the aisle, and I couldn't walk before, right or I struggled with being able to stand for long periods of time. Right? I think anything that brings value to our life can be enhanced. If we are stronger. I think just moving moving our bodies, helps with our mental health, it helps with our physical health. It helps stave off injury and disease. And I'm not a doctor, but I've seen it time. And again, those are my friends and people I know who are are constantly active. Just have, I think a fuller and richer life. And then ultimately, in my view anyway, we're only here for a short period of time as well enjoy it, do what we can do enjoy it, right. And so the more we can move and feel strong and feel grounded, the better we can enjoy the time that we're here.

Philip Pape 47:10

Awesome, man, I couldn't say it better myself. I do want to I do want to reiterate what you just said, though, that we might as well enjoy it. Because I think a lot of people think of fitness and nutrition as some sort of sacrifice or difficult thing that makes your life less enjoyable. And what you just suggested is doing those things allows you to enjoy your life for longer and do the things you want to do.

Josh Isley 47:30

Yeah, and find something you do like right if you don't like to lift weights, but you love to run and I guess run right but or go outside and pick your pick your child up your grandchild up and go for a walk carrying your kit. Just go out with the dogs and didn't hold rocking, throw something right have just exercise and moving and being being out and being part of the world.

Philip Pape 47:53

Yep. All right. Well, we couldn't agree more. And this was this is an awesome conversation. Thanks for coming on Josh. One of my best guess, because you just covered everything. And it was probably a personal experience. I'm serious. I think people listening can relate. Because people struggle with this stuff all the time. And I think you had a lot of really cool things, people are gonna probably listen to this again, and try to really tease out what can help them. So this was fun. I'm grateful you took the time to come on the show and talk about your experience.

Josh Isley 48:22

Now. Thanks for so much so much for having me. I appreciate it. You're doing great work and a lot of a lot of stuff that I did pulled out of your podcast. So thanks for all your help.

Philip Pape 48:30

Absolutely. More to come. 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 12/13/22 Philip Pape 12/13/22

Ep 36: Demystifying Lifting, Cardio, Nutrition, and Fat Loss

This episode is from my appearance on Karen Martel's podcast, The Other Side of Weight Loss, where we demystified as much as we could about lifting, cardio, nutrition, fat loss, and more.

This episode is from my appearance on Karen Martel's podcast, The Other Side of Weight Loss, where we demystified as much as we could about lifting, cardio, nutrition, fat loss, and more.

Topics discussed in this episode:

What is the best way to train?
What is the best cardio for weight loss?
How long should our workouts ideally be?
What does the science tell us about step counting when it comes to weight loss?
What cardio is most stressful?
How many times a week should we be lifting?
How can we take it to the next level and should we?
What is the ideal timing of days off and on from workouts?
What are compounded movements and why do we want to do them?
How often should we be adding more weight to our barbells and dumbbells?
How often should we wait between sets?
How many carbs, calories and protein should we be eating to build muscle yet lose weight?
How to calculate your protein needs.
What is the anchor macronutrient?
What are the ideal set and reps?
What are the signs that you are not lifting heavy enough?
How long does it take to see results?
Can we lose weight without calorie restricting and just lifting?
and more!

RELATED LINKS

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

🎙️ 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)

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Karen Martel 01:05

Ladies, welcome back to the show. We've got a good one for you today. I mean, when don't I have a good one for you like, let's be honest. But today's something that I haven't gotten into on this podcast and you've been listening to me for the last year and a half talking about my my journey with losing weight in men of perimenopause and how I did that. And one of the biggest things that I did that impacted my finally my ability to get off some pounds was I started to take my exercise more seriously than I have ever taken it. Thanks to my lovely, gorgeous Pam Sherman, she really helped me get back into working out and I've talked about this on several podcasts and how instrumental it was to have that accountability with her. And really started to just get into the lifestyle of exercising on a on a regular and taking the lifting weights far more seriously. So of course, because of that I've been trying to just dive deeper into muscle building. And I think that that's something that's important to do to get excited about it. Rather than just like okay, I guess I should go to the gym because I have to because Karen said on her podcast, this is helpful for us menopausal women. You know, like it's super important to go. Okay, let's really dig into this. How do we build muscle? What is how much protein do I need to build muscle? How often should I be working out? How often should I be lifting? You know, increasing my weights, you know, is 20 minutes not enough is an hour too long. So ladies, this is what we're getting into today, we're gonna get into the nitty gritty of weightlifting and exercise. And I'm super happy that I found my guest today. Well, he kind of found Yeah, he found me actually. And he approached me and he wanted to do some ads on my podcast. And I was like, yes, because his stuff super aligned with mine. I knew that my audience would all could very easily be his audience as well. So we connected and then he asked me to be on his podcast and I was like, you've got to come on my podcast. So let me introduce you to my new friend, Philip Pape. He's a certified nutrition coach, mindset specialist, strength training expert and host of the Wits & Weights podcast. Through his personal journey of weight loss and strength Philip learned about evidence based nutrition, resistance training and body composition. He started sharing what he learned through the Wits & Weights podcast and eventually nutrition coaching. Philips approach emphasizes sustainability, consistency and mindset. Each person's path is unique and his mission is to help you balance optimal health with the zest for life without excessive dieting, cardio or food restrictions. Yay. Philip helps working professionals with busy lives, burn fat, get lean, feel energized and project confidence in their career and relationships as founder and head nutrition coach of Wits & Weights nutrition and health coaching. You can find Phil at wits & weights.com. So welcome Phil up.

Philip Pape 04:41

Thank you Karen so much. I'm really excited to be on the show and have this conversation with you. Yes.

Karen Martel 04:49

And okay, so what I love number one about you, Philip is you're not one of these people that came. This came naturally to Do you see a lot of that, you know, when you go on YouTube and you're looking for exercise programs or you're online trying to find an exercise program, and majority of it, you're seeing these women and men that are freaking shredded. And they're just like, and they're, you know, 1% of the population. It was like they came out of the womb lifting weights shredded, because it's just genetically that's their thing. They can very easily have these physiques. You were not like that.

Philip Pape 05:33

That's why I'm trying to get them. But yes, you.

Karen Martel 05:39

So tell us your story of how you got into this.

Philip Pape 05:44

Yeah, I guess it's more of the the average Joe type of story, which I think is relatable to a lot of people. As I was growing up, I was an active kid growing up in South Florida, we played outside a lot, but I was never in sports. And I was never into fitness. And frankly, my diet was never very good. And as I grew up, I started to gain weight, went to college and gain the sophomore 30 You know, the freshman 15 For me as a sophomore, 30. And, you know, I always chalk things up to genetics, like you said, I wasn't genetically blessed in any way overweight, most of my family struggled with weight. We had our disease, we had diabetes in the family. And I think most people walk around thinking, Okay, this is my lot in life, there's really a small envelope that I can actually improve within that I'm not going to be like you said these fitness influencers with a six pack that are totally jacked. And I spent probably two decades through my 20s and 30s, trying to figure it out, not really succeeding, but learning everything that didn't work, which is valuable. And I cycled through all the diets. I did Atkins back in the day I did. I went through paleo, my paleo phase, keto, a whole bunch of weird diets that I can't even remember that I did leading up to my wedding just told me Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And every time I did, I would look in the mirror and say, Okay, I lost weight. But what is that doing? For me, I'm just skinnier, more guns pasty version of myself, and I don't feel good. I don't look good. I don't like take my shirt off at the pool. Like, and these are important things for people, you know, in your 20s, just the vanity side of it, we can't under under estimate in our in terms of our body image. And let alone as we get older into our 30s and realize the other health effects that these things have, you know, things like blood pressure, and so on. So I, I went through these all these phases of what's the next big thing? What's the next quick fix that's going to do it? In parallel, I was not working out very much through my 20s. I tried machines at the gym, I tried cardio, you know, my idea of fitness, like most people was, move as much as you can and eat as little as you can. Right? That's the standard formula. And throughout my 30s I actually did do CrossFit. And I have to say that CrossFit turned me on to barbells, that, you know, I had, I had no comfort level whatsoever before then in the gym, near dumbbells or barbells, whatsoever. So it turned me on to, to barbells, to Olympic weightlifting, and to kind of working out hard, you know, getting that conditioning and see what it feels like to push yourself. So for all of its faults, it did that. But I still felt like I was stalling for years, I still felt like the the physique and the body composition wasn't there. If I lost or gained weight, it was primarily due to diet. But I'd have much muscle. And then when I turned 39, so this was just a few years ago, I vowed to get in the best shape of my life. By the time I was 40. You know, I said I'm gonna give myself a year. So start to figure it all out. And I talked to my coach, I had a coach at the time at the same gym. He's a strength and conditioning coach. They said, We got we've got to stop all the bootcamp stuff, and you got to focus on strength. I'm like, Yeah, but doesn't that mean I'm only working out three days a week and, you know, it doesn't look like as far as volume, how could I possibly nope, that's what you got to do. That's gonna work. Let's go figure it out. So he programmed some, some basic compound moves from movements for me, we'll get into that, you know, compound movements, with barbells in the gym to get stronger. So I started to do that. Not the high rep, high volume stuff, but low rep, very heavy barbell based training, maximum effort, you know what it feels like to workout hard, and then adding weight over time to get stronger. And we can get into some of those details in a bit. CrossFit wasn't doing that for me because they don't focus on progression over time. That then I realized the next revelation would have been nutrition. So up till now I realized I could get stronger, and then I needed to feed the muscles to get stronger. But I probably went a little bit overboard. I probably gained quite a bit of weight while doing that.

Karen Martel 09:55

You're like, I'm gonna start walking. That's what it was. Yeah.

Philip Pape 09:59

Got a book, I was drinking whole milk. Okay, I was eating whatever right the seafood diet as they say. And I probably gained 30 pounds in like six months. And you know if I'm around 180, so that's a decent amount of weight again. And but but I but actually I was feeling better I was feeling stronger I was I was lighter on my feet, you know, I was being able to I was able to play with my kids in a way that didn't tire me. So I knew there were some benefits here even though I was getting a little bit fluffy. And so this was around 2020, the pandemic lockdowns occurred. And I had time now to kind of focus on learning and studying and reading listening to podcasts like yours. And listening to the evidence based experts talk about nutrition strength training, flexible dieting protein, you know, the the right rep ranges, all of these things, and I just dove in headfirst and learned as much as I could, and finally started to get it and figure out what the things I was missing. Some of the things we can get into today. And come late 2021, I made significant progress is in the best shape of my life as I get, I finally had decent body composition finally had some muscle. And I'm like, I want to tell people about this. I like to talk a lot. So how did I do that? I'm not a huge fan of writing a lot. So forget the blog. Let's go with the podcast. And that's how I started the Wits & Weights podcast in late 2021. And then fortuitously, one of my listeners who was also a co worker of mine, she was a powerlifter. And she came on my show, she was one of my earliest interviews. And afterwards, she said, You know, I learned so much in a week of binging your show, compared to what I had learned in years of lifting and nutrition. And I think you make a good coach. So that kind of gave me the bug to pursue nutrition coaching, became certified. And now I help people doing that as well and come on to podcasts like yours. And I think that's why I'm here today.

Karen Martel 12:00

Wow, oh my gosh, I see so many parallels between you and I like my story is so similar, but it's like the female version, trying you know, all the different diets and, and then thinking that CrossFit, it wasn't called CrossFit was identical to CrossFit, though, thinking that that was the answer that you know, what if I, if I really pushed it and did these, like super hardcore CrossFit like workouts, then for sure, I'm going to lose the weight, and trying paleo and Atkins and keto and vegan and all of these things, and just not coming up with results. And I feel like I did this dance for, oh my gosh, probably 15 years before I finally got went, Oh, this is not working. This is not what my body needs. And I had to go on a completely different path at that point than you did. Because that's what my body needed. But now come the last few years, I've gotten back into it and been like, Okay, how do I do this now for real? Like, and how do I sustain it? So I think, you know, I think you need to share with us what you feel was kind of, you know, you're a mindset specialist. So in this last two years, what really shifted in the mind to get you to do this, like isn't, stay with it? And, you know, did you just because you started seeing results, or just the education or you figured out how to do it, right? Like, what really got you to go this is it and I'm going to stick with it.

Philip Pape 13:38

Yeah, that's, that's always a great question. Because in hindsight, you can see, you can find key moments that might have caused the breakthrough. And in reality, in the moment, it was a combination of education, awareness and hard work. And when I say hard work, I don't mean to turn people off to the idea that, Oh, this is going to be a struggle. I actually mean that in the positive way in that once we start seeing those results from the process, and you know, process works, it literally is a matter of okay, repeating the process over and over again, and then refining it from there. So things like you mentioned cardio. For years, the mode of exercise, for me was running, lots of cardio, biking, running, rowing, and even the cardio conditioning. And I always thought, Okay, we need to burn calories. And then I read a book by Henry Ponsor, it was I think it's called Burn came out a few years back, which was about a different way to look at metabolism, not in the Okay, the more you move, the more you burn, but our bodies adapt, and there's not a lot you can do about that from an exercise perspective. But if you have more muscle mass, you can burn more calories. And that was just one of those little revelations that came along. I said, huh? So you're saying to people the same size in the same way, the person that has greater fat free mass simply burns more calories 23 hours a day when they're not extra? sizing. And it's those little revelations over time and starting to open your mind to, oh, I actually need twice as much protein as I've ever eaten before. That sounds crazy. Isn't that gonna hurt my kidneys? Or is it going to cause other problems? You know? No, those are myths. But until you look into it until you understand what the evidence says, You don't know that it works. So this is kind of a long winded answer. No, it's right. Yeah. But but it really is awareness and education I tried to do with my clients from day one is why do we do this? Why does it work? What does the evidence say? So that you buy in and you say, Okay, well, I can't argue with facts. Now. I just need to do it.

Karen Martel 15:39

Yeah, exactly. I used to think that if only I could become a runner, then I would be thin. I did a whole blog post on it was one of my first blog posts because I had that belief for so many years. And I would think, Okay, I'm just gonna get out there, I'm gonna start running every day would last like two days. And I'd be like, I hate it. They hate running. But I thought that that's how I could be thin. And I think women are so stuck still, in the headspace of cardio is key. Even though they've been hearing so much more than weightlifting, so important. And I think there's a blockage. Do you tell me if you think there's a blockage? Like when you're working with female clients? Do you not think that even though they're hearing so much about weight lifting weights, they still have this like subconscious belief that lifting heavy is going to make them bulky, that it's not like how is it that that's going to help them lose weight, if they're not sweating and running for an hour on a treadmill?

Philip Pape 16:41

I do get that. Although, right from our very first conversation, I think I try to let them know who I am and what I think and a lot of people that I meet clients, they come through listening to the podcast, for example, and, and they have that level of trust and knowledge. And fortunately, the knowledge is is disseminating more than in the past. Like I think the the noise of the fitness industry is starting to get some clarity with with these. But having said that, yes. If you have more clients, they love to do their Pilates and yoga and tennis and peloton and all the other things and like, okay, we can still do those. We have to dial it back. You know, let's think about how much we lift versus how much we run. And what do we care about? What do we prioritize? And let's do that. I'm not going to cut out something completely for you enjoy it. But like if you said, if you're just running because you think it's the right thing to do, but you hate running. We're not going to run anymore at all.

Karen Martel 17:33

Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. So ideally, let's start kind of getting into the nitty gritty now myths and facts. Ideally, how much cardio versus weight training should the average woman that's in her 40s and beyond, because we're most of my listeners are in that mid life phase? What do you feel is ideal. As far as that balance goes, if somebody's goal is weight loss?

Philip Pape 18:02

Yes. So if your goal is, whatever your goal is, so I want to be clear whether your goal is weight loss, maintenance muscle building, you're going to want to train roughly the same amount. And it's going to be, you know, sufficient to build muscle and it's gonna be sufficient to retain muscle when you're losing weight. Because we don't just want to lose muscle and fat, we want to lose fat, right want to hold on to that muscle. So simple rule of thumb when you're a beginner, three days a week for about 45 minutes to an hour is what it's going to come out to, if you're doing some big compound lifts, compound lifts being the multi joint movements like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and so on. And cardio should be about half that. So for lifting three hours a week, cardio should be an hour and a half maximum. Ideally, I would say in a fat loss phase, the main form of cardio is going to be walking, right and a lot of people don't realize, okay, you know, walking right? Getting at least 7500 steps a day is correlated with a significant drop in mortality, and increase in ability to lose fat, and a ton of other health benefits. And it's a lot easier than running for most people and more enjoyable. Yeah, it's easy to fit into your day like pacing around the house and parking farther from the store, going up the stairs, just going for a walk for 10 minutes after a meal. And that'll be the primary primary form. But if you want to do other more intense forms of cardio you come from the CrossFit world or something. The next best thing would be high intensity interval training, maybe two or at most three times a week for about 10 to 20 minutes. And that would be the traditional one to two ratio of all out to rest. So for example, if you're gonna do 10 minute session of sprinting, you might sprint for 30 seconds and rest for a minute to a minute and a half. And then do that six times and you're done. Once or you know maybe once or twice Sweet.

Karen Martel 20:01

So if somebody's like, Oh, but I just love running and all I love hit so much is, is it bad to do more? Like, what happens if we're doing more, we're still doing what you say, and we're gonna go, Okay, I'm going to commit to three times a week, 45 minutes of lifting. But now I want to do cardio every day, I want to go for a run for 30 minutes. Is there a detriment to that? Or what starts to happen? Does it take away from the body building in any way?

Philip Pape 20:30

The answer is yes, to an extent. So there's something called the interference effect, which, like many these things, evolve over time, it used to be this this this scary thing, like if you do any cardio at all, you know, you're gonna interfere with your gains, and you know, cardio is gonna kill you or something. But it's a little more moderated than that. If you do a lot of cardio, especially running, you're going to interfere with your lifting in a few ways. Number one is recovery. So a lot of running is you're basically marshaling resources to recover from that stress, that now cannot be devoted to recovering from the stress you put on your muscles, so that they adapt, get stronger and bigger. Another way that interferes with recovery is physically with the joint impacts from running, you know, on your knees, for example, and also the fact that when you run, there's both concentric and eccentric motion involved, just like when you do squats, you go up and down. And that causes soreness. And that also causes recovery, to, again, require resources for recovery from the running more than does for the lifting. And then the last thing that can be a problem is if you run too much, you send your body and endurance signal that's sort of in conflict with the strength building signal, meaning your body is is saying, Hey, I'm an endurance athlete, for lack of a better word, and I need to be efficient with my calories. So this down regulates your metabolism. So it actually has the opposite opposite effect of what we want. A lot of people do cardio and running to burn calories, but too much of it will actually cause your metabolism to decline.

Karen Martel 22:05

Awesome. I love that cn CF, I did not know. And on a hormonal standpoint, I will just add, running is more far more of a stressor than weightlifting is and women in midlife have a lot of issues with cortisol. Naturally, this happens where our cortisol, we typically rise when we're going through perimenopause. So if when we think about it from that stress bucket view, and we're adding, you know, we've got all the all these stressors happening in our life, and then we're adding on top of that excessive amounts of cardio, then it's going to overfill that bucket, and then that stress becomes too much for the body. And when that happens, you can actually develop sarcopenia, so you can start eating away at those muscles that you're trying to build. Yeah. Okay, so here's the million dollar question. When I was on this journey I didn't, I started at the three times a week. So I think that that, you know, for anyone that's listening, that hasn't started out doing any weightlifting, I think that is super ideal. And it's such a great, easy place to start that can be easily committed to like, I think most people can say, Okay, three times a week is doable. I really wanted to take it up a notch. And so I wanted to do five days a week, four to five days a week of lifting. What I have noticed is I can I more so four than five. But I, when I started, I was like, I want to do it five days a week because I want to put even more muscle on is that a problem.

Philip Pape 23:44

So building strength and size requires a certain amount of intensity, which means weight on the bar and a certain amount of volume. And oddly enough, women can tend to handle a little bit more volume than men. And that's why they we sometimes have different rep schemes for women as they get stronger. But as a beginner, you have the capacity to recover very quickly. So if you, if you go three days a week, you can put in the most effort and intensity in that workout and get the most adaptation over the next 48 hours. Then if you were to go four or five days a week and have less of that recovery. So you're actually and for some people, especially as you get older, I mean 60s 70s, two days a week might be ideal, you know, every every third day or something like that. So it's always that we want to do so much we want so much volume, we think more is better. Yes. As you get stronger, and as you get into that intermediate phase, which is usually around six months of really solid intelligent lifting, then you're going to need more more days a week simply because you need long rest periods. And you're working with very high weights and it's just going to take too long in the gym otherwise, so you need to spread it out. Also you need more volume at that level, because you're not increasing the weight every session, you might be increasing it every week or two instead. Oh, so

Karen Martel 25:09

if so, kind of six months or more in, then you can do more days with more intensity, longer between sets.

Philip Pape 25:20

But more rest periods. Yeah, we can get into that as well. All those details. Yep.

Karen Martel 25:24

Okay, awesome. So I'm not doing anything wrong. Because I didn't start that till I was well into it.

Philip Pape 25:31

No, and I and I've done personally, I've done 345 And six day splits. But when I first started, the three days was where you could just put in the most effort. I mean, if you're going five days, what are you doing on those days? So for example, if you're going to squat, are you squatting every day? Are you splitting it up? There, there's a case to be made for splitting it. And then just having much shorter sessions, if it's a time thing, right? But systemically like squats and deadlifts, they're systemically fatiguing. So you'd rather have that rest in between to get the most adaptation?

Karen Martel 26:05

Right, yeah, because that's what I did. I went to less body parts per session. And I did do like two on one off three on one off, like I did split it up, because and I felt like that was needed. And I can really listen to my body now. And I'll be like, Oh, I really feel like I can't work out today, I need to rest I'll be super sore from that workout that I did. So. Okay, I love this. I get really excited. So just rewind a little bit and just share a little bit about what the compounded movements are. Why is it called compounded? Because I'm trying to like, you know, for the people that really have no clue because that's a big part of it to fill up is that women are super afraid. Because they're like, What is this jargon? You know, like, what's compounded exercise? What do they mean? Like, you know, my little nephew the other day, he's 16. And he's been lifting weights, and he's super into it. And I said, Where were you at the gym today? And he was like, Oh, I was there. You know, I, you know, it was it was there an hour later than you? And I was like, Oh, well, I could have used you today because I got, you know, I needed help with my I said, I went up in my shoulder press and I needed help. And he's like, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You had a new PR did? Yeah. I was like PR was PR. He's like, personal record. My 16 year old obviously. It's true. I'm like, yeah, the new PR.

Philip Pape 27:39

lingo. Okay. So, yeah, so compound is just because we're using multiple joints. So compound meaning multiple. That's what it means. Okay, so it's a multi jointed movement. So when you think of what you could do in the gym, you could do something like a squat, which uses multiple joints, hips, and knees and ankles, right? But if you did a barbell curl, or a dumbbell curl uses a single joint, your elbow. So you can kind of reverse engineer any move and say, Is it compound by how many joints are we using? The benefit of compound lifts is they allow you to lift the heaviest weight, using the most muscle mass, and also the biggest muscle fibers in the least amount of time. So it's kind of the dream movement, for getting the biggest bang for your buck with our time in the gym. So with beginners, a very efficient approach is going three days a week, and doing full body every single day, where you're squatting every day, deadlifting every day, and pressing every day, because you can handle that. And you don't need to be doing hip thrusts. Ladies, you don't need to be doing kickbacks. You don't need to be doing any of this isolation stuff, cable work machines, nothing because little bit of humor here, if I have a male client come in and say, hey, I want to get big and strong. Say, all right, we need to get you just strong all around. First we build that base, we're going to squat and deadlift. And a female client says, I want to get tone I want to get bigger but tighter but better legs. Okay, we got to squat and deadlift. It's the same answer, because that's how you use the most muscle mass and get significantly stronger. In a very short period. I'm talking three months, you could probably go from a 557 female waiting, I don't know 161 70 could probably go from 95 pounds on the bar to over 200 in that timeframe. You know, for sets of five, and the compound lifts are the way the way to do that. They're safe. You can use barbells and they, you know, they teach you how to work hard and work toward muscular failure. Yeah,

Karen Martel 29:48

and and it's, I think an inexpensive way to get started at home if you wanted to. Right like you could easily get some heavier dumbbells where you know You could just do squats, chest press, deadlift and shoulder press or all the compounds. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well,

Philip Pape 30:09

there are other movements that are compound movements. Technically, all the variants of those would be compound movements. And also things like a hip hinge like a Romanian deadlift, or vertical pole, like a pull up or chin up is also compound. Right? a bent over row is a compound. So there are a lot of things that are compound movements. And I would always start there before I started adding an accessory movements and isolation movements.

Karen Martel 30:34

Right? What is do the isolation movements, though, eventually have a place and can help to kind of get that more shredded look in the arms, for instance, let's say so some single ones, everybody would be, you know, tricep work, bicep work, hamstring work calves, right?

Philip Pape 30:57

Yeah, I think of it as like layers. So if you are a pyramid, you take the compound lifts will give you the big foundation at the bottom, they will make you strong overall, they'll use multiple muscle groups, every time you work them out, they'll keep things reasonably proportional to your own anatomy and your anthropometry meaning, like, if you do a squat out on the grass, you're gonna move in a certain way, if you lift a barbell, doing that same movement, you're gonna keep everything proportional, right? That's the first layer. The next layer would be things that support those movements. So it might be for example, a close grip bench press to support your triceps in the benchpress. So again, now you're starting to target the tricep a little bit more, because the movement you're doing emphasizes that but it's still using multiple muscle groups. Or another example would be like chin ups, I would tell people work chin ups before they start doing curls. Because that involve your back and your biceps. Right. And that's, that's the second layer. And then the third layer is okay, now I've got extra time. I'm an intermediate lifter, I want to improve my physique. I, you know, I have the extra day in the gym. Let's throw in pearls. So that's kind of the approach I take. Oh,

Karen Martel 32:09

I like that a little layered a stallion, we'll call it. Yeah.

Philip Pape 32:14

So you stack it stacked and get jacked.

Karen Martel 32:17

Nice. Oh, I like that. Put that as a little tagline in our for this interview? Hey, you said you know, three months, you can get results. However, I don't think many people do because they're not pushing themselves hard enough. So when it comes to how often should we be adding weight to that barbell? For instance? Like, if I can push out 10 And I'm struggling at 10? Is that a sign that I need to put more on? Like what how many reps should we be able to get to before failure in order to see results in three months and get some muscle built?

Philip Pape 33:04

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. Right. So this is a this is a debated topic, because it does depend on whether you're going to use barbells dumbbells or what have you. And it would be my preference for someone who's new to use barbells. But I know that we don't have always have access to those, or a gym with barbells. Or we can't do that at our home gym. So then I would say dumbbells are the next best option. The challenge with dumbbells is going to be they get unwieldy as they get heavier, right. Like to get them into place for certain movements like a benchpress. Very much. So yeah, you risk you know, pulling your shoulder, your elbow and things like that. Whereas a barbell, you just unrack it. The other thing is it's hard to jump in weight, the amount you want with a dumbbell, because you either need, you need all the dumbbells first of all, and if you're not super strong yet, you don't want to make necessarily five pound jumps when you need to make a two and a half pound jump. Right? And so then you have to like look at getting microplate magnets or something like that. These are like little hacks, but let's just simplify it and talk about barbells. The first workout you ever do, you're going to pick a weight that you think is reasonable, whatever that is, I don't care, it might be too light for you that day. And our goal is to do a fixed set of reps and sets. So we're not working in rep ranges as a beginner. Like we're not working eight to 12 or six to eight we're saying alright, we're going to do three sets of five squats Monday, Wednesday, Friday for the indefinite future. That first day you come in, you put 95 pounds on the bar and three sets So five, yeah, that was no problem. Okay, great. So the next time you're gonna put five, maybe 10 pounds for, if I see that it's easy for you go up by 10, which is roughly 10%, cheer up to 105. No problem, then you have to 115. Okay, now it's starting to get hard. Alright, maybe we start making five pound jumps here, after maybe a month of that, now you're pushing upper one hundreds. And this is really hard, I don't think I could get all three set, no, you can get all three sets, because that's what we're doing. We're getting all three sets of five squats, like you've been doing every session. But next week, we're gonna go up by two and a half. So kind of logarithmically scales, right, you kind of go up 10% And maybe 5%, or maybe two and a half. But the goal is to never miss a rep. And you go in thinking, I'm never gonna miss a rep, it's a mindset thing, you're not going to miss a rep. And, you if you understand the reasons we fail reps, you'll do the things ahead of time to not miss a rep. Okay? So it's not really about feel, it's not about is this feeling hard, it's you are getting the three sets of five. And because you got it, you're gonna get a little stronger. Over the next 48 hours, your body's gonna adapt, and you're gonna be able to get five pounds more next time, because you got stronger. Same thing over and over repeated again and again until you start plateauing months down the line. Now, what are the three things that can cause us to fail reps? Number one, you're not taking long enough rest periods. So we talked about that earlier. A lot of people think 30 seconds is enough. I don't know what your experiences Karen, but 30 seconds to a minute. Let's just go to the next set, I just want to get this done, I would say you need at least two to three minutes. And after about a month or two of strength gains, probably three to five minutes between those compound lifts. Because you want to get all the reps, I don't want you to sweat or get sore, that's not the point. Or just to get it done. It's to get all the reps. So that's number one. Rest. Number two is recovery between workouts. So this goes back to don't do a crazy amount of cardio, eat enough food, get enough sleep, manage your stress. Now, it is pretty much a fact that you can't, most people cannot build much muscle unless you are at least at maintenance calories or in a surplus. But if you're very overweight, or if you're brand new, I definitely have seen people gain muscle even in a diet. So that that gets into the nuances of which direction do we go? If a client is coming to me and is 30 pounds overweight, is struggled with weight for years, and she just wants to feel better by getting that quick win. I'm not going to force her to start gaining weight, you know, to build muscle necessarily. On my mind, I'm like that might be the ideal thing to do. You're not going to like gaining another 10 pounds before we lose 30 pounds. Yes, that's tough. Yeah. So that mindset. So rest between sets, recovery between workouts. And then the last thing is not making jumps that are too big. So if you have all those in your mind, if you listen to your body, and you start jumping week to week, taking your session to session, taking the right rest and having the right recovery, you should be able to string that up for three to six months and get significantly stronger.

Karen Martel 38:10

Okay, so let me get this right. So when we want to, you know, let's say we need to get to five, we're doing five reps, how many times are we doing that? Three sets of five, three sets of five for a squat? It's so it's not about like, Was that too easy? It's more about making sure you're adding weight to that on a weekly basis.

Philip Pape 38:39

No on a session by session basis. Oh,

Karen Martel 38:41

out. Okay. Yes,

Philip Pape 38:43

yeah. That's progressive overload, right? Let's just throw the phrase out there in case people are familiar. That's what we mean by progressive overload, you're, it's kind of a misnomer, because you're not really overloading beyond what you can handle. You're loading just to the limit of what you can handle in that session. And then your body adapts to that because you said hey, I need to handle heavyweight body. And your body says, Okay, let's grab the protein. Let's break it into amino acids and build muscle tissue and make it a little bit stronger. And then two days later, you come back. Oh, now I can lift five more pounds.

Karen Martel 39:17

And just to be clear, so in case I talk to my nephew again, would that be po progressive overload? Is that? Is there an acronym for that? No, no. Okay. So it shouldn't be like, Hey, did you pee? Oh, today?

Philip Pape 39:33

You never know. Right?

Karen Martel 39:35

Okay, well, I just want to get this right the slang right. So it can be cool to my my young nephews. Okay, I don't do that. Oh my gosh. Okay. That's very cool. And I'm really excited about it. So each day of the week, we're going up in weights.

Philip Pape 39:55

Yeah, so if we're squatting, it's going to be every time if we're deadlift then we're probably not going to do three sets because it's so fatiguing on the body that you might do one set. And after a few weeks or maybe a month, you might alternate deadlifts with another pole like pull ups, because it's just so fatiguing you, this is where we have to balance recovery and stress.

Karen Martel 40:18

Right, and I guess when you're working with this is where you can come in to like, where it's so valuable to work with a trainer because like, I wasn't doing this on my own, you know, and to have somebody there, that's gonna say, Okay, that looks like, you know, it was really, we're really struggling. So we're going to now pair this with, you know, a chin up or whatever, you know, to watch what we're doing and to tweak it however necessary at that time. I think that that's definitely take somebody a trainer, when you're starting out to help you with that. But that's so cool. Okay, so we're going up every session. And if need be, you're waiting three to five minutes between sets, right? If it was part, yeah, ideally, yeah. Probably. Yeah. Ideally,

Philip Pape 41:07

it's as long as you need to get all the reps,

Karen Martel 41:11

right. And if you don't, let's say you're doing that squat, and you can only do three,

Philip Pape 41:20

then you just can't. And that's where it's like, we have to play the mind game and the thought experiment, say, Okay, we, our goal is never to miss reps. We don't go in and getting three. So what do we need to do ahead of time to get to be successful next time in the gym? And it might be, well, we only go up by two and a half pounds this time, or might be, hey, we need to, we need to get more sleep. Because we're only getting six and a half hours, we need to get seven or seven and a half. Little things like that before we start saying I'm just not getting stronger and plateauing. Right? Yeah. And you see the same thing when it comes to dieting and other things like we look at biofeedback. And we try to bounce get the whole system in balance before we make drastic moves and say, okay, you've got a medical condition, or you've got something else going on. I do want to address Karen, the other thing is, so a lot of my clients don't necessarily follow and don't necessarily use barbells, because they don't have access to them. And they don't necessarily have to do sets of five, right? So you are saying you don't do that you do probably rep ranges, maybe you work eight to 10 reps, or dumbbell movement. So for dumbbells that actually makes more sense, because you don't want to go extremely heavy with dumbbells just Yeah, I can. We'll do. Yeah. So that's okay. And as long as the the goal is to get close to muscular failure, right, so if you're doing a compound movement, that's usually two to three reps shy of failure. A beginner doesn't really know where that is, though, let's be honest, they really don't know, because the beginner doesn't know their maximum strength, they can't express that yet, they don't have the training, they don't have the experience, they don't have the form. So in that case, if your rep ranges eight to 12, I would say your first set should definitely be no more than 12. Right. And if if you get to 12, you're like I can keep going keep going. But know that that was too late, right? So your first set should be no more than 12. And your last set should be no less than eight, right. And if every set is around 11 or 12, then you're going to increase the weight next week, you're going to increase or the next time, you're going to keep doing it just like we do with the barbells until one of those sets can't get to eight. So one of those sets comes out at seven. And that's absolutely the last one you can do. That is where you do a reset. That is where you say I'm now going to go back down to a weight. That's a little bit more for 12 than I did before.

Karen Martel 43:49

Just because we're limited with dumbbells.

Philip Pape 43:53

Well, this is more of the double. This is called double progression where if we're working in a rep range, I don't want you to try to hit 10. Exactly, I'd rather you push with the dumbbells. So it's going to be in a range. That's why we have the range. But my point is if you get you're going to increase the weight each session, if you then have a session where one of those sets is seven and you can't get eight, then you hit your limit. And the next week you're going to reduce the weight on the dumbbells, but it's going to be higher than the last time you got 12 You know what I mean? So if you started Yes. 1520 2530 And now you hit your limit. And last time you did 15 pounds for 12 will now go for 20 for 12. Right? For 12. Yeah microplates. Yeah,

Karen Martel 44:42

great. Those are little nuances. That's awesome. I love that. Yeah, I definitely I was doing everything from home and I got I have a barbell I got a rack that dumbbells, but I did 100% get to a point where I was became limited with what I was used. Same as, especially with the dumbbells, I as a woman I did, I used to do massage therapy. So I don't have strong hands, just to pick up the dumbbell that I needed to do a chest press with became, I couldn't do it. And same with even just, you know, bent over rows, I was like, I can't this is this is too little too late for me. And so I had to go to the gym, where I could get access to people helping me and supporting me and being able to do the barbell with help. And instead of doing dumbbells, and so I did have to go to the gym eventually, if I wanted to continue building the muscle, and it definitely helped me to jump up. And so I think those that are listening, I think, you know, you can get limited from home. I think yeah,

Philip Pape 45:50

it's about maximizing versus get it's progress is progress. So I agree doing any form of strength training is going to get you stronger and build muscle, but it just may take a lot longer than you'd like, unless you're pushing it with the right tools. And in this case, that would be barbells, for example, or it could be certain cable machines and things like that, where you can load them heavy, but barbells are the safest way to go.

Karen Martel 46:14

Yeah, I feel like with this was like, I feel like I just got like a secret for everybody. Because I just just that just how to do this, I think this is so awesome. Because most women that you speak to will tell you that they're doing what I was doing, which is 12 reps, you know, three sets of 12. And you know, they're making sure that they get so that it's a little bit tough, but they're never going beyond that, you know, 10 pound 15 pound dumbbell, it's just like we have this block or something I think a lot of us do. And it's you get into routine, really. And so knowing that you should should be putting an emphasis on putting weight on maybe every session, like you said, there's nuances to that. But that this weight is always increasing, I think that is so key, because most people don't get results within three months. And they and then they give up because they're like, I'm not seeing any difference. I'm not losing weight I'm done. You know, this is and they can't stick to it. So knowing that, oh, this is a different way to make sure that we are progressively building muscle. And that we could see results in as little as three months. And I know you're not saying like we're going to be bikini models in three months or anything. But just knowing that as a goal to keep in mind, like, because when you get started working out, it can be really hard to stick with it and build up this new habit. So knowing like, okay, but you know, in three months, I could start seeing results. I feel like that's really encouraging for the people that are just starting out.

Philip Pape 47:54

Yeah, totally agree. Yes. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I did CrossFit for eight years. And if anybody listening you know about CrossFit, there's a lot of barbell work, right? There's an Olympic lifts, and there's deadlifts and all that, but doesn't use this progressive overload. So you kind of tap out pretty quickly, you get little stronger, just naturally, but you don't your weight kind of plateaus for years. And then it wasn't until I said, Okay, I need to do it this other way that I realized within months, you know, I took my squat from like, what was it 215 to 315. In a few months. It's a huge jump for a male to do that. Of course, I haven't taken it much more than that since then, because you start to plateau, but I'm happy where I got.

Karen Martel 48:36

Okay, so the next million dollar question, protein, how much protein does do we need to be doing this style of muscle growth, where we're really putting an emphasis on putting more weight on and we're not wanting to balk, but we need to feed the muscle. And if we're in this extreme caloric deficit, you just can't get enough protein in. So how do we balance this? How did it how can we keep losing weight, get enough protein in and put muscle on?

Philip Pape 49:09

Yeah, Protein Protein is like the anchor macronutrient. It's the one that we peg the rest of our nutrition to. It's the one that we pick first, and we target first. And whether you're gaining weight or losing weight, the protein needs are about the same. So on a diet, it makes it harder because now you're sacrificing fats and carbs. When you're building, it's usually not as difficult. So the amount of protein we need, the quick rule of thumb is one gram per pound. So that's whatever you weigh. Take a gram per pound. The more nuanced answer is. There's a range between point seven and one that's considered optimal for most people, maybe even a little more when you're losing weight, and it's based on your target weight. So if you're very overweight, let's say you're 250 and your goal weight is 190. I'm going to have you shoot pretend that you're 190 pounds and base your protein off of that. So what I find is, especially for women, they tend to be under eating protein by roughly half, that's usually what I see. Yeah, so 160 pound female should be eating at least around 140, you don't have to get all the way to the one gram. And she's usually eating around 60 to 80. Right. And that's what happens when you just when you don't eat a lot of meat, but you eat some meat, and you usually don't have much protein with breakfast, and you're not having a lot of snacks. Or if you'd like intermittent fast, something like that. You just can't cram in all that protein, unless you intentionally do it. So every single plant I have struggled with this when they come in. And every single client I have this is one of our primary priorities from week one is getting that protein where it needs to be. And we talk about things like meal planning for that. So if you need to get I mean cared, if you need 160 grams of protein, you don't want to cram those into two meals, right? That's 80 grams. So by definition, do the math you need to eat four or five times a day. But one or two of those might just be a protein shake, or a small snack with dairy if you eat dairy, you know, like cottage cheese or Greek yogurt or something like that. And it's just simple math. And once you do that, you satisfy your protein requirements, no matter what your goal is, you get your enough protein for the day, and you spread it out evenly. You're good.

Karen Martel 51:25

Is there a? Is there an amount that we shouldn't go over per meal? As far as protein goes?

Philip Pape 51:31

There's no so there's no limit to protein per meal per day? Absolutely not. There used to be some concern about kidneys and whatnot. All of that is is a myth.

Karen Martel 51:41

Wow. Okay. And something that one of my trainers told me, she said, Because I said, I have trouble getting in that much protein because I'm not hungry. So I'll prioritize protein, and then find that by the end of the day, I still haven't eaten enough, but I'm not hungry. So it's hard. It was really hard for me. And she said, as you start lifting more, and then your hunger will go up. And so then the need for protein will increase. But so is that, you know, if we're listening to our body, we're not trying to overfeed ourselves. Correct?

Philip Pape 52:16

Right with the protein has been within our calorie needs, depending on what our deficit requirement or surplus requirement is.

Karen Martel 52:24

Okay. And so I would think especially doing this kind of style of workout that you're talking about, I could really see then that, yes, hunger would start to increase. And so the first and foremost thing to be eating is the protein because that's telling your body's telling you, you need more protein, because you're hungry.

Philip Pape 52:44

Yeah, that's a good point. And protein has a lot of benefits that are associated with that. One is protein is the most satiating macronutrient. So it will fill you up the most, which would explain why somebody trying to eat a lot would get fuller, more easily. But it's a good thing when you're dieting it helps. The second thing is it has the highest thermic effect of feeding. So it burns the most calories when being digested compared to the other macros. So just eating more protein burns more calories. And then what was the third thing? I can't remember off the top? But that's good enough for now.

Karen Martel 53:19

Yeah. And so with your clients and what you're seeing, even just with your own experience, and what's out there, how do we lose weight? Are we is it? Is it that we're just putting on muscle, we don't really have to pay attention as as long as we're eating healthy, we're getting a protein requirement. Do we need to be in still a caloric deficit to lose the fat part?

Philip Pape 53:47

Yeah, what what is our goal can't so this is where we can pick a scenario is this someone who feels that they're 20 to 30 pounds overweight, and they're trying to lose weight? Yeah. And so if it were a male client, and I said, Let's build muscle first, they'll listen to me, and let's just do it, a female clinic, and they'll lose 20

Karen Martel 54:05

pounds in a week without even trying. So let's just hear women are different.

Philip Pape 54:09

It's totally the opposite. So man, I struggle to have them getting away. But for women, what we would do first is, before we do any fat loss, we're gonna get you into a maintenance phase and discover your true maintenance calories and get some of these skills in place. So the most important skills for me are going to be enough protein training and steps. Okay, there are other things like sleep and stress that are also important, but it depends on the individual, you may have those handled. But if it's a big red flag that might pop to the top of the list. So once those are in place, and you're at maintenance for anywhere from two to four weeks, usually, and we see what your typical calorie burn is that we know that deficit is required to lose weight. So you have to be in a deficit to lose weight period. That's just energy balance. You know, this, I know is a rhetorical question, but

Karen Martel 54:57

no, no, but no, but yeah, I think It's good to remind people I'm

Philip Pape 55:01

good, my people. So then let's say you're you burn 2000 calories a day, that's your metabolism, and you want to lose weight, you want to lose about 20 or 30 pounds, you're gonna want to lose it at a reasonable rate of a quarter to 1% of your weight per week. So if let's just for number, say you starting at 200 pounds, so you could go up to two pounds a week, that's going to be tough in terms of the calorie deficit. So in the middle, let's say a pound a week. So a pound a week is about 3500 calories week, divided by seven, it's 500 calories a day. So your deficit is going to be 500 calories. So if your metabolism is 2000, you need to be eating 1500. And I'm sure a lot of women listening or are familiar with numbers like 1600 1200 calorie diets, even the very restrictive 800, which is crazy. Yeah. So 1500, I think is, is reasonable, if not slightly aggressive. But most people have done that. You take that number, and you start with protein. Now you say, Okay, we need, um, 200 pounds, and I want to get down to 170, I need about 170 grams of protein. So whatever calories that is, you know, multiply it by four your calories, then you go with fat. So fat is typically around 25 30% of your calories. Now, if you come from keto, you're probably used to it being like 50, or 60%. But guess what happens if you do that now you crowd out your carbs completely, which is going to be detrimental when we're trying to retain muscle or even build muscle. So that's, that's been a discussion about carbs. We need carbs for recovery. And we need it for glycogen when we work out. That's the main purpose. Even though our brain doesn't, even though our body, it's not essential, right? Carbs are not essential. You learn this with keto that you don't have to ingest any carbs and you can survive. But when we're trying to build muscle retain muscle, we need them. So if you've got Yeah, sorry

Karen Martel 56:55

to interrupt, but I just heard this great saying with this guy was like, Yeah, carbs aren't essential. However, that doesn't mean they're necessary that they're not necessary. It just means that you could survive without them. It doesn't mean there's not purpose to them.

Philip Pape 57:10

Right? Isn't there not optimal, and so on? Yeah, so if you're on 1600 calories, and you have 170 grams of protein, and then whatever the fat comes out to be, you're probably going to be in the one hundreds for carbs, which is not really, it's not keto. And it's not even low carb in some people's minds, right? It's going to be enough to to give you the energy you need. So that's the formula. One A lot of people do when they diet those, they don't eat enough protein. And so now they're trying to make up for it with fats and carbs. And they're just under eating in general. Yeah,

Karen Martel 57:41

yeah. Or they're eating and then they're eating too many carbs, just trying to meet that protein threshold that their body wants. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then once again, everybody, there's nuances to that. So don't take it as it's written in stone, I always like to say we're all individual. Because if somebody's not lifting, then they should probably be still prioritizing protein 100%. But they probably shouldn't be eating as many carbs in my world, like, not try. I don't I don't, not one for like, Let's go below 50 Every single day. And being that keto, I think that that's super detrimental. Yeah, I agree. Some nuances there

Philip Pape 58:25

sedentary, a lot of these rules change. But it also, if you're talking truly sedentary and not doing any resistance training, is going to be hard to avoid losing muscle if you're on a diet as well. You know, that's, I mean, honestly, every one of my clients, I've got to have them trained. Like, I've even thought of having that as a prerequisite to getting clients because I think it's so important that you do that.

Karen Martel 58:49

Yeah, I know, I wish I could as well. A membership group, like I do these weekly meal plans inside my membership group, and there's always at least 150 members in there. And it's so hard for me to decide what the macros are going to be each day. Because there's such a wide variety, I have some women that are coming in that's that don't have an exercise for years, and they're sedentary. And then it's like ooh, or they're, you know, insulin resistant or type two diabetic. We have these problems. But then you have the next woman who's working out five days a week, who's putting on muscle, and she's like, 1500 calories. That's not enough, Karen, I need to eat more than that. I work out a lot. And then I'll have some people come in and be like, Oh, you've got more than 50 grams of carbs in this diet. I can't do that. I've been keto for two years. I'll put on five pounds overnight if I do eat like that. So it's like, oh, it's so frustrating for me because it's, I want to be able to have each person create their own but yeah, you know, yeah, so it's always challenging. Yeah, yeah. So I think it's just important. for everybody to know, you have to make it your own. And listen to this formula that Philips talking about and apply that to yourself. And then you may just if you're getting a meal plan from somewhere, whether it's from me or somewhere else that you adjust it to meet those needs for you. That's super key.

Philip Pape 1:00:17

Yeah, yeah. And I think meal planning is a good skill to develop on your own as well. Because it helps you avoid decision making in the moment, it actually helps with emotional eating helps with overeating, in that you can, like if today is Tuesday, tomorrow's Wednesday, go ahead and plan out your day and make it fit these numbers and see what it takes to do that, you might find it very difficult. And that's why you're struggling every day to hit it in the moment because you can't even do it on paper, you know, ahead of time, of course, it's going to be impossible to do in the moment. So let's, let's play the game of Tetris. And let's figure out how to move things around or go with a low fat version of dairy instead of a full fat or, you know, add some more meat here and take something out here and so on. Yeah, I think that's a good skill.

Karen Martel 1:00:59

That's great. Great, great, great. Okay, so mindset. Last couple questions here. You know, that's probably everybody's biggest failure, as far as working out goes is they have that, that their mindset hasn't changed. So then they get into these programs, and you know, a month in, they fall off the old wagon. And next thing, you know, they haven't worked out and I did this everybody, I did this, like, I feel like my entire life, the start, stop, stop, start stop when it came to working out because of so many different things that would just be like, oh, yeah, I'm tired today. I don't want to work out. So how can you give us some pointers? For those women that find it tough to stick to? What would you say to somebody that has a hard time sticking to working out.

Philip Pape 1:01:55

So this is where, of course, of course, you're gonna have to ask the why, right? Because the reason is going to be different. But this is where I think controlling your environments, and maybe a concept like habit stacking could be helpful, just a couple things that come to mind. So controlling your environment, meaning if your reason you're not going to the gym is because it's early in the morning, you get out of bed, you're like oh nine to get my gym clothes, and my protein powder, and this and that, and it's cold outside, and then I have to jump like, forget it snooze. Well, maybe you take the day before you work out, or you're fresh and you know, excited. You put your gym bag together, you grab your blender bottle, you get everything set up, put it near the door. And then the next day, when you wake up, you're like, you know, that'd be way too much work to undo everything I just did. Let me just go to the gym. It's kind of controlling your environment, right to reduce friction. Another thought is habit stacking. It's a cool concept. I think that came from atomic habits, the book atomic habits, where you pick a thing that you really enjoy, and couple it with the thing that you don't enjoy as much. And only allow yourself to do the thing you don't enjoy, or the thing you enjoy with that. So that could be like, I'm gonna watch streaming while I get my steps on the treadmill. And I'm not gonna allow myself to watch unless I go on the treadmill, or things like that, I can't think of an example. I'll

Karen Martel 1:03:12

give you a map because that that was one of my biggest blocks was, I had so much work to do. And I could I just was like, I was so addicted to working, that it was so hard for me to pull away and have this block of time to go work out because I'd be like, Oh my gosh, I have so much to do today. I can't even I don't have time for working out. And so I decided that that's an excuse. And so I'm like, I'm gonna I didn't know it was called habit stacking. I'm gonna have it stack. I didn't say those words. But, and I started in between my sets because I was lifting pretty heavy. I always took a couple of minutes in between sets is I started doing I would agree with putting an agreement with myself, I would say to myself, you can check your email while you work out and respond. And so in between sets, I would I would reply to all my emails, but I had to do so that took away because that's usually the first thing I do when I get to work every day is check emails and respond to them so that I just put them together and it worked out beautifully. And now I don't have a problem oral listen to a podcast teaching me something so that I have this because I think I have a little add or something because I need like that constant stimulate. So if I'm educating my brain as I'm working my body Oh, that's just like the dream team. Right? They're totally, totally good. Yeah, yeah. Mine's going which takes care of that. So I don't feel unsettled there as well as my body's working out. So it really helped with that because it helps with people. I think too that find working boring.

Philip Pape 1:04:54

Yes, yes. And that's the other thing is the boring working out part. It's like again, why are you bored because it's a lack of variety. There's a there's a solution for that. But if it's just like you said, just you just always find it boring. Maybe you stack it with checking your email. Yeah, for sure.

Karen Martel 1:05:10

Oh, I love it. Okay, so tell us now, what it looks like to work with you. How does? What does that? Look? Are we doing weekly check ins? I mean, are you working with only people in person? How does it work? Virtually? Yep. Tell us?

Philip Pape 1:05:25

Yeah, no, it's online only. So I can work with anyone around the world, in the modern day. And basically, we work on getting you through an initial phase that when we prepare your metabolism for fat loss, so most of my clients that come in, they want to lose weight, they want to lose fat. So we want to spend that time up front with a lot of the skills we just talked about, protein steps, and so on. And there's a whole bunch of other little things that I can work with, and tools and resources and guides. And the value of having a coach and Karen understands this and our listeners is the accountability and that extrinsic motivation, because we all want to do this and know we have to do it. But we don't always do it. Having somebody to push you day after day, give you some tough love, whatever communication style works for you can be super helpful and keeping you on path till those things become habits. So you may know you have to get a lot of protein, but you continue to struggle doing it, somebody there's looking over your shoulder and looking at your numbers and having to track, you're probably going to do it. And if you don't do it, we're gonna have a conversation, we're gonna understand why we're gonna say roadblocks remove all the things you just talked about, so that you are successful,

Karen Martel 1:06:37

Philips gonna ground you and you're gonna be in big trouble.

Philip Pape 1:06:42

Whatever your communication styles, it's all good. I try try to be empathetic best I can. And so we go through that phase. And that might be as short as two weeks, it might be as long as four to six weeks. And I don't want to say you necessarily earn your fat loss. But effectively, I don't want you to start losing weight until those other things are in place. Because then it'd be successful training and all those other things. So you get the benefit of of also working with me that I tend to understand training and can give you recommendations and do form checks and all that, then we do the fat loss phase. And that can take whatever it takes for your particular situation, the entire time are focused on not restricting and not cutting out food groups, and not taking away the things you enjoy. But incorporating those at the right level, the right level of restraint and learning skills to manage things like going out on the weekends and social events and so on. Once we're done with that, and hit your target, and you're super happy now we're like what's next? Well, do we maintain our weight? Do we start building muscle, and you might now be inclined to actually gain weight and build muscle because you know, you can control your environment, you can control your, your health. And that's kind of the long and short of it care.

Karen Martel 1:07:52

I love it. I think it's so important. And I think everybody listening needs to ask themselves, you know, what has been your history with working out like when I was honest with myself, and I could see that I was a yo yo exerciser that I would you know, I've always had the eating down, it's always come very easily to me, I eat really well. But the working out did not come easy to me. And it was like I kept waiting for it to come easy. I kept waiting for the energy to want to go work out and the desire to be like, yes, it's looks like so much fun. I want to go work out and do this every day. And it never did. You know, in 40 years, I never got those feelings. And so I had to be very honest with myself. And I want everybody to be honest with themselves and ask what you know yourself. If it's if what you've been doing hasn't worked up until now, then you need to do something different. And that accountability and having somebody watch over your shoulder, as Philip said, is priceless. In my eyes. It really truly is. It's what got me into it for the first time in my life was simply by having a trainer, looking at my food, looking at my workouts and checking in with me on a weekly basis. It was amazing.

Philip Pape 1:09:16

Yeah, and I like to say that if if you can fire me and say six months and be successful for the rest of your life, and I did my job. I don't care that I'm losing a client. You can tell everyone Yeah.

Karen Martel 1:09:28

Oh, yeah, that's that's like what what our goal is, I want you to fire me in six months. There we go. Like that's awesome. Yeah. All right. Well, I think I'm gonna have to have you back. I would love to do a q&a style with you fill out with one from the listeners. You know, everybody can send in their questions and we can set it up for those that are working out or just getting started. And in the meantime, though, you guys you got to check out Philips podcast Wits & Weights I've been listening to Do it. It's great. He's got great information on there. Plus, he's got a really good Facebook group that I'm part of. I also got Philips free gift, which you guys can all go get. Which is it the still the same because I did this months ago it is yes. And Ken. So tell us about what

Philip Pape 1:10:16

that is. It's a 14 day protein power transformation program that will just help you instill those habits of getting more protein.

Karen Martel 1:10:24

Yes, which I think most of us ladies could really use. So go check it out. It was great. I did it. And it definitely helped me to see how else I could be getting some more protein into my diet. So thank you so much, Philip. I am really excited about this new friendship

Philip Pape 1:10:42

to ecstatic this is this is great love. Yes, it was so good.

Karen Martel 1:10:45

All right. I'm gonna have you back again. But thank you so much for coming on the show.

Philip Pape 1:10:50

Thank you, Karen. It's great to be here. 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 12/6/22 Philip Pape 12/6/22

Ep 35: Learn to Enjoy Your Training for Optimal Health and Consistent Results with Paul Hanton

Paul Hanton joined me to talk about different types of training and how to be consistent and get the most enjoyment from your workouts so you can reach your fitness goals. Paul is the owner of Hydra Fitness, a personal training company that helps career-driven men lose weight without giving up spending time with family or friends.

Paul Hanton joined me to talk about different types of training and how to be consistent and get the most enjoyment from your workouts so you can reach your fitness goals.

Paul is the owner of Hydra Fitness, a personal training company that helps career-driven men lose weight without giving up spending time with family or friends.

He is also the podcast host of the Healthy Fit Life podcast, which is focused on educating listeners on how they can improve their health through quick and easy tips to implement in their life.

As a Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach, Paul has helped numerous busy men lose weight and improve their health. Paul was also diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 2014 but has not let that stop him from his fitness goals or enjoying life.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Paul’s background as a coach/trainer and what inspired him to get into fitness
Why people might not enjoy their training
Why people slog through workouts if they don’t enjoy them
The importance of doing some sort of activity for optimal health
What people can do if they don’t enjoy their current training
Alternatives to strength training and ranking those activities
Whether training is required for a specific goal (even if you don’t like it)

RELATED LINKS

Find Paul on Instagram
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Watch the episode on video here

👉 If you have any questions, just click here.

👨‍💻 HOSTED BY

Philip Pape of Wits & Weights (Instagram 👉 @witsandweights)

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:30

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. Joining me today is Paul Hanten. To talk about different types of training, how to be consistent how to get the most enjoyment from your workouts, so you can reach your fitness goals. Paul is the owner of Hydra fitness really cool name. They're a personal training company that helps career driven men lose weight without giving up spending time with family or friends. He's also the podcast host of the healthy Fit Life podcast, make sure to subscribe, which is focused on educating listeners on how they can improve their health through quick and easy tips to implement in their life. As a Certified Strength and conditioning coach, Paul has helped numerous busy men lose weight and improve their health. Paul was also diagnosed with Crohn's disease in 2014, but has not let that stop him from his fitness goals or enjoying life. Paul, it's good to see you again. Thank you so much for joining me on the show.

Paul Hanton 01:24

Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. I enjoyed our previous conversation on my own podcast. So thanks again for inviting me.

Philip Pape 01:29

Yeah, we just we just met, maybe I think it was last week, we had a conversation, a lot about body composition. And today we're going to talk specifically about training. You're an experienced trainer, a coach. And there's kind of a cool angle we're going to take today, which is having to do with people's inspiration and motivation for training, whether they enjoy it different modes of training, all sorts of cool things that I want to get into with you. Before we dive into those, though, just if you could give us a little bit of your background relevant to this as a Coach and Trainer, what inspired you to get into fitness?

Paul Hanton 02:05

Yeah, no, that's a great question. So I've been in fitness in some capacity most of my life. So I did sports growing up. And then I joined the Marines. And then of course, in the Marines, fitness is a really big part of being in the Marines and being a military period. In the Marines. That's when I started working with a trainer actually, and gotten to bodybuilding. And that's when I started to really learn more about fitness and especially nutrition and started actually having a training program and a nutrition plan. And following that, and so ended up over the over the course of several years have done well for bodybuilding competitions. And then I've also because I had such a good experience working with my own trainer, and how much he changed my life. And I was still working with him today. I wanted to give back and help others accomplish their goals. And so I started to be started to training others as well just on the side, giving, you know, free tips and tricks here and there. And then I started personal training as as a business as well later on, but it's really just about help trying to help other people accomplish their goals, like my trainer helped me because he changed my life.

Philip Pape 03:12

Awesome. So the value of coaches and accelerating your learning from that point. Sounds like the bodybuilding background, I could believe it, you know, you seem like extremely fit guy knows what you're talking about. And we have that conversation the other day about the importance of strength training, not only building muscle, but body composition and other things. But not everyone enjoys that mode of fitness, which is hard to believe. It's hard for guys like us, who probably can't get enough where like, I go into the gym eight days a week if I could, right. But so why is it then helped me understand why do some people just dislike or even hate their training?

Paul Hanton 03:51

Yeah, and you brought up a really good point. When I first got into bodybuilding, I loved it, I dove, my my trainer gave me a five day a week program and said eat these things at this time is great. I loved it. I still love it. And but when I became a trainer, that was my thought process, well, strength training is great for you. It's really beneficial for you. Why doesn't everybody do it? And so, but as I started training or clients, I realized I had to make an adjustment in my training methodology that not everyone wants to go to the gym and strength train five days a week, right that and I had to incorporate other methodologies of training because what I'm more focused on is long term health and so I've had to adjust my my mindset around training. I've been putting a lot of thought towards what to do with clients who maybe don't aren't as passionate about strength training as I am but they still want to be active and accomplish their goals or lose weight. And so that led me to this topic we're gonna talk about is why do people hate their training and then what what to do about it?

Philip Pape 04:55

Yeah, and you touched on a point there which strikes me it has to do with consistency. adherence, right? If you don't like what you're doing if you're not going to come into the gym, is, is that worse than, you know, not doing the optimal program? Should we should we come in and be active in some way shape or form versus just sitting around and not doing something simply because we don't enjoy it?

Paul Hanton 05:18

Exactly. That's exactly it activity is beneficial for you. And that's, I'm not going to go into all the details of why being active is so beneficial for you. Right? That's, I think a lot of people, most people understand that conception, right. But I think there's a gap between, okay, you understand that activity is beneficial for you. But then a lot of people just don't do enough activity. And I think a large part of that is because I think especially in the fitness industry, we talk a lot about how beneficial strength training is, which I 100% agree with. But then there's a lot of people that don't enjoy strength training, but they enjoy other things like riding a bike or, or running or swimming. And so I think we're, there's a lot of people that kind of just quit after a month or two months, because we push strength training so much when they don't like it, when it when we really shouldn't be doing we should talk more about is looking long term and trying to incorporate ways that they can have some sort of activity that they enjoy, that they can consistently do it over a long period of time.

Philip Pape 06:20

So before we get to that aspect, you know, you mentioned people will will do it anyway. Maybe they think it's the right thing to do. Or maybe they have a coach that is just kind of stubborn and saying this is the way it is right. Why do people? Why do people push through anyway, they slog through they grin and bear it when it comes to the workouts that they don't enjoy?

Paul Hanton 06:38

Yeah, so I think there's a couple reasons for that one, I think that and especially the social media, or maybe our culture, we kind of push suffering and sacrifice, I see those words tossed around a lot, you got to make sacrifices, you got to suffer through this or you know, you got to show pain, no gain, right? Exactly. No pain, no gain slog through it, just get it done, like all these other words and mantras, etc, etc. And so I think that people take a look at that. And they think, Okay, well, that's what I need to do, right, I need to give blood, sweat and tears in order to accomplish my goals. But the problem is that, if you're not passionate about or you don't enjoy what you're doing, you're not going to do it for a long period of time. And the other aspect is I think we so I'll read a quote from Muhammad Ali that I thought was very, very relevant to this discussion. And so it's a very famous quote, probably heard it before, but he said, I hated every minute of training. But I said, Don't quit suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion, right? And so I think people, people look at that, or professional athletes and say, Okay, well, Ramona, Lee says, I have to suffer through and I hated every minute of training, right? But in reality, Muhammad Ali is a professional, but was professional athlete, right, best of the best a champion. But what people also need to understand is that Muhammad Ali loved boxing, right, he was very passionate about it. And so yes, he may have hated some aspects of training and suffered through it. But he's also very passionate about what he was doing, and he enjoyed it. And I think that's the disconnect a lot of people have is that they look at, you know, professional athletes, or people who take things to the extreme and think, Okay, well, no, they're suffering through that. So I have to suffer as well. But they're ultimately the aspect of will they enjoy it? Right? Just like I enjoy strength training. So I have no problem with going to the gym and going through a workout. Do I enjoy it every single day? No, but I enjoy it overall, most of the time.

Philip Pape 08:34

So what about that initial that initial hesitance? When you're not familiar with the mode of training yet? Right? It could be strength training, it could be anything really, where there's a hump you have to get over there's like that initial motivation or maybe maybe even willpower, that initially right? And it helps to have a coach. How soon do you make the determination that you truly don't enjoy something? When you when you talk to a client? They say, I'm not really into this, and it's their first session or second session? How do you approach that? Knowing that maybe they will enjoy it once they build some momentum?

Paul Hanton 09:07

Yeah, that's a good that's a good another great question. Right? And so if I if I have a client who might not be enjoying going to the gym or strength training, or I will say doing, like working out, doing a push workout or post workout, one of the things I want to know is why is it because they feel uncomfortable going to the gym? Is it because they don't feel uncomfortable doing the movements? Is it because they truly just don't enjoy strength training? That's one of the things that I tried to dig into and I would encourage anyone listening who was also having those same thoughts is to ask yourself really why why why don't you enjoy strength training or why don't you enjoy going to the gym? And and sometimes it's just familiarity thing, right? They just need a little more time to get familiar with the workouts and other times it's because they just really just don't enjoy it have zero motivation to lift weights and that's okay.

Philip Pape 09:58

Okay, so there's a We see multiple possibilities you have to attack you ask the question why that's a great question is a code great is understanding the root cause? So, you know, from one angle I see is an educational angle, right? You want to educate your clients on the importance of activity, specific types of activity and activity in general. So how do you do that? How do you raise awareness, which then may reduce the friction of why they think it's not enjoyable? How do you raise awareness of why we need to move and train?

Paul Hanton 10:29

Yeah, so one of the things I do is depends on the client. So I think that a good trainer is going to treat each client individually. And that's one mistake I made when I first started training is I treated each client as the same, right? If that, okay, you're gonna go, you're going to the gym five days a week, or three days a week, or four days a week, right? And you're gonna, here's a nutrition plan. But then over time, I started to realize that I had to treat each client individually to take into account their previous training history, what they like to do, what their goals are. And so your question, one of the things that I do is, I make sure to understand their previous training history, right. So like, I had a client who had a really bad experience working with the in person trainer, right, which which happens occasionally. But her issue wasn't that she didn't like strength training, she just had a really poor experience working with a personal trainer. And so I had to kind of coach her through, okay, I'm here, have any questions and concerns. And we kind of walked through a program with her to help her understand the movements a little better and get her more comfortable. And the other thing I realized is, I can't just throw someone off in the deep end and say, Okay, you're gonna go squat, bench deadlift, and there you go. And so I make sure to incorporate movements that they can accomplish, and they can actually do that build momentum that builds momentum over time and builds confidence. And so they feel more confident going the gym, doing the movements, and ideally, they'll enjoy it, which is the end goal, and they'll want to do it consistently for a long period of time. But it's about starting where someone's at, and then kind of building off from there to build momentum with what they're doing.

Philip Pape 11:59

I love that idea, Paul, because I people will hear me on on the podcast talk a lot about the importance of compound lifts and barbell work and cotton. You know, yeah, in a perfect world, I could just drop you in and you go to town, great. But you might be 72 year old female with a lot of strength, maybe can't even squat, you know, not even down to quarter depth. Where do we start? That's, that's where we have lighter implements, and exact leg presses and boxes and things. So that that's a great idea. So for this, this initial assessment, how does that how does that look for in your particular coaching business with your clients? Is this a form they fill out? Do you come in and assess their mobility? How does that work?

Paul Hanton 12:38

Yeah, no, that's a good question. So I have a form that they fill out when they first start before they started working with me. And before I started even creating their training program. But like, like most most trainers out there, I'm a, again, a big proponent of strength training. And I want to emphasize that I think strength training is fantastic for multiple reasons. And there's multiple research that backs up how important training is not just from a weight loss perspective, just from, you know, healthy overall life perspective. However, one thing I try to do is to make sure that I incorporate activities that I know that they can do one and another actually going to enjoy. And so in the formative fill out, they do list out if, for example, if they enjoy working on certain body parts, or if they have a body part that they want to improve or work on, or if there are some sort of activity that they're already doing that they enjoy. And so I take all this into account and build a program around what they're currently doing, what I know they can they can accomplish. So for example, I have a client who started work with me and he loves, He loves cycling, right? I hate cycling, but he loves it, right. So I incorporate cycling into his training program, because I know he enjoys it. And so he does a hybrid approach of cycling and strength training. And he's been able to consistently do that he's been with me for I don't know, six or seven months now. But he really is he really enjoys that hybrid approach, because you can do cycling, which he loves, also do a little bit of strength training to help out with his cycling. So works out pretty well. But it's really just comes down to understanding the needs the goals, and then creating a program around those goals and needs, but also making sure that somebody they can start and accomplish because again, if you throw someone off in the deep end, you know there's gonna sink or quit immediately.

Philip Pape 14:24

Yeah, so it sounds like you're you have an excellent process to set people up for success success from the beginning, understanding them as individuals, as opposed to here's a template cookie cutter, right? Oh, templates are terrible. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And so what you get them going, what if then after a while there, then they're still not enjoying their training and so they don't show up on Wednesday and then not being consistent. It's no longer fun for them. What do you do then?

Paul Hanton 14:52

Yeah, that's when a good trainer start digging into why. And what you don't want to do is jump to jump to a conclusions or make assumptions for what's going on. Because there could be outside factors that you're not even aware of. Right? They could be going through a tough time at work that could be really busy with kids with life. And a lot of different factors you have to take into consideration but it's always just starting a conversation. And again, you don't want to jump to conclusions and assume, okay, well there, there's going to quit or it can do the workout, it can be a lot of other factors. So that's the first thing I do is to make sure that I start asking questions and trying to really dig into what's going on. So So for example, if a client like they missed a full company to workout workouts, right and a week, back to back consistently, that's, that's a yellow flag, right? Okay, something's off, something's something went wrong if they make a system for the last two months, but now the sharp nose slide. Okay, we need to have a conversation. So that's when I'll just reach out and ask, Hey, you know, I saw you missed a couple workouts, what's going on? How are things going with you? And again, it could be a wide multiple due to factors. But it's always it's always just a conversation that a good trainer is going to have with that client to better understand what's going on in their life that would that would force some sort of change in so in their behavior.

Philip Pape 16:11

Now, are you monitoring real time? Not real time, like with a wearable? But are you monitoring things like biofeedback with these clients, as you go along to get ahead of that?

Paul Hanton 16:20

Yeah, so they have the option of of connecting their Apple Watch, or Fitbit or whatever, where they have with the training app, so I can see those stats. But I can also, I can also track how their workouts are going in real time. So they'll put in their how much weight they're using. So for example, I have a client who I need consistently, I tell him to lift, lift, heavier, right, add more weight, add more weight, add more weight, but I can see that in real time how they're doing it, I give them feedback, after every workout. So I can see if they miss a workout instantly, then I can reach out instantly to find out what went wrong or why they missed work. And again, sometimes it's just life, they got busy. But you don't want that to turn into a snowball effect to suddenly they're missing, you know, a week's worth of workouts or a month worth of workouts, right?

Philip Pape 17:07

Yeah, absolutely not. And that's where a coach comes in, right to give you that extrinsic nudge for consistency. You've mentioned some you might actually I like the thing you said about progressive, basically progressive overload, ensuring that the client is actually adding weight over time as one of the metrics, as opposed to just showing up. I think that's really important that you do that. So So that's cool. For people listening, you know, that's one of the keys to actually building muscle and strength, right is increasing the load over time.

Paul Hanton 17:35

Yeah, I want to, I'll touch on want to touch on that. Really Sure. Because when it comes to progressive overload, we talk a lot about strength training. But there's also ways to progressively overload for any sort of activity right? In point oh, if someone wants to go cycling, do cycling, well, there's ways to progressively overload in cycling as well, by increasing the amount of time trying to go faster. If same thing with running or walking, you can increase the amount of distance you run or walk. And so when he talks about progressive overload, you got to make sure and again, I don't think anyone should, you know, pour their blood, sweat and tears into every sort of workout activity, but you do want to make it challenging and hard. Cuz that way your body will adapt to whatever you throw at it. And so if you consistently challenge your body when ever you're doing, that's the way to go, rather than just lollygagging through workouts. I want to emphasize that that whatever activity you do, you do want to make sure you're challenging yourself appropriately.

Philip Pape 18:32

Yeah, that's a great point. And the lollygagging thing is I'll say it's a little bit subjective for some people because I went through eight years of CrossFit and didn't get super strong. I felt like I was working out really hard though. But there's these kind of subjective definitions if you know sweating, and soreness and heart rate versus, you know, challenging yourself to muscular failure or to spray it on the bike or whatever, metric. 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. Go back to if somebody just doesn't want to lift which again boggles my mind, Paul, but if so he just doesn't want to lift what would be the next best type of training for them. Yeah, so

Paul Hanton 19:35

I think we talked about when we talk about strength training, the first thing that comes to mind for a lot of people is going to the gym and lifting weights, right like barbell dumbbell, maybe maybe even kettlebell, maybe not. But that's what people think when they when they think about strength training. And so what I like to do is offer different training modalities when it comes to strength training. So for example, I tell all my clients to invest in resistance spans. And I encourage every single listener listening to invest in resistance bands, because they're really cheap on Amazon. But you can do so many different things with resistance bands. And I found a lot of clients may, they may not want to go to the gym consistently, but they'll they love resistance bands because they can take them with them on the road, they can easily transport them anywhere. They're very cheap and easy to use. And so that's one aspect I look at is okay, maybe they don't want to maybe they don't enjoy lifting weights, or maybe they just don't want to do it, you know, three days a week, well, how else can we challenge those muscles, right. And resistance bands are a great way to do that. I even have clients that just do Bodyweight Workouts, because that's where they're at right now. And, and they they don't, they can't really handle anything more than just bodyweight. I think that's fantastic, as well. So when it comes to strain training, there are different avenues, you can go with strain training. So like resistance bands bodyweight, we can also look at different types of strain training to you can do powerlifting strongman CrossFit has aspects of training training in it as well. And so it's trying to just trying to figure out, Okay, what's a good fit for that client? Because they don't like just, you know, don't go to the bodybuilder approach of five sets of 10, or five sets of eight per body part. That's fine. What else can we do to incorporate strength training? Because again, I want to emphasize, strength training has many, many benefits and everybody, ideal world, everybody would love to do it. But that's not that's not reality, but want to try to incorporate some sort of train training in their programming, if possible.

Philip Pape 21:28

Yeah. So those are great examples of many different modes of training, it still involves some load. Exactly. And the resistance bands are great. I heard I think it was stronger by science the other a few weeks back talking about the the ongoing debate about how much work you need to do to maintain your strength. Yeah, once you have it. Good. I know, we're talking about development of strength, but even maintaining it's something like 1/8 to a quarter of your typical workout and just having bands, and doing that for a while. could maintain strength that you develop with barbells. Right. Right, you know, yeah. Right. So that now what if so, have you ever met somebody who just doesn't want to do any form of resistance whatsoever?

Paul Hanton 22:09

I've not encountered that yet. All my clients do some sort of resistance training, whether it's bodyweight resistance bands, or going to the gym. And I think a large part of that is, I do push it early on to especially if they have no training experience to start, you know, bodyweight resistance bands, and doing lightweight at the gym, like machines, something easy, and then kind of build on from there. Yeah, I've yet encountered anyone who doesn't want to do any of those things. Like usually, you can kind of get them to do bodyweight at least. Or resistance bands. Those are pretty easy cells in lieu of going to the gym. But yeah, I've encountered anyone that just outright does not want to do any sort of bodyweight resistance band or strength training.

Philip Pape 22:56

Yeah. And the fact that they want the fact they walk through your doors, probably they know they have a goal want to get fitter and healthier. And you know, you're an expert. So right, if one of the first things you say is, hey, we've got to, we've got to incorporate this. It's like your nutrition coach saying, you know, we've got to eat more protein, like we just do it. It's what we do, you know, to get healthier. Yeah, the other

Paul Hanton 23:18

thing I'll add is that I don't there, I have clients who do all sorts of other activities, and I make sure not to take those away, I make sure that they enjoy playing soccer, they still have time to play soccer, and they enjoy walking with their kids, that walking is fantastic. And I make sure that they still have the ability to do that. And so part of it is just incorporating things that they like, and interfacing that with resistance training so that way, they get a hybrid approach, but which I still I still think is fantastic. So again, like a good trainer is going to work with you on your goals. And I try not to take away things too much, right? Yeah, I can.

Philip Pape 23:55

Yeah. So it's it's the goals, the goals drive behavior. Exactly. What if What if a client has a goal to be a, as you mentioned, powerlifting strongman, things like that. What about endurance training athletes? Marathon or ultra marathoner? Or, like obstacle course race?

Paul Hanton 24:11

Yeah, so I still think there's benefits to doing strength training for endurance running obstacle course, you know, whatever, whatever running. So in that, so like, going back to the my client who loves cycling, like he did, and he, he got these cycles a lot goes far way farther than I could probably go. And he's in his 60s to it. He's phenomenal. Right? But what I what I tried to do, I did a lot of research in terms of okay, what are some strange hanging activities that are beneficial for cycling? And that way I can I can kind of I sold it as hey, you know, you're you're doing some strength training was gonna be beneficial for those long endurance cycling, runs your cycling, cycling races, yeah, coming up. Right. And so there are same thing is still very important for endurance athletes or, or athletes that are more We're focused on like cardiovascular or endurance type sports. But it's all about just understanding the types of string chain that they should be doing. Right. So if you're, if you're a marathon runner than I was, you know, you don't have to go in the gym and do heavy squats, right, probably do maybe do like lighter weights or do other sorts of activities or walking lunges. And so it's really just about understanding the goal that they have and what they want to accomplish, and then devising an effective training program around that.

Philip Pape 25:27

And so speaking of goals, then I imagine you have a lot of clients that come in that want to lose weight, or lose fat, that's probably probably the maybe the number one goal I'm gonna guess. Probably, yeah. And how would you prioritize activity? If they just put their trust in your hands? They said, Okay, I'm gonna listen, I'm going to do what you're telling me to do. And tell me what the best thing is to do? How would you prioritize our activity?

Paul Hanton 25:49

Yeah, what I always prioritize strength training, if I can, and then I interspaced that with some cardio, I'm not a, I don't enjoy cardio. So I personally don't do it all that often. But I still think it's good. And one reason I think is good is because well, one cardio a lot of benefits for you, but also it gives that my clients something else to do other than go in the gym and lifting, right, so kind of breaks up the monotony a little bit. And I found that a lot of people, they like that, that hybrid approach of okay, they're gonna do strength training, they're gonna do some cardio and strength training. Now, they're not doing the same thing over and over again, but they are but it doesn't, it doesn't feel that way to them, right, because they got their kind of weak broken up. Whereas someone else, they, it really depends on their goals, right? Like, if they want to do they want to become a bodybuilder, then I'll put them in the gym five days a week, purely strength training, you know, a lot of calories, and they're fine, but for most of my clients, so it's always a hybrid approach of finding out what works best for them. And I found a hybrid approach of incorporating strength training and emphasizing that, but also incorporating cardio or other forms of cardiovascular activities to give them something else to do throughout the week. So that way, they're not just bored and, you know, hitting hitting life every single day.

Philip Pape 27:00

Yeah, and that's a good point about using cardio as a form of enjoyment if you like it. Not because you have to not because it's it's a great way to you know, burn fat or anything. And you said you don't enjoy it too much. I'm kind of in that club a little bit. So we have to get creative. It's okay, though. What, just on a tangent. What is? What are forms of cardio that you enjoy?

Paul Hanton 27:22

Yeah, so I'll give you a little backstory, my cardio history. So in the marine when I was in the Marines, we ran a lot, right. So we had our three mile run as our physical fitness tests. And I hated it. I hated running hated, every second of it hated it hated every step. But when I was preparing to go to off of the candidate school, I was on a training program to improve my runtime, and I ran six days a week. Now, do I run six days a week now? Absolutely not. I haven't rancid I left the Marines, right because I don't enjoy it. And that goes back to my point of yeah, you can suffer through something short term, but long term, there's no way I'm going to go back to running. But what I do now is I do a lot of Stairmaster or short hit style workouts or just walking on incline on the treadmill for a short amount of time. Just something and it's more just to kind of break up the monotony so doing something different but also just kind of getting some cardio extra cardio in. I'm not a huge proponent of doing a lot of cardio but I still think it has its place in time.

Philip Pape 28:23

Yeah, like that. Just making it fit. I know people that go they love to lift the big weights and like okay, go push the Prowler right because that's you know, big manly thing gets a push this heavy sled you know, you're like a football player. Guess what? You're getting cardio. So and you probably get a lot of cardio just doing heavy deadlifts, let's be honest. Right?

Paul Hanton 28:46

Yeah, yeah, you can incorporate typing, you know, Carson's types of cardio weight and your strength training as well. That's the beauty of it.

Philip Pape 28:53

So continuing on the theme of with a client who has a specific goal, and you mentioned a bodybuilder, for example. Do you encounter situations where they're maybe doing too much of something they shouldn't be doing? And you have to have to coach them to back off on that?

Paul Hanton 29:08

Yeah, I think what I think commonly, and probably other trainers experienced this as well as people doing too much cardio and emphasizing that, and some part of that's just education. Right. And I think I think, I think in the fitness industry, we're doing a really good job of that of emphasizing strength training and coming around to emphasizing that over you know, hours of cardio. And so when it comes to someone who has a very specific goal, it really depends on what the goal is in crafting your training program around that goal. But in the case of a bodybuilder, obviously, you're gonna have them lift heavy and in the gym and lift weights because no other way around that. And I think that's a really key consideration if someone has a very specific goal in their training is going to be have to have to be very specific to match that specific goal. And there's really no there's no way around that Right, if you want to run a marathon, what what do you what are you going to what sort of training are you going to have to do? Right, you're gonna have to go run a lot. If you want to be bodybuilder, you have to lift a lot. And so I think for anyone listening, if they had, do you have a very specific goal in that in that training is going to be very specific, and then they're going to have to kind of suck it up and go do it or just not do it at all.

Philip Pape 30:20

And is there a way to, is a way to change it for the individual with things like your programming, your periodization, mezzo cycle, so we don't have to get too technical, but things like that.

Paul Hanton 30:30

Yeah, there are ways to do that. And I think that if they have a specific goal, especially if they're wanting to do a competition, and that that periodization periodization is very key, and then crafting a really solid training program around that goal. And again, we keep talking about goals, because that's, that's extremely crucial, because your training has to help with that goal, in terms of what you want to accomplish. And nutrition is a whole another another thing that also has to be aligned with your goal. But it all comes back to your goals and what you want to accomplish. And even for someone who just wants to lose weight or improve their health, that's still a goal, and your training has to match that goal. And it may not be you know, extreme amounts of training, but there's still gonna be something involved there any good training program in order to accomplish any sort of goal?

Philip Pape 31:19

Sorry, good training program. So if they're reaching out to you, Paul, are you in person online? Both? What's your mode of operation here?

Paul Hanton 31:27

Yeah, no, I'm online. I do occasionally in person here and there. But most of my classes are online around around the US,

Philip Pape 31:34

and how to how does someone get feedback from you on for example, their form and technique, which is really important when you get started?

Paul Hanton 31:41

Yep. Format technique? So that's a really good question, especially when you're training online. So there's a couple avenues. tools that I use one, I'll have them record themselves, especially if there's a technique that they haven't done before. So for example, deadlift or squat, right, or even a bench to have them record themselves and send me the video, that way I can critique their critique their form. However, I always make sure to if they're new to a lift, I always kind of progressively get there. So for example, if someone's never, never done a squat before, I don't automatically say okay, here, go to your classes a 10 on the squat rack, try to work their way up, even if I have to start at okay, you're doing air squats first, right? And then and you may be Oprah will progress up to even a smith machine. And then we'll do just a bar, right. And so we'll kind of work build our way up to that to that point, depending on where they're at. But always start with where they're at first. And then kind of build my way up from there on where they need to go.

Philip Pape 32:42

Yeah, makes sense. And I imagine even once they get to the full movement, you know, it could take weeks or months for people to really nail down the forum. Yeah. Cool. All right. I like to ask this question of all guests. But is there a question you wish I had asked? And what is your answer? Yeah, we

Paul Hanton 32:59

talked about someone hitting their training or not liking their training. One thing that people may be thinking about or wondering is, well, I've tried all these things, right. And I still haven't found anything that I liked. And I would say to them, I don't believe you. But let's say for argument's sake that they tried every single activity, I would say that they start with walking. And I think, again, a lot of people underrate walking, but walking is still a fantastic can be so fantastic activity to do. You could throw on a podcast or music or even, you know, watch Netflix and go for a walk. But that's, that's a really good starting point, if there's nothing else out there that you feel like you enjoy. And you can even progressively overload on walking to an extent, right, you can challenge yourself to go farther, you can go faster, you can hop on a treadmill, and just up the incline and start doing treadmill walking. And so I would just say if there's nothing out there at all, and they've tried everything else, just go for a walk right and started going for walks, you know, 30 minutes, maybe three times a week and four times we can build on from there. But the end of the day, you want to be active, right? Our bodies are made to be active. And it's important to be active for a numerous amount of numerous amounts of reasons, but it's just finding out again, one activity is something that you can enjoy for a long period of time. And if once you find that activity, it's life changing, right? And then you'll be doing that activity for the rest of your life. I

Philip Pape 34:30

do. So there's something for everyone when it comes to movement.

Paul Hanton 34:33

I think there's something for everyone. I think there's something for everyone. Yes, he's got to figure out what that is.

Philip Pape 34:38

And the talk of you being in the military and walking makes me want to grab my rucksack because there's another way to load you're walking.

Paul Hanton 34:45

You're absolutely right. Yeah, you could grab a backpack, throw some weight in there and then take off right and hiking and hiking is a great activity as well and truly want to go for hikes and make you can make that challenging. You can make any activity challenging enough. But you're just finding out what works best for you, for me is strength training, right? I fell in love with it on day one. And I see myself doing that doing strength training in some capacity for the rest of my life. And I'm glad I found my my activity or my thing that I like to do and, and then again, once you find that activity, it's life changing, right? It will change your life once you find that activity that you enjoy you want to do for the rest of your life.

Philip Pape 35:26

Yeah, it's about consistency. And guys who are listening, ladies, if you want a great trainer, Paul's your man. And I'm just gonna ask him Paul, where can listeners find out more about you and your work?

Paul Hanton 35:37

Yeah, no, thank you. So I'm on Instagram and Tiktok at Paul fit prime. Again, that's at Paul fit prime. Also check out my podcast, the healthy Fit Life podcast. So on any podcast platform you can think of so. And again, one thank you again for having me on your show. Really appreciate it.

Philip Pape 35:57

Yeah, no apps. Absolutely. Likewise, and I'm gonna add all that info to the show notes, of course, so people can find you. It was fun talking about kind of a different angle. When it comes to mindset, the emotions goals, individuality with training. I think a lot of people listening, you know, wonder where to start and where to go and how to make fun and not making a chore. Right. You just gave them a bunch of great answers. So I appreciate you coming on the show.

Paul Hanton 36:20

Yeah, thank you. Great conversation.

Philip Pape 36:23

Philip Pape 11/29/22 Philip Pape 11/29/22

Ep 34: Speed Up Fat Loss (and Live Longer) without Excessive Dieting or Cardio

What if there was an easy way to speed up fat loss, burn 500 more calories a day (which is 1 extra pound a week), increase your potential lifespan, reduce your chance of disease, all without excessive cardio or dieting?

This is not the next big fitness industry secret but instead one of the easiest, natural, and most effective forms of movement for humans . . . and that is WALKING!

Whether you already “get your steps” or you sit around most of the day behind a desk, we are going to dissect the many benefits of walking, from its ability to burn way more calories than you think, increase your metabolism, improve your overall function in life, preferentially burn fat to improve body composition, reduce mortality, and improve associated markers like blood pressure, resting heart rate, cholesterol, depression, and VO2 max.

Walking is perhaps the most underrated but effective forms of exercise we can incorporate.

Finally, as always on this show, we will discuss easy, actionable strategies for walking effectively that you can start using right away!

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Philip Pape 00:31

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. This is one of our live streams in the Wits & Weights Facebook community, which you can join absolutely free and get early access to these episodes, free nutrition and training guides, we might start doing some free challenges, and lots of info that members share on strength, fat loss, nutrition, and other topics. So just click the link in the show notes to join our free Facebook group. My name is Philip pape, certified nutrition coach and founder of Wits & Weights. And I do have one small favor to ask that would absolutely make my day and help others find and enjoy this show. And that is simply to go to Apple podcasts and submit a five star rating and review for the podcast. That would be an amazing Christmas gift or holiday gift or just because you love the show gift. And I would forever be grateful. So let's dive into today's episode, which as the title suggests, is all about a very underrated way to reach your goals faster, burn 500 more calories a day or more, which is at least one extra pound a week. Increase your potential lifespan reduce your chance of disease all without excessive cardio or dieting. This is not the next big fitness industry secret. But instead one of the easiest natural, most effective forms of movement for human beings. And that is walking, walking, getting your steps. And whether you already get your steps. Or you sit around most of the day behind the desk, which I'm doing right now to record this podcast. But it's a little better experience than if I weren't. We're gonna dissect the many benefits of walking from its ability to burn away more calories than you think. increase your metabolism, improve your overall function in life, preferentially burn fat to improve body composition, reduce mortality, and improve associated markers like blood pressure, resting heart rate, cholesterol, depression, and VO two max. So walking is perhaps the most underrated but effective forms of exercise we can incorporate. And all my clients can tell you that. And maybe I talk people's ears off about this all the time, but I think it is so important that it's worth it. Finally, as always on the show, we will discuss easy actionable strategies for walking effectively, that you can start using right away. So I'm going to start with a little bit of a personal story. Some of you may have heard this in one of my earlier episodes. But last year in 2021, I was undergoing some severe pain in my left leg. And it was it felt like sciatica, where you have that nerve pinch and the numbness that goes down through your leg all the way to your feet, it was on my left side. And I had in the past a few times experienced kind of a pop in my back, doing just some just bending over and picking something off the floor, or maybe warming up for a squat or something like that. And every time that happened, I'd been in a little bit of back pain, people experience lots of people experience back pain, and it would recover after a few days. So finally, last year, it happened again. And it was just so painful. And it slowly started to get a little bit less painful. But then the pain migrated into my left leg. And eventually I realized that my herniated disk had gotten so bad that it was just severely impinging on my nerve. At the L five s one vertebra. I went and had back surgery that was the the only means left for me at the time. And it basically fixed me the same day where I was able to walk again now part of surgical recovery with something like that where you have back surgery, or hip surgery or anything in that area is to walk right load, load your body, load the tissue, get it moving, prevent scar tissue. I think this is a great approach for most types of recovery. And you have to start to walk to build up that strength again and and get it to heal. Now, I wasn't a big fan of walking for most of my life. My wife could tell you that she loves to walk and she kind of had to drag me out of the house to go on walks. Because I just didn't think walks were like real exercise. You know, I said well, my time is better spent in the gym, or doing something more intense. And you guys probably know I did CrossFit for years. I did it for eight years. I did love it, but there were a lot of aspects to

Philip Pape 05:00

it that kind of held me back from reaching my goals later on in terms of strength and body composition, because of the, the the mode of activity, and we don't have to go into those details. But I never thought of walking is a true form of exercise. And when I had to recover from surgery, all I could do is walk. In fact, I was ecstatic that I could walk because while I was in pain for six weeks before the surgery, I had to lay on my back most of the time, if I tried to stand or walk, it would start to hurt severely within minutes. So now all of a sudden, I like to walk. And I decided to go the other direction and say, What if I just get 12,000 steps a day. And I did that for probably, I think I want to say 70 or 80 days straight. I mean, weekends, you know,

Philip Pape 05:44

even days that I wasn't working out and so on. And it just became a habit. Now I did it just for the purpose of trying to do it. And because I enjoyed it. And I wasn't really realizing what all the other benefits were. And I noticed, for example, it became a lot easier to lose weight, it actually became a little bit harder to gain weight, right, which is kind of the opposite side of the same coin, which is fine. But it became a lot easier to lose weight. And without going into more of a deficit with my food. It also lowered my resting heart rate significantly. I mean, I track my heart rate, I have a ring, I have an Apple Watch. And I could see it dropping, dropping, dropping over about a two month period, because of all the steps I was getting in without anything else changing. Okay, so and those are just a couple of benefits that I personally experienced in the short term. So then I started to research it and learn all about walking. And I became enamored with this idea that something so basic and natural to being human can be so powerful. So let me take this back to the fundamentals of metabolism just briefly. And then we're going to go into some illustrations, we'll talk about the benefits, and then we'll talk about strategies. So I've talked before about metabolism quite a few times. And just for a primer on this, there are four components of metabolism. So metabolism, meaning our metabolic rate, or the number of calories we burn in a given day, the biggest component of our metabolism is going to be our basal metabolic rate. This is, for lack of a better definition, all the calories we burn just for being alive. Okay, and that's like two thirds of your calories. And then there's another 10% or so 10 15% for digesting your food. So the thermic effect of feeding, then there's maybe 5% of our calories are burned through deliberate exercise. Yes, it's that small. It's why we don't rely on exercise for burning calories. That's not the point of of the exercise. And then the rest of it about 15% but potentially a lot more of that pie is meat, non exercise activity, thermogenesis neat non exercise Activity Thermogenesis, which is everything you do to move that you're not doing intentionally, like exercise. You know, that's not exercise. But there's a caveat to that. There's an estrus of footnote, where something like walking, moving around doing yard work, things like that. You're deliberately doing those things. But they're not intense, deliberate exercise. So we still put them in the category of neat. Now there was a study. Now I don't, I'm sorry, I don't have the stuff to top my head, I actually looked all over for it. I've heard, I think it was Brandon Cruz mentioned it many times on his podcast. And it compared three groups, desk workers, shop clerks, and manual laborers. Okay? Or something very similar to that. So I'm kind of paraphrasing, but the result is what's important. And it found that if all other factors were maintained equally, they're difference in daily calorie burn from meat alone, to kg just from meat was 800 more calories a day for shop clerks versus desk workers. And then another 1200 calories beyond that for manual laborers. So the the total gap between the most active and least active produced a 2000 calorie a day difference between the two extremes, okay. And they accounted for everything. They accounted for their size, their fat, free mass, all the other things that we say well, no, but maybe their younger, older, male, female, they accounted for all those things. Okay. And so the point here is that your mode of work of movement of overall activity throughout the day, aside from deliberate exercise, can significantly affect increase your metabolic rate. So let's compare two people just for illustration. And think about which of these two people your life your lifestyle most closely aligns with? And of course, it's gonna be obvious which one I'm prep, which one I am biasing toward here, but I'm going to do it anyway. So you've got Nicole, and you've got Jason. Okay. You I'm sorry if your names are those and this is doesn't sound like you, Nicole parks farther away when she goes to work. She takes the stairs to the third floor of her office building. She goes up and down a few times through the day for lunch and for meetings. Whereas Jason he parks as close to the building as we can. We know the type right when you go, especially when you go to try Christmas shopping and you're trying to find the closest parking spot you can and he takes the elevator all day. So this might result in a difference of 100 calories for Nicole. Nicole uses a stand up desk. She paces on calls when she can. She walks down the hall maybe to the bathroom that's a little bit further down when she takes a break. She's and Jason sits at his desk all day. So that might add up to another couple 100 calories for Nicole. When she gets home. Nicole walks the dog so they have a dog. She might do some housework cooks her own food. Jason on the other hand, orders takeout sits down to watch TV. Another couple 100 Calorie difference. After dinner, Nicole goes for a 30 minute walk with her family or maybe by herself. And Jason continues to watch TV. Another couple 100 calories. When she goes shopping, Nicole parks as far away as she can. She walks between stores. Jason on the other end drives around until he finds the closest spot and then drives between stores, maybe another 1500 calories. So all told, every day, Nicole is burning an extra four to 800 calories, just through non exercise activity. Just from her lifestyle, no excessive cardio. She's not on a diet. Okay, but what is the difference in four to 800 calories? Well, 500 calories is going to burn potentially a pound a week. So if you're trying to lose weight, think about what kind of impact that can make on your ability to eat more calories, or lose weight faster, either one. So let's go through all the benefits of walking, because I think we kind of know it intuitively. And the exponent, the illustration I just gave you is is something we've heard before, but I really want to drill it in and have you understand all the science behind this or all the information. Alright, so the only thing that matters for losing weight. Notice I said losing weight not losing fat. The only thing that matters is energy balance, do you burn more calories than you consume? Okay, so strength training, and protein will definitely ensure you have improved body composition. So you're going to retain muscle in a diet. But what we're talking about here is the fat loss side of the equation. Alright, so we know that losing weight requires an energy deficit, okay. But we also want to make sure that most of that is fat. And where does walking come into all this? Well, first of all, walking can burn almost as many calories for the same distance as running about 80% of those calories. Especially when you're walking briskly, if you walk around four miles an hour for most people, you're going to burn just as almost as many calories as you would running for the same distance. Yes, it takes a little longer, but it's not going to impact your joints, it's not going to impact your recovery, it's not going to wipe you out like running does something you can basically do all day. Walking also can be more enjoyable. And it's accessible to anyone who can walk. Now of course, that's subjective when I say enjoyable, but I would if I took 100 people, I would bet that like 80 of them would say they prefer walking to running. If not more than that. That's just a guess. But I'm guessing that's the case. The other thing, you can get sunlight while you're walking with some vitamin D, you could talk on the phone, you can listen to a podcast, you can do a lot of things while you're walking at the same time because it's a low, low, low velocity activity. Now, as far as the calorie burning, let's dig into that a little bit. Walking can burn two to 400 calories per hour. Okay, so a 20 minute walk, which is like a mile, it's gonna take you 20 minutes after a meal, let's say that's about 2000 steps. So if you can incorporate two or three walks before or after your meals, and do nothing else all day, you're going to get four to 6000 steps. And then you can get the rest of your steps through non planned walking, or other activities we're going to talk about later. And then you can aim for a total of around eight to 10,000 steps. So the whole 10,000 steps. sweetspot is a pretty good marker. We'll see a little bit later that somewhere around 7500 steps is kind of the threshold for reducing your risk of all cause mortality. Alright, so I'm getting off on a tangent here. But if you can get around these extra steps four to 6008 to 10,000. In that range, you're gonna burn about 500 more calories per day, contributing to an extra pound of weight loss as we mentioned before. Now what this does does is it shifts up your calories that you burn every day. So that if you're dieting, you can stay at the same amount of calories and lose weight faster, or you can keep the same deficit, but you're actually eating more to stay in that deficit, right. Because if you're burning 500 more calories a day, technically, you could eat 500 calories more per day, and continue to lose at the same rate. Now, we're not doing this just to eat back our activity. I think of it more the other way around that if we incorporate the habit of walking, then it just overall shifts our metabolism up so that when we're ready to go into fat loss phase, we never really get down to some very restrictive level of calories. And what what does that do? Well, that means you can eat more variety of food, you can enjoy some more treats, you can go out with, you know, friends and family on the weekend and not feel like you're restricting, and on and on and on. Okay, and when we talk about sustainability and lifestyle integration, and all the things that that I do with my clients, that's that's the principle we're talking about. So what else, a study by Ross at all, which I actually covered in Episode 29, one of the science says episodes that I've done, it showed that more of the weight lost through cardio, like brisk walking is fat than that loss through a calorie deficit. Meaning if you lose the same amount of weight walking, as you do dieting, you're the there's going to be more percentage of that weight lost from fat from the walking than from the dieting. And there's some logic to this, in that if you walk, but you still eat more food, you've got all that energy coming in to fuel yourself. And it would make sense that now you can hold on to more muscle and not and lose more fat. Whereas if you only use dieting as your mechanism of fat loss, you are still depriving your muscles a bit of all the energy that they need, and you're going to lose some muscle. Now, if I recall from that study, it was untrained individuals. So if you're training, the percentages get more favorable toward losing fat, because you're giving yourself the training signal to hold on to muscle. But either way, the idea here is we can use walking to speed up fat loss without having to increase our deficit. And tada, that's the beginning of the title of this episode is speeding up fat loss. So adding in steps every day increases your metabolism. And on a diet, it speeds up fat loss. Okay, continuing on walking is also very low stress. And it has been even shown to speed up recovery. Whereas other modes of cardio can impede recovery and cause muscle damage and things like that. Walking is so low stress, it's like your body doesn't even know just kind of slowly burns those calories as you do it. And it doesn't have a negative impact on recovery. So it doesn't contribute to overtraining. It doesn't contribute to interference with your strength training. So the reason it doesn't interfere with that I think I just mentioned it doesn't fatigue, the same muscles that you're using during your workouts, because it's so low impact. Okay, and the only other forms of cardio I can think that are like that would be East centric, or I'm sorry, concentric only movements. For example, like pushing a prowler sled or biking. For example, biking is mainly concentric, so it's not going to damage or fatigue the muscles in the same way. But if you do it too intensely, you can still do that. Walking, it's very hard to do too intensely, until you do it intense enough where then it becomes a jog or run. Walking also. So this is interesting walking does not deplete your glycogen stores. Whereas other higher intensity forms of cardio do. In fact, we talk about glycolytic modes of training like high intensity training, interval training, CrossFit, gymnastics, or you know, intense cardio, which deplete your glycogen stores, which is why we like to eat more carbs for those things. But if you're walking, it doesn't deplete those. So this leaves more in the tank for performance during strength training. So in that sense, replacing some of your cardio with walking could also help with your strength training. Okay, continuing on, I've got a lot of information here. So I hope you're absorbing all this and you know, if you have to watch if you have to listen or watch again, please do this is good information. Walking seems to be associated with improved cognitive ability. So just think about when you sit around all day, think about your mental energy, your memory, your motivation, how they kind of get sucked dry, you know, like an energy vampire. And if you know the reference, when you're sitting around all day, and walking has the opposite effect kind of boosts you up gives you a better mood. It just overall changes the trajectory of your day. You're just a more active person. Well Walking may improve your posture, or at least it prevents you from slouching, because you're not sitting. And slouching, as we know can affect your breathing and place load on your neck and fatigue because of the giant head that we have up here kind of, you know, tilting forward. Now, perhaps most importantly, according to a meta analysis and 2021, by genetic J Yeti at all. And there's a great article on stronger by science that breaks this down, the rate of all cause mortality decreases by 12% for every 1000 steps per day. Now, this is a correlation, not a causation. Okay, this is a meta analysis of a bunch of studies. And it's a correlation. But there have been studies of interventions, where they got people to actually walk more, and they compared the group that walked more to the group that walked less, that lead to quote, this is from the stronger by science article, quote, a significant decreases in systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, resting heart rate, body fat percentage, body mass index, total cholesterol, and depression scores, while increasing view to max six minute walk distance, and the score on the SF 36. physical functioning, inventory and quote, conversely, being sedentary may be a larger risk factor for all cause mortality than either obesity, or smoking. And this is where the phrase sitting is the new smoking probably comes from. So I want to be crystal clear that there is just nothing, nothing that is more effective, not even. And you're gonna be shocked to hear me say this strength training or diet for helping you live longer than moving more than walking and getting steps. And it's arguably the easiest, most successful way to do that is is walking. So I assume I assume that I've convinced you of the benefits. And I didn't want this to meet just one long drawn info session. So now let's talk action.

Philip Pape 22:08

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. So What strategies can we use to increase our walking in our step count? Alright, so before we talk about the things that you do, let's plan for success. Let's tell ourselves, okay, we are going to be a walking machine. Because this is going to not only save our lives, this is going to make us thrive, and have optimal health. And we're going to live long, and just be the best bad version of ourselves. So we need to set things up for success. So the first thing is to plan it into our day, right? Aim for at least 30 minutes somewhere that you can deliberately walk closer to 60 If you can do it. But overall, if it adds up to about 30 to 60 minutes, you're in good territory, okay, and this will help you speed up your fat loss significantly as well if you're in a diet. The second thing is think about your speed and kind of be mindful of how fast you're going to walk. Because especially if you're listening to a podcast like Wits, & Weights, or music, you might get distracted and slow down and not walk as fast as you want. And walking faster has a couple of benefits. First of all, it saves time, in terms of burning the same amount of calories and a fewer amount of time. But it also burns more calories per mile the faster you go. Unlike running like basically was running, the faster you go the same calories per mile you burn you just do it faster. With walking, it actually is a exponential curve, the faster your speed. So if you go from three to four miles an hour, the more calories you will burn per mile, and you're gonna do it shorter. So it's kind of a double benefit. So keep that in mind. So and plan for brisk walks if that's what you need to do, from an efficiency standpoint, okay, shoes, wear comfortable shoes. I'm not going to tell you brands or types because this is totally different for everybody. Some people might want to go barefoot, you know, there, it's really your preference. Find something that works and think about it consciously. Don't just throw on whatever you have laying around. And then of course, you start complaining because you get blisters or sore feet or whatever, and then you don't like walking. So think about your shoes. Then use a wearable tracking device. Okay, the simplest thing honestly, is just your phone that you already have if you throw it in your pocket, it's it tracks steps reasonably well. Okay, so that's like the zero cost options since everybody has a smartphone. But the wearables like the Apple Watch or the Fitbit Garmin the aura ring There's so many things all the major brands are perfectly fine for tracking steps in heart rate. We don't use them to track calories burned. They're totally useless and completely inaccurate for that no matter what device you're talking about the the science is in on that and very clear. So we're only using them for step count, and heart rate if you need it for that. Okay. The next thing in terms of thinking ahead and planning is a mindset thing. We don't want to let the temperature or weather be an excuse. Okay, now I live in New England. So I understand cold weather. I understand rainy, cold, drizzly miserable winter weather. And yet, I tried to get out there, no matter what if I'm going to get some vitamin D, and I want to enjoy nature and get some fresh air. Who cares? Go out there. And there's a concept in Denmark, it's a Danish concept called, I think this is how you pronounce it. He hy GGE. He again, correct me if I'm wrong, but and what it is, is embracing the cold by preparing for it and embracing coziness when you can. So what this might look like is when you're going to go outside, just dress for a dress and all the layers even wear thermal underwear if you have extra socks, whatever, so that you're super comfortable when you're walking. And it's I'm not gonna say it's like walking in the summer. But hey, you've prepared you're wearing gloves, you're wearing a hat. When stuff on your ears, whatever keeps you nice and warm, you get your walk in and then when you get home, you relax a little bit, have a cozy cup of coffee or tea, get near a fire, wrap yourself in a blanket, some other small indulgence, once you're inside, instead of complaining how cold it is, right? Because we're human beings we we used to live out in these harsh conditions and people some people still do. So just enjoy. Don't use that as an excuse. If it's raining outside, you can wear a raincoat or embrace the fresh raindrops you know in that nice smell of fresh raindrops pelting your skin. Enjoy that natural sensation of being human. I don't know to me, this is thriving this as being human right? Like let's embrace nature and everything around us. The point is you can walk inside or outside and just about any condition, if you plan for it, and you approach it with the right attitude, right. Okay, that's mindset. Now, if you're still listening to me, you're still watching this video. This is the good part we get to where we talk about the exact things you can incorporate into your day. And you can do any combination of these that fits within your lifestyle, you can get creative, come up with some of your own. But I'm going to give you a pretty good comprehensive list here. Alright, if you're ready, here we go. The first one, simple, planned in walks. And this is just looking at your day, just like you would plan your meals and planning in your walk. So you might put it on your calendar, you might create a reminder in your smartphone, you might do what's called habit stacking, where you take a thing that you already do, and then walk while doing that thing. And that thing might be it might be listening to a podcast, right? It might be talking on a phone call. It might just be when the time at the end of the day when you're kind of wiped out from the day and you want to just relax and scroll social media or read an article or something. Do it while walking around. Just walk very slowly around the house. And it can add up it can add up to 1000 2000 steps before you know it. So plan in your walks. Now, specifically walking after a meal could be helpful. Okay, I think I heard again, I'm mentioning Brandon Cruz. He's got great stuff. On his podcast, I think he said that walking after meals, especially high carb meals is twice effective as Metformin is the name of the drug. It's like the top prescribe medicine for type two diabetics, it controls blood sugar. And walking after a meal is basically more effective than that. It increases insulin sensitivity. It helps with nutrient partitioning. Basically just fancy way of saying it helps you your blood sugar control and could help with fat loss. But the most important thing is walking when you can walk. But if you have a choice, walking after meal might be something to try especially if you're trying to lose fat. All right, going for a walk with your family making it a social affair. Right if you have spouse, kids, siblings, whatever at home, get them in on the get them in on the fun, right? Go for a walk, have a social time, that could be your time to chat and connect. Because it's so hard these days to connect you even when we if we have dinner together. People are in a rush or not everybody gets to talk or you know you might be distracted trying to get a look at your phone. We all know what I'm talking about. So family Walk is a way to go outside, maybe hold hands, look at the sun and just chat and get your steps in.

Philip Pape 29:53

Kind of related to this but more maybe in the working world. If you work in an office you could ask someone to walk with you for a conversation You should. And if you're a boss of someone, you know, they don't have a choice. There you go. You just say, hey, you know, let's go have a talk. But can you save that for the fun conversations, okay. And if you need to brainstorm with somebody, if you're an engineer, if you're whatever the owner small business, if you're an entrepreneur, and you want to brainstorm, say, Hey, let's go for a walk or walk down the hallway and get 500 steps in while you're chatting and get the mental juices flowing. The next one is when you do walk outside, go into a specific go on hikes. So I'm trying to say, go on hikes, go find a trail, or a nice park or a lake or even if you're in the city, there might be really nice walking spots. And just enjoy the beauty of nature, people walking, maybe get an extra challenge, because of the difficulty of the hike. If there's some climbs, you know, some elevation change, and mix it up. All right, so for people working at home, or we'll have this option in the office, a stand up desk, and or an under desk treadmill. So the standup desk is more accessible for people, you could either get the full desk that has a motor in it, or you can get a small desktop accessory or attachment. Usually they're hydraulic, but some of them are manual, or it could be just a box where you put your laptop on it. As long as it's kind of in an ergonomic setup, you know, I would encourage you to make sure everything is set up properly, so you don't introduce some other health issues, and stand up most of the day and alternate between sitting and walking around. Just standing up versus sitting can burn something like I want to say an extra 30 calories an hour, something like that, don't quote me on it, but it's meaningful, you know, for a whole day, it could be a few 100 calories just from having a standup desk. Similarly, an under desk treadmill, that's more of a luxury, and probably only something you have at home, because it's a liability in most offices, unless you're lucky. And this is the kind of treadmill where you can walk at around two to three miles an hour while you're typing and doing your work. A treadmill at home is another idea just having a treadmill in your home as a machine in your home gym. Or when you go to the gym using the treadmill there and just tacking it on your workout or going on your off day. And the nice thing about a treadmill is, of course you're not in the that terrible weather we just talked about outside, it's reliable. But also you can use an incline, okay, and an incline can give you a little calf work, increase the calorie burn, make it a little bit more difficult, but still not really give you many recovery issues or

Philip Pape 32:35

in the intensity or muscle damage you're gonna get from other forms of cardio. Okay, the next one is pacing. Pacing is really big. So if you work from home or in an office, no doubt you have a chance to be on phone calls, or to be checking your emails from your phone, or listening to some training or a podcast or something in the context of work or your personal life. Go ahead and pace. And I want you to think about that think about all the times throughout the day, where if you don't have have to be attached to a keyboard and a screen. But can can be floating around even if you're on a device. Think about all the opportunities you have to pace, okay, there might be more than you think. And the pacing really does add up, it adds up a lot. Another time. Another thing that where I like to pace is if I'm going to be giving a seminar, big presentation or speech or if I'm going to have like a really important phone call. And I'm kind of nervous about what I'm going to say. I paced around the house as I practice. So if you are you in those environment, if you're in that context, or you're an entrepreneur or something or manager, leader, etc pace around the house, when you practice your speaking, okay. Another thing is when you're shopping Park farther from the store, I know you've heard this a million times. But do you do it? Or do you just think like are you just trained to get as close as you can because it's convenient. Well, today or tomorrow, because it's late at night, tomorrow. When you go to the store the next day, literally parked in the farthest parking spot you can like just the way far end of the grocery store. Now this is like a Walmart or a grocery store with a huge parking lot. Same Same thing applies it gives you even more chance for steps. Park as far away as you can give it a shot and do that every time until it becomes a habit. You're like this is just what I do when I go to a store I park in the last spot and then I get to walk get to enjoy the weather. Maybe it's raining maybe it's cold and snowy doesn't matter. The other thing is anytime you have the chance to walk instead of drive where it's a reasonable distance, do it right. One context for that would be if you go to like a strip mall, and you have to shop and then there's another store like 10 stores down. That's like a quarter mile away because it's such a big strip mall. Just walk and then you get to walk back and you have to walk to your car so you can add a ton of steps. Taking the stairs. Oh, okay, this is one we've heard for a long time but it is also a huge difference now stairs. The cool thing about stair or like a Stairmaster machine, or biking or pushing a sled. They're all concentric motions only with your muscles, meaning you're using your quads and hams and everything. But only in the concentric pushing motion, you're pushing up the stairs, except on the way down, but honestly, carrying your body weight is negligible on your, on your muscles. So you're taking the stairs. So you can you can even run up if you want to, you know, rocky style. And it's not going to really make you sore. But it'll give you a little bit of extra leg workout. And it'll give you steps. Okay, what about play engaging in play? And what do I mean by this? Well, it definitely could mean as an adult, it could be in sports, but sports gets into the realm of a more intense interference level of cardio and activity, I'm referring to playing with your kids or horseplay, or just kind of being outside, you know, when you're gonna cook out and being playful. I mean, I guess is the lack of a better term, like acting young, and kind of hopping around, skipping around, you know, doing things with movement and intention, rather than just sitting in one spot, are standing in one spot. So again, if you have kids, or grandkids or nieces or nephews or something where you have that opportunity, then I literally do mean play, because you'll be in motion. But there's other opportunities as adults to engage in play as well. And hey, just just a number, right, we're all trying to be young at heart. The next one is doing housework and doing yard work. So housework could be vacuuming and cleaning and things like that. All the things we love to do, right, all your chores, but, but then you can throw in some extra difficulty by for example, intentionally going up and down between floors, instead of taking the efficient route to your housework. Now it'll take longer, but hey, throw on a podcast, right? Do the habit stacking we talked about, make it enjoyable. Same thing with yard work, do yard work by hand. I mean, if you've got a huge lawn, you have to mow it with a tractor. That's one thing. But if there's gardening or some trimming, or weed whacking stuff like that, do it by hand. Again, you can have it, stack it with listening to music, and get some get some activity in that way. Now, if it's very rigorous yard work, again, that goes more into a recovery interfering mode of activity, but I think you get the idea by now. All right, and then I have two more bonuses to throw in before I conclude. Because this this episode is actually more detailed than I expected it to be. Hopefully, you're enjoying it. And the first one is, if you want your walking to be more difficult, you can add load by using a rucksack or a vest. Okay, so a vest with weights, or rucksack, like a backpack, where you can throw in some weighted plates, or even just some disk weights and add in, you know, for women, maybe it's 1520 pounds. For men, it's like 2530 pounds. And this gives you a little extra muscle burn in the traps, maybe in the legs, a little extra impact on your joints, but not nearly as much as running. And it will burn more calories in the same amount of time, give you a little extra challenge. And it's actually a nice skill to have if you're going to go camping, or have to lug things around camping or hiking or so on. So that's one adding load. The second thing that I wanted to throw in here, actually just off the top of my head is progressing your walks. So if you want to look at walks as an exercise that you track, there are different things you can progress, you can progress your speed. So start off at two and a half miles an hour for the first week. Then the next week, try you know 2.75 The next week, try three then 3.25 You know what I mean up the speed. And if you're using a wearable device, you can see your average speed. And that's a way to progress your walks kind of like we progress our weights in the gym. Another way is to progress the length. So start at 10 minutes, then go up to 15 minutes and 20 minutes, or you know a mile mile and a half to two miles you get the idea makes it more interesting. You can track this if this is your thing to make it fun. And then the last little bonus is try combining caffeine. So like a couple black coffee in the morning with fasted walking before you've eaten. And see if you respond any better in terms of fat loss, like keep all the other variables controlled, and add in caffeine with fasted walking. There are other supplements you could use instead of caffeine, but I don't want to go there. I want to keep it simple here. Just more or less natural stuff. Caffeine and fasted walking, there's a little bit of evidence that indicates could help with fat loss. Just because it increases your metabolic rate a little more than just the walking alone. Okay, that's everything I can think of for walking. This was the walking episode, which I want to thank Michelle Clark fellow coach for giving me the idea to run with this topic. Because I talk about it all it's time, but I hadn't really dived into it on my podcast in detail. So thank you, Michelle, I'm sure you as the listener viewer can get creative and come up with other ways to incorporate more movement into your life than what I've said here. Just take it one day, one week at a time, build up your capacity, develop those habits, and you will find fat loss much easier. And because you're going to live longer, you'll thank yourself decades from now. So one last thing, if you've been struggling to lose fat, or improve your body composition, and you love the idea of walking, but you feel that there's more to the puzzle, especially for your specific case. And you need some guidance and accountability. Just reach out to me to chat about one on one nutrition coaching. Okay, you're going to become the center of my attention during the six month program, because I'm going to work with you on eliminating stressors from your life, increasing your metabolism, like with walking, but many other things, training, moving the right way getting the results that you may have struggled to achieve for a long time. So I covered a lot of material today. And if you are interested in coaching, or learning more DM me on Instagram, at Wits & Weights or Facebook, or go to wits & weights.com/coaching, to learn more about that side of what I do, and I will get back to you to see if we're a good fit or to answer your question or whatever reason you reach out to me. I also want to remind you, I do have a guarantee in my coaching. If you don't achieve your goal by the end of six months, I'm going to work with you for free until you do. And that's me demonstrating to you how confident I am in this science backed approach that we take when working together. Again, just DM me on Instagram at Wits & Weights or Facebook or go to wits & weights.com/coaching. If this episode on walking was helpful or you have questions, comments 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 will get back to you with an answer very quickly. Thank you again for being a loyal listener, and I'll talk to you next time. 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 11/22/22 Philip Pape 11/22/22

Ep 33: Sustainable Weight Loss, Emotional Awareness, and the Dieting Mindset with Paul Salter

Joining me on the show today is Paul Salter, a Registered Dietitian (RD) and Sustainable Weight Loss Expert. Since 2013, he’s personally coached over 1,500 women to lose 20 pounds or more and KEEP IT OFF (without feeling like they're dieting). He’s done so by taking an inside-out approach that focuses on cultivating feelings of self-love and self-worth from day one—not after weight is lost—and by paying much more attention to one’s mindset and emotional intelligence, in addition to the nutritional Xs and Os.

Joining me on the show today is Paul Salter, a Registered Dietitian (RD) and Sustainable Weight Loss Expert. Since 2013, he’s personally coached over 1,500 women to lose 20 pounds or more and KEEP IT OFF (without feeling like they're dieting).

He’s done so by taking an inside-out approach that focuses on cultivating feelings of self-love and self-worth from day one—not after weight is lost—and by paying much more attention to one’s mindset and emotional intelligence, in addition to the nutritional Xs and Os.

He’s a twice published Author, host of The 5% Way Podcast (make sure to subscribe), and Founder and Head Coach of The 5% Community.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Sustainable weight loss and why it's difficult for most people
The role of self-talk in achieving sustainable weight loss
The role of emotional intelligence in sustainable weight loss
Self-talk / identity / transformational model of change
Prioritizing self-love
Where to begin with "deep work"
An example of a "destructive and self-sabotaging pattern"
Cultivating more intentionality to transform your relationship with food
Your thoughts on willpower and discipline
Your thoughts on "good vs. bad" foods
The value of the pre-diet maintenance phase
Weight loss as a goal vs. body composition (adding muscle)
Going on your own vs. hiring a coach

RELATED LINKS

Subscribe to The 5% Way podcast
Visit Paul's website at thefivepercentway.com
Join The 5% Community
Find Paul 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)

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Transcript

Philip Pape 00:08

Paul Salter 01:16

Philip, thank you, as we were just talking about before we hit that big record button, really looking forward to sharing some great conversation because of how aligned our values and beliefs are. So thank you for having me.

Philip Pape 01:27

Yeah. And I'm really excited to see what we talked about today. And I hope to learn a lot and hope the listeners want a lot. So I've been listening to your show, I think it's good stuff. Why don't we start at the high level here. Tell us about your background in nutrition. I know you're a registered dietitian as well, and sustainable weight loss specifically.

Paul Salter 01:44

Yeah, so that story requires us going back in time quite a little bit. So I've been a registered dietician for nearly 10 years at this point. And my early work as a dietitian actually began specifically working with those who were on the brink of bariatric weight loss surgery. And my role in that outpatient clinic was to either help those who are on the decision fence, if you will make some of the emotional and mindset changes to avoid surgery altogether, which was a bit would be a great outcome, or should they have chosen to follow through with the surgery, make sure that you know the surgery is only going to do so much they still have to make behavioral and lifestyle changes. So make sure they were in fact mentally emotionally prepared as well as nutritionally because there are several new limitations and guidelines in place when you have you know, half of your stomach removed or some other variation of the bariatric surgery. And that proved to be a truly, you know, instrumental experiences in my life when it came to helping me understand through the guidance of wonderful mentors, how to really work with someone in a one on one intimate setting, you know how to candidly yet kindly speak to them to provide education yet also hold them accountable, accountable, to make sure make sure they follow through on their promises and commitments. But all great things must come to an end. And I found myself you know, a couple years later on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum, working closely with elite college professional and Olympic athletes helping them to maximize performance, of course, recovery, body composition and their relationship with food. And I had an absolute blast doing this except I realized working 75 hours or so every week was not my jam was not a sustainable approach for just how I wanted to live life, which is when I began to go off on my own but it was during both of these experiences, I was simultaneously using myself as a guinea pig. So during the job working with the athletes, I was simultaneously completing my master's degree in exercise and nutrition sciences, I was already a twice competitive, Natural Bodybuilding participant as well. And just continuing like I said, every piece of information I learned I would apply to myself, I was fascinated with human performance what the body was capable of when you make the correct diet or exercise modifications to achieve a desired outcome. And it was through this body building experience for me that I developed a love hate relationship or marriage with my fitness pal. I was meticulously meticulously and obsessively beginning to track my food, skipping out on social occasions, missing out on holiday foods and favorite meals treats all the above and quickly found myself in a position in which I had an unhealthy relationship with food and was like oh shit, this is not a way to live life. So, you know, candidly, I was never someone who struggled with my weight growing up or at any time during my adulthood. But I have so much compassion and relatability when it comes to being ruled by food, rather than letting me be in charge of dictating how I navigate social occasions, food choices, et cetera. And that was something that really continued to push me in the direction of learning more outside of nutrition in X's and O's, I knew there was an emotional component, I knew there was a mental component. And at that time, I very much struggled to see where I was coming up short or deficient in information. But the more I push forward and acquire that information, I was able to get myself out of that position to a place in which today I don't track or measure my food using the food scale, unless I really, really want to eyeball freely, I eat whatever I want, whenever I want and navigate social occasions with ease. And I've been able to take what I've learned, and now have a just a wonderful opportunity to serve women from not only the nutritional X's and O's standpoint, but really to pour into them from an emotional and psychological perspective to help rebuild their relationship with food, fall in love with themselves again, while simultaneously rebuilding their foundational eating habits. And that's what I've had the pleasure of doing for a couple of years now. Well, so

Philip Pape 05:53

there you have a great story, it sounds like, of course, you had the credentials in your work with the athletes you came from. There was a medical component to it. Bodybuilding, we can go off and talk talk about that for. But the the fact that you came to it from a different perspective, right, a lot of people maybe struggle with weight, you didn't struggle with weight, but you struggle with the mindset and emotional components of eating, which, you know, plenty of people have success losing weight, it's the keeping it off part. And it's the losing it in the right way. And the big word sustainability, which again, you and I are completely aligned on that, that the X's and O's are, what 5% of the equation 10% The equation. And the rest is, is everything else. So let's talk about that. Everything else? Let's start by, you know, before we get into the steps people take, what do we mean by sustainable? You know, we throw that word around. What do we mean by sustainable weight loss? And why is it so difficult for the vast majority of people?

Paul Salter 06:47

Yes, I mean, you know, some of the recent research suggests that the average American diets four times per year, and we all know how, how it feels or what it looks like to diet hop and start that new diet every other Monday. So it seems and if we take a big step back and look at dieting for what it really is, dieting is a major physiological, emotional and psychological stressor. And if we continue to subject ourselves to that experience a week or month after month, not only does weight loss actually become harder, but we end up regressing taking multiple steps backwards, because we're just constantly under this threat of stress our biology, our nervous system doesn't want anything to do with it. So when we talk about sustainable weight loss, we mean being able to achieve a weight loss of 1020 30 pounds, whatever your personal goal is, and no longer feel the need to irrationally approach these rash decisions related to your food choices, restricting different choices, the times you eat whatever extreme approach it may be in order to maintain that weight on the scale, or further lose it. But the problem is, we are a culture a society who is conditioned to want results yesterday, and weight loss is sexy, I mean, the number going down on the scale provides a huge hit of dopamine, we're feeling good, we're seeing results in the mirror. Contrast that with weight maintenance, and we don't want to see the number go down or up. That's really boring. It's it's really boring. And what we have to understand, which is much easier said than done is that all success and all aspects of life can be traced back to consistency and simplicity, while falling in love with monotony. That is the absolute opposite of what we are wired to seek out, we want excitement, we want the highs and lows, the sexiness and the adventure. And wait maintenance has absolutely none of that. So it doesn't sell. Therefore, it's a lot less likely to want to seek it. And even more, a lot less likely to actually want to do some of the deeper work looking inward into our self talk our self love our beliefs, to be able to get out of our own way and actually achieve those sustainable results.

Philip Pape 08:56

Yeah, so I'm trying to remember what you said there, but it's consistency and simplicity while falling in love with monotony. And maybe another way to put that is you know, falling in love with the process. And taking that day to day step and not worrying so much about the results which are gonna come and I love that approach, too. Because Because weight loss is sexy, and even the term weight loss. Some of us cringe a little bit because at the end of the day, we're I think we're focused more on body composition and fat loss. But you know, we have to talk the language that people understand to begin that conversation. So you mentioned self talk then, and what is what is that idea in general? What is its influence on your thoughts, your actions and the ultimate result of what we're trying to do? And what role does it play in sustainable weight loss?

Paul Salter 09:43

Great question. So I'm a big believer, and I think you'd agree all of our success starts and in the mind, and you know, one of the methodologies of transformational change that I teach, you know, in our 5% community is this very loosely labeled needs a much better name, but what it is right now is this have talked to identity transformational model of change that basically practices that our self talk and our word choice influences our thoughts and our beliefs which influence our actions or inactions which influence our results, our identity and our reality. It's a very downstream ripple effect. But it all starts with our self talk in our word choice. And if we are constantly, you know, repeating phrases such as I'm fat, or always be fat, I suck, I'm a failure, you know, those words carry such strong emotion. And emotion is just simply energy in motion. So we're transmitting this negative energy into our thoughts, you know, we have, you know, 10s of 1000s of thoughts every single day, the majority of them are the same thoughts we had yesterday, and even more of them are just negative thoughts. So we're just reinforcing this flow of negative energy down that downstream effect example I just shared. So negative energy pours into our beliefs, if we continue to tell ourselves, we'll never look this way, or wear this this size, or weigh this much, we begin to believe that about ourselves. And that strong belief is simply a thought anchored with intense energy, it begins to bleed into our action. So no longer are we doing the things we're supposed to, to achieve those goals we supposedly have. And it just as you can imagine, snowballs into the results that we really, really want. But our personal results don't reflect that because we're speaking so negatively to ourselves. And I have found time and time and again, you know, when diving deep with clients and community members, that their lack of results, or the stories that they're currently telling themselves, both consciously and subconsciously, can all be traced back to how they're speaking in themselves, they're not giving themselves grace, they're not giving themselves patience, they're not speaking to themselves as if they were speaking to a child or a loved one, we are always our harshest critic. And our inner critic can be incredibly nasty and cruel. More often than not, we have got to bring awareness to that and start making positive change. They're planting that seed of positivity.

Philip Pape 12:03

Now, there's self talk, I mean, if we trace it back in time to an individual person's life, like, and I was thinking about this the other day, how I used to think, Okay, I it is what it is, maybe it's my genetics, I'm never gonna achieve the results I'm gonna get or I'm a fat kid, or whatever the self talk is. And I suspect a lot of that comes from just the self training and the the lack of results that we've had over the years. How much of that do we do we care about? Or do you explore in terms of the ultimate root cause? Or does it really matter as much as just what do we do going forward?

Paul Salter 12:37

No, you're absolutely right. Our identity is based on all of our past experiences. So if we now work backwards from that model, I briefly described all of that identity results, actions, beliefs, thoughts, and self talk, all goes back to our childhood. And you know, between ages of zero to seven, you know, a lot of the latest research suggests that about 95% of our belief system is formed, we're incredibly malleable and sponge like during that period. And as crazy as it sounds in our Adult Day present hood, our unkind self talk are those terrible limiting beliefs at once they served us, they protected us in some capacity. So for if we kind of carry on with this example of weight loss of you know, I'll never weigh this much, I'll always be this way. It's a way of protecting us our ego, keeping us in our comfort zone, because you and I both know, in order to achieve those drastically different results, we might have to make some drastically different changes, that change is uncomfortable. It's a threat. It's scary compared to our status quo. So our ego, kind of devil on one shoulder age on the other, it feeds that negative self talk in to convince us to just stay put and hanging out where we're comfortable in this for this familiar territory.

Philip Pape 13:43

Yeah, the status quo. It's like the cost of change versus the cost of staying the same. And trying to weigh the two. I was just reading a novel seems totally unrelated, but in the novel that talked about hope and and that when you give somebody hope the only two paths are salvation or damnation. I wonder if it's a similar concept of, you know, people don't want to allow themselves to have that hope. Because if it doesn't come to fruition, like all the times in the past, then it's just going to lead down a darker path. So I don't know maybe it's getting a little profound, but it's tied into your emotions here. And what is the role then of I think this is emotional intelligence we're talking about of developing the awareness and implementing a different self talk or a different way of talking to ourselves or self love and managing our emotions. So what what is the role of that?

Paul Salter 14:32

Yeah, so I like to describe emotional intelligence that's just simply your emotional awareness and then your emotional management because at the end of the day here you know stripped amongst our bones and flesh we're just energy into our being is energy and you know, emotion is energy in motion. And behind all of our grandiose scale goals are I want to wear this size or look this way. Yes, we probably do want all of those but they're all surface level bullshit goals. What We really want is a collection of feelings. And I'm sure you've come across this when you work with clients, they tell you, Oh, I want to weigh this much on the scale because I waited at this age and I felt a, b and c. And it's like, boom, screw the scale number. It's what did you feel? Well, you know, I've asked this question probably almost 1000 times. So women, it's like, I want to feel confident, I want to feel strong, healthy, sexy, in control, energetic. And if we can get really clear on the feelings that we are seeking, what that does is it creates an opportunity, or an opportunity for us to kind of reverse engineer our steps to take the most effective and efficient action steps and to align them appropriately to bring about those feelings. And we both know that we're very emotional beings and food, we live in a food centric culture, food and emotions go hand in hand, it's like you can't have one without the other, whether it's the high grade emotions or the down negative emotion. So when we circle back now to connecting the dots with emotional intelligence, it's starting to just step A, if you will, is what is what is my awareness about my emotional state, what is what are my emotions, when I'm speaking unkindly to myself, when I'm eating foods that I know don't help me feel the best. And as we gain more awareness of the pattern, the predominant emotion two or three of them, that is the consistent theme in our life. And we are also simultaneously working on gaining clarity on how we wish to feel, it becomes very apparent where the disconnect is, and the more awareness we have of our predominant emotional states. And also, the more awareness we have on how we want to feel, we can now begin to take action steps in favor of helping us get to how we want to feel that pulls us away from how we currently feel.

Philip Pape 16:42

And is there a process you go through with clients to identify those to identify what you feel now versus what you want to feel? Yeah, so

Paul Salter 16:50

I always like to start with the positive, like, how do you want to feel waking up every day and I encouraged you know, give me three to five adjectives. Hell, if you're on a roll, kind of word, vomit, 10 adjectives and then we'll work backwards and filter them down to the top three, or five. So we'll get really clear there. And, you know, Ed, my lead, I don't know if you're familiar with him. And he has a new book out called, I think it's called The Power of One more, but he describes this concept of like, living in an emotional house, we all have emotions that we come back to consciously and subconsciously, whether it's anxiety and worry, it's pain, it's frustration, again, that can be traced back to our childhood, how we were raised, what emotions kept us safe back then. And he does a really good job articulating that we need to be able to identify what emotions do we typically come back to. So for example, I grew up with a lot of limiting beliefs around money, financial scarcity, for one, scarcity for one reason or another. And through a lot of work, you know, working with a therapist for for many years, I've been able to identify that a lot of my self sabotaging behaviors, when things are really good, knock me back a step back to that familiar territory of financial scarcity or financial anxiety. And as we just sit in plenty of silence solitude with prompts like some of the ones I'm sharing, were ultimately able to see that theme, like What emotions do I predominantly feel? Or do some of my actions lead me back to and again, it just comes through time, and through awareness, and really just having that top of mind like, what emotional state of my living in and as we begin to think and open our eyes to that more and more, we get the clarity of like, Oh, crap, it's anxiety. It's guilt. It's frustration, it's shame. And with awareness comes the opportunity to take action to move forward.

Philip Pape 18:29

And and that taking action and moving forward. I believe that's what you talk about with acceptance or the concept of self love. Is that Is that something we want to prioritize?

Paul Salter 18:40

Absolutely, you know, that the diet industry has kind of conditioned us Oh, you love yourself, love your body. When you weigh this much, or you wear this this size clothes, no women get the get the brunt of it. It's terrible. But men and men are exposed to it, you know, almost equal amounts. And I think it's asked backwards, like, why not love yourself now, because what we're doing if we can constantly and consistently find things we love about ourselves, or practice gratitude, or something we'd like to do as we always share our wins or our positives. What that does is it starts to just reinforce how many positive things or items we have to be grateful in our life right in this present moment. So we get to feel the good feelings of that via the emotional cocktail of those feel good feelings on a regular basis. And guess what, when we feel good, both consciously and subconsciously, we start seeking out behaviors to repeat or reinforce those feel good feelings, which by the way, eating well and moving often helps create more of those feelings. So by starting on this self love first approach, what happens is you begin to fall in love with yourself again, while simultaneously all of your diet and exercise challenges kind of fall into the background. Some of those good behaviors now start to become second nature because you focus on the crux of the problem, which is you didn't love yourself.

Philip Pape 19:56

Yeah, you really hit hit the nail on the head. head with what how the industry frames all of this. I love your enthusiasm and positivity. How you approach this the idea that we should love ourselves or because we love ourselves. That's why we're trying to do XYZ, you know, get healthier change our habits change what we do. And, and like you said, it's not even about the specific thing, which is kind of, I don't want to say easy, but it's it's really the what you're trying to get as a result from that and the love that comes with it. So I mean, where else do we go with the the deep work, you talked about deep work for this meaningful insight out trance transformation, what else is involved there, maybe maybe break it up into a little bit of concrete set of steps?

Paul Salter 20:42

Yes, and let me just add one more thought to self love, I think it's really valuable for your listeners is the most important relationship we have is the one with ourselves. And if we can reframe it and see it through that lens, while we can then see if we begin pouring into the relationship with ourselves by speaking kindly to ourselves by picking ourselves up, rather than picking ourselves apart, and practicing gratitude and self love that directly flows into our relationship with food, our relationship with exercise our relationship with our significant other friends, family, etc. But it all starts from within.

Philip Pape 21:18

And, and I know I asked the question, then you wanted to continue the previous one. I want to ask a follow up to that one. Yeah, we'll get back to where does where does the support structure and this could be loved ones, family, friends are a coach come into that, because I imagine some people really struggle to get to that point.

Paul Salter 21:36

Gotta have a community of some sort. Some people are very blessed, and their significant partner significant other is right there with them their biggest cheerleader, you know, unfortunately, not everybody has that luxury. So you've got to seek it out. And more often than not, it's not your closest friend group. It's not your parents, your co workers or colleagues or your significant other, you have to go find it. And that's hard. That's intimidating, because it's like, how do I go show up with a bunch of strangers, introduce myself, and then pour out all my thoughts and feelings much easier said than done. So I, you know, obviously community being in the name of what we do and what I do, and you having a wonderful community, yourself, we know the value of community actually, I loved what you shared when we kick this thing off about the power of hope. I couldn't agree more when we're going at something on our own. We're operating from a place of isolation, lack and hopelessness. A community provides hope, inspiration and positivity, if we can provide someone with that sense of hope, you have the opportunity to drastically alter the trajectory of their life. So you've got to go find a community of like minded individuals and virtual communities have proven to be just as effective as in person, physical communities, it's just, you know, you have to go find that community.

Philip Pape 22:44

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think I think that applies to life in general, with anything you want to work on anything you want to work on for, for skill development, if you want to get better at something is finding people out there and because the people around you aren't necessarily experts, nor do they always care, so to speak, like, they may be supportive. But you can start talking their ear off about macros, or your plan or this snack, it's like, okay, you know, I'm gonna go have my pizza now. But yeah, that's an interesting concept. So yeah, it gets back to the deep work now, the. So I'm looking for a little more concrete. I want the listeners to have something to run with here. Yeah,

Paul Salter 23:22

absolutely. So one of the best recommended recommends recommended there, the steps that I can share with you is every single day writing down one to three things you are grateful for. This is a wonderful, simple opportunity to begin rewiring our subconscious to constantly scan our environment for things that are positively going on in our life are things that we should be grateful for. Because biologically, we are wired to scan our environment for the threats to find the negativity. It's an innate survival mechanism, traceback, you know, centuries and centuries ago, so we actually actually have to do the work, to find the positives and train our brains to find them on our own. And the way I like to teach this, because sometimes we might sit there and think like, oh, my gosh, what do I have to be grateful for today, as I like to first offer the reminder, it can be as simple as I am grateful for this morning's cup of coffee, I am grateful for my dog, it absolutely doesn't have to be diet or exercise related anything in your life. But to give a framework, I personally like to practice identifying one thing I am grateful for in my personal life. One thing I am grateful for about myself, and then one thing that I am grateful for in my work or community, so that kind of helps guide my thought a little bit and kind of get me thinking in that right direction. So it's not like you know, opening up a blank Microsoft Word document and starting like, where do I begin? So it's got to start practicing gratitude. Number two, is you want to get very clear. And this is kind of a multi step, step two, so bear with me, but you want to get clear on like, who is the best version of Phillip, who is the best version of Paul, how does he speak to himself? What thoughts does he have? What does he believe to be true about himself. And this is kind of a big exercise in one. But what I'm getting at is, if you're clear on what you know, the highest version of yourself the best version of yourself how he he or she thinks, speaks and talks, well, now you can start emulating that, you'll have awareness about where the disconnect is and how far away you are from that. And with that awareness, now you can start offering substitutions I'm not, you know, instead of saying I'm fat, I'll never get there at cetera. I've come very far, I've made a lot of progress. I'm trending in the right direction, subtle word choice changes can begin to bleed into your thoughts and beliefs. And it's just awareness and action. I think, you know, going a little all over the place, I recognize that. But if I had to distill that into one step, some type of journaling practice, I think just goes a long way in being able to emotionally vomit and start getting more comfortable identifying what how you are feeling thinking and talking on a regular basis, because with that awareness comes opportunity for change.

Philip Pape 25:56

Yeah, I like the both the gratitude piece, especially when you mentioned categorizing it, and including something you're grateful for about yourself, because oftentimes, we externalize and we don't want to come back to that. And then I can tie that into the second piece you mentioned about imagining the best version of you or a better version of you in the future. And I know you talked about we talked about earlier, the awareness of disruptive and self stop sabotaging kind of pattern. So now this is the inverse, right? The maybe constructive and self building or self supporting patterns of thought, from where you want to be. It's great stuff. So journaling and gratitude. Very awesome. 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. Talking about how people think about food and nutrition in this context, a common challenge I see all the time is the relationship with food, right? And this and this often comes out in the weekends and social events and situations where you have to make in the moment decisions and are outside of your routine. I mean, this is extremely common. anybody listening knows this? We all know it. How can someone I guess either take control or I think you call it cultivate more intentionality. I saw that in your work somewhere to transform their relationship with food.

Paul Salter 27:36

Yeah, that's so well said. And with that intentionality. Again, I think we're all victims of kind of outsourcing how we want to feel or what this ideal relationship would look like to the diet industry. And one of the biggest things we do that that's proven to be really transformational for our clients is like, what is your desired relationship with food look like? And feel like? How do you want to navigate the social occasion? So one of the prompts I like to use when talking with someone through this is like, let's say you're navigating a social occasion on Saturday, how do you want to feel waking up on Sunday, and it didn't get clear, like I want to feel I don't want to feel bloated, I don't want to feel like a like an asshole, I don't want to feel you know, hungover or whatever it may be, again, the beauty of identifying how we want to feel it gives us the opportunity to reverse engineer steps. So that's kind of the overarching introductory prompt, but from there, you know, a social occasion is not an excuse to eat like an asshole like you still do have control like, I don't know, I don't know why we're all conditioned to think like, Oh, we're not at home, we can't control anything anymore. We have to have the pizza, the pie the cake, we can't have vegetables or protein first. And it's just through a lot of, you know, reinforcement of education that they probably know or have heard at one point or the other, but giving them actionable strategies. So there are several little tweaks and recommendations we can make to better arm them to navigate cravings, temptations and when I hit the most, you know valuable one I have to share as I always like to teach like when you're going into a social occasion. And you know, there's going to be deserved temptations, your favorite foods, whatever it may be. And you want to be mindful of your nutrition goals macros, portions, whatever it may be, use a rating scale. And what I mean by that is if this dessert is a 10 out of 10 Eat it prioritize making memories over memory or over. Managing macros. Memories are always more important than macros. But the example I like to use for that, like let's say you make a bomb cheesecake and you only make it twice a year. I'm having cheesecake twice a year every time you make it but if you know Betty Liu makes cookies and brings them into work every Friday and they're the same damn cookies. They're not a 10 out of 10 on my scale there there may be a two out of 10 They're good but I don't need them. They don't really provide me much bang for my buck in this sense, but your cheesecake is a twice in your opportunity. That's a ton of a 10 I'm not turning that down where I'm absolutely going to turn down buddy loose cookies more often than not.

Philip Pape 29:56

I love that technique every time I talk to other coaches about it. There's always amazing strategies to try. And and that's a great one. Because if you go if you're on vacation, right, I was raised with the conditioning of, well, we're on vacation, right? It's like, No, we're on vacation. So anything goes. And if you were at a buffet and like, think about a kind of cheap buffet restaurant, right? Where there's just so much mediocre quality food, and he just looked at it and asked yourself like it, is this worth it? Is this something that I would is a special one? Or like thing or, or not? So I like that, giving it a rating? What's your thoughts then on? So we talked about controlling emotions and planning and not thinking in the moment, willpower and discipline, right? When people say, well, dieting and losing weight, it's just, you know, it's, it's calories, and we just need to do it. What are your thoughts on that?

Paul Salter 30:50

Yes, so I like to say like, you know, willpower comes and goes like a bolt of lightning, anybody can follow through on a very challenging task when willpower is really high. And that comes with having a clear vision of what success is having a clear vision of what your why is making sure it's emotionally charged. But willpower is like finite energy it comes and goes, we have to recharge it. So that means that we have to have something to fall back on, which is our set of habits, our foundational habits that keep us moving in the direction we desire. And human beings are incredibly gritty, resilient and persistent, we can do just about damn anything for 3060 90 days, such as follow an incredibly restrictive diet. But if we don't have a foundation of habits to fall back on, once we inevitably reach that point of burnout, we're only going to regress to what we know best, which was the collection of habits that got us to the place of being overweight, unhappy, whatever it may be in the first place. So when it comes to willpower, we absolutely cannot rely on it. Discipline and willpower, obviously, very related here. But I like to put the emphasis when discussing discipline on those foundational habits, what are those two to three habits on a, whether it's a daily, weekly, or monthly basis that if you only did those two or three things, you're still moving the needle in the direction you desire. And if we can really shift our focus to prioritizing those and not relying on when we feel our absolute best, that helps us to continuously make progress. And it's that beautiful, accumulate accumulation of the compound effect.

Philip Pape 32:21

And speaking of those habits, the big the big habits that that individuals should prioritize? I imagine there are a set of habits that are pretty commonly seen across clients that that you kind of, I don't want to say you select from, but you know, I'll give you an example getting more steps, right, many clients, and that needs to be their biggest habit. So is there is there a set of habits you see that are more common than not for most people, meal prep,

Paul Salter 32:47

whether that's once or twice a week depends on the individual, of course, a minimum frequency of exercise per week, whether that's three days or five days doesn't matter. But you know, typically, if we hit our minimum, we're more likely to do more. So we can set the bar a little lower. But we also feel a lot better if we get two workouts in versus zero workouts. And we're more likely to do three, four or five, like I mentioned. So there's the meal prep, there's the workout minimum. And then there is a step goal. I love a minimum fluid intake I love but then also a consistent bedtime as well can be a big difference maker.

Philip Pape 33:20

That's a good one. Yeah, bedtime, and there's things like protein and others as well. So, of course, yeah, of course. And so I was reading one of your articles. And you know, I know we agree on a lot and have a similar approach. One thing in particular stands out, and that is what you're talking about a pre diet maintenance phase. And I think I think I use the term myself like metabolic prep or metabolic restoration or whatever. But and we're basically preparing ourselves for weight loss for fat loss, because a lot of clients probably come in and they say, I want to lose weight, I want to get to that number, like that's what I'm hiring you for. Don't tell me I need to wait or that I might even gain a little before I do that. So, you know, let's take a step back, right? And make sure your body and mind are ready for this. Tell us more about this phase, from your perspective what actions someone needs to take so that they know they're ready and successful for the fat loss phase.

Paul Salter 34:12

Yeah, so I think first and foremost, we need to make sure you're eating enough so that we actually have a significant amount of food to reduce from to induce weight loss. And you know, you're coming to me as a new client wanting to lose weight yesterday and you're eating 1000 calories per day, where the hell are we taking calories away from? So education around that is very, very important to outline the repercussions of trying to reduce from an already very relatively low calorie intake. So, education here, I can't stress enough it's just a lot of education to the new client at this time. But where I really like to explain even further is again, dieting the act of trying to lose weight is a significant physiological, emotional and psychological stressor. And if we're already inconsistent with our eating, exercise, lifestyle habits, that's challenging and stressful enough. It If we take that inconsistency and then enter a diet phase and put the additional stress of dieting on our plate, that's not a recipe for success, that's a recipe for short term weight loss and long term weight regain and rebound. So where the pre diet maintenance phase comes in is this might be a four to 12 week period in which we are absolutely not targeting weight loss whatsoever. So we're removing the stress of a calorie deficit from this person's plate, which all of a sudden opens up ample opportunity, and so much more mental and emotional bandwidth to begin using this newfound energy to rebuild a sustainable relation, versus a sustainable relationship with food, rebuild foundational eating habits. And we work on all of these new skill sets or fine tuning them for a period of time until consistency becomes second nature so that when it is time to diet, the only single change we make is simply the amount of food on their plate, we're not flipping their meal prep routine or their grocery list upside down, we're not adding in 10 cardio sessions per week, no, you're just eating a little bit less, you've just spent the last two or three months rebuilding these habits that are set you up to help you feel look and be your best. And now if the goal is weight loss, cool, we're gonna take a little food off your plate, and you don't have to do anything different. So what I have found is the most popular adjective used by my clients describe a dieting phase, when they take their time to go through the pre diet maintenance phase is easy, because they've done all the hard work upfront, which also sets them up for success to sustain the results after the diet ends. Because again, nothing changes, we just put a little more food back on your

Philip Pape 36:32

plate. Yeah, so well said because people come in thinking this is this is a switch, I'm gonna put on my dieting hat and I'm going to take it off. And when I'm in a dieting mode, restrict, restrict, restrict, and then when it's off anything goes. And you're getting them into a state where it's a matter of scaling at that point, habits are all set potentially habits for life at this point. And you've set them up for success. And now it's just kind of turning that dial in the right direction, based on where they want to go.

Paul Salter 37:00

Let me add one more thing too. There's, there's a big misuse of the definition of the word diet, you and I and everybody listening knows that as an intentionally trying to lose weight. But there's a secondary definition that's far more valuable. And that's simply a habitual way of eating. And the example I like to use is if I tell you I follow a plant based diet, you don't automatically assume I'm trying to lose weight, you just assume I habitually eat plant based foods. So there's a big difference there. Again, opportunity for education. If we focus on the secondary definition, we want to rebuild our habitual way of eating that will serve us for life. It's sustainable, it's unique, simple and flexible. It promotes strong adherence so that when it's time to lose weight or stop dieting, we're just altering the amount of portions on our plate, but not our foundational habits.

Philip Pape 37:44

Yeah, that's great. What if What if a client comes to you and and are, you tell them it's a four to 12 week phase, and they just really want to get going in the fat loss and you get them started with the skill development? Is it kind of an incentive based approach is it almost like a game where you kind of have to earn your your ability to go into that next phase?

Paul Salter 38:04

In so many ways, it really is. And I'm also clear, like, sometimes weight loss still happens during this phase, because you go from eating like shit to eating pretty well consistently. And I remind them of that, but it's also again, an opportunity to educate on where outside the scale we can be and should be looking for progress. So again, consistency is the obvious one, but how you feel your energy exercise, poor performance, recovery, your relationship with food, your level of competence and control, navigating social occasions, if I can open someone's eyes to the myriad of different areas, they're going to see feel and experience progress outside of the scale, they're far more likely to stick with it. Because like, oh, yeah, like I would rather feel really, really good, regardless of the number on the scale.

Philip Pape 38:47

That's excellent. I've seen that go both ways, when you're talking about biofeedback, how you feel your hunger, digestion, maybe your stress all of that. And I've seen it go both ways. If you're trying to build muscle, you're trying to gain weight, and you are afraid of gaining weight, then maybe you focus on how do you feel in the gym? How are your gains coming along? Right? How, what are your measurements? Like, let's not worry about the scale? He kind of goes both directions. So I think that's awesome. That's that's a great approach. anybody listening? Paul's Paul's the man here. He knows what he's talking about. And I want to so I guess this question was probably already answered. You had a recent episode about navigating maintenance with a dieting mentality. And that's, that can be a detrimental thing. But I think we kind of touched on this. Is there any more to that? That I'm missing?

Paul Salter 39:32

Yeah, I think so. It's, it is very important to recognize that dieting is a tool of phenol lifestyle, and we use that primary definition of trying to lose weight and it is a best recommendation during that sustained period of time to minimize you know, some of those treats favorite foods and alcohol. I'm not saying restrict all together, but sometimes or not. Sometimes more often than not. We're all guilty when we finish a diet. It's like we've flipped the switch in our mind anything goes again, we're back to the highlight If it's like, Okay, we got to pump the brakes on that minute. And again, this all can be traced back to how we start that pre diet maintenance phase with those habits. So when you approach maintenance with a dieting mindset, typically the way that plays out is you don't increase your food intake, maybe you do it once and you stay there. So what happens is your body remains in a place where it's still accustomed to a relatively low calorie intake for you. And during a diet phase, many adaptations take place to kind of kick you out of that calorie deficit is your way of body's fighting back against the diet, undue stress. So the hunger, the fatigue, the cravings that come with dieting, if you don't transition out of a dive into a post diet, maintenance phase appropriately, those things still linger, you're still susceptible to cravings, hunger and fatigue, therefore, more likely to eventually reach that point of burning out or giving in. So it's important that you do move forward with these gradual diligent increases in your portions for the next, you know, 810 12 weeks, depending on how long your diet is.

Philip Pape 41:04

Yeah, that's a great point, you touched on the metabolic adaptation that people experience. And I think we want to be very clear, when you're listening to this, Paul's saying that you don't want to be at maintenance, but still at that downregulated level of calories, you want to build up the calories. And it could be you know, classic reverse dieting, it could be recovery, dieting, whatever term you want to use, it's getting up to, I would I call it the highest level of calories, you can be at maintenance, and with your full optimal health and hormone balance, and all that good stuff. So typically, if some,

Paul Salter 41:36

if someone's like, if we're just purely speaking of calories for simplicity, for for a moment here, that's usually getting back to eating between 85 and 90% of your pre diet calorie amount. So as you can imagine, like if you before you started dieting, you're eating 2000 calories per day, and then maybe you knocked down to 1700 1400, etc. You should be getting up around 1800. Again, for you know, you're back into your cruise control or forever maintenance, and you're not staying at 1500.

Philip Pape 42:03

Yeah, exactly. And you mentioned that sometimes it goes up higher, because if you're new to training, if you're new to steps, and now you're all of a sudden add all these things in perhaps it, it pushes it up a little bit. We use the phrase weight loss a lot. And we kind of touched a little bit on fat loss. How do you shift the mindset? Or do you from weight loss to body composition?

Paul Salter 42:25

I think by breaking it down just like you did, like you know, people always say I was just talking about this the other day, like oh, well, I want more muscle muscle weighs more than fat, no, a pound of muscle is the same way as a pound of fat muscle is more energetically costly. So if you have more muscle, you expend more energy, therefore you can technically eat more to maintain your weight. It's a beautiful situation. But I really like to go into the education like having more muscle has so many different health strength and performance longevity benefits. So when it comes to approaching weight loss, if we technically prioritize weight loss, our end result is this skinny fat, unhealthy version of ourselves. If we are prioritizing fat loss or body composition, we're maintaining our precious hard earned muscle mass while we're trying to lose fat, which is absolutely what we want to do. It supports our fat loss and our physique endeavors. And then when we're not dieting, we're trying to build more muscle and minimize fat. So it's definitely a nuanced but important distinction between the two. And we want to have that clarity there about Yes, fat loss and weight loss are different. We want to target fat loss, and therefore our diet and our exercise routine should be aligned appropriately.

Philip Pape 43:33

And do you ever have a client that comes in saying, you know, I need to lose 1020 pounds this is this is my ideal weight, because that's what I weighed when I was 22. And you actually end up doing the pre diet maintenance and potentially go the other direction and build muscle instead of losing fat. Do you have clients that ever go that direction? More often

Paul Salter 43:52

with men, you know, just cleaning up their eating and consistency, it'll see a complete body composition and even more often in like people who have very limited training experience, their training age is very new. So they're incredibly sensitive and receptive to just consistent exercise.

Philip Pape 44:07

Yeah, okay. Just curious. So yeah, so we've covered a lot of awesome stuff. I like to ask this question of all guests, and that is what question Did you wish I had asked, and what is your answer?

Paul Salter 44:18

You didn't ask me what my upcoming business idea is. That has nothing to do with nutrition.

Philip Pape 44:24

Oh, I didn't know you know, what, what is your upcoming business idea? Well,

Paul Salter 44:31

yes, I'm very passionate about coffee and looking forward to opening a coffee shop or maybe a coffee cart first in the near future and just really being able to utilize it as an opportunity. As you know, the bajillion people drink coffee every day. That's a bajillion different touchpoints to have a positive impact on someone's life. So it's a way for me to kind of connect all that we teach in the 5% community about self talk, self talk, self love, gratitude wins and positivity and get to share that with A lot more people on a daily basis because of that coffee transaction. So I look look at that as another outlet to just bring this sense of positivity into the world.

Philip Pape 45:08

That is amazing. Are you going to have a high protein coffee?

Paul Salter 45:12

I'll have to look at it I got my round one of my menus already setting it didn't make the cut but never say never.

Philip Pape 45:18

Okay, I love myself a simple americano tiny bit of cream and maybe stevia sounds good. I'll stop by a coffee shop. Is that in the Tampa area?

Paul Salter 45:27

It will be I'm not there yet. I'm in I'm currently shadowing local roasters and shops to learn more and one day at a time it just comes.

Philip Pape 45:35

That's awesome. Well, good luck with that. I'm sure it'll be successful with with the attitudes you have with everything. And I the last question, of course I have is where can listeners find more about you and your work? Yeah, the

Paul Salter 45:47

best place is to connect with me on Instagram at Paul Salter coaching, it's just an opportunity for you to just see me as I am I my authentic self, whether it's online, in person on Instagram, and, you know, come say hi, see if we vibe and we're in alignment, and we'll go from there.

Philip Pape 46:03

Awesome. So we'll include those in the show notes. We include all your links, and social and all that. And I believe in abundance mindset. We're all coaches trying to help each other and help our listeners and help everybody get their best results. And the more education the more awareness through things like these podcasts, I think really go a long way. That's how I learned I know you probably learned a lot that way as well. So Paul, this was a value packed conversation. I really enjoyed it. And I want to thank you again for coming on the show.

Paul Salter 46:31

Thank you so much for having me. I thoroughly enjoyed first of all, let me just shout you out for your prep work is absolutely meticulous and incredible. So thank you so much for setting me up for success and for asking such outstanding questions to facilitate a great conversation.

Philip Pape 46:44

No problem. Yeah, it was great. I really enjoyed it. And hopefully we'll be staying in touch and connect again in the future. Absolutely. 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.

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